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Certain Projects of the Day.

persons desirous to be informed on this most serious subject, feeling that all remarks I could offer would be vain and presumptuous.

Yours, &c. ANNA E. BRAY.

Mr. URBAN,

As and

I S a reader of philosophical history and travels, I beg to lay before the following consequences of certain popular projects of the day.

you

1. Slave Trade. The violent abolition so furiously pressed, would take from the crown of Great Britain the West Indies.

2. Missionary Societies would, if urged in the same violent manner, detach the East Indies from our empire, and occasion the flight or massacre of all the Europeans.

3. The Bible Society would spread spurious versions of the Scriptures over the whole world, and expend enormous sums of money in throwing away bibles among those who will never read them, because they cannot read.

4. Evangelical Preaching, through utter neglect of impressing the duties of man and the conditions of salvation, makes people regardless of their actions, and teaches them to depend upon profession only, for future happi

ness.

5. Religious enthusiasm converts the ignorant into fanatics, who think that they do God service by committing the most atrocious acts; even murder, arson (as at York Minster), &c. &c.

The certain results of all these projects are very serious civil and political evils, namely, dismemberment of the empire in the two first; corruption of the Scriptures and knavish peculation in the third; and dangerous demoralization of the people in the fourth and fifth.

It matters not, that sophistry and cant are employed in propagating and advocating these mischievous bubbles; the facts are proved, and the consequences self-evident; not that it is desirable that good objects should not be patronised; but the truth is, that the measures for effecting these objects are designed in the most palpable folly, a folly which would defeat the success of them, and occasion an irreparable mischief to the whole country. Nevertheless, for the support of these impracticable and dangerous speculations, the people are factionized, and more than

[March,

a hundred thousand pounds per annum detracted from useful charities at home. Why do they exist? Because particular individuals, get by them worldly repute and pecuniary advantage. ANTI-QUACKERY.

Mr. URBAN, Kellington, Feb. 13. N order to investigate, and in con

I sequence a more

cit and satisfactory answer to the enquiry of your correspondent Z. A. at p. 504 of your December Magazine, (who there asks the following question: "A religious house being seised of the advowson of A., a vicar was regularly endowed. On the dissolution, the advowson and rectorial tithes came to the crown, and were granted to a layman. After a considerable time had passed, the gentleman who was in possession conveyed them to the vicar for the time being, or in trust for him. They have been enjoyed so ever since. Is the church now a rectory or a vicarage?") it may be, perhaps, not be deemed irrelevant to take a short view of the origin and nature of ecclesiastical establishments in this kingdom.

For the first six or seven centuries after the first propagation of Christianity in England, and prior to its distribution into parishes, all tithes, oblations, and ecclesiastical profits whatsoever, seemed to have belonged exclusively to the parochial bishops, who invariably resided along with their clergy, presbyters, and deacons, in their cathedral church. At this period, therefore, in the nature of things, it was impossible that religious benefices could be invested in the hands of any layman, or be employed for any secular purposes whatever. Such was the practice of our British, as well as afterwards of our more recent Saxon ancestors. The rites of religion were performed alone in these united choirs : to them the whole population of the district, or parochia, or diocese, were under the necessity of resorting, more especially at the solemn times and seasons of devotion.

In progress of time, and in consequence of the increasing population, and the very great distance at which many parts of the same district were necessarily situated from this centre of unity, many inconveniencies found to result. In order more fully to satisfy the craving wishes of those early converts for religious instruction,

were

1829.]

Origin of our Ecclesiastical Establishments.

and for the more ready administration of sacred rites, the bishops were induced to send out missionaries into the more remote parts, who, nevertheless, regularly returned to their stationary abodes, and as regularly gave a due account to their diocesans of their labours and successes in their several peregrinations.

At what period of time the division in England into rural parishes, and the foundation of churches adequate to them, was first instituted, seems to be uncertain. It is, perhaps, not attributable to any one act, or to any particular age.

Sometimes the itinerant

preachers found it advisable to settle, more permanently, amongst a liberal people, and by their assistance to found a church. Sometimes such establishments have owed their origin even to royal bounty, which was induced, through pious motives, to rear and endow a sacred fabric in their country villas, and seats of pleasure and retirement, for the more immediate convenience of their court and retinue. Hence proceeded the original of free chapels. The Thanes, or greater and more powerful lords, soon followed the same example: hence the patronage of laymen.

The right, however, of the bishop still continued unimpaired, both in respect of spirituals and temporals. To him still belonged the sole cure of souls. To him was still attached the same spiritual and temporal power over his officiating clergy, as belonged to the baron over his tenantry. As each tenant was, in some way or other, subservient to his temporal lord, for retaining peaceable possession of his estates, so the presbyter made a similar -return of some part of the parochial profits to his bishop, for the security of enjoying the remainder. Various causes, however, at length conspired to divert many of these parochial emoluments from the immediate use of the bishop and his clergy. The more powerful and richer patrons were, by monastic arts, induced to bring all their offerings, and to communicate in some religious foundation, or in the cell of some particular recluse. This discretionary allotment of oblations, though in some instances injurious to particular parishes, did not in the least tend to violate the rights of the national church, or clergy. The donors invariably considered them as sa

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cred to the altar, and did not presume to alienate them to any ordinary temporal uses.

