justified by facts." And in one of the pages, which bear the title "the bishops' design in proposing the bill," you maintain, that "the ground upon which they have proceeded is arbitrary and cruel." You profess much regard for consistency—are your professions and designs in unison? You are fond of contrasting the law with the constitution;-are not the law and the constitution censured by the whole tenor of your publication? Can there be a greater contrast than your affirmation in the third page of your preface, "We have not made use of a single phrase or word with a design to reproach the character of bishops, or to diminish the just and deserved estimation in which they are held;" with that in the 94th page of your Appeal, "The conduct of our bishops, in whichever way we view it, is wholly indefensible?" In the preface and introduction you have warily solicited the indulgence, and awaked the attention of the public, by the seeming candor of your remarks. But in the body of the pamphlet, nothing seems to have restrained you from giving vent to the spleen with which the whole is written, which indeed seems to have given birth to the publication, and to have encreased, as the pages become more numerous, and the censure more strong. In your wish to attract the notice and secure the favor of the legislature, (though you frequently libel it afterwards) you have complimented that truly estimable body at the expense of the Church. The legislature has properly considered that righteousness exalteth a fiation as well as an individual, and has, therefore, provided for its subjects," (I thought the Houses of Parliament were composed of subjects), “ a pure, a spiritual, and a scriptural religion. She has constructed at most simple, comprehensive, and sublime form of devotion to elevate their prayers in their approaches to the sanctuary!"You' are in the habit of quoting authorities drawn from various sources:— pray, are you not aware that this remark savors strongly of the heresy imputed to Erastus? And is it not an old sarcasm cast on the Church of England by the Dissenters, that ours is a parliamentary religion? The allegation that we derive our form of devotion" from the parliament has been so often and so fully refuted, that no true churchman would have expected to have found it revived in the treatise of a professed friend.

I most willingly agree with you in the opinion, that "the Church, strictly adhered to and firmly supported, is the hope of Englishmen.' But I cannot accord with the notion, that to appeal to the nation at large against laws enacted recently, and avowedly for bettering the condition of the inferior clergy, and to render those laws and the manner in which they are put in execution objects of attack in an anonymous publication, is either politic, candid, or wise.

1

The motives that impelled you thus publicly to censure the statutes which the legislature has lately made, for the due government of the Church, and for the better provision of stipendiary curates, are of little moment, so far as regards the public: except that the discovery of them will account for many of the charges with which your pamphlet is so thickly strewn. Your intentions are evident by the effect which the publication, and your address to so many different classes of society, must have on the public mind. However faultless they may seem to yourself, now that your temper is heated with the cacoethes litigandi, to every candid mind and uninterested observer they must appear vindictive, and the method which has been taken to disperse the morbid matter they have engendered arrogant and bold. I hope to render it evident, that your censure on the government of our Church, and on the the large body of incumbents, who seem to partake of a full share of your enmity, is most unwarrantable; and that I may proceed in my endeavours to expose the futility of your arguments, and their dangerous tendency, with all possible fairness, I shall attend you step by step through the path you have chosen, to gain, as you seem to suppose, a vantage ground over the higher ranks of your profession; and examine, section by section, the truth of your assertions and the propriety of your Appeal.

2

You do not find it necessary, you tell us, "to consider the spirit or utility of the late acts relative to the clergy. Your business is with that particular part of them which gives to our bishops a discretionary power over curates."May I be allowed to enquire, if bishops are not to have a discretionary power over curates, in what the spirit or utility of episcopacy consists? But you appear to admit, that it might be proper to allow the chief functionaries of our religion, to retain the name and dignity of Church governors, if their power were seldom or never exercised; or perhaps, if it had been exercised in any case but your own. For your words are, "we," (cautiously and cunningly pressing into your service the whole body of curates, though I firmly believe not a twentieth part of that most useful and respectable class accord with your assertions,) "we should not, however, have thought it right to awaken the jealousy of the public against a mere sleeping Act of Parliament: but as the authority allowed by law is now exceedingly oppressive and dangerous in its operation, it becomes highly interesting and important, yea necessary, to discuss its nature and tendencies." Can any admirer of the legislature, any faithful upholder of the constitution, any zealous son of the Church, actually wish that any provision in a recent Act of Parliament should be suffered to sleep? Really one would suppose, that the authority you speak of had been sleeping for ages; that it had emanated from an old and

dormant law, which had been brought into operation in times when its spirit and exercise were unseasonable, and the circumstances which had called for its enactment had long since and permanently elapsed. This law, which is now so exceedingly oppres→ sive and dangerous in its operation, according to your own assertion, has been "passed within these twenty-five years," and, therefore, must have been canvassed and sifted in our own times; though I aver the basis on which the obnoxious provision is formed, is as old as the constitution of the Church. Here we widely differ, for you "believe the authority given is unique in its kind, and unexampled in its execution." And I contend, that the authority extends no farther than that of those who hold the highest offices in other professions, and that like examples of its exercise may be found every year in the gazette.

