The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• A Collection of Tracts.
• The Sense of the People Concerning the Present State of Affairs, With Remarks Upon Some Passages of Our Own and the Roman History. In a Letter to a Member of Parliament. Anno 1721.
• A Compleat History of the Late Septennial Parliament; Wherein All Their Proceedings Are Particularly Enquired Into, and Faithfully Related; With Proper Remarks, and Many Secret Memoirs Interspersed, Concerning the Late Times. to Which Is Prefixed, Hones
• An Essay On the Practice of Stock-jobbing, and Some Remarks On the Right Use, and Regular Improvement of Money. In a Letter to a Gentleman, and a Proprietor of South-sea Stock. Anno 1724.
• An Authentic Narrative of the Late Proceedings and Cruel Execution At Thorn; With Two Letters Written Upon That Occasion By Britannicus, In the London Journal. to Which Is Prefixed, an Account of the Rights and Privileges of the City of Thorn. a
• A Short View of the Conspiracy, With Some Reflections On the Present State of Affairs. In a Letter to an Old Whig In the Country. By Cato. Anno 1723.
• Royal Gallantry: Or, the Amours of a Certain K—g of a Certain Country, Who Kept His C—rt At a Certain Place, Much In the Same Latitude With That of W-st-m-nst-r, Related In the Unhappy Adventures of Palmiris and Lindamira; In Which the Characters
• A Letter to a Gentleman At Edinburgh, Concerning the Busy and Assuming Spirit of the Ecclesiastics, and Their Extravagant Demands Upon the Laity. Anno 1725.
• The Craftsmen: a Sermon, Or Paraphrase Upon Several Verses of the Xix Th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Composed In the Style of the Late Daniel Burgess. Anno 1723.
• A Serious Expostulation With the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London, On His Letter to the Clergy and People of London and Westminster. Anno 1750.
• Seasonable Advice to the Electors of Great Britain; With a Word Or Two Relating to the Influence of the Clergy In Elections. Anno 1722.
• The True Picture of a Modern Tory; Or a High-churchman Painted to the Life. Anno 1722.
• A Sermon Preached Before the Learned Society of Lincoln’s-inn, On January 30, 1732, From Job XXXIV. 30. That the Hypocrite Reign Not, Lest the People Be Insnared. Anno 1733.
• A Supplement to the Sermon Preached At Lincoln’s-inn, On January 30. 1732. Addressed to a Very Important and Most Solemn Churchman, Sollicitor-general For Causes Ecclesiastical. Anno 1733.
• A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Codex, On the Subject of His Modest Instruction to the Crown, Inserted In the Daily Journal of February 27 Th, 1733. From the Second Volume of Burnet’ S History. Anno 1734.
• The Preface to the Fourth Collection of Cato’ S Letters.
• The Preface to the Sixth Collection of Cato’s Letters.
• The Creed of an Independent Whig; With an Orthodox Introduction, Concerning Canons, Councils, Mysteries, Miracles, and Church Authority. Anno 1720.
• Priestianity: Or, a View of the Disparity Between the Apostles and the Modern Inferior Clergy. Anno 1720.

The true Picture of a Modern Tory; or a High-Churchman painted to the Life.

Anno 1722.

ByThomas Gordon,Esq;

A Tory is a Monster, with an English Face, a Popish Heart, and an Irish Conscience; a Creature of a large Forehead, a prodigious Mouth, supple Hams, and no Brains: Noise and Debauchery, Oaths and Beggary, are the four Elements that compose him; his Arms are those of Isachar, an Ass couchant, of which the two Supporters are Passive Obedience and Non-Resistance. He seems to be descended from Esau, for he would fain truck away an invaluable Birth-right for a Popish Pretender; he has so great a Kindness for Popery and Slavery, that whenever they shall make a Match, he’ll be sure to put in for a Bride-man: But though some would fetch his Descendant from Esau, yet others (not without Reason) run his Pedigree a great deal higher, and take him to be a Noadite, or one of the Race of Cain, that would fain be persecuting his Brother, merely because he is more righteous than himself.

