The Primitive Practice for Preserving Truth, Section 9
SECT. IX.
AS it is against the dictamen of reason, to make matter of Religion a capitall crime, so it is against the rules of policy it self, in respect that heresie and falshood, which would in time die of themselves, are thereby increased & propagated, and so the end for which force and violence are used, is no wayes obtained thereby. This was verified in the death of Prisciliian the heretique of old, by which his followers were mightily encreased, and having before but reverenced him as a holy man, did afterwards adore him as a Martyr. The present age verifies it in the death of Michael Servetus the Spaniard, and other Anabaptists, though most necessarily cut off by the sword of the Magistrate, for their blasphemous opinions and lawless Tenets, tending to the utter subversion of all Civill government. The Anabaptists in their Dialogues, published in the English tongue in Queen Maries dayes, though they craftily withdrew many of their Anarchicall Tenets (agreeing almost verbatim with the workes since penned by James Arminius, and the latter Anabaptists) doe extoll that Servetus as a Prophet of the Lord; and their numbers are at this day so increased, as they constitute or make a considerable party in divers parts of Christendome. But those cursed enemies of the truth, that thinke by persecuting it, to abolish it, as they fight against God himselfe in so doing, so have they heretofore, and shall still in despight of all their devillish policy for the time to come increase and propagate the same. This, if all other Instances wanted, would sufficiently appeare in that famous example of an English Schoolmaster, a most zealous Papist in the dayes of King Edward the sixt, who afterwards in the beginning of Queen Maries government, frequenting the fires of some of the Martyrs, was so convinced with hearing what they spake, and seeing how chearfully they suffered, as he himselfe relinquishing the former ignorance and idolatry he had so long embraced, at last witnessed the truth with his own bloud. Not he onelyonly, but many thousands also besides, were doubtless inabled by the cleare shining of those fires, to discerne the foulnesse of those mysteries of darkness, under which they had been so long held captive. And after her short Raigne (infamoused by so much bloud-shed) was expired, it facilitated the way for her royall sister Elizabeth to restore the truth at an easie rate. When the Executioner came behind John Hus, to kindle the pile that encompassed him: Come hither my friend, (said he) and kindle it here before, for had I feared what thou bringest, I had not appeared at this Stake to day. His death brought so incredible progresse to the true Church in Bohemia, as did also that of Jerome of Prague his Contemporanie, that their bloudy persecutors had just cause within a few yeares after their decease, to acknowledge their own errour in having hastened their ends. As fruitfull a seed-time to the Church in France, proved the death of Annas Burgus, a Senator of Paris, in the yeare 1559. under Francis the second. A man he was so vertuous and innocent in his life, as some of the very enemies of the Truth laboured his delivery when he was in prison, and so resolute and chearfull in his death, as it incouraged thousands in that Kingdome, in the constant profession of the Reformed Religion. What better successe had all the bloudy executions of Ferdinand de Toledo, that merciless Duke of Alva, and of his new erected Bishops in the lower Germany, but that the Gospel at the last got the victory over hell, and all the powers of darkness? Neither indeed could those cruell Inquisitors have expected other issue, had they but truly considered what Religion had been; and that Princes and States may command the bodies, but not the soules and consciences of men; Which having been once perswaded by Instruction and Information to embrace and beleeve any opinions, though hereticall, and therefore much more the Truth it selfe, can never be driven from them, but by the same meanes of a further and more cleare Instruction. The godly have ever lookt upon chaines, prisons, racks, and fires, as the tryall and reward of their faith, more fearing to doe evill, then to suffer evill, well knowing that they shall neither suffer more, nor their cruell enemies be able to inflict more, then God shall turne to his own endlesse glory, and their everlasting good. Did the Heathen Poet desire to be sent back to the Mines (a life more tedious then that of the Gallyes) rather then he would commend a few bad Verses, contrary to his judgement? Could Epicurus, that impure Philosopher, say of a wise man, that if he were scorched in Phalaris Bull, he would not be moved with it, but onelyonly cry out, Dulce est, & ad me non attinet? Or the young Stoick in Gellius, to maintaine the Apathie of his Sect, neither groane nor frowne in the midst of a burning feaver? And shall we thinke that Gods Saints who have their reason heightened and irradiated by grace, and their soules immoveably founded upon a lively and living faith, will feare to lose their estates, liberties, and lives for the Truths sake? No doubtless, but as the Gold is tryed by the Furnace, and cleared from the drosse, so in time of persecution they shall be discerned from all hypocrites, Atheists, Libertines, and Time-servers whatsoever.