holy orders, they certainly ought not to be included in the ecclesiastical corps, any more than the groom, valet, or other menials of clergymen. Neither ought to be included among the beneficed clergy their curates, who are merely the hired deputies of their principals, without institution or induction, and always subject to removal at the pleasure of the bishop or incumbent. Omitting these classes, we affirm that the whole number of endowed and beneficed clergy is, as we have stated, 7694, and by this diminutive number are the whole preferments of the church monopolized. These preferments are, as we collect from Cove and other sources, as under : Sees Chancellorships Deaneries of cathedral and collegiate churches Prebends and canonries Minor canonries, priest-vicars, vicars-choral, and Rectories, vicarages, and chapelries.......... 11,342 Total.. .... . 12,327 Thus, there are 12,327 places of preferment divided among 7694 individuals, affording nearly two for each. This extraordinary monopoly of offices accounts for the vast number of pluralists. The whole number of incumbents in England and Wales is 7191; of this number, 2886 hold two or more rectories, vicarages, and chapelries. From data in the Ecclesiastical Dictionary we have drawn up the following classification of parochial patronage, exhibiting the number of individuals and the number of parochial preferments enjoyed by each. PAROCHIAL PATRONAGE, showing the Number of Individuals, and the Number of Rectories, Vicarages, and Chapelries held by each. According to strict ecclesiastical discipline, no minister ought to hold more than one living; and, for the better care of the souls of parishioners, he ought to reside on his benefice. Laws have been made, and are still in force,* imposing forfeitures and penalties on clergymen who, having one living, accept another, or who absent themselves from their parishes. These laws, however, in practice, like the representation of the people in the lower house of parliament, are little more than the theory of church government. By dispensations and licenses, a man may hold as many livings as he can get, and he need not reside on any of them. Hence it is that considerably more than one-third of the whole number of incumbents are PLURALISTS. Many have five, four, and three livings. One man, and he is a BISHOP too, has no fewer than eleven parochial preferments. What an extraordinary divine he must be to be able to administer his various episcopal and parish duties! In the above classification is not included cathedral dignities, fellowships in the universities, chaplainships, professorships, masterships of grammarschools, and other offices held by incumbents, and to which members of the Establishment are exclusively eligible. It merely shows the cuttingup of parochial benefices, and it is hardly necessary to add that those who are in possession of the most valuable and greatest number are connected by birth, marriage, politics, or in some other way, with those who have the disposal of them. Indeed, it is impossible to peruse the list of dignitaries and highly-beneficed clergy, without remarking that many of them are "honourable lumber," who have been turned over to spiritual pursuits from inability to succeed in the more arduous professions of the law, the army, or navy. In the church, as in the state, those only work for the public who have no other dependence, who are of plebeian extraction, and without support from family interest or aristocratic connexions. III. SINECURISM-NON-RESIDENCE-PLURALITIES-CHURCH DISCIPLINE. Sinecurism abounds more in our ecclesiastical than civil establishment. In the church almost every thing is done by deputy,- -a consequence naturally resulting from her great wealth; for where large salaries are annexed great duties are seldom discharged. Those with large incomes have various reasons for not burthening themselves with official toil. First, they can afford to pay for a deputy; secondly, they can purchase or influence the connivance of others for neglect of their own duties; thirdly, they have the means for indulgence and recreation, which, consuming much time, leave little leisure for more serious avocations. Hence has arisen sinecurism in both Church and State; presenting the singular spectacle of one class receiving the pay, and another, born under less favourable auspices, doing the work for which the pay is received. * Statutes 21 Henry VIII. c. 13, and 57 Geo. III. c. 99. Among the different orders of our ecclesiastical polity, there are none, with the exception of the curates and a few beneficed clergy, who reside and do the duty of their parishes; the remainder being clerical sinecurists, filled with the Holy Ghost, to share in the loaves and fishes of the church. The bishops are most amply remunerated, and, as is usual in such cases, perform the least service. They employ archdeacons to visit for them; rural deans and others to preach for them; and a vicar-general to issue licenses, hold courts, and perform other drudgery: if otherwise engaged, they employ a brother bishop to ordain for them. They have their own chaplains, commissaries, and secretaries; in short, their work must be light, and chiefly consists in keeping an eye to the next translation, and the falling in of the fat livings. In the Ordination Service, however, they are enjoined strict and abstemious duties. It is there said a bishop must be " blameless," they are admonished" diligently to preach the word, and be conspicuous examples of various Christian virtues." The duties of the Dignitaries cannot be very onerous. Mr. Gordon, in the debate on the Curates' Salary Bill, said he knew a clergyman who was dignitary in no fewer than six cathedrals. Were there any duties to perform, how could a man discharge the duties of so many different offices, in so many different places, perhaps at the distance of some hundred miles from each other? Archbishop Cranmer, in a letter to Cromwell, in the reign of Henry VIII., denounces the canons and prebendaries as a "superfluous condition." He says, a prebendary is neither a 66 learner nor a teacher, but a good viander, who wastes his substance in superfluous belly cheer." If they were a "superfluous condition" under a Popish regime, they must be much more so under a Protestant establishment. The prebends, however, are very valuable, some of them worth £3000 a year, which will be a good reason with many for retaining them as a part of the venerable establishment. What further adds to their value is that, being benefices not having cure of souls, they may be held with other preferment without a dispensation for plurality. The Parochial Clergy are, for the most part, a mass of sinecurists. In one respect Church of Englandism is an improvement on the original