Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do ingloriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple: who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?[255:1]
Areopagitica.
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
Tetrachordon.
By this time, like one who had set out on his way by night, and travelled through a region of smooth or idle dreams, our history now arrives on the confines, where daylight and truth meet us with a clear dawn, representing to our view, though at a far distance, true colours and shapes.
The History of England. Book i.
Such bickerings to recount, met often in these our writers, what more worth is it than to chronicle the wars of kites or crows flocking and fighting in the air?
The History of England. Book iv.
Footnotes
[223:1] But vindicate the ways of God to man.—Pope: Essay on Man, epistle i. line 16.