CONCERNING
Ridicule and Irony, &c.
Reverend Sir,
In your Letter to Dr. Rogers, which he has publish’d at the End of his Vindication of the Civil Establishment of Religion, I find a Notion advanc’d by you: which as it is a common and plausible Topick for Persecution, and a Topick by which you, and many others, urge the Magistrate to punish [or, as you phrase it, to pinch] [28] Men for controversial Writings, is particularly proper at this time to be fully consider’d; and I hope to treat it in such manner as to make you your self, and every fair Reader, sensible of the Weakness thereof.
You profess to “vindicate [29] a sober, serious, and modest Inquiry into the Reasons of any Establishment.”
And you add, that you “have not ordinarily found it judg’d inconsistent with the Duty of a private Subject, to propose his Doubts or his Reasons to the Publick in a modest way, concerning the Repeal of any Law which he may think of ill Consequence by its Continuance. If he be a Man of Ability, and well vers’d in the Argument, he will deserve some Attention; but if he mistakes his Talent, and will be busy with what he very little understands, Contempt and Odium will be his unavoidable and just Allotment.” And you say, that “Religion is more a personal Affair, in which every Man has a peculiar Right and Interest, and a Concern that he be not mistaken, than in any other Case or Instance which can fall under the Cognizance of the Magistrate; and that greater Allowances seem due to each private Person for Examination and Inquiry in this, than in any other Example.”
And herein I must do you the Justice to acknowledge, that you speak like a Christian, like a Protestant, like an Englishman, and a reasonable Man; like a Man concerned for Truth, like a Man of Conscience; like a Man concern’d for the Consciences of others; like a Man concern’d to have some Sense, Learning, and Virtue in the World; and, in a word, like a Man who is not for abandoning all the valuable Things in Life to the Tyranny, Ambition, and Covetousness of Magistrates and Ecclesiasticks.
But you observe, that “municipal Laws[30], how trivial soever in their intrinsick Value, are never to be insulted; never to be treated with Buffoonery and Banter, Ridicule and Sarcastick Irony. So that Dr. Rogers’s grand Adversary will have from you no measure of Encouragement to his manner of Writing.” Again, you “never [31] desire to see the Magistrate fencing in the publick Religion with so thick a Hedge as shall exclude all Light, and shall tear out the Eyes of all such as endeavour to see thro’ it. Sober arguing you never fear: Mockery and bitter Railing, if you could help it, you would never bear, either for the Truth or against it.”
Upon which I offer these following Considerations.
I. First, If what you call Insult, Buffoonery, Banter, Ridicule and Irony, Mockery and bitter Railing, be Crimes in Disputation, you will find none more deeply involv’d in it than our most famous Writers, in their controversial Treatises about serious Matters; as all Notions and Practices in Religion, whether reasonable or absurd, may be equally and justly deem’d: the Notions and Practices of Papists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and all other Sects, being no less serious to their respective Sects than ridiculous to one another. Let any Man read the Writings of our most eminent Divines against the Papists, Puritans, Dissenters, and Hereticks, and against one another, and particularly the Writings of Alexander Cook, Hales, Chillingworth, Patrick, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, Burnet, South, Hickes, Sherlock and Edwards, and he will find them to abound with Banter, Ridicule, and Irony. Stillingfleet in particular, our greatest controversial Writer, who passes for grave and solemn, is so conscious of his use thereof, that he confesses that Charge of the Papists against him, saying[32], “But I forget my Adversary’s grave admonition, that I would treat these Matters seriously, and lay aside Drollery.” And again, after a Banter of near a Page, he says[33], “But I forget I am so near my Adversary’s Conclusion, wherein he so gravely advises me, that I would be pleas’d for once to write Controversy, and not Play-Books.” Nor did I ever hear the Divines of the Church condemn the Doctor for his sarcastical Method of writing Controversy. On the contrary, I remember at the University, that he used to be applauded no less for his Wit than for his Learning. And to exalt his Character as a Wit, his Conferences between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England, &c. were spoken of as an excellent Comedy, and especially for that Part which the Fanatick Chaplain acts therein, who makes as comical and as ridiculous a Figure as he does in any of the Plays acted on the Stage. And in his Controversy with Dryden about the Royal Papers, and those of the Duchess of York, he was deem’d to have out-done that famous Satirist in tart Repartees and Reflections; and to have attack’d the Character of the Poet with more severity, than that Poet, who was so remarkable for his satirical Reflections on the holy Order, did the Character of the Divine: As for example, he says to Dryden[34], “Could nothing be said by you of Bishop Morley, but that Prelate of rich Memory? Or had you a mind to tell us he was no Poet? Or that he was out of the Temptation of changing his Religion for Bread?” And many Citations us’d to be produc’d out of his Writings, as Specimens of his ironical Talent; among which I particularly remember his Ridicule of his Adversary Mr. Alsop, a famous Presbyterian Wit and Divine; whose Book, which was full of low Raillery and Ridicule, he resembles [35] to the Bird of Athens, as made up of Face and Feathers. And the Doctor himself adds, in Justification of the polite Method of Raillery in Controversy, that there is a pleasantness of Wit, which serves to entertain the Reader in the rough and deep way of Controversy. Nor did Mr. Alsop want Approvers of his Raillery in his own Party. Mr. Gilbert Rule[36], a great Scotch Presbyterian Divine, who defended him against Stillingfleet, contends in behalf of his Raillery, “That the Facetiousness of Mr. Alsop’s Strain needed to have bred no Disgust, being as a Condiment to prevent Tædium and Nauseousness.” And he adds, “That he knows none that blame the excellent Writings of Mr. Fuller, which have a Pleasantness not unlike that of Mr. Alsop.”