their memories as much in vogue as the other is now; and, that a project
for the abolishing of Christianity would then have appeared as singular,
and been thought as absurd, as it would be at this time to write or
discourse in its defence.

Therefore I freely own that all appearances are against me. The system
of the Gospel, after the fate of other systems is generally antiquated
and exploded, and the mass or body of the common people, among whom it
seems to have had its latest credit, are now grown as much ashamed of it
as their betters; opinions, like fashions, always descending from those
of quality to the middle sort, and thence to the vulgar, where at length
they are dropped and vanish.

But here I would not be mistaken, and must therefore be so bold as to
borrow a distinction from the writers on the other side, when they make
a difference between nominal and real Trinitarians. I hope no reader
imagines me so weak to stand up in the defence of real Christianity,
such as used in primitive times (if we may believe the authors of those
ages) to have an influence upon men's belief and actions: To offer at
the restoring of that would indeed be a wild project; it would be to dig
up foundations; to destroy at one blow all the wit, and half the
learning of the kingdom; to break the entire frame and constitution of
things; to ruin trade, extinguish arts and sciences with the professors
of them; in short, to turn our courts, exchanges, and shops into
deserts; and would be full as absurd as the proposal of Horace,[3] where
he advises the Romans all in a body to leave their city, and seek a new
seat in some remote part of the world, by way of cure for the corruption
of their manners.

[Footnote 3: This proposal is embodied in the 16th Epode, where, in an