Surely murder, robberies, and other such
flaming immoralities were as reprovable then as now....
Really, gentlemen, conscience and religion are things too solemn,
venerable, or sacred, to be played with, or made a covering for actions so
disagreeable to the gospel, as these your endeavours to expose me and my
most faithful services to contempt; nay, to unhinge the government....
I desire you will keep your station, and let fifty or sixty good
ministers, your equals in the province, have a share in the government of
the college, and advise thereabouts as well as yourselves, and I hope all
will be well....
I am your humble servant,
J. DUDLEY.
To the Reverend Doctors Mathers. [Footnote: _Mass. Hist. Coll._ first
series, iii. 135.]
CHAPTER X.
THE LAWYERS.
In the age of sacred caste the priest is likewise the law-maker and the
judge, and as succeeding generations of ecclesiastics slowly spin the
intricate web of their ceremonial code, they fail not to teach the people
that their holy ordinances were received of yore from divine lips by some
great prophet. This process is beautifully exemplified in the Old
Testament: though the complicated ritualism of Leviticus was always
reverently attributed to Moses, it was evidently the work of a much later
period; for the present purpose, however, its date is immaterial, it
suffices to follow the account the scribes thought fit to give in Kings.
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