John Owen · 26 of 157

Of toleration; and the duty of the magistrate about religion. · Part 2

The old heathens carried their gods into the war (as did the Philistines, 1 Chron. xiv. 12, and the Israelites the ark, with heathenish superstition, 1 Sam. iv. 3), to whom they ascribed the success they obtained; and in requital of their kindness, they forced the dunghill deities of the conquered nations to attend the triumph of their victorious idols; and unless they adopted them into the number of their own gods, all farther worship to them was forbidden. Hence were these inventions among the old Romans, by spells and enchantments, to entice away a deity from any city they besieged (they being as expert at the getting of a devil as Tobias’s Raphael, or the present Romanists at his fumigation); by which means they shrived into the honour of having thirty thousand unconquered idols, and deserved worthily that change of their city’s epithet from Ἐπιτομὴ οἰκουμένης to Ἐπιτομὴ δεισιδαιμονίας — which it justly inheriteth to this very day. Rabshakeh’s provocation to the example of the gods of the nations, 2 Kings xviii. 33, 34, and the Roman senate’s consultation concerning the admitting of Christ to a place among their idols, that he might have been freely worshipped (their consent being prevented by his almighty , who will not be enrolled among the vilest works of his most corrupted creatures), do both declare this thing.

Now, not to speak of Cain, who seems to me to have laid the foundation of that cruelty which was afterwards inserted into the church’s orthodoxies by the name of Hæreticidium; we find the four famous empires of the world to have drunk 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. 1.

Daniel’s casting into the lions’ den, chapter vi., shows that 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 Egyptian 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 thousands of Christians, and so not to be questioned; yet, that it may appear that we are not the only men in this generation, 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 consent, decree, and establishment of the senate. Mention is made of a formal law to this purpose in Tertullian, Apol., cap. v., 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 publicè ascitos, 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 Mæcenas to Augustus, in Dion Cassius: Τὸ μὲν ζεῖον πάντη πάντως αὐτός τε σέβου, κατὰ τὰ πάτρια, καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους τιμᾷν ἀνάγκαζε· τοὺς δὲ δὴ ζενίζοντάς τι περὶ αὐτὸ, καὶ μίσει καὶ κόλαζε, μὴ μόνον τῶν θεῶν ἕνεκα, ὧν καταφρονήσας οὐδ’ ἄλλου ἄν τινος προτιμήσειεν, ἀλλ’ ὅτι καινά τινα δαιμόνια οἱ τοιοῦτοι ἀντεισφέροντες πολλοὺς ἀναπείθουσιν ἀλλοτριονομεῖν· κᾀκ τούτου καὶ συνωμοσίαι καὶ συστάσεις, ἐταιρείαι τε γίγνονται, ἅπερ ἥκιστα μοναρχίᾳ συμφέρει — “Worship,” saith he, “the divine power thyself according to the constitutions of thy country, everywhere and at all times; and compel others so to honour it. But hate and punish those who introduce foreign religions; not only for the god’s sake — whom he who contemneth will regard nothing else — but because such, introducing new deities, do persuade many to (or to change affairs); are conjurations, seditions, private societies — things no way conducing to monarchy,” Hist. Rom., lib. 52:36.

Hence, doubtless, was that opposition which Paul met withal in divers 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 xvii. 1. For although, as Strabo observeth of the Athenians, that publicly, by the authority of the magistrates, πολλὰ τῶν ζενικῶν ἱερῶν παρεδέξαντο, “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 Laertius witnesseth, was condemned as οὕς μὲν νομίζει ζεοὺς — “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 Philippi. 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 observe, being Romans:” οὐκ ἔξεστι Ῥωμαίοις, — “it is 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 annotation on that place be seen. Gallio’s refusing to judge between 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 calamitas.”