With respect to the State, a High-Churchman is a Caterpillar that devours every green Thing in a flourishing Kingdom, and would stab Liberty and Property to the Heart, that he and his Fellow-Brutes, like Beasts of Prey, might live wholly on Spoil and Rapine; they are fit only to be Subjects to Nebuchadnezzar, when (bereaved of human Sense) he herded with the wild Asses of the Desart. Though they boast themselves Englishmen, yet they act in all things like Antipodes to their native Country, and seem rather the Spawn of some staunch [Editor: word?] Jesuit; they are a Sort of wild Boars, that would fain root out the Constitution, and break the Balance of our happy Government, by rendering that despotic, which is established and bounded by Law: He is so certain that Monarchy is Jure Divino, that he looks upon all People, living under Aristocracy’s or Democracy’s, to be in a State of Damnation; and fancies that the Grand Seignior, the Czar of Muscovy, and the French King dropt down from Heaven with Crowns on their Heads, and that all their Subjects (except the Priests) were born with Saddles on their Backs. A right High-Flyer is as fond of Slavery, as others are of Liberty, and will be at as much Charge and Pains to obtain it; for he envies the Happiness of Canvas Breeches and Wooden Shoes: He admires the Mercy of the Inquisition, and prays for an Ecclesiastical Commission; he rails at Magna Charta as the Seed-plot of Sedition, and swears it was first obtained by Rebellion, and that all our Fore-fathers were Fools and Rogues, and did not understand Prerogative: He wonders why People should squander away their Time at the Inns of Court, or what need there is either of the Common Law, or the Statute-Book, since the King may at any time, with quicker Dispatch, declare his Pleasure in any Point or Controversy. But ’tis plain he means not his Majesty King George, whom he acknowledges to be so, because he has taken the Oaths to him. He will indeed boast of his Loyalty, but we never see any thing of it, unless it be to undermine the Government, he roars and swaggers, and promises Mountains, but performs Nothing, and by Lies and Misrepresentations, gives false Measures; and if he happens to be in a Place, or wear the King’s Cloth, it is not the Cause but the Crust that he barks for.

With relation to the Church, our Tory is either a Crab Protestant, that crawls backwards as fast as he can to Rome, or is at best but a Cats-foot, wherewith the Romish Monkies claw the Protestant Religion; he is one that does their Drudgery, though he has not the Wit to see it, and the Wages he must expect, is Polyphemus’s Courtesies, to be devoured last: He is a Flambeau, kindled by the Jesuits, and flung in to make a Combustion among us: He pretends High for the Church of England, but as he understands not her Doctrines, so he dishonours her by his lewd Conversation; the only Proof both of his Religion and Courage is, that he swears most fervently; his Christianity consists in cursing all those that differ from him; his Tongue is always tipped with Damme, and Forty-One, and upon all Occasions belches out Huzza’s as fast as Mount Ætna does Fire and Brimstone.

He mortally hates Occasional Conformity, though himself can occasionally be present at Mass; and whilst he clamours at Dissenters for not coming to Church, he thinks it canonical enough to sleep over the Sabbath Day, to digest the Fumes of Saturday’s Debauch; or else he takes a Walk in St. Paul’s, peeps at the Preacher, and presently retires to the Tavern for a Whet to Dinner; if he happen to be of a more serious Temper, he is as superstitious a Bigot as any in the Romish Church, and he had rather have no Preaching, than that the Surplice should be left off, and thinks his Child not christened, if it be not done with the Sign of the Cross; he counts Opus Operatum sufficient, and thinks it a greater Abomination to eat Flesh on a Friday, than to defile his Neighbour’s Bed; and he abhors more, not to bow at the Syllables of the Word Jesus, than to swear by the Name of God; he is sure the Priests have a Divine Right from Jesus Christ, to do as much Wickedness as they please, and that it is the Duty of the Laity to bow down to them with their Faces to the Earth; he is fully persuaded, that the Clergy are so like the Apostles, that they came in an uninterrupted Succession from them; tho’ he seems to believe there are not more Gods than One, yet he knows there is no going to Heaven without a Ticket from the Lord’s Ambassadors, whom he firmly believes have the sole Right of disposing of Heaven and Hell: If you talk soberly with him about Religion, he slaps you over the Face with Heresy, Schism, and Faction, tells you he is of the Church, as by Law established, and so you are at once confuted by his unanswerable Arguments; he combats Truth with Curses, and Mercy with Madness; he takes Mischief for Merit, and his Priest for his Maker. In a Word, a Tory is a Tool of Rome, an Emissary of the Pretender’s, a Friend to Priestcraft, an Enemy to his King and Country, and an Underminer of our happy Constitution, both in Church and State.