The bulk of the kingdom, both clergy and laity, happens to differ extremely from this prelate, in many principles both of politics and religion:  Now I ask, whether if any man of them had signed his name to a system of atheism, or Popery, he could have argued with them otherwise than he does?  Or, if I should write a grave letter to his Lordship with the same advice, taking it for granted that he was half an atheist, and half a papist, and conjuring him by all he held dear to have compassion upon all those who believed a God, “not to revive the fires in Smithfield,” that he must either forfeit his bishopric, or not marry a fourth wife;[25] I ask whether he would not think I intended him the highest injury and affront?

[Footnote 25:  Bishop Burnet had already been married three times. [T.  S.]]

But as to the Tory laity; he gives them up in a lump for abandoned atheists:  They are a set of men so “impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it [Popery] and perhaps acting such a part in it, as may be assigned them."[26] He therefore despairs of influencing them by any topics drawn from religion or compassion, and advances the consideration of interest, as the only powerful argument to persuade them against Popery.

[Footnote 26:  Page 37.]

What he offers upon this head is so very amazing from a Christian, a clergyman, and a prelate of the Church of England, that I must in my own imagination strip him of those three capacities, and put him among the number of that set of men he mentions in the paragraph before; or else it will be impossible to shape out an answer.

His Lordship, in order to dissuade the Tories from their design of bringing in Popery, tells them, “how valuable a part of the whole soil of England, the abbey lands, the estates of the bishops, of the cathedrals, and the tithes are;"[27] how difficult such “a resumption would be to many families; yet all these must be thrown up; for sacrilege in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin.”  I desire it may be observed, what a jumble here is made of ecclesiastical revenues, as if they were all upon the same foot, were alienated with equal justice, and the clergy had no more reason to complain of the one than the other.  Whereas the four branches mentioned by him are of very different consideration.  If I might venture to guess the opinion of the clergy upon this matter, I believe they could wish that some small part of the abbey lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishoprics, and a very few acres to serve for glebes in those parishes where there are none; after which I think they would not repine that the laity should possess the rest.  If the estates of some bishops and cathedrals were exorbitant before the Reformation, I believe the present clergy’s wishes reach no further than that some reasonable temper had been used, instead of paring them to the quick:  But as to the tithes, without examining