Part 20

The mention of quotations puts me in mind of commonplace books, which have been long in use by industrious young divines, and I hear do still continue so. I know they are very beneficial to lawyers and physicians, because they are collections of facts or cases, whereupon a great part of their several faculties depend; of these I have seen several, but never yet any written by a clergyman; only from what I am informed, they generally are extracts of theological and moral sentences drawn from ecclesiastical and other authors, reduced under proper heads, usually begun, and perhaps finished, while the collectors were young in the church, as being intended for materials or nurseries to stock future sermons. You will observe the wise editors of ancient authors, when they meet a sentence worthy of being distinguished, take special care to have the first word printed in capital letters, that you may not overlook it: Such, for example, as the INCONSTANCY of FORTUNE, the GOODNESS of PEACE, the EXCELLENCY of WISDOM, the CERTAINTY of DEATH: that PROSPERITY makes men INSOLENT, and ADVERSITY HUMBLE; and the like eternal truths, which every ploughman knows well enough before Aristotle or Plato were born.[9] If theological commonplace books be no better filled, I think they had better be laid aside, and I could wish that men of tolerable intellectuals would rather trust their own natural reason, improved by a general conversation with books, to enlarge on points which they are supposed already to understand. If a rational man reads an excellent author with just application, he shall find himself extremely improved, and perhaps insensibly led to imitate that author's perfections, although in a little time he should not remember one word in the book, nor even the subject it handled: for books give the same turn to our thoughts and way of reasoning, that good and ill company do to our behaviour and conversation; without either loading our memories, or making us even sensible of the change. And particularly I have observed in preaching, that no men succeed better than those who trust entirely to the stock or fund of their own reason, advanced indeed, but not overlaid by commerce with books. Whoever only reads in order to transcribe wise and shining remarks, without entering into the genius and spirit of the author, as it is probable he will make no very judicious extract, so he will be apt to trust to that collection in all his compositions, and be misled out of the regular way of thinking, in order to introduce those materials, which he has been at the pains to gather and the product of all this will be found a manifest incoherent piece of patchwork.

[Footnote 9: Thus in first edition. Scott and Hawkesworth have: "though he never heard of Aristotle or Plato." [T.S.]]

Some gentlemen abounding in their university erudition, are apt to fill their sermons with philosophical terms and notions of the metaphysical or abstracted kind, which generally have one advantage, to be equally understood by the wise, the vulgar, and the preacher himself. I have been better entertained, and more informed by a chapter[10] in the "Pilgrim's Progress," than by a long discourse upon the will and the intellect, and simple or complex ideas. Others again, are fond of dilating on matter and motion, talk of the fortuitous concourse of atoms, of theories, and phenomena, directly against the advice of St Paul, who yet appears to have been conversant enough in those kinds of studies.

[Footnote 10: Thus in first edition. Scott and Hawkesworth have "a few pages" instead of "a chapter" [T. S ]]

I do not find that you are anywhere directed in the canons or articles, to attempt explaining the mysteries of the Christian religion. And indeed since Providence intended there should be mysteries, I do not see how it can be agreeable to piety, orthodoxy or good sense, to go about such a work. For, to me there seems to be a manifest dilemma in the case if you explain them, they are mysteries no longer, if you fail, you have laboured to no purpose. What I should think most reasonable and safe for you to do upon this occasion is, upon solemn days to deliver the doctrine as the Church holds it, and confirm it by Scripture. For my part, having considered the matter impartially, I can see no great reason which those gentlemen you call the freethinkers can have for their clamour against religious mysteries, since it is plain, they were not invented by the clergy, to whom they bring no profit, nor acquire any honour. For every clergyman is ready either to tell us the utmost he knows, or to confess that he does not understand them; neither is it strange that there should be mysteries in divinity as well as in the commonest operations of nature.

And here I am at a loss what to say upon the frequent custom of preaching against atheism, deism, freethinking, and the like, as young divines are particularly fond of doing especially when they exercise their talent in churches frequented by persons of quality, which as it is but an ill compliment to the audience; so I am under some doubt whether it answers the end.

