IF to inform the understanding and regulate the will, is the most

lasting and diffusive benefit, there will not be found so useful and excellent an institution as that of the Christian priesthood which is now become the scorn of fools. That a numerous order of men should be consecrated to the study of the most sublime and beneficial truths, with a design to propagate them by their discourses and writings, to inform their fellow-creatures of the being and attributes of the Deity, to possess their minds with the sense of a future state, and not only to explain the nature of every virtue and moral duty, but likewise to persuade mankind to the practice of them by the most powerful and engaging motives, is a thing so excellent and necessary to the well being of the world, that no body but a modern free-thinker could have the forehead or folly to turn it into ridicule.

The light in which these points should be exposed to the view of one who is prejudiced against the names, religion, church, priest, and the like, is, to consider the clergy as so many philosophers, the churches as schools, and their sermons as lectures, for the information and improvement of the audience. How would the heart of Socrates or Tully have rejoiced, had they lived in a nation, where the law had made provision for philosophers to read lectures of morality and theology every seventh day, in several thousands of schools erected at the public charge throughout the whole country, at which lectures all ranks and sexes, without distinction, were obliged to be present for their general improvement? And what wicked wretches would they think those men, who should endeavour to defeat the purpose of so divine an institution?

It is indeed usual with that low tribe of writers, to pretend their design is only to reform the church, and expose the vices and not the order of the clergy. The author of a pamphlet printed the other day, (which, without my mentioning the title, will on this occasion occur to the thoughts of those who have read it) hopes to insinuate by that artifice what he is afraid or ashamed openly to maintain. But there are two points which clearly shew what it is he aims at. The first is, that he constantly uses the word priest in such a manner, as that his reader cannot but observe he means to throw an odium on the clergy of the church of England, from their being called by a name which they enjoy in common with Heathens and Imposters. The other is, his raking together and exaggerating with great spleen and industry, all those actions of churchmen, which either by their own illness, or the bad light in which he places them, tend to give men an ill impression of the dispensers of the Gospel: all which he pathetically addresses to the consideration of his wise and honest countryman of the laity. The sophistry and ill-breeding of these proceedings are so obvious to men who have any pretence to that character, that I need say no more either of them or their author.