chose to join with the Protestant army, rather than with that of king James their old friend, whose affairs were then in a manner desperate. They were wise enough to know, that this kingdom, divided against itself, could never prevail against the united power of England. They fought pro aris et focis; for their estates and religion; which latter will never suffer so much by the church of England as by that of Rome, where they are counted heretics as well as we; and consequently they have no other game to play. But what merit they can build upon having joined with a Protestant army, under a king they acknowledged, to defend their own liberties and properties against a popish enemy, under an abdicated king, is, I confess, to me absolutely inconceivable; and I believe will equally be so for ever to any reasonable man.

When these sectaries were several years ago making the same attempt for abolishing the Test, many groundless reports were industriously and seasonably spread, of an invasion threatened by the pretender on the north of Ireland. At which time, the Presbyterians, in their pamphlets, argued in a menacing manner, that if the pretender should invade those parts of the kingdom, where the numbers and estates of dissenters chiefly lay, they would sit still and let us fight our own battles, since they were to reap no advantage, whichever side should be victors. If this were the course they intended to take in such a case, I desire to know how they could contrive safely to stand neuters, otherwise than by a compact with the pretender and his army, to support their neutrality, and protect them against the forces of the crown? This is a necessary supposition; because they must otherwise have inevitably been a prey to both. However, by this frank declaration, they sufficiently showed their good will, and confirmed the common charge laid at their door, that a Scottish or northern Presbyterian hates our episcopal established church more than popery itself. And the reason for this hatred is natural enough; because it is the church alone that stands in the way between them and power, which popery does not.

Upon this occasion I am in some doubt whether the political spreaders of those chimerical invasions made a judicious choice in fixing the northern parts of Ireland for that romantic enterprise. Nor can I well understand the wisdom of the Presbyterians, in countenancing and confirming those reports; because it seems to cast a most infamous reflection upon the loyalty and religious principles of the whole body; for, if there had been any truth in the matter, the consequence must have been allowed, that the pretender

counted upon more assistance from his father's friends the Presbyterians, by choosing to land in those very parts where their number, wealth, and power most prevailed, rather than among those of his own religion. And therefore, in charity to this sect, I rather incline to believe that those reports of an invasion were formed and spread by the race of small politicians, in order to do a seasonable job.

As to popery in general, which for a thousand years past has been introducing and multiplying corruptions both in doctrine and discipline, I look upon it to be the most absurd system of Christianity professed by any nation. But I cannot apprehend this kingdom to be in much danger from it. The estates of Papists are very few, crumbling into small parcels, and daily diminishing; their common people are sunk in poverty, ignorance, and cowardice, and of as little consequence as women and children. Their nobility and gentry are at least one-half ruined, banished, or converted: they all soundly feel the smart of what they suffered in the last Irish war; some of them are already retired into foreign countries; others, as I am told, intend to follow them; and the rest, I believe, to a man, who still possess any lands, are absolutely determined never to hazard them again for the sake of establishing their superstition. If it had been thought fit, as some observe, to abate of the law's rigor against popery in this kingdom, I am confident it was done for very wise reasons, considering the situation of affairs abroad at different times, and the interest of the Protestant religion in general. And as I do not find the least fault in this proceeding, so I do not conceive why a sunk, discarded party, who neither expect nor desire anything more than a quiet life, should, under the names of highflyers, Jacobites, and many other vile appellations, be charged so often in print and at common tables with endeavoring to introduce popery and the pretender; while the Papists abhor them above all other men, on account of severities against their priests in her late majesty's reign, when the now disbanded reprobate party was in power. This I was convinced of some years ago by a long journey into the southern parts; where I had the curiosity to send for many priests of the parishes I passed through, and to my great satisfaction found them everywhere abounding in professions of loyalty to the late king George; for which they gave me the reasons above mentioned; at the same time complaining bitterly of the hardships they suffered under the queen's last ministry.

I return from this digression to the modest demands of the Pres

If I
The

byterians for a repeal of the Sacramental Test, as a reward for their merits at the Restoration and the Revolution; which merits I have fairly represented, as well as my memory would allow me. have committed any mistakes, they must be of little moment. facts and principal circumstances are what I have obtained and digested from reading the histories of those times written by each party; and many thousands have done the same as well as I, who I am sure have in their minds drawn the same conclusions.

