Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/79

N° 21. many other projects of equal piety, wisdom, and good nature.

But, God be thanked, they and their schemes are vanished, and their places shall know them no more. When I think of that inundation of atheism, infidelity, profaneness, and licentiousness, which was likely to overwhelm us, from what mouths and hearts it first proceeded, and how the people joined with the queen's endeavours to divert this flood, I cannot but reflect on that remarkable passage in the Revelation, where "the serpent with seven heads cast out of his mouth water after the woman like a flood, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood: but the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood, which the dragon had cast out of his mouth." For the queen having changed her ministry suitable to her own wisdom and the wishes of her subjects, and having called a free parliament, and at the same time summoned the convocation by her royal writ, as in all times had been accustomed; and soon after their meeting, sent a most gracious letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, to be communicated to the bishops, and clergy of his province; taking notice of "the loose and profane principles, which had been openly scattered and propagated among her subjects: that the consultations of the clergy, were particularly requisite to repress and prevent such daring attempts, for which her subjects from all parts of the kingdom have shown their just abhorrence: she hopes the endeavours of the clergy in this respect will not be Rh