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as readily to facrifice their private intereft to the publick welfare. But after all, fecondly, the hurt is not fo great as may be imagin'd: For tho' the emoluments of the faculty may be retrenched a little, if my project should happen to be approved of; there will fill be large fcope both for honourable and gainful practice, till, together with the use of thinking, the paffions likewife are abolished; for which I have, as yet, no scheme to present to the world.

THUS have I, by my manner of reafoning, done all that was in my power, to ingratiate myself with politicians and with the priesthood. To the gay and polite, whofe practice is already on my fide, I need only urge the fatigue of thinking, and the dull interruption it will give to their pleasures. -Enough therefore, I prefume, has been faid upon the whole, to engage all the three to act in concert, and unite their strength and intereft, in supporting this new propofal for the advancement of trade, and the peace' and profperity of the church and state.

NUM B.

NUM B. LXI.

Ut malè pofuimus initia, fic cætera fequuntur.

To the OLD WHIG.

SIR,

You

CIC.

OUR ingenious correfpondent, ATTIcus, having given the world a just abstract of the principles contain’d in a late treatise, intitled the Alliance between Church and State; I beg leave, by way of fupplement to his letter, to add fome illuftrations and remarks on that performance, which his defign did not lead him to make, that the true excellency and merit of it may be impartially and fully difplay'd.

As I am a lover of my country, and in confequence a hearty well-wifher to our conftitution, and to the caufe of vertue, religion, and liberty; I am concerned to hear it faid, and the more fo as there is too much ground for the reproach, that our ecclefiaftical establishment has been lefs difhonoured and weakned by the moft malicious and Subtle attacks of its profeffed enemies, than by the lame and inconfiftent defences of its most able and zealous champions; who have

en

endeavour'd to fupport it either by fuch ill chofen topics of reafoning, as will equally justify the worst public fuperftitions that were ever allied and incorporated with the ftate; or on principles that conclude strongly against all establishments; or on idle vifionary schemes, fit only for a Utopian common-wealth. And the author of the Alliance himself joins in making this complaint; and feems to think, that he only has found out the true expedient for convincing the rational part of mankind of the neceffity and equity of our ecclefiaftical conftitutiori, and that almost all former vindications of it have been either Hobbian or Romantick.

-BUT what if his own fcheme fhould appear like wife, upon an unprejudic'd examination of it, to be attended with infuperable difficulties? What if it be fhewn, that the fundamental principles on which he builds his whole fabric, are repugnant and Jelf-contradictory? - That, befides one or two chimerical conceits, and darkening the fubject by a fett of new and stiff phrases, he

has

very little to boast of; all his reafonings, when fairly explain'd, and rendered confiftent and intelligible, terminating in the very fame point with those which he has cenfured and rejected, and running in the old channel?--And that there needs nothing more than his own arguments, urged in his own words, to demolish all establish'd religions, and prove the alliance which he pleads for,

be

between church and state, to be abfolutely abfurd and unwarrantable? If this be the cafe, I make no doubt but that all indifferent and difinterefted perfons will readily agree that the controverfy is at an end, and that a more particular anfwer is quite unneceffary to a scheme that deftroys itself. Let us fee, therefore, how the argument ftands; and whether what has been given be not a fair and just account of it:

THE grand principle upon which our author proceeds, and which he requests his reader to have always in his mind, is this, that the true end for which religion is eftalib'd is, not to provide for the TRUE FAITH, but for CIVIL UTILITY. †

THIS, he fays, is the key to open to us the whole mystery of this controversy; and the clew to lead us fafe thro' all the intricacies, windings, and perplexities, in which it has been involved.* And whereas the defenders of an established religion have all along gone on to maintain it on motives of TRUTH, and not of UTILITY; that is, that religion was to be establish'd and protected AS IT WAS THE TRUE RELIGION, not for the fake of its CIVIL UTILIY; he ftiles this an error and a mistaken principle. And yet the fame error and mistaken ↓ principle, which fo embarraffes and con

İ

founds the fubject, has this author himself efpoufed, if his words were intended to convey any meaning, when he afferts; that one motive the ftate had to feek an alliance with the church was, to preserve the effence and purity of religion. To feek an alliance † with the church, and to design and attempt an establishment of religion, are, I prefume, phrases of the fame import; and the motive to feek this alliance can, in this place, fignify nothing more or lefs, than the end propofed by it; from whence it undeniably follows, if the motive here fuggested be refonable and juft, that one true end, for which religion is establish'd, is the preferving its effence and purity: But how does this differ from providing for the true faith, which, this writer tells us, is not the true end for which religion is establish'd? Can the ef fence of religion be preferved without faith, or without true faith? Can it be intended to maintain, by an establishment, the essence and purity of religion, without intending to eftablish the true religion only? Or is it poffible, in the nature of the thing, that there should be a design to establish the true religion only, without defigning to maintain and protect it on motives of truth, or as it is the true religion? These are inconfiftencies not to be reconciled; and instead of affording a key to open the mystery of the whole con

+ p. 55.

troversy,