Furthermore, by the ways which were invented, oft from the rule, for the extirpation of errors, when, by the instigation of prelates, the emperors were (to their o"wti ruin) persuaded to them, the man of sin
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walked to his throne. Those very laws, edicts, and declarations, which were obtained against erring persons, did the bishops of Rome invert and use against all the witnesses of Jesus. The devil durst not be so
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bold as to employ that his grand agent in his apprenticeship agamst the saints; but he first suffers him to exercise his hand against here- tics, intending to make use of him afterward to another purpose. In most of those contests which the Roiuan pontiffs had with their fel- low-bishops, by which they insensibly advanced their own supremacy, it was the defence of Catholics they undertook ; as in the case of Athanasius and others.
Neither did the Christians of old at once step into the persuasion of punishing corporeally in case of religion. Constantino makes a de- cree at first, Tj^v sXiuhpiav ^iprjffXilag ouk apvi^riav ihai, " that liberty of worship is not to be denied ; and therefore the Christians, as others, should have liberty to keep the faith of their religion and heresy," Euseb., Eccles. Hist., lib. x. cap. 5. And in the same edict he saith (how truly I know not, but yet great Constantine said it), " That it is most certain, that this is conducing to the peace of the empire, that free option and choice of religion be left to all." Afterward, when he began a little farther to engage himself in the business of religion, being indeed wearied with the petitions of bishops and their asso- ciates for the persecution of one another, what troubles in a few years did he intricate himself withal ! Perplexed he was in his spirit to see the untoward revengefulness of that sort of people; insomuch that he WTites expressly to them, being assembled in council at Tyre, " That they had neither care of the truth, nor love to peace, nor con- science of scandal, nor would by any means be prevailed on to lay down their malice and animosities," Socrat. Hist, lib. i. cap. S-i. At length an Arian priest curries favour with his sister Constantia : she gets him into the esteem of her brother : after some insinuations of his, new edicts, new synods, new recallings, new banishments of other persons, follow one upon the neck of another, Rufin. Eccles. Hist., lib. i. cap. 1 1. And when this knack was once found out of promot- ing a sect by imperial favour, it is admirable to consider how those good princes, Constantine and his sons, were abused, misled, enraged, engaged into mutual dissensions, by the lies, flatteries, equivocations of such as called themselves bishops, Rufin., lib. i. cap. 15, 16, &c. As also, how soon, with the many, the whole business of religion was hereupon turned into a matter of external pomp and dominion. But it is beside my purpose to rake into that hell of confusion which by this means brake in upon the churches in succeeding ages. Only for the following imperial edicts and constitutions in the behalf of the catholic faith, and for the punishing of erring persons, I desire to ob- serve,—
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(1.) That the emperors were stirred up to tliein by turbulent priests and aspiring prelates. Let the pope's letters to them witness this. Leo, Epist. Ixxv. &c.
(2.) That they were still bottomed upon such and such councils, that were not to be opposed or spoken against, when all of them were spent for the most part about things quite beside and beyond the Scripture (as feastiugs, and fastings, and bishops' jurisdictions) ; and some of them were the very ulcers and imposthumations of Chiistian religion, as those of Nice and Ephesus, both the second; and in gene- ral all of them the sea upon which the whore exalted her seat and throne. And these things did those good men, either deceived by the craft of heretics, or wearied by the importunity of the orthodox.
And yet, notwithstanding all this (as I shall afterward declare), I cannot close with that counsel which Themistius, a philosopher, gave to Valens the emperor, and am most abhoiTent from the reason of his counsel, — viz., " That he should let all sects alone, because it was for the glory of God to be honoured with diversities of opinions and ways of worship." Yet though this reason be false and impious, the advice itself was well conducing at that time to the peace of the churches, something qualifying the spirit of that heretical emperor, who before had cruelly raged against all orthodox professors of the Deity of Christ, Socrat., lib. iv. cap 27.
5. Lastly, add unto all that hath been said, " Vice coronidis," for the use of such as, enjoying authority, may have misapprehensions of some truths of Christ,^ — a sad consideration concerning the end and issue which the Lord, in his righteous judgment, hath in all ages given to persecutors and persecution.
Nero (of whom says Tertullian, " Tali dedicatore gaudet sanguis Christianus"), who was the first that employed the sword against our religion, being condemned by the senate to be punished " more ma- jorum," slew himself, with this exprobration of his own sordid villany, " Turpiter vixi, turpius morior," Sueton. in Ner. Domitian, the inheritor of his rage and folly, was murdered in his own house by his servants, Idem in Domit. Trajan, by a resolution of his joints, numbedness of body, and a choking water, perished miserably, Dio Cassius de Traj. This is he whose order not to seek out Christians to punishment, but yet to punish them appearing, you have in his epistle to Pliny, a provincial governor under him, Plin. Epist. xcvii. ; which, thoiigh commended by Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. cap. 33, yet is canvassed by Tertullian as a foolish, impious, wicked constitu- tion, Apol. cap. ii. Hadrian, perishing with a flux and casting of blood, paid some part of the price of the innocent blood which he had shed, ^lius Spart. in Had. Sevei-us poisoned himself, to put an end to his tonnenting pains, Jul. Capitol. Maximinus, with his son