A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

They persecute them that teach the Truth, not confuting them with words, but delivering them that believe aright to hatreds, wars and swords, having now brought destruction not to one City or Country alone, but to many. Neither can you relieve your selves, by answering that they were true believers whom they persecuted; you punish Heretics and Schismatics only, for they thought and said the same of themselves, which you assert in your own behalf. So Salvian informs ⟨p. 73⟩us, Haeretici sunt, sed non scientes, denique apud nos sunt Haeretici, apud se non sunt. Nam intantum see & Catholicos judicant, ut nos ipsos titulo Haereticae praevitatis infament; quod ergo illi nobis sunt, & hoc nos illis. They are heretics, but they know it not; they are heretics unto us, but not unto themselves: for they so far judge themselves to be Catholic, that they condemn us for the guilt of Heresy: So then, what they are to us, that we are to them, Especially was your whole practice in this matter solemnly condemned in the Case of Priscillianus, recorded by Sulpitius Severus in the end of his second Book, the only Instance the Bellarmine could fix upon in all Antiquity for the putting of any men to death upon the account of Religion; for, the other whom he mentions, he confesseth himself to have been a Magician. Ithacius, with some other Bishops his Associates, procured Maximus the Tyrant to put Priscillianus a Gnostic, with some others, to death; and to banish some of their followers. What saith the Historian thereon: Hoc modo, saith he, homines luce indignissimi pessimo exemplo necati, aut exili is mulctati; On this manner, were those unworthy wretches either slain or punished by banishment, by a very evil precedent. And what was the success of this zeal? Non solum, saith he, non repressest haeresis, sed confirmata & latius propagata: The heresy was so far from being repressed by it, that it was the more confirmed and propagated. And what ensued hereupon in the Church its self? Inter nostros perpetuum discordiarum bellum exarsit, quod jam per quindecim annos foedis dissensionibus agitatum nullo modo sopiri poterat. Et nunc cum maximè discordiis Episcoporum turbari & •isceri omnia cernerentur, cunctáque per eos odio aut gratia, metu, inconstantia, invidia, faction, av•arit•a, arrogantia, somno, desidia essent depravata;

They persecute them that teach the Truth, not confuting them with words, but delivering them that believe aright to hatreds, wars and swords, having now brought destruction not to one City or Countrey alone, but to many. Neither can you relieve your selves, by answering that they were true believers whom they persecuted; you punish Hereticks and Schismaticks only, for they thought and said the same of themselves, which you assert in your own behalf. So Salvian informs