Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/293

Rh with only disappointing the lurking villanies of your faction, may be at last provoked to expose them."

But his respect for the clergy is such, that he does not insinuate as if they really had these evil dispositions; he only insinuates, that they give too much cause for such insinuations.

I will upon occasion strip some of his insinuations from their generality and solecisms, and drag them into the light. His dedication to the clergy is full of them, because here he endeavours to mould up his rancour and civility together; by which constraint, he is obliged to shorten his paragraphs, and to place them in such a light, that they obscure one another. Supposing therefore that I have scraped off his good manners, in order to come at his meaning, which lies under; he tells the clergy, that the favour of the queen and her ministers, is but a colour of zeal toward them; that the people were deluded by a groundless cry of the church's danger at Sacheverell's trial; that the clergy, as they are men of sense and honour, ought to preach this truth to their several congregations; and let them know, that the true design of the present men in power, in that, and all their proceedings since in favour of the church, was, to bring in popery, France and the pretender, and to enslave all Europe, contrary to the laws of our country, the power of the legislature, the faith of nations, and the honour of God.

I cannot see why the clergy, as men of sense, and men of honour, (for he appeals not to them as men of religion) should not be allowed to know when they are in danger, and be able to guess whence it comes, and who are their protectors. The design of their destruction