Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/237

Rh ! Does this man's spirit of declaiming let him forget all truth of fact, as here, &c.? Show it. Or does he flatter himself, a time will come in future ages, that men will believe it on his word? In short, between declaiming, between misrepresenting, and falseness, and charging popish things, and independency huddled together, his whole book is employed.

Set forth at large the necessity of union in religion, and the disadvantage of the contrary, and answer the contrary in Holland, where they have no religion, and are the worst constituted government in the world to last. It is ignorance of causes and appearances which makes shallow people judge so much to their advantage. They are governed by the administration and almost legislature of Holland through advantage of property, nor are they fit to be set in balance with a noble kingdom, &c. like a man that gets a hundred pounds a year by hard labour, and one that has it in land.

Page 280. "It may be worth inquiring, whether the difference between the several sects in England, &c." A noble notion started, that union in the church must enslave the kingdom; reflect on it. This man has somewhere heard, that it is a point of wit to advance paradoxes, and the bolder the better. But the wit lies in maintaining them, which he neglects, and forms imaginary conclusions from them, as if they were true and uncontested.

He adds, "That in the best constituted church, the greatest good which can be expected of the ecclesiasticks, is, from their divisions." This is a maxim deduced from a gradation of false suppositions. If a man should turn the tables, and argue Rh