The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-08-30 00:00:00

BISHOP PHILLPOTT'S PRIMARY VISITATION.

EXETER, Aug. 24.—Our right rev. diocesan is now making
the tour of his diocese in the primary visitation to his clergy.
On Wednesday last he delivered a very able charge to the
clergy of Exeter, nearly. the whole of whom were present. On
Thursday his lordship visited Honiton, and yesterday Tiverton,
at each of which places numerous audiences of the clergy were
assembled, and the charge seems to have given very great sa-
tisfaction. _ .

His lordship commenced by stating that the primary visita-
tion of his diocese would, under any circumstances, be a cause
of great anxiety, but that anxiety was greatly increased in the
present instance by the awful state of the time, whan a gloom
hung over our venerable institutions, and the ark of God, the
national church, was threatened with spoliation, if not with ab-
solute destruction. Such, unquestionably, was the temper of
the times, and therefore he would allude to some of those cir-
cumstances which more immediately concerned them. He
wished to consider the interests of the church, as means put into
their hands for a more important purpose than merely provid-
ing them with a subsistence. The public at large, as well as
the clergy, were equally interested in the preservation of the
endowments of the church, which were to be valued as a means
to an end—the greatest of all ends—the instruction of the people
in that knowledge that could alone make them wise unto salva-
tion. If the endowments of the church were insufficient, it was
the duty of the legislature—let statesmen and politicians think
what they might—to augment them. It was the duty of the
clergy, however, to avoid all captious or unnecessary opposition
to measures for the removal of abuses, or the correction of errors,
that might have crept in ; they were required, however, to point
out the danger that would arise from rashly altering institutions
which had so well answered the end for which they were adapted.
In the discharge of their duty they must be content, as his lord-
ship had been, to bear the sneers, scoffs, and ridicule, which
would ever alight on those who, in times of excitement, resolved
to stand by the ancient paths, and to care not for those who
were given to change. Little time, however, now remained for
deliberation ; a change in the affairs of the church would cer-
tainly. take place, and it was their duty not to be wanting in
exertion to render that change as productive of as much good,
at the expense of as little evil as possible.
The tithes were one great source of agitation respecting the
temporalities of the church.; but he would not do the legislature
theinjustice to suppose that they were ready to countenance
the dishonest propositions made by some upon this subject. A
British Parliament, so long as it contained British spirit, would
never resort to plunder and sacrilege. He lamented the pass-
ing of the Irish Church Bill; but he was unwilling to think that
any intentional departure from justice had actuated the legis-
lature in that measure. Should, however, a time arrive when
the spoliation of the church should be determined on—should a
base and cowardly expediency ever usurp the place of justice
and of honour in the legislature—should that dread time arrive,
the clergy would lay down their harps in sorrow and in mourn-
ing; but though they might cease to sing the Lord's song, they
would not cease to do the Lord's work. His lordship next ad-
verted to the baleful countenance recently given to views and
doctrines on church property and tithes, which not long since
would have been scouted with righteous indignation. He then
entered into an exposition of his views of the nature of tithes,
denying that a tenth of tke rental would be a fair commutation
(a doctrine which has been very sturdily maintained by the
agricultural associations—the rustic political unions" of
Devon.)
The right rev. prelate then combated the evidence of the
original fourfold division of tithes. The prevalence of such
unfounded assertions he instanced as indications of the decay
of that high character for honour and integrity by which Eng-
lishmen had been wont to be characterised. His lordship de-
nied that tithe was a tax upon labour and capital any more
than rent was. He instanced the abandonment of the tithe on
the wages of the labourer, and the capital of the merchant,
which, by the common law, the clergy were entitled to, as a
proof of the moderation of the reformed church. The clergy
were bound, as guardians of the property of the church, to de-
fend it; but they had no desire to oppose an equitable commu-
tation of tithes. He was happy in being enabled to state that,
out of the six hundred parishes in his diocese, only one clergy-
man took tithes in kind, and he did not do so from choice. he
right rev. prelate then adverted to the opinions of a noble lord,
(Ebrington,) a representative of one of the divisions of this
county, who had stated to his constituents his opinion that the
revenues of the clergy ought to be more equally divided; in
opposition to this his lordship was understood to say, that the
Church of England was not a single corporation, having au-
thority over the distribution of all its endowments, but was
rather a number of corporations, each having a perfect control
over its own respective endowments, and, therefore, any system
of general equalization would be a manifest injustice, and could
not fail to be of serious injury to the church. The inequality
arose from circumstances over which the church had had no
control; the liberality displayed by donors towards it in past
times, and the alienation of some of its property into lay hands,
to which cause alone the shameful poverty of many of the livings
might be attributable. He considered that the taxing of those
only of the clergy who had very good livings would be of very
little benefit, whilst taxing those with moderate incomes would
deprive them of the means of dispensing charity arid assistance
to their destitute neighbours. He thought some less objec-
tionable mode of taxing the clergy ought to be resorted to for
augmenting the small livings. His lordship then adverted
more particularly to the state of his own diocese, and strongly
recommended his clergy to support the system of instruction
pursued at the national schools. He then regretted the number
of Methodists that existed in the western part of his diocese,
which class he considered could not be called dissenters, as they
agreed in nearly every thing essential to the doctrines and disci-
pline of.the Church of England, and for whose reunion he fer-
vently prayed. The right rev. prelate concluded by reminding
• the clergy that if they did their duty the church would not be
permitted to fall, for they could look up for help to Him who
had declared that "neither the gates of hell nor the powers of
darkness should prevail against it."

THEATRICAL DIFFICULTIES.—At the Birmingham police-
office last week four persons belonging to the theatrical company
were held to bail for assaultinz, the manager, Mr. Fi azer, for not
paying theL their salaries. 'I he manager himself, . t was stated,
was ►n prison at the suit of Paganini.

Einporto.

WEST INDIES AND MADEIRA.

Brilliant, Mordaunt, fm Barbados, with 344 hds 2 tcs 2 brls sugar,
2 pkg,s arrowroot, I
_pkge sweetmeats, 1 pkge tamarinds, T Lee & co
—5 t logwood, said Master-2 iron models (retd), Order—Q Dk
Galston, Guthrie, fm Trinidad, with 29 lids 8 brls sugar, Order
278 bgs cocoa, 75 bls coffee, 45 serons 2 bales cotton, W Wood and co
—2BO bgs cocoa, 17 brls coffee, 3 bales cotton, G and J Smith—The
remainder of the cargo for Greenock—P Dk

UNITED STATES.
Mary, Morton, fm New Orleans, with 849 bales cotton, Order-100
bales do, W S Dixon-145 bales do, H. Patry & co-70 bales do, Peck
and Phelps-5 cks buck horns, W Nahum—B Dk

BRITISH AMERICA.
John Francis, Forbisber, fm St Andrews, N B, with 42 ps hard-
wood, 508 ps pine timber, 7 fms lathwood, 16 spars 1 c 1 deals, J
Logan— Dk
Sir Walthieu, 111'Master, fm Quebec, with 148 ps pine and 50 ps
oak timber, 251 c 10 deals, 15 c 16 deal ends, 995 c staves, J Logan—
B Dk
Augusta, Petrie, fm St John, N B, 117 ps birch and 285 ps pine
timber, 625 c deals and deal ends, 825 c 17 ash hd staves, 3 fms lath-
wood, G Glen—B Dk
Richard Brandt, Dettless, fm Archangel, with 1094 brls tar, \V
Lindsay-2000 mats, Order-88 cks tallow, H and J Hornby and co
Dk