Page 276.  “Their interest obliges them directly to promote tyranny.”  The matter is, that Christianity is the fault, which spoils the priests, for they were like other men, before they were priests.  Among the Romans, priests did not do so; for they had the greatest power during the republic.  I wonder he did not prove they spoiled Nero.

Page 277.  “No princes have been more insupportable and done greater violence to the commonwealth than those the clergy have honoured for saints and martyrs.”  For example in our country, the princes most celebrated by our clergy are, &c. &c. &c.  And the quarrels since the Conquest were nothing at all of the clergy, but purely of families, &c. wherein the clergy only joined like other men.

Page 279.  “After the Reformation,[20]I desire to know whether the conduct of the clergy was anyways altered for the better, &c.”  Monstrous misrepresentation.  Does this man’s spirit of declaiming let him forget all truth of fact, as here, &c.?  Shew it.  Or doth he flatter himself, a time will come in future ages, that men will believe it on his word?  In short, between declaiming, between misrepresenting, and falseness, and charging Popish things, and independency huddled together, his whole book is employed.

[Footnote 20:  “Reformation” in 4to and 8vo editions, but Tindal’s word is “Restoration.” [T.S.]]

Set forth at large the necessity of union in religion, and the disadvantage of the contrary, and answer the contrary in Holland, where they have no religion, and are the worst constituted government in the world to last.  It is ignorance of causes and appearances which makes shallow people judge so much to their advantage.  They are governed by the administration and almost legislature of Holland through advantage of property; nor are they fit to be set in balance with a noble kingdom, &c. like a man that gets a hundred pounds a year by hard labour, and one that has it in land.

Page 280.  “It may be worth enquiring, whether the difference between the several sects in England, &c.”  A noble notion started, that union in the Church must enslave the kingdom:  reflect on it.  This man hath somewhere heard, that it is a point of wit to advance paradoxes, and the bolder the better.  But the wit lies in maintaining them, which he neglecteth, and formeth imaginary conclusions from them, as if they were true and uncontested.

He adds, “That in the best constituted Church, the greatest good which, can be expected of the ecclesiastics, is from their divisions.”  This is a maxim deduced from a gradation of false suppositions.  If a man should turn the tables, and argue that all the debauchery, atheism, licentiousness, &c. of the times, were owing to the poverty of the clergy, &c. what would he say?  There have been more wars of religion since the ruin of the clergy, than before, in England.  All the civil wars before were from other causes.

Page 283.  “Prayers are made in the loyal university of Oxford, to continue the throne free from the contagion of schism.  See Mather’s sermon on the 29th of May, 1705.”  Thus he ridicules the university while he is eating their bread.  The whole university comes with the most loyal addresses, yet that goes for nothing.  If one indiscreet man drops an indiscreet word, all must answer for it.