ft
by Him to the apostles, but this is manifestly not a coercive power on
earth, as Christ's own power on earth was not.

Christ, therefore, by His coming did not withdraw any of the power from
civil sovereigns, and if they do commit the government of their subjects
in matter of religion to the Pope, he holdeth that charge not as being
above the civil sovereign, but by his authority. But as for disagreement
between the laws of God and the civil laws of the sovereign, the laws of
God, which must in no wise be disobeyed, are those which are necessary
to salvation; and these are summed up in the will to obey the law of God
and the belief that Jesus is the Christ. But the private man may not set
up to judge whether the ordinance of the sovereign be against the law of
God, or whether the doctrine which he imposeth consist with the belief
that Jesus is the Christ.

But in the Scripture there is mention also of another power, the kingdom
of Satan, "the prince of the powers of the air," which is a "confederacy
of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world,
endeavours by dark and erroneous doctrines to extinguish in them the
light both of nature and of the Gospel, and so to disprepare them for
the kingdom of God to come." And such darkness is wrought first by
abusing the light of the Scriptures so that we know them not; secondly
by introducing the demonology of the heathen poets; thirdly, by mixing
with the Scripture divers relics of the religion and much of the vain
and erroneous philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle; and,
fourthly, by mingling with these false or uncertain traditions and
feigned or uncertain history.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI

The Prince

Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was born at Florence, in Italy,
May 3, 1469, and died June 22, 1527. At any early age he took an
active part in Florentine politics, and was employed on numerous
diplomatic missions. A keen student of the politics of his time, he
was also an ardent patriot. The exigencies of party warfare drove
him into temporary retirement, during which he produced a number of
brilliant plays and historical studies; but the most notable of his
achievements is "The Prince." "The Prince" may be regarded as the
first modern work treating of politics as a science. The one
question to which the author devotes himself is: How a prince may
establish and maintain the s