SOME FEW THOUGHTS

CONCERNING THE REPEAL OF THE TEST.

THOSE of either side who have written upon this subject of the Test, in making or answering objections, seem to fail, by not pressing sufficiently the chief point upon which the controversy turns. The arguments used by those who write for the church are very good in their kind; but will have little force under the present corruptions of mankind, because the authors treat this subject tanquam in republica Platonis, et non in fæce Romuli.

It must be confessed that, considering how few employments of any consequence fall to the share of those English who are born in this kingdom, and those few very dearly purchased at the expense of conscience, liberty, and all regard for the public good, they are not worth contending for; and if nothing but profit were in the case, it would hardly cost me one sigh, when I should see those few scraps thrown among every species of fanatics, to scuffle for among themselves.

And this will infallibly be the case after repealing the Test. For every subdivision of sect will, with equal justice, pretend to have a share; and, as it is usual with sharers, will never think they have enough while any pretender is left unprovided. I shall not except the Quakers; because, when the passage is once let open for sects to partake in public emoluments, it is very probable the lawfulness of taking oaths, and wearing carnal weapons, may be revealed to the brotherhood; which thought, I confess, was first put into my head by one of the shrewdest Quakers in this kingdom.

OBSERVATIONS

ON HEYLIN'S HISTORY OF THE PRESBYTERIANS, WRITTEN BY THE DEAN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK.

THIS book, by some errors and neglects in the style seems not to have received the author's last correction. It is written with some vehemence, very pardonable in one who had been an observer and

a sufferer, in England, under that diabolical fanatic sect, which then destroyed church and state. But by comparing, in my memory, what I have read in other histories, he neither aggravates nor falsifies any facts. His partiality appears chiefly in setting the actions of Calvinists in the strongest light, without equally dwelling on those of the other side; which, however, to say the truth, was not his proper business. And yet he might have spent some more words on the inhuman massacre of Paris, and other parts of France, which no provocation (and yet the king had the greatest possible) could excuse, or much extenuate. The author, according to the current opinion of the age he lived in, had too high notions of regal power; led by the common mistake of the term supreme magistrate, and not rightly distinguishing between the legislature and the administration; into which mistake the clergy fell or continued, in the reign of Charles II., as I have shown and explained in a treatise, &c. JONATHAN SWIFT

March 6, 1727-8.

REASONS

HUMBLY OFFERED TO THE PARLIAMENT OF IRELAND

FOR REPEALING THE SACRAMENTAL TEST IN FAVOR OF THE CATHOLICS,

OTHERWISE CALLED ROMAN CATHOLICS, AND, BY THEIR ILLWILLERS, PAPISTS. DRAWN PARTLY FROM ARGUMENTS AS THEY ARE CATHOLICS, AND PARTLY FROM ARGUMENTS COMMON TO THEM WITH THEIR BRETHREN THE DISSENTERS. 1733.

It is well known that the first conquerors of this kingdom were English Catholics, subjects to English Catholic kings, from whom, by their valor and success, they obtained large portions of land, given them as a reward for their many victories over the Irish; to which merit our brethren the dissenters, of any denomination whatsoever, have not the least pretension.

It is confessed that the posterity of those first victorious Catholics were often forced to rise in their own defence against new colonies from England, who treated them like mere native Irish, with innumerable oppressions, depriving them of their lands, and driving them by force of arms into the most desolate parts of the kingdom; till,

in the next generation, the children of these tyrants were used in the same manner by new English adventurers; which practice continued for many centuries. But it is agreed on all hands that no insurrections were ever made, except after great oppressions by fresh invaders: whereas all the rebellions of Puritans, Presbyterians, Independents, and other sectaries, constantly began before any provocations were given, except that they were not suffered to change the government in church and state, and seize both into their own hands; which, however, at last they did, with the murder of their king, and of many thousands of his best subjects.

The Catholics were always defenders of monarchy, as constituted in these kingdoms; whereas our brethren, the dissenters, were always republicans, both in principle and practice.

It is well known that all the Catholics of these kingdoms, both priests and laity, are true Whigs, in the best and most proper sense of the word: bearing as well in their hearts as in their outward profession an entire loyalty to the royal house of Hanover, in the person and posterity of George II., against the Pretender and all his adherents; to which they think themselves bound in gratitude, as well as conscience, by the lenity wherewith they have been treated since the death of queen Anne, so different from what they suffered in the four last years of that princess, during the administration of that wicked minister the earl of Oxford.

