But history
in the nineteenth century, better understood and better employed,
will, I trust, teach a civilized posterity to abhor the misdeeds of
both these barbarous ages. It will teach future priests and
magistrates not to retaliate upon the speculative and inactive
atheists of future times the enormities committed by the present
practical zealots and furious fanatics of that wretched error,
which, in its quiescent state, is more than punished whenever it is
embraced. It will teach posterity not to make war upon either religion
or philosophy for the abuse which the hypocrites of both have made
of the two most valuable blessings conferred upon us by the bounty
of the universal Patron, who in all things eminently favors and
protects the race of man.
If your clergy, or any clergy, should show themselves vicious
beyond the fair bounds allowed to human infirmity, and to those
professional faults which can hardly be separated from professional
virtues, though their vices never can countenance the exercise of
oppression, I do admit that they would naturally have the effect of
abating very much of our indignation against the tyrants who exceed
measure and justice in their punishment. I can allow in clergymen,
through all their divisions, some tenaciousness of their own
opinion, some overflowings of zeal for its propagation, some
predilection to their own state and office, some attachment to the
interests of their own corps, some preference to those who listen with
docility to their doctrines, beyond those who scorn and deride them.
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