Anthony Collins

“ 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. ”

“ Would you appear to the intelligent Part of the World such an Enemy to Knowledge, and such a Friend to the Kingdom of Darkness, as such Punishment would imply? In fine, can you see and direct us to a better way, to make us inquire after and understand Matters of Religion, to make us get and keep a good temper of Mind, and to plant and cultivate in us the Virtues necessary to good Order and Peace in Society, and to eradicate [Pg 46] the Vices that every where give Society so much Disturbance, than what is prescrib’d or imply’d in that Book? ”

“ If that be secur’d to us by Authority, I, for my part, am very ready to sacrifice the Privilege of Irony, tho so much in fashion among all Men; being persuaded, that a great Part of the Irony complain’d of, has its rise from the want of Liberty to examine into the Truth of Things; and that if that Liberty was prevalent, it would, without a Law, prevent all that Irony which Men are driven into for want of Liberty to speak plainly, and to protect themselves from the Attacks of those who would take the Advantage to ruin them for direct Assertions ”

“ 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. ”

“ To these famous Divines I might add the most eminent and renowned Philosophers of Antiquity, who, either out of a Contempt of Mankind, or to gratify their peculiar Tempers, or to correct the Vices and Follies of Men, and to instil virtuous Maxims in those who would only receive them in some pleasant way, set up for good Humour, Mirth, and Drollery, as their standing Method of Life, and of Conversation with the World ”

“ For I am persuaded, that if our Lawmakers were, out of a rational Principle, disposed to give Liberty by Law to serious Opposition to publickly receiv’d Notions, they would not think it of much Importance to make a Law about a Method of Irony. They will naturally conclude, that if Men may and ought to be allow’d to write seriously in Opposition to publickly receiv’d Doctrines, they should be allow’d to write in their own way; and will be unwilling to be depriv’d of ingenious and witty Discourses, or such as some of them will judge so, about a Subject wherein serious free Discourse is allow’d. ”

“ And I am verily persuaded, that no History of any other Country in the World can produce a Parallel, wherein the Principle and Practice of Ridicule were ever so strongly encourag’d, and so constantly pursu’d, fix’d and rooted in the Minds of Men, as it was and is in Churchmen against Puritans and Dissenters. Even at this Day the Ridicule is so strong against the present Dissenters, so promoted by Clergy and Laity, especially in Villages and small Country Towns, that they are unable to withstand its Force, but daily come over in Numbers to the Church to avoid being laugh’d at. ”

“ For it will naturally fall heaviest, where the Constraint has been the severest. The greater the Weight is, the bitterer will be the Satire. The higher the Slavery, the more exquisite the Buffoonery.
“That this is really so, may appear by looking on those Countries where the spiritual Tyranny is highest. For the greatest of Buffoons are the Italians: and in their Writings, in their freer sort of Conversations, on their Theatres, and in their Streets, Buffoonery and Burlesque are in the highest Vogue. ’Tis the only manner in which the poor cramp’d Wretches can discharge a free Thought. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And as Comedies, which were originally very gross, grew by Use more polite and refin’d in Satire and Raillery: so the most celebrated Wits and Statesmen, and Persons of the greatest Quality, have engag’d and join’d with others in them, and performed with the greatest Success and Reputation to themselves; and have been valu’d, not only for their Talents of Irony and Drollery, which were essential to the Credit of such Performances; but applauded, as acting the virtuous Part of Droles. ”

“ Whiston [107] , a famous Person among us, sets up for great Gravity, and proposes a Scheme of Gravity for the Direction of those who write about Religion: He is for allowing Unbelievers, nay for having them “invited by Authority to produce all the real or original Evidence they think they have discover’d against any Parts of the Bible; against any Parts of the Jewish and Christian Religions, in order to their being fully weigh’d and consider’d by all learned Men; provided at the same time, that the whole be done gravely, and seriously, without all Levity, Banter, and Ridicule.” ”

“ In fine, the Puritans and Dissenters have, like the Church, their Taste of Humour, Irony, and Ridicule, which they promote with great Zeal, as a Means to serve Religion: And I remember, that, among other things said in behalf of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, upon the reprinting it lately by Subscription, it was affirm’d, and that, in my Opinion, truly, “that it had infinitely out-done The Tale of a Tub; which perhaps had not made one Convert to Infidelity, whereas the Pilgrim’s Progress had converted many Sinners to Christ.” ”

“ It seems to me a Mark of Distinction more likely to last in the Church than any other Matter that I can observe. Passive Obedience, the divine Right of Kings, &c. rise and fall according to particular [Pg 42] Occasions; but Laughter at Dissenters seems fixt for ever, if they should chance to last so long.
South’s Sermons, which now amount to six Volumes, make Reading Jests and Banter upon Dissenters, the religious Exercise of good Churchmen upon Sundays, who now can serve God (as many think they do by hearing or reading Sermons) and be as merry as at the Play-house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ XII. The burning Papists themselves are not always serious with us: They treat the Church and its Defenders as fanatical, and laugh at them as such, just as the Church does the Dissenters, and have their elaborate Works of Drollery against their Adversaries. They publish’d a Poem against the Reformation, just before the Death of Queen Anne, which was design’d to have given such a Stroke to the Protestant Religion among us, under the new projected Revolution, as Hudibras did to Puritanism after the Restoration. ”

