2. Your doctrine and practice of forcing men by carnal iveapons, corporal penalties, tortures, and terrors of death, unto the em- bracement of your profession, and actually destroying and taking away the lives of them that persist in their dissent from you, is condemned by fathers and councils, as well as by the Scriptures, and the light of nature itself. It is condemned by Tertullian, Apol. cap. xxiii. " Videte,'' saith he, " ne et hoc ad irreligiositatis elogium con- currat, adimere libertatem religionis, et interdicere optionem divini- tatis, ut non liceat mihi colere quod velim, sed cogar colere quod nolim;" with the like expressions in twenty other places. All this external compulsion he ascribes unto profaneness. So doth Clemens Alexand., Stromat. viii. ; so also did Lactantius: all consenting in that maxim of Tertullian, " Lex nova non se vindicat ultore gladio;" — " The law of Christ revengeth not itself with a punishing sword." The council of Sardis, Epist. ad Alexand., expressly affirms that
APOSTASY OF THE ROMISH CHURCH. 227
they dissuaded the emperor from interposing his secular power to compel them that dissented. And you are fully condemned in a canon of a council at Toledo, cap. de Judse. distinct. 45 : " Praecij)it sancta sy nodus, nemini deinceps ad credendum vim inferre; cui enim vult Deus miseretur, et quem vult indurat;" — " The holy synod com- mandeth that none hereafter shall by force be compelled to the faith ; for God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." Athanasius, in his Epistle ad Solitaries, falls heavily on the Arians, that they began first to compel men to their heresy by force, prisons, and punishments; whence he concludes of their sect, " Atque ita seipsam quam non sit pia nee Dei cultrix mani- festat;" — " It evidently declares itself hereby to be neither pious nor to have any reverence of God." In a book that is of some credit with you, — namely, Clemens's Constitutions, — you have this amongst other things for your comfort: To avrs^ousiov ruv av^pui'ruv dpJjxsi/ sXsu- Sipov, ov 'Tpo(!Kalp(f> Savccrw dizat^cav dXX' h iTtpa TiaTaffrdgsi Xoyodiruiv avro' — " Christ left men the power of their wills free" (in this matter), " not punishing them with death temporal, but calling them to give an account in another world." And Chrysostom speaks to the same purpose on John vi. : 'Epcrjra Xsyojv, Mrj y.ai biMzTg ^sAsrs i/ffayf/i/; ots^ rradav rjv a^aipovvTog /S/ac jca/ dvdy/iyi^' — " He asked them, saying, ' Will ye also go away?' which is the question of one rejecting all force and necessity." Epiphanius gives it as the character of the semi- Arians, Todg TTiv dXyjdsiav diddffzovrag di'Jjy.ovffiv, ovx 'in "koyoig [3ouX6fj,ivoi dvaTpsirnv^ dy.Xd xai sy^dpaig, y.ai ToXs/j.oig, xai f/^a^alpaig irapahihovTig roug 6p6ug msnuovrag' Xv/j,rjv ydp ov {iia 'KoXh xa/ yj^pU' iJpydffavro dXXd iroXXaTg' — " They persecute them that teach the truth, not confuting them with words, but delivering them that believe aright to hatreds, wars, and swords, having now brought destruction, not to one city or country alone, but to many." Neither can you relieve yourselves by an- swering that they were true believers whom they persecuted, you punish heretics and schismatics only ; for they thought and said the same of themselves which you assert in your own behalf So Sal- vian informs us, " Hseretici sunt, sed non scientes ; denique apud nos sunt hseretici, apud se non sunt. Nam in tantum se et catholicos judicant, ut nos ipsos titulo heereticse pravitatis infament: quod ergo illi nobis sunt, et hoc nos illis ;" — " They are heretics, but they know it not ; they are heretics unto us, but not unto themselves, for they so far judge themselves to be catholic, that they condemn us for the guilt of heresy: so, then, what they are to us, that we are to them." Especially was your whole practice in this matter solemnly con- demned in the case of Priscillianus, recorded by Sulpitius Severus in the end of his second book, — the only instance that Bellarmine could fix upon, in all antiquity, for the putting of any men to death upon the account of religion ; for the other whom he mentions, he con-
228 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIISIADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
fesseth himself to have been a magician. Ithacius, with some other bishops his associates, procured Maximus the tyrant to put Priscil- Hanus a Gnostic, with some others, to death, and to banish some of their followers. What saith the historian thereon? " Hoc modo," saitli he, " homines luce indignissimi pessimo exemplo necati, aut exiliis mulctati;" — " On this manner were those unworthy wretches either slain or punished by banishment, by a very evil precedent." And what was the success of this zeal? " Non solum," saith he, " non repressa est hseresis, sed confirmata, latius propagata est;" — " The heresy was so far from being repressed by it, that it was the more confirmed and propagated." And what ensued hereupon in the church itself ? " Inter nostros perpetuum discordiarvim bellum exar- serat: quod jam per quindecim annos foedis dissension ibus agitatum nuUo modo sopiri poterat. Et nunc cum maxime discord iis episco- porum turbari aut misceri omnia cernerentur, cunctaque per eos odio aut gratia, raetu, inconstantia, invidia, factione, avaritia, arrogantia, somno, desidia essent depravata: — postremo plures adversum paucos bene consulentes, insanis consiliis et pertinacibus studiis certabant: inter ha3c plebs Dei, et optimus quisque, probro atque ludibrio ha- bebatur;" with which words he shuts up his ecclesiastical story. " Amongst ours, a lasting war of discord was kindled, which, after it hath now for fifteen years been carried on with shameful contentions, can by no means be allayed; and now especially, when all things appear to be troubled and perverted by the discord of the bishops, and that all things are depraved by them, through hatred, favour, fear, inconstancy, envy, faction, covetousness, pride, sleepiness, and sloth, — the most, with mad counsels and pertinacious endeavours, [were] op- posing them.selves to the few that are better advised. Amongst all these things the people of God, and every honest man, is become a reproach and a scorn." Thus that historian, complaining of the con- sequents of this proceeding. But good men left not the matter so : Martinus Turonensis presently refuseth all communion with them who had any hand in the death or banishment of the persons mentioned ; so doth Ambrose declare himself to have done, Epist. xxvii.; as did the rest of the sober, godly bishops of those days. At length both Itha- cias and Idacius, the promoters of this work, were solemnly excom- municated, though one of them had before, for very shame, foregone his bishopric. See Prosp. Chron. 889, and Isidore de Viris lUustri- bus. So that here also the judgment and practice of your church, which she is fallen into, is publicly condenmed and written against thirteen hundred years ago. Should I insist on all the testimonies that of this kind might be produced, —