NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

Ecclesiastical, or non-ecclesiastical, by what Church-of-Englandist can any censure be consistently passed on the practice of Sinecurism?

By what man, Non-Churchman or Churchman, can any censure be passed on Sinecurism without passing a proportionate censure on the Excellent Church?

Thus, not merely by a participation, but by the receipt of an enormously superior sum, in the profit of guilt, in this shape,-is the Excellent Church,-with all her sons, by whom any such affection is felt as that of hope-even thus is she bribed, and engaged by the bribery, in the defence of fraud and depredation.

7. In the case of this unpunishable, as in the case of punishable, depredation,-if, to the amouut of so much as a single farthing, the levying and application of money to this purpose be to be justified, then, on equally good ground, may the levying and applying to the same purpose money to any amount whatever :—yes, to any amount,, up to the last penny, that can by any means be exacted from a starving and sinking people.

8. Even in the non-ecclesiastical part of the field of government, the abundance of sinecure offices-undisguised and disguised together with the enormity of the aggregate amount of the money thus exacted from the people under false pretences, is among the most prominent of the grievances, under which the people labour. But, if the ratio, of the aggregate of the pay allotted to these sham offices to the aggregate of the pay allotted to efficient offices, be made the object of regard,-in the non-ecclesiastical part of the field this ratio is as nothing, compared with what it is in the ecclesiastical: in the sacred, as it is called.

Where the service undertaken for is that of defending souls against the assaults of the devil, so it is that, in the instance of almost one half of the whole number of these members of the "Church militant," in return for the pay received nothing whatever is done, or so much as endeavoured to be done :-at the post at which the service should be performed, the voluntarily inlisted soldier-the re

NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

ceiver of the pay—is never to be found. Here then, in this sacred army, almost one half of the soldiers are deserters: deserters receiving all the while pay as effectives: the Bishops, officers in this army-and the advisers of the Monarch, the Commander of itconniving at the desertion, and concurring in exacting the pay, which, with full notion of the desertion, they force the people to give to these notorious deserters: the Bishops-many if not most of them-and, with the connivance of the rest, and the concurrence of the advisers of the Crown-receiving, as will be seen, (see the section on Discipline) in addition to the pay attached to their respective offices, other pay as privates, and in every instance in which they do receive it, acting the part of deserlers.

Not to speak of those public servants, whose offices are included in the civil (meaning the non-military part) of the civil, (meaning, for in this state is this part of the language,-the non-ecclesiastical part) of the field of government,-in what situation would the country have been, if, in the Military part, the enormity of the breach of trust committed by sinecurism had been equal to what it is in the Ecclesiastical? If, of the whole number of Officers and Privates, in the land and in the sea service taken together, whose engagement is to defend bodies and goods against the assaults of foreign enemies-enemies made of flesh and blood— almost half the number had been living constantly in a state of desertion, receiving their pay notwithstanding? Under the burthen of the whole of that vast establishment, of which this branch is of course by far the greatest and the most burthensome, the country is already sinking. But, on the supposition here in question, the amount of this part of the burthen would have been nearly double to what it is.

In the attribute Excellent,-thus in a public advertisement, bestowed by the Bench of Bishops upon the Church, of which they are at the head-bestowed in as regular and solemn form as the corresponding abstract term Excellency is bestowed upon a certain rank of Foreign Envoys,-what less can be implied, but that, on

NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

the part of these holy persons-some consecrated, all in Holy Orders-morality, and that in a degree over and above any in which it is to be found in the same number of persons, belonging to the profane class,-is constantly to be found: these sacred persons-all in palaces, the Archbishops on thrones, as upon hills topped by mountains-being in profession set up to serve as examples-as so many burning and shining lights-to all profane

ones.

Such being the pretension, what is the real fact? Over and over again, in every page of this work it has been visible. Preeminence? yes but in what scale?-In the scale of virtue? No. In what scale then?-Alas! of mendacity and insincerity, as proved by subscription—of breach of trust, and depredation, as proved by over-paid places-of obtainment on false pretences, as proved by Non-Residence, Pluralism, and Sinecurism-be vicious, in the scale of vice: the obtainment on false pretences the vice of the greater part; the mendacity and the insincerity the vice of the whole tribe. Of the two tribes of these domineering Churchmen, who all of them are, by their own confession, so many "miserable sinners," that by which the exclusive possession of the quality of consecrated holiness is arrogated to itself, the most pre-eminently and notoriously miserable.

