The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume IV | Page 9

have no successors; so that the Protestant Clergy will find it perhaps no
difficult matter to bring great numbers over to the Church; and in the
meantime, the common people without leaders, without discipline, or
natural courage, being little better than "hewers of wood, and drawers
of water," are out of all capacity of doing any mischief, if they were
ever so well inclined. Neither are they at all likely to join in any
considerable numbers with an invader, having found so ill success
when they were much more numerous and powerful; when they had a
prince of their own religion to head them, had been trained for some
years under a Popish deputy, and received such mighty aids from the
French king.
As to that argument used for repealing the Test, that it will unite all
Protestants against the common enemy, I wonder by what figure those
gentlemen speak who are pleased to advance it: Suppose in order to
increase the friendship between you and me, a law should pass that I
must have half your estate; do you think that would much advance the
union between us? Or, suppose I share my fortune equally between my
own children, and a stranger whom I take into my protection; will that
be a method to unite them? Tis an odd way of uniting parties, to

deprive a majority of part of their ancient right, by conferring it on a
faction who had never any right at all, and therefore cannot be said to
suffer any loss or injury if it be refused them. Neither is it very clear,
how far some people may stretch the term of common enemy. How
many are there of those that call themselves Protestants, who look upon
our worship to be idolatrous as well as that of the Papists, and with
great charity put Prelacy and Popery together, as terms convertible?
And, therefore, there is one small doubt, I would be willingly satisfied
in before I agree to the repealing of the Test; that is, whether, these
same Protestants, when they have by their dexterity made themselves
the national religion, and disposed the Church revenues among their
pastors or themselves, will be so kind to allow us dissenters, I do not
say a share in employments, but a bare toleration by law? The reason of
my doubt is, because I have been so very idle as to read above fifty
pamphlets, written by as many Presbyterian divines, loudly disclaiming
this idol Toleration, some of them calling it (I know not how properly)
a rag of Popery, and all agreeing it was to establish iniquity by law.
Now, I would be glad to know when and where their successors have
renounced this doctrine, and before what witnesses. Because, methinks
I should be loth to see my poor titular bishop _in partibus_, seized on
by mistake in the dark for a Jesuit, or be forced myself to keep my
chaplain disguised like my butler, and steal to prayers in a back room,
as my grandfather[l6] used in those times when the Church of England
was malignant.
[Footnote 16: This is Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, in
Herefordshire, "much distinguished by his courage, as well as his
loyalty to King Charles the First, and the sufferings he underwent for
that prince, more than any person of his condition in England." See the
"Fragment of Autobiography," printed by Scott and Forster in their
Lives of Swift. [T.S.]]
But this is ripping up old quarrels long forgot; Popery is now the
common enemy, against which we must all unite; I have been tired in
history with the perpetual folly of those states who call in foreigners to
assist them against a common enemy: But the mischief was, those allies
would never be brought to allow that the common enemy was quite
subdued. And they had reason; for it proved at last, that one part of the
common enemy was those who called them in, and so the allies became

at length the masters.
'Tis agreed among naturalists that a lion is a larger, a stronger, and
more dangerous enemy than a cat; yet if a man were to have his choice,
either a lion at his foot, bound fast with three or four chains, his teeth
drawn out, and his claws pared to the quick, or an angry cat in full
liberty at his throat; he would take no long time to determine.
I have been sometimes admiring the wonderful significancy of that
word persecution, and what various interpretations it hath acquired
even within my memory. When I was a boy, I often heard the
Presbyterians complain that they were not permitted to serve God in
their own way; they said they did not repine at our employments, but
thought that all