them the fubtle Mafkwells and Tartuffes, who have fo well deceived the world by falfe exteriors, can expect no favour; judicious too as incorruptible, not all the false excufes they produce avail them any thing, except it is fometimes to cause the chaflifement they deserve to be increased on them. Before thefe upright judges, birth, genius, dignity, rank, riches, beauty, fortune, are all as nothing, nor can bestow the smallest privilege. The fame crimes always fuffer an equal punishment, whoever has committed them. The mighty monarch Saul is no lefs harfhly treated for his attempt on his own life, and opening with his fword his way to hell himfelf, than is his armour-bearer, who imitated him in this criminal action.

NAY more, we may fee by our facred oracles, that the great are there ftill more rigorously punished than other men; and this for many very strong reafons the firft is, because in the high ftations they maintained on earth, they owed a good example to the leffer people, to whom they, on the contrary, fet forth a bad one : fecondly, because being better inftructed, and enlightened, they ought to be better: in the third place, becaufe, by being richer, they were in a better condition to affift the wretched. In short, because they have converted to the use of evil the means which God had given them for to do good.

THIS truth is fo conftant and natural, that even

the Pagans have acknowledged, and preached it, as we may fay, on their houfe-tops. Every one, fays Seneca, in one of his tragedies, blames himself in hell for his own crimes, and cannot lay the blame upon any other. "I have feen" (he makes one of his heroes fay, whom he imagines just returned from the infernal regions) "princes and generals reflect"ing, in most frightful dungeons, upon the crimes "they had committed; and tyrants ignominiously "whipt by their subjects, whom they had unjustly oppreffed when living."

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CHA P. X.

Excellent advice to honeft men.

Would by no means advise honeft men, who

are obliged to have recourfe to juftice, to protect them from the oppreflion of the wicked, to make application to any of our courts here on earth for their redress, nor even to our kings or princes; because these last, suffering themselves almost always to be win by the folicitations of their wives or miftreffes, their minifters, favourites, or confeffors, fee but through the eyes of others, who are blind themfelves to justice, and make it a point on all occafions. to deceive the judges themselves. The best advice

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in this cafe that I can give them, is to come ftraight to hell, where Juftice refides, as in her true and only abode. If they should even happen here above to have loft their law fuits, and confequently their goods, their fortunes, and fometimes even lives, as we but too often fee, to the shame of humanity; I ftill advise them to appeal to this univerfal parlia ment, before whom all the world must one day appear a court wherein they may be certain they wil be heard ; and juftice done them even on justice

felf.

To this falutary piece of advice I fhall join another, which is no lefs neceffary and useful to those who undertake this voyage. This is, that they will take care upon their arrival of approaching the quar ters of the bad women, whofe ordinary employment in this habitation is to torment all honeft and sober people; and they fhew more rage and cruelty in the acquitting themselves of this, than even the infernal furies themselves do towards the greatest criminals that are given over to them.

An agreeable story upon this subject:

HAT you may not think that I exaggerate the matter, I am going to relate you a pleasant

TH

K. 4

story,

ftory, that I remember to have read in an excellent author (though, indeed, I have forgot his name; for if I can help it I never read any other.) This writer, who is a man of great judgment, and not in the leaft given to credulity, fays, that a certain man who had a wife that made this world his purgatory (though, in the main, a very well behaved, modest kind of gentlewoman) happening to die fome little time after her, took immediately the road to paradise, as foon as the breath was out of his body, as a re. ward for his patience in this world; arriving at the gate, he knocks, the good man St. Peter opens the door, and invites him very civilly to walk in, and take the place which was defined for him in heaven. The husband flops a moment, as it were, to reflect; and then demands of St. Peter, whether or not he thought his wife was there? The good faint anfwered the was: upon which the honest man, without asking any thing more, takes immediately to his heels, and makes for the road to hell, as faft as his legs would carry him; rather inclining to renounce heaven, than be in the fame place with his wife, whom he was certain. would, out of the abundance of her virtue, make heaven as great a hell to him, as fhe had done this earth. Now, if good women, at least those whom we for the most part take for fuch, are capable of making a desart of heaven, judge you what muft the wicked ones be in hell?

CHAP.

:

CHA P. XII.

Piety and repentance reign in Hell.

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USTICE is not the fole virtue which is known, practifed, and feverely exercifed in the infernal empire: piety there shines forth in a distinguished manner. It would even feem, that the lefs of this virtue the damned had whilft alive, the more they make appear in this habitation after their death. deed upon earth, the most of them had no refpect for the true God; they knew not what it was to bow their knees in prayer to him; but different countries different manners. For as a certain apostle obferves, they are as pious in hell, as they were impious on earth, and adore him in fear and trembling; and inftead of the blafphemies that were used to come out of their impious and facrilegious mouths against him, they acknowledge all his infinite perfections, which they never cease praifing: although their prayers are loft, and without effect (for in this place there is no room to hope for either mercy or forgiveness) they fail not to continue them, and that in the moft eager manner, as we fee in the fcriptures, after the example of the wicked rich man. Whilft upon earth they never would hear repentance fpoke of, far less practise it; they have lived and persisted