Book: The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV:

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This is enough for your information on the first head: I shall therefore
proceed to the second, wherein I will shew you the miserable
consequences which that abominable rebellion and murder produced in
these nations.

_First:_ The Irish rebellion was wholly owing to that wicked English
Parliament. For the leaders in the Irish Popish massacre would never
have dared to stir a finger, if they had not been encouraged by that
rebellious spirit in the English House of Commons, which they very well
knew must disable the King from sending any supplies to his Protestant
subjects here; and, therefore, we may truly say that the English
Parliament held the King's hands, while the Irish Papists here were
cutting our grandfathers' throats.

_Secondly:_ That murderous Puritan Parliament, when they had all in
their own power, could not agree upon any one method of settling a form
either of religion or civil government; but changed every day from
schism to schism, from heresy to heresy, and from one faction to
another: From whence arose that wild confusion, still continuing in our
several ways of serving God, and those absurd notions of civil power,
which have so often torn us with factions more than any other nation in
Europe.

_Thirdly:_ To this rebellion and murder have been owing the rise and
progress of atheism among us. For, men observing what numberless
villainies of all kinds were committed during twenty years, under
pretence of zeal and the reformation of God's Church, were easily
tempted to doubt that all religion was a mere imposture: And the same
spirit of infidelity, so far spread among us at this present, is nothing
but the fruit of the seeds sown by those rebellious hypocritical saints.

_Fourthly:_ The old virtue and loyalty, and generous spirit of the
English nation, were wholly corrupted by the power, the doctrine, and
the example of those wicked people. Many of the ancient nobility were
killed, and their families extinct, in defence of their Prince and
country, or murdered by the merciless courts of justice. Some of the
worst among them favoured, or complied with the reigning iniquities, and
not a few of the new set created, when the Martyr's son was restored,
were such who had drunk too deep of the bad principles then prevailing.

_Fifthly:_ The children of the murdered Prince were forced to fly, for
the safety of their lives, to foreign countries; where one of them at
least, I mean King James II., was seduced to Popery; which ended in the
loss of his kingdoms, the misery and desolation of this country, and a
long and expensive war abroad. Our deliverance was owing to the valour
and conduct of the late King; and, therefore, we ought to remember him
with gratitude, but not mingled with blasphemy or idolatry. It was happy
that his interests and ours were the same: And God gave him greater
success than our sins deserved. But, as a house thrown down by a storm,
is seldom rebuilt without some change in the foundation; so it hath
happened, that, since the late Revolution, men have sat much looser in
the true fundamentals both of religion and government, and factions have
been more violent, treacherous, and malicious than ever, men running
naturally from one extreme into another; and, for private ends, taking
up those very opinions professed by the leaders in that rebellion, which
carried the blessed Martyr to the scaffold.

_Sixthly:_ Another consequence of this horrid rebellion and murder was
the destroying or defacing of such vast number of God's houses. "In
their self-will they digged down a wall." If a stranger should now
travel in England, and observe the churches in his way, he could not
otherwise conclude, than that some vast army of Turks or heathens had
been sent on purpose to ruin and blot out all marks of Christianity.
They spared neither the statues of saints, nor ancient prelates, nor
kings, nor benefactors; broke down the tombs and monuments of men famous
in their generations, seized the vessels of silver set apart for the
holiest use, tore down the most innocent ornaments both within and
without, made the houses of prayer dens of thieves, or stables for
cattle. These were the mildest effects of Puritan zeal, and devotion for
Christ; and this was what themselves affected to call a thorough
reformation. In this kingdom those ravages were not so easily seen; for
the people here being too poor to raise such noble temples, the mean
ones we had were not defaced, but totally destroyed.

Upon the whole, it is certain, that although God might have found out
many other ways to have punished a sinful people, without permitting
this rebellion and murder, yet as the course of the world hath run ever
since, we need seek for no other causes, of all the public evils we have
hitherto suffered, or may suffer for the future, by the misconduct of
princes, or wickedness of the people.

I go on now upon the third head, to shew you to what good uses this
solemn day of humiliation may be applied.

