from this they draw the inference that it is lawful for them to do whatsoever they please, and so, by reasoning of the same kind, they are most blessed fathers together with Christ in pronouncing judgment in the church and because they are to be crowned later with an everlasting crown. But blessed be Christ, the omniscient, who said these things to his apostles, knowing that the authority which was given to them they would use according to his good pleasure in ministering to his bride.
So far, therefore, as the power—authority—is concerned in which the clergy glories it is to be noted, that power is sometimes taken to mean lordship or real power, as in Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers." Sometimes it is taken in an ambiguous sense to mean assumed or simulated power, as Christ said to his captors sent by the power of the high priests, Luke 22:53: "This is your hour and the power of darkness." And it is said, Rev. 6:8: "Lo, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death: and hell followed him, and there was given unto him power over the four parts of the earth to kill with sword, famine, and death, and by the wild beasts of the earth." Also it is said, Rev. 13:4, that the "dragon gave his authority—power—unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to war with him? . . . And it was given unto him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and there was given to him authority over every tribe and people and every tongue and nation; and all that dwell on the earth shall worship him, every one whose name hath not been written in the book of life and of the Lamb,[1] that hath been slain." Who is this beast whom men worship out of fear of his power? He who reads let him understand and resist assumed power of this kind and let him not fear, as they did, because it was given to that beast to make war against the
- ↑ The Vulgate has libro vitæ Agni, the Lamb's Book of Life.
