y, the two greatest systems of
tyranny, that have sprung from this original, are the _cannon_ and the
_feudal_ law--The desire of dominion, that great principle by which we
have attempted to account for so much good, and so much evil, is, when
properly restrained, a very useful and noble movement in the human mind:
but when such restraints are taken off, it becomes an encroaching,
grasping, restless and ungovernable power. Numberless have been the
systems of iniquity, contrived by the great, for the gratification of
this passion in themselves: but in none of them were they ever more
successful, than in the invention and establishment of the _canon_ and
the _feudal_ law.

By the former of these, the most refined, sublime, extensive, and
astonishing constitution of policy, that ever was conceived by the mind
of man, was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandisement of their
own order. All the epithets I have here given to the Romish policy are
just; and will be allowed to be so, when it is considered, that they
even persuaded mankind to believe, faithfully and undoubtingly, that GOD
ALMIGHTY had intrusted them with the keys of heaven, whose gates they
might open and close at pleasure--with a power of dispensation over all
the rules and obligations of morality--with authority to license all
sorts of sins and crimes--with a power of deposing princes, and
absolving subjects from allegiance--with a power of procuring or
withholding the rain of heaven, and the beams of the sun--with the
management of earthquakes, pestilence and famine.----Nay, with the
mysterious, awful, incomprehensible power of creating out of bread and
wine, the flesh and blood of GOD himself.--All these opinions they were
enabled to spread and rivet among the people, by reducing their minds to
a state of sordid ignorance and staring timidity; and by infusing into
them a _religious_ horror of letters and knowledge. Thus was human
nature chained fast for ages, in a cruel, shameful, and deplorable
servitude, to him and his subordinate tyrants; who, it was foretold,
would exalt himself above all that was called GOD, and that was
worshipped.----

In the latter we find another system similar in many respects to the
former; which, although it was originally formed perhaps for the
necessary defence of a barbarous people, against the inroads and
invasions of her neighbouring nations; yet, for the same purposes of
tyranny, cruelty and lust, which had dictated