preachers of this cast, that he church itself, preachers and all, be not removed together. Indeed, as the precept of the apostle concerning the bishop is so very marked, that he ought to have a fair testimony even among foreigners---what could give greater delight, or be a cause of greater triumph to adversaries, than for them to read and hear, that the man, who, by a report in no wise vague or doubtful, but constant, and singularly consistent, by a host of witnesses, in many different places, has been found to be a person of a flagitious and scandalous life--that such a man is decorated, as the great luminary and ornament of the church, with the collective praises of the presbyters, and with public, and various commendation. The only way of providing that this exultation of our enemies be not of long continuance, is, to demonstrate by an example, by a positive fact, that, in the reformed church, there is no room for any such pests: that these testimonies and praises, procured by himself and with the basest artifice, were given at a time, when the man to whom they were given, affected to be a far different personage from what he is now discovered to be, and that hence they are become insignificant, and any body's praises and testimonies rather than his own; that even the eulogies bestowed upon him by his own friends, rendered vain by his own profligacy, have been degraded not indeed into wrappers for paltry commodities (the fate of most worthless writings) but into coverings for the foulest mire of his own debaucheries.

It is true, that, in that former defence, to which I was called by a public order and by private injury, as it was the cause of my country as well as my own, I performed the common task with zealous diligence: and who will say I ought to have chosen rather to lose, by

silence, the honest reputation I might have gained by speaking, and to leave it, as it were, witliout a possessor, to be invaded and oppressed by lyes? And being now under a heavy accusation, by the same person, of having defamed forsooth by scandal and falsehood, an innocent and unoffending man; that I might confound his impudence, and vindicate my own innocence; and further, (if I have hitherto written any thing well, or shall hereafter write what may be of utility) that I may be able to obtain, if not the praise of learning and of genius, at least a fame untainted by dishonour, with the credit of being an adorer of truth---I have stooped again to this contention, necessary indeed, though in itself most ungrateful. Nor, if these inducements were wanting, should I myself have any reason to repent of this undertaking; nor would any one else, unless conscious of guilt, have any cause for sorrow. Indeed, as the reproof of the bad is meant as a most serious punishment, so is the commendation of the good intended as the noblest reward; it is not merely just---it goes near to the perfection of justice: we may add, that, in the just regulation of life, we see they are both almost of equal efficacy. In effect, these two things are so closely allied, that they are accomplished by one and the same act for when we blame the bad, we may be considered, in some sort, as praising the good. But that each may have its peculiar province, and reason, and use, they are not alike in point of favour; for, he who blames another, has to sustain at once the burthen and the envy of two very serious things; namely, the burthen of accusing another, and the envy which is the conse quence of his having a good opinion of himself. Hence it is, that both the good and the bad readily bestow

praise, and with little distinction, upon the worthy and the unworthy; but no one, except the upright alone openly and fearlessly either presumes, or has the autho rity to accuse. We, who as boys are accustomed under so many masters to sweat in the shade at eloquence, and who are convinced that its persuasive power consists in censure no less than in applause, may, it is true, safely and valiantly batter the names of ancient tyrants: and as it happens, we kill Mezentius over again in stale an titheses; or, in the rueful bellowing of enthymems, we roast, with a daintiness more exquisite than in his own bull, the Agrigentine Phalaris. I allude to those who were trained in the public walks and schools of exercise :* for such are the men, whom, in a republic, we most delight to honour and adore---such we fondly stile most potent, and most magnificent, and most august! But yet, it was expected that those who thus spent a good part of their prime in mere pastime in the shade, should, at some after period, when the country, when the republic stood in need of their services, throw aside their foils, and dare the sun, and the dust, and the field; that they should at last have the courage to use in their contests hands and arms of flesh and blood, to brandish real weapons, to encounter a real enemy. We persecute, with no small hostility indeed, some, the Suffenuses and Sophists; some, the Pharisees, the Simons, the Hymenæuses, the Alexanders: for all these are ancients. But when we find them brought to life again, and appearing in the modern church, then we club our eulogies for them, and honour them with stipends and professorial chairs, as patterns of all excellence, as prodigies of learning, as mirrors of sanctity. Should we ever go

• In xysto nimirum aut in palæstra.

I

so far as to censure; should the mask and the fair outside happen to be torn away from one of this sort; should he prove to be foul within, nay plainly, manifestly villainous, there are yet not wanting those, who, (influ enced by what consideration, by what fear, I know not) would rather choose for him to be defended by public tes timonies, than branded with his merited reproof. My way of thinking is, I confess, far enough removed from this, as I have shown by my conduct on more occasions than one. If, as a boy in the abovementioned recreations of learning, I have profited any thing from the precepts of the learned, or from my own lucubrations, it is my purpose, as far as my infirmity will permit, and if I may hope to perform any thing on so wide a field, to contribute the whole to increase the pleasures of life and of human kind. And if, even from private enmities, public offences are sometimes reproved aud often corrected; if impelled by every motive to inflict reproof so well deserved, upon an adversary now become not mine alone, but the common adversary almost of all men; upon a character outrageously scandalous, the disgrace of the reformed religion, and above all of the holy order, the blot of letters, the fatal preceptor of youth, the preacher impure in sacred things---whether I shall have done this with all that effect which it ought to have, it is their business to see, whom it most concerns to make an example of him. As for me, I have the hope (for why shall I have any mistrust) that I have performed an office neither unacceptable to God, uusalutary to the church, nor without its utility to the commonwealth.

THE AUTHOR's ANSWER

TO THE

SUPPLEMENT

OF

ALEXANDER MORE:

TRANSLATED BY THE EDITOR.

THAT More may not upbraid me with having taken another two years to put him to the rout, I have had by me this my defence, now two months; and such was the longing desire with which I expected this supplement to the public faith, that the time seemed an age to me. For I had learnt from Vlaccus's peroration, that, though More had retired into France, he was not yet quiet; but, either unable to place reliance upon the forces, which, by hard stripes he had levied upon the Genevese, or, thinking that with so small a body, he was not sufficiently prepared to decide the contest by a single battle, that he was busy in raising by conscription, in France, a fresh army to be employed against me; and what may appear strange, from the inhabitants of Middelburgh and of Amsterdam; and that consuls and even tiptaves (scabinos,) were approaching with a mighty host, and the display of hostile banners. At last, tho' long in coming, these new-raised troops stole in sight; and till