than go _without a sword, to sell their garment, and
buy one_; as if the going cold and naked were more excusable than
the marching unarmed. And as this author thinks all means which are
requisite for the prevention or retaliation of injuries to be implied
under the name of sword, so under that of scrip, he would have
everything to be comprehended, which either the necessity or conveniency
of life requires.

Thus does this provident commentator furnish out the disciples with
halberts, spears, and guns, for the enterprise of preaching Christ
crucified; he supplies them at the same time with pockets, bags, and
portmanteaus, that they might carry their cupboards as well as their
bellies always about them: he takes no notice how our Saviour afterwards
rebukes Peter for drawing that sword which he had just before so
strictly charged him to buy; nor that it is ever recorded that the
primitive Christians did by no ways withstand their heathen persecutors
otherwise than with tears and prayers, which they would have exchanged
more effectually for swords and bucklers, if they had thought this text
would have borne them out.

There is another, and he of no mean credit, whom for respect to his
person I shall forbear to name, who commenting upon that verse in the
prophet Habakkuk (_I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the
curtains of the land of Midian did tremble_), because tents were
sometimes made of skins, he pretended that the word tents did here
signify the skin of St. Bartholomew, who was flayed for a martyr.

I myself was lately at a divinity disputation (where I very often pay my
attendance), where one of the opponents demanded a reason why it should
be thought more proper to silence all heretics by sword and faggot,
rather than convert them by moderate and sober arguments? A certain
cynical old blade, who bore the character of a divine, legible in the
frowns and wrinkles of his face, not without a great deal of disdain
answered, that it was the express injunction of St. Paul himself, in
those directions to Titus (_A man that is an heretic, after the first
and second admonition, reject_), quoting it in Latin, where the word
_reject_ is _devita_, while all the auditory wondered at this citation,
and deemed it no way applicable to his purpose; he at last explained
himself, saying, that _devita_ signified _de vita tollendum hereticum_,
a heretic must be slain. Some smiled at his ignorance, but others
approved of it