Wings of Liberty • April 25, 2025

THE SEVEN MOUNTAIN MANDATE PART 4: THE LOVE OF MONEY

For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church has fraudulently told the world that it holds the keys to salvation. It has even placed these keys, symbolizing its usurped authority over all things in heaven and in earth, on the Vatican flag.i And it has made merchandise of salvation, advertising that people can pay to enter the kingdom of heaven, selling forgiveness by issuing “indulgences” and relaxed punishments for sin.


Catholicism teaches the unbiblical doctrine of eternal torment in hell, as well as the doctrine of purgatory, another place of punishment in addition to hell where a person must supposedly suffer for their sins and be refined before going to heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven”.i But (surprise, surprise!!) this process can be rapidly sped up, it is claimed, as long as the living are willing to pony up and pay for expedited cleansing of the dead. In the 15th century, Johann Tetzel, one of these false hawkers of salvation, famously broadcast that, "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs."


This blasphemous and shameless exploitation of public ignorance and fear led Martin Luther in his 95 Thesis to proclaim that “They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory."ii Luther wrote that indulgences were sold by the papacy for the most vile crimes, so that even if a person had raped Jesus’ mother they could get forgiveness by paying money to the Pope.iv


The practice of issuing indulgences is still practiced by the Papacy today. Pope Francis before his death offered indulgences for sin and escape from purgatory during the Jubilee year of 2025.v These indulgences can be obtained, according to the Catholic Church, by going on a pilgrimage to Rome.


Another indication that the New Apostolic Reformation is among the daughters of the Roman Church of Revelation 17 is its obsession with the accumulation of filthy lucre.


C. Peter Wagner, church growth specialist, self-styled “apostle”, and often-credited originator of the name, “New Apostolic Reformation”, declares that, “Prosperity is the will of God, while poverty is the will of Satan.vi Wagner claimed that the reason Christianity had not succeeded in the Gospel commission is because it did not have enough money, asserting that money is the key to societal transformation.vii NAR Apostle Bill Johnson claims that “poverty is demonic”.viii


Wagner taught that the NAR apostles needed to enter spiritual warfare with the powerful demons that controlled the seven mountains of society, and that “we will not experience sustained societal reformation until we bind the spirit of poverty through the blood.”ix NAR apostle Lance Walnau claims that Christianity doesn’t need more conversions to shift the culture, what it needs is “more disciples in the right places, the high places.”x It seems to have eluded Mr. Walnau that the apostate kings of ancient Israels also went to the high places to practice their idolatry.xi


According to the teachings of NAR apostles, these assertions aren’t just opinions, either. “While there are several things that distinguish apostles from other members of the Body of Christ, the major characteristic that stands out over the others is their exceptional authority.”vii Like mother like daughter: the claim to authority is also papal.

So, is the problem with the advancement of the Gospel in this world due to a lack of funds? Is Jesus waiting for His people to get a big pot of money before He can send them out successfully to do His work? Is that biblical, or is it unbliblical? The test of all doctrine is the Scriptures. We are to compare the teachings of the NAR with the Bible: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” – Isaiah 8:20.


The Pope claims to be the successor of Peter. He makes this boastful claim in regard to the same Apostle Peter who said to the lame man who looked to him for alms, “silver and gold have I none” – Acts 3:6. Jesus instructed the apostles to take “neither bread, neither money” (Luke 9:3) when they went out in ministry: they were to rely on the power and providence of God. But the Popes of Rome could hardly say that they have no silver or gold. The Vatican is full of both silver and gold, and all manner of costly riches in extraordinary abundance.

When Simon Magus attempted to purchase salvation and the power to work miracles, Peter sternly denounced him, saying, “They money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money” – Acts 8:20.


But Peter wasn’t finished. He continues: “Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God” – Acts 8:21. Simon had no lot or part in the Gospel ministry.


The Bible says that “the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” – 1 Timothy 6:10.


Who had the money bag during the time Jesus was with His apostles on earth? It wasn’t Peter – it was Judas. But Judas was a thief, and he was stealing from the money bag.


Paula White Cain, another of the New Apostolic Reformation’s Apostles and official leader of the White House Faith office, recently also monetized the blessings of heaven by selling Passover cups to her followers, and promising them that if they donated more than $1000 they would receive a crystal cross and 7 blessings, including God’s assignment of an angel to them, prosperity, healing, long life, etc.



