a bigot is ever a ready instrument of mischief, a ready tool for the ambition or cruelty of his leaders, and apt to call good evil, and evil good." Hot zealots," says father Paul, believing every thing to be justifiable which is done with a view to religion, come thence to act against religion; nay, even against common humanity; and thus have set the world in a dreadful combustion."

In China, all men of consideration, all of any eminence for learning or dignity, are deists. I wish that in Spain and Italy, and in many other countries called Christian, as much civil felicity, and as many marks of prosperity were found, as in China: It were indeed better for mankind, that all fiery catholics and bigots every where, were converted into rational and sober Chineses. To be followers of Christ is the best choice, and the sure road to happiness: but to follow priests and bigots in most countries, and in most of their ways, is not to fol low Christ, or happiness, or common sense.

My Lord, it is a great presumption, 'tis very uncandid, to charge men with opinions, which they do not own; it is worse to charge them with opinions which they utterly disown. It is unjust to charge them with one obnoxious opinion in consequence of another, nay, to take both for granted; to suppose a man is a deist, and therefore a republican; or a republican, and therefore a deist. Does it become a good Christian, or a fair reasoner, or a well bred man, to assert or insinuate such things? Is it not a wicked thing, to prejudice his majesty against any part of his good subjects? to bring a false, at best precarious accusation against them? to represent them to him as republicans. and to bigots as infidels? Why republicans, when they have as much liberty and protection as ever any government could bestow, as much as any subject could desire or enjoy? Do they confess any such principles or spirit? Why deists? Do they own themselves so? Or why should deism spread? No body is paid to maintain deism; nor does any interest attend it, but obloquy and unpopularity. Sure, they must be miserably weak for whom deism is too strong.

"Tis an old artifice, one much beneath your Lordship, or any man of probity and honour, an artifice only worthy of miserable bigots and little sour priests, thus to represent men as enemies to God and the king, because they presume to differ in opinion with some of the clergy.

Thus almost all the learned men at the reformation were reckoned heretics, if not atheists, because they were no great admirers of the monk, or perhaps for reforming the clergy: thus the first Christians were by the Pagan priests and persecutors traduced, as enemies to the gods, and to Cæsar; and thus all the dissenters in this nation were continually branded by the parsons, as certain enemies to monarchy, and therefore unworthy of toleration, or even of protection; and that imputation continued confidently, till it was no longer believed; and long experience has quite confuted the parsons. We are again alarmed with the old cry, or a new one just like the old, and from the same quarter, and for the same ends. There are hosts of republicans and deists, God knows where, like the army which lay Incognito at Knightsbridge.

It is an easy matter to raise phantoms, and to frighten the crowd, generally infatuated with superstition and false zeal; nay, a good de

gree of confidence, and strong assertion, will often mislead men of sense; the most groundless invention often finds many vouchers, and sometimes gains such credit and belief, that it is unsafe to deny it, much more to expose it instances of this are endless.

Your Lordship cannot forget what an uproar was raised some years ago about a Hell-fire club, said to be subsisting in London; how much it alarmed the clergy, how much the clergy alarmed others, and how zealously they called (as usual) for the aid of the secular arm; what a solemn proclamation ensued, full of pathetic strains, and of all due horror against such an impious society; how the Lord chancellor was directed by the king, the justices of peace by the Lord chancellor, to find out these dark assemblies, and bring them to punishment; how generally this terrible story was believed, how much it filled conversation, and employed the pulpit and the press; how gentlemen of name and fortune, nay, ladies of eminent quality, were confidently charged with being members of this horrible club. Never was a finer topic for haranguing, for spreading hatred and terror, abuse and caJuinny. It was become fashionable, nay, orthodox to believe it; 'twas infidelity to doubt it, and they were atheists who denied it. Now where did all this mighty tumult, these pannic terrors, and this solemn enquiry end? Even in the discovery, that there was no such discovery to be made. Yet I never heard that the vile broachers of such a wicked alarm, that the wicked authors or promoters of so much calumny, ever took shame to themselves. No: some sort of men never own themselves in the wrong, even when they are convicted of having done it. It would be a digression to mention here, what a knavish purpose this pious and popular cry was intended to an

swer.