Your second chapter is headed with an assertion that must excite the attention of every Englishman; and of itself would call for an answer to your pamphlet; or a petition for a repeal of the Act. "The Curates' Act is in direct opposition to the first principles of the English constitution." In confirmation of this broad accusation, you give us quotations from Montesquieu, Blackstone, and Locke. Why these eminent writers on the civil law are produced in a discussion of a statute relative to affairs purely ecclesiastical, it might not be easy to determine, except that they were advocates for the liberty you are so anxious to maintain, and which you consider violated by recent Acts of Parliament relating to curates. What would you say if the incumbents were to complain, that their liberty is diminished by not being suffered to appoint at pleasure, and remove at will, those whom they employ and pay for their service in the Church? No such complaint is made, nor, were it made, do I affirm it would be decorous, but I set it in contrast with the nature and spirit of your querulous language, and the indelicacy of the appeal to which you so publicly and improperly have had recourse. I think too it ought not to be lost sight of when "the fundamental principles of the English constitution are examined." And when you speak of" private property," it may be well to consider, (and the consideration shall be resumed hereafter) how far it is consistent with a regard for "inviolable protection" to take from the infirm, the blind, the su perannuated incumbent, the whole of his living, and to give it to the curate; which must take place under the Act of Parliament you complain of, if there be left no discretionary power in the governors of the Church.

In your examination of the fundamental principles of the English constitution, no one, I apprehend, will deny the justice of the general arguments; I only contend they do not bear on the point

at issue. Bishops, incumbents, and curates, are members of the same profession, which is regulated by laws of its own, that do not affet the general interests of society: they are not more strict or unequal than those that bind and govern the different ranks in other professions, nor are they more rigidly enforced. In the army or navy, if an officer has openly violated the articles of war, he is tried by a Court Martial: if his conduct be otherwise bad, though he may keep within the verge of obedience, or if the circumstances of his case would reflect dishonor on his profession, and an exposure of them would produce no benefit to the service, he is often, I believe, more summarily dismissed. Thus it is in the Church: if a clergyman offend against the laws of his country, he is tried by a jury if his conduct be such as the penal code does not reach, and - yet is offensive or prejudicial to his order or his parishioners, he is, if it can be done legally, quietly desired to remove to another place. I do from my heart believe, that this discretionary power in the bishops is a most wholesome enactment. I have never heard of a well authenticated instance of its being exercised oppressively; (you will excuse me, I am sure, if I do not confidently rely on anonymous information) but in more than one instance have had occasion to approve and admire the prudence with which it has been put in force. Having admitted, that the arguments contained in the first section of the second chapter of your Appeal accord with the general principles of the English constitution, but are only irrelevant to the subject, I shall "pause a little," after your example, to remark, that your observation with respect to the behaviour of the bishops in the dark and bigoted age of the third Henry, savors more of illiberality, and aversion to the function at the present day, than disapprobation of the principles which in times of Popish superstition infected the Church.

In the second section of this chapter," the principles of the constitution are contrasted with the provisions of the law affecting curates;" and you assert, without any apparent fear of contradiction," that the grand principles of our constitution are completely lost sight of, and absolutely violated and made of none effect, in the Curates' Act, as far as it goes." "You maintain that, "in its very formation, the essence of it is in the highest degree tyrannical;" that "the nature of the power vested in the hands of the bishops is of the highest arbitrary order possible;" that it is "absolutely destructive of the curates' liberty;" and that even "the nature of the appeal from the bishop to the archbishop is as arbitrary and unconstitutional as the power itself." How far, and to what excess of vituperation your own evinced feelings may carry you, is impossible for man to tell. But you will not, I think, persuade many that a provision, which only establishes, or

rather confirms, by law, the gradations of authority, which have been for ages claimed and exercised by Church governors, is "in the highest degree tyrannical;" nor that the power of English bishops extends farther, if so far, as that which is vested in that order in all countries where episcopacy prevails. And how the privilege of appeal from the immediate superintendent of the diocese to the metropolitan can be pronounced, with justice," arbitrary and unconstitutional," must be left to wiser heads than those who have been accustomed to consider the order of bishops as useful, and of Apostolical authority: a position which no sincere and orthodox member of our Church will deny; nor does it come with much propriety from one who professes to "revere the office of bishop, and delight in contemplating the derivation of that sacred order from the word of God." To whom would you appeal?-to a provincial syuod? Employ the talents you possess on the other side of the Tweed, and turu to the Church of Scotland. You will find, I conceive, synods as "arbitrary and tyrannical" as prelates. You will be taught, Sir, that in every well regulated government, offenders are checked and repressed in their efforts to excite commotion, whether their exertions be confined within the bounds of a single parish, or be spread over a whole kingdom by means of the press. We do, indeed, in these times, meet with publications which seem to defy the power of government, and set at nought the wisest institutions of society; but where shall we find a sentence more strong, a more extraordinary contrast to the vows of obedience which every clergyman makes to his ecclesiastical superior at his ordination, than the affirmation, that "the mild and gentle spirit of Great Britain does not more differ from the despotic and lawless tyranny of Turkey or Japan, than it does, in its general code, differ from the iron bondage with which it has enslaved the English curate?"

In support of this charge, you contrast the condition of the subject with that of the curate. You assert, that if the former be injured or "any oppression ensue," "the law affords him a nunber of ways to obtain redress;" and you lay great stress on the privilege "it allows, to carry his complaint to either House of Parliament, or even to the throne itself." Pray, what prevents a curate from petitioning either House of Parliament? Are petitions from ecclesiastics not allowed to be presented? Is any British subject, though he have the misfortune to wear canonicals, as you seem to esteem it, denied access to the throne itself? No, Sir, your assertions, that the curate has no law to protect him; that he has no appeal from the will and pleasure of one man, are refuted by the publication of your own grievances, by the clamor you have endeavoured to excite, by the anonymous and unwarrantable VOL. XVII. Pam. NO. XXXIII.

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