Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/238

230 promised they would enable her to accomplish so excellent a design, and are now preparing a bill accordingly. I thought to have deferred any notice of this important affair until the end of this session; at which time, I proposed to deliver a particular account of the great and useful things, already performed by this present parliament. But, in compliance to those who give themselves the trouble of advising me, and partly convinced by the reasons they offer, I am content to bestow a paper upon a subject that indeed so well deserves it.

The clergy, and whoever else have a true concern for the constitution of the church, cannot but be highly pleased with one prospect in this new scene of public affairs. They may very well remember the time, when every session of parliament was like a cloud hanging over their heads: and if it happened to pass without bursting into some storm upon the church, we thanked God, and thought it a happy escape until the next meeting; upon which we resumed our secret apprehensions, although we were not allowed to believe any danger. Things are now altered; the parliament takes the necessities of the church into consideration, receives the proposals of the clergy met in convocation, and amid all the exigencies of a long expensive war, and under the pressure of heavy debts, finds a supply for erecting fifty edifices for the service of God. And it appears by the address of the commons to her majesty upon this occasion, (wherein they discovered a true spirit of religion) that applying the money granted to accomplish so excellent a design, would, in their opinion,