I must repeat, that what I am to say upon this subject, is intended only for the conviction of those among our own party, who are true lovers of the Church, and would be glad it should continue in a tolerable degree of prosperity to the end of the world.

The Church is supposed to last for ever, both in its discipline and doctrine; which is a privilege common to every petty corporation, who must likewise observe the laws of their foundation.  If a gentleman’s estate which now yields him a thousand pounds a year, had been set for ever at the highest value, even in the flourishing days of King Charles the Second, would it now amount to above four or five hundred at most?  What if this had happened two or three hundred years ago; would the reserved rent at this day be any more than a small chiefry?  Suppose the revenues of a bishop to have been under the same circumstances; could he now be able to perform works of hospitality and charity?  Thus, if the revenues of a bishop be limited to a thousand pounds a year; how will his successor be in a condition to support his station with decency, when the same denomination of money shall not answer an half, a quarter, or an eighth part of that sum?  Which must unavoidably be the consequence of any bill to elude the limiting act, whereby the Church was preserved from utter ruin.

The same reason holds good in all corporations whatsoever, who cannot follow a more pernicious practice than that of granting perpetuities, for which many of them smart to this day; although the leaders among them are often so stupid as not to perceive it, or sometimes so knavish as to find their private account in cheating the community.

Several colleges in Oxford, were aware of this growing evil about an hundred years ago; and, instead of limiting their rents to a certain sum of money, prevailed with their tenants to pay the price of so many barrels of corn, to be valued as the market went, at two seasons (as I remember) in the year.  For a barrel of corn is of a real intrinsic value, which gold and silver are not:  And by this invention, these colleges have preserved a tolerable subsistence, for their fellows and students, to this day.

The present bishops will, indeed be no sufferers by such a bill; because, their ages considered, they cannot expect to see any great decrease in the value of money; or, at worst, they can make it up in the fines, which will probably be greater than usual, upon the change of leases into fee-farms, or lives; or without the power of obliging their tenants to a real half value.  And, as I cannot well blame them for taking such advantages, (considering the nature of human kind) when the question is only, whether the money shall be put into their own or another man’s pocket:  So they will be never excusable before God or man, if they do not to the death oppose, declare, and protest against any such bill, as must in its consequences complete the ruin of the Church, and of their own order in this kingdom.