Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/311

Rh and I believe will equally be so for ever to any reasonable man.

When these sectaries were several years ago making the same attempt for abolishing the test, many groundless reports were industriously and seasonably spread, of an invasion threatened by the pretender on the north of Ireland. At which time, the presbyterians, in their pamphlets, argued in a menacing manner, that if the pretender should invade those parts of the kingdom, where the numbers and estates of dissenters chiefly lay, they would sit still, and let us fight our own battles; since they were to reap no advantage, whichever side should be victors. If this were the course they intended to take in such a case, I desire to know, how they could contrive safely to stand neuters, otherwise than by a compact with the pretender and his army, to support their neutrality, and protect them against the forces of the crown? This is a necessary supposition; because they must otherwise have inevitably been a prey to both. However, by this frank declaration, they sufficiently showed their good will, and confirmed the common charge laid at their door; that a Scottish or northern presbyterian, hates our episcopal established church, more than popery itself. And the reason for this hatred is natural enough; because it is the church alone that stands in the way between them and power, which popery does not.

Upon this occasion, I am in some doubt whether the political spreaders of those chimerical invasions, made a judicious choice, in fixing the northern parts of Ireland for that romantick enterprise. Nor can I well understand the wisdom of the