good, but is very apt to do hurt; for no man can change his opinion when he will, or be satisfied in his reason that his opinion is false, because discountenanced. If a man could change his opinion when he lists, he might cure many inconveniences of his life: all his fears and his sorrows would soon disband, if he would but alter his opinion, whereby he is persuaded that such an accident that afflicts him is an evil, and such an object formidable: let him but believe himself impregnable, or that he receives a benefit when he is plundered, disgraced, imprisoned, condemned, and afflicted, neither his steps need to be disturbed, nor his quietness discomposed. But if a man cannot change his opinion when he lists, nor ever does heartily or resolutely but when he cannot do otherwise, then to use force may make him a hypocrite, but never to be a right believer; and so, instead of erecting a trophy to God and true religion, we build a monument for the devil. Infinite examples are recorded in church-story to this very purpose. But Socrates instances in one for all: for when Eleusius bishop of Cyzicum was threatened by the emperor Valens with banishment and confiscation, if he did not subscribe to the decree of Ariminum,-at last he yielded to the Arian opinion, and presently fell into great torment of conscience, openly at Cyzicum recanted the error, asked God and the church forgiveness, and complained of the emperor's injustice: and that was all the good the Arian party got by offering violence to his conscience. And so many families in Spain, which are (as they call them) new Christians, and of a suspected faith, into which they were forced by the tyranny of the inquisition, and yet are secret Moors, are evidence enough of the inconvenience of preaching a doctrine in ore gladii cruentandi.' For it either punishes a man for keeping a good conscience, or forces him into a bad; it either punishes sincerity, or persuades hypocrisy; it persecutes a truth, or drives into error: and it teaches a man to dissemble and to be safe, but never to be honest.

12. Ninthly it is one of the glories of Christian religion, that it was so pious, excellent, miraculous, and persuasive, that it came in upon its own piety and wisdom, with no other

1 Ejusmodi fuit Hipponensium conversio, cujus quidem species decepit Angust. ità ut opinaretur hæreticos, licèt non morte trucidandos, vi tamen coercendos. Experientia enim demonstravit eos tam facilè ad Arianismum transiisse atque ad catholicismam, cùm Ariani prine pes rerum in ea civitate potirentur.

force but a torrent of arguments and demonstration of the Spirit; a mighty rushing wind to beat down all strong holds, and every high thought and imagination; but towards the persons of men it was always full of meekness and charity, compliance and toleration, condescension and bearing with one another," restoring persons overtaken with an error, in the spirit of meekness, considering lest we also be tempted." The consideration is as prudent, and the proposition as just, as the precept is charitable, and the precedent was pious and holy. Now things are best conserved with that which gives it the first being, and which is agreeable to its temper and constitution. That precept which it chiefly preaches in order to all the blessedness in the world, that is, of meekness, mercy, and charity, should also preserve itself and promote its own interest. For indeed nothing will do it so well, nothing doth so excellently insinuate itself into the understandings and affections of men, as when the actions and persuasions of a sect, and every part and principle and promotion, are univocal. And it would be a mighty disparagement to so glorious an institution, that in its principle it should be merciful and humane, and in the promotion and propagation of it so inhuman: and it would be improbable and unreasonable that the sword should be used in the persua sion of one proposition, and yet in the persuasion of the whole religion nothing like it. To do so may serve the end of a temporal prince, but never promote the honour of Christ's kingdom; it may secure a design of Spain, but will very much disserve Christendom, to offer to support it by that which good men believe to be a distinctive cognizance of the Mahometan religion from the excellency and piety of Christianity, whose sense and spirit are described in those excellent words of St. Paul; "The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging the truth." They that oppose themselves, must not be stricken by any of God's servants; and if yet any man will smite these who are his opposites in opinion, he will get nothing by that, he must quit the title of being a servant of

God,' for his pains. And I think, a distinction of persons secular and ecclesiastical will do no advantage for an escape, because even the secular power, if it be Christian, and a servant of God, must not be πληκτικός. Δούλον Κυρίου οὐ δεῖ μáxεoar I mean, in those cases where meekness of instruction is the remedy: or if the case be irremediable, abscission by censures is the penalty.

