fectually in them as ever. But to close this discourse; ignorance of men's invincible prejudices, of their convictions, strong persuasions, desires, aims, hopes, fears, inducements, sensibleness of our own infirmities, failings, misapprehensions, darkness, knowing but in part, should work in us a charitable opinion of poor erring creatures, that do it perhaps with as upright, sincere hearts and affections, as some enjoy truth. Austin' tells the Manichees, the most paganish heretics that ever were, that they only raged and were high against them, who knew not what it was to seek the truth, and escape error; with what ardent prayers the knowledge of truth is obtained. And how tender is Salvians in his judgment of the Arians? They are,' saith he, 'heretics, but know it not; heretics to us, but not to themselves: nay, they think themselves so catholic, that they judge us to be heretics, what they are to us, that are we to them: they err, but with a good mind, and for this cause God shews patience towards them.'

Now if any should dissent from what I have before asserted concerning this particular, I would entreat him to lay down some notes, whereby heresies may infallibly be discerned to be such, and he shall not find me repugning.

6. That great consideration ought to be had of that sovereign dictate of nature, the sum of all moral duties, 'quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris;' do not that unto others, which you would not have done to you, were you in the same condition with them. In the business in hand, we are supposed by others to be in that estate, wherein we suppose those to be of whom we speak; those others being to us, what we are to them. Now truly if none of the former inconveniences and iniquities which we recounted, assertion 2, 3, 4, or the like, do accompany erring persons, it will be something difficult to make it appear, how we may, if enjoying authority over them, impose any coercion, restraint, or punishment on them, which we would not acknowledge to be justly laid on us by others (supposing it should be laid) having authority over us, convinced that our persuasion differing from them, is false and erroneous. No

f Illi in vos sæviunt, qui nesciunt cum quo labore inveniatur, et quam difficile caveantur errors, &c. Aug.

8 Apud nos sunt hæretici, apud se non sunt: quod ergo illi nobis sunt, hoc nos illis. &c. Salv. de prov. &c.

sort of Christians but are heretics and schismatics to some Christians in authority; and it may be their lot to live under the power and jurisdiction of men so persuaded of them, where they ought to expect, that the same measure will be given unto them, which in other places they have consented to mete out to others.

But men will say, and all men pleading the cause of nontoleration in its full extent do say, that they are heretics, and erroneous persons whom we do oppose: we ourselves are orthodox, and no law of nature, no dictate of the Scriptures requires, that we should think it just to render unto them that are orthodox, as unto them that are heretics, seducers, and false teachers. Because thieves are punished, shall honest men fear that they shall be so too? But a thief is a thief in all the world, unto all men: in opinions it is not so: he is a heretic, that is to be punished, but to whom? in whose judgment? in his own? no more than we are in ours: but he is so to them that judge him: true. Put the case a Protestant were to be judged by a Papist, as a thousand saints have been: is he not the worst of heretics to his judge? These things turn in a circle: what we are to ourselves, that he is to himself: what he is to us, that we are unto others that may be our judges. But however, you will say, we are in the truth, and therefore ought to go free. Now truly this is the same paralogism: who says we are in the truth? others? no, ourselves: who says erroneous persons (as so supposed) are heretics, or the like? they themselves? no, but we and those that are to us, as we are to them, say no less of us. Let us not suppose that all the world will stoop to us, because we have the truth, as we affirm, but they do not believe. If we make the rule of our proceedings against others to be our conviction, that they are erroneous; others will, or may make theirs of us, to be their rule of proceeding against us. We do thus to them, because we so judge of them: will not others, who have the same judgment of us, as we of them, do the like unto us? Now here I profess that I do not desire to extend any thing in this discourse, to the patronizing of any error whatsoever, I mean any thing, so commonly esteemed in the reformed churches, as myself owning any such; much less to the procuring of a licentious immunity, for every one in his way; and least of all to coun

tenance men walking disorderly in any regard, especially in the particulars before recounted; but only to shew how warily, and upon what sure principles, that cannot be retorted on us, we ought to proceed, when any severity is necessarily required, in case of great danger; and how in lesser things, if the unity of faith may in some comfortable measure be kept, then to assert the proposition in its full latitude, urging and pleading for Christian forbearance, even in such manner to be granted, as we would desire it from them, whom we do forbear; for truly in those disputable things, we must acknowledge ourselves in the same series with other men, unless we can produce express patents for our exemptions. But some perhaps will say, that even in such things. as these Gamaliel's counsel is not good; better all go on. with punishing that can; truth will not be suppressed, but error will. Good God! was not truth oppressed by antichristian tyranny? was not outward force the engine that for many generations kept truth in corners? But of this afterward.

Now I am mistaken, if this principle, that the civil magistrate ought to condemn, suppress, and persecute every one that he is convinced to err, though in smaller things, do not at length, in things of greater importance, make Christendom a very theatre of bloody murders, killing, slaying, imprisoning men round in a compass; until the strongest becomes dictator to the rest, and he alone be supposed to have infallible guidance, all the rest to be heretics, because overcome and subdued (when I speak of death and killing in this discourse, I understand not only forcible death itself, but that also which is equivalent thereunto, as banishment, or perpetual imprisonment), I had almost said, that it is the interest of mortality, to consent generally to the persecution of a man maintaining such a destructive opinion.

