recruit to our fleet and armies. This indeed appears to be a
consideration of some weight; but then, on the other side, several
things deserve to be considered likewise: as, first, whether it
may not be thought necessary that in certain tracts of country,
like what we call parishes, there should be one man at least of
abilities to read and write. Then it seems a wrong computation
that the revenues of the Church throughout this island would be
large enough to maintain two hundred young gentlemen, or even half
that number, after the present refined way of living, that is, to
allow each of them such a rent as, in the modern form of speech,
would make them easy. But still there is in this project a greater
mischief behind; and we ought to beware of the woman's folly, who
killed the hen that every morning laid her a golden egg. For, pray
what would become of the race of men in the next age, if we had
nothing to trust to beside the scrofulous consumptive production
furnished by our men of wit and pleasure, when, having squandered
away their vigour, health, and estates, they are forced, by some
disagreeable marriage, to piece up their broken fortunes, and
entail rottenness and politeness on their posterity? Now, here are
ten thousand persons reduced, by the wise regulations of Henry
VIII., to the necessity of a low diet, and moderate exercise, who
are the only great restorers of our breed, without which the nation
would in an age or two become one great hospital.
Another advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity is the
clear gain of one day in seven, which is now entirely lost, and
consequently the kingdom one seventh less considerable in trade,
business, and pleasure; besides the loss to the public of so many
stately structures now in the hands of the clergy, which might be
converted into play-houses, exchanges, market-houses, common
dormitories, and other public edifices.
I hope I shall be forgiven a hard word if I call this a perfect
cavil. I readily own there hath been an old custom, time out of
mind, for people to assemble in the churches every Sunday, and that
shops are still frequently shut, in order, as it is conceived, to
preserve the memory of that ancient practice; but how this can
prove a hindrance to business or pleasure is hard to imagine. What
if the men of pleasure are forced, one day in the week, to game at
home instead of the chocolate-house? Are not the taverns and
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coffee-houses open? Can there be a more convenient season for
taking a dose of physic? Is not that the chief day for traders to
sum up the accounts of the week, and for lawyers to prepare their
briefs? But I would fain know how it can be pretended that the
churches are misapplied? Where are more appointments and
rendezvouses of gallantry? Where more care to appear in the
foremost box, with greater advantage of dress? Where more meetings
for business? Where more bargains driven of all sorts? And where
so many conveniences or incitements to sleep?
There is one advantage greater than any of the foregoing, proposed
by the abolishing of Christianity, that it will utterly extinguish
parties among us, by removing those factious distinctions of high
and low church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church of
England, which are now so many mutual clogs upon public
proceedings, and are apt to prefer the gratifying themselves or
depressing their adversaries before the most important interest of
the State.
I confess, if it were certain that so great an advantage would
redound to the nation by this expedient, I would submit, and be
silent; but will any man say, that if the words, whoring, drinking,
cheating, lying, stealing, were, by Act of Parliament, ejected out
of the English tongue and dictionaries, we should all awake next
morning chaste and temperate, honest and just, and lovers of truth?
Is this a fair consequence? Or if the physicians would forbid us
to pronounce the words pox, gout, rheumatism, and stone, would that
expedient serve like so many talismen to destroy the diseases
themselves? Are party and faction rooted in men's hearts no deeper
than phrases borrowed from religion, or founded upon no firmer
principles? And is our language so poor that we cannot find other
terms to express them? Are envy, pride, avarice, and ambition such
ill nomenclators, that they cannot furnish appellations for their
owners? Will not heydukes and mamalukes, mandarins and patshaws,
or any other words formed at pleasure, serve to distinguish those
who are in the ministry from others who would be in it if they
could? What, for instance, is easier than to vary the form of
speech, and instead of the word church, make it a question in
politics, whether the monument be in danger? Because religion was
nearest at hand to furnish a few convenient phrases, is our
invention so barren we can find no other? Suppose, for argument
sake, that the Tories favoured Margarita, the Whigs, Mrs. Tofts,
and the Trimmers, Valentini, would not Margaritians, Toftians, and
Valentinians be very tolerable marks of distinction? The Prasini
and Veniti, two most virulent factions in Italy, began, if I
remember right, by a distinction of colours in ribbons, which we
might do with as good a grace about the dignity of the blue and the
green, and serve as properly to divide the Court, the Parliament,
and the kingdom between them, as any terms of art whatsoever,
borrowed from religion. And therefore I think there is little
force in this objection against Christianity, or prospect of so
great an advantage as is proposed in the abolishing of it.
