esorted to the device of
invoking the authority provided by some of the most respected names in the
Anglican Establishment. The use of satire in religious topics, hence, was
manifest in "the Writings of our most eminent Divines," especially those
of Stillingfleet, "our greatest controversial Writer" (pp. 4-5).

With all the outrageous assurance of a self-invited guest, the deist had
seated himself at the table of his vainly protesting Christian hosts (whom
he insisted on identifying as brethren). "In a word," he said so as to
obviate debate, "the Opinions and Practices of Men in all Matters, and
especially in Matters of Religion, are generally so absurd and ridiculous
that it is impossible for them not to be the Subjects of Ridicule" (p.
19). Thus adopting Juvenal's concept of satiric necessity ("difficile est
saturam non scribere"), Collins here set forth the thesis and rationale of
his enemy. There was a kind of impudent virtuosity in his "proofs," in his
manner of drawing a large, impressive cluster of names into his ironic net
and making all of them appear to be credible witnesses in his defense.
Even Swift, amusingly compromised as "one of the greatest _Droles_ that
ever appear'd upon the Stage of the World" (p. 39), was brought to the
witness box as evidence of the privileged status to which satiric writing
was entitled. Collins enforced erudition with cool intelligence so that
contemptuous amusement is present on every page of his _Discourse_.

Beneath his jeers and his laughter there was a serious denunciation of any
kind of intellectual restraint, however mild-seeming; beneath his verbal
pin-pricking there was conversely an exoneration of man's right to
inquire, to profess, and to persuade. Beneath his jests and sarcasms there
was further a firm philosophical commitment that informed the rhetoric of
all his earlier work. Ridicule, he asserted in 1729, "is both a proper and
necessary Method of Discourse in many Cases, and especially in the Case of
_Gravity_, when that is attended with Hypocrisy or Imposture, or with
Ignorance, or with soureness of Temper and Persecution: all which ought to
draw after them the _Ridicule_ and _Contempt_ of the Society, which has no
other effectual Remedy against such Methods of Imposition" (p. 22).

For the modern reader the _Discourse concerning Ridicule and Irony_ is the
most satisfactory of Collins's many pamphlets and books. It lacks the
pretentiousness of the _Scheme_, the sn