to it are still honoured and rewarded. Those who profit by this absurd subversion of principles, and those who lose by this unjust distribution of favours, which seem to have grown into a right, cannot have any other than false, immoral, and pernicious ideas concerning merit. The clergy are a body which subsist by deception. The establishment of a predominant church is prejudicial to the peace and welfare of a country. Whoever has any knowledge of the human heart; whoever is convinced of the right every man has to think for himself, though there are many who renounce it; whoever has remarked the impression which a superstitious education makes upon mankind, how it weakens the understanding, fosters holy pride, and pious hatred; whoever attends to the great abuse, which many of those who call themselves ministers of the
