INTRODUCTION.

Corruptio optimi fit pessima.

HOW well confirmed is this maxim, by observations drawn from nature and experience, that a corruption and abuse of the best things, produce the worst effects. Can we be surprised, that the best-intended human laws are perverted to the worst purposes, by fraud and perjury? when we see it fares no better with the great and divine charter of conditional mercy granted to mankind from heaven. Ought we to wonder if the laws in favour of Bankrupts, and for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors, have been so long and so frequently abused, to cover and protect fradulent and impious practices, while we can hear, observe, and read the law, and the gospel, wrested and distorted against the clearest sense, and whole tenor of their own words, to plead for Antinomian principles; tortured to become the teachers and patrons of the greatest immoralities, the most profane and abandoned libertinism.

To be more particular, how can we blame a jail-solicitor for advertising the Insolvent Debtor's Act, in order to be prostituted to a fee, and a false oath, on every vacant wall, post, and pillar, within the bills of mortality; while the R - ys and other doughty orators, and authors, are suffered with impunity, even in a city-hall * to preach, print, and explain away the great end, and design of all true religion; viz. to teach us that denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. But they insist on the contrary, that the charter of mercy is unconditional; that we must sin, that grace may abound, and that we may come as sinners to sue for mercy.

What a striking contrast is it, daily to behold the bankrupt and the freed debtor, riding in a chaise or a chariot, adorned with the spoils of his honest creditors! while the indigent and distressed family of the plundered and spoiled creditors, trudge on foot in thread-bare garments, and feel themselves stript of the comforts, the conveniences, perhaps the necessaries of life at home, which their labour and industry had dearly earned; and warily provided against the day of age or adversity.

Such scenes as these, by their frequent representation, become mere sport and farce, to the unthinking populace; though they are in truth subjects, more proper for tragedy, and sad reflection, to the serious and sorrowful sufferers.

When any one, out of a large proportion, of these perverters and abusers of the most benevolent laws, is detected, and legally convicted; what degree of favour can he claim? rather, what degree of a rigorous execution of the laws does he

* Coachmakers-Hall.