I have been sometimes admiring the wonderful significancy of that word persecution, and what various interpretations it hath acquired even within my memory. When I was a boy, I often heard the Presbyterians complain that they were not permitted to serve God in their own way; they said they did not repine at our employments, but thought that all men who live peaceably ought to have liberty of conscience, and leave to assemble. That impediment being removed at the Revolution, they soon learned to swallow the Sacramental Test and began to take very large steps, wherein all that offered to oppose them, were called men of a persecuting spirit. During the time the Bill against Occasional Conformity was on foot, persecution was every day rung in our ears, and now at last the Sacramental Test itself has the same name. Where then is this matter likely to end, when the obtaining of one request is only used as a step to demand another? A lover is ever complaining of cruelty while anything is denied him, and when the lady ceases to be cruel, she is from the next moment at his mercy: So persecution it seems, is everything that will not leave it in men's power to persecute others. There is one argument offered against a Sacramental Test, by a sort of men who are content to be styled of the Church of England, who perhaps attend its service in the morning, and go with their wives to a conventicle in the afternoon, confessing they hear very good doctrine in both. These men are much offended that so holy an institution as that of the Lord's Supper should be made subservient to such mercenary purposes as the getting of an employment. Now, it seems, the law, concluding all men to be members of that Church where they receive the Sacrament; and supposing all men to live like Christians (especially those who are to have employments) did imagine they received the Sacrament in course about four times a year, and therefore only desired it might appear by certificate to the public, that such who took an office were members of the Church established, by doing their ordinary duty. However, lest we should offend them, we have often desired they would deal candidly with us; for if the matter stuck only there, we would propose it in parliament, that every man who takes an employment should, instead of receiving the sacrament, be obliged to swear, that he is a member of the Church of Ireland by law established, with Episcopacy, and so forth; and as they do now in Scotland, _to be true to the Kirk_. But when we drive them thus far, they always retire to the main body of the argument, urge the hardship that men should be deprived the liberty of serving their Queen and country, on account of their conscience: And, in short, have recourse to the common style of their half brethren. Now whether this be a sincere way of arguing, I will appeal to any other judgment but theirs.