simplicity of the gospel, by rendering the discharge of its duties almost a mechanical operation. No long and expensive course of education is requisite to prepare her ministers: all her service is written; no extempore preaching or praying; it requires no mind, merely to be able to read is enough. To perform such a puerile and heartless ceremony, it is not surprising a majority of the clergy conceive it unnecessary to reside on their benefices. Of the violation of the law in this respect, of the penalties incurred by this violation, and of the Bill of Indemnity passed by our immaculate representatives to screen the delinquents, we shall relate an extraordinary example. Bentham's Church of Englandism, p. 250, where this curious epistle is inserted at length. It is necessary to premise that, under the 43d Geo. III. c. 84, every spiritual person, possessed of any archdeaconry, deanery, or other dignity or benefice, is required to reside on his preferment; if he absent himself without license from the bishop, or some special cause of exemption, he is subject to penalties varying from one-third to threefourths of the annual value of his dignity or benefice, recoverable by action of debt by any person suing for the same. This act was passed to amend a statute of Henry VIII. as regards the residence of the clergy; it has been subsequently modified by the 57th Geo. III. c. 99, and was introduced by Sir William Scott, (now Lord Stowell,) and solemnly enacted, in the year 1803, by king, lords, and commons. In the year 1811, Mr. Wright commenced nearly 200 different actions against the incumbents in the dioceses of London, Ely, and Norwich, to recover the penalties under the statute. This gentleman had been secretary to four right reverend bishops-the bishops of London, Norwich, Ely, and some other prelate and, of course, had enjoyed the most ample opportunities for procuring correct information of the conduct of the clergy. These opportunities appear not to have been neglected. In a series of letters published in the Morning Chronicle, betwixt the 6th November, 1813, and the 11th of March, 1814, he favoured the public with many curious disclosures which had come to his knowledge during the discharge of his official duties. In his letter of November 20th, he says that he has selected from well-authenticated documents 10,801 benefices, on which there are only 4,490 incumbents, even said to be resident, so that there are 6,311 confessedly non-resident incumbents; to supply whose places 1,523 resident curates are employed, which leaves 4,788, which are acknowledged to have neither a resident curate nor incumbent. The whole number of curates, whether resident or not, employed to supply the place of non-resident incumbents, is only 3,730, and only 1,793 of these are licensed; whereas, according to the canon and statute law, no person has a right to officiate until he is licensed. In one diocese, he one-third of the livings have had duty reduced from twice to once on a Sunday; and in another diocese, one-third of the parsonage-houses were returned in bad repair, as an excuse for the non-residence of our gentlemen pastors. Speaking of the false pretences made use of by the clergy, in order to avoid residing among their parishioners, and the scandalous lives they lead, he says, says, "Now ill-health of the incumbent himself, or his wife, or daughter, is a common pretext, when no other legal cause can be found of avoiding residence. Of twenty-two licenses granted in one diocese for this reason, three only of the persons are in a state of health to warrant it, and the benefices from which they so absent themselves are very valuable. Whether the ministers whom I thus challenge as using false pretences deserve the imputation, will best appear by the mode of life they adopt. Some live in town during the winter; and although night air certainly cannot benefit a valetudinarian, they may be constantly seen at cardparties, routs, or the theatre. In summer, enjoying the amusements of fashionable watering places; whilst, too often, their curates, by the parsimonious stipend they afford them, are with a numerous family in a state of the greatest poverty. Others have beneficial schools in the neighbourhood of London. Others are continually to be met with near their residence in more pleasant parts of the country, enjoying the sports of the field, or vigorously endeavouring to detect some poor countryman who may have an unfortunate inclination to taste game! Others may be seen most days driving their own carriage! Some are in debt, and some are Curates near the Fens! and all to observers seem perfectly healthful; yet a certificate from a medical man is deposited with the bishop that they are not so; probably it is six or eight years before when there might have existed a degree of temporary ill health, but after the cause ceases, the same plea is continued; and a license once granted, is renewed as a matter of course."-Lett. IV. January 6th, 1814. Thus we see how these reverend gentlemen are employed; not in administering spiritual instruction to the ignorant, comfort to the afflicted, or clothing to the naked. Oh! no; these are ignoble pursuits, the mere theory of the profession. They pretend sickness, in order to obtain a license for non-residence, that they may bawl at the card-table, frequent the playhouse, tally-ho, shoot, brandish the coachman's whip, and bully at fashionable watering-places. Remember, these jovial spirits are all filled with the Holy Ghost,-empowered to forgive or not to forgive sins-have the cure of souls; that their poor curates are starving on a wretched stipend, and that, in the maintenance of both, the industrious are deprived of the fruits of their labour, and the necessary comforts of their families wasted in the profligate and dissipated lives of their parochial ministers. In Letter V. Jan. 18th, 1814, Mr. Wright gives the following statement, collected, he says, with infinite pains, of the state of ecclesiastical discipline in the small diocese of Ely, in 1813, compared with the year 1728: In 1728. On 140 livings, 70 Resident Incumbents. Thirty-four who reside near and perform the duty. Thirty-one curates who reside in the parish or near it. The population was 56,944 souls. The duty was performed 261 times every Sunday. And their income £12,719 per annum. In 1813. On the same 140 livings, 45 Resident Incumbents. Seventeen who reside near and perform the duty. Thirty-five curates, some of whom reside eight, ten, or twelve miles off. The population is 82,176 souls. The service is performed about 185 times every Sunday. And their income is now £61,474 per annum. This is singular-duty neglected in proportion as it became more important and better paid. The population increased one-half, and the |