maketh a subject to be his prince's judge, he answereth thus.(946) _Non
se_, &c. He maketh not himself another's judge, who pondereth and
examineth a sentence published by another, in so far as it containeth
something either to be done or to be believed by him; but only he maketh
himself the judge of his own actions. For howsoever he who playeth the
judge is truly said to judge, yet every one who judgeth is not properly
said to play the judge. He playeth the judge who, in an external court
pronounceth a sentence, which by force of jurisdiction toucheth another;
but he judgeth, who in the inferior court of his own private conscience,
conceiveth such a sentence of the things to be believed or done, as
pertaineth to himself alone. This latter way private men both may and
ought to judge of the sentences and decrees of magistrates, neither by so
doing do they constitute themselves judges of the magistrates, but judges
of their own actions.

_Sect._ 17. Finally, there is none of our opposites but saith so much as
inferreth the necessity of this judgment of private and practical
discretion; for every smatterer among them hath this much in his mouth,
that if the king or the church command anything unlawful, then we ought to
obey God rather than men; but when they command things indifferent and
lawful, then their ordinance ought to be our rule. But (good men) will
they tell us how we shall know whether the things which the king or the
church (as they speak) do enjoin are lawful or unlawful, indifferent or
not indifferent? and so we shall be at a point. Dare they say, that they
may judge those things indifferent which our superiors judge to be such?
and those unlawful which our superiors so judge of? Nay, then, they should
deliver their distinction in other terms, and say thus: If our superiors
enjoin anything which they judge to be unlawful, and which they command us
so to account of, then we ought to obey God rather than men; but if they
enjoin such things as they judge to be indifferent, and which they command
us so to account of, then we ought to obey their ordinance. Which
distinction, methinks, would have made Heraclitus himself to fall a
laughing with Democritus. What then remaineth? Surely our opposites must
either say nothing, or else say with us, that it is not only a liberty but
a duty of inferiors, not to receive for a thing lawful that which is
enjoined by superiors, because they account it and call it such, but by