Though the whole emolument of a diocese was thus, at the first, at the sole receipt and disposal of the bishop, yet that there might appear some show of justice in the expenditure and application of it, the ecclesiastical fund was generally divided into four parts; one was appropriated to sustain the fabric and ornaments of the church, another was allotted to the officiating priest, a third to the poor and necessitous travellers, and a fourth was reserved for the more immediate supply of the collegiate body. When, however, these collective societies began, through the increasing piety or superstition the times, to be more magnificently endowed, they were also induced tacitly to recede from a scrupulous demand of their fourth part, and the parish priest thus became the receiver and distributor of the three remaining, as the bishop had been before; still, however, holding himself bound to expend them, as heretofore, in acts of benevolence and religion.

of

This tripartite division soon gave rise to many and considerable disorders. The lay-patrons and founders of ecclesiastical establishments were speedily induced to infer from it, that a third part of the revenues was amply sufficient for the maintainance of an acting minister, and, in consequence, undertook to appropriate the two remaining parts to themselves, still professing to apply this surplus entirely to the purposes of religion and hospitality. By degrees they proceeded so far as to retain them in their own hands, and at length, even to get themselves infeofed in them, and ultimately to devise them to their heirs. This was practised more especially within their own demesnes. Hence, perhaps, parishes became co-extensive with the manors of their respective lords, and may possibly account for the inconvenient situations of many churches at the present day, they having originally been placed near the residence or in the midst of the territory of their ancient original founders. These powerful Thanes at last seised upon the whole prædial tithes, and left the altarage, (which consisted merely of voluntary oblations,) and the smaller dues, as the portion of the secular or officiating clergy. Conscience,

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Rectorial and Vicarial Tithes discriminated.

however, at length becoming predominant, these powerful patrons were induced to make a laudable restitution of the perpetual advowson of many benefices so seised, to some particular individual, or to some collective ecclesiastical body. This restitution is supposed completely to have taken place prior to the reformation.

In the monasteries, for some time, was almost entirely invested the cure of souls. Distant and sequestered districts were supplied with officiating clergy from the parent society. These actually serving monks took the ecclesiastical duties upon themselves in turn, either by rotation, or to satisfy some penitential order which had been imposed upon them by their superiors. At length, however, such changes, intermissions, and scandalous abuses in the pastoral care had crept into the church, that they began to attract the serious attention of the respective diocesans to which they belonged. The bishops, in order to maintain their own respectability, were constrained by degrees to restrain the monks from the personal cure of souls, and compel them to retain sufficient and able men, (capellans, vicurs, or curates, for all these are nearly the same office,) with a competent salary, and altogether independent of the monastery, to supply the vacant offices of parish priests in the distant churches and chapels belonging to them, and to confine the monks entirely to the cloister. Hence, perhaps, the first distinction and separate division of tithes originally appropriated to the rector and vicar. In the first instance, both rectors and vicars were necessarily ecclesiastics, or religious foundations. Prior to the time of Henry VIII. lay impropriations were altogether unacknowledged, either by law or reason. Such tenures, however, by various arts and machinations of sacred-trafficing individuals and corporate bodies, (for such existed even in those early times,) rapidly increased. In a short period of time, (such is generally the swift advance of evil,) we find favours of this kind procured by paying a certain compensation at Rome, for secular colleges, for chantries, for lay hospitals, for guilds and other aggregate bodies, for military orders, nay, for nunneries, thus constituting even women rectors of parishes. The example extended itself to individuals,

[March,

to parish priests, who in populous and rich districts procured a vicar to be endowed, upon whom they devolved the cure of souls, while they continued to have the more lucrative rectory settled upon themselves and their heirs, as a sine-cure for ever.

From this account of the first nature of ecclesiastical endowments, it may be observed in what manner rectorial and vicarial tithes have, in the present day, become so much perplexed and confounded. Whenever the small oblations, &c. were found inade quate to the support of the vicar, the patron or rector was held bound, from the rectorial revenue, to supply the deficiency and if at any time the vicarial tithes were superabundant for this purpose, then a part of them again reverted into the hands of the patron for the uses of hospitality and benevolence. Hay, for instance, and agistment is occasionally a rectorial or vicarial right. The rectorial claim seems to apply to every production of nature; the vicarial merely to that part of them which was originally granted by their endowments, or afterwards paid by subsequent usage,

Hence the answer to the question of your correspondent, at first alluded to, seems to be clear. Every benefice is held by a rector, who may be a layman, a corporate body, or an ecclesiastic, to whom the great tithes of right belong; and an endowed vicar, to whom, by equal right, the smaller dues, whatever they may be, are appended. These may, through various contracts, civil and religious, be mutually interchanged. A vicarage may become a rectory by the adjunction of all the primitive rights of the original founder and patron, in whom alone they seem to be united, to the existing vicar; and a rectory may be changed into a vicarage by the same conveyance, by the patron retaining the prædial, and continuing only the smaller emoluments to his delegated substitute.

In the case mentioned by Z. A. all the rectorial as well vicarial rights being vested by will in the then incumbent, the vicarage becomes necessarily a rectory. It may, however, be suggested, that the same power which was able to unite, may be inherent in the present possessor or patron, if such should still exist, with the approbation of his diocesan, again to disjoin them. Yours, &c. OMICRON.

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