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 anti-christian power succeeding in the room of the paganish — the pope and councils, 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 witnesses 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. ii., De Leg., “Suosque deos, aut novos, aut alienigenas coli, confusionem habet,” etc.; — it brings in confusion of religion and civil society. The same is clearly held out in that counsel of Mæcenas to Augustus before mentioned. “They,” saith he, “who introduce new deities, draw many into innovations; 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 breaking out 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 emperors’ 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 illustrated, improved, adorned, supported, flourished, and sweetened, 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 reasons, as these, in proceeding to the execution of the penalty of that law as to particular persons (which penalty being, as now, arbitrary, was inflicted unto banishment, imprisonment, mine-digging, torturing in sundry kinds, maiming, 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 commonwealths, cities, society, families, honesty, order, and the like. If a man should go about to delineate the Christian religion by the lines and features drawn thereof in the invectives and accusations of their adversaries, he might justly suppose that indeed that was their god which was set up at Rome with this inscription, “Deus Chistianorum 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. v. cap. 1, in these words, “Effigiem animalis, quo monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere” (having before set out a feigned direction received by a company of asses), which he had borrowed from Apion, 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 supposed, 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; promiscuous 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, villainies, which are ascribed unto the primitive heretics, yea, the very Gnostics themselves (upon whom the filth that lies is beyond 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 themselves. 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, viii. book apologetical), of the meeting of Christians, 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 . 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 followers, — 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, Bolsec, Bellarmine, and the rest who have undertaken to portray 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 visard 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 tempered for persecutors to imbrue their hands in the blood of martyrs.

This was the old Roman way, and I thought it not amiss to cautionate those enjoying truth and authority, that, if it be possible, they may not walk in their steps and method. The course accounted so for the extirpation of error was, as you see, first invented for the extirpation of truth.

2. I desire it may be observed, that the general issue and tendence of unlimited arbitrary persecution, or punishing for conscience’ sake (because in all ages, οἱ πλείονες κακοὶ, and the worst of men have sat at the upper end of the world, for the most part more false worshippers having enjoyed authority over others than followers of the Lamb), hath been pernicious, fatal, and dreadful to the profession and professors of the gospel, — little or not at all serviceable to the truth.

I have heard it averred by a reverend and learned personage, that more blood of heretics hath been shed by wholesome severity, in the maintenance of the truth and opposition unto errors, than hath been shed of the witnesses of Jesus by the sword of persecution, in the hands of heretics and false worshippers; — an assertion, I conceive, under favour, so exceedingly distant from the reality of the thing itself, that I dare take upon me, against any man breathing, that in sundry Christian provinces, — almost in every one of the west, — more lives have been sacrificed to the one idol Hæreticidium, of those that bear witness to the truth, in the belief for which they suffered, than all the heretics, properly so called, that ever were slain in all the provinces of the world by men professing the gospel. And I shall give that worthy divine, or any other of his persuasion, his option among all the chiefest provinces of Europe, to tie me up unto which they please. He that shall consider that above sixty thousand persons were, in six years or little more, cut off in a judicial way, by Duke D’Alva in the Netherlands, in pursuit of the sentence of the inquisition, will conclude that there is “causa facilis” in my hand.

The ancient contest between the Homoousians and the Arians, — the first controversy the churches were agitated withal after they enjoyed a Christian magistrate (and may justly be supposed to be carried on to the advantage of error beyond all that went before it, because of the civil magistrates interesting themselves in the quarrel), — was not carried out to violence and blood before the several persuasions lighted on several dominions and state interests: as between the Goths, Vandals, and the rest of their companions on one side, who were Arians; and the Romans on the other. In all whose bickerings, notwithstanding, the honour of severity did still attend the Arians, especially in Africk, where they persecuted the Catholics with horrible outrage and fury:— five thousand at one time were barbarously exposed to all manner of cruel villainy. Some eruptions of passion had been before among emperors themselves; but still with this difference, that they who Arianized carried the bell for zeal against dissenters. Witness Valens, who gave place in persecution to none of his pagan predecessors, killing, burning, slaying, making havoc of all orthodox professors; yea, perhaps that which he did — at least was done by the countenance of his authority — at Alexandria, upon the placing in of Lucius an Arian in the room of Athanasius, thrusting Peter beside the chair, who was rightly placed according to the custom of those times; perhaps, I say, the tumults, rapes, murders, then and there acted, did outgo what before had been done by the Pagans. See Theodoret, Eccles. Hist., lib. iv., cap. 19. It were tedious to pursue the lying, slandering invectives, banishments, deaths, tumults, murders, which attend this council all along, after once they began to invoke the help of the emperors one against another; yet in this space some magistrates, weary with persecuting ways, did not only abstain practically from force and violence, — as most of the orthodox emperors did, — but also enacted laws for the freedom of such as dissented from them. Jovianus, a pious man, grants all peace that will be peaceable; offended only with them who would offer violence to others, Socrates Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. cap. 25. Gratianus makes a law, whereby he granted liberty to all sects, but Manichees, Photinians, and Eunomians, Sozom. Eccles. Hist., lib. vii. cap. 1. Many more the like examples might be produced.

