fon who will take that teft against stomach, (by which word I understand many a man's confcience) who earnestly wifheth it repealed, and will endeavour it to the utmost of his power; fo that the first action after you meet, will be a fort of contravention to that Teft: And will any body go further than your practice to judge of your principles?

And now I am upon this fubject, I cannot conclude without faying fomething to a very popular argument against that Sacramental Teft, which may be apt to fhake many of thofe who would otherwife wish well enough to it. They fay it was a new hardship put upon the Dif fenters, without any provocation; and, it is plain, could be no way necessary, becaufe we had peaceably lived together fo long without it. They add fome other circumftances of the arts by which it was obtained, and the perfon by whom it was inferted. Surely fuch people do not confider that the penal laws against Diffenters were made wholly ineffectual by the connivance and mercy of the government, fo that all employments of the state lay as open to them as they did to the best and moft legal fubjects. And what progrefs

they

they would have made by the advantages of a late conjuncture, is obvious to imagine; which I take to be a full answer to that objection.

I remember, upon the transmission of that bill with the Teft-claufe inferted, the Diffenters and their partizans, among other topics, fpoke much of the good effects produced by the lenity of the government : That the Prefbyterians were grown very inconfiderable in their number and quality, and would daily come into the church, if we did not fright them from it by new feverities. When the act was paffed, they prefently changed their ftyle, and raised a clamour, through both kingdoms, of the great numbers of confiderable gentry who were laid afide, and could no longer ferve their Queen and country: Which hyperbolical way of reckoning, when it came to be melted down into truth, amounted to about fifteen country-juftices, most of them of the loweft fize, for eftate, quality, or understanding. However, this puts me in mind of a paffage told me by a great man, although I know not whether it be any where recorded. That a complaint was made to the King and Council of Sweden, of a prodigious fwarm of Scots, who, un

der the condition of pedlars, infested that kingdom to fuch a degree, as, if not fuddenly prevented, might in time prove dangerous to the ftate, by joining with any difcontented party. Meanwhile the Scots, by their agents, placed a good sum of money to engage the offices of the prime minifter in their behalf; who, in order to their defence, told the Council, He was affured they were but a few inconfiderable people, that lived honeftly and poorly, and were not of any confequence. Their enemies offered to prove the contrary: Whereupon an order was made to take their numbers, which was found to amount, as I remember, to about thirty thousand. The affair was again brought before the Council, and great reproaches made the first minifter, for his ill computation; who, prefently taking the other handle, faid, he had reafon to believe the number yet greater than what was returned; and then gravely offered to the King's confideration, whether it were fafe to render desperate so great a body of able men, who had little to lofe, and whom any hard treatment would only serve to unite into a power capable of disturbing, if not destroying the peace of the kingdom. And fo they were fuffered to continue.

SOME

THOUGHTS

CONCERNING

THE REPEAL OF THE TEST.

HOSE of either fide who have writ

THO

ten upon this fubject of the Test, in making or answering objections, feem to fail by not preffing fufficiently the chief point upon which the controversy turns. The arguments used by those who write for the church are very good in their kind, but will have little force under the prefent corruptions of mankind, because the authors treat this fubject tanquam in republica Platonis, et non in face Romuli.

It must be confeffed, that, confidering how few employments of any confequence fall to the share of those English who are born in this kingdom, and those few very dearly purchased, at the expence of confcience, liberty, and all regard for the pu blic good, they are not worth contending for: And, if nothing but profit were in the cafe, it would hardly coft me one figh when I fhould fee thofe few scraps thrown

among

among every species of Fanatics, to scuffle for among themselves.

And this will infallibly be the case, after repealing the Teft. For, every fubdivifion of fect will, with equal juftice, pretend to have a share; and, as it is ufual with sharers, will never think they have enough, while any pretender is left unprovided. I fhall not except the Quakers; because, when the paffage is once let open for all fects to partake in public emoluments, it is very probable the lawfulness of taking oaths, and wearing carnal weapons, may be revealed to the brotherhood; which thought, I confefs, was first put into my head by one of the shrewdest Quakers in this kingdom *.

* Undoubtedly the Quaker hinted at by Dr. Swift was the late Mr. Rooke; a man who had a very good tafte for wit, had read abundance of hiftory, and was perhaps the moft learned Quaker, one of them, in the world. To the beft of my recollection, he was the author of a good humorous paftoral in the Quaker-style.