fiderations, in which you have no concern. Vile wretch, would the people ever employ you to plead their cause, whose breath is steaming with the effluvia of venereal putrefcence? You afcribe to the people the clamours of fugitives and profligates; and, like a juggler on a stage, you imitate the fhrieks and cries of the moft hideous brutes. Who denies that there may be times, in which the vicious may conftitute the majority of the citizens, who would rather follow Catiline or Anthony, than the more virtuous part of the fenate? But are not good citizens on this account to oppose the bad with vigour and decifion? Ought they not to be lefs deterred by the fmallness of their numbers, than they are animated by the goodness of their caufe? Your beautiful fcrap of declamation for the people of England, that it may not perish beyond recovery, I would advise you to infert in the Annals of Volufius; we do not want the favoury effufions of fuch a lecherous rhetorician. Next we are called to account for our injuries to the church. "The army is a Hydra-headed monster of accumulated herefies." Thofe, who speak the truth, acknowledge that our army excels all others, not only in courage, but in virtue and in piety. Other camps are the fcenes of gambling, fwearing, riot and debauchery; in ours, the troops employ what leifure they have in fearching the fcriptures and hearing the word; nor is there one, who thinks it more honourable to vanquish the enemy than to propagate the truth; and they not only carry on a military warfare against their enemies, but an evangelical one against themfelves. And indeed if we confider the proper objects of war, what employment can be more becoming foldiers, who áre raifed to defend the laws, to be the fupport of our political and religious inftitutions? Ought they not then to be lefs confpicuous for ferocity than for the civil and the fofter virtues, and to confider it as their true and proper deftination, nor merely to fow the feeds of ftrife, and reap the harvest of destruction, but to procure peace and fecurity for the whole human race? there be any, who either from the mistakes of others, or the infirmities of their own minds, deviate from these noble ends, we ought not to punish them with the fword, but rather labour to reform them by reafon, by admonition,

If

by

by pious fupplications to God, to whom alone it belongs to difpel all the errors of the mind, and to impart to whom be will the celeftial light of truth. We approve no herefies which are truly fuch; we do not even tolerate fome; we wish them extirpated, but by those means, which are beft fuited to the purpose; by reafon and inftruction, the only fafe remedies for diforders of the mind; and not by the knife or the fcourge, as if they were feated in the body. You fay that "we have done another and equal injury to the temporal property of the church." Afk the proteftants of Holland, and even of Upper Germany, whether they ever fpared the poffeffions of the church, against whom the Auftrian Prince, as often as he makes war, hardly ever feeks for any other pretext than the reftitution of the ecclefiaftical domains. But that property did not belong to the church fo much as the ecclefiaftics, who, in this fenfe, might most justly be denominated churchmen; indeed they might have been more fully termed wolves than any thing elfe; but could there be any impiety in applying to the neceffary exigencies of a war which they themselves had occafioned, and which we had no other refource for carrying on, the property of these wolves, or rather the accumulated ravages of fo many ages of ignorance and fuperftition? But it was expected that the wealth which was ravifhed from the bishops would be distributed among the parochial clergy. They expected, I know, and they desired, that the whole should be diffused among them; for there is no abyss so deep which it is not more easy to fill, than it is to fatiate the rapacity of the clergy. In other places there may be an incompetent provifion for the clergy; but ours have an abundant maintenance; they ought to be called sheep rather than fhepherds; they themselves are fed more than they feed others; every thing is fat around them, fo that even their heads feem to fwim in fat. They are stuffed with tythes in a way difapproved by the reft of the reformed churches; and they have fo little trust in God, that they choose to extort a maintenance, rather by judicial force, and magifterial authority, than to owe it to divine providence, or the gratitude and benevolence of their congregations. And, besides all this, they are fo frequently entertained

