Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/413

Rh argue at a wild rate, that God Almighty is delighted with the variety of faith and worship, as he is with the varieties of nature. To such absurdities are men carried by the affectation of freethinking, and removing the prejudices of education; under which head, they have for some time begun to list morality and religion. It is certain that before the rebellion in 1642, though the number of puritans (as they were then called) were as great as it is with us, and though they affected to follow pastors of that denomination, yet those pastors had episcopal ordination, possessed preferments in the church, and were sometimes promoted to bishopricks themselves. But a breach in the general form of worship was, in those days, reckoned so dangerous and sinful in itself, and so offensive to Roman catholicks at home and abroad, that it was too unpopular to be attempted; neither, I believe, was the expedient then found out, of maintaining separate pastors out of private purses.

When a schism is once spread in a nation, there grows at length a dispute, which are the schismaticks. Without entering on the arguments used by both sides among us, to fix the guilt on each other, it is certain, that in the sense of the law, the schism lies on that side, which opposes itself to the religion of the state. I leave it among the divines to dilate upon the danger of schism, as a spiritual evil; but I would consider it only as a temporal one. And I think it clear, that any great separation from the established worship, though to a new one that is more pure and perfect, may be an occasion of endangering the publick peace; because it will compose a body always in reserve, prepared to follow any