REMARKS UPON A BOOK

ENTITLED "THE RIGHTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH," &c., WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1708, BUT LEFT UNFINISHED.

BEFORE I enter upon a particular examination of this treatise, it will be convenient to do two things:

First, To give some account of the author, together with the motives that might probably engage him in such a work; and,

Secondly, To discover the nature and tendency in general of the work itself.

The first of these, although it has been objected against, seems highly reasonable, especially in books that instil pernicious principles. For, although a book is not intrinsically much better or worse according to the stature or complexion of the author, yet when it happens to make a noise, we are apt and curious, as in other noises, to look about from whence it comes. But, however, there is something more in the matter.

If a theological subject be well handled by a layman, it is better received than if it came from a divine, and that for reasons obvious enough, which, although of little weight in themselves, will ever have a great deal with mankind.

But when books are written with ill intentions, to advance dangerous opinions or destroy foundations, it may be then of real use to know from what quarter they come, and go a good way toward their confutation. For instance, if any man should write a book against the lawfulness of punishing felony with death, and upon inquiry the author should be found in Newgate under condemnation for robbing a house, his arguments would, not very unjustly, lose much of their force from the circumstances he lay under; so, when Milton writ his book of divorces, it was presently rejected as an occasional treatise, because everybody knew he had a shrew for his wife. Neither can there be any reason imagined why he might not, after he was blind, have writ another upon the danger and inconvenience of eyes. But it is a piece of logic which will hardly pass on the world, that because one man has a sore nose therefore all the town should put plasters upon theirs. So, if this treatise about the rights of the church should prove to be the work of a man steady in his principles, of exact morals, and profound learning,

a true lover of his country, and a hater of Christianity—as what he really believes to be a cheat upon mankind, whom he would undeceive purely for their good-it might be apt to check unwary men, even of good dispositions toward religion. But if it be found the production of a man soured with age and misfortunes, together with the consciousness of past miscarriages; of one who, in hopes. of preferment, was reconciled to the popish religion; of one wholly prostitute in life and principles, and only an enemy to religion because it condemns them in this case-and this last I find is the universal opinion - he is likely to have few proselytes beside those who, from a sense of their vicious lives, require to be perpetually supplied by such amusements as this, which serve to flatter their wishes and debase their understandings.

I know there are some who would fain have it that this discourse was written by a club of freethinkers, among whom the supposed author only came in for a share: but sure we cannot judge so meanly of any party without affronting the dignity of mankind. If this be so, and if here be the product of all their quotas and contributions, we must needs allow that freethinking is a most confined and limited talent. It is true, indeed, the whole discourse seems to be a motley, inconsistent composition, made up of various shreds of equal fineness, although of different colors. It is a bundle of incoherent maxims and assertions that frequently destroy one another but still there is the same flatness of thought and style, the same weak advances toward wit and raillery, the same petulancy and pertness of spirit, the same train of superficial reading, the same threadbare quotation, the same affectation of forming general rules upon false and scanty premises; and lastly, the same vapid venom sprinkled over the whole, which, like the dying impotent bite of a trodden benumbed snake, may be nauseous and offensive, but cannot be very dangerous.

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And, indeed, I am so far from thinking this libel to be born of several fathers, that it has been the wonder of several others, as well as myself, how it was possible for any man who appears to have gone the common circle of academical education; who has taken so universal a liberty, and has so entirely laid aside all regards, not only of Christianity but common truth and justice; one who is dead to all sense of shame, and seems to be past the getting or losing of a reputation, should, with so many advantages, and upon so unlimited a subject, come out with so poor, so jejune a production. Should we pity or be amazed at so perverse a talent, which, instead

of qualifying an author to give a new turn to old matters, disposes him quite contrary to talk in an old beaten trivial manner upon topics wholly new; to make so many sallies into pedantry without a call upon a subject the most alien, and in the very moments he is declaiming against it, and in an age, too, where it is so violently exploded, especially among those readers he proposes to entertain?

I know it will be said, that this is only to talk in the common style of an answerer, but I have not so little policy. If there were any hope of reputation or merit from such victory, I should be apt, like others, to cry up the courage and conduct of an enemy. Whereas to detect the weakness, the malice, the sophistry, the falsehood, the ignorance of such a writer, requires little more than to rank his perfections in such an order, and place them in such a light, that the commonest reader may form a judgment of them.

It may still be a wonder how so heavy a book, written upon a subject in appearance so little instructive or diverting, should survive to three editions, and consequently find a better reception than is usual with such bulky, spiritless volumes; and this in an age that pretends so soon to be nauseated with what is tedious and dull. To which I can only return, that as burning a book by the common hangman is a known expedient to make it sell, so to write a book that deserves such treatment is another; and a third, perhaps as effectual as either, is to ply an insipid, worthless tract with grave and learned answers, as Dr. Hickes, Dr. Potter, and Mr. Wotton have done. Such performances, however commendable, have glanced a reputation upon the piece, which owes its life to the strength of those hands and weapons that were raised to destroy it; like flinging a mountain upon a worm, which, instead of being bruised, by the advantage of its littleness lodges under it unhurt.

