( 
 
 ^ ) 
 
 
 
 
 Value of Inipro- 
 
 
 
 
 ISH. 
 
 Popiilativ!) 
 
 pHation 
 j per anmtn 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Cnngrua PortiO. 
 
 
 A. 
 
 B 
 
 1 C 
 
 
 D 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 £ s. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 £ s. d. 
 
 
 ridgeshire . 
 
 340 
 
 1 Tithe free 
 
 No house 
 
 25 
 
 
 on . 
 
 1118 
 
 350 
 
 
 
 
 800 
 
 
 Ixfordshire . 
 
 150G 
 
 1200 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 
 
 
 ) . . . 
 
 203 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 6 
 
 
 )p 
 
 156 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 4 
 
 
 , Salop 
 
 ^60 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 10 
 
 
 )lk . 
 
 908 
 
 (o) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and 
 
 905 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 
 
 
 
 morganshire 
 
 looo 
 
 413 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 
 
 
 
 k . . . 
 
 191 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 
 
 
 
 rdiganshire 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 ishire 
 
 790 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 u>) 
 
 
 
 erland . 
 
 257 
 
 120 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 
 
 
 
 don, Somers . 
 
 500 
 
 80 
 
 
 
 No hoiise 
 
 
 
 
 
 rsetshire 
 
 400 
 
 90 
 
 t) 
 
 No house 
 
 
 
 
 
 tshire 
 
 192 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 ncolnshire . 
 
 391 
 
 600 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 srganshire . 
 
 3961 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 10 
 
 \ 
 
 
 iltshire . .^ 
 
 5000 
 
 / (9) 
 
 
 No house 
 
 15 
 
 
 re . ./ 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 ashire 
 
 13535(*) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gloucestefsh. 
 
 2479 
 
 (0 
 
 
 No house 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 600 
 
 ( about 
 (800 
 
 J 
 
 No house 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 fall " . ' } 
 
 (4361 
 1125/ 
 
 f No house ) 
 ( No house / 
 
 86 " 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 732 
 
 550 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 64 
 
 
 
 n. 
 
 2675 {s) 
 
 700 
 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 
 1115 
 
 1830 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 lesteTshire 
 
 240"] 
 400 V 
 160 J 
 
 
 
 fNo house 
 
 8 01 
 
 
 
 ershire 
 
 (w) 
 
 
 <v No house 
 
 
 
 oU 
 
 
 
 e, Leicestersli. 
 
 
 
 LNo house 
 
 31 Oj 
 
 
 
 1, Essex 
 
 300 
 
 578 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 10 ] 
 
 
 le, Glouces. 
 ■>„-v,,,„ 
 
 370 
 
 400 
 
 
 
 No house 
 
 ('•) 1
 
 w^ 
 
 5 
 
 Ph 
 
 I— I 
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 H 
 
 03 
 
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 «o^«a I 
 
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 zz z a z zz 
 
 
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 ^=1 
 
 H&a.s- 
 
 
 J; SS§S8giS3 s s s ss 
 
 S SiSS SSSSS :'« § s
 
 
 Net Valtte 
 per aflnunt. 
 
 £ s. 
 
 51 
 
 255 
 
 {n) 
 
 82 
 
 07 
 
 72 
 
 158 
 
 89 
 
 120 
 
 125 
 
 80 
 
 116 
 
 19 
 19 
 
 54 
 108 
 
 55 
 
 367 
 
 177 
 
 120 
 
 Name of Benefactor. 
 
 H 
 
 75 
 
 53 
 
 75 
 
 0: 
 
 J. Walford, Esq., Land 400 
 Dn. & Ch. of Carlisle . 200 
 
 d. 
 
 
 
 
 174: 
 
 j Thos. Bowerbank, Esq. 
 I Rev. R. Boulton 
 
 ^ ^ ^Hl753 
 70 0^ ^'^^ 
 
 J 
 
 R. J. Luscombe, Incumb. 400 
 
 G.Wentworth,Esq. Lands 200 
 
 Ditto ditto 200 
 
 Ditto ditto 100 
 
 Mrs. Pyncombe's Trustees 100 
 
 f Tnistees of Mr. Marshall 200 
 ( Ditto Mrs. Pyncombe 200 
 f MvK.Pvncoinlie'sTriistees 200 
 (Mr. Marshall's ditto 200 
 
 f Principal & Fellows of j» , „„ 
 < Jesus College Oxford S 
 t Trustees of Mr. Marshall 200 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0~) 
 
 [ 
 
 ( 
 
 oj 
 
 0? 
 ^ 
 
 111 
 
 94 
 
 94 
 
 124 
 
 220 
 
 54 
 
 CO 
 
 1829 
 1748 
 1812 
 
 1814 
 
 1803 
 
 1833 
 
 Rev. T. Oroliard 
 
 200 
 
 fDn. and Ch. Glo'ster, Sir^ 
 
 < J.Webb, Bt., cS: otliers, J^ 9 
 
 l^ a Rent-Cliarire per an.] 
 
 1778 
 1770 
 
 ?mflR>n 
 
 n \x'OTf h •»
 
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 9 08 2 6
 
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 gs 
 
 ogoo g g 
 
 go 
 
 SSSSsSSS S g§22S 
 
 ?i 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .1 :ir 
 
 IIJ"^li 
 
 •si 
 
 H.Finch & Mr.Finch 
 Marshall's Trustees 
 H. Griffith 
 of Radnor . 
 Canterbury, stipend, 
 
 Ursula Tayior's Tr. 
 
 'S 
 
 i 
 
 = .!• 
 
 Pine 
 
 Ikon . 
 Home 
 
 Pyncomhe's Trust. 
 R. Ternile 
 ones, Esq. 
 Incumbent 
 Pyncombe's Trust, 
 and Chapter ut 
 indsor. Mayor and 
 iToration, per ann. 
 ortinson, Esq. . 
 Stratford's Ex. 
 of Chester, per an. 
 ieene, Esq., per an. 
 Do. per an. 
 
 £ 
 1 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 = 20=^1-5 
 
 I"" 
 
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 s|*£-i|Sl'a 
 
 
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 c
 
 QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY. 
 
 WHAT IS 
 
 QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY? 
 
 QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED WITH REFERENCE TO THE 
 
 ACTS AND NEGLECTS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL 
 
 COMMISSION. 
 
 FREDERICK A. GLOVER, M. A. 
 
 OF ST. Peter's coll. Cambridge; ano 
 
 RECTOR OF rHARJ,TON-INDOVER. 
 
 SECOND EDXTXOir. 
 
 ' Most wretched are the terms of men's estate, when once they are at a point of wretchedness so 
 extreme, that they bend not their wits any further than only to shift out the present time, 
 never regarding what shall become of their successors after them. * * * An affection not 
 mote intolerable than theirs, who care not to overthrow all posterity, so they may purchase a 
 few days of ignominious safety unto themselves and their present estates : if it may be temtied 
 a safety which tendeth unto their overthrow, that are the purchasers of it, in so vile and base 
 a manner." — Hooker, Book vii. 24. (3). 
 
 ' But still the question in truth is, whether Levi shall be deprived of the portion of God or no, 
 to the end that Simeon or Reuben may devour it as their spoil. The comfort of the one in 
 sustaining the injuries which the other would offer, must be that prayer poured out by Moses, 
 the prince of prophets, in most tender affection to Levi ; ' Bless, O Lord, his substance, 
 accept thou the work of his hands : smite through the loins of them that rise up against him, 
 and of them which hate him, that they rise no more.'" — Hooker, Ecel. Pol. Book vii. 24. (3). 
 
 LONDON: 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO., STATIONERS' COURT. 
 
 1840.
 
 i.oNnoN : 
 
 W. M'nOWAI.t, PRINTER, PKMBEUTON -ROW, 
 (lUDOH-SQUAKC.
 
 
 S^ PREFACE. 
 
 ^ Since the first edition of this Pamphlet was pub- 
 ^ lished, I have the satisfaction of knowing that many 
 m who thought the ground assumed in it to be en- 
 tirely untenable, have not only changed their minds, 
 but have given the best proof of it, by subscribing 
 the subjoined Petition against the further continu- 
 ance of the First Fruits and Tenths Impost. The Pe- 
 o tition, in point of fact, embodies the argument of the 
 - Pamphlet, and was drawn up with the assistance of 
 ^ a valued, honoured, and learned Brother in the Mi- 
 
 ^ nistry 
 
 < 
 
 As an experiment upon the Clerical mind, I am 
 entirely satisfied with the issue. I have reason to 
 know that it would have been much more numer- 
 ously signed, but from the circumstance of many of 
 the Incumbents having been presented to their Liv- 
 ings by the Impropriators, and who were restrained 
 from adopting it (I don't say improperly restrained, 
 If for I respect their feeling,) from the ungracious 
 S appearance that the seeming lo wage war against 
 their patrons would present. Much valuable in- 
 
 a 2 
 
 301043 
 
 en
 
 IV 
 
 formation has been elicited, even on the small scale 
 of operations on which this movement has been 
 conducted; while such strange disclosures have been 
 made, such inconceivable enormities have come to 
 light, as quite justify us in asking for a Commis- 
 sion to investigate, at large, the subject of Impropri- 
 ations, the conditions, legal and canonical, on which 
 they are held ; to inquire into the condition of the 
 Parsonage Houses and Glebes of Impropriate 
 Livings ; with a number of other matters on which 
 it is desirable that due information should come 
 before The Church. 
 
 The necessity for such a Commission, not only 
 the delicacy of some Incumbents, but (shall I say ?) 
 the interest of others, will make apparent ; but the 
 facts referred to in the accompanying letter*, would, 
 
 * " * * much obliged by your kind consideration of our Eccles- 
 iastical wrongs, and would not desire a more zealous champion * * 
 * * *, but the weapons with which I could furnish you, whereby 
 to achieve their redress, would be too feeble and too pointless to 
 enable you to make any impression. 
 
 True it is our poor vicinage has been most grievously wronged, 
 in the matter of Church accommodation and Church revenue, and 
 that within no very remote period. An old [man] in * * township 
 professes to have remembered a still older acquaintance, who was 
 baptized in * * * Church, of which not a stone now remains, 
 though the Alms Houses attached to it, and in the churchyard 
 were standing within 50 years. The Tithe meanwhile has fallen 
 
 into the safe custody of * * *, and the * * » 
 
 * * * * * **. 
 
 » 
 
 you will thus'see that the grievance is not likely to be very press-
 
 1 should think, abundantly, not only justify the ex- 
 pectation (of those who ask it) that such Commis- 
 sion will be granted, but also effectually preclude 
 the opposition to its appointment in those who have 
 
 ingly urged by * * , of this neighbourhood ; and * * 
 
 * * so utterly unprepared with the facts of the case, recent as 
 they really are, and, I doubt not, better known to some interested 
 in their suppression, that I should only weaken a strong case by 
 obtruding my insufficient advocacy. * * have been twice to * * *, 
 to make inquiries touching the matter, at the * * * office, * * 
 
 * * answered that they knew nothing of it, and had no documents 
 bearing on it. This may he true, but * * * 
 
 f When, feeling the destitution of our neighbourhood iu respect of 
 ministerial superintendence, * * determined in some degree to obviate 
 it by building a church within a few yards of the prostrate site of 
 its predecessor, the Marquis of * * * 's plea for refusing any 
 pecuniary contribution towards the work was, that there was an 
 endowment of some hundreds per annum, which had lapsed through 
 carelessness or fraud into the hands of laymen, especially appropri- 
 ated to a Church in this district. This was in form of Tithe upon 
 a considerable extent of very fertile ground, now in the holding of 
 the parties above specified. His Lordship at the same time observed, 
 that this was a proper subject of inquiry for an Ecclesiastical Com- 
 mission; but as * * * * * * obliged to 
 rest content with his Lordship's good advice, his refusal of assist- 
 ance, and a contribution of * *," [a miserable trifle,] "from each of 
 the Proprietors of our unfortunate Tithe * * 
 which Tithe, thus unrighteously alienated and usurped, would no 
 doubt still be reclaimed by any power sufficiently provided with 
 facts to substantiate the claim." [Extract from a letter to a friend, 
 who obtained the information it exhibits with reference to this 
 very inquiry, and obligingly sent it to me.]
 
 vr 
 
 no better plea to urge than " the expose of private 
 income." If matters are " all fair and above board," 
 and the consciousness exists that " all is right," why 
 should any one interpose an impediment, the effect 
 of which obstruction can only be, if successful, to 
 rivet still firmer the fetters of bondage which are 
 now endured by that large body of the Clergy who 
 serve their Cures, not for wages and hire, to which 
 they are entitled, but for considerably minus nothing : 
 ex. gra., when located without a manse, and the whole 
 income of a living is more than swallowed up by the 
 rent of a house. 
 
 A Commission there must be, sooner or later, to 
 inquire into this matter. For, as those only who have 
 seen all the species of information that have been 
 forwarded to me, from some hundreds of brethren, 
 can entertain the least idea of the region over and 
 through which the queries of Commissioners would 
 range, to elicit, or rather to extract, all needful 
 information ; so, those only who have read the 
 letters can form any estimate of the determination, to 
 have the thing now, once for all, gone into, which 
 the several writers rigorously manifest : — a determi- 
 nation from which I augur the best results. For, as 
 inquiry must produce exposure, and exposure re- 
 dress, 1 anticipate, that in the course of a few years 
 there will be no livings without a decent competency ; 
 and that so, not only will the spiritual interests of the 
 people generally be much advanced, but also the 
 miserable ,1 had almost said impertinently low, sti-
 
 Vll 
 
 pends of Cttrates will obtain a considerable augment- 
 ation. 
 
 I am very well aware, that, last year 1 was thought, 
 by many, to be mad, in making an attack on Queen 
 Anne's Bounty ; and that several, who had heard of 
 me only through it and the kind report of some who 
 have no idea of thinking but as others let them, 
 treated the whole affair as a joke. Rather an awk- 
 ward joke ! particularly for the poor brethren, who, in 
 consequence of the evils of the prevailing system 
 and delusions variously practised on their simplicity, 
 or their patience^, pay about tico millions a-year for 
 the privilege of doing their duty ! Mad, however, I 
 certainly was. They were right. I was so mad as to 
 believe that Truth, Reason, and Justice would have 
 their weight in the minds of the brethren, and I am 
 happy to find that my symptoms are extending and 
 infecting a large body ; so much so, indeed, that the 
 Madness of last year is become the Method of this ; 
 not with one only, but with 600 Priests. And, so 
 confident am I of the rapid progress of this insane 
 influence, that, 1 doubt not in the least, should any 
 attempt be made to resist an application for a Com- 
 mission, next year the Brethren, roused to indig- 
 nation by such an attempt to silence the claims of 
 their Order — those claims being not political nor 
 religious, but natural, the claim of the servant for 
 food and wages, — will number, as petitioners, 6,000. 
 And that, further, should the great Dagon of Expe- 
 diency be yet, by the infatuated and foolish, propped
 
 VI 11 
 
 ap to await a more perfect overthrow from the Ark of 
 God, (as heretofore it met, 1 Sam. v.), by their still 
 supporting the cruel oppression of Impropriators in 
 their illegal abstraction of the right of their Brethren, 
 the Priests of God's Temple, upon the principle 
 that it is inexpedient to touch the rich and power- 
 ful, 16,000 — the whole body of them — will make, 
 as they ought, common cause against the longer 
 continuance of so cruel, so disgraceful, and unholy 
 an imposture as the Bounty Fund delusion ; and 
 that the question which is now capable of being 
 settled by a fair and open negotiation, will, if not 
 now entertained, be carried by public acclamation. 
 
 But when I mention the word "negotiation," I 
 beg it may be distinctly understood that the use of 
 this word implies no " compromise." As long as I 
 have a pen or a penny, and health, strength, and 
 vigour, I will contend to the utmost, that the Priest 
 Incumbent of every Impropriation is entitled, by the 
 Statute Law, to full aliment and maintenance; that 
 the due wants of the Priest are to be first provided 
 for : and that if the proceeds of the whole Living are 
 inadequate to this due and creditable maintenance of 
 the Priest, that then the ivhole of the proceeds of the 
 Living are absolutely and inalienably his. 
 
 This is what we claim, and the claim must be at- 
 tended to. We shall return to the charge year by 
 year, until we accomplish our end. The opponents, 
 therefore, had better, at once, surrender at discretion, 
 and shew their willingness, their anxiety, to acquit
 
 IX 
 
 themselves before God, and that they need not a 
 second incitement to induce them to do what is 
 right between man and man. 
 
 This Pamphlet appears to be an attack on the 
 Fund called, The Bounty of Queen Anne, and so it 
 is ; but it is, indirectly, an attack upon the Ecclesias- 
 tical Commission : indeed, I verily believe that had 
 that body never had existence, or had never attacked 
 the Prebendal Stalls, this Pamphlet would have 
 been, with its contents, in embryo. 
 
 It is farthest from my ambition to be a grievance 
 hunter. Such individuals are, I think, generally, the 
 pest of society, and, usually, impertinent quacks, who 
 but take advantage of something that they persuade 
 others to think a grievance, merely for the sake of 
 self-aggrandizement; acquiring importance from the 
 propounding for public acceptance of their doctrine, 
 as the remedy for all the evils discovered or imagined 
 by their Utopian apprehensions. " Why," the reader 
 may exclaim, " you are describing yourself" No, 
 I am not ! It is in opposing such preposterous de- 
 ceivers that I have come into public at all ; and the 
 whole purport and object of every thing I ever wrote 
 or published, was, the endeavour to make men satisfied 
 with what they have ; and so, instead of the modern 
 rage of inventing new things and systems, to restore 
 the ancient use, by getting rid, in every case, of the 
 present abuse. I am for letting the ancients speak 
 for themselves and act for us. I endeavour to ap-
 
 preciate their wisdom, to emulate their noble dis- 
 interestedness. I object to all needless innovations ; 
 and denounce as mischievous quacks and innovators 
 those who, with no knowledge of their forefathers' 
 acts and motives, sacrilegiously carry out the crude 
 imaginations of a brain which has neither had the 
 experience to teach it, nor the ability to conceive the 
 emblematic tuition of those who, founding our state 
 in all its beautiful proportions, left no part needless 
 or useless. 
 
 The Church Commissioners attacked the Consti- 
 tution of our Church. 
 
 I defended it. 
 
 They attacked the Prebendal Stalls. 
 
 I defended them, on various grounds. 
 
 They said they were comparatively useless. 
 
 I defended the Stalls for what they had done, and 
 for what they ivill, I hope and trust, do again. 
 
 The plea, the sole plea, on which they attacked 
 them was, "want of money." 
 
 I defended the Stalls on this ground of attack by 
 shewing that money existed at present in the Church, 
 and belonging properly to the Clergy, which, being 
 recovered, would produce more to the Clergy than 
 the plunder of the Stalls when realised. Hence this 
 book ; for such is its subject. And, inasmuch as this 
 can hardly be recovered, so long as the contributions 
 from the Bounty Fund conceal from the public the 
 real state of the case, I have endeavoured to make
 
 this apparent, in the exposure of that great and 
 pompous absurdity, called Queen Anne's Bounty. 1^ 
 To this end I published the first edition of this 
 Pamphlet last year. And as it was suggested to me, 
 and perhaps with reason, that the only way to make 
 the argument effective would be to present a pe- 
 tition on the subject to Parliament, 1, with the as- 
 sistance of my valued friend, as I have said, drew 
 up this, which I here subjoin, embodying in as few 
 words as possible the gist of the argument of the 
 Pamphlet. 
 
 To the Honourable The Commons of the United Kingdom of (freat 
 Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, the Petition of the 
 undersigned Clergy of England and Wales : 
 
 Humbly Sheweth, 
 
 That whereas a Committee of your Honourable House has re- 
 cently reported on the subject of First Fruits and Tenths and the 
 Fund intituled "The Bounty of Queen Anne," your Petitioners 
 beg to remind your Honourable House that the origin of the pay- 
 ment of the First Fruits and Tenths was an assumption on the part 
 of successive Bishops of Rome of their right to tribute from all the 
 Clergy of Christendom, and of England in particular, as " High 
 Priest of all the Earth : " 
 
 That King Henry the Eighth and his Parliament, though they 
 protested against the claim of the Potentate of Rome, yet continued, 
 under a different pretence, the impost, by transferring it to the 
 Monarch, as " Head pf the Church in England : " 
 
 That Queen Anne, touched with commiseration for the destitu- 
 tion of the Benefices despoiled by Impropriation of their income, (by 
 which spoliation it had become matter of necessity to throw several 
 Cures into one Incumbency, to constitute, by the accumulation of 
 stipends, a mere maintenance for the officiating Minister), surren- 
 dered the above Impost to a Board, called " The Governors of Queen
 
 xu 
 
 Anne's Bounty," to be thenceforth applied to the purpose of miti- 
 gating this destitution, and of reducing, pro tanto, the necessity of 
 pluralities. 
 
 But as, while this act of Queen Anne was well intended, it has 
 been found, (as your Petitioners beg leave to allege), in its conse- 
 quences, to entail much injury upon the great majority of the 
 Vicars and Perpetual Curates, &c., your Petitioners desire further- 
 more to draw the attention of your Honourable House to some of 
 the practical operations of this Injustice, viz. : — The injustice of 
 the Clergy's forced contribution to a fund raised by Popery under 
 one false pretence, continued by Protestants under another equally 
 absurd; (as transferred to the King of England by an inconsiderate 
 adoption of the pretence of right assumed and enforced by the 
 Bishop of Rome); and now sought to be perpetuated for an object 
 as far removed from the original purpose for which it was at first 
 levied, as that purpose was from the Word of God, by the power 
 of which it was raised. 
 
 Among which inconveniences they beg to enumerate, First, That 
 it screens the Impropriators in their neglect to maintain the Vicars 
 and Curates of their Impropriations, as, by the various Acts of Par- 
 liament passed for that special purpose, they are hound to maintain 
 them, suitably, creditably, honourably; and which Acts, constitute 
 the only Title-Deeds of the income by Tithe to which they lay 
 claim, and, by the spirit of which Acts they are compelled to pay to 
 each such Vicar, to the full, double the amount he holds, can hold, 
 or ever hope to get by the Bounty Fund Illusion in any given num- 
 ber of years. 
 
 And while. Secondly, these Impropriators are thus screened from 
 Public Reproach, which would, if it had free course, drive them, 
 for very shame's sake, to render to each Servant of the Altar his 
 due, the monetary value of their Advowsons is improved by grants 
 from the above-named Bounty Fund; and which grants act, there- 
 fore, as a Premium upon the Neglect of Law and Justice : — that. 
 
 Thirdly, thus, and with other concurring causes, a low standard 
 of remuneration for the services of Spiritual Persons having become
 
 Xlll 
 
 general, it has come to pass that, as upwards of 8,000 Clergy of i 
 the Church, in England alone, are serving their Cures at an income / 
 less, on the average, than 100/. per annum, they have yearly (their ' 
 average needful expenditure being moderately estimated at 300/. 
 per annum) to contribute to the wants of The Church, hy their 
 unremunerated and expensive service, out of their own private re- 
 sources, a sura greatly exceeding One Million sterling, to the in- 
 calculable injury of their uneducated children; the spiritual loss of 
 the Church, which is hampered by the services of worn-out Minis- 
 ters; to the great discomfort of iheir old age, and to the cruel and 
 irreparable injury of their Widows and Orphans. 
 
 For these and other reasons, with which your Petitioners forbear 
 now further to trouble your Honourable House, they humbly pray, 
 and that, without desiring in the least degree to reflect upon the 
 judicious management of the Fund and the integrity of its Governors^ 
 that, in legislating on the First Fruits and Tenths, you will no 
 longer tolerate a tax of Papal imposition, at once so offensive in 
 Principle, and so pernicious and delusive in Operation; and that 
 you will therefore be pleased to cause to be framed an Act for the 
 total Repeal of all the Acts which have been passed at various 
 times, and under several pretences, to legalise the exaction of the 
 First Fruits and Tenths of their Cures from the Beneficed Clergy 
 of England and Wales*. 
 
 It has been alleged by some that the assertion ' 
 respecting 8,000 Clergy, averaging, in income, under 
 100/. a-year, is incorrect. It is incorrect. It might 
 have been 10,000 ; and I verify my assertion thus : — 
 
 There are (vide Liber Ecclesiasticus) of Livings 
 in the Church of England, — , 
 
 * The Petition to the House of Lords is precisely the same; the 
 wording being only so far changed as to adapt it for presentation 
 to their Lordships.
 
 XIV 
 
 Under an Income of 50/. 297 
 
 Between 50/. and 100/. ; average 75/. . 1629 
 Between 100/. and 150/.; average 125/.. 1602 
 
 Now, assuming these two last numbers to be 
 equal, the average will become, 3231 Livings, at or 
 under 100/. a-year; and adding in the 297 under 
 50/., the average will be proportionably lowered ; 
 making 3528 Livings under the average of 100/. 
 a-year. To these unremunerated servants of Church 
 and Commonwealth are still to be added 5,232 
 Curates, whose average income, arrived at in the 
 same manner as the foregoing, (vide Liber Eccle- 
 siasticus), is 81/., so that, 8,760 Clergy, the average 
 of their income being struck, are found to be serving 
 the Church at a yearly income of less than 90/. : 
 nearly 9,000 men ! But to this large body of men 
 have still to be added a considerable number of those 
 of apparently higher income, to whose Livings there 
 are now no Parsonage-houses, and who have, there- 
 fore, to pay rent for their dwellings ; there being 
 nearly 4,000 Livings where the Parsonage-houses 
 have gone to decay, the Impropriators having either 
 allowed them to fall down, or neglected to repair 
 them, or pulled them doivn and sold the materials ; 
 beside many hundred Livings where, neiv Parson- 
 ages having been erected to make good the ill effects 
 of this ill combination of unhappy contingencies, the 
 Incumbents being now under yearly payments, both of 
 interest and liquidation money for advances made
 
 XV 
 
 iVom the Bounty Fund, such yearly payments ought, 
 in equity, to be deducted from the statement of the 
 annual value of the Living. All these drawbacks 
 being taken into consideration, 10,000 will be rather 
 below than above the sheer arithmetical average of 
 stipends of 100/. a-year suffered under by the Clergy; 
 while the moral necessity entailed upon them by 
 their situation, to spend money in a hundred cases 
 not dreamt of by the Laity, being brought within the 
 scope of the inquiry, will make an assertion, affirming 
 the average professional net income of 10,000 of 
 the Clergy of the Church in England to equal 100/. 
 per annum, to be lamentably below the realities of 
 the case. 
 
 Here, then, we are presented with a fearful and j 
 incredible reality, which is this : — In a Christian 
 country, more than half its Priests are not kept by 
 their people : not that, as we have alleged in the 
 Petition, there are more than 8,000 Clergy, the aver- 
 age income of which body is under a hundred a-year, 
 but that the ministrations of The Church are sup- 
 ported, in 10,000 instances, by the private means of 
 the Priesthood ! And this is the grasping, griping 
 Clergy of whom so much has been iniquitously and 
 felsely said. And this Christian country is Eng- 
 land. England, that model nation of the World ; as it 
 vaunts itself ! of the Christian Wor\d\ How are the 
 mighty fallen, who " did run well," and who boast 
 themselves always beyond all reasonable endurance ! 
 Oh ! tell it not in Gath, that Christianity is not 
 worth the payment of its Priesthood, publish it not
 
 in Judea, lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, 
 and the sons of the circumcised triumph! 
 
 But there is nothing like figuring to demonstrate 
 such an argument as this. These 10,000 men spend, 
 on an average, 300/. per annum. What man and 
 family can keep up a respectable appearance on 
 anything less than this ? Here, then, we have 
 10,000 men receiving on the average 100/. per 
 annum, and, in the performance of their duty, ex- 
 pending 200/. more. Multiplying these numbers 
 we have 10,000/. x 200 = 2,000,000/. Two Mil- 
 lions of pounds yearly expended by those particular 
 servants of that faith, which lays it down as an abso- 
 lute principle, that the servant is worthy of his 
 hire ; that the Minister shall live of the Altar that he 
 serves. 
 
 And what is the consequence of this exaction, 
 from these men, of their private means ? Not only 
 is the liberal dispenser of kindnesses and benevo- 
 lence to the poor changed into a careworn calculator 
 of pence and farthings, and — Woe is the Nation ! — 
 necessarily so ; but, the widow and the orphan are 
 deprived, after the husband's and father's death, 
 of the assistance of such accumulation of private 
 means as the years of his incumbency would have ad- 
 mitted of his gathering. It is very possible that, from 
 this computation, it may be suggested to deduct the 
 number of 5,232 for the Curates. To this I am wil- 
 ling to agree, if any body can shew me any authority, 
 in the word of God, stating that men must live on 
 less than they can live on. No servant of the Altar
 
 XVII 
 
 should have less tliau he can live upon : and such, f 
 am sure, is the intention of The Holy God; Who 
 does not move men to be religious, and to oppress 
 His servants at the same time. Such a notion is 
 a horrible mockery. But let ns not be deceived ; 
 " God is not mocked " in this matter. 
 
 Indeed, I know it has been alleged, that " Curates 
 ought to be struck out of this calculation ;" and why, 
 does the reader suppose ? They ought not to have 
 enough to live on, inasmuch as Ensigns in the 
 army, and Midshipmen and others, have not enough 
 to live upon. I must, however, beg leave to resist 
 and deny altogether the applicability of this analogy 
 to ecclesiastical affairs. If Man chooses to molest and 
 mulct, and make terms with his own servant, so let 
 him. But by what authority does he presume to act 
 thus by Gods servants ? The rule of the Gospel is, 
 " The Priest shall live by his Altar." And you choose 
 to say No, he shan't live by his Altar ! " And when 
 I tell you of God's ordinance, that the servant of the 
 Altar is thereout imperatively and absolutely to be 
 hxiwd maintenance, you talk to me about Ensigns! 
 What have Ensigns and their pay to do with God's 
 Priests and their aliment ? To argue thus is child- 
 ish, To act upon such silly sophisms is, as to men, 
 impertinent — as to the servants of God's xA.ltar, im- 
 pious : and the issue, practically, is, that the tieat- 
 ment the Clergy have met with these two hundred 
 years, and do meet witli low, is infamous : there is no 
 other word that can adequately meet the case. The 
 
 b
 
 XVlll 
 
 rale of their profession and the law of God being 
 this, that " you shall keep them in carnal things, 
 because they supply you with spiritual things," you 
 have actually contrived, by bad laws, and bye laws, 
 and custom, and the immunity in which rapacity and 
 selfishness always rejoice when multitudes agree, to 
 7nake them pay in carnal things for ministering to 
 you in spiritual. A truly religious Nation, indeed, 
 that must be which makes its clergy pay two millions 
 a-year for the privilege of doing their duty ! How 
 different the Dutch and the Danes ! 
 
 " Near a century ago the States of Holland 
 thought 100/. a-year the least which a clergyman 
 unmarried ought to be allowed ; and none of those 
 who were married had less than 150/. ; and in their 
 capital city every one of their Established Church 
 had a certain income of 300/. a-year. They had 
 not indeed so much salary from the State, but their 
 stated and fixed presents, as certain as their salaries, 
 amounted to that sum ; and the widows were al- 
 lowed pensions. Pudet hsec opprobria nobis 1" — 
 Webster's Clergy's Right of Maintenance, 1726, 
 p. 78. 
 
 In the meantime I hope indeed that no man will 
 deny the fact, that the average income of 8,000 of 
 the Clergy is under 100/. a-year ; that we shall not 
 hear any more of man's practice towards man being- 
 pleaded as a justification for man's robbing or in- 
 juring, to any conceivable amount, the servant of 
 God in God's name. If a parish want a Priest,
 
 XIX 
 
 let it pay him. If a parish want two priests, Jet 
 the people pay them. The man or men serve the 
 Gospel, and they have a right to live of it; but 
 now, instead of paying the labourer, who is worthy 
 of his hire, you mock him with an analogy. He 
 asks you for bread, you give him words, and bad 
 ones. What can be more contemptible and extra- 
 vagant — more pitiable ? — Consult St. James. 
 
 In order that our labours may meet a practical 
 issue, the annexed explanation of the columns of 
 the sheet of Impropriations will be useful, as leading 
 the mind of the reader to understand the queries 
 w4iich it is proposed shall be sent to every Incum- 
 bent of every impropriation in the kingdom. 
 
 In the column A. is given the names of certain 
 impropriated parishes. In some instances they ap- 
 pear in the Clerical Guide to have an income of two 
 or three hundred a-year; a further investigation 
 will, however, shew that this sum ought properly to 
 be subdivided for a provision for two or three 
 livings ; thus Hungarton, Twyford, and Thorpe- 
 satchvill are three livings, but imposed upon one 
 unfortunate clergyman, who has to do duty in three 
 places for a less sum than he ought to have for 
 doing the duty in one. So also Christ Ciiurch 
 appears to be a living of ](i4L per annum; but to 
 Christ Church, with its population of 53,-544, the 
 parish of Holdenhurst is attached, with 723 souls ; 
 
 62
 
 XX 
 
 both of which are to be superintended for this 
 miserable pittance of 164/. In the Clerical Guide 
 the livings ought to have been always separated, 
 and the population of each separately specified. 
 From neglect of this it has happened that a false 
 estimate has been formed of the real state of the 
 livings. So that while several hundreds of livings 
 appear to be of 300/. per annum and upwards, 
 there should, on the contrary, have been twice 
 or thrice as many added to the 4,000 livings under 
 100/. a-year. 
 
 The column B. exhibits the population of the pa- 
 rishes in question ; a comparison of which, with the 
 net value per annum of the livings, will shew the 
 injustice of which men, our poor and uneducated 
 brethren, are victims, no less than their ministers, 
 where impropriation has thrust its unhallowed hand. 
 
 Let us take Mortlake for example. It has a po- 
 pulation of 3,000. Is it possible for one man to 
 attend to this mass of human beings ? and how can 
 he pay a curate out of 132/. — the rent of a house 
 being deducted from even this miserable pittance? 
 If men have no bowels for the poor Priests, who slave 
 night and day for a thankless and haughty squirear- 
 chy and others, — if they have no feeling for the neg- 
 lected souls of the brethren for whom Christ died, — 
 let them at all events, if they regard the security of 
 their possessions and the stability of the existing 
 order of things, do their utmost to keep out Dissent 
 (which is Republican isni) ; and ivliich always makes
 
 XXI 
 
 its way amongst the people of a parish in exact 
 proportion to the neglect of the people by the minis- 
 trations of the Church. Take, again, Hartington in 
 Derbyshire, with its population of 2,000, and a 
 houseless Vicar, with an income of 149/. Can one 
 man look after these people ? Impossible ! And 
 who is to pay his Curate? The Impropriation is 
 worth 1,000/. a-year. Are not these realities abomi- 
 nable and monstrous ? Charlton Kings, in Glou- 
 cestershire, is a worse case. The Impropriator's 
 income, arising from tithe, &c., (even without all that 
 has been sold away piecemeal), is upwards of 500/. a- 
 year. He even bags the offerings for the dead, in 
 the shape of fees for graves, and gives his houseless 
 Incumbent 40/. He thus writes : — " I could wish it 
 had been in my power to give you more assistance 
 than I have done. Perhaps it may be well to add, 
 that the population of my parish is upwards of 
 3,100, and that I am obliged to keep a curate. My 
 parishioners contribute to this about 30/. I have 
 received aid to about the amount of 80/. in value 
 from the Bounty Fund ;' but unless I had private 
 resources, I could not meet my necessary expenses. 
 Wishing you all success, I am, &c." There are, I 
 am bold to affirm, hundreds of cases to match these. 
 But while I have singled out these large popula- 
 tions, to illustrate the injury that they and their 
 ministers sustain from the monstrous wickedness 
 of Lay-Impropriations, it is to be recollected, that, 
 however small a population is, the parish cannot
 
 XXll 
 
 have less than a man to officiate; and, therefore, 
 that, while the clergymen who minister to large 
 populations, need a larger income for their " congrua 
 portio," none can have less than enough for his 
 decent sustenance. A truth which appears to have 
 been recognised by the Governors of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, in the grant made to the parish of Haugh, 
 Lincolnshire, where the houseless minister to nine 
 people has been allotted no less than 1,400/., to help 
 out the 6/. 13s. Ad. of the Impropriator. 
 
 The populations in every case are below the pre- 
 sent reality ; as it is now some time since the census, 
 which is the basis of the calculation, was made. 
 
 The column C. exhibits the result of my attempt 
 to arrive at the impropriated value of the Livings in 
 question ; but it is an imperfect attempt. This in- 
 formation cannot be thoroughly obtained until a 
 Commission is appointed to ascertain, in every case, 
 the titheable value of every parish in the kingdom, 
 and the value of estates or glebes impropriated away 
 from the parish Priest. 
 
 In this instance the information given is just what, 
 and no more than, has been sent to me in schedules, 
 as annexed : — 
 
 Value of Impro- 
 priation. 
 
 Stipend paid by Im- 
 propriator toVicar or 
 Perpetual Carate. 
 
 Name of Impro- 
 priator. 
 
 
 
 
 In many instances the Incumbents misunderstood
 
 XXlll 
 
 the question, having given the amount of the Living 
 as they receive it — (for this I have supposed to be 
 the case when the sum returned had exactly agreed 
 with that set forth in the Clerical Guide as the 
 Net Value of the Living). In other instances, the 
 Clergy have been unable to answer altogether ; in 
 others, again, a yearly income has been returned, 
 which affords no idea of the value of the Impropri- 
 ation ; such sum being nothing more than a rent- 
 charge, remaining to be paid yearly, additional to 
 fines payable on reneival of a lease of lives or of 
 years, as in the case of Monk Frystone, Yorkshire, 
 as it is also with Stow-cum-Qui, in Cambridgeshire. 
 That is a very curious instance of impropriatitig. 
 Every thing is impropriated there, even down to the 
 grazing of the church-yard, which, together with the 
 Parsonage-house, glebe, and tithes, is leased away 
 from the man who is the only person that has the 
 least right to either the one, the other, or the three 
 together. 
 
 To be sure, when I say " every thing," I may be 
 wrong ; for the offerings for the dead are not 
 mentioned ; nor are the Easter offerings leased out 
 as they are at Mancetter, where a grocer has 
 them or had them : but, I believe, with the exception 
 of these two items, the case is as bad as it can be. I 
 don't say it is the worst that can be adduced, be- 
 cause I feel confident, that however bad it may on 
 investigation prove, hundreds of instances may be
 
 XXIV 
 
 adduced wiiich sijail match it for sacrilege, prof'ane- 
 ness, and extortion. 
 
 The column D. exhibits the houseless condition 
 of the greater part of the parishes instanced. Some 
 of the Livings^ it appears, have houses ; but how long 
 have they had them, and at whose cost have they 
 been built ? 
 
 Every Incumbent is now obliged to keep his house 
 in repair; and such has always been the rule in the 
 Church. But how could men, who had only 5/., or 
 6/., or 10/., or 20/., live even? much more maintain 
 the Parsonage-house in repair ? To enable the Cler- 
 gymen to exist, Livings became thrown together; 
 and one man holdino- half a dozen Incumbencies 
 and living only in one, the other five fell, either into 
 ruin, or into the hands of tlie Impropriator, which 
 was worse. By the improvement of the Livings 
 they became again disunited ; but, in the meantime, 
 the house for the Clergyman had disappeared, and 
 had to be replaced. That they should be re- 
 stored was out of the question ; because such an 
 arrangement would have been but equitable and 
 decent : so they must be rebuilt ; but at ichose 
 expense ? At the expense of the Impropriator, who 
 allowed the old house to fall down, and who sold the 
 materials ? No ! the unfortunate Incumbent is to 
 build up the house and pay for it, if he live long 
 enough ; otherwise, his successor is saddled, as he 
 himself had been for his life-time, not only with interest
 
 XXV 
 
 on the advance, but with the payment of a yearly sum 
 in liquidation of the capital advanced, to enable him 
 to build. Hence it is, that inquiry would prove, that, 
 in very, very many instances in which the Incum- 
 bents seem to be enjoying* a house rent free, they are 
 actually living in one built by themselves ; and paid 
 or now paying, for, with their own money. Such is 
 the case of Empingham, Rutlandshire ; as also at 
 Eglwysvvrw, Pembrokeshire : as also it is at Dawley, 
 Salop ; where, in addition to the annoyance of the 
 Incumbent having to pay interest and mulct money, 
 he is conscious that the Impropriator is profiting and 
 getting rent by the house which ought to be his. 
 The same thing occurs in part at Yately, Hants, 
 where the Impropriator gets 10/. a-year rent for the 
 Parsonage; but 400/. having been given by a former 
 Incumbent and as much by Queen Anne's Bounty 
 to obtain another, there is no mulct money paid for 
 interest and in liquidation. 
 
