Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/326

318 to be fought only between the presbyterians, and those of the church yet established. I shall not enter into the merits of either side, by examining which of the two is the better spiritual economy, or which is most suited to our civil constitution: but the question turns upon this point: when the presbyterians shall have got their share of employments (which must be one full half, or else they cannot look upon themselves as fairly dealt with) I ask, whether they ought not, by their own principles, and by the strictest rules of conscience, to use the utmost of their skill, power, and influence, in order to reduce the whole kingdom to a uniformity in religion, both as to doctrine and discipline, most agreeable to the word of God. Wherein if they can succeed without blood (as under the present disposition of things it is very possible they may) it is to be hoped they will at last be satisfied: only I would warn them of a few difficulties. The first is, of compromising among themselves, that important controversy about the old light and the new; which otherwise may, after this establishment, split them as wide as papist and protestant, whig and tory, or churchman and dissenter; and consequently the work will be to begin again: for, in religious quarrels, it is of little moment how few or small the differences are; especially when the dispute is only about power. Thus, the zealous presbyterians of the north are more alienated from the established clergy, than from the Romish priests; taxing the former with idolatrous worship, as disguised papists, ceremony-mongers, and many other terms of art and this for a very powerful reason; because the clergy stand in their way, which the popish priests do