er ought to
be sacrificed, to atone the people, and the tyrant is persuaded, for
his own interest, to give him up to public justice. I say no more, but
that he has studied the law to good purpose. He is dancing on the rope
without a metaphor; his knowledge of the law is the staff that poizes
him, and saves his neck. The party, indeed, speaks out sometimes, for
wickedness is not always so wise as to be secret, especially when it
is driven to despair. By some of their discourses, we may guess at
whom he points; but he has fenced himself in with so many evasions,
that he is safe in his sacrilege; and he, who dares to answer him, may
become obnoxious. It is true, he breaks a little out of the clouds,
within two paragraphs; for there he tells you, that "Caius Caesar (to
give into Caesar the things that were Caesar's,) was in the catiline
conspiracy;" a fine insinuation this, to be sneered at by his party,
and yet not to be taken hold of by public justice. They would be glad
now, that I, or any man, should bolt out their covert treason for
them; for their loop-hole is ready, that the Caesar, here spoken of,
was a private man. But the application of the text declares the
author's to be another Caesar; which is so black and so infamous an
aspersion, that nothing less than the highest clemency can leave it
unpunished. I could reflect on his ignorance in this place, for
attributing these words to Caesar, "He that is not with us, is against
us:" He seems to have mistaken them out of the New-Testament, and that
is the best defence I can make for him; for if he did it knowingly, it
was impiously done, to put our Saviour's words into Caesar's mouth. But
his law and our gospel are two things; this gentleman's knowledge is
not of the bible, any more than his practice is according to it. He
tells you, he will give the world a taste of my atheism and impiety;
for which he quotes these following verses, in the second or third act
of the "Duke of Guise."
For conscience or heaven's fear, religious rules,
Are all state bells, to toll in pious fools.
In the first place, he is mistaken in his man, for the verses are not
mine, but Mr Lee's: I asked him concerning them, and have this
account,--that they were spoken by the devil; now, what can either
whig or devil say, more proper to their character, than that religion
is only a name, a stalking-horse, as errant a property as godliness
and property themselves are amongst their party? Yet
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