Part 5

The many corruptions at present in every branch of business are almost inconceivable. I have heard it computed by skilful persons, that of six millions raised every year for the service of the public, one third, at least, is sunk and intercepted through the several classes and subordinations of artful men in office, before the remainder is applied to the proper use. This is an accidental ill effect of our freedom. And while such men are in trust, who have no check from within, nor any views but toward their interest, there is no other fence against them, but the certainty of being hanged upon the first discovery, by the arbitrary will of an unlimited monarch, or his vizier. Among us, the only danger to be apprehended is the loss of an employment; and that danger is to be eluded a thousand ways. Besides, when fraud is great, it furnishes weapons to defend itself: And at worst, if the crimes be so flagrant, that a man is laid aside out of perfect shame, (which rarely happens) he retires loaded with the spoils of the nation; _et fruitur diis iratis_. I could name a commission, where several persons, out of a salary of five hundred pounds, without other visible revenues, have always lived at the rate of two thousand, and laid out forty or fifty thousand upon purchases of lands or annuities. A hundred other instances of the same kind might easily be produced. What remedy, therefore, can be found against such grievances, in a constitution like ours, but to bring religion into countenance, and encourage those, who, from the hope of future reward, and dread of future punishment, will be moved to act with justice and integrity?

This is not to be accomplished any other way, but by introducing religion, as much as possible, to be the turn and fashion of the age; which only lies in the power of the administration; the prince with utmost strictness regulating the court, the ministry, and other persons in great employment; and these, by their example and authority, reforming all who have dependence on them.

It is certain, that a reformation successfully carried on in this great town, would in time spread itself over the whole kingdom, since most of the considerable youth pass here that season of their lives, wherein the strongest impressions are made, in order to improve their education, or advance their fortune, and those among them, who return into their several counties, are sure to be followed and imitated, as the greatest patterns of wit and good breeding.

And if things were once in this train, that is, if virtue and religion were established as the necessary titles to reputation and preferment, and if vice and infidelity were not only loaded with infamy, but made the infallible ruin of all men's pretensions, our duty, by becoming our interest, would take root in our natures, and mix with the very genius of our people, so that it would not be easy for the example of one wicked prince to bring us back to our former corruptions.

I have confined myself (as it is before observed) to those methods for the advancement of piety, which are in the power of a prince, limited like ours, by a strict execution of the laws already in force. And this is enough for a project, that comes without any name or recommendation, I doubt, a great deal more than will suddenly be reduced into practice. Though, if any disposition should appear towards so good a work, it is certain, that the assistance of the legislative power would be necessary to make it more complete. I will instance only a few particulars.

In order to reform the vices of this town, which, as we have said, hath so mighty an influence on the whole kingdom, it would be very instrumental to have a law made, that all taverns and alehouses should be obliged to dismiss their company at twelve at night, and shut up their doors, and that no woman should be suffered to enter any tavern or alehouse, upon any pretence whatsoever. It is easy to conceive what a number of ill consequences such a law would prevent, the mischiefs of quarrels, and lewdness, and thefts, and midnight brawls, the diseases of intemperance and venery, and a thousand other evils needless to mention. Nor would it be amiss, if the masters of those public-houses were obliged, upon the severest penalties, to give only a proportioned quantity of drink to every company, and when he found his guests disordered with excess, to refuse them any more.

I believe there is hardly a nation in Christendom, where all kind of fraud is practised in so immeasurable a degree as with us. The lawyer, the tradesman, the mechanic, have found so many arts to deceive in their several callings, that they far outgrow the common prudence of mankind, which is in no sort able to fence against them. Neither could the legislature in anything more consult the public good, than by providing some effectual remedy against this evil, which, in several cases, deserves greater punishment than many crimes that are capital among us. The vintner, who, by mixing poison with his wines, destroys more lives than any one disease in the bill of mortality; the lawyer, who persuades you to a purchase which he knows is mortgaged for more than the worth, to the ruin of you and your family; the goldsmith or scrivener, who takes all your fortune to dispose of, when he has beforehand resolved to break the following day, do surely deserve the gallows much better than the wretch who is carried thither for stealing a horse.