_First_: It may be an instruction to princes themselves, to be careful
in the choice of those who are their advisers in matters of law. All the
judges of England, except one or two, advised the King, that he might
legally raise money upon the subjects for building of ships without
consent of Parliament; which, as it was the greatest oversight of his
reign, so it proved the principal foundation of all his misfortunes.
Princes may likewise learn from hence, not to sacrifice a faithful
servant to the rage of a faction, nor to trust any body of men with a
greater share of power than the laws of the land have appointed them,
much less to deposit it in their hands until they shall please to
restore it.

_Secondly_: By bringing to mind the tragedy of this day, and the
consequences that have arisen from it, we shall be convinced how
necessary it is for those in power to curb, in season, all such unruly
spirits as desire to introduce new doctrines and discipline in the
Church, or new forms of government in the state. Those wicked Puritans
began, in Queen Elizabeth's time, to quarrel only with surplices and
other habits, with the ring in matrimony, the cross in baptism, and the
like; thence they went on to further matters of higher importance, and,
at last, they must needs have the whole government of the Church
dissolved. This great work they compassed, first, by depriving the
bishops of their seats in Parliament, then they abolished the whole
order; and, at last, which was their original design, they seized on all
the Church-lands, and divided the spoil among themselves; and, like
Jeroboam, made priests of the very dregs of the people. This was their
way of reforming the Church. As to the civil government, you have
already heard how they modelled it upon the murder of their King, and
discarding the nobility. Yet, clearly to shew what a Babel they had
built, after twelve years' trial and twenty several sorts of government;
the nation grown weary of their tyranny, was forced to call in the son
of him whom those reformers had sacrificed. And thus were Simeon and
Levi divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel.

_Thirdly_: Although the successors of these Puritans, I mean our present
Dissenters, do not think fit to observe this day of humiliation; yet,
since it would be very proper in them, upon some occasions, to renounce
in a public manner those principles upon which their predecessors acted;
and it will be more prudent in them to do so, because those very
Puritans, of whom ours are followers, found by experience, that after
they had overturned the Church and state, murdered their King, and were
projecting what they called a kingdom of the saints, they were cheated
of the power and possessions they only panted after, by an upstart sect
of religion that grew out of their own bowels, who subjected them to one
tyrant, while they were endeavouring to set up a thousand.

_Fourthly_: Those who profess to be followers of our Church established,
and yet presume in discourse to justify or excuse that rebellion, and
murder of the King, ought to consider, how utterly contrary all such
opinions are to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, as well as to
the articles of our Church, and to the preaching and practice of its
true professors for above a hundred years. Of late times, indeed, and I
speak it with grief of heart, we have heard even sermons of a strange
nature; although reason would make one think it a very unaccountable way
of procuring favour under a monarchy, by palliating and lessening the
guilt of those who murdered the best of kings in cold blood, and, for a
time, destroyed the very monarchy itself. Pray God, we may never more
hear such doctrine from the pulpit, nor have it scattered about in
print, to poison the people!

_Fifthly:_ Some general knowledge of this horrid rebellion and murder,
with the consequences they had upon these nations, may be a warning to
our people not to believe a lie, and to mistrust those deluding spirits,
who, under pretence of a purer and more reformed religion, would lead
them from their duty to God and the laws. Politicians may say what they
please, but it is no hard thing at all for the meanest person, who hath
common understanding, to know whether he be well or ill governed. If he
be freely allowed to follow his trade and calling; if he be secure in
his property, and hath the benefit of the law to defend himself against
injustice and oppression; if his religion be different from that of his
country, and the government think fit to tolerate it, (which he may be
very secure of, let it be what it will;) he ought to be fully satisfied,
and give no offence, by writing or discourse, to the worship
established, as the dissenting preachers are too apt to do. But, if he
hath any new visions of his own, it is his duty to be quiet, and possess
them in silence, without disturbing the community by a furious zeal for
making proselytes. This was the folly and madness of those ancient
puritan fanatics: They must needs overturn heaven and earth, violate all
the laws of God and man, make their country a field of blood, to
propagate whatever wild or wicked opinions came into their heads,
declaring all their absurdities and blasphemies to proceed from the Holy
Ghost.

