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EXCELLENT CHURCH'S MAXIMS.

Church-of-England Ecclesiastical Minister, fixt forms having, by the prudence of the Church, been provided for every thing, no such talent is necessary.13

14. To the Ecclesiastical Minister, the whole of whose exigible duty may be performed by reading out of a book, no talent, other than that which consists in reading out of a book, is necessary: and, as at the hands of the sons or other near relations, though they be but the younger children, of noblemen and gentlemen of large fortune, whose chief or only pursuit is worldly and expensive pleasure, no such talent as that which consists in the discoursing without book, and in great measure without special premeditation, can reasonably be expected, thence so it is that, for this reason of modern times, added to others which had place in former times, no service from any such functionary ought to be required other than such as is rendered by the reading out of a book.14

15. For the purchase of that Ecclesiastical service which consists of nothing more than the reading out of a book, the greatest quantity of pay that can be found actually employed in the purchase of an engagement to render it, be that engagement fulfilled or not, can never be too great.1s

16. Although, under the Church-of-England system, for the purchase of a stock of service, by the rendering of which will be performed all that mass of duty, the performance of which is exigible, or, in return for any quantity of pay whatsoever, can reasonably be expected; so it may be, that the quantity of pay really necessary, is no more than the least quantity, sufficient to purchase the exercise of that sort and degree of talent, which consists in the reading out of a book,-yet,-the chief if not the only object worth regarding, being to secure a more comfortable

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OXFORD GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

performed in it, is no more than the least quantity sufficient to purchase the exercise of that sort and degree of talent, which is exercised by the reading, in an intelligible manner, out of a book.

17. For the purchase of instruction, to be administered, throughout the whole country to the poorer classes, for the benefit of the community at large,-whatever money is employed may,—if it be considerable enough to cause the obligation of contributing towards it to be felt as a burthen, -be, with less inconvenience, drawn from the universal than from a local fund: for, in this last case, the greater the amount, the greater the danger, lest in the breast of the forced contributors, the exaction should be considered as an injury, and the person by whom the amount of what is thus exacted is received, as the author of the injury: and, to the feelings, of any person, in whose eyes the instruction thus administered is either useless, much more if pernicious, or the quantity of money exacted for the purchase of the instruction excessive,—the injury will be the greater, the more plainly useless, or the more highly pernicious the instruction is, and the more enormously excessive the quantity of pay exacted for the purchase of it.

EXCELLENT CHURCH'S MAXIMS.

provision in this world for the higher and richer classes,thence it is, that any diminution in the quantity of money at any time exacted from all classes, low and high together, to be employed as pay in the purchase of an engagement, fulfilled or not fulfilled, to render this sort of service, would, instead of a benefit, be an intolerable grievance: and every addition, to the quantity of money so exacted and employed, is a public benefit.

17. How great soever, in a large proportion of the whole number of parishes, may be the quantity of money, exacted for the purchase of the service professed to be rendered by the performance of the duties professed to be performed, -and how great soever the number of the persons, in whose eyes either no service at all is rendered, or if any, none but what is useless, or even pernicious; and thence to their feelings in how great a degree soever injurious and afflictive,-yet, being at present taken in each parish out of a local fund, formed by contributions exacted from a certain class of the parishioners, it ought notwithstanding to be for ever drawn out of the local fund so constituted; because,—if Reason,—drawn from the principle of utility, i.e. from the consideration of the feelings of all persons concerned,-Reason, by which such commutation is prescribed-were to be taken for the standard of reference,-whatever is superfluous in the quantity of money exacted on this score, might come to be remitted, and the common interest of the subject many in that particular no longer sacrificed to the separate interest of the ruling few, who, in these masses of excessive pay, behold a source of opulence to themselves.

NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

To Maxim 2.-Among Non-Ecclesiastical offices of all sorts, Military and Non-Military taken together, to some the security afforded by public examination is afforded already; to many more it might be applied with great advantage; to some it would not be applicable with preponderant, if any, advantage. But, to attempt any such thing as an arrangement of the whole system of offices under these three classes, belongs not to the present purpose.

To Maxim 6.-The hands, at the expense of which payment is made, are not to be deemed willing ones, where service, being, by order of government, appointed to be rendered, in the case in question, to an individual of the description in question,would, in the event of his not paying what in the name of a fee is required of him, be refused to him.

So, inasmuch as money paid on account of the public is raised by taxes, imposed on contributors, who, in an indeterminately large proportion, would not, to the amount required of them respectively, if to any amount, be contributors, if they could avoid it,all money paid on account of the public is, to this purpose, to be considered as received from unwilling hands.

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© To Maxim 8.-1. By every portion of pay thus bestowed a needless and useless burthen is laid upon the contributors.

2. Every portion of pay thus bestowed being so much obtained on false pretences, is obtained by that species of immorality, which, -in so far as it is practised by persons, who, in respect of the profit of it, are not in connexion with the members of the govern ment,-is classed with crimes, and punished as such :-punished with transportation, or hard labour on board the Hulks. The crime called Swindling is a modification of it.

3. By the comparison and the contrast,-in the eyes of those

NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

persons by whom, in return for pay, the service is rendered-in all eyes, but more particularly in theirs,-the inequality renders their situation the less eligible. More than I earn so hardly by my labour, that man receives for doing nothing... What cause for discontent more natural or more just?

4. The persons, to whose profit the matter of reward is thus prostituted, become themselves, in so far as the true principles of government on this behalf are understood, the objects of odium, and that odium just. Being, to the amount of that profit, depredators, preying upon the substance of the people, they are regarded-and not without reason, as so many public enemies, to whose private interest the interest of the subject many is made a needless and useless sacrifice.

5. The persons, by authority from whom, as well as the persons by whom, and to whose use depredation is thus committed, being persons professing to act-to act on this same occasion in the character of trustees for the whole community-the sort of enormity thus committed by them is, on their part, a breach of such their trust. By the whole amount of the money which, after being levied, is thus wasted, and of the vexation produced in the levying it, the government by which it is levied and the waste committed, has the appearance of being-not to say is—a government of extortion, oppression, and tyranny.

6. By the establishment of the practice of trust-breaking in this case, in the persons of a class of men, set apart for the purpose of affording instruction, and example in the way of religion and morality, to all other classes of the people,-more especially by the enormous extent, to which in this case it is carried,— not only a colour of justification, but a veil of sanctity is thrown over it and encouragement and support is thus given to it, not only in this case, but in the case where the service, on pretence of which the pay received in virtue of office is of a civil, (meaning a non-ecclesiastical,) in contradistinction to an ecclesiastical nature;in a word, to all other offices under government.

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