It cannot easily be answered to God or man, why a law is not made for limiting the press; at least so far as to prevent the publishing of such pernicious books, as, under pretence of freethinking, endeavour to overthrow those tenets in religion which have been held inviolable, almost in all ages, by every sect that pretend to be Christian; and cannot, therefore, with any colour of reason, be called points in controversy, or matters of speculation, as some would pretend. The Doctrine of the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, the Immortality of the Soul, and even the truth of all revelation, are daily exploded and denied in books openly printed; though it is to be supposed neither party will avow such principles, or own the supporting of them to be any way necessary to their service.[6]

[Footnote 6: This passage refers to the deistical publications of Asgill, Toland, Tindal, and Collins, already noted. [T. S.]]

It would be endless to set down every corruption or defect which requires a remedy from the legislative power. Senates are like to have little regard for any proposals that come from without doors; though, under a due sense of my own inabilities, I am fully convinced, that the unbiassed thoughts of an honest and wise man, employed on the good of his country, may be better digested than the results of a multitude, where faction and interest too often prevail; as a single guide may direct the way better than five hundred, who have _contrary views_, or _look asquint_, or _shut their eyes_.

I shall therefore mention but one more particular, which I think the Parliament ought to take under consideration; whether it be not a shame to our country, and a scandal to Christianity, that in many towns, where there is a prodigious increase in the number of houses and inhabitants, so little care should be taken for the building of churches, that five parts in six of the people are absolutely hindered from hearing divine service? Particularly here in London, where a single minister, with one or two sorry curates, hath the care sometimes of above twenty thousand souls incumbent on him. A neglect of religion so ignominious, in my opinion, that it can hardly be equalled in any civilized age or country.[7]

[Footnote 7: This paragraph is known to have given the first hint to certain bishops, particularly to Bishop Atterbury, to procure a fund for building fifty new churches in London. [T. S.]]

But, to leave these airy imaginations of introducing new laws for the amendment of mankind; what I principally insist on is, a due execution of the old, which lies wholly in the crown, and in the authority derived from thence. I return, therefore, to my former assertion; that if stations of power, trust, profit, and honour, were constantly made the rewards of virtue and piety, such an administration must needs have a mighty influence on the faith and morals of the whole kingdom: And men of great abilities would then endeavour to excel in the duties of a religious life, in order to qualify themselves for public service. I may possibly be wrong in some of the means I prescribe towards this end; but that is no material objection against the design itself. Let those who are at the helm contrive it better, which, perhaps, they may easily do. Everybody will agree that the disease is manifest, as well as dangerous; that some remedy is necessary, and that none yet applied hath been effectual, which is a sufficient excuse for any man who wishes well to his country, to offer his thoughts, when he can have no other end in view but the public good. The present Queen is a princess of as many and great virtues as ever filled a throne: How would it brighten her character to the present and after ages, if she would exert her utmost authority to instil some share of those virtues into her people, which they are too degenerate to learn only from her example! And, be it spoke with all the veneration possible for so excellent a sovereign, her best endeavours in this weighty affair are a most important part of her duty, as well as of her interest and her honour.

But, it must be confessed, that as things are now, every man thinks that he has laid in a sufficient stock of merit, and may pretend to any employment, provided he has been loud and frequent in declaring himself hearty for the government. 'Tis true, he is a man of pleasure, and a freethinker, that is, in other words, he is profligate in his morals, and a despiser of religion; but in point of party, he is one to be confided in; he is an assertor of liberty and property; he rattles it out against Popery and Arbitrary Power, and Priestcraft and High Church. 'Tis enough: He is a person fully qualified for any employment, in the court or the navy, the law or the revenue; where he will be sure to leave no arts untried, of bribery, fraud, injustice, oppression, that he can practise with any hope of impunity. No wonder such men are true to a government where liberty runs high, where property, however attained, is so well secured, and where the administration is at least so gentle: 'Tis impossible they could choose any other constitution, without changing to their loss.

Fidelity to a present establishment is indeed the principal means to defend it from a foreign enemy, but without other qualifications, will not prevent corruptions from within; and states are more often ruined by these than the other.

To conclude. Whether the proposals I have offered toward a reformation, be such as are most prudent and convenient, may probably be a question; but it is none at all, whether some reformation be absolutely necessary; because the nature of things is such, that if abuses be not remedied, they will certainly increase, nor ever stop, till they end in the subversion of a commonwealth. As there must always of necessity be some corruptions, so, in a well-instituted state, the executive power will be always contending against them, by _reducing things_ (as Michiaevel speaks) _to their first principles_; never letting abuses grow inveterate, or multiply so far, that it will be hard to find remedies, and perhaps impossible to apply them. As he that would keep his house in repair, must attend every little breach or flaw, and supply it immediately; else time alone will bring all to ruin; how much more the common accidents of storms and rain? He must live in perpetual danger of his house falling about his ears; and will find it cheaper to throw it quite down, and build it again from the ground, perhaps upon a new foundation, or at least in a new form, which may neither be so safe, nor so convenient, as the old.