The next difference about the worship of God, to the Arian and its branches, that was controverted in letters of blood, was about images and their worship; in which, though some furious princes — in opposition to that growing idolatry which, by popes, bishops, priests, and especially monks, was in those days violently urged — did mingle some of their blood with their sacrifices; yet not to the tithe almost of what the Iconolastræ, getting uppermost, returned upon them and their adherents.

This, if occasion were, might be easily demonstrated from Paulus Diaconus, and others. After this, about the year 850, — about which time the Iconolatræ having ensnared the west by polity (the posterity of Charles the Great, who had stoutly opposed the worship of images, complying with the popes, the fathers of that worship, for their own ends), and wearied the east by cruelty, — that contest growing towards an end, the whole power of punishing for religion became subservient to the dictates of the pope, the kings of the earth giving their power to the beast; unto which point things had been working all along; — from , I say, until the death of Servetus in Geneva, the pursuit of Gentilis, Blandrata, and some other madmen in Helvetia, for the space well- of seven hundred years, — the chiefest season of the reign of Satan and Antichrist, — all punishing for religion was managed by the authority of Rome, and against the poor witnesses of Jesus, prophesying in sackcloth in the several regions of the west. And what streams of blood were poured out, what millions of martyrs slain in that space, is known to all. Hence Bellarmine boasteth that the Albigenses were extinguished by the sword, De Laic. cap. xxii. It is true, there were laws enacted of old by Theodosius, Valentinian, Martian, — as C. De. hæreticis, 1; Manichseis, 1; Arianis, 1; Unicuique, which last provideth for the death of seducers; but yet, truly, though they were made by Catholics, and in the favour of Catholics, considering to what end they were used, I can look upon them no otherwise but as very bottom-stones of the tower of Babel.

This, then, in its latitude proving so pernicious to the profession of the gospel, — having for so long driven the woman into the wilderness and truth into corners, — being the main engine whereby the tower of Babel was built, and that which at this day they cry unto, as the foundation-stone of the whole antichristian fabric, — we had need be cautious what use we make (as one terms it well) of the broom of Antichrist, to sweep the church of Christ. Whether that we are in the truth, and they blinded with error of whom we have spoken, be a sufficient plea, we shall see . In the meantime we may do well to remember what Louis XII. of France said, yea, swore, concerning the inhabitants of Mirindol, whom, by the instigation of his prelates, he had ordered to be slain, when news was brought him what was their and way of life: “Let them be heretics if you please,” saith he, “but assuredly they are better than I and my Catholics.” Take heed lest the punished be better than the punishers.

Let me add to this observation only this, that the attempt to suppress any opinions whatsoever by force hath been for the most part fruitless. For either some few particular persons are proceeded against, or else greater multitudes; if some particulars only, the ashes of one hath always proved the seed of many opinionatists. Examples are innumerable; take one, which is boasted of as a pattern of severity, taken from antiquity. About the year 390, Priscillianus, a Manichee, and a Gnostic, by the procurement of Ithacius and Idacius, two bishops, was put to death by Maximus, an usurping emperor, who ruled for a season, having slain Gratianus; as that kind of men would always close with any authority that might serve their own ends. Now, what was the issue thereof? Martinus, a Catholic bishop, renounces their communion who did it; the historian that reports it giving this censure of the whole, “Sic pessimo exemplo sublati sunt homines luce indignissimi;” — though the men (Priscillianus and his companions) were most unworthy to live, yet their sentence of death was most unjust. But no matter for this, was not the heresy suppressed thereby? See what the same historian, who wrote not long after, and was able to testify the event, says of it: “Non solum non repressa est hæresis, sed confirmata, et latius propagata est,” etc.; — “The heresy was so far from being suppressed hereby, that it was confirmed and propagated.” His followers, who before honoured him as a , now adore him as a martyr. The like in all ages hath been the issue of the like endeavours.

