8 BACON'S ESSAYS 



unity, they do not dissolve and deface the laws of charity 

 and of human society. There be two swords amongst 

 Christians, the spiritual and temporal ; and both have 

 their due office and place in the maintenance of religion. 

 But we may not take up the third sword, which is 

 Mahomet's sword, or like unto it ; that is, to propagate 

 religion by wars or by sanguinary persecutions to force 

 consciences ; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blas- 

 phemy, or intermixture of practice against the state ; much 

 less to nourish seditions ; to authorise conspiracies and 

 rebellions ; to put the sword into the people's hands ; and 

 the like ; tending to the subversion of all government, 

 which is the ordinance of God. For this is but to dash 

 the first table against the second ; and so to consider men 

 as Christians, as we forget that they are men. Lucretius 

 the poet, when he beheld the act of Agamemnon, that 

 could endure the sacrificing of his own daughter, exclaimed : 



Tantum Relligio potuit suadere malorum: 



What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre 

 in France, or the powder treason of England ? He would 

 have been seven times more Epicure and atheist than he 

 was. For as the temporal sword is to be drawn with great 

 circumspection in cases of religion ; so it is a thing 

 monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people. 

 Let that be left unto the Anabaptists, and other furies. It 

 was great blasphemy when the devil said, ' I will ascend 

 and be like the Highest ' ; but it is greater blasphemy to 

 personate God, and bring him in saying, ' I will descend, 

 and be like the prince of darkness' : and what is it better, 

 to make the cause of religion to descend to the cruel and 

 execrable actions of murthering princes, butchery of people, 

 and subversion of states and governments ? Surely this is 

 to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a 

 dove, in the shape of a vulture or raven ; and to set out of 

 the bark of a Christian church a flag of a bark of pirates 

 and Assassins. Therefore it is most necessary that the 

 church by doctrine and decree, princes by their sword, and 

 all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mercury 