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THE SENTIMENTS

OF A

CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAN,

WITH RESPECT TO

RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1708.

NOTE.

The writing of this tract, as has been already observed, placed Swift in a position where allegiance to party was not easy to maintain. It amounted to a warning to Whigs as well as Tories. To the former he urged that the Church of England was wide enough for the highest principles of civil liberty; to the latter he tried to show that to be a religious and God-fearing man it was not absolutely necessary to be a Tory in politics. "Whoever has examined the conduct and proceedings of both parties for some years past, whether in or out of power, cannot well conceive it possible to go far towards the extremes of either, without offering some violence to his integrity or understanding." It is true that Whiggism and "fanatical genius" were almost synonymous terms for Swift; but that was because the Church was of prime consideration with him, and the Whigs numbered in their ranks the great army of Dissent. Swift, in his famous letter to Pope, dated Dublin, January 10th, 1720-21, reviews his political opinions of 1708 to justify himself against the misrepresentations of "the virulence of libellers: whose malice has taken the same train in both, by fathering dangerous principles in government upon me, which I never maintained, and insipid productions, which I am not capable of writing." That review is but a summary of what is given fully in this tract. No appeal was ever better intentioned. "I only wish," he says to Pope, "my endeavours had succeeded better in the great point I had at heart, which was that of reconciling the ministers to each other." But High Church and Low Church were cries which had divided politicians as if they did not belong to one nation. To Swift it was easy enough to be a staunch Churchman and at the same time expose the fallacies underlying the faith in the sovereign power; but then Swift was here no party fanatic who would use the "Church in danger" cry for party purposes. "If others," he writes twelve years later, "who had more concern and more influence, would have acted their parts," his appeal had not been made in vain. As it was it failed in its intended purpose, and Swift lost what hold he had on Somers, Godolphin, and the rest. It remains, however, to testify to Swift's principles in a manner least expected by those who have set him down as intemperate and inconsistent. Certainly, no principles were ever more moderately expressed; and, assuredly, no expression of principles found fitter realization in conduct.

The text of this edition is based on that given in the "Miscellanies" of 1711. I have not succeeded in obtaining a copy of the original issue; but I have collated the various texts given in the re-issues by Faulkner, Hawkesworth, Scott, and the "Miscellanies" of 1728 (vol. i.) and 1747 (vol. i.).

[T. S.]

THE SENTIMENTS OF A CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAN, WITH RESPECT TO RELIGION AND GOVERNMENT.

Whosoever hath examined the conduct and proceedings of both parties for some years past, whether in or out of power, cannot well conceive it possible to go far towards the extremes of either, without offering some violence to his integrity or understanding. A wise and a good man may indeed be sometimes induced to comply with a number whose opinion he generally approves, though it be perhaps against his own. But this liberty should be made use of upon very few occasions, and those of small importance, and then only with a view of bringing over his own side another time to something of greater and more public moment. But to sacrifice the innocency of a friend, the good of our country, or our own conscience to the humour, or passion, or interest of a party, plainly shews that either our heads or our hearts are not as they should be: Yet this very practice is the fundamental law of each faction among us, as may be obvious to any who will impartially, and without engagement, be at the pains to examine their actions, which however is not so easy a task: For it seems a principle in human nature, to incline one way more than another, even in matters where we are wholly unconcerned. And it is a common observation, that in reading a history of facts done a thousand years ago, or standing by at play among those who are perfect strangers to us, we are apt to find our hopes and wishes engaged on a sudden in favour of one side more than another. No wonder then, we are all so ready to interest ourselves in the course of public affairs, where the most inconsiderable have some _real_ share, and by the wonderful importance which every man is of to himself, a very great _imaginary_ one.

And indeed, when the two parties that divide the whole commonwealth, come once to a rupture, without any hopes left of forming a third with better principles, to balance the others; it seems every man's duty to choose a side,[1] though he cannot entirely approve of either; and all pretences to neutrality are justly exploded by both, being too stale and obvious, only intending the safety and ease of a few individuals while the public is embroiled. This was the opinion and practice of the latter Cato, whom I esteem to have been the wisest and best of all the Romans. But before things proceed to open violence, the truest service a private man may hope to do his country, is, by unbiassing his mind as much as possible, and then endeavouring to moderate between the rival powers; which must needs be owned a fair proceeding with the world, because it is of all others the least consistent with the common design, of making a fortune by the merit of an opinion.

