It appears by thefe, and many other Paffages in my Writings, that I have retained the greatest Honour and Efteem for thofe learned Bodies; in one of which I received a Part of my Education, and where I can ftill boaft of much perfonal Friendship and Acquaintance. But I believe, Sir, there are none among those learned Societies, who will think I derogate from them by any thing, faid in this Paragraph. They themselves bewail their Misfortune, that feveral Nonjurors are gone out from among them, and several ftill retain with them, who are the most able Defenders of that Cause, and who, if they had rightly ftudied our Conftitution as fettled by Acts of Parliament, might have been as able Advocates for our Rights and Liberties. Sir, I have Reafon to esteem the Univerfities, as I had the Happinefs to have had a Part of my Education in one of them: And it is for the like Reafon that I fhall always have a Veneration for the Clergy, as having been bred up from my Infancy (which I know not whether my Accufer was or not) in the Doctrine of the Church of England.

The Paragraph which follows in the Dedication of the CRISIS is this:

There is one thing which deferves your most ferious Confideration. You have bound your felves by the strongest Obligations that Religion can lay upon Men, to support that Succeffion which is the Subject of the following Papers: You have tied down your Souls by an Oath to maintain it as it is fertled in the Houfe of Hanover: Nay, you have gone much further than is ufual in Cafes, of this. Nature, as you have perfonally

M 4

abjured

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abjured the Pretender to this Crown; and that exprefly, without any Equivocations or mental Refervations what foever; that is, without any poffible Efcapes, by which the Subtlety of temporifing Cafuifts might hope to elude the Force of thefe folemn Obligati⚫ons. You know much better than I do, whether the calling God to Witness to the Sincerity of our Intentions in thefe Cafes; whether the fwearing upon the holy Evangelitts in the moft folemn Manner; whether the taking of an Oath before Multitudes of our Fellow Subjects and Fellow-Chriftians in our publick Courts of Juftice, do not lay the greatest Obligations that can be laid on the Confciences of Men. This I am fure of, that if the Body of the Clergy, who confiderately and voluntarily entered into thefe Engagements, fhould be inade ufe of as .Inftruments and Examples to make the Nation break through them, not only the Succeffion to our Crown, but the very Effence of our Religion is in Danger. What a Triumph would it furnish to thofe evil Men among us, who are Enemies to your facred Order? What Occafion would it adminifter to Atheists and Unbelievers to fay, That • Chriftianity is nothing elfe but an outward • Show and Pretence among the most knowing of its Profeffors: What could we afterwards object to jefuifts? What would be the Scandal brought upon our holy Church, which is at prefent the Glory and Bulwark of the Refor⚫mation? How would our present Clergy ap 'pear in the Eyes of their Pofterity, and even to the Succeffion of their own Order, under a

Govern

'Government introduced and established by a • Conduct fo dire&ly oppofite to all the Rules ⚫ of Honour, and Precepts of Christianity?

A Man may own he apprehends that Holy and Reclufe Men may be mif- led by artful ones, without any Imputation to their Characters of Weakness or Guilt. And I here only take the Liberty of all Writers, to fuppofe a Cafe which is not likely to happen; and by that Means to animate the Zeal of thofe to whom I addrefs my felf, for that Caufe; of the Juftice of which they are already perfwaded. This is a way of arguing made use of by every one who would bring over his Reader to a Zeal for what he advances. What is more frequent than to hear from the Pulpit it felf, the Scandal that would be brought upon Chriftianity, should the Profeffors of it deviate from thofe Rules which it prefcribes? And it would be as juft to fay, that the Preacher does by this Method infinuate that his Hearers are not Chriftiaus, as it would be to imply from that Paragraph which I have now read, that our English Clergy afe against the Proteftant Succeffion: Nay, I think, nothing can be fo great an Argument that I believe they are for it, as thus laying before the Reader thofe folemn Engagements that this Holy Order of Men have enter'd into for its Prefervation. But to take off all Poffibility of an Inuendo in this Place, I have, in the Paragraph which immediately follows, difclaimed every fuch Implication; where I fay,

As I always fpeak and think of your Holy "Order with the utmoft Deference and Refpe&t, I do not infift upon this Subject to infinuate MS

that

that there is fuch a Difpofition among your Venerable Body, but to fhew how much your own Honour and the Intereft of Religion is concerned, that there fhould be no Cause given for it.

It would be very unfair to feparate my Words, and to pronounce a Meaning in them, which I have not expreffed, when that which I have expreffed is a pofitive Denial of having entertained any fuch Meaning.

Sir, I am afraid that those who stir up this Accufation against me, only make use of the Name of the Clergy to give it a more popular Turn, and to take off the Odium from themfelves, by the Ufe of fuch Venerable Names. But I hope this Accufation will be thought to proceed from the real Cause of it; and if any Hardship should fall upon me, as I know there cannot, whilst I have the Honour and Happinefs to be heard before this House, that it will rather be imputed to the Refentments of an angry Minifter, than of an injured Clergy.

Sir, If I can arrogate to my felf any little Merit from the Writings which I have published, it is chiefly this; That I have perfonally oppofed fuch Authors as have endeavoured to ridicule Religion, and thofe Holy Profeffors of it. I have received feveral Approbations in Publick and in Private, from Men in Holy Orders, for my concurring with them, to the best of my poor Abilities, in the Advancement of Morality, and in beating down that unreafonable Humour which had prevailed with fo many Writers to expofe their Perfons and Profeffion to the Derifion of foolish and wicked Men. I muft beg leave, on this Head,, to produce fome out of innumerable Paffages which fpeak

fpeak with the utmost Deference and Refpe& of their Holy Calling in general, and of fome particular Perfons in it, for whom, I believe, moft of the Gentemen of this Houfe have a very great and just Esteem.

I hall firft cite one or two very short Paffages out of a Book called, The Guardian, which has been mentioned in this Houfe; and which was published not long fince. The firft of which Paffages is in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Pages of the ift Volume, in the following. Terms

'I am diverted from the Account I was gi 'ving the Town of my particular Concerns, by cafting my Eyeupon a Trea

tife, which I could not over- Written by Mr. look without an inexcufable Steele himself. 'Negligence, and want of Con

· cern for all the Civil as well as Religious Interests of Mankind. This Piece has for its Title, A Difcourfe of Free Thinking, occafioned by the Rife and Growth of a Sect called Free• Thinkers. The Author very methodically enters upon his Argument, and fays, by FreeThinking, I mean the Ufe of the Understanding, in endeavouring to find out the Meaning of any Propofition whatever, in conf dering the Nature of the Evidence for or a gainft, and in judging of it according to the feeming Force or Weakness of the Evidence.. • As foon as he delivered this Definition, from "which one would expect he did not defign to 'fhew a' particular luclination for or against any thing, before he had confidered it; he " gives up all Title to the Character of a FreeThinker, with the moft apparent Prejudice ' againft.

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