Page 290.  “Christ never designed the holy Sacrament should be prostituted to serve a party.  And that people should be bribed by a place to receive unworthily.”  Why, the business is, to be sure, that those who are employed are of the national church; and the way to know it is by receiving the sacrament, which all men ought to do in their own church; and if not, are hardly fit for an office; and if they have those moral qualifications he mentioneth, joined to religion, no fear of receiving unworthily.  And for this there might be a remedy:  To take an oath, that they are of the same principles, &c. for that is the end of receiving; and that it might be no bribe, the bill against occasional conformity would prevent entirely.

Ibid.  “Preferring men not for their capacity, but their zeal to the Church.”  The misfortune is, that if we prefer dissenters to great posts, they will have an inclination to make themselves the national church, and so there will be perpetual struggling; which case may be dangerous to the state.  For men are naturally wishing to get over others to their own opinion:  Witness this writer, who hath published as singular and absurd notions as possible, yet hath a mighty zeal to bring us over to them, &c.

Page 292.  Here are two pages of scurrilous faction, with a deal of reflections on great persons.  Under the notion of High-Churchmen, he runs down all uniformity and church government.  Here is the whole Lower House of Convocation, which represents the body of the clergy and both universities, treated with rudeness by an obscure, corrupt member, while he is eating their bread.

Page 294.  “The reason why the middle sort of people retain so much of their ancient virtue &c. is because no such pernicious notions are the ingredients of their education; which ’tis a sign are infinitely absurd, when so many of the gentry and nobility can, notwithstanding their prepossession, get clear of them.”  Now the very same argument lies against religion, morality, honour, and honesty, which are, it seems, but prejudices of education, and too many get clear of them.  The middle sort of people have other things to mind than the factions of the age.  He always assigneth many causes, and sometimes with reason, since he maketh imaginary effects.  He quarrels at power being lodged in the clergy:  When there is no reasonable Protestant, clergy, or laity, who will not readily own the inconveniences by too great power and wealth, in any one body of men, ecclesiastics, or seculars:  But on that account to weed up the wheat with the tares; to banish all religion, because it is capable of being corrupted; to give unbounded licence to all sects, &c.—­And if heresies had not been used with some violence in the primitive age, we should have had, instead of true religion, the most corrupt one in the world.

Page 316.  “The Dutch, and the rest of our presbyterian allies, &c.”  The Dutch will hardly thank him for this appellation.  The French Huguenots, and Geneva Protestants themselves, and others, have lamented the want of episcopacy, and approved ours, &c.  In this and the next paragraph, the author introduceth the arguments he formerly used, when he turned papist in King James’s time; and loth to lose them, he gives them a new turn; and they are the strongest In his book, at least have most artifice.