which never, as far as appears to us, came before them, yet I think they have left enough to constitute a presumption how they would have decided it, had it been proposed or thought of."* If it might not appear too presumptuous for a layman to differ from so profound a theologian as Dr. Paley, I would venture to observe, that the case did come before the apostles in the remarkable instance of one of themselves; one even of the chosen twelve, Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his master and Saviour for thirty pieces of silver, which "he cast down in the temple, and departed, and went out and hanged himself."† The crime, therefore, if not propounded to the apostles in a direct question, and met by a direct reply, is thus clearly brought before them, and in reference to which it is said, Acts, i. 25, "that he (Joseph or Matthias) may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas, by transgression, fell, that he might go to his own place;" that is, according to the interpretation of Archbishop Newcome, "to the place of destruction fit for him." Here is a positive judgment pronounced on the point in dispute, and the punishment thus declared against Judas may be taken as the opinion of the apostles on the question of suicide, and is

See Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, Book IV. c. iii. section Suicide, and the able arguments which follow the

extract.

† St. Matthew, c. xxvii. 5.

not to be considered so much as the consequence of his treachery, which, though heinous, might have been mitigated by repentance, as Peter redeemed his delinquency) as the sentence belonging to the still heavier crime of selfmurder, with which he followed up the first offence. Archdeacon Paley, in another place, says, "murder is forbidden, and wherever human life is deliberately taken away, otherwise than by public authority, there is murder."* If suicide does not come under this head, I know not how we shall define it, unless we accord with the practice of modern judicial inquests, who dispose of the question in a summary manner, and, with a charitable feeling, remove the act altogether from the list of responsible offences, by invariably recording it as proceeding from temporary insanity. The fact is, the Scriptures do not contain a single expression or allusion, which by fair reasoning can be applied as a condemnation of theatrical amusements in themselves; and to this strong negative argument, we may add the positive testimony of St. Paul, the most learned of the apostles, who enforces the sacred truths of the Gospel, by quotations from the poet Aratus of Cilicia,t the

* Moral and Political Philosophy, Book II. c. ix.

"For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." Acts, xvii. 28.

*

epic poet Epimenides of Crete, and by a very remarkable one from the Thais of the dramatic poet, Menander the Athenian, in the celebrated line, "Evil communications corrupt good manners."+ If the apostle had considered the drama as essentially vicious, and opposed to Christianity, he would scarcely, in delivering the divine oracles of God, have availed himself of the language of the Stage, however sound in its morality, or innocent in its expression. To do so, with a conviction that the source from whence he derived even truth itself was evil, would be to advocate the doctrine of expediency, and to make the end sanctify the means; a proceeding directly opposed to the Gospel he was commissioned to preach.

But let us leave the inspired authorities, and descend to the testimonies of uninspired men. Dr. Bennett, in his Appendix, quotes a powerful passage in condemnation of plays, from Archbishop Tillotson's Sermon, "On the Evil of Corrupt Communications." There are few writers whose

* "One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies: this witness is true." Titus, i. 12, 13.

† 1 Corinthians, xv. 33. There is a difference of opinion among the learned, as to whether this line belongs to Menander or Euripides; it is extant in the fragments of both writers, and in either case applies equally as a quotation from a dramatic poet. See Milton's Preface to Samson Agonistes, Doddrige's Family Expositor, &c.

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opinions are entitled to more respect than those of this eminent divine; his character reflected the highest honour on the archiepiscopal chair, and his life was a true commentary on his faith. Strange as it may appear at first sight, I am willing to join conclusions on his evidence, and am here content to rest my argument on the very witness produced to refute it. Archbishop Tillotson condemns the Theatre, not in itself, but as it was frightfully misapplied in the corrupted times in which he preached; he speaks in just reprehension of the licentious plays which then held possesssion of the Stage, but the Stage in itself he admits to be capable of innocent instruction. I subjoin the entire passage, with the context, which Dr. Bennett withholds, and which materially affects the value of the quotation. The unsoundness of drawing conclusions from partial extracts, was strongly illustrated at the trial of Algernon Sidney; some loose sheets were found in his study, which contained speculative opinions in answer to Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, a book in which Filmer deduced the indefeasible claims of kings from Noah, and argued on the right divine, and other ultradoctrines of his party. Sidney's reply was unfinished; it had evidently been written many years before, and whatever might be the tendency of particular sentences, it was impossible to conclude how the book was to end. Passages from this work were cited in evidence against him, which,

when disconnected from their contexts, were entirely altered in meaning. "I pray you to read the whole," said he. "I will read as much as bears on the indictment," replied the AttorneyGeneral. On this, Sidney argued eloquently, that on that principle, truth might be made to appear like falsehood, and the Bible itself convicted of atheism. "Now, my lord," said he, "if you will make a concatenation of one thing, a supposition upon supposition, I would take all this asunder, and show that if none of these things are any thing in themselves, they can be nothing joined together." And again, "my lord, if you will take Scripture by pieces, you will make all the penmen of the Scripture blasphemous; you may accuse David of saying there is no God; and accuse the Evangelists of saying, Christ was a blasphemer and a seducer; and the apostles, that they were drunk.”*

* Vide Cobbett's State Trials, vol. ix. page 867. Sidney, as is well known, was sentenced to the block; but he was tried by a packed jury, and his judge was Jefferies. Fox, in the introductory chapter to his history of James the Second, says, in speaking of the trial of Lord William Russell, "the proceedings in Sidney's case were still more detestable. The production of papers containing speculative opinions upon government and liberty, written long before, and perhaps never intended to be published, together with the use made of those papers, in considering them as a substitute for the second witness to the overt act, exhibited such a compound of wickedness and nonsense, as is hardly to be paralleled in the history of judicial tyranny."