To conclude this head. In answer to that objection of keeping up
animosity and hatred between Protestants, by the observation of this
day; if there be any sect or sort of people among us, who profess the
same principles in religion and government which those puritan rebels
put in practice, I think it is the interest of all those who love the
Church and King, to keep up as strong a party against them as possible,
until they shall, in a body, renounce all those wicked opinions upon
which their predecessors acted, to the disgrace of Christianity, and the
perpetual infamy of the English nation.

When we accuse the Papists of the horrid doctrine, "that no faith ought
to be kept with heretics," they deny it to a man; and yet we justly
think it dangerous to trust them, because we know their actions have
been sometimes suitable to that opinion. But the followers of those who
beheaded the Martyr have not yet renounced their principles; and, till
they do, they may be justly suspected. Neither will the bare name of
Protestants set them right. For surely Christ requires more from us than
a profession of hating Popery, which a Turk or an atheist may do as well
as a Protestant.

If an enslaved people should recover their liberty from a tyrannical
power of any sort, who could blame them for commemorating their
deliverance by a day of joy and thanksgiving? And doth not the
destruction of a Church, a King, and three kingdoms, by the artifices,
hypocrisy, and cruelty of a wicked race of soldiers and preachers, and
other sons of Belial, equally require a solemn time of humiliation?
Especially since the consequences of that bloody scene still continue,
as I have already shewn, in their effects upon us.


Thus I have done with the three heads I proposed to discourse on. But
before I conclude, I must give a caution to those who hear me, that they
may not think I am pleading for absolute unlimited power in any one man.
It is true, all power is from God, and, as the apostle says, "the powers
that be are ordained of God;" but this is in the same sense that all we
have is from God, our food and raiment, and whatever possessions we hold
by lawful means. Nothing can be meant in those, or any other words of
Scripture, to justify tyrannical power, or the savage cruelties of those
heathen emperors who lived in the time of the apostles. And so St Paul
concludes, "The powers that be are ordained of God:" For what? Why, "for
the punishment of evil doers, and the praise, the reward, of them that
do well." There is no more inward value in the greatest emperor, than in
the meanest of his subjects: His body is composed of the same substance,
the same parts, and with the same or greater, infirmities: His education
is generally worse, by flattery, and idleness, and luxury, and those
evil dispositions that early power is apt to give. It is therefore
against common sense, that his private personal interest, or pleasure,
should be put in the balance with the safety of millions, every one of
which is his equal by nature, equal in the sight of God, equally capable
of salvation; and it is for their sakes, not his own, that he is
entrusted with the government over them. He hath as high trust as can
safely be reposed in one man, and, if he discharge it as he ought, he
deserves all the honour and duty that a mortal may be allowed to
receive. His personal failings we have nothing to do with, and errors in
government are to be imputed to his ministers in the state. To what
height those errors may be suffered to proceed, is not the business of
this day, or this place, or of my function, to determine. When
oppressions grow too great and universal to be borne, nature or
necessity may find a remedy. But, if a private person reasonably expects
pardon, upon his amendment, for all faults that are not capital, it
would be a hard condition indeed, not to give the same allowance to a
prince, who must see with other men's eyes, and hear with other men's
ears, which are often wilfully blind and deaf. Such was the condition of
the Martyr, and is so, in some degree, of all other princes. Yet this we
may justly say in defence of the common people, in all civilized
nations, that it must be a very bad government indeed, where the body of
the subjects will not rather choose to live in peace and obedience, than
take up arms on pretence of faults in the administration, unless where
the vulgar are deluded by false preachers to grow fond of new visions
and fancies in religion; which, managed by dexterous men, for sinister
ends of malice, envy, or ambition, have often made whole nations run
mad. This was exactly the case in the whole progress of that great
rebellion, and the murder of King Charles I. But the late Revolution
under the Prince of Orange was occasioned by a proceeding directly
contrary, the oppression and injustice there beginning from the throne:
For that unhappy prince, King James II., did not only invade our laws
and liberties, but would have forced a false religion upon his subjects,
for which he was deservedly rejected, since there could be no other
remedy found, or at least agreed on. But, under the blessed Martyr, the
deluded people would have forced many false religions, not only on their
fellow-subjects, but even upon their sovereign himself, and at the same
time invaded all his undoubted rights; and, because he would not comply,
raised a horrid rebellion, wherein, by the permission of God, they
prevailed, and put their sovereign to death, like a common criminal, in
the face of the world.

