istian as to
believe, and at least to hope, that a rational creature cannot abandon
himself so as to act without some reason, and are willing not only to
have me defend myself, but to be able to answer for me where they hear
me causelessly insulted by others, and, therefore, are willing to have
such just arguments put into their mouths as the cause will bear.

As for those who are prepossessed, and according to the modern justice
of parties are resolved to be so, let them go; I am not arguing with
them, but against them; they act so contrary to justice, to reason, to
religion, so contrary to the rules of Christians and of good manners,
that they are not to be argued with, but to be exposed, or entirely
neglected. I have a receipt against all the uneasiness which it may be
supposed to give me, and that is, to contemn slander, and think it not
worth the least concern; neither should I think it worth while to give
any answer to it, if it were not on some other accounts of which I shall
speak as I go on. If any young man ask me why I am in such haste to
publish this matter at this time, among many other good reasons which I
could give, these are some:--

1. I think I have long enough been made _Fabula Vulgi_, and borne the
weight of general slander; and I should be wanting to truth, to my
family, and to myself, if I did not give a fair and true state of my
conduct, for impartial men to judge of, when I am no more in being to
answer for myself.

2. By the hints of mortality, and by the infirmities of a life of sorrow
and fatigue, I have reason to think I am not a great way off from, if
not very near to, the great ocean of eternity, and the time may not be
long ere I embark on the last voyage. Wherefore, I think I should even
accounts with this world before I go, that no actions (slanders) may lie
against my heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to disturb
them in the peaceable possession of their father's (character)
inheritance.

3. I fear--God grant I have not a second-sight in it--that this lucid
interval of temper and moderation, which shines, though dimly too, upon
us at this time, will be but of short continuance, and that some men,
who know not how to use the advantage God has put into their hands with
moderation, will push, in spite of the best prince in the world, at such
extravagant things, and act with such an intemperate forwardness, as
will revive the heats and animosities which wise and good men we