This is the faction, and these the men, who are now resuming their applications, and giving in their bills of merit to both kingdoms, upon two points, which of all others they have the least pretensions to offer. I have collected the facts with all possible impartiality, from the current histories of those times; and have shown, although very briefly, the gradual proceedings, of those sectaries, under the denomination of Puritans, Presbyterians, and independents, for about the space of a hundred and eighty years, from the beginning of queen Elizabeth to this present time. But, notwithstanding all that can be said, these very schismatics (for such they are in temporals as well as spirituals) are now again expecting, soliciting, and demanding, (not without insinuating threats, according to their custom,) that the parliament should fix them upon an equal foot with the church established. I would fain know to what branch of the legislature they can have the forehead to apply. Not to my lords the bishops, who must have often read how the predecessors of this very faction, acting upon the same principles, drove the whole bench out of the house, who were then, and hitherto continue, one of the three estates; not to the temporal peers, the second of the three estates, who must have heard, that, immediately after those rebellious fanatics had murdered their king, they voted a house of lords to be useless and dangerous, and would let them sit no longer otherwise than when elected as commoners; not to the house of commons, who must have heard that, in those fanatic times, the Presbyterian and Independent commanders in the army by military power expelled all the moderate men out of the house, and left a Rump to govern the nation; lastly, not to the crown, which those very saints, destined to rule the earth, trampled under their feet, and then in cold blood murdered the blessed wearer.

But the session now approaching, and a clan of dissenting teachers being come up to town from their northern head-quarters, accompanied by many of their elders and agents, and supported by a general contribution to solicit their establishment, with a capacity

of holding all military as well as civil employments, I think it high time that this paper should see the light. However, I cannot conclude without freely confessing, that if the Presbyterians should obtain their ends, I could not be sorry to find them mistaken in the point which they have most at heart by the repeal of the Test, I mean the benefit of employments. For after all, what assurance can a Scottish northern dissenter born on Irish ground have, that he shall be treated with as much favor as a true Scot born beyond the Tweed?

I am ready enough to believe that all I have said will avail but little. I have the common excuse of other men, when I think myself bound by all religious and civil ties to discharge my conscience, and to warn my countrymen upon this important occasion. It is true the advocates for this scheme promise a new world after this blessed work shall be completed; that all animosity and faction must immediately drop; that the only distinction in this kingdom will then be of Papist and Protestant: for, as to Whig and Tory, high church and low church, Jacobite and Hanoverian, court and country party, English and Irish interest, dissenters and conformists, new light and old light, Anabaptist and Independent, Quaker and Muggletonian, they will all meet and jumble together into a perfect harmony, at the sessions and assizes, on the bench and in the revenues; and, upon the whole, in all civil and military trusts, not excepting the great councils of the nation. For it is wisely argued thus; that a kingdom being no more than a larger knot of friends met together, it is against the rules of good manners to shut any person out of the company, except the Papists, who profess themselves of another club.

I am at a loss to know what arts the Presbyterian sect intends to use, in convincing the world of their loyalty to kingly government, which, (long before the prevalence, or even the birth, of their independent rivals,) as soon as the king's forces were overcome, declared their principles to be against monarchy, as well as episcopacy and the house of lords, even until the king was restored at which event, although they were forced to submit to the present power, yet I have not heard that they ever, to this day, renounce any one principle by which their predecessors then acted; yet this they have been challenged to do, or at least to show that others have done it for them, by a certain doctor, who, as I am told, has much employed his pen in the like disputes. I own they will be ready enough to insinuate themselves into any government; but if they

mean to be honest and upright, they will and must endeavor, by all means which they shall think lawful to introduce and establish their own scheme of religion, as nearest approaching to the word of God, by casting out all superstitious ceremonies, ecclesiastical titles, habits, distinctions, and superiorities, as rags of popery, in order to a thorough reformation; and as in charity bound to promote the salvation of their countrymen, wishing, with St. Paul, that the whole kingdom were as they are. But what assurance will they please to give that, when their sect shall become the national established worship, they will treat us dissenters as we have treated them? Was this their course of proceeding during the dominion of the saints? Were not all the remainders of the episcopal church in those days, especially the clergy, under a persecution for above a dozen years equal to that of the primitive Christians under heathen emperors? That this proceeding was suitable to their principles is known enough; for many of their preachers then writ books against allowing any liberty of conscience in a religion different from their own; producing many arguments to prove that opinion, and among the rest one frequently insisted on, that allowing such a liberty would be to establish iniquity by a law. Many of these writings are yet to be seen, and I hear have been quoted by the doctor above mentioned.

As to their great objection of prostituting that holy institution, the blessed Sacrament, by way of a test before admittance into any employment; I ask, whether they would not be content to receive it after their own manner for the office of a judge, for that 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 conscience 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