The Old Saying, _A Bird in the Hand is worth Two in the Bush_, holds with
most People in Religious Matters, as well as in Civil. A Sum of Mony
down upon the Nail, goes further with them, then Heaven it self in the
Reversion. Where we are in the Dark, we are but too apt to be Doubtful,
and to reckon upon it the common Acceptation of Flesh and Blood, as the
Parting with a Certainty for an Uncertainty. Now the Moral of this Fable
must be Understood to Tax the Vanity and Error of the Common Practice and
Opinion of the World in this Matter. The Fiction methinks has somewhat
in’t of the _French Libertines_ Conceit to a Severe Religious upon the
Point of Mortification: Father (says he) What’s the Meaning of all these
Austerities of Hard Living, Hair Shirts, Watchings, Fastings, and I
know not what? Oh Brother (says the Holy Man) ’tis all for _Paradise_.
Well (says the Licentious Droll again) but what if there should be no
_Paradise_ at last, are not you finely brought to Bed then? The Mockery
of this Fable is somewhat a-kin to the Freak of this Story, and by no
means to be Allow’d of but in Reprehension of so Irreverend a Freedom.