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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 OF 
 
 CHURCH REFORM. 
 
 WITH A 
 
 acttrr to tlje i^ing. 
 
 BY 
 
 LORD HENLEY 
 
 '' I know tl.y Works and Charity and Service and Faith, and thy Patience 
 andthy Uorks; and the last to be more than the first. Notwithslandino. I 
 have a few things against tliee."— Rer. ii. 19. ° 
 
 "Awake, awake; put ou thy strength, O Zion ; put on thy beaut.luJ 
 garments, O Jerusalem!"— /,„,«/,, Hi. 1. ^ 
 
 VIFTU EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 ROAKE AND VARTV, ;ij, STRAND. 
 1832.
 
 L N I) t> N . 
 
 C. rii'WiPlilll i>M)M'Ns. 111,1. 1. vAllI). 
 I KMi'i.i-; 11*11.
 
 ~3X 
 
 TO 
 
 THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY. 
 
 Sire, 
 
 In offering the following Plan of Church 
 Reform to your Majesty's notice, I trust that I 
 shall not be deemed guilty of vanity or pre- 
 sumption, for I am humbly endeavouring to 
 perform what I believe to be an important and 
 a Religious Duty. 
 
 In all great and difficult questions, the exact 
 truth is but slowly conveyed to persons in your 
 Majesty's elevated station. For though the 
 Sovereign, when called to the direct exercise 
 of his functions, either for deliberation or for 
 action, is, perhaps, neither misled, nor wilfully 
 kept in ignorance; yet causes are previously 
 
 b2 
 
 13-^8880
 
 IV 
 
 suffered to operate with unobserved though 
 irresistible agency, and changes silently take 
 place in national opinions, which his Ministers 
 may be too much occupied to perceive, or too 
 indolent to provide for. While those who are 
 admitted to familiar and irresponsible inter- 
 course with him, have rarely the adequate in- 
 formation, and still more rarely the faithfulness 
 and moral courage, to undertake the irksome 
 task of pointing out imperfections in existing 
 establishments. • 
 
 The following pages were published a few 
 weeks ago, and so favourably have they been 
 received, that the Public is now demanding a 
 Fourth Edition of them. But this fact has not 
 of itself induced me to request for them your 
 Majesty's notice. I am influenced by the nature 
 and character of the testimony which I have 
 received in their favour, and not by the extent 
 of it. Of men of business, indeed, and men 
 of the world, though a large majority have 
 strongly approved of this Plan, yet some few 
 undoubtedly regard it with coldness and sus- 
 picion. But I can safely assert, that no one
 
 whose outward life and conversation evince that 
 pure and peaceable wisdom which comes from 
 above, has ever expressed any disapprobation 
 of the extent to which it is carried. And I 
 have generally found, that, the more Spiritual 
 and the more Scriptural have been the views 
 of those, who have honoured me with their 
 notice and their communications, the more en- 
 tire has been their approval of it. 
 
 I was impelled to the consideration of this 
 great and interesting subject, by no earthly 
 motive, except a heartfelt and affectionate at- 
 tachment to our National Church. Such is my 
 confidence in the excellence and purity of her 
 Doctrines and her Ordinances, and in their 
 sufficiency, if faithfully set forth and efficiently 
 administered, for securing the great end for 
 which they were instituted, that every effort, 
 however humble, either to purify or to strengthen 
 her, appeared to be doing God laudable ser- 
 vice. And I considered that such duty, if per- 
 formed in humility and faithfulness, would be 
 accepted according to what a man hath, and 
 not according to what he hath not.
 
 VI 
 
 I find many of the best friends of the Church 
 grieved and humbled at the existence of the 
 Evils and Corruptions which impair her beauty 
 and her strength, and terrified at the approach 
 of Dangers which they fear will overwhelm her. 
 For my own part, when I look to her intrinsic 
 excellence, and remember all Gods gracious 
 dealings with her hitherto; and above all, when 
 I take into consideration the prayers which her 
 devoutest and most aflectionate children are 
 daily offering for her, I cannot bring myself 
 to believe that the Gates of Hell will prevail 
 against her. But still I am not insensible 
 either to the Evils, or to the Duties which the 
 existence of them calls forth ; and therefore I 
 have been desirous to form, and to lead others 
 to form, a just and Scriptural estimate of 
 their nature and their extent; humbly hoping 
 that if I could not myself suggest the adequate 
 remedy, 1 might be the means of inducing wiser 
 and better men to turn themselves to this ex- 
 cellent work. 
 
 1 deeply feel both the greatness and the dif- 
 ficulty of the task, but I have not approached
 
 VII 
 
 it in my own strength or wisdom. And he 
 who is enabled to go forth in this spirit, needs 
 not to be dismayed by a sense of his own 
 weakness and insuHiciency; knowing- that God 
 often places the treasures of Heavenly wisdom 
 in earthen vessels; and as if to humble the 
 wise and the scribe and the disputer of this 
 world, and to moderate the confidence of intel- 
 lectual power, employs inconsiderable instru- 
 ments to effect great dispensations of his Pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 The most grievous of these Evils, Sire, is 
 the Non-res'uknce of the Boicjiccd Clergi/. This 
 is so extensive, that, it appears from the last 
 Parliamentary Returns, out of 10,533 Livings 
 in England and Wales, there are only 4413 
 Residents: — more than 4000 Livings are in- 
 sufficient to maintain a Minister: — more than 
 4800 have no fit Residence upon them. 
 
 Li populous cities thousands are growing up 
 from infancy to manhood who never hear the 
 word of God. It was computed a few years 
 ago, that in a circumference of eight miles, in 
 a population of 1,152,000 inhabitants, more
 
 VI II 
 
 than 953,000 never could attend public worshij) 
 in the Establishment. And though Churches 
 have been built since that time, yet has the 
 Population proportionably increased. In one 
 diocese, out of 1 10,000 persons, the attendants 
 at Church amounted to 19,0G9, and the com- 
 municants to 4,134, about one in seven only 
 attending Church, about one in thirty-eight 
 only attending the Lord's Table. Thus are we 
 still in effect an unchristianized land: — the 
 deepest ignorance and irreligion prevail: — the 
 Gaols are crowded ; and your Majesty's Judges, 
 circuit after circuit, are lamenting over the 
 alarming increase of crime. 
 
 On the other hand, a Revenue estimated at 
 £300,000 per annum is devoted almost entirely 
 to Sinecures: the ostensible purpose for which 
 it is paid being that of providing Divine Ser- 
 vice in about thirty Cathedral and Collegiate 
 Churches. 
 
 These two statements placed in juxta-posi- 
 tion sufficiently show the immense misapplica- 
 tion of these large but still inadequate Funds. 
 The principal object of the following Plan is to
 
 IX 
 
 apply the superfluity on the one side of this 
 melancholy account, to the deficiencies on the 
 other. 
 
 I intreat your Majesty to observe that, though 
 writing- on Ciiuiicii Reform, 1 have not had the 
 presumption to intermeddle with any theolo- 
 gical or controversial point. The subject is, in 
 fact, divided into 2\vo distinct and separate 
 heads. The One comprises the distribution of 
 the Temporalities of the Church, and the pro- 
 vision for the faithful performance of the duties 
 for which those Temporalities are secured. This 
 is matter of civil regulation, and may not only 
 without impropriety be treated by the Laity, 
 but is expressly within their peculiar and ap- 
 propriate province. 
 
 The Other branch of this great question em- 
 braces such Reforms as relate to Evils in the 
 Discipline, the Confessionals, or the Ritual of 
 the Church. For these it is not my province 
 to propose the specific remedy — nor do I at- 
 tempt it. The task is exclusively theological. 
 But the patient, while he looks to the wisdom 
 and experience of the physician for relief, can
 
 give a sufficient description and history of his 
 disease. And therefore to your Majesty, as 
 the Constitutional Head of the Church, and as 
 having the means of calling forth its energies 
 into operation, do T most humbly submit the 
 consideration of the following statement. 
 
 it is estimated, Sire, that in England and 
 Wales there are at least Three Millions of 
 Protestant Dissenters. In the Principality 
 alone. Dissent has grown to so amazing an ex- 
 tent that its ranks considerably outnumber the 
 Members of the Establishment. It ai)pears 
 from a Return recently published in a work of 
 high reputation,* that the Dissenting places of 
 worship in Wales at present amount to 1428, 
 while those of the National Church are only 
 829. The causes of this frightful and growing 
 defection are well deserving of the most serious 
 inquiry. But my present observations are 
 directed exclusively to the relation which our 
 Dissenting Brethren bear to the Anglican 
 Church. 
 
 * Essay on the Causes of Dissent in Wales. Second Edi- 
 tion. Bv J. A. Jolines, Esq.
 
 XI 
 
 These Stranj^crs to the National Communion 
 are at best indifferent to the welfare of the Esta- 
 blishment — most of them are deeidedly and 
 upon principle hostile to its very existence. 
 As an aggregate they are daily increasing in 
 numbers, in wealth, in talent, in intelligence, 
 and in power. This is not a satisfactory pros- 
 pect to the friends of the National Church. And 
 if it be not the evidence of some grievous Error 
 which should be remedied, it at least portends 
 a wide-spreading Calamity which should by 
 all prudent means be averted. The National 
 Standard of Faith is adjusted in such a form, 
 and the National Ritual is so worded, that a 
 large, an influential, and an excellent portion 
 of the community, is unable to reconcile itself 
 to the adoption of them. 
 
 I am no advocate for that spurious and mis- 
 called Liberality which can compromise the 
 essence and life of Christianity. One of the 
 first of all duties in the eye of the sincere and 
 true believer, is that of " earnestly contending* 
 for the faith which was once delivered to the 
 Saints." He, therefore, can never be so '* un-
 
 XI 1 
 
 equally yoked"' as to mix with the man who 
 denies the divinity of our Lord, or the mystery 
 of the Triune Jehovah: " For what communion 
 hath light with darkness?" Again: though 
 admitting the Romanist to all civil rights, yet 
 he can never have spiritual fellowship with 
 him, as long as it is his boast and happiness to 
 have escaped from the bondage of an idolatrous 
 and apostate Church, into the glorious liberty 
 of the Children of God. It would also be vain 
 to hope that, under the present dispensation 
 of events, the dissent even of many pious and 
 scriptural men can ever be entirely eradicated. 
 The evils of discord and of schism must remain, 
 as thorns in the sides of the Church, during the 
 w^hole course of her militant state on earth. 
 
 But the subjects and causes of Dissent may 
 surely be confined within narrower limits. 
 Some healing and charitable measures of peace 
 and comprehension may be resorted to in mat- 
 ters of Discipline and Church Government, in 
 Rituals, and those points of Doctrine which 
 are not essential to salvation. We may, to 
 some extent at least, close the breaches and
 
 XIU 
 
 repair the old waste places. All practical be- 
 lievers ill Jesus Christ — all real, vital, experi- 
 mental Christians are united in the fundamental 
 verities of their common faith. Let them sub- 
 mit to the guidance of true Christian love, and 
 they will have no difficulty in agreeing- in such 
 confessionals and rituals as shall, by a clear 
 and uncompromising assertion of Heavenly 
 Truths, at once exclude pernicious heresies, and 
 banish all grounds for doubtful disputations. 
 
 IMy heart's desire, therefore, and prayer to 
 God for Israel is, that those stumbling blocks, 
 which now keep so large a body of our country- 
 men out of the pale of the Church, should be 
 deeply, impartially, and patiently considered — 
 considered by the fit and proper Tribunal: in 
 the spirit of prayer: in the spirit of Christian 
 love, of peace, of charity, and of conciliation. 
 After such a consideration and revision, and 
 without making one unrighteous or unscriptural 
 concession, the Church will no longer number 
 as opponents, or as strangers, men like Howe, 
 Owen, Baxter, Calamy, Doddridge, Law, Watts, 
 Henry, Lardner, Hall. Such men are the salt
 
 XIV 
 
 of the earth. No system can be entirely wise 
 or safe which excludes them from its bosom. 
 
 The means which may be made instrumental 
 in this great work are ready to your Majesty's 
 hand. It is exclusively a theological and 
 ecclesiastical duty, and no layman can take, 
 or should desire to take, any part in the exe- 
 cution of it. Your Majesty has a Priesthood 
 at command, with which no nation in the 
 world can ofter any parallel. Its ranks are 
 teeming with zeal, piety, self-denial, prudence, 
 temper, moderation, talent, erudition; — with 
 all the great and excellent qualities which 
 befit men for high and noble achievements, — 
 except, indeed, perhaps o}ie; — but that is a 
 quality which your Majesty, seconded by the 
 wise and religious portion of the nation, is 
 eminently calculated to inspire.— It is Courage 
 — that Courage which produces the energy and 
 decision, so necessary in new times and diffi- 
 cult emergencies. 
 
 I do not presume to point out in what precise 
 manner or mode the Church may be enabled to 
 reform herself; whether by a Conference; — by
 
 XV 
 
 a Cominlsfi'ion of Divines; — by the Re)iovatio)i 
 of the Convocation ; — or by all these methods, 
 successively, or at once. 
 
 The experience which we have had of the 
 first of these, in the Conferences at Hampton 
 Court and the Savoy, forbids us to anticipate 
 any auspicious results from this mode of pro- 
 ceeding. Such Assemblies, says the judicious 
 historian, Rapin, are seldom attended with a 
 happy success: first, because the two parties 
 must be equally animated with the spirit of 
 Peace and Charity, which he shows to be rarely 
 the case. Again, one of the parties is usually 
 superior, and in possession of Power, and there- 
 fore not very ready to quit that advantage; 
 and lastly, it often happens that they are 
 granted by the prevailing to the opposite party 
 only to have it said that peace was offered, but 
 rejected. 
 
 A Commission like the one of 1689, which 
 empowered ten Bishops and twenty Divines to 
 meet, and prepare alterations in the Liturgy 
 and the Canons, seems a better and a more ju- 
 dicious course. In that Commission we find 
 names whose memory posterity greatly reveres :
 
 XVI 
 
 — Compton, Lloyd, Burnet, among the bishops: 
 Stilling-fleet, Tillotson, Sharpe, Beveridge, Pa- 
 trick, Kidder, Tennison, among the others. 
 *' They were a set of men," says Archbishop 
 Wake, " than which this Church was never 
 at any one time blessed with either wiser or 
 better since it was a Church; and a design that 
 I am persuaded would have been for the inte- 
 rest and peace of our Church and State, had it 
 been accomplished." 
 
 Its labours however, most unhappily, have 
 never been adopted, but the Record of its pro- 
 ceedings is now in existence in the Archi- Epis- 
 copal Library at Lambeth, and is still available. 
 Burnet observes of them, " The corrections 
 which had been agreed to in it would make 
 the whole frame of our Liturgy still more per- 
 fect as well as more unexceptionable ; and 
 will, I hope, at some time or other, be better 
 entertained than they were then. I am per- 
 suaded that they are such as would bring in 
 much the greater part of the Dissenters to the 
 Communion of the Church, and are in them- 
 selves desirable, though there were not a Dis- 
 senter in the nation."
 
 XVI 1 
 
 The Third mode is the reassembling of the 
 Convocation with a more full and independent 
 representation of the great body of the Clergy, 
 and w^ith the powers and privileges of each 
 House more clearly defined. I take the liberty 
 to refer your Majesty to some high authorities 
 in support of that plan, contained in the fol- 
 lowing sheets, and to some judicious observa- 
 tions of a contemporary writer in the Appendix. 
 
 It has been truly observed of the Church of 
 England, that it differs in a most important 
 particular from the Church of Scotland, and 
 various dissenting bodies, in possessing little or 
 no ecclesiastical power, and no means by which 
 the wisdom and influence of the body can be 
 concentrated. It is " a mighty but a scattered 
 host; — a powerful body, but its power so dis- 
 sipated as to be unavailing and ineffective — a 
 body threatened with dangers the most urgent 
 and overwhelming, and lying prostrate, help- 
 less, and trembling, for want of union, counsel, 
 and organization." This evil, it is rightly sub- 
 mitted, may be remedied by the Revival and 
 Restoration of the Convocatio/i. 
 
 c
 
 XVI 11 
 
 To what extent your Majesty's personal 
 and kingly duties, and your Majesty's Christian 
 responsibility are involved in this important 
 matter, is clearly set forth in the following 
 admirable observations of Archbishop Wake. 
 " I shall not doubt to affirm," says that tempe- 
 rate and judicious divine, *' that whenever the 
 King is in his oivn conscience convinced, that 
 for the Convocation to sit, and act, w^ould be 
 for the oflorv of God, the benefit of the Church, 
 or otherwise for the public good and welfare of 
 his realm, he is obliged, both bij the Law of 
 Reason, as a Alan, — hy his diitij to God as a Chris- 
 tian, — and his duty to his People as a Ruler, set 
 over them for their good, to permit, or rather to 
 command his Clergy to meet in Convocation, 
 and transact what is fit, for any or all those 
 
 ends, to be done by them." " When the exi- 
 
 srencies of the Church call for a Convocation — 
 if the Prince be sensible of this, and yet will 
 not sufi'er the Clergy to come together; in that 
 case I do acknowledge that he would abuse 
 the trust that is lodged in him, and deny the 
 Church a benefit which of right it ought to 
 enjoy."
 
 XIX 
 
 Your Majesty is on a proud and fortunate 
 eminence: you have wonderfully endeared 
 yourself to all ranks, by your frank, manly, 
 and constitutional bearing: and the nation is 
 justly grateful for the prosperous fulfilment of 
 its hopes. You have been " careful for us with 
 all this care" in Temporal matters, deign now 
 to consider our wants in Spiritual. Your Ma- 
 jesty has the means before you of remedying 
 immense Evil, and of promoting extensive Good 
 — Et)il which is corroding the vitals of Chris- 
 tianity — Good to perishing and immortal souls. 
 The Reformation has never been completed in 
 this country. The untimely death of King 
 Edward the Sixth interrupted that holy work 
 in its progress; and events, familiar to every 
 reader of English history, have in various ways 
 impeded its completion. It is in your Majes- 
 ty's power to put the last hand to this glorious 
 Edifice; to become the Josiah of modern times; 
 to tread in the footsteps of the devout and godly 
 Youth who walked with Cranmer and Ridley. 
 The personal influence possessed by a British 
 Sovereign, independent of his defined and con- 
 stitutional powers, is extensive, and not least
 
 XX 
 
 so in ecclesiastical matters. Here, therefore, 
 is one of many Talents committed to your Ma- 
 jesty's charge. May you be inspired from 
 above to make the proper use of it. Your 
 Majesty will hereafter be asked by One, who 
 (as the excellent Bishop Kenn faithfully re- 
 minded Charles the Second on his death-bed) 
 is no Respecter of Persons, how you have em- 
 ployed this Talent ? It is my humble, earnest, 
 dutiful, and, if I may presume to add, my 
 affectionate prayer, that your Majesty may be 
 enabled to return to that Enquiry an Answer 
 of Peace. 
 
