I don’t know whether you would be willing, if you consider of it, to limit the Stage it self, which has with great Applause and Success, from Queen Elizabeth’s Time downwards, ridicul’d the serious Puritans and Dissenters, and that without any Complaints from good Churchmen, that serious Persons and Things were banter’d and droll’d upon; and has triumph’d over its fanatical Adversaries in the Person of Pryn, who sufficiently suffer’d for his Histrio-Mastix, and has been approv’d of as an innocent Diversion by the religious Dr. Patrick in his Friendly Debate, in the Reign of King Charles II. when the Stage was in a very immoral State. I don’t know whether you would be willing even to restrain Bartholomew Fair, where the Sect of the New Prophets was the Subject of a Droll or Puppet-Show, to the great Satisfaction of the Auditors, who, it may be presum’d, were all good Churchmen, Puritans and Dissenters usually declining such Entertainments out of real or pretended Seriousness. (“A certain Clergyman thought fit to remark, that King William could be no good Churchman, because of his not frequenting the Play-House.”[74])
V. It will probably be a Motive with you to be against abolishing Drollery, when you reflect that the Men of Irony, the Droles and Satirists, have been and always will be very numerous on your side, where they have been and are so much incourag’d for acting that Part, and that they have always been and always will be very few on the side of Heterodoxy; a Cause wherein an Author by engaging, may hurt his Reputation and Fortune, and can propose nothing to himself but Poverty and Disgrace. I doubt whether you would be for punishing your Friend Dr. Rogers, from whom I just now quoted an Irony on the Author of The Scheme of Literal Prophecy consider’d, or any one else, for laughing at and making sport with him; or whether you would be for punishing the Reverend Mr. Trapp, who implies the Justness and Propriety of ridiculing Popery; when he says[75], that Popery is so foolish and absurd, that every body of common Sense must laugh at it; and when he refers to Erasmus for having abundantly ridicul’d their Reliques; and himself puts Ridicule in Practice against them, by representing their Doctrines and Practices as ridiculously foolish, as despicably childish, and Matter of mere Scorn; as monstrous; as Spells, juggling Tricks, gross Cheats, Impostures[76], and wretched Shifts; and in fine, in representing by way of Specimen, all their Miracles as Legends; of which he says, These and a thousand more such like unreasonable Lies, which a Child of common Sense would laugh at, are impos’d upon and swallow’d by the ignorant People, and make a very great Part of the Popish Religion.
And this, in concurrence with Mr. Trapp, I also take to be the Case of Popery, that it must make Men laugh; and that it is much easier to be gravely disposed in reading a Stage-Comedy or Farce, than in considering and reflecting on the Comedy and Farce of Popery; than which, Wit and Folly, and Madness in conjunction, cannot invent or make a thing more ridiculous, according to that Light in which I see their Doctrines, Ceremonies and Worship, the Histories and Legends of their Saints, and the pretended Miracles wrought in their Church; which has hardly any thing serious in it but its Persecutions, its Murders, its Massacres; all employ’d against the most innocent and virtuous, and the most sensible and learned Men, because they will not be Tools to support Villany and Ignorance.
“Transubstantiation, says Tillotson[77], is not a Controversy of Scripture against Scripture, or of Reason against Reason, but of downright Impudence against the plain meaning of Scripture, and all the Sense and Reason of Mankind.” And accordingly he scruples not to say, in a most drolling manner, that “Transubstantiation is one of the chief of the Roman Church’s legerdemain and juggling Tricks of Falshood and Imposture; and that in all Probability those common juggling Words of Hocus-pocus, are nothing else but a Corruption of hoc est corpus, by way of ridiculous Imitation of the Church of Rome in their Trick of Transubstantiation.” And as he archly makes the Introduction of this monstrous Piece of grave Nonsense to be owing to its being at first preach’d by its Promoters with convenient Gravity and Solemnity[78], which is the common Method of imposing Absurdities on the World; so I think that Doctrine taught with such convenient Gravity and Solemnity should necessarily produce Levity, Laughter and Ridicule, in all intelligent People to whom it is propos’d, who must smile, if they can with safety, to see such Stuff vented with a grave Face.
In like manner many other Divines treat and laugh at Popery. Even the solemn and grave Dr. Whitby has written a Book against Transubstantiation, under the Title of “Irrisio Dei Panarii, The Derision of the Breaden God,” in Imitation of the primitive Fathers, who have written Derisions and Mockeries of the Pagan Religion.
And he takes the Materials whereof this drolling Performance of his consists, from the holy Scriptures, the Apocryphal Books, and Writings of the holy Fathers, as he tells us in his Title-Page; three inexhaustible Sources of Wit and Irony against the Corrupters of true and genuine Religion. In like manner he turns upon the Popish Clergy the several Arguments urg’d by the Jewish Clergy in the New Testament, for the Authority of the Jewish Church; and answers, under that Irony, all that the Popish Clergy offer in behalf of the Authority of their Church, in a Sermon at the End of his Annotations on St. John’s Gospel.
Nor do our Divines confine their Derisions, Ridicule and Irony against Popery to their Treatises and Discourses, but fill their Sermons, and especially their Sermons on the Fifth of November, and other political Days, with infinite Reflections of that Kind. Of these Reflections a Popish Author publish’d a Specimen, in a Book intitled[79], Good Advice to Pulpits, in order to shame the Church out of their Method of drolling and laughing [80] at Popery. But this Book had no other effect, than to produce a Defence of those Sermons under the Title of Pulpit Popery true Popery, vindicating the several Droll Representations made of Popery in those Sermons.
Of these drolling Reflections cited by the Popish Author out of our Church of England Sermons, take these following for a Specimen of what are to be met with in those Sermons[81].
“Pilgrimages, going Bare-foot, Hair-shirts, and Whips, with other such Gospel-artillery, are their only Helps to Devotion.——It seems that with them a Man sometimes cannot be a Penitent, unless he also turns Vagabond, and foots it to Jerusalem.——He that thinks to expiate a Sin by going bare-foot, does the Penance of a Goose, and only makes one Folly the Atonement of another. Paul indeed was scourg’d and beaten by the Jews; but we never read that he beat or scourg’d himself; and if they think his keeping under his Body imports so much, they must first prove that the Body cannot be kept under by a virtuous Mind, and that the Mind cannot be made virtuous but by a Scourge; and consequently, that Thongs and Whipcord are Means of Grace, and Things necessary to Salvation. The truth is, if Mens Religion lies no deeper than their Skin, it is possible they may scourge themselves into very great Improvements.——But they will find that bodily Exercise touches not the Soul; and consequently that in this whole Course they are like Men out of the way: let them flash on never so fast, they are not at all nearer their Journey’s-end: And howsoever they deceive themselves and others, they may as well expect to bring a Cart, as a Soul, to Heaven.
“What say you to the Popish Doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass.——According to this Doctrine, our blessed Saviour must still, to the end of the World, be laid hold on by Sinners, be ground with their Teeth, and sent down into their impure Paunches, as often as the Priest shall pronounce this Charm, hoc est corpus meum: and it seems that he was a false Prophet, when he said upon the Cross, It is finish’d, seeing there was such an infinite deal of loathsom Drudgery still to be undergone.