Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/318

310 of a commissioner in the revenue, for a regiment of horse, or to be a lord justice? I believe they would scruple it as little, as a long grace before and after dinner, which they can say without bending a knee; for, as I have been told, their manner of taking bread and wine in their conventicles, is performed with little more solemnity than at their common meals. And therefore, since they look upon our practice in receiving the elements to be idolatrous, they neither can, nor ought in consience to allow us that liberty, otherwise than by connivance, and a bare toleration, like what is permitted to the papists. But lest we should offend them, I am ready to change this test for another; although I am afraid, that sanctified reason is by no means the point where the difficulty pinches, and is only offered by pretended churchmen; as if they could be content with our believing, that the impiety and profanation of making the sacrament a test, were the only objection. I therefore propose, that before the present law be repealed, another may be enacted; that no man shall receive any employment, before he swears himself to be a true member of the church of Ireland, in doctrine and discipline, &c. and that he will never frequent or communicate with any other form of worship. It shall likewise be farther enacted, that whoever offends, &c. shall be fined five hundred pounds, imprisoned for a year and a day, and rendered incapable of all publick trust for ever. Otherwise I do insist, that those pious, indulgent, external professors of our national religion, shall either give up that fallacious hypocritical reason for taking off the test; or freely confess that they desire to have a gate wide open for every sect, out