carrying it on, must have ended in the destruction of the Monarchy and Church. What a violent humour hath run ever since against the clergy, and from what corner spread and fomented, is, I believe, manifest to all men. It looked like a set quarrel against Christianity, and if we call to mind several of the leaders, it must in a great measure have been actually so. Nothing was more common in writing and conversation, than to hear that reverend body charged in gross with what was utterly inconsistent: despised for their poverty, hated for their riches; reproached with avarice, and taxed with luxury; accused for promoting arbitrary power, and resisting the prerogative; censured for their pride, and scorned for their meanness of spirit. The representatives of the lower clergy railed at for disputing the power of the bishops, by the known abhorrers of episcopacy; and abused for doing nothing in their convocations, by those very men who helped to bind up their hands. The vice, the folly, the ignorance of every single man, were laid upon the character; their jurisdiction, censures and discipline trampled under foot, yet mighty complaints against their excessive power.[6] The men of wit employed to turn the priesthood itself into ridicule. In short, groaning every where under the weight of poverty, oppression, contempt and obloquy. A fair return for the time and money spent in their education to fit them for the service of the Altar; and a fair encouragement for worthy men to come into the Church. However, it may be some comfort for persons of that holy function, that their Divine Founder as well as His harbinger, met with the like reception. "John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he hath a devil; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, behold a glutton and a wine-bibber, &c."