The Catholics of this kingdom humbly hope that they have at least as fair a title as any of their brother dissenters to the appellation of Protestants. They have always protested against the selling, dethroning, or murdering their kings; against the usurpations and avarice of the court of Rome; against Deism, Atheism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Muggletonianism, Fanaticism, Brownism, as well as against all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and heretics. Whereas the title of Protestants, assumed by the whole herd of dissenters (except our selves) depends entirely upon their protesting against archbishops, bishops, deans, and chapters, with their revenues, and the whole hierarchy; which are the very expressions used in the solemn league and covenant' where the word popery is only mentioned ad invidiam; because the Catholics agree with the episcopal church in those fundamentals.

A solemn league and covenant entered into between the Scotch and English in the rebellion against king Charles I., 1643; of which it was a principal object, "to endeavor the extirpation of prelacy, that is, church government by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and all other episcopal officers depending on that hierarchy."

Although the Catholics cannot deny that in the great rebellion against king Charles I. more soldiers of their religion were in the parliament army than in his majesty's troops; and that many jesuits and friars went about in the disguise of Presbyterian and Independent ministers to preach up rebellion, as the best historians of those times inform us; yet the bulk of Catholics in both kingdoms preserved their loyalty entire.

The Catholics have some reason to think it a little hard when their enemies will not please to distinguish between the rebellious riot committed by that brutal ruffian sir Phelim O'Neal, with his tumultuous crew of rabble, and the forces raised afterward by the Catholic lords and gentlemen of the English pale, in defence of the king, after the English rebellion began. It is well known that his majesty's affairs were in great distraction some time before, by an invasion of the covenanting Scottish kirk rebels, and by the base terms the king was forced to accept, that they might be kept in quiet, at a juncture when he was every hour threatened at home by that fanatic party, which soon after set all in a flame. And if the Catholic army in Ireland fought for their king against the forces sent over by the parliament, then in actual rebellion against him, what person of loyal principles can be so partial as to deny that they did their duty by joining with the marquis of Ormond and other commanders, who bore their commissions from the king? For which great numbers of them lost their lives and forfeited their estates; a great part of the latter being now possessed by many descendants, from those very men who had drawn their swords in the service of that rebellious parliament which cut off his head and destroyed monarchy. And what is more amazing, although the same persons, when the Irish were entirely subdued, continued in power under the Rump, were chief confidants and faithful subjects to Cromwell, yet, being wise enough to foresee a restoration, they seized the forts and castles here out of the hands of their brethren in rebellion for the service of the king; just saving the tide, and putting in a stock of merit sufficient not only to preserve the land which the Catholics lost by their loyalty, but likewise to preserve their civil and military employments, or be higher advanced.

Those insurrections wherewith the Catholics are charged, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the great English rebellion, were occasioned by many oppressions they lay under. They had no intention to introduce a new religion, but to enjoy the liberty of preserving the old; the very same which their ancestors

professed from the time that Christianity was first introduced into this island, which was by Catholics; but whether mingled with corruptions, as some pretend, does not belong to the question. They had no design to change the government; they never attempted to fight against, to imprison, to betray, to sell, to bring to a trial, or to murder their king. The schismatics acted by a spirit directly contrary; they united in a solemn league and covenant to alter the whole system of spiritual government, established in all Christian nations, and of apostolic institution; concluding the tragedy with the murder of the king in cold blood, and upon mature deliberation; at the same time changing the monarchy into a commonwealth.

The Catholics of Ireland, in the Great Rebellion, lost their estates for fighting in defence of their king. The schismatics, who cut off the father's head, forced the son to fly for his life, and overturned the whole ancient frame of government, religious and civil; obtained grants of those very estates which the Catholics lost in defence of the ancient constitution, many of which estates are at this day possessed by the posterity of those schismatics: and thus they gained by their rebellion what the Catholics lost by their loyalty.

We allow the Catholics to be brethren of the dissenters; some people indeed (which we cannot allow) would have them to be our children, because we both dissent from the church established, and both agree in abolishing this persecuting Sacramental Test: by which negative discouragement, we are both rendered incapable of civil and military employments. However, we cannot but wonder at the bold familiarity of these schismatics, in calling the members of the national church their brethren and fellow Protestants. It is true that all these sects (except the Catholics) are brethren to each other in faction, ignorance, iniquity, perverseness, pride, and (if we except the Quakers) in rebellion. But how the churchmen can be styled their fellow Protestants we cannot comprehend; because, when the whole Babel of sectaries joined against the church, the king, and the nobility, for twenty years, in a match at football, where the proverb expressly tells us that all are fellows; while the three kingdoms were tossed to and fro, the churches, and cities, and royal palaces, shattered to pieces by their balls, their buffets, and their kicks; the victors would allow no more fellows at football; but murdered, sequestered, plundered, deprived, banished to the plantations, or enslaved all their opposers, who had lost the game.

It is said the world is governed by opinion; and politicians assure us that all power is founded thereupon. Wherefore, as all human