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 L20 a year, and many under ten.  I take his Lordship’s bishopric to be worth near L2,500 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 good life and conversation, as loth to see the fires kindled in Smithfield, as his Lordship, and at least as ready to face them under a popish persecution.  But nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches, as to conceive how others can be in want.  How can the neighbouring vicar feel cold or hunger, while my Lord is seated by a good fire in the warmest room in his palace, with a dozen dishes before him?  I remember one other prelate much of the same stamp; who when his clergy would mention their wishes that some act of parliament might be thought of for the good of the Church, would say, “Gentlemen, we are very well as we are; if they would let us alone, we should ask no more."[28]

[Footnote 27:  Page 38.]

[Footnote 28:  Scott, in a note, thinks this reflection on Burnet to be unjust, because of that prelate’s zeal “in forwarding a scheme in 1704 for Improving the livings of the poorer clergy.” [T.  S.]]

“Sacrilege” (says my Lord) “in the church of Rome, is a mortal sin;"[29] and is it only so in the church of Rome?  Or is it but a venial sin in the Church of England?  Our litany calls fornication a deadly sin; and I would appeal to his Lordship for fifty years past, whether he thought that or sacrilege the deadliest?  To make light of such a sin, at the same moment that he is frighting us from an idolatrous religion, should seem not very consistent. “Thou that sayest, a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?”