[Footnote 5: De Foe's "History of Addresses" contains some humbling instances of the applause with which the sectaries hailed their old enemy, James II., when they saw him engaged in hostility with the established Church. [T. S.]
Therefore a Church of England man abhors the humour of the age in delighting to fling scandals upon the clergy in general; which besides the disgrace to the Reformation, and to religion itself, casts an ignominy upon the kingdom that it does not deserve. We have no better materials to compound the priesthood of, than the mass of mankind, which corrupted as it is, those who receive orders must have some vices to leave behind them when they enter into the Church, and if a few do still adhere, it is no wonder, but rather a great one that they are no worse. Therefore he cannot think ambition, or love of power more justly laid to their charge than to other men, because, that would be to make religion itself, or at least the best constitution of Church-government, answerable for the errors and depravity of human nature.
Within these last two hundred years all sorts of temporal power have been wrested from the clergy, and much of their ecclesiastic, the reason or justice of which proceeding I shall not examine; but, that the remedies were a little too violent with respect to their possessions, the legislature hath lately confessed by the remission of their First Fruits.[6] Neither do the common libellers deny this, who in their invectives only tax the Church with an insatiable desire of power and wealth (equally common to all bodies of men as well as individuals) but thank God, that the laws have deprived them of both. However, it is worth observing the justice of parties: The sects among us are apt to complain, and think it hard usage to be reproached now after fifty years for overturning the state, for the murder of a king, and the indignity of a usurpation; yet these very men and their partisans, are continually reproaching the clergy, and laying to their charge the pride, the avarice, the luxury, the ignorance, and superstition, of Popish times for a thousand years past.
[Footnote 6: The first fruits were the first year's income of ecclesiastical benefices. In the middle ages they were taken by the Pope as a right; but were handed over to the English crown in 1534. Anne in 1703 gave them back to the Church by letters patent, an act confirmed by Parliament in 1704. The "Bounty" of Queen Anne, however, did not extend to Ireland; and one of Swift's missions in London was to obtain this remission of the first fruits for the Irish clergy also. [T. S.]
He thinks it a scandal to government that such an unlimited liberty should be allowed of publishing books against those doctrines in religion, wherein all Christians have agreed, much more to connive at such tracts as reject all revelation, and by their consequences often deny the very being of a God. Surely 'tis not a sufficient atonement for the writers, that they profess much loyalty to the present government, and sprinkle up and down some arguments in favour of the dissenters; that they dispute as strenuously as they can for liberty of conscience, and inveigh largely against all ecclesiastics, under the name of High Church; and, in short, under the shelter of some popular principles in politics and religion, undermine the foundations of all piety and virtue.
As he doth not reckon every schism of that damnable nature which some would represent, so he is very far from closing with the new opinion of those who would make it no crime at all, and argue at a wild rate, that God Almighty is delighted with the variety of faith and worship, as He is with the varieties of nature. To such absurdities are men carried by the affectation of freethinking, and removing the prejudices of education, under which head they have for some time begun to list morality and religion. It is certain that before the rebellion in 1642, though the number of Puritans (as they were then called) was as great as it is with us, and though they affected to follow pastors of that denomination, yet those pastors had episcopal ordination, possessed preferments in the Church, and were sometimes promoted to bishoprics themselves.[7] But, a breach in the general form of worship was in those days reckoned so dangerous and sinful in itself, and so offensive to Roman Catholics at home and abroad, and that it was too unpopular to be attempted; neither, I believe, was the expedient then found out of maintaining separate pastors out of private purses.
[Footnote 7: In the reign of Elizabeth, and even in that of James, the
Puritans were not, properly speaking, Dissenters; but, on the contrary,
formed a sort of Low Church party in the national establishment.
Archbishop Abbot himself has been considered as a Puritan. [T. S.]
When a schism is once spread in a nation, there grows at length a dispute which are the schismatics. Without entering on the arguments, used by both sides among us, to fix the guilt on each other; 'tis certain, that, in the sense of the law, the schism lies on that side which opposes itself to the religion of the state. I leave it among the divines to dilate upon the danger of schism, as a spiritual evil, but I would consider it only as a temporal one. And I think it clear that any great separation from the established worship, though to a new one that is more pure and perfect, may be an occasion of endangering the public peace, because it will compose a body always in reserve, prepared to follow any discontented heads upon the plausible pretext of advancing true religion, and opposing error, superstition, or idolatry. For this reason Plato lays it down as a maxim, that, men ought to worship the gods according to the laws of the country, and he introduces Socrates in his last discourse utterly disowning the crime laid to his charge, of teaching new divinities or methods of worship. Thus the poor Huguenots of France were engaged in a civil war, by the specious pretences of some, who under the guise of religion sacrificed so many thousand lives to their own ambition and revenge. Thus was the whole body of Puritans in England drawn to be instruments, or abettors of all manner of villainy, by the artifices of a few men whose[8] designs from the first were levelled to destroy the constitution both of religion and government. And thus, even in Holland itself, where it is pretended that the variety of sects live so amicably together, and in such perfect obedience to the magistrate, it is notorious how a turbulent party joining with the Arminians, did in the memory of our fathers attempt to destroy the liberty of that republic. So that upon the whole, where sects are tolerated in a state, 'tis fit they should enjoy a full liberty of conscience, and every other privilege of freeborn subjects to which no power is annexed. And to preserve their obedience upon all emergencies, a government cannot give them too much ease, nor trust them with too little power.
[Footnote 8: Lord Clarendon's History; but see also Gardiner's "History of England." [T. S.]
The clergy are usually charged with a persecuting spirit, which they are said to discover by an implacable hatred to all dissenters; and this appears to be more unreasonable, because they suffer less in their interests by a toleration than any of the conforming laity: For while the Church remains in its present form, no dissenter can possibly have any share in its dignities, revenues, or power; whereas, by once receiving the sacrament, he is rendered capable of the highest employments in the state. And it is very possible, that a narrow education, together with a mixture of human infirmity, may help to beget among some of the clergy in possession such an aversion and contempt for all innovators, as physicians are apt to have for empirics, or lawyers for pettifoggers, or merchants for pedlars: But since the number of sectaries doth not concern the clergy either in point of interest or conscience, (it being an evil not in their power to remedy) 'tis more fair and reasonable to suppose their dislike proceeds from the dangers they apprehend to the peace of the commonwealth, in the ruin whereof they must expect to be the first and greatest sufferers.