and often more able to provide for a numerous family than some of ours can do with a rectory called 3007. a-year. His daughters shall go to service, or be sent apprentice to the sempstress of the next town; and his sons are put to honest trades. This is the usual course of an English country vicar, from 201. to 60l. a-year. As to the clergy of our own kingdom, their livings are generally larger. Not originally, or by the bounty of princes, parliaments, or charitable endowments, for the same degradations (and as to glebes, a much greater) have been made here, but, by the destruction and desolation in the long wars between the invaders and the natives; during which time a great part of the bishops' lauds and almost all the glebes were lost in the confusion. The first invaders had almost the whole kingdom divided among them. New invaders succeeded, and drove out their predecessors as native Irish. These were expelled by others who came after, and upon the same pretensions. Thus it went on for several | hundred years, and in some degree even to our own memories. And thus it will probably go on, although not in a martial way, to the end of the world. For not only the purchasers of debentures forfeited in 1641 were all of English birth, but those after the Restoration, and many who came hither even since the Revolution, are looked upon as perfect Irish; directly con trary to the practice of all wise nations, and particularly of the Greeks and Romans, in establishing their colonies, by which name Ireland is very absurdly called. Under these distractions the conquerors always seized what lands they could with little ceremony, whether they belonged to the church or not: thus the glebes were almost universally exposed to the first seizers, and could never be recovered, although the grants, with the particular denominations, are manifest and still in being. The whole lands of the see of Waterford were wholly taken by one family; the like is reported of other bishoprics.

King James I., who deserves more of the church of Ireland than all other princes put together, having the forfeitures of vast tracts of land in the northern parts, (I think commonly called the escheated counties,) having granted some hundred thousand acres of these lands to certain Scotch and English favourites, was prevailed on by some great prelates to grant to some sees in the north, and to many parishes there, certain parcels of land for the augmentation of poor bishoprics, did likewise endow many parishes with glebes for the incumbents, whereof a good number escaped the depredations of 1641 and 1688. These lands, when they were granted by king James, consisted mostly of woody ground, wherewith those parts of this island were then overrun. This is well known, universally allowed, and by some in part remembered; the rest being, in some places, not stubbed out to this day. And the value of the lands was consequently very inconsiderable till Scotch colonies came over in swarms upon great encouragement to make them habitable, at least for such a race of strongbodied people, who came hither from their own bleak barren highlands, as it were into a paradise; who soon were able to get straw for their bedding, instead of a bundle of heath spread on the ground and sprinkled with water. Here by degrees they acquired some degree of politeness and civility from such neighbouring Irish as were still left after Tyrone's last rebellion, and are since grown almost entire, possessors of the north. Thus, at length, the woods being rooted up, the land was brought in and tilled, and the glebes, which could not before yield two-pence an acre, are equal to the best, sometimes affording the minister a good demesne, and some land to let.

bent. For, as the lands were of little value by the want of inhabitants to cultivate them, and many of the churches levelled to the ground, particularly by the fanatic zeal of those rebellious saints who murdered their king, destroyed the church, and overthrew monarchy; (for all which there is a humiliation-day appointed by law, and soon approaching ;) so, in order to give a tolerable maintenance to a minister, and the country being too poor, as well as devotion too low, to think of building new churches, it was found necessary to repair some one church which had least suffered, and join sometimes three or more, enough for a bare support to some clergyman who knew not where to provide himself better. This was a case of absolute necessity, to prevent heathenism, as well as popery, from overrunning the nation. The consequence of these unions was very different in different parts; for, in the north, by the Scotch settlement, their numbers daily increasing by new additions from their own country, and their prolific quality peculiar to northern people; and, lastly, by their universally feeding upon oats, (which grain, under its several preparations and denominations, is the only natural luxury of that hardy people,) the value of tithes increased so prodigiously, that at this day, I confess, several united parishes ought to be divided, taking in so great a compass that it is almost impossible for the people to travel timely to their own parish church, or their little churches to contain half their number, though the revenue would be sufficient to maintain two, or perhaps three, worthy clergymen with decency; provided the times mend, or that they were honestly dealt with, which I confess is seldom the case. I shall name only one, and it is the deanery of Derry; the revenue whereof, if the dean could get his dues, exceeding that of some bishoprics, both by the compass and fertility of the soil, the number as well as industry of the inhabitants, the conveniency of exporting their corn to Dublin and foreign parts; and, lastly, by the accidental discovery of marl in many places of the several parishes. Yet all this revenue is wholly founded upon corn, for I am told there is hardly an acre of glebe for the dean to plant and build on.

