Why was Laurence Sterne's A Political Romance burned?

Laurence Sterne wrote A Political Romance (later known as The History of a Good Warm Watch-Coat) in 1759 to support his dean during a church dispute. The book functioned as a Swiftian satire targeting the dignitaries of the spiritual courts. Because the work embarrassed these churchmen, they demanded that it be burned. Consequently, the book was destroyed, which cost Sterne his opportunities for further clerical advancement but ultimately led him to focus on his literary career and the writing of Tristram Shandy.1