OF

PRIESTCRAFT

IN ALL AGES AND NATIONS.

BY

WILLIAM HOWITT.

Help us to save free Gospel from the paw

Of hireling wolves, whose conscience is their maw.-MILTON.

NEW YORK:

PUBLISHED BY CALVIN BLANCHARD,

82 NASSAU STREET.

1855.

Sate Historical Society

OF WISCONSIN

MADISON WIS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THIS little work presents a concise and concentrated view of universal Priestcraft, to strengthen the present disposition to abate that nuisance in England: and, I think, it will be sufficient to establish any disinterested person in the conviction, that Priestcraft is one of the greatest curses which has afflicted the earth; and in the persuasion, that till its hydra heads are crushed there can be no perfect liberty: for nothing is more certain than that priests have, in all ages, followed one system-that of availing themselves of the superstitions of the people for their own interested motives; and nothing better attested than the crimes and delusions of that order of men treated of in this volume.

There will be some who will exclaim, Oh ! the author is a dissenter !-I am a dissenter; and one of the most sturdy and ceremony-despising class; and therefore, having deserted "the beggarly elements" of state creeds, am more anxious to release my fellow-men from the thraldom of state priests. I am a dissenter; and therefore, feeling the burden and the injustice of being compelled to support a system whose utility I deny, and whose corruptions need no proof, I have the greater reason to raise my voice against it.

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