"Of Superstition and Enthusiasm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

but half catholics. The consequences are exactly conformable
to the foregoing reasoning. The jesuits are the tyrants of the
people, and the slaves of the court: And the jansenists
preserve alive the small sparks of the love of liberty, which
are to be found in the French nation.

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[1][COPYRIGHT: (c) 1995, Christopher MacLachlan
([email protected]), all rights reserved. Unaltered copies
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from this text, please use the following citation: The
Writings of David Hume, ed. James Fieser (Internet Release,
1995).

EDITORIAL CONVENTIONS: Note references are contained within square
brackets (e.g., [1]). Spelling and punctuation have been modernized.

[2]By Priests, I here mean only the pretenders to power and
dominion, and to a superior sanctity of character, distinct
from virtue and good morals. These are very different from
clergymen, who are set apart by the laws, to the care of
sacred matters, and to the conducting our public devotions
with greater decency and order. There is no rank of men more
to be respected than the latter.

[3]Modern Judaism and popery (especially the latter), being
the most unphilosophical and absurd superstitions which have
yet been known in the world, are the most enslaved by their
priests. As the church of England may justly be said to retain
some mixture of Popish superstition, it partakes also, in its
original constitution, of a propensity to priestly power and
dominion; particularly in the respect it exacts to the
sacerdotal character. And though, according to the sentiments
of that Church, the prayers of the priest must be accompanied
with those of the laity; yet is he the mouth of the
congregation, his person is sacred, and without his presence
few would think their public devotions, or the sacraments, and
other rites, acceptable to the divinity.

[4]The Chinese Literati have no priests or ecclesiastical
establishment.

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й 1996