But as to the Tory laity; he gives them up in a lump for abandoned atheists: They are a set of men so "impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it [Popery] and perhaps acting such a part in it, as may be assigned them."[26] He therefore despairs of influencing them by any topics drawn from religion or compassion, and advances the consideration of interest, as the only powerful argument to persuade them against Popery.
[Footnote 26: Page 37.]
What he offers upon this head is so very amazing from a Christian, a clergyman, and a prelate of the Church of England, that I must in my own imagination strip him of those three capacities, and put him among the number of that set of men he mentions in the paragraph before; or else it will be impossible to shape out an answer.
His Lordship, in order to dissuade the Tories from their design of bringing in Popery, tells them, "how valuable a part of the whole soil of England, the abbey lands, the estates of the bishops, of the cathedrals, and the tithes are;"[27] how difficult such "a resumption would be to many families; yet all these must be thrown up; for sacrilege in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin." I desire it may be observed, what a jumble here is made of ecclesiastical revenues, as if they were all upon the same foot, were alienated with equal justice, and the clergy had no more reason to complain of the one than the other. Whereas the four branches mentioned by him are of very different consideration. If I might venture to guess the opinion of the clergy upon this matter, I believe they could wish that some small part of the abbey lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishoprics, and a very few acres to serve for glebes in those parishes where there are none; after which I think they would not repine that the laity should possess the rest. If the estates of some bishops and cathedrals were exorbitant before the Reformation, I believe the present clergy's wishes reach no further than that some reasonable temper had been used, instead of paring them to the quick: But as to the tithes, without examining whether they be of divine institution, I conceive there is hardly one of that sacred order in England, and very few even among the laity that love the Church, who will not allow the misapplying of those revenues to secular persons, to have been at first a most flagrant act of injustice and oppression: Though at the same time, God forbid they should be restored any other way than by gradual purchase, by the consent of those who are now the lawful possessors, or by the piety and generosity of such worthy spirits as this nation sometimes produceth. The Bishop knows very well that the application of tithes to the maintenance of monasteries, was a scandalous usurpation even in popish times: That the monks usually sent out some of their fraternity to supply the cures; and that when the monasteries were granted away by Henry VIII., the parishes were left destituted, or very meanly provided of any maintenance for a pastor: So that in many places, the whole ecclesiastical dues, even to mortuaries, Easter-offerings, and the like, are in lay hands, and the incumbent lies wholly at the mercy of his patron for his daily bread. By these means there are several hundred parishes in England under £20 a year, and many under ten. I take his Lordship's bishopric to be worth near £2,500 annual income; and I will engage at half a year's warning to find him above 200 beneficed clergymen who have not so much among them all to support themselves and their families; most of them orthodox, of good life and conversation, as loth to see the fires kindled in Smithfield, as his Lordship, and at least as ready to face them under a popish persecution. But nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want. How can the neighbouring vicar feel cold or hunger, while my Lord is seated by a good fire in the warmest room in his palace, with a dozen dishes before him? I remember one other prelate much of the same stamp; who when his clergy would mention their wishes that some act of parliament might be thought of for the good of the Church, would say, "Gentlemen, we are very well as we are; if they would let us alone, we should ask no more."[28]
[Footnote 27: Page 38.]
[Footnote 28: Scott, in a note, thinks this reflection on Burnet to be unjust, because of that prelate's zeal "in forwarding a scheme in 1704 for Improving the livings of the poorer clergy." [T. S.]
"Sacrilege" (says my Lord) "in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin;"[29] and is it only so in the church of Rome? Or is it but a venial sin in the Church of England? Our litany calls fornication a deadly sin; and I would appeal to his Lordship for fifty years past, whether he thought that or sacrilege the deadliest? To make light of such a sin, at the same moment that he is frighting us from an idolatrous religion, should seem not very consistent. "Thou that sayest, a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?"
[Footnote 29: Page 38.]
To smooth the way for the return of Popery in Queen Mary's time, the grantees were confirmed by the Pope in the possession of the abbey lands. But the Bishop tells us, that "this confirmation was fraudulent and invalid" I shall believe it to be so, though I happen to read in his Lordship's history: But he adds, that although the confirmation had been good, the priests would have got their land again by these two methods; "first,[30] the Statute of Mortmain was repealed for 20 years, in which time no doubt they reckoned they would recover the best part of what they had lost; besides that, engaging the clergy to renew no leases, was a thing entirely in their own power, and this in forty years time would raise their revenues to be about ten times their present value." These two expedients for increasing the revenues of the Church, he represents as pernicious designs, fit only to be practised in times of Popery, and such as the laity ought never to consent to: Whence, and from what he said before about tithes, his Lordship has freely declared his opinion, that the clergy are rich enough, and that the least addition to their subsistence would be a step toward Popery. Now it happens, that the two only methods, which could be thought on, with any probability of success, toward some reasonable augmentation of ecclesiastical revenues, are here rejected by a Bishop, as a means for introducing Popery, and the nation publicly warned against them. The continuance of the Statute of Mortmain in full force, after the Church had been so terribly stripped, appeared to Her Majesty and the kingdom a very unnecessary hardship; upon which account it was at several times relaxed by the legislature. Now as the relaxation of that statute is manifestly one of the reasons which gives the Bishop those terrible apprehensions of Popery coming on us; so I conceive another ground of his fears, is the remission of the first-fruits and tenths. But where the inclination to Popery lay, whether in Her Majesty who proposed this benefaction, the parliament which confirmed, or the clergy who accepted it, his Lordship hath not thought fit to determine.
[Footnote 30: Page 39.]