I am therefore of opinion that a real undefalcated revenue of 6007. a-year is a sufficient income for a country dean in this kingdom; and since the rents consist wholly of tithes, two parishes, to the amount of that value, should be united, and the dean reside as minister in that of Down, and the remaining parishes be divided among worthy clergymen to about 3007. a-year to each. The deanery of Derry, which is a large city, might be left worth 8007. a-year, and Raphoe according as it shall be thought proper. These three are the only opulent deaneries in the whole kingdom, and, as I am informed, consist all of tithes, which was an unhappy expedient in the church, occasioned by the sacrilegious robberies during the several times of confusion and war; insomuch that at this day there is hardly any remainder left of dean and chapter lands in Ireland, that delicious morsel swallowed so greedily in England under the fanatic usurpations.

for some years past have actually received 601., and that with the utmost difficulty and vexation. I am therefore at a loss what kind of valuators the bishops will make use of; and whether the starving vicar shall be forced to build his house with the money he never received.

any other part of misconduct; not to mention ignorance and stupidity.

I could name certain gentlemen of the gown, whose awkward, spruce, prim, sneering, and smirking countenances, the very tone of their voices, and an ungainly strut in their walk, without one single talent for any one office, having contrived to get good preferment by the mere force of flattery and cringing: for which two virtues (the only two virtues they pretend to) they were, however, utterly unqualified; and whom, if I were in power, although they were my nephews or had married my nieces, I could never, in point of good

But it is very reasonable to hope, and heartily to be wished by all those who have the least regard to our holy religion, as hitherto established, or to a learned, pious, diligent, conversable clergyman, or even to common humanity, that the honourable house of commons will, in their great wisdom, justice, and tenderness to innocent men, consider these bills in another light. It is said they well know this kingdom not to be so overstocked with neighbouring gentry; but a discreet learned clergyman, with a competency fit for one of his education, may be an entertaining, a useful, and sometimes a necessary companion. That, although such a clergyman may not be able constantly to find beef and wine for his own family, yet he may be allowed sometimes to afford both to a neighbour without distressing himself; and the rather, because he may expect at least as good a return. It will probably be considered that in many desolate parts there may not be always a sufficient number of persons considerable enough to be trusted with commissions of the peace, which several of the clergy now supply, much better than a little, hedge, contemptible, illiterate vicar from 207. to 501. a-year, the son of a weaver, pedler, tailor, or miller, can be presumed to do.

The landlords and farmers, by this scheme, can find no profit; but will certainly be losers. For instance, if the large northern livings be split into a dozen parishes or more, it will be very necessary for the little threadbare gownman, with his wife, his proctor, and every child who can crawl, to watch the fields at harvesttime, for fear of losing a single sheaf, which he could not afford under peril of a day's starving; for, according to the Scotch proverb, a hungry louse bites sore. This would of necessity breed an infinite number of wrangles and litigious suits in the spiritual courts; and put the wretched pastor at perpetual variance with his whole parish. But as they have hitherto stood, a clergyman established in a competent living is not under the necessity of being so sharp, vigilant, and exacting. On the contrary, it is well known and allowed that the clergy round the kingdom think themselves well treated if they lose only one single third of their legal demands.

The honourable house may perhaps be inclined to conceive that my lords the bishops enjoy as ample a power, both spiritual and temporal, as will fully suffice to answer every branch of their office; that they want no laws to regulate the conduct of those clergymen over whom they preside; that if non-residence be a grievance, it is the patron's fault, who makes not a better choice, or caused the plurality. That if the general impartial character of persons chosen into the church had been more regarded, and the motive of party, alliance, kindred, flatterers, ill judgment, or personal favour regarded less, there would be fewer complaints of non-residence, want of care, blamable behaviour, or

VOL. II.

in Connaught.

The honourable house of commons may likewise perhaps consider that the gentry of this kingdom differ from all others upon earth, being less capable of employments in their own country than any others who come from abroad; and that most of them have little expectation of providing for their younger children otherwise than by the church, in which there might be some hopes of getting a tolerable maintenance. For, after the patrons should have settled their sons, their nephews, their nieces, their dependents, and their followers invited over from the other side, there would still remain an overplus of smaller church preferments, to be given to such clergy of the nation who shall have their quantum of whatever merit may be then in fashion. But by these bills they will be all as absolutely excluded as if they had passed under the denomination of Tories, unless they can be contented at the utmost with 507. a-year; which, by the difficulties of collecting tithes in Ireland and the daily increasing miseries of the people, will hardly rise to half that sum.

