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of the emperors and senate, it was quickly confirmed that none should be suffered to live in peace, who received not his mark and name; Rev. xiii. 16, 17, Whereunto, for my part, I cannot but refer very many of those following imperial constitutions, which were made at first against the opposers of the church's orthodoxism, but were turned against the wit- nesses of Jesus in the close.
(2.) This being done, they held out the reasons of this establishment. I shall touch only one or two of them, which are still common to them, who walk in the same paths with them.
[1.] Now the first was. That toleration of sundry ways of worship, and several religions, tends to the disturbance of the commonwealth, and that civil society, which men under the same government do, and ought to enjoy. So Cicero tells us, lib. 2. De leg. ' Suosque Deos,autnovos, aut alienigenas coli, confusionem habet,' &c. It brings in confusion of reli- gion and civil society. The same is clearly held out in that counsel of Maecenas to Augustus before mentioned. ' They,' saith he, 'who introduce new deities, draw many into inno- vations, whence are conspiracies, seditions, conventicles, no way profitable for the commonwealth.'
[2.] The other main reason was. That hereby the gods, whom they owned and worshipped, were dishonoured and provoked to plague them. That this was continually in their mouths and clamours, all the acts at the slaying of the martyrs, the rescripts of emperors, the apologies of the Christians, as Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Arnobius, Minutius Felix, do abundantly testify. All trouble was still ascribed to their impiety, upon the first breakingout of any judgment, as though the cause of it had been the toleration of Christians, presently the vulgar cry was ' Christianos ad Leones.' Now that those causes and reasons have been traduced to all those, who have since acted the same things, especially to the em- peror's successor at Rome, needs not to be proved. With the power of the dragon, the wisdom also is derived. See that great champion. Cardinal Bellarmine, fighting with these very weapons. Lib. de Laicis, cap. 21. And indeed, however illus- trated, improved, adorned, supported, flourished, and sweet- ened, they are the sum of all that to this day hath been said in the same case.
(3.) Having made a law, and supported it with such
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reasons as these, in proceeding to the execution of the pe- nalty of that law, as to particular persons (which penalty being, as now, arbitrary, was inflicted unto banishment, im- prisonment, mine-digging, torturing in sundry kinds, maim- ing, death, according to the pleasure of the judges), they always charged upon those persons, not only the denying and opposing their own deities, religion, and worship ; but also, that that which they embraced, was foolish, absurd, detestable, pernicious, sinful, wicked, ruinous to common- wealths, cities, society, families, honesty, order, and the like. If a man should go about to delineate the Christian religion, by the lines and featui^s drawn thereof, in the in- vectives and accusations of their adversaries, he mightjustly suppose, that indeed that was their god, which was set up at Rome with this inscription, ' DEUS CHRISTIANORUM ONONYCHITES :' being an image with ass's ears, in a gown, claws or talons upon one foot, with a book in his hand. Charged they were that they worshipped an ass's head, which impious folly first fastened on the Jews by Tacitus, Hist, lib. 5. cap. 1. in these words, ' Effigiem animalis, quo mon- strante, errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere' (having before set out a feigned direction received by a com- pany of asses), which he had borrowed from Appion, a railing Egyptian of Alexandria,' was so ingrafted in their minds, that no defensative could be allowed. '"The sun, the cross, * sacerdotis genitalia,' were either really sup- posed, or impiously imposed on them, as the objects of their worship. The blood and flesh of infants, at Thyestean banquets, was said to be their food and provision; promis- cuous lust, with incest, their chiefest refreshment. Such as these it concerned them to have them thought to be, being resolved to use them, as if they were so indeed. Hence I am not sometimes without some suspicion, that many of the impure abominations, follies, villanies, which
^ Joseph, ad. App. lib. 1. " Moses novos ritus contrariosque Cfeleris mortalibus indidit. Profana illic omnia, quie apud nos sacra ; rnrsuni concessa apud illos, quae nobis incesta. Pro ■ jectissima ad libidinera gens atienaruni concubitum abstinent, inter se nihil iliicitiira. Tacitus (de Judasis) Hist. lib. 5. Judajos, iinpulsore Chresto quotidie tumultuantes Roma expuht, falsely and foolishly. Suet. Claud, cap. 25. Quaesitissimis poenis afficiebat. qiios per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. Tac. An. lib. 15. Alflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hoiuinunisuperstitioiiis novse ac in,iiefica». Sueton. ill Nerunc, cap. 16.
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are ascribed unto the primitive heretics, yea, the very Gnostics themselves (upon whom the filth that lies is be- yond all possible belief"), might be feigned and imposed, as to a great part thereof. For though not the very same, yet things as foolish and opposite to the light of nature, were at the same time charged on the most orthodox.
But you will say, they who charged these things upon the Catholics, were Pagans, enemies of God and Christ ; but these who so charged heretics, were Christians them- selves. And so say I also, and therefore for reverence of the name (though perhaps I could), I say no more. But yet this I say, that story which you have in Minutius Felix (or Arnobius 8. book apologetical), of the meeting of Chris- tians, the drawing away of the light by a dog. tied to the candlestick, so to make way for adulteries and incests, I have heard more than once told with no small confidence of Brownists and Puritans. Hath not this very same course been taken in latter ages ? Consult the writings of Waldensis, and the rest of his companions, about WicklifFe and his fol- lowers ; see the occasion of his falling off from Rome in our own chronicles, in Fabian of old, yea, and Daniel of late, to gratify a popish court ; of Eckius, Hosius, Staphylus, Bolsecte, Bellarmine, and the rest, who have undertaken to pourtray out unto us Luther and Calvin, with their followers ; and you will quickly see, that their great design was to put on (as they did upon the head of John Huss at the council of Constance, when he was led to the stake) the ugly vizard of some devilish appearance, that under that form they might fit them for fire and fagot. And herein also is the polity of the dragon derived to the false prophet, and a colour tem- pered for persecutors to imbrue their hands in the blood of martyrs.