In those days religion was politics, and politics religion, with most of the belligerents. Swift, however, as if he wished to be thought an exception to the general rule, chose one party for its politics and the other for its religion.
"Swift carried into the ranks of the Whigs the opinions and scruples of a High Church clergyman... Such a distinction between opinions in Church and State has not frequently existed: the High Churchmen being usually Tories, and the Low Church divines universally Whigs."—Scott's Life, 2nd edit.: Edin. 1824, p. 76.
See Swift's Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions between the Nobles and Commons of Athens and Rome: Lond. 1701.
In his quaint Argument against abolishing Christianity, Lond. 1708, the following passage occurs:
"There is one advantage, greater than any of the foregoing, proposed by the abolishing of Christianity: that it will utterly extinguish parties among us by removing those factious distinctions of High and Low Church, of Whig and Tory, Presbyterian and Church of England."
Scott says of the Tale of a Tub:
"The main purpose is to trace the gradual corruptions of the Church of Rome, and to exalt the English Reformed Church at the expense both of the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian establishments. It was written with a view to the interests of the High Church party."—Life, p. 84.
Most men will concur with Jeffrey, who observes:
"It is plain, indeed, that Swift's High Church principles were all along but a part of his selfishness and ambition; and meant nothing else, than a desire to raise the consequence of the order to which he happened to belong. If he had been a layman, we have no doubt he would have treated the pretensions of the priesthood as he treated the persons of all priests who were opposed to him, with the most bitter and irreverent disdain."—Ed. Rev., Sept. 1846.
The following lines are from a squib of eight stanzas which occurs in the works of Jonathan Smedley, and are said to have been fixed on the door of St. Patrick's Cathedral on the day of Swift's instalment (see Scott, p. 174.):