So dull has the sensibilities of Christianity become that there was hardly a ripple in response to Paul White’s outrageous advertisements. But make no mistake, promising God’s blessings in exchange for money is a page straight out of the papal playbook. God does not send angels, healing or long life if you give Paula White a thousand dollars. Martin Luther would have cried out against Paul White and her greed and exploitation of the Gospel in the same way he cried out against the corruption of the Papacy.


Notably missing from the New Apostolic Reformation’s theology is the warning to the world of the mark of the beast, which includes the end-time test where all those faithful to Christ will be unable to buy or sell – Revelation 13:17. The NAR claims that poverty is “demonic”, but Jesus was poor in this earth’s goods, and so were His apostles. The faithful end time church will also be impoverished because governments around the world, influenced by the apostate churches, will prevent those who do not have the mark of the beast from buying or selling.


Do not be deceived, Friends. The words of Christ sound the warning down to our generation. At the end, those who have hoarded earthly wealth “will cast it to the moles and the bats”, and “call for the rocks to fall” on them – Isaiah 2:19-21; Luke 23:30; Revelation 6:16. A wealthy church is no sign of the favor of God at the end, for Babylon is declared by the angel of Revelation 17 to be clothed in wealth – Revelation 17:4. The true church of God, in contrast, will be impoverished as it goes through end time events, unable to buy or sell. But like the early church, it will once more be full of the Holy Spirit, having finally heeded Christ’s message to the Laodicean Church to buy of Him gold tried in the fire, and the white raiment of the righteousness of Christ – Revelation 3:18.

May it be so.


Even so, come Lord Jesus.





i Bruno Bernhard Heim, Heraldry in the Catholic Church: Its Origin, Customs and Laws (Van Duren 1978 ISBN 9780391008731), p. 54, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_the_Holy_See#:~:text=the%20previous%20century.-,Keys,the%20hands%20of%20the%20pope


ii Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1030.


iii Martin Luther, 95 Thesis, #27. https://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html



iv Martin Luther, 95 Thesis, #75. https://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html


v https://www.nashvillecatholic.org/news/posts/pope-offers-indulgences-for-pilgrimages-penances-during-2025-jubilee


vi Wagner, C. Peter. Invading Babylyon, p. 101.


vii Ibid, p. 100.


viii Wagner, C. Peter. Invading Babylyon, p. 42, quoting Bill Johnson


vix Ibid, p. 101.


x Ibid, p. 65.


xi See for example, 2 Kings 16:4, describing King Ahaz’s practice of worshipping idols in the high places of Israel.


xii Wagner, C. Peter. Apostles Today (p. 2). Baker Publishing Group. Copywrite 2006, Kindle Edition. p. 22.





