1030.] The English and Irish Church Establishment. 177 



In the charities, and other dispensations for the relief of human suffer- 

 ing and ignorance ; the foundation of schools, of alms-houses, and the 

 other means of ensuring comfort and general assistance to the poor, &c. 



The short life of man makes it necessary to provide for a succession of 

 officers, in any system which it is advantageous to preserve beyond the pre*. 

 sent moment; but, in the church, those officers, the priesthood, mustbe edu- 

 cated for their situation, at a considerable expense, and for many years. To 

 justify this expenditure of time and money, there must be an obvious per- 

 manency }n the offices ; otherwise, the parent will not encounter the 

 effort, which may be rendered useless at the very time of completion. 

 Thus, the Jjublic knowledge of the permanency of the employment is 

 essential to the^ certainty of the succession. 



In all things connected with human nature, abuses will come ; but we 

 have no right to forget the good even in the fullest consciousness of the 

 evil. We are perhaps not more willing to be blind to the evil than other 

 men ; but we say it with the most solemn sincerity, that, for all the 

 noblest purposes of an establishment, the Church of England has neither 

 " second nor similar." What form of church government on earth has, 

 for the duration and extent of the Church of England, exhibited a more 

 illustrious succession of pious and intellectual teachers has been dig- 

 nified by more various and vigorous learning has contributed more to 

 the highest literature, of both theology and the classics ? What church, 

 in the day of religious persecution, braved the terrors of martyrdom for 

 the truth with more holy courage ? or what body of men, in the day of 

 royal oppression, was first marked for ruin, or stood forth with more 

 manly heroism, until the day was won, and England free ? 



That such a church should be sustained with all our strength, we will 

 hold, in the presence of the boldest innovator ; to be among its cham- 

 pions, we feel an honour ; and, if it should be destined to sink, we 

 fearlessly pronounce that with it will sink the freedom as well as the faith, 

 the power as well as the virtue, of England. 



We disdain being the advocates of its abuses ; wherever they are to 

 be found, let them be swept away. But we have a right to choose our 

 reformers. Not every one who calls himself a friend to freedom, loves 

 to give up his tyranny ; and not every one who demands increased self- 

 denial in the church, is free from the " itching palm." Above all 

 reforms, we shall have no political reform of the church, let the hands 

 that touch its failing strength be whose they may. To suppose that any 

 real reform is meditated, to release the church from the old and evil grasp 

 of influence in the higher quarters, is to suppose what no man living will 

 ever see attempted. That no minister will ever curtail his own patron- 

 age, is a law to the full as irrevocable as any law of the Medes and 

 Persians. 



In the first establishment of religion in England, the division of the soil 

 suggested the appropriation of certain portions of the lands, or their pro- 

 duce, to the maintenance of religion. As popery began to predominate, 

 those lands began to be usurped by the monks or regulars, to the injury 

 of the parochial or secular clergy. The reformation under Henry VIII. 

 broke up the monasteries. But their lands were not restored to the ori- 

 ginal designation : the brutal spirit of the king, and the fierce rapine of 

 the courtiers, were indulged with the plunder of the church property, 

 and the reformed clergy were thus in general left to struggle with poverty. 

 To relieve it pluralities were suffered, which, though in a multitude of 



M.M. New Series. VOL, IX. No. 50. 2 A 



