Pope replies that his worldly
interests would be promoted by such a step; and, in fact, it cannot be
doubted that Pope might have had a share in the good things then
obtainable by successful writers, if he had qualified by taking the
oaths. But he adds, that such a change would hurt his mother's feelings,
and that he was more certain of his duty to promote her happiness than
of any speculative tenet whatever. He was sure that he could mean as
well in the religion he now professed as in any other; and that being
so, he thought that a change even to an equally good religion could not
be justified. A similar statement appears in a letter to Swift, in 1729.
"I am of the religion of Erasmus, a Catholic. So I live, so shall I die,
and hope one day to meet you, Bishop Atterbury, the younger Craggs, Dr.
Garth, Dean Berkeley, and Mr. Hutchison in that place to which God of
his infinite mercy bring us and everybody." To these Protestants he
would doubtless have joined the freethinking Bolingbroke. At a later
period he told Warburton, in less elevated language, that the change of
his creed would bring him many enemies and do no good to any one.
Pope could feel nobly and act honourably when his morbid vanity did not
expose him to some temptation; and I think that in this matter his
attitude was in every way creditable. He showed, indeed, the prejudice
entertained by many of the rationalist divines for the freethinkers who
were a little more outspoken than himself.
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