Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/80

Rh have saved, if he would have yielded to betray the constitution in church and state.

In this whole proceeding, Simeon and Levi were brethren; the wicked insinuations of those fanatical preachers stirring up the cruelty of the soldiers, who, by force of arms, excluded from the house every member of parliament, whom they apprehended to bear the least inclination toward an agreement with the king, suffering only those to enter who thirsted chiefly for his blood; and this is the very account given by their own writers. Whence it is clear that this prince was, in all respects, a real martyr for the true religion and the liberty of the people. That odious parliament had first turned the bishops out of the house of lords; in a few years after, they murdered their king; then immediately abolished the whole house of lords; and so, at last, obtained their wishes, of having a government of the people, and a new religion, both after the manner of Geneva, without a king, a bishop, or a nobleman; and this they blasphemously called, "The kingdom of Christ and his saints."

This is enough for your information on the first head: I shall therefore proceed to the second, wherein I will show you the miserable consequences, which that abominable rebellion and murder produced in these nations.

First, The Irish rebellion was wholly owing to that wicked English parliament. For the leaders in the Irish popish massacre would never have dared to stir a finger, if they had not been encouraged by that rebellious spirit in the English house of commons, which they very well knew must disable the king from