Page 88. “I cannot see but it is contrary to the rules of charity, to exclude men from the Church, &c.” All this turns upon the falsest reasoning in the world. So, if a man be imprisoned for stealing a horse, he is hindered from other duties: And, you might argue, that a man who doth ill, ought to be more diligent in minding other duties, and not to be debarred from them. It is for contumacy and rebellion against that power in the church, which the law hath confirmed. So a man is outlawed for a trifle, upon contumacy.
Page 92. “Obliging all by penal laws to receive the sacrament.” This is false.
Page 93. “The want of which means can only harden a man in his impenitence.” It is for his being hardened that he is excluded. Suppose a son robbeth his father on the highway, and his father will not see him till he restoreth the money and owneth his fault. It is hard to deny him paying his duty in other things, &c. How absurd this!
Page 95. “And that only _they_ had a right to give it.” Another part of his scheme, that the people have a right to give the sacrament. See more of it, pp. 135 and 137.
Page 96. “Made familiar to such practices by the heathen priests.” Well; and this shews the necessity of it for peace’ sake. A silly objection of this and other enemies to religion, to think to disgrace it by applying heathenism, which only concerns the political part wherein they were as wise as others, and might give rules. Instance in some, &c.
Page 98. “How differently from this do the great pretenders to primitive practice act, &c.” This is a remarkable passage. Doth he condemn or allow this mysterious way? It seems the first–and therefore these words are a little turned, but infallibly stood in the first draught as a great argument for Popery.
Page 100. “They dress them up in a _sanbenito_.” So, now we are to answer for the inquisition. One thing is, that he makes the fathers guilty of asserting most of the corruptions about the power of priests.
Page 104. “Some priests assume to themselves an arbitrary power of excluding men from the Lord’s Supper.” His scheme; that any body may administer the sacraments, women or children, &c.
Page 108. “One no more than another can be reckoned a priest.” See his scheme. Here he disgraces what the law enacts, about the manner of consecrating, &c.
Page 118. “Churches serve to worse purposes than bear-gardens.” This from Hudibras.
Page 119. “In the time of that wise heathen Ammianus Marcellinus.”[18] Here he runs down all Christianity in general.
[Footnote 18: Ammianus Marcellinus (died _c_. 390) wrote a history of Rome in thirty-one books, of which Gibbon thought rather highly. The history may be taken as a continuation of Tacitus and Suetonius. [T. S.]]
Page 120. “I shall, in the following part of my discourse, shew that this doctrine is so far from serving the ends of religion, that, 1. It prevents the spreading of the gospel, &c.” This independent power in the church is like the worms; being the cause of all diseases.
Page 124. “How easily could the Roman emperors have destroyed the Church?” Just as if he had said; how easily could Herod kill Christ whilst a child, &c.
Page 125. “The people were set against bishops by reason of their tyranny.” Wrong. For the bishops were no tyrants: Their power was swallowed up by the Popes, and the people desired they should have more. It were the regulars that tyrannized and formed priestcraft. He is ignorant.
Page 139. “He is not bound by the laws of Christ to leave his friends in order to be baptized, &c.” This directly against the Gospel.–One would think him an emissary, by his preaching schism.
Page 142. “Then will the communion of saints be practicable, to which the principles of all parties, the occasional conformists only excepted, stand in direct opposition, &c.” So that all are wrong but they. The Scripture is fully against schism. Tindal promoteth it and placeth in it all the present and future happiness of man.
Page 144. All he has hitherto said on this matter, with a very little turn, were arguments for Popery: For, it is certain, that religion had share in very few wars for many hundred years before the Reformation, because they were all of a mind. It is the ambition of rebels, preaching upon the discontents of sectaries, that they are not supreme, which hath caused wars for religion. He is mistaken altogether. His little narrow understanding and want of learning.
Page 145. “Though some say the high-fliers’ lives might serve for a very good rule, if men would act quite contrary to them,” Is he one of those some? Beside the new turn of wit, &c. all the clergy in England come under his notion of high-fliers, as he states it.
Page 147. “None of them (Churchmen) could be brought to acknowledge it lawful upon any account whatever, to exclude the Duke of York.” This account false in fact.
_Ibid_. “And the body-politic, whether ecclesiastical or civil, must be dealt with after the same manner, as the body-natural.” What, because it is called a body, and is a simile, must it hold in all circumstances?
Page 148. “We find all wise legislators have had regard to the tempers, inclinations, and prejudices, &c.” This paragraph false.–It was directly contrary in several, as Lycurgus, &c.
Page 152. “All the skill of the prelatists is not able to discover the least distinction between bishop and presbyter.” Yet, God knows, this hath been done many a time.
Page 158. “The Epistle to the Philippians is directed to the bishops and deacons, I mean in due order after the people, _viz_, to the saints with their bishops and deacons.” I hope he would argue from another place, that the people precede the king, because of these words: “Ye shall be destroyed both you and your king.”
Page 167. “The Pope and other great Church dons.” I suppose, he meaneth bishops: But I wish, he would explain himself, and not be so very witty in the midst of an argument; it is like two mediums; not fair in disputing.
Page 168. “Clemens Romanus blames the people not for assuming a power, but for making a wrong use of it, &c.” His great error all along is, that he doth not distinguish between a power, and a liberty of exercising that power, &c. I would appeal to any man, whether the clergy have not too little power, since a book like this, that unsettleth foundations and would destroy all, goes unpunished, &c.
Page 171. “By this or some such method the bishops obtained their power over their fellow presbyters, and both over the people. The whole tenor of the Gospel directly contrary to it.” Then it is not an allowable means: This carries it so far as to spoil his own system; it is a sin to have bishops as we have them.
Page 172. “The preservation of peace and unity, and not any divine right, was the reason of establishing a superiority of one of the presbyters over the rest. Otherwise there would, as they say, have been as many schismatics as Presbyters. No great compliment to the clergy of those days.” Why so? It is the natural effect of a worse independency, which he keepeth such a clatter about; an independency of churches on each other, which must naturally create schism.
Page 183. “How could the Christians have asserted the disinterestedness of those who first preached the Gospel, particularly their having a right to the tenth part.” Yes, that would have passed easy enough; for they could not imagine teachers could live on air; and their heathen priests were much more unreasonable.
Page 184. “Men’s suffering for such opinions is not sufficient to support the weight of them.” This is a glance against Christianity. State the case of converting infidels; the converters are supposed few; the bulk of the priests must be of the converted country. It is their own people therefore they maintain. What project or end can a few converters propose? they can leave no power to their families, &c. State this, I say, at length, and give it a true turn. Princes give corporations power to purchase lands.
Page 187. “That it became an easy prey to the barbarous nations.” Ignorance in Tindal. The empire long declined before Christianity was introduced. This a wrong cause, if ever there was one.
Page 190, “It is the clergy’s interest to have religion corrupted.” Quite the contrary; prove it. How is it the interest of the English clergy to corrupt religion? The more justice and piety the people have, the better it is for them; for that would prevent the penury of farmers, and the oppression of exacting covetous landlords, &c. That which hath corrupted religion, is the liberty unlimited of professing all opinions. Do not lawyers render law intricate by their speculations, &c. And physicians, &c.
Page 209. “The spirit and temper of the clergy, &c.” What does this man think the clergy are made of? Answer generally to what he says against councils in the ten pages before. Suppose I should bring quotations in their praise.
Page 211. “As the clergy, though few in comparison of the laity, were the inventors of corruptions.” His scheme is, that the fewer and poorer the clergy the better, and the contrary among the laity. A noble principle; and delicate consequences from it.
Page 207. “Men are not always condemned for the sake of opinions, but opinions sometimes for the sake of men.” And so, he hopes, that if his opinions are condemned, people will think, it is a spite against him, as having been always scandalous.
Page 210. “The meanest layman as good a judge as the greatest priest, for the meanest man is as much interested in the truth of religion as the greatest priest.” As if one should say, the meanest sick man hath as much interest in health as a physician, therefore is as good a judge of physic as a physician, &c.
_Ibid_. “Had synods been composed of laymen, none of those corruptions which tend to advance the interest of the clergy, &c.” True, but the part the laity had in reforming, was little more than plundering. He should understand, that the nature of things is this, that the clergy are made of men, and, without some encouragement, they will not have the best, but the worst.
Page 215. “They who gave estates to, rather than they who took them from, the clergy, were guilty of sacrilege.” Then the people are the Church, and the clergy not; another part of his scheme.
Page 219. “The clergy, as they subsisted by the alms of the people, &c.” This he would have still. Shew the folly of it. Not possible to shew any civilized nation ever did it Who would be clergymen then? The absurdity appears by putting the case, that none were to be statesmen, lawyers, or physicians, but who were to subsist by alms.
Page 222. “These subtle clergymen work their designs, who lately cut out such a tacking job for them, &c.” He is mistaken–Everybody was for the bill almost: though not for the tack. The Bishop of Sarum was for it, as appears by his speech against it. But it seems, the tacking is owing to metaphysical speculations. I wonder whether is most perplexed, this author in his style, or the writings of our divines. In the judgment of all people our divines have carried practical preaching and writing to the greatest perfection it ever arrived to; which shews, that we may affirm in general, our clergy is excellent, although this or that man be faulty. As if an army be constantly victorious, regular, &c. we may say, it is an excellent victorious army: But Tindal; to disparage it, would say, such a serjeant ran away; such an ensign hid himself in a ditch; nay, one colonel turned his back, therefore, it is a corrupt, cowardly army, &c.
Page 224. “They were as apprehensive of the works of Aristotle, as some men are of the works of a late philosopher, which, they are afraid, will let too much light into the world.” Yet just such, another; only a commentator on Aristotle. People are likely to improve their understanding much with Locke; It is not his “Human Understanding,” but other works that people dislike, although in that there are some dangerous tenets, as that of [no] innate ideas.
Page 226. “Could they, like the popish priests, add to this a restraint on the press, their business would be done.” So it ought: For example, to hinder his book, because it is written to justify the vices and infidelity of the age. There can be no other design in it. For, is this a way or manner to do good? Railing doth but provoke. The opinion of the whole parliament is, the clergy are too poor.
_Ibid_. “When some nations could be no longer kept from prying into learning, this miserable gibberish of the schools was contrived.” We have exploded schoolmen as much as he, and in some people’s opinion too much, since the liberty of embracing any opinion is allowed. They following Aristotle, who is doubtless the greatest master of arguing in the world: But it hath been a fashion of late years to explode Aristotle, and therefore this man hath fallen into it like others, for that reason, without understanding him. Aristotle’s poetry, rhetoric, and politics, are admirable, and therefore, it is likely, so are his logics.
Page 230. “In these freer countries, as the clergy have less power, so religion is better understood, and more useful and excellent discourses are made on that subject, &c.” Not generally. Holland not very famous, Spain hath been, and France is. But it requireth more knowledge, than his, to form general rules, which people strain (when ignorant) to false deductions to make them out.
Page 232. Chap. VII. “That this hypothesis of an independent power in any set of clergymen, makes all reformation unlawful, except where those who have this power, do consent.” The title of this chapter, A Truism.
Page 234. “If God has not placed mankind in respect to civil matters under an absolute power, but has permitted them in every society to act as they judge best for their own safety, &c.” Bad parallels; bad politics; want of due distinction between teaching and government. The people may know when they are governed well, but not be wiser than their instructors. Shew the difference.
