"The Protestant Reformation was far more political and economic in origin than theological. ...the church had become too powerful ...As wealth increased, it got so much more than its fair share that presently it was... almost as rich as kings and emperor together. ...it had armies to enforce its decrees; it punished rebellion as savagely as any Mesopotamian potentate. The kings all hated it because it pitted one against another and was opposed to the national states that they were trying to fashion; the nobles hated it because its ubiquitous priests stood between them and their serfs; the common people hated it because its exactions kept them poor. ...There was a new economic order in the world and a new political order, and it was out of harmony with both. Knowledge was increasing faster than it could revise its theology: what had seemed indubitable... and at least believed in... now began to look absurd to all sensible men."
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Treatise on the Gods
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