Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/407

Rh improper; which is the bishop of Salisbury's opinion in the speech he made and published against the bill: but however just their fears or complaints might have been upon that score, he thinks it a little too gross and precipitate to employ their writers already in arguments for repealing the sacramental test, upon no wiser maxim, than that no man should, on the account of conscience, be deprived the liberty of serving his country; a topick which may be equally applied to admit papists, atheists, mahometans, heathens, and jews. If the church wants members of its own to employ in the service of the publick, or be so unhappily contrived, as to exclude from its communion such persons, who are likeliest to have great abilities, it is time it should be altered, and reduced into some more perfect, or at least more popular form: but in the mean while, it is not altogether improbable, that when those, who dislike the constitution, are so very zealous in their offers for the service of their country, they are not wholly unmindful of their party, or of themselves.

The Dutch, whose practice is so often quoted to prove and celebrate the great advantages of a general liberty of conscience, have yet a national religion professed by all who bear office among them: but why should they be a precedent for us either in religion or government? our country differs from theirs, as well in situation, soil, and productions of nature, as in the genius and complexion of inhabitants. They are a commonwealth founded on a sudden, by a desperate attempt in a desperate condition, not formed or digested into a regular system by mature thought and reason, but huddled up Rh