The Sun.
London, England, 1822-09-04 00:00:00

It is hard to conjecture what may be the nature;
of 46 the important and comprehensive mea-:
sures " which are to be proposed ; and especially
difficult to imagine how the assembled majesty!
and wisdom of the Congress may resolve to Carry.
their measures into effect. The most contu-,
macious of liberals are the present Governments
of Spain and Portugal, and it is probable that
their Majesties, irr Congress assembled, could
devise any scheme for.punishing the offences com-
mitted in the Peninsula against the sacred prin-
ciple of deSpotic power, they would very gladly
embrace it.

PROVINCIAL JOURNALS.

[From the Dublin Correspondent, August 31.]

Among the various Whig or Radical Journals which are dis-
tinguished for a rancorous detestation of our Church Esta-
blishment, the London Morning Chronicle stands conspicuous.
There have been lately more calumnious discussions and more
slanderous sophistries in that Journal, concerning the Church
and its Ministers, than in any other which has fallen within
our observation. They who observe any policy in the indul-
gence *of their antipathies commonly look out for some event,
or avail, themselves of some occurrence, to qualify the introduc-
tion of a subject which their malice loves ; but the Morning
Chronicle scorns to practice this little species of finesse, and,
without regard to time or circumstance, seizes upon the Church
as a wild beast upon its prey, and lacerates the victim only to
glut itself. Three successive Numbers of . this Journal afford
a continued example, Of this sort. Happily the ability
of the Chronick is .greatly inferior to the zeal of Its
hostility; and though it would willingly lay the Church
in ruins, yet, as it is compelled to work only by the mode-
rate powers of its reason, and the immoderate powers of
its malice, it cannot be as mischievous as it designs to be.—
We will give a specimen of its reasoning, which may afford
some comfort to the friends of the Church. Replying to a
paragraph in the' New Times, written, as it would seem, in
defence of tithes, the Morning Chronicle observes of the
writer—" He does not, seem to be in the least aware that
tithe is often one-third of the rent, and seldom less than one-
fourth." That nothing ever had less authority on its side
than this remark may be safely . averred—no proposition
ever was more false in fact, if there were any question
depending as to the proportions between the rents par
able to lay and to ecclesiastical landlords. There can be, in
trutholo question of this nature depending; for it is of no
concern to the nation at large whether a man in holy orders or
a layman receive rent out of lands. Neither can receive it but
as a right, and each has a right, under the sanction of the laws,,
to receive his respective proportion. What that proportion
may be is of little public concern. Prejudice may weigh it
partially ; but to the nation it is the same, whether the owner
preach and pray as a duty, or whether he do neither the one or
the other. Whether Church property has risen with other
property, or fallen as that other has decended, is a matter about
which the country at large has no need to itself. When
the prothict of land declines _ under one name, it will also
decline under every other designation, for high tithes
and low Tents cannot cd-exist. When we give such rea-
soners as the Chronicle the right to assume a
.proposition
to be true, without any proof whatever that it is so, they
will find no great impediment to the. working out of their
favourite conclusions. The Chronicle first assumes that tithe
is a tax, and next that the tax is increasing with the necessities
of the country and its diminished ability to bear the burden. We
have so repeatedly proved the fallacy of both propositions, that
we will not enter further upon them than to give them a direct
contradiction wherever we meet them, and to retort, that none
but a factious writer could persevere so obstinately in either, or
one who was too ignorant to knOw any thing about the subject.
Writers on political economy. are obliged to use certain terms
technically, for clearness sake; and, as contradistinguished
from the rent paid to a landlord, we sometimes meet with tithes
constdered as a quasi tax upon the produce of land ; but this
seems to be a distinction without a difference in fact ; and even
where tithes are taken in this sense they are commended for the
equality of their operation, which could not be if' they were
rising while rents were falling, as the Chronicle most prepos--
terously asserts. If we appear to have asserted any thing of,
the Journal in our contemplation with too little qualification as
to terms, we hope the following extract will excuse us with the
most moderate persons :
" The Church of England, we believe, at all times possess-
