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232 State of the Curates of the Church of England .
Untitled Article
moreover , but thinks on insufficient grounds , that his plan of securing to the working clergy the full amount of their legal claim , would remove the objections of Dissenters against the enormous revenue of the dignitaries of the Church . We allow that we should think less ill of the dignitaries if they
allowed those whose exertions mainly teach the people , in so far as they are taught , and mainly support the Established Church , a sum sufficient to support existence ; but we boldly declare that nothing can reconcile us to the enormous revenues of the hierarchy , that nothing can reconcile us to the union of Church with State .
As to our author's plan , we mean not to examine it in detail . We think we could suggest a far more efficacious remedy . The evils complained of evidently arise from a superabundant supply . Curtail this ; and , the demand remaining the same , the price of labour will rise . This would prove an effectual remedy ; but it is not , we know , likely to be acted on . While
there are so many good things in the Church , the portals will be crowded with aspirants . All , it is known , cannot enjoy a well-foddered stall , or a luxuriant rectorship , or a princely diocese . But a few prizes will cause thousands to risk their all in this lottery ; for who knows , thinks each , but that I may be the happy man whom the king will delight to honour ? But the Parish Priest may , we fear , rest assured , that as it is now so it will
be-Literally , " unto everyone that hath shall be given , and he shall have abundance ; but from him that hath not , shall be taken away even that which he bath /' We ground our fears that our author ' s plan will prove fruitless upon the knowledge of the past . The history of Church Property is a history of fraud . Its acquisition , in almost nine cases out of every ten , has been effected in
opposition both to the laws of man and the laws of God . In vain have legislators tried again and again to arrest the fraudulent practices of the clergy ; political wisdom was outdone by ecclesiastical intrigue . Tithes were at first free-will offerings , but the clergy soon converted custom into right , and charity into compulsion . The legislature of the various Christian kingdoms they got to sanction their nefarious appropriation ; and this effected , they proceeded to take to themselves the whole of that contribution of which
onethird alone was their due . But with this they were not satisfied ; the terrors of the invisible world were wickedly brought to bear on rninds originally weak and harassed by a consciousness of crime , and most valuable bequests were extorted from the terror-struck religionist—extorted by a subtle blending of hope and fear in articulo mortis . In vain , as we have before said , did the Legislature try to check the growing evil . Provision after provision was made to no purpose , so great was the bad ingenuity of
the clergy . In reference to the acquisitions made by the clergy it was that the various statutes of Mortmain were made ; "in deducing the history of which , " says Blackstone , " it will be matter of curiosity to observe the great address and subtle contrivance of the ecclesiastics in eluding from time to time the laws in being , and the zeal with which successive Parliaments have pursued them through all their finesses ; how new remedies were still
the parents of new evasions ; till the Legislature at last , though with difficulty , hath obtained a decisive victory . " There is one class of men , and the sole class , benefited by the nefarious practices of the clergy—the lawyers . Some of their most lucrative contrivances they owe to ecclesiastical sagacity . The clergy had the honour of inventing those fictitious adjudications of right known by the name of common recoveries . And when they were driven out of all their former holds , they devised a new method of obtaining pro-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/8/
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