 The case of Dawley would appear to be one of 
 particular hardship ; for, although its value appears 
 to be 250/. per annum, it is evident that Queen 
 Anne's Bounty Governors think its case one re- 
 quiring great assistance ; for it seems that they have 
 spared no less than 2,700/. to augment its income. 
 
 It would be very desirable that such a return 
 should be ordered of Parsonage-houses built of late 
 years by the Incumbent, as would shew, at one view, 
 the cost of the house, the money advanced, with the
 
 XXVI 
 
 sum paid actually, first and last, by the Incumbent 
 and his friends. 
 
 "In lieu of rooms to Curate," 10/. is the payment 
 at Whitstable. Nothing is paid " in lieu of food" 
 to the Curate. Quere? Was it intended that he 
 should live of what grew on the walls of his rooms? 
 Is it not evident that here was paid a conyrua 
 portio ? Where is it now ? 
 
 Column E. — The subject of the congrua portio 
 is so fully discussed in detail in the pamphlet, 
 that observations on it here need be very limited. 
 I would observe, merely, that the great inequality 
 of sums exhibited in this column proceeds from 
 augmentations having, from time to time, been 
 made, in the shape of benefactions, by others, in 
 behalf of the Living of which, in certain instances, 
 the Impropriator is nothing more than the mere 
 paymaster. In the time of Charles U. a material in- 
 crease was made in all Episcopal and Chaptral 
 endowments; and tvithin these few last years several 
 of the Ecclesiastical Corporations have done almost 
 as much for their Impropriations as they could; and 
 they will doubtless continue to augment. In some 
 honourable instances the Impropriators themselves 
 have done something to meet the offering of the 
 Bounty Fund ; and, if not what they ought, yet we so 
 rejoice to see anything like an approach being 
 made to just and comely conduct, that one is almost 
 justified in affirming it to be an earnest of better
 
 xxvu 
 
 things to come. In some parishes we rejoice to 
 observe that a moiety has been fixed as the congrua 
 portio : and why ? because honesty and good faith 
 was the line of conduct adopted by the Impropriator 
 in such instances ; and if so in one, why not in all? 
 And is not the conduct of one honest man the re- 
 proach, as well as the guide, to those who are simi- 
 larly circumstanced with himself, and who do not 
 what they ought to do? So far, however, from 
 this being the case, we find that, not unfrequently, 
 the miserable congrua portio is mulcted by draw- 
 backs, ex. gr., Allwinton, Northumberland, where 
 the 8/. 13s. 4d., is made less by 1/. 14^. 6d for 
 land-tax, at the rate, that is, of 4s. in the pound : 
 sometimes we find it has been discontinued alto- 
 gether ; as in the case of Horfield, Gloucestershire : 
 sometimes it has been denied when demanded, 
 and recovered only by expensive law process ; as in 
 the case of Empingham, Rutlandshire. The case of 
 Monknash exhibits a sum of 15/. per annum due, 
 but not paid. In the former edition of this Pamph- 
 let I laid great stress on the relative value of money 
 at the time that these several payments were first 
 made, and now ; but, since that time, I have found 
 our case to be so much stronger than I then thought 
 it — inasmuch as the Servant of the Altar is entitled, 
 by law, to a congrua portio — that the column of 
 congrucB portiones is rather given as a curiosity than 
 as tending to help the argument; unless it be to
 
 XXVIU 
 
 shew how great the deficiency of the Impropriator 
 has been ; and to afford manifest proof that the prac- 
 tical operation of Queen Anne's Bounty is to aid 
 in keeping that defect of duty out of sight. 
 
 Column F. — The immense sum of money locked 
 up in the augmentations to Livings, which ought to 
 have obtained them from the Impropriator, will, I 
 hope, strike the reader, on inspection of column F., 
 and assure him how large an income is at once 
 available to the Church, for the augmentation of 
 really poor livings, in the restoration to each In- 
 cumbent respectively of his due congriia portio. He 
 will not forget that Queen Anne's Bounty is the 
 Clergy Tax, exacted, and from men who can't help 
 themselves, under an impious pretence and mockage 
 of the institution of God. 
 
 Column G. professes to exhibit the net value of 
 the livings. But it is not to be relied on in the 
 least. It is extracted chiefly from the Liber Ecclesi- 
 asticus ; and in no case deducts either rent for a 
 house, or salary of a curate, or land-tax, or poor- 
 rate, &c. There is also this to be noted of this 
 column. In many instances the salary to the 
 clergyman arises from land inclosed from the 
 Commons by inclosure acts ; that is, the rights of 
 commonage of the poor have been curtailed, that 
 the Parson may be paid by the incroachment upon 
 the Common of the poor, that the rich Impropriator 
 may be exonerated from the burthen of maintaining
 
 XXIX 
 
 the Priest. " Go to, ye rich men ! Howl and weep 
 for your miseries," that ye yourselves solicit at the 
 hands of your God. — Vide St. James. 
 
 Let us look at Hook Norton, in Oxfordshire. 
 Population 1,506. Value of Impropriation 1,200/. 
 No house for the Priest. No payment in lieu of the 
 congrua portio ; but the Common, to the amount of 
 180/. per annum, is taken from the poor of a popu- 
 lation of 1,506. Exhill, Lincolnshire, affords another 
 instance of 120/. being paid by the Common to the 
 Priest, instead of his being found in 300/., a-year 
 and a house by the Impropriator. 
 
 Column H. — But, the most wicked case of all, 
 in my estimation, is to come; and in this Queen 
 Anne's Bounty Board are participators to the full 
 extent. This is exhibited by column H. Certain 
 benevolent individuals, amongst whom have been 
 the Earl of Thanet, Lord Crewe, J. Marshall, Gent, 
 Mrs. Pyncombe, Lady Holford, Mrs. Horner, Mrs. 
 Ursula Taylor, Mrs. Anne Tarleton, Dr. Godolphin, 
 Dr. Millington, Mrs. E. Palmer, Baroness Godol- 
 phin, Rev. E. Brooke, Mr. Joseph Perceval, Countess 
 Dowager Gower, Sir Phil. Bolder, Bart, Rev. T. 
 Wood, Sir W. Langhorne, Rev. Dr. Raynes, Rev. 
 Arch. Rundle, Rev. Moses Cooke, Rev. Dr. Hinch- 
 liff. Sir Thomas Went worth. Dr. Stratford, E. Cols- 
 ton, Esq., and many others, whose names 1 cannot 
 collect, have left different estates and large sums of 
 money to augment poor livings. 
 
 Now what has been the system of the Governors?
 
 XXX 
 
 Attercliife, in Yorkshire, is one of the Duke of Nor- 
 folk's leviathan mouthful s : The Duke, who is a 
 Papist, of course gives nothing ; but this signifies 
 the less, because Queen Anne's Bounty vouchsafes 
 4000/. ; meeting thus the benevolent Mrs, Pyn- 
 combe's and Mr. Marshall's donation, and the un- 
 fortunate Incumbent's, of 400/., to save the Impro- 
 priator, and sanctioning the diversion of this charity 
 from its legitimate channel to the benefit of the 
 Impropriator. So, again, Amesbury, Wilts, worth 
 upwards of 1,000/. a-year, and paid by the Impropri- 
 ator 40/. per annum, is allowed to receive from the 
 charitable endowment fund of the excellent bene- 
 factress, Mrs. Pyncombe, 200/. ; and this to save 
 the Dean and Chapter of Windsor. This is an 
 abominable case ; as, indeed, I believe it would be 
 hard to find a case with which the Dean and 
 Chapter of Windsor have anything to do that is not. 
 
 Again, the Earl of Morley, Impropriator of North 
 Molton (population, 2,000,) with Twitchin annexed, 
 (of near 200 more,) and worth 1,700/. a-year, is 
 allowed, by the system of the Governors, to put his 
 scoop mto the charity fund of the benefactors, Mrs. 
 Pine, Mrs. Ikon, Mr. Home, and Mr. Pyncombe, 
 and take thence 400/. The Governors encouraging 
 the act, by accumulating the sum altogether to 1,500/. 
 
 So that what between the poor Clergy who pay, 
 and those whose poverty is the magnet of attraction 
 to the beneficence of the charitable, the Earl of 
 Morley escapes tlie payment of f)00/. a-year, and
 
 XXXI 
 
 enjoys the patronage of 110/. per annum, instead 
 of having to present to a double parish, with an in- 
 come of 18/. a-year. 
 
 South Molton rejoices in an Impropriator about 
 as considerate and as ready to enjoy the alms of 
 Mrs. Pyncombe as the Earl of Morley. The Dean 
 and Canons of Windsor again. They have not 
 only the tithes, but the glebe, and the Parsonage- 
 house as well. To be sure they do give 40/. a-year ; 
 but this is of the less consequence, as the charity 
 fund is open to dip into and out of Even a hun- 
 dred pounds is not disdained ; for, fortunately, they 
 found that the mayor and corporation, and two clergy- 
 men and a layman would give a trifle ; so that they, 
 the Dean and Chapter, have contrived to achieve 
 157/. per annum for their unfortunate Priest; but who 
 has for this, to find himself a house and attend 3,826 
 parishioners. I have not time nor space for more on 
 this head. These, however, are horrible abuses of 
 charity, — a perversion of God's alms to the devil's 
 purposes ; i.e., to encourage, promote, and to justify, 
 cruelty, extortion, robbery, and the excess of each. 
 And this is what Queen Anne's Bounty does whole- 
 sale. 
 
 The column of dates, I., has no very particular 
 point in it. I lear, however, that it does not attest 
 any very modern instances of Impropriators aug- 
 menting by benefactions. In fact, it is painful to 
 find how seldom the Impropriator has been the 
 benefactor. Two honourable exceptions 1 have heard
 
 XXXll 
 
 of: 1 trust by the time that 1 have to print another 
 edition of this Pamphlet they will have extended to 
 a goodly company. 
 
 In the meantime I close this Preface by express- 
 ing my disgust and horror at the things I have dis- 
 covered ; and my conviction, that the only possible 
 way to have them righted will be by the appointment 
 of a Commission, armed with very searching — 
 alas ! that it should be necessary — even inquisitorial, 
 powers. 
 
 Here are found Churches pulled down; Churches 
 closed; the Service offered once a fortnight, and, in 
 other places, entirely without the performance of Di- 
 vine Service ; the sacred edifices turned into barns ; 
 payments guaranteed to the Incumbents by ancient 
 deeds ; the deeds kept out of sight, and the pay- 
 ments denied ; Alms-houses destroyed, the Endow- 
 ments seized ; the delmquents daring in their acts 
 because screened by those in authority ; Parson- 
 age-houses pulled down in the very presence of 
 the Clergy, and their remonstrance derided ; Par- 
 sonage-houses having to be rebuilt by the Incum- 
 bent, and assistance denied ; Schools built by the 
 Parson and his friends, and assistance entirejy re- 
 fused by those who hold the tithes, on condition of 
 providing for the wants of the poor, as ivell as of 
 the Vicar; Simonaical contracts imposed upon In- 
 cumbents elect ; and other fearful acts of oppression 
 and robbery, of which poor gentlemen, scholars, and 
 Christian Priests, are the miserable victims.
 
 XXXlll 
 
 For these and numerous other grievances, which 
 will not be redressed unless the whole mass of 
 enormous iniquity be brought to light, we demand 
 the appointment of a Commission ; and the object 
 for which it is wanted, and the points to which it 
 will be useful to direct its inquiries, mil be pointedly 
 exhibited in the annexed Schedule of proposed 
 queries, every one of which has been framed with 
 reference to some particular case : — 
 
 j4n Alphabetical Return of every Impropriator, Lay and Clerical, 
 in England and Wales ; dissolving their united Impropriations 
 under separate heads ; and educing from each parish this 
 specific information : 
 
 1. The name of the Incumbent. 
 
 2. The name of the Patron. 
 
 3. The name of the Impropriator. 
 
 4. The supposed monetary value of the parish in land, &c., ia 
 rental, as exhibited by the Poor's Rate book. 
 
 5. The population of the parish, as by last census; and supposes! 
 increase or diminution since. 
 
 6. The amount of the Poor's Rate, by average of three years. 
 
 7. The supposed monetary value of Spiritual things taken or 
 claimed by the Impropriator. 
 
 8. The amount of pension paid by Impropriator to the Servant 
 of the Altar ; specifying by what name the payment is called in old 
 deeds. •**. 
 
 9. Enumeration of any old records or deeds containing, or sup- 
 posed to contain, information likely to throw light on the subject of 
 this inquiry ; with mention of their state of preservation, and in 
 whose keeping they are. 
 
 10. The value of the Living, as realised by the Incumbent. 
 
 1 1 . The net value of the Living. 
 
 12. The items of drawback. 
 
 C
 
 XX\1V 
 
 13. Curate's salary. (1) 
 
 14. Interest for advance i'roni Queen Anne's Bounty Board. (2) 
 1.5. The means by wliich the foregoing (qnere 10) is accu- 
 mulated. 
 
 16. If by grants from Queen Anne's Bounty, the time when the 
 grant was made ; and the name of the Incumbent, Impropriator, and 
 Patron, at the date of each advance. 
 
 17. The increased saleable value of the Advowson, by the iii- 
 ci eased income derived to the Living by grants from the Bounty 
 Fund, or other benefactions, or the personal exertions of the 
 parish Priest. 
 
 18. The times at which, within the memory of man, the Living 
 has been either increased or diminished by the Impropriator or 
 Impropriators. 
 
 19. Whether or no there be a Parsonage-house; and if there be, 
 its state of repair, and if sufficient. 
 
 20. If the Parsonage-house be new, or an old one made habit- 
 able, the party at whose expense it has been built or restored ; and 
 whether the Impropriator has borne, or offered, or refused to be at 
 any portion of the expense of such restoration or edification. 
 
 21. If the advance to build or repair was made by advance from 
 Queen Anne's Bounty Fund, (or by other means) the amount of 
 yearly payment for interest and liquidation of the same; and the 
 amount of the first and of the last year's payment: the number of 
 years during which the Living has been, or will have been when 
 clear, under payment of such sum for interest and liquidation. 
 
 22. If, the population of , being upwards of 1,000, there 
 
 be a Curate? 
 
 23. If not, whether the circumstances of the parish are such, 
 as to require one ; and whether the Incumbent, if he had the 
 Rectorial income, would certainly call in the aid of a Curate or 
 two, or more. 
 
 24. If there be a Curate, his salary, by whom or what party 
 paid, and what proportion of such salary is paid by the Im- 
 propriator. 
 
 25. If there be no residence for the Incumbent, or if there be.
 
 XXXV 
 
 whether any ancient messuage, formerly used as a Parsonage, 
 be in the hands of the Impropriator. If there be, the sum for which 
 it is rented, and who receives the proceeds. 
 
 26. The time at which the Parsonage became decayed; and if 
 it has been pulled down, the supposed proceeds of sale of the ma- 
 terials, and who profited by them. 
 
 27. In whose hand is the site of the ancient Parsonage, and the 
 glebe land by which it was surrounded ? 
 
 28. If the Parsonage need repair, does the Impropriator, whose 
 representative and substitute you are, repair the Parsonage for 
 you? 
 
 29. Impropriations being granted under the condition that the 
 Impropriator should sustain the Vicar and Curate by a " congrua 
 portio," and assist the poor, state the amount of aid extended by 
 the Impropriator to the parish school or schools. 
 
 30. Does the Impropriator assist any of the parochial charities? 
 
 31. By whom is the Chancel of your Church repaired? 
 
 32. Have you entered into any agreement, or signed any bond, 
 subjecting yourself to the repair of the Chancel ? 
 
 33. Have you ever delivered over any Offerings or Fees for 
 Interments in your Chancel, or have they ever been demanded 
 of you ? 
 
 34. Do you know of any parishes in your neighbourhood of 
 which the Churches, Parsonages, &c., have gone to decay, and not 
 been re-edified, and in which there is no Divine service performed? , 
 and state upon what Minister the inhabitants of such deserted 
 places rely for Spiritual assistance. 
 
 35. Mention the names of the parishes (townships or tithings) 
 by which the land of your parish or parishes is surrounded on every 
 side.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 WHAT IS QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY? 
 
 It is, in its name, adulation of power ; in its 
 reality, a solemn farce. It is the cloak of injus- 
 tice, — the screen of robbery, — a premium on ra- 
 pacity, — the occasion of sacrilege; for, it is a pre- 
 tended boon to the Church, but a great exaction 
 from all those who contribute to it; — a grievous 
 burden to the poorer Clergy, — actual loss to those 
 who receive it. It is a sin in the Laity who ask 
 it, — an insult to the Clergy to whom it is paid. It 
 is the slanderer's plea for false accusation, — the 
 occasion for the jeer of dissent. It is a Disgrace to 
 the Country — a Blot upon The Church — an Of- 
 fence to God, and a Mockery of Man. And what 
 wonder? For, it is Protestant subterfuge 
 
 GRAFTED ON PoPISH INVENTION, WHOSE FOUNDATION 
 AVAS BLASPHEMY. 
 
 " What ! can all this be possible? Impossible 1" 
 Such, reader, I doubt not has beeu your exclamation, 
 and your involuntary answer to your own query. 
 / blame not your incredulity ; for who can believe 
 it possible ? I hardly can, when I run down the 
 frightful category ; and, though I can prove all the
 
 allegations in detail, the aggregate has such a mon- 
 strous aspect of wickedness about it, that one almost 
 quails at the thought of attacking the Leviathan. 
 
 Nevertheless, the times are alarming; strange 
 things are happening every day, and the actors in 
 the scene of public life seem so to have changed 
 places of late years, that those to whom plain folks 
 have been accustomed to look as the guardians and 
 advocates of our liberties, rights, and privileges, 
 as Churchmen and as Priests of our National Sanc- 
 tuary, are — monstrum horrenduni ! — seen as the 
 destroyers of our constitution, betrayers of our in- 
 dependence, the spoilers of our funds, and the 
 screeners of the robber in his sacrilegious plunder- 
 ing of the Altar, and impoverishing of the Priests 
 who serve it. Is it that the prophecy of the sainted 
 Home is meeting its fulfilment, in the occurrences 
 of our day, and that "the wild boar of the forest" 
 is about to be admitted to devastate with savage 
 selfishness and revenge the hitherto sacred sanc- 
 tuary of " the Lord's Vineyard ?" 
 
 " * Fierce and unrelenting, her Heathen perse- 
 cutor issued, at different times, from his abode, like 
 a ' wild boar ' out of the forest, resolved not only to 
 spoil and plunder, but to eradicate and extirpate herf 
 for ever. Nor let the Church Christian imagine, 
 that these things relate only to her elder sister. 
 Greater mercies and more excellent gifts should ex- 
 cite in her greater thankfulness and call forth more 
 excellent virtues ; otherwise, they will serve only to 
 
 * Commentary on verse 13fh of the 80th Ps, : — " The boar out of 
 the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the fiehl doth devour it." 
 "}■ Tlie Jewish Ciiurch.
 
 enhance her account, and multiply her sorrows. If 
 she sin and fall after the same example of unbelief, 
 she must not think to be distinguished in her 
 punishment, unless by the severity of it. She may 
 expect to see the favour of Heaven withdrawn, and 
 the secular arm, instead of supporting, employed to 
 crush her ; her discipline may be annihilated, her 
 unity broken, her doctrines perverted, her worship 
 deformed, her practice corrupted, her possessions 
 alienated, and her revenues seized ; till at length 
 the word be given from above, and some anti-chris- 
 tian power be unchained, to execute upon her the 
 full vengeance due to her crimes." With how 
 many of these extremes of visitation are we not 
 threatened now? 
 
 Such being the case, it pertains to every man 
 whose eyes are open to the Signs of the Times, to 
 assist in the endeavour so generally made, to warn 
 The Church of the fearful position in which it is, 
 satisfied to " sleep on and take its rest." Many are 
 the attempts that have been made, by men of every 
 grade and shade of religion and politics, for our 
 enemies have unwittingly greatly served us, to 
 arouse it from its lethargy, but, alas ! without suc- 
 cess. And in truth, the age seems to be "judicially 
 blinded*." Truths the most solemn, most fearful 
 in themselves, in their consequences and in the 
 neglect of them, are uttered, even to the wise, witli- 
 out effect. How, then, shall we wonder to observe 
 the sneer, while we writhe under, not for one's own 
 sake, but that of the Church and the reviler himself, 
 the jibe, of the self-satisfied fool ? 
 
 * St. Luke xii. 5G. 
 B 2
 
 To make now another effort may be but the hurl- 
 ing of the spear of Laocoon at the wooden horse. 
 Nevertheless, confidence in a good cause gives one 
 courage, notwithstanding the adverse aspect of the 
 day, to dare yet once again : and, though we know 
 we have a back to break, that has resisted all the 
 burdens of truth, honest accusation, and indignant 
 reproach that have been heaped upon it, yet, recol- 
 lecting that it is the last grain that breaks the 
 strength of the camel, I would fain hope that this 
 mite may be the honoured instrument of breaking 
 down the indecent assurance of the most discredit- 
 able junta that ever dared to ride rough-shod over 
 The Church, in quashing its Rights as a delibera- 
 tive corporation, and the Rights of their Brethren, 
 who are, equally with five members of that junta, its 
 Watchmen and Guardians*. 
 
 The Reader will have discovered that I allude to 
 the Board in London, called by some " The Eccle- 
 siastical Commission," — by some, " The Church 
 Commission": — a Commission which has assumed 
 both those names, without having the least title to 
 either. It is not Ecclesiastical in its constitution: 1 
 have a right to say this, for of thirteen members, 
 eight are laymen ; while of them, seven may be Dis- 
 senters, and the eighth such an orthodox Church- 
 man, as the ex-Lord-Chancellor Brougham. It is a 
 
 * " It is the peculiar privilege of English Presbyters that they 
 have a right to sit in Provincial Synods ; I mean, to sit as constituent 
 members, and so, to have a right to vote, in deciding matters of 
 doctrine and discipline, and whatever else comes before them ; and 
 are allowed, in all conclusive acts, to have a negative on the 
 Bishop." — The Ancient and Present Church of England, S^c. ; 
 commonly called " Johnson's Fade Mecum."
 
 Commission, in which the opinion of the majority is 
 to decide all questions, if one Bishop concur*; — a 
 concurrence at all times attainable, because two of 
 the Episcopal Commissioners are removable at the 
 will of the Crown, and any ministerially nominated 
 Bishop, aspiring to the Patriarchal Chair, might 
 consider the return in prospect no bad payment for 
 this present treasonable betrayal of The Church. 
 If it be objected, " This is to reflect unwarrantably 
 upon Bishops," I answer, " I am not writing to 
 make people think Bishops infallible. I am writ- 
 ing to open people's eyes to the abuses of our sys- 
 tem, and to shew them the fearful position in which 
 we are satisfied to stand." 
 
 So long as Bishops are appointed as they are, 
 without the least regard to the judgment of The 
 Church, the conge d'elire being for the most part, 
 though it is not so always, a mere matter of form, 
 any man who is a Priest may be raised to the Epis- 
 copal Chair ; and we have known enough of the 
 profligacy of statesmen of all parties to be assured, 
 if experience is worth consulting, that the most 
 sacred interests of Man, of which The Church is 
 guardian and representative, have but rarely been 
 
 * By a recent provision, the anomalous construction of this Com- 
 niission has been admitted : for, now that the plunder scheme has 
 been determined upon, in defiance of the protests of all the Bishops 
 on the Bench but themselves, they have opened their Board to all 
 their Episcopal Brethren, at last ex-officio! with this obliging in- 
 vitation, — " Come, Come, and help us to dispense the stolen goods, 
 and divide with us the hateful onus of our indecent acts." Are the 
 rest of the Bishops to be thus easily duped ? If they are, they de- 
 serve to be as distasteful to the Church, as the other Com- 
 missioners deservedly are.
 
 deemed, by mere politicians, of any other conse- 
 quence, than as a means of political intrigue and 
 ministerial aggrandisement, — so much oil, (as has 
 been profanely jested), to lubricate the wheels of the 
 State Machine ; therefore, reader, if you please, we 
 will first rid ourselves, in the outset, of all that su- 
 perfluous nervousness and morbid delicacy which 
 likes not to whisper nor to have whispered unpala- 
 table esoteric truths. Things must be called by their 
 right names; and probable contingencies must be 
 set before the Brethren, in such striking aspects, as 
 to startle them into a feeling of the necessity for 
 making, and that quickly, a close and searching in- 
 spection of our present state. " As soon as the Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury's and Sir Robert Peel's and 
 my Lord John Russell's Church Destruction Bill is 
 carried into effect, by which the Prebendal Force, as 
 a safeguard to The Church from the invasion of the 
 episcopal chair by heresy and false doctrine, is to be 
 rendered nugatory, any Dr. Wade, or Dr. Arnold, 
 may be made a Bishop. And Dr. Wade in the 
 Commission as a Bishop, with a majority of laymen 
 and dissenters, may constitute the Executive for the 
 Church. And this is an Ecclesiastical Commission ! 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury's Ecclesiastical Com- 
 mission ! Sir Robert Peel's Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sion ! It is not an Ecclesiastical Commission ! — But 
 it is a Church Commission. 
 
 What is " The Church?" Let a man define 
 " The Church." Whatever his definition of it be, 1 
 will answer for it, he will find that this Commis- 
 sion is not " The Church's" Commission. " The 
 Cfmrch" was never asked about a/ii/ Commission.
 
 " The Church" might have been asked ; but it was 
 not asked. Moreover this same Commission, which 
 calls itself a Church Commission, took most par- 
 ticular care that " The Church" should not be 
 asked ; for, when The Church came together by its 
 Representatives, the Proctors of the Clergy of the 
 Dioceses, in Convocation, to London, they were 
 discouraged from speaking. However, they would 
 speak, and did; and the burden of their speech 
 Avas, astonishment and indignation at the audacious 
 pretence of a junta, calling itself by a false name, 
 acting as " The Church," in defiance of the voice of 
 that " Church," whose church wdivae it had the teme- 
 rity and falseness to assume to itself. A Church 
 Commission ! Contemptible deception ! A Church 
 Commission? An expression of feeling that was 
 warmly manifested by the Convocation of York. 
 
 Suppose, reader, that an English Commission 
 should be appointed to go to a Foreign Diet to 
 confer about the affairs of England. Suppose that 
 the Commission should be determined to consist of 
 thirteen members. Suppose that the movers of the 
 Diet w^ere to say that five only of those Commis- 
 sioners should, of necessity, be Englishmen, that 
 eio^ht mioht be Foreio^ners. Do we think — can 
 we — that this sort of English commission would 
 satisfy Englishmen? Suppose, moreover, that it 
 was appointed, or, after appointment in defiance of 
 the voice of the nation, it was patronised or lauded 
 by those hostile to the well-being of the Country, — 
 the traitorous hirelings of a foreign potentate* — 
 
 ''' Lord John Russell, 1 beg to remind the reader, has Leeii 
 lauded by the French political organ of the Vatican, the Gazette de
 
 8 
 
 would Englishmen tolerate such an insult? would 
 the Nation endure such a representation? I am 
 very sure they would not. And why are we, as 
 Churchmen, to endure that in our Church which as 
 Englishmen we would not tolerate in our State? 
 The cases are entirely analogous. But the subject 
 of the constitution of this Commission has been 
 taken up by so many men of name, and note, and 
 power, and of the highest character, moral, political, 
 religious, that it is needless now to reiterate con- 
 cerning it what has been abundantly demonstrated 
 by constitutional custom, and with statesmanlike 
 acumen and manly vigour, to be injurious to the 
 existence of the Church. 
 
 What infatuation has seized the people 1 know 
 not ; but, so it is, that the mightiest revolution that 
 was ever effected in the government of a church is 
 now taking place : and people are as much amazed 
 to hear of it, and as incredulous withal, as if the 
 speaker were fabricating tales, instead of recording a 
 page of the history of his own time. The voice of 
 wisdom has charmed in vain. The deaf adder of 
 SELF, which loveth " peace and a quiet life," hath 
 stopped her ears, and refuses to hear the concen- 
 trated testimony of lawyer, statesman, and divine. 
 
 How is this to be accounted for? It must be, 
 that men think these Commissioners, however un- 
 
 France, as " aujourd'hui le champion des principes de reforme et de 
 liberie, et qui prend en main la defense du Catholicisme Remain 
 centre I'etablissement du Protestantisme d'Irlande." And no doubt 
 with good reason ; how otherwise can we account for the fact of a 
 Popish Irish Viscouut venturing to nominate a successor to the 
 Ministry for the recently vacant deanery of Exeter?
 
 9 
 
 constitutionally the Commission be constituted, good 
 operators in their way ; that they are doing good ; 
 that they have a hearty desire to serve the Church ; 
 and are, at all events, devising the best means of 
 providing for the impoverished Clergy and in- 
 creasing the number of Witnesses for Christ in the 
 destitute places of the land ! 
 
 All this is quite a mistake. Whatever their good 
 intention may be, and I hope they have a good 
 intention — I will not here accuse them of another 
 feeling — I do pronounce their Acts and Neglects to 
 be the unquestionable evidence of their entire un- 
 fitness for the office they have assumed; and I 
 conceive that the declaration of these pages ought 
 so to overwhelm them with disgrace for their pro- 
 ven neglect of the pooi' Clergy of the Land, that 
 the Church, roused to indignation at the deception 
 practised upon the public, under the mask of Queen 
 Anne's Bounty, and of the toleration by the Com- 
 mission of the deception it aids, will pronounce, in 
 terms not to be mistaken, that it can have no 
 confidence in a Body, which, having assumed its 
 functions for the express purpose of ascertaining 
 how the poor Clergy could have justice done to 
 them, has neglected to report on a matter which 
 would have opened the eyes of the public to the 
 cruel injustice to which the poorer Clergy are sub- 
 ject ; and of which the remedy would be — let us see 
 the result of this experiment — the instant improve- 
 ment of their income, and a disposable fund for the 
 present maintenance of additional clergymen in des- 
 titute and dense populations. This remedy they 
 have avoided, and, I think, in a very discreditable
 
 10 
 
 way. Per fas et nefas seems to be their motto; so 
 the Bishop of London has, in two lines, in a para- 
 phrase, which is almost a literal translation, confessed ; 
 and to shew that he is quite prepared to justify his 
 adoption of the Jesuitical Principle to the utmost, 
 he has given them in italics, winding up his argu- 
 ment of abstraction thus, " We want for these pur- 
 poses all that we can obtain, from whatever sources 
 derived." And so, strictly in accordance with this 
 principle, and to hide their own neglect, they have 
 endeavoured to denude The Church of her ancient 
 ornament and defence ; seizing, by Act of Parlia- 
 ment as audacious as any that ever passed in the 
 reign of Henry VIII., the properties and endow- 
 ments of men and bodies, whose existence is in 
 many instances coeval with the establishment of 
 civilisation, that is, of Christianity, in the country. 
 
 Leaving them the full enjoyment of the glory 
 which Sir Robert Peel so valorously accords to them 
 and to himself, and to reflection on the motto of their 
 adoption, I beg to take the other side ; and, with the 
 concurrence of thirty Bishops, the immense majority 
 of the Clergy, and the feeling of all the instructed 
 Laity, who oppose their unconstitutional Acts in the 
 aggregate, — all of them in Principle and the greater 
 part of them in Detail, — I proceed to exhibit, in par- 
 ticular, their Acts and Neglects, as touching the 
 Revenues of the poorer Clergy. This I mean to do 
 in the consideration of Queen Anne's Bounty, so 
 called. My motto on this occasion being, as 1 trust 
 it will ever be, — 
 
 AnIMO, NON ASTUTIA.
 
 11 
 
 No longer to divert the reader's attention from 
 the points on which it is most desirable that it 
 should be directed, we will at once set about the 
 proof of the category above detailed. In order to 
 this, it will be necessary to shew two things ; — 
 
 First, The Origin of Queen Anne's Bounty ; 
 
 Second, Lay-impropriation and its cause : — for, 
 the combination of these elements in our present 
 system it is, which affords all those various phases 
 of abomination which constitute the groundwork of 
 our accusation ag-ainst both. And it behoves all 
 Churchmen, who love their Church, honour its 
 Founder, and, for His sake, desire that it " may have 
 neither spot nor wrinkle, nor any such thing, but 
 that it may be holy and without blemish," to 
 strive, with all their diligence, to have both the one 
 and the other severed from its existence. 
 
 The reader will have the goodness to bear in 
 mind, that the neglect of duty by the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners, of which we here especially com- 
 plain, is, the failing to apply the power of Acts of 
 Parliament now in existence to the latter, so as to 
 supersede the necessity of continuing the former ; 
 and, therefore, a fortiori, of touching the prebendal 
 or any other revenues.
 
 13 
 
 PART I. 
 
 QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY. 
 
 I DO not profess, in this hasty sketch of a great 
 subject, to give to the Reader all those details and 
 authorities which a set treatise on " Queen Anne's 
 Bounty," minutely written, should contain; but merely 
 to set before him the grand outline of the case ; quite 
 enough, however, to enable the comprehensive mind 
 to grasp at once the whole of our position. 
 
 What is Queen Anne's Bounty ? This is our 
 question. 
 
 First, Queen Anne's Bounty is a fund so called, 
 amounting to many thousands a-year, which is fed 
 by all the Clergy of the land whose livings are 
 above 150/. per annum ; it being the payment of the 
 First Fruits and Tenths of their Livings, according 
 to an ad valorem standard, set up in the reign of 
 King Henry VIIL, by whose order the valuation was 
 made.* 
 
 And what is done with this Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, if that be its name ? for, truly, it seems 
 much more like the Clergy's Benevolence than 
 Queen Anybody's Bounty. 
 
 * See Appendix No. I.
 
 14 
 
 It is handed over to Commissioners or Gover- 
 nors, to the end that they may distribute it to such 
 of the Livings of England, as are inadequate to the 
 maintenance of a Clergyman. 
 
 And when was this first done ? 
 
 In the reign of Queen Anne ; who, on a repre- 
 sentation being made to her that the stipends of the 
 Vicarages and Perpetual Curacies were altogether a 
 mockery of the necessities of their respective In- 
 cumbents, in her desire to reduce the evil of non- 
 ministration, and the necessity for pluralities, ex- 
 pressed her willingness to give up this yearly reve- 
 nue which she drew from the Clergy * And hence, 
 the name it has received, of Queen Amiens Bounty. 
 
 But, how came her Majesty to draw this contin- 
 gent and yearly revenue from the Clergy ? What 
 had they done to make them especially the objects 
 of taxation? for it seems strange that, of all the 
 orders and degrees of men in this commonwealth, 
 they alone are thus particularly taxed. Why should 
 they pay an income tax that every body else escapes ? 
 — An income tax, not for the benefit of the State, but 
 only of those who neglect their duty both to God 
 and man ? Why was this ? And what have we to 
 do with "First Fruits and Tenths?" For First 
 Fruits and Tenths was a payment in the Jewish 
 Church, having reference to the state and wants of 
 the Jewish High Priest. 
 
 Ay, why, indeed ? The answer to this question 
 
 * See Statute of Anne, Appendix No. II.
 
 15 
 
 will, of a truth, astonish most men. I may almost 
 say, at a venture, all, even all who ask it. For an 
 answer to this question, What has any body to do 
 with the First Fruits and Tenths ? we must go back 
 many centuries, and look for its solution in that fruit- 
 ful source of all corruption and wickedness, the 
 bishop of Rome : — him who is as absurdly as igno- 
 rantly called. The Pope. 
 
 The Pope ! What can he have to do with the 
 matter ? We are speaking of Protestant Queen Anne 
 and the Church of England. What can the Pope 
 have to do with us and Queen Anne's Bounty ? 
 
 Just as much as the foundation has to do Avith the 
 building. The case is this : 
 
 The Bishops of Rome having been for a long 
 time deferred to on all Church questions, as men 
 of much learning and influence in ecclesiastical 
 affairs, they became anxious to turn into a claim of 
 Right, that due deference to the Patriarchal Chair 
 which all had been very willing, as a matter of de- 
 ference, to offer to the ancient Metropolitan See of 
 Christendom and of the Western Empire. But 
 "deference" was not enough; and these Papas of 
 Rome, having become ambitious of universal sway, 
 their successors in St. Peter's Chair were, with few 
 exceptions, continually urging their claim to the pre- 
 posterous title of " Universal Bishop." They were 
 as continually, by the various Churches and Bishops 
 of Christendom, repulsed in the endeavour. At 
 length, however, by perseverance and cunning — 
 taking advantage of those numerous monastical es- 
 tablishments, the founding of which the superstition
 
 16 
 
 of a barbarous age much encouraged, and which 
 the Bishops of Rome dared by dispensation to 
 make independent of their Bishops ; violating at the 
 same time the Canons of the Church* for their own 
 aggrandisement, — they continued to organise these 
 respective bodies as a kind of standing corps pseudo- 
 ecclesiastical, with which to undermine the episcopate 
 proper of Christendom ; so that thus, and with the 
 concurrent force of various other devices, — partim 
 vi partim fraude, as it has been well expressed, — 
 having successfully paralysed the episcopal power, 
 the popes found themselves in a situation, each to 
 affirm himself, Bishop of the whole earth in general, 
 of Rome only in particular : the seat of government 
 or St. Peter's Chair being speciously designated 
 " The Centre of Catholic Unity." 
 
 Having virtually accomplished this great object, 
 they found themselves, as they thought, — at least, so 
 it was agreeable to them to think, — in a position 
 analogous to that of the Jewish High Priest ; and as 
 they were disposed to exercise all his power at least, 
 so they thought they were entitled to enjoy an equal 
 revenue. The case was clear : who ever heard of 
 any High Priest foregoing the First Fruits and 
 Tenths of his subordinates, in the Jewish system ? 
 and why should now " The High Priest of all the 
 Earth" have less than his Jewish prototype was 
 accustomed to enjoy ? The thought was conceived 
 to be a happy one, and the claim was quickly 
 made. 
 
 That the impious pretence was as quickly exposed, 
 
 * See Appendix No. III.
 
 IT 
 
 we cannot be surprised. Tliat it ever succeeded, we 
 may, indeed, be g-reatly and reasonably astonished. 
 By no nation was the audacious imposition more 
 strenuously resisted than by the descendants of the 
 Saxon conquerors of Britain* ; and had it not been 
 that the papal demand was favoured by circum- 
 stances, we may fairly doubt if it would have ever 
 succeeded. But, the frequent need of spiritual dis- 
 pensations, and the constant disputes respecting the 
 succession of the Crown causino- the areat arbiter 
 of Christendom, as the Bishop of Rome was gene- 
 rally esteemed, to be often referred to by those whose 
 cause was weakest in justice, the useful service ren- 
 dered to the usurpers, and to other powerful delin- 
 quents, begot, as a matter of necessity, an enforce- 
 ment of obedience to other dictates of that judge, 
 who had declared the validity of title of the reigiimg 
 potentate, or given some other useful or iniquitous 
 decision ; and so, the temporal power of such suitors 
 supporting the spiritual pretence of the Great Im- 
 postorsf successively, they were enabled to establish 
 their claim to the First Fruits and Tenths of all 
 Livings in this Country : but, let not the reader fail 
 to observe, under the assumption that the Pope was 
 the High-Priest of all the Earth. An impious farce ! 
 a mockery of the ordinance of God! a turning the 
 solemn appointment of Jehovah into a butt for 
 atheistical ridicule; and making the "Kings of the 
 Earth" the victims of their impious deceits ! Is not 
 this blasphemy ? gross blasphemy ? yet it is the 
 doing of popery ; and it is, moreover, the foundation 
 
 * Blackstone, id svpra. f Rev. xviii. 2;j.
 
 18 
 
 at least of that payment, which, at this day, goes by 
 the name of Queen Anne's Bounty. 
 
 A bad case indeed, if you can prove its truth. But 
 how came Queen Anne to be so identified with this 
 payment of First Fruits and Tenths by the clergy ? 
 How came Queen Anne — that Protestant queen — to 
 stand in the place of the Pope of Rome, and to take 
 to herself that, as a matter of right, which he claimed 
 as High-Priest of all the Earth ? She was not High- 
 Priest of all the Earth ? 
 
 At the time of the Reformation, when King 
 Henry VIII. was moved to resist the further encroach- 
 ments of the Bishops of Rome, and those events 
 took place, which ended in the resumption'^ by 
 England of her independence as a National Church, 
 Henry VIII. bethought him that it would be highly 
 improper, if not treasonable, to continue the payment 
 
 * It is of great importance in tlie present day to lay stress on 
 this word resumption, for reasons too obvious to need detailing. 
 
 Johnson says, — "All that I know more of any moment concern- 
 ing Patriarchs, is, 
 
 " That they were not erected all at once, or by any Council, or 
 other Authority : but by the Consent, Usage, and Submission of the 
 
 Bishops to those who sat in the more ample Sees. 
 
 ********* 
 
 •* There always were many Churches and Countries that never 
 were under any Patriarchate, as Cyprus and Iberia. See Can. 
 Eph. 8. 
 
