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76 LIBERTY OF REASONING 



Let us now for a moment fuppofe, that the gover- 1 

 nours of the city of Ephefus had had a great and co- 

 gent motive (which in truth they had not) to enact 

 that their Diana mould be no longer a goddefs : what 

 would they then have done ? — The attempt would 

 moft affuredly have been fubjecT: to great difficulties : 

 but with time and patience more difficult things have 

 been brought about. Perhaps the firft ftep they 

 would have taken would have been to find the gold- 

 fmiths fome other lucrative bulinefs. — St. Paul, and 

 his helpmates, on one hand, the philofophers, the 

 Lucians, and perfons of their ftaijip, on the other, 

 would then have had full permiffion to reafon upon the 

 fubject, and at length (only with wit and urbanity) to 

 turn it into ridicule as much as they pleafed ; and the 

 people at large, who, with all their faults and froward- 

 nefs, have more plain fenfe than they have always cre- 

 dit for, would be fo brought about, by imperceptible 

 degrees, that they would have beheld with the greateft 

 calmnefs one regulation to take place after another for 

 fulfilling the prophecy of honed Demetrius. 



I hope I fhall not be charged with a want of re- 

 verence for crowned heads, if I fay that certain opi- 

 nions, which, from the time of pope Gregory VII. 

 have been gradually dhTeminated by monks, j emits, 

 and other clients of the court of Rome, and through 

 the aftonifhing pretenflons of that court, have gained 

 a fort of plaulibility, — for inftance, that a pope is at 

 times a god upon earth, or at leafc a middle-being be- 

 tween God and man, that he has all power both in 



heaven 