_Ibid_. “If God has allowed the civil society these privileges can we suppose He hath less kindness for His church, &c.” Here they are distinguished, then, here it makes for him. It is a sort of turn of expression, which is scarce with him, and he contradicts himself to follow it.
Page 235. “This cursed hypothesis had, perhaps, never been thought on with relation to civils, had not the clergy (who have an inexhaustible magazine of oppressive doctrines) contrived first in ecclesiasticals, &c.” The seventh paragraph furious and false. Were there no tyrants before the clergy, &c.?
Page 236. “Therefore in order to serve them, though I expect little thanks, &c.” And, why so? Will they not, as you say, follow their interest? I thought you said so. He has three or four sprightly turns of this kind, that look, as if he thought he had done wonders, and had put all the clergy in a ferment. Whereas, I do assure him, there are but two things wonderful in his book: First, how any man in a Christian country could have the boldness and wickedness to write it: And, how any government would neglect punishing the author of it, if not as an enemy of religion, yet a profligate trumpeter of sedition. These are hard words, got by reading his book.
_Ibid_. “The light of nature as well as the Gospel, obliges people to judge of themselves, &c. to avoid false prophets, seducers, &c.” The legislature can turn out a priest, and appoint another ready-made, but not make one; as you discharge a physician, and may take a farrier; but he is no physician, unless made as he ought to be.
_Ibid_. “Since no more power is required for the one than the other.” That is, I dislike my physician, and can turn him off, therefore I can make any man a physician, &c. “_Cujus est destruere_, &c.” Jest on it: Therefore because he lays schemes for destroying the Church, we must employ him to raise it again. See, what danger lies in applying maxims at random. So, because it is the soldiers’ business to knock men on the head, it is theirs likewise to raise them to life, &c.
Page 237. “It can belong only to the people to appoint their own ecclesiastical officers.” This word “people” is so delicious in him, that I cannot tell what is included in the idea of the “people.” Doth he mean the rabble or the legislature, &c. In this sense it may be true, that the legislature giveth leave to the bishops to appoint, and they appoint themselves, I mean, the executive power appoints, &c. He sheweth his ignorance in government. As to High Church he carrieth it a prodigious way, and includeth, in the idea of it, more than others will allow.
Page 239 “Though it be customary to admit none to the ministry who are not approved by the bishops or priests, &c.” One of his principles to expose.
_Ibid_ “If every one has not an inherent right to choose his own guide, then a man must be either of the religion of his guide, or, &c.” That would make delicate work in a nation. What would become of all our churches? They must dwindle into conventicles. Show what would be the consequence of this scheme in several points. This great reformer, if his projects were reduced to practice, how many thousand sects, and consequently tumults, &c. Men must be governed in speculation, at least not suffered to vent them, because opinions tend to actions, which are most governed by opinions, &c. If those who write for the church writ no better, they would succeed but scurvily. But to see whether he be a good writer, let us see when he hath published his second part.
Page 253 “An excellent author in his preface to the Account of Denmark.” This man judgeth and writeth much of a level. Molesworth’s preface full of stale profligate topics. That author wrote his book in spite to a nation, as this doth to religion, and both perhaps on poor personal piques[1].
[Footnote 19: This was Robert, Viscount Molesworth (1656-1725), who was born in Dublin, and educated at Trinity College there. He was ambassador at Copenhagen, but had to resign on account of a dispute with the Danish king. The “Account of Denmark,” which he wrote on his return, was answered by Dr. King. [T. S.]]
_Ibid_ “By which means, and not by any difference in speculative matters, they are more rich and populous.” As if ever anybody thought that a difference in speculative opinions made men richer or poorer, for example, &c.
Page 258 “Play the Devil for God’s sake.” If this is meant for wit, I would be glad to observe it, but in such cases I first look whether there be common sense, &c.
Page 261 “Christendom has been the scene of perpetual wars, massacres, &c.” He doth not consider that most religious wars have been caused by schisms, when the dissenting parties were ready to join with any ambitious discontented man. The national religion always desireth peace, even in her notions, for its interests.
Page 270. “Some have taken the liberty to compare a high church priest in politics to a monkey in a glass-shop, where, as he can do no good, so he never fails of doing mischief enough.” That is his modesty, it is his own simile, and it rather fits a man that does so and so, (meaning himself.) Besides the comparison is foolish: So it is with _men_, as with _stags_.
Page 276. “Their interest obliges them directly to promote tyranny.” The matter is, that Christianity is the fault, which spoils the priests, for they were like other men, before they were priests. Among the Romans, priests did not do so; for they had the greatest power during the republic. I wonder he did not prove they spoiled Nero.
Page 277. “No princes have been more insupportable and done greater violence to the commonwealth than those the clergy have honoured for saints and martyrs.” For example in our country, the princes most celebrated by our clergy are, &c. &c. &c. And the quarrels since the Conquest were nothing at all of the clergy, but purely of families, &c. wherein the clergy only joined like other men.
Page 279. “After the Reformation,[20]I desire to know whether the conduct of the clergy was anyways altered for the better, &c.” Monstrous misrepresentation. Does this man’s spirit of declaiming let him forget all truth of fact, as here, &c.? Shew it. Or doth he flatter himself, a time will come in future ages, that men will believe it on his word? In short, between declaiming, between misrepresenting, and falseness, and charging Popish things, and independency huddled together, his whole book is employed.
[Footnote 20: “Reformation” in 4to and 8vo editions, but Tindal’s word is “Restoration.” [T.S.]]
Set forth at large the necessity of union in religion, and the disadvantage of the contrary, and answer the contrary in Holland, where they have no religion, and are the worst constituted government in the world to last. It is ignorance of causes and appearances which makes shallow people judge so much to their advantage. They are governed by the administration and almost legislature of Holland through advantage of property; nor are they fit to be set in balance with a noble kingdom, &c. like a man that gets a hundred pounds a year by hard labour, and one that has it in land.
Page 280. “It may be worth enquiring, whether the difference between the several sects in England, &c.” A noble notion started, that union in the Church must enslave the kingdom: reflect on it. This man hath somewhere heard, that it is a point of wit to advance paradoxes, and the bolder the better. But the wit lies in maintaining them, which he neglecteth, and formeth imaginary conclusions from them, as if they were true and uncontested.
He adds, “That in the best constituted Church, the greatest good which, can be expected of the ecclesiastics, is from their divisions.” This is a maxim deduced from a gradation of false suppositions. If a man should turn the tables, and argue that all the debauchery, atheism, licentiousness, &c. of the times, were owing to the poverty of the clergy, &c. what would he say? There have been more wars of religion since the ruin of the clergy, than before, in England. All the civil wars before were from other causes.
Page 283. “Prayers are made in the loyal university of Oxford, to continue the throne free from the contagion of schism. See Mather’s sermon on the 29th of May, 1705.” Thus he ridicules the university while he is eating their bread. The whole university comes with the most loyal addresses, yet that goes for nothing. If one indiscreet man drops an indiscreet word, all must answer for it.
Page 286. “By allowing all, who hold no opinions prejudicial to the state, and contribute equally with their fellow-subjects to its support, equal privileges in it.” But who denies that of the dissenters? The Calvinist scheme, one would not think, proper for monarchy. Therefore, they fall in with the Scotch, Geneva, and Holland; and when they had strength here, they pulled down the monarchy. But I will tell an opinion they hold prejudicial to the state in his opinion; and that is, that they are against toleration, of which, if I do not shew him ten times more instances from their greatest writers, than he can do of passive obedience among the clergy, I have done.
“Does not justice demand, that they who alike contribute to the burden, should alike receive the advantage?” Here is another of his maxims closely put without considering what exceptions may be made. The Papists have contributed doubly (being so taxed) therefore by this rule they ought to have double advantage. Protection in property, leave to trade and purchase, &c. are enough for a government to give. Employments in a state are a reward for those who entirely agree with it, &c. For example, a man, who upon all occasions declared his opinion of a commonwealth to be preferable to a monarchy, would not be a fit man to have employments; let him enjoy his opinion, but not be in a capacity of reducing it to practice, &c.
Page 287. “There can be no alteration in the established mode of Church discipline, which is not made in a legal way.” Oh, but there are several methods to compass this legal way, by cunning, faction, industry. The common people, he knows, may be wrought upon by priests; these may influence the faction, and so compass a very pernicious law, and in a legal way ruin the state; as King Charles I. began to be ruined in a legal way, by passing bills, &c.
Page 288. “As everything is persecution, which puts a man in a worse condition than his neighbours.” It is hard to think sometimes whether this man is hired to write for or against dissenters and the sects. This is their opinion, although they will not own it so roundly. Let this be brought to practice: Make a quaker lord chancellor, who thinketh paying tithes unlawful. And bring other instances to shew that several employments affect the Church.
_Ibid_. “Great advantage which both Church and state have got by the kindness already shewn to dissenters.” Let them then be thankful for that. We humour children for their good sometimes, but too much may hurt. Observe that this 64th paragraph just contradicts the former. For, if we have advantage by kindness shewn dissenters, then there is no necessity of banishment, or death.
Page 290. “Christ never designed the holy Sacrament should be prostituted to serve a party. And that people should be bribed by a place to receive unworthily.” Why, the business is, to be sure, that those who are employed are of the national church; and the way to know it is by receiving the sacrament, which all men ought to do in their own church; and if not, are hardly fit for an office; and if they have those moral qualifications he mentioneth, joined to religion, no fear of receiving unworthily. And for this there might be a remedy: To take an oath, that they are of the same principles, &c. for that is the end of receiving; and that it might be no bribe, the bill against occasional conformity would prevent entirely.
_Ibid_. “Preferring men not for their capacity, but their zeal to the Church.” The misfortune is, that if we prefer dissenters to great posts, they will have an inclination to make themselves the national church, and so there will be perpetual struggling; which case may be dangerous to the state. For men are naturally wishing to get over others to their own opinion: Witness this writer, who hath published as singular and absurd notions as possible, yet hath a mighty zeal to bring us over to them, &c.
Page 292. Here are two pages of scurrilous faction, with a deal of reflections on great persons. Under the notion of High-Churchmen, he runs down all uniformity and church government. Here is the whole Lower House of Convocation, which represents the body of the clergy and both universities, treated with rudeness by an obscure, corrupt member, while he is eating their bread.
Page 294. “The reason why the middle sort of people retain so much of their ancient virtue &c. is because no such pernicious notions are the ingredients of their education; which ’tis a sign are infinitely absurd, when so many of the gentry and nobility can, notwithstanding their prepossession, get clear of them.” Now the very same argument lies against religion, morality, honour, and honesty, which are, it seems, but prejudices of education, and too many get clear of them. The middle sort of people have other things to mind than the factions of the age. He always assigneth many causes, and sometimes with reason, since he maketh imaginary effects. He quarrels at power being lodged in the clergy: When there is no reasonable Protestant, clergy, or laity, who will not readily own the inconveniences by too great power and wealth, in any one body of men, ecclesiastics, or seculars: But on that account to weed up the wheat with the tares; to banish all religion, because it is capable of being corrupted; to give unbounded licence to all sects, &c.–And if heresies had not been used with some violence in the primitive age, we should have had, instead of true religion, the most corrupt one in the world.
Page 316. “The Dutch, and the rest of our presbyterian allies, &c.” The Dutch will hardly thank him for this appellation. The French Huguenots, and Geneva Protestants themselves, and others, have lamented the want of episcopacy, and approved ours, &c. In this and the next paragraph, the author introduceth the arguments he formerly used, when he turned papist in King James’s time; and loth to lose them, he gives them a new turn; and they are the strongest In his book, at least have most artifice.
