tics, and hurtful to the ecclesiastical charac ter.

With some patrons, there is not one of these qualifications that is not a stronger motive than parts, and learning, and piety, and prudence, and virtue put together.".... Thus said Dr. Newton, the founder and head of a college in Oxford, at a time when the cure of souls was not considered as so trifling a care as it has been by more recent ministers, who have seemed ready to sacrifice both soul and body to the gaining of a majority in the senate. The CHURCH once preserved her own dignity with a noble independence; but now she must bow, like a lacquey, to the vilest minister of state.

But what is this cura animarum, this office of watching over the spiritual state of populous districts? Is it not, on the hypothesis that the Christian religion is true, the most important office that can be undertaken by man on this side the grave? Is not the power of appointing to that office a trust most sacred, if there be any thing sacred here below? What is SACRILEGE? the stealing of a cushion or silver chalice from a church? And is it no sacrilege to steal the church itself, and all its emoluments, designed to prevent the increase of corrup tion, in order to reward and to promote corruption? Is the cura animarum to be the last consideration in the patron's mind, though the first in the eye of reason and religion? And is all this injustice, sacrilege,

A

impiety, and blasphemy to be endured, because the gift of the stipend, the endowment, the tithes, the fees buy an elector, who swears at the time of giving his vote, that he has not received a bribe? Is it to be wondered, if, under such abuses, religion should be on the decline? Do the writings of infidels, or the venal practices of patrons contribute most to exterminate Christianity? What has a similar system in France effected, carried indeed to still greater lengths, but still similar? The greedy rapaciousness of court sycophants in England is doing the work of ANTICHRIST, and destroying civil liberty.

But I am chiefly concerned at present to consider the using the church, or the cure of souls, for the corruption of the state and the violation of the constitution, as a POLITICAL enormity. It certainly contributes to the spirit of despotism. It naturally tends to make all the youth in the nation, who enter on this sacred profession, look up to court favor, and not to depend on their own. merit or exertions, for promotion. It prevents them from voting freely at elections. It prevents them from preaching freely from the pulpit. Its natural tendency is to make them what they ought particularly to avoid, adulators, worldly wise, parasitical, and acceptors of men's persons for the sake of advantage. They must know, under such a system, that if they vote according to conscience, or preach or write according to

the truth as it is in Jesus, they must forego all those prospects of rising in their profession, which, if merit were rewarded, are a stimulus to every thing that can benefit human nature. Clerical men, infirm, like others, often sink under this temptation.... Few can renounce great temporal advantages for the sake of promoting public good, especially when they are sure of persecution as well as neglect. Now, what must be the consequence to liberty, of a whole national clergy rendered expectant on the favor of a court, and a proud aristocracy?.... May we not hear again from the pulpit, the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience; the same doctrines in effect, under names less offensive to the people? Have we not lately heard them?

There is no mode of promoting the purposes of corruption, and the aggrandizement of those who already engross the pomp of grandeur, more injurious to liberty, and more villainously base, than that of seizing the appointments and rewards of piety and virtue, to bestow them on those, whose worldly wisdom is their chief recommendation, and who seem ready to worship God only in the second place, if they worship him at all.

The Tindals, the Collins's, the Bolingbrokes, the Humes, the Gibbons, the Voltaires, the Volneys, the miscreant philosophers of France, never did so much injury

to the cause of Christianity, as those English ministers of state, who, while they shed the blood of thousands for the sake of law, order, and religion, prostitute the church and the CURE OF SOULS to the corruption of the senate.

SECTION XXXIV.

Of Mr. Hume's idea, That absolute monarchy is the easiest Death, the Euthanasia of the British Constitution.

THE very ingenious speculatist, Mr.

Hume, seems to wish, as well as think, that as death is unavoidable by the political as well as the animal body, the British constitution may die in the arms of despotism.... His words are, "I would much rather wish to see an absolute monarchy than a republic in this island. Absolute monarchy is the easiest death, the true euthanasia of the British constitution."

His opinion, that our free government will terminate in despotism, seems founded on the following argument, which he has inserted in his Essay on the British Govern

ment.

"The British spirit and love of liberty, however great, will never be able to sup

port itself against that immense property which is now lodged in the king, and is still increasing. Upon a moderate computation, there are near three millions annually at the disposal of the crown. The civil list a

mounts to near a million; the collection of all taxes to another million; and the employments in the army and navy, along with ecclesiastical preferments, to above a third million. A monstrous sum! and what may fairly be computed to be more than a thirti eth part of the whole income and labor of the kingdom. When we add to this immense property the increasing luxury of the nation, our proneness to corruption, along with the great power and prerogatives of the crown, and the command of such numerous military forces, there is no one but must despair, without EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS, of being able to support our free government much longer under all these disadvantages.

But why should not extraordinary ef forts' be made, when the object is extraordinary....no less than the preservation of human happiness, by the preservation of civil liberty? No efforts should be declined in such a cause; nor should MEN, sensible of their blessings, and desirous of handing them down as they received them, sink, with dastardly indolence, into a state of despair.

Mr. Hume, with all his penetration, could not foresee the revolution in France;