like papists: when an enemy appears at home, or from abroad, they must sit still, and see their throats cut, or be hanged for high treason if they offer to defend themselves. Miserable condition! woful dilemma! it is happy for us all, that the pretender was not apprised of this passive presbyterian principle, else he would have infallibly landed in our northern parts, and found them all sat down in their formalities, as the Gauls did the Roman senators, ready to die with honour in their callings. Sometimes to appease their indignation, we venture to give them hopes, that in such a case, the government will perhaps connive, and hardly be so severe to hang them for defending it, against the letter of the law; to which they readily answer, that they will not lie at our mercy, but let us fight our battles ourselves. Sometimes we offer to get an act, by which, upon all popish insurrections at home, or popish invasion from abroad, the government shall be empowered to grant commissions to all protestants whatsoever, without that persecuting circumstance of obliging them to say their prayers, when they receive the sacrament: but they abhor all thoughts of occasional commissions; they will not do our drudgery, and we reap the benefit: it is not worth their while to fight pro aris et focis; and they had rather[1] lose their estates, liberties, religion, and lives, than the pleasure of governing.
But to bring this discourse toward a conclusion: if the dissenters will be satisfied with such a toleration by
- ↑ Had rather is a bad ungrammatical phrase, crept into writing from vulgar speech. It should be always, would rather. The word, rather, stands in the place of more willingly; and would any one say, 'they had more willingly lose their estates?' No certainly, it should be, 'they would more willingly,' &c.