By Wings of Liberty August 14, 2026
It is apparent that there are obvious media biases which result in coverage blackholes with both the left-wing media and the right-wing media. The leftist media avoids stories that are politically problematic for the left, and the right-wing media avoids stories which are unfavorable to the political right. Unless you are a complete partisan-loyalist-come-what-may (and these abound, to be sure) you know both sides of the media have their agendas. And they push those agendas with the issues they cover, how they cover them, or whether an issue gets covered at all. Control of information = control of people. If you needed any further evidence that the western media is bought and sold, major broadcast networks ABC, NBC, and CBS, along with cable news outlets CNN and MSNBC, largely ignored the stunning release of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s diary entries leading up to his testimony, or rather non-testimony, at the Senate on July 29, 2026. [1] The Fauci diary files, which can be read here , expose a number of lies Fauci told the public versus what he recorded in private, [2] including conflicting stories about the origins of the virus and its actual versus claimed risk of fatality to the public. Following the hearing on July 29, during which Fauci refused to answer questions and pled the Fifth Amendment 111 times, most major news outlets either gave cursory coverage to the testimony, or actively defended Fauci’s conduct. Similarly, most major news outlets failed to report the bombshell revelation that Bill Gates held Q level security clearance through the Department of Energy (equivalent to top secret clearance issued by the Defence Department) during COVID, or questions Fauci refused to answer from Senator Rick Scott related to Fauci’s involvement with Bill Gates, [3] or Gates’ funding of virus research. Bill Gates’ top level security “typically applies to positions involving nuclear weapons design, national laboratories, critical energy infrastructure and classified scientific research”. [4] Fauci is stonewalling Congress and the American public and the world at large has yet to learn exactly what Fauci and Bill Gates were up to regarding gain of function research and the subsequent MRNA “vaccine” which was imposed and coerced so forcefully onto the public. Was this just about money? Make a virus, sell a “cure”? Or was it also about something even darker – like depopulation? The Covid shots were not only ineffective in preventing infection or transmission of Covid-19, they killed and maimed a lot of people. In 2010, Gates said that “if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower [population] by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.” [5] Despite an almost superhuman media campaign to recast this statement as benign, there just seems to be no amount of media weaseling that will make it go away. And since “reproductive health services” is often just the sleaze ball way of saying “abortion”, reasonable people have reasonably concluded that a good translation of what Gates said in the 2010 TED Talk is just what it sounds like: that if the elites abort more babies and inject people with more dangerous pharma cocktails, the population of planet earth will decrease by 10-15%. Which is a goal the Club of Rome and other elite orgs have been talking about for decades. [6] But back to Fauci: facts are facts. Fauci knew the virus was intentionally genetically modified: he had funded that research through the NIAID. Fauci publicly pushed the narrative during the pandemic that SARS-CoV-2 spike protein was natural, and evolved from a wet market, which was false. It looks just like a man covering his tracks. Analysis of the virus revealed a novel furin cleavage site found at the S1/S2 boundary of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is absent in closely related natural coronaviruses like SARS-CoV. This specific additional sequence creates the mechanism whereby SARS-CoV-2 can infect human airways by facilitating viral entry by pre-cleaving the spike protein and significantly increasing infectivity, tropism, and syncytia formation. Fauci was aware that this very mutation was the purpose of NIAID funding and gain of function efforts, all while attempting to convince the public that the virus was natural. If you haven’t watched the full July 29, 2026 Fauci Senate hearing, you should. The link is here. And, as you may already know, in the intervening time between then and now, another shoe from the millipede has dropped. It has come to light that Fauci knew early on that the Covid vaccine could cause baby miscarriages in pregnant women, but he publicly informed the world that pregnant women should take it, and that it was safe. [7] If it looks like a depopulation agenda, and it walks like a depopulation agenda… But there is another story which the western media, left or right, refuses to cover regarding Tony Fauci, and that is his link to the Vatican. Sometimes what is not said is just as informative, if not more so, than what is said. And that is why it is so notable that both left and right wing media avoid investigation and coverage of the Vatican’s involvement in the narratives of both Anthony Fauci, as well as another public perp named Jeffrey Epstein. [8] If you watch Fox News, you will see that it is almost as averse to criticism of the Vatican or investigation into Fauci’s connection with the COVID-19 pandemic, vax mandates, as left-wing media outlets like CNN. It’s the same with Epstein and the Vatican. Radio silence from legacy media, be they left or be they right. Yes, its true that Fox News has turned on Fauci – but it doesn’t really have a choice at this point because the story has become too big. It’s either cover Fauci, or lose all credibility with that segment of the conservative base which smells all the dead rats under Fauci’s floorboards. So, Fox News covered Fauci’s diary and his narcissistic obsession with