science has, beyond all comparison, produced more mischief and misery to man, than the most wicked of all his inventions. It has disgraced a religion of peace, by rendering it a source of contention; it has destroyed the blessings of freedom, by rendering reason itself a curse; and in every Christian country, it has led men to imbrue their hands in each other's blood. The abuses and cruelties, to which this dangerous power has been applied, will be contemplated with horror, as long as the world shall endure. So uniformly mischievous have been its effects, that according to the state in which this single power is left, a nation is either prosperous and happy, or slavish and miserable.*

It is, indeed, said, the nation or the state prescribes the formula, and that the subject's conscience is to be regulated, as the public will directs. States, it is certain, do prescribe such formula. But has a nation, or a state, a conscience? Or is a nation, or a state, to be answerable for my believing what in reason I cannot do otherwise than believe? I never understood a government, or a state, to be any thing more than a creature of time only, beyond which it dissolves, and becomes a non-entity.

Rev. Mr. Twining.

A state, therefore,

therefore, cannot be answerable for my conscience. I must be answerable for it myself. How extravagant would be the imagination, to body forth this monstrous individual, or being, called a state, composed of millions of people! To fancy it stalking forth into the next world, loaded with its mighty conscience, there to be rewarded or punished, for the faith, opinions, and conduct of its constituent machines, called men! Surely the teeming brain of poetry never held out so wondrous a personage!

The professors of illiberal religion may here carp if they please: no man of common understanding will believe them, while "I and mine” are the only two avenues, at which they sally "forth and enter; and through which alone, all must pass who seek admittance to their sanctuaries. I know not, in fact, which of the two is the less estimable character, he who scoffs at virtue and religion altogether; or he who whines and groans in his prayers, but secretly says to gold, thou art my hope, and to personal interest, thou art my god! Yet let us not be unjust or deal in unmerited opprobrium. The church has been very far from having been always to blame. Ambition, however it may have cloaked itself, has had, on various occasions, an equal,

X 2

equal, if not a superior degree of culpability. And hence, according to the historian* (and one instance is as good as a million) Valentinian, A.D. 364, had that strong sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted by study, that he declined, with respectful indifference, the subtile questions of theological debate. The government of the earth claimed his vigilance, and satisfied his ambition. And while he remembered he was a disciple of the church, he never forgot he was the sovereign of the clergy.

In the middle ages, indeed, ecclesiastics and schoolmen ventured to dictate to kings, and to give rules for administering states, drawn mostly, it must be confessed, from the narrow circle of speculation, and conceived amid the pedantries", of the cloisters. But it was more especially the reprehensibly immoral conduct of the clergy, which at length drew upon them the obloquy, that they have never since been able to shake off. During the latter part of the fourteenth century, two or three contending pontiffs were seen roaming about Europe at the same time, and piously cursing and reprobating each other. Many of the dignified clergy also, as well regular as secular, were the younger branches of noble families,

Gibbon.

who

crowns.

who had assumed the ecclesiastical character, merely for affluence and conveniency, and who indulged themselves in all the vices, to which wealth and idleness give birth. Hence, a deacon, guilty of murder, was absolved for twenty A bishop or abbot had the privilege of assassinating for three hundred livres. Any ecclesiastic might violate his vows of chastity, even with the most aggravating circumstances, for the third part of the sum. Even such shocking crimes, as occur rarely in human. life, or, more probably, only exist in the impure imagination of the casuist, were still venial, on the compounding for a specific fine. No man, in short, dared touch the sacred hem of the priest's garment. Unless degraded

from his office, he was even above the reach of the civil judge. And hence the reason, why priests were very appositely called, by the Germans, "anointed malefactors," and why they came to get into their hands, in that empire, more than one half of the national property.*

But, it is not the fault of the few who usurp, that nations are enslaved; it is the fault of the many, who permit it. For what can be expected from those who are armed with high prerogaX 3 tives

*Centum Gravum, sect. 28

tives and pretensions, but that, being actuated by human desires, they should be eager in the gratification of human passions? If millions recede before a single man; on whose side have the defences of freedom given way, or to whom are we fairly to impute despotism? To the spiritless animal, who has deserted his station; or to the vigorous mind, who has raised himself upon timidity and weakness? No man that arrives at the power of governing a supine, or an abject people, can, without infinite forbearance, cease to extend his authority. Even those very establishments, which we have seen devised in one age to limit and to direct, have, in another, served only to remove obstructions, and smooth the way for encroachment; to point out, in short, the channels in which tyranny may run, without giving offence, or exciting alarm. Nay, the very councils, which have been instituted to check innovation, have, in times of degradation, furnished aid to the most daring and unqualified pretensions.

mon source.

The passion for independence, and the love of dominion, generally arise from the same comThere is in both an aversion to controul. And he,who, in one situation, cannot brook a superior, is certain in another to dislike being joined with an equal. Hence, what the