Therefore, those who seem to think they cannot otherwise justify the
late Revolution, and the change of the succession, than by lessening the
guilt of the Puritans, do certainly put the greatest affront imaginable
upon the present powers, by supposing any relation, or resemblance,
between that rebellion and the late Revolution; and, consequently, that
the present establishment is to be defended by the same arguments which
those usurpers made use of, who, to obtain their tyranny, trampled under
foot all the laws of both God and man.

One great design of my discourse was to give you warning against running
into either extreme of two bad opinions, with relation to obedience. As
kings are called gods upon earth, so some would allow them an equal
power with God, over all laws and ordinances; and that the liberty, and
property, and life, and religion of the subject, depended wholly upon
the breath of the prince; which, however, I hope was never meant by
those who pleaded for passive obedience. And this opinion hath not been
confined to that party which was first charged with it, but hath
sometimes gone over to the other, to serve many an evil turn of interest
or ambition, who have been as ready to enlarge prerogative, where they
could find their own account, as the highest maintainers of it.

On the other side, some look upon kings as answerable for every mistake
or omission in government, and bound to comply with the most
unreasonable demands of an unquiet faction; which was the case of those
who persecuted the blessed Martyr of this day from his throne to the
scaffold.

Between these two extremes, it is easy, from what hath been said, to
choose a middle; to be good and loyal subjects, yet, according to your
power, faithful assertors of your religion and liberties; to avoid all
broachers and preachers of newfangled doctrines in the Church; to be
strict observers of the laws, which cannot be justly taken from you
without your own consent: In short, "to obey God and the King, and
meddle not with those who are given to change."

Which that you may all do, &c.




ON THE POOR MAN'S CONTENTMENT.


PHILIPPIANS, CHAP. IV. PART OF THE 11TH VERSE.

"I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content"


The holy Scripture is full of expressions to set forth the miserable
condition of man during the whole progress of his life; his weakness,
pride, and vanity; his unmeasurable desires, and perpetual
disappointments; the prevalency of his passions, and the corruptions of
his reason; his deluding hopes, and his real, as well as imaginary,
fears; his natural and artificial wants; his cares and anxieties; the
diseases of his body, and the diseases of his mind; the shortness of his
life; his dread of a future state, with his carelessness to prepare for
it: And the wise men of all ages have made the same reflections.

But all these are general calamities, from which none are excepted; and
being without remedy, it is vain to bewail them. The great question,
long debated in the world, is, whether the rich or the poor are the
least miserable of the two? It is certain, that no rich man ever desired
to be poor, and that most, if not all, poor men, desire to be rich;
whence it may be argued, that, in all appearance, the advantage lieth on
the side of wealth, because both parties agree in preferring it before
poverty. But this reasoning will be found to be false: For, I lay it
down as a certain truth, that God Almighty hath placed all men upon an
equal foot, with respect to their happiness in this world, and the
capacity of attaining their salvation in the next; or, at least, if
there be any difference, it is not to the advantage of the rich and the
mighty. Now, since a great part of those who usually make up our
congregations, are not of considerable station, and many among them of
the lower sort, and since the meaner people are generally and justly
charged with the sin of repining and murmuring at their own condition,
to which, however, their betters axe sufficiently subject (although,
perhaps, for shame, not always so loud in their complaints) I thought it
might be useful to reason upon this point in as plain a manner as I can.
I shall therefore shew, first, that the poor enjoy many temporal
blessings, which are not common to the rich and the great: And,
likewise, that the rich and the great are subject to many temporal
evils, which are not common to the poor.

