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    I do not know that there has been one man who has devoted himself solely and completely to the task of tracing its course of demoniacal devastation . Many of its fiendish arts and exploits , undoubtedly , are embodied in what is called ecclesiastical history ; nnany ate presented to us in the chronicles of kingcraft ; for the two evil powers have ever been intimately united in their labours . They have mutually and lovingly supported each other ; knowing that , individually , they are 4 weak as stubble , " yet conjointly ,

    " Can bind Into a mass irrefragably firm The axes and the rods which awe mankind . " Thus , through this pestilential influence , we must admit that too much of its evil nature has been forced on our observation incidentally ; but no one clear and complete picture of it has been presented toourview . It shall now be my task to supply to the world this singular

    desideratum . It shall be my task to show that priestcraft in all ages and all nations has been the same ; that its nature is one , and that nature essentially evil ; that its object is self-gratification and self-aggrandizement ; the means it uses—the basest frauds , the most shameless delusions , practised on the popular mind for the acquisition of power ; and that power once gained , the most fierce and bloody exercise of it , in order to render it at once awful and perpetual . '—pp . 1—3 .

    A rapid survey is then taken of heathen mythology , in which the author follows the ingenious hypothesis of Bryant , commencing with early antiquity , and terminating with the most striking modern exhibition of the nefarious arts of idolatrous priests , as practised by the Brahmins of Hindostan . A brief view of the Hebrew priesthood follows ; and then the means by which the Papal hierarchy aggrandized itself are described , and the oppressions , evil influences , and persecutions , for which its

    monks , prelates , and other agents are responsible in various countries . The last third of the volume , chapters xv . to xx . inclusive , is devoted to the church of England . Chap . xv . sketches an outline of the ( so called ) Reformation , and of the mutations and oppressiveness of episcopacy through the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts ; till the revolution of 1688 , the passing of the Toleration Act , and the growth of public intelligence and spirit , produced a state of things in which the grosser violence of former times was impracticable .

    * While power was left to the church , it persecuted , and would have continued to persecute . The act of William III . put an end to this ; and we must henceforth look for the spirit of priestcraft in a different shape . The whole course of this volume has shown that this wily spirit has conformed itself to circumstances . Where unlimited power was

    within its grasp , it seized it without hesitation , and exercised it without mercy . Egypt , India , all ancient Asia , and ail feudal Europe , are witnesses of this . Where it could not act so freely , it submitted to the spirit of the people ; and worked more quietly , more unseen , but equally effectually , as in Greece , or Pagan Rome . England after

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    502 History of Priestcraft .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1833, page 502, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2618/page/62/