Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/236

 with conscience is, by this means, made too strong for the generality of those who have been educated for the church, and who are now incapable of getting their bread, at least, of making their fortune, in any other way. Also, what must the people think, to see those who are appointed to instruct them in the principles of religion and morality, solemnly subscribing to articles of faith which they are known to disbelieve and abhor; and who among the clergy, that read and think at all, are supposed to believe one-third of the thirty-nine articles of the church of England? I have so good an opinion of Dr. Balguy's good sense, notwithstanding the futility of his reasoning in this performance, as to think it is a thousand to one, but that he himself is an unbeliever in many of them.

One would have thought that the shocking abuses of the church of Rome might have served as a standing monument of the danger of church establishments; when that mystery of iniquity stands