Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/204

196 and has empowered and instructed them for that purpose: so that I believe the clergy, who, as he says, are good at distinguishing, would think it reasonable to distinguish between their power, and the liberty of exercising this power. The former they claim immediately from Christ; and the latter, from the permission, connivance, or authority of the civil government; with which the clergy's power, according to the solution I have given, cannot possibly interfere.

But, this writer, setting up to form a system upon stale, scanty topicks, and a narrow circle of thought, falls into a thousand absurdities. And for a farther help, he has a talent of rattling out phrases, which seem to have sense, but have none at all: the usual fate of those who are ignorant of the force and compass of words, without which, it is impossible for a man to write either pertinently, or intelligibly, upon the most obvious subjects.

So, in the beginning of his preface, page 4, he says, "The church of England, being established by acts of parliament, is a perfect creature of the civil power; I mean the polity and discipline of it, and it is that which makes all the contention; for as to the doctrines expressed in the articles, I do not find high church to be in any manner of pain; but they who lay claim to most orthodoxy can distinguish themselves out of them." It is observable in this author, that his style is naturally harsh and ungrateful to the ear, and his expressions mean and trivial; but whenever he goes about to polish a period, you may be certain of some gross defect in propriety or meaning: so, the lines just quoted, seem to run easily over the tongue; and upon nation,