We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the
basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.
In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no rust of
superstition with which the accumulated absurdity of the human mind
might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that ninety-nine in a
hundred of the people of England would not prefer to impiety. We shall
never be such fools as to call in an enemy to the substance of any
system to remove its corruptions, to supply its defects, or to perfect
its construction. If our religious tenets should ever want a further
elucidation, we shall not call on atheism to explain them. We shall not
light up our temple from that unhallowed fire. It will be illuminated
with other lights. It will be perfumed with other incense than the
infectious stuff which is imported by the smugglers of adulterated
metaphysics. If our ecclesiastical establishment should want a revision,
it is not avarice or rapacity, public or private, that we shall employ
for the audit, or receipt, or application of its consecrated revenue.
Violently condemning neither the Greek nor the Armenian, nor, since
heats are subsided, the Roman system of religion, we prefer the
Protestant; not because we think it has less of the Christian religion
in it, but because, in our judgment, it has more. We are Protestants,
not from indifference, but from zeal. We know, and it is our pride to
know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal; that atheism
is against, not only our reason, but our instincts; and that it cannot
prevail long. But if, in the moment of riot, and in a drunken delirium
from the hot spirit drawn out of the alembic of hell, which in France is
now so furiously boiling, we should uncover our nakedness, by throwing
off that Christian religion which has hitherto been our boast and
comfort, and one great source of civilization amongst us, and among many
other nations, we are apprehensive (being well aware that the mind
will not endure a void) that some uncouth, pernicious, and degrading
superstition might take place of it.