The Sun.
London, England, 1829-11-30 00:00:00

IRISH CHURCH ESTABLIqINIENT.

THE HUMBLE PETITION OF THE UNDER-
SIGNED LAY MEMBERS OF THE UNITED
CHURCH OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND, IN-
HABITANTS OF THE CITY AND COUNTY
OF CORK,

HUBIBLY SHOWETH,
That your Petitioners regard the United Church
of England and Ireland as the chosen instrument of
Almighty God to preserve amongst us the light of
Christian truth, and to uphold and foster the civil
and religious liberties of the nation. They are
firmly convinced of the Scriptural purity of her doc-
trines, and of the excellence of her Episcopal form
of Government ; and they desire, by every means
in their power, to support her privileges and to ex-
tend her influence.
That although your Petitioners are thus fully
sensible of the blessing which the Established
Church has been to the country, they yet deeply
deplore that EVILS ARISE from the present distribu-
tion of her revenues, and that ABUSES EXIST in the
administration of her secular affairs. And your
Petitioners are convinced that a period has arrived
when the security of the Church requires the re-
formation of defects, which operate so strongly to
impede her influence in the promotion of religion,
to weaken her hold upon the affections of the people•
and to endanger her existence as a national esta-
blishment.

Your Petitioners would humbly call the attention
of your Honourable House, in the first place, to the
evils arising from the present distribution of Church
properly. Your Petitioners conceive that the reve-
nues of a national religious establishment should be
applied to providing as far as possible for the suitable
maintenance of all classes of the Clergy, and for the
religious instruction of the people. And yet, by the
present dig ision of the property of the Church, some
of the Clergy are possessed of revenues far beyond
what the most liberal estimate could deem neces-
sary, while others of the body (to whom frequently
the most important cases are entrusted) receive
pittances wholly insufficient for their support, and no
adequate provision is made for supplyingthe religious
wants of the increased population of the country.
While therefore your Petitioners fully admit, that
the diversity of orders in an episcopal form of
Church government requires a diversity of incomes,
and while they pray for the preservation of all
vested rights of property, they at the same time
humbly submit (at the termination of existing in-
terests) funds might be derived from the superabund-
ance of the wealthier preferments, which would
supply the necessities of the Curates and poorer
beneficed Clergy, and would provide for the support
of additional Ministers of the Established Church,
where the growth of population and other caused
render them necessary.
The want of a sufficient number of churches to
accommodate the increase of inhabitants in populous
districts, is also a subject to which your Petitioners
would humbly call the attention of your Honourable
House. It appears to your Petitioners to be abso-
lutely necessary that some means should be provided
for the erection and endowment of new churches, to
supply the wants of the country more adequately
than is effected by the provisions for this purpose
already in existence.
Of the abuses which exist in the administration of
the secular affairs of the Church, the first to which
your Petitioners would humbly call the attention of
your Honourable House, is the custom of presenting
the same incumbent to a plurality of benefices, hav-
ing care of souls frequently in different dioceses and
parts of the country remote from each other. This
practice, which is, unfortunately, so prevalent, your
Petitioners conceive to be fraught with the most ir.
jurious consequences to religion and to the Esta-
blished Church. It involves the necessity of non.
residence—it is a union of the most indefensible de-
scription—and it is an evident misapplication of
church property, as it accumulates upon an indivi-
dual what was originally intended to afford a compe-
tence to several. And your Petitioners humbly sub-
mit that, if a more equitable distribution of church
property should take place, which would provide for
the increase of the incomes of the poorer beneficed
Clergy, patrons would no longer he enabled to urge
the plea of necessity, the only ground on which the
custom has ever been, or can be supported.
The abuse of non-residence is, however, not con-
fined to parishes held in plurality. Your Petitioners
complain, that either from a deficiency its the laws
intended to enforce residence, or from a laxity of
church discipline, or from a combination of both
these causes, many. of the beneficed Clergy absent
themselves either wholly or partially from their
cures without any sufficient reason. The bonds of
affection which intercourse would produce between
the pastor and his flock are thus rent asunder—the
spiritual concerns of the people are neglected—the
influence of the Established Church declines—and
facilities are afforded for the encroachments of ,Po-
pery and dissent. Even if the sacred obligations of
religion did not operate, the residence of a beneficed
clergyman within his parish is imperatively de•
mended on the plain principle of common honesty.
The next subject to which your Petitioners would
advert, is the unions which exist of parishes suffi-
cient in value to support separate clergymen, and
requiring them from their extent and population.
Your Petitioners humbly submit, that provision
should be made for the dissolution of unions of this
nature at the earliest opportunity.
Your Petitioners feel it to be their duty to ad-
dress your Honourable House, on a subject of pe-
culiar delicacy, which they approach with consider..
able reluctance. They advert to the almost insur-
mountable expences and delays which attend the
deprivation of immoral Clergymen of their bene-
fices. To the spiritual well-being of a Church, no-
thing is more absolutely essential than that her
rulers should possess a power of easily ejecting
corrupt and profligate Ministers. And yet such dif-
ficulties attend the prosecution of suits for depriva-
tion, that abandoned characters have been sometimes
found, in defiance of public odium, and private
exertion, continuing to receive the revenues of a
Church which they injure by the disgrace and
scandal attending their conduct. Your Petitioners,
therefore, humbly pray, that the Episcopal powers
may be encreased and supported by such legal en-
actments as will enable the Bishops to effect this

most essential object.
These various evils and abuses your Petitioners
humbly submit, require an immediate remedy—con-
vinced that their existence has mainly retarded the
progress of the glorious truths of the Reformation—
has confirmed and increased dissent from our na-
tional Church—and furnishes to the enemies of the
establishment a powerful engine with which they
hope to effect its overthrow.
In conclusion, your Petitioners do most distinctly
acknowledge the right of the Clergy as a body to
their property—and the necessity of guarding vested
interests. They earnestly pray that the possessions
of the Established Church may be preserved undi-