ote 56: Page 70.]

[Footnote 57: Swift here disowns a charge loudly urged by the Whigs of
the time against the high churchmen. There were, however, strong
symptoms of a nearer approach on their part to the church of Rome.
Hickes, the head of the Jacobite writers, had insinuated, that there was
a proper sacrifice in the Eucharist; Brett had published a Sermon on the
"Doctrine of Priestly Absolution as essential to Salvation;" Dodwell had
written against Lay-Baptism, and his doctrine at once excluded all the
dissenters (whose teachers are held as lay-men) from the pale of
Christianity; and, upon the whole, there was a general disposition
among the clergy to censure, if not the Reformation itself, at least the
mode in which it was carried on. [S.]]

[Footnote 58: Charles Lesley, or Leslie, the celebrated nonjuror. He
published a Jacobite paper, called the "Rehearsal," and was a strenuous
assertor of divine right; but he was also so steady a Protestant, that
he went to Bar-le-Duc to convert the Chevalier de St George from the
errors of Rome. [S.] See note on p. 63. [T. S.]]

[Footnote 59: "The Case stated between the Church of Rome and the Church
of England," 1713.]

His Lordship ends with discovering a small ray of comfort. "God be
thanked there are many among us that stand upon the watch-tower, and
that give faithful warning; that stand in the breach, and make
themselves a wall for their church and country; that cry to God day and
night, and lie in the dust mourning before him, to avert those judgments
that seem to hasten towards us. They search into the mystery of iniquity
that is working among us, and acquaint themselves with that mass of
corruption that is in popery."[60] He prays "that the number of these
may increase, and that he may be of that number, ready either to die in
peace, or to seal that doctrine he has been preaching above fifty years,
with his blood."[61] This being his last paragraph, I have made bold to
transcribe the most important parts of it. His design is to end after
the manner of orators, with leaving the strongest impression possible
upon the minds of his hearers. A great breach is made; "the mystery of
popish iniquity is working among us;" may God avert those "judgments
that are hastening towards us!" I am an old man, "a preacher above fifty
years," and I now expect and am ready to die a martyr for the doctrines
I have preached. What an amiable idea does he here leave upon our minds,
of Her