Chapter 2

Collins continued his attack upon Christian revelation in the _Scheme_. In the two years which separated this work from the earlier _Grounds and Reasons_, there occurred no change in the author's argument. What does occur, however, is a perceptive if snide elaboration upon the mask. This is in many ways the same persona who barely suppressed his guffaws in the earlier work. Now he is given an added dimension; he is made more decisively rational than his predecessor and therefore more insightful in his knowledge of rhetorical method. As a disciple of certain Protestant polemicists and particularly of Grotius, whose "integrity," "honor," and biblical criticism he supports, he is the empirical-minded Christian who knows exactly why the literalists have failed to persuade the free-thinkers or even to have damaged their arguments. "For if you begin with Infidels by denying to them, what is evident and agreeable to common sense, I think there can be no reasonable hopes of converting or convincing them."[23] The irony is abrasive simply because it unanswerably singles out the great rhetorical failure of orthodoxy, its inability to argue from a set of principles as acceptable to the deists as to themselves.

Many of the clergy chafed against Collins's manipulation of this tongue-in-cheek persona. They resented his irreverent wit which projected, for example, the image of an Anglican God who "talks to all mankind from corners" and who shows his back parts to Moses. They were irritated by his jesting parables, as in "The Case of Free-Seeing," and by the impertinence of labelling Archbishop Tillotson as the man "whom all _English Free-Thinkers_ own as their Head."[24]

But most of all they gagged upon Collins's use of satire in religious controversy. As we have already seen, there were complex reasons for his choice of technique. He was a naturally witty man who, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of malice, expressed himself best through circuitous irony. In 1724, when he himself considered his oratorical practice, he argued that his matter determined his style, that the targets of his belittling wit were the "saint-errants." We can only imagine the exasperation of Collins's Anglican enemies when they found their orthodoxy thus slyly lumped with the eccentricities of Samuel Butler's "true blew" Presbyterians. It would be hard to live down the associations of those facetious lines which made the Augustan divines, like their unwelcome forebear Hudibras, members

Of that stubborn Crew Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant To be the true Church Militant.

Those dignified Anglican exteriors were further punctured by Collins's irreverent attack upon their cry of religious uniformity, a cry which was "ridiculous, romantick, and impossible to succeed." He saw himself, in short, as an emancipated Butler or even Cervantes; and like his famous predecessors he too would laugh quite out of countenance the fool and the hypocrite, the pretender and the enthusiast, the knave and the persecuter, all those who would create a god in their own sour and puny image.

III

By 1727 several of the orthodox felt that they could take no more of Collins's laughter, his sneering invectives against the clergy, or his designs to make religion "a Matter purely personal; and the Knowledge of it to be obtain'd by personal Consideration, _independently of any Guides, Teachers, or Authority_." In the forefront of this group was John Rogers, whose hostility to the deist was articulate and compulsive. At least it drove him into a position seemingly at odds with the spirit if not the law of English toleration. He urged, for example, that those like Collins be prosecuted in a civil court for a persuasion "which is manifestly subversive of all Order and Polity, and can no more consist with civil, than with religious, Society."[25]

Thereupon followed charge and countercharge. New gladiators, as different from each other as the nonconformist divine Samuel Chandler and the deist Thomas Chubb, entered the arena on behalf of Collins. For all the dogmatic volubility of Rogers, orthodoxy appeared beleaguered. The moderate clergy, who witnessed this exchange, became alarmed; they feared that in the melee the very heart of English toleration would be threatened by the contenders, all of whom spoke as its champion. Representative of such moderation was Nathanael Marshall, who wished if not to end the debate, then at least to contain its ardor. As canon of Windsor, he supported the condition of a state religion protected by the magistrate but he worried over the extent of the latter's prerogative and power. Certainly he was more liberal than Rogers in his willingness to entertain professions of religious diversity. Yet he straitjacketed his liberalism when he denied responsible men the right to attack laws, both civil and canonical, with "ludicrous Insult" or "with Buffoonery and Banter, Ridicule or Sarcastick Irony."[26]

Once again Collins met the challenge. In _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony_ he devoted himself to undermining the moral, the intellectual, and practical foundations of that one restraint which Marshall would impose upon the conduct of any religious quarrel. He had little difficulty in achieving his objective. His adversary's stand was visibly vulnerable and for several reasons. It was too conscious of the tug-of-war between the deist and Rogers, too arbitrary in its choice of prohibition. It was, in truth, strained by a choice between offending the establishment and yet rejecting clerical extremism.[27] Moreover, Collins had this time an invisible partner, a superior thinker against whom he could test his own ideas and from whom he could borrow others. For the _Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony_ is largely a particularization, a crude but powerful reworking of Shaftesbury's _Sensus Communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour_.

