How did The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters use irony to criticize High-Church Tories?

In his 1702 pamphlet, The Shortest-Way With The Dissenters, Daniel Defoe employed irony to expose the extremism of the "highfliers"—the High-Church Tories who sought to suppress Dissenters and end the practice of "occasional conformity."1

Defoe’s method was to adopt the persona of a radical High-Church Tory. By writing from their perspective, he reduced their aggressive, intolerant arguments to an absurdity that revealed their true, dangerous nature. He essentially argued for the total suppression of Dissenters with such exaggerated zeal that he hoped to discredit the movement by showing the logical, yet horrific, conclusion of their rhetoric.1

The irony was so effective that it backfired: both the High-Church Tories and the Dissenters initially took the pamphlet at face value. When the hoax was eventually exposed, both groups were furious—the Tories for being mocked and the Dissenters for being misrepresented—leading to Defoe's prosecution for seditious libel, his arrest, and his subsequent punishment in the pillory.1