deferved the thoufandth part of the good treatment they have received.

Laftly, I obferve, that the author of a paper called The Englishman hath run into the fame cant, gravely advifing the whole body of the clergy not to bring in popery; because that will put them under a neceffity of parting with their wives, or lofing their livings.

The bulk of the kingdom, both clergy and laity, happen to differ extremely from this prelate in many principles both of politicks and religion. Now I afk, whether, if any man of them had figned his name to a fyftem of atheism, or popery, he could have argued with them otherwife than he doth? Or, if I fhould write a grave letter to his lordfhip with the fame advice, taking it for granted, that he was half an atheist and half a papist, and conjuring him, by all he held dear, to have compaffion upon all thofe who believed a God; not to revive the fires in Smithfield; that he must either forfeit bis bishoprick, or not marry a fourth wife; I afk, whether he would not think I intended him the higheft injury and affront?

But as to the tory laity, he gives them up in a lump for abandoned atheists: they are a fett of men fo impiously corrupted in the point of religion, that no Scene of cruelty can fright them from leaping into it [popery], and, perhaps, aɛting such a part in it as may be affigned them. He therefore defpairs of inAuencing them by any topicks drawn from religion or compaffion, and advances the confideration of intereft,

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intereft, as the only powerful argument to perfuade them against popery.

What he offers upon this head is so very amazing from a Chriftian, a clergyman, and a prelate of the church of England, that I muft, in my own imagination, ftrip him of those three capacities, and put him among the number of that fett of men he mentions in the paragraph before; or else it will be impoffible to fhape out an answer.

His lordfhip, in order to diffuade the tories from their design of bringing in popery, tells them, how valuable a part of the whole foil of England, the abby lands, the eftates of the bishops, of the cathedrals, and the tithes are: how difficult such a resumption would be to many families; yet all these must be thrown up; for facrilege in the church of Rome is a mortal fin. I defire it may be observed, what a jumble here is made of ecclefiaftical revenues, as if they were all upon the fame foot, were alienated with equal juftice, and the clergy had no more reason to complain of one than the other; whereas the four branches mentioned by him are of very different confideration. If I might venture to guess the opinion of the clergy upon this matter, I believe they could wifh, that fome fmall part of the abby lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishopricks; and a very few acres to ferve for glebes in thofe parishes, where there are none; after which, I think, they would not repine that the laity fhould poffefs the reft. If the eftates of fome bishops and cathedrals were exorbitant before

the

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the Reformation, I believe the prefent clergy's wishes reach no further, than that fome reasonable temper had been used, inftead of paring them to the quick. But as to the tithes, without examining whether they be of divine inftitution, I conceive there is hardly one of that facred order in England, and very few even among the laity who love the church, who will not allow the mifapplying those revenues to secular perfons to have been at first a moft flagrant act of injustice and oppreffion; although, at the fame time, God forbid they should be restored any other way than by gradual purchase, by the confent of those who are now the lawful poffeffors, or by the piety and generofity of such worthy fpirits as this nation fometimes produceth. The bishop knows very well, that the application of tithes to the maintenance of monafteries was a fcandalous ufurpation, even in popish times; that the monks ufually fent out fome of their fraternity to fupply the cures; and that when the monafteries were granted away by Henry VIII. the parishes were left deftitute, or very meanly provided, of any maintenance for a paftor. So that, in many places, the whole ecclefiaftical dues, even to mortuaries, Eafter-offerings, and the like, are in lay hands, and the incumbent lies wholly at the mercy of his patron for his daily bread. By these means there are feveral hundred parishes in England under twenty pounds a year, and many under ten. I take his lordship's bishoprick to be worth near 2500l. annual income; and I will engage, at half a year's warning,

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warning, to find him above an hundred beneficial clergymen, who have not fo much among them all to fupport themselves and their families: most of them orthodox, of good life and converfation: as loth to fee the fires kindled in Smithfield as his lordfhip; and at least as ready to face them under a popish perfecution. But nothing is so hard for those, who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want. How can the neighbouring vicar feel cold or hunger, while my lord is feated by a good fire, in the warmest room of his palace, with a dozen dishes before him? I remember one other prelate much of the fame ftamp, who, when his clergy would mention their wishes that fome act of parliament might be thought of for the good of the church, would fay: Gentlemen, we are very well as we are; if they would let us alone, we should ask no

more..

Sacrilege (fays my lord) in the church of Rome is a mortal fin: and is it only fo in the church of Rome? or, is it but a venial fin in the church of England? Our litany calls fornication a deadly fin; and I would appeal to his lordship, for fifty years paft, whether he thought that or facrilege the deadlieft? To make light of fuch a fin, at the fame moment that he is frightening us from an idolatrous religion, fhould feem not very confiftent. Thou that fayeft a man should not commit adultery, doft thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorret idols, deft thou commit facrilege?

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To smooth the way for the return of popery in queen Mary's time, the grantees were confirmed. by the pope in the poffeffion of the abby lands. But the bishop tells us, that this confirmation was fraudulent and invalid. I fhall believe it to be so, although I happen to read it in his lordship's hiftory. But he adds, that although the confirmation had been good, the priests would have got their land again by these two methods: First, The Statute of Mortmain was repealed for twenty years; in which time, no doubt, they reckoned they would recover the best part of what they had loft: besides that, engaging the clergy to renew no leafes was a thing entirely in their own power; and this, in forty years time, would raise their revenues to be about ten times their prefent value. These two expedients, for increafing the revenues of the church, he reprefents as pernicious defigns, fit only to be practifed in times of popery, and fuch as the laity ought never to confent to: from whence, and from what he said before about tithes, his lordship hath freely declared his opinion, that the clergy are rich enough, and that the leaft addition to their fubfiftence would be a step towards popery. Now it happens, that the two only methods, which could be thought on, with any probability of fuccefs, towards fome reasonable augmentation of ecclefiaftical revenues, are here rejected by a bishop as a means for introducing popery, and the nation publicly warned against them: whereas the continuance of the ftatute of Mortmain in full force, after the church had been

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