The vintner, who, by mixing poison with his wines, destroys more lives
than any one disease in the bill of mortality; the lawyer, who persuades
you to a purchase which he knows is mortgaged for more than the worth,
to the ruin of you and your family; the goldsmith or scrivener, who
takes all your fortune to dispose of, when he has beforehand resolved to
break the following day, do surely deserve the gallows much better than
the wretch who is carried thither for stealing a horse.

It cannot easily be answered to God or man, why a law is not made for
limiting the press; at least so far as to prevent the publishing of such
pernicious books, as, under pretence of freethinking, endeavour to
overthrow those tenets in religion which have been held inviolable,
almost in all ages, by every sect that pretend to be Christian; and
cannot, therefore, with any colour of reason, be called points in
controversy, or matters of speculation, as some would pretend. The
Doctrine of the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Immortality of the
Soul, and even the truth of all revelation, are daily exploded and
denied in books openly printed; though it is to be supposed neither
party will avow such principles, or own the supporting of them to be any
way necessary to their service.[6]

[Footnote 6: This passage refers to the deistical publications of
Asgill, Toland, Tindal, and Collins, already noted. [T. S.]]

It would be endless to set down every corruption or defect which
requires a remedy from the legislative power. Senates are like to have
little regard for any proposals that come from without doors; though,
under a due sense of my own inabilities, I am fully convinced, that the
unbiassed thoughts of an honest and wise man, employed on the good of
his country, may be better digested than the results of a multitude,