Supported by Shaftesbury's urbane generalization, Collins laughed openly at the egocentricity and blindness of Marshall's timid zealotry. Indeed, he wryly found his orthodox opponent guilty of the very crime with which he, as a subversive, was charged. It seemed to him, he said,

a most prodigious Banter upon [mankind], for Men to talk in general of the _Immorality_ of _Ridicule_ and _Irony_, and of _punishing_ Men for those Matters, when their own Practice is _universal Irony_ and _Ridicule_ of all those who go not with them, and _universal Applause_ and _Encouragement_ for such _Ridicule_ and _Irony_, and distinguishing by all the honourable ways imaginable such _drolling_ Authors for their Drollery; and when Punishment for _Drollery_ is never call'd for, but when _Drollery_ is used or employ'd against them!

(p. 29)

Collins's technique continued its ironic ambiguity, reversal, and obliquity. Under a tone of seeming innocence and good will, he credited his adversaries with an enviable capacity for satiric argument. In comradely fashion, he found precedent for his own rhetorical practice through a variety of historical and biblical analogies. But even more important for a contemporary audience, he again resorted to the device of invoking the authority provided by some of the most respected names in the Anglican Establishment. The use of satire in religious topics, hence, was manifest in "the Writings of our most eminent Divines," especially those of Stillingfleet, "our greatest controversial Writer" (pp. 4-5).

With all the outrageous assurance of a self-invited guest, the deist had seated himself at the table of his vainly protesting Christian hosts (whom he insisted on identifying as brethren). "In a word," he said so as to obviate debate, "the Opinions and Practices of Men in all Matters, and especially in Matters of Religion, are generally so absurd and ridiculous that it is impossible for them not to be the Subjects of Ridicule" (p. 19). Thus adopting Juvenal's concept of satiric necessity ("difficile est saturam non scribere"), Collins here set forth the thesis and rationale of his enemy. There was a kind of impudent virtuosity in his "proofs," in his manner of drawing a large, impressive cluster of names into his ironic net and making all of them appear to be credible witnesses in his defense. Even Swift, amusingly compromised as "one of the greatest _Droles_ that ever appear'd upon the Stage of the World" (p. 39), was brought to the witness box as evidence of the privileged status to which satiric writing was entitled. Collins enforced erudition with cool intelligence so that contemptuous amusement is present on every page of his _Discourse_.

Beneath his jeers and his laughter there was a serious denunciation of any kind of intellectual restraint, however mild-seeming; beneath his verbal pin-pricking there was conversely an exoneration of man's right to inquire, to profess, and to persuade. Beneath his jests and sarcasms there was further a firm philosophical commitment that informed the rhetoric of all his earlier work. Ridicule, he asserted in 1729, "is both a proper and necessary Method of Discourse in many Cases, and especially in the Case of _Gravity_, when that is attended with Hypocrisy or Imposture, or with Ignorance, or with soureness of Temper and Persecution: all which ought to draw after them the _Ridicule_ and _Contempt_ of the Society, which has no other effectual Remedy against such Methods of Imposition" (p. 22).

For the modern reader the _Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony_ is the most satisfactory of Collins's many pamphlets and books. It lacks the pretentiousness of the _Scheme_, the snide convolutions of the _Grounds and Reasons_, the argument by half-truths of the _Discourse of Free-Thinking_. His last work is free of the curious ambivalence which marked so many of his earlier pieces, a visible uncertainty which made him fear repression and yet court it. On the contrary, his last work is in fact a justification of his rhetorical mode and religious beliefs; it is an _apologia pro vita sua_ written with all the intensity and decisiveness that such a justification demands. To be sure, it takes passing shots at old enemies like Swift, but never with rancor. And while its language is frequently ironical, its thinking makes an earnest defense of wit as a weapon of truth. The essay sets forth its author as an _animal ridens_, a creature that through laughter and affable cynicism worships a universal God and respects a rational mankind.

Brown University

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

[1] _Universal Spectator, and Weekly Journal_, No. 98 (22 August 1730).

[2] To Des Maizeaux (5 May 1717): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, ff. 129-130.

[3] To Des Maizeaux (9 February 1716): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 123.

[4] The title page of the _Scheme_ is dated 1726. It was not advertised in the newspapers or journals of that year--a strange silence for any of Collins's work. Its first notice appeared in the _Monthly Catalogue: Being a General Register of Books, Sermons, Plays, Poetry, Pamphlets, &c. Printed and Publish'd in London, or the Universities, during the Month of May, 1727_ (see No. 49). Yet we know that the _Scheme_ had been remarked upon as early as March when on the 10th of that month Samuel Chandler published his _Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists in their late Writings against Christianity_. (For the dating of Chandler's work, see the _Daily Courant_ [10 March 1727].) We know also that the _Scheme_ went to a second edition late in 1727 and was frequently advertised in the _Daily Post_ between 2 January and 20 January 1728.

[5] For the statement about the _Letter to Dr. Rogers_, see B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 220 (15 August 1727). For that on the use of "personal matters" in controversy, see B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 170 (27 December 1719); cf. _The Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered_ (London, 1726), pp. 422-438.

[6] _The Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion_ was published in London within the first four days of January 1724; see the advertisement in the _Daily Post_ (4 January 1724). _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing_ was published on or close to 17 March 1729; see the advertisement in the _Daily Journal_ for that date.

