hile I endeavoured to cure the madness of others; for, if I speak with,
I must repeat what I have said to you; and as for lying, whether a
philosopher can do it or not I cannot tell: I am sure I cannot do it. But
though these discourses may be uneasy and ungrateful to them, I do not
see why they should seem foolish or extravagant; indeed, if I should
either propose such things as Plato has contrived in his 'Commonwealth,'
or as the Utopians practise in theirs, though they might seem better, as
certainly they are, yet they are so different from our establishment,
which is founded on property (there being no such thing among them), that
I could not expect that it would have any effect on them. But such
discourses as mine, which only call past evils to mind and give warning
of what may follow, leave nothing in them that is so absurd that they may
not be used at any time, for they can only be unpleasant to those who are
resolved to run headlong the contrary way; and if we must let alone
everything as absurd or extravagant--which, by reason of the wicked lives
of many, may seem uncouth--we must, even among Christians, give over
pressing the greatest part of those things that Christ hath taught us,
though He has commanded us not to conceal them, but to proclaim on the
housetops that which He taught in secret. The greatest parts of His
precepts are more opposite to the lives of the men of this age than any
part of my discourse has been, but the preachers seem to have learned
that craft to which you advise me: for they, observing that the world
would not willingly suit their lives to the rules that Christ has given,
have fitted His doctrine, as if it had been a leaden rule, to their
lives, that so, some way or other, they might agree with one another. But
I see no other effect of this compliance except it be that men become
more secure in their wickedness by it; and this is all the success that I
can have in a court, for I must always differ from the rest, and then I
shall signify nothing; or, if I agree with them, I shall then only help
forward their madness. I do not comprehend what you mean by your
'casting about,' or by 'the bending and handling things so dexterously
that, if they go not well, they may go as little ill as may be;' for in
courts they will not bear with a man's holding his peace or conniving at
what others do: a man must barefacedly approve of the worst counsels and
consent to the blackest designs, so that