Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/347

Rh thereupon. Wherefore, as all human creatures are fond to distraction of their own opinions, and so much the more, as those opinions are absurd, ridiculous, or of little moment, it must follow, that they are equally fond of power. But no opinions are maintained with so much obstinacy as those in religion, especially by such zealots who never bore the least regard to religion, conscience, honour, justice, truth, mercy, or common morality, farther than in outward appearance, under the mask of hypocrisy, to promote their diabolical designs. And therefore bishop Burnet, one of their oracles, tells us honestly, that the saints of those fanatick times pronounced themselves above morality; which they reckoned among beggarly elements; but the meaning of these two last words, thus applied, we confess to be above our understanding.

Among those kingdoms and states which first embraced the reformation, England appears to have received it in the most regular way; where it was introduced in a peaceable manner, by the supreme power of a king and the three estates in parliament; to which, as the highest legislative authority, all subjects are bound passively to submit. Neither was there much blood shed on so great a change of religion. But a considerable number of lords, and other persons of quality through the kingdom, still continued in their old faith, and were, notwithstanding their difference in religion, employed in offices civil as well as military, more or less in every reign, until the test act in the time of king Charles II. However, from the time of Rh