A DEFENCE OF Mr TOLAND, IN A LETTER to Himself.   

A DEFENCE OF Mr TOLAND, IN A LETTER to Himself.  
LONDON, Printed for E. Whitlock, near Stationers-Hall, MDCXCVII.   

A DEFENCE OF Mr TOLAND, IN A LETTER to Himself.  
SIR,  
I Have not the Honour to know you any other way than by your Writings and Character; but from thence I have entertained such an opinion of you, that I thought myself obliged to justify you to the World in such things as I judged capable of any defence, and to desire you to undertake your own vindication, where I found myself at a loss how to serve you.  
Some time ago you obliged the World with a Book, Entitled Christianity not Mysterious; which I perceive has given abundance of offence here in England, and has drawn upon you the censure of the Irish Parliament. I have heard a great many violent things said against this Book by Men of all ranks and conditions, and a great many Pens have been engaged in Writing it down; but, notwithstanding this mighty dislike, People have generally taken to it, I am very much disposed to believe that, if they had not been too much prejudiced to read it over with due care and attention 〈◊〉 wanted patience to stay for the other parts you promi●●● they would hardly have conceived such terrible apprehensions of your performance, and consequently would have been more moderate in their resentments.  
The chief complaint I have met with is against the Title and Design of the Book. 'Tis an impudent thing, I am told, for a Man to publish to the World in huge Capital Letters, that Christianity is not Mysterious, when all Sects and Parties of Christians, have agreed to speak of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion; and a design to prove this seems to give tholye to all the Fathers and Writers of the whole Catholic Church, and to call them a Company of Ignorant Fellows, that did not understand any thing of the Religion they profess.  
This is a severe charge indeed, but if you prove your point, I think, a very unjust one; for errors are to be opposed and confuted, be they never so ancient and venerable, and never so well established in the World; nay, the longer they have stood, and the wider they are spread, the more Heroic is the Adventures, who lays his Pen to the root of them, and has the courage to give the first stroke towards their fall: And therefore the main Controversy betwixt you and the two Nations depends entirely upon the proof you have given, of what you undertook to demonstrate to the World. If then it can be shown that you have made good all you pretended to prove in your Book, you will be in a great measure justified, as to the design and substance of your Work, and we will see what can be said for the management of it afterwards.  
Now I must needs own, notwithstanding there are so many eminent Names against me, that you have gone a great way towards proving the point you proposed to establish in your Book. Christianity not Mysterious is your Title, and your professed Design is to make it appear that there are no Mysteries in the Christian Religion; but than it is to be remembered that this Title belongs to the whole undertaking, which is to consist of three Parts, and 'tis as certain as any Maxim whatsoever that the design cannot be perfected before the conclusion of the Work.  
All that you take upon you to do in the first part of your Work, which is out, is to acquaint us with the two different significations of the word Mystery; to show that there are no Mysteries in the Christian Religion according to one sense of the Word, and to assure us there are none in the other sense of it, with a promise of proving it in the other Parts that are to come; and all this, with submission to better judgements, I humbly conceive you have performed to a tittle.  
For, in the first place it must be allowed to be true that the word Mystery, does commonly signify either something which we do not understand, because it is not discovered to us, or something that we cannot comprehend, or fully know after it is discovered.  
It is likewise as plain that there can be no Mysteries in Christianity in the first signification of the Word; because the whole Christian Religion being Revealed to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament, and there being no further Discoveries to be expected, it would be very Absurd to say, we do not understand any part of the Christian Religion upon the account of its not being Revealed to us; and therefore for Men who have this Notion of Mystery, to say Christianity is Mysterious, is as much as to say, Christianity is not Revealed: which is so false and unwarrantable a Position, and so fully proved to be so by you, that I hope hereafter, whatever Jews or Deists may say, there will be no Christians to be found, that will dare to maintain the Mysteriousness of Christianity in this Sense.  
