СНАР. « among us are put to death by the sword of the Spirit, " and by being cast out of the church."

III.

Maximo

c. 1. 2.

75. So in his 54th epistle, refuting those who separated Presbytero, themselves from the Church, he thus bespeaks them. "And indeed the cause seemed to me to be plainly this; "that you left all your glory behind you in your prison, "when, upon your coming out of it, you suffered your"selves to be entangled in the errors of heresy and "schism. The honour of your character seemed, I say, "to be left there behind you, when the soldiers of Christ "returned not to his Church, upon their being let out of "prison, into which they had been thrown, with the "praises and gratulations of his Church attending them. "For though tares should appear in the Church, yet that "should give no scandal to our faith and charity, nor "should we leave the Church because we observe them in "it. Our business is to labour with all our might, that "we ourselves may be found true wheat, that so, when "the time shall come for gathering the wheat into our "Lord's barns, we may reap the fruit of our honest endeaThe Apostle saith in one of his Epistles, that in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some to honour, " and some to dishonour. We therefore should strive as "far as we are able, to become vessels of gold or silver: "but as for those of earth, we should remember that the "breaking them belongeth only to our Lord, who alone "is entrusted with the rod of iron. The servant must "not pretend to be greater than his Master, nor ought

Cornelio

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vours.

any person to assume to himself a privilege which the "Father hath granted only to his Son, or imagine that he "is fit or able to manage the shovel or fan, or to purge "the floor, or to separate all the tares from the wheat, by "the power or sagacity of human judgment. It is obsti"nate pride, and a presumptuous robbery of God, which "makes men so rash and so assuming."

76. Again in his 59th epistle, "Nor should any one, Fratri, c. 6, " says he, be surprised at observing, that the Bishop, who

7.

❝is but a servant, should be forsaken by certain persons; CHAP. "since the Master himself was left by his disciples, though

❝he performed such great wonders, and shewed forth the power of God his Father in them, yet did not he upbraid "them when they were going from him, or give out any 66 severe threatenings against them, but only turning to "his Apostles asked them, Will ye also go away? therein 66 preserving the law inviolate, whereby man is left to his 66 liberty of choosing for himself either death or salvation." And a little after; "As for ourselves, dear brother, we must "be careful that none fall away from the Church through any fault of ours; but if any by their own choice and "through their own fault miscarry, and refuse to do pe66 nance, and to return into the Church; we who consult "their safety shall be blameless in the day of judgment, "whilst they only shall remain obnoxious to punishment, "who would not hearken to our wholesome counsel, nor "make any use of it." In this manner did these two Doctors of the Church express their dislike of all force and violence in matters of conscience and eternal salvation.

* Pamelius observes, that these very Fathers elsewhere express themselves as of a quite contrary opinion. To prove this of the first of them, he instances in a passage in the beginning of his book called Scorpiacum, of the good of martyrdom, viz. ad officium hæreticos compelli, non inlici dignum est. Duritia vincenda est, non suadenda. As for St. Cyprian, he quotes his Exhortation to Martyrdom, and his 55th Epistle to Antonianus, §. 5. where the Father thus speaks. If before the coming of Christ these precepts concerning the worshipping of God and despising of idols were to be observed, how much more are they to be followed since his coming, when he has persuaded us, not only with words, but with deeds! Having after he had suffered all manner of injuries and reproaches, been also crucified that he might teach us by his example to suffer and die; that no man might have any excuse for not suffering for himself, since he suffered for us; and since he suffered for other men's sins, much more ought every one to suffer for his own. Both Tertullian and St. Cyprian are speaking of the same thing, viz. the laws made for the punishment of idolaters under the Mosaical dispensation. To this Tertullian plainly refers, when he observes, that it was then thought meet that heretics should be compelled, &c. Idolatry was under that theocracy an act of high treason against the Sovereign, and therefore was punished with death. But it does not thence follow, as Pamelius and Cardinal Bellarmine would have it, that in a Christian commonwealth, where the sovereign is not God, but a man, heresy is to be capital, or to be punished with death.

III.

CHAP.

III.

77. Lactantius is yet more clear and open in maintaining the same doctrine; after having challenged the heathens to defend their gods, and put them in mind of their being able to do nothing by force towards the destruction of Christianity, which the more increased, the more it was Divin. Just. Oppressed, he adds, that "there is no need of force and lib. v. c. 19. «violence, because religion cannot be compelled; and

"that it may be a man's free choice, the matter ought to "be transacted by words or arguments, not by blows. "Let them therefore draw the sword of their wits; if "their reasoning be good, let it be produced; we are pre"pared to hear them, if they will but instruct us: but 66 we no more believe those who say nothing, than we 66 yield to them who torment us with their cruelties. Let “them imitate us, and give an account of the whole mat"ter; for we do not, as they object to us, entice men, but

we teach them, we prove, we demonstrate to them; "therefore is nobody detained by us against his own con"sent; since he is useless unto God, who has not faith " and devotion; and yet nobody leaves us, the truth itself "retaining him." And a little after; "They may know "therefore from hence the difference betwixt truth and "falsehood, seeing they themselves, though they are eloquent, cannot persuade, when the rude and unskilful can, because the thing speaks itself, and is the truth. Why therefore are they so cruel as to propagate their

