[Footnote 54:  This is the bishop’s reference to the Tory clergy:  “But, in the last place, Those who are appointed to be the watchmen, who ought to give warning, and to lift up their voice as a trumpet, when they see those wolves ready to break in and devour the flock, have the heaviest account of all others to make, if they neglect their duty; much more if they betray their trust.  If they are so set on some smaller matters, and are so sharpened upon that account, that they will not see their danger, nor awaken others to see it, and to fly from it; the guilt of those souls who have perished by their means, God will require at their hands.  If they, in the view of any advantage to themselves, are silent when they ought to cry out day and night, they will fall under the character given by the prophet, of the watchmen in his time:  ’They are blind, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber:  Yea, they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough.  And they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter; that say, come, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’”—­BURNET’S History of the Reformation, vol. iii. p. xxii. [T.  S.]]

These decent words he tells us, make up a “lively description of such pastors, as will not study controversy, nor know the depths of Satan.”  He means I suppose, the controversy between us and the papists; for as to the freethinkers and dissenters of every denomination, they are some of the best friends to the cause.  Now I have been told, there is a body of that kind of controversy published by the London divines, which is not to be matched in the world.  I believe likewise, there is a good number of the clergy at present, thoroughly versed in that study; after which I cannot but give my judgment, that it would be a very idle thing for pastors in general to busy themselves much in disputes against Popery.  It being a dry heavy employment of the mind at best, especially when, God be thanked, there is so little occasion for it, in the generality of parishes throughout the kingdom, and must be daily less and less by the just severity of the laws, and the utter aversion of our people from that idolatrous superstition.

If I might be so bold as to name those who have the honour to be of his Lordship’s party, I would venture to tell him, that pastors have much more occasion to study controversies against the several classes of freethinkers and dissenters; the former (I beg his Lordship’s pardon for saying so) being a little worse than papists, and both of them more dangerous at present to our constitution both in church and state.  Not that I think Presbytery so corrupt a system of Christian religion as Popery; I believe it is not above one-third as bad:  but I think the Presbyterians, and their clans of other fanatics of freethinkers and