out the true fern-seed, and the green dragon, thought it would be, no doubt, a hard matter to him a liar.

prove

In the heathen temples of old, neither the sybils, nor any other priests or fabricators of prophecy, male or female, were answerable for the oracles and dark sayings which they uttered. They had what they said from a god, who never once contradicted them! It was impossible to come at him for personal information, and was a very profane crime not to believe his priest. You had nothing to do but to subdue your reason to your faith, and swallow the verbum sacerdotis. If you did not, the judgment of the god, i. e. the anger of his priest, was sure to pursue you.

The same policy has been ever practised by the deluders of mankind, in all names and shapes. They have always intrenched themselves behind the ramparts of mystery, uncertainties, and terrors. The Romish clergy maintain all their pretensions and power by doctrines which are calculated to make the people either wonder or tremble. When a man has lost his courage and his understanding, he may easily be cheated or terrified into as tractable an animal as the creation affords. The doctrines of purgatory, and the power of the priests to forgive or damn, are alone strong enough to frighten most men into what liberality and submission the church thinks fit to demand of them; and we all know that she is not over-modest upon such occasions.

Bring me all that thou hast, and follow me," is her style of speaking.

I wish we could keep these impostures and wild claims altogether out of England, and confine them to popish and infidel countries. But that which is obvious and avowed cannot be hidden. Many of our high clergy aim at dominion by the same wicked means, and hood-wink and alarm us all that they can. They lead us out of the road of reason, and play their engines in the dark; and all the illumination we can get from them is, that we are all in a mist. Without their guidance we go astray, and with it we go blindfold. All their arguments are fetched from their own authority. Their assertions are no less than rules and laws to us, and where they lead we must follow, though into darkness and servitude. If we grow wilful, and break loose from our orthodox ignorance, we are pursued with hard names and curses. Doubting is infidelity; reason is atheism. What can we do in this case? There is no medium between a blockhead and a schismatic. If we follow them blindly, we are the first; the second, if we leave them. We want faith if we will not take their word; if we do so, we want understanding. They, indeed, give us a sweetmeat, and refer us to the Bible for proof of all that they say. But, in truth, this privilege, if we examine it, will be found none at all, but, on the contrary, a gross absurdity; for when they have sent us to a text, will they allow us to construe it in our own

way? No! they have fixed a meaning to it, and will permit it to bear no other. You may read,

provided you read with their spectacles; and examine their propositions freely, provided you take them every one for granted. You may exert your reason to its full extent, but be sure it must be to no purpose; you may use your understanding independently, under their absolute direction and control. How astonishing that these men should have the impudence to impugn the church of Rome for locking up the Bible in an unknown tongue!

The continual war which the clergy wage against reason, which they use just as they do scripture, is founded upon good policy; but it is amusing to observe their manner of attacking it. They reason against reason; use reason against the use of reason; and shew, from very good reason, that reason is good for nothing. When they think it on their own side, then they apply all its aids to convince or confound those who dare to think without their concurrence; and therefore, in their controversies about religion, they frequently appeal to reason. But we must not accept the appeal, for if our reason be not their reason, it is no reason at all. They use it, or the appearance of it, against all men; but no man must use it against them. as there is no such thing as arguing and persuading without the aid of reason, it is a little absurd, if not ungrateful, in these gentlemen, to decry it, at the same time that they are employing

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it; to turn the batteries of reason against reason, and make it destroy itself.

Neither scripture, therefore, nor reason, by these rules, signify any thing till the clergy have explained them, and made them signify something. The word of God is not the word of God, till they have declared its sense, and made it genuine.

From what has been observed, the following conclusions may be fairly drawn. Such clergymen as I have been describing, prove every thing by asserting it, and make any pretence support any claim. They build systems upon pretended facts, and argue from propositions which are either highly improbable, or certainly false. When they cannot convince, they confound; when they cannot persuade, they terrify. We have but two ways to try the truth of their doctrines, and the validity of their demands, viz. by reason and revelation; and they would deprive us of both, by making the one dark, and the other dangerous!

How far the force of example influences nature, and enlarges or restrains the human passions and appetites, is evident to all who compare different nations, and the several ranks of men in the same nation. Custom, which is a continued succession of examples, warps the understanding, and, as it is observed or neglected, becomes the standard of wisdom or folly. Men cannot bear to see what they themselves reverence, ridiculed by others; nor what they ridicule, reverenced by others. It is a common thing to educate men in a veneration for one sort of folly, and in a contempt of another, not worse, nor so bad; in a high esteem for one kind of science, and in aversion to another full as good; to love some men because they have good names, and to hate others for their best qualities; to adore some objects for a bad reason, and to detest others against all reason.

In Turkey, they have as good natural understand

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