of antichrist, lest the daughters of Babylon rejoice, lest the
worshippers of the Beast triumph! O how small confidence have the
cardinals, I say not now into the Pope's person, but even into his chair,
when being entered in the conclave for the election of a new pope, they
spend the whole day following in the making of laws belonging to the
administration and handling of all things by him who shall be advanced to
the popedom; which laws every one of them subscribeth, and sweareth to
observe, if he be made pope, as Onephrius writeth. Though the Pope's own
creatures, the Jesuits, in their schools and books, must dispute for his
infallibility _e cathedra_, yet we see what trust the wise cardinals, shut
up in the conclave, do put in him, with what bond they tie him, and within
what bounds they confine his power. Albeit the Pope, after he is created,
observeth not strictly this oath, as that wise writer of the _History of
the Council of Trent_ noteth,(938) yet let me say once again, Shall we set
up the power of princes higher, or make their power less limited than
Papists do the power of popes? or shall they set bounds to popes and we
set none to princes?

_Sect._ 15. But I find myself a little digressed after the roving
absurdities of some opposites. Now, therefore, to return,--the second
proposition which I am here to lay down, before I speak particularly of
the power of princes, is this: Whatsoever princes can commendably either
do by themselves, or command to be done by others, in such matters as any
way appertain to the external worship of God, must be both lawful in the
nature of it, and expedient in the use of it; which conditions, if they be
wanting, their commandments cannot bind to obedience.

For, 1. The very ground and reason wherefore we ought to obey the
magistrate(939) is, for that he is the minister of God, or a deputy set in
God's stead to us. Now, he is the minister of God only for our good, Rom.
xiii. 4. Neither were he God's minister, but his own master, if he should
rule at his pleasure, and command things which serve not for the good of
the subjects. Since, therefore, the commandments of princes bind only so
far as they are the ministers of God for our good,--and God's ministers
they are not in commanding such things as are either in their nature
unlawful, or in their use inconvenient,--it followeth that such
commandments of theirs cannot bind.

2. Princes cannot claim any greater power in matters ec