 *' Particularly that Britain never belonged to any Patriarchate; 
 or, if it did, it was to a Domestic one, at York. The Truth I take 
 to be this, that our Arch- Bishop or Arch-Bishops always have ulti- 
 mately determined all matters here at home (excepting while we 
 were under the Usurpation of the See of Rome) but without ever 
 assuming the Title of Patriarchs, so far as appears."
 
 19 
 
 of the First Fruits and Tenths, which had been 
 hitherto made to the Pope ; as, any National Revenue, 
 if it e'iisted at all, belonged of right rather to the King 
 at home than to a Potentate abroad. So he, in the 
 manifestation of that wisdom in which the children of 
 this world abound, ordered that the First Fruits and 
 Tenths, which had been up to that time paid to the 
 Head of the Church, — the ^^ High-Priest-^retence" 
 was conveniently lost sight of for the occasion, — 
 should be paid to the newly discovered " Head of 
 the Church" nearer home. And, because some 
 men could not well comprehend this line of argu- 
 ment, and were altogether unable to make out how a 
 payment claimed by the High-Priesthood of Aaron's 
 descent could be applicable to the state of a man who 
 never ministered in a temple, their dulness was 
 aided by an Act of Parliament passed in this especial 
 behoof, anno 26 Hen. VIII., c. 3*; by the power of 
 which, no less than of many subsequent xVcts, the 
 Altars of the Church were robbed for the indecent 
 perpetuation of this popish blasphemy ; — blasphemy 
 grafted on and into our system by a tricksy and 
 wordy subterfuge : the subterfuge, that is, of substi- 
 tuting the office "Head of the Church," for that of 
 "High-Priest of all the Earth." 
 
 This was a great offence in King Henry VIII., 
 and it is the worse, from the animus that he shewed 
 
 * Vide, also, 34 & 35 Hen. 8, c. 17. The 5 & 6 Edw. G, c. 
 16 ; and 7 Edw. 6, c. 4, are as bad as any statutes passed in the 
 reign of Hen. 8. The statute 20 Hen. 8, c. 3, was repealed by 
 2 & 3 Phil. & Mary, c. 4, but re-enacted by 1 Eliz. c. 4 ; and ulti- 
 mately perpetuated by stat. 2 & 3 of Anne, c. 11 ; 1 Geo. 4, c. 10; 
 43 Geo. 3, c. 107; 45 Geo. 3, c. 84. Also, see First Fruits, &c. 
 Burn Ecc. Law, s. 19, and Appendix, No. II. 
 
 c2
 
 20 
 
 in the affair ; for, he was not satisfied with the mere 
 making of the sacrilegious seizure, but, in order that 
 he might not be cheated by the reluctant Clergy, he 
 had a valuation made of all the Livings of England 
 and Wales, and the register thereof inserted in a 
 book, called thence and to this day "Liber Regis," the 
 King's Book : the name of the book, and its intent 
 and contents, identifying, with the name and ex- 
 istence of that unfortunate king, the crime of 
 "church plunder, made under a blasphemous pre- 
 tence*." 
 
 Thus did that payment, which had been quasi 
 spiritual, become actually temporal ; and an exaction 
 for an imaginary spiritual office became an extorted 
 payment from the Minister of the Altar, to meet the 
 rapacity of a craving and profligate spendthrift "i*. 
 
 * See Appendix, No. T. 
 
 -|- Blackstone, i. 285. On the various Ecclesiastical plunders 
 effected by Henry VIII., Spelman says, speaking of the desecration 
 of the Holy vessels by Belshazzar, — 
 
 "Nescio quo fato sit, ut eodem temporis periodo (viz. an. 68) 
 post ereptas per Nebuc. et Hen. VIII. res templorum, stirps utri- 
 usque regia extincta sit, imperium sublatum et ad aliam gentera de- 
 volutum," &c. &c. 
 
 It is worthy of observation, that the great desire of Henry VIIT. 
 to continue his dynasty vras the cause which led hira to the commis- 
 sion of all his fearful sacrilege. With what success?! As their 
 damnation is just who do evil that good may come, so is their ill 
 success well merited, who attempt to bring about their own ends by 
 ungodly means, and their attempt is, in the issue, sooner or later, 
 sure to fail ; — fail, not only in the success of their object, but those 
 who have been the agents and instruments will meet a terrible re- 
 ward. The wages of sin is death, as well in things temporal as 
 eternal. 
 
 Sir Benjamin Rudyard, when dissuading the Parliament from 
 sacrilegious seizure, reminded the House that whereas the principal
 
 21 
 
 I ask the reader, — Was the foundation of this 
 payment tolerable ? I ask him, whether this transi- 
 tion was decent ? Whether, up to this point, the 
 matter is not stamped with the brand of Blasphemy 
 and Subterfuge? 
 
 But, to follow down the history of this cele- 
 brated Bounty, — This payment of First Fruits and 
 Tenths continued to be made through the reigns 
 of Edward VI.*, Queen Elizabeth, James, the 
 
 Parliamentary motive for seizing the Abbey-lands by Henry VIII. 
 was, that they would so enrich the Crown, as that the people should 
 never be put to the charge of any subsidies again, and that an array 
 of 40,000 men for the defence of the kingdom should be maintained 
 with the overplus, said, " God's part, Religion, by His blessing, has 
 been tolerably well preserved, but it has been saved as by fire, for 
 the rest is consumed and vanished, the people have paid subsidies 
 ever since, and we are now in no very good case to maintain an 
 army." And the King's disappointment was not small, when he 
 found that the practical result of his scheme of engaging the nobility 
 to take part in his sacrilege, was, that, although he was the seizing 
 Lion, he came off with only the Jackall's share. 
 
 And what was the end of the very minion who proposed to the King 
 the plan by which the spoliation was to be successfully achieved ? 
 
 *' One day as the King was conversing with [Sir Thomas] Wyatt 
 on the suppression of monasteries, he expressed his apprehension on 
 the subject, saying, he foresaw it would excite general alarm should 
 the Crown resume to itself such extensive possessions as those be- 
 longing to the Church. 'True, Sire,' replied the Courtier, 'but 
 what if the Rooks' nests were buttered/" Henry understood the 
 force and application of the Proverb, and is said from that moment 
 to have formed the design of making the nobility a party in the 
 transaction, by giving them a portion of the Church lands." — Dr. 
 Nott's Memoirs of Sir Thos. Wyatt. 
 
 The same Sir Thos. Wyatt afterwards came under the King's 
 displeasure, and was beheaded. 
 
 * dueen Mary repealed the Acts, which were re-enacted l)y
 
 22 
 
 Charleses, James II., William III., to that of Queen 
 Anne; when, the claims of the plundered and hard- 
 driven Clergy being very urgently pressed on her 
 attention, she bethought her what she could best do 
 to ameliorate their condition ; and it ended in her 
 giving up this strange sort of revenue — the Jewish 
 Hiffh-Priest's Revenue exacted from Christian Mi- 
 nisters ! — to the augmentation of the poor livings of 
 the Country, as we have already hinted : and hence 
 the name given to it, with much indecent adulation, 
 (vide Statute passim) of Queen Anne's Bounty*. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth. — See App. No. II. " Queen Mary proposed to 
 release the Clergy from the payment of first fruits and tenths, and to 
 return them all the impropriations in the possession of the Crown. 
 Some of her Council endeavoured to dissuade her from her purpose, 
 by arguing that the Crown was poor, and that her Majesty could not 
 well maintain the Royal dignity without them. But the Queen replied, 
 that she could not keep them with a good conscience : that she 
 valued the salvation of her soul more than ten kingdoms, and would 
 not be Defender of the Faith in name only, without supporting that 
 title by her actions. She informed, therefore, Parliament of her 
 resolutions to this purpose, and desired that they might be carried 
 into effect : and an act was accordingly passed for the ' extinguish- 
 ment of first fruits and tenths, and, the restitution of all rectories, 
 parsonages, glebe lands, tithes, oblations, pensions, and ecclesias- 
 tical emoluments impropriated to the Crown : that they might 
 be converted to the augmentation of the poor benefices and cures 
 of the realm, to the intent that it might be furnished with good 
 and able curates, who might instruct the people with good and 
 sincere doctrine, maintain hospitality, and do such other things as 
 appertained to their office.' " 2 & 3 Phil. & Mary, cap. 4. That 
 Queen Mary is slandered when it is affirmed of her that she gave 
 back the first fruits and tenths to the Pope, this act sufficiently 
 proves. 
 
 * It appears in reality that Queen Anne had very little merit 
 in the aff'air — supposing merit to attach to any one in the transaction. 
 We have seen that the Popish Queen Mary was the first who sur-
 
 23 
 
 On the indecent misuse of this word, as applied 
 to the hard-earned wages of hard-working citizens, 
 and who have a right to ample remuneration for their 
 labour by a three-fold claim, the law of nature, the law 
 of the land, and above all the law of God, we shall 
 speak below. In the meantime, let us ask who were 
 the parties whose interests were professedly pro- 
 moted by this Bounty ? This will lead us a great 
 way further back than the establishment of the 
 Pope's claim to be High-Priest of all the Earth, and 
 to the Revenue Ecclesiastical derived therefrom. It 
 will take us back to a false step made by the 
 Saxon Bishops some 1100 years ago, — a step which, 
 strange as it may sound to the ears of those who are 
 not accustomed to connect cause and effect, is the 
 demonstrable cause, the fertile source, of all the evils 
 w^e suffer this day in Church and State. For, it has 
 been the cause of Lay-Impropriation, that Radix 
 Omnium Malorum^, as this same grievance was 
 most correctly and forcibly designated, in a rough 
 draft of a reformation in ecclesiastical law in the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 According to the precept conveyed by St. Paul to 
 the Hebrew converts, (Hebrews, chap. xiii. ver. 17), 
 " Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit 
 yourselves, for they watch for your souls, as they 
 that must give account, that they may do it with joy, 
 
 rendered to the hard-driven Parochial Clergy this impious mockery 
 of spiritual impost; and William III., or rather Queen Mary his 
 consort, at Bishop Burnet's suggestion, was about to cause to be 
 effected that arrangement, which was subsequently brought to bear 
 by the Miuistry of Queen Anne. 
 * Vide Strype's Annals, 1479.
 
 24 
 
 and not with grief, for this is profitable for you", the 
 Bishop of the Diocese is guardian of the Spirit- 
 ualities of his See, and invested by God with the 
 cure of all the souls in his Diocese* or See: in 
 exercise of which responsibility it is, that the ap- 
 pointment of all Incumbents of Cures is vested pro- 
 perly, no less Apostolically than Canonically, in his 
 hands. This is what is wwjorop^r/i/ called "Patronage;" 
 and which patronage every Bishop has, and ought 
 to have, as inseparable from his office : and hence, 
 Avhen England became civilised by conversion to 
 Christianity, the Saxon Bishops had by right such 
 presentation to cures. In exercise of which faculty 
 it is, that, as they ought to be, so they alone can 
 be considered, accountable for the souls under their 
 charge. 
 
 As soon as the Christian message was thoroughly 
 received, it became, necessarily, a great object with 
 the Bishops to have churches and parsonages built, 
 and endowed with glebes, &c. ; in order to promote 
 which, they pressed upon the Thanes and Lords of 
 the Soil their duty of caring for these necessary 
 things. 
 
 All the Tlianes who acted of freewill and of a 
 ready mind — and great is their reward ! — built as 
 required ; and the Bishops presented Clerks as the 
 churches needed them. 
 
 But some of the Thanes were selfish and careless, 
 and needed an inducement to do their duty before 
 God and their fellows; — a bribe ! It was tendered 
 in the form of the promise of the patronage of the 
 
 * Diocese. A(otfvOf.
 
 25 
 
 cure: and so, that which others^ who Avoiild have well 
 exercised the privilege from their conscientiousness, 
 did not desire, was granted to men, whose very temper 
 afforded a presumption that they would exercise 
 it badly. At all events, Avhatever was its cause, it 
 was a fatal step. And, that departure from Princi- 
 ple, that sacrifice of Principle to Expediency, is, as I 
 said, the cause of every trouble, political, religious, 
 and moral, by the baleful combination of which the 
 land is devastated fearfully, even as we see it at 
 this day. 
 
 For what happened ? As soon as the presenta- 
 ation, or, as we now speak, the " patronage or ad- 
 vowson of a living," was vested in lay hands, it be- 
 came an appendage to an estate. It was bought and 
 sold w ith the estate ; frequently separated from it ; 
 and Clerks were nominated to the vacant Cure with 
 no more reference to the need of the souls to Avhich 
 they w^ere appointed to minister, than if these same 
 souls were non-existent here or in eternity. And to 
 this day the system continues ; but, icith this aggra- 
 vation : — That if an improper Clerk be presented 
 to the Bishop, and the Bishop refuse to induct, the 
 Patron may sue the Bishop for damages sustained 
 through the interests of his presentee, and obtain, 
 says Blackstone, " ample satisfaction." 
 
 People may talk about the liberty of their bodies, 
 and magnify their habeas corpus privilege. I am 
 very sure, when they begin to see the iniquity, the 
 gross violation of their rights of Christian citizen- 
 ship which the sale of their souls' cure constitutes, 
 they will no more tolerate this pecuniary invasion 
 of their spiritual rights, than they would tolerate
 
 26 
 
 the intrusion by the squire of a doctor of his se- 
 lection into their houses to take care of their bodies. 
 It is the Bishop's*, not the Jay-patron's office to find 
 out fit men for the cure of souls. This is the pre- 
 sent grievancei*. The operation of the ancient one 
 was as follows : — 
 
 In consequence of the advowson being among 
 the appurtenances of the estate, whenever such es- 
 tates of the Thanes and Barons passed into the hands 
 of the Monastics, they, on the death of the Rector, 
 craving the revenues of the vacant cure, got some 
 mean lay-brother to be ordainedj, and sent such to 
 
 * That commit thou to others, who shall be apt to teach. 
 
 'f There can be no dispute, but that the question of lay-patronage 
 is the great abuse under which The Church labours at this day. 
 The cure of souls pertains to the Office of the Bishop; and, for 
 the ministration of him who is nominated in defiance of the Bishop, 
 by means of his money, the Bishop is in nowise responsible. Yet, 
 more than half the livings are in lay patronage ; the practical 
 grievance of which is this, that a man who knows nothing about the 
 spiritual wants of the place, nor the spiritual attainments of the in- 
 coming Clerk, is to exercise the fearful right of presenting a shep- 
 herd to lead those sheep to pasture for whom Christ died. Strange, 
 that men, for mere patronage-sake, will submit to incur this re- 
 sponsibility, and resist, by law-process, in the form of a quare 
 impedit, any attempt by the Bishop of the See to control an im- 
 proper choice. "Why do they not give up their patronage to the 
 Bishops of the Sees ? There are ample means of restraining nepo- 
 tism by the Constitution of the Church, if acted up to. {Fide 
 Reduction of Prebendaries, Introd. pp. xvi. xvii.). But there will 
 be none of which I am aware, when the Constitution of the Church 
 shall be destroyed by the passing of the Ecclesiastical Revenues 
 Bill, if God mean to punish us by allowing it to pass in the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 ;{: It is a great mistake to suppose that Monks were Priests. 
 Some were, but not necessarily so. From the time of their first in-
 
 27 
 
 the living" to officiate therein as their Vicar or Curate. 
 In the former case, he was paid by the small tithes ; 
 in the latter by a stipend : the residue of the paro- 
 chial revenues being absorbed by the monastery to 
 which the patronage of the living was attached ; and 
 thus the monastery became, in point of fact, the lay- 
 impropriator of the tithes of the parish. 
 
 Let the reader bear this in mind, — The first lay-im- 
 propriators here, in this country, were, either actively 
 or passively, the monks — the popish monks. 
 
 The next thing to observe is, that these monks were 
 abominable extortioners ; for, seizing all, robbing the 
 altar and him who served it, and to whom (every 
 sheaf or other form of) the tithe, which is Offering, 
 belonged, they had the cruelty to keep their wretched 
 slaves so miserably poor, that the Bishops of Dio- 
 ceses* were compelled to interfere to secure for 
 
 stitution, the Religious were forbidden to meddle with the business 
 of the Clergy, being enjoined to live retired within their cloisters. 
 The 4th Canon of the Council of Chalcedon enjoins, " Let the 
 Monks in every City be subject to their Bishop, and give them- 
 selves up to quietness, fasting, and prayer; abiding in the places 
 where they are appointed, without intruding or meddling in ecclesi- 
 astical or secular business, or leaving their monasteries, unless the 
 Bishop permit them to do so." The Councils of London, 1075, 
 and of Winchester, 1076, decreed that all Monks should observe 
 their order and the dialogue of Gregory, and should not serve pub- 
 licly in Churches. {Vide also 4 Hen. 4, c. 12, Appendix). 
 
 * Thus the Council of Westminster, Can. 13, 14, 1102; Can. 
 14, 1200, to which reference will be made at length. 
 
 Pope Alexander the Third reproved the Monks of the Diocese of 
 York for lessening tlie portions and revenues which the Clergy, in 
 the benefices under their presentation, had been accustomed to re- 
 ceive; and commanded them to restore to their former value all such 
 as they had presumed to diminish without their Archbishop's consent. 
 
 Pope Alexander the Fourth required of the Monastics and
 
 28 
 
 those miserable dependants a stipend, not less than 
 an aliment, i. e. not less than four marks, or " fifty- 
 three shillings and a groat," which was "an aliment," 
 or " congrua portio," in those days. 
 
 It was afterwards found, from the altered state of 
 the currency, that this was inadequate to the aliment 
 of a priest; and a later constitution decreed, that 
 from eio^ht to ten marks was the least that it was 
 reasonable or decent to apportion to a curate. For 
 in the year 1222, a constitution was made by 
 Archbishop Langton, that no perpetual Vicar should 
 have a portion of glebe and tithes of less yearly 
 value than five marks. But in Lyndwood's time, 
 Bishop of St. David's, 1442, even stipendiary 
 Vicars and Curates had eight or ten marks per 
 annum, and which, after Sir H. Spelman's com- 
 putation, was as much as 60/. when Leslie wrote^ 
 A. D. 1690. 
 
 Archbishop Chichley, to render the procurement 
 of an augmentation more easy to the Vicar, had 
 already made a Constitution in Convocation, 1439, 
 whereby all judges and officers Ecclesiastical are 
 obliged to act in behalf of Vicars gratis, and without 
 delay, in a summary manner ; and to take care that 
 every Vicar have at least twelve marks (a great sum* 
 
 Impropriators to assign a sufficient portion for various uses : 
 amongst others are specified, the care of the Church, the Cure of 
 Souls, &c. 
 
 * John de Burnett, grandson of Alexander, who flourished in 
 1524, was King's Macer, at a salary of ten marks sterling per 
 annum; " a very considerable sum in those days." — Burke's Peer- 
 age, Art. Burnett. Edward Aglionby, (flour. 1536), a very good 
 Grecian and Latin Poet, wrote the genealogy of Queen Elizabeth,
 
 29 
 
 in those days) assigned him for his portion, if the 
 whole benefice be worth so much*. 
 
 The popish monks were, indeed, wicked robbers 
 of the servants of the Lord : but we shall see that 
 they were not half so wicked as those Protestants 
 who, upon their foundation of rapacious dishonesty, 
 have built up the tower of selfish guilt to its ex- 
 tremest altitude : and what has been but too truly 
 said of them is strictly, painfully applicable to those 
 who have followed them. "Their power now knew 
 no bounds; and, as if they neither feared God nor 
 regarded man, they made no scruple of violating 
 any laws, human or divine, to increase their wealth 
 and satisfy their avarice." 
 
 On the subject of perpetual curacies, Johnson 
 says — " The Impropriators were obliged to maintain 
 curates for performing Divine offices, while these 
 Impropriations were in the hands of Monks and 
 other Ecclesiastical persons and bodies. The 
 Bishop had power to ascertain, increase, or lessen 
 the salaries of these curates as well as others ; nay, 
 he had a further power of augmenting vicarages 
 
 for which she gave him an annual pension of Five Pounds. By 
 these notices we may form a general idea of the relative value of 
 money in those days and these. The Appendix VI. will shew the 
 reader many who were intended to be as honourably sustained as 
 the Scotch King's Macer and the Queen's Laureat, insulted by 
 being thrown by the Impropriator less than the price of a suit of 
 clothes, quasi his " congrua portio." 
 
 * " If a vicarage fall into such decay that of itself it is not suffi- 
 cient to maintain a Vicar, it ought to be re-united to the parsonage." 
 31 Hen. 6, 14, a ; 40 Edw. 3, 28, b. Degge's Parson's Coun- 
 sellor. 
 
 *
 
 30 
 
 endowed, if he saw occasion : nor is there any reason 
 to doubt but he has the same power still*. 
 
 "But since these impropriations are fallen into 
 the hands of great laymen, Bishops have been over- 
 awed in this matter ; so that now, in effect, the Im- 
 propriators have these cures served by whom, and at 
 what rate they please." Printed 1709. 
 
 Walton's Life of Hooker exhibits the fearful 
 lengths to which men who accustom themselves to 
 rapine dare to go. In consequence of the wicked 
 and extensive seizures made by the rapacious Cour- 
 tiers of that day, the Clergy were made too poor to 
 become useful Parish-Priests. The Nobles were too 
 covetous to refund. To remedy this evil, it was 
 proposed by the Earl of Leicester to take Govern- 
 ment charge of the fetv lands remaining to the 
 Clergy ; and the audacious proposition would have 
 been acted upon — and so all would have gone — but 
 for the Archbishop Whitgift. Alas ! we have no 
 Whitgift now to go to the Queen of England, to call 
 upon her to " consider former times," to declare 
 these present invasions of Ecclesiastical property as 
 needless and as wicked as those contemplated by 
 the atrocious Leicester ; the screen still of the guilt 
 of the Impropriators, and the substituted payment by 
 the Clergy's money of their just debts. 
 
 And let not the reader imagine that this is large 
 accusation, and nothing else. 
 
 He may, in the Appendix 1", see the Acts of Par- 
 liament quoted at length, which compel the payment 
 
 * See Watson, pp. 140, 305, and Kennet on Impropriations, 
 t 15 Rich. 2, c. 6; 4 Hen. 4, c. 12; 34 & 35 Hen. 8, c. 19. 
 — Appendix, No. II.
 
 31 
 
 of an aliment to the Vicars and Curates ; and he 
 may see the descendants or representatives of the 
 men, who accepted the properties and covenanted to 
 pay to the servants of the Altar the congrua portio, 
 offer them, notwithstanding, 3/., 4/., or 5/., a-year; 
 " thus violating" manifestly "every law" of decency 
 and common sense, and, above all, of their God, 
 which enjoins that a man shall live of the Altar he 
 serves, " to increase their wealth and satisfy their 
 avarice*." 
 
 What is that but selfishness in the extreme? 
 Nay, it is more. It is selfishness, truly, but withal, 
 illegal abstraction of the " wages of the hireling." 
 People may find out a soft word for this, " Re-distri- 
 bution of the Church Revenues" ! I, a plain En- 
 glishman, call it downright impropriation; or, to 
 express the same disagreeable truth in more sim- 
 ple form, " robbery." The words of Almighty 
 God are equivalent. " Ye have robbed me," said 
 God. Wherein have we robbed Thee ? " In 
 Tithes and Offerings." Abstraction of Tithe teas 
 Robbery of God ! 
 
 But before we can arrive at the intent and spirit 
 of the Acts thus passed, and as it were reduplicated, 
 seeing that they are based on the supposition of 
 certain obligations recorded, it will be essential to 
 ascertain the extent and amount of the obligations, 
 to the observance of which the Monastics, who had 
 taken possession of Ecclesiastical Parochial Reve- 
 nues, had been compelled. And in order that our 
 apprehension of this essential point may not be 
 
 * Vide Table of Impropriations in Appendix.
 
 32 
 
 vague, mystified, or indefinite, but that all men may 
 understand the Statutable property that Vicars and 
 Perpetual Curates have a right to in all impropria- 
 tions, I will set before the reader as many extracts 
 from these Constitutions, Canons, &c., as shall satisfy 
 him, that in all cases those who served the Altar 
 were in the first place to be suitably, ^. e. adequately, 
 if not honourably maintained. 
 
 First, that they should not want : — 
 
 In the Council of Westminster, 1102, Can. 13, 14, 
 and 1200, Can. 14, the Bishops ordained, " that 
 tithes should not be paid but to the Church ; that 
 monks should not accept of the Impropriations of 
 Churches without their Bishop's consent; nor so 
 rob those, which were given them, of their revenues, 
 that the Priests should be in want of necessaries." 
 
 Nor, secondly, was mere existence all that they 
 were entitled to ; a competence was recognised as 
 their right, including a residence suitable to their 
 condition. 
 
 For the Bishops {vide Constitutions of) Walter 
 de Canteloup, of Worcester, 1240, of Gilbert of 
 Chichester, 1297, William de Grenfield, Archbishop 
 of York, 1309, decreed, " that in every Churcli impro- 
 priated to the Religious, a Vicar should be instituted 
 by the care of the Diocesan, who should receive a 
 competent maintenance out of the goods of the 
 Church ; and as it was scandalous, and contrary to 
 the Canons, that the Religious, who were permitted 
 to convert Churches to their proper use, shotild 
 personally serve those churches, they should con- 
 stitute perpetual Vicars in them ; and, within forty 
 days, assign unto them a certain and competent
 
 33 
 
 Vicarage, according- to llie discretion oitheii Dioce- 
 san. And the Council of London, 1208, Constitution 
 22, was not backward to second the exertions of the 
 Bishops, whom it followed : — 
 
 " Whereas many, that they may swallow the whole 
 profit of a Church that used to be under a Rector, 
 but is now granted to them, leave it destitute of a 
 Vicar; or, if they do institute a Vicar to it, leave 
 him a small portion, insiifficient'" — Reader, observe 
 this word ' instifficient ' — " for himself, * * * We 
 therefore ordain, and strictly charge, that the Cister- 
 cians, and all others who have Churches for their 
 own use, if Vicars have not been placed in them, do, 
 within six months, present Vicars to the Diocesans, 
 who are to give them institution ; and let the Re- 
 ligious take care to assign them a sufficient portion." 
 
 Nor was this obligation entailed upon them 
 merely by ecclesiastical power. Acts of Parliament 
 were not wanting to add the force of their sanction 
 to make good the title of the Parochial Vicar 
 to comely maintenance'^ ; for the 15th Rich. II., 
 1391, decrees, that " the Diocesan shall ordain, 
 according to their value, a convenient yearly sum 
 of money, to be paid and distributed yearly out 
 of the fruits and profits of the same Churches, by 
 those who liave them in [imjproper use, and, by 
 their successors, to the poor parishioners of the said 
 Churches for ever ; and also that the Vicar shall be 
 tvell 'dndconieniently endowed" 11th Rich. IL, I39I. 
 And, what amount of endowment was contemplated 
 in this " ivell and convenient,'" is easy to be got at; 
 
 * Vide the Table of Impropriations in ilie Appendix, coluiiiu 
 " Congrua Portio." 
 
 D
 
 34 
 
 because, in the 4th year of the reign of Hen. IV., 
 twelve years later, it was decreed, " that the statute 
 of appropriations of Churches, and of the endow- 
 ments of Vicars in the same, made 15th Rich. II., 
 should be firmly holden, and kept, and put in due 
 execution;" * * * and if not so done, this act 
 declared them altogether " void, revoked, annulled, 
 and disappropriated for ever ; and that thenceforth 
 in every Church so appropriated, a secular person 
 (^. e. not a monk) should be ordained Vicar-Per- 
 petual, canonically instituted and inducted in the 
 same, and covenably endowed, by the discretion of 
 the Ordinary, to do divine service, reform the people, 
 and keep hospitality there y 
 
 It is hence evident that Archbishop Chichely's 
 award of twelve marks to a Vicar yearly, equiva- 
 lent now to the purchase of twelve or more oxen*, 
 was recognised as nothing more than a reasonable 
 yearly income to a man who had to live as a Priest, 
 and exercise hospitality as a Christian. And, with- 
 out further accumulating proofs, which would be 
 tedious, we may justifiably assume, that the obliga- 
 tions, to fulfilment of which the holders of Ecclesias- 
 tical Revenues are subject, are, decent, comely, ade- 
 quate, i. e. liberal maintenance of the men who do 
 the duty of that Altar, which they now, by force of 
 sacrilegious laws, with impunity — a fearful impunity 
 — very conscientiously rob. 
 
 * In the reign of Edw. I. the price of an ox was 5s. ; but the 
 price of provisions increased much in subsequent reigns. A sum 
 equal to the purchase of twelve or more oxen was at tliis time the 
 Vicar's payment, exclusive of obits, synodals, and other offerings, 
 all of which together constituted the sum of his income.
 
 35 
 
 The Vicars were, therefore, by Statute, entitled to 
 these " Pensions," to the payment of which the 
 monastics were compellably liable. But they have 
 been very iniquitously defrauded of them ; and they 
 are now, by the acclamation of the Primate, Sir 
 Robert Peel, the Commissioners- Ecclesiastical, &c., 
 denied their right, inasmuch as this Commission, 
 of which they are or have been members, and are all 
 abettors, fails to insist upon it. 
 
 For not only was what I have stated the Law of 
 the Church at the time the monastical property was 
 seized upon by Henry VIIL, but it contimted to be 
 also the Laiv of the Land : as, when Henry trans- 
 ferred by Act of Parliament the monastical proper- 
 ties to the laymen into whose hands they passed, 
 they all received these properties subject to such 
 conditions as the monastics had been bound to ob- 
 serve : His Acts being merely confirmatory of those 
 which had, at various times, been enacted in this 
 behalf*. 
 
 Let the reader bear this in mind, that the holders 
 of lay impropriations are, therefore, by the present 
 Law of the Land, that is, by Statute, by Act of 
 Parliament, subject to the payment, to every and each 
 of their Vicars or Curates, of a maintenance ; and 
 that, in a style suitable to the supply of their reason- 
 able necessities, as well incidental as natural. 
 
 But, now, a new and a strange thing was seen in 
 the land. Men had, from a pretended zeal for God, 
 thrown off the errors of popery, and taken to the 
 more pure demonstration of Christianity as exhibited 
 
 * See Appendix, 34 & 35 Hen. 8, c. 19. 
 
 d2
 
 S6 
 
 in the reformed formulary of The Church of Eng- 
 land. Papist Impropriators had heen obliged to pay 
 the Parochial Clergy a due and sufficient aliment*- 
 Protestant Impropriators were equally compelled to 
 do so by Act of Parliament. And what did they 
 do? What have they continued to do? This; — 
 They have kept Parish Priests starving on stipends 
 which seem to be wages, and truly once were ; but 
 which, in consequence of the altered value of money, 
 it is now mockery and insult to offer to a man : in 
 most instances, amounting to a sum less than is 
 paid to an out-door pauper under the stringent re- 
 gulations of the new Poor Law Amendment Act. 
 
 I pass over without comment this iniquitous viola- 
 tion of decency — it were a mockery to allude here to 
 Christianity — merely asking, What is the intent of 
 the law? What is the intent of the Statutes to 
 which we have alluded? Was it, that the Paro- 
 chial Clergy should be found in food — clothing is 
 out of the question — at the lowest rate of pauper 
 allowance? Surely, not so; but^ as we have seen, 
 in due and snjflcient aliment and maintenance. 
 We shall have a fearful picture of Protestant rapa- 
 city and sacrilege to set before the reader, when ex- 
 hibiting the neglects of the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sion, in the matter of Church-Robbery by Impropria- 
 tors. It will be sufficient to observe here, that, taking 
 advantage of the sound of words, without reference 
 to their meaning, evading the spirit of the Act, " its 
 use and intent,'' they, heedless of the improvement 
 of property, or of the relative terms which expressed 
 or represented the value of the circulating medium 
 
 * Anie, p. 25.
 
 37 
 
 at different times, paid, and continue to pay the 
 Clergy stipend according to the soiuid of the tvords 
 of obligation, where that pension is expressed in 
 terms of money ; evading altogether, both in the 
 letter and the spirit, where the form of words is 
 only interpreted by the phrase " congrua portio,'' 
 or any expression equivalent to this. 
 
 And what was the consequence '? That men could 
 not live : and so it happened, that, to make out a 
 subsistence for one man, sometimes the cure of six 
 parishes was thrown upon him, non-residence in 
 Jive being matter of actual necessity ; that accumu- 
 lation of labour and responsibility being met, after 
 all, by a sum not equal to the reasonable expenses 
 of a gentleman. 
 
 Jn this state the Church in England was when 
 Queen Anne came on the stage of life. Her Ma- 
 jesty, walking in the steps of the two Marys, willing 
 to abate the evil, proposed to give up to the jyoorer 
 Clergy the revenue the Crown had juggled from 
 the Clergy of the Church ; and in effect, from that 
 time to this, as soon, that is, as the fund was released 
 from the incumbrances of divers heavy pensions, 
 that revenue has been applied to the augmentation 
 of small livings. But here it may be said. Surely, 
 this was a good deed of Queen Anne's ; how then 
 does her conduct in this matter deserve to be dis- 
 paraged by assertions such as you have made 
 ao^ainst her and her act ? 
 
 Of Queen Anne, I have not the least objection to 
 speak in such terms of commendation concerning 
 her feeling towards some thousands of poor Clergy- 
 men of the Church, as a due consideration of her 
 
 301043
 
 38 
 
 Act shall be found to deserve. I dare say she ivould 
 have gladly done them good, if she could have done 
 so without its costing her anything. Yet this was 
 all that Queen Anne did. It is very cheap bene- 
 volence to give away that which costs us nothing. 
 This was not David's mode of dedicating to the 
 Lord. If the mere act of devoting to the service of 
 God a sum of money, be spoken of simply as an act, 
 so let it be, and let it be simply recorded. But, to 
 heap up praise upon an act which, after all, is of very 
 questionable justice, and which, even if it were just, 
 were but bare duty, and a restitution rather than a 
 gift, is very offensive and wicked adulation: and 
 to those who know the real state of the case, the 
 poet's laud is " poetry " and nothing else : — 
 
 " She saw, and grieved to see, the mean estate 
 Of those who round the sacred altars wait ; 
 She shed her bounty piously profuse, 
 And thought it more her own in others' use.'' 
 
 In this case, however, if her act, far from being 
 meritorious, as it was, were her own, the idea which 
 produced it was not; and whether hers or others', it 
 did not correspond with her supposed intention ; 
 and that, not because it was unkind, for she did 
 not mean it to be so, but — to say nothing of its in- 
 justice — because it was, in the first place, thought- 
 less, in the second, injudicious, and evinced a mind 
 uninstructed on a subject, the right understanding 
 of which was of vital importance to her Country. 
 
 The fact of the heartless and heedless plunder of 
 the Clergy was before her*, and she desired to 
 
 * Tills is sufficiently evident i'rom the preamble to the Act,
 
 3i) 
 
 ameliorate their condition. Why did she, then, 
 continue to rob the contributors of the First Fruits 
 and Tenths, and, failing- to insist on restoration of 
 the tithe which ought to have been peremptorily 
 enjoined or provided for, neglect to make the Im- 
 propriators pay their Stipendiaries those sums, of 
 Avhich the Acts of Parliament that constitute the 
 Title Deeds of their Estates, in tithes, absolutely 
 enjoined the payment? And as to this transfer of a 
 fund, iniquitously and idly demanded and levied, 
 being a bounty, or so called, people should be just 
 before they are generous, especially with other 
 people's money; and this money was not the 
 Queen's, but the Clergy's; for we have seen the 
 futility of the pretence to gather it; a claim which 
 would admit the investioation neither of reason, 
 religion, nor revelation to justify it; but which was, 
 actually, in its contact with the first test, ludicrous ; 
 with the second, a burlesque; and, with the third, 
 sheer blasphemy. Queen Anne was guilty of a 
 great neglect in failing to investigate this mockery, 
 or her ministers were, which is the same thing, 
 even as this Ecclesiastical Commission now is; and 
 to give iter credit for the continuation of blasphemy, 
 however unintentional her countenance of it, would 
 be entirely ridiculous, especially when the whole 
 object of the Bounty Act was to obscure the lia- 
 bilities of the Impropriators. Just as ridiculous as 
 is the conduct of those now who laud the ^' dis- 
 interestedness "* of our new Church Benefactors, 
 
 wherein, also, the evils resulting from the servile ministration of a 
 panper Clergy are sensibly described. — See Appendix. 
 
 * Sir Robert Peel, in bis speecli in the House, took credit on
 
 40 
 
 (Benefactors to the Clergy with other men's goods, 
 but nut their otvn!), men who are doing the very 
 same thing, but in a more barefaced and imper- 
 tinent manner, as was done by those who per- 
 petuated a tax upon the Clergy, and called it the 
 Queen's Bounty. This is a most contemptible job ; 
 so was that. The difference between the cases is, 
 that whereas they are both selfish and profligate, 
 that was impious, this is rapacious ; both done 
 under the pretence of serving the Church, by bene- 
 fiting the Clergy, — in reality to save and screen 
 the Impropriators ; of either, therefore, the essen- 
 tial character will not be affected by the fulsome 
 phraseology of Acts of Parliament, or by thoughtless 
 praise of unconscious participators in the acts of 
 either the one or other. That whole thing was, and 
 is, and ever must be, as long as it shall last, and 
 rest on its present rotten foundation, impious and 
 profligate. And shall any act that tends to perpe- 
 tuate and give a godly aspect to (popish) profana- 
 tion of Holy Things be commended, either in 
 itself or in its results ? " Woe unto those who 
 call good evil, and evil good!'^ This were, in- 
 deed, to justify the means by the end ; to rejoice, 
 and magnify, and glory in the evil for the good 
 it has seemed to produce. The results, how- 
 ever, of the Bounty Fund Delusion have been sin- 
 gularly unhappy, as we shall see ; and that also 
 in numerous particulars. I trust, indeed, that the 
 Acts of this Commission may have a more favour- 
 behalf of the Commissioners for the extreme " disinterestedness " of 
 their hibours. Their disinterestedness consists in what ? Echo 
 answers, What?
 
 41 
 
 able issue, if it be right to hope that anything that 
 panders to the selfishness of man, and is fbinided 
 in mockery of God, should succeed for good. 
 To return, however, to Queen Anne. With respect 
 to herself, I am fully inclined to admit, what I believe 
 also to have been the case, that Her Majesty's 
 intention was good. But if it were, the performance 
 was lamentably defective. 
 
 And next, as touching the expression, Bounty. 
 
 Bounty ? Bounty ? — I scorn the word " Bounty." 
 
 How does Spelman, as by anticipation, disparage 
 the false use of this word " Bounty" ? " It is not a 
 work of bounty and benevolence to restore these ap- 
 plications to the Church, but of duty and necessity 
 so to do : it is a work of duty to give unto God 
 that which is God's ; and it is a work of necessity 
 towards the obtaining remission of these sins ; for, 
 as St. Austin saith, 'Non remittetur peccatum nisi 
 restituitur oblatum, cum restitui potest.' " 
 
 Who ever heard of the labourer that earns his 
 daily wages, being paid of the bounty of his em- 
 ployer? It is our right to be paid our wages; and 
 woe to the rich man who, seizing or abstracting our 
 aliment, withholds our hire from us! Shall not the 
 cry of the widow and orphan ascend to God, and be 
 heard against him ? 
 
 ^It takes 300/. per annum to live in common 
 decency with a family. Lord J. Russell and Mr. 
 Hume agree and confess, that this sum is only 
 adequate to meet the common wants of civilised life, 
 for a gentleman of any condition in society. "^^ The 
 average annual income of about 8,000 Clergy, — 
 3,600 being Incumbents, the remainder Curates, — is
 
 42 
 
 under 100/. Whence, then, comes the 200/. that they 
 add to their miserable stipends ? It is the bread of 
 the widow and orphan, which the father is compelled 
 to spend while alive, and to leave, therefore, those 
 whose it is, destitute at his death. This is lay im- 
 p?opriation, reader. 
 
 It is idle to talk of our knowing beforehand in 
 what we engage. Men do not know it ; and if they 
 did, shall the misapprehensions of men affect the 
 law and rule of God's government? The rule of 
 Christianity says — and the rule of Christianity is 
 binding on all Christians — that the labourer is 
 worthy of his hire, and that he shall live of the altar 
 that he serves. There is no getting away from 
 that plain condition and injunction. It is plain and 
 straightforward; intelligible, surely. Then do I say, 
 that MAINTENANCE is our Right, and if there be 
 " woe " in store " to the rich man that oppresseth the 
 hireling in his wages," what woe to him, who turns, 
 by the abstraction of his due, the Priest of the Altar 
 into a starveling pauper.^ In the meantime I do 
 not intend, either on my own account, or that of my 
 ministerial brethren whose cause I advocate, to be 
 cap-in-hand to any man, to thank him to give me 
 what I ought to have — what is my due. It is his 
 duty to give it me. It is his peril, his soul's peril to 
 withhold it. It is our right to be paid our wages ; 
 and woe to those by whom they are held back* ! 
 
