A LETTER, &c.

MY LORD,

YOUR Grace, by consecrating me a Bishop, has not increased my zeal to serve the cause of Christianity, but you have afforded me a better opportunity of doing it, than I could possibly have had as a private man; for this address, which it might have been thought great presumption in me to have offered before, may now, I hope, be presented to your Grace, without my incurring the imputation of intruding into matters not appertaining to my situation in life.

It would be doing great injustice to your Grace's well-known candour and regard for every thing respecting the good of the Church, to entertain the least doubt of your giving an unprejudiced attention to what I have to offer; but to conciliate a similar attention from minds less liberally disposed, it may be necessary to declare, which I now do, in the most solemn manner, that I have no private view, direct or indirect, in what I am about to propose : nor is the matter now hastily conceived by me, in consequence of my promotion, nor introduced from a silly vanity of being looked upon as a reformer; a character which in all ages has met with as much detraction as praise; but it has long dwelt upon my mind; I have revolved it in various ways; I have canvassed it in conversation, inter Sylvas Academi, with men of disinterested probity, true Christian simplicity, and excellent erudition; and from the most serious conviction of duty, I am emboldened to make the attempt of promoting, as in my conscience I am persuaded, the interests of the Christian religion, and the true dignity of the established church.--These, it may be said, and it is truly said are but different expressions for the same thing; for there can be

no true dignity in any church establishment, except what is derived to it from its being the most useful mean of inculcating the religion of Christ. Without taking upon me to find fault with other modes of church government, I profess an unfeigned regard for our own, and should be as ready as any man in opposing any attempts to subvert it, not from any mean attention to its emoluments, but from a firm persuasion of its utility.

I know not whether it may be worth while in this place, to take notice of a paltry censure, which is sometimes openly, often covertly, always, I trust, unjustly passed on the zeal which the clergy profess for the church establishment; it is said to be a zeal resembling that of Demetrius, the clergy are suspected of crying up the establishment, lest the craft by which they have their livelihood should be set at nought. Sordid and illiberal imputation! The clergy of England have a zeal for the church of England, but they have a greater zeal for the church of Christ. There are few of them, I hope, who would scruple professing a wish, that the pure banner of the gospel may, if need shall so require, be displayed triumphant on the ruins of every church establishment in Christendom. What if there was no establishment?-Those who are now bred to the church, would apply their money, their time, and their talents in some other way: and there are few ways, in which they might not be able to procure for themselves, and for their families, as good, or a better provision, than they at present derive from the church. We see, in the course of every century, a great many ample fortunes accumulated, and obscure families ennobled, by the profession of the law, by the army, by the navy, and by commerce; but it is a rare thing indeed to see a churchman, in consequence of his profession, lifting his posterity above the common level, either in rauk or fortune. And yet there can be no presumption in supposing, that men brought up to the church, have as sound understandings as those who are brought up to the bar; the same industry, genius, or ability of any kind, which contribute to place a man on the bench of bishops, might, if they had been directed into another channel, have placed him on the bench of judges; and he whose head is covered with an archiepiscopal initre, might have been adorned with the more substantial and permanent honours usually conferred on a lord high chancellor. But

to return.

-

Let me intreat your grace not to suffer the mere term innovation to alarm your apprehension, either for the peace of the community, or the safety of the church establishment; the writer would have thrown his pen into the fire, and his proposals after it, if there had been the most distant tendency in them to disturb either. I know it is commonly said, that wise and good men look upon every attempt to reform what is amiss, either in church or state,