But if we consider Mystery in the other sense of the Word, I must confess, all the Christians I have hitherto had occasion to Read of, or Converse with, have thought that there were Mysteries in the Christian Religion. Since therefore you appear to be somewhat Singular in your Notions upon this Point, if you please, we will take a more particular account of the Popular Opinion before we examine yours, that so we may be more capable Judges of the difference betwixt them, and of the present Controversy that has occasioned.  
Now the common Opinion concerning the Mysteries of the Christian Religion, as far as I understand it, is in short this; That there are a great many things delivered to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament, which without Revelation from God, we should have known nothing at all of, and which, as they stand there Revealed to us, we know now but in part: Some of them we look upon to be of such a Nature, that we are not able in the present state of our Faculties, to conceive beyond such a Degree, and which we expect a further Comprehension of in another state of more Perfection, such as are the Doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, etc. others there are which are but in part Revealed to us, and which we are capable of knowing further in this state, if God had been pleased to give us a clearer and fuller Discovery of them, such as are the Prophecies contained in the Revelations, and other parts of Scripture.  
This is the Vulgar Faith, to which yours being directly opposed, it must be this; That there is nothing in Scripture but what is fully discovered to us, and what we fully comprehend; that we do not now see through a Glass darkly, but that we perfectly know, even as we are known.  
This is your Opinion, and since you have kindly purposed and intended to make it ours too, I cannot imagine what reason any body should have to Condemn so generous a Design. For my part, I am not of that proud or invidious Temper to be uneasy under the Honour you are like to get by so Noble an Achievement, as you are now upon; nor am I concerned who it is that informs me of any thing, when I am to be the better for his Information. If my Author be a good one, 'tis all one to me whether he be Irish, or whether he be Greek, or Latin, whether he have a long Beard, or none at all: and therefore, I cannot but think you have been a little hardly used, to be treated ill purely for such a design, as plainly tends to improve our Understandings, and enlarge our Knowledge. If indeed, you should fail in your Attempt, you could not possibly expect to save yourself from a great deal of Scorn and Disgrace, and I cannot say the scurvy usage you would then probably meet with would be altogether unjust, for I think People have reason to take it ill to be put out of their way, and to be disturbed in the peaceable Possession of Ancient Opinions, by new Doctrines that cannot make out their claim to be admitted.  
But the World has no reason to cry out against you yet upon this account; for you are not yet come to the proof of your New Divinity in that part of your discourse which is already printed: you have only prepared the way and Skirmisht a little with some flying suggestions in order to lead on the main arguments with more force in the second part, which are to be backed and maintained by a strong reserve in the third. This is your design, and it is yet only a design; but you give us such mighty promises and assurance of bringing this design about, that there's no body can justly doubt but you are firmly persuaded of your own sufficiency to effect it; which is all you undertook to prove in your Book besides what is before mentioned. And therefore, having made good every thing you took upon you to do as far as you are gone, I must needs say, 'tis a prejudging the cause to condemn you before the other parts you have promised are put out: whereupon I will suspend my jndgment of your work till I have it altogether, and will live in expectation of seeing all the supposed Mysteries of the Christian Religion unlocked, all the dark Prophecies of the New Testament unfolded, and all the hard and intricate passages of it made easy and plain, so that all strife and contention shall cease from among us, there shall be no leading into captivity by imposing false Notions upon us, no complaining any more of the difficulties of Religion. Oh what a glorious Scene will here be, and how happy should I think myself if I should live to see the day when the Revelations shall be as easy to be understood as any History of past matters of fact, when the book with the seven seals, shall be opened, and we shall certainly be informed of every thing that is in it; when we shall have such a clear and intelligible account of the Trinity that Dr. S. and Dr. Sh. shall agree in, and all the unitarians subscribe to; when a Man may be convicted of Original Sin as easily as he can of Murder; and the Eternal Decrees of God shall be plainer than Acts of Parliament!  
