and he has told me several years ago, that he lamented extremely the power which bishops had of letting leases for lives, whereby, as he said, they were utterly deprived of raising their revenues, whatever alterations might happen in the value of money by length of time:  I think the reproach of betraying private conversation will not upon this account be laid to my charge.  Neither do I believe he would have changed his opinion upon any score, but to take up another, more agreeable to the maxims of his party; that “the least addition of property to the Church, is one step toward Popery.”

[Footnote 31:  Page 39.]

The Bishop goes on with much earnestness and prolixity to prove that the Pope’s confirmation of the church lands to those who held them by King Henry’s donation, was null and fraudulent:  Which is a point that I believe no Protestant in England would give threepence to have his choice whether it should be true or false:  It might indeed serve as a passage in his history, among a thousand other instances, to detect the knavery of the court of Rome; but I ask, where could be the use of it in this Introduction?  Or why all this haste in publishing it at this juncture; and so out of all method apart, and before the work itself?  He gives his reasons in very plain terms; we are now, it seems, “in more danger of Popery than toward the end of King Charles II.’s reign.  That set of men (the Tories) is so impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it, and perhaps from acting such a part in it as may be assigned them."[32] He doubts whether the High-Church clergy have any principles, and therefore will be ready to turn off their wives, and look on the fires kindled in Smithfield as an amiable view.  These are the facts he all along takes for granted, and argues accordingly; therefore, in despair of dissuading the nobility and gentry of the land from introducing Popery by any motives of honour, religion, alliance or mercy, he assures them, that “the Pope has not duly confirmed their titles to the church lands in their possession,” which therefore must infallibly be restored, as soon as that religion is established among us.

[Footnote 32:  Page 37.]

Thus, in his Lordship’s opinion, there is nothing wanting to make the majority of the kingdom, both for number, quality and possession, immediately embrace Popery, except a “firm bull from the Pope,” to secure the abbey and other church lands and tithes to the present proprietors and their heirs; if this only difficulty could now be adjusted, the Pretender would be restored next session, the two Houses reconciled to the church of Rome against Easter term, and the fires lighted in Smithfield by Midsummer.  Such horrible calumnies against a nation are not the less injurious to decency, good-nature, truth, honour, and religion, because they may be vented with safety.  And I will appeal to any reader of common understanding, whether this be not the most natural and necessary deduction from the passages I have cited and referred to.