Acts 18:15 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

But if it be a question of words— But since your dispute is only about words, and names, and your own law, you must decide it yourselves. The truth is, that religious and civil affairs are of an entirely distinct nature; that the latter come under the cognizance of the magistrate; and that it is not his business to interpose in an affair relating to the former, any further than to keep the peace, and to allow all good subjects openly to profess their own religion, and to worship in their own way. Accordingly, when the apostle was going to speak, Gallio would not give him the trouble of making his apology, because he did not look upon him as a criminal: he told his accusers, that he would have nothing to do with their religious opinions, (the subject of which he had heard, no doubt, from the accusation which the Jews brought,) and determined not to concern himself with such things as did not come within his proper province. He therefore, not without threatening, ordered them to depart from the tribunal. "Would to God (says Dr. Benson,) that all princes, judges, and magistrates had always been of Gallio's mind, and discouraged such tumults, by protecting the innocent, and discountenancing persecutors, and so had left every one to judge for himself in matters of religion, which concern only God and man's own conscience!"—A commentator remarks, The names of the Heathen gods were fables and shadows; but the question concerning the name of Jesus is of more importance than all things else under heaven. Yet there is this, among a thousand other singularities in the Christian religion, that mere human reason, curious as it is in all other things, abhors to inquire into it."