Page 333. “‘Tis plain, all the power the bishops have, is derived from the people, &c.” In general the distinction lies here. The permissive power of exercising jurisdiction, lies in the people, or legislature, or administrator of a kingdom; but not of making him a bishop. As a physician that commenceth abroad, may be suffered to practise in London or be hindered; but they have not the power of creating him a doctor, which is peculiar to a university. This is some allusion; but the thing is plain, as it seemeth to me, and wanteth no subterfuge, &c.
Page 338. “A journeyman bishop to ordain for him.” Doth any man think, that writing at this rate, does the author’s cause any service? Is it his wit or his spleen that he cannot govern?
Page 364. “Can any have a right to an office without having a right to do those things in which the office consists?” I answer, the ordination is valid. But a man may prudentially forbid to do some things. As a clergyman may marry without licence or banns; the marriage is good; yet he is punishable for it.
Page 368. “A choice made by persons who have no right to choose, is an error of the first concoction.” That battered simile again; this is hard. I wish the physicians had kept that a secret, it lieth so ready for him to be witty with.
Page 370. “If prescription can make mere nullities to become good and valid, the laity may be capable of all manner of ecclesiastical power, &c.” There is a difference; for here the same way is kept, although there might be breaches; but it is quite otherwise, if you alter the whole method from what it was at first. We see bishops: There always were bishops: It is the old way still. So a family is still held the same, although we are not sure of the purity of every one of the race.
Page 380. “It is said, That every nation is not a complete body politic within itself as to ecclesiasticals. But the whole church, say they, composes such a body, and Christ is the head of it. But Christ’s headship makes Christians no more one body politic with respect to ecclesiasticals than to civils.” Here we must shew the reason and necessity of the Church being a corporation all over the world: To avoid heresies, and preserve fundamentals, and hinder corrupting of Scripture, &c. But there are no such necessities in government, to be the same everywhere, &c. It is something like the colleges in a university; they all are independent, yet, joined, are one body. So a general council consisteth of many persons independent of one another, &c.
However there is such a thing as _jus gentium_, &c. And he that is doctor of physic, or law, is so in any university of Europe, like the _Respublica Literaria_. Nor to me does there seem anything contradicting, or improper in this notion of the Catholic Church; and for want of such a communion, religion is so much corrupted, and would be more, if there were [not] more communion in this than in civils. It is of no import to mankind how nations are governed; but the preserving the purity of religion is best held up by endeavouring to make it one body over the world. Something like as there is in trade. So to be able to communicate with all Christians we come among, is at least to be wished and aimed at as much as we can.
Page 384. “In a word, if the bishops are not supreme, &c.” Here he reassumeth his arguments for Popery, that there cannot be a body politic of the Church through the whole world, without a visible head to have recourse to. These were formerly writ to advance Popery, and now to put an absurdity upon the hypothesis of a Catholic Church. As they say in Ireland, in King James’s time, they built mass-houses, which we make very good barns of.
Page 388. “Bishops are, under a _premunire_ obliged to confirm and consecrate the person named in the _conge d’Elire_.” This perhaps is complained of. He is permitted to do it. We allow the legislature may hinder if they please; as they may turn out Christianity, if they think fit.
Page 389. “It is the magistrate who empowers them to do more for other bishops than they can for themselves, since they cannot appoint their own successors.” Yes they could, if the magistrate would let them. Here is an endless splutter, and a parcel of perplexed distinctions upon no occasion. All that the clergy pretend to, is a right of qualifying men for the ministry, something like what a university doth with degrees. This power they claim from God, and that the civil power cannot do it as pleasing to God without them; but they may choose whether they will suffer it or no. A religion cannot be crammed down a nation’s throat against their will; but when they receive a religion, it is supposed they receive as their converters give it; and, upon that foot, they cannot justly mingle their own methods, that contradict that religion, &c.
Page 390. “With us the bishops act only ministerially and by virtue of the regal commission, by which the prince firmly enjoins and commands them to proceed in choosing, confirming, and consecrating, &c.” Suppose we held it unlawful to do so: How can we help it? but does that make it rightful, if it be not so? Suppose the author lived in a heathen country, where a law would be made to call Christianity idolatrous; would that be a topic for him to prove it so by, &c.? And why do the clergy incur a _pre-munire;_–To frighten them–Because the law understandeth, that, if they refuse, the chosen cannot be a bishop: But, if the clergy had an order to do it otherwise than they have prescribed, they ought and would incur an hundred rather.
Page 402. “I believe the Catholic Church, &c.” Here he ridicules the Apostles’ Creed.–Another part of his scheme.–By what he says in these pages, it is certain, his design is either to run down Christianity, or set up Popery; the latter it is more charitable to think, and, from his past life, highly probable.
Page 405. “That which gave the Papists so great advantage was, clergymen’s talking so very inconsistent with themselves, &c.” State the difference here between our separation from Rome, and the dissenters from us, and shew the falseness of what he sayeth. I wish he would tell us what he leaveth for a clergyman to do, if he may not instruct the people in religion, and if they should not receive his instructions.
Page 411. “The restraint of the press a badge of Popery.” Why is that a badge of Popery? Why not restrain the press to those who would confound religion, as in civil matters? But this toucheth himself. He would starve, perhaps, &c, Let him get some honester livelihood then. It is plain, all his arguments against constraint, &c. favour the papists as much as dissenters; for both have opinions that may affect the peace of the state.
Page 413. “Since this discourse, &c.” And must we have another volume on this one subject of independency? Or, is it to fright us? I am not of Dr. Hickes’s mind, _Qu’il venge_. I pity the readers, and the clergy that must answer it, be it ever so insipid. Reflect on his sarcastic conclusion, &c.
***** ***** ***** *****
A
PREFACE
TO THE
B—P OF S—-M’S
INTRODUCTION, &c.
NOTE.
AT the time of writing this scathing piece of invective, Swift was busy dealing out to an old friend a similar specimen of his terrible power of rejoinder. Steele, in the newly established “Guardian,” as Mr. Churton Collins well puts it, “drunk with party spirit, had so far forgotten himself as to insert … a coarse and ungenerous reflection on Swift.” Swift sought an explanation through Addison, but Steele’s egotism was stronger than the feeling of friendship, and the insult remained for Swift to wipe out in “The Importance of the ‘Guardian’ Considered.” Probably this severance from his friend, due to political differences–for Steele glowed in Whiggism–deepened, if possible, his hatred to Whigs of whatever degree; and in Burnet he found another object for his wit. But apart from such a suggestion, there was enough in the Bishop’s attitude towards the Tories to rouse Swift to his task. It was not enough that Burnet should accuse his political opponents of sympathy with the French, Jacobitism, and Popery, but he must needs flaunt his vanity in issuing, in advance, for purposes of advertisement, the introduction to a work which was to come later. This was enough for Swift, and the prelate who “could smell popery at five hundred miles distance better than fanaticism under his nose,” became the recipient of one of the most amusing and yet most virulent attacks which even that controversial age produced. “The whole pamphlet,” Mr. Collins truly says, “is inimitable. Its irony, its humour, its drollery, are delicious.”
It must not, however, be imagined that Swift’s opinion of Burnet is only that which can be gathered from this “Preface.” He fully appreciated the sterling qualities of scholarship and good nature, since in his “Remarks” on Burnet’s “History of My Own Time,” he says: “after all he was a man of generosity and good nature, and very communicative; but in his last ten years was absolutely party-mad, and fancied he saw Popery under every bush.” Lord Dartmouth has left an excellent sketch of Burnet’s character in a note to the “History of My Own Time”: “Bishop Burnet was a man of the most extensive knowledge I ever met with; had read and seen a great deal, with a prodigious memory, and a very indifferent judgment: he was extremely partial, and readily took everything for granted that he heard to the prejudice of those he did not like: which made him pass for a man of less truth than he really was. I do not think he designedly published anything he believed to be false. He had a boisterous, vehement manner of expressing himself, which often made him ridiculous, especially in the House of Lords, when what he said would not have been thought so, delivered in a lower voice, and a calmer behaviour. His vast knowledge occasioned his frequent rambling from the point he was speaking to, which ran him into discourses of so universal a nature, that there was no end to be expected but from a failure of his strength and spirits, of both which he had a larger share than most men; which were accompanied with a most invincible assurance.” (Note to the Preface of Burnet’s “History of My Own Time,” vol. i. p. xxxiii, Oxford, 1897.)
It may not be altogether out of place to give here a short biographical sketch of Bishop Burnet.
Gilbert Burnet was born at Edinburgh in 1643. He studied first at Aberdeen and then in Holland. In 1665, after he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, he entered holy orders, became vicar of Saltoun, and, in 1669, professor of divinity at Glasgow. The year 1673 found him in London, engaged on his “History of the Reformation,” and fulfilling the duties of chaplain to the king, preacher to the Rolls, and lecturer of St. Clement’s. The “Reformation” appeared in three folio volumes; the first in 1679, the second in 1681, and the third in 1714. He had already written the “Lives of the Dukes of Hamilton,” the “Life of Sir Matthew Hale,” and a “Life of the Earl of Rochester.” Getting into some political trouble he was deprived of his offices, and left England for the continent. After travelling in France he settled in Holland, and married a Dutch lady. When the Prince of Orange came to England to assume the government of the country, Burnet accompanied him, and in 1689 was installed into the bishopric of Salisbury. Evidently he had too zealous a sentiment for William and Mary, for his pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese, commenting on the new sovereign, was condemned by the parliament, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. He married again, on the death of his Dutch wife, a rich widow, Mrs. Berkeley, who was his third spouse–hence Swift’s caustic reference. He died March 17th, 1714-15. In addition to his histories of the Reformation and his own times, he wrote an “Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles” (1699), the “Life of Bishop Bedell” and the other lives already named, and several sermons and controversial pieces.
The text of this pamphlet is that of the first edition, collated with, those given by Faulkner, Hawkesworth, the “Miscellanies” of 1745, and Scott. It was originally published in 1713.
[T.S.]
A
PREFACE[1]
T O T H E
B–p of S–r–m’s
INTRODUCTION
To the Third Volume of the
History of the Reformation
of the
Church of _England_.
_By GREGORY MISOSARVM._
_—-Spargere voces
In vulgum ambiguas; & quaerere confcius arma._
The Second Edition
_LONDON_:
Printed for _John Morphew, _near _Stationers Hall_. 1713. Price _6d_.
THE PREFACE.[2]
MR. MORPHEW,
Your care in putting an advertisement in the _EXAMINER_ has been of great use to me. I do now send you my Preface to the B—-p of S—-r—-m’s INTRODUCTION to his third volume, which I desire you to print in such a form, as in the bookseller’s phrase will make a sixpenny touch; hoping it will give such a public notice of my design, that it may come into the hands of those who perhaps look not into the B—-p’s Introduction. I desire you will prefix to this a passage out of Virgil, which does so perfectly agree with my present thoughts of his L—-dsh—-p, that I cannot express them better, nor more truly, than those words do.
I am, Sir,
Your most humble servant,
G. MISOSARUM.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Nichols quotes from the “Speculum Sarisburianum,” “That the frequent and hasty repetitions of such prefaces and introductions, no less than three new ones in about one year’s time, beside an old serviceable one republished concerning persecution–are preludes to other practical things, beside pastoral cares, sermons, and histories.” [T. S.]]