Ee 3

entertained by their pious auditors of both fexes, that they hardly know what it is to dine or fup at home. Hence they luxuriate in fuperfluities, rather than languish in want; their wives and children vie with the wives and children of the rich in luxury and refinement; and to have increased this tendency to prodigality, by an addition to their revenue, would have been the fame as to infuse new poifon into the church; a fort of peftilential malady, the introduction of which a voice from heaven lamented under Conftantine. We have next to give an account of our enormities towards God, which principally concern our truft in the divine affiftance, our prayers and fasts. But, vile mifcreant! I will refute you out of your own mouth; and retort upon you that text of the Apostle, "Who art thou that judgeft another man's fervant?" Before our own mafter let us ftand or fall. I will add alfo that faying of the prophet, "When I afflict my foul with fafting, this is turned to my reproach." The reft of your delirious effufions on this fubject, which no one will take the trouble to read twice, I should do wrong to detail. Nor are those things more to the purpose, which you brawl out concerning our fucceffes. Beware, fir, beware, left, after your Pontian toils, you should fwell into a polypus of corpulency; and we need be under apprehenfions, left as the great Salamafius lately did, you fhould chill the baths. On the nature of fuccefs I will fay a few words. Success neither proves a caufe to be good, nor indicates it to be bad; and we demand that our caufe fhould not be judged by the event, but the event by the caufe. You now enter on political difcuffions, the injuries which we have done to all kings, and to all people. What injuries? for we never intended any; the affairs of our own government alone occupied our attention, we neglected those of others; we do not envy the good that may have accrued from our example, and we can afcribe the evil only to the abuse or mifapplication of our principles. But, what kings or people ever appointed you to proclaim their injuries? Indeed others have heard their orators and ambaffadors in the fenate, and I have often heard them in the council, not only not complaining of any grievances, but voluntarily

fuing for our friendfhip and alliance. In the name of their kings and princes, they have often congratulated us on the state of our affairs, praying for the ftability of our government and the continuance of our profperity. This was not the language of hoftility or hatred, as you affert; and you must either neceffarily be convicted of falsehood, at which you never stick, or kings themfelves of an infincerity and diffimulation, the most humiliating and most bafe. But you object to our confeffion, that we had fet a falutary example to all people, and a formidable one to all tyrants. This is furely as heinous a crime as if any

one were to fay,

Advis'd, learn justice, and revere the gods.

Could any thing be uttered more pernicious? This was the language of Cromwell to the Scots after the battle of Dunbar. And worthy indeed was it of him and of that noble victory. "The infamous pages of Milton abound with the fame noifome ingredients." You always affociate me with fome illuftrious colleague; and, on this occafion, you make me his equal, if not his fuperior; fo that I might on this account think myself moft honoured by you, if any thing honourable could proceed from you. "But thofe pages," you fay, "were burnt at Paris by the hands of the common hangman, and by the orders of the parliament." I find that this was by no means done by the fenate, but by one of the city officers, of what defcription I know not, but at the inftigation of the clergy, thofe indolent vermin, who faw at a distance the fate which menaced, and which, I pray, may one day overtake their gluttony and extravagance. Do you imagine that we, in our turn, could not have burnt Salamafius's defence of the king? I could myself easily have obtained this permiffion from the magistrates, if I had thought that it merited any thing but contempt. You, in your endeavours to extinguish one fire by another, have only erected an Herculean pile, from which I fhall rife with more luftre and renown; we with more difcretion, did not think it right to communicate any animating heat to the icy chilliness of the royal vindication. But I wonder that the Thouloufians fhould have become fo degenerate, that a de

Ee 4

a defence of religion and of liberty fhould be burnt in a city, in which, under the Counts of Raymond, religion and liberty were formerly fo nobly defended. " And I wifh," you fay, "that the writer had been burned as well." Is this your difpofition, flave? But you have taken good care that I fhould not indulge a fimilar wish towards you; for you have been long wafting in blacker flames. Your confcience is fcorched by the flames of adultery and rape, and of thofe perjuries, by the help of which you debauched an unfufpecting girl, to whom you promifed marriage, and then abandoned to despair. You are writhing under the flames of that mercenary passion, which impelled you, though covered with crimes, to luft after the functions of the priesthood, and to pollute the confecrated elements with your inceftuous touch. While you are acting the hypocrite, you utter the most horrid imprecations against hypocrify; and every fentence of condemnation only ferves to condemn yourfelf. Such are the attrocities, fuch the infamy, with which you are all on fire; these are the infuriated flames, by which you are tormented night and day; and you fuffer a punishment, than which even your bittereft foe, could not invoke one more fevere. In the mean time, not one hair of my head is finged by the conflagrations which you kiindle; but those affronts are ballanced by much delight, and many sweets. One tribunal perhaps, or a fingle Parifian executioner, under fome unlucky biafs, burnt my book; but nevertheless, how many good and wife men through all France read it, cherished and admired it? How many, through the spacious tracts of Germany, the domicile of freedom, and wherever any traces of freedom yet remain ? Moreover Greece itself, and Athens, the eye of Greece, mingles its applaufe in the voice of its noble Philyras. And this I can truly fay that, as foon as my defence appeared, and had begun to excite the public curiofity, there was no public functionary of any prince or ftate then in the city, who did not congratulate me when we accidentally met, who did not defire my company at his house or vifit me at mine. But it would be wrong not to mention you, O Adrian Paul, the honour and the ornament of Holland, who, dispatched on a fplendid embaffy to us, though