 The Clergy do the work of their cures, and are 
 entitled to their full wages of aliment, and decent 
 maintenancei". The royal power, Rex, fails in its 
 
 * Gal. vi. 0, 7 ; Mai. iii. 7, 8, 0, and supra, p. 41. 
 -f Appendix.
 
 43 
 
 duty, in not seeing the ministers of the altar paid 
 that provision which our Saxon forefathers made the 
 law of the land ; ungodly deeds are tolerated ; im- 
 pious Acts of Parliament are passed, by which, the 
 royal power, Rex, assenting, the Clergy are impove- 
 rished; and then some future Monarch, say. Queen 
 Anne, seeing w^ith regret the ill state of things in- 
 duced by neglect of Law theretofore, continues an 
 indecent robbery of the Clergy on the one hand ; 
 and, applying the fruits of papal rapacity to screen 
 her own want of vigorous determination to do justice 
 between Man and Man and before God, on the 
 other, makes over, by an exertion which costs her 
 nothing*, about the one-hundredth part of what they 
 have earned, and daily earn, and never get, — and 
 calls it "Bounty." Ridiculous ! When will men learn 
 to call things by their right names ? Bounty ! I want 
 nobody's bounty. But I do want my right, and 
 mean to have it : not, how'ever, by the force of carnal 
 violence, or the cunning of covert treason, but by the 
 irresistible influence of moral force ; — an influence 
 that must, in the long run, prevail, and powerfully. 
 Magna est Veritas et prcevalebit : and I am not alto- 
 gether without hope, that the movement may be 
 much assisted by this very missile which now goes 
 forth, and fervently do I pray to God it may so be. 
 
 From the foregoing statement, and from w^hat 
 immediately follows, it will be at once apparent to 
 the reader, that all the fine sayings concerning the 
 benevolence of the Queen f, and her great service to 
 "her poor Clergy," w^ere mere " ministerial adula- 
 
 * David & Araunali. f Vide the Act.
 
 44 
 
 tion.*' For, in the first place, she was botmtiful with 
 the money of others, all unjustifiable exactions made 
 upon whom it was her duty to remit; particularly when 
 such were the manifestations of popish blasphemy*. 
 In the next place, it was her bounden duty to see 
 the poorer Clergy maintained ; and especially, ac- 
 cording to the provisions of an Act of Parliament 
 then existing. Waiving all consideration of the jus- 
 tice of continuing the impost, and, as she honoured 
 her God, to make provision that none of his imme- 
 diate servants should be paupers, the one she 
 
 * It is a very mean, however convenient, delusion to maintain 
 that a tax, which once has been laid on, should be continued merely 
 because it has been acquiesced in. All imposts which have origin- 
 ated in misconception of divine truth, naturally, on discovery of 
 the error, lose their foundation; and therefore, if cause and effect 
 have any connexion, die a natural death. This impost was claimed 
 by the Impostor High-Priest of all the Earth. When it wa's dis- 
 covered that there was no such character or officer in the Christian 
 Dispensation, none but a rapacious spendthrift, who sacrificed every 
 principle of justice to his inordinate cupidity, and one also who had 
 enslaved his Parliament to decree that his will should have the 
 force of Law, would have dared so to juggle with words, as to affirm 
 that the Jewish High-Priest's maintenance was to devolve, by right, 
 on the King of England. A more extravagant burlesque on legis- 
 lation is not on record; and it is a disgrace to the country that such 
 an occurrence ever took place. What, then, is the obvious duty of 
 Parliament at all times and now ? to repeal all the unrighteous 
 Acts of former Parliaments and their own which either tend to 
 throw ridicule on God's Word, or to oppress His Priesthood under 
 any pretence? Queen Anne, therefore, or her Parliament, ought 
 to have repealed the Act for the enforcement of the payment of 
 First Fruits and Tenths, and ought not to have perpetuated it ; 
 and, by the same rule, this present Parliament should now set 
 about the repeal of all Acts passed at any time, and under any cir- 
 cumstances, to legalise the exaction of First Fruits and Tenths of 
 the livings of the Clergy.
 
 45 
 
 attempted to do with inadequate funds ; the other 
 she altogether neglected. If this be a fair analysis 
 of her act of Bounty, and such are the realities of 
 the case, I ask the reader, if he thinks ministerial 
 adulation could go further, than in glossing over a 
 cowardly defection of duty, by calling her act, and 
 giving the ignorant cause to think it was, one of 
 bounty ? — an act which involved these three par- 
 ticulars, viz. — 1st, a sparing the pockets of the rapa- 
 cious rich ; 2ndly, the not sparing the pockets of 
 the Clergy, who were poor*; and 3rdly, the neglect- 
 ing the interests of the poorest. It is an offence to 
 God — it is mockery of Man, to call it so. 
 
 But now, having got this Bounty, having ob- 
 served its origin, let us see to its application ; for 
 having affirmed of it, that it is "the occasion of 
 sacrilege and the screen of robbery," and a great 
 injury rather than good to those who are thought 
 to be benefited by it, it is right to substantiate what 
 we affirm. 
 
 Had the livings of the Impropriators never been 
 augmented with Queen Anne's Bounty, the pay- 
 ments made by them to their Vicars and Curates, 
 being so ridiculous, so painfully ridiculous, the ques- 
 tion of ministerial remuneration of this large body 
 
 * I instance a case. My neighbour, the rector of Wootton, has 
 220^. per anniim. He Hves in an out-of-the-way place, eight miles 
 from his market-town; lience a diminution of his living, of at least 
 10 per cent. And he has had to pay his First Fruits, and pays yearly 
 his Tenths. I suppose a man who has 200^. a-year, will not he 
 called otherwise than, as a clergyman, poor. Now, of this class are 
 many of the contributors to Queen Anne's Bounty,— a fund col- 
 lected, and distributed, to save the legal responsibilities of the lay- 
 impropriators. It is a monstrous case.
 
 46 
 
 of Parish Priests would have been, long ere this, 
 nationally adjudicated*. Indeed, the very circum- 
 stance of Queen Anne's Bounty (as it is called) 
 being allotted, as it was, so long ago, to the aug- 
 mentation of small livings, shewed what feeling had 
 then been excited in the country on the subject, 
 ample proof of which the reader will observe here- 
 after. But as matters have turned out, it has unfor- 
 tunately happened, that the arrangement has been 
 only the " screen of rapacity," instead of the comely 
 answer to the call of justice ; and that the Clergy, 
 instead of being assisted by the arrangement, have 
 had their necessities not met but mocked at. For 
 besides that the Clergy were mocked with the name 
 of the thing, how were they mocked in the operation 
 of the Act itself? 
 
 The formation of the Board was an admission 
 that the case of the Clergy needed consideration. 
 A man had 5/. per annum, who was entitled by the 
 spirit of Laws then in being, and even as yet unre- 
 pealed, to a full 150/., in money of that day. He 
 asked for consideration. He was buoyed up with 
 the assurance, and silenced by the hope, that his 
 miserable plight was to be certainly ameliorated by 
 the Clergy's friend, his benevolent Queen. The 
 gratitude of these good servants of the Church and 
 Commonwealth w^as unbounded. " When may I 
 call for my augmentation ? " "Oh, you must wait 
 some fifteen years or more : all the favourites' pen- 
 sions which have been made payable out of the 
 Clergy Contribution must be first paid off." The 
 
 * Appendix — Sheet of Impropriations.
 
 47 
 
 miserable dupes starve on how they can ; and those 
 who lived over the fifteen years had at length their 
 long-cherished expectation met with a donation of 
 200/. ! " What, 200/. as a gift ?" No ; but merely 
 as an endowtnent to the Living; the interest of 
 200/. being all that they tvere to add to the 51. 
 a-year pension, to sustain the weary pilgrimage of 
 beggared old age. Vile hypocrisy ! A bounty ! 
 The Queen's Bounty? Why, if there had never 
 been any endowment, or any law upon the subject 
 existing to assure it to the use of the Parochial 
 Witness for Christ, the First Duty of the Queen, 
 quasi Vicarius Summi Regis, would have been, as 
 it was, to see to the comely maintenance of Christ's 
 Witnesses to her people. But here, in this case, 
 with endowments long since made, and laws existing 
 to apportion them and defend such apportionment, 
 she neglected to put them in force ; promised great 
 things; cajoled starving men by exciting false hopes; 
 and mocked their misery by giving them a penny 
 where they should have had a pound : the public in 
 the meantime being deceived with a convenient de- 
 lusion, by which their very inconvenient sympathy 
 for their ill-used Priesthood has been effectually 
 lulled from that time to the present*. I thought ill 
 enough of this amazing deception last year, Avhen I 
 published the first edition of this pamphlet. But 
 the more I think of it, the more strongly my views 
 of the case become defined by the evidence which 
 its practical operation affords, the more I am dis- 
 
 * The conduct of Queen Anne in tlie matter of Winston and the 
 Convocation, shews how very little Queen Anne cared for the Clergy 
 or their opinions.
 
 48 
 
 gusted with the whole affair; the more acute my feel- 
 ing against all such Impropriators as are conscious 
 recipients of its funds, and the higher my sympathy 
 for all who have been, and are yet victimised by 
 Queen Anne's Bounty. For, because it has been 
 possible, on a somewhat extensive scale*, to augment 
 the poor livings, and as this has been done to such 
 an extent as to make the ministerial provision in the 
 augmented cases look less extravagantly ridiculous 
 than it would otherwise have appeared, the public at- 
 tention has been diverted from the facts of the case, 
 and the public scorn from those individuals who 
 have been robbing God's servants for their own 
 carnal profits ; and so, a due consideration of Act- 
 of-Parliament right has failed of being insisted on. 
 For, to come to detail, instead of men seeing the 
 livings wretchedly appointed, with some 20/., 10/., 
 or 51. per annum — even 21. IS*. 4d (of which I 
 know an instance), — the augmentation by this 
 " bounty," by repeated additions of 200/. donations, 
 has made them appear to be livings of 70/. or 80/. 
 per annum : an income utterly inadequate truly to 
 the maintenance of a gentleman; but yet large 
 enough — according to most men's ideas, I believe — 
 to allow the impression to prevail, that, though it 
 might be better, certainly the case might be worse ; 
 and so, the public has been satisfied to leave the 
 matter as it is, to suffer its sympathy to subside, to 
 the manifest and flagrant injustice and wrong to the 
 Clergy. Consequently it has turned out, that this 
 Bounty, though an apparent boon to these plundered 
 
 * The Q.aeeu Anne's Bounty augmentation column in the Ap- 
 pendix, which exhibits the value of certain Impropriated livings.
 
 49 
 
 Clergymen, is tlie cause, in sober truth, of a very 
 great pecuniary loss to them. For, let us suppose 
 that this augmentation had not taken place. What 
 would have resulted ? This, surely. The people, 
 indignant at an act of injustice so flagrant, as that 
 which causes a man to labour from year's end to year's 
 end for three or four pounds, would have demanded 
 of the Lay-Impropriators that scant measure of bare 
 justice which Act of Parliament decrees, {vide Ap- 
 pendix), but which Protestant Sacrilege denies, to the 
 Vicars and Perpetual Curates of The Church. And 
 the practical result of such an expression of the 
 public mind would have been, that, instead of a bare 
 pittance of some 60/. per annum, now allotted to the 
 Vicar of Brent-Tor for example — which sum is 
 made up of an augmentation of 49/. per annum 
 from Queen Anne's Bounty to the 11/. stipend paid 
 by the Lay-Impropriator* — a full 250/., at the least, 
 according to the spirit of the Act, would have been 
 extracted from the Lay-Impropriator, together ivith 
 rent for a house; as portion of the endowment 
 made over by Christians to the Altar of their God 
 for the service of their Priests't: and that, according 
 
 * Breut-Tor has received ia augmentations from Queen Anne's 
 Bounty in each of the yearsl746, 175 1,1767, ] 788, 1791, 200^.; in 
 all 1000/. The interest of which, invested in the stocks, or in 
 land, constitutes, with the Impropriator's stipend, the whole income 
 of the Incumbency : at least the full value of the Living in the 
 Clerical Guide is said to be 60?., and no more; and, without a 
 house. 
 
 ■j" If a Vicarage fall into such decay, that of itself it is not suflfi- 
 cient to maintain a Vicar, it ouglit to be re-united to the Parson- 
 age. 31 Hen. 6, c. 14 ; 40 Edw. 3, c. 28. — Degges Parsons 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 to the tenor and injunction of those very Acts of 
 Parliament, which, as I said above, constitute the 
 Title-Deeds, as it were, of the property in Tithe, 
 which laymen or quasiAsiymen claim as theirs. 
 
 And hence it is, that the appropriation of this 
 fund, miscalled a Bounty, has become, in sober 
 reality, the screen by which the Responsibilities 
 of the Lay-Impropriators and their sacrilegious acts 
 are kept out of sight, and themselves from that 
 withering scorn of public opinion, which, had their 
 cruel selfishness been adequately exhibited to the 
 public, could not have failed to reduce them to a 
 decent conduct in this matter. And furthermore, 
 because it has been the means of hiding the Impro- 
 priator from the public, it has been also the means 
 of hiding him from himself; and thus it is the very 
 cause of Sacrilege : for, I verily believe, that many 
 are now actually unaware of the sin of Sacrilege 
 which they are almost, I hope quite, unconsciously 
 committing. For what is Sacrilege? The abstrac- 
 tion of the things of God from their proper applica- 
 tion. The things of God, in this case, being the 
 legal maintenance of the Clergyman. The things of 
 God are abstracted: the Clergyman is allowed to do 
 the duty, and allotved to starve. 
 
 These few observations will suffice to satisfy the 
 reader, that all the declarations above predicated of 
 Queen Anne's Bounty, are not the mere creatures 
 of the writer's brain ; but that they are, in very and 
 
 Counsellor. The person who has the tithes should sustain the 
 Parsonage-house.
 
 51 
 
 solemn truth, disoraceful burthens under which our 
 unfortunate Church is made to groan. 
 
 We have seen that " It is, in its Name, Adulation 
 of Power; in its Reality, a Solemn Farce;" the 
 bounty being the Clergy's bounty, not any Queen's : — 
 the expensive parade about its collection and its es- 
 tablishment as an exclusive tax upon the Clergy* 
 being all the et cetera needful to make it appear 
 what it is not, and to disguise from the looker-on 
 what it actually bond fide is ; — viz. a tax upon the 
 Clergy for the pretended benefit of some of their 
 less affluent brethren in Orders, who are robbed of 
 their rights by the power of Acts of Parliament, at 
 once iniquitous in the abstract, and oppressive to 
 individuals. -^ 
 
 We have seen that " It is The Cloak of Injustice," 
 inasmuch as it is the cause of concealing from 
 public observation the true state of the case ; which 
 is, that a multitude of the Clergy are deprived of 
 their rights, and have to labour from year's end to 
 year's end, in gentleman's appearance and circum- . 
 stances, at artisan's wages, and less. 
 
 It is " The Screen of Robbery;" for, by its means, 
 the denial of the Impropriators to conform to the 
 conditions of the Acts of Parliament, (ivhich Acts 
 constitute the Title-Deed of their estate, in Tithe), 
 is kept out of view, and such their illegal abstrac- 
 tion and robbery — the act of might against right — 
 
 * It is the absurd reality of tins case, that the salaries of officers 
 appointed to receive this fund and to exchequer the Clergy who 
 are not ready in their payments, and paid out of the poor Clergy's 
 contribution, amount to upwards of 3,000/. a year. The whole 
 thing is a monstrous job. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 
 
 screened from that unequivocal call to do justice, the 
 public voice of indignant surprise. 
 
 It is the " Premium," and that not inconsiderable, 
 " on Rapacity;" for, on the one hand, the less the 
 Impropriator pays his Vicar or Curate, the greater 
 must be the contribution of the Governors ; (re- 
 ference to the Appendix will make citation of any 
 particular instances needless :) and, on the other 
 hand, the value of his preferment, as a matter of 
 sale, is relatively increased*. It is the fearful " Oc- 
 casion of Sacrilege," because, those upon whom the 
 liability and responsibility fall, of paying the Minister 
 of the Altar a due and seemly allowance for aliment 
 and maintenance — unconsciously, I repeat, in many 
 instances, I would fain hope in most— deprive God's 
 servant not only of his priestly due, but even of that 
 mere stipend and allowance which Act of Parlia- 
 ment allots to him and declares to be his. 
 
 It is " Legalised Religious Swindling," inasmuch 
 as it is money gathered under a false pretence, 
 which is swindling; pretence, false in its claim, in its 
 name, foundation, and application ; yet it is "legal," 
 as done by Act of Parliament; and "" religious," inas- 
 much as it is pretended to be applied to the cause 
 
 * This will be immediately apparent by an instance. Let us 
 take that of Heytesbury, Wilts. The income of that living was 30Z. 
 per annum; such a living, if sold, would realise, what ? — Ol. Os. Od. 
 Who would take laborious duty to live in Heytesbury, and pay the 
 stipend for rent of a house ? By the augmentation of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, that 30/. per annum has been changed into 130/. per an- 
 num. Such a living in the market would realise, under favourable 
 circumstances, 1,400/. or 1,500/.: so that the Impropriator who 
 sold Heytesbury would actually benefit to the amount of that sum, 
 by not having paid the congrua portio to his Vicar.
 
 53 
 
 of religion ; whereas, in point of fact, its application 
 abets sacrilege, enablino- the robbers of churches to 
 carry on their fearful work with impunity : I hope, 
 indeed, as I have already here affirmed, uncon- 
 sciously *. 
 
 * As this assertion appears rather paradoxical, I refer the reader 
 to that Appendix which exhibits in tabular form the monetary 
 value of each impropriated living named; the amount paid as a 
 " congrua porlio," the net value of the living, and amount of aug- 
 mentations effected at different times by Queen Anne's Bounty, to 
 compensate so far as a 4th, or 5th, or 6th of anything can be con- 
 sidered a compensation for the whole — for so much of the congnia 
 portio that the Incumbent does not receive from the Impropriator. 
 The names of the Impropriators have been forwarded to me, 
 but I withhold them, being unwilling to make Persons obnoxious 
 to whom, as yet, the requirements of justice may not have been 
 stated. It is the System that I desire to make insufferable by 
 exposure. I am in hopes, however, that the effect produced by 
 this tabular view will be such as to cause an anxiety on the part 
 of the Impropriators generally to do justice to their Church, and 
 to such of its Clergy as serve the Impropriations by which they 
 benefit; so that, hereafter, the mention of their names, in con- 
 nexion with the stipend paid to each Incumbent, may redound 
 rather to their honour as Christians than to their disgrace as Men. 
 For, many of them, most of them I would fain liope — charity leads 
 one so to believe — have not as yet given the subject a thought; and 
 have looked upon their receipts of tithe, and their payments of 
 pension, as a matter of course; without entertaining the least idea 
 that they are the abettors of the most wicked laws that the record 
 of this or any other country can exhibit in their Statute Books. 
 Nor let thoughtless people denounce this measure of speech as high- 
 flown or extravagant. The denuding and starving of the Priesthood 
 is the ruin of religion in depriving the people of the means of 
 Grace. This, Julian the Apostate knew: this, Archbishop Peck- 
 ham and Bishop Greathead affirmed in fearful tones: thus it was 
 in the days of Latimer; and can any one now look at a population 
 of 70,000, ex gr. in Bethnal Green District, with Church Ac- 
 commodation only for 5,000, and deny the truth of the assertion,
 
 54 
 
 We have seen that this " Boon to The Church," as 
 people imagine it to be, is the cause of " Real Loss'' 
 to an astonishing amount to those who receive it, for 
 they are baulked with a mouthful instead of being 
 fed with a meal : while it is, by the terms of its col- 
 lection, as applicable only to the Clergy, a great 
 exaction upon them as citizens, and a contribution 
 or impost without parallel ; their position, as members 
 of a profession, being compared with that of those 
 of any other profession of the Body-Politic. 
 
 It is a grievous " Burthen to the Poorer Clergy 
 who pay it;" because, already overburthened with the 
 onus of continual contribution, every additional call 
 made upon them is an actual loss, which few are 
 able, with pleasure, to sustain : while those to whom 
 it is paid would, but for this contribution and aug- 
 mentation, be benefited, usually, to double, in many 
 instances treble, quadruple, yea, manifold the amount 
 of what they now receive from it. 
 
 It is a sin in those Impropriators, who, backing 
 the petition of their Vicars, declare themselves at a 
 loss to discover how the living can in any other way 
 be augmented : and, as offering to a man a bounty 
 for the performance of that service, for doing which 
 
 that the absence of the Witnesses for Truth, and of the means of 
 Grace of which they are the guardians and sole dispensers, is the 
 murder of the Souls of Men ? " What will it profit a man to gain 
 the whole world, if he lose his own soul ?" — what ? And there- 
 fore it is that I say, that Laws, which go to rob people of those 
 spiritual benefits which their ancestors left for the enjoyment of their 
 descendants, are devilish laws; and those who carnally profit by 
 them are, in so doing, aiding the devil's works, and are the uncon- 
 scious abettors of sacrilege.
 
 b6 
 
 he is entitled, by the Laws of God and the justice 
 of our Saxon ancestors, to aliment and comely 
 maintenance, it is a case of great and supercilious 
 insult. 
 
 That " it is the Slanderer's plea for false accusa- 
 tion," is herein evident : in that the Clergy, because 
 they do not pay the full first fruits and tenths of 
 their livings, are assailed with the accusation of 
 being Swindlers of the Common- Wealth, and Rob- 
 bers of the Public Purse : whereas, it would be 
 much to their advantage, if a full payment were once 
 claimed. There would never be another made ! 
 
 It is " The Jeer of Dissent for its Bounty f be- 
 cause dissenters, in their ignorance, imagining that 
 Queen Anne's Bounty is a fund which owes its 
 existence (as, indeed, from its name, well they may) 
 to the King or Queen's benevolence, and that it 
 would therefore necessarily come out of the public 
 purse, flatter themselves — vaunting and strutting 
 with much pomp and circumstance — that they help to 
 pay the Clergy, as aiding in the public contribution 
 of taxes. A vain imagination ! The Parliamentary 
 grant of 100,000/. for some years, in aid of the fund, 
 being miserable compensation for the yearly millions 
 that the Impropriators' Incumbents lose, by being- 
 deprived of their tithe by Act of Parliament, and 
 then of their congrua portio, by the connivance ot 
 the Senate. 
 
 Are these things true, Christian brethren ? If 
 not, disprove them. Let them be disproved. But 
 if they be true ; and alas ! true they are, then, who 
 shall doubt, but that a system, which first generates, 
 and then tolerates their existence, is " a Disgrace to
 
 56 
 
 the Country" — " a Blot upon [the reputation of] The 
 Church," which ought to " be without spot, or 
 wrinkle, or any such thing?" — a blot, which, indeed, 
 she cannot help; for she is the sufferer, and the 
 loser in every way ; the gainer in none. Who can 
 doubt, but that all this " Mockery" and deception 
 " of Man," which is carried on under the name of 
 Queen Anne's Bounty, — that an exaction, made 
 from Christian Priests, in ridicule, as it were, of His 
 solemn ordinance of the Hio^h-Priest's maintenance, 
 that High-Priest which w^as the type and forerunner 
 of the Son of God — w ho can doubt, but that all this 
 is " an Offence to God?" 
 
 And what wonder ? for it is Protestant Hypocrisy 
 and Subterfuge, grafted on the bitter trunk of Popish 
 Invention and Delusion; the foundation of the whole 
 system of impious fraud being " Blasphemy."
 
 57 
 
 PART IJ. 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION AND THE 
 IMPROPRIATORS. 
 
 What has been already said may be esteemed 
 by the intelligent reader a sufficient justification of 
 the writer for condemning so strongly as he has 
 that public deception called " Queen Anne's Bounty." 
 But as he has chosen to ask the question, " What 
 is Queen Anne's Bounty ? with reference to the 
 Acts and Neglects of the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sion," it will be proper that he should here add a 
 few words to shew what the Commissioners have 
 had to do with it, and why he should seek to make 
 their acts obnoxious to public contempt, by mixing 
 up their name and office with this odious and ab- 
 surd ecclesiastical impost. 
 
 The general reader will first of all need to be 
 informed, that this Commission has been discovering 
 how it can best create a fund with which further to 
 augment poor livings, and to provide additional cler- 
 gymen for destitute and densely populated districts 
 in the North ; and that, because it seemed to them 
 there was nothing else available to their hand with 
 which to create such a fund, they have decreed that 
 '•560 (more or less) prebendal stalls shall be cut
 
 58 
 
 down, and The Church deprived henceforth and for 
 ever of this means of rewarding the most active and 
 learned of a laborious profession which numbers 
 20,000 men, of whom above 8,000 labour from year 
 to year, at an average payment not exceeding* 100/. : 
 and who, consequently^, out of their private means, 
 themselves contribute 1,600,000/. yearly to the main- 
 tenance of that profession, concerning which the 
 Christian rule is, that its ministers ought by their 
 flocks to be abundantly maintained in all good 
 things, " eV iraaiv d<yadot<i,^' Gal. vi. 6. For this is 
 the case with 8,000 Clergy, while the average income 
 of the 11,000 Incumbents is not above an inadequate 
 maintenance of 270/. per annum. 
 
 I mean, then, in this place, to accuse the Church 
 Commissioners of gross neglect, as Commissioners 
 of Inquiry into Ecclesiastical Income, for failing to 
 apply the remedy of Act of Parliament to the case 
 of those who were obnoxious to its provisions ; and 
 to shame them by the proof, that, had they acted 
 in conformity therewith, they would have at once 
 realised a vast deal more, instantly, than they them- 
 selves, by their own shewing, hope to do by their 
 own plan in forty years ; they having, in the mean- 
 time, effected such a breach in The Constitution of 
 The Church as has entirely altered its relation to 
 The State, and betrayed to the minister of the day 
 its hitherto noble and salutary independence. But 
 I beg to say, that I speak of their wanton acts with- 
 out personal animosity ; they touch not me indivi- 
 dually; their acts would even benefit me — I shall be 
 
 * See Note, p. .31.
 
 59 
 
 amongst the first to receive pecuniary advantage* — 
 but I speak of them with that feeling of honest 
 indignation with which 1 have, as a man, a Chris- 
 tian, and a citizen, a right to stigmatize those who 
 dare to invade my dearest and most honoured pri- 
 vilege — my portion in the dignity, the glory, the 
 excellence of our loved and venerated National 
 Church. 
 
 And if I am asked. Who are you to speak in this 
 way ? I answer, that I am one of God's privileged 
 chosen people, whose lot has been cast in a Country 
 where the Christian message has been, and by The 
 Church's means, conveyed to all : and that, knowing 
 thence my rights and privileges as a Christian and 
 citizen, I am determined, as far as in me lies, to hand 
 down the enjoyment of the same glorious privileges 
 
 * When I wrote this, I thought the Act was better than I find it 
 to be. It appears that those livings only are to be augmented 
 which are in the patronage of Ecclesiastical Corporations, whether 
 sole or otherwise ; that is, of Bishops, Chapters, &c. ; so that all of 
 those who are serving the Impropriations under lay patronage, and 
 are therefore worse used than any others, are to be denied all ad- 
 vantage of the contemplated change, and to lose the only chance they 
 now enjoy of the prospect of getting some small piece of prebendal 
 preferment to compensate, in some degree, for years of expensive 
 and unreraunerated service. It is all very fine to legislate in the ab- 
 stract, and say that it is unreasonable to augment the selling value of 
 the Lay Patrons' Advowson, by making additions to the income of the 
 living to which he presents : in the meantime, what is to put bread 
 into the children's mouths 'i I hate to witness such callous indiffer- 
 ence to the comforts and wants of brethren, equals of all in all re- 
 spects, save that some have money while others have not. Destroy 
 the present system of patronage, and you will then not be driven to 
 the absurdity of augmenting the greater income in the lesser parish, 
 while the less income in a greater is allowed to remain as it is.
 
 60 
 
 to 7ny children, and to theirs, if possible, unimpaired; 
 and hence my reprobation of whatever threatens my 
 Church's independence, and therein her efficiency. 
 Now that the time-servers know my title to speak, 
 they shall hear what I have to say. 
 
 Without going further at present into their 
 avowed motives for acting in this Commission, 
 which are all, I think, bating their dishonesty, equal 
 to tinkling cymbal and sounding brass, it Avill be 
 enough for us to know, that they all admit the wants 
 of the inadequately provided Clergy, and the spi- 
 ritually destitute condition of populous places in the 
 North, to have been their reason, and the only one 
 they had, for meddling with the Prebendal Stalls. 
 All of them have admitted that the case was ex- 
 traordinary; ex. gr. His Grace of Canterbury, who 
 said that his position was without precedent : — the 
 Bishop of Lincoln has confessed that fear was the 
 impulse under which they acted ; and they have, all 
 of them, more or less, shewn themselves to be so 
 sensitive under the protests which have been made 
 against their acts and assumptions, that it is very 
 evident they feel they stand, not upon the sympathy 
 of their Brethren of the Priesthood, nor the respect 
 of The Church, but, upon the alliance of Sir Robert 
 Peel and my Lord John Russell. And are these 
 all his Grace's allies ? Alas, No ! The Atheists. 
 Deists, Papists, and other Schismatics in the Houses 
 of Commons and Lords. A hopeful crew for the 
 Primate of England, with which to man his ship 
 called Ecclesiastical Reform ! 1 do not say that all 
 who have blindly given in to the motion of the 
 Archbishop, are Atheists and Deists, Papists, or
 
 61 
 
 other Dissenters; but I do say, that the circumstance 
 of finding" themselves actino; in concert with the visi- 
 ble representation of all the worst wickedness in the 
 Realm, ought to make men of honour and reason 
 open their eyes to what these evil spirits anticipate 
 as the consequences of this their act. For whatever 
 the Members of the House of Lords may think of 
 this plain speaking, and however they may choose 
 to act, the fact is undeniable, that the backers of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Commis- 
 sioners in this his infatuated act, are the Popish 
 and Dissenting- Faction in this Country. Hence 
 it is, that, feeling the disgraceful position in which 
 they have placed themselves, they are impatient 
 under censure ; — that they shew, in their letters 
 and charges, symptoms of being galled, and are 
 bespeaking more temper from others than they 
 manifest themselves. This is unreasonable. TVe 
 are the sufferers. JVe are the unfortunate team that 
 is getting thonged, and double thonged : and the 
 whip masters, laying about unmercifully, above, be- 
 low, on this side and on that, are much astonished 
 at the restiveness of the poor animals on whom they 
 are exercising their awkward cruelty. 
 
 The Clergy are suffering cruel handling under 
 these unconstitutional and unconstitutionally ap- 
 pointed Commissioners ; the rich Clergy, the poor 
 Clergy, and especially the poorest Clergy, for whom 
 the greatest solicitude is asserted. Such being the 
 fact, they have a right to speak, a right to make 
 themselves heard and felt, —the rich, the poor, the 
 poorest : the richer, upon whom a wicked precedent 
 is to be converted into a perpetual and enormous
 
 62 
 
 impost: the poorer Clergy, who themselves rather 
 need than are able to give assistance to any body : 
 the poorest Clergy, who are still to have their neces- 
 sities, not met, but mocked at. Among the last class 
 I crave leave to declare, being much interested in 
 the matter, that the poorest Clergy are most injured 
 by their Acts and Neglects. This I proceed to 
 prove, and to give practical illustration of the mis- 
 chief producible by the two elements of evil, Queen 
 Anne's Bounty and Impropriation, when seen in 
 combination ; as seen they are in every parish, where 
 that curse of Popery, the sacrilegious robbery of the 
 Altar, is, under an impious abuse of legislation — of 
 Christian legislation ! witnessed and legalised. Alas, 
 alas, brethren ! How shall we escape the woe de- 
 nounced in Mai. iii. 7, 8, 9 ? those amongst us espe- 
 cially who, under the quirks and quibbles of law, dare 
 to call good evil, and evil good ? And how does the 
 impious farce of Queen Anne's Bounty tend to hide 
 from men the guilt of their acts ? the extent, the 
 character of their sin ? It would be, indeed, well, if 
 these or any other Commissioners would give their 
 minds to the consideration of this awful subject. 
 Much more practical good would be derived from 
 it than will ever result from any attempt to pay the 
 Clergy by extraneous funds and with the money 
 of other people. " Let every man bear his own 
 burthen." 
 
 In the Spring of 1836, when the Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners' Report came out, their ostensible 
 field of labour had been the finding out some fea- 
 sible mode of augmenting the livings of the Vicars 
 and Perpetual Curates, and of realising funds to pay
 
 63 
 
 withal Incumbents of new churches in the densely 
 populated manufacturing districts in the North; and 
 it was found, or reported at least, that, to increase 
 those already established to a sum affording any- 
 thing like a possibility of existence to the incum- 
 bents respectively, i.e. to 200/. a-year, 371,293/. per 
 annum were wanted. 
 
 It became a question then, how and where this 
 money was to be got ? 
 
 To apply to Parliament (which had plundered 
 these livings by the sanction of its own omnipo- 
 tency) to pay the plundered priesthood, who minister 
 more than gratuitously to the spiritual necessities of 
 so many millions of their fellow-citizens, was, of 
 course, out of the question. Every thing now is 
 " out of the question" which is commended by com- 
 mon honesty and common sense. 
 
 "Where is there any money?" We must have 
 money, says the Bishop of London, from any source, 
 and by any means. 
 
 " Oh, we have it ! The Prebendaries — we will 
 reduce the stalls and seize the revenues of them — 
 nobody will defend them, for nobody cares about 
 them ; nobody knows what they are for, nor what 
 they have done ; and they will not dare to defend 
 themselves, for my Lord Henley, thanks to his 
 lucky ignorance, has made them obnoxious to public 
 opinion*. The thing is done." 
 
 " Agreed," said one, and they all " agreed," and 
 the thing was done, for they brought in a Bill ; and 
 
 * Lord Henley's pamphlet on Church Reform, all the state- 
 ments in which were founded on misconception of facts, ran rapidly 
 through nine editions.
 
 64 
 
 behold I the matter is noiv doing, for they have 
 nearly brought it to bear. 
 
 Doubtless, it is very desirable to increase the 
 stipends, the wretched stipends of poor Incumbents. 
 Justice manifestly demands it; and if the Commis- 
 sioners had found out, or rather, had not closed 
 their eyes to the only honest way of doing it, and 
 had then proceeded constitutionally to have their 
 suggestions assented to by Convocation*, they would 
 have deserved the thanks of The Church here — the 
 praises of The Church departed. 
 
 But, what have they done ? Why, disregarding 
 the only way that was honestly open to them, and 
 very iniquitously taking what did not belong to 
 them, they spared those whose revenues are The 
 Church's and its Clergy's, to seize the incomes of 
 those, upon whose very existence the welfare of The 
 Church, as a national body, in conjunction, or rather 
 identified with the State, depends I'. 
 
 Very generous, indeed, were they with other 
 people's goods who have a right to what they enjoy ; 
 and very sparing of hinting to those, the possession 
 
 * Dr. Heylin says, there was nothing done with regard to the 
 Church and reHgion in the Church of England but what was acted 
 by the Clergy in their Convocations, or (jrounded on some act of 
 theirs precedent to it, with the advice, counsel, and assent of the 
 Bishops, and other learned men, assembled by the King's [or 
 Queen's] appointment : and the Parliament did nothing in it, but 
 that sometimes upon the post fact it was thought fit to add some 
 strength to the decrees and determinations of the Church by civil 
 sanctions. — Preface to " Church of England Justified." But now, 
 " Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis." 
 
 ■\ Vide Reduction of Prebendaries, p. 26, in re Conge d'elire, 
 and Veto on heretical appointments by the Minister of the day.
 
 65 
 
 of whose properly is sheer downright sacrilege, the 
 necessity of fnlfilling the obligations of the Acts of 
 Parliament which are the title-deeds of their tithe 
 estates. 
 
 " Be just before you are generous." This is an 
 old saying, and it is a. just one. The Ecclesiastical 
 Commissioners were about to augment, if possible, 
 small livings. Did they know^ anything of Cause 
 and Effect? — how such livings became small? 
 Did it not occur to them, or, at the least, ought it 
 not, to have asked hoiv the livings became poor ? 
 how it was that the Parish Priesthood had lost that 
 endowment which the Saxons had provided by 
 entail, for and upon the Clergy of succeeding gene- 
 rations ? Did they not know that the monastics 
 had, in their own peculiar way, possessed themselves 
 of the Tithe of nearly half the estates in England*, 
 and that they thenceforward, instead of nominating 
 Rectors to parishes, found out the use of Vicars and 
 Perpetual Curates, as above noted ? Did they not 
 further knoAv, that the monastical impropriators, like 
 some others tvho profess a purer faith, starved these 
 their '^ servants'' (l); and that, in consequence, divers 
 Constitutions and Canons were made in popish 
 times, by the then Bishops, nt supra, pp. 32-4, by 
 w^hich the monastical Impropriators were compelled 
 to pay these " Working Clergy," besides their vica- 
 rial dues, four, and then eight or ten marks a-yearf ? 
 the mark being tliirteen shillings and a groat. 
 
 * There were, according to Godolphiii, 3,845 Benefices impro- 
 priate, and before the time to which he alludes there were many 
 more. 
 
 t Vide p. 24; and Ahp. Chichley, p. 28. 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 This was the vicarial allowance, and to celibates we 
 are not to forget, when a shilling would go further 
 than a pound does noAv*; and when the stipend 
 was aided by a number of other payments, as obits, 
 mass money ; sometimes to a considerable amount. 
 
 Do they not know that the monastics were subject 
 to these Constitutions, and compelled by the Bishops 
 to abide by them ? and also, that, at the time of the 
 transfer of the monastic holdings to private lay- 
 hands, the conditions of the transfer ivere, that the 
 duty should be provided for in as ample a manner 
 as heretofore, and at equal remuneration'!'? — as I 
 have already shewn at large. 
 
 Now, bearing this in mind, the Commissioners, 
 we have seen, wanted to increase the value of sti- 
 pends of the livings of the Impropriators, as well as 
 the stipends of those who serve chapels in populous 
 places ; and, the chief of the poor livings being those 
 of Impropriators, what did they do? Did they 
 examine the state of the livings, and the " congrua 
 portio " (i. e. stipends, quasi the congrua portio) of 
 the cures, and compare the performances of the lay- 
 men with the requirements of the Acts of Parliament 
 which are the title-deeds of their estates ? No, 
 they did not ! 
 
 Did they, even if we allow them to sink the abso- 
 lute and manifest meaning conveyed by the phrase 
 " congrua portio," make an estimate of the relative 
 value of a shilling 400 years ago, and the same coin 
 of this day? and so, frame an Act to compel the 
 Impropriators, clerical or lay, (it signifies little to 
 
 * In the reign of Edward I. 55. would buy an ox. 
 t 34 & 35 Hen. 8, c. 19. Appendix.
 
 67 
 
 a poor Vicar or Perpettial Curate, tvho, tvhether 
 Ecclesiastic or Layman, robs his Jlltar), to meet 
 their oblig-ations? not accordino; to the noiv absurdity 
 of the letter, but according to the intent and spirit of 
 the Act by which a living (i. e. an existence) to the 
 Vicar was intended, when the Impropriator was com- 
 pelled to pay him, at the least, four marks a-year. 
 No ! had they done this, they would have found out 
 a large disposable fund of money all ready to their 
 hand, with which to meet the present wants of the 
 populous districts*, and to provide for the ever- 
 recurrinof and continoent emero^encies of the Church. 
 
 But what is the case in the present day ? I 
 know of a vicarage of which the tithe is 300/., more 
 or less, and the Vicar's stipend from the Impropriator 
 is — what do you think ? — even to this day, 21. 13^. Ad. ! 
 But such cases are of frequent occurrence. 
 
 And what is this 2/. 135. Ad. ? It is the old four 
 marks, i. e. 135. Ad. multiplied by four. And what 
 was that in the day it was given ? — this is a very 
 material question — "Maintenance for a man," as we 
 said. Therefore, the spirit of the Act requires the 
 Lay-Impropriators, out of the tithe, to pay the Vicar 
 of that parish whence the tithe is drawn, mainte- 
 nance for a man. Is 2/. 13*. Ad. m,aintenance ? 
 And is it given in lieu of maintenance ? Shame ! 
 Shame ! that such iniquitous perversion of law, 
 decency, and Act of Parliament, should find place 
 among the enlightened and intelligent citizens of 
 England in 1839t ! What is 21. \^s. Ad.^ Bare 
 living for a gentleman for a week, at 7s. l^d. per 
 
 * Vide note, p. 8G. f 1840. 
 
 f2
 
 68 
 
 day. This Vicar has out of the tithe, which, by the 
 law of God*, by the endowment of man'!', is his, all 
 his, \s. O^d. per week ! /. e. about forty times less 
 than what the Archbishop of Canterbury can compel 
 this same Vicar to pay to a Curate, if he is obliged to 
 keep one. This is an equitable reading of an Act of 
 Parliament ! 
 
