CHAP. IV.

against all national Establishments of Religion, and in no friendly terms of any establishments which maintain or allow any privileged Orders. Discanting much on such topics increases the dissatisfaction of the less fortunate part of mankind, who naturally repine at advantages which do not arise from the personal merit of the possessor, although they are the natural and necessary fruits of merit in their ancestors, and of the justice and security of our happy Constitution. No well informed and sensible man will deny that the greatest injury was done to pure Religion when Constantine declared Christianity to be the Religion of the Empire, and vested the Church with all the riches and power of the Heathen Priesthood. But it is false that this was the source of all or of the worst corruptions of Christianity. The merest novice in Church History knows that the errors of the Gnostics, of the Cerinthians, and others, long preceded this event, and that thousands lost their lives in those metaphysical disputes. But I cannot help thinking that, in the present condition of Europe, religion would desert the world, if the opinions of men were not directed, in some proper degree, by National Establishments. Teachers among the