But here I would not be misunderstood; perhaps there is not a word more
abused than that of the poor, or wherein the world is more generally
mistaken. Among the number of those who beg in our streets, or are
half-starved at home, or languish in prison for debt, there is hardly
one in a hundred who doth not owe his misfortunes to his own laziness,
or drunkenness, or worse vices.

To these he owes those very diseases which often disable him from
getting his bread. Such wretches are deservedly unhappy: They can only
blame themselves; and when we are commanded to have pity on the poor,
these are not understood to be of the number.

It is true, indeed, that sometimes honest, endeavouring men are reduced
to extreme want, even to the begging of alms, by losses, by accidents,
by diseases, and old age, without any fault of their own: But these are
very few in comparison of the other; nor would their support be any
sensible burthen to the public, if the charity of well-disposed persons
were not intercepted by those common strollers, who are most
importunate, and who least deserve it. These, indeed, are properly and
justly called the poor, whom it should be our study to find out and
distinguish, by making them partake, of our superfluity and abundance.

But neither have these anything to do with my present subject; For, by
the poor, I only intend the honest, industrious artificer, the meaner
sort of tradesmen, and the labouring man, who getteth his bread by the
sweat of his brows, in town or country, and who make the bulk of mankind
among us.

_First_: I shall therefore shew, first, that the poor (in the sense I
understand the word) do enjoy many temporal blessings, which are not
common to the rich and great; and likewise, that the rich and great are
subject to many temporal evils, which are not common to the poor.

_Secondly_: From the arguments offered to prove the foregoing head, I
shall draw some observations that may be useful for your practice.

I. As to the first: Health, we know, is generally allowed to be the best
of all earthly possessions, because it is that, without which we can
have no satisfaction in any of the rest. For riches are of no use, if
sickness taketh from us the ability of enjoying them, and power and
greatness are then only a burthen. Now, if we would look for health, it
must be in the humble habitation of the labouring man, or industrious
artificer, who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, and usually
live to a good old age, with a great degree of strength and vigour.

The refreshment of the body by sleep is another great happiness of the
meaner sort. Their rest is not disturbed by the fear of thieves and
robbers, nor is it interrupted by surfeits of intemperance. Labour and
plain food supply the want of quieting draughts; and the wise man
telleth us, that the sleep of the labouring man is sweet. As to
children, which are certainly accounted of as a blessing, even to the
poor, where industry is not wanting; they are an assistance to honest
parents, instead of being a burthen; they are healthy and strong, and
fit for labour; neither is the father in fear, lest his heir should be
ruined by an unequal match: Nor is he solicitous about his rising in the
world, farther than to be able to get his bread.

The poorer sort are not the objects of general hatred or envy; they have
no twinges of ambition, nor trouble themselves with party quarrels, or
state divisions. The idle rabble, who follow their ambitious leaders in
such cases, do not fall within my description of the poorer sort; for,
it is plain, I mean only the honest industrious poor in town or
country, who are safest in times of public disturbance, in perilous
seasons, and public revolutions, if they will be quiet, and do their
business; for artificers and husbandmen are necessary in all
governments: But in such seasons, the rich are the public mark, because
they are oftentimes of no use, but to be plundered; like some sort of
birds, who are good for nothing, but their feathers; and so fall a prey
to the strongest side.

Let us proceed, on the other side to examine the disadvantages which the
rich and the great lie under, with respect to the happiness of the
present life.

First, then; While health, as we have said, is the general portion of
the lower sort, the gout, the dropsy, the stone, the cholic, and all
other diseases, are continually haunting the palaces of the rich and the
great, as the natural attendants upon laziness and luxury. Neither does
the rich man eat his sumptuous fare with half the appetite and relish,
that even the beggars do the crumbs which fall from his table: But, on
the contrary, he is full of loathing and disgust, or at best of
indifference, in the midst of plenty. Thus their intemperance shortens
their lives, without pleasing their appetites.

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