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
concerning it, whereas the magistrate's losing the power of
religion loses the liberty of conscience, which in that case has
nothing to protect it. But if the people be otherwise taught, it
concerns them to look about them, and to distinguish between the
shrieking of the lapwing and the voice of the turtle.

To come to civil laws. If they stand one way and the balance
another, it is the case of a government which of necessity must