in a coach, and Monjoy told her in the presence of the judges, that she was privy to the murder of her busband. Upon hearing this she immediately fainted away, and was carried back to prison. Her lover was, pursuant to his sentence, broke alive upon the wheel, after having made a pathetic remonstrance to the standers by; and madam d'Escombas was about a month afterwards hanged at the Greve at Paris upon his impeachment. Such examples as these shew, that the misfortunes which attend unlawful love, are often owing to the cruelty of parents, who by tyrannising over the hearts of their children, lead them into that ruin which they might have escaped, if treated with indulgence.

THOU SHALT NOT DO EVIL THAT GOOD MAY COME OF IT.

ALL christians will subscribe to this; but the whole history of christianity shews, that few will allow any thing to be evil, which according to their own conceptions, leads to good. That all fraud is evil, must (one would think) be universally allowed; but the man of religion dissents and distinguishes. "Fraud," says he,

is not always a pernicious thing, but is good or bad ac"cording to the intentions of him who uses it. A fraud "in season, and practised with judgment, is attended "with great good: it ought net indeed to be deemed so "much a fraud, as a certain wise and politic way of "managing." This he urges and he urges in the language of Chrysostom, who contends for the utility of fraud in military, civil, and even domestic concerns; and, particularly makes it as necessary in physicians to deceive for the good of bodies, as he would infer it to be in divines for the good of souls.

Jerom, another writer in the times of primitive christianity, in like manner adopted this principle of deceiving; and plainly believed no deviation from rectitude to be unlawful, which flowed from piety and zeal for christianity: non condemnamus errorem, says he, qui de odio Judæorum et fidei pietate descendit. And, speaking in another place of controversial writings against the Pagaus, he holds it allowable to urge all arguments false as well as true; to use tricks in disputation; in short employ any artifice whatever, which may best serve to refute and conquer an adversary: and he justifies this

practice by the examples of Origen and Eusebius against Celsus and Porphyry*.

The real truth is, and it is vain to dissemble it, that christians in all ages have never scrupled at any means, to bring about what they deemed a good and pious end t: else whence those, not only frauds and tricks, but persecutions, inquisitions, and the various terrible modes of conversation, which have been practised in the church, from its earliest establishment down to the present hour? whence the infatuation to be persuaded, that men might actually do God service, while they made havock and destruction of his creatures?

But there are no lengths to which men may not be carried, when influenced by zeal and bigotry, without any controul from reason and common sense. The very devout and over-righteous have ever been above ordinances, as the cant of fanaticism expresses it. The Antinomiaus of all ages have insisted, that the " obligations "of morality and natural law are suspended; that the "elect guided by an eternal principal, more perfect and "divine, are superior to the beggerly elements of justice "and humanity;" and, that, in short, every thing is lawful to the saints. To what purpose shall it be said to such, ye shall not do evil that good may come of it?

Meanwhile it is certain, that this principle of doing (or which is the same thing, of suffering) evil that good may come of it, has by no means been confined to the pale of the church; it has indeed been countenanced by the universal practice of mankind, as well in civil as religious concerns. Ancient and modern writers have been quoted to justify the expedient of deceiving the people‡: and a man who should detect and expose any received and established system in either governinent or religion, however futile its foundation §, would be perscuted by

* Opera, tom. iv. p. 113. 236. edit Benedict.

+ From the allowance and practice of pious frauds it comes to pass, by an eay transition, that many vastly good people, who would not swear for the world, or commit any sin of eclát, yet will not scruple occasionally to lye-the meanest of all sins.

Hæc Pontifex Scævola nosse populos non vult-expedire igitur existimat falli in religione civitates, quod dicere etiam in libris rerum divinarum ipse Varro non dubitat. Aug de Civ. iv. 27.

§ A very indifferent religion, well believed, will go a great way, says Jeremy Collier, the famous non-juror; an honest heathen is none of the worst of men. View of the Immorality and Profaness of the English Stage, p. 28-Jeremy Collier must have liked the following passage from Curtius nulla res efficaciùs multitudinem regit, quam superstitio;...

his compatriots as a bad member of society. And why? because these systems are deemed useful and even neces sary to keep the people in order *.

And if from bodies and establishments we descend to individuals or single instances, we shall find the worst and basest means employed to bring about (what have been deemed) just and lawful ends. When the Earl of Suffolk fled into Flanders, to promote an insurrection against Henry the VIIth, Henry doubtless thought himself warranted to countermine and subdue him. For this purpose, he caused Sir Robert Curson, captain of the castle at Hammes, to fly from his charge, and to feign himself the Earl's servant. Curson did so: and, having insinuated himself into the secrets of the Earl, and become his confidant, communicated every thing to Henry. Meauwhile Heury, to confirm the credit of Curson, caused to be published at Paul's Cross the Pope's Bull of excommunication and curse against the Earl of Suffolk and Sir Robert Curson: "wherein it must be confessed," says Lord Bacon very gently, "that heaven was made too much to bow to earth, and religion to policy t."

In the time of Cromwell, a thousand tricks were played to find out and convict the disaffected; and an accursed order of villains, who were called Duckoys and Trapans, were employed to worm out their secrets under hypocritical pretences, and then betray them. Thus overreached, Colonel Andrews lost his head: nor, says my author, was the President Bradshaw ashamed openly "to declare in court, that by counterfeit letters he had "correponded with him in the name of the King‡.'