It is observed that the divines sent over hither to govern this church have not seemed to consider the dif ference between both kingdoms with respect to the inferior clergy. As to themselves, indeed, they find a large revenue in lands, let at one quarter value, which consequently must be paid while there is a penny left among us; and the public distress so little affects their interests, that their fines are now higher than ever: they content themselves to suppose that whatever a parish is said to be worth comes all into the parson's pocket.

The poverty of great numbers among the clergy of England has been the continual complaint of all men who wish well to the church, and many schemes have been thought of to redress it; yet an English vicar of 401. a-year lives much more comfortably than one of double the value in Ireland. His farmers, generally speaking, are able and willing to pay him his full dues: he has a decent church of ancient standing, filled every Lord's-day with a large congregation of plain people, well clad, and behaving themselves as if they believed in God and Christ. He has a house and barn in repair, a field or two to graze his cows, with a garden and orchard. No guest expects more from him than a pot of ale; he lives like an honest, plain farmer, as his wife is dressed but little better than Goody. He is sometimes graciously invited by the squire, where he sits at a humble distance: if he gets the love of his people, they often make him little useful presents; he is happy by being born to no higher expectation; for he is usually the son of some ordinary tradesman or middling farmer. His learning is much of a size with his birth and education; no more of either than what a poor hungry servitor can be expected to bring with him from his college. It would be tedious to show the reverse of all this in our distant poorer parishes through most parts of Ireland, wherein every reader may make the comparison.

Lastly, the honourable house of commons may consider whether the scheme of multiplying beggarly clergymen through the whole kingdom, who must all have

Q

votes for choosing parliament-men, (provided they can prove their freeholds to be worth 40s. per annum, ultra reprisas,) may not, by their numbers, have great influence upon elections, being entirely under the dependence of their bishops. For, by a moderate computation, after all the divisions and subdivisions of parishes that my lords the bishops have power to make by their new laws, there will, as soon as the present set of clergy goes off, be raised an army of ecclesiastical militants, able enough for any kind of service except that of the altar.

I am indeed in some concern about a fund for building a thousand or two churches, wherein these probationers may read their wall lectures; and begin to doubt they must be contented with barns, which barns will be one great advancing step toward an accommodation with our true Protestant brethren the dissenters.

The scheme of encouraging clergymen to build houses, by dividing a living of 5001. a-year into ten parts, is a contrivance the meaning whereof has got on the wrong side of my comprehension; unless it may be argued that bishops build no houses because they are so rich, and therefore the inferior clergy will certainly build if you reduce them to beggary. But I knew a very rich man of quality in England who could never be persuaded to keep a servant out of livery, because such servants would be expensive, and apt in time to look like gentlemen; whereas the others were ready to submit to the basest offices, and at a cheaper pennyworth might increase his retinue.

I hear it is the opinion of many wise men that before these bills pass both houses they should be sent back to England with the following clauses inserted:

First, that whereas there may be about a dozen double bishoprics in Ireland, those bishoprics should be split, and given to different persons; and those of a single denomination be also divided into two, three, or four parts, as occasion shall require; otherwise there may be a question started whether twenty-two prelates can effectually extend their paternal care and unlimited power for the protection and correction of so great a number of spiritual subjects. But this proposal will meet with such furious objections that I shall not insist upon it; for I well remember to have read what a terrible fright the frogs were in upon a report that the sun was going to marry.

Another clause should be, that none of these twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty pounders may be suffered to marry, under the penalty of immediate deprivation, their marriages declared null, and their children bastards; for some desponding people take the kingdom to be in no condition of encouraging so numerous a breed of beggars.

A third clause will be necessary, that these humble gentry should be absolutely disqualified from giving votes in elections for parliament-men.

