(19:76) If we reflect on what was said in the last chapter we shall see that
such reservation conduced not a little to the increase of religion and
piety; for we observed that the prophets themselves, though gifted with
Divine efficacy, being merely private citizens, rather irritated than
reformed the people by their freedom of warning, reproof, and denunciation,
whereas the kings by warnings and punishments easily bent men to their will.
(77) Furthermore, the kings themselves, not possessing the right in question
absolutely, very often fell away from religion and took with them nearly the
whole people. (78) The same thing has often happened from the same cause in
Christian states.

(19:79) Perhaps I shall be asked, "But if the holders of sovereign power
choose to be wicked, who will be the rightful champion of piety? (80) Should
the sovereigns still be its interpreters? "I meet them with the counter-
question, "But if ecclesiastics (who are also human, and private citizens,
and who ought to mind only their own affairs), or if others whom it is
proposed to entrust with spiritual authority, choose to be wicked, should
they still be considered as piety's rightful interpreters?" (81) It is quite
certain that when sovereigns wish to follow their own pleasure, whether they
have control over spiritual matters or not, the whole state, spiritual
and secular, will go to ruin, and it will go much faster if private
citizens seditiously assume the championship of the Divine rights.

(19:82) Thus we see that not only is nothing gained by denying such rights
to sovereigns, but on the contrary, great evil ensues. (83) For (as happened
with the Jewish kings who did not possess such rights absolutely) rulers are
thus driven into wickedness, and the injury and loss to the state become
certain and inevitable, instead of uncertain and possible. (84) Whether we
look to the abstract truth, or the security of states, or the increase of