REMARKS, &c.

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 hoise, 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, well 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 every body 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 prefer ment, was reconciled to the popish religion; 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

of

Dr Matthew Tindal became a convert to the Romish religion, during the reign of James II. What share interest had in his con

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 colours. 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

version may be easily imagined; but it is uncertain whether it was the disappointment of his expectations, or conviction, that in 1687, induced him to reconcile himself to the Church of England, and become a decided favourer of those doctrines which produced the Revolution. He often sate as a judge in the Court of Delegates, but did not practise much as an advocate in Doctor's Commons. His chief means of support was a pension from government of 2001. Tindal died in 1733, three years after publication of his grand deistical work, "Christianity as old as the Creation." His effects, amounting to 20001. and upwards, were appropriated, by the noted Eustace Budgell, to the prejudice of the heir at law, under a will attended with circumstances of great suspicion.

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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.

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 matter, 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

*Tindal was educated at Oxford, and had a fellowship at All Souls, the only preferment he ever enjoyed.

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.