the Laity, who seem most sincere in the Belief of Christianity, and
express the greatest Conformity in their Actions to the Precepts of
it. Nothing gives so high a Seasoning to their Raillery, and more
improves the Taste of their Jests, than some sharp and pointed
Ingredients, that wound Religion and the Professors of it; whereof
some are made the Entertainment of the Company by these facetious
Scoffers, and expos'd as Persons fetter'd with Prepossessions, and
biass'd by Notions of Vertue, deriv'd from Education and the early
Instructions of canting Parents. Others are represented as indebted
for their Piety to the Prevalency of the Spleen, and an immoderate
mixture of Melancholy in their Complexion, which, say they, give
to the Mind a superstitious Turn, and fill the Head with religious
Chimeras, frightful Phantomes of Guilt, and idle Fears of imaginary
Punishments; while others are ridicul'd as Men of a cold and
phlegmatick Complexion, without Spirit and native Fire; who derive,
say they, their Vertue, not from Choice or Restraint of Appetite, but
from their deadness and indisposition to Pleasure; not from the Power
of their Reason, but the Weakness of their Passions. It would be
endless to enumerate the various Ways which the atheistical Wit and
merry Libertine employ, to take off all Veneration of Religion,
and expose its Adherents to publick Derision. This is certainly the
greatest Abuse of Wit imaginable. In all the Errors and monstrous
Productions of Nature, can any appear more deform'd than a Man of
Parts, who employs his admirable Qualities in bringing Piety into
Contempt, putting Vertue to the Blush, and making Sobriety of Manners
the common Subject of his Mirth; while with Zeal and Industry, he
propagates the malignant Contagion of Vice and Irreligion, poisons
his Friends and Admirers, and promotes the Destruction of his native
Country? And if these foolish Wits and ingenious Madmen could reflect,
they would soon be convinc'd, that while they are engag'd against