Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/193

Rh by dissenters, and where her most sanguine friends were glad to compound, to preserve what legal security she had left, rather than attempt any new, or even to recover what she had lost: and in truth they had no reason to expect it, at a time when the dissenters had the interest to have a motion made and debated in parliament, that there might be a temporary repeal of all the penal laws against them; and when they were so flushed with the conquest they had made in some corporations, as to reject all overtures of a toleration; and, to that end, had employed Mr. Boyse to write against it with the utmost contempt, calling it "a stone instead of bread, a serpent instead of a fish."

When the church was in this situation, the clause of the sacramental test was happily sent over from England, tacked to the popery bill; which alarmed the whole body of the dissenters to that degree, that their managers began to ply with the greatest artifice and industry, to prevent its passing into a law. But (to the honour of that parliament be it spoken) the whole body of both lords and commons (some few excepted) passed the clause with great readiness, and defended it afterward with as great resolution.

The immediate consequence of this law was the recovery of several corporations from, the dissenters, and the preservation of others, to which the enterprising people had made very bold and quick approaches.

It was hoped that this signal defeat would have discouraged the dissenters from any farther attempts against the law, which had so unanimously passed both houses; but the contrary soon appeared: for, Rh