The work is very important; for there is not a work more evidently genuine and authentic than this is proved to be by plain historic evidence, both as to the document itself and the facts which it attests. The witness, or witnesses, appearing in it, give their testimony respecting themselves with the most unsuspectable simplicity. They meant not, and have not, misrepresented themselves: they have proclaimed their own doctrine for themselves respecting Equivocation and Mental Reservation--the last of which is really of most importance; and it was most needful to the Roman body at the time, and under their circumstances. Their object, for mere safety, was concealment as to their resorts or residences. They could not exist, as they did, without the assistance and knowledge of many individuals, some of inferior class. Against the incessant inquiries to which they were exposed they had no defence, except the power of disappointing or misleading by ambiguity or deception, which was completely secured by reserved termination in the mind to any uttered declaration. Now, there is in this very Treatise _plain admission_ that all the co-religionists of the endangered party, particularly a lady who is distinctly noticed, were not convinced of the moral rectitude of such a procedure; and it was necessary, or expedient, that their hesitation should be removed. And this seems to be the main object of the present work. How far it has succeeded must depend upon the evidence which is adduced. We have generally had the doctrine of the Roman body on the subject of the Treatise presented by opponents; here we have it as deliberately stated by themselves. There is a passage rather observable in p. 103., beginning at the bottom and extending to the words "he hath no such meaning to tell them," of which we are not acquainted with a duplicate. But the whole has something of the freshness and interest of novelty. _Macbeth_, it is agreed, I believe, was written in 1607, consequently after the Powder Plot, when the doctrine before us was brought forward pointedly against the traitors. Might there not be some reference to the fact in the Second Act, where the porter of the castle, roused by repeated knockings, on the murder, after other exclamations in the manner of the poet, proceeds: "Here's an Equivocator, that could swear in both the scales, against either scale: who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. Oh, come in, Equivocator"?