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It is again objected, as a very absurd, ridiculous custom, that a
set of men should be suffered, much less employed and hired, to
bawl one day in seven against the lawfulness of those methods most
in use towards the pursuit of greatness, riches, and pleasure,
which are the constant practice of all men alive on the other six.
But this objection is, I think, a little unworthy so refined an age
as ours. Let us argue this matter calmly. I appeal to the breast
of any polite Free-thinker, whether, in the pursuit of gratifying a
pre-dominant passion, he hath not always felt a wonderful
incitement, by reflecting it was a thing forbidden; and therefore
we see, in order to cultivate this test, the wisdom of the nation
hath taken special care that the ladies should be furnished with
prohibited silks, and the men with prohibited wine. And indeed it
were to be wished that some other prohibitions were promoted, in
order to improve the pleasures of the town, which, for want of such
expedients, begin already, as I am told, to flag
and grow languid,
giving way daily to cruel inroads from the spleen.
'Tis likewise proposed, as a great advantage to the public, that if
we once discard the system of the Gospel, all religion will of
course be banished for ever, and consequently along with it those
grievous prejudices of education which, under the names of
conscience, honour, justice, and the like, are so apt to disturb
the peace of human minds, and the notions whereof are so hard to be
eradicated by right reason or free-thinking, sometimes during the
whole course of our lives.
Here first I observe how difficult it is to get rid of a phrase
which the world has once grown fond of, though the occasion that
first produced it be entirely taken away. For some years past, if
a man had but an ill-favoured nose, the deep thinkers of the age
would, some way or other contrive to impute the cause to the
prejudice of his education. From this fountain were said to be
derived all our foolish notions of justice, piety, love of our
country; all our opinions of God or a future state, heaven, hell,
and the like; and there might formerly perhaps have been some
pretence for this charge. But so effectual care hath been since
taken to remove those prejudices, by an entire change in the
methods of education, that (with honour I mention it to our polite
innovators) the young gentlemen, who are now on the scene, seem to
have not the least tincture left of those infusions, or string of
those weeds, and by consequence the reason for abolishing nominal
Christianity upon that pretext is wholly ceased.
For the rest, it may perhaps admit a controversy, whether the
banishing all notions of religion whatsoever would be inconvenient
for the vulgar. Not that I am in the least of opinion with those
who hold religion to have been the invention of politicians, to
keep the lower part of the world in awe by the fear of invisible
powers; unless mankind were then very different from what it is
now; for I look upon the mass or body of our people here in England
to be as Freethinkers, that is to say, as staunch unbelievers, as
any of the highest rank. But I conceive some scattered notions
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about a superior power to be of singular use for the common people,
as furnishing excellent materials to keep children quiet when they
grow peevish, and providing topics of amusement in a tedious winter
night.
Lastly, it is proposed, as a singular advantage, that the
abolishing of Christianity will very much contribute to the uniting
of Protestants, by enlarging the terms of communion, so as to take
in all sorts of Dissenters, who are now shut out of the pale upon
account of a few ceremonies, which all sides confess to be things
indifferent. That this alone will effectually answer the great
ends of a scheme for comprehension, by opening a large noble gate,
at which all bodies may enter; whereas the chaffering with
Dissenters, and dodging about this or t'other ceremony, is but like
opening a few wickets, and leaving them at jar, by which no more
than one can get in at a time, and that not without stooping, and
sideling, and squeezing his body.
To all this I answer, that there is one darling inclination of
mankind which usually affects to be a retainer to religion, though
she be neither its parent, its godmother, nor its friend. I mean
the spirit of opposition, that lived long before Christianity, and
can easily subsist without it. Let us, for instance, examine
wherein the opposition of sectaries among us consists. We shall
find Christianity to have no share in it at all. Does the Gospel
anywhere prescribe a starched, squeezed countenance, a stiff formal
gait, a singularity of manners and habit, or any affected forms and
modes of speech different from the reasonable part of mankind?
Yet, if Christianity did not lend its name to stand in the gap, and
to employ or divert these humours, they must of necessity be spent
in contraventions to the laws of the land, and disturbance of the
public peace. There is a portion of enthusiasm assigned to every
nation, which, if it hath not proper objects to work on, will burst
out, and set all into a flame. If the quiet of a State can be
bought by only flinging men a few ceremonies to devour, it is a
purchase no wise man would refuse. Let the mastiffs amuse
themselves about a sheep's skin stuffed with hay, provided it will
keep them from worrying the flock. The institution of convents
abroad seems in one point a strain of great wisdom, there being few
irregularities in human passions which may not have recourse to
vent themselves in some of those orders, which are so many retreats
for the speculative, the melancholy, the proud, the silent, the
politic, and the morose, to spend themselves, and evaporate the
noxious particles; for each of whom we in this island are forced to
provide a several sect of religion to keep them quiet; and whenever
Christianity shall be abolished, the Legislature must find some
other expedient to employ and entertain them. For what imports it
how large a gate you open, if there will be always left a number
who place a pride and a merit in not coming in?
