What species of _vice_ can possibly be named, even of those that nature itself abhors, of which we have not had, for many years, a plentiful and still increasing harvest? What _sin_ remains either in _Rome_ or _Constantinople_, which we have not _imported_ long ago (if it was not of our native growth) and _improved_ upon ever since? Such a _complication_ of villainies of every kind, considered with all their _aggravations_, such a _scorn_ of whatever bears the face of _virtue_, such _injustice_, _fraud_, and _falshood_: above all, such _perjury_, and such a _method of law_, we may defy the whole world to produce. What multitudes are found throughout our land, who do not even _profess_ any religion at all? And what numbers of those who _profess much_, and confute their profession by their _practice_? Yea, and perhaps by their exorbitant pride, vanity, covetousness, rapaciousness, or oppression, cause the very _name of religion_, to stink in the nostrils, of many (otherwise) _reasonable_ men? 2. “However, we have many thousands still, of truly, _virtuous_ and _religious_ men.” Wherein does their _religion_ consist? In _righteousness_ and true _holiness_? In _love_ stronger than death? Fervent _gratitude_ to God? And tender _affection_ to all his creatures? Is their religion, the religion of the _heart_? A renewal of soul in the image of God? Do they _resemble_ him they _worship_? Are they free from pride, from vanity, from malice and envy; from ambition and avarice, from passion and lust; from every uneasy and unlovely _temper_? Alas, I fear neither they (the great part at least) nor _you_, know what _this religion_ means; or have any more notion of it, than the peasant that holds the plough, of the religion of a _Gymnosophist_. ’Tis well if the _genuine religion_ of Christ has any more alliance with what you _call religion_, than with the _Turkish_ pilgrimages to _Mecca_, or the _Popish_ worship of our Lady of _Loretto_. Have not _you_ substituted in the place of the _religion of the heart_, something (I do not say equally _sinful_, but) equally vain, and foreign to the _worshipping_ of God in _spirit and in truth_?――――What else can be said even of _prayer_, (_public_ or _private_) in the manner wherein you generally perform it? As a thing of _course_, running round and round, in the same dull track, without either the _knowledge_, or _love_ of God? Without one heavenly _temper_, either attained or improved? O what mockery of God is this!