But now, if this course be undertaken against multitudes, what is or hath been the usual end of such undertakings? Take some examples of late days. Charles V., the most mighty emperor of Germany, undertakes by violence to extirpate the Lutherans and out of the empire. After a tedious war, the death of many thousands, the wasting of the nation, in the close of all himself is driven out of Germany, and the business left much where it began, Sleid. Com. Philip of Spain, will needs force the inquisition upon the Netherlands. What is the issue? After the expense of an ocean of blood, and more coin than would have purchased the country twice over, his posterity is totally deprived of all sovereignty over those parts.

Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart are put to death in Scotland by the procurement of a cardinal; the cardinal is instantly murdered by some desperate young men, and a war raised there about religion, which was never well quieted until, having hunted their queen out of her native kingdom, she had her head chopped off in England. The wars, seditions, tumults, murders, massacres, rapes, burnings, etc., that followed the same attempt in France, cannot be thought of without horror and detestation. Neither knew those things any end, until the present forbearance was granted. Instances might be multiplied, but these things are known to all. If any shall say, All these evils followed the attempting to suppress truth, not error, I shall answer him another time, being loath to do it unless compelled. Only for the present I shall say, that error hath as much right to a forcible defence as truth.

3. To stir us up yet farther to a serious consideration of the grounds and reasons which are laid down for the inflicting of punishment upon any for exorbitancies in things of religion (upon what hath been said), the perpetual coincidence of the causes by them held forth who pretend to plead for just severity, with their pretences who have acted unjust persecution, should be well heeded.

The position is laid down in general on both sides, That erring persons are so and so to be dealt withal, — that such is the power and duty of the magistrate in such cases. The definition of heresy is agreed on for the main; only the Papists place the church’s determination where others thrust in the heretic’s , — a thing much more obscure to bystanders and judges also. The appellations wherewith truth persecuted and error pursued are clothed, still the same. The consequences urged on all sides — of dishonour to God, trouble to the state, and the like — not at all discrepant. The arguments for the one and other for the most part the same. Look what reasons one sect gives for the punishing of another, — the names being changed, are retorted. He blasphemeth to the heretic, who chargeth blasphemy upon him. We use no other arguments, cite no other texts, press no other consequences for the punishing of other heretics, than the Papists, the wisest heretics breathing, do for the punishment of us.

No colour, no pretence, but hath been equally used in all hands. None can say, This is mine. To Luther’s objection, that the Church of Christ never burned a heretic, for Huss and Jerome were none; Bellarmine answers, they were heretics to them Catholics, which did suffice, De Laic. cap. xxi. And indeed this vicissitude of things is very pernicious. All Christians almost are heretics to some enjoying authority (as Salvian said the case was between the Homoousians and Arians in his time); and most of those enjoying authority are persuaded it is their duty to suppress them whom they account heretics, and, answerably, have more or less acted according to this persuasion, until, by blood, wars, and horrid devastations of nations, some of them have been wearied. From the first croisade against the Albigenses, through the war of the Hussites under Zisca and the Procopii, those dreadful massacres before recounted, what a stage of blood hath Europe been made on this account! I desire that to this point the declaration of the Netherlands, at the beginning of their troubles (whom Bellarmine affirms to have petitioned for liberty of conscience, as he was writing “De Hæreticidio,” the thing being long before granted at Spira, at the convention of the states of the empire, in the year 1526), may be seriously considered.

4. For the necessity of courses of extremity against erroneous persons, for the upholding “the faith once delivered to the saints,” and the keeping the churches in peace, it doth not appear to me to be so urgent as is pretended.

