were originally intended only for the benefit of industrious husbandmen, who would think it a great blessing to be provided for, instead of having their farms screwed up to the height, not eating one comfortable meal in a year, nor able to find shoes for their children.
I know not any advantage that can accrue by such a bill, except the preventing of perjury in jurymen, and false dealings in tenants; which is a remedy like that of giving my money to a highwayman, before he attempts to take it by force; and so I shall be sure to prevent the sin of robbery.
I had wrote[1] thus far, and thought to have made an end; when a bookseller sent me a small pamphlet, entitled, The Case of the Laity, with some Queries; full of the strongest malice against the clergy, that I have any where met with since the reign of Toland, and others of that tribe. These kinds of advocates do infinite mischief to our good cause, by giving grounds to the unjust reproaches of tories and jacobites, who charge us with being enemies to the church. If I bear a hearty unfeigned loyalty to his majesty king George, and the house of Hanover, not shaken in the least by the hardships we lie under, which never can be imputable to so gracious a prince; if I sincerely abjure the pretender, and all popish successors; if I bear a due veneration to the glorious memory of the late king William, who preserved these kingdoms from popery and slavery, with the expense of his blood, and hazard of his life; and lastly, if I am for a proper indulgence to all dissenters, I
- ↑ This should be, written, the partic., not the pret, wrote.
