tions, dishonour themselves, yet the effect cannot be confiderable, and certainly affords no good reafon for taking the province of education, for which on fo many accounts they are well qualified, out of their hands.

Too

YOUR Lordship's candour and equity will then, upon the whole, permit an obvious diftinction to be made between the MEN and their PROFESSION. many of the facred order, I confefs, and am forry for it, feem now to have their minds perverted by thofe principles, and heated by those paffions, which do little credit to their function, or themselves; and are equally inconfiftent with the genius of that religion they profefs to teach, as they are unfriendly to that legal conftitution both of church and state, which they have bound themselves to fupport. But their profeffion is little concerned in all this; and in a fucceffion or two of these men (if the prefent fet be, many VOL. III.

N

of

of them, incorrigible) you may furely reckon upon all thofe prejudices and paffions being worked off, which now adminifter the occafion of fo much diflike to it.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

WELL, but clergy-manners; will they, too, be worked off, with their other infirmities?

MR. LOCKE.

PERHAPS, they may; if not, forgive them this one defect; at least, if it be their only one. But you do not mean, that the manners of the clergy, as fuch, are more offenfive than thofe of other people. They are fuited to their profeffion and way of life, from which they naturally refult; and if the clergy have not that glofs upon them, which sets off the manners of finer men, they rarely difguft you with the affectation of it. But, after all, if perfons of your Lordfhip's quality and breeding would condefcend

5

defcend to countenance them a little, they would, doubtlefs, brighten under your eye; and might come in time to reflect fomewhat of that high polish, which glistens fo much in the address and converfation of their betters.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

WHAT tranfmutations they may undergo hereafter, and by what means, I am not curious to inquire. On this head, their candid apologist is at liberty to be as much in jeft, or in earnest, as he thinks fit. But from what appears at present, I must take leave, in my turn, to think lefs reverendly, than He would have me, of our facred inftructors; and though I value some particular perfons of the order, as much as any man, yet, till I fee a greater change in the principles, temper, and manners of that body, than, I fear, is likely to come to pass in our days, I can have no very favourable fentiments of those rude, illiberal, and N 2 monkish

monkish feminaries, where fuch worthies prefide.

MR. LOCKE.

LET us have patience, my Lord. I have not fcrupled to confefs to you, that much is, at present, amifs in those feminaries, and wants to be fet right. But fo, God knows, there is every where else. As our factions and parties both in religion and government die away, the Universities will become more reafonable; and, as the general manners refine, they too will, of courfe, take a better air and polish. In a word, they may not lead the public taste or judgment, but, as I faid, they will be fure to follow it.

AND the happy period is not, perhaps, far off. For, now. I have taken upon me to divine fo much of the future condition of our Univerfities, let me paint to you more particularly what I conceive of their growing improvements; and, in a kind of prophetic ftrain, fuch as old

age,

age, they fay, pretends to, and may be indulged in, delineate to you a faint profpect of those brighter days, which I fee rifing upon us.

"THE TIME will come, my Lord, and «I even affure myself it is at no great

distance, when the Universities of Eng"land fhall be as refpectable, for the "learning they teach, the principles "they inftil, and the morals they inculcate, as they are now contemptible, in

66

your Lordship's eye at least, on these "feveral accounts.

"

"I SEE the day, when a fcholaftic theology fhall give place to a rational divinity, conducted on the principles of "found criticism and well-interpreted fcripture: When their fums and fyftems fhall fly before enlightened "reafon and fober fpeculation: When a fanciful, precarious, and hypothetic "philofophy, fhall defert their schools; N 3

"

“and