Essay upon Wit | Page 7

do not in a short space find the intolerable Inconvenience of this Humour."
Tho the Persons addicted to this impious Folly, expose the sacred Mysteries of Christianity, and make its Votaries the common Topick of their Raillery, it cannot thence be concluded, that they are certain that those whom they thus deride, as whimsical, stupid, and deluded Men, have not the least Reason to support their Religious Principles and Practice; for if they were sure of this, they would treat such unhappy Persons as Men rob'd of their Senses, with Tenderness and Compassion; for none will allow such distemper'd Minds to be proper Subjects of Ridicule and Derision: But those, who attentively observe the Manner and Air of these jesting Libertines, when they laugh at Vertue, will see plainly their licentious Mirth springs from other Principles; either from this, That the Example of many Persons, who in earnest embrace and profess the Articles of Religion, continually disturbs their Opinion of themselves, and creates severe Misgivings and Distrust in their Minds, lest their Notions about Religion should not be true, when they observe, that many Persons of eminent Parts, superior Reason and Erudition, maintain with Zeal quite contrary Sentiments; or else it proceeds from their Hatred of Men of Vertue, founded in the Dissimilitude of Dispositions and Manners, and Disagreement in Interest, Employments and Designs; or from an Envy of their great Merit, innocent Life, and worthy Actions, which from the prevailing Power of their own vicious Inclinations, they are unable to imitate; for after all their Raillery and Expressions of Contempt, Vertue has that native Lustre and amiable Appearance, that will compel Men secretly to esteem it, even while they deride the Possessors of it. Such is the Pride and Vanity of degenerate Nature, that loose Men will always endeavour to level the eminent Characters of religious and sober Persons, and reduce them to the inferior Degree of their own: And for that end, they will labour to sink the Opinion and Esteem of any Excellence or Merit, to which themselves can make no Pretence. While they cannot equal the bright Example of Vertue in others, they strive to sully or efface it, and by turning it into Ridicule, make it seem rather the Dishonour and Deformity, than the Beauty and Perfection of the Mind: And if they can disgrace Religion, and subvert all moral Distinction, Men will be valu'd only for their intellectual Endowments, and then they imagine they have gain'd their Point, since the Superiority of Wit, as they suppose, is on their Side. These seem to me the genuine and natural Causes, why Men of great Parts and extraordinary Wit, but of loose Principles and immoral Lives, who above all others affect Popularity and gasp after Applause, take so much Pleasure, without the least regard to Modesty and Decency, in a Christian Country to mock Religion and jerk with spiteful Satire Men of Vertue and inoffensive Behaviour.
WIT is likewise misapply'd, when exercis'd to ridicule any unavoidable Defects and Deformities of Body or Mind; for since nothing is a moral Blemish, but as it is the Effect of our own Choice, nothing can be disgraceful but what is voluntary, and brought freely upon our selves; and since nothing is the proper Object of Raillery and Ridicule, but what is shameful, it must be a Violence to Reason and Humanity, to reproach and expose another for any thing that was not in his Power to escape. And therefore to make a Man contemptible, and the Jest of the Company, by deriding him for his mishapen Body, ill figur'd Face, stammering Speech, or low Degree of Understanding, is a great Abuse of ingenious Faculties.
Nor is it a less criminal Use of this Talent, when it is exercis'd in lascivious and obscene Discourses. The Venom is not less, but more infectious and destructive, when convey'd by artful Insinuation and a delicate Turn of Wit; when impure Sentiments are express'd by Men of a heavy and gross Imagination, in direct and open Terms, the Company are put out of Countenance, and nauseate the Coarseness of the Conversation: but a Man of Wit gilds the Poison, dresses his wanton Thoughts in a beautiful Habit, and by slanting and side Approaches, possesses the Imagination of the Hearers, before his Design is well discover'd; by which means he more effectually gains Admission to the Mind, and fills the Fancy with immodest Ideas.
Nothing can be more ill-manner'd, or disagreeable to Persons of Vertue and Sobriety of Manners, than wanton and obscene Expressions; on which Subject the excellent Archbishop Tillotson has the following Paragraph: "Nothing that trespasses upon the Modesty of the Company, and the Decency of Conversation, can become the Mouth of a wise and vertuous Person. This kind of Conversation would fain pass for Wit among