The Sun.
London, England, 1829-09-26 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is believed in some quarters, that the Cork
meeting for Church reform, which was alluded
to in our Paper of Thursday last, will be fol-
lowed by others having the same object. We
know not, with any certainty, how that may be,
but the object is not unworthy of support by
conscientious and zealous Protestants. There
can be no attempt more wicked or andaciow
than that of representing as enemies of the
Established Church those who simply profess
the wish to see a remedy for the abuses which
have crept into it. It is easy to raise an outcry
against the most religious and virtuous men in
the kingdom asrevilers of the Clergy and spoilers
of Church property, for only recommending that
better pastors should be appointed to valuable
benefices than those who sometimes disgrace the
possession of them by their disreputable lives,
and that better incomes should be allotted out of
the general fund, to a large proportion of
Clergymen, whose labours in the cause of
Christianity, and whose punctual and edify-
ing discharge of their duties, well merit
a share at least of those rewards which
others reap without having in any measure toiled
for them. It was not without strong evidence
in the state of Ireland to justify friendly feelings
towards the resolutions adopted by the Pro-
testant reformers at Cork, that we ventured to
throw out a decided opinion upon the necessity
of examining, with a view to purge, the condi-
tion of the Irish Church Establishment. We
do not talk of commuting tithes for equivalent
property under a different form, because it seems
to us, that since the enactment of the composi-
tion law, the most impolitic and unfortunate
feature of the tithe system has been to a great
extent got rid of. Nevertheless, there have
been dignitaries of the English Church who
openly and strenuously advised the exchange of
tithes for some other species of provision.
Bishop Watson, the ablest Prelate of the last
half century, writes thus to the Duke of Rut-
land, the latter nobleman being Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, in the year 1787:
. .

" I am a friend to a commutation, because I am a
friend to charity and good neighbourhood ; I wish
the commutation to be in land, because I would hare
the means of the clergy certain, and not dependent
on the fluctuation in the value of money. The c►y
against tithes has not arisen from any extortion of
the clergy, either in this kingdom or in Ireland; but
it does now subsist ►n both countries, and it ob-
structs in both the Christian utility of the Ministry,
and on that account I wish to see the occasion of
such obstruction removed."

There were others, not Clergymen, though
much revered (for sundry reasons) by divers of
the Clergy, who did not affect to regard church
property as a thing quite sacred and intangible.
No less a personage than Mr. Pitt submitted to
Dr. Watson, through the Archbishop of. Can-
terbury,—hear this, ye Pitt worshippers !—a
plan for selling the NS hole tithe of the country ;
and how, and wherefore ? As to the " where-
fore,"— for a vulgar stockjobbing trick—" to
serve public credit," id est, to raise the funds,—
a worthy motive for the great founder of modern
church and kingship. Then as to the " how,"
—why, by selling the title at an under value,—
that is, robbing the Church, and vesting the
proceeds in 3 per Cent. Consols, therewith to
pay the Clergy. We extract the statement from
the life of that distinguished Bishop, who says
that alter certain observations of his upon the
scheme, " he heard no more about it :"
" In January, 1799, I received from the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury a paper which had been sent
to him by Mr. Pitt, and was desired to deliver my
opinion on the subject. The paper contained a plan
for the sale of the tithe of the country, on the same
principle that the land-tax had beet: offered for sale
in the preceding Session of Parliament. It was pro-
posed that the money arising from the sale of the
tithe should be vested in the funds, in aid of public
credit, and the clergy were to receive their income
from the funds; the income, however, was not to
be a fixed income which could never be augmented,
but was to be so adjusted as, at different periods, to
admit an increase according to the advance in the
price of grain. This plan was not introduced into
Parliament : it met, I believe, with private opposi-
tion from the Bishops, though I own it had my ap-
probation; but that approbation was founded on
very different principles from that of aiding public
credit. I did not indeed clearly see how, if the full
value *as given for the tithe, that credit would be
assisted thereby. I remember having said to Mr.
Arthur Young on the occasion, that I for one never
would give my consent, and that I thought the
Houses of Parliament never would give theirs to
the sale of the tithe, unless its full value was paid
for it. ' Then,' said he, there is an end of the
whole business; for unless the people in the west,
who are now most clamorous against tithe, are al-
lowed to purchase at the price they new pay by
composition, they will on their knees beg Mr. Pitt
to let things continue as they are.' "
But there are other points on which we do
heartily concur with Bishop Watson—when he
appears, not like Mr. Pitt as a disturber of the
principle of church property, but as a reformer
of abuses in its application. " Pluralities and
non-residence," exclaims his Lordship, " are
scandals in the Christian church, as a church,
and injurious to those interests of the State, for
the promotion of which it is at the expense of
maintaining a clergy." Now of pluralities it is
asserted, that they are less prevalent in Ireland
than throughout this country. Of pluralities in
name, perhaps, the allegation may be well found-
ed. Nevertheless, what are " unions" but plu-
ralities under a thin disguise ? When many
livings are united under one denomination, what
is the possessor but a pluralist of the most ex-
ceptionable nature, for he is a smuggler of plu-
ralities. The holder of several united livings
cannot do the duty of all of them. The pari-
shioners of some of the livings thus brought
together in unholy matrimony must be without
the benefit of those religious services for which
the Protestant Church professes to have been
established, but the want of which assuredly
does not exempt the same destitute pari-
shioners from the rigorous execution of tithe.
Here, then, is the proper income of the church
diverted by its own ministers to purposes not
ecclesiastical,—to purposes profane,—to sacri.
legions purposes—inasmuch as it is to super-
sede a resident, and laborious, and effective
clergy, by one which does not labour, and which
does not reside, and which to any Christian end
or usefulness, might as well be a Pagan priest-
hood, ministering to idolators in China. This
is the true spoliation of church property; this is
the true source of the spread and duration of
Irish Popery. The revenues of the Church
have been plundered by those who are not real
churchmen,—tithes, the lawful support of the
clergy, have been " commuted" into corrupt
pensions to absentee profligates and coxcombs.
The real harvest of the Protestant church, the
faith and affections of a Christian people, has
been loft for the sickle of the Popish priesthood ;
and this abominable system is justified and bol-
stered up, as part and parcel of our Protestant
ascendancy. Well may the honest
fw
neosrtaad andmronglr(iise.
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noblemen and gendemo cop