13. Tenthly and if yet in the nature of the thing it were. neither unjust nor unreasonable, yet there is nothing, under God Almighty, that hath power over the soul of man, so as to command a persuasion, or to judge a disagreeing. Human positive laws direct all external acts in order to several ends, and the judges take cognizance accordingly; but no man can command the will, or punish him that obeys the law against his will for because its end is served in external obedience, it neither looks after more, neither can it be served by more, nor take notice of any more. And yet possibly the understanding is less subject to human power than the will: for that human power hath a command over external acts, which naturally and regularly flow from the will, 'et ut plurimùm' suppose a direct act of will, but always either a direct or indirect volition, primary or accidental; but the understanding is a natural faculty subject to no command, but where the command is itself a reason fit to satisfy and persuade it. And therefore God, commanding us to believe such revelations, persuades and satisfies the understanding by his commanding and revealing: for there is no greater probation in the world, that a proposition is true, than because God hath commanded us to believe it. But because no man's command is a satisfaction to the understanding, or a verification of the proposition, therefore the understanding is not subject to human authority. They may persuade, but not enjoin where God hath not; and where God hath, if it appears soto him, he is an infidel if he does not believe it. And if all men have no other efficacy or authority on the understanding but by persuasion, proposal, and entreaty, then a man is bound to assent but according to the operation of the argument, and the energy of persuasion; neither indeed can he, though he would never so fain: and he that out of fear, and too much compliance, and desire to be safe, shall desire

to bring his understanding with some luxation to the belief of human dictates and authorities, may as often miss of the truth as hit it, but is sure always to lose the comfort of truth, because he believes it upon indirect, insufficient, and incompetent arguments: and as his desire it should be so, is his best argument that it is so, so the pleasing of men is his best reward, and his not being condemned and contradicted, all the possession of a truth.

SECTION XIV.

Of the Practice of Christian Churches towards Persons disagreeing, and when Persecution first came in.

AND thus this truth hath been practised in all times of Christian religion, when there were no collateral designs on foot, nor interests to be served, nor passions to be satisfied. In St. Paul's time, though the censure of heresy were not so loose and forward as afterward, and all that were called heretics, were clearly such and highly criminal, yet as their crime was, so was their censure, that is, spiritual. They were first admonished, once at least; for so Irenæus, Tertullian, Cyprian", Ambrose, and Jerome, read that place of Titus iii. But since that time all men, and at that time some read it, "Post unam et alteram admonitionem" reject a heretic: "Rejection from the communion of saints after two warnings," that is the penalty. St. John expresses it by not 'eating with them,' not 'bidding them God speed;' but the persons against whom he decrees so severely, are such as denied Christ to be come in the flesh, direct anti-christs. And let the sentence be as high as it lists in this case, all that I observe is, that since in so damnable doctrines nothing but spiritual censure, separation from the communion of the faithful was enjoined and prescribed, we cannot pretend to an apostolical precedent, if in matters of dispute and innocent question, and of great uncertainty and no malignity, we shall proceed to sentence of death.

2. For it is but absurd and illiterate arguing, to say that

Lib. 3. cap. 3.

* In hunc locum.

De præscript.

y lbidem.

u Lib. ad Quirinum.

excommunication is a greater punishment, and killing, a less; and therefore whoever may be excommunicated, may also be put to death: which indeed is the reasoning that Bellarmine uses. For, first, excommunication is not directly and of itself a greater punishment than corporal death, because it is indefinite and incomplete, and in order to a farther punishment; which if it happens, then the excommunication was the inlet to it; if it does not, the excommunication did not signify half so much as the loss of a member, much less death. For it may be totally ineffectual, either by the iniquity of the proceeding, or repentance of the person: and in all times and cases it is a medicine, if the man please; if he will not, but perseveres in his impiety, then it is himself that brings the censure to effect, that actuates the judgment, and gives a sting and an energy upon that, which otherwise would be xelo akupоç. Secondly, but when it is at worst, it does not kill the soul; it only consigns it to that death which it had deserved, and should have received independently from that sentence of the church. Thirdly, and yet excommunication is to admirable purpose: for whether it refers to the person censured, or to others, it is prudential in itself, it is exemplary to others, it is medicinal to all. For the person censured is by this means threatened into piety, and the threatening made the more energetical upon him, because by fiction of law, or, as it were, by a sacramental representment, the pains of hell are made presential to him, and so becomes an act of prudent judicature, and excellent discipline, and the best instrument of spiritual government; because the nearer the threatening is reduced to matter, and the more present and circumstantiate it is made, the more operative it is upon our spirits while they are immerged in matter. And this is the full sense and power of excommunication in its direct intention: consequently and accidentally other evils might follow it; as in the times of the apostles the censured persons were buffeted by Satan, and even at this day there is less security even to the temporal condition of such a person, whom his spiritual parents have anathematized. But besides this, I know no warrant to affirm any thing of excommunication; for the sentence of the church does but declare, not effect, the final sentence of damnation. Whoever deserves excommunication, deserves damnation; and he that repents shall