dvantage to the public, that if we
once discard the system of the Gospel, all religion will of course be
banished for ever, and consequently along with it those grievous
prejudices of education which, under the names of conscience, honour,
justice, and the like, are so apt to disturb the peace of human minds,
and the notions whereof are so hard to be eradicated by right reason or
free-thinking, sometimes during the whole course of our lives.

Here first I observe how difficult it is to get rid of a phrase which the
world has once grown fond of, though the occasion that first produced it
be entirely taken away. For some years past, if a man had but an ill-
favoured nose, the deep thinkers of the age would, some way or other
contrive to impute the cause to the prejudice of his education. From
this fountain were said to be derived all our foolish notions of justice,
piety, love of our country; all our opinions of God or a future state,
heaven, hell, and the like; and there might formerly perhaps have been
some pretence for this charge. But so effectual care hath been since
taken to remove those prejudices, by an entire change in the methods of
education, that (with honour I mention it to our polite innovators) the
young gentlemen, who are now on the scene, seem to have not the least
tincture left of those infusions, or string of those weeds, and by
consequence the reason for abolishing nominal Christianity upon that
pretext is wholly ceased.

For the rest, it may perhaps admit a controversy, whether the banishing
all notions of religion whatsoever would be inconvenient for the vulgar.
Not that I am in the least of opinion with those who hold religion to
have been the invention of politicians, to keep the lower part of the
world in awe by the fear of invisible powers; unless mankind were then
very different from what it is now; for I look upon the mass or body of
our people here in England to be as Freethinkers, that is to say, as
staunch unbelievers, as any of the highest rank. But I conceive some
scattered notions about a superior power to be of singular use for the
common people, as furnishing excellent materials to keep children quiet
when they grow peevish, and providing topics of amusement in a tedious
winter night.

Lastly, it is proposed, as a singular advantage, that the abolishing of
Christianity will very much contribute to the uniting of Protestants, by
enlarging the terms of communion, so as to take in al