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 author-
ize 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 Aga-
memnon, 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 tem-
poral sword is to be drawn with great circumspec-
tion 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,