their false devotions, and a thousand new ways suggested by their covetousness; abusing the people's credulity, endeavouring continually to involve them in greater ignorance, that they may domineer over them more easily, and thereby rob them of their property. It is very well known that the officers, of judicature indulge the clergy much more than they do the other subjects, and that the farmers of the imposts have little or nothing to do with them.The clergy are, moreover, respected and feared by the lawyers, as they maintain some judges, advocates, and attorneys, as pensioners There is not one community of religious persons that has not pensioners in all, the notable tribunals where their business lies, who order it so that they gain almost all their suits of law, how unjust soever they may be, against the laity, who have neither so much money nor so great protection as the others. Then, by the help of a Father Titler, which they have in every community, they forge false titles every day; and this they account a pious fraud, as well as the false donatives and legacies which they often pretend to have bestowed upon them. In this manner they deprive the poor laity of their estates, by the favour and protection they find one from another; for they stand by one another as thieves do, and are supported by the Pope, who has a secret influenee upon their affairs; and many times they are also supported by courtiers. Then, as to the farmers-general, and particularly of imposts, and their servants, the Romish clergy are not exposed to their robberies, because they are not liable to the public taxes; but, on the contrary, these men are subject to the clergy, for they flatter them with the hopes of a pardon for all their extortions and robberies, if they will but employ them to say masses, make them presents, or to enter into their fraternities, and pay them well for it. Nor do they suffer by the cheating tricks of other ecclesiastics, as the rest of the subjects do; for one raven never picks out the eyes of. another. ad out doi

The clergy, moreover, are not liable to be forced to buy new offices, nor to lose the old ones, as other subjects are; nor are they crushed with ordinary or extraordinary taxes, nor with forced. loans to the king, nor with quartering of soldiers, as many thousands of other people are daily plagued; nor are they obliged to go to war, nor to the ariere-ban The clergy are, therefore, for most part, burthensome and unprofitable to the nation. This very article, alone, is capable of ruining the kingdom by degrees. The ecclesiastics, who possess one half of it, are properly no more a part of the kingdom than a cancer which devours the body that it seizes on, or than a palsy which renders some members of the body useless, can be a part of the same; and this is so much the truer, as the clergy acknowledge the authority of, and have sworn obedience to, another sovereign and foreign prince (the Pope) who must, of necessity, be a natural enemy to France.

I believe this article may amount to forty or fifty millions per att*** num: for, besides the taxes from which they are exempted, they are not subject to any of the vexations which are committed in the levying of them, nor to quartering of soldiers; nor are they pillaged by civil officers and farmers general, and their underlings ;! but, on the contrary, they taks care to pillage even themasang ad? 2010 is is 8t

Jag dudz MÁRTICLE XVe JT .oels babib bai relates to the practice and morals of the clergy. This occasions an infinite number of crimes, which are committed without scruple: nay, they think they merit Heaven By the commission of them, for they do them by a principle of conscience.

The mischiefs which they have committed on the account of their pretended religion are to be ascribed to their morals: they have consecrated and canonised perfidiousness, cruelty, murder," the ravishing of matrons and virgins, and the stealing of children and estates. It is not easy to compute this loss in money, but all people of sense must perceive that this ruins, or very much incommodes, trade, arts, manufactures, navigation, and all sort of handy labour for the persecutors, as well as the persecuted, suffer incredibly thereby without mentioning the value of the men and women, whom they massacre and kill in a hundred manners, either all at once or gradually. These things, moreover, occasion a general and incredible corruption in the whole nation. The people become wicked at the heart, and if they were not afraid of secular justice, would become a society of thieves and robbers. That we may the better understand this, let us suppose that a multitude of villame should prevail over mankind, andTM commit all imaginable crimes out of a principle of conscience, in order to oblige men to say that they believe an onion, a tree, stone, or a horse, are adorable, and deserve the worship which the Papists call dulia and Patria, and force them, in effect, to inad voke and adore these things and that this numerous multitude 10 of villains should call themselves infallible at the same time, and, by all sorts of cruelty and torture, force people to acknowledge them as such; and that none durst oppose them, on pain of losing their liberty, estate, honour, and life what unspeakable disorders would this occasion in a State:For honest men, who would not be guilty of such villainous practices, would be outrageously per secuted, and put to death by their orders; and the multitude would think themselves obliged to take part with those villains, to avoid their own ruin, and, for fear of becoming suspected by those wretches, become as wicked themselves.