I must confess I do not believe any thing of all this can be done, because no body has done any thing like it yet, and because I cannot conceive which way a Man could go to work if he would venture upon such an attompe: But this may be prejudice in me; for I am not to measure another Man's genius by my own, nor to despair of new discoveries which have escaped the greater capacities of our Ancestors: And therefore I don't think I have just ground to find fault with your work till I see it concluded ill; nor to be angry at the rashness of your design, till it is plainly discovered by your miscarriage in it; and, upon the same account I think others to blame who have too warmly and severely condemned the main design and substance of your Book.  
In the next place then let us see what can be said in defence of the Management and Conduct you have observed in this affair. And here you must give me leave to deal freely with you, and let you know that, how much soever I am inclined to the favourable side, I cannot help thinking that there are some particulars, in which you have not taken such just and proper measures as the niceness of your Subject required; but where I want sufficient matter of Defence, or have not the sagacity to find it out; I hope you will take occasion to do yourself justice.  
There are several passages scattered through your Book, which are not so warily and cautiously expressed as they should have been; some of which have been taken notice of to you already in Print, and by the help of those, you might easily find out others, which to a curious and exact Reader would furnish the like matter of exception; and therefore I shall not trouble you with any remarks of this kind.  
But that which, in my opinion, is the greatest oversight you have been guilty of, and which I judge you most to blame for, is the printing one part of your discourse by itself without the others. For a Paradox should never be asserted, but it should be at the same time throughly proved, and therefore it was not so prudently done of you peremptorily to assert that Christianity was not Mysterious, before you had perfectly confounded the Mysteriousness of it by dint of powerful Argument. You might easily have foreseen that the very Title of your Book, would shock a great many honest Christians, who came with an intention to read it, and very probably to such a degree, that they would not have the patience to go any further: But, if they did overcome their prejudices so far as to read it over, 'twas easy for you to have imagined what their resentments would be when they found a bold Title stand naked and unsupported by any proof. For to set the matter in a stronger light; suppose the Title of some Book had been Christianity an Imposture, can it be believed that a Christian Nation could have boar such an assertion as this, if it had not been irrefragably and unquestionably made out in the Book? And would not the Author, think you, have been justly censured for it? Had I therefore been one of your Friends, that you had been pleased to consult upon this occasion, it had been my advice to you to publish your whole Discourse together, (if I had thought fit to advise the publishing any of it at all) and to recommend it to the World under a softer and more unexceptionable Title; and you should have reserved all your strong terms and hardy assertions till a full and convincing proof of your point had made way for their reception.  
There is another mis-management I have heard objected to you, which I cannot wholly excuse you for, tho' I doubt think it affects the main design of your Work so much as it is imagined by others to do; and that is the obscurity of your way of Writing. I have often heard it urged as an unpardonable thing for a Man to pretend to go about to prove that there's nothing in Christianity Mysterious in a Book where every thing is perplexed and obscure, and where common easy Notions are delivered in such a manner as to be difficultly understood; but especially your Notions of Reason, and Evidence, and your account of the Original and Progress of our Knowledge, which seem to be taken out of a clear Writer, were thought to be so confused and so oddly sorted together in your Book, that it was deemed impossible for you to play your Game well with so ill a hand; upon which occasion it was said, that you must go to stock again, if you hoped to make any thing of it. And indeed I was not able to deny the charge; I could not help observing this fault myself, tho' I was willing to lay it upon my own Understanding, till I found myself obliged by the general consent of others to put it to your Account.  
However, tho' I have been forced to allow your Book to be obscure, and in the Phrase of those that ridicule it, Mysterious; yet I do and will maintain to any Man that condemns it upon that account, that this can be no just prejudice to the Cause you have undertaken. For if you can but certainly prove that Christianity is not. Mysterious, 'tis no matter how obscure a Style you write in; if in clearing and brightning the dark parts of the Christian Religion, some obscurity should stick to the hand that does it, what Impeachment is that to the Work? Or if you should take all the Mysteries out of the Scripture, and put them into your Book, what's that to any body? 'Tis of Importance to have our Religion clear, but not your Book.  