Because persons under those imputations are generally no great frequenters of churches, and so the congregation is but little edified for the sake of three or four fools who are past grace. Neither do I think it any part of prudence to perplex the minds of well-disposed people with doubts, which probably would never have otherwise come into their heads. But I am of opinion, and dare be positive in it, that not one in an hundred of those who pretend to be freethinkers, are really so in their hearts. For there is one observation which I never knew to fail, and I desire you will examine it in the course of your life, that no gentleman of a liberal education, and regular in his morals, did ever profess himself a freethinker: where then are these kind of people to be found? Among the worst part of the soldiery made up of pages, younger brothers of obscure families, and others of desperate fortunes; or else among idle town fops, and now and then a drunken 'squire of the country. Therefore nothing can be plainer, than that ignorance and vice are two ingredients absolutely necessary in the composition of those you generally call freethinkers, who in propriety of speech, are no thinkers at all. And since I am in the way of it, pray consider one thing farther: as young as you are, you cannot but have already observed, what a violent run there is among too many weak people against university education. Be firmly assured, that the whole cry is made up by those who were either never sent to a college; or through their irregularities and stupidity never made the least improvement while they were there. I have at least[11] forty of the latter sort now in my eye; several of them in this town, whose learning, manners, temperance, probity, good-nature, and politics, are all of a piece. Others of them in the country, oppressing their tenants, tyrannizing over the neighbourhood, cheating the vicar, talking nonsense, and getting drunk at the sessions. It is from such seminaries as these, that the world is provided with the several tribes and denominations of freethinkers, who, in my judgment, are not to be reformed by arguments offered to prove the truth of the Christian religion, because reasoning will never make a man correct an ill opinion, which by reasoning he never acquired: for in the course of things, men always grow vicious before they become unbelievers; but if you would once convince the town or country profligate, by topics drawn from the view of their own quiet, reputation, health, and advantage, their infidelity would soon drop off: This I confess is no easy task, because it is almost in a literal sense, to fight with beasts. Now, to make it clear, that we are to look for no other original of this infidelity, whereof divines so much complain, it is allowed on all hands, that the people of England are more corrupt in their morals than any other nation at this day under the sun: and this corruption is manifestly owing to other causes, both, numerous and obvious, much more than to the publication of irreligious books, which indeed are but the consequence of the former. For all the writers against Christianity since the Revolution have been of the lowest rank among men in regard to literature, wit, and good sense, and upon that account wholly unqualified to propagate heresies, unless among a people already abandoned.

[Footnote 11: Scott and Hawkesworth print "above forty." [T. S.]]

In an age where everything disliked by those who think with the majority is called disaffection, it may perhaps be ill interpreted, when I venture to tell you that this universal depravation of manners is owing to the perpetual bandying of factions among us for thirty years past; when without weighing the motives of justice, law, conscience, or honour, every man adjusts his principles to those of the party he hath chosen, and among whom he may best find his own account: But by reason of our frequent vicissitudes, men who were impatient of being out of play, have been forced to recant, or at least to reconcile their former tenets with every new system of administration. Add to this, that the old fundamental custom of annual parliaments being wholly laid aside, and elections growing chargeable, since gentlemen found that their country seats brought them in less than a seat in the House, the voters, that is to say, the bulk of the common people have been universally seduced into bribery, perjury, drunkenness, malice, and slanders.

Not to be further tedious, or rather invidious, these are a few among other causes which have contributed to the ruin of our morals, and consequently to the contempt of religion: For imagine to yourself, if you please, a landed youth, whom his mother would never suffer to look into a book for fear of spoiling his eyes, got into parliament, and observing all enemies to the clergy heard with the utmost applause, what notions he must imbibe; how readily he will join in the cry; what an esteem he will conceive of himself; and what a contempt he must entertain, not only for his vicar at home, but for the whole order.

I therefore again conclude, that the trade of infidelity hath been taken up only for an expedient to keep in countenance that universal corruption of morals, which many other causes first contributed to introduce and to cultivate. And thus, Mr. Hobbes' saying upon reason may be much more properly applied to religion: that, "if religion will be against a man, a man will be against religion." Though after all, I have heard a profligate offer much stronger arguments against paying his debts, than ever he was known to do against Christianity; indeed the reason was, because in that juncture he happened to be closer pressed by the bailiff than the parson.

Ignorance may perhaps be the mother of superstition; but experience hath not proved it to be so of devotion: for Christianity always made the most easy and quickest progress in civilized countries. I mention this because it is affirmed that the clergy are in most credit where ignorance prevails (and surely this kingdom would be called the paradise of clergymen if that opinion were true) for which they instance England in the times of Popery. But whoever knows anything of three or four centuries before the Reformation, will find the little learning then stirring was more equally divided between the English clergy and laity than it is at present. There were several famous lawyers in that period, whose writings are still in the highest repute, and some historians and poets who were not of the Church.[12] Whereas now-a-days our education is so corrupted, that you will hardly find a young person of quality with the least tincture of knowledge, at the same time that many of the clergy were never more learned, or so scurvily treated. Here among us, at least, a man of letters out of the three professions, is almost a prodigy. And those few who have preserved any rudiments of learning are (except perhaps one or two smatterers) the clergy's friends to a man: and I dare appeal to any clergyman in this kingdom, whether the greatest dunce in the parish be not always the most proud, wicked, fraudulent, and intractable of his flock.

