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HAVING now given you some account of the rise and establishment of the Romish hierarchy, it is but reasonable, that before I dismiss the subject of ecclesiastick history, I should consider the causes which have contributed to the declension of that wonderful empire. This will lead me to remark a little on the latent springs, the progress, and the effects of the reformation.

In all governments, of what kind soever, it may be justly said, that the dominion of the few over the many is primarily founded in opinion. The natural strength among beings of the same order, which is equal in the individuals, or nearly so, lies always in the multitude. But the opinion both of right and of occupancy, or secure possession, can and does universally invest the smaller with the direction or government of the greater number. By the opinion of right, we are restrained, through justice, or a sense of duty, from divesting a man of what we think him entitled to enjoy. By the opinion of occupancy, we are restrained, through prudence, or a sense of danger, from disturbing a man in the possession of what we think he has a firm hold of. Either opinion, when strong, is generally sufficient to ensure peace; but they operate most powerfully in conjunction. When the two opinions are disjoined, that is, when fortunately, under any government, it is the general opinion, that the right is in one, and the occupancy in another, there frequently ensue insurrections and intestine brails.

The above remarks hold equally with regard to property, which is in effect a species of power. Now these opinions, which, from the influence of custom, and insensible imitation,

men have a natural tendency to form, prove, in all ordinary cases, a sufficient security to the few rich and great, in the enjoyment of all their envied advantages, against the far superiour force, if it were combined, of the many poor and small. Indeed, it is opinion that prevents the combination, and makes that a master may sleep securely amid fifty servants and dependents, each of whom, perhaps, taken, singly, is, both in bodily strength, and in mental abilities, an overmatch for him. It is this which vests a single person with the command of an army, who, in contradiction to their own will, give implicit obedience to his; notwithstanding that they carry in their hands what would prove the instruments of working their own pleasure, and his destruction. It will not be doubted, that it is in the same way, by means of opinion, that ecclesiastical power has a hold of the minds of men.

There is, however, this remarkable difference in the two "sorts of power, that knowledge and civilization, unless accompanied with profligacy of manners, add strength to those opinions on which civil authority rests, at the same time that they weaken those opinions which serve as a basis to a spiritual despotism, or a hierarchy like the Romish. The more a people becomes civilized, the more their notions of justice and property, prescription and peaceable possession, become steady, the more they see the necessity of maintaining these inviolate, and the ruinous consequences of infringing them. The love of peace and science, the encouragement of industry and arts, the desire of publick good and order, the abhorrence of crimes, confusion, and blood, all co-operate to make those opinions take deep root. Nothing seems to endanger them so much as tyranny and oppression in the rulers. These tending directly to undermine the opinion of right, (for no man is conceived to have a right to tyrannize over his fellows) leave only in the minds of the people, in favour of their superiours, the opinion of occupancy. Thus one of the great pillars by which magistracy is supported, the sense of duty, is removed, and the whole weight is left upon the other, the sense of danger. Virtue, in that case, we consider either as out of the question, or as in opposition to the powers that be, and consult only prudence. Now wherever the present evils of oppression, wherein a people is involved, appear intoferable, and greater than any, or even as great as any which they dread from opposition, the other support, prudence, is removed also; and men will both think themselves entitled to revolt, and, after balancing the chances on both sides, be disposed to hazard every thing.

On the other hand, the opinions, which are the great bul warks of spiritual tyranny, are founded in ignorance and superstition, which are always accompanied with great credulity. Of these, nothing can be so subversive as knowledge and improvement. Virtue, and even piety itself, when its exalted and liberal spirit begins to be understood, become hostile to opinions which, under the sacred name and garb of religion, prove the bane of every virtue, and indeed of every valuable quality in human nature, as well as the nurse of folly and malevolence. Luxury and vice are often pernicious to the best constituted civil governments, because whilst, on one hand, they strengthen and inflame the passions, the great incentives to criminal attempts, they, on the other hand, loosen and undermine our regards to equity and right. But no kind of vice in the people, if accompanied with ignorance, is an enemy; every kind is, on the contrary, a friend to the reign of superstition. Consciousness of profligacy will at times excite terrour even in the most obdurate. Superstition, especially when formed into a politick system, like the Romish, is never deficient in expedients for conjuring down that terrour, and rendering it subservient to the invariable aim, priestly dominion. It requires but little knowledge, in the history of christendom, to enable us to discover, that many of those persons, both princes and others, most highly celebrated by ecclesiasticks as the great benefactors of the church, were the most worthless of the age wherein they lived, the most tyrannical, the most rapacious, the most profligate, men who have concluded a life stained with the blackest crimes, by beggaring their offspring, and devoting all that they had, by way of atoning for their sins, to one of those seminaries of sloth, hypocrisy, and unnatural lusts, commonly called convents; or by enchancing, in some other way, the power and wealth of churchmen. Few contributed more to the erection and establishment of the hierarchy than the emperour Phocas; and a greater monster of cruelty and injustice never disgraced the human form.

