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THE

PILLARS

OF

PRIEST CRAFT

AND

ORTHODOXY

SHAKEN.

As for the rending of the church, we have many rea-
Jons to think it is not that which ye labour to pre
vent, fo much as the rending of your pontifical
fleeves: That fchifm would be the foreft fchifm to

you.

MILTON.

Neither can religion receive any wound by disgrace
thrown upon the prelates, fince religion and they
furely were never in fuch amity. They rather are
the men who have wounded religion, and their
fripes must heal her
IDEM.

VOL. II,

LONDON:

Printed for Mr. CADELL in the Strand;
Mr. KEARSLEY in Ludgate-freet; Mr. PAYNE
and Mr. JOHNSON in Pater-nofter-Row; and
Mr. YOUNG under the Royal Exchange.

MDCCLXVIII.

то

Mr. John Barton,

OF

LONDON.

SIR,

A

S this Volume confifts of very

inftructive treatifes, I infcribe it to you; both as a public acknowledgement of your favours to the Editor, and alfo that I may have an opportunity of exhorting you to zeal and ardour in af ferting the principles of liberty.

You will here fee, that the christian religion which contains every motive to goodness perfonal and focial, and the defign

A 2

defign of which was to blefs all nations, and to make men univerfally good and happy, hath been fo perverted and abused, as to become the inftrument of oppreffion and tyranny, and productive of those very evils that it was intended to prevent or remedy.

You will perceive that all thefe mifchiefs have arifen from investing its minifters with worldly power and dominion, contrary to the design of its author, and to the precepts and pattern of his gofpel.

You will find, that the fe men fo degenerated from their first inftitution, as to fet up for ruling, inftead of inft: ucting; and though they pretended a zeal for fouls, yet their behaviour plainly shewed, that they cared not what became of fouls if they could but obtain power and wealth,

the

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