hich is now composed of Whigs does not
so much as allow those gentlemen to assemble, so that they are at this
time reduced (in the obscurity of their respective parishes) to the
melancholy occupation of praying for the prosperity of the Government
whose tranquillity they would willingly disturb. With regard to the
bishops, who are twenty-six in all, they still have seats in the House of
Lords in spite of the Whigs, because the ancient abuse of considering
them as barons subsists to this day. There is a clause, however, in the
oath which the Government requires from these gentlemen, that puts their
Christian patience to a very great trial, viz., that they shall be of the
Church of England as by law established. There are few bishops, deans,
or other dignitaries, but imagine they are so _jure divino_; it is
consequently a great mortification to them to be obliged to confess that
they owe their dignity to a pitiful law enacted by a set of profane
laymen. A learned monk (Father Courayer) wrote a book lately to prove
the validity and succession of English ordinations. This book was forbid
in France, but do you believe that the English Ministry were pleased with
it? Far from it. Those wicked Whigs don't care a straw whether the
episcopal succession among them hath been interrupted or not, or whether
Bishop Parker was consecrated (as it is pretended) in a tavern or a
church; for these Whigs are much better pleased that the Bishops should
derive their authority from the Parliament than from the Apostles. The
Lord Bolingbroke observed that this notion of divine right would only
make so many tyrants in lawn sleeves, but that the laws made so many
citizens.

With regard to the morals of the English clergy, they are more regular
than those of France, and for this reason. All the clergy (a very few
excepted) are educated in the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, far
from the depravity and corruption which reign in the capital. They are
not called to dignities till very late, at a time of life when men are
sensible of no other passion but avarice, that is, when their ambition
craves a supply. Employments are here bestowed both in the Church and
the army, as a reward for long services; and we never see youngsters made
bishops or colonels immediately upon their laying aside the academical
gown; and besides most of the clergy are married. The stiff and awkward
air contracted by them at the University, and the little familia