 But this Constitution of the four or five marks was 
 afterwards judged insufficient; and from eight to 
 ten marks were declared to be the least that men 
 could live on : and, in Henry the Eighth's time, 
 eight pounds were considered the least sum that 
 was reasonably adequate to maintain a celibates- 
 There can be no doubt as to the intention of the 
 Parliament, at the time that this sum of eight pounds 
 was fixed upon as the vicarial remuneration§ ; be- 
 cause, in the Act that passed in the 37th year of the 
 reign of Henry VilL, for consolidating small livings, 
 it was enacted, that where two livings of less than 
 six pounds had been consolidated, whenever the 
 poorer parish could assure to a Clergyman such an 
 addition to whatever stipend he was otherwise en- 
 titled to, as would make up eight pounds per annum, 
 then, such union of livings was to be de facto dis- 
 solved : there can, therefore, be no doubt, but that 
 
 * Mai. iii. 7, 8, 9. " Tillesley, Archdeacon of Rochester, in 
 the second edition of his " Animadversions on Selden's History of 
 Tithes," has given a catalogue of 72 Authors, who, previous only to 
 the year 1215, wrote in defence of the "Divine Right of Tithe." 
 Dr. Cove, p. 48. 
 
 -j- Council of Calchythe. 
 
 X Vide 37 Hen. 8, c. 21, ss. 3, 7. Appendix. 
 
 § Vide 21 Hen. 8, c. 13, — 1536, exhibiting that eight pounds 
 was a full living for a Priest in those days.
 
 69 
 
 eight pounds was then the equivalent expression for 
 "due and sufficient ministerial aliment." What would 
 the Parliament of that day, even thai Parliament^ 
 say to the present, which seems to think " the use 
 and intent" of its Act is carried out, in recognising 
 the award of twenty bushels of wheat as a year's re- 
 muneration for the services of a Parish Priest ? and 
 upheld, also, as the Law of King Henry the Eighth's 
 Parliament ! at the same time that Henry VIII. in 
 his speech to Parliament states that he held the 
 Church Properties " in trust for the Clergy." They 
 would, even they, blush for the name of an English- 
 man, when such is his idea of Reason and Justice. 
 
 We may, however, hence very clearly see, and as 
 safely affirm, that at the time the impropriations were 
 passed over to the Russell s, Norfolks, &c., of the day, 
 each Impropriator was charged with the maintenance 
 of a Vicar, at a rate equal, at the very least, to 160/. per 
 annum of our present money. And to this charge 
 
 ARE THE LAY-IMPROPRIATORS to this day SUBJECT by 
 
 Act of Parliament. And who can tell why it is that 
 these men, who have shamefully shirked their legal 
 obligations for so many years, are allowed, in the 
 first place, to do so with impunity ? Why, again, 
 in the next, they should be allowed any longer to 
 violate Acts of Parliament whicli are the title-deeds, 
 and the only title-deeds they possess, be it well ob- 
 served, of their possessions ? For, does not this 
 qucere naturally arise — Does not the violating the 
 conditions of the title make the title itself, as such, 
 null and void ? For, are both parties in a com[)act 
 bound by the conditions ? are the conditions on the 
 one side to be maintained, on the other to be violated
 
 70 
 
 with impunity, and the terms of compact still to be 
 considered binding on the weak ? If this be law, it 
 is not Justice ; and sure I am, that a Court of Equity 
 would decide the case, if brought to issue, against 
 the Impropriator. 
 
 For in these transfers there was this compact : 
 " You, the parishioners, shall continue to pay the 
 tithe as heretofore you did to the monastics, but you 
 shall be provided with a sufficient Vicar ; to secure 
 the services of whom the lay rector shall pay to him 
 a salary adequate to his due maintenance,^^ ut 
 supra, pp. 32, 33, et passim. 
 
 This is the compact. Who breaks it? The Lay- 
 Rector*. But the parishioners are not allowed to 
 break it. They must pay the sacrilegious demand, 
 even to the most sacrilegious extent ; the payment 
 increasing to meet the changed value of money. But, 
 the reader will observe, no corresponding increase 
 has been made all this time in the Vicar's stipend ; 
 so that, while the tithe-holders have understood tho- 
 roughly how to estimate the value of their tithe in 
 the altered currency of the realm, they have always 
 had a wonderful dulness in apprehending that an 
 increase, equal in proportion to that which they have 
 enjoyed upon their tithes, was due, in each case, to 
 the Poor Vicars and Perpetual Curates. 
 
 I say then, that in all equity, the Impropriators 
 
 * " The lay rector." One is obliged to use this ridiculous 
 phrase in conformity to the extravagancies of the day we live in. 
 That any Layman can be the Rector of a Parish is utterly im- 
 possible ; and if it were not, it would be a wicked usurpation to 
 attempt to put such a notion into practical effect. We really must 
 get rid of all these wicked auomalico in our land. A hfi/ rector?!
 
 71 
 
 have vitiated their titles to their holdings, by the 
 non-performance of their part of the compact. 
 
 1 say further, that — if "Equity" be not "l^aw" in 
 England, and that common-sense Englishmen be not 
 made to worship the sound of words, and deny their 
 sense, — the system of robbery of Vicars and Per- 
 petual Curates has so long had existence, by the 
 denial of their rights, in the abstraction of their 
 mere Act-of-Parliament dues by the Impropriators, 
 lay and other, that the redemption of the debt due to 
 each incumbency noiv tvoidd outset the value of the 
 preferment, (regarded as property) ; and therefore, 
 again, the demand of Justice is, that these sacrile- 
 gious impropriations, the covenants unperformed 
 under condition of performance of ivhich they ivere 
 granted, having been bought up ipso facto by the 
 accumulation of debt upon them, be banished the 
 land, with the popery from which they sprung. 
 
 But it is said that this spoliation system has been 
 going on so long, that usage and custom have de- 
 stroyed, by superseding, the Right of the Church ; in 
 other words, that Prescri})tion is a justiciable plea to 
 set up against Right, and Custom against the Word 
 of God. 
 
 And are we come to this. Brethren and Citi- 
 zens of this Christian Empire, — that our customs 
 and the Word of God are at variance? Shall we 
 confess it ? If we do, what ought to happen ? 
 what must ? Why, that one must give way to the 
 other; and ivhich is to give way?., the Word of 
 God? "Is God a man that He should lie" and 
 falsify His own position? If God exists, .What! Jf 
 God exists ? — and who wislies to deny His existence ?
 
 72 
 
 — do the Impropriators of His Tithes ? God forbid 
 that / should say so, — their position truly gives too 
 much reason to many to think so: we shall see 
 shortly whether the present Impropriators are worthy 
 descendants of the infidels whose conduct is de- 
 scribed in the subjoined note*. But I say, if God 
 exists, and if we believe Him to exist, then all cus- 
 toms at variance with His Word must give way : 
 and if this be the case, the sooner we begin to mend 
 our manners, in this particular, the better. 
 
 But is this a case in which Prescription can be 
 
 * " When this comraendable part of Mary's conduct was not fol- 
 lowed by the Impropriators, the Pope complained to the English 
 Ambassadors at his Court, that the Church lands and goods were 
 not restored ; an evil which was not to be endured, as they belonged 
 to God, and could not be detained by the Laity without their incur- 
 ring damnation. He therefore pressed this matter very earnestly 
 upon the nation ; for though he was ready to oblige them as far as 
 his power extended, yet he could not pardon and dispense with the 
 profanation of things dedicated to God. His Legate also made a 
 long speech in Parliament, to prove that tithes and impropriations 
 were the patrimony of the Church, and ought to be restored, as the 
 detention of them by the Laity was sacrilege and profanation. The 
 Nobility and Commons, however, would not subscribe to such doc- 
 trines; and being unable to answer his Highness by reasoning and 
 arguments, they put their hands to their swords, and said, that those 
 possessions were become a part of their estates by the laws of tlie 
 realm, and therefore they would never give them up, but defend 
 them at the hazard of their lives and fortunes. Thus they opposed 
 the pious intentions of the Queen to improve the miserable condi- 
 tion of tlie Parochial Clergy; and in the next reign the Parliament 
 annulled what she had been able to do for them : for in their 'first 
 session ' they gave back to Elizabeth the first fruits and tenths of 
 all spiritual benefices, with all such parsonages, glebe lands, tithes 
 impropriated, and advowsons, as came to the Crown by the dissolu- 
 tion of the religious houses, and which the late King and Queen 
 had renounced and relinquished.'" — 1 Eliz. c. 1.
 
 73 
 
 pleaded against Law ? Nay ; the law of the Land 
 is, that the Right of the Church never dies — nullum 
 tempus occurrit ecclesiie — so that that plea will not 
 hold in this case ; moreover, if it would, it is a maxim 
 of law, one of its axioms, that any law enacted contrary 
 to the law of God is ipso facto null and void: there- 
 fore, all enactments which go to recognise that, as 
 sufficient for the maintenance of him concerning 
 whom it is God's decree that he shall live by the 
 labour he performs, which is manifestly insufficient, 
 and so practically negatives the decree of God, 
 must be certainly " null and void." 
 
 For what are God's words? — " Who goeth a war- 
 fare at his own cost?" 
 
 Are these the words of God ? — " Thou shalt not 
 muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." 
 
 Is this a portion of the Word of God ? — " Doth 
 God take care for oxen ? or for our sakes was it 
 said?" "For our sakes: that he that ministereth 
 in the Gospel should live of the Gospel." And 
 what are the facts of the case? The Clergy do 
 not live of the Gospel*: their rights of living are 
 denied, the laws which secure them are derided, 
 for of their sustenance they are robbed : — " the hand 
 is put to the sword" when their Gospel claim is 
 urged ; and the answer, the impious answer, is — 
 " these possessions are become ours by the laws of 
 the realm : we will never give them up, but defend 
 them at the hazard of our lives and fortunes," and 
 OF OUR SALVATION. Be it SO ! Count the cost, 
 Brethren. Yet know that your plea, wretched as it 
 
 ■'' The average income of 8,000 Clergymen is under £100.
 
 74 
 
 is, is as false in assertion as you will find it to be 
 ruinous in that which you may think to be a success- 
 ful issue. As regards the congriia portiu, you will 
 find that " the Laws of the Realm," by the sanction 
 of which you would vainly contend against God, are 
 directly against you ; for, besides the Statutes which 
 we have quoted, disproving your claim to full pos- 
 session of impropriate tithe, it is well known, and 
 has always been a recognised point by Lawyers and 
 others of the greatest eminence, that (to use the 
 words of Selden) " appropriate Churches are never 
 possessed pleuo jure : that there is always implied 
 that a competent revenue be allowed to a Vicar or 
 Curate." How strange, how discreditable is it to 
 those who dispute these most obvious things, who 
 plead man's iniquity against God's justice. Restore 
 at once, Brethren, of freewill, the rights of God's 
 servants, and no longer dare, under the fictitious plea 
 of " Prescription," to put forth your hands to iniquity 
 and sacrilege. 
 
 But, if this shall not happen, and if Parliament, 
 strong in its own power, will not u[)hold the cha- 
 racter of The Church by securing decent mainten- 
 ance for its ministers, let it at least uphold its own 
 character ; let it vindicate its own enactments, and 
 see that those, who have to look to them and their 
 authority, for the title-deeds of that peculiar sort of 
 possession whence they derive their incomes, fulfil 
 such obligations as Parliament has imposed on 
 them. Let it be the guardian of the weak and ill- 
 used. Let it visit the unjust violators of the rights 
 of tliose whom they pretend to protect, with that 
 degree of just severity which hard-hearted rapacity
 
 75 
 
 and the plunder of the orphan and the widow re- 
 quire and demand*. 
 
 Nor need they fear in this case to run against 
 " Prescriptive Rights," for, even according to our 
 present laws, to make ^^Prescriptive Right" good 
 in law, there must be shewn an undisputed posses- 
 sion for a long succession of years or generations, 
 even from the time of King Richard I. Now in 
 this case, the advocates of Law and Justice can 
 shew that the claim of the Vicar and Curate has 
 ever been preferred, as well publicly by Acts of 
 Parliament and Royal Injunction, as privately by 
 the reiterated voices of Bishops, Presbyters, and 
 Laymen, Judges and others, all speaking in the 
 name and on behalf of The Church, as regards on 
 the one hand its oppressed servants, the impove- 
 rished Vicars ; and as reo^ards on the other " the 
 souls of men, which have been murdered " — as 
 the indignant Greathead and the Primate Peckham 
 justly expressed themselves — by the selfish iniquity 
 of those who dared to put forth their hands unto 
 sacrilege, and, in this fearful act, not only seized the 
 gift and endowment of the Altar, but, — alas, — fear- 
 ful, awful responsibility to incur ! — caused that practi- 
 cal atheism to prevail, which first grew when men 
 came to "abhor the offering of the Lordf." For, 
 even waiving all previous Acts, whether of Synod 
 or of Parliament, we have, on the one hand, James I. 
 "ordering the Bishops to inquire into the endow- 
 ments of Vicarages, and the ordinary stipends of 
 Curates, that the impropriations of laymen's fees 
 might be charged with a sixth or seventh part of the 
 
 * Vide Appendix. -|- Oi" tliia lieieafter.
 
 76 
 
 worth of the Impropriation, to the maintenance of 
 the preaching Minister." The just intentions of the 
 King being overruled by tlie wickedness of the 
 courtiers, who observed that " it was necessary for 
 the quiet of the realm, that the general body of the 
 Clergy should be kept poor, as they would then be 
 humble and obedient," proves, not that the protest 
 for injured honesty was not made, but that, as in 
 the preceding reign, " Elizabeth and her counsel- 
 lors were alike unfriendly to the Church " in the 
 persons of the Clergy, so, the accusation of Luther's 
 distich exhibited still the spirit of the age, amongst 
 the rich and powerful : — 
 
 Cum mare siccatur, cum demon ad astra levatur, 
 Tunc clero laicus fidus amicus erit. 
 
 Still, session by session, petitions were presented 
 to the King: that which he was unable to do in 
 England, he accomplished in Scotland, augmenting 
 all inferior benefices to 30/. per annum, and com- 
 pelling the Impropriators to assign a competent 
 maintenance (again the congrua portio) to the 
 Vicars and Curates of their Churches. 
 
 When Charles I. ascended the throne, in answer 
 to the petition of his Parliament, he recommended 
 the House to provide a competent maintenance to 
 the minister of every parish, and that the Impropria- 
 tor should assign to the Vicar or Curate belong- 
 ing to his parsonage, siijjficient stipend. At length 
 a Committee was formed to buy up Impropriations ; 
 but it, being turned to a factious purpose, was dis- 
 solved, and no beneficial effect of its existence re- 
 mained but the recorded witness, that the claim of 
 Vicar to the "congrua portio," was maintained in 
 the minds of the Church and Nation.
 
 77 
 
 The Acts of the Commonwealth were most bene- 
 ficial to the Incumbents ; every man being allotted out 
 of the Impropriations, as his then "congrua portio," 
 as much as would make up 100/. The reward that 
 the loyalty of the Clergy met, for their efforts on 
 behalf of that monster of ingratitude and profligacy, 
 Charles If., was, the allowing the Incumbents of 
 Impropriators to revert to their former oppressed 
 condition. 
 
 Many persons, however, in the previous reign, 
 moved by the virtuous testimony of Spelman, having 
 restored to the Clergy the tithes impropriate they 
 held, Charles II. injoined the Clerical Impropria- 
 tors to augment the maintenance of the Clergy 
 who served their Impropriations, as will be seen by 
 the accompanying extract from a work intitled 
 " The Abolition of Pluralities." 
 
 "A bill was indeed brouglit into the House of Commons for an 
 augmentation of livings appropriate to Bishops, Deans, and Preben- 
 daries; and when it was perceived that the sentiments of the ma- 
 jority of the House were in its favour, the Prelates thinking it more 
 for their honour to make such augmentation voluntarily at the 
 King's request, than by compulsion from an Act of Parliament, 
 procured a letter and declaration from His Majesty to this purpose, 
 to be shewn in the House of Commons, upon which the bill was 
 dropped. In this letter His Majesty declared how desirous he was 
 that the Church of England might be furnished with a learned and 
 religious Clergy, and how ready to give encouragement to their 
 labours. And conceiving that a competent maintenance was neces- 
 sary to their encouragement, he resolved that Bishops, Deans, and 
 Chapters, Collegiate Churches and Colleges, and other sw(/le jier- 
 sons, who had parochial tithes and profts apiyropriaied to them and 
 their successors, but had not taken due care to ordain sufficient 
 maintenance for the Vicars of their respective places, or for the 
 Curates where vicaracjcs were not endowed, should forthwith
 
 78 
 
 MAKE augmentation of all such vicarages and cures in such a 
 manner, that they who immediately attended on the performance of 
 ministerial offices in every parish might have a competent por- 
 tion. To this end liis will was, that no lease should be granted of 
 any rectories or parsonages belonging to thera, till they had pro- 
 vided that the respective vicarages or Curates' places had so much 
 revenue in glebe, tithes, or other emoluments, as commonly would 
 amount to 100/. or 80Z. per annum, or more, if it would bear it; 
 and in good form of law settle it upon them and their successors. 
 And his farther will was, that the Bishops should employ their 
 authority and power, which, by law, belonged to them as Ordinaries, 
 for the augmentation of vicarages and stipends of Curates, and 
 should with diligence proceed in due form of law for establishing 
 CONVENIENT MAINTENANCE of thosc who attended holy duties in 
 parish-churches. 
 
 " In consequence of this letter many of the churches appropriated 
 to spiritual persons were considerably augmented; and it became 
 the general expectation, that all insufficient cures would be equally 
 provided for by the care of Government : for the Laity were equally 
 bound to make a competent provision for the Curates employed in 
 their churches. But though Paidiament acknowledged that * the 
 settled provision for Ministers in most cities and towns corporate 
 within the realm, was not sufficient for the maintenance of able Mi- 
 nisters fit for such places, whereby mean and stipendiary preachers 
 were entertained to serve the cures there, who, wholly depending 
 for their maintenance upon the good-will and liking of their audi- 
 tors, had been under temptation of too much complying and suiting 
 their doctrine and teaching to the humour rather than the good of 
 their auditors, which had been a great occasion of faction and 
 schism, and the contempt of the Ministry; and though the Lords 
 and Commons were deeply sensible of the ill consequences thereof, 
 and piously desired able Ministers in such places, yet, instead of 
 relieving them by the only proper method of redress, — the restitution 
 of their glebe and tithes, — they could only find a competent and 
 settled maintenance for them by the union of churches, and there- 
 fore enacted, * That in every city and town corporate where two or 
 more churches or chapels and their parishioners laid convenient to 
 be united, in such case the Bishop of the diocese, with the consent 
 of the Mayor or other chief officer, and of the patrons of such
 
 79 
 
 churches and chapels, should and might, according to due form of 
 law, unite the said churches or chapels or any of them, and appoint 
 at which the inhabitants and parishioners should meet for the wor- 
 ship of God, which should be annexed unto the other, and which 
 should be the presentative church, unto which the parishioners 
 should resort as their proper church, and pay all their tithes and 
 other dues.' Stat. 17 Car. 2, cap. 3. They had the further gene- 
 rosity to enact, that if the settled maintenance of any parsonage 
 or vicarage with cure did not amount to the full sum of 100/. per 
 annum, it might be lawful for the Incumbent of the same and his 
 successors to take, receive, and purchase lands, tithes, and other 
 hereditaments without any license of mortmain, any law to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding: and the owners and proprietors of any im- 
 propriation, tithes, or portion of tithes, should be enabled to give 
 and annex the same, or any part thereof, to the parsonage or vicar- 
 age or chapelry where the same did lie or arise; and might settle 
 the same in trust for the benefit of the said parsonage or vicarage, 
 or of the Curate and Curates there successively where the parsonage 
 was impropriate, and no Vicar endowed, without any license of 
 mortmain. They likewise passed an Act, which confirmed and 
 perpetuated the augmentations already made, and which should 
 thenceafter be made by ecclesiastical persons to any Vicar or 
 Curate, out of any rectory or tithes impropriate, in whose hands 
 soever the said rectories or portions of tithes should be. 29 Car. 2, 
 cap. 8. Excepting some augmentations made by private persons, 
 nothing more was done in this and the two next succeeding reigns 
 for the benefit of the poorer Clergy ; so that many churches still 
 remained without a proper Incumbent, and were supplied with tem- 
 porary Curates," * * * [though] " in the Savoy Conference, 
 it was aptly suggested that if the Usurper could quickly have 
 brought livings to a competency, there was no question but lawful 
 authority might, and ought to do it." 
 
 Dean Prideaux agitated the subject under William 
 and Mary, and was supported by Bishop Burnet, in 
 whose History of His Own Times are two memorials 
 on the subject of the First Fruits and Tenths, pre- 
 sented in the years 1696 and 1697. His arguments
 
 80 
 
 so effectually excited Queen Mary, that she had 
 formed a plan to raise all small livings to a sufficient 
 maintenance. Mary did not live to execute such her 
 intentions, which nothing, it was believed, but the 
 death of the King prevented from taking effect in 
 his reign. Hence we find, as I have before said, 
 that the ministry of Queen Anne found the subject 
 already prepared for them. They had nothing to 
 do, therefore, but to find out a name for Queen 
 Mary's plan of taxing in perpetuity the Clergy to 
 save the Impropriators. So they named it Queen 
 Amie's Bounty, because, I presume, she offered it to 
 the House on her birth-day, 6th Feb. (1703-4). 
 
 Hoping that this may suffice for the public testi- 
 mony on the one hand, which has been from time 
 to time made in favour of the claims of those who 
 serve the Cures of Impropriators, it must suffice, on 
 the other, to mention the names of some of those 
 who have maintained continually since the Reforma- 
 tion, the rights of the impoverished Vicars ; amongst 
 whom we have Sampson, President of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford ; Humphries, Div. Prof ; Bishop An- - 
 drewes. Sir H. Wotton, Latimer, Hooper; Bishop 
 Cox, himself persecuted for opposing the rapacious 
 courtiers ; Jewell, Hooker, Seldon, Judge Rastall, 
 Coke, Lord Bacon, Gibson, Basire, Ryves, and a 
 host of others, all agreeing and affirming, that as 
 tithes never ought to have come into the hands of 
 laymen, Impropriators were bound in conscience to 
 restore them to the Churches to Avhich they belonged ; 
 and, as omne majus continet omne minus, certainly 
 to make a competent provision for an able and learned 
 Clergy.
 
 81 
 
 Is it said, "We cannot now interfere with cases 
 which are of so long standing ? Nay, but you do 
 interfere, and have done so in a case recently ; one 
 which is quite analogous to our present subject, and 
 which, being valuable in illustration of my position, 
 I shall make use of here and now ; inasmuch as it 
 proves the necessity of interfering with the letter of 
 deeds of endowment, when the intent of the donor 
 is frustrated by the altered value of the currency of 
 the realm. 
 
 A benevolent individual left a property, charged 
 with the payment of a certain number of marks 
 yearly, to certain objects^ as specified in his be- 
 quest. The surplus he directed to be applied to 
 the use of Trustees, to make good incidental ex- 
 penses to which they might be subject in giving 
 effect to his intentions. In the meantime money 
 Decreased, while property Increased in value ; and 
 the yearly income of the property became, from ad- 
 ventitious circumstances, very large ; the payments, 
 which had been considerable, were altogether as 
 trifling in value; and the Trustees were appropriating 
 1,000/. a-year to their own use while the object of 
 the charity was entirely defeated. What happened? 
 An inquiry took place ; the matter was adjusted 
 according to the behest and intention of the donor, 
 and the Trustees were disturbed in their property. 
 
 Other instances there are very much to the point, 
 of which two are before me. They shew that 
 the ivords of the endowment are in many cases 
 necessarily superseded by the provisions which the 
 deed of gift has laid down as to the procurement 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 of certain things, as articles of dress ; and also as to 
 securing the performance of certain duties*. 
 
 The boys of Winchester College are, by the Sta- 
 tutes of the Founder, assured the best silk for their 
 gowns, though it should even cost 4c?. per yard ; 
 this being the highest price, per yard, to which 
 it was conceived silk could ever rise. This statute 
 has long been superseded practically, as to the price 
 of the cloth, by the impossibility of obtaining any 
 cloth at so low a price. Now, the spirit of the 
 Founder was, that the boys should have the best 
 fabric. If, then, they now had the best silk, and 
 that the items of college expenditure exhibited such 
 an outlay as for gowns made of the best silk, would 
 the Visitor of the College be justified in passing the 
 account ? Assuredly he would ; the spirit of the 
 founder, no less than the impossibility of obtaining 
 the cloth at the price specified, would equally justify 
 the outlay exceeding the nominal value of the spe- 
 cified cost per yard. I doubt much whether the 
 Visitor would be justified in passing the accounts of 
 the Institution, if the fabric of the boys' gowns were 
 inferior to the texture of what was the best silk 
 made in those days. The Winchester boys them- 
 selves will be able to appreciate this argument, and 
 apply its substance to their own case. I hope that 
 their gowns are what they ought to be. 
 
 * In this and the case following, I am not positive as to the 
 sums, nor as to the parties named; the reader however may rely on 
 the facts, though the details may not be exact. I think the colleges 
 and sums are as stated; but the illustrations will be quite as well 
 for my argument, if the cases are made suppositious.
 
 83 
 
 The other case is more in point, as affecting the 
 question of " competent maintenance." 
 
 By the Statutes of Lincohi College, the Fellows 
 are to vacate their Fellowships if any of them suc- 
 ceed to, or come into possession of any property 
 exceeding- (say) 20/. per annum. This rule had 
 always met with a liberal interpretation until a Fel- 
 low Expectant, feeling that he had a claim to im- 
 mediate enjoyment of a Fellowship, by the succes- 
 sion of one of the Fellows to a sum of (say) 200/. 
 a-year, urged his immediate ejection from the Fel- 
 lowship on the ground of the literal reading of the 
 Statute. The Master and Fellows, satisfied that they 
 were fulfilling the will of the Founder, resisted, and 
 the case came before the Bishop of Lincoln, Visitor 
 of the College. His decision was, that 800/. of this 
 day being no more than the equivalent of 20/. in the 
 day of the Founder, therefore, unless a Fellow came 
 into possession of a yearly income exceeding 300/., 
 he was to enjoy his Fellowship notwithstanding. 
 
 Here, then, are two cases, one of necessity, the 
 other involving no actual necessity, equally over- 
 ruling the phraseology of the ancient endowment, 
 and maintaining, what is much more important, the 
 spirit oiihQ Donor; the one exhibiting a conformity, 
 in one respect, to the changed circumstances of the 
 times, not from freewill, or any anxiety to do justice, 
 on the part of the Governors of the Institution, — the 
 other, the equitable, common-sense, common-honesty 
 view of the case. 
 
 Now, the position of the Incumbents of Impro- 
 priations claims consideration on both of these 
 grounds ; and the practical argument which these 
 
 g2
 
 84 
 
 several cases furnish, in combination, and which we 
 urge in defence of the claim of the said Incumbents, 
 is, I think, quite unanswerable. 
 
 The cases are entirely analogous. The Acts already 
 quoted, viz. to the effect that each particular pro- 
 perty should stand charged with aliment and main- 
 tenance for an officiating Priest, shew the intent of the 
 Legislators : the very Acts which constitute the title- 
 deeds of the estates of Lay Impropriators, consti- 
 tuting them at the same time Stewards and Trustees, 
 as it were, to husband the properties, and to pay up 
 always " all rents, fees, offices, &c.," 27 Hen. 8, c. 8 ; 
 and " offices, fees, annuities, profits, and commodi- 
 ties," 32 Hen. 8, c. 7 ; and " rights, titles, claims, 
 interests, charges, annuities, offices, fees, liveries, 
 livings, portions, pensions, corrodies, &c.," 34 & 35 
 Hen. 8, c. 19; to which these estates had been 
 subject ; and they were all subject to it. The 
 1 Edw. 6., c. 14, s. 21, in like manner saves out of 
 the Dissolution of the Chantries, all rights of stran- 
 gers — as rents, services, rents seek, fees, annuities, 
 profits, and offices, &c., as had been lawfully enjoyed 
 out of the same. Now, as in almost all cases, the 
 Impropriators or Trustees have possessed themselves 
 of the Vicar's " pension" and turned it to their own 
 account ; and for want of that that the Vicar ought to 
 have, he has recourse to Queen Anne's Bounty, to 
 enable him to make his pittance such as may per- 
 chance(J^ just keep life and soul together, and no 
 more. The act of settlement above alluded to 
 (p. 81) and the adjustments made in the other 
 cases, shew that fraudulent Trustees can be made 
 to relinquish unlawful ill-gotten gains, and that the
 
 85 
 
 actual necessities of the case must overrule the letter 
 of endowments when the changed circumstances of 
 the times require such changes to be made, when 
 such changes are not at variance with the will or intent, 
 as the case may be, of the donor or founder. Surely, 
 the practical results of this evasion of Law, and of 
 this neglect of responsibilities, constitute a case of 
 oppression for the Parliament, in vindication ol its 
 own character, to see rectified*. 
 
 But, does Parliament decline ? 
 
 Let it decline to do justice and judgment! But, 
 why do the Ecclesiastical Commissioners decline? 
 How is it that the Primate of England, Guardian of 
 The Church, especially of the houseless and im- 
 poverished V^icars and Perpetual Curates f, each 
 robbed upon an average of 250/. per annum by their 
 task-master Impropriators,. .How is it, as asked above, 
 p. 66, that His Grace at the head of this Commission, 
 never sought out, by aid of Act of Parliament, the 
 amount of the obligation of each Lay-Rector, and the 
 amount, by aid of fraud and avarice, of the defect of 
 his performance ? 
 
 I say now — I affirm, and am ready to go into the 
 proof, that the money which the Impropriators should 
 be compelled by the very Acts of Parliament which 
 are the title-deeds of their strange possessions (tithe 
 to a lay man !), to pay to the Vicars, and ivhich they 
 
 * Vide Appendix, Sheet of Impropriations. 
 
 \ Is this an unreasonable expectation ? Hooker does not think 
 so : " At the hands of a Bishop, the first thing looked for is a 
 care of the Clergy under him; a care, that in doing good, they may 
 have whatsoever comforts and encouragements his countenance, 
 authority, and place may yield." — Eccles. Pol. vii. 24, 3.
 
 86 
 
 do not pay, is, together with the income immediately 
 available to the Vicars, &c., by the release of augmen- 
 tations already effected by Queen Anne's Bounty*, 
 and tvhich woidd result from the enforcement of the 
 provisions of the Acts of Parliament alluded to, more, 
 considerably more, than the whole amount confessedly 
 to be raised by the Commissioners in the destruction 
 of the Prebendal Stalls. I say then, that their omitting 
 to see to this means of increasing the income of some 
 thousands of the Clergy, was an act of great neglect. 
 The Commissioners admit that they want 371,293/. 
 to raise 3,600 livings to 200/. per annum. And 
 what are they going to get by the spoliation of the 
 Stalls ? (which they confess they have no other right 
 to touch than that which is founded on the plea 
 of necessity). £160,000 only. How much will that 
 add, when it is realized, to each living ? £44. 7*. Q^d. 
 And ivhen will it be realized ? and how appropriated 
 when it is ? This is a very practical question ; for, 
 let it but get into a fund, and how long will it be in 
 finishing the tale of which the disposing of the 
 Canadian clergy-reserves is but the commencement ? 
 Now, I have said, that if the Acts of Parliament 
 which LaW;, Justice, Equity, and Statute, all read 
 alike, were attended to, a more abundant fund would 
 
 * Vide Appendix, No. VII. To speak in round numbers, we 
 may say that 2,500,000^. is locked up in augmentations to livings, by 
 the Bounty Board. The interest oi'this money is, I doubt not, now 
 worth fully 4 per cent., which will produce 100,000Z. a-year. The 
 immediate increase of the Vicarages and Curacies will remove them 
 from the list of claimants ; so that the chief part of the Incumbents 
 expectant, who are the Ministers of the Chapels of Ease to Mother 
 Churches, could have their wants immediately met with this income 
 of 100,000/. per annum.
 
 87 
 
 be raised — and available immediately to the small 
 livings I now add — than is to be obtained by this 
 prebendal spoliation ; for the poor livings, without 
 more ado, would at once average something upwards 
 of 250/. 
 
 In the former edition of this pamphlet, I went into 
 a calculation, founded upon the supposition that 
 the Impropriator could not be compelled to do more 
 than pay, in present bond fide value, the amount of 
 the anciently specified pension. I find, however, our 
 case to be so much better than I thought it then, that 
 such calculation is quite unnecessary. Impropriators 
 are to pay their stipendiaries a " congrua portion 
 When this is done, all the augmentations effected 
 from the Bounty Fund will lapse to the Governors, and 
 so, instead of subserving, as this money now does, the 
 factitious wants of the Impropriators, be immediately 
 available to the real wants of The Church, in aug- 
 menting the stipends of many of its poor Incum- 
 bents. How so? it will be asked. Thus : 
 
 Of late years, i. e. since the time that Queen Anne 
 gave up the First Fruits and Tenths to improve small 
 livings, that pecuniary improvement in their condi- 
 tion has taken place which has made most poor 
 livings now nearly 100/. per annum ; not very many 
 being less than 75/. a-year. But in these cases the 
 Impropriators pay about 9/, or 11/,, or 5/., or 7/., or 
 2/. 13s. Ad., and so on ; and the difference is made 
 up by payment out of this " Bounty," as it is called. 
 Now, the incomes of these Incumbents being made 
 up to their present amount by additions and bounties 
 from Queen Anne's Board, this, as it was never in- 
 tended, so should it not now be made, to stand in 
 the way of the compulsory restoration of right, by
 
 88 
 
 the Lay-Impropriators, to the impoverished livings ; 
 and the operation of this beneficial arrangement 
 would be this : — The Vicar of Brent-Tor is paid by 
 the Duke of Bedford, the Lay-Impropriator, 11/.; 
 the Vicar receives from Queen Anne's Bounty and 
 other aids 491, making altogether 60/. But the 
 Impropriator, who has only Eighteen Thousand a 
 year of Tithe, should, by Act of Parliament, pay to 
 him, at the least, 300/. per annum. This arrange- 
 ment, therefore, taking effect, the Vicar of Brent- 
 Tor would, instead of his 60/., at once receive 300/. 
 per annum ; while the augmentations, amounting in 
 this case to 49/. per annum, already effected, would 
 revert to the Fund. 
 
 The sense and intent of this Act of Parliament, is 
 only to be got at now by ascertaining what was the 
 monetary value of the obligations to which the 
 monastics were bound in the maintenance of the 
 stipendiary Priest, as we have already shewn at 
 large, ut supra, p. 32, and here reiterate : — " That 
 in every Church impropriated by the Religious, 
 a Vicar should be instituted by the care of the 
 Diocesan, who should receive a competent main- 
 tenance out of the goods of The Church : and as it 
 was scandalous and contrary to the Canons, that the 
 Religious who were permitted to convert Churches 
 to their proper use, should personally serve those 
 Churches, they should constitute Perpetual Vicars 
 in them, and within forty days assign unto them a 
 certain and competent vicarage, according to the dis- 
 cretion of the Diocesan. 
 
 Here, then, by the course of bare justice, the Vicar 
 of Brent-Tor Avould get at once 200/. per annum 
 more than the Commissioners propose shall be given,
 
 89 
 
 — and that, by the performance of the most compli- 
 cated piece of folly and injustice the records of the 
 Country can shew ; and all done, be it observed, 
 under the mask of benefiting The Church! — to whom- 
 soever may be that functionary forty years hence. 
 
 Again — the Perpetual Curate of Yately, Hants, is 
 paid by the Marquis of Winchester, 23/. 4s. per 
 annum, the tithe being worth 500/. per annum. 
 The amount of the living is, by bounties, Clerical 
 donations, &c. &c., worked up to 109/. per annum. 
 The Perpetual Curate of Yately resides in a house 
 purchased by a contribution of 400/. from the Rev. 
 H. C. Caswall, when Incumbent, and a grant of 
 Queen Anne's Bounty : [for the Parsonage House the 
 Marquis of Winchester receives 10/. a-year.] Now, 
 300/. being made the value of the living, we have 
 again an excess above the Commissioners' maximum, 
 (109/. + 44/. = 153/.), of 147/., by doing bare justice, 
 and by making the Marquis of Winchester — who 
 pays to each of his under game-keepers twice as 
 much per annum as he is at charge to supply the 
 spiritual icants of the parish of Yately — read equita- 
 bly the Act of Parliament, of which his lordship is, 
 or ought to be, expounder and defender. Upon 
 this statement the reader may rely, because / 
 know ivell the circumstances of the case. This 
 Perpetual Curate of Yately had, unassisted, i. e. until 
 the very recent erection of a Chapel of Ease at 
 Blackwater, a parish to look after, which is seven 
 miles long, and half as wide, with a scattered popu- 
 lation of 2,000 ; the Church being, moreover, at one 
 end of the parish. 
 
 This is an iniquitous case; and the demerits of it 
 are divided between his lordship above noted, who
 
 90 
 
 is Lessee of the tithes, and the Rev. Lessor, the Rt 
 Hon. the Earl of Guildford, as Master of the Hospital 
 of St. Cross ; and who have, be it here observed, the 
 opportunity, gradually, of increasing this stipend to 
 300/. per annum. But this («'. e. the opportunity) is 
 all they have : for they have neither of them the 
 heart to forego one single shilling of their iniquitous 
 gains made under shameless evasions of former 
 Acts of Parliament, for the sake of giving the Per- 
 petual Curate of Yately, Minister in such a parish, 
 the subsistence even of a day-labourer. — Vide App. 
 
 An Act was passed, now some years since, to 
 enable lessors and lessees of tithes, to agree to 
 reduce the fine gradually, so as to bring up the 
 livings by degrees to 300/. per annum. I knoio that 
 in this case nothing has been done by either of 
 these noble Lords. I know further, that in the 
 Parish there have been, with great difficulty, three 
 schools built ; to which their Lordships refused to 
 contribute the least coin of the realm. I know also, 
 that a District Church was wanted grievously for 
 twenty years, and that the building of one was, by 
 the spirit and disinterestedness of a Priest, who 
 happened to reside in the parish, at his own risk 
 undertaken, and almost at his own cost effected. 
 And how much gave their Lordships towards the 
 fabric or endowment of the Church? <£0. 0*. Od. 
 Nothing ! 
 
 Did I say rightly above, " the opportunity is all 
 they have ?" I have been rather taken to task for the 
 assertion. Let this be my justification. Further- 
 more, while I take this opportunity of reiterating to 
 their Lordships, and to many others, the truth, that 
 when Impropriations were made, bad and indefensi-
 
 91 
 
 ble as they were and are, injunctions also were 
 made that the Vicar should have " a competent 
 maintenance," such as would enable him to bear the 
 burden of his place, and " to keep hospitality,'' I ask 
 them, " Do your Lordships, between you, allow the 
 Priest of Yately ' competent maintenance ' — such as 
 to enable him to keep hospitality ? " No, you do not ! 
 Let, then, the words of the Bishop of Lincoln sink 
 into your hearts, and souls if you have any, where he 
 keenly writes, that the " appropriation of Churches 
 was a device and stratagem to rob God of His 
 honour, the Clergy of their maintenance, and the 
 people of their very souls — a thing prodigiously 
 wicked and destructive of the Chief Office of Christ 
 upon earth, which was, to feed his flock ; for there 
 neither was nor could be any kind of sin so contrary 
 to the doctrine of Christ and His Apostles, and so 
 detestable and abominable to the Lord Jesus him- 
 self, as to kill and destroy men's souls, by thus de- 
 frauding them of the pastoral care, office, and 
 ministry." Archbishop Peckham's testimony is no 
 less powerful. 
 
 Yet such are the inhuman disgraces to manhood 
 who scruple not thus wickedly "to destroy men's 
 souls," for whom his Grace the Primate of Canter- 
 bury and his co-Commissioners (including that su- 
 preme Lay-Impropriator, my Lord John Russell) 
 have had such bowels. Oh no ! It is not gentle- 
 manly to look a wry look at a lord : but the poor 
 Priests who hope for honourable distinction in their 
 Holy Church by means of prebendal preferment, are 
 not in Parliament — so what signifies ? 
 
 And this is Christian, yea, even episcopal legis- 
 lation for The Church and her Clergy !
 