[Footnote 2: This preface “to the bookseller” is in imitation of the bishop’s own preface to the bookseller in the “Introduction,” which was signed “G. Sarum.” [T. S.]]
This way of publishing introductions to books that are, God knows when, to come out, is either wholly new, or so long unpractised, that my small reading cannot trace it. However we are to suppose, that a person of his Lordship’s great age and experience, would hardly act such a piece of singularity without some extraordinary motives. I cannot but observe, that his fellow-labourer, the author of the paper called _The Englishman_,[3] seems, in some of his late performances, to have almost transcribed the notions of the Bishop: these notions, I take to have been dictated by the same masters, leaving to each writer that peculiar manner of expressing himself, which the poverty of our language forces me to call their style. When the _Guardian_ changed his title, and professed to engage in faction, I was sure the word was given, that grand preparations were making against next sessions; that all advantages would be taken of the little dissensions reported to be among those in power; and that the _Guardian_ would soon be seconded by some other piqueerers[4] from the same camp. But I will confess, my suspicions did not carry me so far as to conjecture that this venerable champion would be in such mighty haste to come into the field, and serve in the quality of an _enfant perdu_,[5] armed only with a pocket pistol, before his great blunderbuss could be got ready, his old rusty breastplate scoured, and his cracked headpiece mended.
[Footnote 3: Steele.]
[Footnote 4: Piqueerer = pickeerer (modern) = a marauder, a skirmisher in advance of an army. From French _picorer_ = to maraud. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 5: _Enfant perdu_, one of the advanced guard; or, as Hawkesworth notes it, “one of the forlorn hope.” [T.S.]]
I was debating with myself, whether this hint of producing a small pamphlet to give notice of a large folio, was not borrowed from the ceremonial in Spanish romances, where a dwarf is sent out upon the battlements to signify to all passengers, what a mighty giant there is in the castle; or whether the Bishop copied this proceeding from the _fanfarronade_ of Monsieur Boufflers, when the Earl of Portland and that general had an interview. Several men were appointed at certain periods to ride in great haste toward the English camp, and cry out, _Monseigneur vient, Monseigneur vient:_ Then, small parties advanced with the same speed and the same cry, and this foppery held for many hours, until the mareschal himself arrived. So here, the Bishop (as we find by his dedication to Mr. Churchill the bookseller) has for a long time sent warning of his arrival by advertisements in _Gazettes_, and now his Introduction advances to tell us again, _Monseigneur vient:_ In the mean time, we must gape and wait and gaze the Lord knows how long, and keep our spirits in some reasonable agitation, until his Lordship’s real self shall think fit to appear in the habit of a folio.
I have seen the same sort of management at a puppet-show. Some puppets of little or no consequence appeared several times at the window to allure the boys and the rabble: The trumpeter sounded often, and the doorkeeper cried a hundred times till he was hoarse, that they were just going to begin; yet after all, we were forced sometimes to wait an hour before Punch himself in person made his entry.
But why this ceremony among old acquaintance? The world and he have long known one another: Let him appoint his hour and make his visit, without troubling us all day with a succession of messages from his laqueys and pages.
With submission, these little arts of getting off an edition, do ill become any author above the size of Marten[6] the surgeon. My Lord tells us, that “many thousands of the two former parts of his History are in the kingdom,”[7] and now he perpetually advertises in the gazette, that he intends to publish the third: This is exactly in the method and style of Marten: “The seventh edition (many thousands of the former editions having been sold off in a small time) of Mr. Marten’s book concerning secret diseases,” &c.
[Footnote 6: This is John Marten, the author of two treatises on the gout, and a “Treatise of all the Degrees and Symptoms of the Venereal Disease” (1708?-9). His notoriety brought on him the ire of a “licens’d practitioner in physick and surgery,” one J. Spinke, who, in a pamphlet entitled “Quackery Unmask’d” (1709), dealt Marten some most uncourteous blows. From the pamphlet, it is difficult to judge whether Spinke or Marten were the greater quack; we should judge the former. Certainly Marten deserves our sympathy, if only for Spinke’s virulence. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 7: Page 26.]
Does his Lordship intend to publish his great volume by subscription, and is this Introduction only by way of specimen? I was inclined to think so, because, in the prefixed letter to Mr. Churchill, which introduces this Introduction, there are some dubious expressions: He says, “the advertisements he published were in order to move people to furnish him with materials, which might help him to finish his work with great advantage.” If he means half-a-guinea upon the subscription, and t’other half at the delivery, why does he not tell us so in plain terms?
I am wondering how it came to pass, that this diminutive letter to Mr. Churchill should understand the business of introducing better than the Introduction itself; or why the Bishop did not take it into his head to send the former into the world some months before the latter; which would have been a greater improvement upon the solemnity of the procession?
Since I writ these last lines, I have perused the whole pamphlet (which I had only dipped in before) and found I have been hunting upon a wrong scent; for the author hath in several parts of his piece, discovered the true motives which put him upon sending it abroad at this juncture; I shall therefore consider them as they come in my way.
My Lord begins his Introduction with an account of the reasons why he was guilty of so many mistakes in the first volume of his “History of the Reformation:” His excuses are just, rational, and extremely consistent. He says, “he wrote in haste,”[8] which he confirms by adding, “that it lay a year after he wrote it before it was put into the press:”[9] At the same time he mentioned a passage extremely to the honour of that pious and excellent prelate, Archbishop Sancroft, which demonstrates his Grace to have been a person of great sagacity, and almost a prophet. Dr. Burnet, then a private divine, “desired admittance to the Cotton library, but was prevented by the archbishop, who told Sir John Cotton, that the said doctor was no friend to the prerogative of the crown, nor to the constitution of the kingdom.” This judgment was the more extraordinary, because the doctor had not long before published a book in Scotland, with his name prefixed, which carries the regal prerogative higher than any writer of the age:[10] however, the good archbishop lived to see his opinion become universal in the kingdom.
[Footnote 8: Page 6.]
[Footnote 9: Page 10.]
[Footnote 10: This was Burnet’s “Vindication of the Authority, Constitution, and Laws of the Church and State of Scotland,” dedicated to the Duke of Lauderdale, and published in 1672. The dedication contains an eulogium of the duke, and the work a defence of episcopacy and monarchy against Buchanan and his followers. At a later period, the author did not probably recollect this juvenile publication with, much complacence.
It is somewhat remarkable to see the progress of this story. In the first edition of this “Introduction,” it should seem, “he was prevented by the Archbishop,” &c. When the “Introduction” was reprinted a year after with the “History,” it stands: “A great prelate had been beforehand and possessed him [Sir John Cotton] against me–That unless the Archbishop of Canterbury would recommend me–he desired to be excused–The Bishop of Worcester could not prevail on the Archbishop to interpose.” This is somewhat less than preventing, unless the Archbishop be meant by the “great prelate.” Which is not very probable. 1. Because in the Preface to this very third volume, p. 4, he says, “It was by Archbishop Sancroft’s order he had the free use of everything that lay in the Lambeth Library.” 2. Because the Author of “Speculum Sarisburianum” (p. 6), tells us, “His access to the Library was owing solely to the recommendation of Archbishop Sancroft, as I have been informed by some of the family.” 3. Because Bishop Burnet, in his “History of My Own Times,” vol. i. p. 396, says it was “Dolben, Bishop of Rochester (at the instigation of the Duke of Lauderdale), that diverted Sir John Cotton from suffering me to search his Library.” [“Miscellanies,” vol. viii. 1745.]]
The Bishop goes on for many pages, with an account of certain facts relating to the publishing of his two former volumes of the Reformation, the great success of that work, and the adversaries who appeared against it. These are matters out of the way of my reading; only I observe that poor Mr. Henry Wharton,[11] who has deserved so well of the commonwealth of learning, and who gave himself the trouble of detecting some hundreds of the Bishop’s mistakes, meets with very ill quarter from his Lordship. Upon which I cannot avoid mentioning a peculiar method which this prelate takes to revenge himself upon those who presume to differ from him in print. The Bishop of Rochester[12] happened some years ago to be of this number. My Lord of Sarum in his reply ventured to tell the world, that the gentleman who had writ against him, meaning Dr Atterbury, was one upon whom he had conferred great obligations; which was a very generous Christian contrivance of charging his adversary with ingratitude. But it seems the truth happened to be on the other side; which the doctor made appear in such a manner as would have silenced his Lordship for ever, if he had not been writing proof. Poor Mr. Wharton in his grave is charged with the same accusation, but with circumstances the most aggravating that malice and something else could invent[13]; and which I will no more believe than five hundred passages in a certain book of travels[14]. See the character he gives of a divine, and a scholar, who shortened his life in the service of God and the church. “Mr. Wharton desired me to intercede with Tillotson for a prebend of Canterbury. I did so, but Wharton would not believe it; said he would be revenged, and so writ against me. Soon after he was convinced I had spoke for him, said he was set on to do what he did, and, if I would procure any thing for him, he would discover every thing to me[15].” What a spirit of candour, charity, and good nature, generosity, and truth, shines through this story, told of a most excellent and pious divine, twenty years after his death, without one single voucher[16]!
[Footnote 11: Henry Wharton (1664-1694-5), a divine, born at Worstead, Norfolk, and educated at Cambridge. Became chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft in 1688, and then rector of Chartham. Wrote “A Treatise on the Celibacy of the Clergy;” “The Enthusiasm of the Church of Rome demonstrated in the Life of Ignatius Loyola;” “A Defence of Pluralities;” “Specimen of Errors in Burnet’s ‘History of the Reformation;'” “Anglia Sacra, sive Collectio Historiarum;” and “History of Archbishop Laud.” The criticism on Burnet’s “History” was written under the _nom de guerre_ of Anthony Farmar. [T. S.]]
[Footnote 12: Dr. Atterbury.]
[Footnote 13: Page 22.]
[Footnote 14: Burnet’s “Travels.”]
[Footnote 15: Page 23.]
[Footnote 16: Burnet’s account of this matter was reprinted in the Preface to his “History of the Reformation,” and it contains also the bishop’s rejoinder against Wharton’s method of criticism in the “Specimen”: “He had examined the dark ages before the Reformation with much diligence, and so knew many things relating to those times beyond any man of the age; he pretended that he had many more errors in reserve, and that this specimen was only a hasty collection of a few, out of many other discoveries he could make. This consisted of some trifling and minute differences in some dates and transactions of no importance, upon which nothing depended; so I cannot tell whether I took these too easily from printed books, or if I committed any errors in my notes taken in the several offices. He likewise follows me through the several recapitulations I had made of the state of things before the Reformation, and finds errors and omissions in most of these; he adds some things out of papers I had never seen. The whole was writ with so much malice, and such contempt, that I must give some account of the man, and of his motives. He had expressed great zeal against popery, in the end of King James’s reign, being then chaplain to Archbishop Sancroft, who, as he said, had promised him the first of those prebends of Canterbury that should fall in his gift: for when he saw that the archbishop was resolved not to take the oaths, but to forsake the post, he made an earnest application to me, to secure that for him at Archbishop Tillotson’s hands. I pressed him in it as much as was decent for me to do, but he said he would not encourage these aspiring men, by promising any thing, before it should fall; as indeed none of them fell during his time. Wharton, upon this answer, thought I had neglected him, looking on it as a civil denial, and said he would be revenged; and so he published that specimen: upon which, I, in a letter that I printed, addressed to the present Bishop of Worcester, charged him again and again to bring forth all that he pretended to have reserved at that time, for, till that was done, I would not enter upon the examination of that specimen. It was received with contempt, and Tillotson justified my pressing him to take Wharton under his particular protection so fully, that he sent and asked me pardon. He said he was set on to it; and that, if I would procure any thing for him, he would discover any thing to me. I despised that offer, but said that I would at any price buy of him those discoveries that he pretended to have in reserve. But Mr. Chiswell (at whose house he then lay) being sick, said he could draw nothing of that from him, and he believed he had nothing. He died about a year after.”–BURNET’S _History of the Reformation_ III, vii. [T. S.]]
