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REWARD.

So that when things have taken their plye, a Minister may be well allowed to answer with him, in the comic Poet, to one who complained he had been cruelly scratched by Fortune, That it was now too late to think of paring her nails.

Nor are the mistakes of Expectants far short of the difficulties of Men in power.

Scholars (to speak the Court sense of them) who know but little of practicable Life, are apt to fancy that superior distinction in Letters, or superior services in their Profession, may entitle them to the honours of it. But things are not so carried. High Stations, even of the more spiritual kind, require a knowledge of Affairs. The pursuit of Letters keeps men from the sight of Business: And learned impressions make them unapt and aukward in the discharge of it. The Mind must be unburthened before it will be able to move there, either with ease or grace. Nothing is more unquestioned, nor, consequently, truer than these Court-Maxims. And the most that can be said for so helpless a Tribe is, That Letters never made a Blockhead. But I go no farther. For indeed it must be owned, That as they find him, so they always leave him.

But perhaps, my Lord, I am all this while giving an example of that very ignorance I would endeavour to excuse. For, if what we daily hear be true, I am pleading for the Decorations of Society, at a time, that the Foundations of it are thought to be insecure. Which certainly would be as bad œconomy as his, who busied himself in white-washing his man

sion

sion-house, when the walls wanted both support and repair.

It is true, I had a view to Use as well as Crnament; for I hinted at Religion as well as Letters. But it is not of that wood (I mean the wood of the Cross) of which the public supports are now made. So that a great Minister will find many things to do, before he comes to embellish and adorn. And if the temper of the times will but suffer Your Lordship to be instrumental in saving Your Country by a reformation of the general manners, men of sense would be unjust to complain, though they might lament, that the work of polishing our genius was denied to you, and reserved for some happier Suc

cessor.

I am, my LORD,

Your LORDSHIP'S

Most obliged and faithful servant,

W. WARBURTON.

ADVERTISEMENT

TO THE EDITION OF

1766.

A VERY able and judicious French Writer* not long since translated the following Treatise (amongst the other Works of this Author) into his native Language. His purpose in it was to open a way for appeasing the commotions of Jansenism, at that time in a high ferment. He addressed it, in a private Letter †, to the late Cardinal FLEURY, to whom he was well known. And to give the conclusions, I have deduced, the more credit with his countrymen, he supported them all along with quotations (which are here inserted) from the two famous Works of DE MARCA and BOSSUET; the one the wisest and the other the most sensible Divine that Nation ever produced: And although their Religion kept them strangers to the principles here laid down, as appears from their supposing, all along, that both Church and State continue sovereign and independent, even after aid and protection have been mutually given and repaid: yet the love of their Country led

• M. de Silhouette.

A copy of which follows this Advertisement.

them

them to the conclusions arising from them; which they readily embraced from observing their use to Mankind, without understanding the grounds on which they stood.

The Translator's success was such as might be expected from every attempt to ease or soften POPERY, though directed to its firmer Establishment. For, the politic directors of that Superstition having long since filled up their measure of unrighteousness, Providence will not suffer them to be wise even in their own Generation. The Minister was jealous of principles, and plans of policy, which came from the schools of Liberty and Reason: Neither could he relish or understand them, though dressed up and recommended by some of the ablest Doctors of his own Church. It is a trite observation, that Divines make bad Politicians; I believe it is more generally true, that Politicians are but bad Divines; and especially, secularized Politicians, such as our Cardinal. Yet had this great Man been in the Direction, under a Government like ours, are we to think he would then have slighted a Work which only professes to shew on what solid grounds the fundamental Constitutions of it are erected? By no means. Though his maxims of Policy might not suffer him to countenance Innovations, how just and beneficial soever; yet the dictates of Common sense would have led him to encourage all attempts of supporting the established System of things, on reasonable principles.

COPIE D'UNE

LETTRE

Ecrite à M" le Cardinal de FLEURY, en lui envoyant les Dissertations sur l'Union de la Religion, de la Morale, & de la Politique; tirées d'un Ouvrage de Mr. Warburton.

PERMETTEZ moi, M". de presenter à votre Eminence des Dissertations sur l'Union de la Religion, de la Morale, & de la Politique, tirées de l'Ouvrage d'un savant Anglois. Je presumerai d'en parler avec d'autant plus de liberté que je n'a gueres fait que traduire & qu'extraire. Ce n'est pas sans de puissans motifs que j'ai entrepris cet ouvrage, & que je prens la liberté de vous le presenter. Frapé des progrès de l'irreligion, & de la decadence des mœurs, qui en est toujours une suite infaillible, instruit par l'histoire de toutes les nations, & EN PARTICULIER PAR MON SEJOUR EN ANGLETERRE, DES MAUX FUNESTES QUE PRODUIT, DANS TOUTES LES BRANCHES DU GOUVERNEMENT, LE RELACHE

MENT DES PARTICULIERS DANS LA PRATIQUE DE LA VERTU & DES DEVOIRS RELIGIEUX; trop persuadé que l'Angleterre n'est pas le seul pays où l'irreligion ait repandu son poison contagieux, j'ai cru que l'ouvrage le plus utile au quel un bon citoyen put s'appliquer, étoit de tacher d'arrêter le cours d'un libertinage si pernicieux, d'exposer les chimeres ainsi que l'ignorance des esprits forts, & de demontrer alternativement l'utilité de la Religion par sa verité, & sa verité par son utilité. Pour mettre cette grande verité

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