 I conclude with the almost dying words of 
 that burning and shining light, John Wesley, 
 " Oh, Lord, bless the Church and the King!" 
 
 I have the honour to be, 
 
 SIRE, 
 
 Your Majesty's most faithful and 
 loyal Servant and Subject, 
 
 HENLEY. 
 
 London, 
 August 22, 1832.
 
 ClIURCII REFORM. 
 
 A CONVICTION has for some time been gaining 
 ground among the best friends of the Church, 
 that several Corruptions exist in it, which secu- 
 larize and debase its spirit, contract the sphere 
 of its usefulness, and loosen its hold on the affec- 
 tions and veneration of the People. They consi- 
 der that its well-being depends upon a timely 
 and judicious Correction of Abuses, which some 
 affirm to be of such a nature and magnitude, as to 
 threaten its existence as an Establishment. And 
 it is frequently declared that the time has ar- 
 rived, when the appointed Guardians of its Inte- 
 rests, should come forward with some more ex- 
 tensive and some more vital measure of Reforma- 
 tion, than any which has yet been communicated 
 to the Country. 
 
 Many, however, of the wise and good, while 
 they are deeply conscious of the existence of 
 these evils, are, nevertheless, afraid to counte- 
 nance an efficacious Plan of Reform, lest the 
 whole of the venerable fabric be endangered in 
 the process of its reparation. A sentiment just, 
 prudent, and righteous, and entitled to the most
 
 ( 2 ) 
 
 respectful and the most affectionate deference. 
 The problem, therefore, which is to be solved is 
 this : — Whether, on the one hand, the evils com- 
 plained of, are really so considerable that we 
 ought to encounter the dangers which attend all 
 extensive alterations, and remove them; or, 
 whether we shall stand absolved before God, 
 in permitting them to continue, although no 
 better defence of them can be adduced, than the 
 difficulty and hazard of their removal. 
 
 This is a question of great importance to the 
 present and eternal welfare of thousands ; and it 
 must be determined by no lower authority than 
 that one unerring test by which all human trans- 
 actions ought to be tried : — The Will of God, 
 either expressly declared or necessarily implied 
 in His revealed Word. All other modes of solving 
 or evading it — all reference to maxnns of mere 
 worldly policy and expediency — all reliance on 
 human wisdom, foresight, or learning, will only 
 lead us into error, imperfection, and mistake. A 
 narrow or unscriptural defence of the Establish- 
 ment, will accelerate the downfal of its fair and 
 noble bulwarks. 
 
 The writer of these pages, therefore, desires to 
 approach this question with that spirit of charity, 
 and that singleness of purpose, which befit so 
 serious an inquiry. Had the task which he 
 has undertaken appeared to demand the acquire- 
 ments of the Statesman or of the Philosopher, he
 
 ( ;! ) 
 
 would have shrunk from it with the deepest con- 
 viction of his incapacity for it. Still less would 
 he have presumed to interfere with the peculiar 
 province of the Divine, by intermeddling with 
 the principles and doctrines of the Church, with 
 her Creeds, her Articles, or her Liturgy. Least 
 of all is he disposed to join in any of the low- 
 minded and ignorant censures of the clergy, 
 which are too general in the present day. He 
 feels perfectly assured that there never was a 
 period when most of the high offices in the 
 Church have been filled with so much learning, 
 zeal, activity and munificence, and (what is worth 
 them all) with so sincere a desire to promote 
 God's Honour and Glory. In the lower ranks of 
 the clergy, and most especially in the rising gene- 
 ration, there is so much purity and holiness of life 
 and morals, so sincere a setting forth of Evan- 
 gelical Truth, so strenuous a desire to perform the 
 works of a laborious and watchful ministry, as to 
 justify us in anticipating a great National Revival 
 in Religion. 
 
 Nor are the following pages dictated by any 
 Sfrudaino- feelino- towards the Endowments and 
 Wealth of the Establishment. On the contrary, the 
 Author thinks that it can never be too often repeat- 
 ed, that the Church of England is not a wealthy 
 Church . It has been stated from high authority, and 
 has never been contradicted, that if all the reve- 
 
 15 2
 
 ( 4 ) 
 
 nues of the parochial clergy were equally divided 
 amongst them, there would not be more than £185 
 per annum for each : and that if the whole pro- 
 perty of the Church, including all that belongs to 
 Deans and Chapters, were thrown into a common 
 fund, it would not furnish a net annual stipend of 
 f 350 to each of the working clergy. But even if 
 it were found greatly to exceed this amount, he 
 never would consent, upon any reasoning, how- 
 ever plausible, to see the smallest portion of it 
 subtracted from the service of the Sanctuary. 
 
 The present time also appears to be peculiarly 
 fitted for a deep and calm consideration of this 
 momentous subject. It requires, indeed, but 
 little experience to be " well aware, that Power 
 rarely reforms itself." " So, indeed, it is," said 
 Mr. Burke, " when all is quiet around it." But 
 may it not be hoped, that a due attention on the 
 part of those in whose hands the issues of this 
 question are placed, to the state and prospects 
 of society, may for once make an exception to 
 this undoubted rule? When they observe the 
 voice of the nation demanding in every public 
 functionary, a higher degree of zeal and purity 
 and public virtue: when abuses are no longer 
 deemed sacred because they are venerable, nor 
 improvements rejected as rash because they are 
 extensive, may they not be induced to do " early 
 and from foresight," and with due caution, and 
 temper, and deliberation, that which every pru-
 
 ( 5 ) 
 
 dent man perceives must be soon done in one 
 way or another ? 
 
 Let us hope that these considerations, and the 
 recollection of the mistakes which have been 
 committed in so loni^ resisting the desires of a 
 nation thirsting- for improvement and reformation, 
 may make those who ride upon the high places 
 of the earth, more humble and tolerant, more 
 attentive to the just demands of the governed, 
 more observant of those claims which the varying 
 condition of society is daily advancing. How 
 obvious was it to all temperate and impartial 
 spectators, that, as soon as Parliament had re- 
 covered from the agitation of the Catholic Ques- 
 tion, the first subject that would occupy its 
 attention would be that of Parliamentary Re- 
 form. How moderate were then the demands of 
 its most ardent advocates: how slight the con- 
 cessions which would have satisfied the just ex- 
 pectations of the nation ! And yet with what 
 pertinacity were the most temperate alterations 
 resisted, and how wide and extensive, and in 
 the judgment of many how hazardous, is the 
 measure which this pertinacity has produced ! 
 
 Let us, therefore, take warning from our past 
 experience. It is impossible to regard the tem- 
 per of the nation and of the times, without being 
 convinced that as soon as the subject which 
 now ensfrosses its attention has been satisfac- 
 torily adjusted, one of the first questions agi-
 
 ( C ; 
 
 tated in the Reformed Parliament, will be the 
 extent and nature and application of the Re- 
 venues of the Church. It therefore behoves 
 every sincere friend of our venerable Estab- 
 lishment to prepare for that conflict which most 
 assuredly awaits her; and to see that she is able 
 to give an account of her stewardship, and of 
 the application of those Talents which the piety 
 and munificence of our ancestors have committed 
 to her hands. 
 
 If, in the result of an Enquiry, instituted in 
 a humble and kind spirit, and with a sincere de- 
 sire of attaining to the truth, some portion of 
 error, imperfection, and abuse, be discovered, it 
 w ill be her wisest policy, as it is her bounden 
 duty, to lose not a moment in putting away all 
 Evils and Corruptions. A superficial, slight, and 
 palliative expedient, will neither satisfy the zeal 
 and love of her friends, nor disarm the rancour of 
 her enemies. The nation will demand a sound, an 
 honest, and above all, a Religious Reformation. 
 A Reformation springing from a deep conviction 
 of the extent and sinfulness of the Corruptions 
 which prevail, and conducted with high and holy 
 aspirations after Christian Purity and Excellence. 
 A Reformation adopted in obedience to God's 
 Word and Will, and conducted in subordination 
 to that heavenly standard. 
 
 The most prominent Evil in the Church, is the
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 Non-Residence of the Beneficed Clergy and the 
 System of Pluralities. 
 
 To what extent the system of Non Residence 
 prevails in our Church, it is sufficient to observe, 
 that by the Parliamentary Return of 1827, out of 
 10,533, the total number of Benefices in England 
 and Wales, the number of Residents is only 4413, 
 and the total number of Non Residents doing 
 their duty is 1590. By a Return of the same 
 year of the number of Resident and licensed 
 Curates, it appears that of the Livings where the 
 Incumbents are Non Resident, there are 1223 
 which are of the annual value of £300 and 
 upwards. 
 
 This Non-Residence is of two sorts, that which 
 is voluntary and that which is involuntary. The 
 former exists where two or more pieces of prefer- 
 ment, of ivhicli one is sujjicieut for the decent sup- 
 port of a minister, are held by the same indivi- 
 dual. The latter is caused by the insufficiency of 
 the value of Benefices, or by the want of a proper 
 Residence, or, as is too often the case, by both 
 united. 
 
 The guilt of the first of these evils must be 
 shared by the Patrons who institute: the Incum- 
 bents who accept: in some cases, it is said, by 
 Bishops, some of whom being unavoidably and 
 most blamelessly pluralists themselves, are un- 
 willing to enforce the law even in its present mo- 
 derate degree of efficiency : and lastly, by the
 
 ( 8 ) 
 
 Nation that has tolerated so imperfect and vicious 
 a system. The guilt of the second is exclusively 
 national, and we will now proceed to consider 
 how both may be wiped away. 
 
 It is true that they are not both of them pro- 
 ductive of equal mischief; for the absence of the 
 Beneficed Pluralist is supplied by the presence 
 and ministration of the Curate. Much has been 
 said, and justly said, of the zeal, the fidelity, and 
 the piety of this admirable class of men : but it is 
 unnecessary to multiply arguments to show, that 
 no virtue or talent on the part of the Curate, can 
 be equivalent to the constant presence and per- 
 sonal superintendence of the Beneficed Superior. 
 
 Nothing, in fact, evinces so strongly how much 
 wiser the children of this world are in their gene- 
 ration than the children of light, as the strictness 
 with which mankind compel the performance of 
 duties upon which their secular and pecuniary 
 interests depend, as compared with the vague 
 and languid attention which they are satisfied to 
 exact from those, to whom spiritual and eternal 
 concerns are entrusted. In what department, 
 either of public or private trust, except the 
 Church, has the system of executing important 
 functions by deputy ever been extensively per- 
 mitted ?* Yet most other professions are equally 
 
 * " That men should live of the flock that they do not feed," 
 says Bacon, " or of the altar at which they not serve, is a
 
 ( !) ) 
 
 overstocked with candidates for employment, as 
 competent to discharge the duties of all stations 
 in those professions as any of the actual posses- 
 sors of them, and who would willingly consent to 
 perform those duties for a quarter, an eighth, or 
 a tenth of the remuneration appointed for them. 
 But who could endure to hear of a judge or sti- 
 pendiary magistrate, a confidential manager or 
 clerk in a great public or private office, a medical 
 attendant on a hospital or infirmary, delegating, 
 without scruple on his own part, and without in- 
 stant remonstrance on the part of those who were 
 interested to compel his services, the entire per- 
 formance of all his duties to a substitute, whom 
 he might reward with a small fraction of his own 
 stipulated emoluments? Yet that which would 
 be thought so intolerable an abuse where public 
 health, or justice, or worldly interests alone are 
 concerned, is not only endured, but frequently 
 and strenuously defended, where no less a confi- 
 dence is reposed, than the care of the present ho- 
 liness and eternal welfare of hundreds. This is 
 an evil which cannot be tolerated. We ask only 
 for God, what man exacts for man. If the excel- 
 lence and merits of the deputy are not permitted, 
 in earthly trusts, to justify the absence and neglect 
 
 thing that hardly can receive just defence ; and to exercise the 
 office of a pastor in matter of the word and doctrine by deputies, 
 is a thing not warranted." — Pac'ificatiun of the Church.
 
 ' ( 10 ) 
 
 of the principal, neither let them have that effect 
 in heavenly. 
 
 The admirable and conscientious Bishop Bur- 
 net, in his Valedictory Address to his Church and 
 Country, uses the following indignant remon- 
 strance on this subject. " I do not enter into 
 the scandalous practices of non-residence and 
 pluralities, which are sheltered by so many colours 
 of law among us; whereas the Church of Rome, 
 from which we had those and many other abuses, 
 has freed herself from this, under which we still 
 labour, to our great and just reproach. How 
 long, how long shall this be the peculiar disgrace 
 of our Church, which, for aught I know, is the 
 only Church in the world that tolerates it?"* 
 
 No measure of Church Reform can sustain 
 
 * His biographer relates of him, that he was a warm and con- 
 stant enemy to Pluralities, used his utmost endeavours to prevent 
 them, and in some cases even hazarded a suspension rather than 
 give institution. In his charges to the Clergy he exclaimed 
 against them as a sacrilegious robbery of the Revenues of the 
 Church : a remarkable effect of his zeal is thus related. In his 
 first visitation at Salisbury he urged the authority of St. Bernard, 
 who, being consulted by one of his followers whether he might 
 not accept of two Benefices, replied, " And how will you be able 
 to serve them both ?" " I intend," answered the Priest, " to offi- 
 ciate in one of them by a deputy." " Will your deputy be 
 damned for you?" said the saint. "Beheve me, you may serve 
 your cure by proxy, but you must be damned in person." This 
 expression so affected Mr. Kelsey, a pious and worthy Clergy- 
 man, then present, that he immediately resigned the Rectory of 
 Bemcrton, which he then held, witl) one of greater value.
 
 ( 11 ) 
 
 any pretension to the consideration of tlie 
 country which does not, icitli a due regard lo 
 vested interests, put an end to this evil and cor- 
 rupt system. This may be done by a short Act 
 of Parliament of one clause, which should de- 
 clare a certain annual amount (£400 for instance) 
 to be the minimum which should be deemed 
 adequate for the support of a Minister: and 
 then should enact, that no Benefice of that value 
 should ever be tenable with any other Prefer- 
 ment whatsoever. Nor should there be any dis- 
 tance within which two livings can be held, whe- 
 ther such distance be 30 or 45 miles. To lodge 
 a power of dispensation for this purpose in any 
 human hands, however pure and holy, is to act on 
 an unsound and unscriptural principle. The great 
 object of legislation on this subject should be to 
 secure to each parish the daily, constant, and 
 personal attention of a man who shall have no 
 other public duty, but that of watching over the 
 souls of his flock, as one who is to give account. 
 His quiet week-day ministrations may be made a 
 thousand times more profitable to their souls and 
 bodies than the most spiritual of his Sabbath 
 duties. *' A house-going minister," says Dr. 
 Chalmers, ** wins for himself a Cliurch-going 
 people. And his week-day attentions and their 
 Sabbath attendance, go hand in hand." Tliese he 
 is as effectually prevented from fulfilling by an 
 absence of ten as of an hundred miles.
 
 ( l'-2 ) 
 
 Let us now proceed to consider how the case 
 stands with respect to the Non-Residence which 
 is invohintary. 
 
 The Parliamentary Return of 1815 states the 
 total amount of Livings under the annual value of 
 £150 per annum to be 4361. Of these, some are 
 under £12 per annum, and no less a number than 
 1350 are below £70 per annum. 
 
 Besides the Non-Residence thus unavoidably 
 produced by the extreme poverty of the Bene- 
 fices, the want of proper Residences operates in 
 an equal degree in causing that evil. There 
 are no less than 4809 Livings upon which a cler- 
 gyman cannot reside. Of these 2626 have no 
 houses at all. On 2183 there are houses unfit for 
 the residence of a clergyman, let at £2 or £3 per 
 annum, and worth no more. 
 
 The consequences of this great and deplorable 
 desecration are obvious. In many parishes Di- 
 vine Service is only performed once in three 
 weeks or a month. The week-day intercourse 
 and natural influence of the Pastor are never 
 known. From the distance of his residence, and 
 the multiplicity of his avocations, and the neces- 
 sary infrequency of his visits, he is as effectually 
 a stranger to his Parishioners as if he lived in ano- 
 ther hemisphere. 
 
 But great as are these evils, which from their 
 nature are confined to less populous and agricul- 
 tural districts, the want of religious instruction
 
 ( i:i ) 
 
 weighs with a tenibld oppression in our crowded 
 cities. A popidation has risen up in our manu- 
 facturing districts which our Churches cannot 
 Iiold, and neither our own ministers nor the inde- 
 fatigable exertions of Dissenters can adequately 
 instruct. A mass of ignorance, heathenism, and 
 crime is thus fostered, which threatens the coun- 
 try with the most alarming consequences. Much, 
 indeed, has been done during the last ten years in 
 building new Churches. But the misfortune is, that 
 they are most wanted in those very places where 
 the people a,re either unable or unwilling to pay 
 for the endowment of them. The following ex- 
 tract from Dr. Yates's valuable work sets this in 
 a striking light: — 
 
 " In a district containing by one estimation a popniation 
 of 1,144,779, and by anodier 1,129,451, the astonishing 
 trudi is most incontrovertibly established, that only 81 parish 
 Churches and 81 Ministers are provided by the Church of 
 England for a population of upwards of 1,110,000 souls. 
 The indubitable authority of ParHament hath, indeed, de- 
 monstrated that within the comparatively small circle of 
 about ten miles around the metropolis of Britain, — the 
 splendid seat of Science, Literature, Commerce, Legisla- 
 tion, Philosophy, and (as is supposed) Religion, — no less a 
 number tlian 977,000 souls are shut out from the common 
 Pastoral offices of the National Religion;— arc without any 
 beneficial communion with the Established Church, — re- 
 ceive no instruction from a Parish Minister, — and are 
 totally excluded from the inestimable advantages of Paro- 
 chial Public Worship."
 
