Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/99

 Would to God, these intentional Friends of public Liberty had been as much the Friends of private Virtue and Religion! They would not, then, have undermined the Foundations, while they were building the Superstructure of civil Freedom.

The Seeds of Irreligion had for some Time been privately fermenting: But they did not break forth into open Growth till about this Period.—'Tis remarkable, that, enumerating the Dangers by which the State was threatened in the Year 1708, makes no Mention of Irreligion, as an Evil worth being obviated. But soon after, this Pestilence came on, with a terrible Swiftness and Malignity.

The slavish Principle of absolute Non-Resistance, and an independent Hierarchy, were still prevalent in Part, especially among the Clergy. To combat these, and expose them to the public Contempt, certain Writers were encouraged by Those