13. In which proposition these points may well deserve to be questioned: whether such consent is to be accounted as a deed: or whether that is to be called consent which hath not approbation: or whether it be approbation, when it is said, “It is expedient to suffer this rather than do that;” and whether the person spoken of did right to burn incense rather than suffer violation of his body; and whether it would be right rather to tell a lie, if that was the alternative proposed, than to burn incense? But if such consent is to be accounted as a deed, then are they murderers who have chosen rather to be put to death than bear false witness, yea, what is worse, they are murderers of themselves. For why, at this rate, should it not be said that they have slain themselves, because they chose that this should be done to them that they might not do what they were urged to do? Or, if it be accounted a worse thing to slay another than himself, what if these terms were offered to a Martyr, that, upon his refusing to bear false witness of Christ and to sacrifice to demons, then, before his eyes, not some other man, but his own father should be put to death; his father entreating him that he would not by his persevering permit that to be done? Is it not manifest, that, upon his remaining steadfast in his purpose of most faithful testimony, they alone would be the murderers who should slay his father, and not he a parricide into the bargain? As therefore, in this case, the man would be no party to this so heinous deed, for choosing, rather than violate his faith by false testimony, that his own father should be put to death by others, (yea, though that father were a sacrilegious person whose soul would be snatched away to punishment;) so the like consent, in the former case, would not make him a party to that so foul disgrace, if he refused to do evil himself, let others do what they might in consequence of his not doing it. For what do such persecutors say, but, “Do evil that we may not?” If the case were so, that our doing evil would make them not to have done it, even then it would not be our duty by doing wickedness ourselves to vote them harmless; but as in fact they are already doing it when they say nothing of the kind,29    Al. when they say such things. why are they to have us to keep them company in wickedness rather than be vile and noisome by themselves? For that is not to be called consent; seeing that we do not approve what they do, always wishing that they would not, and, as much as in us lies, hindering them that they should not do it, and, when it is done, not only not committing it with them, but with all possible detestation condemning the same.

13. In qua propositione ista sunt quae merito quaeri possunt: utrum talis consensio pro facto habenda sit; aut utrum consensio dicenda sit quae non habet approbationem; aut utrum approbatio sit, cum dicitur, Expedit hoc pati potius quam illud facere; et utrum recte ille fecerit thurificare quam stuprum pati; et utrum mentiendum esset potius, si ea conditio daretur, quam thurificandum. Sed si talis consensio pro facto habenda est, homicidae sunt etiam qui occidi maluerunt quam falsum testimonium dicere; et quod est homicidium gravius, in se ipsos. Cur enim hoc pacto non dicatur, quod ipsi se occiderint; quia elegerunt hoc in se fieri, ne facerent quod cogebantur? 0498 Aut si gravius putatur alium occidere quam se ipsum, quid si haec conditio martyri proponeretur, ut si nollet de Christo falsum testimonium dicere atque immolare daemonibus, ante oculos ipsius alius non quilibet homo, sed pater ejus occideretur, rogans etiam filium ne id perseverantia sua fieri permitteret? Nonne manifestum est, illo in testimonii fidelissimi sententia permanente, solos homicidas futuros fuisse, qui patrem ejus occiderent, non illum etiam parricidam? Sicut ergo hujus tanti sceleris particeps iste non esset, cum elegisset patrem suum potius ab aliis interfici, etiam sacrilegum, cujus anima raperetur ad poenas, quam fidem suam falso testimonio violare: sic talis ille consensus non eum faceret tanti flagitii participem, si male facere ipse nollet, quidquid alii propterea fecissent, quia ipse non faceret. Quid enim tales persecutores dicunt, nisi, Fac male, ne nos faciamus? Qui si vere, nobis facientibus, non fecissent, nec sic eis nostro scelere suffragari deberemus. Nunc vero quando jam faciunt, cum ista non dicunt , cur nobiscum potius, quam soli turpes atque nocentes sint? Non enim consensus ille dicendus est; quia non approbamus quod faciunt, semper optantes, et quantum in nobis est prohibentes ne faciant, factumque ipsorum non solum non committentes cum eis, sed etiam quanta possumus detestatione damnantes.