 ( 14 ) 
 
 Dr. Chalmers mentions that it was found, upon 
 an investigation made into the subject in the city 
 of Glasgow, that in its most populous parish not 
 one-fifth of those who lived in it, and not one- 
 third of those who should have sittings, were in the 
 habit of attendance on any ordinances whatever. 
 AMio can doubt but that if a like inquiry were 
 made into the recesses of St. Giles's, Bethnal 
 Green, Stepney, Spitalfields, or extended to Man- 
 chester, Leeds, Birmingham, \yakefield, Halifax, 
 Huddersfield, Wolverhampton, and our other im- 
 mense and overgrown masses of population, it 
 would be attended with a similar result. Well 
 does that eloquent Christian Philanthropist ob- 
 serve, — 
 
 " that when we contemplate the magnitude of those suburb 
 wastes which have formed so rapidly around the metropolis 
 and every commercial city of our hind — when wc think of 
 the quantity of lawless spirit which has been permitted to 
 ferment and to multiply there, afar from the contact of 
 every softening influence, and without one effectual hand put 
 forth to stay the great and the growing distemper — when 
 we estimate the families which from infancy to manhood 
 have been unvisited by any message from Christianity, and 
 on whose consciences the voice of Him who speaketh the 
 word from Heaven, has never descended, we cannot but 
 charsre that country which, satisfied if it neutralize the vio- 
 lence, rears no preventive barrier against the vices of the 
 people, with the guilt of inflicting upon itself a moral and 
 political suicide.' 
 
 "* 
 
 * Christian and Civil lu'onomy of liUrge Towns, Vol. I. p. 1 12.
 
 ( i''3 ; 
 
 It seems astonishing tliat this great and under- 
 standing nation, should permit such a continual 
 violation of the spirit and letter of Christianity to 
 exist in its very bosom. That while so many thou- 
 sands are annually raised by voluntary subscrip- 
 tion to send forth Missionaries into the remotest 
 corners of the world, we should dole out the 
 revenues of the National Church in so unequal 
 a manner, that more than 4000 of its districts 
 are unable to support a Minister in the de- 
 cent habits and respectability of a gentleman. 
 And that while we have millions at home who 
 are living in total alienation from the sanctions 
 and comforts of religion, we should " sow beside 
 all waters" except those whose borders have the 
 first claims for our culture. 
 
 " These things ought not so to be," and if 
 there were no overgrown and unwieldy En- 
 dowments in the Church ; if there were no sine- 
 cures, the existence of which brings discredit on 
 the Establishment, no payments utterly dispro- 
 portionate to any service that is rendered for 
 them, these details would have established a 
 right to require the Legislature to devote a grant, 
 or a series of annual grants, to this great exigency. 
 
 "For," as observed by Lord Bacon, "all the Par- 
 liaments since the 27th and 31st of Henry VIIL, 
 who gave away Impropriations from the Church, 
 seem to stand in a sort obnoxious and obliged to 
 God in conscience to do somewhat for the Church
 
 to reduce the patrimony tliereof to a competence. 
 For since they have del)arred Christ's wife of a 
 great part of her dowry, it were reason they made 
 her a competent jointure. " 
 
 The Legislature cannot be too frequently re- 
 minded, in looking at our 4,000 almost unendowed 
 Benefices, and our 4,800 houseless livings, that, 
 in the language of the same illustrious person, 
 " It is a constitution of the Divine Law, from 
 which human laws cannot derogate, that those 
 which feed the flock should live of the flock; that 
 those that serve at the altar should live at the 
 altar; that those which dispense spiritual things 
 should reap spiritual things; of which it is also an 
 appendix that the proportion of the maintenance 
 be not small or necessitous, but plentiful and 
 liberal." 
 
 If therefore the time shall ever arrive when no 
 revenues are paid except such as are fit for the 
 just and legitimate dignity of the Hierarchy, and 
 when no stipend is received but in return for some 
 adequate amount of service done to the cause of 
 religion, it is clear that Parliament may pro- 
 perly be called upon to supply all deficiencies. 
 
 In the mean time, we must remember that the 
 Endowments of the Church are property given 
 for a special purpose. They are the subject of a 
 <rreat Trust for the maintenance and service of 
 Religion. And whether we regard the Church in 
 the abstract as one vast corporation, or in a more
 
 ( 17 ) 
 
 technical point of view, as an aggregate of corpo- 
 rations, she must equally be considered as a 
 trustee invested with the management and con- 
 trol of funds, given for the discharge of a duty 
 of the very highest and holiest nature. And, if 
 by time, or accident, or neglect, or by the rise 
 or improvement of property, or by the increase of 
 population, any material impediment shall have 
 arisen to prevent the due performance of this 
 ^rust, it is the clear right and bounden duty of 
 the Legislature to enforce its faithful execution. 
 And if this cannot be effected except by some 
 <:hange in the channel through which the fund is 
 transmitted, notwithstanding all objections to ex- 
 tensive alterations, yet such alterations must ine- 
 vitably be effected. It would, indeed, be injus- 
 tice and tyranny to abridge the life income of 
 any individual ; but when the highest interests 
 of the community, and the strong call of religion, 
 unite with the clear will of the donor, in pointing 
 out the necessity of an alteration in the specific 
 mode of effecting his intentions, there should no 
 longer be any doubt of tlie justice, or of the pro- 
 priety, of varying any existing mode of distri- 
 bution as to all subsequent objects of his bounty. 
 No one now maintains the inviolability of corpo- 
 rate rights, where a clear case of })ublic necessity 
 or expediency demands their sacrifice. And when 
 the first of all duties, and the most urgent of all 
 necessities, call for an alteration in the applica- 
 
 c
 
 ( 1« ) 
 
 tioii of public property, it would be preposterous 
 to contend, that the embryo rights of any number 
 of unappointed or unborn functionaries, can legiti- 
 mately interpose to prevent a just or necessary 
 measure of Reform. 
 
 There is, therefore, not only an undoubted right 
 in the Legislature, but it is its duty to vary 
 the application and transmission of the property 
 of the Church, whenever the interests of religion 
 manifestly demand it. Let us, then, now pro- 
 ceed to consider, whether any of the revenues 
 of the Church, as at present constituted, are so 
 applied as to justify this proposed Legislative in- 
 terference with them. 
 
 The Endowments of the Church may be di- 
 vided into three parts. 1st, That of the Paro- 
 chial Clergy, consisting of the Tithes, Glebes, 
 Fees, &c. 2dly. The Revenues of the Bishops. 
 And 3dly, The Property of the Deans and Chap- 
 ters and Colleoiate Churches. 
 
 L Let us first consider the Revenues of the 
 Parochial Clergy. 
 
 The Revenue arising from the First Fruits and 
 Tenths, which was originally an exaction of the 
 Pope, and which was transferred at the Reforma- 
 tion to the Crown, was appropriated by Queen 
 Anne to the relief of the poorer Clergy. All liv- 
 ings under £00 per annum were discharged from 
 the payment of them ; and the Revenue arising
 
 ( n^ ) 
 
 from the First Fruits and Tentiis of all Benefices 
 above that value, was applied to the augmenta- 
 tion of those below it. The Valuation under which 
 these are paid was made in the 26 Henry VIII. 
 A.D. 1535, and the average clear annual Income 
 of the Fund amounts to £10,000, the operation of 
 which must be obviously extremely slow, and in- 
 deed hardly perceptible. It has, accordingly, been 
 frequently proposed that a new Valuation should 
 be made, by which the payment of Tenths should 
 become more real than it is at present; that a gra- 
 duated scale might be agreed upon, while many 
 small Livings might be discharged altogether; and 
 every Living above a certain value might be taxed 
 according to its income: as it is said to be ob- 
 vious, that an Incumbent of £1000 a year could 
 much better afford to pay a Ninth, than an In- 
 cumbent of £300 a year could pay a Tenth. 
 
 When this subject was considered so long ago 
 as the year 1810, Lord Harrowby, in a very valu- 
 able pamphlet on the Augmentation of Poor 
 Livings, adduced reasons in opposition to this 
 scheme, which ought to have set the agitation of 
 it at rest for ever. Besides the important con- 
 sideration of the hardship of it, he showed clearly 
 that it would be an act of gross injustice. When 
 nearly three centuries have elapsed during which 
 this tax has been considered as invariable, when 
 so large a number of Livings have become private 
 property, and have passed for a valuable considera- 
 
 ( 2
 
 ( iiu ) 
 
 tioii from one purchaser to anotlier on the faith of 
 the invariability of this tax, a fresh valuation, for 
 the purpose of increasing the tax, would be an ar- 
 bitrary seizure of vested estates, in order to throw 
 upon a particular class of Proprietors that bur- 
 then which ought to be borne in common. It 
 must be observed, too, that the notions which 
 have been hitherto entertained as to the magni- 
 tude of Livings are very erroneous. It is esti- 
 mated, that there are not at present four Livings 
 in England worth £4000 a year, nor thirty worth 
 £2000 a year. Those, which in high times were 
 worth £2500 per annum, are now worth £1200. 
 
 Besides it is obvious, that, except in very 
 thinly inhabited districts, no revenue can be more 
 justly bestowed, nor will in all probability be 
 more beneficially expended, than a liberal in- 
 come in the hands of a clergyman residing nine 
 months in a year upon his benefice; and it would 
 be one of the greatest blessings that could be be- 
 stowed upon the country, if, wherever there was 
 a population of 1500 or 2000 souls, a beneficed 
 clergyman with an Endowment of from £800 to 
 £1200 per annum were placed in the midst of 
 it. And any scheme tending to diminish such 
 an income by a ninth, or a tenth, would, in 
 no inconsiderable degree, diminish that influence 
 both upon the temporal and spiritual interests of 
 a numerous population, which it is highly desira- 
 ble should be possessed by its minister. The 
 higher degree of moral and religious attainment
 
 ( --^l ) 
 
 of the agricultural classes in Scotland, is doubt- 
 less owin"- to the greater extent of comfort dif- 
 fused among- their clergy, which promotes their 
 more strict and general residence.* 
 
 As to First Fruits, a scale has also been suggest- 
 ed under which they may be made more produc- 
 tive: but here we must again refer to the sound and 
 practical observations of Lord Harrowby, which, 
 in addition to the arguments against any increase 
 of Tenths, apply so forcibly to this species of 
 payment as to justify us in proposing the al- 
 most total abolition of it. "The First Fruits," 
 says his Lordship, " even as they are now col- 
 lected, are a heavy imposition. Upon the higher 
 classes of the Clergy, they are, at their present 
 amount, considerable. They fall to be paid at 
 a time when the payment is particularly incon- 
 venient. The acquisition of preferment is in itself 
 expensive. A house to be furnished — an esta- 
 blishment to be formed or enlarged — the removal 
 of a family — are all sources of expense, which 
 drain the purse of a man upon his first appoint- 
 ment. Debts are incurred, which press heavily 
 upon him at his outset, and perhaps involve him 
 
 * There are no Livings in Scotland under <£loO per annum; 
 and only one-fifth of the Livings poor, whereas there are two- 
 fifths of the English Livings so. The Scotch parsonage-houses 
 are kept in repair by the landowners ; and if all the property of 
 the Scotch Church were put together it would give X^70 to each 
 Living, which, in many parts of Scotland, is as nuich as i"400 or 
 ^500 a year in many parts of England.
 
 ( 22 ) 
 
 in embarrassments equally hurtful to his credit 
 and his comfort. The income is at best only for 
 life, and does not afford the resources which arise 
 from more permanent revenue. Death, if it fol- 
 lows soon after preferment, leaves a family desti- 
 tute. 
 
 " If these evils are in any degree felt, as they 
 certainly are, while the first-fruits are paid upon 
 the present low scale of valuation, they would be 
 utterly intolerable if that valuation were made 
 according to the real value of the benefice. 
 A man would be left without any income for 
 a whole twelvemonth ; and that twelvemonth 
 would be the very time when his expenses would 
 be increased." 
 
 These considerations, it may be submitted, are 
 quite sufficient to shew, that no material aug- 
 mentation can be derived, from the Revenues 
 of the Parochial Clergy. 
 
 2dly. The next division of Ecclesiastical Pro- 
 perty is the Revenues of the Bishops. The ag- 
 gregate is stated by the best authorities to be at 
 present about £163,000 per annum. The Reve- 
 nues of some of the Sees, indeed, will probably in 
 a few years be considerably increased; but still, 
 the just and necessary expenses of a bishop are 
 so considerable, that it would be a great error to 
 expect, that any addition could be obtained to 
 the funds of the Church, by deductions from the 
 Revenues of the Hierarchy.
 
 ( 23 ) 
 
 3clly. The last species of jjroperty is that of the 
 Deans and Chapters and Collegiate Churches. 
 
 Of Chapters there are the like number as of 
 Bishops, there being- one attached to every See. 
 In addition to this there are Collegiate Churches, 
 like Westminster, Windsor, Southwell, Ripon, 
 Manchester, Brecon, and Wolverhampton. The 
 number of dignitaries is usually stated at about 
 600, with stipends varying from mere nominal 
 sums to incomes of a very large amount; the 
 highest of all being about £8000 per annum. 
 The total Revenues of the whole body is stated 
 by Dr. Cove, who wrote some years ago, at about 
 £275,000, but authors who have written subse- 
 quently, estimate the amount at about £300,000 
 per annum.* 
 
 This is a revenue considerably exceeding one- 
 sixth of the estimated income of all the Parochial 
 Clergy of England and Wales ; and it becomes 
 material, in prosecution of our investigation, to 
 inquire, what the services are, in return for which 
 so large an amount of income is paid. These 
 services will be found to be fully comprised in 
 
 * There appears to be great doubt as to tl»p correctness of this 
 estimate; but as my plan proposes (after providing for Divine 
 Service in cathedrals) to appropriate tlie tvhole of the surplus re- 
 venue, it becomes unnecessary to ascertain its precise amount. If 
 it turns out to be greater than was expected, there will still be 
 abundant room in England and Wales for appropriating the 
 whole of it ; if less, there will be the less reason for applying any 
 part of it in sinecures.
 
 ( -^i ) 
 
 the followino: catalos:ue: — a stated number of 
 days and nights passed in the residence : a cer- 
 tain number of attendances at morning and 
 evening service on week days; and in some ca- 
 thedrals a few sermons on Sundays and Festivals. 
 The period of residence is adjusted in a most 
 capricious and mischievous mode. It lately ap- 
 peared in the course of a discussion in the House of 
 Lords, that in one Chapter, a Prebendary, from 
 the circumstance of being Sub-dean, might be 
 compelled to an uninterrupted residence of twelve 
 consecutive months, and, accordingly, an active 
 and very valuable person was taken, (under the 
 baneful system of Pluralities,) from one of the most 
 extensive and interesting scenes of Christian exer- 
 tion in the metropolis, to waste his energies for 
 several months in a country town on a comparative 
 sinecure. In some Chapters the requisite resi- 
 dence is three months, in others two, and often 
 only one. In some again, it should appear that 
 even this is not required. The late Earl of 
 Bridgewater drew the magnificent income of one 
 of the Golden Stalls of Durham while living at 
 Paris. And in another Chapter it is possible for 
 a person never even to have seen the inside of the 
 cathedral since the day he read himself in, and 
 to have been in the receipt of an income equal to 
 eight or ten small Livings for upwards of a quar- 
 ter of a century, without performing anyone duty 
 of oflfice whatsoever.
 
 ( 25 ) 
 
 Many of these individuals are, indisputably, 
 valuable and diligent labourers, who in other 
 places, and in other modes, have rendered or 
 are rendering good service to the Church. But 
 here they have no sphere or means of usefulness. 
 They are connected with no poor, who look up 
 to them as their protectors and guides; they have 
 no sick and dying to pray with ; no children to 
 catechize ; no flock towards whom the sympathies 
 and affections of a Pastor can be called forth. 
 The most important offering to God's glory and 
 service, is a formal attendance on a cold and 
 pompous ceremonial. 
 
 There are usually two arguments adduced in 
 support of this vicious system. 1st, It is said 
 that it is necessary to have Sinecures as a temp- 
 tation to Men of Familij to enter the Church, by 
 which means religion is brought home to the 
 higher classes, and the Church obtains a support 
 and an acknowledgment which is of great bene- 
 fit to the cause of Religion. Now this object, 
 the importance of which, however, has been 
 somewhat overrated, may be most amply and 
 effectually secured to any profession, by esta- 
 blishing in it a few splendid prizes of honour and 
 emolument, which may tempt into it men of 
 various qualifications, whether such qualifica- 
 tions be those of birth and family connection, 
 or others, of an intrinsically higher and nobler 
 order. But it will neither be effcctuallv nor ere-
 
 ( 26 ) 
 
 ditably attained, by the institution of sinecures. 
 If the object of a candidate for Holy Orders 
 be to vegetate upon a sinecure, whatever be his 
 rank, and connection, he will at best be nothing 
 more than a dead weight upon the Church. And 
 in most cases the Church would be better with- 
 out him ; for the more elevated his birth, the 
 more conspicuous will be the scandal of his inef- 
 ficiency. 
 
 The other argument in favour of Sinecures in 
 the Church is, that it is necessary to have them 
 as a Reward and Support to learned men. As far 
 as this applies to the sustentation of secular 
 learning, it must be distinctly controverted. As 
 long- as one Benefice remains without a resident 
 Pastor, or one mass of population without the 
 appointed means of grace, any such application 
 of the funds of the Church is a direct misappro- 
 priation of them. But as far as it respects those 
 eminent individuals, who serve the cause of reli- 
 gion by their theological attainments and by the 
 exercise of their pens, the argument bears a very 
 different aspect. 
 
 The first impulse, indeed, of zeal and piety 
 might be tempted to assert, that, the Gospel being 
 essentially and emphatically, though not exclu- 
 sively, a message to the Poor, the very highest 
 degrees of talent or erudition are neither necessary 
 nor available for its promulgation; and therefore 
 that the State will have sufficiently performed the
 
 ( '27 ) 
 
 duty incumbent upon it of supporting Chris- 
 tianity, when it sluill have provided for the main- 
 tenance of an adequate number of teachers, suffi- 
 ciently gifted to make a sound and wholesome 
 impression on the imderstandings of the common 
 race of mankind ; and that the description of 
 persons to whom funds given for the service of 
 religion are applicable, must be confined to the 
 Parochial Clergy and those who superintend and 
 direct them. 
 
