ttempting, to oppose the overgrown power
of the imperial house of Austria, which had long aimed at an universal
monarchy in Europe; a circumstance which Philip IV. weakly hinted at to
the world when he placed this motto under his arms--"_Sine ipso factum
est nihil_;" an expression applied to Jesus Christ by St. John!

FOOTNOTES:

[158] "Fox's Martyrs," as the book was popularly called, was often
chained to a reading-desk in churches; one is still thus affixed at
Cirencester; it thus received equal honour with the Bible.

[159] Llorente's "Critical History of the Inquisition."

[160] Naude, "Considerations Politiques," p. 115. See a curious note
in Hart's "Life of Gustavus Adolphus," ii. 129.

TOLERATION.

An enlightened toleration is a blessing of the last age--it would seem
to have been practised by the Romans, when they did not mistake the
primitive Christians for seditious members of society; and was
inculcated even by Mahomet, in a passage in the Koran, but scarcely
practised by his followers. In modern history it was condemned when
religion was turned into a political contest under the aspiring house of
Austria--and in Spain--and in France. It required a long time before its
nature was comprehended--and to this moment it is far from being clear,
either to the tolerators or the tolerated.

It does not appear that the precepts or the practice of Jesus and the
apostles inculcate the _compelling_ of any to be Christians;[161] yet an
expression employed in the nuptial parable of the great supper, when the
hospitable lord commanded the servant, finding that he had still room to
accommodate more guests, to go out in the highways and hedges, and
"_compel them to come in, that my house may be filled_," was alleged as
an authority by those catholics who called themselves "the converters,"
for using religious force, which, still alluding to the hospitable lord,
they called "a charitable and salutary violence." It was this
circumstance which produced Bayle's "Commentaire Philosophique sur ces
Paroles de Jesus Christ," published under the supposititious name of an
_Englishman_, as printed at Canterbury in 1686, but really at Amsterdam.
It is curious that Locke published his first letter on "Toleration" in
Latin at Gouda, in 1689--the second in 1690--and the third in 1692.
Bayle opened the mind of Locke, and some time after quotes Locke's Latin
letter with high commendation.[162] The caution of