be willingly satisfied in, before I agree to the repealing of the test; that is, whether these same protestants, when they have, by their dexterity, made themselves the national religion, and disposed the church revenues among their pastors or themselves, will be so kind to allow us dissenters, I do not say a share in employments, but a bare toleration by law? the reason of my doubt is, because I have been so very idle, as to read above fifty pamphlets, written by as many presbyterian divines, loudly disclaiming this idol toleration; some of them calling it (I know not how properly) a rag of popery, and all agreeing it was to establish iniquity by a law. Now I would be glad to know, when and where their successors have renounced this doctrine, and before what witnesses. Because, methinks I should be loth to see my poor titular bishop in partibus, seized on by mistake in the dark for a jesuit; or be forced myself to keep a chaplain disguised like my butler, and steal to prayers in a back room, as my grandfather used in those times, when the church of England was malignant.
But this is ripping up old quarrels long forgot; popery is now the common enemy, against which we must all unite: I have been tired in history with the perpetual folly of those states, who call in foreigners to assist them against a common enemy: but the mischief was, these allies would never be brought to allow, that the common enemy was quite subdued. And they had reason; for it proved at last, that one part of the common enemy was those who called them in, and so the allies became at length the masters.
It is agreed among naturalists, that a lion is a larger, a stronger, and more dangerous enemy than a cat; yet if a man were to have his choice, either a lion
