Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/412

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404
A PREFACE TO THE BISHOP

allow the negative, he gives it clearly for Christianity.

Secondly, he applies himself (if I take his meaning right) to christian papists, who have a taste of liberty; and desires them to compare the absurdity of their own religion, with the reasonableness of the reformed: against which, as good luck would have it, I have nothing to object.

Thirdly, he is somewhat rough against his own party, who, having tasted the sweets of protestant liberty, can look back so tamely on popery coming on them; it looks as if they were bewitched, or that the devil were in them, to be so negligent. It is not enough that they resolve not to turn papists themselves; they ought to awaken all about them, even the most ignorant and stupid to apprehend their danger, and to exert themselves with their utmost industry to guard against it, and to resist it. If, after all their endeavours to prevent it, the corrupition of the age, and the art and power of our enemies, prove too hard for us; then, and not until then, we must submit to the will of God, and be silent; and prepare ourselves for all the extremity of suffering and of misery, with a great deal more of the same strain.

With due submission to the profound sagacity of this prelate, who can smell popery at five hundred miles distance, better than fanaticism just under his nose, I take leave to tell him, that this reproof to his friends for want of zeal and clamour against popery, slavery, and the pretender, is what they have not deserved. Are the pamphlets and papers daily published by the sublime authors of his party, full of any thing else? are not the queen, the mi-

nisters,