trious
pagans_ to the _eternal torments of Hell_? because they lived before the
time of Jesus, and therefore could not be benefited by the redemption!
Speaking of young Tiberius, who was compelled to fall on his own sword,
Tillemont adds, "Thus by his own hand he ended his miserable life, _to
begin another, the misery of which will never end_!" Yet history records
nothing bad of this prince. Jortin observes that he added this
_reflection_ in his later edition, so that the good man as he grew older
grew more uncharitable in his religious notions. It is in this manner
too that the Benedictine editor of Justin Martyr speaks of the
illustrious pagans. This father, after highly applauding Socrates, and a
few more who resembled him, inclines to think that they are not fixed in
_Hell_. But the Benedictine editor takes great pains to clear the good
father from the shameful imputation of supposing that a _virtuous pagan
might be saved_ as well as a Benedictine monk! For a curious specimen of
this _odium theologicum_, see the "Censure" of the Sorbonne on
Marmontel's Belisarius.

The adverse party, who were either philosophers or reformers, received
all such information with great suspicion. Anthony Cornelius, a lawyer
in the sixteenth century, wrote a small tract, which was so effectually
suppressed, as a monster of atheism, that a copy is now only to be found
in the hands of the curious. This author ridiculed the absurd and horrid
doctrine of _infant damnation_, and was instantly decried as an atheist,
and the printer prosecuted to his ruin! Caelius Secundus Curio, a noble
Italian, published a treatise _De Amplitudine beati Regni Dei_, to prove
that _Heaven_ has more inhabitants than _Hell_,--or, in his own phrase,
that the _elect_ are more numerous than the _reprobate_. However we may
incline to smile at these works, their design was benevolent. They were
the first streaks of the morning light of the Reformation. Even such
works assisted mankind to examine more closely, and hold in greater
contempt, the extravagant and pernicious doctrines of the domineering
papistical church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 60: One of the most horrible of these books was the work of
the Jesuit Pinamonti; it details with frightful minuteness the nature of
hell-torments, accompanied by the most revolting pictures of the
condemned under various refined torments. It was translated in an
abbreviated form, and sold for a few pence as a popular religious