sectaries among us consists, we shall find Christianity to have no share
in it at all Does the Gospel any where prescribe a starched, squeezed
countenance, a stiff, formal gait, a singularity of manners and habit,
or any affected modes of speech different from the reasonable part of
mankind? Yet, if Christianity did not lend its name to stand in the gap,
and to employ or divert these humours, they must of necessity be spent
in contraventions to the laws of the land, and disturbance of the public
peace. There is a portion of enthusiasm assigned to every nation, which,
if it hath not proper objects to work on, will burst out, and set all
into a flame. If the quiet of a state can be bought by only flinging men
a few ceremonies to devour, it is a purchase no wise man would refuse
Let the mastiffs amuse themselves about a sheep's skin stuffed with hay,
provided it will keep them from worrying the flock The institution of
convents abroad, seems in one point a strain of great wisdom, there
being few irregularities in human passions, which may not have recourse
to vent themselves in some of those orders, which are so many retreats
for the speculative, the melancholy, the proud, the silent, the politic
and the morose, to spend themselves, and evaporate the noxious
particles, for each of whom we in this island are forced to provide a
several sect of religion, to keep them quiet And whenever Christianity
shall be abolished, the legislature must find some other expedient to
employ and entertain them For what imports it how large a gate you open,
if there will be always left a number who place a pride and a merit in
not coming in?[17]

[Footnote 17: So the "Miscellanies" (1711) and Hawkesworth Faulkner,
Scott, and Craik print, "in refusing to enter." [T. S.]]

Having thus considered the most important objections against
Christianity, and the chief advantages proposed by the abolishing