of any polite freethinker, whether
in the pursuit of gratifying a predominant passion, he hath not always
felt a wonderful incitement, by reflecting it was a thing forbidden; and
therefore we see, in order to cultivate this taste, the wisdom of the
nation hath taken special care, that the ladies should be furnished with
prohibited silks, and the men with prohibited wine. And indeed it were
to be wished, that some other prohibitions were promoted, in order to
improve the pleasures of the town; which, for want of such expedients
begin already, as I am told, to flag and grow languid, giving way daily
to cruel inroads from the spleen.

'Tis likewise proposed as a great advantage to the public, that if we
once discard the system of the Gospel, all religion will of course be
banished for ever; and consequently, along with it, those grievous
prejudices of education, which under the names of _virtue, conscience,
honour, justice,_ and the like, are so apt to disturb the peace of human
minds, and the notions whereof are so hard to be eradicated by right
reason or freethinking, sometimes during the whole course of our lives.

Here first, I observe how difficult it is to get rid of a phrase, which
the world is once grown fond of, though the occasion that first produced
it, be entirely taken away. For several years past, if a man had but an
ill-favoured nose, the deep-thinkers of the age would some way or other
contrive to impute the cause to the prejudice of his education. From
this fountain were said to be derived all our foolish notions of
justice, piety, love of our country, all our opinions of God, or a
future state, Heaven, Hell, and the like: And there might formerly
perhaps have been some pretence for this charge. But so effectual care
has been taken to remove those prejudices, by an entire change in the
methods of education, that (with honour I mention it to our polite
innovators) the young gentlemen who are now on the scene, seem to have
not the least tincture of those infusions, or string of those weeds;
and, by consequence, the reason for abolishing nominal Christianity upon
that pretext, is wholly ceased.

For the rest, it may perhaps admit a controversy, whether the banishing
of all notions of religion whatsoever, would be convenient for the
vulgar. Not that I am in the least of opinion with those who hold
religion to have been the invention of politicians, to keep the lower
part of the world in awe by the fear of i