As of all truths, the truths of religion are the most valuable; so of all falsehoods, religious falsehoods are the most mischievous: because with the misled vulgar they are made to pass for religious truths. What destructive effects they have had, what seditions they have produced, what wars, what persecutions and massacres, would require a volume to specify and explain.

My Lord, I beg pardon for detaining you so long. I hope it will not offend your Lordship, that I have spoken my mind thus freely concerning your late performance, which is itself a very free one. I hope I have treated you with civility; without passion or anger, or any personal prejudice, I am sure I have. I honour your abilities, and your high station in the church, and I am,

With great respect,

My Lord, &c.

A Sermon preached before the Learned Society of Lincoln's Inn, on Jan. 30, 1732, from Job xxxiv. 30. That the Hypocrite reign not, lest the People be ensnared. By a Layman.

Fieri potest, quod fit in multis quæstionibus, ut res verbosior illa sit, hæc vericr. CIC.

In the thirty-fourth chapter of the book of Job, and the thirtieth verse, it is thus written :- -That the hypocrite reign not, lest the

people be ensnared.

FRIENDS, BRETHren, and CountRYMEN,

I present myself before you, on this occasion with the greater alacrity and assurance, for that I am conscious of no engagement to any party or opinion repugnant to truth, and the general enterest of my Country: I am under no pay or influence to support ancient prejudices and false reasonings; under no bias to flatter particular fraternities and factions, nor awed by the fear of offending them. For the rule and guide of my politicks, I have the constitution and history of England; and in my religion, I am governed by the Bible and common sense. He who walks by these rules walks securely; and he who follows the arbitrary notions, sophistical distinctions, and bare averments of men, is sure to be deceived, at least can never know that he is not.

That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.

The task which from these words I propose to myself, is to defend the right of every man to private judgment and opinion, to shew the absurdity and wickedness of setting up authority against conscience, and to manifest the pernicious tendency and effects of power and immoderate wealth in the clergy. As I go along, I shall apply my reasoning to the purpose of the day; and, at the conclusion add a word concerning the unhappy prince, whose blood was shed on this day; with the proper use to be made of it.

Good sense is our first and last guide, since by that we are to judge of all other guides; and there is more sound than meaning in the objection which some make to the guidance of reason, when they ask, "whether we are to judge of that by which we are to be judged," namely, the holy Scriptures, since we must recur to reason to know whether the Scriptures be boly, and whether we are to be judged by them. 'Tis to little purpose to tell us, that "for this we must take the word and authority of holy men." For, we must still consult our reason, whether these be holy men or no, and whether we ought to believe them or no; seeing there are many sets of men all pretending to be holy, all claiming this authority to themselves only, and all denying it to every other set.

Our reason must therefore determine, which of all these are the most holy, and whether any of them be more so than ourselves. If the ways of holiness and of knowledge be as obvious to us as to them, we may have as much of either as they have; and in truth, the sources of both are as open to us as to them. Besides, it ought to mortify their pride, and be a lesson of humility to them, as it is surely one of cau

tion to us, to see that they never agree with one another; that even those of the same society, professing the same faith, subscribing the same articles, and professing to believe the same scriptures, agree not in the rules and explanations which they exhibit to us. Great is their variance, not only about ceremonies, circumstantials and discipline, but even about essentials, about principles to be believed, about duties to be practised, and even about the nature, operations and attributes of the Deity nay, equally grea; and signal, is their want of mutual charity, as is their want of mutual concord. Are these to be our guides, who thus pull us various and opposite ways? Can they teach mutual love and forbearance, who hate and revile each other? And is it not notable want of modesty in them, who cannot agree with one another, to expect that we shonld agree with them all, or with any of them, when we approve not, or comprehend not what they say, or when what they say, is evidently for their interest and against ours, as all their aims at power and wealth evidently are?

This reasoning, if it be true, as I think it is, will serve to condemn arch-bishop Laud and his associates, who exacted a blind obedience to their own tenets and schemes, a rigid conformity to all their ceremonies, inventions and innovations, and cruelly persecuted all who preferred conscience to complaisance, and were better Christians than churchmen and courtiers.