And since I have taken this freedom with you, give me leave to put you in mind of another thing, which I cannot tell how to account for; and that is the many Insinuations you have against the Priests, as if it was for their Advantage to have Mysteries in the Christian Religion. Several things of the same Nature I have met with in other Books that have come out of late, and I am puzzled to know what all the Authors of them mean by their common cry against Priests, and laying all the Tricks and Mysteries of Religion at their Doors. I desire next time you writ, you will be so kind as to inform me, what good end you propose to yourself by a ridiculous Representation of the Order of Priesthood; and that, perhaps, may be a Key to let me into the design of those other Writers. I know very well that they are Heathen, and Popish Priests, that are commonly exposed and insulted in this manner; and I do not deny that a great many of them have deserved such usage; but why they should be made the common Subject of Raillery now, in a Country where the Priests have freed themselves from the Bondage of Superstition and Religious Craft, where they have reduced Religion to its Primitive Standard, and constantly propose it to the People in the plainest, and most simple Dress; this I say looks very odd, and seems to have something either of Trick or Mystery in it. For my part, I never read any one of our English Divines who talks of any Mysteries, which upon consulting the Scriptures, I did not find to be Mysteries there as well as in his Book; and they are generally so far from making Christianity more Mysterious than it is, that they are rather guilty of the fault of venturing upon too bold Explications of such things as they are not able to comprehend. But pray what Honour, or Advantage is there to be got by Mysteries? Suppose the Arrian, Socinian, or as you are pleased to distinguish the Vnitarian Doctrines, were received here, would not they bring in as much Profit and Esteem to the Arian, Socinian, or Vnitarian Priests, as the Orthodox Opinions do to ours? I am afraid they would hardly be contented with that scanty Provision, which Nineparts in Ten of our Clergy subsist upon. What then can be the meaning of so many Jests and Reflections upon the Priests, when there is no present apparent likelihood, that Heathenism, or Popery should prevail among us? Such abundance of care and caution as is now used for our Safety, and such Zealous Admonitions as are now given us to beware of being tricked and imposed upon, when there is no manner of Danger to be perceived, looks very impertinent; but I can hardly persuade myself that you, and so many other as considerable Writers that have appeared of late in the Defence of our Intellectual Liberty, have perfectly thrown away your time and pains, and been only very impertinent, though I must own, I think myself sometimes obliged in Charity to believe so; because I cannot otherwise give myself any account of your behaviour, without ascribing it to such reasons and motives as I am not willing to judge you acted upon. Pardon me therefore, I entreat you, that I am rather inclined to make a little bold with your understanding, and to think you impertinent, than to entertain any hard thoughts of your mo●al Character, which every Man ought to be most tender of.  
These are all the Remarks I thought fit to trouble you with, upon your Book Entitled, Christianity not Mysterious.  
The next thing that appeared in Print, which was said to be yours, was a Preface to the Lady's Religion; but your Name not being to it, I am not certain it belonged to you; and upon that account don't think myself obliged to undertake an express Defence of it, but shall content myself with making this one observation upon it, which, if you are the Author, will, I think, in some measure justify you from that untoward consequence, some of our zealous Clergy were apt to draw from your raillery upon the Priests, viz. That you was a sworn Enemy to their whole Profession; For by this Preface, if it be yours, it is certain that there are some Priests who have the honour of your acquaintance, and for whom you have a particular regard and esteem. 'Tis true indeed you are distinguishing in your respect to Men of that Order; and you are very much in the right of it: But if you meet with a Man of an unprejudiced emancipated understanding, who is likewise a person of strict integrity, and purity of behaviour, and of chaste severe Morals; you make him your Friend and Companion though a Priest, and you allow it to be his proper province to teach Morality; and who can blame you for giving a preference to Men of such flagrant and extraordinary Merits? This is such a proof not only of your judgement, but of the sincerity of your intention in every thing you do, as putteth me in mind of an excuse for those severe things you drop now and then against the Priests, which I wanted just before, when I was discoursing with you upon this head; and that is, that you have dealt thus freely with them in general, in order to excite the emulation of those of a lower form in worth, and bring them up to the same pitch and Character with the Author of the Lady's Religion.  
