Some would seem to qualify these pretensions, by saying, that they claim a power, but not an independent power. Which seems, in this case, a sort of a contradiction. For if it is a power, and yet depends upon another power; then is it, properly speaking, a jurisdiction of subjection, and an authority under authority. And while the law and the hierarchy are thus owned to be master and man, we desire no more. It is certainly as impious as unjust to deny an unlimited toleration to all dissenters whatsoever, who own the laws and our civil form of government. As to their religious opinions, they are justified in them by sincerity; and even where that is wanting, God alone is able to judge, and alone has a right to punish. In matters of conscience, he who does his best, does well, though he be mistaken. Here all men must determine for themselves: he who follows another in this case, without enquiry, is man's votary, and not God's. As we have a right to enquire into the truth of any religion, we have also a right to leave it, if it appear false but if it stand the test of examination, and appear true, then is our adherence to it founded upon our own judgment, and not upon authority. If there be no right of inquiry, where is the use of persuasion, which implies doubt? Or of reading the scripture, which implies understanding? We believe not a thing 'till we think it true; and cannot believe it, if we think it false: and to punish men for having eyes, or having none, is equally devilish and tyrannical.

Men disagree daily about matters which are subject to the examination of sense; and is it likely that we can be all of a mind about things which are invisible and disputable? Doctors themselves are daily cavilling; every one contradicts another, yet all are in the right, and each demands our faith to his particular invention. We cannot follow all; and among equal authorities, pray which is the best? For the same reason that we cannot believe every one of them, we need believe none of them, upon their own word.

It is moreover just that all protestants should be equally employed in a state to which they are equally well affected. The magistrate has nothing to do with speculations that purely concern another life: nor is it of any consequence to him, whether his subjects have a greater fondness for a cloak or a surplice: their affections to the political power, and their capacity to serve it, are only to be consulted and encouraged. Provided a man love liberty and his country, what is it to the commonwealth whether he sing his prayers or say them? Or whether he think a bishop or a presbyter the nearer relation to St. Paul.

These two words (bishop and presbyter) signify, in scripture, one and the same thing, and are equally used to design one and the same officer. Our great churchmen, indeed, have been pleased to think the bible mistaken in this matter, and to be in the right themselves. They have made episcopacy and presbytery as opposite to each other, as paradise and purgatory; and have frequently gone to cutting of throats, to prove their point.

I must confess a diocese, and a seat in the house of lords, are unanswerable reasons for the diyine right of episcopacy. There is no way of confuting them. You may as well argue with a Guinea merchant against the selling of slaves.

Besides, a lordly creature, who never preaches (miracles having long ago ceased) and keeps a great table and equipage, and enjoys all

the great and good things of this life, carries in all these marks such an evidence of his being St. Paul's right heir, in a lineal descent, that I wonder any body dare doubt it.

However, as the plainest things in faith are made doubtful among divines, who have an admirable knack at starting difficulties, where no body else would expect them; I am of opinion, that the teacher who walks on foot, has as good a title to dispute about religion, and to maintain his own, as the right reverend doctor, who supports his orthodoxy with a coach and six; and should be as much encouraged by the civil magistrate, if his principles and behaviour square with the constitution. Is a man a better neighbour, or subject, for nodding to a table, at the upper end of a chancel, or for pronouncing his faith towards the east? Our churchmen may find good cause to enjoin these necessary things, which the scripture had forgot, and enjoy great benefit and obedience from the practice of them; but in temporal matters, I am not fully convinced that they make a man's head wiser, or his heart honester.

A good protestant is such, not because he was born so, according to the canting absurdity in vogue; or bred so, since in infancy religion is acquired like a lesson in grammar, purely by the help of memory; and therefore children learn it, whether it be good or bad, as they do language, from their nurse, or their parents. But he is a protestant, because his judgement and his eyes inform him, that the principles of that faith are warranted by the bible, and consistent with our civil liberties; and he thinks every system which is not so, to be forgery and imposture, however dignified or distinguished.

