"Suppose, then, it was allowed, in general, that the clergy were a useful
order of men; that they ought to be esteemed very highly in love for their
work's sake, and to be decently supported by those they serve, 'the
laborer being worthy of his reward.' Suppose, further, that a number of
reverend and right reverend drones, who worked not; who preached, perhaps,
but once a year, and then not the gospel of Jesus Christ, but the divine
right of tithes, the dignity of their office as ambassadors of Christ, ...
suppose such men as these, spending their lives in effeminacy, luxury, and
idleness; ... suppose this should be the case, ... would not everybody be
astonished at such insolence, injustice, and impiety?" [Footnote:
"Discourse concerning Unlimited Submission," Jonathan Mayhew. Thornton's
_American Pulpit_, pp. 71, 72.] "Civil tyranny is usually small in its
beginning, like 'the drop of a bucket,' till at length, like a mighty
torrent... it bears down all before it.... Thus it is as to ecclesiastical
tyranny also--the most cruel, intolerable, and impious of any. From small
beginnings, 'it exalts itself above all that is called God and that is
worshipped.' People have no security against being unmercifully priest-
ridden but by keeping all imperious bishops, and other clergymen who love
to 'lord it over God's heritage,' from getting their foot into the stirrup
at all.
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