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folly, when they should rather lessen it? Hanging and "devotion are very different things; nor can either truth "consist with force, nor justice with cruelty.But the “established religion is, say they, to be defended! O how "do the wretches wander by having their wills! For they "think there is nothing in this world more excellent than "religion, and that they ought to defend that with the " utmost violence: but they are deceived, as in the reli"gion itself, so in the kind of its defence; for religion is " to be defended, not by killing others, but by dying our"selves; not by cruelty, but by patience; not by wickedness, but by faith; since those are the qualities of the

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III.

"wicked, these of the good; and it is necessary that in CHAP. "religion there should be good and not evil. For if you "will defend religion by shedding blood, by torments, and

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by doing evil, you will not defend religion, but pollute "and violate it. For nothing is so voluntary as religion, "in which if the mind be averse, religion is gone and nul"lified. Right reason therefore is, that you defend reli66 gion by patience or by death, in which if the faith be "kept, it is both acceptable to God himself, and adds authority to religion." To the same purpose in the next chapter; "That is not a sacrifice which is extorted from c. 20. "one who is unwilling to offer it. For unless it be of"fered voluntarily, and with a willing mind, it is an exe"cration; since men offer it as they are compelled to it, "by proscriptions, by wrongs, by imprisonment, and by "torments. If they are Gods who are so worshipped, " even for this very reason they should not be worshipped, "because they desire to be worshipped in such a manner; "seeing they deserve the detestation of men, by whom 66 they are sacrificed to with tears and groans, and the "blood flowing from all parts of their bodies. But we on "the contrary do not desire, that any one against his will, " or whether he will or no, should worship our God, who "is the Creator of all things; nor are we angry with him "if he does not worship him."

Historia Inquisitionis,

78. Such was the harmless faith of the first Christians, Limborchi expressed according to the pattern of the Gospel, when as yet the world had not entered into the Church, and by its lib.i.c.2, 3. pride and splendour perverted the minds of Christians, and corrupted their innocent manners. But after that Christians came to have the reins of the civil government in their own hands, by the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity, with this change of their fortune there soon followed a change in their doctrine and behaviour; insomuch that their degenerate posterity, leaving the footsteps of their ancestors, at length brought back into the Church the heathens' cruelty, nay a cruelty more severe than that of the heathens was. What gave the

III.

Eusebii de

stantini

lib. ii. c. 60.

CHAP. "first occasion to it was the contention that happened betwixt Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, and Arius, a PresA. D. 313. byter of the same Church. The Emperor had before this Vita Con- published an edict, in the conclusion of which he exhorted his subjects both Christian and Pagan to live quietly and neighbourly together, and not to injure one another on account of their different opinions, telling them, that it is one thing voluntarily to undertake a warfare for immortality, and another to be compelled to it by force. But amidst these pleasing cares of his to preserve peace, tidings were brought to him of a great tumult being raised in the Church, and all things being in the utmost confusion; that not only were the Bishops divided among themselves on account of some religious opinions, but that the people were distinguished into parties, some taking one side, some another; and that these unhappy contests were not confined to the Church of Alexandria, where they first began, but like fire had spread, and taken hold Ibid. c. 64, of the other parts of the empire. On this the Emperor wrote a letter, which he directed to Alexander and Arius, in which he blames them both, and seriously exhorts them to mind the things which make for peace; for which purpose he observes, that, so far as he could find, the first cause of all these differences was very small, and no way deserving so much zeal and contention about, being only a strife about words. But so exasperated were the minds of the several contending parties, and so totally had they lost all manner of good temper by their drawing blood in contro

&c.

" The Emperor in his letter to Bishop Alexander, &c. mentions some in Africa, who, through a rash levity, had dared to divide the religion of the people into divers sects, and observes, that he had endeavoured to cure this distemper. In this he is thought to refer to the Donatists, who were very tumultuous, and of whom the Catholics often preferred complaints to the magistrates concerning their injurious treatment. St. Augustine therefore tells us, that Constantine was forced to make a very severe law against them, viz. that the places in which they held their religious assemblies should be all confiseated to the exchequer. The date of this edict, Pagi conjectures, is A. D. 316. X Διαδραμὼν τὴν σύμπασαν Αἴγυπτον σε καὶ Λιβύτην, τὴν ἐπέκεινα Θηβαΐδα· ἤδη δὲ καὶ τὰς λοιπὰς ἐπενέμετο ἐπαρχίας τε καὶ πόλεις.