Page:Thoughts on a French invasion.pdf/22

 22             The Bishop cf Llandaff’s Address

Can there be no just government, because there is, and has been much oppression in the world, no political freedom in Great Britain, because there was, during the monarchy, little in France; where there is, proba- bly, still less than there was? Does it follow that there ought to be no distinction in society, with respect to rank or riches, because there are none in a state of na- ture; though nature herself has made a great differ- ence amongst the individuals cf our species as to health, strength, judgement, genius, as to all those powers which, either in a state of nature or society, necessarily become the causes and occasions of the superiority of one-man over another? Does it follow that rich men ought to be plundered, and men of rank degraded, because a few may be found in every state who have abused their pre-eminence, or misapplied their wealth?, In a word, does it follow that there ought to be no re- ligion, no government, no subordination amongst men, because religion may degenerate into superstition, go- vernment into tyranny, and subordination into slavery? As reasonably might it be argued, that there ought to be no wine, because some men may become drunkards; no meat, because some men may become gluttons; no air, no fire, no water, because these natural sources of general felicity may accidentally become instruments of partial calamity?

He who peruses with attention the works of those foreigners, who for the last seventy or eighty years have written against revealed and natural religion, and compares them with the writings of our English deists towards the end of the last and beginning or middle of the present century, will perceive that the format have borrowed all their arguments and objections from the latter; he will perceive alfo that they are far infe- rior to them in learning and acuteness, but that they surpass them in ridicule, in blasphemy, in misrepresen- tation, in a bad cause: they surpass them too in their mischievous endeavours to disseminate their principles amongst those who, from their education, are least qualified to refute their sophistry.

Justly may we call their reasoning sophistry, since it                                                   was