REASON, the guide of life, the support of religion, the investigator of truth, must be still used though it be continually subject to abuse; therefore RIDICULE, the paltry buffoon of reason, must have the same indulgence! Because a king must be intrusted with government, though he may misuse his power; therefore the king's fool shall be suffered to play the madman! But upon what footing standeth this extraordinary claim? Why, we have a natural sense of the ridiculous; and the ridiculous has a natural feeling of the incongruous; and then-who can forbear laughing? If to this, you add taste, beauty, deformity, moral sense, moral rectitude, moral falsehood, you have then, I think, the whole theory of the ridiculous. But I can tell him of a plain English proverb worth all his modish ideas of beauty and virtue put together, and that is, TO BE MERRY AND WISE. Which concerns him nearer than one may think. For who would imagine, that, while he was supporting ridicule from the charge of abuse, he should be supplying his adversary with a fresh and flagrant exception to his own plea? Not indeed, that the comment disgraced the text; or that there was much incongruity in pleading for a fault he had just then committed. But so it is, kind reader, that, where he is marshalling the several classes of folly in human life, he places the whole body of the Christian Clergy in the first and foremost: amongst those, who, he tells us, assume some desirable quality or possession which evidently does not belong to them*. 66 66 Others, of graver mien, behold; adorn'd "With holy ensigns, how sublime they move, And, bending oft their sanctimonious eyes, "Take homage of the simple-minded throng, "AMBASSADORS of Heavent." And well do they deserve his moral ridicule, supposing them to be drawn like. For, if I understand any thing of his colouring, the features are, pride, hypocrisy, fraud, and imposture. I call it an insult on the whole body of the Clergy, because I know of no part of them who hold that the ministry of the Gospel (or, as St. Paul calls it, † P. 96. * P. 49. of of reconciliation) was given them by the religion of Christ, but hold likewise, with the same Apostle (who speaks of himself here as a simple minister of the Gospel) that they are AMBASSADORS for Christ*.-But let it go like what it is, a poor pitiful joke of his master's, and spoil'd too in the telling. The dulness of the ridicule will sufficiently atone for the abuse of it. And I may find time to call the great man of taste himself to account, for his so frequent and ill-employed raillery against RELIGION. 2 Cor. v. 23. † Char. Vol. III. p. 336. Third edit. 24 REMARKS, &c. PART I. THE state of Authorship, whatever that of Nature be, is certainly a state of war: in which, especially if it be an holy war, every man's hand is set, not against his enemy, but his brother. But as these furious fighting men are generally as much mistaken in the use of their arms, as in the objects of their resentments, there is seldom any great harm done. I speak for myself. I have found none. And indeed no wonder. I have been all the while very much out of the question. For my Answerers write not so properly against me, as for something they like better than me. This, for his dear orthodoxy; that, for his dearer philosophers; a third, for his lawyers; a fourth, for his Cabalists; a fifth, for himself; and a sixth for, I don't know what, besides the pure love of scribbling. So that I have been now, for some time, only a silent looker-on; to see how the public and they would get acquainted. I have given them full liberty to try what they can make of it, or It of them and wish them better luck with their readers intellects than I have had with theirs. For, from the first to the last of them, their constant cry has been, They do not understand me. Now, though I can allow this to be a better reason for their writing at me than any they have hitherto assigned; yet it would be a very bad one for my answering them; because it would keep me engaged till they did understand me; which I presume no. gentle reader would think a reasonable task for one born when human life is at the shortest. When therefore I took my last leave of the whole tribe, in the person of their great exemplar and archetype, the learned Advocate * Webster, Tillard, W**, Bate, Morgan, Bott. of of Pagan Philosophy, I engaged, that if any writers more equal to the subject should come abroad, I would return their civility and fair argument in such sort as that the world should see I esteemed every sincere inquirer after truth rather as a friend to the public than an enemy to myself. Since that time, the misfortune I had of differing in opinion from some writers of great merit and learning has been the disagreeable occasion of reminding me of my promise. Section 1. [See Divine Legation, Book iv. § 6. sub. fin.] Of these, the first place would be due to my very learned friend, the Author of the elegant and useful Letter from Rome; who, taking entirely to himself what was meant in general of the numerous writers on the same subject, and the more numerous followers of the same hypothesis, hath done a* notion of mine the honour of his confutation, in a Postscript to that Letter. But the same friendly considerations, which induced him to end the Postscript with declaring his unwillingness to enter further into controversy with me, have disposed me not to enter into it at all. This, and neither any neglect of him, nor any force I apprehend in his arguments, have kept me silent. In the mean time, I owe so much both to myself and the public, as to take notice of a misrepresentation of my argument; and a change of the question in dispute between us: without which notice, the controversy (as I agree to leave it in his hands) could scarce receive an equitable decision. The misrepresentation I speak of is in these words: "He [the Author of the "D. L.] allows that the writers, who have undertaken to "deduce the rights of Popery from Paganism, have "shewn an exact and surprising likeness between them "in a great variety of instances. This (says he) one "would think, is allowing every thing that the cause "demands: it is every thing, I dare say, that those "writers desire t." That it is every thing those writers desire, I can easily believe, since I see my learned friend himself hath taken it for granted, that these two asser* Div. Leg. lib. iy. § 6, fub, fin. + Postscript, p. 228. tions, 1 The religion of the present Romans derived from that of their heathen ancestors; and 2. An exact conformity or uniformity rather of worship between Popery and Paganism, are convertible propositions. For, undertaking, as his title page informs us, to prove, the religion of the present Romans derived from that of their heathen ancestors; and having gone through his arguments, he concludes them in these words, "But it is high "time for me to conclude, being persuaded, if I do not flatter myself too much, that I have sufficiently made 66 good WHAT I FIRST UNDERTOOK TO PROVE, an exact "conformity or uniformity rather of worship between "Popery and Paganism." But what he undertook to prove, we see, was, The religion of the present Romans derived from their heathen ancestors. That I have, therefore, as my learned friend observes, allowed every thing those writers desire, is very likely. But then, whether I have allowed every thing that the cause demands, is another question. Which I think can never be determined in the affirmative, till it be shewn that no other probable cause can be assigned of this exact conformity between Papists and Pagans, but a borrowing or derivation from one to the other. And I guess, this is not now ever likely to be done, since I myself have actually assigned another probable cause, namely, the same spirit of superstition operating in equal circumstances. 66 But this justly celebrated writer goes on-" This ques"tion, according to his [the Author of The Divine Legation] notion, is not to be decided by facts, but "by a principle of a different kind, a superior knowledge of human naturet." Here I am forced to complain of a want of candour, a want not natural to my learned friend. For, whence is it, I would ask, that he collects, that, according to my notion, this question is not to be decided by facts, but a superior knowledge of human nature? From any thing I have said? Or from any thing I have omitted to say? Surely, not from any thing I have said (though he seems to insinuate so much by putting the words a superior knowledge of human nature in Italic characters, as they are called) because I leave him in possession of his facts, and give them all their Postscript, p. 228. Letter, p. 224. full |