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commentator upon the laws of the land: after which, it will be time enough, to afk him, by what authority he directs the clergy to recommend his comments from the pulpit or the press?

He tells the clergy, there are two circumftances which place the minds of the people under their direction: the first circumftance, is their education; the fecond circumflance, is the tenths of our lands. This laft, according to the Latin phrafe, is fpoken ad invidiam; for he knows well enough, they have not a twentieth: but if you take it in his own way, the landlord has nine parts in ten of the peoples minds under his direction. Upon this rock the author before us is perpetually splitting, as often as he ventures out beyond the narrow bounds of his literature. He hath a confused remembrance of words fince he left the university, but hath loft half their meaning, and puts them together with no regard, except to their cadence; as I remember a fellow nailed up maps in a gentleman's clofet, fome fideling, others upfide down, the better to adjust them to the pannels.

I am fenfible it is of little confequence to their caufe, whether this defender of it underftands. grammar or no; and, if what he would fain say, discovered him to be a well-wisher to reason or truth, I would be ready to make large allowances. But when, with great difficulty, 'I defcry a compofition of rancour and falfehood, intermixed with plaufible nonfenfe, I feel a ftruggle between contempt and indignation, at feeing the character of a cenfor

a cenfor, a guardian, an Englishman, a commentator on the laws, an'inftructor of the clergy, affumed by a child of obfcurity, without one fingle qualification to fupport them.

This writer, who either affects, or is commanded of late to copy after the Bp. of Sarum, hath, out of the pregnancy of his invention, found out an old way of infinuating the groffeft reflections under the appearance of admonitions; and is fo judicious a follower of the prelate, that he taxes the clergy for inflaming their people with apprehenfions of danger to them and their conflitution, from men who are innocent of fuch defigns; when he muft needs confefs, the whole defign of his pam phlet, is to inflame the people with apprehensions of danger from the prefent miniftry, whom we believe to be at least as innocent men as the laft.

What fhall I fay to a pamphlet, where the malice and falfhood of every line would require an anfwer, and where the dulness and abfurdities will not deferve one? ·

By his pretending to have always maintained an inviolable refpect to the clergy, he would infinuate, that thofe papers among the Tatlers and Spectators, where the whole order is abufed, were not his own. I will appeal to all who know the flatnefs of his ftyle, and the barrenness of his invention, whether he doth not, grofly prevaricate? Was he ever able to walk without leading-ftrings, or fwim without bladders, without being discovered by his hobbling and his finking? hath he adhered to his character in his paper called the Eng

Lifhman

lifhman, whereof he is allowed to be fole author, without any competition? what does he think of the letter figned by himself, which relates to Molefworth, in whofe defence he affronts the whole convocation of Ireland? .

It is a wife maxim, that because the clergy are no civil lawyers, they ought not to preach obedience to governors; and therefore, they ought not to preach temperance, because they are no phyficians. Examine all this author's writings, and then point me out a divine, who knoweth lefs of the conftitution of England than he; witness thofe many egregious blunders in his late papers, where he pretends to dabble in the subject.

But the clergy have, it seems, imbibed their notions of power and obedience, abhorrent from our laws, from the pompous ideas of imperial greatness and the fubmiffion to abfolute emperors. This is grofs ignorance, below a school-boy in his Lucius Florus. The Roman history wherein lads are inftructed, reacheth little above eight hundred years, and the authors do every where inftil republican principles; and from the account of nine in twelve of the first emperors, we learn to have a deteftation against tyranny. The Greeks carry this point yet a great deal higher, which none

can

The right honourable Robert Molefworth, Efq; one of the privy council, and member of the Houfe of Commons, created a peer by K. George I. The lower houfe of convocation there, preferred a complaint against him for difrefpectful words, which being represented in England, he was removed from the council: to justify him against this complaint, was the subject of Steele's letter. Hawkef

can be ignorant of, who hath read or heard them quoted. This gave Hobbes the occafion of advancing a pofition directly contrary, That the youth of England were corrupted in their polititical principles, by reading the hiftories of Rome and Greece; which, having been written under republics, taught the readers to have ill notions of monarchy. In this affertion, there was fomething fpecious; but that advanced by the Crifis, could only iffue from the profoundeft ignorance.

But, would you know his fcheme of education for young gentlemen at the univerfity? it is, That they should fpend their time in perufing thofe acts of parliament, whereof his pamphlet is an extract, which if it had been done, the kingdom would not be in its prefent condition; but every member fent into the world, thus inftructed, fince the revolution, would have been an advocate for our rights and liberties.

Here now is a project for getting more money by the Crifis; to have it read by tutors in the universities. I thoroughly agree with him, that if our students had been thus employed for twenty years paft, the kingdom had not been in its prefent condition: but we have too many of such proficients already among the young nobility and gentry, who have gathered up their politics from chocolate houfes and factious clubs; and who, if they had spent their time in hard study at Oxford or Cambridge, we might indeed have faid, that the factious part of this kingdom had not been in its prefent condition, or have fuffered themfelves

to

to be taught, that a few acts of parliament, relating to the fucceffion, are preferable to all other civil inftitutions whatfoever. Neither did I ever before hear, that an act of parliament relating to one particular point, could be called a civil conftitution.

He spends almost a quarto page, in telling the clergy, that they will be certainly perjured, if they bring in the Pretender, whom they have abjured; and he wifely reminds them, that they have fworn, without equivocation or mental reservation; otherwife, the clergy might think, that as foon as they received the Pretender, and turned Papists, they would be free from their oath.

This honeft, civil, ingenious gentleman, knows in his confcience, that there are not ten clergymen in England, except non-jurors, who do not abhor the thoughts of the Pretender reigning over us, much more than himself. But this is the fpittle of the Bp. of Sarum, which our author licks up, and fwallows, and then coughs out again, with an addition of his own phlegm. I would fain suppose the body of the clergy were to return an anfwer, by one of their members, to thefe worthy counsellors. I conceive, it might be in the following terms:

"My Lord and Gentleman,

"THE clergy command me to give you thanks "for your advice; and if they knew any crimes, "from which either of you were as free, as they "are from thofe which you fo earneftly exhort

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