7. That whatsoever restraint, or other punishment may be allowed in case of grosser errors, yet slaying of heretics for simple heresy, as they call it, for my part I cannot close withal; nor shall ever give my vote to the burning, hanging, or killing of a man, otherwise upright, honest, and peaceable in the state, merely because he misbelieveth any point of Christian faith. Let what pretences you please be produced, or colours flourished, I should be very unwilling to pro

nounce the sentence of blood in the case of heresy. I do not intend here to dispute: but if any one will, upon protestant principles, and Scripture grounds, undertake to assert it, I promise (if God grant me life) he shall not want a convert, or an antagonist. I know the usual pretences: such a thing is blasphemy: but search the Scripture, look upon the definitions of divines, and by all men's consent you will find heresy, in what head of religion soever it be, and blasphemy properly so called, to be exceedingly distant. Let a blasphemer undergo the law of blasphemy: but yet I think we cannot be too cautious how we place men in that damnable series, calling heaven and earth to witness the contrary. But again: to spread such errors will be destructive to souls; so are many things, which yet are not punishable with forcible death: let him that thinks so go kill Pagans and Mahometans. As such heresy is a canker, but a spiritual one, let it be prevented by spiritual means; cutting off men's heads is no proper remedy for it: if state physicians think otherwise, I say no more, but that I am not of the college, and what I have already said I submit to better judgments.

8. It may be seriously considered, upon a view of the state and condition of Christians, since their name was known in the world, whether this doctrine of punishing erring persons with death, imprisonment, banishment, and the like, under the name of heretics, hath not been as useful and advantageous for error, as truth; nay, whether it hath not appeared the most pernicious invention that ever was broached in the first, second, and third ages, we hear little of it; nothing for it; something against it: much afterward against it, in Austin and others." Marlinus, the famous French bishop, rejected the communion of a company of his associate bishops, because they had consented with Maximus the emperor, unto the death of the Priscillianists, as vile heretics as ever breathed. At the end of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, when the Arians and orthodox had successively procured the supreme magistrate to join with them, men were killed and dismembered like beasts: banishments, imprisonments, plunderings, es

* Τοὺς μισοῦντας τὸν Θεὸν μισεῖν χρὴ καὶ ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐχθροῖς αὐτοῦ ἐκτήκεσθαι, οὐ μὲν καὶ τύπτειν αυτοὺς καὶ διώκειν, καθὼς τὰ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ ἐιδότα τὸν κύριον καὶ Θεόν· ἀλλ ̓ ἐχθροὺς μὲν ἡγεῖσθαι, καὶ χωρίζεσθαι απ' αὐτῶν. Ignat. Epist. ad Philad.

pecially by the Arians were as frequent, as in new subdued kingdoms. But never was this tragedy so acted to the life, as by the worshippers of images on the one side, and their adversaries on the other: which difference rose about the year 130, and was carried on with that barbarous outrage on both sides, especially by the Iconolatræ (as the worst were ever best at such proceedings), as is wonderful to consider. Now excepting only those idolatrous heretics in the last, who were paid home in their own coin, for a thousand years together, this doctrine was put in practice against none almost, but the martyrs of Jesus. The Roman stories of the killing of heretics, are all martyrologies; thousands slain for heretics now lie under the altar, crying for vengeance, and shall one day sit upon thrones, judging their judges. So that where one man hath suffered for an error, under the name of a heretic, five hundred under the same notion have suffered for truth: a principle would seem more befitting Christians to spare five hundred for the saving of one guiltless person. Truth hath felt more of the teeth of this scorpion, than error; and clearly it grew up by degrees with the whole mystery of iniquity. In the gospel we have nothing like it: the acts of Christ purging the temple, Peter pronouncing the fate of Ananias, and Paul smiting Elymas with blindness, seem to me heterogeneous. The first laws of Constantine speak liberty and freedom. Pecuniary mulcts afterward were added, and general edicts against all sects, and so it is put over into the hands of the Arians, who exceedingly cherished it: yet for a good while pretences must be sought out, Eustachius of Antioch must be accused of adultery, Athanasius of sedition, magic, and I know not what, that a colour might be had for their persecution. The Arian kings in Africa, were the first that owned it, yvuvā Kεpaλn, and acted according to their persuasions. Methinks I hear the cries of poor dismembered, mangled creatures, for the faith of the holy Trinity! Next to these, through a few civil constitutions of some weak emperors, it wholly comes to reside in the hands of the pope; kings and princes are made his executioners, and he plays his game to the purpose. Single persons serve not this Bel and Dragon, whole Theophanes. histor. Miscel. lib. 22. cap. 30. * Socrat. Evag. Rufinus. Sozom.

Euseb. vit. Const. lib. 2. cap. 27.

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