rs which have been believed, and
many of the most desperate crimes which have been perpetrated among men.
The former of them is founded altogether on that grossly fallacious
assumption, that a man's opinions will not influence his practice. The
latter proceeds on this groundless supposition, that the Supreme Being
has not afforded us sufficient means of discriminating truth from
falsehood, right from wrong: and it implies, that be a man's opinions or
conduct ever so wild and extravagant, we are to presume, that they are
as much the result of impartial inquiry and honest conviction, as if his
sentiments and actions had been strictly conformable to the rules of
reason and sobriety. Never indeed was there a principle more general in
its use, more sovereign in its potency. How does its beautiful
simplicity also, and compendious brevity, give it rank before the
laborious subtleties of Bellarmine! Clement, and Ravaillac, and other
worthies of a similar stamp, from whose purity of intention the world
has hitherto withheld its due tribute of applause, would here have found
a ready plea; and their injured innocence shall now at length receive
its full though tardy vindication. "These however," it may be replied,
"are excepted cases." Certainly they are cases of which any one who
maintains the opinion in question would be glad to disencumber himself;
because they clearly expose the unsoundness of his principle. But it
will be incumbent on such an one, first to explain with precision why
they are to be exempted from its operation, and this he will find an
impossible task; for sincerity, in its popular sense, so shamefully is
the term misapplied, can be made the criterion of guilt and innocence on
no grounds, which will not equally serve to justify the assassins who
have been instanced. The conclusion cannot be eluded; no man was ever
more fully persuaded of the innocence of any action, than these men
were, that the horrid deed they were about to perpetrate was not lawful
merely, but highly meritorious. Thus Clement and Ravaillac being
unquestionably sincere, they were therefore indubitably innocent. Nay,
the absurdity of this principle might be shewn to be even greater than
what has yet been stated. It would not be going too far to assert, that
whilst it scorns the defence of petty villains, of those who still
retain the sense of good and evil, it holds forth, like some well
frequented sanctuary, a secure asylum to those more finish