for _T. Warner_, at the _Black-Boy_ in Pater-Noster-Row.
MDCCXVIII.

[Price Sixpence.]

[ILLUSTRATION]

A Vindication of the PRESS:

OR, AN ESSAY ON THE _Usefulness of Writing_, &c.

The very great Clamour against some late Performances or Authorship,
and the unpresidented Criticisms introduc'd, render a Treatise on the
Usefulness of Writing in general so absolutely necessary, that the
Author of this Essay has not the least Apprehensions of Displeasure
from the most inveterate, but on the contrary, doubts not an
Approbation, even of the Great Mr. _Dennis_.

For the Usefulness of Writing in the Church, I shall trace back to the
Annals of our Saviour and his Apostles. Had not Writing been at that
Time in use, what Obscurity might we reasonably have expected the
whole World would have labour'd under at this Day? when,
notwithstanding the Infidels possess such vast Regions, and Religion
in its Purity shines but in a small Quarter of the Globe. 'Tis easy-to
imagine, that without the New-Testament every Person of excellency in
Literature, and compleat in Hypocrisy, either out of Interest, or
other worldly Views, would have taken the Liberty to deny the most
Sacred Traditions, and to have impos'd upon the Populace as many
Religions as they pleas'd, and that the ignorant Multitude would
easily acquiesce, as they do in _Turkey_, and other distant Parts of
the World, which deny the Divinity of our Saviour.

What fatal Errors, Schisms, and concomitant Evils would have been
introduc'd, must be apparent to all Persons of the least Penetration.
The Quakers might at this Time possibly have been our National Church,
and our present Happiness, with regard to those Considerations, can no
way be more lively and amply demonstrated than in taking a step at
once from Mr. _Penn's_ Conventicle to the Cathedral Church of St.
_Pauls_.

The Regularity and heavenly Decorum of the latter, give an Awe and
Transport to the Audience at the same time they ornament Religion; and
the Confusion of the former fully shews, that as it only serves to
amuse a Crowd of ignorant Wretches, unless meerly with temporal Views
(Sectarists generally calculating Religion for their Interests) so it
gives a License to all manner of Indecencies, and the Congregations
usually resort thither with the same Regard as a Rake of the Town
would do to Mother _Wybourn's_, or any publick Place of Diversion.

Whether it be not natural to have expected a Confusion