Truth and innocence vindicated in a survey of a discourse concerning ecclesiastical polity, and…

But to return from this Digression! this being the Design of our Author, not so much to expose his Adversaries to common Contempt and Laughter, as to Ruin and Destruction, he diverted from the beaten path of Dialogues, and betook himself unto that of Rhetorical Invective Declamations, which is peculiarly suited to carry on and promote such a Design. I shall therefore here leave him for the present, following the Triumphant Chariot of his Friend; singing jo triumph! and casting Reflections upon the Captives that he drags after him at his chariot wheels, which will doubtless supply his Imagination with a pleasing entertainment, until he shall awake out of his dream, and find all the Pageantry that his Fancy hath erected round about him, to vanish and disappear.

But to return from this Digression! this being the Design of our Author, not so much to expose his Adversaries to common Contempt and Laughter, as to Ruine and Destruction, he diverted from the beaten path of Dialogues, and betook himself unto that of Rhetorical Invective Declamations, which is peculiarly suited to carry on and promote such a Design. I shall therefore here leave him for the present, following the Triumphant Chariot of his Friend; singing io triumphe! and casting Reflections upon the Captives that he draggs after him at his chariot wheels, which will doubtless supply his Imagination with a pleasing entertainment, untill he shall awake out of his dream, and find all the Pageantry that his Fancy hath erected round about him, to vanish and disappear.

His next attempt is upon Atheists, wherein I have no concern, nor his principal Adversaries the Non-Conformists; For my part I have had this Advantage by my own Obscurity and small Consideration in the World, as never to converse with any persons that did, or durst Question the Being or Providence of God, either really or in pretence. By common reports, and published discourses, I find that there are ⟨p. 66⟩not a few in these days, who either out of pride and ostentation, or in a real compliance with their own darkness and Ignorance, do boldly venture to dispute the things which we adore; and if I am not greatly mis-informed, a charge of this prodigious Licentiousness and Impiety, may from pregnant instances, be brought near the doors of some who on other occasions declaim against it. For Practical Atheism the matter seems to be unquestionable; many live as though they believed neither God nor Devil in the world, but Themselves; With neither sort am I concerned to treat at present, nor shall I examine the Invectives of our Author against them; though I greatly doubt, whether ever such a kind of Defence of the Being of God was written by any man before him. If a man would make a judgement upon the genius and way of his Discourse, he might possibly be tempted to fear, that it is persons, rather than Things that are the object of his Indignation; and it may be the fate of some, to suffer under the Infamy of Atheism, as it is thought Diagoras did of old, not for denying the Deity, nor for any absurd conceptions of mind concerning it, but for deriding and contemning them, who without any interest in, or sense of Religion,