Page:Toleration and other essays.djvu/161

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Epistle to the Romans
137

to give, but for whom it is prepared of my father."[1] Know, moreover, that the Jews meant, and still mean, by "son of God" a just man. Inquire of the eight thousand Jews who sell old clothes, as they ever have done, in your city, and pay close attention to the following words: "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister. The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister."[2]

Do these clear and precise words mean that Boniface VIII. was bound to crush the Colonna family; that Alexander VI. was bound to poison so many Roman barons; or that the bishop of Rome received from God, in a time of anarchy, the duchy of Rome, Ferrara, Bologna, the March of Ancona, Castro, and Ronciglione, and all the country from Viterbo to Terracina, which have been wrested from their lawful owners? Think you, Romans, that Jesus was sent on earth by God solely for the Rezzonico?

Article v.

You will ask me by what means this strange revolution of all divine and human laws was brought about. I am about to tell you; and I defy the most zealous fanatic in whom there is still a spark of reason, and the most determined rogue who has still a trace of decency in his soul, to resist the force of the truth, if he reads this important inquiry with the attention it deserves.

It is certain and undoubted that the earliest

  1. Matthew xx., 23.
  2. Matthew xx., 26 and 27.