[Footnote 12: What Swift calls learning was, in his day, the property, so to speak, of professional men, such as divines, lawyers, and university teachers. The common man was too poor or too much taxed to acquire it; the aristocrat often too lazy or too fond of pleasure-seeking to bother about it. The Pre-Reformation days, to which Swift refers, could boast such men as Fabyan, Hall, Chaucer, Gower, and Caxton, as well as Lord Berners, Sir Thomas More, and Lydgate, who were not, in any sense, professional men. [T.S.]]

I think the clergy have almost given over perplexing themselves and their hearers with abstruse points of Predestination, Election, and the like; at least it is time they should; and therefore I shall not trouble you further upon this head.

I have now said all I could think convenient with relation to your conduct in the pulpit: your behaviour in life[13] is another scene, upon which I shall readily offer you my thoughts, if you appear to desire them from me by your approbation of what I have here written; if not, I have already troubled you too much.

[Footnote 13: Scott and Hawkesworth print "your behaviour in the world." The above is the reading of the first edition. [T. S.]]

I am, Sir, Your Affectionate Friend and Servant A.B.

January 9th. 1719-20.

***** ***** ***** *****

SOME ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENLARGING

THE POWER OF BISHOPS IN

LETTING OF LEASES.

NOTE.

The years between that which saw the publication of the "Drapier Letters," and that which rang with the fame of "Gulliver's Travels," were busy fighting years for Swift. Apart from his vigorous championship of the Test, and his war against the Dissenters, he espoused the cause of the inferior clergy of his own Church, as against the bishops. The business of filling the vacant sees of Ireland had degenerated into what we should now call "jobbery"; and during the period of Sir Robert Walpole's administration it was rarely that an Irishman was selected. On any question, therefore, which affected the welfare of the lower clergy, it will at once be seen, that the Lords Spiritual, sitting in the Irish Upper House, would find little difficulty in coming to a solution. That the solution should also be one which only increased the clergy's difficulties, might be expected from a body which aimed chiefly at acquiring wealth and power for itself.

In the reign of Charles I. an act was passed, "prohibiting all bishops, and other ecclesiastical corporations, from setting their lands for above the term of twenty-one years: the rent reserved to be half the real value of such lands at the time they were set." As Swift points out, about the time of the Reformation, a trade was carried on by the popish bishops, who felt that their terms of office would be short, and who, consequently, to get what benefit they could while in office, "made long leases and fee-farms of great part of their lands, reserving very inconsiderable rents, sometimes only a chiefry." It was owing to a continuance in this traffic by the bishops when they became Protestants, and to a recognition of the injustice of such alienation, that the legislature passed the act. In 1723, however, an attempt was made for its repeal. Swift was not the man to permit the bishops to have their way, if he could help it. His opinion of Irish bishops is well known. "No blame," he said, "rested with the court for these appointments. Excellent and moral men had been selected upon every occasion of vacancy, but it unfortunately happened, that as these worthy divines crossed Hounslow Heath, on their way to Ireland, to take possession of their bishoprics, they have been regularly robbed and murdered by the highwaymen frequenting that common, who seize upon their robes and patents, come over to Ireland, and are consecrated bishops in their stead." To prevent, therefore, the encroachments of such individuals he wrote this tract, in which he clearly demonstrates the justice and salutariness of Charles's act. His contention, as Monck Mason points out ("History of St. Patrick's Cathedral," p. 392, note 1) "is confirmed by all writers upon the subject," and quotes from Carte's "Life of James, Duke of Ormond," where it is stated that the bishoprics in Ireland had, "the greatest part of them, been depauperated in the change of religion by absolute grants and long leases (made generally by the popish bishops that conformed)--some of them not able to maintain a bishop, several were, by these means, reduced to £50 a year, as Waterford, Kilfenora, and others, and some to five marks, as Cloyne and Kilmacduagh." To Swift is largely due the fact that the House of Commons, when they received the bill from the Lords, threw it out.

Scott, in his note on this pamphlet (amended from one by Lord Orrery), takes his usual course when considering Swift's attitude of opposition --he implies a motive or prejudice. In his opinion, Swift considered the bill for the repeal of Charles's act, "an indirect mode of gratifying the existing bishops, whom he did not regard with peculiar respect or complacency, at the expense of the Church establishment," and that, therefore, "the spirit of his opposition is, in this instance, peculiarly caustic." As a matter of fact, the spirit of Swift's opposition was always peculiarly caustic, in this case no more so than in any other. But to imply that his motive was a self gratifying one only, is to treat Swift unfairly. If the bishops required an example as to how they should deal with their lands, they could easily have found one in Swift himself. In all the renewals of the leases of the Deanery lands, Swift never sought his own immediate advantage, his terms were based on the consideration that the lands were his only in trust for a successor. To take one instance only, the instance of the parish of Kilberry in county Kildare, cited by Monck Mason (p. 27, note h). In 1695 the rent of this parish was reserved at £100 English sterling, in 1717, Swift raised this rent to £150, in 1731 to £170, and in 1741 to £200 per annum, with a proportionable loss of fine upon each occasion.

