Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 19.djvu/192

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180

ATTEMPTS OF THE DISSENTERS

A NARRATIVE

OF THE SEVERAL ATTEMPTS, WHICH THE DISSENTERS OF IRELAND HAVE MADE, FOR A REPEAL OF THE SACRAMENTAL TEST.

HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO THE CONFORMING NOBILITY AND GENTRY IN IRELAND, 1731^[1].

WHEN the oath of supremacy was repealed, which had been the church's great security, since the second of queen Elizabeth, against both papists and presbyterians, who equally refused it, it let in such a current of dissenters into some of our corporations, as bore down all before them.

Although the sacramental test had been for a considerable time in force in England, yet that law did not reach Ireland, where the church was more op-

↑ This little tract was originally printed at Dublin in a periodical paper called The Correspondent; and was annexed to the second edition of the Presbyterians Plea of Merit: and, to make room for it, the Ode to Humphry French, esq., (which stood in the first edition) was omitted in the second. — It may not be improper to observe, that it was answered, in "A Vindication of the Protestant Dissenters from the Aspersions cast upon them in a late pamphlet, entitled, the Presbyterians Plea of Merit, &c. with some Remarks on a paper called The Correspondent, giving a pretended Narrative," &c.

pressed

[1] This little tract was originally printed at Dublin in a periodical paper called The Correspondent; and was annexed to the second edition of the Presbyterians Plea of Merit: and, to make room for it, the Ode to Humphry French, esq., (which stood in the first edition) was omitted in the second. — It may not be improper to observe, that it was answered, in "A Vindication of the Protestant Dissenters from the Aspersions cast upon them in a late pamphlet, entitled, the Presbyterians Plea of Merit, &c. with some Remarks on a paper called The Correspondent, giving a pretended Narrative," &c.

[1]