fame. It covered allegations Fauci misled Congress on the origins of the virus. It covered Fauci’s gross exaggeration of the fatality rate of Covid-19 in public, while privately documenting that it is actually far less dangerous. Fox News covered all of that. But Fox News is awfully quiet re Fauci and the Vatican. And there definitely is a connection between Fauci and the Vatican that any investigative journalist worth their salt should want to dig at. It’s not just that Fauci is Catholic, and the Vatican is the civil power of the church-state union of the Catholic Church. It’s not just that Fauci is being sheltered and aided in the midst of congressional scrutiny and public exposure by the Jesuits at Georgetown University, [9] which of course he is, or that the Jesuits are the militant arm of the Papacy, which of course they are. It’s not just that Joe Biden (Catholic) gave Tony Fauci (also Catholic) an unconditional pardon for all of his crimes during the pandemic no matter how heinous, or that the popes of old used to grant such plenary indulgences for all sins to the crusaders who furthered their wars. Isn’t that how it works in the confessional, behind the scenes? “Forgive me father, for I have sinned.” “What have you done, my son?” “Do you have the internet? I killed millions of people with a genetically altered virus and then told the whole world they needed to take a poison shot to save them from the virus.” “Yes, its all forgiven, my son. Ego te absolvo. Go do 33 ‘hail Mary’s’ and keep your head down at Georgetown for awhile.” The reality is that the Vatican and Fauci were teammates during Covid. The Vatican pushed lockdowns and Covid shots globally arguably as hard as Tony Fauci, and brought all its moral and spiritual influence to bear on the reluctant to overcome their misgivings. The Pope told every Catholic in the world that they have a “moral obligation” to take the Covid shot. [10] He told them it was “morally licit” even though derived from cell lines from aborted foetuses. [11] The Vatican even minted a coin celebrating the imposition of the Covid shot on the human family. [12] In doing so it publicly celebrated oppression, force, deception, coercion, and corruption. It celebrated everything that is anti-Christian, and anti-liberty of conscience. And early in the rollout of the Covid shots, the Vatican held a symposium to chart a course for world governments to overcome vaccine hesitancy in the face of public reports that the shots were killing people. The event was hosted by Pope Francis, and included the CEOs of Pfizer and Moderna. Opening remarks were delivered by none other than Anthony Fauci. What did Tony Fauci say at this conference hosted by the Pope? Well, among other things, Fauci informed the crowd that moral authority needed to be brought to bear to overcome the doubters. The right voice was needed to overcome the hesitant, and those who did not want an experimental gene editing franken-shot under threat of punishment via the loss of civil liberties. Fauci said the key to overcoming current vaccine hesitancy is pairing the right medical message with the right messenger. “You have someone who’s a deeply religious person who will listen to their clergy.” [13]  Oh yes. There are plenty of dead rats in the Tony Fauci’s former office. One by one Congress will ensure that some of them are found and publicly ventilated. Fauci may take a public fall, and some media outlets will be compelled to cover some of his disgrace. But no mainstream media dares to touch the involvement of the Vatican with Fauci. And you should ask yourself what that means. And when you have thought about the implications you may know a little more about who really runs this world.
By Wings of Liberty July 7, 2026
TO: THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Via EMAIL: RLC@usdoj.gov RE: RECOMMENDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY COMMISSION Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback to the recommendations of the Religious Liberty Committee submitted to President Donald J. Trump on June 26, 2026. While we are mindful of the Committee’s labors which resulted in the 12 recommendations released June 26, certain of which we agree with, we write to voice our concerns and objections to the Committee’s first and ninth recommendations, 1 and its obviously insufficient consideration of the warnings of the Founding Fathers of the dangers of a union of church and state, or the many lessons of history regarding same. The Committee recommended that the Department of Justice “issue guidance clarifying the proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.” 2 At the formal release of the Committee’s recommendations on the same day, Committee Chair Dan Patrick publicly stated that, “The separation of church and state is not in the constitution, ” and that the phrase “ has no constitutional basis .” 3 As citizens and students of history, and as Christians, we are alarmed, lest the flawed and unconstitutional view of the Chair of the Committee of the so-called “ proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state”, prove influential or worse, instructive, to the Department of Justice. If the Committee’s opinion of the so-called “proper understanding” of the Establishment Clause is the same as that of its Chair, it is apparent that its understanding is not proper, but rather improper. Founding Father, “Father of the Constitution”, and fourth President of the United States, James Madison, contradicted Chair Dan Patrick’s claim that the separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. Madison stated that, “ Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States , the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history." According to James Madison, the separation of church and state is in the Constitution. As to whether James Madison, who is the principle author of the Establishment Clause, or Dan Patrick, is the greater authority on this subject, we think