Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 11.djvu/312

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SIR,

OT to trouble you at present with a recital of all my obligations to you, I shall only mention two things, which I take particularly kind of you: your desire that I should write to you, and your proposal of giving me twenty guineas to change my religion; which last you must give me leave to make the subject of this letter.

Sure no clergyman ever offered so much out of his own purse for the sake of any religion. It is almost as many pieces of gold, as an Apostle could get of silver, from the priests of old, on a much more valuable consideration. I believe it will be better worth my while to propose a change of my faith by subscription, than a translation of Homer. And, to convince you how well disposed I am to the reformation, I shall be content, if you can prevail with my lord treasurer and the ministry to rise to the same sum each of them, on this pious account, as my lord Halifax has done on the profane one. I am afraid there is no being at once a poet and a good christian; and I am very much straitened between the two, while the whigs seem willing to contribute as much to continue me the one, as you would to make me the other. But, if you can move every man in the government, who has above ten thousand pounds a year, to subscribe as much as yourself, I shall become a convert, as most men do, when the Lord turns it to my interest. I know they have the truth of