 But it would not be difficult to demonstrate 
 that however well meaning and pious this view 
 of the question may be, yet that it is infinitely 
 too narrow and contracted. We may safely affirm, 
 that all which is expended in securing a highly 
 " lettered and intellectual Church" is literally 
 expended in the Promotion of Christianity and 
 in the Propagation of the Gospel. 
 
 " It is to the learning of the Priesthood," observes Dr; 
 Chahners, " that Christianity has kept her ground on the 
 hi»»h phitforni of cuUivated and well-educated humanity, and 
 that she enters so largely as a bright and much esteemed in- 
 gredient into the body of our national literature. It is well 
 when this degree of respect and acknowledgment can be 
 obtained for her among the upper classes of life; and more 
 especially in every free and enlightened nation like our own, 
 where the reigning authority is so much under the guidance 
 of the higher reason of the country, it is of unspeakable 
 benefit that Christianity should have been so nobly upheld 
 by the talent and erudition of her advocates. The fostering 
 hand of the Legislature would soon have been withheld from
 
 ( 28 ) 
 
 all our Christian Institutions, had the Christian system not 
 been palpably recommended by those numerous pleadings 
 wherewith a schooled and accomplished Clergy have so 
 enriched the theological literature of our island."* 
 
 But the argument for Sinecures drawn from 
 the necessity of encouraging learning, will, on 
 closer examination, appear to have no greater 
 weight in it, than the like argument when applied 
 to the expediency of enticing men of birth into 
 the Church. It proves very satisfactorily the 
 benefit of an opulent endowment, but not at all 
 the necessity of sinecures. To tempt com- 
 manding talents and strenuous industry into the 
 service of the Church, it is enough to hold out 
 those splendid prizes which we have already al- 
 luded to. And the lustre of such prizes will in 
 no degree be impaired, because the enjoyment of 
 
 * The same wise and admirable person observes in another 
 place — " There are many who look with an evil eye to the en- 
 dowments of the English Church, and to the indolence of her 
 dignitaries. But to that Church the theological literature of our 
 nation stands indebted for her best acquisitions; and we hold it 
 a refreshing spectacle at any time that meagre Socinianism pours 
 forth a new supply of flippancies and errors, when we behold, as 
 we have often done, an armed champion come forth, in full equip- 
 ment, from some high and lettered retreat of that noble hierarchy ; 
 nor can we grudge her the wealth of all her endowments, when 
 we think how well, under her venerable auspices, the battles of 
 orthodoxy have been fought — that in this holy warfare they are 
 her sons and her scholars who are ever foremost in the field — 
 ready at all times to face the threatening mischief, and by the 
 weight of their ponderous erudition to overturn it."
 
 ( 29 ) 
 
 them is attended with much immediate devotion 
 of labour and of time. And these prizes, as they 
 have been the temptation to such men, so will 
 they in most instances be their appropriate re- 
 muneration or support. A profound and suc- 
 cessful pursuit of ecclesiastical and universal 
 literature till the age of forty or forty-five, will 
 best qualify men of eminent talents to sustain 
 M'ith dignity and efficiency the various duties of 
 the Episcopal Ofiice, and then will that ofiice 
 be their best remuneration. On the other hand, 
 we have many bright examples which show% that 
 the most conscientious and laborious devotion to 
 the details of duty, does not prevent the ac- 
 quisition of new triumphs in the paths of Chris- 
 tian authorship, and then the Ofiice becomes 
 the fit and proper maintenance of such valuable 
 Labourers. Nor is it probable that the same 
 application to theology in the earlier period of 
 life, will unfit the generality of able men from 
 mixing in the active and evangelizing labors of 
 Parochial Ministration. The result therefore is, 
 that the existence of Sinecures, can only be de- 
 fended, as a maintenance for that very small por- 
 tion of the theological world, which consists of 
 retired Students, fitted neither for Episcopal nor 
 for Parochial Duties. A list so minute, that it 
 would hardly have been necessary in a new 
 system to have provided for them at all, but 
 who in that fresh arrangement and distribution
 
 ( 30 ) 
 
 of Cluirch Property which is here proposed, can 
 be most amply remunerated, without any ma- 
 terial violation of the grand principle of that 
 arrangement. 
 
 But whatever may be the value in theory of 
 this latter argument for Sinecures, it will be found 
 to have had little real operation in practice. If 
 any one turns to the list of the Dignitaries of our 
 Cathedrals, he will find, that not more than one 
 twentieth of them, have had any claims to prefer- 
 ment on the ground of theological or even of lite- 
 rary attainments. Parliamentary Interest, Family 
 Connections, or Party Gratitude, have in general 
 filled up all vacancies as they have arisen, with 
 the Sons, the Brothers and the Tutors of Minis- 
 ters and of their adherents. This species of 
 Patronage has generally been considered, to use 
 the language of an able writer in a valuable pe- 
 riodical publication, " only as so much oil for 
 greasing the wheels of Government, that the ma- 
 chine of state may roll on more smoothly." Widely, 
 he observes, as the several parties who have go- 
 verned the country for the last century have dif- 
 fered in other things, they have all agreed to re- 
 gard the Church as a source of Patronage, which 
 might fairly be employed either for the gratifica- 
 tion of private partiality or the purchase of so 
 much Parliamentary support.* 
 
 It is the object of the following Plan to suggest 
 
 * lllackwood's Magazine, Feb. 1832.
 
 ( 31 ) 
 
 those alterations which the present state of the 
 Church and the strong- feeling of all serious and 
 right-thinking men demonstrate to be necessary. 
 And more particularly to secure that greatest of 
 all desiderata, the Residence of the Clergy, by 
 a more equitable division and arrangement of 
 Church property, and by the gradual abolition of 
 Pluralities. 
 
 It is clear, from what has been already pre- 
 mised, that the augmentation of small Livings 
 and the Endowment of Churches in poor and 
 populous places, can only be effected by the 
 application of some portion of Cathedral pro- 
 perty: the other Endowments of the Church 
 being in one case insufficient, and in the other 
 barely adequate, to the present demands upon 
 them.* 
 
 The plan which is here submitted proposes to 
 vest all Episcopal and Chapter Estates in the 
 hands of a Corporation for the exclusive manage- 
 ment and controul of this species of Ecclesiastical 
 property. It might not, at first, appear necessary 
 to include in this arrangement the Estates of the 
 Bishops, as no revenue is proposed to be sub- 
 tracted from the Sees. But it is admitted on all 
 hands, that one of the objects most urgently 
 demanded in a measure of Church Reform, is the 
 
 * Those, however, who think tliat a considerable revenue may 
 nevertheless be raised from the Tenths and First Fruits, should 
 be reminded that a plan for that purpose is fully compatible with 
 
 mine.
 
 ( 32 ) 
 
 equalization of the Bishoprics, in order to put an 
 end to the great but now necessary evil of Com- 
 mendams, and the temptation to Translations. 
 And although this might be adequately effected 
 by leaving the administration of the property 
 in the hands in which it is now placed, and 
 by merely remodelling the application of the 
 aggregate of the Revenues according . to certain 
 proportions to be fixed by a new Act of Par- 
 liament, yet as an efficient machinery will have 
 been already constituted for the Chapter Es- 
 tates, and the other arguments, which will here- 
 after be noticed, demonstrate its applicability 
 to Episcopal property, it is here adduced as a 
 measure of fitness and expediency, though not 
 as a matter of so much urgency and necessity, as 
 it appears to be with respect to the Chapter pro- 
 perty. 
 
 This Board should be a mixed body, consisting 
 of a certain number of salaried, and a certain 
 number of honorary members. The minute de- 
 tails of duty are rarely very efficiently per- 
 formed by persons who act gratuitously: a suffi- 
 cient degree of responsibility is not created to se- 
 cure at all times that laboriousness and attention 
 to detail, which is required and enforced from a 
 paid agent. On the other hand, it is desirable to 
 obtain the occasional attendance and general in- 
 spection of persons in eminent stations, both in 
 Church and State, who will give a stability and
 
 ( 3:i ) 
 
 weif^ht to tlie Corporation, and be a guarantee for 
 the uprij^litness and purity of its transactions. 
 
 The hrst ohic-ct in I'verv alteration of tliis 
 nature should be the preservation of tlie perfect 
 inviolability of all bfe interests. No Sinecure, 
 or Pluralities, no Dispensation from residence, 
 no excessive and disproportionate amount of Re- 
 venue, however objectionable in principle, must 
 be interfered with, as against the present pos- 
 sessors. The plan, therefore, commences by pro- 
 viding that the interests, which are to vest in the 
 corporation, shall only do so on the death or re- 
 signation of these persons. This arrangement, 
 besides the justice of it, will also be highly expe- 
 dient, as it will prevent the Commissioners from 
 being clogged with too much business in the out- 
 set, and give them time to become acquainted with 
 the nature of the property which they will have 
 to manage, and to ascertain in what places and 
 districts the surj)lus revenues can be most bene- 
 ficially applied. 
 
 In the administration of the Cathedral property, 
 and the reformation of the Chapters, the first 
 consideration which naturally arises, is, that due 
 provision be made for the celebration of Ca- 
 thedral Service. For this purpose, (as one great 
 object \Nill be the abolition of every thing ap- 
 proaching to a sinecure that can be dispensed 
 with,) it will be found most convenient to entrust 
 the performance of divine service exclusively 
 
 D
 
 ( 34 ; 
 
 to the Dean,* assisted by such a number of 
 Chaplains as shall be deemed necessary. As his 
 residence will be for nine months in the year, he 
 should perform the same quantity of public duty 
 as the incumbents of our great London Livings. 
 But as there will be no occasional duty, no Re- 
 gisters to be kept, no vestries to attend, no vi- 
 siting of tlic poor and sick, his labours will be 
 extremely slight. The plan provides very liberal 
 stipends for these dignitaries, and therefore 
 the Deaneries may be considered as the Re- 
 ward or the Support of those classes of learned 
 men already alluded to, whom it may be found 
 more proper to advance in this mode, than by 
 either Episcopal or Parochial Preferment. Nor 
 can the provision be deemed too meagre and nig- 
 gardly, which contains thirty-two pieces of prefer- 
 ment, of amount varying according to population 
 and cheapness of living, from £1000 to £1800 per 
 annum. To this must be added, six out of the 
 eight stalls of the Cathedral of Christ Church, 
 Oxford, as the present plan does not propose to 
 affect that Chapter, except as to Residence, and 
 the annexation of two of the Stalls to the Livings 
 whicli the Chapter possesses in that city. 
 
 * It has been suggested to me that it is extremely desirable to 
 avoid the retention of any titles which are not scriptural, and in 
 order to give suitable distinction to the highest rank in the visible 
 Church, the Cathedrals slioidd be placed under the personal 
 charge of the Bisliop, assisted by a certain number of " Ministers."
 
 ( 35 ) 
 
 The Service, too, of the Cathedral being thus 
 placed more exclusively under the controul and 
 subject to the responsibility of one constantly 
 resident person, may become more parochial, and 
 therefore more devotional and spiritual in its 
 nature. Nothing can be less satisfactory to 
 those who desire to worship God in spirit and 
 in truth, than the coldness and formality of 
 Cathedral service. The poor are effectually ex- 
 cluded by the arrangements of the very small 
 portion of the vast edifice which is applied to 
 the real business of worship. And though it is 
 unnecessary to enlarge upon other objections, 
 some of which arise from circumstances that are 
 hardly remediable, yet there are many things 
 which a devout and earnest person, permanently 
 residing, and armed with due power, might alter 
 materially, to the promotion of true religion.* 
 
 The Service of the Cathedral beinii'*thus ade- 
 quately provided for, it will be asked, whether it 
 is proposed entirely to abolish Prebendaries ? — 
 This, it is known, was ardently desired by Cran- 
 
 * One of tlie most desirable of these reforms would be in the 
 present system of Church Music : in taking away such reliques 
 of Popery as chanting, and all anthems, solos, duets, voluntaries, 
 &c. and endeavouring to make our psalmody simple, easy, and, 
 above all, imirersal and congregational, a practice to be adopted 
 and encouraged wherever, in the beautiful language of Mr. 
 Montgomery, " there is a Church on earth training up Candi- 
 dates for the Church in Heaven." 
 
 D 2
 
 ( :!C ) 
 
 mer, who called them " an Estate which St. 
 Paul, reckonino- up the degrees and estates al- 
 lowed in Ills time, could not find in the Church 
 of Christ."" But our plan docs not propose to 
 extend as far as the wish of the illustrious Re- 
 former. As supernumeraries indeed in a Church 
 already provided with ministers, or as sinecurists 
 in a city where they have no efficient duties to 
 perform, they should be abolished. But it will 
 be found, on examining- our Cathedral towns, that 
 in most of them there are Benefices in the gift of 
 the Chapter, where the population is extensive, 
 and the emoluments extremely small, the duties 
 of which are now assigned to Minor Canons 
 or other subordinate persons. These Livings, if 
 the population exceeds 1500 souls, should be 
 inseparably annexed to a Stall of the Chapter; if 
 below that amount they might be conferred upon 
 the Clia plains, whose stipends should be pro- 
 portionably increased. In those cities where 
 the Chapter liappens to have no j^atronage of 
 this sort, in case there are Benefices which 
 come within this description, arrangements might 
 easily be made with the Patrons for annexing 
 them to Prebends. But this system of Endow- 
 ment should be strictly confined to the Livings 
 wit III )i the citi/. For, however small the distance, 
 the great object for which residence should be 
 so strictly enforced, would be missed, if a Living, 
 though only a few miles distant, were annexed to
 
 ( 37 ) 
 
 a Prebend : the incumbent would be passing his 
 days in liis prebendal residence in the city, and 
 only visiting- his flock lor Sunday duties. 
 
 In Chapters, where this mode of annexation of 
 Livings could not be adopted, there should be no 
 stalls continued. And in such cases, as well as 
 in all those in which the Chapter has been ma- 
 terially diminished in number, the patronage of 
 its Livings might, without any great violation of 
 principle, and with much general benetit, be 
 transferred to the Bishop in whose Diocese such 
 Livings are situated. 
 
 The plan proposes, Lst, To apply somewhat 
 above £50,000 per annum to the stipends of the 
 Deans and their Chaplains. 2dly, The sum of 
 £100,000 per annum towards the endowment of 
 such Chapter Benefices or other similarly situated 
 city parishes ; and 3dly, The residue, which, ac- 
 cording to the estimate already alluded to, will 
 amount to about the annual sum of £150,000 to- 
 wards the augmentation of Country Livings, the 
 building of Residences, and the building and en- 
 dowment of new Churches and Chapels in poor 
 and po[)ulous districts. 
 
 It must necessarily happen that considerable 
 objections will be made to a })lan so large and 
 comprehensive as that which is here submitted 
 for consideration. It is needless to notice further 
 than has already been done, that class of objec- 
 tions which are constantly applied to every al-
 
 ( 38 ) 
 
 teration merely because it i.s an alteration; and 
 which, therefore, can only be answered by an 
 appeal to the extent and nature of the evils to be 
 remedied, and of the benefits to be effected. But 
 there are two objections which deserve a more 
 peculiar attention. 
 
 1st, It is said that it is dangerous to change 
 the hands in which property is vested, and that 
 the meddling with one species of it, gives 
 the example of interfering with all property. 
 To this, it may in the first place be answered, 
 that there is no sort of analogy between cor- 
 poration or public property and private inhe- 
 ritances ; and though it should be conceded, that 
 the transfer were to a certain extent objection- 
 able, yet, as it would be almost impossible to 
 effect the object by leaving the property in its 
 present hands, partly from the extent and na- 
 ture of the fund itself, and partly from the con- 
 stitution of the corporations in whom it would be 
 vested, it may fairly be asserted that so distant 
 and speculative a danger, is not of sufficient 
 weight to counterbalance all the evils and cor- 
 ruptions which have been pointed out as at pre- 
 sent existing. 
 
 The 2d objection is, That placing so large a 
 Fund in the hands of one Corporation may 
 hereafter tempt the cupidity of a needy and un- 
 principled administration to seize the whole for 
 the exigencies of the state. This argument, at
 
 ( 39 ) 
 
 first, carries witli it a ibriiiidablc sound, but 
 the more closely it is examined the less terror 
 will it insj)ire: — It supposes one of two con- 
 junctures. 1. Either that so total a spirit of 
 atheism and irreligion will exist in the nation as 
 that, like revolutionary France, it will abolish the 
 service of God, and declare that no clergy shall 
 be supported at all. To this it may be answered, 
 that if ever so atrocious a spirit shall have become 
 widely prevalent in the country, it would confis- 
 cate the emoluments now scattered in all the vari- 
 ous corporations of the Church, with the same ease 
 that it would despoil one corporation. Or, 2dly, 
 That such an administration, though professing and 
 intending to support the Clergy of the Establish- 
 ment, would, nevertheless, seize and sell the 
 lands, and make them stipendiaries dependent on 
 the sui)plies annually voted by the House of 
 Commons. But, in the first place, if the premises 
 already stated be correct, the Administration would 
 hardly be a gainer by the crime, unless it in- 
 tended to provide such inconsiderable revenues as 
 almost to extinguish religion. In the next place, 
 the facilities for executing such a project would be 
 very small. The fund being in land, the aliena- 
 tion of it would be something very ditt'erent from 
 the simple process of wiping away a given portion 
 of a national debt. The forms and the delay of a 
 sale must be gone through, nor would purchasers 
 be readily found to become accomplices in this
 
 ( 40 ) 
 
 sacrilegious spoliation, who must be conscious, how 
 easily a succeeding Parliament would undo, what 
 its predecessor had decreed. Nor is it extremely 
 probable, that whatever might be the dishonesty 
 of such an administration, it would be so blind to 
 its own interests as thus to violate all the best 
 feelings of our nature, and alienate from it every 
 wise, and good, and religious man in the country, 
 it must be further observed in recommenda- 
 tion of the Plan, that the revenues of the Church 
 w^ould be materially augmented by it.* The es- 
 tates, as is well known, are princi[)ally let upon 
 leases for lives or for years, renewable on the 
 payment of fines. The lessors are at best only 
 tenants for life, and often considerably advanced 
 in years, and in many of the less lucrative stations, 
 their tenure is of a still more transitory nature, as 
 itcombinesboth the chances of life and the chances 
 of promotion. The consequence has been, that the 
 Church, in many cases, receives much less for re- 
 newals, than what, u))on a fair calculation, she is 
 entitled to. This will be remedied by the ap- 
 pointment of a Board of a fixed and permanent 
 
 * Tliis consiilt ration iii;)y rrinovr any objections that inny l)e 
 raised on tlie ftronnd of the (Xpcii.sc likely to be created by the 
 machinery of the Commission. And when it is recoUecled that 
 the cost of the tluce Boards for which it is substituted will be 
 saved to the public, tli" objection of expense sinks into one im- 
 measurably small, especially wlien considered with reference to 
 the collection and application of a revenue estimated at ^'.500,000 
 per annum.
 
