A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved

1. It is not the purpose of Gamaliel to draw his doctrine to so narrow a channel as to doctrines only, as if doctrines of men only came to nought, for Gamaliel allegeth the examples of Judas and Theudas the Galilean, whose fault was not only false prophesying, but rebellion and sedition, for four hundred armed men gathered to this man and obeyed him, Greek, [Greek or Hebrew]. Syriac [Greek or Hebrew] Et abierunt post cum quasi quadringenti homines, They went after him, as their Captain in the fields.

1. It is not the purpose of Gamaliel to draw his doctrin to so narrow a channel as to doctrins only, as if doctrins of men only came to nought, for Gamaliel alledgeth the examples of Iudas and Theudas the Galilean, whose fault was not only false prophecying, but rebellion and sedition, for foure hundred armed men gathered to this man and obeyed him, Greeke, 〈non-Latin alphabet〉. Syriack 〈non-Latin alphabet〉 Et abierunt post cum quasi quadringenti homines, They went after him, as their Captaine in the fields.

And the other Judas of Galilee drew away much people; Now they were drawn away, in a course of tumultuary rebellion,¹ as is clear by the two words, they obeyed him, and [Greek or Hebrew] Syriac, [Greek or Hebrew] dispersi sunt, they were scattered as an army of men, then these men were not only false teachers, but levied men to rise against authority, as Anabaptists do after them: so shall it follow, that when men rise in bloody murders and insurrections, we must leave them to God; for when they rise to cut the throats of innocent people, whether that ignis fatuus the fool fire of blind zeal, or a treasonable design raise them in arms, their way is either of men, and so God will bring it to nought, and we must sit still and suffer our selves to be murdered, contrary to the law of Nature, because God will not fail to crush these novators and firebrands, or their way and courses of God, and so yet we must sit still, and all the most just defensive wars shall be unlawful, for if we stir one foot against them, we run the hazard of the bold blind Giants to fight against God, it is all one to the dilemma of Gamaliel, whether he speaks of Theudas the Magician or Sorcerer, as Josephus antiq. lib. 20. cap. 2. and Eusebius, who rose in the time that Cuspius Fadus governed Judea, who said he could divide Jordan, and gathered his men to the banks of Jordan in the fourth year of Claudius; or if it be Theudas that rose long before Fadus, before the reign of Agrippa,