(_e_) “_Da veniam imperator; tu carcerem, ille gehennam minatur_:--Excuse me, O Emperor; thou threatenest men with prison, but God threatens me with hell.” This sentence, and that which he saith No. XVII, that neither the civil judge is the proper judge, nor the law of the land is the proper rule of sin, and divers other sayings of his to the same effect, make it impossible for any nation in the world to preserve themselves from civil wars. For all men living equally acknowledging, that the High and Omnipotent God is to be obeyed before the greatest emperors; every one may pretend the commandment of God to justify his disobedience. And if one man pretendeth that God commands one thing, and another man that he commands the contrary, what equity is there to allow the pretence of one more than of another? Or what peace can there be, if they be all allowed alike? There will therefore necessarily arise discord and civil war, unless there be a judge agreed upon, with authority given to him by every one of them, to show them and interpret to them the Word of God; which interpreter is always the emperor, king, or other sovereign person, who therefore ought to be obeyed. But the Bishop thinks that to shew us and interpret to us the Word of God, belongeth to the clergy; wherein I cannot consent unto him. Excuse me, O Bishop, you threaten me with that you cannot do; but the emperor threateneth me with death, and is able to do what he threateneth. (_f_) “Secondly, he errs in his superstruction also. There is a great difference, as to this case of justifying or not justifying an action, between force and fear, &c. Force doth not only lessen the sin, but takes it quite away, &c.” I know not to what point of my answer this reply of his is to be applied. I had said, the actions of men compelled are, nevertheless, voluntary. It seems that he calleth _compulsion_ force; but I call it a fear of force, or of damage to be done by force, by which fear a man’s will is framed to somewhat to which he had no will before. Force taketh away the sin, because the action is not his that is forced, but his that forceth. It is not always so in compulsion; because, in this case, a man electeth the _less evil_ under the notion of _good_. But his instances of the betrothed damsel that was forced, and of Tamar, may, for anything there appeareth in the text, be instances of compulsion, and yet the damsel and Tamar be both innocent. In that which immediately followeth, concerning how far fear may extenuate a sin, there is nothing to be answered. I perceive in it he hath some glimmering of the truth, but not of the grounds thereof. It is true, that just fear dispenseth not with the precepts of God or nature; for they are not dispensable; but it extenuateth the fault, not by diminishing anything in the action, but by being no transgression. For if the fear be allowed, the action it produceth is allowed also. Nor doth it dispense in any case with the law positive, but by making the