Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/154

146 Britain. I remember formerly to have read a printed account of Mr. Greenshields' case, who has been prosecuted and silenced, for no other reason beside reading divine service after the manner of the church of England to his own congregation, who desired it; though, as the gentleman who writes to me says, there is no law in Scotland against those meetings; and he adds, that the sentence pronounced against Mr. Greenshields will soon be affirmed, if some care be not taken to prevent it. I am altogether uninformed in the particulars of this case, and besides, to treat it justly would not come within the compass of my paper; therefore I could wish the gentleman would undertake it in a discourse by itself; and I should be glad he would inform the publick in one fact; whether episcopal assemblies are freely allowed in Scotland? It is notorious, that abundance of their clergy fled from thence some years ago into England and Ireland, as from a persecution; but it was alleged by their enemies, that they refused to take the oaths to the government, which however none of them scrupled when they came among us. It is somewhat extraordinary to see our whigs and fanaticks keep such a stir about the sacred act of toleration, while their brethren will not allow a connivance in so near a neighbourhood; especially if what the gentleman insists on in his letter be true, that nine parts in ten of the nobility and gentry, and two in three of the commons, are episcopal; of which, one argument he offers is, the present choice of their representatives in both houses, though opposed to the utmost by the preachings, threatenings, and anathemas of the kirk. Such usage to a jority