Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/263

Rh possibly be soon advanced, that they have no rights at all. And this is likely enough to gain ground, in proportion as the contempt of all religion shall increase, which is already in a very forward way.

It is said, there will be also added in this bill, a clause for diminishing the tithe of hops, in order to cultivate that useful plant among us: and here likewise the load is to lie entirely on the shoulders of the clergy, while the landlords reap all the benefit. It will not be easy to foresee where such proceedings are likely to stop; or whether by the same authority, in civil times, a parliament may not as justly challenge the same power in reducing all things titheable, not below the tenth part of the product (which is and ever will be the clergy's equitable right) but from a tenth part to a sixtieth or eightieth, and from thence to nothing.

I have heard it granted by skilful persons, that the practice of taxing the clergy by parliament, without their own consent, is a new thing, not much above the date of seventy years: before which period, in times of peace, they always taxed themselves. But things are extremely altered at present: it is not now sufficient to tax them in common with their fellow subjects, without imposing an additional tax upon them, from which, or from any thing equivalent, all their fellow subjects are exempt; and this in a country professing Christianity.

The greatest part of the clergy throughout this kingdom have been stripped of their glebes, by the confusion of times, by violence, fraud, oppression, and other unlawful means; all which glebes are now in the hands of the laity. So that they now are generally forced to lie at the mercy of landlords, for a small