whence Elijah not only refused to obey the King, but destroyed his
messengers with fire. And whereas it was not lawful by the national
religion to sacrifice in any other place than the Temple, a prophet was
his own temple, and might sacrifice where he would, as Elijah did in
Mount Carmel. By this right John the Baptist and our Saviour, to whom it
more particularly related, had their disciples, and taught the people,
whence is derived our present right of gathered congregations;
wherefore the Christian religion grew up according to the orders of
the Commonwealth of Israel, and not against them. Nor was liberty of
conscience infringed by this government, till the civil liberty of
the same was lost, as under Herod, Pilate, and Tiberius, a three-piled
tyranny.

To proceed, Athens preserved her religion, by the testimony of Paul,
with great superstition: if Alcibiades, that atheistical fellow had not
showed them a pair of heels, they had shaven off his head for shaving
their Mercuries, and making their gods look ridiculously upon them
without beards. Nevertheless, if Paul reasoned with them, they loved
news, for which he was the more welcome; and if he converted Dionysius
the Areopagite, that is, one of the senators, there followed neither any
hurt to him, nor loss of honor to Dionysius. And for Rome, if Cicero,
in his most excellent book "De Natura Deorum," overthrew the national
religion of that commonwealth, he was never the further from being
consul. But there is a meanness and poorness in modern prudence, not
only to the damage of civil government, but of religion itself; for
to make a man in matter of religion, which admits not of sensible
demonstration (jurare in verba magistri), engage to believe no otherwise
than is believed by my lord bishop, or Goodman Presbyter is a pedantism
that has made the sword to be a rod in the hands of schoolmasters; by
which means, whereas the Christian religion is the furthest of any
from countenancing war, there never was a war of religion but since
Christianity, for which we are beholden to the Pope; for the Pope not
giving liberty of conscience to princes and commonwealths, they cannot
give that to their subjects which they have not themselves, whence
both princes and subjects, either through his instigation or their own
disputes, have introduced that execrable custom, never known in the
world before, of fighting for religion, and denying the magistrate to
have any jurisdiction conce