Come we now to the reasons, which moved his lordship to set about this work at this time. He “could delay it no longer, because the reasons of his engaging in it at first seem to return upon him[17].” He was then frightened with “the danger of a popish successor in view, and the dreadful apprehensions of the power of France. England has forgot these dangers, and yet is nearer to them than ever[18],” and therefore he is resolved to “awaken them” with his third volume; but in the mean time, sends this Introduction to let them know they are asleep. He then goes on in describing the condition of the kingdom[19], after such a manner as if destruction hung over us by a single hair; as if the Pope, the devil, the Pretender, and France, were just at our doors.
[Footnote 17: Page 27.]
[Footnote 18: Page 28.]
[Footnote 19: Page 28.]
When the Bishop published his History, there was a popish plot on foot, the Duke of York a known papist was presumptive heir to the crown, the House of Commons would not hear of any expedient for securing their religion under a popish prince, nor would the King or Lords, consent to a bill of exclusion: The French King was in the height of his grandeur, and the vigour of his age. At this day the presumptive heir, with that whole illustrious family, are Protestants, the Popish Pretender excluded for ever by several acts of Parliament, and every person in the smallest employment, as well as the members in both Houses, obliged to abjure him. The French King is at the lowest ebb of life; his armies have been conquered and his towns won from him for ten years together, and his kingdom is in danger of being torn by divisions during a long minority. Are these cases parallel? Or are we now in more danger of France and popery than we were thirty years ago? What can be the motive for advancing such false, such detestable assertions? What conclusions would his Lordship draw from such premises as these? If injurious appellations were of any advantage to a cause, (as the style of our adversaries would make us believe) what appellations would those deserve who thus endeavour to sow the seeds of sedition, and are impatient to see the fruits? “But,” saith he[20], “the deaf adder stops her ear let the charmer charm never so wisely.” True, my Lord, there are indeed too many adders in this nation’s bosom, adders in all shapes, and in all habits, whom neither the Queen nor parliament can charm to loyalty, truth, religion, or honour.
[Footnote 20: Page 28.] Among other instances produced by him of the dismal condition we are in, he offers one which could not easily be guessed. It is this: That the little factious pamphlets written about the end of King Charles II’s reign, “lie dead in shops, are looked on as waste paper, and turned to pasteboard.” How many are there of his Lordship’s writings which could otherwise never have been of any real service to the public? Has he indeed so mean an opinion of our taste, to send us at this time of day into all the corners of Holborn, Duck Lane, and Moorfields, in quest after the factious trash published in those days by Julian Johnson, Hickeringil, Dr. Oates, and himself[21]?
[Footnote 21: The Rev. Samuel Johnson, degraded from his clerical rank, scourged, and imprisoned, for a work called “Julian’s Arts to undermine Christianity,” in which he drew a parallel between that apostate and James, then Duke of York. [S.]
Edmund Hickeringil, a fanatic preacher at Colchester. He appears, from the various pamphlets which he wrote during the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, to have been a meddling crazy fool. He was born in Essex, 1630, and was educated at Cambridge. He entered the army, and went to Jamaica, of which place he wrote a very curious account. Afterwards he entered holy orders, and became rector of All Saints, Colchester. He was a most eccentric individual. [T. S.]]
His Lordship, taking it for a _postulatum_, that the Queen and ministry, both Houses of Parliament, and a vast majority of the landed gentlemen throughout England are running headlong into Popery, lays hold on the occasion to describe “the cruelties in Queen Mary’s reign, an inquisition setting up faggots in Smithfield, and executions all over the kingdom. Here is that” (says he) “which those that look toward a popish successor must look for.”[22] And he insinuates through his whole pamphlet, that all who are not of his party, “look toward a popish successor.” These he divides into two parts, the Tory laity, and the Tory clergy. He tells the former, though they have no religion at all, but “resolve to change with every wind and tide; yet they ought to have compassion on their countrymen and kindred.”[23] Then he applies himself to the Tory clergy, assures them, that “the fires revived in Smithfield, and all over the nation, will have no amiable view; but least of all to them, who if they have any principle at all, must be turned out of their livings, leave their families, be hunted from place to place into parts beyond the seas, and meet with that contempt with which they treated foreigners who took sanctuary among us.”
[Footnote 22: Page 36.]
[Footnote 23: Page 36.]
This requires a recapitulation, with some remarks. First, I do affirm, that of every hundred professed atheists, deists, and socinians in the kingdom, ninety-nine at least are staunch thorough-paced Whigs, entirely agreeing with his Lordship in politics and discipline; and therefore will venture all the fires of hell, rather than singe one hair of their beards in Smithfield. Secondly, I do likewise affirm, that those whom we usually understand by the appellation of Tory or high-church clergy, were the greatest sticklers against the exorbitant proceedings of King James, the best writers against popery, and the most exemplary sufferers for the established religion. Thirdly, I do pronounce it to be a most false and infamous scandal upon the nation in general, and on the clergy in particular, to reproach them for “treating foreigners with haughtiness and contempt:” The French Huguenots are many thousand witnesses to the contrary; and I wish they deserved a thousandth part of the good treatment they have received.[24]
[Footnote 24: Swift’s disparaging reference to the Huguenots must be put down to the fact that he included them among Dissenters, on account of their Calvinism. [T. S.]]
Lastly, I observe that the author of the paper called _The Englishman_, hath run into the same cant, gravely advising the whole body of the clergy not to bring in Popery, because that will put them under a necessity of parting with their wives, or losing their livings.
The bulk of the kingdom, both clergy and laity, happens to differ extremely from this prelate, in many principles both of politics and religion: Now I ask, whether if any man of them had signed his name to a system of atheism, or Popery, he could have argued with them otherwise than he does? Or, if I should write a grave letter to his Lordship with the same advice, taking it for granted that he was half an atheist, and half a papist, and conjuring him by all he held dear to have compassion upon all those who believed a God, “not to revive the fires in Smithfield,” that he must either forfeit his bishopric, or not marry a fourth wife;[25] I ask whether he would not think I intended him the highest injury and affront?
[Footnote 25: Bishop Burnet had already been married three times. [T. S.]]
But as to the Tory laity; he gives them up in a lump for abandoned atheists: They are a set of men so “impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it [Popery] and perhaps acting such a part in it, as may be assigned them.”[26] He therefore despairs of influencing them by any topics drawn from religion or compassion, and advances the consideration of interest, as the only powerful argument to persuade them against Popery.
[Footnote 26: Page 37.]
What he offers upon this head is so very amazing from a Christian, a clergyman, and a prelate of the Church of England, that I must in my own imagination strip him of those three capacities, and put him among the number of that set of men he mentions in the paragraph before; or else it will be impossible to shape out an answer.
His Lordship, in order to dissuade the Tories from their design of bringing in Popery, tells them, “how valuable a part of the whole soil of England, the abbey lands, the estates of the bishops, of the cathedrals, and the tithes are;”[27] how difficult such “a resumption would be to many families; yet all these must be thrown up; for sacrilege in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin.” I desire it may be observed, what a jumble here is made of ecclesiastical revenues, as if they were all upon the same foot, were alienated with equal justice, and the clergy had no more reason to complain of the one than the other. Whereas the four branches mentioned by him are of very different consideration. If I might venture to guess the opinion of the clergy upon this matter, I believe they could wish that some small part of the abbey lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishoprics, and a very few acres to serve for glebes in those parishes where there are none; after which I think they would not repine that the laity should possess the rest. If the estates of some bishops and cathedrals were exorbitant before the Reformation, I believe the present clergy’s wishes reach no further than that some reasonable temper had been used, instead of paring them to the quick: But as to the tithes, without examining whether they be of divine institution, I conceive there is hardly one of that sacred order in England, and very few even among the laity that love the Church, who will not allow the misapplying of those revenues to secular persons, to have been at first a most flagrant act of injustice and oppression: Though at the same time, God forbid they should be restored any other way than by gradual purchase, by the consent of those who are now the lawful possessors, or by the piety and generosity of such worthy spirits as this nation sometimes produceth. The Bishop knows very well that the application of tithes to the maintenance of monasteries, was a scandalous usurpation even in popish times: That the monks usually sent out some of their fraternity to supply the cures; and that when the monasteries were granted away by Henry VIII., the parishes were left destituted, or very meanly provided of any maintenance for a pastor: So that in many places, the whole ecclesiastical dues, even to mortuaries, Easter-offerings, and the like, are in lay hands, and the incumbent lies wholly at the mercy of his patron for his daily bread. By these means there are several hundred parishes in England under L20 a year, and many under ten. I take his Lordship’s bishopric to be worth near L2,500 annual income; and I will engage at half a year’s warning to find him above 200 beneficed clergymen who have not so much among them all to support themselves and their families; most of them orthodox, of good life and conversation, as loth to see the fires kindled in Smithfield, as his Lordship, and at least as ready to face them under a popish persecution. But nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want. How can the neighbouring vicar feel cold or hunger, while my Lord is seated by a good fire in the warmest room in his palace, with a dozen dishes before him? I remember one other prelate much of the same stamp; who when his clergy would mention their wishes that some act of parliament might be thought of for the good of the Church, would say, “Gentlemen, _we_ are very well as _we_ are; if they would let _us_ alone, _we_ should ask no more.”[28]
[Footnote 27: Page 38.]
[Footnote 28: Scott, in a note, thinks this reflection on Burnet to be unjust, because of that prelate’s zeal “in forwarding a scheme in 1704 for Improving the livings of the poorer clergy.” [T. S.]]
“Sacrilege” (says my Lord) “in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin;”[29] and is it only so in the church of Rome? Or is it but a venial sin in the Church of England? Our litany calls fornication a deadly sin; and I would appeal to his Lordship for fifty years past, whether he thought that or sacrilege the deadliest? To make light of such a sin, at the same moment that he is frighting us from an idolatrous religion, should seem not very consistent. “_Thou_ that sayest, a man should not commit adultery, dost _thou_ commit adultery? _Thou_ that abhorrest idols, dost _thou_ commit sacrilege?”
[Footnote 29: Page 38.]
