ordinary
assistance: and he seems to be angry with his great friend Dion, for
having proceeded somewhat after another manner. I was a Platonist in
this point before I knew there had ever been such a man as Plato in the
world. And if this person ought absolutely to be rejected from our
society (he who by the sincerity of his conscience merited from the
divine favour to penetrate so far into the Christian light, through the
universal darkness wherein the world was involved in his time), I do not
think it becomes us to suffer ourselves to be instructed by a heathen,
how great an impiety it is not to expect from God any relief simply his
own and without our co-operation. I often doubt, whether amongst so many
men as meddle in such affairs, there is not to be found some one of so
weak understanding as to have been really persuaded that he went towards
reformation by the worst of deformations; and advanced towards salvation
by the most express causes that we have of most assured damnation; that
by overthrowing government, the magistracy, and the laws, in whose
protection God has placed him, by dismembering his good mother, and
giving her limbs to be mangled by her old enemies, filling fraternal
hearts with parricidal hatreds, calling devils and furies to his aid, he
can assist the most holy sweetness and justice of the divine law.
Ambition, avarice, cruelty, and revenge have not sufficient natural
impetuosity of their own; let us bait them with the glorious titles of
justice and devotion. There cannot a worse state of things be imagined
than where wickedness comes to be legitimate, and assumes, with the
magistrates' permission, the cloak of virtue:

"Nihil in speciem fallacius, quam prava religio,
ubi deorum numen prxtenditur sceleribus."

["Nothing has a more deceiving face than false religion, where the
divinity of the gods is obscured by crimes."--Livy, xxxix. 16.]

The extremest sort of injustice, according to Plato, is where that which
is unjust should be reputed for just.

The common people then suffered very much, and not present damage only:

"Undique totis
Usque adeo turbatur agris,"

["Such great disorders overtake our fields on every side."
--Virgil, Eclog., i. II.]

but future too; the living were to suffer, and so were they who were yet
unborn; they stript them, and consequently myself, even of hope, ta