ed many able and learned men, though there certainly has been
lately a great falling off. In the present day, the Protestant
Churches of Germany are, beyond all comparison, superior in
learning. The Roman Catholic Churches had also an abun-
dance of men. But the essential point is, what has
been, and is the practice of the Ministers of the English Church ?
We shall find—lst, That in discipline and in discharge of duty
the English Church has long ranked below every other Pros
testant Church ; and next, that this remissness and neglect of
discipline have regularly increased with its increasing wealth."
If by the first part of this remark it is intended to compare the
ability and learning of the Divines of the Church of England
now existing, with the illustrious men who-se masterly powers
of reason and whose vast erudition, united, threw a radiance
over a space of three centuries, certainly it is placing the Church:
men of the present day in a severe point of comparison, but
most unfairly and unjustly. instead of their being " a falling
off lately," we apprehend the contrary is the
.case. There is
more general learning in the world now than there ever was, and
the learning of particular individuals is less shining and extraor-
dinary. The works of theology and divinity now are not as
voluminous as those of our Reverend predecessors, for their
mighty labours have lightened the tasks of those who follow
them • but we believe that 'there has never been a time when
the Press had a greater number of 'examples to shew of the
industry of the Church of England. And, indeed, it be-
hoves her Ministers to man her works with zeal and courage,
and unremitting effort ; for there is nothing in the land which
is desperate or discontented, fond of change, or greedy of
acquisition, that is not leagued against her, and carrying
on either an open or an insidious siege against her.—
The Chronicle is pleased to assert, that in discipline and in dis-
charge of duty the English Church has ranked below every
other Protestant Church. It leaves us to look for prods of
this impudent libel in such antinathies as those by which it is
itself influenced, and there they shall remain for us. if we see
blasphemy increase—if we see it revealing itself in the Courts
of public Justice, insulting the administration of the laws, and
opening marts for the traffic of its depraving products in all
quarters--it is not fair to charge upon the Established Church
the ill effects which such open popular blasphemy is; in the na-
ture of things, calculated to produce. The vices engendered in
London alone, and the desperate profligacy dits multitudinous
poor; are sufficient to shew that the influence of religion is un-
fortunately but too limited in this kingdom as well as in all
others ; and if' the progress of society has led the present age to
the enjoyment of many things unknown to our predecessor's, it
'has also sprinkled among the mass the " little learn-
ing" and all its perils ; and if, in times .past, one
or two learned sceptics distinguished an age, there
are tens of thoUsands now who look upon religion as a farce,
and its Church, when it has any thing to lose, only fit to.un-
dergo a liberal and an enlightened spoliation., We own we
were a little surprised to find the Chronicle hardy enough to
assert, that the Church was exceedingly poor at former periods
of the English History. Before the Reformation- its wealth
was immense. All the revenue of the modern endowed Clergy
could not build those noble nionuments'of taste and opulence
which have escaped the puritanical phrenzies in England.
Since the Reformation more than a third of its possessions were
torn from it by a tyrant hand ; 'and, from that era of its plunder
down to the present day, neither donation nor endowment has
been conferred upon it. If it be rich, the wealth, which offends
the puritanism of the Chronicle so much, is the result of the
improvement of sooiety in wealth and arts, and in essential im-
provements. We presume it never was a part of English po-
licy to inhibit particular property from being improved—to
doom it to stand still and remain in its scanty and unprofitable
state, while the wealth of all the community was swelling
around it. The property of the Church in lands, if' cOnveyed
over to lay possessors, would be quadrupled in value ; and, for
our parts, we never could see any politic reason for prescrib-
ing a specific limit to the letting of the estates of the Church:--
a matter which always restrains their improvement, and conse-
quently lessens their value. it is a very whimsical thing to see
the Chronicle quoting a writer of 1688, to, establish that the
Church of England is at the present day too rich not to be re-
miss and negligent of discipline ! We shall hereafter resume
this subject.