To smooth the way for the return of Popery in Queen Mary’s time, the grantees were confirmed by the Pope in the possession of the abbey lands. But the Bishop tells us, that “this confirmation was fraudulent and invalid” I shall believe it to be so, though I happen to read in his Lordship’s history: But he adds, that although the confirmation had been good, the priests would have got their land again by these two methods; “first,[30] the Statute of Mortmain was repealed for 20 years, in which time no doubt they reckoned they would recover the best part of what they had lost; besides that, engaging the clergy to renew no leases, was a thing entirely in their own power, and this in forty years time would raise their revenues to be about ten times their present value.” These two expedients for increasing the revenues of the Church, he represents as pernicious designs, fit only to be practised in times of Popery, and such as the laity ought never to consent to: Whence, and from what he said before about tithes, his Lordship has freely declared his opinion, that the clergy are rich enough, and that the least addition to their subsistence would be a step toward Popery. Now it happens, that the two only methods, which could be thought on, with any probability of success, toward some reasonable augmentation of ecclesiastical revenues, are here rejected by a Bishop, as a means for introducing Popery, and the nation publicly warned against them. The continuance of the Statute of Mortmain in full force, after the Church had been so terribly stripped, appeared to Her Majesty and the kingdom a very unnecessary hardship; upon which account it was at several times relaxed by the legislature. Now as the relaxation of that statute is manifestly one of the reasons which gives the Bishop those terrible apprehensions of Popery coming on us; so I conceive another ground of his fears, is the remission of the first-fruits and tenths. But where the inclination to Popery lay, whether in Her Majesty who proposed this benefaction, the parliament which confirmed, or the clergy who accepted it, his Lordship hath not thought fit to determine.
[Footnote 30: Page 39.]
The other popish expedient for augmenting church-revenues, is “engaging the clergy to renew no leases.”[31] Several of the most eminent clergymen have assured me, that nothing has been more wished for by good men, than a law to prevent (at least) bishops from setting leases for lives. I could name ten bishoprics in England whose revenues one with another do not amount to L600 a-year for each; and if his lordship’s, for instance, would be above ten times the value when the lives are expired, I should think the overplus would not be ill disposed toward an augmentation of such as are now shamefully poor. But I do assert, that such an expedient was not always thought popish and dangerous by this right reverend historian. I have had the honour formerly to converse with him; and he has told me several years ago, that he lamented extremely the power which bishops had of letting leases for lives, whereby, as he said, they were utterly deprived of raising their revenues, whatever alterations might happen in the value of money by length of time: I think the reproach of betraying private conversation will not upon this account be laid to my charge. Neither do I believe he would have changed his opinion upon any score, but to take up another, more agreeable to the maxims of his party; that “the least addition of property to the Church, is one step toward Popery.”
[Footnote 31: Page 39.]
The Bishop goes on with much earnestness and prolixity to prove that the Pope’s confirmation of the church lands to those who held them by King Henry’s donation, was null and fraudulent: Which is a point that I believe no Protestant in England would give threepence to have his choice whether it should be true or false: It might indeed serve as a passage in his history, among a thousand other instances, to detect the knavery of the court of Rome; but I ask, where could be the use of it in this Introduction? Or why all this haste in publishing it at this juncture; and so out of all method apart, and before the work itself? He gives his reasons in very plain terms; we are now, it seems, “in more danger of Popery than toward the end of King Charles II.’s reign. That set of men (the Tories) is so impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it, and perhaps from acting such a part in it as may be assigned them.”[32] He doubts whether the High-Church clergy have any principles, and therefore will be ready to turn off their wives, and look on the fires kindled in Smithfield as an amiable view. These are the facts he all along takes for granted, and argues accordingly; therefore, in despair of dissuading the nobility and gentry of the land from introducing Popery by any motives of honour, religion, alliance or mercy, he assures them, that “the Pope has not duly confirmed their titles to the church lands in their possession,” which therefore must infallibly be restored, as soon as that religion is established among us.
[Footnote 32: Page 37.]
Thus, in his Lordship’s opinion, there is nothing wanting to make the majority of the kingdom, both for number, quality and possession, immediately embrace Popery, except a “firm bull from the Pope,” to secure the abbey and other church lands and tithes to the present proprietors and their heirs; if this only difficulty could now be adjusted, the Pretender would be restored next session, the two Houses reconciled to the church of Rome against Easter term, and the fires lighted in Smithfield by Midsummer. Such horrible calumnies against a nation are not the less injurious to decency, good-nature, truth, honour, and religion, because they may be vented with safety. And I will appeal to any reader of common understanding, whether this be not the most natural and necessary deduction from the passages I have cited and referred to.
Yet all this is but friendly dealing, in comparison with what he affords the clergy upon the same article. He supposes[33] all that reverend body, who differ from him in principles of church or state, so far from disliking Popery, upon the above-mentioned motives of perjury, “quitting their wives, or burning their relations;” that the hopes of “enjoying the abbey lands” would soon bear down all such considerations, and be an effectual incitement to their perversion; and so he goes gravely on, as with the only argument which he thinks can have any force, to assure them, that “the parochial priests in Roman Catholic countries are much poorer than in ours, the several orders of regulars, and the magnificence of their church, devouring all their treasure,” and by consequence “their hopes are vain of expecting to be richer after the introduction of Popery.”
[Footnote 33: Page 46.]
But after all, his Lordship despairs, that even this argument will have any force with our abominable clergy, because, to use his own words, “They are an insensible and degenerate race, who are thinking of nothing but their present advantages; and so that they may now support a luxurious and brutal course of irregular and voluptuous practices, they are easily hired to betray their religion, to sell their country, and give up that liberty and those properties, which are the present felicities and glories of this nation.”[34] He seems to reckon all these evils as matters fully determined on, and therefore falls into the last usual form of despair, by threatening the authors of these miseries with “lasting infamy, and the curses of posterity upon perfidious betrayers of their trust.”[35]
[Footnote 34: Page 47.]
[Footnote 35: Page 47.]
Let me turn this paragraph into vulgar language for the use of the poor, and strictly adhere to the sense of the words. I believe it may be faithfully translated in the following manner: “The bulk of the clergy, and one-third of the bishops, are stupid sons of whores, who think of nothing but getting money as soon as they can: If they may but produce enough to supply them in gluttony, drunkenness, and whoring, they are ready to turn traitors to God and their country, and make their fellow-subjects slaves.” The rest of the period, about threatening “infamy,” and “the curses of posterity upon such dogs and villains,” may stand as it does in the Bishop’s own phrase, and so make the paragraph all of a piece.
I will engage, on the other side, to paraphrase all the rogues and rascals in the _Englishman_, so as to bring them up exactly to his Lordship’s style: But, for my own part, I much prefer the plain Billingsgate way of calling names, because it expresses our meaning full as well, and would save abundance of time which is lost by circumlocution; so, for instance, John Dunton,[36] who is retained on the same side with the Bishop, calls my Lord-treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke, traitors, whoremasters, and Jacobites, which three words cost our right reverend author thrice as many lines to define them; and I hope his Lordship does not think there is any difference in point of morality, whether a man calls me traitor in one word, or says I am one “hired to betray my religion and sell my country.”[37]
[Footnote 36: See note on p. 50 of vol. i. of this edition of Swift’s works. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 37: Page 51.]
I am not surprised to see the Bishop mention with contempt all Convocations of the Clergy;[38] for Toland, Collins, Tindal,[39] and others of the fraternity, talk the very same language. His Lordship confesses he “is not” inclined “to expect much from the assemblies of clergymen.” There lies the misfortune; for if he and some more of his order would correct their “inclinations,” a great deal of good might be expected from such assemblies, as much as they are now cramped by that submission, which a corrupt clergy brought upon their innocent successors. He will not deny that his copiousness in these matters is, in his own opinion, one of the meanest parts of his new work. I will agree with him, unless he happens to be more “copious” in any thing else. However, it is not easy to conceive why he should be so “copious” upon a subject he so much despises, unless it were to gratify his talent of railing at the clergy, in the number of whom he disdains to be reckoned, because he is a Bishop. For it is a style I observe some prelates have fallen into of late years, to talk of clergymen as if themselves were not of the number: You will read in many of their speeches at Dr. Sacheverel’s[40] trial, expressions to this or the like effect: “My lords, if clergymen be suffered,” &c. wherein they seem to have reason; and I am pretty confident, that a great majority of the clergy were heartily inclined to disown any relation they had to the managers in lawn. However, it was a confounding argument against Presbytery, that those who are most suspected to lean that way, treating their inferior brethren with haughtiness, rigour, and contempt: Although, to say the truth, nothing better could be hoped for; because, I believe, it may pass for a universal rule, that in every diocese governed by bishops of the Whig species, the clergy (especially the poorer sort) are under double discipline, and the laity left to themselves. The opinion of Sir Thomas More, which he produces to prove the ill consequences or insignificancy of Convocations, advances no such thing, but says, “if the clergy assembled often, and might act as other assemblies of clergy in Christendom, much good might have come: but the misfortune lay in their long disuse, and that in his own and a good part of his father’s time, they never came together, except at the command of the prince.”[41]
[Footnote 38: Page 47.]
[Footnote 39: See note, p. 9. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 40: Henry Sacheverell, D.D., was educated at Marlborough and Oxford. At Magdalen College he was a fellow-student with Addison, and obtained there his fellowship and doctor’s degree. In 1709 he preached two sermons, one at the Derby Assizes, and the other at St. Paul’s, in which he urged the imminent danger of the Church. For these sermons, which the parliament considered highly inflammatory, he was, by the House of Commons, at the instigation of Godolphin, impeached, and tried before the Lords in 1710. He was found guilty of a misdemeanour, and was suspended from preaching for three years. The trial made a great stir at the time, and served but to increase the popularity of a man who, had he been let alone, would, probably, never have been heard of. He died in 1724, holding the living of St. Andrew, Holborn, to which he was presented after the expiration of his sentence. [T.S.]]
[Footnote 41: See Sir Thomas More’s “Apology,” 1533, p. 241.]
I suppose his lordship thinks, there is some original impediment in the study of divinity, or secret incapacity in a gown and cassock without lawn, which disqualifies all inferior clergymen from debating upon subjects of doctrine or discipline in the church. It is a famous saying of his, that “he looks upon every layman to be an honest man, until he is by experience convinced to the contrary; and on every clergyman as a knave, till he finds him to be an honest man.” What opinion then must we have of a Lower House of Convocation:[42] where I am confident he will hardly find three persons that ever convinced him of their honesty, or will ever be at the pains to do it? Nay, I am afraid they would think such a conviction might be no very advantageous bargain, to gain the character of an honest man with his Lordship, and lose it with the rest of the world.
[Footnote 42: It must not be forgotten, that, during the reign of Queen Anne, the body of the clergy were high-church men; but the bishops, who had chiefly been promoted since the Revolution, were Whiggish in politics, and moderate in their sentiments of church government. Hence the Upper and Lower Houses of Convocation rarely agreed in sentiment on affairs of church or state. [T. S.]]
In the famous Concordate that was made between Francis I. of France and Pope Leo X., the Bishop tells us, that “the king and pope came to a bargain, by which they divided the liberties of the Gallican Church between them, and indeed quite enslaved it.”[43] He intends, in the third part of his History which he is going to publish, “to open this whole matter to the world.” In the mean time, he mentions some ill consequences to the Gallican Church from that Concordate, which are worthy to be observed; “The church of France became a slave, and this change in their constitution put an end not only to national, but even to provincial synods in that kingdom. The assemblies of the clergy there, meet now only to give subsidies,” &c. and he says, “our nation may see by that proceeding, what it is to deliver up the essential liberties of a free constitution to a court.” [44]
[Footnote 43: Page 53.]
[Footnote 44: Page 53.]
