Edward Bruce Hamley

“ Ages were necessary to do justice to humanity—to perceive that it was horrible that the great number should sow and the small number reap; and is it not happy for the French that the authority of these minor brigands has been extinguished in France by the legitimate power of the kings, as it has been in England by that of king and people? ”

“ The English have shed a great deal of blood, no doubt, in their struggles for liberty; but others have shed as much, with the result only of cementing their bonds.
"That which becomes a revolution in England is only a sedition in other countries. ”

“ It is neither Montaigne, nor Locke, nor Bayle, nor Spinosa, nor Hobbes, nor my Lord Shaftesbury, nor Mr Collins, nor Mr Toland, &c., who have lighted the torch of discord in their country; it is, for the most part, those theologians who, having had first the ambition of being chiefs of a sect, have very soon aspired to be chiefs of a party. All the books of modern philosophers put together will never make as much noise in the world as was once caused by the dispute of the Franciscans about the shape of their sleeve and their hood. ”

“ Whilst the barons, the bishops, the popes, thus tore to pieces the land where each wished to rule, the people, the most useful and even the most virtuous part of a community of men, composed of those who study laws and sciences, of merchants, artisans, lastly of labourers, who exercise the first and most despised of callings—the people, I say, were regarded by them as animals below man. ”

“ While the Episcopal and Presbyterian sects are the two dominant ones in Great Britain, all the others are welcome, and live well enough together; while most of their preachers hate each other reciprocally with nearly as much cordiality as that with which a Jansenist damns a Jesuit. ”

“ His next essay, on the Anglican Church, begins by saying, "England is the country of sects: in my Father's house there are many mansions. An Englishman goes to heaven, like a free man, by the road that pleases him." He then gives a satirical sketch of the clergy, such as Fielding might have written without being accused of particular irreverence:—
"The Anglican clergy have retained many Catholic ceremonies, and, above all, that of receiving tithes, with scrupulous exactness. ”

“ Besides, the priests are nearly all married, and the awkward manners contracted at the university, and the little they enjoy of female society there, are the causes why a bishop is ordinarily obliged to be content with his own wife. The priests go sometimes to the tavern because custom allows it; and if they get tipsy, it is with gravity and without scandal. ”

“ It is nothing but pure Calvinism, such as had been established in France, and now exists at Geneva. As the clergy of this sect have only very middling salaries from their Church, and consequently cannot live like bishops, they have taken the natural course of exclaiming against honours to which they cannot attain. ”

“ They have also the pious ambition which makes them desire to be the masters; for what vicar does not want to be pope in his own village?" "With respect to morals, the English clergy is better regulated than that of France." This he ascribes to our universities, and to the fact that "they are not called to the dignities of the Church till very late, and at an age when men have no other passions than avarice. ”