Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 2.djvu/411

Rh they can only extenuate, by urging the provocations they had met from the church in king Charles's reign; which, though perhaps excusable upon the score of human infirmity, are not, by any means, a plea of merit, equal to the constancy and sufferings of the bishops and clergy, or of the head and fellows of Magdalen college, that furnished the prince of Orange's declaration with such powerful arguments, to justify and promote the revolution.

Therefore, a church of England man, abhors the humour of the age, in delighting to fling scandals upon the clergy in general; which, beside the disgrace to the reformation, and to religion itself, cast an ignominy upon the kingdom, that it does not deserve. We have no better materials to compound the priesthood of, than the mass of mankind, which corrupted, as it is, those who receive orders, must have some vices to leave behind them when they enter into the church; and if a few do still adhere, it is no wonder, but rather a great one, that they are no worse. Therefore he cannot think ambition, or love of power, more justly laid to their charge, than to other men's; because that would be to make religion itself, or at least the best constitution of church-government, answerable for the errours and depravity of human nature.

Within these last two hundred years, all sorts of temporal power have been wrested from the clergy, and much of their ecclesiastick, the reason or justice of which proceeding I shall not examine; but that the remedies were a little too violent, with respect to their possessions, the legislature has lately confessed by the remission of their first fruits. Neither do the common libellers deny this, who, in their Rh