Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/319

Rh any test at all, except that of swearing loyalty to the king: which however, considering their principles with regard to monarchy yet unrenounced, might, if they would please to look deep enough into their own hearts, prove a more bitter test, than any other that the law has yet invented.

For, from the first time that these sectaries appeared in the world, it has been always found, by their whole proceedings, that they professed an utter hatred to kingly government. I can recollect at present three civil establishments, where calvinists, and some other reformers who rejected episcopacy, possess the supreme power; and these are all republicks; I mean Holland, Geneva, and the reformed Swiss cantons. I do not say this in diminution or disgrace to commonwealths; wherein I confess I have much altered many opinions under which I was educated, having been led by some observation, long experience, and a thorough detestation for the corruptions of mankind: insomuch that I am now justly liable to the censure of Hobbes, who complains, that the youth of England imbibe ill opinions from reading the histories of ancient Greece and Rome, those renowned scenes of liberty and every virtue.

But as to monarchs, who must be supposed well to study and understand their own interest; they will best consider, whether those people, who in all their actions, preachings, and writings, have openly declared themselves against regal power, are to be safely placed in an equal degree of favour and trusty with those, who have been always found the true and only friends to the English establishment. From which consideration, I could have added one more article to my new test, if I had thought it worth my time. Rh