66

alioqui impotens, sæva mutabilis: ubi vana religione capta est, meliùs vatibus quam ducibus suis paret. But the latter part of it, so much to the relish of Jeremy, may probably have made the whole unpalatable to the statesman: who, it is observable, hath never been forward to employ the priest in any of his mancevres, when he could possibly do without him. Q. Curt. iv. 39.

* But do not men, who thus contend for the utility of all religions to the support of government, appear to put all relgions upon a level, confounding the true with the false? and, if government can as well be supported by fraud and imposture, as by a genuine and pure religion, must not the God of truth and the God of order seem two distinct beings?

Hist. of Henry VII.-Zopyrus acted precisely the same part for Darius against the Assyriaus, whom he betrayed: only to gain their confidence more effectually, he caused his nose, ears and lips to be cut off, and then feigned to have been thus treated by Darius, Just. Hist. i. 13.

Bates's Elenchus Motuum, &c. Part II.

practice by the examples of Origen and Eusebius against Celsus and Porphyry*.

The real truth is, and it is vain to dissemble it, that christians in all ages have never scrupled at any means, to bring about what they deemed a good and pious end†: else whence those, not only frauds and tricks, but persecutions, inquisitions, and the various terrible modes of conversation, which have been practised in the church, from its earliest establishment down to the present hour? whence the infatuation to be persuaded, that men might actually do God service, while they made havock and destruction of his creatures?

But there are no lengths to which men may not be carried, when influenced by zeal and bigotry, without any controul from reason and common sense. The very devout and over-righteous have ever been above ordinances, as the cant of fanaticism expresses it. The Antinomians of all ages have insisted, that the " obligations "of morality and natural law are suspended; that the "elect guided by an eternal principal, more perfect and "divine, are superior to the beggerly elements of justice "and humanity;" and, that, in short, every thing is lawful to the saints. To what purpose shall it be said to such, ye shall not do evil that good may come of it?

Meanwhile it is certain, that this principle of doing (or which is the same thing, of suffering) evil that good may come of it, has by no means been contined to the pale of the church; it has indeed been countenanced by the universal practice of mankind, as well ́in civil as religious concerns. Ancient and modern writers have been quoted to justify the expedient of deceiving the people+: and a man who should detect and expose any received and established system in either government or religion, however futile its foundation §, would be perscuted by

* Opera, tom. iv. p. 113. 236. edii Benedict.

+From the allowance and practice of pious frauds it comes to pass, by an eay transition, that many vastly good people, who would not swear for the world, or commit any sin of eclat, yet will not scruple occasionally to lye—the meanest of all sins.

Hæc Pontifex Scævola nosse populos non vult-expedire igitur existimat falli in religione civitates, quod dicere etiam in libris rerum divinarum ipse Varro non dubitat. Aug de Civ. iv. 27.

§ A very indifferent religion, well believed, will go a great way, says. Jeremy Collier, the famous non-juror; an honest heathen is none of the worst of men. View of the Immorality and Profaness of the English Stage, p. 28-Jeremy Collier must have liked the following passage from Curtius nulla res efficaciùs multitudinem regit, quam superstitio;

his compatriots as a bad member of society. And why? because these systems are deemed useful and even necessary to keep the people in order *.

And if from bodies and establishments we descend to individuals or single instances, we shall find the worst and basest means employed to bring about (what have been deemed) just and lawful ends. When the Earl of Suffolk fled into Flanders, to promote an insurrection against Henry the VIIth, Henry doubtless thought himself warranted to countermine and subdue him. For this purpose, he caused Sir Robert Curson, captain of the castle at Hammes, to fly from his charge, and to feign himself the Earl's servant. Curson did so: and, having insinuated himself into the secrets of the Earl, and become his confidant, communicated every thing to Henry, Meauwhile Henry, to confirm the credit of Curson, caused to be published at Paul's Cross the Pope's Bull of excommunication and curse against the Earl of Suffolk and Sir Robert Curson: "wherein it must be confessed," says Lord Bacon very gently, " that heaven was made too much to bow to earth, and religion to policy t.'

In the time of Cromwell, a thousand tricks were played to find out and convict the disaffected; and an accursed order of villains, who were called Duckoys and Trapans, were employed to worm out their secrets under hypocritical pretences, and then betray them. Thus overreached, Colonel Andrews lost his head: nor, says my author," was the President Bradshaw ashamed openly "to declare in court, that by counterfeit letters he had correponded with him in the name of the King‡.”

66

alioqui impotens, sæva mutabilis: ubi vana religione capta est, meliùs vatibus quam ducibus suis paret. But the latter part of it, so much to the relish of Jeremy, may probably have made the whole unpalatable to the statesman: who, it is observable, hath never been forward to employ the priest in any of his manœvres, when he could possibly do without him. Q. Curt. iv. 39.

* But do not men, who thus contend for the utility of all religions to the support of government, appear to put all relgions upon a level, confounding the true with the false? and, if government cau as well be supported by fraud and imposture, as by a genuine and pure religion, must not the God of truth and the God of order seem two distinct beings?

+ Hist. of Henry VII.-Zopyrus acted precisely the same part for Darius against the Assyriaus, whom he betrayed: only to gain their confidence more effectually, he caused his nose, ears and lips to be cut off, and then feigned to have been thus treated by Darius. Just. Hist. i. 13.

Bates's Elenchus Motuum, &c. Part II.