Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/316

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308
THE PRESBYTERIANS

high church and low church, jacobite and Hanoverian, court and country party, English and Irish interests, dissenters and conformists, new light and old light, anabaptist and independent, quaker and muggletonian; they will all meet and jumble together into a perfect harmony, at the sessions and assises, on the bench and in the revenues; and upon the whole, in all civil and military trusts, not excepting the great councils of the nation. For it is wisely argued thus: that a kingdom being no more than a larger knot of friends met together, it is against the rules of good manners to shut any person out of the company, except the papists, who profess themselves of another club.

I am at a loss to know, what arts the presbyterian sect intends to use, in convincing the world of their loyalty to kingly government, which (long before the prevalence, or even the birth of their independent rivals) as soon as the king's forces were overcome, declared their principles to be against monarchy, as well as episcopacy and the house of lords, even until the king was restored: at which event, although they were forced to submit to the present power, yet I have not heard that they ever, to this day, renounce any one principle, by which their predecessors then acted: yet this they have been challenged to do, or at least to show that others have done it for them, by a certain doctor[1], who, as I am told, has much employed his pen in the like disputes. I own, they will be ready enough to insinuate themselves into any government: but if they mean to be honest and upright, they will and must endeavour, by all

  1. The late Dr. Tisdal.
means