“ The great and famous Sir Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England in Henry the Eighth’s time, was an inexhaustible Source of Drollery [103] , as his voluminous Works, which consist for the most part of controversial Divinity in behalf of Popery, show, and which are many of them written in Dialogue, the better to introduce the drolling Way of Writing, which he has us’d in such Perfection, that it is said [104] none can ever be weary of reading them, tho they be never so long. ”

“ In accordance with one of his favorite tricks—the massing of eminent authority—his exposition rings with hallowed Anglican names: South, Bull, Taylor, Wallis, Carlton, Davenant, Edwards, More, Tillotson, Fowler, Sherlock, Stillingfleet, Sacheverell, Beveridge, Grabe, Hickes, Lesley. [18] What united these men, he insinuated, was not a Christian commitment but a talent to disagree with one another and even to repudiate themselves—as in the case of Stillingfleet. In effect, the entire Discourse bubbles with a carelessly suppressed snicker. ”

“ Ignorance, Dulness, Stupidity, and Contradiction to himself, and writes and prints, like a Tom Brown or Swift, a most bantering and drolling Letter, under the sneering Title of a Letter of Thanks to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London, for his late Letter, &c. whom, one would think, he should not only have spar’d, but have applauded for his profound Gravity, and carrying on the Cause of Religion in a very remarkable manner, with the most consummate Solemnity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One of the greatest and best Authorities for the pleasant and ironical manner of treating serious Matters, is that eminent Divine at the Time of the Reformation, the great Erasmus, who has written two Books in this way with great Applause of Protestants, and without subjecting himself to any Persecution of Papists: which makes it highly proper to propose them to the Consideration of the Reader, that he may regulate his Notions, by what, it [Pg 11] may be presum’d, he approves of in that Author. These two Books of Erasmus are his Colloquies, and his Praise of Folly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And Hudibras, which is a daily High-Church Entertainment, and a Pocket and Travelling High-Church Companion, must necessarily have a very considerable Effect, and cannot fail forming in Men that Humour and Vein of Ridicule upon Dissenters which runs thro’ that Work. In a word, High-Church has constantly been an Enemy to, and a Ridiculer of the Seriousness of Puritans and Dissenters, whom they have ever charg’d with Hypocrisy for their Seriousness. ”

“ Throughout the Grounds and Reasons he laughed at, reasoned against, and satirized William Whiston’s assumption that messianic prophecies in the Old Testament were literally fulfilled in the figure and mission of Jesus. Within two years and in a new work, he substituted Edward Chandler, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, for the mathematician. It need not have been the Bishop; any one of thirty-four others could have qualified for the role of opponent, among them people like Clarke, and Sykes, and Sherwood, and even the ubiquitous Whiston. ”

“ And I much doubt whether there was ever a Book written against them by the Divines of any Sect with perfect Decency, and that had not its extravagant Flouts, Scorn, Banter, and Irony, and that not only of the laughing, but of the cruel kind: Wherein they copy’d after the Jews of old, who while they prosecuted Christ to Death, and carried on their High-Church Tragedy against him, acted against him the comick Scenes [110] “of spitting in his Face, and buffeting him with the Palms of their Hands, saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, who is he that smote thee;” ”

“ Whatever may be said of Collins and his achievement, one fact remains constant. He was a brilliant and persistent trickster whose cunning in the techniques of polemic often silenced an opponent with every substantive right to win the debate. ”

“ Among the many, who have receiv’d their Education there, and been form’d in Drollery, I will only instance in the Reverend Dr. Atterbury and Dr. [Pg 62] South; who being as famous for Drollery as for Zeal for Religion, and applauded for their Wit no less than for their Orthodoxy; and particularly for imploying the former in behalf of the latter, seem of sufficient Weight to bear down all Attempts to stifle their Productions. What Considerations can make us amends for the Loss of such excellent drolling Writings, which promote Religion as well as Mirth? ”

“ And this insipid Piece of Drollery and false Wit [which is design’d to ridicule his Adversary for asserting, that What Men understand nothing of, they have no Concern about; which is a Proposition that will stand the Test of Ridicule, which will be found wholly to lie against the Doctor, for asserting the Reasonableness of imposing Things on the People which they do not understand] is the more remarkable, as it proceeds from one, who is at the same time for using the Sword of the Magistrate against his Adversary. ”

“ That universal liberty be established in respect to opinions and practises not prejudicial to the peace and welfare of society: by which establishment, truth must needs have the advantages over error and falsehood, the law of God over the will of man, and true Christianity tolerated; private judgment would be really exercised; and men would be allowed to have suffered to follow their consciences, over which God only is supreme:... ”

“ The truth is, if Mens Religion lies no deeper than their Skin, it is possible they may scourge themselves into very great Improvements.——But they will find that bodily Exercise touches not the Soul; and consequently that in this whole Course they are like Men out of the way: let them flash on never so fast, they [Pg 34] are not at all nearer their Journey’s-end: And howsoever they deceive themselves and others, they may as well expect to bring a Cart, as a Soul, to Heaven. ”