Your late Apology for yourself, which is the only thing extant that is certainly yours, and remains to be considered, is written in such a manner as needs no further Defence. You have there sufficiently proved that the Laymen are as improper judges of Religion as the Priests; and that a Parliament is altogether as fallible as a General Council; You have there likewise assured the World, that you are not to be over ruled by censures, or convinced by Arguments; that you have as great an acquaintance among the Ladies, as among the Men; and that Dr. pain writ the best of any Man that has yet entered the List against you.  
But, as to the last of these assertions, give me leave to tell you, with the same freedom I have all along used, that I am not) so entirely satisfied of the truth of this as of the former; and I the rather give way to my distrusts, because I am of Opinion it would be a more complete Justification of your Book, to say that Dr. pain had as ill success in his attempts upon it, as the other Answerers had. I must needs say, I took the Bp. of Worcester, Mr. Norris, and the Author of the Occasional Paper, to be Men of a superior Character in Writing; but I allow you to have a peculiar taste and discernment in the choice of those Priests you are pleased to favour with your good Word; and therefore I inquire no further into the reasons and motives of your liking Dr. pain.  
All that I have further to observe to you upon your Apology, is that you are a little too much concerned for the treatment you have met with in Ireland, and too apprehensive of the consequences of it.  
Papist, Impostor, and head of a new Sect, are only terms to flourish with; and you need not fear but the Gentlemen, who have bestowed this angry Rhetoric upon you, when they come to be better acquainted with you, and coolly examine their words by the severe rules of Truth, will change their language, and call in all their false and improper expressions.  
When they consider well what laudable pains you have taken to rid yourself of the first errors and prejudices of your Education, they may probably be under the temptation to fear, lest in throwing off Popery, you might strip a little too far, and not leave yourself quite Religion enough. And in truth, I can't imagine what ground they could have to suspect you a Papist at all, unless it was because you had the peculiar fancy of Printing some part of the Title of your Book in Red Letters; and in your Opinion of the Irish understandings, that was perhaps occasion enough for such a Charge.  
But those that called you Impostor, and compared you to Mabomet, had a further reach with them, which I am not able to fathom. However, I dare engage to them, that they have no reason to fear you upon any such account; for if they will but take care to secure their Old Religion, they are in no danger of your imposing a New one upon them; for 'tis your business to take away and pull down, to mend and contract; and not to lay any new Foundations, where there has been too much Building already.  
This no doubt they will quickly be sensible of, as soon as their first transports of Zeal have had their due time of assuaging; and therefore you need not trouble yourself for such a strange undeserved imputation. Neither, as I think, have you any more occasion to be concerned for that other aspersion, of your being marked out and designed to be the Ringleader of a new Sect of Religionists, that are to be called after your Name. I know you are not superstitious, and therefore I need not advise you to give little credit to any Prophecy of this kind; and for my part, except it had been foretold, and the Prediction confirmed to me by unquestionable signs, I cannot believe such a thing will ever come to pass. What Mr. Recorder Hancock said in his ingenious Harangue, must not be understood rigidly according to the Letter; he had heard of a great many Heretics that ended in— ists and— ians; and he thought it a pretty short way of expressing all the Gentlemen and Ladies, in and about Dublin, that favoured you with their Conversation, to call them Tolandists. But this is a liberty that was always allowed to Orators, and therefore you may be sure of keeping your Name within its just dimensions for the future, notwithstanding the Recorder of Dublin did once in a Figurative way, make bold to add a Syllable to it.  
