THE

INDEPENDENT WHIG:

OR, A

DEFENCE

O F
OF

Primitive Christianity,

And of Our

Ecclefiaftical Eftablishment,

AGAINST

The Exorbitant CLAIMS and
ENCROACHMENTS of Fanatical
and Difaffected CLERGY MEN.

THE SEVENTH EDITION,
With ADDITIONS and AMENDMENTS.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

Printed for J. PELE; and Sold by J. OSBORN,
at the Golden Ball, in Pater-nofter Row.

M.DCC.XLII.

Y

Clergy of England, are proper Patrons of a Work, which treats of Religion, and the Clergy. It is written to promote Liberty, Virtue, and Piety; the Interests of which, I hope, you will always efpoufe, and esteem as your own; and will confequently approve my Defign, and give

me your Thanks, whatever may have been the Succefs of my Endeavours. THE many wild and unfcriptural Claims ftarted, and impetuously maintained, by very many of those whom you represent, (and I wish I could fay denied, though but faintly, by any confiderable Number of others) gave Occafion to the following Sheets; and, having in them fhewn to my Brethren, the Laity, the Abfurdity and Impiety of thofe Claims, by Arguments fetched from Reason, the Gofpel, and the Laws of our Country; I fhall, in this Addrefs to yourselves, endeavour to convince you, that it is your Intereft to drop them; and if I can fucceed in this, I prefume, that all other Arguments may be useless.

THESE Gentlemen, in the Heat of their Demands and Contention for Power, have gone fo far towards Rome, and borrowed fo many of her Principles, that I fee no other Medium left for them, but either to proceed on in their Journey thither,

(which,

(which, as they have managed Matters, is now a very short one) or to turn back to the Principles of the Reformation, (a very long Journey, I confefs!) and accept of the Bishop of Bangor's Scheme, as much as they hate it and him. That Scheme, though it may not be altogether fo palatable, yet is a fafe Scheme: And thoughr it does not intitle them to all the Power and Wealth in England, yet it fecures to them what they have.

CONSIDER, Gentlemen, that you cannot take as much of Popery as you. pleafe, and leave the reft. Machiavel has long fince told us, that no Government can fubfift long but upon its original Foundation, and by recurring often to the Principles upon which it was firft founded. It will indeed ftand upon no other; and when that is fapped and undermined, the Superftructure must fall to the Ground, the old Inhabitants must find out new Materials, erect new Buildings upon other Founda

Dr. Benjamin Hoadley, now Lord Bishop of Winchester.