mony and universal love. [17]

[Footnote 17: See the elegant description of Lactantius, (Divin
Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than becomes
a discreet prophet.]

The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of
authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of
an absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. [18] The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees
of Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre
by treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of
vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the
abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their
oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and
society. The humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among
wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the
defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they
were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing
the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory life.
Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had
preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of the
three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent
of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they
experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked either to
meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw themselves
into some remote and sequestered corner of the globe. [19] The
Protestants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted with
such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, have been
insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of the
primitive and of the reformed Christians. [20] Perhaps, instead of
censure, some applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of
our ancestors, who had convinced themselves that religion cannot abolish
the unalienable rights of human nature. [21] Perhaps the patience of
the primitive church may be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to its
virtue.

A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without
fortifications, must have encountered inevitable destruction in a rash
and fruitless resistance to the master of