288 STUDIES OF NATURE, 



chace, and with a plentiful repaft, all perfons wh» 

 fhould repair to it on, a particular day. 



OF THE CLERGY. 



If our poor are fometimes partakers of fomc 

 wretched ecclefiaftical diftribution, the relief which 

 they thence derive, fo far from delivering them 

 out of their mifery, only ferves to continue them 

 in it. What landed property, however, has been 

 bequeathed to the Church, exprefsly for their be- 

 nefit ! Why, then, are not the revenues diflribut- 

 ed, in fums fufficiently large, to refcue annually 

 from indigence, at leaft a certain number of fa- 

 milies ? The Clergy allege, that they are the ad- 

 miniftrators of the goods of the poor : but the 

 poor are neither ideots nor madmen, to ftand in 

 need of adminiftrators : befides, it is impoflible to 

 prove, by any one palTage of either the' Old, or 

 New Teftament, that this charge pertained to the 

 priefthood : if they really are the adminiftrators of 

 the poor, they have, then, no lefs than feven mil- 

 lions of perfons, in the kingdom, in their temporal 

 adminiftration. I fliall pufh this refledlon no 

 farther. It is a matter of unchangeable obligation 

 to render to every one his due : the priefts are, by 

 divine right, the agents of the poor, but the King 

 alone is the natural adminiftrator. 



As 