 ( 41 ) 
 
 nature. Not that the leases of Church property 
 can with justice be sulTered to run out, tliough 
 its income would thereby be innnensely in- 
 creased. For US the ])ractice of renewal, within 
 certain limits, has obtained for so great a length 
 of time ; as so much property has been bought 
 and sold, and so many I'amily arrangements 
 by wills or settlement made upon the faith 
 of it; the most ardent friend of the Church could 
 scarcely require an end to be put to this species 
 of property. But it would be easy to arrange 
 such an equitable scale, upon sound principles, 
 as would greatly improve the patrimony of the 
 Church, without effecting any injustice to those 
 who have for centuries been its tenants. This 
 would effectually check those unjustihable at- 
 tempts that are frequently made by lessees, to 
 wring from the necessities or the cupidity of aged 
 lessors, the acceptance of a less sum for a re- 
 newal, than the Church is fairly entitled to. It 
 would put a stop to many unpleasant and some- 
 times discreditable negociations and squabbles, 
 and by taking the care of these concerns out of the 
 hands of persons who would then be otherwise 
 provided for, it would remove from the Church one 
 ground for suspicion of avarice and secularity. 
 
 The arguments lor another part of the Plan 
 ttiay be comprised in fewer words, as it relates to 
 evils about which there is no difference of opinion.
 
 s 
 
 ( 42 ) 
 
 All are agreed upon the expediency of remov- 
 ing them, and there appears to be but little real 
 difficulty in the task. The most urgent of these 
 measures is to put an immediate end, if not to the 
 system of Traunlution.s,* at least to the frequency 
 of Translations for mere worldly purposes: " the 
 only real scandal," as is observed by a judiciou 
 writer already quoted, " that at present attaches 
 to the Hierarchy." The iirst step to this is an 
 Equalization of the Bishoprics, which will be 
 found to be provided for in the 27th Sect, of the 
 following Plan. The same provision will put an 
 end to the practice of Commendams ; and when 
 these two measures shall have been effected, the 
 principal grounds of complaint against the Order 
 will have been removed. 
 
 The Plan further proposes the erection of two 
 new Sees, the Bishops of which should not be in 
 Parliament. Several of the Dioceses are, as is 
 
 * It is singular how early this corruption crept into the 
 Church. Milncr relates that at the Council of Sardica, A.D. 
 347, several Canons were made severely condemning this " per- 
 nicious system." The language both of the Canon and of the 
 pious Historian is too strong for these days. Vol. ii. 82. There 
 is, however, still earlier authority, as both by the first Council of 
 Nice in 325 and the Council of Antioch in 31-1 translations were 
 expressly forbidden. A Bill to prevent Translations was brought 
 into the House of Connnons in 1701, and was read twice, but was 
 lost in the Committee by the artifices of an adversary who con- 
 trived to insert a clause respecting the election of mayors in 
 towns and other civil ofiBcers.
 
 ( 43 ) 
 
 well known, most inconveniently large.* IMiliier 
 in writing- ot'tlie 3d century, observes thut Dioceses 
 were then much smaller than in after times, that 
 the vast extension of them proved very inconve- 
 nient to the cause of godliness, and that Cranmer 
 wished to correct this evil in our national Church. 
 "But tliat,^' he adds, " and many other good things 
 slept with the English Reformers." 
 
 The great Diocese of Lincoln comprises the en- 
 tire counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Huntingdon, 
 Bedford and Buckingham, and i)art of Hertford- 
 shire. 
 
 The Diocese of Chester includes the entire coun- 
 ties of Chester and Lancaster, and part of West- 
 moreland, Cumberland, and Yorkshire. 
 
 * If Cranmer objected to our English Dioceses, what would he 
 have said of our East Indian Church, and of that fatal and ill- 
 judged cto«owj/ which had thrown the enormous labours of a Diocese 
 containing so many thousands of miles, in an exhausting and 
 enfeebling climate, upon the unassisted strength of one Bishop? 
 Nothinf is more sad than to read the earnest and, one should 
 have thought, irresistible appeals of such men as Buchanan, Mid- 
 dleton, and Heber ; to sec with what difficulty even the present 
 scanty stipends of that Church were wrung from the reluctant 
 hands that pay them ; and lastly, to think that some of the very 
 best men that ever left the shores of England have literally been 
 sacrificed as martyrs to this parsimony. Report states that the 
 good and faithful servant who has recently taken up this cross, is 
 to have for his Diocese what Cranmer terms " the comfort of 
 sufirao-ans." But even this is inaderpuite to the vast demands of 
 this ■whitaii/ig harvest. We owe India a mighty debt, for many 
 reasons which must occur to all of us, and it is obvious that the 
 finger of God points out this nation as the appointed means for the 
 great work of evangelizing the East.
 
 ( 44 ) 
 
 The Diocese of York comprehends three fourths 
 of Yorkshire, all Nottinghamshire, and Hexham 
 in the county of Northumberland. 
 
 That of Lichtield and Coventry contains all 
 Statibrdshire and Derbyshire, except two parishes, 
 the largest part of Warwickshire, and nearly one 
 half of Shropshire. 
 
 The northern parts of the Diocese of Chester 
 the Plan proposes to annex to Carlisle, which is 
 at })resent of inconsiderable extent : to take the 
 southern part of the Diocese of Lincoln, and to 
 fix the seat of the See at Windsor; and, lastly, to 
 take the Counties of Nottingham and Derby from 
 the Sees of York and Lichfield and Coventry, and 
 to fix the seat of the See at Southwell.* 
 
 In fixing the amount of the Stipends of the Pre- 
 lates, the country should, in the words of Jeremy 
 Taylor, secure to the Church " a government 
 apostolical, with dignities neither splendid nor 
 sordid, too great for contempt and too little for 
 envy, unless she meet with little people and 
 
 * To these suggestions for diminishing the dioceses might be 
 added the restoring or erecting: the Bislioprick of Ipswich to 
 contain all Suffolk, Barnstaple to contain Cornwall, Newcastle 
 to comprise Northumberland. The reader may also consult 
 with great advantage a small work entitled A Model of Noit- 
 Secular Episcopacy, by the Rev. Thomas Sims, A. M., containing 
 a plan, most ably and elaborately drawn, to make the number 
 of the bishops bear some proportion to the vast increase of 
 population.
 
 ( 45 ) 
 
 greatly malicious.'" The minimum of income for 
 a Bishop, being a Peer of Parliament, should be 
 £5,000 a year. Those who consider this sum too 
 large, should be reminded of the heavy de- 
 mands f(^r just and necessary representation, for 
 residence in the metropolis at the most expen- 
 sive period of the year, for hos})itality, and most 
 of all, for charities, which, whether local or ge- 
 neral, whether for ecclesiastical or for civil pur- 
 poses, have ever received the most cordial, ge- 
 nerous, and unceasing support, from our " noble 
 Hierarchy." Those, wdio may think the sum too 
 small, should remember, that, the Plan relieves the 
 Prelates from that most oppressive and inconve- 
 nient of all taxes, the First Fruits; from Tenths, 
 from the expenses of their Visitations, and from 
 keeping their Residences in repair. 
 
 The next part of the Plan which concerns the 
 Prelates is one which may perhaps not meet with 
 such entire approbation. It is to apply the Law^ 
 as to Residence with the same strictness and im- 
 partiality to them, as to the Low^er Orders of the 
 Clergy. To this it will be objected, that the 
 necessary demands for their attendance in Par- 
 liament ought to make an exception in their 
 favour. But in answer to this it must be urged, 
 that as long as the present system of Proxies con- 
 tinues, such arrangements may be made during 
 the three permitted months of non-residence, as
 
 ( 4G ) 
 
 may secure the means of voting upon every de- 
 bate to every individual Prelate. And if this 
 should be found too little, some special provision 
 might be made in favour of the Spiritual Peers, 
 by which the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
 Bisho]) of London should be entitled to hold a 
 greater number of proxies, than any other Peer of 
 Parliament is now enabled to hold.* Lastly, it 
 has been suggested that, in order at once to avoid 
 the evil of detaining the Prelates too long from 
 their dioceses, and at the same time to satisfy the 
 religious scruples of those who disapprove of their 
 interference in politics, a compact should be en- 
 tered into that no measure affecting the Church 
 should be brou"ht forward in the House of Lords 
 except during three specified months in the year, 
 and that the Prelates should abstain from attend- 
 ing any debate, or from voting upon any question, 
 even during that period, which did not relate to 
 ecclesiastical matters. 
 
 The Residence in his diocese is the first duty of 
 every Bishop: and, however shining and specious 
 any oflices may be, or however interesting any 
 
 * Another evil practice might also by some better arrange- 
 ment be amended. In consequence of the House of Peers con- 
 sidering it for its dignity that prayers should daily bo read by a 
 Bishop, one of the junior Prelates is kept from a distant and 
 perhaps a hitherto neglected diocese for many weeks, and often 
 months, when the most urgent and important d\ities are left 
 undone, for no other purpose whatever tlian that of reading 
 prayers to two or tinee Peers once a clay.
 
 ( 47 ) 
 
 labours may be, which take hhn away from tliis 
 silent and unostentatious patli of duty, tlicy can- 
 not compensate for the inconvenience and bad 
 example of any considerable relinquishment of 
 it.* 
 
 Tlic Plan also proposes a competent provision 
 for the retirement of persons holding- the more 
 laborious offices in the Church, when age or in- 
 firmities shall have prevented their filling them 
 with efiiciency. Whether this object be provided 
 for in the simple and more obvious manner there 
 proposed,! or by what is sanctioned by the 
 example both of antiquity and of foreign churches, 
 the appointment of Coadjutors, is not very material. 
 The principle of justice and of duty is the same : 
 — those who have devoted the best years of their 
 life to the service of the state, should have their 
 latter days made easy at the expense of the 
 state : and even if this obligation did not exist, it 
 
 * Thi.s appears also to have been an evil which early attracted 
 the attention of the Church. At the council of Sardica, already 
 referred to, several canons were made, enjoining the residence of 
 Bishops and forbidding their journies to Court. (Miln. 2. 82.) 
 And it appears from another passage of this writer that the period 
 of absence to be allowed, was not to be longer than three weeks, 
 (vol. 3. 195.) Justinian also made some strict laws on the snl)- 
 ject. Milner's observations on them are too strong, but written 
 in a pious and earnest spirit, (vol. '3. 18.) 
 
 f The granting of a Retiring Pension has also the sanction of 
 the example of the Primitive Church. An annual pension was 
 allowed where a Bishop retired with the approbation of a council. 
 — Bing/i. Jilt. 1. vi. c. 4, s. 3.
 
 ( 48 ) 
 
 is the most narrow and short-sighted policy, to 
 hold forth to men the temptation to continue in 
 dirticult and laborious stations, beyond the period 
 when they have ceased to be equal to the due 
 performance of their duties. 
 
 Another important part of the Plan, is the 
 proposition for effecting- the removal of the Pre- 
 lates from Parliament, without alarming those 
 who tremble at any considerable departure from 
 ancient usages; and for providing at the same 
 time for the Church such a degree of influence in 
 the National Councils, as will be requisite for 
 its safety. If this can be satisfactorily effected, 
 it will probably do more towards spiritualizing 
 the Church, and advancing the interests of true 
 religion, than any measure which has been 
 ado))ted since the days of the Reformation. 
 ■ It would seem a great presumption, after the 
 Parliamentary Peerage of the Prelates has been 
 exercised for so many centuries, and after it has 
 been considered or affirmed as lawful by such 
 men as Hooker, and Gibson, and Warburton, 
 to express any doubt as to its legality, under 
 the letter (iiiil spirit of the Christian dispensa- 
 tion. It may, however, be most respectfully and 
 most humbly submitted, by one who brings no 
 other learning to the subject than a diligent 
 perusal of the New Testament, whether the illus- 
 trious persons who have treated upon this subject
 
 ( 49 ) 
 
 have examined it so fully upon mere Christian 
 and Evangelical principles, as the religious feel- 
 ings of the common run of mankind have a right 
 to expect. It has been ably argued on legal and 
 constitutional grounds. It has been defended 
 or eulogized as matter of " ornament," or of 
 '' high antiquity," or as " consonant to right 
 reason," or " as essential to an alliance between 
 Church and State," or " upon the example of 
 such Jewish precedents as Eli and Esdras." But 
 it would have been more satisfactory, if the in- 
 tention of the Divine Founder of the Church had 
 been examined with reference to this specific ques- 
 tion; and particularly as contained in His decla- 
 rations, that His kingdom was not of this world ; 
 and in His refusal to give sentence in a criminal 
 cause of adultery, and in a civil one of dividing 
 an inheritance. There is so much proneness in 
 mankind to put softening comments on the strict 
 letter of the Bible, and to persuade themselves 
 that its more self-denying injunctions were ad- 
 dressed exclusively to the first promulgators of 
 Christianity, and not intended as matter of per- 
 petual obligation ; that it is to be regretted, that 
 it had not been shown that these doctrines were 
 not of the essence of universal Christianity, and 
 that they were not as much binding on the present 
 Ministers of the Gospel as on the Apostles. For 
 if they be of such extensive import as to be obliga- 
 tory on the " descending ages" of the Church, what 
 
 E
 
 ( -"^0 ) 
 
 can be more clearly and emphatically a *' Kingdom 
 of this World," than the sitting in the supreme 
 legislature and judicature of the realm; the pos- 
 sessing the power of making and repealing laws ; 
 of approving of peace or war ; of imposing taxes ; 
 of deciding, without appeal, in litigations concern- 
 ing temporal inheritances ; and the assertion 
 (though unaccompanied with the exercise), of 
 the right of voting in cases of blood. Even War- 
 burton shows by the following observation how 
 incompatible the spiritual character of a Minister 
 of Christ is with the office of a Temporal Judge: 
 — " The great Founder of our Religion said, 
 ' Who made me a judge or divider between you?' 
 And what He would not assume to Himself, He 
 would hardly bestow upon His Ministers."* 
 
 Again, the authority of St. Paul is considered 
 by many as utterly prohibiting a shepherd and 
 overseer of Christ's flock from mixing in secular 
 conflicts and political struggles. " No man that 
 warreth,'' says the single-hearted Apostle, " en- 
 tangleth himself witli the afl'airs of this life." 
 And in exhorting his disciple to withdraw him- 
 self as much as possible from the afl'airs of the 
 world, that his thoughts and energies might be 
 more entirely devoted to his Evangelical work, 
 he urges him, in another place, to " meditate 
 upon these things, to give himself ^c holly to 
 them." 
 
 * Alliance, &:c. Book 2.
 
 ( 51 ) 
 
 Who can maintain tliat Parliamentary duties 
 are not a very great impediment to the faithful 
 and spiritual performanee of the Pastoral func- 
 tion? The necessary correspondence and inter- 
 course of a Bishop with his Clergy, the labours 
 of Visitations, of Confirmations, of Preaching, and 
 the due preparation for those offices, are fully 
 sufficient to engross all the time and all the 
 powers, and all the affections of the most zealous 
 and self-devoted minister. How wall he suffi- 
 ciently " meditate upon these things;" how does 
 he " give himself wholly to them," if it is part of 
 his duty to pass several months in every year in 
 the turmoil of the capital, and amidst the bustle 
 of political agitation? 
 
 But even if the Parliamentary Peerage of the 
 Prelates be not in terms a violation of the letter 
 of the NeM' Testament, it may be submitted that 
 it would have been a " more excellent way" to 
 have followed the example of the Apostles ; who, 
 content wnth such things as were provided for 
 them, sought neither personal aggrandizement 
 nor civil power, but submitting themselves in all 
 things to the Supreme Magistrate, relied on the 
 piety and affection of their followers for worldly 
 support. 
 
 But leaving the high ground of Religious Obli- 
 gation, let us consider how far the interests of 
 Christianity are, in fact, promoted by the Prelates 
 having seats in the House of Peers. 
 
 e2
 
 ( 52 ) 
 
 First : their force, even when united, which is 
 not often the case, is numerically small. It would 
 never be able to resist a very prevalent feeling in 
 the great majority of the assembly. Nor would 
 it produce a more considerable effect, even where 
 numbers were more nearly balanced, in those 
 cases where a strong opinion of the nation at 
 large, had been reiterated in the voice of nu- 
 merous majorities of the House of Commons. 
 
 In the next place, no one can have attended a 
 debate in that assembly, when the passions of 
 the combatants have been excited by that intense 
 degree of party virulence and animosity, which 
 prevails when measures of more than ordinary 
 interest are discussed, without feeling that it is 
 an arena where the Ministers of a religion of 
 love and oood-will to man, can scarcely with 
 propriety be spectators. But if, as is sometimes 
 the case, and most fatally for the interests of 
 Christianity, they descend from the tone of plain 
 and simple exposition of their sentiments, and 
 become themselves the gladiators in the strife of 
 bitterness and personality, a hateful spectacle of 
 some of the worst passions of our nature is pre- 
 sented, and a scandal is given in the most con- 
 spicuous assembly in the realm. 
 
 And as nothing has a more certain effect in secu- 
 larizing the Church, than the introduction of Poli- 
 tics into it, so nothing has a greater tendency to 
 lower it in the estimation of the people. One
 
 ( 53 ) 
 
 reason why our Judges are so justly popular, is 
 their very general separation from all j)arty vio- 
 lenee and politieal litigation. The admixture of 
 the Ministers of Religion in [)olities, is bad every 
 way. If, as is the natural inelination of religious 
 men, of men looking beyond this present scene, 
 and earing for nothing while they continue in it, 
 but the maintenance of good government and 
 order; they keep aloof from the transitory squab- 
 bles of party, and support the Administration 
 of the day, they incur the charge of servility, and 
 perhaps of tergiversation. If, on the other hand, 
 they embark in a systematic course of opposition, 
 they seem to be violating those commands which 
 inculcate submission to the powers that be, and 
 which declare resistance to such powers, to be re- 
 sistance to the ordinance of God. If they find it 
 their duty to withstand the loud and earnest de- 
 sires of the great mass of the people, they are pur- 
 sued by a " hunt of obloquy," which is of infinite 
 evil, in all respects, and which turns into perse- 
 cutors and revilers, those, who ought to " esteem 
 them very highly in love for their works' sake." 
 