Telates to the spirit of despotic government, with which the Church of Rome inspires princes in regard of their subjects. It is this that hath produced the severity of the government of

France, which hath so much contributed to the desolation of that{ fine kingdom. The Jesuits especially infuse it into princes, who ruled by them, not only in matters of religion, but likewise in affairs of political government, by advising them to make use of the most absolute authority; because that bow much the more the princes whom they govern are authorised and feared by their subjects, so much the more are the Jesuits, their tutors, authorised and dreaded also. That spirit of tyranny, which makes up a great part of the essence of Popery, is yet more peculiar to the Society of the Jesuits than to any other; and it is known that the principles of their order, as they call it, give their general an absolute and unlimited power to command and do what he lists, wherein they are to render him a blindfold obedience. It is also known that they look on the Pope's pretended monarchy over the universal church and world to be the most perfect pattern of government, in assuming to himself the authority to destroy all nations and persons, in soul and body, that oppose his temporal interest doum VTNY

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cease to gloceT The Church of Rome reaps great advantage from this despotical power of the princes of her communion; for, those princes being governed by their confessors, who are governed by Rome, a the more authority those princes have, the more the Pope hath over all the kingdom; and then this great authority of the princes is employed to oppress those they call heretics, both within and without their dominions, and to purchase more slaves to the Pope; or, otherwise, they engage them in war for humbling some Popish State tha the Court of Rome would have brought low, and many times with a design to ruin that very prince whom they so engage in war. For it is the interest of the Court of Rome that their neighbouring nations be kept poor because that spirit of bondage, slavery, and norance, which is so useful and agreeable to the religion which they impose, is not consistent with the liberty of a rich people; and the Popes are constantly afraid, that, if the dominions of those Catholic States and princes that are subject to him be very populous and rich, they will, at some time or other, shake off their yoke.

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It is this they had in view by inspiring the French King (Louis XIV.) with a design to ruin his Protestant subjects, so manifestly contrary to the true interests of France and the King's honour. That same was the reason of their engaging him in a war against so many potentates all at once, to the end they might weaken him, and... prevent his setting his thoughts upon enterprises a thousand times er more great, glorious, and profitable, such as that of delivering his de own kingdom from the slavery of the Pope, and so many foolish superstitions of Popery, and also, that they might prevent his pushing on his conquests on the side of Italy, where he might have made war with much more success and advantage than against so many powerful States and strong towns as he had to encounter elsewhere.

ARTICLE XVII.

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relates to the incontinence and whoredom of the Romish clergy. It is known to every body that the celibacy of that wretched clergy is among them the source of an a universal and loathsome impurity and that the least crimes committed by those of that order are fornications and adulteries. It is well enough known that their divines teach, that sins against nature, of every sort, do not render an ecclesiastic irregular, but marriage does; and that their casuists do continually cram their books with extenuations of those crimes, and add more and more fuel to the impure flames by their obscene questions, and the niceties and subtleties they have found out to advance and increase those impure pleasures. It is also known that the Pope authorises and protects public stews, in order to draw a considerable revenue from them; but it is not so universally known, that, to advance the reputation of that crime the Popes will not suffer any women to prostitute themselves, unles they be Christians; and, therefore, by order of his holiness, Jewish, Pagan, and Mahometan women, who have a mind to set up that trade at Rome, must first be baptised.