Thus, Sir, have I given you my thoughts of your Writings in short; I shall add one word or two more concerning your Character, and then beg your Pardon for the whole trouble together.  
I have always been of Opinion, That the General Character of a Man is the best Interpreter of every thing he says and does; and I am very sorry to find I must now be forced to go by a new rule, if I take upon me to judge at all of your end, and intention in Writing what you have already Printed: For upon the best information I have been able to get, after a diligent inquiry, I find that the common Opinion of the World, and even that of your particular acquaintance, is such as renders what I am inclined to urge in your Defence perfectly ineffectual. And therefore, I will take this occasion to acquaint you how the matter stands betwixt me and my Friends, when you are the subject of discourse, and my charity puts me upon turning up the fairest side of things.  
When they talk of Veracity, Breeding, Discretion, or any such qualifications as those, I wave the dispute as being foreign to the purpose: But when they tell me you are looked upon to be a Deist, or at best but a narrow scanty Believer of Revelation; when they assure me that not only the Priests, and some of the bigoted People that are rid by them, have this Opinion of you, but that the Deists themselves take you to be in their interests; that the Libertines are fond of you, and caress you as one of their Party against all established forms of Religion; and that this cannot be only an artifice of theirs to make their strength appear more formidable, because you have said such things in their Company as give them sufficient reasons to believe you of their Sentiments: When I am pressed hard with such accounts as these, my Answer is, That 'tis very difficult for me to conceive how any Man, that owns the least tittle of Natural Religion, can publicly and solemnly profess to the World that he is firmly persuaded of the Truth of the Christian Religion, and the Scriptures, when at the same time he does not really and sincerely believe any thing of them; and therefore since you have made such a profession as this, I think myself obliged to believe you so far, and upon that account, I should choose rather to suppose that your intimate conversation with Deists and Libertines, and your seeming compliance with some of their opinions was by a mistaken policy carried on, and continued with a design of winning them over to the Christian Faith; this, I tell them, I had much rather imagine, than make your behaviour an Argument for calling your own Christianity in question: But with some seeming contempt of my Supine Charity, they answer me, that since I must be forced to call you Fool or Deist, they believe you would be best pleased with the latter Title; and they wonder I should be so unacquainted with the methods, used by the Enemies of our Religion, as not to know it is an usual Artifice with them to write booty, and to cover themselves with the profession of Religion, in order to undermine it more securely, and give their impiety an easier vent; for the truth of which observation they quote Mr. Blount, who in the Oracles of Reason plainly owns himself a Deist, and yet when he published his Philostratus, he would have pretended to take it very ill, if you had said he was not in earnest in all the encomiums he there bestows upon the Christian Religion, and his Blessed Saviour; though at the same time it was his design to have you believe him not in earnest. Something I remember I said to this, but you being the best judge of your own intention, and the necessity of your own vindication in this matter, I shall leave the further reply to you.  
Excuse me, Sir, for having detained you thus long with a Defence, which perhaps you may not very well like, though never so well meant: But I thought I could not do you such impartial justice to the World, if I had showed myself so blind and passionate a Friend, as to overlook all faults, and justify every thing with the same degree of Zeal. I am afraid my particular conduct in this matter, so different from the usual behaviour of those who engage in the service of a Friend, or a cause, may give occasion to some to suspect that instead of defending you, I have been exposing you all this while to your Adversaries; and the same nice-jealousy you know some people have entertained of several that have seemingly writ in the Defence of Religion; but I can assure them that their suspicions are as ill-grounded here as there.  
To be serious and plain with you, I have made as good a Defence for you as I could for my life; and though, I think at present, 'tis as good as the subject will bear, yet I hearty wish you may make a better for yourself; in expectation of which I profess myself  
Sir, Your most humble Servant.  
FINIS.