In the second
place, though everyone is to be given liberty to speak out his opinion,
yet great conventicles are to be forbidden. And, therefore, those that
are attached to another religion are, indeed, to be allowed to build as
many temples as they please; yet these are to be small, and limited to a
certain standard of size, and on sites at some little distance one from
another. But it is very important, that the temples consecrated to the
national religion should be large and costly, and that only patricians
or senators should be allowed to administer its principal rites, and
thus that patricians only be suffered to baptize, celebrate marriages,
and lay on hands, and that in general they be recognized as the priests
of the temples and the champions and interpreters of the national
religion. But, for preaching, and to manage the church treasury and its
daily business, let some persons be chosen from the commons by the
senate itself, to be, as it were, the senate's deputies, and, therefore,
bound to render it account of everything.
47. And these are points that concern the foundations of this sort of
dominion; to which I will add some few others less essential indeed, but
yet of great importance. Namely, that the patricians, when they walk,
should be distinguished by some special garment, or dress, and be
saluted by some special title; and that every man of the commons should
give way to them; and that, if any patrician has lost his property by
some unavoidable misfortune, he should be restored to his old condition
at the public expense; but if, on the contrary, it be proved that he has
spent the same in presents, ostentation, gaming, debauchery, &c.
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