in that Part to which
you have applied your Defence. They are not supposed such Fools as to attack
that Religion to which they owe their temporal Welfare. They are not taxed with
giving any other Support to Infidelity, than what it draws from the ill Examples
of their Lives; I mean of the Lives of some of them. Here too the Laity carry
their Censures too far: For there are very few or none of the Clergy, whose
Lives, if compared with those of the Laity, can be called profligate; but such,
indeed, is the perfect Purity of our Religion; such is the Innocence and Virtue,
which it exacts to entitle us to its glorious Rewards, and to skreen us from its
dreadful Punishments, that he must be a very good Man indeed who lives up to it.
Thus then these Persons argue. This Man is educated in a perfect Knowledge of
Religion, is learned in its Laws, and is by his Profession obliged in a Manner
to have them always before his Eyes. The Rewards which it promises to the
Obedience of these Laws are so great, and the Punishments threatned on
Disobedience so dreadful, that it is impossible but all Men must fearfully fly
from the one, and as eagerly pursue the other. If therefore such a Person lives
in direct Opposition to, and in a constant Breach of these Laws, the Inference
is obvious. There is a pleasant Story in Matthew Paris, which I will tell you as
well as I can remember it. Two young Gentlemen, I think they were Priests,
agreed together, that whosoever died first, should return and acquaint his
Friend with the Secrets of the other World. One of them died soon after, and
fulfilled his Promise. The whole Relation he gave is not very material, but
among other Things he produced one of his Hands which Satan had made use of, to
write upon as the Moderns do on a Card, and had sent his Compliments to the
Priests, for the Number of Souls, which the wicked Examples of their Lives daily
sent to Hell. This Story is the more remarkable, as it was written by a Priest,
and a great Favourer of his Order.«
    »Excellent,« cried the old Gentleman, »What a Memory you have!«
    »But, Sir,« cries the young one, »a Clergyman is a Man as well as another;
and if such perfect Purity be expected -«
    »I do not expect it,« cries the Doctor, »and I hope it will not be expected
of us. The Scripture itself gives us this Hope