The making Cyril a Saint a Dishonour to Religion. Three Sorts of Persons canonized for Saints.

And now that Cyril’s Name puts me once more in mind of him, how insufferable a burlesquing of God and Man is it to revere so ambitious, so turbulent, so perfidious, and so cruel a Man, as a Saint? since History shows that this was his just Character. But in good Earnest this same Title of Saint has not seldom been most wretchedly conferred; for the greatest Part of the Saints after Constantine’s Reign, and especially since Canonization came in Fashion, are made up of three Sorts of Persons, the least of all others meriting Veneration. First, Men have been dubbed Saints, for promoting the Grandeur of the Church by all their Endeavours, especially by their Writings; which, instead of employing for the Happiness or Instruction of their Fellow Citizens, they prostituted to magnify spiritual Authority, to the debasing and enslaving of their Spirits. The second Sort that have been honoured with Saintship, were Princes and other powerful or rich Men, however vicious or tyrannical, who gave large Possessions and Legacies to the Church; or that with Incapacity, Faggot, Gibbet, Sword, and Proscription, chastised the Temerity of such as dared to question her Decrees. The third Sort, were poor groveling Visionaries, boasting of their delirious Enthusiasms and Extasies; or imposing on the ignorant by formal Mortifications, falsely reputed Devotion, and were recompensed with this imaginary Reward, by those that despised their Austerity, at the same Time that they mainly thrived by the Credit of it. It is no Wonder then, that when the Epithet Saint, which peculiarly belonged to Piety and Innocence, was thus pompously bestowed on Vice and Impiety, there should prevail that Deluge of Ignorance, Superstition, and Tyranny, which overwhelmed almost the whole Christian World. All the Persecutions that ensued, were so many forcible Means, employed to suppress any Efforts that might be used for the restoring of Virtue and Learning. By that Antichristian Spirit fell Hypatia, to whom the Clergy of her Time could never forgive, that she was beautiful yet chaste, far more learned than themselves, not to be endured in the Laity; and in greater Credit with the civil Magistrate, whom the Clergy of that Time would needs drive or lead as their Pack-ass.

FINIS.