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

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 men who live peaceably ought to have liberty of conscience, and leave to assemble. That impediment being removed at the Revolution, they soon learned to swallow the Sacramental Test and began to take very large steps, wherein all that offered to oppose them, were called men of a persecuting spirit. During the time the Bill against Occasional Conformity was on foot, persecution was every day rung in our ears, and now at last the Sacramental Test itself has the same name. Where then is this matter likely to end, when the obtaining of one request is only used as a step to demand another? A lover is ever complaining