This, in the present condition of the world, would be the last corruption of the Church, the utter ruin of the clerical character, the most dangerous shock that the state ever received through a misunderstood arrangement of religion.
Burke warns that the popular election of clergy, in the current global climate, would lead to the ultimate corruption of the Church and a dangerous destabilization of the state.
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More from Edmund Burke
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
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