s of charity, and of human society. There be two swords
amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal; and both have their due
office and place, in the maintenance of religion. But we may not take up
the third sword, which is Mahomet's sword, or like unto it; that is,
to propagate religion by wars, or by sanguinary persecutions to force
consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy, or
intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish
seditions; to authorize conspiracies and rebellions; to put the sword
into the people's hands; and the like; tending to the subversion of all
government, which is the ordinance of God. For this is but to dash the
first table against the second; and so to consider men as Christians, as
we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld the act
of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter,
exclaimed: Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum.

What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France,
or the powder treason of England? He would have been seven times more
Epicure, and atheist, than he was. For as the temporal sword is to be
drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion; so it is a thing
monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people. Let that be
left unto the Anabaptists, and other furies. It was great blasphemy,
when the devil said, I will ascend, and be like the highest; but it is
greater blasphemy, to personate God, and bring him in saying, I will
descend, and be like the prince of darkness; and what is it better,
to make the cause of religion to descend, to the cruel and execrable
actions of murthering princes, butchery of people, and subversion of
states and governments? Surely this is to bring down the Holy Ghost,
instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven;
and set, out of the bark of a Christian church, a flag of a bark of
pirates, and assassins. Therefore it is most necessary, that the church,
by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and all learnings, both
Christian and moral, as by their Mercury rod, do damn and send to hell
for ever, those facts and opinions tending to the support of the same;
as hath been already in good part done. Surely in counsels concerning
religion, that counsel of the apostle would be prefixed, Ira hominis non
implet justitiam Dei. And it was a notable observation of a wise father,
and no less ingenuously confessed; that