of faith, when it has been solemnly pledged, even to the most worthless of mankind. Fi|delity is so necessary a virtue, that we appre|hend it in general to be due even to those to whom nothing else is due, and whom we think it lawful to kill and destroy. It is to no purpose that the person who has been guilty of the breach of it, urges that he pro|mised in order to save his life, and that he broke his promise because it was inconsistent with some other respectable duty to keep it. These circumstances may alleviate, but can|not entirely wipe out his dishonour. He ap|pears to have been guilty of an action with which, in the imaginations of men, some de|gree of shame is inseparably connected. He has broke a promise which he had solemnly averred he would maintain; and his charac|ter, if not irretrievably stained and polluted, has at least a ridicule affixed to it, which it will be very difficult entirely to efface; and no man, I imagine, who had gone thro' an ad|venture of this kind, would be fond of telling the story.
This instance may serve to show wherein consists the difference between casuistry, and jurisprudence, even when both of them con|sider
