ill nomenclators, that they cannot furnish appellations for their
owners? Will not heydukes and mamalukes, mandarins and patshaws,
or any other words formed at pleasure, serve to distinguish those
who are in the ministry from others who would be in it if they
could? What, for instance, is easier than to vary the form of
speech, and instead of the word church, make it a question in
politics, whether the monument be in danger? Because religion was
nearest at hand to furnish a few convenient phrases, is our
invention so barren we can find no other? Suppose, for argument
sake, that the Tories favoured Margarita, the Whigs, Mrs. Tofts,
and the Trimmers, Valentini, would not Margaritians, Toftians, and
Valentinians be very tolerable marks of distinction? The Prasini
and Veniti, two most virulent factions in Italy, began, if I
remember right, by a distinction of colours in ribbons, which we
might do with as good a grace about the dignity of the blue and the
green, and serve as properly to divide the Court, the Parliament,
and the kingdom between them, as any terms of art whatsoever,
borrowed from religion. And therefore I think there is little
force in this objection against Christianity, or prospect of so
great an advantage as is proposed in the abolishing of it.

It is again objected, as a very absurd, ridiculous custom, that a
set of men should be suffered, much less employed and hired, to
bawl one day in seven against the lawfulness of those methods most
in use towards the pursuit of greatness, riches, and pleasure,
which are the constant practice of all men alive on the other six.
But this objection is, I think, a little unworthy so refined an age
as ours. Let us argue this matter calmly. I appeal to the breast
of any polite Free-thinker, whether, in the pursuit of gratifying a
pre-dominant passion, he hath not always felt a wonderful