 92 
 
 I could run up a list of cases in this fashion that 
 would fill another pamphlet, exhibiting, to use the 
 words of Rayner, (Preface to Tithe Cases), " such 
 most mean and scandalous manoeuvres, by those 
 who are great in titles and honours," as " shew that 
 the hand of proud oppression hath been exerted to 
 deprive the Parson of his due," and in such form 
 "as would disgrace the pettifoggers of the law in 
 chicane, duplicity, ignorance, and oppression." But 
 let what has been set forth suffice to assure the 
 reader, of the right of the Clergy who serve Impro- 
 priations to their congrua portio, and that means 
 were and are in existence, and equitably available 
 to the Commissioners, honourably, justly, statuta- 
 bly, by Law — not divine — divine law demands the 
 
 WHOLE OF THE TITHE TO BE PAID TO HIM WHO SERVES 
 THE ALTAR, NOT TO HIM WHO CANNOT SERVE IT*, tO 
 
 increase the revenue of the poor livings, and that, 
 not in the meagre manner contemplated by the 
 
 * Vide note on Archdeacon Tillesley's book, against Selden, 
 p. 68. I beg it may be understood, that while I advocate with all my 
 power the preservation of the Prebendal Revenues to their legiti- 
 mate uses, I never justify, nor mean to do so, the abstraction of a 
 sheaf of tithe from any Parish Priest to support a Stall. All tithes 
 whatever must be restored to the Altars from which they have, by 
 common robbery and fearful sacrilege, been diverted. — A rule this 
 that admits of no imaginable exception. He who advocates the ab- 
 straction of tithe in any form, or under any circumstances, is as 
 bad as he who takes it. And let men beware how they rob God, 
 Mai. ii. 7 — 10. This must be altered if our Church stands; and 
 the Prebendaries and Chapters will surely not allow the laity to 
 shew them how to make restitution to the Altars they now rob. I 
 always use plain English. Every Prebendary, Bishop, or other 
 spiritual person who takes tithe of a Parish he does not serve rohs 
 the Altar, quite as much as if he were a i«^-Impropriator. Can 
 such gains thrive? and admit of the accompaniment of God's
 
 93 
 
 Church Commissioners, and by a most daring act 
 of injustice, for the purpose of adding a mere 
 441. 8s. O^d. to each living per year, but at the 
 sensible rate of from 200/. to 300/. per annum ; in 
 the aggregate of 600,000/. yearly : which sum is as 
 much now the respective Vicars', by the law of the 
 land, as the rest of the parochial revenue is, and, by 
 the same law, at present located in the hands of the 
 tithe Impropriators. 
 
 Now, as respects The Prebendal Revenues, with 
 which the Commissioners have so unaccountably 
 ventured to make free, all that I, as a member of 
 The Church, have to say, is this ; if it be the opinion 
 of The Church in corporation assembled, — I care not 
 how The Church agrees to assemble, by ivhat mode 
 of representation, so it be a representation of The 
 Omrch, — that The Church shall henceforth have no 
 Prebendaries ; well. / shall think it a most vehe- 
 mently stupid determination of The Church, and one 
 which only vehemence and stupidity combined could 
 arrive at and determine on : still I should thoroughly 
 admit the abstract right of " The Church" so to de- 
 termine if it would. But, until " The Church" de- 
 termine, that, for some special occasion, one man 
 shall represent it, I will never admit the right of a 
 man, or of two or three men in thirteen, to deter- 
 mine for The Church. Let us then find out 
 whether it is the will of " The Church" that the 
 prebends shall be reduced. If " The Church" — 
 
 blessing? Let all set about to make restitution. Some will say 
 " It is very hard," &c. When the Parish Priest is robbed, the 
 Priest and the Parishioners suffer. When the Impropriator 
 restores, — he is the only sutferer.
 
 94 
 
 i. e. the baptized body, by its accredited organ, 
 the Clergy in Convocation assembled, so deter- 
 mine, then, indeed, the Prebendaries no longer 
 being in existence, their revenues respectively may 
 be appropriated, and still, to poor livings. And 
 very many, besides livings in the hands of Impro- 
 priators, are wretchedly poor; for, does any body 
 think that 300/. per annum is more than a living for 
 a gentleman in these days ? Having augmented 
 each poor living, by making the Lay-Impropriator do 
 his duty by Acts of Parliament, then add, if you 
 will, the 441 8s. O^d. of prebendal spoils to each, and 
 no such Clergyman will have too much money for his 
 yearly income then. But to allow the Church robber 
 to escape scot free, because it is thought that he and 
 his companions in guilt are too strong to touch^, and 
 to pounce upon the helpless, who have no carnal 
 power to resist unjust aggression, — this is an offence 
 before God and Man which I am unwilling to en- 
 deavour to describe. A parable may aid the poverty 
 of our language, and help us faintly to put the case 
 before our readers : 
 
 " How much. Most, or Right Impropriator, 
 
 owest thou to my Lord's servant who serves this 
 
 x\ltarin ?" 
 
 " Three hundred measures of money." 
 
 " Take thy bill and sit down quickly and write 
 
 — How much cumberest thou thyself now to 
 
 pay?'^ " Nine measures." " Write then, — 'nine' 
 measures ; and we will give thee a discharge for 
 the rest. In return, give us civil usage and we 
 shall be quits." 
 
 * Vide extract from Johnson, ut supra, pp. 29, 30.
 
 95 
 
 " And now, ye Prebendaries, how much owe ye 
 to my Lord's servants?" 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Nothing ! What have ye to shew in proof?" 
 
 " The proof of the constant creation of those 
 riches, witliout the possession of some of which your 
 Lordships would have been fitter for teachers of dis- 
 sent than masters in Israel." 
 
 " Yes, yes, we know all that, — that's an old story. 
 What have you note to shew?" 
 
 "The steady and rapid increase of the same 
 valuable stores, in every case where the patronage of 
 The Church has not been absorbed by icorthless 
 members of episcopal and ministerial connexion^ y 
 
 " But ye cannot help yourselves. We have de- 
 termined that you have a troublesome sort of in- 
 dependence about you. You will be slaves to no 
 man, and your office shall be destroyed : and 
 though the dictates of justice, the cry of wisdom, 
 the experience of history, the voice of the dead, the 
 supplication of the living ; and, more than this, the 
 Constitution of The Church, all demand that ye 
 shall be spared, your functions restored, yourselves 
 reinstated, the system invigorated ; yet we are 
 strong in this generation ; we have made friends 
 of the carnal armf by the giving of our sanc- 
 tion to the gross perversion of the unrighteous 
 mammon from its legitimate purpose, and so we 
 have determined that your offices shall be de- 
 stroyed ; and reason as ye will, it is in vain ; we are 
 
 * Who will dare me to the proof of this assertion ? 
 
 f When His Grace the Archbishop is asked how it happens that 
 he and the dissenting and infidel factions are agreed upon this point, 
 His Grace maintains silence.
 
 96 
 
 ' assuming men, who think ourselves in honour 
 bound to defend what we have done,' evil though it 
 be, and nothing shall save nor spare your offices" 
 
 This may be considered to speak very severely 
 of the Episcopal Commissioners. It is to speak 
 severely, but just in the true and only adequate 
 terms to describe their most indecent act. 
 
 I have elsewhere said, the whole business was a 
 Fraud. I have long affirmed that the object of legis- 
 lation for sometime past, with respect to The Church, 
 has been to slur over and conceal the liabilities of 
 the Lay-Impropriators to pay their just debts, and 
 every day more and more confirms my conviction — 
 no longer suspicion ; for when I began to see that 
 it was so in the reign of Queen Anne, and that the 
 fund called "Queen Anne's Bounty" was formed to 
 shut out their short comings of duty and to screen 
 them from the indignation of public opinion, exami- 
 nation caused suspicion to change to conviction ; I 
 was thence induced to examine the case, and here 
 the reader has my report. 
 
 What was Lord John Russell's question of Irish 
 Church reform ? a re-appropriation of The Church's 
 Revenues. And this by a Russell ! ! 
 
 What was Lord Morpeth's bill ? a re-appropri- 
 ation of The Church's Revenues. And this by a 
 Howard ! ! 
 
 And what is this bill of Church Reform, but a 
 re-appropriation of Church Revenues ? Truly one 
 would think by these practical answers to the 
 question, What is a Church? that Money was The 
 Church. Instead, however, of the acts of reform 
 bearing any affinity to Reformation of The Church, 
 the result has been the violation of the laws of
 
 97 
 
 property, and the continuation of an impious tax, 
 unconstitutionally imposed under a ridiculous and 
 untenable pretence on one Order of Men, for the 
 benefit of a mixed multitude, whose business and 
 duty is to reverence as well as sustain those whom 
 they rob and insult. Every other act, also, which has 
 been done seems to have been undertaken for the 
 one sole and entire object of making good the bad 
 titles of the Lay-Impropriators to their sacrilegious 
 possessions, in legalising by recent Acts of Parlia- 
 ment the violent transfer of endowments in the 
 tyrannous reign of Henry VIII. : a fit precedent for 
 the Christian and free legislation of 1838 (now 
 1840). 
 
 That this plan should have been adopted and 
 practised by a man who has neither law, justice, nor 
 equity, moral, religious, or political, for the enjoy- 
 ment by his family of Church plunder to the amount 
 of 200,000/. per annum, is only natural ; but that 
 five Bishops of Christ's Church should have lent 
 themselves to help forward this "unprecedented" 
 violation of right and of sound policy, and by a pro- 
 cess in direct violation of the Constitution of their 
 Country, whether that Constitution be considered as 
 of Church or State, or the inseparable union of both, 
 is an act, that it is not possible sufficiently to repre- 
 hend. With Ignorance or Indecency they have been 
 charged ; but to which of the imputations they may 
 be liable, (to one of them I conceive they must), to 
 that of Fraud they are clearly liable, inasmucli as, 
 pretending to have a desire to help and defend their 
 Church, they have neglected the legal and statutable 
 means, by the use of which to accomplish the object 
 
 H
 
 98 
 
 professedly at heart ; they have used their unconsti- 
 tutional power, unconstitutionally come at, to plunder 
 the weak and innocent — on whom, for their office- 
 sake, they have also by implication thrown, in the 
 apprehension of the uninformed, an immoveable load 
 of odium — that the strong and the guilty may escape 
 unsuspected, untouched ; and between whom and 
 the scorn and execration of Public Opinion, they 
 have dared to throw the shield of their Episcopal 
 protection. This is the sum and substance of their 
 Church Reform. 
 
 But they were reforming The Church as to money 
 matters. Why, then, did they not move for the 
 total and effectual repeal of every Act of Parliament 
 affecting and requiring the payment of the First 
 Fruits and Tenths of the livings to the Bounty 
 Board ? Why is the Statute Book to be longer dis- 
 graced, — the consciences of Christian Priests to be 
 longer violated, by the blasphemous foolery of paying 
 to the Lay-Impropriator, (for this is the practical 
 effect of its distribution), the revenue of the Aaron- 
 itish High-Priest of all the Earth ? a great injustice 
 towards him who contributes — a great injury to him 
 who receives. This is a scandal and reproach to 
 our Church, which is ill concealed by the substitu- 
 tion of the name " Bounty Board," for "The Pope's 
 Treasury for the First Fruits and Tenths." 
 
 By what right, I ask, is this exaction made upon 
 The Clergy ? Every writer on Church Reform, lay 
 as well as clerical, has cried out against it. To their 
 voices I desire now to add mine, observing, that as 
 long as The Clergy's contribution to the Bounty 
 Fund shall rest on the foundation of First-Fruits and
 
 99 
 
 Tenths, it will be an offensive burthen to any Chris- 
 tian conscience to be compelled to pay it. For was 
 it in the plea for its original exaction, less than blas- 
 phemy against The Hoi.y Giiost ? It was in its trans- 
 fer by Henry VIII. to himself little less, as appro- 
 priating to himself, as Head of The Church, that 
 which was the previous blasphemous exaction of a 
 pretended " High-Priest of all the Earth." But it 
 has been endured so long, that it is ridiculous, we 
 are told, to think of its being now given up. What? 
 and is it come to this ? that we are to justify any- 
 thing essentially wrong, because of its long continu- 
 ance? Verily, if so, we shall soon, as has been 
 aptly observed, justify the 4'povv/J'a aapKo^^ and save 
 ourselves all trouble of bearing witness against it, as 
 that is the most ancient of abuses. 
 
 Let the reader bear in mind the abhorrent found- 
 ation of this impost, and then read the stringent 
 provisions of the bill, which compelled Christian citi- 
 zens — those citizens the Clergy — to pay the heave- 
 offering of the Aaronitish High-Priest of all the 
 Earth to the King of England. The provisions 
 were as follows : — 
 
 By the 26 Hen. 8, c. 3, and 2 & 3 Edw. 6, c. 20, 
 persons making default in payment were to be de- 
 prived of their benefice ; and the reason of this 
 severe penalty was, because upon the Reformation 
 many Clergymen scrupled and refused to pay these 
 Tenths to the King, it being (as they supposed) a duty 
 properly due to the Pope*. But, now, by the 3 Geo. 
 2, c. 10, persons making default of payment shall for- 
 
 * Degge, p. 2, c. 15. 
 
 n2
 
 100 
 
 feit double value of" the Tenths*. And by the 27 
 Hen. 8, c. 8, in cases where the successor shall be 
 chargeable to the payment of tenths unpaid in the 
 time or life of his predecessor, he may distrain such 
 goods of his predecessor as shall be upon the pre- 
 mises, and retain the same till the predecessor, if he 
 be alive, and if he be dead, till his executors and 
 administrators shall pay the same ; and if the same 
 shall not be paid in twelve days, then he may cause 
 the goods to be appraised by two or three indifferent 
 persons, to be sworn for the same ; and, according 
 to the same appraising, may sell so much thereof as 
 shall pay the same, and also the reasonable costs 
 that shall be spent by the occasion of distraining and 
 appraising the same ; and if no such distress can be 
 found, then such predecessor, if he be alive, and if 
 he be dead, his executors or administrators, may be 
 compelled to the payment thereof by a bill in Chan- 
 cery, or by action or plaint of debt at common law. 
 So this ridiculous impost and exaction still con- 
 tinues in name : and oppressive and arbitrary recovery 
 of it by summary process, if the Clergy are dilatory 
 in the payment of it, is the mode in which it is 
 levied upon those who are too poor to pay it in 
 timei'. 
 
 It was a good deed in Queen Anne, according to 
 her light, not to continue the misappropriation to 
 herself, and to give over to the poor Clergy the First 
 
 * Sect. 2. 
 
 f As the reader will hardly believe this, I extract from the 
 Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, enough to 
 satisfy him, that, exaggerated as the statement appears, the audacious 
 exaction is yet made, and in this very manner, and for the bene^*
 
 101 
 
 Fruits and Tenths of the Livings; but she would 
 have done better had she remitted it altogether, as 
 
 of some of those valuable servants of The Church who pick up four 
 thousand a-year for gathering and dispensing fourteen : — 
 
 FIRST fruits' office. 
 
 £ s. d. £, s, d. 
 ^Annual average Amount 
 
 H. Warre, Esq. of Fees 500 
 
 Remembran--c Payment from the Court 
 cer. of Exchequer, in lieuof 
 
 ^ certain abolished Fees 63 
 
 623 
 
 G. Arbuthnot, Esq., Receiver 250 
 
 '^Anuual average Amount 
 
 of Fees 262 14 2 
 
 Under Receiver's Patent 20 
 Allowance from Receiver, 
 
 out of his Salary 80 
 
 Mr. G. Gun- 
 thorpe, Sen.^ 
 Sworn Clerk. 
 
 Mr. J. Geesin,-) . , . ^v,- .- - .o^ x-* ^ 
 
 X oi ( Annual average Amount I , , ,> . ^ 
 
 Jun. Sworn > p^ ^ J- 11849 
 
 Clerk. 3 oxiees j 
 
 £ 1,273 18 11 
 
 tenths' office. 
 
 T. Venables, Esq., Receiver, ^^YcZ^. ........... 125 
 
 R. Griffiths, Senior Clerk, Salary 100 
 
 W. Bridges, Junior Clerk, {besides the Fees on\ ion n n 
 Notices, the amount of which is not stated) .... J 
 
 Office-keeper 25 
 
 Rent of Office, Stationery, Coals, and Sundries .... 99 
 
 £749 
 
 QUEEN ANNe's BOUNTY OFFICE. 
 
 C. Hodgson, Esq., Secretary and Treasurer 1,000 
 
 Allowance for Coals, Candles, &c 40 
 
 C. Ansell, Esq., Auditor 100 
 
 Mr. J. Holford, Clerk in the Secretary's department. . 300 
 Mr. G. Aston, First Clerk in the Treasurer's depart-1 ^ „ 
 
 ment / 
 
 Mr. B. Aston, Second Clerk in ditto 200 
 
 J. Dyneley, Esq., Solicitor, for attending the Boards 50 
 
 D. Beckley, Messenger 70 
 
 £2,060 
 Total annual Expense of the Three Boards £4,082 18 11
 
 102 
 
 Queen Mary did, and grappled with that same radix 
 omnium malornm of Impropriation, which our pre- 
 
 " Abuses in the Boards of First Fruits and Tenths. — Your 
 Committee regret to state, that into these Boards abuses have 
 crept, through that want of control which arises from the absence 
 of the principal officers. They find that in the manner of levying 
 the arrears, The Clergy have been unfairly dealt by, apparently with 
 no other object than that of augmenting the fees. The fee on a 
 simple notice or letter is 2s. 6d. ; but the fee on the writ is 5s. Sd. 
 When, therefore, your Committee observe that a system has been 
 introduced of withholding the second notice, which, in many cases, 
 would supersede the necessity of a writ, the motive of such a prac- 
 tice is sufficiently obvious. It appears not to be imperative to 
 enforce the payment of arrears at any particular time; and, after 
 the name of the clerical defaulter is once put on the Non-solvent 
 Roll, it is not the duty of any one to renew the demand, but each 
 succeeding year entitles the Remembrancer and his Clerk to addi- 
 tional fees; and when at last the demand is made, the debt astonishes 
 the forgetful, or necessitous man, with its compound interest. 
 Nor must it be forgotten, that the succeeding Incumbent is liable 
 for his predecessor's arrears of Tenths, and if they have been suf- 
 fered to accumulate, may inherit a serious legacy. Delays of this 
 injurious nature have taken place. In one instance, that of the 
 Vicars Choral of Salisbury, ten years elapsed before the claim was 
 urged, and when the money was paid, nearly a year elapsed before 
 it found its way into the Tenths' Office. 
 
 •' Independent of these irregularities, (chiefly attaching to the 
 Senior Sworn Clerk of the First Fruits), the complication of so 
 many Boards is productive of much inconvenience. Their duties 
 are confused, their transactions uselessly multiplied, and not easily 
 traced ; business is obstructed by reference from one office to the 
 other; and if a complaint is made, it is easy for one Board to re- 
 present that the other is in fault. 
 
 •' Abolition of the Boards of First Fruits and Tenths recom- 
 mended, 8fc. — Your Committee consider that, under the present 
 construction of the Boards of First Fruits and Tenths, a large sura 
 is most unprofitably diverted from the augmentation of poor livings; 
 and they have arrived at the opinion, that both these Boards ought
 
 103 
 
 sent great Episcopal Cliurch reformers leave, in the 
 abundance of its strength, in the ground, to prosper 
 and flourish; bettering its condition daily by the im- 
 provement of impropriate advowsons in augment- 
 ations from the Bounty Fund, while they flatter 
 themselves in thinking that blotches and pimples on 
 the face of their patient, the evidence of disease in 
 the system within, are to be cured by salving them 
 over with ointment, compounded of carnal expe- 
 diency and unfaithful mistrust of the ordinances and 
 designs of God. This was the evil that should have 
 been grappled with. This, and the correction of 
 Church Patronage, with the abolition of Pluralities, 
 and the repeal of such Acts of Parliament as inter- 
 fere with the free exercise of Episcopal jurisdiction 
 and discipline, is all that was requisite to be done in 
 Parliament in the way of Reform*. 
 
 Impropriations are, however, chiefly themselves 
 the consequence of many other evils, which are 
 now, as they have been for these several hundred 
 years last past, the curse and blight of The Church 
 in England : the nuisance must be abated at some 
 time, — why is it not attempted now? 
 
 The object which the Ecclesiastical Commission- 
 ers had in view was, it is confessed, twofold : 1st, to 
 increase the value of the poor livings ; and, 2ndly, 
 to provide for an increase of Clergymen in the 
 densely populated districts in the North. 
 
 These two great wants it is certainly most desira- 
 
 to be forthwith abolished ; and that the receipt, as well as the ex- 
 penditure of the funds appropriated to the augmentation of small 
 livings, should be concentrated in the Board of the Bounty." 
 * Vide note (f) p. 20.
 
 104 
 
 ble to see well met. How the one might have been 
 met, summarily, we have shewn. How the other 
 may be, by means of the Bounty Fund, we shall now 
 exhibit to the reader. 
 
 By the slow, yet long continued operation of the 
 Bounty Fund, a vast number of the Vicarages and 
 Perpetual Curacies in England and Wales have 
 been augmented. To what amount, in the total, I 
 do not know. That can be ascertained ; but the 
 aggregate must be great. Setting the income from 
 First Fruits and Tenths at 14,000/. per annum, this 
 sum, multiplied by number of years of its payment, 
 will produce little short of 2,000,000/., and the eleven 
 grants of Parliament of 100,000/. each superadded, 
 will make up a full 3,000,000/. The amount, also, 
 of private benefactions to it must have been con- 
 siderable*. 
 
 These benefactions, however, it must be observed, 
 having usually been local and particular in their 
 object, L e. for the benefit of some express place, or 
 some particular cure, must, as such, be deemed 
 sacred; when made by the Impropriator, he would of 
 course have credit for the gift as portion-in-joar/ of 
 the "congrua portio." In a few instances, few, that 
 is, compared with others, in which benefactions have 
 been made, they have been given by the Impro- 
 priators. The occasional large grants from the public 
 
 * I transfer from the pages of the British Magazine a schedule 
 exhibiting at one view the amount of augmentations, &c. made by 
 this Fund, from the commencement of its operations to the present 
 time. " It was composed by a Rev. Gentleman, vsrho had," I am in- 
 formed, "a great aptitude for such calculations," and may, I believe, 
 be relied on as far us il goes. — Vide Appendix, No. VII.
 
 105 
 
 purse, with the contributions of the First Fruits and 
 Tenths, will be justly considered as funds available 
 for Church augmentation generally, without reference 
 to particular places. 
 
 It is not unlikely that a claim may be preferred by 
 certain parties to have the 1,100,000/. of successive 
 Parliamentary grants refunded. But to such a claim 
 we fairly answer — You have by your iniquitous laws 
 robbed the Priesthood of what is now worth a million 
 a-year, for some centuries. Restore to us, by the 
 repeal of all laws empowering Laymen to receive 
 Tithe, the ancestral endowments of our Altars, and 
 you shall be heartily welcome to your 1,100,000/.; 
 but until then, regard it not otherwise than as an in- 
 sufficient admission of your sense of your own duty 
 to sustain your cruelly injured and impoverished 
 Clergy, and the practical expose of your own small 
 sense of justice, which has led you to suppose, that 
 in giving 1,000,000/. for the purpose to which it is 
 applied, you had either met the wants or responded 
 to the reason of the case. 
 
 Now, it will be evident, that, when the Lay-Impro- 
 priators are made to pay the full amount of aliment 
 due to the Minister of the Altar, including house or 
 house-rent, out of the Tithe of each parish, their 
 livings will each, for the most part, receive so great 
 and sudden an increase, that an Act which might 
 be passed to enable the Governors of the Bounty 
 Board to resume such income as has accrued from 
 the outlay of their grants, in every parish so aug- 
 mented, would be no injustice to the present Incum- 
 bents ; i. e. when due allowance and deduction are 
 made for such portion of income as is derivable from
 
 106 
 
 those private endowments which have been given to 
 meet the donations of the Bounty Board, where the 
 object has been particularly specified*; and such 
 monies it would be most easy to obtain, by making 
 the Incumbent pay to the Board so much of the rent 
 of his Bounty Farm or Estate, or so much rent for 
 his house, built out of augmentation money, as would 
 amount to the due interest of the donation of the 
 Board. 
 
 Now, this sum, thus disengaged from all these 
 incumbrances, would form a large disposable fund, 
 which might be applied in aid of the present urgent 
 necessities of impoverished districts. This sum — 
 the interest of 3,000,000/., i. e. 135,000/. per annum 
 — would be altogether, I doubt not, fully equal to the 
 amount proposed to be applied to that particular pur- 
 pose, out of the whole fund sought to be raised by 
 the confiscation of the Revenues of the Prebendal 
 Priesthood. 
 
 It will be said, why should you impoverish the 
 Livings which you have affirmed to be inadequate 
 to the maintenance of a Clergyman, if less than 
 300/. per annum ? I say in answer . . 1 have a very 
 good reason to allege, which shall be set before the 
 reader, why it is better that the permanent stipend 
 should not always be equal to the wants of the mi- 
 nister: in the meantime, I aflSrm that there would 
 be no violation of the original terms of gift of the 
 Bounty Board in the Governors notv withdrawing 
 
 * This observation does not apply to the Horner and Pyncombe, 
 Mrs. Ursula Taylor's and others' bequests. These donations were 
 made for the general service of The Church, not for tlie local advan- 
 tage of any particular place, nor for that of any individual Clergyman.
 
 107 
 
 their augmentation* whenever the Impropriators 
 shall be made to pay their due congrua portio ; 
 inasmuch as, if they had known that any living had 
 had an income of 100/. per annum, recoverable from 
 any source, they would never have made the grant 
 which it is now sought to recover, except in certain 
 cases ; and the assistance has been, therefore, as 
 one may say, given under misapprehension of the 
 facts of each case respectively. 
 
 It may occur to the reader to object, — Why, in- 
 stead of proposing and petitioning to do away with 
 them, do you not add the 14,000/. First Fruits and 
 Tenths income to the interest of the 3,000,000/. 
 recoverable gift, making a yearly sum of nearly 
 150,000/.? I answer, — Because that impost, which, as 
 the 6 Hen. 4, c. 1, well affirms of it, is " a horrible mis- 
 chief and damnable custom," must be done away 
 with. It must be utterly and irrevocably banished 
 from our system, as a disgrace to the Nation which 
 tolerates it; and at this time, most particularly, 
 when, under a change of name and form, by report 
 of a Committee of the House of Commons^, it is 
 proposed to make it a legal and regidar impost. 
 
 It ought, however, to be known, that the recom- 
 mendation which appears on the face of the Report 
 of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry, ap- 
 pointed to examine into the subject and Fund of 
 Queen Anne's Bounty, was inserted rather at the 
 
 * Ut supra, note, p. 86. 
 
 f See Appendix. For the Report of the Committee of the 
 House of Commons ou this subject, see Gilbert's Almanack of 
 1838, where the Report, though called an abridgment, is given 
 nearly verbatim and in full.
 
 108 
 
 wish of an individual — that individual being the 
 Honourable Chairman, Mr. Gaily Knight — than ac- 
 cording to the desire of the majority of the Com- 
 mittee. The proposal to this effect having been 
 made when but very few members of that Committee 
 were present. 
 
 Of Mr. Gaily Knight, and of his sincere desire to 
 benefit his Church and befriend its Clergy, there 
 can be but one opinion, and that the highest ; but, 
 in this case, it must be confessed his zeal has out- 
 stepped his prudence, . . may I not say honesty ? for 
 what honesty is there in endeavouring to pounce 
 upon a helpless set of men, and in mulcting them of 
 a yearly contribution to make good deficiencies of 
 income arising from the short comings of the 
 honesty of others ? 
 
 As a regular impost and tax upon the Clergy, I 
 do not object to it, nor to any other that may be pro- 
 posed, provided, first of all, that God's words be 
 not ridiculed in its name, and next, that the Clergy 
 are not the only class taxed. If the Country choose 
 to determine that The Clergy shall pay a full First 
 Fruits and Tenths of their preferments, I think 1 
 may answer that they will not object, provided, first, 
 that the tax is understood to have no connexion in 
 any way with Popes, High Priest, nor Head of the 
 Church, nor with any pretended rights of the Crown, 
 under any of these impositions ; and next, that every 
 other order of men who succeed by inheritance or 
 otherwise to property or estates, suffer the same 
 measure of justice, and by the same rule. 
 
 Saving, indeed, the impious misuse of the name of 
 the Tax, 1 think, myself, that such would be a most
 
 109 
 
 equitable and admirable way of reducing the National 
 Debt, or of doing any other great benefit and service 
 to Church or Commonwealth : and, as far as my 
 vote goes, the sooner we set about making the New 
 Regulations the better. For what will be the effect? 
 
 We shall then have an Income Tax of ten per 
 cent, on all property, plus a twenty-fifth of the whole 
 landed and funded income of the Country, — in the 
 shape of the First Fruits of all possessors of pro- 
 perty. 71iis will doubtless satisfy Mr. Baines. 
 We shall have an immediate reduction of the 
 expenses of the Army and Navy, the Civil Depart- 
 ment, the Diplomatic, the Ministerial — Officers in 
 each branch of the public service will serve their 
 first year for nothing, the Ministers of the Crown 
 likewise. Happy and beneficial change ! quite new 
 times for the Country ! W^hat patriotic Parson, the 
 exemplar of his people, but will rejoice at this uni- 
 versal manifestation of the sacrifice of Self for the 
 good of his Country ? Which of them will decline 
 to do his utmost to aid this self-sacrificing demon- 
 stration ? None, I will answer for the Clergy, not 
 one. But, until this excellent plan shall be put in 
 practice generally, I think it is most mean to expect, 
 that men, whose professional income at present is 
 not adequate to the w^ants of decent respectability, 
 should suffer the onus of an exclusive tax*. 
 
 Now, I am perfectly serious in all that I have 
 said; and I do honestly before God and my Country 
 assert, that 1, for my part, am quite ready to act up 
 fiilly to the letter and spirit of such a regulation, if 
 made The Law of the Land ; but, before the recom- 
 
 * Vide xioie (*) p. 45.
 
 no 
 
 mendation of the Committee of the House of Com- 
 mons last year* on the subject of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty be seriously entertained, I would beg to be 
 allowed to suggest as a motto and sentiment to 
 guide and control the labour of all legislators, these 
 five words — 
 
 " LET US ALL START FAIR." 
 
 It will be an honourable race ; a noble example to 
 other nations, worthy the best times of British dig- 
 nity and munificence. Let Lords, Squires, Mer- 
 chants, Bankers, Lawyers, Doctors, Soldiers, Sailors, 
 Members of the Civil and Diplomatic Departments, 
 lay down their First Fruits of Office and their 
 Tenths yearly ; then the Clergy will be no more 
 backward to do their duty as loyal citizens, than 
 they are now, as Christian Priests, to obey every 
 ordinance of Man for The Lord's sake, however 
 great or severe the pressure of any Acts against 
 themselves. But, let us not talk of one-sided jus- 
 tice. Let us not turn the pyramid of society on edge, 
 and leave it to bear its whole weight on an angle or 
 a point. A thing ridiculous physically, but not one 
 whit more so than is that scheme monstrous morally, 
 which proposes to put on one class of men the bur- 
 then that should be borne by the whole community. 
 For, where is it to be found in the whole record of 
 Revelation that the Clergy of one district are to pay 
 the Clergy of the next ? that the money, in fact, 
 which the parishioners of A. pay to support their 
 minister should be taken to support the minister of 
 
 1838.
 
 Ill 
 
 B., whose parishioners do not choose so far to deny 
 themselves as to find him food and raiment? . . that 
 the Apostle at Antioch was fleeced to maintain the 
 witness to the riches of the kingdom of Christ at 
 Corinth ? Hear, we do indeed, and in terms which 
 it is impossible to misunderstand, the generous sar- 
 casm of the disinterested Apostle, against those 
 miserable speculators in money, who sell the next 
 world for this, their souls for their money, — who 
 allowed other Churches and people to maintain their 
 Priests for them. Alas ! for our times, when what 
 was the disgrace of the Church then, is become the 
 practice, yea, even the glory of our Church now ! 
 Is, for instance, my neighbour, the Incumbent of 
 Dover, with 10,000 parishioners, and a miserable 
 pittance of 300/. a-year, to be called upon to pay 
 a tax which is to be applied inter alia to pay the 
 Priest of Tam worth? Does the Priest of Tamworth 
 need*? He does. Let, then, the people of Tamworth, 
 headed by Sir Robert Peel, do their duty; then 
 others may follow their example, and the Country 
 will be relieved of the disgrace which now brands it, 
 of mulcting yearly from the Clergy of the kingdom 
 two millions of money, the sum, they now pay for 
 the privilege of serving the Altar. A privilege, in- 
 deed, it is, and one beyond price or estimate ; but 
 then, that does not relieve the people from their re- 
 sponsibility to maintain their Priests, any more than 
 it, in the absence of the two millions of money, 
 would put bread into their children's mouths. 
 
 " Well, but," some will exclaim, getting rather 
 
 * The Priest of Tamworth has a population of 5,000 people, and 
 an income of 175/.
 
 112 
 
 ashamed of their favourite scheme, when they see 
 it fairly set before them, " we don't want to benefit 
 by your exclusive tax, as you call it. We desire 
 merely, that the rich among you should support the 
 poor among yourselves. Is not that your Christian 
 duty ?" 
 
 No, IT IS NOT ; and simply for this reason : that 
 it is yours, or any body's but ours. 
 
 There is no command given anyivhere for The 
 Clergy to support The Clergy; but there is every- 
 where the command, graven on tables of gold with 
 the finger of God, " Let him, that is taught in the 
 word communicate unto him that teacheth, in all 
 good things." Gal. vi. 6. 
 
 However, not to be stiff on such a point, and to 
 descend from reason, which it seems few under- 
 stand, and to make use of sarcasm which none can 
 misconstrue, I freely say. Neither do I, neither will 
 we object to the introduction or adoption, nor to 
 recognise the introduction of such a principle, if 
 you will but agree to use our five words again, " Let 
 us ALL START FAIR." Whcrc shall we begin ? with 
 the Army? It is very well known that an Ensign 
 cannot live upon his pay, neither even a Lieutenant 
 Let us see, then, will the Field-Marshals, Generals, 
 Colonels, Majors — shall we exempt the Captains ? 
 — pay a graduated tax for the increase of the com- 
 forts of the Subalterns of the Army ? Or will the 
 Admirals, Captains, &c., do the same for the benefit 
 of the Midshipmen, who, if report says truly, are not 
 overburthened much with superfluous means? On 
 this rule, we shall have the upper clerks of the Post- 
 Office equalising incomes with the juniors — the Mi-
 
 11:3 
 
 nisters at home with tlie Attaches abroad — the great 
 Merchants with the small, &c. 
 
 Now, I must here ask the reader, If" this is not 
 strikingly absurd ? How, then, is the system of gra- 
 duated taxation of the Clergy, so gravely suggested 
 by the Committee of the House of Commons last 
 year in their Report, (vide Clergyman's Almanac 
 for 1838), to escape the sarcasm of cheap benevo- 
 lence ? a recommendation, by which those not affect- 
 ed, except indirectly in benefiting by our labours, 
 stand forth as the taxors of that class of men who 
 are denied that privilege which every other man in 
 the state enjoys, namely, of being taxed by his 
 representative. Willing, indeed, we are to be taxed 
 as Citizens — and are ; but, to be taxed as Clergy, by 
 other than Clergy, is not accordant with the spirit of 
 our Constitution: and I say further, that to tax the 
 Priests as Priests, or in the Income which they receive 
 as Priests, for the maintenance of those Priests whom 
 others should maintain, is to tax, not men, but Him 
 whose paid servants they are; that such suggestion is 
 not only mean and pitiful, but that it is anti-christian. 
 
 But, the sympathy of all these good Commis- 
 sioners and others, is for the poor Clergy. Again, 
 I ask, how is it that they are poor ? Is it not by the 
 robbery of their Altars? the robbery, on the one 
 hand, by Impropriators ; the neglect of those to 
 whom they minister, on the other? And here, in 
 this Report, which would be ludicrous if the subject 
 were not melancholy, the vice, the crying sin of the 
 Nation, which is a most depraved exhibition of sacri- 
 legious selfishness, is to be screened, by robbing 
 still, once again, those whom former spoliators have 
 
 I
 
 114 
 
 by accident* left untouched, in order to save to the 
 ancient delinquents and others, the enjoyment of 
 their lusts, fancies, appetites, and inclinations. How 
 despicable is this ! Robbing Peter to pay Paul, and 
 that by Act of Parliament ! The Robin-Hood pro- 
 cess once again! All praise to that excellent bene- 
 factor who robbed the rich man, that he might 
 enjoy the refined satisfaction of bestowing the goods 
 of others on the poor ! 
 
 I would not willingly speak slightingly of the 
 legislation of my Country; but, indeed, indeed, I 
 must say here, with reference to this point and sub- 
 ject, that the closing suggestion of the Committee 
 for examination of the Board of First Fruits, affords 
 as rich a specimen of cool and heartless impudence 
 as can easily be found out of the records of its own 
 honourable house. 
 
 The Committee differ, indeed, which is so far 
 satisfactory, from Mr. Christian, who, in his notes on 
 Blackstone, thinks, that, because men never pay 
 taxes with so much cheerfulness and alacrity as upon 
 the accession of good fortune, The Clergy ought 
 therefore to pay a full First Fruits and Tenths. 
 This Committee, however, express their opinion, 
 " that the First Fruits ought to be abolished as an 
 oppressive impost, more particularly felt, at the time 
 when the expense of moving and settling himself 
 falls most heavily upon an Incumbent." 
 
 It is, indeed, highly satisfactory, that this " Com- 
 mittee," in common with many others who have 
 written on Church Reform, " are disposed to think 
 
 * Lord Leicester's proposition, ut supra.
 
 115 
 
 that First Fruits should be totally abolished." So far 
 well. " But" — the reader's attention is requested 
 — " they incline to the opinion, that whenever thjs 
 shall be done, in place of the present Tenths^'' — (the 
 reader will not forget the blasphemous foundation 
 on which this Tenths impost rests, it is convenient 
 to get rid out of our Statute Book of the word, 
 savouring as it does of popish blasphemy) — " a 
 moderate and graduated impost might be charged 
 upon all holders of benefices above the yearly value 
 of 300/.*" 
 
 For what purpose ? 
 
 " For the more speedy augmentation of small 
 livings." 
 
 We have quite settled that questionf . 
 
 " For the provision of a retiring pension for infirm 
 Incumbents of small livings." 
 
 Who pays the pensions of Army and Navy ? Do 
 the Army and Navy ? Who pays the retirements of 
 Officers ? The Officers ? Who pensions my Lord 
 Brougham, cum multis aliis ? Do the holders of 
 office ? Not they. Shame ! then, that such w>j-even- 
 handed justice should proceed from that House, 
 which vaunts itself as being the collective wisdom 
 of England, and the pattern Legislature for the whole 
 world ! How unspeakably discreditable is this ! 
 
 But we proceed : — 
 
 " And to assist in the endowments of new churches 
 in various parts of the Country." 
 
 St. Paul has answered this part of the Committee's 
 suggestion ; this is his answer. " Every man shall 
 
 * Vide utsupra, pp. 103, 104, note. 
 
 •f Fide pp. 84, 90, 104, 105, et passim. 
 
 i2
 
 116 
 
 bear his own burthen. Let him that is taught in the 
 word COMMUNICATE unto him that teacheth in all 
 GOOD THINGS. Be not deceived. God is not mocked. 
 For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also 
 reap. For he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the 
 flesh reap corruption ; but he that soweth to the 
 Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And 
 
 LET us NOT BE WEARY IN WELL-DOING." Gal. vi. 
 
 6, 7, 8, 9. If men are Christians, why do they not 
 keep their ministers ? Is not such the rule of Chris- 
 tianity ? If they are not Christians, why do they go 
 through the mockery of pretending to provide for 
 them? why volunteer the injustice of doing so with 
 other people's money ? 
 
 But, again, the Report. 
 
 "The extraordinary calls upon The Church for 
 ministers and church-room, will," it seems, "always 
 need to be met;*" so, as " The Clergy " are " The 
 Church " according to the House of Commons' defi- 
 nition, The Clergy are, of course, to be at hand to do 
 all this ^.r^ra-ordinary work for " The Church," and 
 to pay for its being done. Some of The Clergy are to 
 slave from year's end to year's end for 50/. or 60/. 
 a-year, and the rest of The Clergy are to be pillaged 
 to pay them, and this is Christian Legislation. 
 This is Mr. Gaily Knight's equitable proposition, 
 and he, too, is really a friend of The Church ! No 
 money is to be taken from the Laity, who are to be 
 benefited ; but The Clergy, who have no direct con- 
 cern in the matter, are to bear the whole burthen. 
 Can any proposition be more manifestly unjust? any 
 
 * yide Report.
 
 117 
 
 law more oppressive? any conduct more Iniquitous? 
 The multitude won't do what they ought to do ; so 
 The Clergy must do it lor them. Sir Robert Peel 
 won't pay the Priest of Tamworth, so The Clergy 
 must pay him for him ! 
 
