[Footnote 8: Dr. Forster.]
To allege, that passing such a bill would be a good encouragement to improve bishops' lands, is a great error. Is it not the general method of landlords, to wait the expiration of a lease, and then cant[9] their lands to the highest bidder? And what should hinder the same course to be taken in church leases, when the limitation is removed of paying half the real value to the bishop? In riding through the country, how few improvements do we see upon the estates of laymen, farther than about their own domains? To say the truth, it is a great misfortune as well to the public as to the bishops themselves, that their lands are generally let to lords and great squires, who, in reason, were never designed to be tenants; and therefore may naturally murmur at the payment of rent, as a subserviency they were not born to. If the tenants to the Church were honest farmers, they would pay their fines and rents with cheerfulness, improve their lands, and thank God they were to give but a moderate half value for what they held. I have heard a man of a thousand pounds a year, talk with great contempt of bishops' leases, as being on a worse foot than the rest of his estate; and he had certainly reason: My answer was, that such leases were originally intended only for the benefit of industrious husbandmen, who would think it a great blessing to be so provided for, instead of having his farm screwed up to the height, not eating one comfortable meal in a year, nor able to find shoes for his children.
[Footnote 9: To cant means to call for bidders at an auction sale.
Probably derived from the O. French cant = quantum = how much. [T.S.]
I know not any advantage that can accrue by such a bill, except the preventing of perjury in jurymen, and false dealing in tenants; which is a remedy like that of giving my money to an highwayman, before he attempts to take it by force; and so I shall be sure to prevent the sin of robbery.
I had wrote thus far, and thought to have put an end; when a bookseller sent me a small pamphlet, entitled, "The Case of the Laity, with some Queries;" full of the strongest malice against the clergy, that I have anywhere met with since the reign of Toland, and others of that tribe. These kinds of advocates do infinite mischief to OUR GOOD CAUSE, by giving grounds to the unjust reproaches of TORIES and JACOBITES, who charge us with being enemies to the Church. If I bear an hearty unfeigned loyalty to his Majesty King George, and the House of Hanover, not shaken in the least by the hardships we lie under, which never can be imputable to so gracious a prince: If I sincerely abjure the Pretender, and all Popish successors; if I bear a due veneration to the glorious memory of the late King William, who preserved these kingdoms from Popery and slavery, with the expense of his blood, and hazard of his life: And lastly, if I am for a proper indulgence to all dissenters; I think nothing more can be reasonably demanded of me as a WHIG, and that my political catechism is full and complete. But whoever, under the shelter of that party denomination, and of many great professions of loyalty, would destroy, or undermine, or injure the Church established; I utterly disown him, and think he ought to choose another name of distinction for himself, and his adherents. I came into the cause upon other principles, which, by the grace of God, I mean to preserve as long as I live. Shall we justify the accusations of our adversaries? Hoc Ithacus velit—The Tories and Jacobites will behold us with a malicious pleasure, determined upon the ruin of our friends: For is not the present set of bishops almost entirely of that number, as well as a great majority of the principal clergy? And a short time will reduce the whole, by vacancies upon death.
An impartial reader, if he pleases to examine what I have already said, will easily answer the bold "Queries" in the pamphlet I mentioned: He will be convinced, that "the reason still strongly exists, for which" that limiting law was enacted. A reasonable man will wonder, where can be the insufferable grievance, that an ecclesiastical landlord should expect a moderate, or third part value in rent for his lands, when his title is, at least, as ancient and as legal as that of a layman; who is yet but seldom guilty of giving such beneficial bargains. Has "the nation been thrown into confusion"? And have "many poor families been ruined" by rack-rents paid for the lands of the church? Does "the nation cry out" to have a law that must, in time, send their bishops a-begging? But, God be thanked, the clamour of enemies to the Church is not yet the cry, and, I hope, will never prove the voice of the nation. The clergy, I conceive, will hardly allow that "the people maintain them," any more than in the sense, that all landlords whatsoever are maintained by the people. Such assertions as these, and the insinuations they carry along with them, proceed from principles which cannot be avowed by those who are for preserving the happy constitution in Church and State. Whoever were the proposers of such "queries," it might have provoked a bold writer to retaliate, perhaps with more justice than prudence, by shewing at whose door the grievance lies, and that the bishops, at least, are not to answer for the poverty of tenants.
To gratify this great reformer, who enlarges the episcopal rent-roll almost one half; let me suppose that all the Church lands in the kingdom were thrown up to the laity; would the tenants, in such a case, sit easier in their rents than they do now? Or, would the money be equally spent in the kingdom? No: The farmer would be screwed up to the utmost penny, by the agents and stewards of absentees, and the revenues employed in making a figure at London; to which city a full third part of the whole income of Ireland is annually returned, to answer that single article of maintenance for Irish landlords.
Another of his quarrels is against pluralities and non-residence: As to the former, it is a word of ill name, but not well understood. The clergy having been stripped of the greatest part of their revenues, the glebes being generally lost, the tithes in the hands of laymen, the churches demolished, and the country depopulated; in order to preserve a face of Christianity, it was necessary to unite small vicarages, sufficient to make a tolerable maintenance for a minister. The profit of ten or a dozen of these unions, do seldom amount to above eighty or an hundred pounds a year: If there be a very few dignitaries, whose preferments are, perhaps, more liable to this accusation, it is to be supposed, they may be favourites of the time, or persons of superior merit, for whom there hath ever been some indulgence in all governments.
As to non-residence, I believe there is no Christian country upon earth, where the clergy have less to answer for upon that article. I am confident there are not ten clergymen in the kingdom, who, properly speaking, can be termed non-residents: For surely, we are not to reckon in that number, those who, for want of glebes, are forced to retire to the nearest neighbouring village for a cabin to put their heads in; the leading man of the parish, when he makes the greatest clamour, being least disposed to accommodate the minister with an acre of ground. And, indeed, considering the difficulties the clergy lie under upon this head, it hath been frequent matter of wonder to me, how they are able to perform that part of their duty as well as they do.
There is a noble author,[10] who hath lately addressed to the House of Commons, an excellent discourse for the "Encouragement of Agriculture"; full of most useful hints, which, I hope, that honourable assembly will consider as they deserve. I am not a stranger to his lordship; and, excepting in what relates to the Church, there are few persons with whose opinions I am better pleased to agree; and am, therefore, grieved when I find him charging the inconveniencies in the payment of tithes upon the clergy and their proctors. His lordship is above considering a very known and vulgar truth, that the meanest farmer hath all manner of advantages against the most powerful clergyman, by whom it is impossible he can be wronged, although the minister were ever so evil disposed; the whole system of teasing, perplexing, and defrauding the proctor, or his master, being as well known to every ploughman, as the reaping or sowing of his corn, and much more artfully practised. Besides, the leading man in the parish must have his tithes at his own rate, which is hardly ever above one quarter of the value. And I have heard it computed by many skilful observers, whose interest was not concerned, that the clergy did not receive, throughout the kingdom, one half of what the laws have made their due.