I cannot here omit taking notice of an old fallacious cry which has long rung in our ears; namely, that of no bishop, no king. This solid argument was used, with royal success, by king James the first, when he sat deputy for the clergy, and disputed with the puritans at the conference at Hampton court, as became the dignity of a great prince. It was, indeed, the best which he could use; however he strengthened, and embellished it, with several imperial oaths, which he swore on that occasion, to the utter confusion of his antagonists, and the great triumph of the genuine clergy and the archbishop; who bestowed the Holy Ghost upon his majesty, for his zeal and swearing on the church's side.

This stupid saying has formerly filled our prisons with dissenters, and chased many of them to America; and by this means weakened the kingdom and the protestant religion, to keep up good neighbourhood between the bishops and the prince. But they were neither the bishops, nor their creatures, that restored king Charles the second, but a set of true-blue presbyterians, who were rewarded for it with goals, fines, and silent Sabbaths.

Loyalty is not confined to the mitre. Bishops have given more disturbance, and occasioned more distresses to prince and people, than any other sort of men upon earth. This I can prove. Our own bishops, for near an hundred years before the revolution, were in every scheme for promoting tyranny and bondage. On the other hand, our dissenters were ever eminent opposers of arbitrary power, and always lived peaceably under those princes who used them like subjects. If they took up arms when they were oppressed, churchinen have done the same, and often without that cause.

Had it not been for, dissenters, I question whether we should now have had either this constitution, this king, or this religion. It is well known that a great majority of our churchmen assert claims and principles utterly irreconcileable to either. The most mischievous tenets of popery are adopted and maintained, and the ground upon which our security and succession stand, is boldly undermined. It is dreadful, and incredible, what a reprobate spirit reigns amongst the high clergy. The convocation have fallen fiercely upon those who have fallen apon popery and jacobitism. And what a popish, impious and rebellious spirit reigns at Oxford, they themselves save me the trouble of declaring. Disaffection is promoted; open and black perjury is justified; and it is held lawful to defy Almighty vengeance for a morsel of bread. A man's conscience is tried by an oath, and he that can swallow any, has none.

But it is not enough to shipwreck their souls for their livings, nor to keep this hellish corruption at home. As they practise, so they teach; and the spreading of their own guilt, and the making others as bad as themselves (if laymen can be so) is made the duty of their functions, and the business of their lives. Can antichrist do worse? And are these men who walk in the paths of atheism, and perdition, £t to lead others to holiness and eternal life?

* One of the greatest men of the last age told King William, that the universities, if they continued upon the present foot, would destroy bim, or the nation, or some of his successors. And they have ever since been endeavouring to make good his words. That Prince was so thoroughly apprized of the dangerous genius and principles of these two bodies of men, that he intended a regulation; but as it is said, was prevented by the pernicious advice of the late Duke of Swho had at that time gained the king's confidence, and was at the head of the whigs, but was.deserting both, and making a party with the tories, as afterwards plainly enough appeared.

How far, and how fast, these seminaries have since then corrupted and inflamed the people, every body knows, and the nation feels. Had it not been for them, we should have lighter taxes and fewer soldiers.

G.

* Mr. Locke.

NUMBER 42.

Of High-Church Atheism.

THAT religion, or the worship of a Deity, is natural to man, is confessed by Mr. Hobbes himself in his leviathan, wherein be endeavours to assign the natural causes thereof: And no history or voyages give us an account of any country, in any manner civilized, without reli. gion, as well as priests or ministers, and temples or places of worship. Men have been in all ages so prone to religion, that rather than net

have one, they have been contented to worship the most abject beings in nature; and indeed, nothing seems to have been too absurd and ri diculous for them to believe and practice, under the direction of any men, who had confidence enough to take upon them to be spiritual guides of the people. It was ever sufficient, to pretend to teach religion, to make any thing to be received as religion.

The Egyptians worship'd dogs, and for
That faith made internecine war.
Others ador'd a rat, and some
For that church suffer'd martyrdom.
The Indians fought for the truth
Of th' Elephant's and Monkey's tooth.
But no beast ever was so slight,
For man as for his God to fight.
They have more wit, alas! and know
Themselves and us better than so.

HUDIBRAS.