 If, therefore, the Parliamentary Peerage of the 
 Prelates be prejudicial to the cause of Religion, 
 the next inquiry will be, whether a sufficient 
 substitute for it can be provided by an Eccle- 
 siastical Synod or Church Assembly. And, as ap- 
 proving our endeavours for this purpose, we have 
 the great authority of Hooker, who recommends
 
 ( 54 ) 
 
 that the abuses, which had taken phice in such 
 assemblies, " should rather cause men to study 
 how so gracious a thing may again be reduced to 
 that hrst perfection." " A thing," he observes, 
 *' whereof God's own blessed Spirit was the 
 Author, a thing practised by the Holy Apostles 
 themselves, a thing never otherwise than most 
 highly esteemed of, till pride, ambition, and 
 tyranny began by factions and vile endeavours to 
 abuse that divine invention, unto the furtherance 
 of wicked purposes."* 
 
 And, to the same effect, it is observed by War- 
 burton " to be a great error to imagine such assem- 
 blies, when legally convened, to be either useless 
 or mischievous. For all societies being admi- 
 nistered by human means, it must needs happen 
 that religious societies, as well as civil, will have 
 frequent occasion to be new regulated and put in 
 order. Now, though by the alliance between 
 Church and State, no new regulations can be 
 made for Church Government but by the state's 
 authority ; yet still there is reason that the 
 Church should be previously consulted, which we 
 must suppose well skilled (as in her proper busi- 
 ness) to form and digest such new regulations, 
 before they come before the consideration of the 
 Civil Legislature." 
 
 And in another place he observes, " As for the 
 mischief arising from Synodical Assemblies by 
 * Ecc. Pol. Book i. sec. 10.
 
 ( 65 ) 
 
 their heats, quarrels and divisions, it is owned 
 they are great, so as to have occasioned the 
 civil magistrate to suspend them for a long time 
 together. But then we must consider that these 
 quarrels have all arisen from not having had their 
 original and ending, under an Establishment, pre- 
 cisely determined, as appears from the constant 
 subject of their quarrels, which have always 
 been about the power and extent of their privi- 
 leges and jurisdiction. And, we may venture to 
 affirm, that synods convened and meeting on the 
 principles here laid down, cannot possibly be 
 pernicious to the State or fruitless to the 
 Church."* 
 
 But even supposing that the Advocates for the 
 Parliamentary Peerage of the Prelates could show 
 that the Convocation, however modelled, would 
 not compensate, in direct influence, to the Church, 
 for the loss of so many votes in the House of 
 Lords; yet it would still be easy to prove, that 
 so far from being weaker, she would be much the 
 stronger, by the severing of this unnatural Alli- 
 ance between the Kingdom of Christ and the 
 Kingdom of the World. 
 
 The real influence of the Church in the coun- 
 sels of the nation, and the security of her endow- 
 ments, do not de])end on the votes or the speeches 
 of a small number of Representatives or " Guar- 
 dians" in Parliament; but on the habits and affec- 
 * Alliance, &c. Book 2.
 
 ( 56 ) 
 
 tions of the people, strengthened and confirmed 
 by her own growing desire to work out her purity 
 and efficiency, and by her faithfulness in the dis- 
 charo^e of the u:reat trust which is committed to 
 her hands. These are the arms by which, under 
 the protection of God, she will repel the attacks 
 of all enemies, and secure the support not only 
 of every religious, but of every peaceful, sober, 
 moral, and temperate man in the kingdom. With 
 these she may rely with confidence on Parliament, 
 and permit her Hierarchy, unpolluted by Po- 
 litics, to apply its undivided energies to that 
 sacred object to which it should be exclusively 
 devoted. 
 
 There is one remaining point, which, though 
 not made the subject of any specihc proposal in 
 the following Plan, is yet so deeply connected 
 with the purity of the Church, that it would be 
 improper to omit all notice of it, though the time 
 is not yet arrived when wc can hope for any Le- 
 gislative Enactment respecting it. It relates to 
 the mode of disposing of the Crown Patronage. 
 The corruption of the present system has been 
 most forcibly pointed out by two very able 
 writers in some recent periodical works. The 
 one is in a letter to the Lord Chancellor, con- 
 tained in Blackwood's Magazine for February, 
 1832; the other in an Article on Church Reform, 
 in the British Critic or Quarterly Theological
 
 ( 57 ) 
 
 Review for January, 1832. Both tliese publica- 
 tions, as is well known, are conducted on the 
 soundest principles both of loyalty and of attach- 
 ment to the Church, and the latter of them is 
 understood to represent the opinions of a very 
 large and influential body of the Clergy. Neither 
 of them can be accused of being actuated by 
 any rash or vehement spirit of innovation. They 
 both, however, speak with indignant but well- 
 deserved reprobation of the mode in which the 
 Crown Patronage has been usually disposed 
 of, and justly consider it as a great scandal and 
 corruption, which it is highly expedient to remove. 
 
 The former, after dwelling at some length upon 
 these evils, very truly observes, " while the case 
 continues to be so, nothing effectual can be done 
 for the better government of the Church. As long 
 as its high places are filled by those, whose pro- 
 motion has been the result of Ministerial favour- 
 itism or Parliamentary intrigue, so long will its 
 affairs be administered with a view to temporal 
 rather than spiritual interests." 
 
 Tn the same spirit, the latter of these writers 
 asks " what j^robability is there in the nature of 
 things, or from the results of experience, that the 
 Crown will generally and wisely consult the real 
 interests of Religion ? Looking to the almost 
 universal practice of mankind, we see that jia- 
 tronage of every description is used more as an 
 instrument of power or ol' gratification, than
 
 ( 58 ) 
 
 under any overruling sense of duty. And re- 
 garding- the manner in which Church Patronage 
 has been exercised from the Revolution to the 
 present day, what hope can we entertain of 
 seeing it made effectual for the promotion of 
 Religion?" 
 
 In other professions, the selection of persons to 
 whom great and important trusts are delegated, is 
 usually made with due attention to their merits 
 and their capacity; and those who have to decide 
 upon their claims have commonly a deep interest 
 in providing the fittest persons, or have at least a 
 minute acquaintance with the details of the sub- 
 ject matter. But the appointment to the highest 
 offices in the Church is widely different. These, 
 as is well known, are in the nomination of the 
 Prime Minister, a person who is necessarily in- 
 tensely occupied with worldly pursuits, dis- 
 tracted by an immense multiplicity of urgent 
 and important concerns, and liable to be agi- 
 tated by the passions and the prejudices, which 
 party and politics engender. He is deeply in- 
 terested to promote the benefit of a few; he 
 has to reward the services, to stimulate the 
 exertions, and to keep alive the hopes of his 
 adherents ; and he is oppressed on every vacancy 
 with the importunate demands of the powerful 
 and influential, urging upon him the claims of 
 kinsmen and dependants. A person so situated, 
 and surrounded by such temptations (whatever
 
 ( -w ) 
 
 may be his individual excellence,) is not likely 
 to come to a rii^ht exercise, of this most mo- 
 mentous of all trusts. He has too great a temp- 
 tation to overlook the interests of religion, in the 
 pretensions of his party or his kindred. Nothing 
 sets this in a more striking light than the credit 
 which Lord Liverjiool ol)tained for a few disin- 
 terested appointments, in which, disregarding 
 the claims of the powerful, he elevated unpre- 
 tending merit and excellence to high places 
 in the Church. This conduct was, no doubt, 
 highly laudable in the individual Minister; but 
 the mere fact of its having attracted any atten- 
 tion, is sufficient evidence of the corruption of the 
 system. 
 
 In truth, according to the strong and appro- 
 priate language which has been already quoted, 
 all parties have joined in considering Church 
 Patronage as so much oil for greasing the wheels 
 of Government. A proposed coalition between 
 two powerful parties in the state, was once sup- 
 posed to have failed, merely because they could 
 not agree who should have the disposal of the 
 Church Patronage. Not that the negociators 
 either supposed or alleged that either party would 
 bring improper servants into the sanctuary. The 
 cause of Religion was indeed not at all under 
 consideration. But the conflicting interests hap- 
 pened to be so nicely balanced, that the pos- 
 session of that great state engine of parliamentary
 
 ( 60 ) 
 
 and political influence would, it was thought, 
 secure an undue preponderance to the one party 
 or to the other. 
 
 The remedy for this evil, proposed by the 
 former of these writers, and scarcely disapproved 
 of by the latter, is the ap})ointment of a Minister 
 for Ecclesiastical Aflairs, and the vesting the 
 Crown Patronage in Ten un))aid Commissioners, 
 jNlembers of the Church of England, and chosen 
 for their known devotion to it. The writer refers, 
 as a precedent, to the expedient adopted by 
 William 111. That monarch felt that, as a stranger, 
 he was not cpialified to make a proper use of his 
 power of appointing to offices in the Church, and 
 yet was unwilling to commit the care of it to his 
 Ministers. He, accordingly, having left the pa- 
 tronage entirely in the hands of the Queen during 
 her life, who w^as guided in her exercise of it by 
 the advice of Tillotson; upon her death, as we 
 are informed by the biographer of Burnet, granted 
 a Commission to the two Archbishops and four 
 other prelates, wdiereby they or any three of them 
 were empowered to recommend to all vacant 
 preferment in the Church, signifying the same to 
 his Majesty under their hands: and during the 
 King's absence beyond sea they were empowered 
 of their own authority to present to all Crown 
 livings under the value of 140/. per annum. This 
 Commission was renewed in the year 1700, and 
 several of the most eminent prelates that have
 
 ( CI ) 
 
 adorned the Cliiireh of England were the fruits of 
 it. 
 
 It is not, however, to be denied, that there are 
 some weighty objections to the plan. It is an evil 
 inseparable from all Boards of Commissioners, 
 that from the responsibility being- so much di- 
 vided, the check of public opinion has less in- 
 fluence upon them than upon insulated indivi- 
 duals; as the praise of disinterested measures, or 
 the discredit of corrupt ones, is to be shared 
 amongst so many : and it is the fashion to accuse 
 them of a proneness to jobbing. 
 
 As long, however, as human nature continues 
 what it is. Patronage must be confided to frail 
 and fallible, and sometimes to corrupt hands. It 
 is, therefore, at least one great recommendation 
 of the proposal, that it secures the total exclusion 
 of the greatest of all the causes of corruption — the 
 Influence of Politics, that fertile source of jobbing, 
 ambition, secularity, and scandal. It is hardly to 
 be supposed, that any very improper appointment 
 will emanate from a Board, constituted of five such 
 Ecclesiastics as the Archbishops, and the Bishops 
 of London, Durham, and Winchester, associated 
 with five Laymen, chosen for their high moral 
 worth, for the candour and impartiality of their 
 sentiments, and for their tried attachment to the 
 Church, if the very highest degrees of excel- 
 lence should sometimes be neglected, in those rare 
 cases where an exalted standard of faith and
 
 ( 62 ) 
 
 practice may attach to its possessor the unground- 
 ed suspicion of fanaticism ; yet, upon the whole, 
 the appointments will be good, and, at all events, 
 there will be none scandalous, under the control 
 of an observant Public, a vigilant Parliament, and 
 a free Press. And, as is acutely observed by 
 the same writer, supposing the Commissioners to 
 be actuated by the lowest motives, namely, the 
 desire of appointing some relative or friend, these 
 motives could only operate with o?ie-tentk of the 
 force which would belong to them, if the nomina- 
 tion rested, as at present, with a single individual. 
 
 We have thus gone through the more prominent 
 objects wdiich call for Reformation in the Tem- 
 poralities of the Church. The subject of Co}n- 
 mutation of Tithes cannot, with propriety, be 
 designated a measure of Church Reform, being 
 an equitable adjustment of a most lawful, but, 
 to the feelings of many, an irritating and vexa- 
 tious demand. But even, had the author con- 
 sidered it as coming within the scope of the 
 present publication, he would have found him- 
 self, in a great measure, anticipated by the ar- 
 guments already addressed to the public in 
 support of a commutation for a Corn Rent, and 
 more particularly in the plan suggested by the 
 Rev. J. Miller, in a letter to Earl Grey, which, 
 though somewhat objectionable in point of ma- 
 chinery, appears to be perfectly equitable in prin-
 
 ( 63 ) 
 
 ciple, and, if adopted, would probably do much 
 to put an end to all the unjust and uncharitable 
 feelings which this unfortunate subject excites. 
 
 The Alterations here proposed are, it is sub- 
 mitted, neither violent, nor uncalled for, nor con- 
 trary to the spirit of those Institutions which they 
 profess to affect. They will no otherwise change 
 our ancient and venerable Establishment " than," 
 to use the apt illustration of Hooker, " a path is 
 changed by altering only the uppermost face 
 thereof; which, be it laid with gravel, or set with 
 grass, or paved with stones, remaineth still the 
 same path." If we first take due caution " that 
 against Scripture nothing be admitted into the 
 Church," it is our next duty to provide " lest that 
 part which ought always to be kept even, do come 
 to be overgrown with brambles and thorns."* 
 
 In conchision, let us refer to the standard 
 which we originally set up for our guide, that 
 only " lantern to our feet, and light unto our paths." 
 If any one thinks, and can show, that the Non- 
 Residence of the Clergy; the holding- of Plurali- 
 ties and Commendams; the permitting such 
 numbers of parishes in the country, and such 
 masses of population in towns, to be without 
 Resident Ministers or the means of grace, while 
 such ample revenues are at the same time be- 
 stowed on Sinecures; that the Translation of the 
 
 * Ecc. Pol. book iii. s. 3.
 
 ( G4 ) 
 
 Prelates, and their admixture with Politics ; and, 
 finally, that the abuse of Government Patronage 
 to obtain Parliamentary Influence; are consistent 
 with the will of the Great Founder of the 
 Church; such a person may honestly and consci- 
 entiously, if not safely, neglect, or resist the 
 approaching demand for Church Reform. But, 
 if that Will contains a condemnation of these 
 evils, and pronounces them to be Corruptions, 
 there is an end for ever to the question, whe- 
 ther they should be retained, or whether they 
 should be abolished. The sentence is passed 
 against them, the accursed thing must be put 
 away ; one plain line of conduct is pointed out 
 — *' This is the way, walk ye in it." To be led 
 by/(Y/r to elude or to delay the performance of 
 so clear a duty, is to violate the grand principle 
 of Christian obligation, which forbids us to do 
 evil, that good may come. 
 
 Fear is indeed felt by many that the Church 
 of England is in danger; feiir that the spirit of 
 Innovation and of Change, the spirit of Insubor- 
 dination, the contempt of Ancient Institutions, 
 the machinations of powerful enemies, and the 
 hikewarmness of weak friends are brinuiu"- down 
 ruin upon her. But these dangers will be viewed 
 by the eye of Wisdom and of Piety as warnings 
 of approaching chastisements, which a timely 
 repentance and salutary reformation may avert. 
 It is true that many fair and flourishing Churches
 
 ( C5 ) 
 
 have been removed and their light has been 
 quenched; and the same desolating judgments 
 may, perhaps, be awaiting our own. But He 
 who walks in the midst of them, as He has used 
 these and similar instruments in wrath for their 
 downfal, so may He in mercy use them for our 
 trial and sanctification. Only let us turn and be 
 humbled in time: let us not place our trust in 
 any arm of flesh; but crying to the Strong for 
 strength, apply in His own appointed way for that 
 help, which never will be refused to those who 
 seek for it in simplicity and in truth. Let the in- 
 fluence of all who possess influence, and the zeal 
 and the holiness and the talents of all who are 
 endowed with those graces and gifts, be united 
 to render her in constitution, in temporalities, in 
 government, and in practice, what she has long 
 been in profession, in doctrine and in faith, an 
 Apostolical Church. Having thus acted, we 
 may fix our hopes in a dutiful and calm reliance 
 on the Divine promises of support; not in indo- 
 lence and security, but exerting all lawful and 
 all righteous means, in the strenuous defence of 
 our renovated Establishment. 
 
 May He, who is all love and goodness and 
 wisdom, who has purchased unto Himself an Uni- 
 versal Church by the precious blood of His dear 
 Son, send down His heavenly benediction upon 
 our Church! May He assist the endeavours of 
 those who seek, by the aid of His Holy Spirit, to 
 
 F
 
 ( GG ) 
 
 purify her from the Corruptions which, doubtless 
 for the wise and salutary purpose of humbling 
 and of proving us, have been permitted to arise 
 in her, and to defile her ! May He pour the graces 
 of the same Spirit upon his Servants, her Minis- 
 ters, purging them from avarice, ambition, sloth, 
 and worldly-mindedness; — making them a chosen 
 generation, a holy nation, a peculiar people;— 
 a priesthood wholly devoted to his service, cruci- 
 fied to the world, and the world crucified to 
 them : 
 
 . • Ministers 
 
 Detached from pleasure, to the love of gain 
 
 Superior, insusceptible of pride, 
 
 And by ambitious longings undisturbed ! 
 
 May our beloved Church evince that surest proof 
 of the influence of genuine Religion, a gradual 
 progression in true holiness; a passing on from 
 grace to grace, from purity to purity, and, there- 
 fore, from strength to strength ! May her last 
 works, like those of the Church of Thyatira, be 
 more abundant and more excellent than her first ; 
 that so, under the blessing of God, she may, if 
 possible, be presented unto Hoi, through Jesus 
 Christ, " a glorious Church," without blemish, 
 and without spot !
 
 THE PLAN. 
 
