Now not to speak of Cain, who seems to me to have laid the foundation of that cruelty, which was afterward inserted into the church's orthodoxies, by the name of Hsereticidium; we find the four famous empires of the world to have drank in this persuasion to the utmost, of suppressing all by force and violence, that consented not to them in their way of worship.
Nebuchadnezzar, the ' crown of the golden head,' set up a furnace with an image ; and a negative answer to that query. Do you not serve my gods, nor worship my image ? served to cast the servants of the living God into the midst of the fire ; Dan.iii.
Daniel's casting into the lion's den, chap. vi. shews that
' Varro in Augustin. de civit. Dei.
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the Persian silver breast and arms, did not want iron hands, to crush or break the opposers of, or dissenters from, their religious edicts.
And though we find not much of the short-lived founder of the Grecian dominion ; yet what was the practice of the branches of that empire, especially in the Syrian and Egyp- tian sprouts, the books of the Maccabees, Josephus, and others do abundantly manifest.
For the Romans, though their judgment and practice, which fully and wholly are given over from the dragon to the beast and false prophet, be written in the blood of thou- sands of Christians, and so not to be questioned; yet that it may appear, that we are not the only men in this genera- tion, that this wisdom of punishing dissenters was not born with us, I shall briefly give in what grounds they proceeded on, and the motives they had to proceed as they did.
(1.) First then they enacted it as a law, that no religious worship should be admitted or practised without the con- sent, decree, and establishment of the senate. Mention is made of a formal law to this purpose in Tertullian, Apol. cap. 5. though now we find it not. The foundation of it was doubtless in that of the twelve tables ; * Separatim nemo habessit Deos, neve novos, sed ne advenas, nisi publice as- cites, privatim colunto :' ' Let none have gods to himself, neither let any privately worship new or strange deities, unless they be publicly owned and enrolled.' And that it was their practice, and in the counsels of the wisest amongst them, appears in that advice given by Maecenas to Augustus, in Dion Cassius : ' To julv ^tiov Travrrj ttovtwc uvtoq te ai[iov Kara to. Trarpia, kuI rovg aAAovg tijjl^v avayKa<!^e' rovg St Srj ^evi- t^ovTagri irepi avTO^ Koi fxiaei koX koAo^e, /xij fxovov tCjv ^eiov evsKa, bjv KaTa(f>povr](jag ov^^ clXXou av rivog TrpoTifiijaniv, aW on Kaivu Tiva ^aifiovia ol toiovtol avTucrcpipovTig TToXXovg avatrti- Bovaiv aXXoTpiovofj.uv' kok tovtov kqi avvwixoaiai koi avaraaeig, iraipiai t£ yiyvovrai, ainp r\Ki(TTa }iovap\i(}. avjuKpipef ' Worship,' saith he, * the divine power thyself according to the constitu- tions of thy country, always, and at all times, and compel others so to honour it: but hate and punish those who in- troduce foreign religions, not only for the gods' sake, whom he who contemneth will regard nothing else, but because
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such, introducing new deities, do persuade many to trans- gress [or to change affairs], whence are conjurations, sedi- tions, private societies, things no w^ay conducing to mo- narchy.' Hist. Rom. 1. 52.
Hence doubtless was that opposition, which Paul met withal in di^'ers of the Roman territories. Thus at Athens (though, as I suppose, they enjoyed there their own laws and customs, very suitable as it should seem to those of the Romans) preaching Jesus, he was accused to be ' a setter forth of strange gods ;' Acts xiv. For although, as Strabo observeth of the Athenians, that publicly by the authority of the magistrates, ttoXXo. tuiv ^eviKMv lepwv irapide^avTo, ' they received many things of foreign worships ;' yet that none might attempt any such things of themselves, is notorious from the case of Socrates, who, as Laertes witnesseth, was condemned, as ouc IJ^^v vo/xi^si ^ioifg t) ttoXiq ov vofxiKovra, 'ire- pnSe Kaivadaijuiovia Elcrrfyovjievov, ' one who thought not those to be gods, whom the city thought so to be, but brought in certain new deities.' Hence, I say, was Paul's opposition, and his haling to Mars hill. Without doubt also this was the bottom of that stir and trouble he met withal about Phi- lippi. It is true, private interest lay in the bottom with the chief opposers, but this legal constitution was that which was plausibly pretended. Acts xvi. 21. * They teach customs which are not lawful for us to receive, neither to ob- serve, being Romans:' ovk e^eari'Vwfjiaioig, *itis not lawful for us Romans' to receive the religion they hold out, because statutes are made amongst us against all religious worship not allowed by public authority. Let Calvin's short annota- tion on that place be seen. Gallio's refusing to judge be- tween Jews (as he thought) in a Jewish controversy, is no impeachment of this truth : had it been about any Roman establishment, he would quickly have interposed. Now this law amongst them was doubtless, ' fundi Christiani cala- mi tas.'
This then in the first place was enacted, that no worship should be admitted, no religion exercised, but what received establishment and approbation from them, who supposed themselves to be intrusted with authority over men in such things. And this power of the dragon was given over to the beast and false prophet. The antichristian power succeed- ing in the room of the paganish, the pope and councils