Recent legislation has given such importance to the next resolution, that it will be well to quote his precise words: 

“5.  That it would be fit to propose, as the fifth article of union, that the Churches of that part of Great Britain called England and of Ireland shall be united into one Church; and that when his Majesty shall summon a Convocation, the archbishops, bishops, and clergy of the several provinces in Ireland shall be respectively summoned to and sit in the Convocation of the united Church, in the like manner and subject to the same regulations as to election and qualification as are at present by law established with respect to the like orders of the Church of England; and that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the said united Church shall be preserved as now by law established for the Church of England, saving to the Church of Ireland all the rights, privileges, and jurisdictions now thereunto belonging; and that the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the Church of Scotland shall likewise be preserved as now by law, and by the Act of Union established for the Church of Scotland; and that the continuance and preservation forever of the said united Church, as the Established Church, of that part of the said United Kingdom called England and Ireland, shall be deemed and taken to be an essential and fundamental article and condition of the Union.”

Pitt’s comment on this article was so brief as to show that he regarded its justice as well as its importance too obvious to need any elaborate justification.  He pointed out that that portion of it which related to Convocation had been added by the Irish Parliament, and “would only say on so interesting a subject that the prosperity of the Irish Church could never be permanent, unless it were a part of the Union, to leave as a guard a power to the United Parliament to make some provision in this respect as a fence beyond any act of their own that could at present be agreed on.”  But, while he thus showed his conviction that the permanent prosperity of the Irish Church was essential to the welfare of the kingdom, he was by no means insensible to the claims of the Roman Catholic Church (as founded not more in policy than in justice) to be placed in some degree on a footing of equality with it; not only by a recognition of the dignity of its ministers, but also by an endowment which should be proportioned to their requirements, and should place them in a position of worldly competence and comfort for which hitherto they had been dependent on their flocks.[145] To use the expression of a modern statesman, he contemplated “levelling up,” not “levelling down.”  Perhaps it may be said that he contemplated levelling up, as the surest and most permanent obstacle to any proposal of levelling down.