were you, in this manner, to reason on the rest of men? We have seen many wives faithless, to their honour and to their duty; but do modesty and fidelity no longer exist in the sacred bond of marriage? Many magistrates have sold their honour and disgraced their function; but are justice and integrity consequently banished from every tribunal? History, hath preserved to us the remembrance of too many perfidious, dissembling, unfaithful, and dishonourable princes, equally faithless to their subjects, their allies, and their enemies; but are integrity, truth, and religion, for ever excluded from a throne? The past ages have seen many subjects, distinguished for their names, their offices, and the gifts of their sovereign, betray their prince and country, and keep up the most criminal intelligence with the enemy: would you find just the master whom you serve with so much zeal and courage, were he merely upon such grounds to suspect the truth of your fidelity? Why then is a suspicion, which excites the indignation of all other descriptions of men, only supportable when directed against the pious? Why is a conclusion, so ridiculous in every other case, only judicious when against virtue? Doth the perfidy of a single Judas give you grounds to conclude that all the other disciples were traitors and without faith? Doth the hypocrisy of Simon the magician prove, that the conversion of the other disciples who embraced faith was merely an artifice to accomplish their own purposes; and that, like him, they walked not uprightly in the path of the Lord? What can be more unjust or foolish, than of the guilt of an individual to constitute a general crime? It is difficult, I confess, but that vice may sometimes assume the garb of virtue; that the angel of darkness may not sometimes have the appearance of an angel of light; and that the passions, which generally strain every nerve to succeed, may not sometimes call in the appearances of piety to their aid, particularly under a reign when piety, held in honour, is almost a certain road to fortune and favour. But it is the height of folly to reflect upon all virtue for the impious use which some individuals may make even of piety; and to believe that some abuses, discovered in a holy and venerable profession, universally dishonour all who have embraced it. The truth, my brethren', is, that we hate all men who are not similar to ourselves; and that we are delighted to be enabled to condemn piety, because piety itself condemns us.
But one has so often been deceived, say you. I confess it: but in reply, I say, that, granting you are even deceived while refusing to suspect your brethren, and while rendering to a fictitious virtue that esteem and honour which are due to real virtue alone, what would be the consequence? By what would your credulity be followed, either sorrowful or disgraceful? You would have judged according to the rules of charity, which doth not easily believe in evil, and which delighteth in even the appearances of good; according to the rules of justice, which is incapable of every malignity or deed to others which it would not wish to have done to itself; according to the rules of prudence, which judges only from
