To expostulate, therefore, with this author for doing mischief to religion, is to strew his bed with roses; he will reply in triumph, that this was his design; and I am loth to mortify him, by asserting he hath done none at all. For I never yet saw so poor an atheistical scribble, which would not serve as a twig for sinking libertines to catch at. It must be allowed in their behalf, that the faith of Christians is not as a grain of mustard seed in comparison of theirs, which can remove such mountains of absurdities, and submit with so entire a resignation to such apostles. If these men had any share of that reason they pretend to, they would retire into Christianity, merely to give it ease. And therefore men can never be confirmed in such doctrines, until they are confirmed in their vices; which last, as we have already observed, is the principal design of this and all other writers against revealed religion. I am now opening the book which I propose to examine. An employment, as it is entirely new to me, so it is that to which, of all others, I have naturally the greatest antipathy. And, indeed, who can dwell upon a tedious piece of insipid thinking, and false reasoning, so long as I am likely to do, without sharing the infection? But, before I plunge into the depths of the book itself, I must be forced to wade through the shallows of a long preface. This preface, large as we see it, is only made up of such supernumerary arguments against an independent power in the church, as he could not, without nauseous repetition, scatter into the body of his book: And it is detached, like a forlorn hope, to blunt the enemy's sword that intendeth to attack him. Now, I think, it will be easy to prove, that the opinion of _imperium in imperio_, in the sense he chargeth it upon the clergy of England, is what no one divine of any reputation, and very few at all, did ever maintain; and, that their universal sentiment in this matter is such as few Protestants did ever dispute. But, if the author of the "Regale," or two or three more obscure writers, have carried any points further than Scripture and reason will allow, (which is more than I know, or shall trouble myself to enquire) the clergy of England is no more answerable for those, than the laity is for all the folly and impertinence of this treatise. And, therefore, that people may not be amused, or think this man is somewhat, that he hath advanced or defended any oppressed truths, or overthrown any growing dangerous errors, I will set in as clear a light as I can, what I conceive to be held by the established clergy and all reasonable Protestants in this matter.