[7] We can generally fix the date of Rogers's _Eight Sermons_ within the first two months of 1727 because it was answered early by Samuel Chandler's _Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists_. (See note 4.) For the dating of Collins's rebuttal, see the _Monthly Catalogue_, No. 49 (May 1727).

[8] To Des Maizeaux (24 June 1727): B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, ff. 218-219.

[9] For the dating of this work, see the _Daily Post_ (31 January 1728).

[10] For Swift's satire, see _Mr. C---ns's Discourse of Free-Thinking, Put into plain English, by way of Abstract, for the Use of the Poor_. For Bentley's devastating probe of Collins's scholarly inadequacies, see his _Remarks on the Discourse of Free-Thinking. By Phileleutherus Lipsiensis_. Both works appeared in 1713.

[11] _Scheme_, pp. 432-433.

[12] Edward Chandler, _A Defence of Christianity from the Prophecies of the Old Testament_ (London, 1725), p. ii.

[13] _A Letter to Dr. Rogers_, p. 89.

[14] _A Vindication of the Divine Attributes_ (London, 1710), p. 24.

[15] Robert Jenkin, _A Brief Confutation of the Pretences against Natural and Revealed Religion_ (London, 1702), p. 40.

[16] For Collins on his own rhetorical skills, see _Scheme_, p. 402; William Warburton, _Divine Legation of Moses, Demonstrated_ (London, 1846), III, 199.

[17] Jenkin, _Brief Confutation_, p. 51; for the letter (1 July 1717), see B. M. Sloane MSS. 4282, f. 137.

[18] Pp. 46-99.

[19] See, for example, the statement of John Conybeare, Bishop of Bristol, in Joseph Spence, _Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men_, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966), I, sect. 992.

[20] _Essay_, pp. 329-333 (for Whiston's statement of sources); pp. 334-335 (for his defense of literal interpretation). The bracketed material indicates Whiston's manuscript emendations of his own printed text; see the British Museum's copy of the _Essay_ (873. 1. 10) which originally belonged to the mathematician. See Collins, _Grounds and Reasons_, pp. 98-99, for the summary of Whiston's attack upon allegorical interpretation.

[21] _Grounds and Reasons_, pp. 20, 48-50.

[22] This terse summary of the persona's argument was correctly made by Warburton, III, 232.

[23] _Scheme_, p. 391.

[24] _Discourse of Free-Thinking_, pp. 15-17, 38, 171.

[25] _Eight Sermons_, pp. 1, lxi.

[26] Marshall, pp. 301, 337. For Samuel Chandler's contribution, see his _Reflections on the Conduct of the Modern Deists_ (London, 1727); for Chubb's contribution see _Some Short Reflections on the Grounds and Extent of Authority and Liberty, With respect to the Civil Government_ (London, 1728).

[27] Marshall's reluctance to support Rogers's extremism is seen in the funeral sermon he preached at the latter's death (_A Sermon Delivered in the Parish Church of St. Giles Cripplegate, May 18, 1729. Upon Occasion of the Much Lamented Death of the Revd. John Rogers_ [London, 1729]). He made only the most casual and indifferent reference to Rogers's work. So obvious was this slight that it called for a rebuttal; see Philalethes (A. A. Sykes [?]), _Some Remarks Upon the Reverend Dr. Marshall's Sermon on Occasion of the Death of the Revd Dr Rogers_ (London, 1729).

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

This facsimile of _A Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing_ (1729) is reproduced from a copy in the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

A DISCOURSE CONCERNING Ridicule and Irony IN WRITING, IN A LETTER To the Reverend Dr. NATHANAEL MARSHALL.

_Ridiculum acri Fortius & melius magnas plerumq; secat res._

_Ridentem dicere verum Quid vetat?_

_LONDON:_

Printed for J. BROTHERTON in _Cornhill_ and sold by T. WARNER in _Pater-noster-Row_, and A. DODD without _Temple-Bar_. 1729.

A DISCOURSE 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_."

And this manner of writing is seldom complain'd of, as unfit to be allow'd, by any but those who feel themselves hurt by it. For the solemn and grave can bear a solemn and grave Attack: That gives them a sort of Credit in the World, and makes them appear considerable to themselves, as worthy of a serious Regard. But _Contempt_ is what they, who commonly are the most contemptible and worthless of Men, cannot bear nor withstand, as setting them in their true Light, and being the most effectual Method to drive Imposture, the sole Foundation of their Credit, out of the World. Hence _Stillingfleet_'s Popish Adversaries, more conscious perhaps of the Ridiculousness of Popery than the common People among Protestants themselves, fall upon him very furiously. One says[37], "That by the Phrases, which are the chief Ornaments that set off the Doctor's Works, we may easily guess in what Books he has spent his Time; and that he is well vers'd in _Don Quixot_, the _Seven Champions_, and other _Romantick Stories_. Sure the Doctor err'd in his Vocation: Had he quitted all serious Matters, and dedicated himself wholly to Drollery and Romance, with two or three Years under _Hudibras_, he might have been a Master in that Faculty; the Stage might have been a Gainer by it, and the Church of _England_ would have been no Loser."