Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 4.djvu/401

Rh that he is frightening us from an idolatrous religion, should seem not very consistent. "Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?"

To smooth the way for the return of popery in queen Mary's time, the grantees were confirmed by the pope in the possession of the abbey lands. But the bishop tells us, that this confirmation was fraudulent and invalid. I shall believe it to be so, although I happen to read it in his lordship's history. But he adds, that although the confirmation had been good, the priests would have got their land again by these two methods: frst, the statute of mortmain was repealed for twenty years; in which time, no doubt, they reckoned they would recover the best part of what they had lost; beside that engaging the clergy to renew no leases was a thing entirely in their own power; and this in forty years time would raise their revenues to be about ten times their present value. These two expedients for increasing the revenues of the church, he represents as pernicious designs, fit only to be practised in times of popery, and such as the laity ought never to consent to: whence, and from what he said before about tithes, his lordship has freely declared his opinion, that the clergy are rich enough, and that the least addition to their subsistence would be a step toward popery. Now it happens, that the two only methods, which could be thought on, with any probability of success, toward some reasonable augmentation of ecclesiastical revenues, are here rejected by a bishop, as a means for introducing popery, and the nation publickly warned against them: whereas the continuance of the statute of mortmain in full force,