Having thus considered the most important objections against
Christianity, and the chief advantages proposed by the abolishing
thereof, I shall now, with equal deference and submission to wiser
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judgments, as before, proceed to mention a few inconveniences that
may happen if the Gospel should be repealed, which, perhaps, the
projectors may not have sufficiently considered.
And first, I am very sensible how much the gentlemen of wit and
pleasure are apt to murmur, and be choked at the sight of so many
daggle-tailed parsons that happen to fall in their way, and offend
their eyes; but at the same time, these wise reformers do not
consider what an advantage and felicity it is for great wits to be
always provided with objects of scorn and contempt, in order to
exercise and improve their talents, and divert their spleen from
falling on each other, or on themselves, especially when all this
may be done without the least imaginable danger to their persons.
And to urge another argument of a parallel nature: if Christianity
were once abolished, how could the Freethinkers, the strong
reasoners, and the men of profound learning be able to find another
subject so calculated in all points whereon to display their
abilities? What wonderful productions of wit should we be deprived
of from those whose genius, by continual practice, hath been wholly
turned upon raillery and invectives against religion, and would
therefore never be able to shine or distinguish themse
lves upon any
other subject? We are daily complaining of the great decline of
wit among as, and would we take away the greatest, perhaps the only
topic we have left? Who would ever have suspected Asgil for a wit,
or Toland for a philosopher, if the inexhaustible stock of
Christianity had not been at hand to provide them with materials?
What other subject through all art or nature could have produced
Tindal for a profound author, or furnished him with readers? It is
the wise choice of the subject that alone adorns and distinguishes
the writer. For had a hundred such pens as these been employed on
the side of religion, they would have immediately sunk into silence
and oblivion.
Nor do I think it wholly groundless, or my fears altogether
imaginary, that the abolishing of Christianity may perhaps bring
the Church in danger, or at least put the Senate to the trouble of
another securing vote. I desire I may not be mistaken; I am far
from presuming to affirm or think that the Church is in danger at
present, or as things now stand; but we know not how soon it may be
so when the Christian religion is repealed. As plausible as this
project seems, there may be a dangerous design lurk under it.
Nothing can be more notorious than that the Atheists, Deists,
Socinians, Anti-Trinitarians, and other subdivisions of
Freethinkers, are persons of little zeal for the present
ecclesiastical establishment: their declared opinion is for
repealing the sacramental test; they are very indifferent with
regard to ceremonies; nor do they hold the JUS DIVINUM of
episcopacy: therefore they may be intended as one politic step
towards altering the constitution of the Church established, and
setting up Presbytery in the stead, which I leave to be further
considered by those at the helm.
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In the last place, I think nothing can be more plain, than that by
this expedient we shall run into the evil we chiefly pretend to
avoid; and that the abolishment of the Christian religion will be
the readiest course we can take to introduce Popery. And I am the
more inclined to this opinion because we know it has been the
constant practice of the Jesuits to send over emissaries, with
instructions to personate themselves members of the several
prevailing sects amongst us. So it is recorded that they have at
sundry times appeared in the guise of Presbyterians, Anabaptists,
Independents, and Quakers, according as any of these were most in
credit; so, since the fashion hath been taken up of exploding
religion, the Popish missionaries have not been wanting to mix with
the Freethinkers; among whom Toland, the great oracle of the Anti-
Christians, is an Irish priest, the son of an Irish priest; and the
most learned and ingenious author of a book called the "Rights of
the Christian Church," was in a proper juncture reconciled to the
Romish faith, whose true son, as appears by a hundred passages in
his treatise, he still continues. Perhaps I could add some others
to the number; but the fact is beyond dispute, and the reasoning
they proceed by is right: for supposing Christianity to be
extinguished the people will never he at ease till they find out
some other method of worship, which will as infallibly produce
superstition as this will end in Popery.
And therefore, if, notwithstanding all I have said, it still be
thought necessary to have a Bill brought in for repealing
Christianity, I would humbly offer an amendment, that instead of
the word Christianity may be put religion in general, which I
conceive will much better answer all the good ends proposed by the
projectors of it. For as long as we leave in being a God and His
Providence, with all the necessary consequences which curious and
inquisitive men will be apt to draw from such promises, we do not
strike at the root of the evil, though we should ever so
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