the king. M. de la Place answered, that he should always think himself extremely happy to have the opportunity, before he left this world, of giving an account to his majesty of all his actions and behaviour; but that it was impossible for him then to go to the Louvre, considering the horrible massacre that was committed in the city, without running the greatest and most manifest hazard of his life, but that it was in his power to assure his majesty of his person, by leaving in his house such a number of his archers as he should think fit, till the fury of his people was abated. Senescay consented to it, and left with him one of his lieutenants, called Toutevoye, and four of his archers. A little while after Senescay was gone, the president Charon, then prevost of the merchants of Paris, came to the house, where, after he had talked some time in secret, he left at his departure four archers of the city, with those of Senescay. Senescay returning about two o'clock in the afternoon, declared to him that he had a very positive and repeated order from the king to bring him, and that there must be no farther delay.* All the remonstrances of La Place being to no purpose, he begged of him at last to accompany him in person; to which Senescay replied, that having other affairs upon his hands, he could not conduct him above fifty paces.+ The wife of the said De la Place threw herself at the feet of the said Senescay, to beseech him to go with her said husband: but upon that, the said M. de la Place, who never showed the least sign of fear, lifted up his wife, reproving her, and telling her, it was not to the arm of flesh, but to God only she must have recourse.' Then turning about, he perceived in the hat of his eldest son a paper cross, which he had put there through infirmity, thinking to save himself by that means, for which he chid him severely, commanding + Ibid, p. 25. *P. de Farnace, p. 21, et seq. him to take off from his hat that mark of sedition, and evincing to him that the true cross we must wear, was tribulation and affliction, which God sent upon us as a sure earnest of the felicity and life eternal that he has prepared for his people. After that, finding himself very much pressed by the said Senescay to set out in order to go to his majesty, being entirely resolved upon death, which he saw was prepared for him, he took his cloak, embraced his wife, and earnestly recommended to her above all things to have the honour and fear of God before her eyes, and so he went away very cheerful. When he was come as far as Glass-house-street, over against Cock-street, certain murderers, who had waited for him with naked daggers about three hours, killed him like an innocent lamb, in the midst of ten or twelve archers of the said Senescay who conducted him, and his house was pillaged for the space of five or six days together. The body of the said Sieur de la Place, whose soul was taken up into heaven, was carried to a stable by the town house, where the face was all covered with dung, and the next morning it was thrown into the river."*-Art. PLACE. RELIGIOUS POLICY. (Of Spain, Portugal, &c.) THE Spaniards and Portuguese have omitted nothing that the subtilest and severest politics can invent to maintain a party. They have made use of every means for the support of Christianity, and the destruction of Judaism; and they cannot be accused without injustice, of having committed the church to the protection of heaven, with the dispositions of such as quickly expect every thing from the efficacy of their prayers. No one would say, on the contrary, that they * P. de Farnace, p. 17, et seq. have followed the advice which a Heathen poet has given about a business of agriculture: 66 Non tamen ulla magis præsens fortuna laborum est, VIRGIL. Georgic. 1. 3. v 452. Or else one would be apt to say, that they have squared their conduct by the reproaches which Cato made to the Romans, when he blamed them for confiding in the assistance of the gods who, added he, never hear the prayers of the slothful, for sloth is a sign of the anger of heaven." Lastly, one may say, that the lesson which they are most apt to practise is the latter part of the axiom, which a modern has set down in these words: 66 we must, as it were, wholly abandon ourselves to providence, as if all human prudence were useless; and we must govern ourselves by the dictates of human prudence, as if there were no providence." Without doubt they would laugh at an author, who should blame them for using Christianity like an old palace, so much decayed that it wants props on every side; and Judaism like a strong fortress, which one must cannonade and bombard continually, in order to weaken it. We may justly condemn certain ways of maintaining the good cause; but when all is done, as good as it is, it will not do without assistance and distrust is the mother of safety. Lubienietzki, a Socinian, disputed a long time with the Hamburgh ministers; who so frequently solicited the authorities to make him depart, that he received frequent orders to retire; and it was in vain to say that his Danish majesty honoured him with his protection, or that he was innocent: for he was forced to yield to the storm. However, some years after he returned to Hamburgh, believing that nobody would think of him more; but he was mistaken: one of the faculty of divinity was so vigilant and vehement, as to renew the instances with the magistrates; and the people had been so exasperated, by representing Lubienietzki as a public pest, that he durst hardly stir out of his lodgings. There is hardly a Catholic or Protestant but will praise this conduct of the Lutheran ministers. If you allege to them that it is expressing too much diffidence of their cause, they have good answers ready. They will tell you that diffidence is the mother of security, and when Jesus Christ promised his church that the gates of hell should not prevail against her, he meant not to exclude human means, which are most proper to preserve orthodoxy; I mean the edicts of princes, which stop the mouth of the heterodox, and stifle the knowledge of objections which might be made against the holy doctrine: if you reply that after all, they behave themselves as if they had not read the book of Esdras,* in which the force of truth is rendered superior to all others, whether that of wine, or a king, or of women; and that on the contrary, they believe it unable to subsist in the places where it sways, if it be left exposed to the attacks of three or four fugitives; they will answer you that the heart of man is more inclined to ill than good, and that therefore error is more capable of seducing him than truth of undeceiving him; so that Christian prudence does not suffer us to allow heretics the proposing their arguments. I question whether there ever was any subject more fecund in replies and answers; it may be turned several ways in every sense, and hence an author will maintain to you to-day, that truth need only to show itself to confound heresy ; and to-morrow, that if heresy be suffered to expose its subtilties, it will quickly corrupt the people. One day, you shall have the truth represented as an immoveablerock; another, you shall be told that it ought not to be hazarded in dispute, as being a rencounter * Esdras, Book III, ch. 3 and 4. in which it would dash itself in pieces with respect to the hearers. What are we to do in this volubility of reasoning? There are some who preserve truth as they do a piece of china, and seem to be convinced, that as it has the transparency, so it has the brittleness of crystal-Arts. ACOSTA AND LUbienietzki. RELIGIOUS RESIGNATION. JOHN DE RUYSBROECK, in Latin Rusbrochius, was so called from the village of Ruysbroeck in Brabant, between Brussels and Hall, where he was born. He was first curate and then rector of the church of St Gudula at Brussels, and afterwards founder and first prior of a convent of canons regular of the order of St Augustin at Groendal, in the forest of Soignies, two leagues from Brussels; and lastly reformer of the order in all the Low Countries. He was a man of no learning, but very devout and contemplative, and altogether internal; and went so far into the depths of mystical divinity, that he passed for one of the great masters in that science. He was called a Dionysius Areopagita. He wrote several books in Dutch, the manuscripts of which are kept in the monastery of Groendal, with the Latin version of some of them translated by William Jordan, his contemporary, and of the same fraternity with the author. By reason of his ignorance, it was thought that he was to be accounted one of those who have written by inspiration, or without any other assistance save that of a profound meditation. He retired into a remote corner of the forest, and there expected the inspirations from above, and as he received them, he wrote them in his pocket-book. The character of this mystical divine may be learnt from his submission to the divine will, which extended even to the torments of hell; that is he found nothing was better than to be willing to suffer whatever God should be pleased to send, |