the human inconsistency of the most illustrious saints and bishops, Ambrose of Milan, and Martin of Tours, who, on this occasion, asserted the cause of toleration. They pitied the unhappy men who had been executed at Treves ; they refused to hold communion with their episcopal murderers ; and if Martin deviated from that generous resolution, his motives were laudable, and his repentance was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pro- nounced, without hesitation, the eternal damnation of heretics ; but they were surprised and shocked by the bloody image of their temporal death, and the honest feelings of nature resisted the artificial prejudices of theology." IM THIED PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. mends, indeed, Christian love toward heretics and heathens, and declares against their execution, but approved the prohi- bition of their assemblies and the confiscation of their chm-ches ; and he acted accordingly against the Novatians and the Quar- todecimanians, so that many considered his own subsequent misfortunes as condign punishment.' Jerome, appealing to Deut. xiii. 6-10, seems to justify even the penalty of death against religious errorists." Augustine, who himself belonged nine years to the Mani- chsean sect, and was wonderfully converted by the grace of God to the Catholic church, without the slightest pressure from without, held at first the truly evangelical view, that heretics and schismatics should not be violently dealt with, but won by instruction and conviction ; but after the year 400 he turned and retracted this view, in consequence of his ex- perience with the Donatists, whom he endeavored in vain to convert by disputation and writing, while many submitted to the imperial laws.' Thenceforth he was led to advocate the persecution of heretics, partly by his doctrine of the Christian state, partly by the seditious excesses of the fanatical Circum- celliones, partly by the hope of a wholesome effect of temporal ])unishments, and partly by a false interpretation of the Cogite intrare^ in the parable of the great supper, Luke xiv. 23.* "It is, indeed, better," says he, "that men should be brought to serve God by instruction than by fear of punishment ' Horn. xxix. and xlvi. in Matt. Comp. Socrat. H. E. vi. 19. Elsewhere his principle was (in Phocam mart, et c. haer. torn. ii. p. 705) : 'E/uol iS>os eVri ^MKia^ai (cai fi^ hidiKiiv ; that is, he himself would rather suffer injury than inflict injury. ■ Epist. xxxvii. (al. liii.) ad Riparium adv. Vigilantium. ^ Epist. 93, ad Vincent. § 17 : "Mea primitus sententia non erat, nisi neminem ad unitatem Christi esse cogendum, verbo esse agendum, disputatione pugnandum, ratione vincendum, ne fictos catholicos haberemus, quos apertos hsereticos noveramus. Sed — he continues — haec opinio mea non contradicentium verbis, sed demonstran- tium superabatur exemplis." Then he adduces his experience with the Donatists. Comp. Retract, ii. 5. * The direction : " C(ympel them to come in" which has often since been abused in defence of coercive measures against heretics, must, of course, be interpreted in harmony