Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/294

286 destruction indeed may have been projected in the dark; but when all was ripe, their enemies proceeded to so many overt acts in the face of the nation, that it was obvious to the meanest people, who wanted no other motives to rouze them. On the other side, can this author, or the wisest of his faction, assign one single act of the present ministry, any way tending toward bringing in the pretender, or to weaken the succession of the house of Hanover? Observe then the reasonableness of this gentleman's advice: the clergy, the gentry, and the common people, had the utmost apprehensions of danger to the church under the late ministry; yet then it was the greatest impiety to inflame the people with any such apprehensions. His danger of a popish successor, from any steps of the present ministry, is an artificial calumny, raised and spread against the conviction of the inventors, pretended to be believed only by those, who abhor the constitution in church and state; an obdurate faction who compass Heaven and earth, to restore themselves upon the ruin of their country; yet here our author exhorts the clergy to preach up this imaginary danger to their people, and disturb the publick peace, with his strained seditious comments.

But how comes this gracious licence to the clergy from the whigs, to concern themselves with politicks of any sort, although it be only the glosses and comments of Mr. Steele? The speeches of the managers at Sacheverell's trial, particularly those of Stanhope, Lechmere, King, Parker, and some others, seemed to deliver a different doctrine. Nay, this