 G
 
 ( ^>y ) 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Sect. 1. — Present Bishops and otlier Ecclesiastical persons 
 
 not to be aflectcd by the Act .... jicigc 71 
 2. — Establishment of a Corporation for Management 
 
 of Cathedral Property 71 
 
 3.— Official Members 71 
 
 4. — Members with Salaries 72 
 
 5. — Duties of Salaried Commissioners 72 
 
 6. — Accountant-General 72 
 
 7. — Commission to make the Convocation more effi- 
 cient and to inquire into a Mode of dispensing 
 with the Attendance of Bishops in Parliament 73 
 8. — Episcopal Property to vest in the Corporation on 
 
 the death, &c. of the present Bishops ... 73 
 9. — Property of Chapters, &c. to vest in the Corpora- 
 tion 73 
 
 10. — Interest of the Corporation therein till the Death 
 
 of the existing Members 74 
 
 11. — Provision as to the renewal of Leases . . . .74 
 12. — Power to the Commissioners to buy out surviving 
 
 Members of Chapters 75 
 
 13. — Sinecures to vest in the Corporation .... 75 
 14. — First Fruits and Tenths, in what cases abolished 75 
 15. — What Payments to be made by the Commissioners 76 
 16. — Surplus Revenue to be applied in Augmentation 
 
 and Endowment of Benefices 76 
 
 17. — Powers of Commissioners to raise Money until 
 
 the Estates vest in them 76 
 
 18. — Powers of Management of Estates .... 76 
 19. — Commissioners to make Annual Returns to Par- 
 liament 77 
 
 G 2
 
 70 CONTENTS. 
 
 Sect. 20. — Ecclesiastical Persons within the Act to hold no 
 
 other Preferment, except as provided . page 77 
 
 21. — \Vliat Residence necessary 78 
 
 22. — Translations to be abolished except as provided . 78 
 23. — Form of Conge d'Elire to be abolished ... 78 
 24. — Visitations, how often to be holden. &c. ... 78 
 
 25. — Retiring Pensions for Bishops, S:c 79 
 
 26. — New Dioceses 79 
 
 27. — Stipends for Archbishops and Bishops .... 80 
 28. — Special provision as to the See of Durham . . 80 
 29. — Present Bishops may come in under the Act . . 80 
 
 30. — Stipends and Number of Deans, &c 80 
 
 31. — Provision for annexing Livings in Cities to Stalls 81 
 32. — Provision as to Stalls now attached to Professor- 
 ships and Heads of Houses 82 
 
 tm. — Chaplains in Cathedrals 82 
 
 34. — Provision as to the Chapter of Christ Church, 
 
 Oxford • .... 83
 
 ( 71 ) 
 
 PLAN OF CHURCH REFORM 
 
 That no Ecclesiastical person whatever shall Existing rights 
 
 *^ preserved. 
 
 in any manner be affected by this Act in respect 
 of any right or interest which he may have at the 
 time of the passing of the Act, except by his own 
 consent. 
 
 II. 
 That all the Estates, Rights, Powers, and Au- Corporation. 
 thorities, now vested in the three Offices of Queen 
 Anne's Bounty, the First Fruits Office, and the 
 Tenths and Augmentation Office, be transferred 
 to and vested in a Corporation, to be called the 
 Commissioners for the JManagcmoit of Ecclesiastical 
 Property; with Provision for Compensation to 
 such of the Officers of the said three Offices as 
 cannot be retained : and that all payments (except 
 such as are hereby abolished) which have hereto- 
 fore been receivable at such offices, be henceforth 
 made to the proper officer of such Corporation. 
 
 III. 
 That the Corporation consist of the following official Mem- 
 
 • D6rs 
 
 Ojjicial J\Jcmbers, who shall not receive any sa- 
 lary — The two Archbishops, the Lord Chancellor,
 
 ( 72 ) 
 
 the First Lord of the Treasury, the Bishops of 
 London, Durham, and Winchester, the Secretary 
 of State for the Home Department, the Speaker 
 of the House of Commons, the three Chief Jus- 
 tices, the Master of the Rolls, the Prolocutor of 
 the Lower House of Convocation, the Deans of 
 Westminster and St. Paul's, and the Archdeacon 
 of London. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Salaried Mem- That, bcsidcs such Official Members, there be 
 appointed by the Crown certain other Commis- 
 sioners, who shall be Laymen, and shall receive 
 salaries, to be fixed by the Act. That at first 
 there shall be Three such Commissioners, but 
 with power in the Crown, as the Estates vest in 
 the Corporation, to increase them to any number 
 not exceeding Eight. 
 
 V. 
 
 Dalies of them. That such paid Commissioners shall devote 
 their time exclusively to the management and 
 control of the Ecclesiastical Property, and to the 
 application of its Revenues in manner pointed 
 out by the Act ; and in all questions which shall 
 arise before the Corporation, they shall have the 
 like right of voting and the same powers as the 
 Official Commissioners. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Accouniani- That thcrc bc an Accountant-General to thai 
 
 said Corporation, with such number of Clerks as
 
 ( 7)3 ) 
 
 the Commissioners shall certify from time to time 
 to be necessary, and all sums receivable under 
 this Act shall be paid into the Bank of England 
 to the credit of the Corporation, adopting as far 
 as possible the practice of the Office of the Ac- 
 countant-General of the Court of Chancery; and 
 that all payments be made by the Accountant- 
 General upon the order of the Commissioners. 
 
 VII. 
 
 That a Commission be appointed to inquire Convocatioa 
 into the best Means of giving Efficiency to the 
 Convocatio)!, and to devise a Mode whereby the 
 Attendance of the Bishops in Parliament may be 
 dispensed with, without Danger to the Rights, 
 Liberties and Privileges of the Church of England. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 That upon the death of any such Archbishop, ModeofvesUng 
 or Bishop, or on any other vacancy of his See, all 
 the temporalities and property thereof shall vest 
 in the Corporation, subject to the trusts of the 
 Act. 
 
 IX. 
 
 That when the existing Members of the Chap- Same in chap- 
 ters, &c., mentioned in Sect. 29, shall cease to 
 be such Members by death, or otherwise, the 
 Corporation shall succeed from time to time to 
 all the share and interest in such property which 
 was possessed by every such Member or Mem-
 
 ( 74 ) 
 
 bers ; and when all the existing Members shall 
 have so ceased to be Members of such Chapter, 
 the whole of such property shall vest in the Cor- 
 poration, subject to the trusts of the Act; but their 
 successors, in such Chapters as hereby appointed, 
 shall continue to be Ecclesiastical Corporations, 
 and entitled to all rights, powers, and interests 
 which the present Chapters are entitled to, except 
 as otherwise provided by this Act. 
 
 Provision till 
 properly vested. 
 
 The like as to 
 Renewals. 
 
 X. 
 
 That until all the existing Members of any 
 Chapter shall have ceased to be Members thereof, 
 in all questions which shall arise in the Chapter, 
 the Commissioners shall have votes equivalent in 
 number to the amount of shares so vested in 
 them. 
 
 xr. 
 That when the Corporation shall, by the death 
 or removal of Members, have obtained a prepon- 
 derance in any Chapter, upon all applications for 
 Leases or Renewals thereof, the surviving Mem- 
 bers shall be entitled to have all such Leases 
 granted or renewed upon the terms and with 
 such fines as have theretofore been most usually 
 taken by the practice of such Chapter : and in 
 case there shall have been no precise usage in 
 respect thereof, then according to a scale to be 
 fixed by the Act.
 
 ( 75 ) 
 
 XII 
 
 That when more than one Moiety of the exist- Powertohuy 
 ing- Members of any Chapter shall have been mIXT"" 
 removed by death or otherwise, the Corpora- 
 tions shall have power to contract with any or 
 all of the remaining Members for the purchase of 
 their interests, upon payment of an Annual Sum 
 equal to the average value of such interests, 
 which shall thereupon vest in the Corporation ; 
 but such annual payment shall cease in case the 
 party shall obtain any other Preferment. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 That all Sinecures in the presentation of Bi- sinecures. 
 shops and Chapters be abolished, and that the 
 property attached to them be vested in the Cor- 
 poration ; but that the property of such as be- 
 longed to Bishops be specifically applied to the 
 augmentation of Benefices in the presentation of 
 the See. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 That the payment of First Fruits and Tenths Fhst Fmiis. 
 be abolished as to alt Ecclesiastical Persons whose 
 Stipends are hereby provided, and as to all per- 
 sons appointed to Benefices under £100() per 
 ann., and that the Corporation shall have power 
 to discharge all other Livings therefrom, ui)on 
 such terms and under such agreements with the 
 Patrons thereof, as shall be provided by tlie Act.
 
 ( 70 ) 
 
 XV. 
 
 Payments. That the followiiig Payments be made by the 
 
 Corporation out of the Funds so vested in them: 
 viz. the Stipends of the several Ecclesiastical 
 Persons as fixed by the Act; the Salaries of the 
 Commissioners and other Officers, and the Ex- 
 penses of carrying- the Act into Execution, as 
 specially directed by it; the Repair of Cathe- 
 drals, and of those Churches, of which the property 
 is hereby vested in the Corporation ; the Expenses 
 of Choirs and other charges attendant on Divine 
 Service ; and also the Repairs of the Palaces and 
 Residences of such Ecclesiastical persons. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Surplus Reve- That after such payments, the Revenues be 
 applied by the Corporation to the Augmentation 
 of small Benefices and to the Endowment of 
 Churches or Chapels in populous districts of 
 England and Wales. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 PowerioboMow. That in case the Revenues and other Funds 
 be at first inadequate to the various payments 
 fixed by the Act, the Corporation may borrow 
 Money upon Bills in the nature of Exchequer 
 Bills, bearing Interest. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Powers to itia- That the Corporation shall have the usual 
 "'"'■ '■'"'''^'''- powers of Sale and Exchange, and have more
 
 C 77 ) 
 
 extensive powers than Ecclesiastical persons now 
 possess of granting Leases, or of contracting as 
 to Planting, Inclosing, Building, working Mines, 
 or other modes of improving Property: and that 
 as to all such Property as hath heretofore been 
 let on Leases for Lives or for a Term of Years 
 renewable, a certain Scale for Terms of Renewal 
 be fixed by the Act, according to which all Re- 
 newals shall thereafter take place. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 That the Corporation return Annually to Par- Annual Return 
 
 ' to Parliament. 
 
 1 lament an Account of the Deaths or Removals of 
 Persons whereby any Property shall become 
 vested in them: and also the Particulars of all 
 Sums which they have received in the preceding 
 year, and of all Payments which they have 
 made: and also of all Augmentations and En- 
 dowments. 
 
 XX. 
 
 That no Ecclesiastical person, appointed sub- pluralities. 
 sequent to the Act, shall hold any other Preferment 
 whatever, except 1st, that any Canon, Prebend- 
 ary, or Chaplain, may hold some benefice within 
 the city or town where the Chapter to which he 
 belongs is situated, as hereby provided ; and 2dly, 
 that any Incumbent of a Parish, whereof the 
 yearly value does not exceed £400, may hold 
 another Benefice of smaller amount along with it.
 
 ( 78 ) 
 
 llesidence. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 That every Ecclesiastical Person be allowed to 
 absent himself from his Diocese or Preferment 
 for Three Calendar Montlis in each Year, and no 
 more ; and for non-residence shall be liable to a 
 penalty of £ per day ; but further absence 
 
 may be granted to such person on the affidavit 
 of two Medical Practitioners: in the case of a 
 Bishop, by the King in Council, or of any other 
 ecclesiastical person, by the Bishop. 
 
 xxn. 
 
 Translation. 
 
 Conge d'Ellre. 
 
 Visitation. 
 
 That no Translation shall ever be made of any 
 Bishop appointed after this Act, being a Lord 
 of Parliament, except to the Sees of Canterbury 
 and York. 
 
 xxiu. 
 
 That no Co?igc d'Elire be in future necessary, 
 but that the appointment under the Sign IManual 
 have the effect of vesting all Rights and Powers 
 in the person appointed, without any payment or 
 
 charge whatever. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 That every Bishop shall once in every year 
 hold a Visitation in his Diocese, and that every 
 Archdeacon shall, once in every year, visit every 
 Parish in his Archdeaconry, and make an Annual 
 Report of the state of the Churches, Chancels, 
 and Residences, and of all other matters within 
 his jurisdiction: and that the Expenses of such
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 Visitations be paid by the Corporation to Bishops 
 and Archdeacons, according to a rate of per 
 
 mile for travelling expenses, and per day for 
 
 other disbursements. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 That where any Archbishop, Bishop, or the Retiring Pen- 
 sions. 
 Incumbent of any Benefice, having a population 
 
 of 1,500 souls, shall become permanently inca- 
 pacitated by Age or Infirmities from discharging 
 the duties of his Office, or shall, after fifteen 
 years' service therein, have attained the age of 
 seventy years, such person shall be entitled, upon 
 resigning such preferment, to receive a Pension 
 equal to one half of the stipend thereof, provided 
 such Pension shall not exceed £3,000 per annum, 
 except the Archbishop of Canterbury, who shall 
 be entitled to a retiring Pension of £4,000 per 
 annum. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 That the following Sees be erected, the Bishops New Dioceses, 
 thereof not to be Lords of Parliament: — 
 
 1. The Southern Parts of the Diocese of Lincoln, viz. Bedford- 
 
 shire, Bucks, and Part of Herts; and the Town of Windsor 
 from the Diocese of Salisbury. — Seat of the See, Windsor. 
 
 2. The Counties of Derby and Nottingham to make one Diocese, 
 
 which shall be in the Province of York. — Seat of the See, 
 Southwell. 
 
 And that the Northern Parts of the Diocese of 
 Chester, comprising Parts of Westmoreland, Cum- 
 berland, and Yorkshire, be added to the See of 
 Carlisle.
 
 ( 80 ) 
 
 Stipends of 
 Bishops, 
 
 Durham. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 That the following be the stipends of the Arch- 
 bishops and Bishops within the Act: — 
 
 Archbishop of Canterbury £15,000 
 
 York 12,000 
 
 Bishop of London 10,000 
 
 Durham 8,000 
 
 Winchester 7,000 
 
 Twenty-one Bishops at £5000 105,000 
 
 Two Bishops, not being Lords of Parliament, at £3000 6,000 
 
 £103,000 
 XXVIII. 
 
 That provision as to the Temporal Rights, Ju- 
 risdictions, and Franchises of the See of Durham, 
 be made by a separate Act of Parliament. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Bishops may 
 come in under 
 the Act. 
 
 That as soon as the Corporation has funds at 
 its disposal sufficient for that purpose, any 
 Bishop who shall be willing to assign the Tem- 
 poralities of his See to the Corporation, may 
 thereupon receive the Stipend above provided by 
 the Act, and become subject to its provisions as 
 if he had been appointed subsequent thereto. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Deans, 6cc. That in the following Chapters, or Collegiate 
 
 Churches, the Dean or other Residentiary, and 
 the Chaj)lains, shall have the following salaries: —
 
 ( «l ) 
 
 Canterbury 
 I^ondon 
 Westminster 
 York . . 
 Durham 
 
 Bristol 
 
 Carlisle 
 
 Chester 
 
 Chichester 
 
 Ely . . 
 
 Exeter 
 
 Gloucester 
 
 Hereford . 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 Lichfield . 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Norwich 
 
 Peterborough 
 
 Salisbury . 
 
 Wells . . 
 
 Winchester 
 
 Windsor . 
 
 Wolverhampto 
 
 Worcester 
 
 Southwell 
 Ripon . . 
 Rochester 
 LlandafF . 
 Bangor 
 Brecon 
 St. Asaph 
 St. David's 
 
 1 Dean at X'lSOO i:i),000 
 
 2 Chaplains at £200 £2,000 
 
 1 Dean or other Residentiary at 
 
 £1200 £22,800 
 
 r 
 
 2 Chaplains at £200 
 
 £7,G00 
 
 "1 
 
 1 Dean or other Residentiary at 
 
 £1000 £8,000 
 
 J 
 
 2 Chaplains at £200 £3,200 
 
 Total . £52,G00 
 
 ' XXXI. 
 
 That the Corporation shall take an account of Prebemiaiies 
 all the Livings in the gift of the several Chaj)ters '^'" '"""*" 
 aforesaid, situated within the cities where such 
 Chapters are, and of the population thereof: and 
 where any such Livings have a population ex- 
 ceeding 1 ,500 souls, the Corporation shall have 
 power to annex the same to one of the Stalls in
 
 I should not be doing justice to a most ingenious, learned, and piou3 
 work, if I did not acknowledge the great obligations I have been under, 
 particularly in the Letter here prefixed, to the very valuable volume of 
 the Rev. Jolm Riland, A.M. Ciurate of Yoxall, on Church Reform. It is 
 written in a large and Catholic spirit, with great fervour and with great 
 spirituality. His work on the British Liturgy I have received too re- 
 cently to fonn a sufficient opinion upon. The Reader will also find 
 much instruction and many valuable suggestions in The Liturgy Revised, 
 by the Rev. Robert Cox, A.M. Perpetual Curate of Stonehouse. 
 
 I have omitted in this Edition the Obsers'ations on the District Visit- 
 ing Societies, which I hope to enlarge, and make the subject of a separate
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 The following able View of the State of the respective 
 Churches of England, Scotland, and Ireland, is extracted 
 from the Record, and is of such high merit as fully to de- 
 serve the notice of all serious readers. 
 
 " The truth that an evil course of conduct generally produces 
 corresponding fruits to the evil worker — or, to soften the propo- 
 sition, that the evils suffered to exist in a community sooner or 
 later produce evils which are as whips and scorpions to the 
 members of it — is receiving striking illustration at this moment, 
 in the circumstances of the three Established Churches in these 
 islands. Another truth is also receiving similar elucidation from 
 their state, viz. the mysterious manner in which the fate of pos- 
 terity is affected by the conduct of their ancestors. As we all 
 know, if correct principles be sown in a land, many succeeding 
 generations frequently gather the fruits of them ; if principles of 
 evil be sown, often, as from a noxious jungle, they spread over 
 the face of nature, poisoning all that is healthy and useful to 
 man. 
 
 " Of this latter truth the respective states of Scotland and Ire- 
 land at this day afford perhaps the most striking proof. In 
 Scotland pure Protestantism was sown — speaking comparatively 
 as it regards other nations — what a religious, moral, intelligent, 
 
 h2
 
 ( 86 ) 
 
 and respectable community adorns that rugged country ! In 
 Ireland Popery was sown — what an ignorant, lost, degraded 
 people now present themselves to the world in the nineteenth 
 century, as the undoubted and legitimate children of that Mother 
 of Abominations ! Both the countries we have named are pro- 
 xinces of the same einpire. Incomparably more pains and toil 
 have been used to govern Ireland aright than Scotland. Ire- 
 land is the Emerald Isle of richness and beauty. Scotland tvas 
 a barren wilderness of mountain, and heath, and flood. Let cor- 
 rect religious and moral principles be infused through a nation, 
 and, under any tolerable form of government, ' the desert will 
 rejoice and blossom as the rose :' let corrupt religious and moral 
 principles be their portion, and no form of government, however 
 good, has power to raise them up to excellence or permanent 
 ])rosperity. 
 
