Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/197

N° 36. them? for, excepting the antimonarchical principle, and a few false notions about liberty, I see but little agreement between them; and even in these, I beiieve, it would be impossible to contrive a frame of government that would please them all, if they had it now in their power to try. But however, to be sure the presbyterian institution would never obtain. For, suppose they should, in imitation of their predecessors, propose to have no king but our Saviour Christ; the whole clan of freethinkers would immediately object, and refuse his authority. Neither would their lowchurch brethren use them better, as well knowing what enemies they are to that doctrine of unlimited toleration, wherever they are suffered to preside. So that upon the whole, I do not see, as their present circumstances stand, where the dissenters can find better quarter than from the church of England.

Besides, I leave it to their consideration, whether, with all their zeal against the church, they ought not to show a little decency; and how far it consists with their reputation to act in concert with such confederates. It was reckoned a very infamous proceeding in the present most christian king, to assist the Turk against the emperor: policy and reasons of state were not allowed sufficient excuses, for taking part with an infidel against a believer. It is one of the dissenters quarrels against the church, that she is not enough reformed from popery; yet they boldly entered into a league with papists and a popish prince to destroy her. They profess much sanctity, and object against the wicked lives of some of our members; yet they have been long, and still continue, in strict combination with libertines and atheists to contrive