would be sure to keep things in the condition to which they were reduced. For now Religion having lost its hold on the People; the Ministers of Religion were of no further consequence to the State; nor were Statesmen any longer under the hard necessity of seeking out the most eminent, for the honours of their Profession: And without necessity, how few would submit to such a drudgery! For Statesmen of a certain pitch are naturally apprehensive of a little sense, and not easily brought, whether from experience or conviction, to form ideas of a great deal of gratitude, in those they have to deal with. All went now according to their wishes. They could now employ Churchhonours more directly to the use of Government, that is, of their own, by conferring them on such subjects as most gratified their taste or humour, or served best to strengthen their connexions with the Great. This would of course give the finishing stroke to

a

1

their System. For tho' ftripping the Church of all power and authority, and expofing it naked and defencelefs to its enemies, had abated men's reverence for it; and the detecting Revelation of imposture, ferving only for a State-engine, had deftroyed all love for Religion; yet they were the INTRIGUES OF CHURCH-PROMOTION which would make the People despise the whole Ordinance.

Nor did the hopes of a better generation give much relief to good men's prefent fears or feelings. The People had been reasoned out of their Religion, by fuch Logic as it was: and if ever they were to be brought back to a fober fenfe of their condition, it was evident they must be reasoned into it again. Little thought and less learning were fufficient to perfuade men of what their vices inclined them to believe; but it must be no common fhare of both, which, in oppofition to those

vices, fhall be able to bring them to themselves. And where is that to be expected, or likely to be found? In the courfe of forty or fifty years (for I am not speaking of present tranfactions) a new Generation or two are fprung up: And thofe, whom their Profeffion has dedicated to this fervice, Experience has taught, that the talents requifite for pufhing their fortune, lie very remote from fuch as enable men to figure in a rational defence of Religion. And it is very natural to think that, in general, they will be chiefly difpofed to cultivate thofe qualities on which they see their Patrons lay the greatest weight.

I have, my Lord, been the longer and the plainer in deducing the causes of a recent evil, for the fake of doing juftice to the ENGLISH CLERGY; who in this inftance, as in many others, have been forced to bear the blame of their Betters. How common is it to hear

hear the irreligion of the times ascribed to the vices, or the indiscretions of Church-men! Yet how provoking is such an insult! when every child knows that this accusation is only an Echo from the lewd clamours of those very Scribblers whose flagicious writings have been the principal cause of these disorders.

In this disastrous state of things, it was my evil stars inclined me to write. I began, as these Politicians had done, with the Church. My purpose, I am not ashamed to own, was to repel the cruel inroads made upon its Rights and Privileges; but, I thank God, on honester principles than those which have been employed to prop up, with Gothic buttreffes, a Jacobite or HighChurch Hierarchy. The success was what I might expect. I was read; and by a few indifferent and intelligent Judges, perhaps, approved. But as I made the Church neither a Slave nor 3

a Tyrant

a

a Tyrant (and under one or other of thefe ideas of it, almost all men had now taken party) The Alliance between Church and State, tho' formed upon a Model actually exifting before our eyes, was confidered as an Utopian refinement. It is true, that fo far as my own private fatisfaction went, I had no great reason to complain. I had the honour to be told by the heads of one Party, that they allowed my principles*; and by the heads of the other, that they espoused my conclufiont; which however amounted only to this, that the One was for LIBERTY however they would chufe to employ it; and the Other for POWER, however they could come at it.

I had another important view in writing this book. Tho' nobody had been fo fhamelefs to deny the use

of Religion to civil Government, yet

碳 Bishop Ho.

† Bishop Sh.

certain