as a matter of dangerous tendency: but it may be justly doubted, whether there is not as much timidity as wisdom, as much indolence as goodness in this caution; certain I am, that if Luther and the reformers had been men of such dispositions, the church of Christ would never have been purged in any degree, by them at least, from its antichristian corruptions. The medical maxim, Malum bene positum ne moveto, merits the observance of the physician of the body politic, as well as of the body natural.-I readily acknowledge that it does so:—but when the evil, though unobserved, is really rankling in the heart, depraving the noblest parts, and insensibly undermining the whole constitution, it is the business of them both, unless they will be deemed bunglers, to accomplish its removal. "My son, says Solomon, fear thou the Lord and the King, and meddle not with them who are given to change."-Agreed again :-God forbid that either your Grace or I should meddle with them who would wish us to change our fear of God into impiety; our reverence for the king and constitution, into anarchy and rebellion. But there is neither sin nor shame, Í apprehend, in meddling with those who would wish to make such a little change in the church establishment as would, with the blessing of God, produce a great change for the better in the faith and manners of the whole community..

I

To keep your grace no longer in suspense as to the meaning of this address, I have two proposals to make to you; one respects the revenues of the bishops; the other those of the inferior clergy; both of them tending to the same end;-not a parity of preferments, but a better apportioned distribution of what the state allows for the maintenance of the established clergy.

To begin with the bishopricks-It would be an easy matter to display much erudition, in tracing the history of the establishment of the several archbishopricks and bishopricks, which now subsist in England and Wales; but as the investigation would tend very little, if at all, to the illustration of the subject we are upon I will not mispend either your grace's leisure or my own in making it. Whatever was the primary occasion of it, the fact is certain— that the revenues of the bishopricks are very unequal in value, and that there is a great inequality also in the patronage appertaining to the different sees. The first proposal which I humbly submit to your grace's deliberation, is the utility of bringing a bill into parliament-to render the bishopricks more equal to each other, both with respect to income and patronage, by annexing part of the estates, and part of the preferments of the richer bishopricks, as they become vacant, to the poorer.-Your grace will observe, that here is no injury proposed to be done to the present possessors of the richer bishopricks; let them enjoy in peace the emoluments which their great deservings, or great good fortunes have procured

for them; and as to that disappointment of expectation which some men may suffer, it is of too vague a value to be estimated, it is too strange a species of property to be valued at all. Before your grace's mind can suggest to you the difficulties of accomplishing such a design, or the other objections which may, probably, be made to it, allow me to point out some of the advantages, which I think would certainly attend it.

1. By a bill of this kind, the poorer bishops would be freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments in commendam with their bishopricks; a practice which bears hard upon the rights and expectations of the rest of the clergy; which is disagreeable to the bishops themselves; which exposes them to much, perhaps, undeserved obloquy, but which certainly had better not subsist in the church. I do not take upon me to fix the precise sum which would enable a bishop, not to pollute gospel humility with the pomp of prelacy, not to emulate the noble and opulent in such luxurious and expensive levities as become neither churchmen nor Christians; but to maintain such a decent establishment in the world as would give weight to his example, and authority to his admonition; to make such a moderate provision for his children, as their father's mode of living would give them some little right to expect; and to recommend his religion by works of charity, to the serious examination of unbelievers of every denomination. The sum requisite for these purposes admits of great latitude; some would think that it ought to be more, others that it ought to be less than the salaries of the judges; but the revenues of the bishopricks, if more equally divided, would, probably, be sufficient to afford to each bishop a sum, not much different from a judge's salary; and they would do this, even supposing that it should be thought right to make no defalcation from the present incomes of the two archbishopricks. whether the incomes of the bishops should, by the proposed alteration, be made a little greater or a little less than those of the judges, still would they be sufficient for the purpose of rendering commendams wholly unnecessary.

But

2. A second consequence of the bill proposed, would be a greater independence of the bishops in the house of lords.-I know that many will be startled, I beg them not to be offended, at the surmise of the bishops not being independent in the house of lords; and it would be easy enough to weave a logical cobweb, large enough and strong enough to cover and protect the conduct of the right reverend bench from the attacks of those who dislike episcopacy. This I say would be an easy task, but it is far above my ability to eradicate from the minds of others, (who are, notwithstanding, as well attached to the church establishment as ourselves,) a suspicion, that the prospect of being translated infla NO. XVI. Pam. VOL, VIII.

20