Lastly, the honourable House of Commons may consider, whether the scheme of multiplying beggarly clergymen through the whole kingdom who must all have votes for choosing parliament men (provided they can prove their freeholds to be worth 40s. per annum, ultra reprisas) may not, by their numbers, have great influence upon elections, being entirely under the dependance of their bishops.  For by a moderate computation, after all the divisions and subdivisions of parishes, that, my lords, the bishops, have power to make by their new laws, there will, as soon as the present set of clergy go off, be raised an army of ecclesiastical militants, able enough for any kind of service, except that of the altar.

I am, indeed, in some concern about a fund for building a thousand or two churches, wherein these probationers may read their wall lectures, and begin to doubt they must be contented with barns; which barns will be one great advancing step towards an accommodation with our true Protestant brethren, the Dissenters.

The scheme of encouraging clergymen to build houses by dividing a living of L500 a-year into ten parts, is a contrivance, the meaning whereof hath got on the wrong side of my comprehension; unless it may be argued, that bishops build no houses, because they are so rich; and therefore, the inferior clergy will certainly build, if you reduce them to beggary.  But I knew a very rich man of quality in England, who could never be persuaded to keep a servant out of livery; because such servants would be expensive, and apt, in time, to look like gentlemen; whereas the others were ready to submit to the basest offices, and at a cheaper pennyworth might increase his retinue.

I hear, it is the opinion of many wise men, that before these bills pass both Houses, they should be sent back to England with the following clauses inserted: 

First, that whereas there may be about a dozen double bishoprics in Ireland, those bishoprics should be split and given to different persons; and those of a single denomination be also divided into two, three, or four parts, as occasion shall require; otherwise there may be a question started, whether twenty-two prelates can effectually extend their paternal care and unlimited power, for the protection and correction of so great a number of spiritual subjects.  But this proposal will meet with such furious objections, that I shall not insist upon it, for I well remember to have read, what a terrible fright the frogs were in, upon a report that the sun was going to marry.

Another clause should be, that none of these twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty pounders may be suffered to marry, under the penalty of immediate deprivation, their marriages declared null, and their children bastards; for some desponding people, take the kingdom to be not in a condition of encouraging so numerous a breed of beggars.

A third clause will be necessary, that these humble gentry should be absolutely disqualified from giving votes in elections for parliament men.