All I can gather from this matter is, that our King Henry made a better bargain than his contemporary Francis, who divided the liberties of the church between himself and the Pope, while the King of England seized them all to himself. But how comes he to number the want of synods in the Gallican church among the grievances of that Concordate, and as a mark of their slavery, since he reckons all Convocations of the Clergy in England to be useless and dangerous? Or what difference in point of liberty was there between the Gallican Church under Francis, and the English under Harry? For, the latter was as much a papist as the former, unless in the point of obedience to the see of Rome; and in every quality of a good man, or a good prince, (except personal courage wherein both were equal) the French monarch had the advantage by as many degrees as is possible for one man to have over another.
Henry VIII. had no manner of intention to change religion in his kingdom; he still continued to persecute and burn Protestants after he had cast off the Pope’s supremacy, and I suppose this seizure of ecclesiastical revenues (which Francis never attempted) cannot be reckoned as a mark of the church’s liberty. By the quotation the Bishop sets down to show the slavery of the French church, he represents it as a grievance, that “bishops are not now elected there as formerly, but wholly appointed by the prince; and that those made by the court have been ordinarily the chief advancers of schisms, heresies, and oppressions of the church.” [45] He cites another passage from a Greek writer, and plainly insinuates, that it is justly applicable to Her Majesty’s reign: “Princes choose such men to that charge [of a bishop] who may be their slaves, and in all things obsequious to what they prescribe; and may lie at their feet, and have not so much as a thought contrary to their commands.” [46]
[Footnote 45: Page 55.]
[Footnote 46: Page 55.]
These are very singular passages for his Lordship to set down in order to show the dismal consequences of the French Concordate, by the slavery of the Gallican Church, compared with the freedom of ours. I shall not enter into a long dispute, whether it were better for religion that bishops should be chosen by the clergy, or people, or both together: I believe our author would give his vote for the second (which however would not have been of much advantage to himself, and some others that I could name). But I ask, Whether bishops are any more elected in England than in France? And the want of synods are in his own opinion rather a blessing than a grievance, unless he will affirm that more good can be expected from a popish synod than an English Convocation. Did the French clergy ever receive a greater blow to their liberties, than the submission made to Henry VIII., or so great a one as the seizure of their lands? The Reformation owed nothing to the good intentions of K. Henry: He was only an instrument of it, (as the logicians speak) by accident; nor doth he appear through his whole reign to have had any other views than those of gratifying his insatiable love of power, cruelty, oppression, and other irregular appetites. But this kingdom as well as many other parts of Europe, was, at that time, generally weary of the corruptions and impositions of the Roman court and church, and disposed to receive those doctrines which Luther and his followers had universally spread. Cranmer the archbishop, Cromwell, and others of the court, did secretly embrace the Reformation; and the King’s abrogating the Pope’s supremacy, made the people in general run into the new doctrines with greater freedom, because they hoped to be supported in it by the authority and example of their prince, who disappointed them so far that he made no other step than rejecting the Pope’s supremacy as a clog upon his own power and passions, but retained every corruption beside, and became a cruel persecutor, as well of those who denied his own supremacy, as of all others who professed any Protestant doctrine. Neither hath any thing disgusted me more in reading the histories of those times, than to see one of the worst princes of any age or country, celebrated as an instrument in that glorious work of the Reformation.
The Bishop having gone over all the matters that properly fall within his Introduction, proceeds to expostulate with several sorts of people;[47] First with Protestants who are no Christians, such as atheists, deists, freethinkers, and the like enemies to Christianity. But these he treats with the tenderness of a friend, because they are all of them of sound Whig principles in church and state. However, to do him justice, he lightly touches some old topics for the truth of the Gospel; and concludes by wishing that the freethinkers would consider well, if (_Anglice,_ whether) they think it possible to bring a nation to be without any religion at all, and what the consequences of that may prove; [48] and in case they allow the negative, he gives it clearly for Christianity.
[Footnote 47: Page 56.]
[Footnote 48: Page 59.]
Secondly, he applies himself (if I take his meaning right) to Christian papists “who have a taste of liberty,” and desires them to “compare the absurdities of their own religion with the reasonableness of the reformed:” [49] Against which, as good luck would have it, I have nothing to object.
[Footnote 49: Page 59.]
Thirdly, he is somewhat rough against his own party, “who having tasted the sweets of Protestant liberty, can look back so tamely on Popery coming on them; it looks as if they were bewitched, or that the devil were in them, to be so negligent. It is not enough that they resolve not to turn papists themselves: They ought to awaken all about them, even the most ignorant and stupid, to apprehend their danger, and to exert themselves with their utmost industry to guard against it, and to resist it. If after all their endeavours to prevent it, the corruption of the age, and the art and power of our enemies, prove too hard for us, then, and not until then, we must submit to the will of God, and be silent, and prepare ourselves for all the extremity of suffering and of misery:”[50] with a great deal more of the same strain.
[Footnote 50: Pages 60, 61.]
With due submission to the profound sagacity of this prelate, who can smell Popery at 500 miles distance, better than fanaticism just under his nose; I take leave to tell him, that this reproof to his friends, for want of zeal and clamour against Popery, slavery, and the Pretender, is what they have not deserved. Are the pamphlets and papers, daily published by the sublime authors of his party full of any thing else? Are not the Queen, the ministers, the majority of Lords and Commons, loudly taxed in print with this charge against them at full length? Is it not the perpetual echo of every Whig coffeehouse and club? Have they not quartered Popery and the Pretender upon the peace, and treaty of commerce; upon the possessing, and quieting, and keeping, and demolishing of Dunkirk? Have they not clamoured because the Pretender continued in France, and because he left it? Have they not reported, that the town swarmed with many thousand papists, when upon search there were never found so few of that religion in it before? If a clergyman preaches obedience to the higher powers, is he not immediately traduced as a papist? Can mortal man do more? To deal plainly, my Lord, your friends are not strong enough yet to make an insurrection, and it is unreasonable to expect it from them, until their neighbours are ready.
My Lord, I have a little seriousness at heart upon this point, where your Lordship affects to show so much. When you can prove, that one single word has ever dropped from any minister of state, in public or private, in favour of the Pretender, or his cause; when you can make it appear, that in the course of this administration, since the Queen thought fit to change her servants, there hath one step been made toward weakening the Hanover title, or giving the least countenance to any other whatsoever; then, and not until then, go dry your chaff and stubble, give fire to the zeal of your faction, and reproach them with lukewarmness.
Fourthly, the Bishop applies himself to the Tories in general. Taking it for granted, after his charitable manner, that they are all ready prepared to introduce Popery, he puts an excuse into their mouths, by which they would endeavour to justify their change of religion. That “Popery is not what it was before the Reformation: Things are now much mended; and further corrections might be expected, if we would enter into a treaty with them: In particular, they see the error of proceeding severely with heretics; so that there is no reason to apprehend the returns of such cruelties as were practised an age and a half ago.”[51]
[Footnote 51: Page 62.]
This, he assures us, is a plea offered by the Tories in defence of themselves, for going about at this juncture to establish the Popish religion among us: What argument does he bring to prove the fact itself?
“Quibus indiciis, quo teste, probavit? Nil horum: verbosa et grandis epistola venit” [52]
[Footnote 52: Juvenal, “Sat.” x. 70-71. [T. S.]]
Nothing but this tedious Introduction, wherein he supposes it all along as a thing granted. That there might be a perfect union in the whole Christian Church, is a blessing which every good man wishes, but no reasonable man can hope. That the more polite Roman Catholics have in several places given up some of their superstitious fopperies, particularly concerning legends, relics, and the like, is what nobody denies. But the material points in difference between us and them are universally retained and asserted, in all their controversial writings. And if his Lordship really thinks that every man who differs from him, under the name of a Tory in some church and state opinions, is ready to believe transubstantiation, purgatory, the infallibility of pope or councils, to worship saints and angels, and the like; I can only pray God to enlighten his understanding, or graft in his heart the first principles of charity; a virtue which some people ought not by any means wholly to renounce, “because it covers a multitude of sins.”
Fifthly, the Bishop applies himself to his own party in both Houses of Parliament, whom he exhorts to “guard their religion and liberty against all danger at what distance soever it may appear. If they are absent and remiss on critical occasions,” that is to say, if they do not attend close next sessions, to vote upon all occasions whatsoever against the proceedings of the Queen and Her Ministry; “or, if any views of advantage to themselves prevail on them.” [53] In other words, if any of them vote for the Bill of Commerce, in hopes of a place or a pension, a title, or a garter; “God may work a deliverance for us another way.” That is to say, by inviting the Dutch. “But they and their families,” (id est) those who are negligent or revolters, “shall perish.” By which is meant; they shall be hanged as well as the present ministry and their abettors, as soon as we recover our power. “Because they let in idolatry, superstition, and tyranny.” Because they stood by and suffered the peace to be made, the Bill of Commerce to pass, and Dunkirk to lie undemolished longer than we expected, without raising a rebellion.
[Footnote 53: Pages 67, 68.]
His last application is to the Tory clergy, a parcel of “blind, ignorant, dumb, sleeping, greedy, drunken dogs.”[54] A pretty artful episcopal method is this, of calling his brethren as many injurious names as he pleases. It is but quoting a text of Scripture, where the characters of evil men are described, and the thing is done; and at the same time the appearances of piety and devotion preserved. I would engage, with the help of a good Concordance, and the liberty of perverting Holy Writ, to find out as many injurious appellations, as the _Englishman_ throws out in any of his politic papers, and apply them to those persons “who call good evil, and evil good;” to those who cry without cause, “Every man to his tent, O Israel! and to those who curse the Queen in their hearts!”
[Footnote 54: This is the bishop’s reference to the Tory clergy: “But, in the last place, Those who are appointed to be the watchmen, who ought to give warning, and to lift up their voice as a trumpet, when they see those wolves ready to break in and devour the flock, have the heaviest account of all others to make, if they neglect their duty; much more if they betray their trust. If they are so set on some smaller matters, and are so sharpened upon that account, that they will not see their danger, nor awaken others to see it, and to fly from it; the guilt of those souls who have perished by their means, God will require at their hands. If they, in the view of any advantage to themselves, are silent when they ought to cry out day and night, they will fall under the character given by the prophet, of the watchmen in his time: ‘They are blind, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark, sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber: Yea, they are greedy dogs, which can never have enough. And they are shepherds that cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quarter; that say, come, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.'”–BURNET’S _History of the Reformation_, vol. iii. p. xxii. [T. S.]]
These decent words he tells us, make up a “lively description of such pastors, as will not study controversy, nor know the depths of Satan.” He means I suppose, the controversy between us and the papists; for as to the freethinkers and dissenters of every denomination, they are some of the best friends to the cause. Now I have been told, there is a body of that kind of controversy published by the London divines, which is not to be matched in the world. I believe likewise, there is a good number of the clergy at present, thoroughly versed in that study; after which I cannot but give my judgment, that it would be a very idle thing for pastors in general to busy themselves much in disputes against Popery. It being a dry heavy employment of the mind at best, especially when, God be thanked, there is so little occasion for it, in the generality of parishes throughout the kingdom, and must be daily less and less by the just severity of the laws, and the utter aversion of our people from that idolatrous superstition.
