Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 1.djvu/88

52 out of the more moderate of each, that should serve as a check upon the violence of both. With this view, he represents the extremes of both parties, and the evil consequences likely to ensue from each, in the strongest light; at the same time he clearly shows that the moderate of both hardly differed in any material point, and were kept asunder only by the odious distinction of a name. He set down in this piece such a just, political, and religious creed, so far as related to any connexion between church and state, as every honest subject of the church of England must at once assent to. And indeed if it were in the nature of things, that a party could have been formed upon principles of moderation, good sense, and publick spirit, his scheme would have taken place, from the masterly manner in which it was proposed. His design was, to engage all those of both parties, who wished well to the established church, to unite together under the denomination of church of England men, instead of the odious terms of high and low church, calculated to keep up animosity; and by so doing, to leave the more violent of both parties, whose numbers would in that case be much reduced, exposed to the world in their true colours, merely by being singled out in the different herds of their associates. In that case, there were few whigs, so lost to all sense of shame, as would choose to be one of a handful of English protestants, at the head of a numerous body of sectaries of all kinds, infidels and atheists; as there would be few tories who would wish to appear leaders of papists and Jacobites only. Under the name of church of England man, none of those enemies to our constitution could have listed; whereas under the vague names