Nor is this disposition at all abated in the world. The pagan part is much the same. And many Christians are more prone, if possible, to absurdity and folly, than the pagans. The Popish, Greek, and several other Christian sects worship a breaden God; and, besides other numerous absurdities and follies, exceed them in that grand one of all, of delivering up their persons, estates, and consciences, to the priest; and of hating, damning, persecuting, and burning one another, and all who have any difference in opinion with them, as he inspires them: In all which they outgo both the ancient and modern pagans, who have generally given toleration to men of different religions from themselves, and have in no place gone those lengths in persecution which some Christians (or rather some persons pretending to be Christians) have done.

As a farther proof that religion is natural to man, I observe, that no history informs us that ever atheism ( by which I understand, a direct denial of the existence of a deity, a providence, and worship) was able to introduce itself among the people of any country whatsoever.

Religion is not only natural to man, but esteemed necessary to government by princes and states, who, whether they themselves have believed any religion or no, have established forms of religion, and been willing that their subjects should obey them, and defend their country, upon a principle of religion, as knowing its powerful operation on the minds of men.

And besides, religion has a great support from priests or divines, who are very numerous every where, and have a zeal for every form which they profess, equal to the interest which they derive from it: And if the interest of one form runs low, many of them can change their party, and become zealous for another religion; as they did three times, in the compass of five years in England, in the reigns of Edward the sixth, Mary and Elizabeth; the non-complying clergy never amounting to two hundred under any of those changes.

Great complaints indeed have been and are daily made in relation to the mighty growth of atheism. But those complaints seem to me for the most part, if not altogether, groundless, and to be generally calumnies of high-church priests, and high-churchmen, upon the best

Christians, namely, such who profess themselves ready to submit to the authority of Jesus Christ, but refuse submission to any priests, whether they be Greek, Muscovite, Roman, Dutch, Scotch, or English.

There is not, therefore, and cannot be, any danger of the overthrow of religion, as long as men continue men; religion will necessarily prevail amongst us, and every where else, in virtue of men's general disposition to religion, either under one or several forms, according as the civil magistrates of the world are more or less persuaded, that they themselves are to dictate (or to dictate after a priest) religion to their subjects.

The noisy outcry therefore of the danger of religion from atheism or irreligion, is a mere chimera of the high priests; which, in all likelihood, they start, to put men on a false scent, and to disguise and carry on their own designs of power and wealth: For while people are alarmed with the fears of atheism, they are disposed to fall into all the pretended measures of the priest to suppress it, and to become zealous for him, who never fails to make use of the pannick or madness of the people (which is his opportunity) to establish doctrines and practices for his own advantage; which at his suggestion they falsely suppose to be most opposite to atheism, and to be the best means to suppress it.

But the constant danger, and the great and only concern which we ought to have, is, lest, under the colour and name of religion, or the worship of God, we have not only falsehood and superstition put upon us, but the most detestable and wicked practices introduced; such as tend to the destruction of all peace, both publick and private; all virtue, learning, and whatever is praise-worthy among men. This is practical atheism: This is the atheism to be dreaded and feared: This is the atheism whereof we are in danger: This is the worst consequence we have to fear from speculative atheism; for no man can say worse of speculative atheism, than that it leads necessarily to all immorality: And in fine, this atheism the priest has, in most places of the world, introduced as religion, to the utter overthrow of true religion; (which consists chiefly, if not solely, in such particulars as are for the good of society) for by making men wicked out of conscience, and uppon a principle of religion, he as effectually destroys true religion, as it he introduced speculative atheism. What is it to a believer in Christ, whether he be persecuted for his religion by a papist, who does it religiously, and upon a principle of conscience; or by an atheist, who does it either to protect himself, or to get credit in the world, or to share with the priest, in the advantages arising from persecution? Do men suffer less by a civil or foreign war, begun by zealots, on a principle of religion, to promote religion; than if begun by atheists, for the sake of ambition, glory, power, rapine, or murder? Are the feuds, animosities and passions, stirred up by priests on account of religion, fewer and less disturbing of the publick peace, than those of men left to the conduct of atheistical principles? Is it not equal to husbands to be wronged by atheists, who need no pardon, as by popish priests, who can pardon one another; or by high-churchmen, who, notwithstanding such actions, can be countenanced by the priest, and merit greatly with him, on account of their zeal for the church, that is, the priest? Nay, is not the danger of cuckoldom equal from a popish priest (who, by his power of confessing and absolving the woman, has so glo