the Church of England is no creature of the civil power, either as to its polity or doctrines.  The fundamentals of both were deduced from Christ and His apostles, and the instructions of the purest and earliest ages, and were received as such by those princes or states who embraced Christianity, whatever prudential additions have been made to the former by human laws, which alone can be justly altered or annulled by them.

What I have already said, would, I think, be a sufficient answer to his whole preface, and indeed to the greatest part of his book, which is wholly turned upon battering down a sort of independent power in the clergy; which few or none of them ever claimed or defended.  But there being certain peculiarities in this preface, that very much set off the wit, the learning, the raillery, reasoning and sincerity of the author; I shall take notice of some of them, as I pass.

But here, I hope, it will not be expected, that I should bestow remarks upon every passage in this book, that is liable to exception for ignorance, falsehood, dulness, or malice.  Where he is so insipid, that nothing can be struck out for the reader’s entertainment, I shall observe Horace’s rule: 

“Quae desperes tractata nitescere posse, relinquas.”

Upon which account I shall say nothing of that great instance of his candour and judgment in relation to Dr. Stillingfleet,[9] who (happening to lie under his displeasure upon the fatal test of imperium in imperio) is High Church and Jacobite, took the oaths of allegiance to save him from the gallows,[10] and subscribed the articles only to keep his preferment:  Whereas the character of that prelate is universally known to have been directly the reverse of what this writer gives him.

[Footnote 9:  Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699), educated at Cambridge, wrote in 1659 his “Irenicum, or Weapon Salve for the Church’s Wounds.”  He also published a “Rational Account of the Protestant Religion” in 1664.  He occupied successively the important clerical offices of Prebendary of St. Paul’s, Archdeaconry of London, Deanery of St. Paul’s, and Bishopric of Worcester.  The later years of his life were occupied in a controversy with Locke on that writer’s “Essay on the Human Understanding.” [T.  S.]]

[Footnote 10:  Page v, he quotes Bishop Stillingfleet’s “Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” where the bishop says, that a man might be very right in the belief of an article, though mistaken in the explication of it.  Upon which Tindal observes:  “These men treat the articles, as they do the oath of allegiance, which, they say, obliges them not actually to assist the government, but to do nothing against it; that is, nothing that would bring ’em to the gallows.” [Note in edition 1764, 4to.]]