The tract is dated October 21st, 1723, but as I have not come across a copy of the original separate issue, I have based the text on that given by Faulkner (vol. iv, 1735), and the title page here reproduced is from that edition. The fifth volume of "Miscellanies," also issued in 1735, contains this tract, and I have compared the texts of the two. The notes given in Scott's edition are, in the main, altered from Faulkner's edition.

[T.S.]

SOME ARGUMENTS AGAINST ENLARGING the POWER OF BISHOPS In LETTING OF LEASES. WITH REMARKS on some _Queries_ lately published.

_Mibi credite, major haereditas venit unicuique vestraem in iisdem bonis ae jure & ae legibus, quam ab iis ae quibus illa ipsa bona relicta sunt._

Cicero _pro_ A. Caecina.

Written in the Year 1723.

Printed in the Year MDCCXXXIII.

In handling this subject, I shall proceed wholly upon the supposition, that those of our party, who profess themselves members of the church established, and under the apostolical government of bishops, do desire the continuance and transmission of it to posterity, at least, in as good a condition as it is at present. Because, as this discourse is not calculated for dissenters of any kind; so neither will it suit the talk or sentiments of those persons, who, with the denomination of churchmen, are oppressors of the inferior clergy, and perpetually quarrelling at the great incomes of the bishops; which is a traditional cant delivered down from former times, and continued with great reason, although it be now near 200 years since almost three parts in four of the church revenues have been taken from the clergy: Besides the spoils that have been gradually made ever since, of glebes and other lands, by the confusion of times, the fraud of encroaching neighbours, or the power of oppressors, too great to be encountered.

About the time of the Reformation, many popish bishops of this kingdom, knowing they must have been soon ejected, if they would not change their religion, made long leases and fee-farms of great part of their lands, reserving very inconsiderable rents, sometimes only a chiefry; by a power they assumed, directly contrary to many ancient canons, yet consistent enough with the common law. This trade held on for many years after the bishops became Protestants; and some of their names are still remembered with infamy, on account of enriching their families by such sacrilegious alienations. By these means, episcopal revenues were so low reduced, that three or four sees were often united to make a tolerable competency. For some remedy to this evil, King James the First, by a bounty that became a good Christian prince, bestowed several forfeited lands on the northern bishoprics: But in all other parts of the kingdom, the Church continued still in the same distress and poverty; some of the sees hardly possessing enough to maintain a country vicar. About the middle of King Charles the First's reign, the legislature here thought fit to put a stop, at least, to any farther alienations; and so a law was enacted, prohibiting all bishops, and other ecclesiastical corporations, from setting their lands for above the term of twenty-one years; the rent reserved to be one half of the real value of such lands at the time they were set, without which condition the lease to be void.

Soon after the restoration of King Charles the Second, the parliament taking into consideration the miserable estate of the Church, certain lands, by way of augmentation, were granted to eight bishops in the act of settlement, and confirmed in the act of explanation; of which bounty, as I remember, three sees were, in a great measure, defeated; but by what accidents, it is not here of any importance to relate.

This, at present, is the condition of the Church in Ireland, with regard to Episcopal revenues: Which I have thus briefly (and, perhaps, imperfectly) deduced for some information to those, whose thoughts do not lead them to such considerations.

By virtue of the statute, already mentioned, under King Charles the First, limiting ecclesiastical bodies to the term of twenty-one years, under the reserved rent of half real value, the bishops have had some share in the gradual rise of lands, without which they could not have been supported, with any common decency that might become their station. It is above eighty years since the passing of that act: The see of Meath, one of the best in the kingdom, was then worth about £400 _per annum_; the poorer ones in the same proportion. If this were their present condition, I cannot conceive how they would have been able to pay for their patents, or buy their robes: But this will certainly be the condition of their successors, if such a bill should pass, as they say is now intended, which I will suppose, and believe, many persons, who may give a vote for it, are not aware of.

However, this is the act which is now attempted to be repealed, or, at least, eluded; some are for giving bishops leave to let fee-farms; others would allow them to let leases for lives; and the most moderate would repeal that clause, by which the bishops are bound to let their lands at half value.

The reasons for the rise of value in lands, are of two kinds. Of the first kind, are long peace and settlement after the devastations of war; plantations, improvements of bad soil, recovery of bogs and marshes, advancement of trade and manufactures, increase of inhabitants, encouragement of agriculture, and the like.