Now I see but two ways by which this INCONSISTENCY can be removed; and as I wish to make my work of some use to the people of whom it treats, I shall briefly propose them in their order.
1. The _first_ plan of _melioration_ which I would submit to the Fashionable World, is that of _renouncing the Christian religion_. In recommending this step, I proceed upon a supposition, that the government and laws and manners which now prevail, must _at all events_ be retained: and upon such a supposition, I contend, that _renouncing the Christian religion_ is a measure of indispensable necessity. For surely if duels must be fought, what can be so preposterous as to swear allegiance to a law which says—“_Thou shalt not kill_?” If injuries must _not_ be forgiven, where is the propriety of employing a prayer in which the petitioner declares, that he does forgive them? If the passions are to be _gratified_, what end is answered by doing homage to those Scriptures which so peremptorily declare, that they must be _mortified_? In a word, if swearing, prevarication, and sensuality; if a neglect of “the duties to God and inferiors,” be necessary, or even allowable, parts of a Fashionable character; where is the policy, the virtue, or even the decency, of connecting it with a religion which stamps these several qualities with the deepest guilt, and threatens them with the severest retribution? If a religion of _some_ sort be absolutely necessary, let such an one be chosen as may possess a correspondence with the other parts of the system: let it be a religion in which pride, and resentment, and lust, may have their necessary scope; a religion, in short, in which the God of this world may be the idol, and the men of this world the worshippers. Such an arrangement will go a great way towards establishing _consistency_: it will dissolve a union by which both parties are sufferers; and liberate at once the people of Fashion from a profession which involves them in contradiction, and Christianity from a connexion which covers her with disgrace.
2. If, on the contrary, it should be thought material (as I trust it will) _to retain Christianity at all events_, the plan of reform must be exactly _inverted_; and the sacrifices taken from those laws, and maxims, and habits, which interfere with the spirit and the injunctions of that holy religion. It is altogether out of the character of Christianity to act a subservient or an accommodating part. Her nature, her office, and her object, are all decidedly adverse to that base alliance into which it has been attempted to degrade her. Pure and spotless as her native skies, she delights in holiness; because God, from whose bosom she came, is holy. Girt with power, and designed for dominion, she claims the heart as her throne, and all the affections as the ministers of her will: nor does she consider her object accomplished until she has cast down every lofty imagination, extinguished every rebellious lust, and brought into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. It is obvious, therefore, that if she is to be retained at all, it must be upon her _own_ terms; and those terms will manifestly require an utter renunciation of every measure which, under the former plan, it was proposed to retain. Duels must _now_ no longer be fought, nor injuries resentfully pursued, nor licentious passions deliberately gratified. Swearing must be banished from the lips, prevarication from the thoughts, sensuality from the heart; and that law be expunged, which dispenses with “the duties to God and inferiors,” in order to make way for that immutable statute which enjoins them.