James I was no fool, and though through weakness of character an unwise master, yet not an unthinking statesman; and I still want a satisfactory solution of the accumulation of offices on Buckingham.
Ib.
s. 212.
Prudent men will continue the oblations of their forefathers' piety.
The danger and mischief of going far back, and yet not half far enough! Thus Hacket refers to the piety of individuals our forefathers as the origin of Church property. Had he gone further back, and traced to the source, he would have found these partial benefactions to have been mere restitutions of rights co-original with their own property, and as a national reserve for the purposes of national existence — the condition
sine qua non
of the equity of their proprieties; for without civilization a people cannot be, or continue to be, a nation. But, alas! the ignorance of the essential distinction of a national clerisy, the
Ecclesia
, from the Christian Church. The
Ecclesia