point, as we cannot but allow from their actions, their discourses,
and their writings. However, I know not how, whether from the
affectation of singularity, or the perverseness of human nature,
but so it unhappily falls out, that I cannot be entirely of this
opinion. Nay, though I were sure an order were issued for my
immediate prosecution by the Attorney-General, I should still
confess, that in the present posture of our affairs at home or
abroad, I do not yet see the absolute necessity of extirpating the
Christian religion from among us.

This perhaps may appear too great a paradox even for our wise and
paxodoxical age to endure; therefore I shall handle it with all
tenderness, and with the utmost deference to that great and
profound majority which is of another sentiment.

And yet the curious may please to observe, how much the genius of a
nation is liable to alter in half an age. I have heard it affirmed
for certain by some very odd people, that the contrary opinion was
even in 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.