ecause he is a Bishop. For it is a style I observe some
prelates have fallen into of late years, to talk of clergymen as if
themselves were not of the number: You will read in many of their
speeches at Dr. Sacheverel's[40] trial, expressions to this or the like
effect: "My lords, if clergymen be suffered," &c. wherein they seem to
have reason; and I am pretty confident, that a great majority of the
clergy were heartily inclined to disown any relation they had to the
managers in lawn. However, it was a confounding argument against
Presbytery, that those who are most suspected to lean that way, treating
their inferior brethren with haughtiness, rigour, and contempt:
Although, to say the truth, nothing better could be hoped for; because,
I believe, it may pass for a universal rule, that in every diocese
governed by bishops of the Whig species, the clergy (especially the
poorer sort) are under double discipline, and the laity left to
themselves. The opinion of Sir Thomas More, which he produces to prove
the ill consequences or insignificancy of Convocations, advances no such
thing, but says, "if the clergy assembled often, and might act as other
assemblies of clergy in Christendom, much good might have come: but the
misfortune lay in their long disuse, and that in his own and a good part
of his father's time, they never came together, except at the command of
the prince."[41]

[Footnote 38: Page 47.]

[Footnote 39: See note, p. 9. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 40: Henry Sacheverell, D.D., was educated at Marlborough and
Oxford. At Magdalen College he was a fellow-student with Addison, and
obtained there his fellowship and doctor's degree. In 1709 he preached
two sermons, one at the Derby Assizes, and the other at St. Paul's, in
which he urged the imminent danger of the Church. For these sermons,
which the parliament considered highly inflammatory, he was, by the
House of Commons, at the instigation of Godolphin, impeached, and tried
before the Lords in 1710. He was found guilty of a misdemeanour, and was
suspended from preaching for three years. The trial made a great stir at
the time, and served but to increase the popularity of a man who, had he
been let alone, would, probably, never have been heard of. He died in
1724, holding the living of St. Andrew, Holborn, to which he was
presented after the expiration of his sentence. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 41: See Sir Thomas More's "Apology," 1533, p. 241.]

I suppose his lordship thinks, t