 They must ! They shall ! and liere is a draft of 
 an Act that shall compel them. A graduated tax is 
 the admirable plan : it has been recommended by 
 this Parson and by that Bishop, and that is " The 
 Church ;" and so the thing is settled. Not quite ! 
 Our "five words" again, if you please, good gentle- 
 men of the House of Commons, Guardians of the 
 People's liberties, especially of your own — 
 
 "Let us all start fair!" 
 
 / have not the least objection to this plan, under 
 such proviso ; but under any other, that is, any com- 
 pulsory system of action, it will be nefarious robbery, 
 and nothing less than robbery. The plea for seizing 
 on The Clergy Revenue in divers ways, is. There 
 is a great and urgent State necessity to be met. 
 " Sfate necessity ? No !" the objector briskly in- 
 terjects ; " surely a Church necessity." Well ! and 
 is not the necessity of The Church that of The 
 State ? Are they not identical ? In a Christian 
 State must they not be identical ? for is not the pro- 
 viding a witness for Christ for every portion of 
 the population the duty of Rcj:, quasi Vicarius sum- 
 mi Regis, and the performance of a great State 
 duty? the acquittance of a great State responsibility? 
 This duty, when acknowledged, is the virtual junc- 
 tion of Church and State, and it is happily of 
 ancient recognition in this Christian kingdom, de-
 
 118 
 
 clared by the laws of Edward the Confessor*, as is 
 conspicuously manifest from the following sentence : — 
 Rex quasi Vicarius summi Regis ad hoc eonsti- 
 tuitur, ut regnum, terram et populum Domini, et 
 super omnia, sanctam ecclesiam Ejus, veneretur et 
 regat, et ab injuriosis defendat. 
 
 The Bishop of London having affirmed the pre- 
 sent necessity, this want of Witnessing Priests, be- 
 ing real, is a great State emergency, and it is to be 
 met by imposing a Graduated Tax on Church people, 
 who are " The Church." But " The Clergy " are not 
 " The Church," unless we have it propounded gravely 
 that a part is the whole, and that part the thousandth 
 part of the body. This great absurdity, of consider- 
 ing " The Clergy" as " The Church," being ex- 
 ploded, in subjecting The Church to the graduated 
 Tax, where shall w^e begin? The Marquis of West- 
 minster will do. It is said that his Lordship has, at 
 the least, 400,000/. a-year. Let us suppose that such 
 is his Lordship's modicum of means, and that the 
 Rectory of Wootton is 200/. per annum ; how much, 
 yearly, shall the Marquis of Westminster pay, to make 
 his contribution virtually equal to 6/. per annum of the 
 Rectory of Wootton? Certainly not less than 300,000/. 
 per annum. Why ? Because the 6/., in the one case, 
 is taken from the wants of a family, the 300,000/., in 
 the other, from the luxuries and superfluities of 
 
 * Those persons wlio desire to see the identity of the obligations 
 of the descendants of the Saxon monarchy who now rule us, with 
 them from whom they have sprung, will do well to make themselves 
 acquainted with the admirable treatise of the Rev. Dr. Silver, 
 formerly Fellow of St. John's, Oxford, and Vicar of Charlbury, On 
 the Coronation Service of the Saxon Kings.
 
 119 
 
 fashionable life. Under these circumstances, I vote 
 for the Graduated Tax. But will the Marquis of 
 Westminster vote for it? When his Lordship re- 
 cognises the principle of a graduated property tax as 
 applicable to The Clergy, let him and others look 
 out for the consequences. The public money-scoop 
 will soon find its way into the Marquis's West- 
 minster Bank ; and when expediency has deter- 
 mined upon the necessity of the case, we know that 
 necessity is no respecter of persons. 
 
 But now, since all these things are alike imposed 
 on The Clergy, let us see what encouragement they 
 have, to take the spoiling of their goods with con- 
 tentment and pleasure. 
 
 The fiat is gone forth to cut down 360 Prebendal 
 Stalls, the value of many of which is actually 
 worse than nothing*. At all events, money is 
 wanted. " We tcant,'' says the Bishop of London, 
 "yb?' these purposes, all the money that we can 
 obtain, from ivhatever sources derived^ The 
 Clergy won't find it ; and so they must lose their 
 Stalls : we want the money, and these Stalls w iil 
 produce us 135,000/. a-year. 
 
 Now, Brethren of the Church, this I say, — that 
 this taking away of the Dignities of the Church is a 
 most abominable invasion of The Rights of The 
 
 * The Prebendary of paid, under the cliarge of First 
 
 Fruits and Tenths, more than two years' income of his Stall. 
 Another Prebendary paid, in law expenses, &c., concerning it, 
 more than the profits of the Stall since the days of the Reformation. 
 These gentlemen are not the only Prebendaries who have thus paid 
 for their honours.
 
 120 
 
 Clergy — it is nothing less than downright robbery 
 of privilege ; and the pretence of the gain of 
 135,000/. per annum, is, as taken from The Clergy, 
 an ungrateful and sordid return for the much more 
 considerable sum they bring yearly into the Church. 
 
 There are, in this Church, *. e. in England alone, 
 8,366 Clergy whose annual incomes do not average 
 100/. a-year. The expenses of their maintenance 
 average 300/. a-year : whence, then, comes the differ- 
 ence of 200/. per annum that they are compelled to 
 spend ? 
 
 Out of their own pockets ! that is, they pay 200/. 
 per annum for the privilege of doing the duty. And 
 yet, the condition of their calling is, — He that 
 serveth the altar, shall live of the altar. 
 
 Now, besides the necessary expenditure of this 
 money, these men have no houses ; that is, 4,234 
 Curates, and upwards of 3,600 Incumbents, have no 
 houses: shall we deduct from their wretched pit- 
 tances, for lodging, 30/. each, and thus make their 
 100/. but 70/. ? But they must, taking no notice of 
 this want of houses, spend every year, as above, out 
 of their own pockets, in doing the duty of their 
 Church, (200/. x 8,366 = 1,673,200/.) one million, 
 
 SIX HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-THREE THOUSAND, TWO 
 
 HUNDRED POUNDS. And tVie Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, and Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell, 
 are going to deprive this mass of men of the 
 poor chance of obtaining a remuneration for their 
 1,673,200/. out of 135,000/. ! Cruel, cold-hearted, 
 calculating, m/.v-calculating policy ! 
 
 Shame ! Shame ! My Lord of Canterbury, this is 
 too bad! That the cold-blooded politicians should
 
 121 
 
 carve and hack The Church for their carnal ends is 
 natural. When was a mere politician anything more 
 than a mere "natural man?" But that your Grace 
 should consent to degrade your Clergy and denude 
 them of the dear-bought, hard-earned chance of 
 honourable distinction, and which it would be ill, my 
 Lord, to your Church if they did not honourably 
 covet, — this is, indeed, not their disgrace, but yours. 
 
 It is not The Church's voice that cries for this 
 levelling of the groves of Lebanon. Your Grace has 
 slighted it, as expressed by The Church's represent- 
 ative and guardians, the Convocations, and the great 
 body of the Clergy of the Empire. 
 
 It is not The Church's voice. Your Grace has 
 defied it, w^hile you rejoice in working out the wish 
 of the knot of Infidels who lead the banded enemies 
 of our Country ; those who are recklessly heaving 
 ou'- Monarchy and all that Britons have hitherto 
 held dear and sacred, their Altars and Homes, into 
 the abyss of Revolution. 
 
 It is The Church's request, that your Grace may 
 stop this headlong career of devastation and spolia- 
 tion. But, no ! One million, six hundred thousand 
 pounds that we bring annually, cheerfully bring, to 
 the service of the Church is nothing to be thought of. 
 
 " We want 135,000/. a-year ; and we want it from 
 you, because we are not afraid to do you injustice, 
 and because we fear* to attempt justice to those 
 who rob, defraud, and violate the terms of the com- 
 pact of service." 
 
 Is this godly? Is it Christian? Is it to protect 
 
 * Vide extract from Johnson, ut siqna, p. 30.
 
 122 
 
 the weak against the strong ? Nay, my Lord, the 
 strong with the wicked are your allies. Muster them, 
 my Lord, and classify them, and, analyzing their 
 acts, judge of their motives; selfishness, the main- 
 spring of the one; revolution, the sole hope of the 
 other : the weak — your defenceless, gagged, crippled 
 Brethren — are the victims on the altar of sacrilege, 
 where the craving Moloch of selfishness is minis- 
 tered to by that reckless High Priest of the worldly- 
 minded, Expediency : Your Grace being the agent 
 or implement of both. 
 
 I say, my Lord, that 1,670,000/. demands a small 
 sacrifice in return. Is a twelfth too much to restore 
 to the Widows and Orphans of 8,000 Priests of 
 Christ's Catholic Church ? For such, my Lord, is 
 the practical effect of the existence of the present 
 now threatened Stalls. 
 
 I speak, my Lord, as a man and a citizen ; and I 
 say, that this Bill is as heartless and wanton a viola- 
 tion of the feelings of The Clergy as the direst 
 enemies of The Church could have desired, to hum- 
 ble and oppress it; and if your Grace, or any other 
 more or less interested party, need a practical proof 
 of how it is esteemed by them, it is merely necessary 
 to remind your Grace that your supporters are your 
 enemies, the Atheist, the Papist, the Socialist, and 
 the Deist, and every one of every species of Dissent; 
 your opponents are your Grace's known and sworn 
 friends, YOUR Clergy, — The Clergy of the Kingdom, 
 the Brethren of your own order, — those who even 
 yet are unwilling to believe, however strong the evi- 
 dence against your Grace, that the Primate of their 
 Church is * * *
 
 123 
 
 Your Grace may be anxious to promote the well- 
 being of The Church, but, in your anxiety, you have 
 attempted an experiment which has arrayed the 
 whole Clergy against you. It is indeed a painful 
 contingency ! and all for the sake of getting money! 
 — the root of all evil, truly ! 
 
 Take, my Lord, the screen of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty away from the Lay-Impropriators, and The 
 Church will in so far, and to a great degree, right 
 herself, and your Bounty Board will have at once 
 the disposal, for the immediate wants of the Church, 
 of three millions of money. Allow this hateful impost 
 to continue, and all who are aware of its foundation, 
 and are willing to tolerate its continuance for the 
 sake of the money it brings, will be guilty of that 
 vicious species of infidelity which makes God the 
 agent of evil, by justifying the means by the end ; — 
 " whose damnation," says St. Paul, " is just."
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 For what I have said against Queen Anne's 
 Bounty and its longer continuance, I was not uncon- 
 scious that I should be assailed as the vituperator of 
 the good and great, and the senseless reviler of a 
 system that has been productive of much real advan- 
 tage to the Church of England. 
 
 I find also that I have not miscalculated in this 
 respect. I have been called every sort of name, and 
 reviled by time-servers, sneered at by sycophants. 
 Having been quite prepared for all this, I am equally 
 prepared not to heed it. So, vehement indignation 
 notwithstanding, I still breathe, and happily 7ioWy 
 under the consciousness that I have the concurrence, 
 and can, I am sure, always secure the co-operation, in 
 my labour of love for the Church and Brethren, of 
 many hundreds of The Clergy. Such men have dared 
 to think for themselves, have not been frightened by 
 great names, nor mentally trammelled by the mis- 
 takes of their venerable and pious ancestors and 
 predecessors. They have seen a brother lead a for- 
 lorn hope, they have respected his motive, they have 
 approved his act, they have recorded their sentiments, 
 and 1 have their testimony by me. Under such as-
 
 125 
 
 surances, I am not likely to flag in this labour of love, 
 and I trust, indeed, to be able to persevere in it, 
 until the great Incubus, Lay-Impropriation, disappear 
 from The Church in England ; and, Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, being henceforth called by its right name 
 and understood to be ^vhat it is and not what it is 
 not, no longer existing, shall not further lend its un- 
 faithful aid to hide from The Church the cruelty of 
 Impropriation, and the lawlessness of Impropriators. 
 I have spoken of facts — discreditable ones. If 
 they be not discreditable, there is, of course, no harm 
 done in giving them publicity. If they are, the 
 blame be upon those who are the cause of, and 
 consenting to, the demonstrations we witness. 
 
 I have a twofold object in view : on the one part to 
 see The Church purified of the sores which empirics 
 have with their quack salves established, and almost, 
 I fear me, confirmed on her surface. This will be, 
 to a great degree, effected by the removal of Queen 
 Anne's Bounty Impost, in Name, Thing, and Prin- 
 ciple. But, having spoken of this at large, I now 
 proceed to say a few words on the other part : viz.. 
 
 My desire, that all my Brethren of this British 
 family may be found accepted of The Lord in the 
 day of account. As this can only be according 
 as they shall do their duty by Christ's Church here 
 on earth, I am anxious to see every one acquitting 
 his soul, particularly, as to his duty of providing for 
 the comely and honourable maintenance of her 
 Priests. We may not deceive ourselves herein. We 
 may establish a standard of action for ourselves, and 
 compare ourselves with ourselves; but, let us not 
 be deceived, " GOD is not mocked."
 
 126 
 
 Now, in the Act of the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sion, I see a Principle recognised, tolerated, used, 
 sanctioned, encouraged, promoted by every recom- 
 mendation of the Commissioners, which goes to 
 uproot from the mind of every citizen his Christian 
 duty, — " Let every man bear his own burthen. Let 
 him that is taught in the Word communicate unto 
 him that teacheth, in all good things." 
 
 And the Principle upon which Queen Anne's 
 Bounty was established was that of the Church 
 Commissioners now. It is this, 
 
 " Let every man shift the burthen off his own 
 shoulders. 
 
 " Let him that is taught communicate unto him 
 that teacheth, as little as he can ; and let any body, 
 person, or fund, but himself or his own, pay his 
 minister." 
 
 Christian People, is not this palpable ? We may 
 indeed deceive ourselves, but let us not be deceived, 
 God is not mocked ; for, whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap. He that soweth Selfishness, 
 shall reap its reward ; but he that soweth to the Spirit, 
 shall reap life everlasting. And bear in mind, that 
 these words were spoken by the Apostle under the 
 influence of The Holy Spirit, and in connexion with, 
 yea, on the very subject of, Sustentation of the Mi- 
 nisters of Christ's Holy Gospel. 
 
 Now, I dare to affirm, that the provisions of the 
 Act of the Commissioners are such as to encourage 
 this very Selfishness ; and if that be the case, they 
 are to be scouted as anti-christian, and anti-christian 
 they are.
 
 127 
 
 We have seen what the operation of Queen 
 Anne's Bounty is. It screens from Christians their 
 great and solemn duty, of paying, or of seeing to 
 the payment of, their Ministers. And what do the 
 Ecclesiastical Commissioners propose to do? This; 
 they mean to pay Clergymen, whom they determine 
 are to be located in certain places, a stipend to be 
 realized out of the revenues of present Prebendal 
 Stalls : that is to say, . . The revenue drawn from 
 some parish in the South, shall be taken to make good 
 that deficiency of Ministerial Income which is the 
 result of the selfishness of those who form the po- 
 pulation of some thickly peopled place in the North. 
 Where is the equity of this? Where is its Chris- 
 tianity ? Are we prepared to say that such a system 
 can be grateful to God ? It is very grateful to God 
 that we should evangelize the Heathen. Every sym- 
 pathy of the Christian heart dictates the perform- 
 ance of this duty. But it is not grateful to God to 
 encourage Selfishness and Abstinence from Offer- 
 ings in the Christian. It is true that every man 
 must do his diligence gladly, o^ a ready mind, not 
 grudgingly, as of necessity ; but still he must do it. 
 And here is, in one passage of Holy Writ, the 
 authority on the one hand, for saying thus — and the 
 curse of its neglect set forth on the other : — 
 
 " Even from the days of your fathers, ye are gone 
 away from Mine Ordinances, and have not kept them. 
 Return unto Me, and I will return unto you, saith 
 The Lord of Hosts. But ye said, ' Wherein shall we 
 return?' Will a man rob God? Yet ye have 
 robbed Me. But ye say, ' Wherein have we robbed 
 Thee?' In Tithes and Offerings. Ye are cursed
 
 128 
 
 with a curse, for ye have robbed Me, even this 
 whole nation*" 
 
 I declare it to be my conviction, steadily come at 
 from long observation, that the cause of the ir reli- 
 gion of the people, their infidel neglect of the 
 solemn Service of the Temple, arises from the 
 omission of The Clergy to shew the people the ne- 
 cessity of making " Offerings at the Altar" as a 
 means of keeping up their communion with God. 
 Let us see now, how they, the Priests, suffer for this 
 neglect, and properly. For what is the Offering at 
 the Altar? It is the aliment of the Priest. (As 
 to quibbling about the word " Priest" and " Sacri- 
 fice," as that 0U7' Clergy are not Priests, and that 
 our Service is not Sacrifice — this is all Satan's de- 
 lusion, which we can sufficiently answer elsewhere. 
 Again, " let us not deceive ourselves" with such 
 magniloquent verbiage. GOD is not mocked ; He 
 can see through the flimsy cobweb which selfish 
 cunnina: has woven to screen its carnal nefflect of 
 His ordinance, and of him who ministers therein.) 
 
 The 6th chapter of Galatians as much enforces 
 the payment of the Christian Minister, as ever the 
 Old Testament required the payment of the sacri- 
 ficing Priesthood ; and if the payment go, after all, 
 for the Offices of God, is not the payment made /or 
 God? And where, I ask, shall that payment be so 
 fitly made as at His table, when offered with prayer 
 and thanksgiving in His temple, and in the midst 
 of The Congregation, assembled to keep holy-day 1 
 
 Now, the practical effect of the Ecclesiastical 
 
 * Malachi iii. 1, 8, 9.
 
 129 
 
 Commissioners' regulations is, to hide from men this 
 their solemn duty and obligation, aiid to establish 
 and confirm him who should be a simple-minded, 
 self-sacrificing Christian, a selfish ear and tongue 
 worshipper. 
 
 I aver my belief, that the money, if realised, and 
 applied as they mean to apply it, will have the effect 
 rather of starving than of maintaining the Clergy 
 sent to minister to the dense populations — for they 
 will get their miserable stipend, and no more. 
 Whereas, were they commanded by their bishops ex- 
 pressly to tell people of their duty, of maintaining the 
 services of the temple by shewing them the Altar 
 whereon the Offering is laid, and God, their God, 
 the undoubted receiver and registrar of their gifts ; 
 — what man so heartless, so cold, so infidel in his 
 practice, who, believing the asseveration, would 
 not rejoice to realise his exceeding great privi- 
 lege of being accepted of God in his gift ? Yea, 
 and in his gift he should be blessed. Who can 
 doubt it ? 
 
 But now, instead of teaching people this their 
 great privilege and blessedness, tee shrink away 
 from our duty ; and great is the people's loss. And 
 what is ours, Brethren in the Ministry ? Do we fail to 
 magnify to the people every means of grace?— awy 
 source of blessedness ? — any exercise of faith ? Is it 
 not " more blessed to give than to receive ?" Let 
 then none who neglect their duty herein, dare to. 
 ridicule these notions. Let none assume that men 
 won't make Offerings. Let men be tried. We have 
 no right to " accuse the brethren" until they have 
 condemned themselves by their acts or neglects. In 
 
 K
 
 130 
 
 the meantime, let us of the Clergy condemn our- 
 selves, when we fail to speak as we ought to speak, 
 both as to what we should say, — " the whole counsel 
 of God," — and the mode of delivery, " boldly, as 
 we ought to speaks 
 
 The intention and offer to knock down 360 
 Prebendal Stalls for the sake of those who ought to 
 shew the sincerity of their faith by their kindly offer- 
 ing at the altar, is a mean and unworthy sacrifice of 
 solemn truth and holy practice to a carnal, worldly, 
 selfish, narrow-minded, anti-Christian expediency ; 
 it is a sacrifice to popularity. Another manifestation 
 that more would have acted as Pilate did, had they 
 been tried as Pilate was. 
 
 To condense into one page the all that has been 
 said, and to set before the reader the gist of the 
 argument, as affects the Acts and Neglects of the 
 Ecclesiastical Commission, w^ith respect to the Vicars 
 and Perpetual Curates, whose incomes need aug- 
 mentation, we see, in the Act before us, a gratuitous 
 and wanton and cowardly invasion of much prized 
 (and for the most part ill-paid) preferment, for the 
 sake of sparing those, whose duty it is to sustain 
 these valuable men in their otTice, suitably and 
 honourably. With respect to the proposed Chapel- 
 ries, we observe an injudicious, unfaithful gift, lead- 
 ing the people to infer, that they are not required, 
 as a matter of Christian duty, to maintain their own 
 minister. In both cases, an obscuring from a people 
 their proper and necessary view of their great privi- 
 lege and glory of sustaining the service of God's 
 Holy Temple among them, and, therefore, of the 
 men who minister therein.
 
 131 
 
 And further, in the matter of Queen Anne's 
 Bounty, I cannot but think, that, while the Ecclesi- 
 astical Commissioners have been guilty of gross 
 neglect, with respect to their consenting to continue 
 this impost, — or, with respect to its discontinuance, 
 failing to report upon it and the proper mode of in- 
 crease of the Vicars and Perpetual Curates' stipends 
 by power of Act of Padiament, as affects their 
 suggestions for the proposed Northern cures, in the 
 intended absorption of the funds of some, — to make 
 good the deficiency of faith of others, they have 
 made a recommendation as little consistent with a 
 knowledge of manifestly practical divinity as the 
 provisions by which it is, if at all, to have effect, 
 are with common justice, and, with what ought to be 
 the Christian integrity of those who are enjoined 
 " not to be lords over God's heritage." 
 
 And if it be asked, What would you do with 
 Queen Anne's Bounty? Efface its existence, if it 
 were possible, from the Records of the Empire. As 
 this, however, is not possible, let the blasphemous 
 absurdity and cheat, considering the foundation on 
 which it stands, at once and for ever, cease and 
 determine. Let the estates which have been pur- 
 chased with it be gathered into the care and ma- 
 nagement of the present First Fruits Board, if you 
 will — since the poor Southerns must pay for the 
 Clergy of the rich and selfish manufacturing 
 Northerns, — and let the income derivable from 
 them go in aid of building churches for the dis- 
 tricts where men are needed to minister ; but, let 
 those who go, after a maintenance of three years, be 
 told that the message they have to convey to the 
 
 k2
 
 132 
 
 faithful in Christ, is, " Let him that is taught in 
 the word communicate to him that teacheth in all 
 good things/^ and upon the strength of God's ivo7'd 
 and promises let them rely. 
 
 "Oh! you would introduce the voluntary sys- 
 tem ?" 
 
 Nothing like it : — the furthest from it. " The 
 Voluntary System" is, Give what you like to the 
 man that you like, to the man that you don't, give 
 nothing. The Christian system is, Give to God 
 and not to Man : support the man for his Office'- 
 sake, and you shall be blessed in your deed. 
 
 When we teach the people this, God will bless 
 us. Those to whom we speak, fearing Him, will be 
 afraid to mock Him, by not contributing of the best 
 of their means to our necessities. And having this 
 injunction of God on which to rely, my notion is, 
 that, if we mistrust it, or are afraid to urge it, we 
 ought to starve. 
 
 " Let him that is taught in the word commu- 
 nicate UNTO him that teacheth IN ALL GOOD 
 THINGS." 
 
 " Be NOT DECEIVED; God is not mocked: for 
 
 WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH, THAT SHALL HE ALSO 
 
 REAP. For he that soweth to his flesh shall 
 OF the flesh reap corruption; but he that 
 soweth to the spirit shall of The Spirit reap 
 
 life EVERLASTING. AnD LET US NOT BE WEARY OF 
 well-doing; for in due season we SHALL REAP IF 
 WE FAINT NOT*." 
 
 * Gal. vi. 6, 7, 8, 9.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 Extracts from the Royal Instructions given to the Commissioners 
 for taking the "Valor Ecclesiasticus," in the time of Henry 
 the Eighth, for the Rating of the First Fruits and Tenths. 
 
 Item, after the said commissioners by examynacion of the re- 
 gesters and other ministers shall have knowlege of the nombre 
 and names of all the denryes within the lymytts of ther commission 
 and in whois dioses or jurisdiccion they byn and of the nombre and 
 namys of all the dignyties monasteries priores benefyces and promo- 
 cions spirituall within the lymytts of every denrye or ells where 
 within the lymytts of ther commission then the said commissioners 
 shall devide them selfys by thre and thre in nombre or by any other 
 nombre above three by ther discrecions allottyng to every nombre so 
 devided so many denryes rurall and other distinct placys within the 
 lymytts of ther commission as they by ther assentts shall think 
 convenyent And that every suche nombre soo devided shall with all 
 diligence without favour mede drede or corruppcion enquyer serche 
 and knowe of the hole and yerly values of all dignyties cathedrall 
 churches collegys churches collegiat houses conventuall hospitals 
 monasteries priores relygyouse houses prebends parsonagis vicarigis 
 chauntris freechappells and all other cures offices and promocions 
 spirituall what name or nature so ever they bee within the lymytts of 
 ther charge to them allotted as well in placys exempte as nott 
 exempte And in vv^hois dioses or jurisdiccion they byn and for true 
 execucion of ther charge in this behalf shall exarayn such in- 
 cumbentts ther receyvours and auditours by ther othes and also se 
 and veu suche regesters bokes of accompt Ester bokes & all other
 
 134 
 
 writings as by ther discrecions shall be thought convenyent and 
 reasonable for sure declaracion of the premises and over that use all 
 suche other ways and menes whereby the true and just yerly values 
 of all the said dignyties cathedrall churches collegiat churches 
 coUegis hospitalls houses conventuall abbeys monasteries priores 
 houses relygyouse prebendys parsonagis vicarigis benefyces cures 
 officis chauntris freechappells and other promocions spirituall may 
 playnly and distinctly appere without any manner of concelament 
 therof usyng them selfys after the order manner and forme as in thes 
 articles next ensuying ys mencyoned and declared raakyng a playne 
 boke therof after the auditours fashyon accordyng as shall be 
 exemplified in the last of the said Articles underwritten. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Foreseeing always that in the makyng of the yerly values of 
 any manner of dignities monasteries abbeys priores houses rely- 
 gyouse prebendys benefyces chauntris freechappells or other promo- 
 cions spirituall above rehersed there be made an hole and entire 
 value of every of them by them selfys and nothing to be allowed ne 
 deducted oute therof for reparacions fees servyng of cures or any 
 other causis or things whatso ever they be except only suche annuel! 
 and perpetuall rents pensions almes synods proxis and fees for offi- 
 cers as before specyally ys mencyoned in the articles aforewritten 
 and after that the said boke be made then the said commissioners 
 shall certyfe the same unto the Kyngs Exchequor under their sells 
 according as ys lyraytted by the tenour of the commission as they 
 wyll aunswhere unto the Kyngs Hyghnis att their uttraost parel 
 to the entent that the tenth of the premises may be taxed and sett to 
 be levied to the Kyngs use according to the Statute made and pro- 
 vided of the graunte therof. 
 
 No. II. 
 
 15 Rich. II. Cap. 6.— A.D. 1391. 
 
 In Appropriation of Benefices, there shall be Provision made for the 
 Poor and the Vicar. 
 
 Item, because divers damages and hindrances oftentimes have 
 happened, and daily do happen to the parishioner's of divers
 
 135 
 
 places, by the appropriation of benefices of the same places ; it is 
 agreed and assented, That in every license from henceforth to be 
 made in the chancery, of the appropriation of any parish church, it 
 shall be expressly contained and comprised, that the diocesan of the 
 place, upon the appropriation of such churches, shall ordain, accord- 
 ing to the value of such churches, a convenient sura of money to be 
 paid and distributed yearly of the fruits and profits of the same 
 churches, by those that shall have the said churches in proper use, 
 and by their successors, to the poor parishioners of the said 
 churches, in aid of their living and sustenance for ever; and also 
 that the vicar be well and sufficiently endowed. 
 
 Confirmed by 4 Hen. 4, c. 12; 30 Hen. 6, f. 20; Plowden. 
 495; 6 Hen. 7, f. 13; 10 Hen. 7, f. 19 ; 3 Edw. 3f. 11; 38 
 Hen. 6, f. 19; 11 Co. 9; Cro. Jac. 516; 2 Roll. 99, 100. 
 
 Mr. Townsend refers to chap. 12 of 4 Hen. 4, command- 
 ing that provision be made for the vicar and the poor where bene- 
 fices are appropriated. This provision was called the " Congrua 
 Portio." 
 
 4 Hen. IV. Cap. 12.— A. D. 1402. 
 
 In Appropriations of Benefices, Provision shall be made for the 
 Poor and the Vicar. 
 
 Item, it is ordained, that the Statute of Appropriation of Churches, 
 and of the Endowment of Vicars in the same, made the fifteenth year 
 of King Richard the Second, be firmly holden, and kept and put in 
 due execution : and if any church be appropriated by license of 
 the said King Richard, or of our Lord the King that now is, the 
 same shall be duly reformed, according to the effect of the same 
 statute, betwixt this and the feast of Easter next coming. And if 
 such reformation be not made within the time aforesaid, that the 
 appropriation and license thereof be made void, and utterly re- 
 pealed and annulled for ever. [^« exception being here made in 
 favour of Hadenham, Ely, the Act goes on.~\ Moreover, it is 
 ordained and stablishcd, that all the vicarages united, annexed, or 
 appropried, and the licenses thereof had after the first year of the 
 said King Richard, how well soever that they which have united
 
 136 
 
 annexed, or appropried such vicarages be in possession of the 
 same vicarages, or by the virtue of such licenses may, in any wise 
 be in possession of the same, in any time to come, they shall be also 
 utterly void, revoked, repealed, annulled, and disappropried for 
 ever. And that from henceforth, in every church so appropried, 
 or to be appropried, a secular person be ordained vicar perpetual, 
 canonically institute and induct in the same, and covenably endowed 
 by the disc7'etion of the ordinary to do divine service, and to inform 
 the people, and to keep hospitality there, except the church of 
 Hadenham aforesaid; and that no religious be in anywise made 
 vicar in any church so appropried, or to be appropried by any 
 means in time to come. 
 
 34 & 35 Hen. VIII. Cap. 19.— A.D. 1542-3. 
 
 An Act for the Payment of Pensions granted out of the late Abbies. 
 
 Whereas the archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and the other 
 ecclesiastical persons, of both the provinces of Canterbury and 
 York, within this realm of England, have heretofore, in the right of 
 their churches, had and received out of the late monasteries, abba- 
 thies, priories, nunneries, colleges, hospitals, houses of friars, and 
 other religious and ecclesiastical houses and places now dissolved, 
 and out of the manors, lands, tenements, and hereditaments be- 
 longing to the same, divers pensions, portions, corrodies, indemni- 
 ties, synodies, proxies, and other profits. And whereas, also, in the 
 parliament begun and holden at Westminster, the twenty-eighth 
 day of April, in the thirty-first year of the reign of our Sovereign 
 Lord, Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God, King of England, 
 France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of 
 England, and also of Ireland, the Supreme Head, it was ordained 
 and enacted by the authority of the same parliament, that as well 
 the said late monasteries, abbathies, priories, nunneries, colleges, 
 hospitals, houses of friars, and other religious and ecclesiastical 
 houses and places, with the manors, lands, tenements, hereditaments, 
 and other profits belonging unto the same late monasteries, abba- 
 thies, priories, and other religious and ecclesiastical houses and 
 places as then were, or then hereafter should come unto the King's
 
 137 
 
 Highness's hands, should be vested, deemed, and adjudged in the 
 actual and real possession and seisin of the King's Highness, his 
 heirs and successors. 
 
 II. Saving to all and every person and persons, and bodies 
 politic, and their heirs and sttccessors, and the heirs and successors 
 of all and every of them, other than the late abbots, priors, ab- 
 besses, prioresses, and other ecclesiastical governors and governesses 
 of the said late monasteries, abbathies, priories, nunneries, colleges, 
 hospitals, houses of friars, and other religious and ecclesiastical 
 houses and places, and their successors, and the successors of every 
 of them, and such as pretend to be founders, patrons, or donors 
 of such monasteries, abbathies, priories, nunneries, colleges, hospi- 
 tals, houses of friars, and other ecclesiastical houses and places, or 
 of any manors, messuages, lands, tenements, or other hereditaments 
 belonging to the same, or to any of them, their heirs and successors, 
 and the heirs and successors of every such founder, patron, or 
 donor, and the then abbots, priors, abbesses, prioresses, and other 
 ecclesiastical governors and governesses of such monasteries, abba- 
 thies, priories, nunneries, colleges, hospitals, houses of friars, and 
 other religious and ecclesiastical houses and places, which then 
 hereafter should happen to be dissolved, suppressed, renounced, 
 relinquished, forfeited, given up, or come to the King's Highness, 
 and such as pretend to be founders, patrons, or donors of such 
 monasteries, abbathies, priories, nunneries, colleges, hospitals, 
 houses of friars, and other ecclesiastical houses and places, or of 
 any manors, messuages, lands, tenements, or other hereditaments to 
 the same belonging, or to any of them, their heirs and successors, 
 and the heirs and successors of every of them, all such right, title, 
 claim, interest, possession, rents, charges, annuities, leases, farms, 
 offices, fees, liveries, livings, portions, pensions, corrodies, com- 
 mons, synodies, proxies, and other profits, which they or any of 
 them have, claim, ought, may, or might have had, in or to the pre- 
 mises, or to any part or parcel thereof, in such like manner, form, 
 and condition, to all intents, respects, constructions, and purposes, 
 as if the same act had never been had ne made (rents-services, 
 rents-seek, and all other services an.d suits, only except), as by the 
 same act, among divers other things therein contained, more plainly 
 is shewed, and may appear.
 
 138 
 
 III. And yet, notwithstanding the said general saving contained 
 in the said act, the said archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and 
 other ecclesiastical persons of both the said provinces of Canterbury 
 and York be, and sithen the making of the said act have been, 
 disturbed and denied of the having, receiving, and gathering of 
 the said pensions, portions, corrodies, indemnities, synodies, and 
 proxies, vrith other profits belonging unto them, by divers of the 
 farmers and occupiers of great part and parcel of the said manors, 
 lands, tenements, and hereditaments of the said late monasteries, 
 and other ecclesiastical houses and places, or being parcel of the 
 possessions of them, and have no direct mean to obtain, recover, 
 or come to the same, not only to their great hurt and damage, but 
 also like to grow and be to the great loss and disherison of the 
 King's Majesty, concerning his first fruits and tenths. 
 
 IV. For reformation whereof, be it ordained, established, and 
 enacted by the King's Highness, with the assent of the Lords spi- 
 ritual and temporal, and the Commons, in this present parliament 
 assembled, and by the authority of the same, that if any person or 
 persons, being farmer or occupier of any manors, lands, tenements, 
 parsonages, benefices, or other hereditaments of any of the said late 
 monasteries or ecclesiastical houses or places, or belonging to them 
 or any of them, by the King's Highness' gift, grant, sale, exchange, 
 or otherwise, out of which premises any such portions, pensions, 
 corrodies, indemnities, synodies, proxies, or any other profits have 
 been heretofore lawfully going out, answered, or paid to any of the 
 archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical persons 
 abovesaid, do, at any time after the first day of April next coming, 
 wilfully deny the payment thereof, at the days of payment hereto- 
 fore accustomed, of any of the said pensions, portions, corrodies, 
 indemnities, synodies, proxies, or any other profits whereof the 
 said archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, or other ecclesiastical per- 
 sons were in possession at or within ten years next before the time 
 of the dissolution of any such monasteries or other ecclesiastical 
 houses or places; that then it shall be lawful for the same arch- 
 bishops, bishops, archdeacons, or other ecclesiastical persons afore- 
 said, being so denied to be satisfied and paid thereof, and having 
 right to the same thing in demand, to make such process as well 
 against every such person and persons as shall so deny payment of
 
 139 
 
 the same pensions, portions, corrodies, proxies, indemnities, syno- 
 dies, or any other profits which of right ought to be paid as is 
 aforesaid, as against the church or churches charged with the same, 
 as heretofore they have lawfully done, and as by and according to 
 the laws and statutes of this realm, they may now lawfully do, for 
 the true pay7nent and recovery thereof; and if the party defendant 
 be lawfully convict in any such suit, cause, or matter according to 
 the ecclesiastical laws, then the party plaintiff shall have and re- 
 cover against the parly defendant the thing in demand, and the 
 value thereof in damages, with his costs for his suit. 
 
 V. And be it further ordained and enacted, by the authority 
 aforesaid, that if it fortune the cause or matter of variance between 
 any of the said parties be determinable at the common law, that 
 then the party grieved to sue for his recovery and remedy therein 
 at the common law ; and if the party defendant fortune to be by the 
 course of the common law lawfully condemned to the party plaintiff, 
 then the said party plaintiff shall likewise have and recover against 
 the party defendant the thing in demand, and the value thereof in 
 damages, with his costs for his suit. 
 
 VI. Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority afore- 
 said, that all and singular such of the said archbishops, bishops, 
 archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical persons, which have right or 
 title to claim, demand, or enjoy any of the said pensions, portions, 
 corrodies, indemnities, synodies, or proxies against any person or 
 persons to whom the King hath made, or hereafter shall make in 
 writing, under seal, any sale, gift, grant, or lease for term of life, 
 lives, or years, of any of the said manors, lands, tenements, parson- 
 ages, benefices, and other hereditaments, charged or chargeable to 
 or with any of the said pensions, portions, corrodies, indemnities, 
 synodies, or proxies, and also hath covenanted, granted, promised, 
 or agreed, or hereafter shall covenant, grant, promise, or agree, by 
 the said writing to acquit, discharge, or save harmless the same 
 person or persons, of all pensions, portions, corrodies, indemnities, 
 synodies, and proxies, going out of the premises, or any parcel 
 thereof, as be or shall be mentioned in the same writings, or any of 
 them, shall sue for their remedy and recovery thereof, in the court 
 of the augmentations of the revenues of the King's crown, and not
 
 140 
 
 elsewhere; and that the party defendant, having any such dis- 
 charge, being covented, called, or sued in any other court or 
 place, or before any other judge, for any the causes above said, 
 shall be discharged and dismissed out of the same court or place, 
 without anything paying for the same, by the only shewing forth 
 any of the said writings, sealed under any of the King's seals, prov- 
 ing or declaring the King to have covenanted, promised, or agreed 
 to acquit, discharge, or save harmless the said party defendant 
 thereof, as is aforesaid; anything contained in this act to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding. 
 
 37 Hen. VIII. Cap. 21.— A. D. 1545. 
 
 The Bill for the Union of Churches. 
 
 III. That an union or consolidation of two churches in one, or of 
 a church and chapel in one, the one of them not being above the 
 yearly value of six pounds, as it is rated and valued at to the King's 
 Highness in his court of the first fruits and tenths, and not distant 
 from the other above one mile, in any place or places within this 
 realm of England, may be from henceforth had or made by the 
 assent of the ordinary and ordinaries of the diocese where such 
 churches and chapels stand, and by the assent of the incumbents of 
 them, and of all such as have a just right, title, and interest to the 
 patronages of the same churches and chapels, being then of full age ; 
 and that all such unions and consolidations had or made of two 
 churches in one, or of a church and chapel in one as is aforesaid, 
 shall be good, sufficient, lawful, firm, stable, and available in the 
 law, to remain, endure, and continue for ever united and knit in 
 one, in such manner and form, as, by writing or writings under the 
 seals of such ordinaries, incumbents, and patrons, it shall be de- 
 clared and set forth. 
 
 VII. Provided also, that where the inhabitants of any such poor 
 parish, or the more part of them, within one year next after the 
 union or consolidation of the same parish, by their writing sufficient 
 in the law, shall assure the incumbent of the said parish for the yearly 
 payment of so much money as, with the sum that the said parish 
 is rated and valued at in the King's Highness' said court of the first
 
 141 
 
 fruits and tenths, shall amount to the full sum of eight pounds ster- 
 ling, to be levied and paid yearly by the said inhabitants to the said 
 incumbent and his successors, that then all such unions or consoli- 
 dations hereafter to be had or made of any such poor parish as is 
 aforesaid, shall be void and of none effect; any thing statuted or 
 ordained to the contrary hereof in anywise notwithstanding. 
 