If I might be so bold as to name those who have the honour to be of his Lordship’s party, I would venture to tell him, that pastors have much more occasion to study controversies against the several classes of freethinkers and dissenters; the former (I beg his Lordship’s pardon for saying so) being a little worse than papists, and both of them more dangerous at present to our constitution both in church and state. Not that I think Presbytery so corrupt a system of Christian religion as Popery; I believe it is not above one-third as bad: but I think the Presbyterians, and their clans of other fanatics of freethinkers and atheists that dangle after them, are as well inclined to pull down the present establishment of monarchy and religion, as any set of Papists in Christendom, and therefore that our danger as things now stand, is infinitely greater from our Protestant enemies; because they are much more able to ruin us, and full as willing. There is no doubt, but Presbytery, and a commonwealth, are less formidable evils than Popery, slavery, and the Pretender; for if the fanatics were in power, I should be in more apprehension of being starved than burned. But there are probably in England forty dissenters of all kinds, including their brethren the freethinkers, for one papist; and, allowing one papist to be as terrible as three dissenters, it will appear by arithmetic, that we are thirteen times and one-third more in danger of being ruined by the latter than the former.
The other qualification necessary for all pastors, if they will not be “blind, ignorant, greedy, drunken dogs,” &c., is, “to know the depths of Satan.” This is harder than the former; that a poor gentleman ought not to be parson, vicar, or curate of a parish, except he be cunninger than the devil. I am afraid it will be difficult to remedy this defect for one manifest reason, because whoever had only half the cunning of the devil, would never take up with a vicarage of L10 a-year, “to live on at his ease,” as my Lord expresseth it; but seek out for some better livelihood. His Lordship is of a nation very much distinguished for that quality of cunning (though they have a great many better) and I think he was never accused for wanting his share. However upon a trial of skill I would venture to lay six to four on the devil’s side, who must be allowed to be at least the older practitioner. Telling truth shames him, and resistance makes him fly: But to attempt outwitting him, is to fight him at his own weapon, and consequently no cunning at all. Another thing I would observe is, that a man may be “in the depths of Satan,” without knowing them all, and such a man may be so far in Satan’s depths as to be out of his own. One of the depths of Satan, is to counterfeit an angel of light. Another, I believe, is, to stir up the people against their governors, by false suggestions of danger. A third is to be a prompter to false brethren, and to send wolves about in sheep’s clothing. Sometimes he sends Jesuits about England in the habit and cant of fanatics, at other times he has fanatic missionaries in the habits of —-. I shall mention but one more of Satan’s depths, for I confess I know not the hundredth part of them; and that is, to employ his emissaries in crying out against remote imaginary dangers, by which we may be taken off from defending ourselves against those which are real and just at our elbows.
But his Lordship draws towards a conclusion, and bids us “look about, to consider the danger we are in, before it is too late;” for he assures us, we are already “going into some of the worst parts of popery;”[55] like the man who was so much in haste for his new coat, that he put it on the wrong side out. “Auricular confession, priestly absolution, and the sacrifice of the mass,” have made great progress in England, and nobody has observed it: several other popish points “are carried higher with us than by the papists themselves.”[56] And somebody, it seems, “had the impudence to propose a union with the Gallican church.”[57] I have indeed heard that Mr. Lesley[58] published a discourse to that purpose, which I have never seen; nor do I perceive the evil in proposing an union between any two churches in Christendom. Without doubt Mr. Lesley is most unhappily misled in his politics; but if he be the author of the late tract against Popery[59], he has given the world such a proof of his soundness in religion, as many a bishop ought to be proud of. I never saw the gentleman in my life: I know he is the son of a great and excellent prelate, who upon several accounts was one of the most extraordinary men of his age. Mr. Lesley has written many useful discourses upon several subjects, and hath so well deserved of the Christian religion, and the Church of England in particular, that to accuse him of “impudence for proposing an union” in two very different faiths, is a style which I hope few will imitate. I detest Mr. Lesley’s political principles as much as his Lordship can do for his heart; but I verily believe he acts from a mistaken conscience, and therefore I distinguish between the principles and the person. However, it is some mortification to me, when I see an avowed nonjuror contribute more to the confounding of Popery, than could ever be done by a hundred thousand such Introductions as this.
[Footnote 55: Page 70.]
[Footnote 56: Page 70.]
[Footnote 57: Swift here disowns a charge loudly urged by the Whigs of the time against the high churchmen. There were, however, strong symptoms of a nearer approach on their part to the church of Rome. Hickes, the head of the Jacobite writers, had insinuated, that there was a proper sacrifice in the Eucharist; Brett had published a Sermon on the “Doctrine of Priestly Absolution as essential to Salvation;” Dodwell had written against Lay-Baptism, and his doctrine at once excluded all the dissenters (whose teachers are held as lay-men) from the pale of Christianity; and, upon the whole, there was a general disposition among the clergy to censure, if not the Reformation itself, at least the mode in which it was carried on. [S.]]
[Footnote 58: Charles Lesley, or Leslie, the celebrated nonjuror. He published a Jacobite paper, called the “Rehearsal,” and was a strenuous assertor of divine right; but he was also so steady a Protestant, that he went to Bar-le-Duc to convert the Chevalier de St George from the errors of Rome. [S.] See note on p. 63. [T. S.]]
[Footnote 59: “The Case stated between the Church of Rome and the Church of England,” 1713.]
His Lordship ends with discovering a small ray of comfort. “God be thanked there are many among us that stand upon the watch-tower, and that give faithful warning; that stand in the breach, and make themselves a wall for their church and country; that cry to God day and night, and lie in the dust mourning before him, to avert those judgments that seem to hasten towards us. They search into the mystery of iniquity that is working among us, and acquaint themselves with that mass of corruption that is in popery.”[60] He prays “that the number of these may increase, and that he may be of that number, ready either to die in peace, or to seal that doctrine he has been preaching above fifty years, with his blood.”[61] This being his last paragraph, I have made bold to transcribe the most important parts of it. His design is to end after the manner of orators, with leaving the strongest impression possible upon the minds of his hearers. A great breach is made; “the mystery of popish iniquity is working among us;” may God avert those “judgments that are hastening towards us!” I am an old man, “a preacher above fifty years,” and I now expect and am ready to die a martyr for the doctrines I have preached. What an amiable idea does he here leave upon our minds, of Her Majesty and her government! He has been poring so long upon Fox’s Book of Martyrs, that he imagines himself living in the reign of Queen Mary, and is resolved to set up for a knight-errant against Popery. Upon the supposition of his being in earnest, (which I am sure he is not) it would require but a very little more heat of imagination, to make a history of such a knight’s adventures. What would he say, to behold the “fires kindled in Smithfield, and all over the town,” on the 17th of November; to behold the Pope borne in triumph on the shoulders of the people, with a cardinal on the one side, and the Pretender on the other? He would never believe it was Queen Elizabeth’s day, but that of her persecuting sister: In short, how easily might a windmill be taken for the whore of Babylon, and a puppet-show for a popish procession?
[Footnote 60: Page 71]
[Footnote 61: Page 72]
But enthusiasm is none of his Lordship’s faculty: I am inclined to believe he might be melancholy enough when he writ this Introduction: The despair at his age of seeing a faction restored, to which he hath sacrificed so great a part of his life: The little success he can hope for in case he should resume those High-Church Principles, in defence of which he first employed his pen: No visible expectation of removing to Farnham or Lambeth: And lastly, the misfortune of being hated by every one, who either wears the habit, or values the profession of a clergyman: No wonder such a spirit, in such a situation, is provoked beyond the regards of truth, decency, religion, or self-conviction. To do him justice, he seems to have nothing else left, but to cry out, halters, gibbets, faggots, inquisition, Popery, slavery, and the Pretender. But in the meantime, he little considers what a world of mischief he does to his cause. It is very convenient, for the present designs of that faction, to spread the opinion of our immediate danger from Popery and the Pretender. His directors therefore ought, in my humble opinion, to have employed his Lordship in publishing a book, wherein he should have asserted, by the most solemn asseverations, that all things were safe and well; for the world has contracted so strong a habit of believing him backwards, that I am confident, nine parts in ten of those who have read or heard of his Introduction, have slept in greater security ever since. It is like the melancholy tone of a watchman at midnight, who thumps with his pole, as if some thief were breaking in, but you know by the noise, that the door is fast.
However, he “thanks God there are many among us who stand in the breach:” I believe they may; ’tis a breach of their own making, and they design to come forward, and storm and plunder, if they be not driven back. “They make themselves a wall for their church and country.” A south wall, I suppose, for all the best fruit of the church and country to be nailed on. Let us examine this metaphor: The wall of our church and country is built of those who love the constitution in both: Our domestic enemies undermine some parts of the wall, and place themselves in the breach; and then they cry, “We are the wall!” We do not like such patchwork, they build with untempered mortar; nor can they ever cement with us, till they get better materials and better workmen: God keep us from having our breaches made up with such rubbish! “They stand upon the watch-tower;” they are indeed pragmatical enough to do so; but who assigned them that post, to give us false intelligence, to alarm us with false dangers, and send us to defend one gate, while their accomplices are breaking in at another? “They cry to God, day and night to avert the judgment of Popery which seems to hasten towards us.” Then I affirm, they are hypocrites by day, and filthy dreamers by night. When they cry unto him, he will not hear them: For they cry against the plainest dictates of their own conscience, reason, and belief.
But lastly, “They lie in the dust, mourning before him.” Hang me if I believe that, unless it be figuratively spoken. But suppose it to be true; why do “they lie in the dust?” Because they love to raise it: For what do “they mourn?” Why, for power, wealth, and places. There let the enemies of the Queen, and monarchy, and the church, lie, and mourn, and lick the dust, like serpents, till they are truly sensible of their ingratitude, falsehood, disobedience, slander, blasphemy, sedition, and every evil work!
I cannot find in my heart to conclude without offering his Lordship a little humble advice upon some certain points.
First, I would advise him, if it be not too late in his life, to endeavour a little at mending his style, which is mighty defective in the circumstances of grammar, propriety, politeness, and smoothness;[62] I fancied at first, it might be owing to the prevalence of his passion, as people sputter out nonsense for haste when they are in a rage. And indeed I believe this piece before me has received some additional imperfections from that occasion. But whoever has heard his sermons, or read his other tracts, will find him very unhappy in his choice and disposition of his words, and, for want of variety, repeating them, especially the particles, in a manner very grating to an English ear. But I confine myself to this Introduction, as his last work, where endeavouring at rhetorical flowers, he gives us only bunches of thistles; of which I could present the reader with a plentiful crop; but I refer him to every page and line of the pamphlet itself.
[Footnote 62: In Swift’s notes on Burnet’s “History of his Own Times,” he points out many instances of the deficiency here stated. [S.]]
Secondly, I would most humbly advise his Lordship to examine a little into the nature of truth, and sometimes to hear what she says. I shall produce two instances among a hundred. When he asserts that we are “now in more danger of Popery than toward the end of King Charles II.’s reign,” and gives the broadest hints, that the Queen, the ministry, the parliament, and the clergy, are just going to introduce it; I desire to know, whether he really thinks truth is of his side, or whether he be not sure she is against him? If the latter, then truth and he will be found in two different stories; and which are we to believe? Again, when he gravely advises the clergy and laity of the Tory side, not to “light the fires in Smithfield,” and goes on in twenty places already quoted, as if the bargain was made for Popery and slavery to enter: I ask again, whether he has rightly considered the nature of truth? I desire to put a parallel case. Suppose his Lordship should take it into his fancy to write and publish a letter to any gentleman of no infamous character for his religion or morals; and there advise him with great earnestness, not to rob or fire churches, ravish his daughter, or murder his father; show him the sin and the danger of these enormities, that if he flattered himself, he could escape in disguise, or bribe his jury, he was grievously mistaken: That he must in all probability forfeit his goods and chattels, die an ignominious death, and be cursed by posterity;