e
for, when with their universal applause, he changes hands, and makes use
of the _best_?

Another great objection with me against the late party, was the cruel
tyranny they put upon conscience, by a barbarous inquisition, refusing to
admit the least toleration or indulgence. They imposed a hundred tests,
but could never be prevailed with to dispense with, or take off the
smallest, nor even admit of _occasional_ conformity;[18] but went on
daily (as their apostle Tindal expresseth it) narrowing their terms of
communion; pronouncing nine parts in ten of the kingdom heretics, and
shutting them out of the pale of their Church. These very men, who talk
so much of a comprehension in religion among us, how came they to allow
so little of it in politics, which is _their sole religion?_ You shall
hear them pretending to bewail the animosities kept up between the
Church of England and Dissenters, where the differences in opinion are so
few and inconsiderable; yet these very sons of moderation were pleased to
excommunicate every man who disagreed with them in the smallest article
of their _political creed_, or who refused to receive any new article,
how difficult soever to digest, which the leaders imposed at pleasure to
serve their own interest.

I will quit this subject for the present, when I have told one story.[19]
"There was a great king in Scythia, whose dominions were bounded to the
north, by the poor, mountainous territories of a petty lord, who paid
homage as the king's vassal. The Scythian prime minister being largely
bribed, indirectly obtained his master's consent to suffer this lord to
build forts, and provide himself with arms, under pretence of preventing
the inroads of the Tartars. This little depending sovereign, finding he
was now in a condition to be troublesome, began to insist upon terms, and
threatened upon every occasion to unite with the Tartars: upon which,
the prime minister, who began to be in pain about his head, proposed a
match betwixt his master, and the only daughter of this tributary lord,
which he had the good luck to bring to pass: and from that time, valued
himself as author of a most glorious union, which indeed was grown of
absolute necessity by his corruption." This passage, cited literally from
an old history of Sarmatia, I thought fit to set down, on purpose to
perplex little smattering remarkers, and put them upon the hunt for an
application.

[Footnote 1: No. 19 in the reprint. [T.