atheists that dangle after them, are as well inclined to pull down the present establishment of monarchy and religion, as any set of Papists in Christendom, and therefore that our danger as things now stand, is infinitely greater from our Protestant enemies; because they are much more able to ruin us, and full as willing.  There is no doubt, but Presbytery, and a commonwealth, are less formidable evils than Popery, slavery, and the Pretender; for if the fanatics were in power, I should be in more apprehension of being starved than burned.  But there are probably in England forty dissenters of all kinds, including their brethren the freethinkers, for one papist; and, allowing one papist to be as terrible as three dissenters, it will appear by arithmetic, that we are thirteen times and one-third more in danger of being ruined by the latter than the former.

The other qualification necessary for all pastors, if they will not be “blind, ignorant, greedy, drunken dogs,” &c., is, “to know the depths of Satan.”  This is harder than the former; that a poor gentleman ought not to be parson, vicar, or curate of a parish, except he be cunninger than the devil.  I am afraid it will be difficult to remedy this defect for one manifest reason, because whoever had only half the cunning of the devil, would never take up with a vicarage of L10 a-year, “to live on at his ease,” as my Lord expresseth it; but seek out for some better livelihood.  His Lordship is of a nation very much distinguished for that quality of cunning (though they have a great many better) and I think he was never accused for wanting his share.  However upon a trial of skill I would venture to lay six to four on the devil’s side, who must be allowed to be at least the older practitioner.  Telling truth shames him, and resistance makes him fly:  But to attempt outwitting him, is to fight him at his own weapon, and consequently no cunning at all.  Another thing I would observe is, that a man may be “in the depths of Satan,” without knowing them all, and such a man may be so far in Satan’s depths as to be out of his own.  One of the depths of Satan, is to counterfeit an angel of light.  Another, I believe, is, to stir up the people against their governors, by false suggestions of danger.  A third is to be a prompter to false brethren, and to send wolves about in sheep’s clothing.  Sometimes he sends Jesuits about England in the habit and cant of fanatics, at other times he has fanatic missionaries in the habits of ——.  I shall mention but one more of Satan’s depths, for I confess I know not the hundredth part of them; and that is, to employ his emissaries in crying out against remote imaginary dangers, by which we may be taken off from defending ourselves against those which are real and just at our elbows.