Page:The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe Volume 3.djvu/128

 against another, with so great fury and cruelty. Here again is the admonition to be renewed, which hath been so often before repeated, that we neither speak nor think any thing against the politic laws; but only against such, to whom it were convenient, for their profession, to be most meek of all men, and yet by nature they are most fierce and cruel. Their own constitutions declare the same in the fifth book of their Decretals, where it is commanded, that a heretic, convicted in any error (but how convicted? by authority rather than by the Scriptures!), should be delivered unto the secular power: neither is that yet sufficient that they do so imbrue the secular sword with blood, but that also, with their malice, they do sharpen and whet the same, which of itself is already sharp enough. The writers of the Gloss do also add this unto it, "to be burned." And these are they who will represent Christ unto us here upon earth, crying out oftentimes that all Christ's doings are for our instruction. But if that all our life be to be directed unto Christ's institutions; what thing less do his examples teach us, than such kind of cruelty, and especially in ministers, in whom he doth, with so great zeal, commend humility and meekness with mutual love, as the only knot of his gospel: wisely forbidding them, that in pulling up of the cockle, they should not be too rash, fearing lest peradventure that might come to pass, which now indeed hath happened: lest together with the cockle they pull up the good wheat also. Then what is there to be said, where, not only together with the cockle, but, instead of the cockle, the very wheat itself is plucked out of the floor of the Lord? How well that is correspondent unto Christ's doings let they themselves judge.

I surely am greatly afraid that they will deserve, no great thanks at the hands of the Lord of the harvest, when he shall come to reward every man according to his doings. But in this point I do not plead as the advocate of the heretics, if there be any who are heretics indeed. Neither do I go about here to discuss how far the power of the civil sword doth extend, or what is lawful to be done by the civil constitutions. But truly, whatsoever the necessary severity of the civil power doth, yet the priests and rulers of the church ought always to use humility and gentleness, according to the example of Him, who would not compel any man to his religion. What saith he? "He that hath ears to hear let him hear," yet doth he not by and by threaten death unto him that will not hear; neither doth he grievously threaten those who do depart away from him, as St. Cyprian witnesseth; but turning unto his disciples he said, will you also depart from me? He came not to occupy any civil authority, and as he did not possess any civil authority, so neither did he deliver any man over unto the civil power. Albeit it is not to be doubted but that it may happen sometimes, that the christian hierarchy shall need to call for the help of the magistrates (like as against the Donatists the help of the laws were very necessary), especially if the heresy do once grow on to tumult, schism, sedition, robbery, or to the ruin of the commonwealth; in such case I suppose the foreign magistrate ought to foresee that the commonwealth suffer no detriment. Otherwise, if the heresy be such that it do contain itself within some private error, without passing any further, that same doth seem to pertain only unto the bishops and universities, neither do I greatly see