[Footnote 1: Faulkner and Scott have "one of the two sides." [T. S.]]

I have gone as far as I am able in qualifying myself to be such a moderator: I believe I am no bigot in religion, and I am sure I am none in government. I converse in full freedom with many considerable men of both parties, and if not in equal number, it is purely accidental and personal, as happening to be near the court, and to have made acquaintance there, more under one ministry than another. Then, I am not under the necessity of declaring myself by the prospect of an employment. And lastly, if all this be not sufficient, I industriously conceal my name, which wholly exempts me from any hopes and fears in delivering my opinion.

In consequence of this free use of my reason, I cannot possibly think so well or so ill of either party, as they would endeavour to persuade the world of each other, and of themselves. For instance; I do not charge it upon the body of the Whigs or the Tories, that their several principles lead them to introduce Presbytery, and the religion of the Church of Rome, or a commonwealth and arbitrary power. For, why should any party be accused of a principle which they solemnly disown and protest against? But, to this they have a mutual answer ready; they both assure us, that their adversaries are not to be believed, that they disown their principles out of fear, which are manifest enough when we examine their practices. To prove this, they will produce instances, on one side, either of avowed Presbyterians, or persons of libertine and atheistical tenets, and on the other, of professed Papists, or such as are openly in the interest of the abdicated family. Now, it is very natural for all subordinate sects and denominations in a state, to side with some general party, and to choose that which they find to agree with themselves in some general principle. Thus at the restoration, the Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Independents, and other sects, did all with very good reason unite and solder up their several schemes to join against the Church, who without regard to their distinctions, treated them all as equal adversaries. Thus, our present dissenters do very naturally close in with the Whigs, who profess moderation, declare they abhor all thoughts of persecution, and think it hard that those who differ only in a few ceremonies and speculations, should be denied the privilege and profit of serving their country in the highest employments of state. Thus, the atheists, libertines, despisers of religion and revelation in general, that is to say, all those who usually pass under the name of freethinkers, do properly join with the same body; because they likewise preach up moderation, and are not so overnice to distinguish between an unlimited liberty of conscience, and an unlimited freedom of opinion. Then on the other side, the professed firmness of the Tories for Episcopacy as an apostolical institution: Their aversion to those sects who lie under the reproach of having once destroyed their constitution, and who they imagine, by too indiscreet a zeal for reformation have defaced the primitive model of the Church: Next, their veneration for monarchical government in the common course of succession, and their hatred to republican schemes: These, I say, are principles which not only the nonjuring zealots profess, but even Papists themselves fall readily in with. And every extreme here mentioned flings a general scandal upon the whole body it pretends to adhere to.

But surely no man whatsoever ought in justice or good manners to be charged with principles he actually disowns, unless his practices do openly and without the least room for doubt contradict his profession: Not upon small surmises, or because he has the misfortune to have ill men sometimes agree with him in a few general sentiments. However, though the extremes of Whig and Tory seem with little justice to have drawn religion into their controversies, wherein they have small concern; yet they both have borrowed one leading principle from the abuse of it; which is, to have built their several systems of political faith, not upon enquiries after truth, but upon opposition to each other, upon injurious appellations, charging their adversaries with horrid opinions, and then reproaching them for the want of charity; _et neuter falso_.

In order to remove these prejudices, I have thought nothing could be more effectual than to describe the sentiments of a Church of England man with respect to religion and government. This I shall endeavour to do in such a manner as may not be liable to least objection from either party, and which I am confident would be assented to by great numbers in both, if they were not misled to those mutual misrepresentations, by such motives as they would be ashamed to own.

I shall begin with religion.

And here, though it makes an odd sound, yet it is necessary to say, that whoever professes himself a member of the Church of England, ought to believe a God and his providence, together with revealed religion, and the divinity of Christ. For beside those many thousands, who (to speak in the phrase of divines) do practically deny all this by the immorality of their lives; there is no small number, who in their conversation and writings directly or by consequence endeavour to overthrow it; yet all these place themselves in the list of the National Church, though at the same time (as it is highly reasonable) they are great sticklers for liberty of conscience.