Others add a fourth; which is, a clause of indulgence, that these reduced divines may be permitted to follow any lawful ways of living, which will not call them too often or too far from their spiritual offices; for, unless I misapprehend, they are supposed to have episcopal ordination. For example; they may be lappers of linen, bailiffs of the manor; they may let blood or apply plasters for three miles round; they may get a dispensation to hold the clerkship and sextonship of their own parish in commendam. Their wives and daughters may make shirts for the neighbourhood; or, if a barrack be near, for the soldiers in linen countries they may card and spin, and keep a few looms in the house; they may let lodgings, and sell a pot of ale without doors, but not at home, unless to sober company and at regular hours. It is by some thought a little hard that in an affair of the last consequence to the

very being of the clergy in the points of liberty and property, as well as in their abilities to perform their duty, this whole reverend body, who are the established instructors of the nation in Christianity and moral virtues, and are the only persons concerned, should be the sole persons not consulted. Let any scholar show the like precedent in Christendom for twelve hundred years past. An act of parliament for settling or selling an estate in a private family is never passed until all parties give consent. But in the present case the whole body of the clergy is, as themselves apprehend, determined to utter ruin, without once expecting or asking their opinion; and this by a scheme contrived only by one part of the convocation, while the other part, which has been chosen in the usual forms, wants only the regal permission to assemble and consult about the affairs of the church, as their predecessors have always done in former ages; where it is presumed the lower house has a power of proposing canons, and a negative voice, as well as the upper. And God forbid (say these objectors) that there should be a real separate interest between the bishops and clergy, any more than there is between a man and his wife, a king and his people, or Christ and his church.

It seems there is a provision in the bill that no parish shall be cut into scraps without the consent of several persons, who can be no sufferers in the matter; but I cannot find that the clergy lay much weight on this caution; because they argue that the very persons from whom these bills took their rise will have the greatest share in the decision.

I do not by any means conceive the crying sin of the clergy in this kingdom to be that of non-residence. I am sure it is many degrees less so here than in England, unless the possession of pluralities may pass under that name; and if this be a fault, it is well known to whom it must be imputed: I believe upon a fair inquiry (and I hear an inquiry is to be made) they will appear to be most pardonably few; especially considering how many parishes have not an inch of glebe, and how difficult it is upon any reasonable terms to find a place of habitation. And therefore God knows whether my lords the bishops will be soon able to convince the clergy, or those who have any regard for that venerable body, that the chief motive in their lordships' minds by procuring these bills was to prevent the sin of nonresidence; while the universal opinion of almost every clergyman in the kingdom, without distinction of party, taking in even those who are not likely to be sufferers, stands directly against them.

If some livings in the north may be justly thought too large a compass of land, which makes it inconvenient for the remotest inhabitants to attend the service of the church, which in some instances may be true, no reasonable clergyman would oppose a proper remedy by particular acts of parliament.

Thus, for instance, the deanery of Down, a country deanery I think without a cathedral, depending wholly upon a union of parishes joined together in a time when the land lay waste and thinly inhabited, since those circumstances are so prodigiously changed for the better, may properly be lessened, leaving a decent competency to the dean, and placing rectories in the remaining churches, which are now served only by stipendiary curates.

The case may be probably the same in other parts: and such a proceeding, discreetly managed, would be truly for the good of the church.

For it is to be observed that the dean and chapter lands, which in England were all seized under the fanatic usurpation, are things unknown in Ireland, having been long ravished from the church by a succession of confusions, and tithes applied in their stead to support that ecclesiastical dignity.

The late archbishop of Dublin [Dr. Wm. King] had a very different way of encouraging the clergy of his diocese to residence: when a lease had run out seven years or more, he stipulated with the tenant to resign up twenty or thirty acres to the minister of the parish where it lay convenient, without lessening his former rent, and with no great abatement of the fine; and this he did in the parts near Dublin, where land is at the highest rates, leaving a small chiefry for the minister to pay, hardly a sixth part of the value. I doubt not that almost every bishop in the kingdom may do the same generous act, with less damage to their sees than his late grace of Dublin, much of whose lands were out in fee-farms, or leases for lives; and I am sorry that the good example of such a prelate

has not been followed.

But a great majority of the clergy's friends cannot hitherto reconcile themselves to this project, which they call a levelling principle, that must inevitably root out the seeds of all honest emulation, the legal parent of the greatest virtue and most generous actions among men; but which, in the general opinion (for I do not pretend to offer my own), will never more have room to exert itself in the breast of any clergyman whom this kingdom shall produce.

But whether the consequences of these bills may, by the virtues and frailties of future bishops sent over hither to rule the church, terminate in good or evil, I shall not presume to determine, since God can work the former out of the latter. However, one thing I can venture to assert, that from the earliest ages of Christianity to the minute I am now writing, there never was a precedent of such a proceeding; much less was it to be feared, hoped, or apprehended, from such hands in any Christian country; and so it may pass for more than a phoenix, because it has risen without any assistance from the ashes of its sire.

