The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume IV | Page 8

a personal rancour toward the clergy: These last are a set of men not of our own growth, their principles at least have been imported of late years; yet this whole party put together will not, I am confident, amount to above fifty men in Parliament, which can hardly be worked up into a majority of three hundred.
[Footnote 15: The passage beginning with "I remember when I was last in England," and ending with "within our definition," is omitted by Faulkner. [T.S.]]
As to the House of Lords, the difficulty there is conceived at least as great as in ours. So many of our temporal peers live in England, that the bishops are generally pretty near a par of the House, and we reckon they will be all to a man against repealing the Test; and yet their lordships are generally thought as good Whigs upon our principles as any in the kingdom. There are indeed a few lay lords who appear to have no great devotion for Episcopacy; and perhaps one or two more with whom certain powerful motives might be used for removing any difficulty whatsoever; but these are in no sort of a number to carry any point against the conjunction of the rest and the whole bench of bishops.
Besides, the whole body of our clergy is utterly against repealing the Test, though they are entirely devoted to her Majesty, and hardly one in a hundred who are not very good Whigs in our acceptation of the word. And I must let you know, that we of Ireland are not yet come up to other folk's refinements; for we generally love and esteem our clergy, and think they deserve it; nay, we are apt to lay some weight upon their opinion, and would not willingly disoblige them, at least unless it were upon some greater point of interest than this. And their judgment in the present affair is the more to be regarded, because they are the last persons who will be affected by it: This makes us think them impartial, and that their concern is only for religion and the interest of the kingdom. Because the act which repeals the Test, will only qualify a layman for an employment, but not a Presbyterian or Anabaptist preacher for a church-living. Now I must take leave to inform you, that several members of our House, and myself among the rest, knowing some time ago what was upon the anvil, went to all the clergy we knew of any distinction, and desired their judgment of the matter, wherein we found a most wonderful agreement; there being but one divine that we could hear of in the whole kingdom, who appeared of a contrary sentiment, wherein he afterwards stood alone in the convocation, very little to his credit, though, as he hoped, very much to his interest.
I will now consider a little the arguments offered to shew the advantages, or rather the necessity, of repealing the Test in Ireland. We are told, the Popish interest is here so formidable, that all hands should be joined to keep it under; that the only names of distinction among us ought to be those of Protestant and Papist, and that this expedient is the only means to unite all Protestants upon one common bottom. All which is nothing but misrepresentation and mistake.
If we were under any real fear of the Papists in this kingdom, it would be hard to think us so stupid, not to be equally apprehensive with others, since we are likely to be the greatest, and more immediate sufferers; but on the contrary, we look upon them to be altogether as inconsiderable as the women and children. Their lands are almost entirely taken from them, and they are rendered incapable of purchasing any more; and for the little that remains, provision is made by the late act against Popery, that it will daily crumble away: To prevent which, some of the most considerable among them are already turned Protestants, and so in all probability will many more. Then, the Popish priests are all registered, and without permission (which I hope will not be granted) they can 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