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.

'Tis 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 at his foot, bound fast with three or four chains, his
teeth drawn out, and his claws pared to the quick, or an angry cat in
full liberty at his throat; he would take no long time to determine.

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