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It often happens that the Popish princes are no better in this respect than the clergy that hath corrupted them, or do not teach them their duty in this matter: so that, being wholly given up to unchastity themselves, the subordinate magistrates and officers are corrupted by their example, and consequently take no care to suppress that vice, which ruins and lays waste nations, and fills them with all sorts of crimes; for experience teaches us that this one crime draws all others after it; and mankind, perceiving that princes and magistrates neglect to punish this vice (which they ought to do with all manner of rigour, for the good of society, though there were neither a heaven nor a hell) come insensibly to be of opinion that it is only a peccadillo. This vice must be far more prevalent in Popish than in Protestant countries, because the Popish clergy favour it by their principles, auricular confession, their own example, and that of the Court of Rome; as also by the easiness of absolution, in confessing themselves to a priest who is himself immersed in such impurities, or by giving him money, a good dinner, or hiring him to say masses, &c. The want of chastity in all their clergy, male, and female, caused by their celibacy and execrable morals, as well as by the example of the chief prelates at Rome, is a very great prejudice to Popish kingdoms, filling them with adulteries, fornication, incests, and crimes yet more execrable,-yea, with millions of open and hidden crimes, as abortions, murders, and such like; for the clergy, who are guilty of those vices, make no scruple, so they can but conceal them, to murder both the mothers and children.

ARTICLE XVIII.

Relates to the drunkenness of the Popish clergy, which, as well as their incontinence, is chargeable upon the morals of their church; for the great-est part of the clergymen, except some bishops and curates in large towns, and some particular men in monasteries, are drunkards; and by their example, the common people do mostly become so.

This vice likewise occasions abundance of mischief, though much less than the other. The truth of this appears by this one thing, viz. that the Popish clergy are unchaste by principle, and, in a manner, from necessity;e because marriage is forbidden to them, that they may have less dependance upon the state, and may be more profitable, and apply themselves with the greatest applicationy to the interests of the Pope, which they call the church. And, besides, this libertinage, which pleases them infinitely, makes them love the Pope and his religion, which grants them so great privileges whereof others are deprived, viz. that they may enjoy women without any trouble; as it is said to be practised in the republic of Venice, who, to assure themselves of the fidelity of their clergy, grant them a greater liberty in this matter than is allowed in other parts of Italy.

Now, one may easily judge what disorders this example of the libertinage of the clergy must necessarily produce in society; and what ravage they make of the women's chastity, by their auricular confession and absolution, and what influence these things have upon the women and maids, who are by this means delivered into their hands as a prey,

This last article concerning their drunkenness makes it evident that this crime does great prejudice to a country, if it were no more than by the Foss of the wine, brandy, cyder, &c. which are consumed without necessity. But, besides, this vice ruins numerous families, shortens the days of many, occasions the loss of a great deal of time, with many quarrels and murders; and makes people brutish and dull.

If it be well adverted to, it will be found that four of the eighteen articles which I have proposed, do alone amount to above two hundred millions of livres per amum, viz.those of their holy-days, the estates of the church that are in mainmort, Lent and other fast-days, and the few taxes which the French clergy pay in comparison with the rest of the people. 10 Popery occasions the same mischiefs, proportionably, in all other papal countries, and in some more, as in Spain and Portugal, which it hath greatly depopulated, by the incontinence and celibacy of their clergy, and the consequences of these disorders; by the great number of ecclesiastics, the spirit of persecution, and the perfidiousness of Popery, in the expulsion of the Moors and Jews, and by their Inquisition, &c.

But as Italy is nearest to the court of Rome, she hath thereby contracted far greater vices than other nations. All sins against nature are in vogue there; and poisoning, fraud, imposture, and a certain effeminacy and cowardliness which the priests and monks have introduced, with all the vices imaginable; whence there is not the least spark of the courage, greatness of soul, and generosity, of the ancient Romans to be seen; and there is no country which might be more easily conquered by a powerful neighbour than Italy. i 1945 9

France is also indebted to Popery and the court of Rome for having infected her, in some measure, with the habits of divers of those unnatural crimes, which are so common in Italy, and with which the Spaniards say the Italians are infected-In italia todos: and of those crimes the religious convents and monasteries, the monks, Jesuits, and their scholars, with some great men in France, are accused.

It is well enough known that the art of poisoning was brought into France, from Italy, by the ecclesiastics.