without Redress, without Remedy, where the Governors have conftant Temptations and Motives to opprefs, and the Governed no Means to refift or oppofe? For no less than this are the Popish and High-Church Demands upon us, and the inevitable Confequences of their wild and wicked Hypothesis.

IF they are an Order of Men appointed directly by God, and have the Government of the Church by Divine Right, in all Things which relate to Spirituals (that is, in all Things wherein their own Intereft is concerned); if they are to be the fole Judges of their own Powers, and what Doctrines they are to teach 5 if the People are to receive them implicitly, and to fubmit to, and be concluded by, their Determinations; and if no human Authority muft controul them; which, I think, thofe whom I write against, all claim (though scarce two of them agree in whofe Hands, or in what Part of the Clergy, these Powers are vested); then it is plain, that they are poffeffed of the most defpotic, unlimited, and uncontroulable Sovereignty in the Univerfe, and which of Neceffity muft prove, and actually ever has proved, the moft cruel and tyrannical in the Exercise.

BUT

BUT if they have not this Power, they can have none at all, but what the Civil Magistrate, or voluntary Societies, truft them with; for, what is the Name of a Power, which every Man is a Judge whether he will submit to or not? Or how can that be faid to be Divine, which the Civil Magiftrate can controul at his Pleasure? There can be no Medium in Nature betwixt another's judging for me, and my judging for myself: If another be to judge for me, I must submit to his Determinations, let them be ever so abfurd, monftrous or wicked; but if I have a Right to re-examine them, they can amount to no more than Advice, and my own Judgment alone must determine me.

As I think I have amply proved, that it is inconfiftent with the Goodness of God to trust the Powers fo claimed with the Popish Clergy; fo in my two next Papers I will as fully prove, that, in Fact, he has given them no Authority at all.

INDEED, to do them Right, the Popish Priests do not pretend to offer any direct Texts to their Purpose, expreffing particularly the Powers given them, and the Perfons in whom they are to be vested; as might be reasonably expected in a Cafe fo nearly affecting the Li

berties

berties of all Mankind; and as was actually done in the Jewish Difpenfation, where every Circumstance relating to their Worship, and the Priest's Office, was minutely described; but instead thereof, they pick up scattered and difjointed Sentences, and fet them together by the Ears, to try what they can get by the Scuffle: They argue from Types, Antitypes, Parables, Metaphors, Allegories, Allufions, Inferences, Patterns, Resemblances, Figures and Shadows; and by fuch means can fetch every thing out of every thing.

THE Bible is a miscellaneous Book, from whence crazed or defigning Men, by joining or disjoining; by various Readings, corrupt or ig norant Translations; by far-fetched Interpretations, and putting different Meanings upon Words in Scripture from what they fignify in any other Parts of Language; by trifling and knavish Distinctions, metaphyfical Subtilties, no Definitions, but shifting the Significations of Words as they have Occasion; by References to antient Customs, and Twenty other Theological Systems of Reasoning, may always fetch Materials to ferve their loofe or wicked Purposes; as we actually find an Hundred different, and many of them almost contradictory, Religions are pretended to be deduced from that

Book;

Book; and if the Priefts were let alone, they would find a Thousand more, and burn for them all (I mean, other People). But if Men would be contented to judge of the Gospel Style, by the fame Rule as they do of other Writings; if they could be perfuaded, that God Almighty, when he condefcends to make use of human Language, intends to be understood, and confequently uses Words in their common Acceptation; that when he defigned to reveal his Will to Babes and Sucklings, (that is, to the Ignorant and Unlearned) he did not chufe to do it in Riddles, to make way for Interpreters, and that the Popish Clergy might have a Pretence for picking the Laity's Pockets; then I affirm, that the Bible is the plaineft, openest, most moral, fignificant, and intelligible Book in the World, in all Things which can be the Duty of a Man to know; and in no Part of it more fo, than in the prefent Difpute, which has been rendered fo perplexed and intricate by Craft and Artifice And I undertake in my two next Papers to make this out.

T.

NUMBER

NUMBER XLIX.

Wednesday, December 21. 1720.

The fame Subject continued

T

HERE is nothing in the Four Gospels to authorize or countenance the Distinction of Ecclefiaftical and Civil; for as our Saviour renounced all world

Power himself, fo he gave none. He neither used nor allowed the Ufe of Force and Violence, to coerce and conquer Subjects to his Kingdom, which he declared was not of this World. As the Religion, which he taught, was not to confift of outward Actions and Ceremonies, like the Worship of the Gentiles, but was to refide in the Mind; fo he chose proper Means to attain his End: He knew that the Sword might make Hypocri.es and Slaves, but never Converts; he therefore inftructed his

Apostles