consideration. If I might venture to guess the opinion of the clergy
upon this matter, I believe they could wish that some small part of the
abbey lands had been applied to the augmentation of poor bishoprics, and
a very few acres to serve for glebes in those parishes where there are
none; after which I think they would not repine that the laity should
possess the rest. If the estates of some bishops and cathedrals were
exorbitant before the Reformation, I believe the present clergy's wishes
reach no further than that some reasonable temper had been used, instead
of paring them to the quick: But as to the tithes, without examining
whether they be of divine institution, I conceive there is hardly one of
that sacred order in England, and very few even among the laity that
love the Church, who will not allow the misapplying of those revenues to
secular persons, to have been at first a most flagrant act of injustice
and oppression: Though at the same time, God forbid they should be
restored any other way than by gradual purchase, by the consent of those
who are now the lawful possessors, or by the piety and generosity of
such worthy spirits as this nation sometimes produceth. The Bishop knows
very well that the application of tithes to the maintenance of
monasteries, was a scandalous usurpation even in popish times: That the
monks usually sent out some of their fraternity to supply the cures; and
that when the monasteries were granted away by Henry VIII., the parishes
were left destituted, or very meanly provided of any maintenance for a
pastor: So that in many places, the whole ecclesiastical dues, even to
mortuaries, Easter-offerings, and the like, are in lay hands, and the
incumbent lies wholly at the mercy of his patron for his daily bread. By
these means there are several hundred parishes in England under £20 a
year, and many under ten. I take his Lordship's bishopric to be worth
near £2,500 annual income; and I will engage at half a year's warning to
find him above 200 beneficed clergymen who have not so much among them
all to support themselves and their families; most of them orthodox, of