"We must look," say they, "if we would be the better for them, for a hardy and labouring Clergy, that is mortified to [the possession of] a horse and all such pampering vanities! and that can foot it five or six miles in the dirt, and preach till starlight, for as many [5 or 6] shillings! as also a sober and temperate Clergy, that will not eat so much as the Laity, but that the least pig, the least sheaf, and the least of everything, may satisfy their Spiritualship! And besides, a money-renouncing Clergy, that can abstain from seeing a penny, a month together! unless it be when the Collectors and Visitationers come. These are all Gospel dispensations! and great instances of patience, contentedness, and resignation of affections [in respect] to all the emptinesses and fooleries of this life!"
But cannot a Clergyman choose rather to lie upon feathers than a hurdle; but he must be idle, soft, and effeminate! May he not desire wholesome food and fresh drink; unless he be a cheat, a hypocrite, and an impostor! And must he needs be void of all grace, though he has a shilling in his purse, after the rates be crossed [off]! and full of pride and vanity though his house stands not upon crutches; and though his chimney is to be seen a foot above the thatch!
O, how prettily and temperately may half a score of children be maintained with almost £20 [= £60 now] per annum! What a handsome shift, a poor ingenious and frugal Divine will make, to take it by turns, and wear a cassock [a long cloak] one year, and a pair of breeches another! What a becoming thing is it for him that serves at the Altar, to fill the dung cart in dry weather, and to heat the oven and pull [strip] hemp in wet! And what a pleasant thing is it, to see the Man of GOD fetching up his single melancholy cow from a small rib [strip] of land that is scarcely to be found without a guide! or to be seated upon a soft and well grinded pouch [bag] of meal! or to be planted upon a pannier, with a pair of geese or turkeys bobbing out their heads from under his canonical coat! as you cannot but remember the man, Sir, that was thus accomplished. Or to find him raving about the yards or keeping his chamber close, because the duck lately miscarried of an egg, or that the never-failing hen has unhappily forsaken her wonted nest!
And now, shall we think that such employments as these, can, any way, consist with due reverence, or tolerable respect from a parish?
And he speaks altogether at a venture that says that "this is false, or, at least it need not be so; notwithstanding the mean condition of some of the Clergy." For let any one make it out to me, which way is it possible that a man shall be able to maintain perhaps eight or ten in his family, with £20 or £30 per annum, without a intolerable dependence upon his parish; and without committing himself to such vileness as will, in all likelihood, render him contemptible to his people.
Now where the income is so pitifully small (which, I will assure you, is the portion of hundreds of the Clergy of this nation), which way shall he manage it for the subsistence of himself and his family?
If he keeps the glebe in his own hand (which he may easily do, almost in the hollow of it!) what increase can he expect from a couple of apple trees, a brood of ducklings, a hemp land, and as much pasture as is just able to summer a cow?
As for his tithes, he either rents them out to a layman; who will be very unwilling to be his tenant, unless he may be sure to save by the bargain at least a third part: or else, he compounds for them; and then, as for his money, he shall have it when all the rest of the world be paid!
But if he thinks fit to take his dues in kind, he then either demands his true and utmost right; and if so, it is a great hazard if he be not counted a caterpillar! a muck worm! a very earthly minded man! and too much sighted into this lower world! which was made, as many of the Laity think, altogether for themselves: or else, he must tamely commit himself to that little dose of the creature that shall be pleased to be proportioned out unto him; choosing rather to starve in peace and quietness, than to gain his right by noise and disturbance.
The best of all these ways that a Clergyman shall think fit for his preferment, to be managed (where it is so small), are such as will undoubtedly make him either to be hated and reviled, or else pitifully poor and disesteemed.