 1 Edw. VI. Cap. 14.— A. D. 1547- 
 The Act for Chantries Collegiate. 
 
 XXT. Saving to all and every person and persons, bodies politic 
 and corporate, their heirs and successors, and the heirs and successors 
 of every of them (other than the masters, wardens, ministers, gover- 
 nors, rulers, priests, incumbents, fellows and brethren of the said 
 colleges, chantries, free-chapels, and other the premises, given, 
 limited or appointed to the King by this act and the successors of 
 them and every of them ; and other than such be or pretend to be 
 founders, patrons or donors of the premises or any of them, or of 
 any part or parcel thereof, and the heirs, successors and assigns of 
 every or any of them ; and other than such as be or were feoffees, 
 recoverees, conisees, grantees or devisees of any of the premises, 
 to or for any of the uses, purposes or intents above mentioned, or to 
 the use of any of the said colleges, free-chapels, chantries, or other 
 the premises, given, limited or appointed by this act to the King, 
 or to the intent to employ the rents or profits thereof to the use of 
 the masters, rulers, incumbents or ministers of them or any of them; 
 and other than such person and persons and bodies politic and corpo- 
 rate, their heirs, successors, and assigns, as claim or pretend to have 
 estate, right, title, interest, use, possession or condition, of, in, or to 
 the premises, or any part or parcel thereof, by reason of any feoff- 
 ment, fine, bargain and sale, or by any other ways, means, or con- 
 veyance to them made of any estate of inheritance, without the 
 said late King's license, assent, consent or agreement, and without 
 the license, assent or agreement of the King's Majesty that now is, 
 by any of the said deans, masters, wardens, ministers, governors, 
 rulers, priests or incumbents, or by the founders, donors or patrons 
 of them or any of them), all such right, title, claim, possession, 
 interest, rents, annuities, commodities, commons, offices, fees,
 
 142 
 
 leases, liveries, livings, pensions, portions, debts, duties and other 
 profits, which they or any of them lawful have, or of right ought to 
 have, or might have had, in, of, or to any of the premises, or in, of, 
 or to any part or parcel thereof, in such like manner, form and con- 
 dition, to all intents, respects, constructions and purposes, as if this 
 act had never been had or made, and as though the said chantries, 
 colleges, and other the said promotions, had still continued and re- 
 mained in their full being ; and saving to all and every patron, donor, 
 founder or governor of any such college, chantry, free-chapel, sti- 
 pendiary priests, and other the premises, given, limited or appointed 
 to the King by this act, and the donor, feoffor and giver of the 
 aforesaid lands, tenements or hereditaments, to them or any of them, 
 or to any uses or purposes before mentioned, all such rents-services, 
 rents-seek, rents-charge, fees, annuities, profits and offices; and 
 also all leases for term of life, lives and years, whereupon the ac- 
 customed rent or more is reserved, as they or any of them lawfully 
 had, perceived and enjoyed in, or out of any of the said promotions, 
 or out of any of the said lands, tenements or hereditaments, before 
 the first day of this present parliament. 
 
 2 & 3 Anne, Cap. 11.— A. D. 1703. 
 
 A71 Act for the malting more effectual Her Majesty's gracious 
 Intentions for the Augmentation of the Maintenance of the 'poor 
 Clergy, by enabling Her Majesty to grant, in Perpetuity, the 
 Revenues of the First Fruits and Tenths; and also for enabling 
 any other Persons to make Grants for the same Purpose. 
 
 Whereas, at a parliament holden in the six-and-twentieth year of 
 the reign of King Henry VIII., the first fruits, revenues, and 
 profits for one year, upon evei-y nomination or appointment to any 
 dignity, benefice, office, or promotion spiritual, within this realm, 
 or elsewhere, within the said King's dominions, and also a per- 
 petual yearly rent or pension, amounting to the value of the tenth 
 part of all the revenues and profits belonging to any dignity, bene- 
 fice, or promotion spiritual whatsoever, within any diocese of this 
 realm, or in Wales, were granted to the said King Henry VIII., 
 his heirs and successors; and divers other statutes have since been 
 made touching the first fruits and annual tenths of the clergy, and
 
 143 
 
 the ordering thereof: And whereas a sufficient settled provision for 
 the clergy in many parts of this realm hath never yet been made; 
 by reason whereof, divers mean and stipendiary preachers are in 
 many places entertained to serve the cures and officiate there, who, 
 depending for their necessary maintenance upon the good will and 
 liking of their hearers, have been and are thereby under temptation 
 of too much complying and suiting their doctrines and teaching to 
 the humours rather than the good of their hearers, which hath been 
 a great occasion of faction and schism, and contempt of the ministry. 
 And forasmuch as your Majesty, taking into your princely and 
 serious consideration the mean and insufficient maintenance belong- 
 ing to the clergy in divers parts of this your kingdom, hath been 
 most graciously pleased, out of your most religious and tender con- 
 cern for the Church of England, (whereof your Majesty is the only 
 Supreme Head on earth), and for the poor clergy thereof, not only to 
 remit the arrears of your tenths due from your poor clergy, but also 
 to declare unto your most dutiful and loyal Commons your royal 
 pleasure and pious desire, that the whole revenue arising from the 
 first fruits and tenths of the clergy might be settled for a perpetual 
 augmentation of the maintenance of the said clergy, in places 
 where the same is not already sufficiently provided for : We, your 
 Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of England 
 in parliament assembled, to the end that your JNIajesty's most 
 gracious intentions may be made effectual, and that the Church 
 may receive so great and lasting an advantage from your Majesty's 
 parting with so great a branch of your revenue towards the better 
 provision for the clergy not sufficiently provided for; and to the 
 intent your Majesty's singular zeal for the support of the clergy, 
 and the honour, interest, and future security of the Church as 
 by law established, may be perpetuated to all ages, do most 
 humbly beseech your Majesty that it may be enacted ; and be 
 it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with 
 the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal, and 
 Commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the autho- 
 rity of the same, That it shall and may be lawful for the Queen's 
 most excellent Majesty, by her letters patent under the great seal of 
 England, to incorporate such persons as her Majesty shall therein 
 nominate or appoint, to be one body politic and corporate, to have a 
 common seal and perpetual succession ; and also at her Majesty's 
 will and pleasure, by the same, or any other letters patents, to grant.
 
 144 
 
 limit, or settle, to or upon the said corporation, and their successors 
 for ever, all the revenue of first fruits, and yearly perpetual tenths 
 of all dignities, offices, benefices, and promotions spiritual vsrhatso- 
 ever, to be applied and disposed of, to and for the augmentation of 
 the maintenance of such parsons, vicars, curates, and ministers, 
 officiating in any church or chapel within the kingdom of England, 
 dominion of Wales, and town of Bervirick-upon-Tweed, where the 
 liturgy and rites of the Church of England, as now by law established, 
 are or shall be used and observed, with such lawful powers, autho- 
 rities, directions, limitations, and appointments, and under such 
 rules and restrictions, and in such manner and form, as shall be 
 therein expressed; the statute made in the first year of her said 
 Majesty's reign, intituled. An Act for the better Support of Her 
 Majesty's Household, and of the Honour and Dignity of the Crown, 
 or any other law to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding. 
 
 II. Provided always, and it is hereby declared. That all and 
 every the statutes and provisions, touching or concerning the 
 ordering, levying, and true answering and payment, or qualification 
 of the said first fruits and tenths, or touching the charge, discharge, 
 or alteration of them, or any of them, or any matter or thing relating 
 thereunto, which were in force at the time of making this act, shall 
 be, remain, and continue in their full force and effect, and be 
 observed and put in due execution according to the tenors and pur- 
 ports of the same, and every of them, for such intents and purposes 
 nevertheless, as shall be contained or directed in or by the said 
 letters patents. 
 
 III. Provided also. That this act, or anything therein con- 
 tained, shall not extend to avoid, or any way to impeach or affect 
 any grant, exchange, alienation, or incumbrance, at any time here- 
 tofore made, of or upon the said revenues of first fruits and tenths, 
 or any part thereof; but that the same shall, during the continuance 
 of such grant, exchange, alienation, or incumbrance respectively, be 
 and remain of and in such force and virtue, and no other, to all 
 intents and purposes, as if this act had not been made. 
 
 IV. And for the encouragement of such well-disposed persons as 
 shall, by her Majesty's royal example, be moved to contribute to so 
 pious and charitable a purpose, and that such their charity may be
 
 145 
 
 rightly applied; be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, That all 
 and every person and persons, having in his or their own right any 
 estate or interest in possession, reversion, or contingency, of or in 
 any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or any property of or in any 
 goods or chattels, shall have full power, license, and authority, at 
 his, her, and their will and pleasure, by deed enrolled, in such man- 
 ner, and within such time, as is directed by the statute made in 
 the twenty-seventh year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, 
 for enrolment of bargains and sales, or by his, her, or their last will 
 or testament in writing, duly executed according to law, to give and 
 grant to, and vest in the said corporation, and their successors, all 
 such his, her, or their estate, interest, or property in such lands, 
 tenements, and hereditaments, goods and chattels, or any part or 
 parts thereof, for and towards the augmentation of the maintenance 
 of such ministers as aforesaid, officiating in such church or chapel, 
 where the liturgy and rites of the said Church are or shall be so 
 used or observed as aforesaid, and having no settled competent pro- 
 vision belonging to the same, and to be for that purpose applied 
 according to the will of the said benefactor, in and by such deed 
 enrolled, or by such will or testament executed as aforesaid, ex- 
 pressed: and in default of such direction, limitation, or appoint- 
 ment, in such manner as by her Majesty's letters patents shall be 
 directed or appointed, as aforesaid. And such corporation, and 
 their successors, shall have full capacity and ability to purchase, 
 receive, take, hold, and enjoy, for the purposes aforesaid, as well 
 from such persons as shall be so charitably disposed to give the 
 same, as from all other persons as shall be willing to sell or 
 alien to the said corporation any manors, lands, tenements, goods, or 
 chattels without any license or writ of ad quod damnum, the 
 Statute of Mortmain, or any other statute or law to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 V. Provided always. That this act or anything therein contained 
 shall not extend to enable any person or persons, being within age, 
 or of non sane memory, or women covert, without their husbands, 
 to make any such gift, grant, or alienation; anything in this act 
 contained to the contrary in anywise notwithstanding. 
 
 VI. /Ind whereas four bonds for four half-yearly payments of 
 the first fruits, as the same are rated, and also a fifth bond for a
 
 146 
 
 further value or payment, in respect of the same first fruits, have 
 been required and taken from the clergy, to their great and un- 
 necessary burden and grievance : for remedy thereof be it enacted 
 and declared by the authority aforesaid, That from and after the 
 twenty-fifth day of March, in the year of our Lord, one thousand 
 seven hundred and four, one bond only shall in such case be given 
 or required for the four payments of the said first fruits : which said 
 first fruits, as well as the tenths payable by the clergy, shall here- 
 after be answered and paid by them according to such rates and 
 proportions only as the same have heretofore been usually rated and 
 paid ; and no such fifth bond already given shall, from and after the 
 said twenty-fifth day of March, in the year one thousand seven hun- 
 dred and four, be sued or recovered. 
 
 1 Geo. I. Cap. 10.— A. D. 1714. 
 
 An Act for making more effectual her late Majesty' s gracious In- 
 tentions for Augmenting the Maintenance of the poor Clergy. 
 
 I. That bishops shall inform themselves of the yearly value of 
 every benefice, Src, and certify same. 
 
 IV. That all augmented churches, &c., shall be perpetual 
 benefices, and ministers, bodies politic; and defines what impropri- 
 ators, rectors, &c., are excluded from the benefit of such augment- 
 ation ; and determines allowances to ministers ofiiciating. 
 
 V. Provides what rectors, &c., are not to be discharged from 
 cure of souls. 
 
 VI. Provides for the lapse of augmented cures. 
 
 VIII. Determines what agreements with benefactors shall be 
 good in law; and what advowsons shall be vested in such bene- 
 factors. 
 
 XV. Restricts augmentation of donatives without consent of 
 patron. 
 
 XVI. Sets forth the agreement between governors and patron,
 
 147 
 
 &c., of donative for allowance to minister, and in what case 
 governors may refuse augmentation. 
 
 XXI. In what case lands, &c., allotted to any church, &c., by 
 governors, shall go in succession, &c. 
 
 43 Geo. III. Cap. 107. 
 
 Jn Act for effectuating certain Parts of an Act, "passed in the second 
 and third Years of the Reign of her late Majesty, Queen Anne, 
 intituled, *' An Act for the making more effectual her Majesty s 
 gracious Intentions for the Augmentation of the Maintenance of 
 the Poor Clergy, by enabling her Majesty to grant in Perpetuity, 
 the Revenues of the First Fruits and Tenths; andalsofor enabling 
 any other Persons to make Grants for the same purpose ;" so far 
 as the same relate to Deeds and Wills made for granting and be- 
 queathing Lands, Tenements, Hereditaments, Goods, and Chattels, 
 to the Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, for the purposes 
 in the said Act mentioned, and for enlarging the Powers of the 
 said Governors. 
 
 Sect. 1, after reciting so much of the 2 & 3 Anne, c. 11, s. 4, 
 as empowers persons to grant estates, &c., in their own right to 
 the Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, towards the aug- 
 mentation of the maintenance of the clergy, enacts that that part 
 shall remain in force, notwithstanding the Mortmain Act, 9 Geo. 2, 
 c. 36; and sect. 2 extends the power of exchanging lands, &c., 
 under 1 Geo. 1, c. 10, s. 13, to all the lands, &c., of augmented 
 livings. 
 
 Sect. 3 enables the Bounty Board, where there is no suitable 
 parsonage-house, to provide one. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 
 
 45 Geo. III. Cap. 84. 
 
 An Act for making more effectual the gracious Intentions of her 
 late Majesty, Queen Anne, for the Augmentation of the Main- 
 tenatice of the poor Clergy, so far as relates to the Returns of 
 Certificates into the Exchequer, and Gifts of Personal Pro- 
 perty. 
 
 After reciting 1 Geo. 1, c. 10; 5 Anne, c. 24; 6 Anne, c. 27: 
 enacts, that bishops and guardians are to inquire into value of bene- 
 fices returned into the Exchequer, and certify the same to the Go- 
 vernors of Queen Anne's Bounty, who shall be empowered to act 
 upon such new certificate as they are now enabled to do with re- 
 spect to livings not returned into the Exchequer. 
 
 III. Provides for facilitating the intentions of persons disposed 
 to contribute towards augmentation of livings. 
 
 No. III. 
 
 The act of the Bishop of Rome interfering with the jurisdiction of 
 the bishops of sees was uncanonical, as opposing the spirit of these 
 canons, which I here transcribe. 
 
 The 6th canon of the Council of Nice, a. d. 315, is as follows : — 
 "Let ancient customs prevail — those, for instance, in Egypt, Lybia, 
 and Peiitapolis — that the Bishop of Alexandria have power over all 
 these, since the same is customary for the Bishop of Rome. Like- 
 wise in Antioch, and other provinces, let the privileges be secured 
 to the churches. England, of course, which was never under any 
 patriarchate but its own, suffered a violation of these canons, when 
 the bishops of Rome presumed to make monastics here and there, 
 independent of the authority of the bishops of their sees. But, even 
 if the Bishop of Rome had been Metropolitan, he had no right to 
 innovate in the dioceses of any, without consent of all; for we have, 
 again, the 27th Apostolical Canon, ordaining that, ' the bishops of 
 every province ought to own him who is chief among them, and to 
 esteem him as tlieir head; and to do nothing extraordinary without 
 their consent, but every one those things only whicli concern their 
 own parish, [diocese,] and the country subject to it : nor let him 
 that is [chief bishop] do anything [extraordinary] without the con-
 
 149 
 
 sent of all; for so there will be a unity of mind; and God will be 
 glorified by the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Father by the Lord, 
 in the Holy Spirit; even the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 
 
 To the spirit of this canon, that of the 9th canon of the Council 
 of Antioch is similar : — 
 
 " In every country it ought to be generally understood and 
 acknowledged, that the bishop of the metropolis has upon him the 
 responsibility of the province, that all who have business to transact 
 may assemble at the chief city. It is, therefore, the pleasure of 
 this Council, that the Metropolitan should have the first place in 
 honour; and that the other bishops of the province should do 
 nothing without his consent, (according to the ancient rule of our 
 fathers,) those things excepted which pertain exclusively to their 
 own diocese, and the places which are immediately subject to them. 
 Let each bishop have the power over his own diocese, to rule it 
 with becoming dignity ; and let him take charge of every thing 
 belonging to his own see, viz., to ordain presbyters and deacons, and 
 to rule over them with justice and judgment. But let him not 
 attempt to do anything more than this without the consent of the 
 Metropolitan ; nor let Him attempt to do anything without the gene- 
 ral consent of the presbyters. 
 
 ^jjostolical Canon, 28. — " Let not a bishop presume to ordain 
 in cities and villages not subject to him ; and if he be convicted of 
 doing so without consent of those to whom such places belong, let 
 him, and those whom he has ordained, be deposed." 
 
 Ephesine Canon, 8. — " The Bishop of Antioch hath not so 
 much as ancient custom to plead for performing ordinations in 
 Cyprus, [therefore] they who preside over the churches in Cyprus 
 shall retain their inviolable and unimpeachable [right], according 
 to the canons of the holy fathers, and ancient customs, viz., that 
 the most religious bishops do, by themselves, perform the ordina- 
 tions; and the very same shall be observed everywhere, in other 
 dioceses and provinces, so that none of the bishops do assume any 
 other province that is not, or was not formerly, and from the be- 
 ginning subject to him, or those who were his predecessors. But 
 if any one have assumed, or reduced under his power [any. church], 
 that he be forced to restore it; that so the canons of the fathers be 
 not transgressed, nor the secular fastees be introduced under the 
 mask of the sacred function; and that we may not by degrees 
 secretly lose that liberty which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Re-
 
 150 
 
 deemer of all men, hath given us by his own blood. The Holy 
 Synod hath therefore decreed, that the rights of every province, 
 formerly and from the beginning belonging to it, be preserved 
 clear and inviolable, and that ancient custom prevail. Every Me- 
 tropolitan having power to take copies of the things now trans- 
 acted for his own security. But if any one introduce a regulation 
 contrary to the present determination, the Holy General Synod 
 decrees that it be of no force." 
 
 Constantinopolitan Canon, 2. — " Let not bishops go out of their 
 diocese to churches out of their bounds; but let the Bishop of 
 Alexandria, according to the canon, administer the affairs of Egypt, 
 and the bishops of the east the affairs of the east only, with a salvo 
 to the ancient privileges of the church of Antioch, mentioned in the 
 Nicene canons, Let the bishops of the Asian diocese administer 
 the Asian affairs only, and they of Pontus the Pontic, and they of 
 Thrace the Thracian. And let not bishops go out of their dioceses 
 to ordination, or any administration, unless they be invited. And 
 by the aforesaid canons, concerning dioceses being observed, it is 
 evident that the Provincial Synod will have the management of 
 every province, as was decreed at Nice. The churches amongst 
 the barbarians must be governed according to the customs which 
 prevailed with their ancestors." 
 
 Again. Apostolical Canon, 27. — " The bishops of every province 
 ought to own him who is chief among them, and to esteem him as 
 their head, and to do nothing extraordinary without their consent; 
 but every one those things only which concern his own parish, and 
 the country subject to it. Nor let him that is chief bishop do any- 
 thing [extraordinary] without the consent of all; for so there will 
 be a unity of mind; and God will be glorified by the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and the Father by the Lord in the Holy Spirit, even the 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." 
 
 No. IV. 
 
 Hume's Account of the Origin of the First Fruits and Tenths. 
 
 " The levying of First Fruits was also a new device begun in this 
 reign, (Edw. L), by which his holiness thrust his fingers very fre-
 
 151 
 
 quently into the purses of the faithful : and the King seems to have 
 unwarily given way to it." 
 
 Blackstone's Account of First Fruits and Tenths. 
 
 " These were originally a part of the papal usurpations over the 
 clergy of this kingdom; first introduced by Pandulph, the Pope's 
 legate, during the reigns of King John and Henry III., in the see 
 of Norwich, and afterwards attempted to be made universal by the 
 Popes Clement V. and John XXII., about the beginning of the 
 fourteenth century. The First Fruits, primitice, or annates, were, 
 the first year's whole profit of the spiritual preferment, according to 
 a rate or valor made under the direction of Pope Innocent IV. by 
 Walter, Bishop of Norwich, in 38 Hen. 3, and afterwards ad- 
 vanced in value by commission from Pope Nicholas III. a. d. 1292, 
 20 Edw. 1., which valuation of Pope Nicholas is still preserved in 
 the Exchequer. The Tenths, or decimce, were the tenth part of 
 the annual profit of each living by the same valuation; which was 
 also claimed by the holy see, under no better pretence than a 
 strange misapplication of that precept of the Levitical law, which 
 directs, that the Levites " should offer the tenth part of their tithes 
 as a heave-offering to the Lord, and give it to Aaron the high 
 priest." But this claim of the Pope met with a vigorous resistance 
 from the English Parliament ; and a variety of Acts were passed to 
 prevent and restrain it, particularly the statute 6 Hen. 4, c. 1, 
 which calls it a horrible mischief and damnable custom. But the 
 popish clergy, blindly devoted to the will of a foreign master, still 
 kept it on foot, sometimes more secretly, sometimes more openly 
 and avowedly; so that in the reign of Henry, VIII., it was com- 
 puted, that, in the compass of fifty years, 800,000 ducats had been 
 sent to Rome for first fruits only. And, as the clergy expressed 
 this willingness to contribute so much of their income to the head 
 of the church, it was thought proper (when, in the same reign, the 
 papal power was abolished, and the King was declared the head of 
 the Church of England,) to annex this revenue to the crown ; which 
 was done by statute 26 Hen. 8, c. 3, (confirmed by statute 1 Eliz. 
 c. 4,) and a new valor beneficiorum was then made, by which the 
 clergy are at present rated.
 
 152 
 
 No. VI. 
 
 But a few words will be needed to verify this assertion. Facts 
 are the best of all possible arguments. 
 
 Some time since, having occasion to purchase some trifling 
 article at my bookseller's, the wrapper in which it was folded proved 
 to be a list of the contributors to the Clergy Orphan Society. I 
 opened, and read it. It consisted, chiefly, of IZ. per annum sub- 
 scriptions from the noble and the great, as also from the clergy. I 
 counted 1,100 subscribers; so that about 1,200^. a-year is gathered 
 over all the kingdom from the willing, to aid the poverty of the 
 clergy in providing for their orphans. The array of names, in 
 very small print, looked prodigious ; but, the counting of the names 
 caused me involuntarily to throw off" this ejaculation: — What! and 
 is this all that is gathered throughout the kingdom for these poor 
 sufferers, who are where they are, and what they are, suitors for 
 alms, not from their own fault, but from the cruelty of the system of 
 which their fathers and themselves are thus the victims; the sons of 
 gentry turned into paupers? — beggars ? And this all that can be 
 vouchsafed to them in restitution, from all over the kingdom, when 
 even five clergymen, in five continuous parishes in the valley in 
 which I live receive 500Z. a-year amongst them all, while they are 
 necessitated to expend 1,500^., not one of them having a Parsonage? 
 Why, these five brethren are yearly robbed, by impropriation, as 
 much as the whole community vouchsafes, in its liberality, to re- 
 store to the sons and daughters of many thousand dead clergymen : 
 men, who have exhausted their patrimony in the performance of 
 their duty! 
 
 Another fact, and I have done. 
 
 I find in the list of children apprenticed by the funds of the 
 Sons of the Clergy Festival, that the Earl of Ashburnham's 
 Vicar of Pembrey, Carmarthen, which living has received 2,000Z. 
 from Queen Anne's Bounty, and is only G9Z. a-year, has been 
 driven to seek \0l. for a daughter, to enable him to keep her at 
 school; and \Ql. for a son, with 20Z. from another fund, to appren- 
 tice him to a chemist. What is the value of the impropriation, I 
 should be glad to know, and how much does the impropriator pay to 
 the servant of the altar, who is, according to God's decree, to live by 
 it, in lieu of the due sustentation and maintenance the Incumbent is
 
 153 
 
 guaranteed by Act of Parliament, 15 Rich. 2; 4 Hen. 4, &c. &c.; 
 and for want of which congrua portio he is driven to the heart- 
 breaking necessity of seeking alms for himself and his children 1 
 
 Again, the same list exhibits the Perpetual Curate of Nunkeeling, 
 Yorkshire, which living has received from Queen Anne's Bounty 
 1,000^, of which Mrs. Dixon is the impropriator, the income 55^ 
 a-year, and with no house for the incumbent, seeking to the same 
 fund for 20Z., and to another for 201. more, to apprentice his son to 
 a grocer. 
 
 How long will Christian England tolerate this most unjust, yea, 
 this most iniquitous treatment of God's Priests ? 
 
 The Perpetual Curate of Lindfield, Sussex, who has 60^. a-year, 
 and no house, obtains a trifle to apprentice his son to a draper. The 
 circumstances of this living I cannot discover, because it is stated in 
 the Clerical Guide as having furnished " no return," which is sus- 
 picious; a friend, however, confirms the suspicion, by assuring me 
 it is "a horrible case." 
 
 The Vicar of Heanor, whose living has received in augmentation 
 from Queen Anne's Bounty 2,200/., who has a population of 5,500 
 to oversee, and is remunerated {\) by 109/. per annum, gets 
 from one charity, 20/., and 20/. from another, to apprentice his boy 
 to a chemist somewhere. 
 
 And what wonder in all this ? Whose is the shame ? The 
 Impropriators'. They plunder the livings and the Priests ; and 
 as they make the Priests paupers in their lifetime, make their 
 Widows and their Orphans beggars at their death. And is not the 
 Country disgraced, that sanctions, by tolerating, such enormous 
 injustice, and cruelty, and wrong? 
 
 The same list exhibits other cases, varying in shade and degree 
 from the above; but, in truth, fit companions for the foregoing cases. 
 I have not chosen. the worst. The reader will say, " Impossible!" 
 Not so when he has read, that the Clergyman of Bempton, who has 
 51/. a-year and no house, apprentices, out of the same two funds, 
 his children to a schoolmistress and to a druggist; and that the 
 Priest ofSkircoats, whose stipend is 15/. a-year, and who has a 
 population of 4,060 to attend, applies for money to help to keep his 
 daughter at the Clergy's Daughters School. 
 
 Some people, in their hardness of heart and conceit, are pleased 
 to hold their Reverend brethren in great contempt, for apprenticingj 
 their children to such and such trades. ' I hold them to deserve the 
 
 M
 
 154 
 
 warmest sympathy, the kindliest consideration, from every brother 
 in Orders ; and as long as they enjoy this they will little mind the 
 insolent sneer of the vulgar, great, or little. It is no disgrace to a 
 man that he is robbed ; . . that his poverty is the consequence of the 
 acts of others. The shame, disgrace, and iniquity of the whole 
 case, which is, indeed, not to be exaggerated, lies with those, who 
 are not ashamed to rob man, whose impiety fears not to rob God! 
 Palmam qui meruit fer at, 
 
 1 have said before, it signifies little to a father degrading and 
 family famishing, who he may be that robs the Altar from which 
 they should be fed and sustained. In no case ought Priests to be 
 accessory to such wicked and cruel robbery; but if they choose to 
 make common cause with other impropriators, and with them to 
 shut up their sympathies against the calls of justice and of nature, 
 what treatment can they look for hereafter at the hands of that 
 God who has left them His word to expound, and part of which 
 says, " Touch not mine Anointed. Do my Prophets no harm." 
 
 That such a system is drawing to a close I fervently hope, and 
 indeed anticipate. The following extract, from a recent leading 
 article of The Times, shews that the evil is beginning to be under- 
 stood; and that the public voice is making preparations to exert 
 itself in behalf of the Clergy of its Church; to advocate the 
 rights, and resent the wrongs, of their much injured widows and 
 orphans : — 
 
 " Let but the Capitular Impropriators of great tithes be brought, 
 as they ought to be brought, to release their plundered and impo- 
 verished vicarages, and we shall see whether other impropriators 
 cannot be induced, by some wholesome law of disgorging, to do 
 their duty also." — June 4, 1840.
 
 t-H «3 
 
 Grand 
 
 Total of 
 
 AugmenU- 
 
 tions In each 
 
 Diocese. 
 
 £. 
 
 32,100 
 61,600 
 
 109,000 
 40,000 
 54,400 
 69,600 
 
 488,800 
 46,500 
 
 256, ."00 
 93,600 
 30,100 
 
 142,000 
 80,200 
 89,800 
 96,000 
 
 294,300 
 
 250,800 
 .'.6,700 
 
 217,500 
 65,600 
 29,400 
 6,200 
 63,900 
 64,900 
 50,500 
 
 460,400 
 
 o 
 n 
 
 < 
 
 £. 
 
 27,800 
 52,000 
 55,400 
 23,400 
 24,600 
 51,800 
 
 332,600 
 34,200 
 
 242,400 
 52,200 
 22,200 
 
 10()?400 
 58,200 
 58,400 
 88,000 
 
 208,400 
 
 187,200 
 28,400 
 
 179,200 
 33,400 
 13,600 
 800 
 32,400 
 42,400 
 35,200 
 
 350,900 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 Total of 
 Augmenta- 
 tions to 
 meet Bene* 
 factions. 
 
 £. 
 
 4,300 
 
 9,600 
 53,600 
 16,600 
 29,800 
 17,800 
 156,200 
 12,:iOO 
 13,900 
 41,400 
 
 7,900 
 41,000 
 22,000 
 31,400 
 
 8,000 
 85,900 
 63,600 
 28,300 
 38,300 
 32.200 
 15,800 
 
 5,400 
 
 31.500 
 
 22,500 
 
 15,.300 
 
 109,500 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 Total of Total of 
 Augmcnta- Augmenta- 
 tions by tions by Par- 
 Royal liamentary 
 Bounty. Grant. 
 
 £. 
 
 14,. 300 
 28,000 
 45,800 
 17,400 
 32.800 
 31,800 
 
 264,400 
 18,900 
 91,100 
 48,800 
 14,100 
 85,900 
 37,400 
 22,800 
 30,800 
 
 158,500 
 81,600 
 19,700 
 72,.300 
 35,200 
 11,800 
 800 
 33,700 
 31,700 
 21,900 
 
 228,800 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 £. 
 
 17,800 
 33,000 
 63,200 
 22,600 
 2 1 ,600 
 37.800 
 
 224,400 
 27,600 
 
 165,200 
 44,800 
 16,000 
 56,100 
 42,800 
 67,000 
 65,200 
 
 1.35,800 
 
 166,200 
 37,000 
 
 145,200 
 30,400 
 17,600 
 5,400 
 30,200 
 33,200 
 28,600 
 
 231,600 
 
 < 
 
 
 £. 
 
 14,000 
 21,600 
 23,000 
 10,800 
 17,400 
 26,200 
 204,600 
 14,200 
 89,000 
 29,800 
 11,800 
 63,000 
 30,200 
 12,600 
 28,400 
 121,600 
 64,200 
 13,000 
 57,600 
 17,400 
 7,000 
 600 
 19,800 
 25,400 
 16,400 
 187,300 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 Amount OI 
 Augmenta- 
 tions to 
 meet Bene- 
 factions. 
 
 £. 
 
 300 
 
 7,000 
 22,200 
 
 6,000 
 15,400 
 
 5,600 
 69,800 
 
 4,700 
 
 2,100 
 19,300 
 
 2,300 
 22,900 
 
 7,200 
 10,200 
 
 2,400 
 86,900 
 20,400 
 
 6,700 
 14,700 
 17,800 
 
 4,800 
 200 
 
 13,980 
 6,300 
 5,500 
 
 41,500 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 a 
 
 o 
 
 n 
 
 ^} 
 •< 
 tH 
 
 <§ 
 
 ?gn 
 z ?•= 
 
 iir 
 
 £. 
 
 13,800 
 
 30,400 
 
 31,800 
 
 12,600 
 
 7,200 
 
 25,600 
 
 128,000 
 
 20,000 
 
 153,400 
 
 22,400 
 
 10,400 
 
 37,400 
 
 28,000 
 
 45,800 
 
 59,000 
 
 86,800 
 
 123,000 
 
 15,400 
 
 121,600 
 
 16,000 
 
 6,600 
 
 200 
 
 12,600 
 
 17,000 
 
 18,800 
 
 163,600 
 
 o 
 o 
 o 
 oc" 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 o 
 
 Amount of 
 Augmenta- 
 tions to 
 meet Bene- 
 factions. 
 
 £. 
 
 4,000 
 
 2,600 
 31,400 
 10,000 
 14,400 
 12,200 
 96,400 
 
 7,600 
 11,800 
 22,400 
 
 5,000 
 18,700 
 14,800 
 21,200 
 
 5,600 
 49,000 
 43,200 
 21,600 
 23,000 
 14,400 
 11,000 
 
 5,200 
 17,600 
 
 16,200 
 
 9,800 
 68,000 
 
 NEFAC- 
 TiON of 
 
 ^mm souls 
 
 and up- 
 wards. 
 
 „^«^^^j,-..o :,..^_«22-"-""'-*"c'1 
 
 It 
 
 11 
 z = 
 
 ed BY 
 
 LOT of 1 
 1000 Souls 
 
 and 
 upwards. 
 
 -O — -*"■-.— ^■■-5 CI ^OOOCOmt-C^OCO^CO >- — 22^^^ 
 
 o 
 
 oc 
 
 Whole 1 
 dumber 
 of Liv- [ 
 
 ings 
 
 aug- 
 mented. 
 
 «oo=>=^-o^t:SSSgg2^2g2SS«SSJ:;- 
 
 00 
 CI 
 
 = 1 
 
 a 
 
 "1 
 
 ='2S:gssg2iSS::ss^:25?;2:ss2:-'SSSK 
 
 00 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 « ! 
 
 Description of 
 
 augmented 
 Livings — whe- 
 ther Curacies, 
 Rectories, or 
 Vicarages. 
 
 j^-"'*'^S" — •^«o»--=^««=^'^"'~S5'° — "'*""'^""2 
 
 pi'"^«c;----=o— -r-P«iM «-■ --oj-M 
 
 i 
 
 jjC4^t,-"'Og««>-- C-I-'-' C< 
 
 NAMES 
 OP 
 
 DIOCESES. 
 
 St. Asaph . 
 Bangor . 
 Bath & Wells 
 Bristol . . 
 Canterbury . 
 Carlisle 
 Chester . . 
 Cliicbester 
 St. David's . 
 Durham . 
 Ely . . . 
 Exeter . . 
 Gloucester . 
 Hereford . 
 Llandaff. . 
 Lich. & Cov. 
 Lincoln . . 
 London 
 Norwich. 
 ■Oxford. . 
 Pe'crboro' . 
 Rorhester. 
 Sali-sbury . 
 Winchester 
 Worcester . 
 York . . 
 
 o 
 H 
 
 — — _ o 
 
 i§2 

 
 156 
 
 " A Summary of the Benefices in each Diocese, not in the Patronae^e of the Church or efthe Viiiver 
 sities, which have received AU&MKNTATiONS from the Royal Bounty, and from Parliamentary 
 Grants, stating the Amount they Jiave received from these Sowces, and from the Benefactions of 
 benevolent Individuals. 
 
 To 1825 inclusive. 
 
 
 
 
 Augmented by 
 
 
 
 
 ! No. of 
 Diocese. i Bene 
 j fices. 
 
 Queen 
 Anne's 
 Bounty. 
 
 Benefac- 
 _ . tions and 
 Patrons, gubscr.p- 
 tions. 
 
 Incum- 
 bents. 
 
 Be- 1 
 
 Tnl' iB,Lot. 
 Trusts. 1 
 
 To meet 
 
 Benefac 
 
 tions. 
 
 Bj Lot. 
 
 St. Asaph 
 
 Bangor 
 
 Bath & WeUs 
 
 Bristol 
 
 Canterbury • ■ 
 
 Carlisle 
 
 Chester 
 
 Chichester . . 
 St. David's • • 
 
 Durham 
 
 p-lv 
 
 £. 
 14 
 21 
 74 
 42 
 18 
 36 
 
 277 
 
 22 
 
 117 
 
 31 
 
 7 
 
 80 
 
 42 
 
 82 
 
 67 
 
 209 
 
 232 
 
 57 
 
 208 
 
 27 
 
 38 
 
 10 
 
 33 
 
 .38 
 
 35 
 
 260 
 
 £. 
 
 1,600 
 600 
 
 11,800 
 6,600 
 2,400 
 4,800 
 
 56,200 
 
 2,200 
 
 .5,600 
 
 6,0lH) 
 
 400 
 
 10,700 
 4,800 
 
 12,200 
 3,200 
 
 36,300 
 
 23,400 
 10,800 
 17,000 
 3,000 
 
 7,000 
 
 2,000 
 4,600 
 4,800 
 4,600 
 31,000 
 
 £. 
 
 200 
 1,800 
 4,700 
 
 3,777 
 200 
 
 2,200 
 25,735 
 
 2,010 
 800 
 
 2,150 
 
 3,600 
 3,125 
 6,3fH» 
 2,500 
 
 14,1.30 
 
 10,625 
 2,220 
 !l,660 
 3,667 
 4,350 
 
 2,900 
 2,200 
 3,.570 
 12,810 
 
 £. 
 
 1,500 
 
 575 
 7,640 
 5,300 
 1,500 
 
 800 
 38,518 
 2,050 
 4,010 
 5,350 
 
 100 
 4,350 
 3,110 
 8,220 
 
 700 
 
 21. .977 
 
 11,020 
 7,051 
 
 10,5.30 
 1,600 
 2,300 
 500 
 1,840 
 3,100 
 3,(I(J0 
 
 25,018 
 
 £. 
 
 2,600 
 100 
 
 500 
 
 3,350 
 
 200 
 100 
 
 1,950 
 200 
 (00 
 
 400 
 
 3,100 
 
 2,233 
 
 1,008 
 
 1,540 
 
 300 
 
 150 
 1,100 
 
 1,800 
 
 £. 
 
 6,620 
 1,300 
 1,800 
 2,600 
 14,908 
 
 1,050 
 2,8(M1 
 
 300 
 5,950 
 
 700 
 1 ,900 
 1,200 
 14,200 
 
 6,8(H1 
 2,350 
 1,600 
 1,000 
 l,-!00 
 1,500 
 1,650 
 1,100 
 593 
 4,850 
 
 £. 
 
 5,400 
 l,(i(K) 
 
 19,600 
 7.200 
 2,200 
 
 12,200 
 
 82.200 
 5,800 
 
 5.3,600 
 5,200 
 2,000 
 
 20,000 
 9,600 
 
 24,<;oo 
 
 30,200 
 55,800 
 
 64,000 
 8,000 
 
 75,800 
 5,800 
 .5,400 
 
 4,000 
 
 8,200 
 
 9,fKI0 
 
 78,400 
 
 £. 
 
 3,000 
 13,200 
 4,200 
 2,700 
 900 
 38,700 
 3,000 
 300 
 6,600 
 
 6,.300 
 
 2,400 
 
 6,600 
 
 600 
 
 16,20(» 
 
 9,300 
 2,400 
 8,100 
 3,300 
 900 
 
 2,400 
 3,300 
 3,600 
 15,300 
 
 £. 
 
 7.800 
 7,000 
 
 10,200 
 9,200 
 7,600 
 
 11,800 
 
 124,800 
 
 5,200 
 
 37,000 
 
 12,000 
 400 
 
 Exeter 
 
 Gloucester . • 
 
 Hereford 
 
 LlandaflF 
 
 Lichfie'd Xr \ 
 Coventry / 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 London 
 
 Norwich 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Peterborough 
 Rochester . . ■ • 
 Salisbury • •. . 
 Winchester . ■ 
 
 Worcester 
 
 York 
 
 28,000 
 15,600 
 8,000 
 9,800 
 
 71,000 
 
 26,000 
 8,200 
 
 31,200 
 
 5,200 
 
 5,000 
 
 600 
 
 5,800 
 
 10,400 
 9,800 
 
 96,200 
 
 Crown 
 
 2,077 
 
 328 
 
 273,600 
 35,200 
 
 125,230 171 060 
 27,623 
 
 21,231 
 3,810 
 
 78,171 
 
 1.3,063 
 
 596,400 
 84,400 
 
 165,300 
 11, 7(H) 
 
 563,800 
 92,800 
 
 
 2,405 
 
 308,800 
 
 125,230 199,284 
 
 25,041 
 
 91,234 680,800 
 
 177,000 
 
 656.6(XI 
 
 " In augmentations where the patron gives nothing, and in all aiigmeiitalious by lot, should 
 the presentation or advowson be sold, then whatever is produced by the charitable increase of 
 the income is so much clear gain to the patron. But surely the clergy are not taxed for such a 
 purpose as this. It is quite enough, if lay livings are eligible to be augmented by the funds 
 raised for the better maintenance of the poor clergy; but that the patrons, who have the 
 greatest portion of the tithes and ecclesiastical revenues of the parishes, should also, by barter 
 and sale, get pecuniary benefit from the augmentations, rendered necessary by t'neir selfishness, 
 is very far from reasonable." 
 
 9 08 
 
 o 
 
 LONDON: W. M'DOWALL, PRINTER, I'EMJBERTON ROV.', GOUGIl SftUARE.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 OWIYERSl- 
 
 >4. t. 
 
 LOS ANCUEB 
 
 TTRRARY 
 
 AUFOBlOfc
 
 UC SOUTHLRN REGIONAL LIBRAHY hALILITY 
 
 AA 000 979 584 
 
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