Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/348

340 the reformation, the number of catholicks gradually and considerably lessened. So that in the reign of king Charles I, England became in a great degree a protestant kingdom, without taking the sectaries into the number; the legality whereof, with respect to human laws, the catholicks never disputed; but the puritans, and other schismaticks, without the least pretence to any such authority, by an open rebellion, destroyed that legal Reformation, as we observed before, murdered their king, and changed the monarchy into a republick. It is therefore not to be wondered at, if the catholicks, in such a Babel of religions, chose to adhere to their own faith left them by their ancestors, rather than seek for a better among a rabble of hypocritical, rebellious, deluding knaves, or deluded enthusiasts.

We repeat once more, that if a national religion be changed by the supreme legislative power, we cannot dispute the human legality of such a change. But we humbly conceive, that if any considerable party of men, which differs from an establishment either old or new, can deserve liberty of conscience, it ought to consist of those, who, for want of conviction, or of right understanding the merits of each cause, conceive themselves bound in conscience to adhere to the religion of their ancestors; because they are, of all others, least likely to be authors of innovations either in church or state.

On the other side; if the reformation of religion be founded upon rebellion against the king, without whose consent by the nature of our constitution no law can pass; if this reformation be introduced by only one of the three estates, I mean the commons, and not by one half even of those commons, and