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on account of this and several other excellent maxims it contains and strongly enforces, in common with other religions, its divine origin ought to be inculcated on the minds of those people who can believe it. But though this kind of chastity is more comprehensive, yet its influence, as experience shews us, is infinitely weaker than that of the other. I believe it may be said, with justice, that there are fewer unchaste women, even in proportion to their numbers, among those of rank and condition, than there are chaste among these of an inferior order, though the lives of the first are generally lazy and luxurious, and much the greatest part of their reading lies among modern plays, novels and romances, which, instead of curbing and restraining, have a manifest tendency to heighten and inflame their passions. All these circumstances shew the superior efficacy of the political over the religious chastity. From the nature of things it must be so, for the punishments of a future state are objects too remote to have any great weight in deterring people from yielding to the importunate sollicitations of a present powerful passion. When once a woman has got the length to undervalue the immediate shame, ruin and disgrace she has to dread from being detected in an amour, religious motives never can restrain her from indulging her inclinations. Far be it from me, by any thing here said, to derogate in the least from the utility of this great and fundamental article in all religions, the commonly received doctrine of rewards and punishments in a future state. On the contrary, I am sensible of its utility in the highest degree, and that too in cases where it is most necessary, by inciting men to virtues to which no temporal rewards are annexed, and deterring them from crimes and vices, where they have no temporal punishments to dread, or where, from the secrecy of the commission, they have hopes to escape the punishments provided for them by the laws. In all cases of the last kind, thought and deliberation are required, to contrive and put them in execution; the mind is then cool, at least not transported out of itself by hurrying passion, and has time and leisure to weigh and reflect on every circumstance; religious motives, no doubt, then exert their influence, awaken fears and terrors, and keep many faithful and honest, who would otherwise yield to the temptations of revenge, ambition, and interest. For these reasons, th
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