it not difficult for reasonably minded people to ascertain. Certainly, the Founding Fathers were all aware of the persecution of the Baptists, Quakers, Jews, and others in some of the colonies. They had seen first hand the ear croppings, whippings, imprisonment and hangings in Massachusetts and other colonies. In Europe, the persecution of the martyrs is well documented. Today we take the Bible for granted, but forget that William Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible into the English language not by atheists, but by religious bigots. It was a union of church and state which suppressed speech and the freedom of the press in England. It was a union of church and state which prohibited the work of translation of the Bible which changed the world. It was a union of church and state which necessitated his flight to Europe. It was a union of church and state which killed him. We respectfully ask that the Department of Justice, in considering the issue of public guidance of the separation of church and state, consider the history of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, and early Founding Father, who was repeatedly jailed for his religious faith in England. Pennsylvania Colony became a haven, not from atheist persecutors, but religious persecutors who did not believe in the separation of church and state. The same is true of Roger Williams, founder of the colony of Rhode Island, who was ordered arrested for declaring that the civil magistrate cannot enforce the first table of the Decalogue. We ask that the Committee take into account the brutal public whipping of President Abraham Lincoln’s five-time great grandfather, Obadiah Holmes, in Massachusetts colony, for the “crime” of religious dissent. Obadiah Holmes was not whipped by atheists. He was whipped by Puritan bigots who did not believe in the separation of church and state. We respectfully request that the Department of Justice consider this history in the issuance of public guidance on the subject. We are concerned that the Committee neglected to take into account the impact of the separation of church and state on the other rights codified in the First Amendment. Free speech and freedom of the press, for example, owe their flourishing in the modern world in large part to the separation of church and state in America. Prior to the protections in the First Amendment, the Roman Catholic Church for centuries maintained a list of banned books called the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The books were subject to confiscation, and the possession of them resulted in the punishment of the owner. Unfortunately, the Committee makes no mention of the censorship in this context of Galileo and Kepler, Kant and Locke, John Milton and Maimonedes, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, David Hume and Edward Gibbon, and many others, all at the behest of the Roman Papacy, which is itself a union of church and state. Free speech in the western world is the legacy of those who risked the wrath of a unified church and state, often at the cost of their lives. We would also ask that the Department of Justice consider the repeated modern calls from the papal power today for the censorship of the internet, and the suppression of free speech, contrary to the First Amendment. 4 We have no doubt that the censorship of Galileo, Kepler, Milton and others was prosecuted under the justification of the censorship of misinformation, also. The Roman Church was not alone in this persecution, either. We would ask the Department of Justice in its formulation of public guidance on the separation of church and state to remember the religious persecutions carried out at the behest of John Calvin in Geneva against religious dissenters such as Michael Servetus, who paid with his life for his writings and teachings. Servetus was executed by a union of church and state. We are concerned at the public statements of those who would create such a system in America. 5 Therefore we respectfully ask what proper guidance can the Department of Justice hope to give to the public on the “proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state” if it is directed in its object by a Committee and a Committee Chair, who has neglected to more fully analyze the reasons for the separation of church and state, or the reasons why the United States codified the disestablishment of church and state in the First Amendment in the first instance? Reference to the wall of separation between church and state is not only mentioned by President Thomas Jefferson in the letter to the Danbury Baptists, which of course it is. 6 What is often left out of the narrative is that Jefferson said that he personally believed that the principle of the separation of church and state is codified in the Constitution. Therein, Jefferson wrote: Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, ¬t opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. 7 James Madison wrote, It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. 8 Lastly, we object to the recommendation of the Committee that the Johnson Amendment be removed. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are mindful of Our Lord’s words that we “render to Caesar what is Caesar, and to God the things that are God’s.” 9 Jesus Christ established the principle of the separation of church and state, and taught that what belongs to God cannot be rendered to Caesar. The application of this teaching is that religionists, ambitious for civil power, and politicians ambitious for their endorsement, are to be kept separate in the American system of politics, as the Constitution requires. The union of church and state results in the corruption of both, a result which neither should desire, and neither can afford. Madison stated that “The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State." 