89. Christian Ideas of a future State 90. Strictures on the Examiner-Letter to 95. Adventure of a Strolling Company- Letters on Lions-Coffee-houses 97. Letter from Simon Softly, complaining 98. Notice of the Tatler and Spectator- 100. On the Tucker-naked Necks-Laws of Lycurgus-Position of Venus. 102. Variableness of the English Climate 103. On the Fireworks-serious reflections 104. Story of a French Gentleman-Letter Exhibition of the Charity Children- 107. Letter from a Projector, offering him- self as a Nomenclator-Letter from 108. Institution of the Tall Club 109. Correspondence on the Tucker. 110. On the language of Treaty-Impropri- 112. Art of Flying-Letter from Dædalus- 113. Letter from a Citizen in his Honey- moon-Tom Truelove's Courtship.. ADDISON Matters of Dress not to be introduced Happiness of living under the Protec- 121. Account of the Silent Club, PEARCE; THE GUARDIAN. N° 55. THURSDAY, MAY 14, 1713. quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam, Præmia si tollas? For who wou'd virtue for herself regard, DRYDEN. T is usual with polemical writers to object ill designs to their adversaries. This turns their arguments into satire, which, instead of shewing an error in the understanding, tends only to expose the morals of those they write against. I shall not act after this manner with respect to the freethinkers. Virtue, and the happiness of society, are the great ends which all men ought to promote; and some of that sect would be thought to have at heart above the rest of mankind. But supposing those who make that profession to carry on a good design in the simplicity of their hearts, and according to their best knowledge, yet it is much to be feared, those well-meaning souls, while they endeavoured to recommend virtue, have in reality VOL. XVII. B been advancing the interests of vice; which, as I take to proceed from their ignorance of human nature, we may hope, when they become sensible of their mistake, they will, in consequence of that beneficent principle they pretend to act upon, reform their practice for the future. The sages, whom I have in my eye, speak of virtue as the most amiable thing in the world; but at the same time that they extol her beauty, they take care to lessen her portion. Such innocent creatures are they, and so great strangers to the world, that they think this a likely method to increase the number of her admirers. Virtue has in herself the most engaging charms ; and Christianity, as it places her in the strongest light, and adorned with all her native attractions, so it kindles a new fire in the soul, by adding to them the unutterable rewards which attend her votaries in an eternal state. Or if there are men of a saturnine and heavy complexion, who are not easily lifted up by hope, there is the prospect of everlasting punishments to agitate their souls, and frighten them into the practice of virtue, and an aversion from vice. Whereas your sober free-thinkers tell you, that virtue indeed is beautiful, and vice deformed; the former deserves your love, and the latter your abhorrence; but then it is for their own sake, or on account of the good and evil which immediately attend them, and are inseparable from their respective natures. As for the immortality of the soul, or eternal punishments and rewards, those are openly ridiculed, or rendered suspicious by the most sly and laboured artifice. I will not say, these men act treacherously in the cause of virtue; but will any one deny, that they act foolishly, who pretend to advance the interest of it by destroying or weakening the strongest motives to it, which are accommodated to all capacities, and fitted to work on all dispositions, and enforcing those alone which can affect only a generous and exalted mind. Surely they must be destitute of passion themselves, and unacquainted with the force it hath on the minds of others, who can imagine that the mere beauty of fortitude, temperance, and justice, is sufficient to sustain the mind of man in a severe course of self-denial against all the temptations of present profit, and sensuality. It is my opinion that free-thinkers should be treated as a set of poor ignorant creatures, that have not sense to discover the excellency of religion; it being evident those men are no witches, nor likely to be guilty of any deep design, who proclaim aloud to the world, that they have less motives to honesty than the rest of their fellow subjects, who have all the inducements to the exercise of any virtue which a free-thinker can pos sibly have; and besides that, the expectation of never-ending happiness, or misery, as the consequence of their choice, Are not men actuated by their passions? and are not hope and fear the most powerful of our passions? and are there any objects which can rouse and awaken our hopes and fears, like those prospects that warm and penetrate the heart of a Christian, but are not regarded by a free-thinker? It is not only a clear point, that a Christian breaks though stronger engagements whenever he surrenders himself to commit a criminal action, and is stung with a sharper remorse after it, than a free-thinker; but it should even seem that a man |