aught "they
should give unto Caesar that which was Caesar's," yet was He charged with
sedition, in that He was accused to devise some conspiracy and covet the
kingdom. And hereupon they cried out with open mouth against him in the
place of judgment: "If thou let this man escape, thou art not Caesar's
friend." And though the Apostles did likewise evermore and steadfastly
teach, that magistrates ought to be obeyed, "that every soul ought to be
subject to the higher powers, not only for fear of wrath and punishment,
but even for conscience sake;" yet bare they the name to disquiet the
people, and to stir up the multitude to rebel. After this sort did Haman
specially bring the nation of the Jews into the hatred of the king
Assuerus, because, said he, "they were a rebellious and stubborn people,
and despised the ordinances and commandments of princes." Wicked King
Ahab said to Elie [Elijah] the prophet of God, "It is thou that troublest
Israel." Amasias, the priest at Bethel, laid a conspiracy to the prophet
Amos' charge before King Jeroboam, saying, "See, Amos hath made a
conspiracy against thee in the midst of the house of Israel." To be
brief, Tertullian saith, this was the general accusation of all
Christians while he lived, that they were traitors, they were rebels, and
the enemies of mankind. Wherefore, if now-a-days the truth be likewise
evil spoken of, and being the same truth it was then, if it be now like
despitefully used as it was in times past, though it be a grievous and
unkind dealing, yet can it not seem unto us a new or an unwonted matter.

Forty years ago and upward, was it an easy thing for them to devise
against us these accursed speeches, and other, too, sorer than these;
when, in the midst of the darkness of that age, first began to spring and
to give shine some one glimmering beam of truth, unknown at that time and
unheard of: when also Martin Luther and Hulderic Zuinglius, being most
excellent men, even sent of God to give light to the whole world, first
came unto the knowledge and preaching of the Gospel; whereas yet the
thing was but new, and the success thereof uncertain; and when men's
minds stood doubtful and amazed, and their ears open to all slanderous
tales; and when there could be imagined against us no fact so detestable,
but the people then would soon believe it for the novelty and strangeness
of the matter. For so did Symmachus, so did Celsus, so did Julianus, so
did Porphyrius, the