 " But while the population of Ireland is now suffering in a 
 manner the most poignant and vital, from the prevalence of 
 Popery amongst them, the Irish Church, to which, in the Pro- 
 vidence of God, was committed the task of rooting it out, and 
 which, until lately, had done little or nothing towards the ac- 
 complishment of the mighty work, is now beginning to reap the 
 appropriate fruits of its indolence and imfaithfulness. There 
 has been happily introduced of late years into the Irish Church, 
 a goodly number of faithful and energetic men of God. Very 
 much at their instigation, and through their instrumentality, 
 schemes, calculated to renew the face of Ireland, have been 
 put into operation, and up to the present time have been 
 prosecuted with the most hopeful success. But, whatever may 
 be their final issue, ruin upon the Irish Church as an Esta- 
 blishment seems to be rapidly accumulating, heaped upon it by 
 those who, if the Church in days past had done its duty, would 
 in all probability have now been its own attached and intelligent 
 cliildren. The Irish Church, in days past, was not Popish, but 
 it contained within it but a faint glimmering of that light which 
 can dispel Papal and every other error ; it had little of that 
 heavenly strength and ardour, which, imder the blessing of God,
 
 ( 87 ) 
 
 can break asunder even Popish bars and sliackles, and spread 
 abroad the liberty, light, and ViCe of the Gospel of Christ. The 
 Irish Church, in short, lamentably and miserably failed of the 
 end of its existence, and with that failure was connected the con- 
 tinuance in being of that dark, dismal, and destructive power, 
 which, Iiaving recently acquired fresh strengh, is rising up with 
 every appearance of accomplishing its overthrow. 
 
 " As the Church of England has by no means failed in the 
 object of her existence to the extent of her associated sister of 
 Ireland, so the dangers which threaten her are not so pressing — 
 so the means she has at command for her defence are far more 
 considerable. 
 
 *' The grand weakness of the English Church, however, arises 
 substantially from the same source — viz. from having failed, 
 during the long period of deadness and darkness from which she 
 is now awakening, to instil her principles of truth into the minds 
 of the population. Principles of scriptural and heavenly truth 
 lay in her Articles, Liturgy, and Homilies ; but they were not 
 infused into the minds of her clergy, and consequently were not 
 diffused by them through the mass of the population. This vital 
 evil is now being daily remedied ; but, however rapid the growth 
 of divine truth in the minds of her sons, still taking the natio»% 
 at large, viewing all ranks, from the highest to the lowest, — the 
 ignorance of true religion which generally prevails, is truly ap- 
 palling ; the liberality, which is at present the fashionable substi- 
 tute for it, is most destructive; destructive to all right principle, 
 and, in its very essence, destructive to the existence of a national 
 Establishment. 
 
 " There is little doubt the most formidable body of enemies 
 the English Church has now to cope with are the Dissenters : 
 formidable from their union, their determined spirit, their wealth, 
 and general respectability. But whence did they originate? Does 
 the mind not revert to the unjust, cruel, and suicidal expulsion 
 of 2,000 noncomformist clergymen from the pale of the Church 
 in one day ? It was the draining of its life-blood. It was the 
 extraction and expulsion of the most precious leaven — which, had
 
 ( 88 ) 
 
 it remained, might have continued to leaven the whole Church 
 and the whole population. The bitter fruits of that most fatal 
 deed, the Church of England may still be called upon to eat in 
 bitterness of soul. 
 
 " Much was wrong in the formation of the constitution of the 
 Church of England — much wliich woidd not have existed had 
 the life of Edward VI. been spared to his country. The errors 
 to which we allude exist to the present day : they strike the eye ; 
 they offend the common sense of mankind ; they consequently 
 afford a mighty handle of offence to her enemies ; and prove a 
 source of the most sensible weakness to herself. The lordly 
 wealth of a few (opposed to the lowliness and moderation of the 
 Gospel); the consequent abject poverty of multitudes of the 
 clergy, who must be hence at least tempted to desire a change ; 
 the numberless pluralities consequent upon the unnatural distri- 
 bution of the property of the Church — one man feeding the flock 
 and another eating the milk of it; the non-residence which 
 abounds — and other evils, all easy to point out — all most diffi- 
 cult to eradicate, so firmly in a course of years do institutions 
 wrap themselves together and become consolidated: but still, 
 being evils, the circumstance of their being handed down to this 
 generation, instead of created by it, does not change their cha- 
 racter. There they are existing, seen and read of all men, and 
 proving an unmanageable source of weakness and distress to the 
 Church. 
 
 ** Our limits do not admit of our dwelling at length on the pre- 
 sent condition and prospects of the Scottish Church, in illustra- 
 tion of the principle which we laid down at the commencement. 
 These, however, no less strikingly demonstrate its accuracy and 
 truth. 
 
 " The Reformation in Scotland was carried forward in a spirit 
 more severe and searching than in this country. The result is 
 this, that if the principle of Establishments is to be admitted at 
 all, there is little or nothing in tlie construction and working of 
 the Scotch Church, which, to the eye of sense, stands out as an 
 evil, or which admits . of improvement. This of course is a
 
 b 
 
 ( 89 ) 
 
 mighty advantage and a great safeguard. We may state, to 
 avoid misconception, that the fact does not prove the superiority 
 of the Presbyterian to the Episcopalian form of Church govern- 
 ment: for Episcopacy in England, might, at the time of the Re- 
 formation, have been as completely cleared of the evils which 
 now weaken her, as was Presbyterianism in Scotland. We 
 simply state the fact as illustrative of the principle, that abuses 
 and incongruities having been cast out at a remote period, the 
 advantage of their expulsion is experienced at the present hour. 
 
 '' The principle upon which it can be hoped successfully to 
 attack the Church of Scotland rises out of the comparatively new 
 ground broken by Dissenters on both sides of the Tweed, that 
 national establishments, of whatever order, are unjust and inex- 
 pedient. But if the Scotch Church had been true to herself, the 
 existence of a principle so unsound might have excited her won- 
 der, but would have been the source of no apprehension to her. 
 She would have stood fast, based on the affections of the entire 
 population, as she is founded on the word of the living God. 
 We cannot here enter on the false ground she assumed, which 
 caused the venerable leaders of the Secession Church to leave 
 her pale. We believe most spiritual and evangelical men in Scot- 
 land are desirous of restoring that, the want of which expelled 
 these men from the Church. From an insignificant number, the 
 descendants of these men have multiplied to mighty host. A 
 goodly portion of the people, in persons and in affections, are 
 thus separated from the mother Church ; and their leaders, 
 adopting principles with regard to establishments which their 
 ancestors never knew, now join the English Dissenters in work- 
 ing for the overthrow even of their own Establishment. Hence 
 the danger, if any exists, for the stability of the Church of Scot- 
 land. 
 
 •' The moral is so distinct, that we need not draw it — our 
 readers are not afraid of finding a moral even in a newspaper. 
 Let us all be jealous with a godly jealousy, of admitting an evil, 
 however minute, however speciously adorned or insidiously con-
 
 ( 90 ) 
 
 cealed, into our hearts, our families, or our institutions, whether 
 religious or civil. Being evil, it will assuredly work for evil; and 
 thougli it may not appear for a time — and, in the case of public 
 institutions, not for a generation, or even for several generations 
 — it will at last, in all ordinary circumstances, rise up for the 
 hurt and punishment, if not the ruin, of the persons and commu- 
 nities into which its poison has been infused."
 
 ( 91 ) 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 The following valuable Observations on the Convocation are 
 taken from the Record Newspaper: — 
 
 " The Convocation appears to have been first convoked, in 
 both Houses, in the reign of Edward I. in the year 1295. Its 
 last sitting was in the year 1717, in the reign of George I. 
 The object in view, in its original assembling, was to minister 
 to the pecuniary necessities of the warlike Edward. It ceased 
 to exist as an active and efficient body upon its discussions ceasing 
 to comport with the Royal will and views, and its power of ad- 
 ministering to the temporal necessities of the State being ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 " The Convocation, from the paucity of its members, the number 
 who took their seat ex officio, and consequent exposure to undue 
 influence, was admirably constructed for voting supplies ; and if 
 the body had been larger and more indifferently chosen by the 
 Clergy, not only would it have guarded the interests of its con- 
 stituents incomparably better in this secular matter, but its deci- 
 sions in affairs within its peculiar sphere would probably have 
 borne along with them far greater weight and power than they 
 ever possessed. It was convened, generally, but not invariably, 
 during the sitting of Parliament by the King's writ addressed to 
 the Archbishops. In later times the Upper House was composed 
 only of the Archbishops and Bishops, and the Lower of the Deans, 
 Archdeacons, one Proctor for each Chapter, and two Clergymen 
 from each Diocese. But independent of any defect that might 
 exist in its construction, its powers— especially those of the 
 Lower House — were never clearly defined, and hence disunion 
 and dissension were sure to arise. The Upper House was jealous 
 of the Lower, and sought to curb them in the free exercise of what 
 the other considered their undoubted privileges. The Lower 
 House in return was disposed to thwart the Upper Assembly.
 
 ( 92 ) 
 
 The King, again, or his minister the Archbishop, wliile they were 
 well disposed to the services of the Convocation so long as they 
 furthered their own views, could not tolerate their proceedings 
 if they were opposed to their will, or hurtful, in their estimation, 
 to the peace and repose of the Commonwealth: and the poor 
 Convocation, disunited in itself, and possessing no such powers 
 as the equally disunited Parliament, to prolong its existence, at 
 last ceased to be. The King and the highest Ecclesiastics pre- 
 sently found, with reference to the Church, what men are gene- 
 rally not slow to discover in similar circumstances, that it is 
 more pleasant to exercise an unlimited authority, than to be 
 unnecessarily thwarted and curbed in their proceedings by ano- 
 ther body, for whose existence there seemed to be no necessity. 
 •' With regard to the re-assembling of the Convocation, there 
 are those who say it used formerly to be more noisy than deli- 
 berative, that it tended more to division than unity, and did 
 more harm than good, and hence argue that no better conse- 
 quences would follow from its proceedings, were it to be resus- 
 citated. Supposing this to be a true description of its bearing 
 and tendency in former times, we shall only observe, that, con- 
 stituted and circumstanced as it was, any other result would have 
 afforded matter of surprise. Its proceedings too, though they 
 had been in the last degree useful, would have been accom- 
 panied, like most other good things in this world, with certain 
 disadvantages and evils. There seems, indeed, hardly any 
 exemption from this general rule; and one cannot well see how 
 there sliould be, so long as evil is ever blended even with the 
 best of things. And so, were the Convocation now to be as- 
 sembled with a fuller and more independent representation of 
 the great body of the Clergy, with the powers and privileges of 
 each House clearly defined, with the independence of each and 
 of both guaranteed, and with no undue interference on tlie part 
 of the Crown, no doubt evils of some kind or other would arise 
 out of the proceedings of the venerable assembly. But, if it had 
 competent powers as the supreme Ecclesiastical Court of the 
 United Church of England and Ireland, there seems little reason
 
 ( 93 ) 
 
 to doubt that the frood which it would effect primarily for it- 
 self, and secondarily for the general advancement of the cause 
 of truth and righteousness, would greatly surpass the evils 
 which probably might attach to it. The power of the Church 
 of England, were it concentrated and put in motion, is immense. 
 We do not, of course, speak merely of the power of the Clergy, 
 but also of that of the laity who are truly attached to her. 
 These form the larger part of the same body — a body, taken 
 together, of vast property, high attainments, and command- 
 ing influence — but for the present, as it regards the deeply 
 important concerns of the Church, without a head, without 
 motion, without life. The assembling of a Convocation 
 might be expected to draw together the talents of the Church, 
 now, as it regards its own defence, lying waste ; to revive its 
 energies, now apparently paralyzed; to call out its hidden re- 
 sources from its mines of mental wealth and power, now wholly 
 unwrought. The penetrating voice rising from within its walls 
 would not only direct attention to the true character of the 
 coming dangers, but, through the blessing of God, might raise 
 up a bulwark of defence, against which its enemies should not 
 prevail. 
 
 " Sure we are that something ought to be done, and that 
 without delay, for the security of that venerable body, which 
 beyond all fair dispute needs reformation, — but whose destruc- 
 tion is now unblushingly sought for by many, and various, and 
 powerful foes." 
 
 " Exclusive of the differences in the state of the Churches of 
 England and Scotland, there is this striking and important dis- 
 tinction, that the former possesses little or no ecclesiastical 
 power or authority — no organization by which the wisdom, the 
 power, the worth, and the influence of the body can be concen- 
 trated for defence against the assaults of its enemies, for ward- 
 ing off' evil wheresoever it may arise, for strengthening, consoli- 
 dating, and beautifying, its various parts, and for preserving and 
 increasing its purity and vigour — whereas the ecclesiastical
 
 ( 94 ) 
 
 constitution of the Scotch Church is complete, and in a state 
 of full health, vigour and efficiency. 
 
 " But, indeed, in this most important respect the state of the 
 Church of England is wholly anomalous. If we look at the 
 various dissenting bodies, not only at the Synod of Ulster in 
 Ireland, or the Secession body in Scotland, but at the Wesleyan 
 Methodists, the Friends, and even the Congregational and Bap- 
 tist bodies (whose independent principles if fully acted upon 
 would maintain each congregation separate and distinct), we 
 find either an acknowledged and fully organized ecclesiastical 
 body, maintaining an effective discipline, and on important occa- 
 sions gathering up their strength for the accomplishment of its 
 purposes, or some methods by which the same ends are substan- 
 tially attained. It is the Church of England alone that lies 
 exposed to view with hardly even the appearance of ecclesiastical 
 authority or power — a mighty, but a scattered host — a powerful 
 body, but its power so dissipated as to be unavailing and inef- 
 fective — a body threatened with dangers the most urgent and 
 overwhelming, and lying prostrate, helpless, and trembling, sim- 
 ply for want of union, counsel, and organization. 
 
 " We need not say that so flagrant a departure from propriety, 
 from Christian order, and the characteristics of a Christian 
 Church, as animated by a spirit " of power, and of love, and 
 of a sound mind," received no countenance from the original 
 organization of the Church of England. Her constitution was 
 broken down for evil purposes in evil times. — A reform has 
 now been effected in the State, and a great outcry is made for 
 a reform in the Church. In effecting the reform in the State, 
 the advocates of the measure sought, with a diligence which 
 deserved success, for proof that they only wished to restore to 
 the country what she formerly possessed. — If a reform is to be 
 effected in the Church, a restoration to her original organiza- 
 tion, or an improved substitute for it, by which her power 
 might be concentrated and rendered available, seems to be the 
 first, the most reasonable, and the most indispensable step to be 
 taken."
 
 f 
 
 ( 95 ) 
 
 " The Government wliicli endeavours to work the Churcli in 
 the best way it can for the furtherance of its own purposes, 
 wliich dreads the addition of any fresh trouble to its existing 
 anxieties, and which may wish to have the future ordering of 
 the Establishment in its own hands, cannot be expected to be 
 the first to move towards the resuscitation of the long sus- 
 pended powers of the Church, as the true path to a full and 
 effective reformation of its existing evils and abuses. Human 
 nature being what it is, the leading Prelates into whose hands 
 large power and influence, of a secondary kind, are placed by 
 Government, can hardly be expected to be forward in moving 
 for a restoration of ecclesiastical power to the Church as a body. 
 But that such a restoration is at any time desirable for the due 
 order, beauty, and discipline of a true Church of Christ, few, 
 we presume, will deny ; while, under the pressure of the exist- 
 ing exigency, fewer still, we believe, will even doubt, that, 
 according to all appearance, it is indispensable for the very exist- 
 ence of the Church of England as an Establishment."
 
 ( 9G ) 
 
 Abstract of ParViamentanj Return, 1827. 
 
 Incumbents. 
 Resident in the Parsonage-houses . . . . 3598 
 
 within Two Miles of Churches or 
 
 Chapels 815 
 
 Total Residents . . 4413 
 
 " Doing Duty," 
 _, . in each of the 
 
 Exemptions, Classes. 
 
 Residence on Other Benefices 2163 
 
 From other official engagements 456 
 
 2619 . . . 504 
 
 Licenses, from want or unfitness 
 
 of Parsonages . . . 1389 
 Infirmity of Incum- 
 bent or Family . 395 
 under general circum- 
 stances .... 363 
 
 758 
 
 2147 ... 775 
 
 4766 
 Cases not included in Exemptions 
 
 or Licenses, i^';^. 
 
 Absence without either . . 405 295 
 
 Dilapidated Churches . . 39 
 
 Sinecures 33 
 
 Livings held by Bishops . 10 
 
 Vacancies 103 
 
 Recent Institutions ... 71 
 
 Sequestrations .... 48 
 
 Returns defective as to Re- 
 sidence 604 J 
 
 1313 
 Miscellaneous not included in 
 
 the preceding . . . . 41 
 
 1354 ... 11 
 6120 
 
 Total Number of Benefices . .10,5.']3 1590
 
 ( 97 ) 
 
 Abstract of Parliamentary Return, 1827. 
 
 Curates'-Stipends. 
 
 
 £10 and under £20 . . . 
 
 6 
 
 20 ... . 30 . . . 
 
 69 
 
 30 . . 
 
 
 
 40 . . . 
 
 173 
 
 40 . . 
 
 
 
 50 . . . 
 
 441 
 
 .50 . . 
 
 
 
 60 . . . 
 
 892 
 
 GO . . 
 
 
 
 70 . . . 
 
 389 
 
 70 . . 
 
 
 
 80 . . . 
 
 415 
 
 80 . . 
 
 
 
 90 . . . 
 
 458 
 
 90 . . 
 
 
 
 100 .. . 
 
 156 
 
 100 . . 
 
 
 
 110 .. . 
 
 500 
 
 110 . . 
 
 
 
 120 .. . 
 
 69 
 
 120 . . 
 
 
 
 130 .. . 
 
 207 
 
 130 . . 
 
 
 
 140 . . 
 
 52 
 
 140 . . 
 
 
 
 150 .. . 
 
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 150 . . 
 
 
 
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 162 
 
 160 . . 
 
 
 
 170 . . 
 
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 4105
 
 London: . . 
 
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