Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/180

172 only method left to preserve them in power? I said, they had involved the nation in debts, and engrossed much of its money: they go beyond me, and boast they have got it all, and the credit too. I have urged the probability of their intending great alterations in religion and government: if they destroy both at their next coming, will they not reckon my foretelling it rather as a panegyrick than an affront? I said, they had formerly a design against Mr. Harley's life: if they were now in power, would they not immediately cut off his head, and thank me for justifying the sincerity of their intentions? In short, there is nothing I ever said of those worthy patriots, which may not be as well excused: therefore, as soon as they resume their places, I politively design to put in my claim; and I think, may do it with a much better grace than many of that party, who now make their court to the present ministry. I know two or three great men, at whose levees you may daily observe a score of the most forward faces, which every body is ashamed of, except those who wear them. But, I conceive, my pretensions will be upon a very different foot. Let me offer a parallel case: suppose king Charles the First had entirely subdued the rebels at Naseby, and reduced the kingdom to his obedience: whoever had gone about to reason from the former conduct of those saints, that if the victory had fallen on their side, they would have murdered their prince, destroyed monarchy and the church, and made the king's party compound for their estates as delinquents, would have been called a false uncharitable libeller, by those very persons, who afterward gloried in all this, and called it the work of the Lord, when