Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,
What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few have done;
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe:
Therefore on thy firm hand Religion leans
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son."
Suffering Vane.
But views of religious liberty, worthy the admiration of posterity, were coupled in Vane's mind with an impracticable and un-English republican theory, which stripped them of the authority with which otherwise they might have been clothed. It was unfortunate for the interests of freedom that, in an age when it struggled to establish its sway, there were too often in alliance with its advocacy enthusiastic opinions or fanatical practices, impairing it at the time, and affording pretexts for opposing it in the next generation.
Vane acted with characteristic honesty and candour in sending privately to Cromwell a copy of the "Healing Question," containing the sentences we have quoted, before he proceeded to publish what he had written. Perhaps it never reached the Protector's hands. Be that as it might, notwithstanding the moderate tone of the pamphlet—sufficient, one would have thought, to protect the author against any unpleasant interference from the Government—some of the political passages which the pamphlet contained greatly displeased the Protector; a displeasure which was much increased by another violent publication, attributed to Vane's pen, but not with sufficient reason. The republican statesman was summoned before the Council. The Council required him to give a bond for £5,000 that he would not disturb the peace of the Commonwealth, in default whereof he should stand committed. He refused to give the bond, and to the great discredit of both Cromwell and his Council, they sent their honest brother patriot to prison.