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out limit. When we talk of the heroic, of course we talk of rare, virtue. I believe the inftances of eminent depravity may be as rare amongst them as thofe of tranfcendent goodness. Examples of avarice and of licentioufnefs may be picked out, I do not question it, by thofe who delight in the investigation which leads to fuch difcoveries. A man, as old as I am, will not be astonished that several, in every defcription, do not lead that perfect life of felf-denial, with regard to wealth or to pleasure, which is wifhed for by all, by fome expected, but by none exacted with more rigour, than by thofe who are the most attentive to their own interefts, or the most indulgent to their own paffions. When I was in France, I am certain that the number of vicious prelates was not great. Certain individuals among them not diftinguishable for the regularity of their lives, made fome amends for their want of the fevere virtues, in their poffeflion of the liberal; and were endowed with qua+ lities which made them useful in the church and state. I am told, that with few exceptions, Louis the Sixteenth had been more attentive to character, in his promotions to that rank, than his immediate predeceffor; and I believe, (as fome fpirit of reform has prevailed through the whole reign) that it may be true. But the prefent ruling power has fhewn a difpofition only to plunder the church. It has punished all prelates; which is to favour the vicious, at leaft in point of reputation. It has made a degrading penfionary establishment, to which no man of liberal ideas or liberal condition will deftine his children. must settle into the loweft claffes of the people. As with you the inferior clergy are not numerous enough for their duties; as thefe duties are, beyond meafure, minute and toilfome, as you have left no middle claffes of clergy at their eafe, in future nothing of science or erudition can exist in the Gal# lican

It

lican church. To complete the project, without the least attention to the rights of patrons, the affembly has provided in future an elective clergy; an arrangement which will drive out of the clerical profesfion all men of fobriety; all who can pretend to independence in their function or their conduct; and which will throw the whole direction of the public mind into the hands of a fet of licentious, bold, crafty, factious, flattering wretches, of fuch condition and fuch habits of life as will make their contemptible penfions (in comparison of which the ftipend of an excifeman is lucrative and honourable) an object of low and illiberal intrigue. Thofe officers, whom they till call bishops, are to be elected to a provifion comparatively mean, through the fame arts, (that is, electioneering arts) by men of all religious tenets that are known or can be invented. The new lawgivers have not afcertained any thing whatsoever concerning their qualifications, relative either to doctrine or to morals; no more than they have c'one with regard to the fubordinate clergy; nor does it appear but that both the higher and the lower may, at their discretion, practise or preach any mode of religion or irreligion that they pleafe. I do not yet fee what the jurifdiction of bishops over their fubordinates is to be; or whether they are to have any jurisdiction at all.

In fhort, Sir, it seems to me, that this new ecclefiaftical establishment is intended only to be temporary, and preparatory to the utter abolition, under any of its forms, of the Chriftian religion, whenever the minds of men are prepared for this laft ftroke against it, by the accomplishment of the plan for bringing its ministers into univerfal contempt. They who will not believe, that the philofophical fanatics who guide in these matters, have long entertained fuch a defign, are utterly ignorant of their character and proceedings, Thefe enthufiafts do not fcruple to avow their opinion,

that

that a state can fubfift without any religion better than with one; and that they are able to fupply the place of any good which may be in it, by a project of their own-namely, by a fort of education they have imagined, founded in a knowledge of the phyfical wants of men; progreffively carried to an enlightened felfintereft, which, when well underftood, they tell us will identify with an intereft more enlarged and public. The fcheme of this education has been long known. Of late they diftinguish it (as they have got an entire new nomenclature of technical terms) by the name of a Civic Education.

I hope their partizans in England, (to whom I ra ther attribute very inconfiderate conduct than the ultimate object in this deteftable defign) will fucceed neither in the pillage of the ecclefiaftics, nor in the introduction of a principle of popular election to our bishoprics and parochial cures. This, in the prefent condition of the world, would be the laft corruption of the church; the utter ruin of the clerical charac-ter; the most dangerous fhock that the ftate ever received through a misunderstood arrangement of religion. I know well enough that the bishoprics and cures, under kingly and feignoral patronage, as now they are in England, and as they have been lately in France, are fometimes acquired by unworthy methods; but the other mode of ecclefiaftical canvas fubjects them infinitely more furely and more generally to all the evil arts of low ambition, which, operating on and through greater numbers, will produce mifchief in proportion.

Thofe of you who have robbed the clergy, think that they fhall easily reconcile their conduct to all proteftant nations; because the clergy, whom they have thus plundered, degraded, and given over to mockery and fcorn, are of the Roman Catholic, that is, of their own pretended perfuafion. I have

no

no doubt that some miferable bigots will be found here as well as elfewhere, who hate fects and parties different from their own, more than they love the fubftance of religion; and who are more angry with thofe who differ from them in their particular plans and fyftems, than difpleafed with those who attack the foundation of our common hope. Thefe men will write and speak on the fubject in the manner that is to be expected from their temper and character. Burnet fays, that when he was in France, in the year 1683, "the method which carried over the men "of the fineft parts to popery was this--they "brought themfelves to doubt of the whole Chriftian

religion. When that was once done, it feemed a "more indifferent thing of what fide or form they "continued outwardly." If this was then the ecclefiaftic policy of France, it is what they have fince but too much reafon to repent of. They preferred atheifm to a form of religion not agreeable to their ideas. They fucceeded in deftroying that form; and atheism has fucceeded in destroying them, I can readily give credit to Burnet's ftory; because I have obferved too much of a similar spirit (for a little of it is" much too much") amongst ourselves. The humour, however, is not general.

The teachers who reformed our religion in England bore no fort of refemblance to your prefent reforming doctors in Paris. Perhaps they were (like those whom they opposed) rather more than could be wished under the influence of a party fpirit; but they were moft fincere believers; men of the moft fervent and exalted piety; ready to die (as fome of them did die) like true heroes in defence of their particular ideas of Christi¬ anity; as they would with equal fortitude, and more chearfully, for that stock of general truth, for the branches of which they contended with their blood. These men would have difavowed with horror those wretches who

claimed

claimed a fellow fhip with them upon no other titles than thofe of their having pillaged the perfons with whom they maintained controverfies, and their having defpifed the common religion, for the purity of which they exerted themselves with a zeal, which unequivocally befpoke their highest reverence for the fubftance of that fyftem which they wifhed to reform. Many of their defcendants have retained the fame zeal but, (as lefs engaged in conflict) with more moderation. They do not forget that juftice and mercy are fubftantial parts of religion. Impious men do not recommend themselves to their communion by iniquity and cruelty towards any defcription of their fellow-crea

tures.

We hear thefe new teachers continually boafting of their spirit of toleration. That those perfons should tolerate all opinions, who think none to be of eflimafion, is a matter of fmall merit. Equal neglect is not impartial kindness. The fpecies of benevolence, which arifes from conteinpt, is no true charity. There are in England abundance of men who tolerate In the true fpirit of toleration. They think the dogmas of religion, though in different degrees, are all of moment; and that amongst them there is, as amongst all things of value, a juft ground of preference. They favour, therefore, and they tolerate. They tolerate, not because they defpife opinions, but becaufe they refpéct justice. They would reverently and affectionately protect all religions, because they love and venerate the great principle upon which they all agree, and the great object to which they are all directed. They begin more and more plainly to difcern, that we have all a common caufe, as against a common enemy. They will not be fo mifled by the fpirit of faction, as not to diftinguifh what is done in favour of their fubdivifion, from thofe acts of hoftility, which, through fome particular defeription, are

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