The appearance of so many dissenters at the hearing of this cause, is what, I am told, has not been charged to the account of their prudence or moderation; because that action has been censured as a mark of triumph and insult before the victory is complete : since neither of these bills has yet passed the house of commons, and some are pleased to think it not impossible that they may be rejected. Neither do I hear that there is an enacting clause in either of the bills to apply any part of the divided or subdivided tithes toward increasing the stipends of the sectaries. So that these gentlemen seem to be gratified like him who, after having been kicked down stairs, took comfort when he saw his friend kicked down after him.

I have heard many more objections against several particulars of both these bills; but they are of a high nature, and carry such dreadful innuendoes, that I dare not mention them; resolving to give no offence, because I well know how obnoxious I have long been (although I conceive without any fault of my own) to the zeal and principles of those who place all difference in opinion concerning public matters to the score of disaffection; whereof I am at least as innocent as the loudest of my detractors.

SOME REASONS

AGAINST THE BILL FOR SETTLING THE TITHE OF HEMP, FLAX, &c., BY A MODUS."

THE clergy did little expect to have any cause of complaint against the present house of commons, who in A bill was presented in the Irish house of commons for encouraging the growth of flax, by which it was provided that the tithe upon that production should be commuted for a certain modus, or composition in money. But the opposition to the bill (principally caused by this pamphlet) proved so effectual that it was dropped.

the last session were pleased to throw out a billa sent them from the lords, which that reverend body apprehended would be very injurious to them if it passed into a law; and who, in the present session, defeated the arts and endeavours of schismatics to repeal the sacramental test.

For although it has been allowed on all hands, that the former of those bills might, by its necessary consequences, be very displeasing to the lay gentlemen of the kingdom, for many reasons purely secular, and that this last attempt for repealing the test did much more affect at present the temporal interest than the spiritual; yet the whole body of the lower clergy have, upon both these occasions, expressed equal gratitude to that honourable house for their justice and steadiness, as if the clergy alone were to receive the benefit.

It must needs be therefore a great addition to the clergy's grief, that such an assembly as the present house of commons should now, with an expedition more than usual, agree to a bill for encouraging the linen manufacture, with a clause whereby the church is to lose two parts in three of the legal tithe in flax and hemp.

Some reasons why the clergy think such a law will be a great hardship upon them are, I conceive, those that follow. I shall venture to enumerate them, with all deference due to that honourable assembly :

First, the clergy suppose that they have not, by any fault or demerit, incurred the displeasure of the nation's representatives; neither can the declared loyalty of the present set, from the highest prelate to the lowest vicar, be in the least disputed; because there are hardly ten clergymen through the whole kingdom, for more than nineteen years past, who have not been either preferred entirely upon account of their declared affection to the Hanover line, or higher promoted as the due reward of the same merit.

There is not a landlord in the whole kingdom, residing some part of the year at his country-seat, who is not in his own conscience fully convinced that the tithes of his minister have gradually sunk for some years past one-third, or at least one-fourth of their former value, exclusive of all non-solvencies.

The payment of tithes in this kingdom is subject to so many frauds, brangles, and other difficulties, not only from Papists and Dissenters, but even from those who profess themselves Protestants, that, by the expense, the trouble, and vexation of collecting and bargaining for them, they are of all other rents the most precarious, uncertain, and ill paid.

The landlords in most parishes expect, as a compliment, that they shall pay little more than half the value of the tithes for the lands they hold in their own hands; which often consist of large domains; and it is the minister's interest to make them easy upon that article, when he considers what influence those gentlemen have upon their tenants.

The clergy cannot but think it extremely severe, that in a bill for encouraging the linen manufacture, they alone must be the sufferers, who can least afford it. If, as I am told, there be a tax of 30007. a-year paid by the public for a further encouragement to the said manufacture, are not the clergy equal sharers in the charge with the rest of their fellow-subjects? What satisfactory reason can be therefore given why they alone should bear the whole additional weight, unless it will be alleged that their property is not upon an equal foot with the properties of other men? They acquire their own small pittance by at least as honest means as their neighbours, the landlords, possess their estates; and have been always supposed, except in rebellious or fanatical times, to have as good a title; a For the bishops to divide livings.