10 And he was right. If the Johnson Amendment is removed, religionists who want civil power will publicly stump and promise their votes and congregational dollars in exchange for political favors, and the politicians will be doubtless all too eager to reciprocate in the form of legislation which the religionists desire provided they will aid their attempts to gain office. In his anonymous treatise published in the Boston Gazette, John Adams, later the second President of the United States, wrote that canon law was a tyrannical form of government, as was feudal law, but that the worst of all forms of governments was a union of the two. 11 And it was Madison who stated that, “In the Papal System, Government and Religion are in a manner consolidated, & that is found to be the worst of Governments.” We respectfully request therefore that the Department Justice not adopt recommendations 1 and 9 of the Committee, and that it does adopt recommendation 1 of the Committee that it convene a public hearing, with written and oral submissions from the public, to more comprehensively study the question of the separation of church and state in history, and in American history in particular, a study which we would enthusiastically support. We remain yours truly, [THE UNDERSIGNED] ------------------------------------------------------- 1 https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/president-trumps-religious-liberty-commission-delivers-historic-report-draft 2 Ibid, [Emphasis added]. 3 https://www.chron.com/politics/article/dan-patrick-church-state-constitution-viral-22323383.php 4 https://reclaimthenet.org/pope-francis-calls-on-social-media-platforms-to-censor-more-misinformation ; 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAUkMwlWYB8 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMBiPIfx-UA 6 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html 7 https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html - Jefferson here is clearly referring to Congress. That Congress is prohibited by the Constitution from making a union of church and state. 8 James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments 9 Matthew 22:21 10 James Madison, Letter to Robert Walsh, March 2, 1819. 11 John Adams, Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765. https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/PJA01dg2 Since the Promulgation of Christianity the two greatest systems of Tyranny that have Sprung from this source, are the Cannon and the feudal Law. The Desire of Dominion, however noble and useful on the whole, is however, when unawed and unrestrained by Hopes and Fears, an encroaching, grasping, restless and ungovernable Principle. And among all the Variety of iniquitous systems that have been contrived by the great, for the Gratification of it, in themselves was never So successful, as in the Invention and Establishment of the Cannon and the Feudal Law. In the former, the most refined, sublime, extensive and astonishing Constitution of Policy that was ever conceived by the human Mind, we find was framed by the Romish Clergy, for the Aggrandisement of their own order. All the Epithets, that I have given to the Romish Policy, will be owned to be just, when it is considered, that they found it practicable to persuade Mankind, that God almighty had intrusted them with the Keys of Heaven, whose Gate they might open and Close at Pleasure—With a Power of Dispensation over all the Rules and Obligations of Morality—With an Authority to Licence all sorts both of Sins and Crimes.—With a Power of deposing Princes, and absolving subjects from their Allegiance.—With a Power of procuring or witholding the Rain of Heaven and the Beams of the Sun—With the Management of Earthquakes, Pestilence and Famine—Nay with the misterious, awful Incomprehensible Power of Creating out of Bread and Wine the Flesh and Blood of the great Creator of the Universe. And all these opinions, they were enabled to propagate and rivet in the Minds of the People, by reducing the Minds of the Common People them to a State of Sordid Ignorance and staring Timidity, and by infusing into them a religious Horror of Letters and Knowledge of every Kind. Thus was human Nature chained fast for ages in a cruel, shameful, deplorable Servitude, to him and his Subordinate Tyrants, who it was foretold, would exalt himself above all that was called God and that was worshiped. In the latter We find another System, Similar in many Respects to the former: which, altho it was originally formed, perhaps for the necessary Defense of a barbarous People, against the Inroads and Invasions of her neighboring nations; Yet for the Same Purposes of Tyranny, Cruelty and Lust, which had dictated the Cannon Law, it was soon adopted by allmost all the Princes of Europe and wrought into the Constitution of their Govt. It was originally a Code of Laws 110for a vast Army in a Perpetual Encampment. The General was invested with the Sovereign Propriety of all the Lands within their Territory—of Him the first Rank of his great officers, held the Lands, immediately, and the other subordinate Ranks, held of them, and all held by a Variety of Duties and services, tending to bind the Chains the faster on every order of Mankind. In this Manner the Common People were held together in Clans and Herds in a State of Servile Dependance on their Lords, bound by the tenure of their lands to follow them to their Wars whenever they commanded, and in a state of total Ignorance of every Thing divine and humane, excepting the Use of Arms and the Culture of the Lands. But another Event, still more calamitous to human Liberty, was a wicked Confederacy between the two Systems of Tyrany above described. It seems to have been even stipulated between them that the temporal Grandees, should contribute every Thing in their Power to maintain the Ascendancy of the Priesthood, and the Spiritual Grandees in their turn, shold employ that ascendancy over the Consciences of the People, in impressing on their Minds a blind, implicit obedience to civil Magistracy. [emphasis added]
By QV.tv July 2, 2026