That the great enemy which superstition has to overcome is knowledge, was early perceived by those, who found their account in supporting her throne. Nor were they slack in taking measures for stifling this dangerous foe. Among the chief of these measures were the following :- 1st, They judged it proper to confine to a few those divine illuminations, which they could not totally suppress, and which they could not deny had originally been given for the benefit of all. 2dly, When that formidable thing, knowledge, in spite of all their efforts, was making progress, they, in order to give it a time

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ly check, affixed a stigma on all the books which tended to expose their artifices, and open the eyes of mankind. 3dly, For the more effectual prevention of this danger, through the terrour of example, persecution was employed, which has, in their hands, been digested into an art, and conducted with a cool, determinate, systematick cruelty, that defies alike all the principles of justice and humanity; and of which, among Jews, Mahometans, or Pagans, the world has hitherto furnished us with nothing that deserves to be compared.

In what regards the first method, we comprehend under it the means that have been used to render the scriptures inaccessible to the common people, by discouraging, as much as possible, translations into the vulgar tongue; and, by confining the whole publick service to a dead language, thereby rendering it to the congregation no better than insignificant mummery. Nothing is more evident from the scriptures themselves, than that they were written for the benefit of all. Accordingly, all are commanded to read and study them. And indeed, soon after the different books came abroad, one of the first effects of the pious zeal, with which the primitive christians were inspired, was, in every country, to get those inestimable instructions, as soon as possible, accurately translated into the language of the country. It is astonishing to observe how early this was effected in most of the languages then spoken. Indeed, there was nothing in those purer times which could induce any one, who bore the christian name, to desire either to conceal, or to disguise, the truth. To propagate it in its native purity, and thus diffuse to others the benefit of that light which they themselves enjoyed, was the great ambition, and constant aim, of all the genuine disciples of the Lord Jesus.

As no tongue (the Greek excepted, which is the original of the New Testament) was of so great extent as Latin,-into this a translation seems very early to have been made. It was commonly distinguished by the name Italick, probably because undertaken for the use of the christians in Italy. It is not known who was the author. This is also the case of most of the old translations. About three centuries after, a new ver sion into Latin was undertaken by Jerom. Our present vulgate consists partly of each, but mostly of the latter. No version whatever could, in early times, be more necessary than one into Latin. This was not the language of Italy only; it had obtained very generally in all the neighbouring countries, which had long remained in subjection to Rome, and in which Roman colonies had been planted. But in the other western churches, where Latin was not spoken by the people,

the scriptures were translated into the vernacular idiom of the different nations, soon after their embracing the christian doctrine. There were, accordingly, Gothick, Frankish, or old German, Anglo-Saxon, and Sclavonick versions. In like manner, in the east, they had very early Syriack, Armenian, Arabick, Persick, Ethiopick, and Coptick. The same may be said of the divine offices, or prayers and hymns, used in publick in their churches. It is pretty evident, that for some centuries these were, in all the early converted countries, per formed in the language of the people. But in the first ages there were no written liturgies.

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Indeed, nothing can be more repugnant to common sense than the contrary practice. For if the people have any concern in those offices, if their joining in the service be of any consequence, it is necessary they should understand what is done in an unknown tongue, the praises of God, and the praises of Baal, are the same to them. In like manner, in regard to the reading of the scriptures, if the edification of the people be at all concerned, still more if it be the ultimate end, how can it be promoted by the barbarous sounds of a foreign or dead language? How can instructions, covered by such an impenetrable veil, convey knowledge or comfort, produce faith, or secure obedience? The apostle Paul, (1 Cor. xiv,) has been so full and explicit on this head, that it is impossible for all the sophistry, that has been wasted on that passage, to disguise his meaning from any intelligent and ingenuous mind.

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The church," says the Romanist, "by this averseness to "change so much as the external garb, the language of the "usages introduced soon after the forming of a christian so"ciety at Rome, demonstrates her constancy, and inviolable "regard, to antiquity, and consequently ought to inspire us "with a greater confidence in the genuineness and identity of "her doctrine." But so far in fact is this from being an evidence of the constancy of that church, in point of doctrine, that it is no evidence of her constancy even in point of ceremonies. It is the dress, the language only, in which she has been constant, the ceremonies themselves have undergone great alterations, and received immense additions, (as those versed in church history well know) in order to accommodate them to the corruptions in doctrine, which, from time to time, have been adopted. Nor has it been the most inconsiderable motive for preserving the use of a dead language, that the whole service might be more completely in the power of the priesthood, who could thereby, with the greater facility, and without alarming the people, make such alterations in their liturgy, as should, in their ghostly wisdom, be judged proper.

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