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gree about fharing it amongst them. Thefe dif ficulties do indeed preferve them from any great corruptions, which their crazy conftitution would extremely fubject them to in a long peace. That confluence of people in a persecuting age to a place of refuge nearest at hand, put them upon the neceffity of trade, to which they wifely gave all eafe and encouragement. And if we could think fit to imitate them in this laft particular, there would need no more to invite foreigners among us; who seem to think no farther than how to fecure their property and conscience, without projecting any share in that government which gives them protection, or calling it perfe cution, if it be denied them. But I fpeak it for the honour of our adminiftration, that although our fects are not fo numerous as thofe in Holland, which I prefume is not our fault, and I hope is not our misfortune, we much excel them, and all Christendom befides, in our indulgence to tender confciences. * One fingle compliance with the national form of receiving the facrament, is all we require to qualify any fectary among us for the greatest employments in the ftate; after which, he is at liberty to rejoin his own affemblies for the rest of his life. Befides, I will fuppofe any of the numerous fects in Holland to have fo far prevailed, as to have raised a civil war, deftroyed their government and religion, * When this was written, there was no law against occafional conformity.

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gion, and put their adminiftrators to death; after which, I will fuppofe the people to have recovered all again, and to have fettled on their old foundation. Then I would put a query, whether that fect, which was the unhappy inftrument of all this confufion, could reasonably expect to be intrusted for the future with the greatest employments, or indeed to be hardly tolerated among them?

To go on with the fentiments of a church-ofEngland man: He does not fee how that mighty paffion for the church, which fome men pretend, can well confift with those indignities and that contempt they beftow on the perfons of the clergy. It is a strange mark whereby to diftinguish high-churchmen, that they are fuch who imagine the clergy can never be too low. He thinks the maxim thefe gentlemen are fo fond of, that they are for an humble clergy, is a very good one: and fo is he, and for an humble laity too; fince humility is a virtue that perhaps equally befits and adorns every ftation of life.

But then, if the fcribblers on the other fide, freely speak the fentiments of their party, a divine of the church of England cannot look for much better quarter from thence. You fhall obferve nothing more frequent in their weekly papers, than a way of affecting to confound the terms of clergy and high-church, of applying both indifferently, and then loading the latter with all the calumny they can invent. They will tell you, they honour a clergyman; but talk, at the

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fame time, as if there were not three in the kingdom who could fall in with their definition. After the like manner, they infult the univerfities, as poifoned fountains, and corrupters of youth.

Now, it seems clear to me, that the Whigs might easily have procured and maintained a majority among the clergy, and perhaps in the universities, if they had not too much encouraged or connived at this intemperance of speech and virulence of pen, in the worft and most prostitute of their party among whom there hath been, for fome years paft, fuch a perpetual clamour against the ambition, the implacable temper, and the covetousness of the priesthood; fuch a cant of high-church, and perfecution, and being priestridden; fo many reproaches about narrow principles, or terms of communion; then fuch fcandalous reflections on the universities, for infecting the youth of the nation with arbitrary and Jacobite principles, that it was natural for those who had the care of religion and education, to apprehend fome general defign of altering the constitution of both. And all this was the more extraordinary, because it could not easily be forgot, that whatever oppofition was made to the ufurpations of King James, proceeded altogether from the church of England, and chiefly from the clergy, and one of the univerfities. For if it were of any ufe to recal matters of fact, what is more notorious than that prince's applying himself firft to

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the church of England; and, upon their refusal to fall in with his measures, making the like advances to the diffenters of all kinds? who readily, and almost universally complied with him, affecting, in their numerous addresses and pamphlets, the ftyle of our brethren the Roman Catholics; whose interests they put on the fame foot with their own and fome of Cromwell's officers took pofts in the army raifed against the Prince of Orange. Thefe proceedings of theirs they can only extenuate by urging the provocations they had met from the church in King Charles's reign; which, though perhaps excufable upon the score of human infirmity, are not by any means a plea of merit equal to the conftancy and sufferings of the bishops and clergy, or of the head and fellows of Magdalen-college, that furnished the Prince of Orange's declaration with fuch powerful arguments to juftify and promote the revolu

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Therefore, a church-of-England man abhors the humour of the age, in delighting to fling fcandals upon the clergy in general; which, befides the difgrace to the reformation, and to religion itfelf, caft an ignominy upon the kingdom, that it doth not deserve. We have no better materials to compound the priesthood of, than the mafs of mankind, which, corrupted as it is, those who receive orders must have fome vices to leave behind them when they enter into the church; and if a few do ftill adhere, it is no wonder, but rather

ther a great one, that they are no worfe, Therefore, he cannot think ambition, or love of power, more justly laid to their charge, than to other men; because that would be to make religion itfelf, or at least the best conftitution of church-government, answerable for the errors and depravity of human nature.

Within these last two hundred years, all forts of temporal power have been wrefted from the clergy, and much of their ecclefiaftic; the reafon or justice of which proceeding, I fhall not examine: but, that the remedies were a little too violent, with refpect to their possessions, the legiflature hath lately confeffed, by the remiffion of their firft-fruits. Neither do the common libellers deny this; who, in their invectives, only tax the church with an infatiable defire of power and wealth, (equally common to all bodies of men, as well as individuals,) but thank God, that the laws have deprived them of both. However, it is worth obferving the justice of parties. The fects among us are apt to complain, and think it hard ufage, to be reproached now, after fifty years, for overturning the ftate, for the murder of a King, and the indignity of an ufurpation; yet thefe very men, and their partifans, are continually reproaching the clergy, and laying to their charge, the pride, the avarice, the luxury, the ignorance, and fuperftition of Popish times, for a thousand years paft.

He thinks it a fcandal to government, that fuch an unlimited liberty fhould be allowed, of

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