When the religion formerly received is rent by discords; and when the holiness of the professors of religion is decayed and full of scandal; and withal[1] the times be stupid, ignorant, and barbarous; you may doubt the springing up of a new sect; if then also there should arise any extravagant and strange spirit to make himself author thereof. All which points held when Mahomet published his law. If a new sect have not two properties, fear it not; for it will not spread. The one is, the supplanting or the opposing of authority established; for nothing is more popular than that. The other is, the giving licence to pleasures and a voluptuous life. For as for speculative heresies, (such as were in ancient times the Arians,[2] and now the Arminians,)[3] though they work mightily upon men's wits, yet they do not produce any great alterations in states; except it be by the help of civil occasions. There be three manner of plantations of new sects. By the power of signs and miracles; by the eloquence and wisdom of speech and persuasion; and by the sword. For martyrdoms, I reckon them amongst miracles; because
- ↑ Withal. With all; in addition; besides. "For it seemeth to me unreasonable, to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid against him." Acts xxv. 27.
- ↑ The Arians were the followers of Arius, a deacon of Alexandria, who lived in the fourth century. Arius maintained the divinity of Jesus Christ, but held that his nature was not co-equal with that of God, not the same nature, but a similar and subordinate one.
- ↑ The Arminians of Bacon's time were the followers of Arminius, who was a Dutch Protestant divine of Leyden, named Jacobus Harmensen, 1560–1609. Their doctrines, 'The Remonstrance,' published in 1610, expressed their divergence from strict Calvinism, chiefly their objection to predestination, in five articles, and was presented to the states of Holland and West Friesland. The Arminians are sometimes called 'Remonstrants.'
