The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 03: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 1Swift, Jonathan
Religion
The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. — Volume 03: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church — Volume 1
Swift, Jonathan
Christianity; Church of England; Clergy; Religion
But though a Church of England man thinks every species of government
equally lawful, he does not think them equally expedient; or for every
country indifferently. There may be something in the climate, naturally
disposing men toward one sort of obedience, as is manifest all over
Asia, where we never read of any commonwealth, except some small ones on
the western coasts established by the Greeks. There may be a great deal
in the situation of a country, and in the present genius of the people.
It hath been observed, that the temperate climates usually run into
moderate governments, and the extremes into despotic power. 'Tis a
remark of Hobbes, that the youth of England are corrupted in their
principles of government, by reading the authors of Greece and Rome who
writ under commonwealths. But it might have been more fairly offered for
the honour of liberty, that while the rest of the known world was
overrun with the arbitrary government of single persons; arts and
sciences took their rise, and flourished only in those few small
territories were the people were free. And though learning may continue
after liberty is lost, as it did in Rome, for a while, upon the
foundations laid under the commonwealth, and the particular patronage of
some emperors; yet it hardly ever began under a tyranny in any nation:
Because slavery is of all things the greatest clog and obstacle to
speculation. And indeed, arbitrary power is but the first natural step
from anarchy or the savage life; the adjusting of power and freedom
being an effect and consequence of maturer thinking: And this is nowhere
so duly regulated as in a limited monarchy: Because I believe it may
pass for a maxim in state, that the administration cannot be placed in
too few hands, nor the legislature in too many. Now in this material
point, the constitution of the English government far exceeds all others
at this time on the earth, to which the present establishment of the
Church doth so happily agree, that I think, whoever is an enemy to
either, must of necessity be so to both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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