Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/192

 I shall only observe, in answer to this curious piece of reasoning, that in an advertisement prefixed to this very work, he says, "It is a trite observation, that divines make bad politicians. I believe it is more generally true, that politicians are but bad divines." A confession which, I own, I should not have expected from a man who, in the very same book, pleads for the propriety of making these same politicians, alias bad divines, the final judges in all ecclesiastical causes, and for giving them a power of enacting articles of faith and ecclesiastical canons.

This author, indeed, thinks there is a necessity for churchmen making part the legislative body, lest, instead of being subjects, they should be the slaves of the state, p. 78. But so long as the bishops in parliament have no negative upon the resolutions of the house (a privilege which this bishop himself would not allow them) I do not see what their seat there would avail them, if all the laity should differ from them in their