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Untitled Article
four separate portions , of which one only was for the maintenance of the priesthood . How this diversity arises it is not easy to sr * y with certainty . For ourselves we are disposed to think that the accounts they give relate to different periods , and that at first tithes were divided into four portions , but that in process of time the clergy , seeking to appropriate the whole to themselves , reduced the portions into three . The earliest account which we have met with of their division , is of that made by Charlemagne into four parts—one
to maintain the edifice of the church , the second to support the poor , the third the bishop , and the fourth the parochial clergy . It so : > n happened , however , that the poor were forgotten , the Church neglected , and the whole of the tenth of the land went to the unholy purpose of maintaining the clergy ; unholy we call it because unrighteous , and unrighteous it was to rob the poor in order to feed the priest . But had the clergy rested content with the appropriation of one tenth of the earth ' s produce , we should have protested indeed , but not denounced their rapacity . The tenth of the
produce of the land , however , satisfied them not . The sins of the living , and the fears of the dying , they made alike occasions for the augmentations of their wealth . They told the poor and ignorant people of a purgatory , into which all but the best and the worst , that is , nine-tenths of the Christian world , were sure to go , there to endure punishment in proportion to their sins . But over this purgatory , they persuaded their credulous hearers , they had almost unlimited power , and out of it they could and would , by their
prayers , redeem them , provided a portion of their wealth was left to the Church . Scarcely , therefore , did an individual of any property leave this world , but he made a bequest to the priesthood . And should such an unusual occurrence take place , or should the amount of the legacy be too small to prompt the piety of the clergy to a requisite order and perseverance , then the surviving relatives deemed it their bounden duty to supply of themselves the deficiency .
The majority of human delinquencies were , they tanght the people , of a venial nature . These the clergy had the power to pardon , but this power could not be exerted unless the machine were set in motion by the allmoving power of gold . Pardon and immunity were therefore bought and sold ; the greatest crimes could be expiated , provided riches were abundant , and the needy sinner alone received the merited punishment . And , in fact , riches without end flowed , on this account , into the treasury of the priesthood . Religious houses were all over the kingdom founded and enriched as the penalty due to sin , and the price paid for pardon .
Another chief means by which the clergy enriched themselves consisted in the doctrine which they taught of the intercession of the saints . The saints happily arrived in heaven interceded for sinners upon earth . But saints in heaven , the people thought , resembled their servants the priests upon earth , and would lend their good offices only in consequence of liberal donations . Hence the shrines and chapels erected to their honour , their
images and representations set up in their temples . Hence splendid and costly gifts to those who served and kept their shrines . New saints were thought to possess the greatest influence in the court of heaven , as new favourites do in earthly courts ; hence a constant increase of canonized individuals , of chapels to their honour and for their service , and abundant tributes , in order to secure their favouf and intercession .
By these and a variety of other means the priesthood daily augmented their affluence . The mystic terrors of the invisible world they cunningly and wickedly wielded to draw from an ignorant and superstitious people the
Untitled Article
History ana Mystery of Church Property . 301
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 301, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/13/
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