For three hundred years the church had no assistance from any magistrate against heretics; and yet in all that space there was not one long-lived or far-spreading heresy, in comparison of those that followed. As the disease is spiritual, so was the remedy which in those days was applied; and the Lord Jesus Christ made it effectual The Christians also of those days disclaimed all thoughts of such proceedings. The expressions of the most ancient, as Polycarpus, Ignatius, Irenæus, concerning heretics, are sharp and cutting; their avoiding of them, being admonished, precise and severe; their confutations of them laborious and diligent; their church censures and ejections piercing and sharp; communion amongst the churches close, exact, and carefully preserved, so that a stubborn heretic was thrust out of Christian society; — but for corporeal punishment, to be inflicted on them, in their writings not a syllable. Until Augustine was changed from his first resolution and persuasion, by the madness of Donatistical Circumcellions, this doctrine had but poor footing in antiquity. And whether his reasons as to this point be convincing, let any impartial man read his Epistle 50, and determine. What some say, — The Christians would have been of another mind had they enjoyed Christian magistrates, — is so suited to our present frame and temper, but so unworthy of them, that I should wrong them by a defensative. What was their sense of them, in a spiritual way, is clear. John, they say, would not in a bath where Cerinthus the heretic, infected with Judaism and Paganism, was; saying, “Let us depart, lest the building fall on us where Cerinthus is,” Iren., lib. iii. cap. 3; Euseb. Eccles. Hist., lib. iii. cap. 28. Marcion meeting Polycarpus, and asking him whether he knew him, or acknowledged him, his answer was, “Yea, to be the first-born of the devil,” Euseb., lib. iv. cap. 14. Ignatius’s epistles are full of the like expressions. Irenæus says, he would have no words with them, lib. iii. cap. 3. Tertullian’s books testify for him at large, with what keenness of spirit he pursued the heretics of his days, though before the end of them he had the unhappiness to be almost one himself. Cyprian cries out, “Nulla cum talibus convivia, nulla colloquia, nulla commercia misceantur,” Epist. iii. ad Cornel; — “Neither eat, nor talk, nor deal with them.” Antonius the hermit leaves testimony when he was dying, “that he never had peaceable conference with them all his days,” Vita Anton. inter Oper. Athan. Surely had these men perceived the mind of God for their bodily punishment, they would not have failed to signify their minds therein; but truly their expressions hold out rather the quite contrary. Τοὺς μισοῦντας τὸν Θεὸν, μισεῖν χρὴ καὶ ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐχθροῖς αὐτοῦ ἐκτήκεσθαι· οὐ μὴν καὶ τύπτειν αὐτοὺς η` διώκειν, καθὼς τὰ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ εἰδότα τὸν Κύριον καὶ Θεὸν, ἀλλ’ ἐχθοὺς μὲν ἡγεῖσθαι καὶ χωρίζεσθαι ἀπ’ αὐτῶν, says Ignatius, Epist. ad Philad.; — “Count them enemies, and separate from them who hate God; but for beating or persecuting them, that is proper to the who know not God, nor our Saviour: do not you so.” Tertullian in very many places lays down general maxima tending to more liberty than is now pleaded for. One or two places may be pointed at: “Videte ne et hoc ad irreligiositatis elogium concurrat, adimere libertatem religionis, et interdicere optionem divinitatis, ut non liceat mihi colere quem velim, sed cogar colere quem nolim. Nemo se ab invito coli vellet, ne homo quidem,” Apol., cap. xxiv. And again to Scapula the governor of Carthage, to dissuade him from the persecution he intended: “Tamen humani juris et naturalis potestatis est unicuique quod putaverit colere, nec alii obest, aut prodest alterius religio: sed nec religionis est cogere religionem, quæ sponte suscipi debeat, non vi; cum et hostiæ ab animo libenti expostulentur: ita et si nos compuleritis ad sacrificandum, nihil præstabitis diis vestris, ab invitis enim sacrificia non desiderabunt.” And I desire to know, whether that which he maketh to be the plea of Christians may not also be used by all erring persons: “Quasi non totum quod in nos potestis, nostrum sit arbitrium. Certe si velim, Christianus sum, tunc ergo me damnabis, si damnari velim. Cum vero quod in me potes, nisi velim, non potes, jam meæ voluntatis est quod potes, non tuæ potestatis,” Apol., cap. xlix. Hence was that query of Lactantius, “Quis imponet mihi necessitatem aut credendi quod nolim, aut quod velim non credendi?” And long after these, Gregory of Rome, lib. ii. Epist. lii., tells us, “Nova et inaudita est ista prædicatio, quæ verberibus exigit fidem;” — to beat in faith with stripes, was then a new kind of preaching. These and the like were their expressions.