Surely it ought to check and cool the fierceness of religionists of all sorts towards each other about difference in opinion, to behold how flaming and rigorous every man is in behalf of his own; to behold the most ridiculous and pernicious opinions defended with equal obstinacy and bitterness. The Jews, the Papists, the Mahometan, the Banian, have all equal satisfaction in their own several systems, have all equal detestation for one another, and for every different sect.

Is not this a pregnant proof, that all this furious zeal, is false, zeal that it is all miserable bigotry and prejudice, or constitutional intemperance of spirit? A zealous Jew, had he been bred a Papist, would have been equally zealous for Popery, and perhaps for burning those very Jews who are now his brethren. Had the late Dr. Sacheverel been educated in the Scottish Kirk, he would doubtless have breathed as fierce persecution against prelacy, as he has done for it; and treated it with as foul and uncomely names, as he treated dissenters and false brethren.

The same is true of arch-bishop Laud, and of other hasty and passionate zealots; provided always, that all other preferments in another way be taken away; else the batteries of their zeal are often quickly changed, and turned against the party for whom they were first erected. Witness Parker bishop of Oxford, and Ward bishop of Sarum, once both holy, praying, and rigid Presbyterians, afterwards both rigid persecutors of Presbyterians. Is it not probable that they would have died Presbyterians, had the church preferments been out of their reach ?

This consideration therefore, that every man is fond of his own opinions, and not the less fond for their being very foolish and extravagant, ought to keep men from quarrelling about any opinions, and to look upon those who promote such quarrels, as monsters and their worst enemies. This enmity about notions, chimeras, ceremonies, and other

idle disputes; this war about words, and creeds, and articles, a war and dispute which have produced such mighty bloodshed and desolation in the world, has been the sole work and contrivance of ambitious clergymen ; who, for ends of their own, and the gratification of their pride and fury, and other evil passions, had the art and cruelty to make the laity thus to persecute and butcher one another. What infamous inhumanity was this in clergymen ? What frenzy and infatuation in the laity? But such are ever the effects of implicit belief, which is naturally followed by implicit obedience, which is the certain beginning, as well as the certain consequence of slavery. All this evil, uncharitableness and barbarity, arose from the wicked and impossible attempt to force or suppress private judgment and conscience. Of such mighty consequence it is, "that the hypocrite reign not ;" since wherever he does," the people will" surely "be ensnared."

What added to this evil and insolence, this hellish cruelty upon the score of opinion, and made it still more provoking and intolerable, was, that it was all perpetrated in the name of Christ, of the meek Jesus, and said to be for his church and cause a declaration so impudent and incredible, that it could only be made by men who were void of shame, to men who wanted eyes. It was as false as the gospel was true; nor could a revelation which inspired or warranted any degree of bitterness or cruelty, ever have come from God, or from any but the antagonists of God, and enemy of man, from hypocrites reigning, that is, tyrannizing in the name of the Lord.

Yet so these hardened deluders argued, trusting to the power of delusion; especially when to that power of delusion they had added a good share of secular power. And before they could make the laity such blind tools, as to be the tormentors and executioners of one another, they had eradicated every grain and principle of Christianity out of their hearts, yet made them believe themselves the only true Christians.

This was the use which such clergymen made of the boundless trust and power given them by the laity; and over the laity they exercised it without bounds or mercy. Such was the power of Laud and the clergy of his time, and such the unhallowed and inhuman use which they made of it; yet that use was the common and natural use, the power itself being unnatural. Indeed, worldly power and opulence in such as preach the gospel, are so repugnant to the spirit and precepts of the gospel, that it is no wonder they cannot thrive, or indeed subsist together; but the gospel must either destroy them, or they the gospel. It is too visible on which side the victory has chiefly turned. Whatever fills men with pride and hatred, and prompts them to severity and revenge, may be Popery or Mahometanism, but is just as contrary to Christianity, as Christianity is to all pride and hatred, to all rigour and vengeance.

From hence it is plain who they are, what set of men, that have hurt and abused, perverted and abolished Christianity most. I am sorry to say it, but it is too true, that in many countries, and at many times, the church and religion have been very distinct and opposite things sure I am, that I have seen very good churchmen who were very bad Christians, and some who were no Christians at all. I will not say that Laud was no Christian; but I may boldly affirin, that he