The clergy are usually charged with a persecuting spirit, which they are said to discover by an implacable hatred to all dissenters; and this appears to be more unreasonable, because they suffer less in their interests by a toleration than any of the conforming laity: For while the Church remains in its present form, no dissenter can possibly have any share in its dignities, revenues, or power; whereas, by once receiving the sacrament, he is rendered capable of the highest employments in the state. And it is very possible, that a narrow education, together with a mixture of human infirmity, may help to beget among some of the clergy in possession such an aversion and contempt for all innovators, as physicians are apt to have for empirics, or lawyers for pettifoggers, or merchants for pedlars: But since the number of sectaries doth not concern the clergy either in point of interest or conscience, (it being an evil not in their power to remedy) 'tis more fair and reasonable to suppose their dislike proceeds from the dangers they apprehend to the peace of the commonwealth, in the ruin whereof they must expect to be the first and greatest sufferers. To conclude this section, it must be observed, there is a very good word, which hath of late suffered much by both parties, and that is, MODERATION, which the one side very justly disowns, and the other as unjustly pretends to. Beside what passeth every day in conversation; any man who reads the papers published by Mr. Lesley[9] and others of his stamp, must needs conclude, that if this author could make the nation see his adversaries under the colours he paints them in, we have nothing else to do, but rise as one man and destroy such wretches from the face of the earth. On the other side, how shall we excuse the advocates for moderation? among whom, I could appeal to a hundred papers of universal approbation by the cause they were writ for, which lay such principles to the whole body of the Tories, as, if they were true, and believed; our next business should in prudence be, to erect gibbets in every parish, and hang them out of the way. But I suppose it is presumed, the common people understand raillery, or at least, rhetoric, and will not take hyperboles in too literal a sense; which however in some junctures might prove a desperate experiment.