shall please God, for our sins, to visit us with so fatal an event; which I hope it will be the united endeavours both of clergy, and laity, to hinder. It would be some support to this hope, if I could have any opinion of his predicting talent, (which some have ascribed to people of this author's character) where he tells us, that noise and wrath will not always pass for zeal. What other instances of zeal has this gentleman, or the rest of his party been able to produce? if clamour be noise, it is but opening our ears to know from what side it comes; and if sedition, scurrility, slander and calumny, be the fruit of wrath, read the pamphlets and papers issuing from the zealots of that faction, or visit their clubs and coffee houses, in order to form a judgment of the tree.
When Mr. Steele tells us, we have a religion that wants no support from the enlargement of secular power, but is well supported by the wisdom and piety of its preachers, and its own native truth; it would be good to know what religion he professes: for the clergy to whom he speaks, will never allow him to be a member of the church of England. They cannot agree, that the truth of the Gospel, and the piety and wisdom of its preachers, are a sufficient support in an evil age, against infidelity, faction, and vice, without the assistance of secular power, unless God would please to confer the gift of miracles on those who wait at the altar. I believe they venture to go a little farther, and think, that upon some occasions, they want a little enlargement of assistance from the secular power, against atheists, deists, socinians, and other hereticks.
