everely against. The Second is, that I have wrote in an Age and a
Nation, where the greatest Part of the Fashionable, and what we call
the better Sort of People, seem to be far more delighted with Temporal,
than they are with Spiritual Enjoyments, at the same Time that they
profess themselves to be Christians; and that whatever they may talk,
preach or write of a Future State and eternal Felicity, they are all
closely attach'd to this wicked World; or at least, that the
Generality, in their Actions and Endeavours, seem to be infinitely more
sollicitous about the one, than they are about the other.

If you will consider these Two Things, you'll find, that I have
supposed no Necessity of Vice, but among those by whom worldly
Greatness is in Esteem and thought necessary to Happiness. The more
curious and operose Manufactures are, the more Hands they employ; and
that with the Variety of them, the Number of Workmen must still
encrease, wants no Proof. It is evident likewise, that Foreign Traffick
consists in changing of Commodities, and removing them from one Place
to another. No Nation, that has no Gold or Silver of their own Growth,
can purchase our Product long, unless we, or Some body else, will buy
theirs. The Epithets of polite and flourishing are never given to
Countries, before they are arriv'd at a considerable Degree of Luxury;
and a flourishing Nation without it, is Bread without Corn, a Perriwig
without Hair, or a Library without Books.

Assertions as these, an indulgent Reader will say, might yet be borne
with; and Hypocrites, by putting false Glosses on Things, and giving
favourable Constructions to their Actions, might persuade the World,
that to make this necessary Consumption, they labour'd for the Publick
Good; that they fed on Trouts and Turbots, Quails and Ortolans, and the
most expensive Dishes, not to please their dainty Palates or their
Vanity, but to maintain the Fishmonger and the Poulterer and the many
Wretches, who, for a miserable Livelyhood, are daily slaving to furnish
them. That they wore gold Brocades, and made new Cloaths every
Fortnight, not to gratify their own Pride or Fickleness, but for the
Benefit of the Mercer, the Merchant, and the Weaver, and the
Encouragement of Trade in general. That the Extravagancy of their
Tables, and Splendor of Entertainments, were only the Effects of an
Hospitable Temper, their Benevolence to others, and a generous
Disposition: That Pride or Ostentation had