voured to ftrip himself of as many real prejùdices as he could; I fay real ones, because, under the notion of prejudices, he knew to what dangerous heights fome men have proceeded. Thus prepared, he thought the numerous and gross corruptions in religion and learning, might furnish matter for a fatyr, that would be useful and diverting. He refolved to proceed in a manner that should be altogether new, the world having been already too long naufeated, with endless repetitions upon every fubject. The abuses in religion, he proposed to fet forth in the allegory of the coats, and the three brothers, which was to make up the body of the difcourfe: thofe in learning, he chose to introduce by way of digreffions. He was then a young gentleman much in the world, and wrote to the taste of those who were like himself; therefore, in order to allure them, he gave a liberty to his pen, which might not fuit with maturer years, or graver characters, and which he could have easily corrected with a very few blots, had he been master of his papers, for a year or two before their publication.

Not that he would have governed his judgment by the ill-placed cavils of the four, the envious, the stupid, and the tastelefs, which he mentions with difdain. He acknowledges there are several youthful fallies, which from the grave and the wife may deserve a rebuke. But he defires to be anfwerable no farther than he is guilty, and that his faults may not be multiplied by the ignorant, the unnatural, and uncharitable applications of those, who have neither candour to fuppofe good meanings,

nor

After which,

nor palate to diftinguish true ones.
he will forfeit his life, if any one opinion can be
fairly deduced from that book, which is contrary to
religion or morality.

Why should any clergyman of our church, be
angry to fee the follies of fanaticism and fuperftition
expofed, though in the most ridiculous manner;
fince that is perhaps the most probable way to cure
them, or at least to hinder them from farther spread-
ing? Befides, though it was not intended for their
perufal, it rallies nothing but what they preach
againft. It contains nothing to provoke them by the
leaft fcurrility upon their perfons or their functions.
It celebrates the church of England, as the most
perfect of all others, in difcipline and doctrine; it
advances no opinion they reject, nor condemns any
they receive. If the clergy's refentment lay upon
their hands, in my humble opinion, they might
have found more proper objects to employ them on;
nondum tibi defuit hoftis; I mean those heavy, illi-
terate scriblers, prostitute in their reputations, vici-
ous in their lives, and ruined in their fortunes;
who, to the shame of good fenfe as well as piety,
are greedily read, merely upon the strength of bold,
false, impious affertions, mixed with unmannerly re-
flections upon the priesthood, and openly intended
against all religion: in short, full of fuch principles
as are kindly received, because they are levelled to
remove those terrors, that religion tells men will be
the confequence of immoral lives. Nothing like
which is to be met with in this difcourfe, though
fome of them are pleased so freely to cenfure it. And
I wish

B 3

I wish there were no other inftance of what I have too frequently observed, that many of that reverend body, are not always very nice in diftinguishing between their enemies and their friends.

Had the author's intentions met with a more candid interpretation from fome, whom out of respect he forbears to name, he might have been encouraged to an examination of books written by fome of those authors above described, whofe errors, ignorance, dulness, and villainy he thinks he could have detected and expofed in fuch a manner, that the perfons, who are most conceived to be affected by them, would foon lay them afide and be ashamed: but he has now given over thofe thoughts; fince the weightieft men, in the weightiest stations, are pleased to think it a more dangerous point, to laugh at those corruptions in religion, which they themselves must disapprove, than to endeavour pulling up thofe very foundations, wherein all Chriftians have agreed.

He thinks it no fair proceeding, that any person fhould offer determinately to fix a name upon the author of this difcourfe, who hath all along concealed himself from most of his nearest friends: yet feveral have gone a farther step, and pronounced another book to have been the work of the fame hand with this, which the author directly affirms to be a thorough mistake; he having yet never fo much as read that discourfe: a plain inftance how little truth there often is in general furmifes, or in conjectures drawn from a fimilitude of ftyle, or way of think

Had

Had the author written a book to expose the abuses in law, or in phyfic, he believes the learned profeffors in either faculty would have been so far from refenting it, as to have given him thanks for his pains; efpecially if he had made an honourable reservation for the true practice of either science: but religion, they tell us, ought not to be ridiculed; and they tell us truth: yet furely the corruptions in it may ; for we are taught by the triteft maxim in the world, that religion being the best of things, its corruptions. are likely to be the worst.

There is one thing which the judicious reader can-. not but have obferved, that fome of thofe paffages in this discourse, which appear moft liable to objection, are what they call parodies, where the author perfonates the style and manner of other writers, whom he has a mind to expofe. I fhall produce one inftance of a paffage in which Dryden, L'Eftrange, and fome others I fhall not name, are levelled at, who having spent their lives in faction, and apoftacies, and all manner of vice, pretended to be sufferers for loyalty and religion. So Dryden tells us, in one of his prefaces, of his merits and sufferings, thanks God that he poffeffes his foul in patience; in other places he talks at the fame rate; and L'Eftrange often uses the like ftyle; and I believe the reader may find more perfons to give that paffage an application: but this is enough to direct thofe, who may have overlooked the author's intention.

There are three or four other paffages, which prejudiced or ignorant readers have drawn by great force to hint at ill meanings; as if they glanced at fome

B 4

tenets

tenets in religion. In anfwer to all which, the author folemnly protefts, he is entirely innocent; and never had it once in his thoughts, that any thing he faid would in the leaft be capable of fuch interpretations, which he will engage to deduce full as fairly from the most innocent book in the world. And it will be obvious to every reader, that this was not any part of his fcheme or defign, the abufes he notes being fuch as all church-of-England men agree in ; nor was it proper for his fubject to meddle with other points, than fuch as have been perpetually controverted fince the reformation.

To inftance only in that paffage about the three wooden machines, mentioned in the introduction: in the original manuscript there was a description of a fourth, which thofe, who had the papers in their power, blotted out, as having fomething in it of fatyr, that I fuppofe they thought was too particular; and therefore they were forced to change it to the number three, whence fome have endeavoured to fqueeze out a dangerous meaning, that was never thought on. And indeed the conceit was half fpoiled by changing the numbers; that of four being much more cabalistic, and therefore better expofing the pretended virtue of numbers, a superstition there intended to be ridiculed.

gene

Another thing to be observed is, that there rally runs an irony through the thread of the whole book, which the men of tafte will obferve and diftinguish; and which will render fome objections, that have been made, very weak and infignificant.