Essay upon Wit | Page 7

not only an Enemy to
Religion, but to every thing else that is wise and worthy; and I am very
much mistaken, if the State as well as the Church, the Civil
Government as well as Religion, 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