to make contradictories to be true together. _T. H._ There is no doubt but by what authority the Scripture or any other writing is made a law, by the same authority the Scriptures are to be interpreted, or else they are made law in vain. But to obey is one thing, to believe is another; which distinction perhaps his Lordship never heard of. To obey is to do or forbear as one is commanded, and depends on the will; but to believe, depends not on the will, but on the providence and guidance of our hearts that are in the hands of God Almighty. Laws only require obedience; belief requires teachers and arguments drawn either from reason, or from some thing already believed. Where there is no reason for our belief, there is no reason we should believe. The reason why men believe, is drawn from the authority of those men whom we have no just cause to mistrust, that is, of such men to whom no profit accrues by their deceiving us, and of such men as never used to lie, or else from the authority of such men whose promises, threats, and affirmations, we have seen confirmed by God with miracles. If it be not from the king’s authority that the Scripture is law, what other authority makes it law? Here some man being of his Lordship’s judgment, will perhaps laugh and say, it is the authority of God that makes them law. I grant that. But my question is, on what authority they believe that God is the author of them? Here his Lordship would have been at a nonplus, and turning round, would have said the authority of the Scripture makes good that God is their author. If it be said we are to believe the Scripture upon the authority of the universal church, why are not the books we call Apocrypha the word of God as well as the rest? If this authority be in the church of England, then it is not any other than the authority of the head of the church, which is the king. For without the head the church is mute. The authority therefore is in the king; which is all that I contended for in this point. As to the laws of the Gentiles, concerning religion in the primitive times of the church, I confess they were contrary to Christian faith. But none of their laws, nor terrors, nor a man’s own will, are able to take away faith, though they can compel to an external obedience; and though I may blame the _Ethnic_ princes for compelling men to speak what they thought not, yet I absolve not all those that have had the power in Christian churches from the same fault. For I believe, since the time of the first four general councils, there have been more Christians burnt and killed in the Christian church by ecclesiastical authority, than by the heathen emperors' laws, for religion only without sedition. All that the Bishop does in this argument is but a heaving at the King’s supremacy. Oh, but, says he, if two kings interpret a place of Scripture in contrary senses, it will follow that both senses are true. It does not follow. For the interpretation, though it be made by just