The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II, by Jonathan Swift

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Title: The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II

Author: Jonathan Swift

Release Date: June 25, 2004 [EBook #12746]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS JONATHAN SWIFT ***

Produced by Terry Gilliland and PG Distributed Proofreaders

BOHN'S STANDARD LIBRARY

THE PROSE WORKS

OF

JONATHAN SWIFT, D.D.

EDITED BY

TEMPLE SCOTT

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION BY

THE RT. HON. W.E.H. LECKY, M.P.

VOL. IV

[Illustration]

LONDON

GEORGE BELL AND SONS

1898

CHISWICK PRESS:—CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO.

TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON.

SWIFT'S

WRITINGS ON RELIGION

AND THE CHURCH

VOL. II

[Illustration]

CONTENTS.

TRACTS ON THE SACRAMENTAL TEST:

A Letter Concerning the Sacramental Test

The Presbyterian's Plea of Merit

Narrative of Attempts for the Repeal of the Sacramental Test

Queries relating to the Sacramental Test

Advantages proposed by Repealing the Sacramental Test

Reasons for Repealing the Sacramental Test in Favour of the Catholics

Some Few Thoughts concerning the Repeal of the Test

Ten Reasons for Repealing the Test Act

SERMONS:

On Mutual Subjection

On the Testimony of Conscience

On the Trinity

On Brotherly Love

On the Difficulty of Knowing One's Self

On False Witness

On the Wisdom of this World

On Doing Good

On the Martyrdom of King Charles I

On the Poor Man's Contentment

On the Wretched Condition of Ireland

On Sleeping in Church

APPENDICES:

I. Remarks on Dr. Gibbs's Paraphrase of the Psalms

II. Proposal for Preventing the further Growth of Popery

III. Swift and Serjeant Bettesworth

IV. A True and Faithful Narrative of what passed in London

INDEX TO THE WRITINGS ON RELIGION AND THE CHURCH

NOTE.

The portrait which forms the frontispiece to this volume is taken, by permission, from the painting in the possession of the Earl of Howth, K.P.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

A LETTER

FROM A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN IRELAND TO

A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN ENGLAND

CONCERNING THE

SACRAMENTAL TEST.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1708.

NOTE.

In the "foreword" to the reprint of this tract in the "Miscellanies" of 1711, Swift remarks: "I have been assured that the suspicion which the supposed author lay under for writing this letter absolutely ruined him with the late ministry." The "late ministry" was the Whig ministry of which Godolphin was the Premier. To this ministry the repeal of the Test Act was a matter of much concern. To test the effect of such a repeal it was determined to try it in Ireland first. There the Presbyterians had distinguished themselves by their loyalty to William and the Protestant succession. These, therefore, offered a good excuse for the introduction of such a measure, particularly when, in 1708, an invasion was rumoured, they were the first to send in loyal addresses to the Queen. Swift likened this method to "that of a discreet physician, who first gives a new medicine to a dog, before he prescribes it to a human creature." Further, the Speaker of the Irish House had come over to England to agitate for the repeal. On this matter Swift wrote to Archbishop King, under date April 15th (the letter was first published by Mr. John Forster in his "Life of Swift," p. 246), as follows: "Some days ago my Lord Somers entered with me into discourse about the Test clause, and desired my opinion upon it, which I gave him truly, though with all the gentleness I could; because, as I am inclined and obliged to value the friendship he professes for me, so he is a person whose favour I would engage in the affairs of the First Fruits…. If it became me to give ill names to ill things and persons, I should be at a loss to find bad enough for the villainy and baseness of a certain lawyer of Ireland [Speaker Brodrick, afterwards Lord Midleton], who is in a station the least of all others excusable for such proceedings, and yet has been going about most industriously to all his acquaintance of both houses towards the end of the session to show the necessity of taking off the Test clause in Ireland by an act here, wherein you may be sure he had his brother's assistance. If such a project should be resumed next session, and I in England, unless your grace send me your absolute commands to the contrary, which I should be sorry to receive, I could hardly forbear publishing some paper in opposition to it, or leaving one behind me, if there should be occasion." In August of the same year the agitation for the repeal was renewed, and in December Swift published his "Letter on the Sacramental Test," writing as if from Dublin and as a member of the Irish House of Commons. When he writes to King in the following month he makes a mild attempt to convince the Archbishop that the pamphlet was not of his authorship. "The author has gone out of his way to reflect on me as a person likely to write for repealing the test, which I am sure is very unfair treatment. This is all I am likely to get by the company I keep. I am used like a sober man with a drunken face, have the scandal of the vice without the satisfaction." But King was not deceived. In his reply to Swift he simply remarks: "You need not be concerned: I will engage you will lose nothing by that paper." Swift, however, lost more than the Archbishop thought; for "that paper" led to his severance from the Whigs, and, in after life, to much contumely cast on his character for being a political renegade. Because "he was not Whig enough;" because he would not forsake his Church for his party, critics and biographers have thought fit to make little of him, and to compare him to his discredit with contemporaries whose intellects he held in the palm of his hand, and to whom he might have stood as a moral exemplar.

Swift refers to this tract in his "Memoirs relating to the change in the Queen's Ministry," as