But neither is this all. For the subject, as unpromising as it seems at first view, is no less than that of Lucretius, to free men's minds from the bondage of religion; and this not by little hints and by piecemeal, after the manner of those little atheistical tracts that steal into the world, but in a thorough wholesale manner, by making religion, church, Christianity, with all their concomitants, a perfect contrivance of the civil power. It is an imputation often charged on this sort of men, that, by their invectives against religion, they can possibly propose no other end than that of fortifying themselves and others against the reproaches of a vicious life, it being necessary for men of libertine practices to embrace libertine principles, or else they cannot act in consistence with any reason,

Whether such authors have this

or preserve any peace of mind. design, (whereof I think they have never gone about to acquit themselves,) thus much is certain, that no other use is made of such writings; neither did I ever hear this author's book justified by any person, either Whig or Tory, except such who are of that profligate character. And I believe whoever examines it will be of the same opinion; although, indeed, such wretches are so numerous, that it seems rather surprising why the book has had no more editions than why it should have so many.

Having thus endeavored to satisfy the curious with some account of this author's character, let us examine what might probably be the motives to engage him in such a work. I shall say nothing of the principal, which is a sum of money: because that is not a mark to distinguish him from any other trader with the press. I will say nothing of revenge and malice, from resentment of the indignities and contempt he has undergone for his crime of apostacy. To this passion he has thought fit to sacrifice order, propriety, discretion, and common sense, as may be seen in every page of his book; but I am deceived, if there were not a third motive as powerful as the other two; and that is, vanity. About the latter end of king James's reign, he had almost finished a learned discourse in defence of the church of Rome, and to justify his conversion; all which, upon the revolution, was quite out of season. Having thus prostituted his reputation, and at once ruined his hopes, he had no recourse left but to show his spite against religion in general, the false pretensions to which had proved so destructive to his credit and fortune and at the same time, loath to employ the speculations of so many years to no purpose, by an easy turn, the same arguments he had made use of to advance popery were full as properly levelled by him against Christianity itself; like the image which, while it was new and handsome, was worshipped for a saint, and when it came to be old and broken was still good enough to make a tolerable devil. And therefore every reader will observe, that the arguments for popery are much the strongest of any in his book, as I shall further remark when I find them in my way.

There is one circumstance in his title-page, which I take to be not amiss, where he calls his book "Part the First." This is a project to fright away answerers, and make the poor advocates for religion believe he still keeps further vengeance in petto. It must be allowed, he has not wholly lost time while he was of the Romish communion This very trick he learned from his old father the

pope, whose custom it is to lift up his hand, and threaten to fulminate when he never meant to shoot his bolts; because the princes of Christendom had learned the secret to avoid or despise them. Dr. Hickes knew this very well, and therefore, in his answer to this "Book of Rights," where a second part is threatened, like a rash person he desperately cries, "Let it come." But I, who have too much phlegm to provoke angry wits of his standard, must tell the author that the doctor plays the wag, as if he were sure it were all grimace. For my part, I declare, if he writes a second part, I will not write another answer; or if I do, it shall be published before the other part comes out.

There may have been another motive, although it be hardly credible, both for publishing this work and threatening a second part it is soon conceived how far the sense of a man's vanity will transport him. This man must have somewhere heard that dangerous enemies have been often bribed to silence with money or preferment; and therefore, to show how formidable he is, he has published his first essay, and in hopes of hire to be quiet, has frighted us with his design of another. What must the clergy do in these unhappy circumstances? If they should bestow this man bread enough to stop his mouth, it will but open those of a hundred more, who are every whit as well qualified to rail as he. And truly, when I compare the former enemies to Christianity, such as Socinus, Hobbes, and Spinosa, with such of their successors, as Toland, Asgil, Coward, Gildon, this author of the Rights, and some others, the church appears to me like the sick old lion in the fable, who, after having his person outraged by the bull, the elephant, the horse, and the bear, took nothing so much to heart as to find himself at last insulted by the spurn of an ass.

I will now add a few words, to give the reader some general notion of the nature and tendency of the work itself.

I think I may assert, without the least partiality, that it is a treatise wholly devoid of wit or learning, under the most violent and weak endeavors and pretences to both: that it is replenished throughout with bold, rude, improbable falsehoods, and gross misinterpretations; and supported by the most impudent sophistry, and false logic, I have anywhere observed. To this he has added a paltry, traditional cant of priestrid and priestcraft, without reason or pretext as he applies it. And when he rails at those doctrines in popery, (which no Protestant was ever supposed to believe,) he leads the reader, however, by the hand, to make applications against