Such is the Church-" that Established Church, which" (according to the Earl of Harrowby's Speech, p. 32) "is the boast and the support of our country.” Such is the system, which, by the mouth and pen of this their spokesman, his fellow saints,at so heavy an expense to the good people of England—and not only of England but of Scotland-yes, of Scotland, where the burthen is so completely without pretence,-have for so long a course of years been labouring in their way to support—to support, as will be seen, by increase of mere unoperative existence, with increase of pay for the support of it, but without any the slightest endeavour to give increase to profitable service :—to service, profitable or unprofitable.

NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

As to the persons to whose situations these maxims are applicable, they will be found to be as follows:

1. All possessors of Sinecures, by whatsoever denomination distinguished: viz.

1. All Deans, Canons, Prebendaries, Procetors:

2. All possessors of Sinecure Rectories, Vicarages, or Donative Curacies:

3. All Rectors, all Vicars, all Curates of Donative Curacies, who, not having more service to perform than they are physically able to perform, employ stipendiary Gurales:

4. All possessors of overpaid Rectories, Vicarages, and Donative Curacies, by the amount of the overplus:

5. All Pluralists, by the amount of the pay attached to the whole number of their benefices more than one:

6. All Archbishops, Bishops, and Archdeacons, unless and except in so far as service,-which, without them, would not be rendered with equal aptitude, quality and quantity taken together,—is rendered by them towards the maintenance of discipline: as to which see further under the head of Discipline.

N. B. In the Church of Scotland, Established as it is, no instance of any of the above-mentioned abominations is to be found. Of course, neither is there, nor can there be, in any Non-Established Protestant Church.

Behold what, on the subject of Sinecures,―at the very commencement of the half-emancipation from the yoke of Popery, of which they are a relick,-was the opinion-the pointedly declared opinion-of Archbishop Cranmer, Martyr and one of the chief heroes of the Established Church of England :-declared in the very face of the bloody tyrant, under whose order a fresh batch of them had just been brought upon the carpet: it is taken from Bishop Burnet, who had the honesty to print it in his History of the Reformation. If by Cranmer, instead of being thus pointedly condemned, the institution had been lauded, it would not have been more useful or justifiable than it is: the observations above

NOTES TO THE GRADUATE'S MAXIMS.

called forth would not have been the less justly applicable to it. But many are the minds, by which,-while the most unanswerable reasons, drawn from the principle of general utility and the nature of the case, would be applied to them without effect,-the authority of an Archbishop, especially that Archbishop being a Martyr, and that Martyr Cranmer, may on such an occasion be found decisive.*

• From Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. iii.

"A Letter of Thomas, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, to Cromwell, upon the new foundation of Canterbury."

AN ORIGINAL.

"My very singular good Lord,

"After my most hearty commendations, these shall be to advertise your Lordship, that I have received your letters, dated the 27th day of November, and therewith a bill concerning the Devise for the New Esta blishment, to be made in the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury: By which your Lordship requireth my Advice thereupon by writing, for our mutual Consents. Surely, my Lord, as touching the Books drawn, and the Order of the same, I think it will be a very substantial and godly Foundation: Nevertheless in my opinion the PREBENDARIES, which will be allowed 401. a-piece yearly, might be altered to a more expedient use. And this is my consideration; for having Experience both in times past, and also in our Days, how the said Sect of Prebendaries have not only spent their time in much Idleness, and their Substance in superfluous Belly-cheer, I think it not to be a convenient State or Degree to be maintained and established, Considering first that commonly a Prebendary is neither a learner, nor a Teacher, but a good Viander. Then by the same name they look to be chief, and to bear all the whole rule and Preheminence in the College where they be Resident: By means whereof the younger, of their own Nature given more to Pleasure, good Chear, and Pastime, than to Abstinence, Study, and Learning, shall easily be brought from their Books to follow the Appetite and Example of the same Prebendaries, being their Heads and Rulers: And the State of the Prebendaries hath been so excessively abused, that when learned men hath been admitted into such Room, many times they have desisted from their good and godly Studies, and all other virtuous exercise of preaching and teaching. Wherefore, if it may so stand with the King's gracious Pleasure, I