The other qualification necessary for all pastors, if they will not be "blind, ignorant, greedy, drunken dogs," &c., is, "to know the depths of Satan." This is harder than the former; that a poor gentleman ought not to be parson, vicar, or curate of a parish, except he be cunninger than the devil. I am afraid it will be difficult to remedy this defect for one manifest reason, because whoever had only half the cunning of the devil, would never take up with a vicarage of £10 a-year, "to live on at his ease," as my Lord expresseth it; but seek out for some better livelihood. His Lordship is of a nation very much distinguished for that quality of cunning (though they have a great many better) and I think he was never accused for wanting his share. However upon a trial of skill I would venture to lay six to four on the devil's side, who must be allowed to be at least the older practitioner. Telling truth shames him, and resistance makes him fly: But to attempt outwitting him, is to fight him at his own weapon, and consequently no cunning at all. Another thing I would observe is, that a man may be "in the depths of Satan," without knowing them all, and such a man may be so far in Satan's depths as to be out of his own. One of the depths of Satan, is to counterfeit an angel of light. Another, I believe, is, to stir up the people against their governors, by false suggestions of danger. A third is to be a prompter to false brethren, and to send wolves about in sheep's clothing. Sometimes he sends Jesuits about England in the habit and cant of fanatics, at other times he has fanatic missionaries in the habits of ——. I shall mention but one more of Satan's depths, for I confess I know not the hundredth part of them; and that is, to employ his emissaries in crying out against remote imaginary dangers, by which we may be taken off from defending ourselves against those which are real and just at our elbows.
But his Lordship draws towards a conclusion, and bids us "look about, to consider the danger we are in, before it is too late;" for he assures us, we are already "going into some of the worst parts of popery;"[55] like the man who was so much in haste for his new coat, that he put it on the wrong side out. "Auricular confession, priestly absolution, and the sacrifice of the mass," have made great progress in England, and nobody has observed it: several other popish points "are carried higher with us than by the papists themselves."[56] And somebody, it seems, "had the impudence to propose a union with the Gallican church."[57] I have indeed heard that Mr. Lesley[58] published a discourse to that purpose, which I have never seen; nor do I perceive the evil in proposing an union between any two churches in Christendom. Without doubt Mr. Lesley is most unhappily misled in his politics; but if he be the author of the late tract against Popery[59], he has given the world such a proof of his soundness in religion, as many a bishop ought to be proud of. I never saw the gentleman in my life: I know he is the son of a great and excellent prelate, who upon several accounts was one of the most extraordinary men of his age. Mr. Lesley has written many useful discourses upon several subjects, and hath so well deserved of the Christian religion, and the Church of England in particular, that to accuse him of "impudence for proposing an union" in two very different faiths, is a style which I hope few will imitate. I detest Mr. Lesley's political principles as much as his Lordship can do for his heart; but I verily believe he acts from a mistaken conscience, and therefore I distinguish between the principles and the person. However, it is some mortification to me, when I see an avowed nonjuror contribute more to the confounding of Popery, than could ever be done by a hundred thousand such Introductions as this.
[Footnote 55: Page 70.]
[Footnote 56: Page 70.]
[Footnote 57: Swift here disowns a charge loudly urged by the Whigs of the time against the high churchmen. There were, however, strong symptoms of a nearer approach on their part to the church of Rome. Hickes, the head of the Jacobite writers, had insinuated, that there was a proper sacrifice in the Eucharist; Brett had published a Sermon on the "Doctrine of Priestly Absolution as essential to Salvation;" Dodwell had written against Lay-Baptism, and his doctrine at once excluded all the dissenters (whose teachers are held as lay-men) from the pale of Christianity; and, upon the whole, there was a general disposition among the clergy to censure, if not the Reformation itself, at least the mode in which it was carried on. [S.]
[Footnote 58: Charles Lesley, or Leslie, the celebrated nonjuror. He published a Jacobite paper, called the "Rehearsal," and was a strenuous assertor of divine right; but he was also so steady a Protestant, that he went to Bar-le-Duc to convert the Chevalier de St George from the errors of Rome. [S.] See note on p. 63. [T. S.]
[Footnote 59: "The Case stated between the Church of Rome and the Church of England," 1713.]
His Lordship ends with discovering a small ray of comfort. "God be thanked there are many among us that stand upon the watch-tower, and that give faithful warning; that stand in the breach, and make themselves a wall for their church and country; that cry to God day and night, and lie in the dust mourning before him, to avert those judgments that seem to hasten towards us. They search into the mystery of iniquity that is working among us, and acquaint themselves with that mass of corruption that is in popery."[60] He prays "that the number of these may increase, and that he may be of that number, ready either to die in peace, or to seal that doctrine he has been preaching above fifty years, with his blood."[61] This being his last paragraph, I have made bold to transcribe the most important parts of it. His design is to end after the manner of orators, with leaving the strongest impression possible upon the minds of his hearers. A great breach is made; "the mystery of popish iniquity is working among us;" may God avert those "judgments that are hastening towards us!" I am an old man, "a preacher above fifty years," and I now expect and am ready to die a martyr for the doctrines I have preached. What an amiable idea does he here leave upon our minds, of Her Majesty and her government! He has been poring so long upon Fox's Book of Martyrs, that he imagines himself living in the reign of Queen Mary, and is resolved to set up for a knight-errant against Popery. Upon the supposition of his being in earnest, (which I am sure he is not) it would require but a very little more heat of imagination, to make a history of such a knight's adventures. What would he say, to behold the "fires kindled in Smithfield, and all over the town," on the 17th of November; to behold the Pope borne in triumph on the shoulders of the people, with a cardinal on the one side, and the Pretender on the other? He would never believe it was Queen Elizabeth's day, but that of her persecuting sister: In short, how easily might a windmill be taken for the whore of Babylon, and a puppet-show for a popish procession?
[Footnote 60: Page 71]
[Footnote 61: Page 72]