Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/219

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Seeing by what strange fatality his life was not in safety, either among Papists or Protestants, he went to Venice and turned Jew. He was positively persuaded, even to the last moments of his life, that the religion of the Jews was the only true religion; for that, if it was once true, it must always be so. The Jews did not circumcise him, for fear of offending the state; but he was no less internally a Jew. He now went to Geneva, where, concealing his faith, he became a preacher, was president of the college, and finally what is called a minister.

The perpetual combat in his breast between the religion of Calvin, which he was obliged to preach, and that of Moses, which was the only religion he believed, produced a long illness. He became melancholy, and at last quite mad, crying aloud, that he was a Jew. The ministers of the gospel came to visit him, and endeavoured to bring him to himself; but he answered, “that he adored none but the God of Israel; that it was impos-