This defect, among other consequences of it, hath made schism a sort of necessary evil, there being at least three hundred thousand inhabitants in this town, whom the churches would not be able to contain, if the people were ever so well disposed:  and in a city not overstocked with zeal, the only way to preserve any degree of religion, is to make all attendance upon the duties of it, as easy and cheap as possible:  whereas on the contrary, in the larger parishes, the press is so great, and the pew-keeper’s tax so exorbitant, that those who love to save trouble and money, either stay at home, or retire to the conventicles.  I believe there are few examples in any Christian country of so great a neglect for religion; and the dissenting teachers have made their advantages largely by it, “sowing tares among the wheat while men slept;” being much more expert at procuring contributions, which is a trade they are bred up in, than men of a liberal education.

And to say truth, the way practised by several parishes in and about this town, of maintaining their clergy by voluntary subscriptions, is not only an indignity to the character, but hath many pernicious consequences attending it; such a precarious dependence, subjecting a clergyman, who hath not more than ordinary spirit and resolution, to many inconveniences, which are obvious to imagine:  but this defect will, no doubt, be remedied by the wisdom and piety of the present Parliament; and a tax laid upon every house in a parish, for the support of their pastor.  Neither indeed can it be conceived, why a house, whose purchase is not reckoned above one-third less than land of the same yearly rent, should not pay a twentieth part annually (which is half tithe) to the support of the minister.  One thing I could wish, that in fixing the maintenance to the several ministers in these new intended parishes, no determinate sum of money may be named, which in all perpetuities ought by any means to be avoided; but rather a tax in proportion to the rent of each house, though it be but a twentieth or even a thirtieth part.  The contrary of this, I am told, was done in several parishes of the city after the fire; where the incumbent and his successors were to receive for ever a certain sum; for example, one or two hundred pounds a year.  But the lawgivers did not consider, that what we call at present, one hundred pounds, will, in process of time, have not the intrinsic value of twenty; as twenty pounds now are hardly equal to forty shillings, three hundred years ago.  There are a thousand instances of this all over England, in reserved rents applied to hospitals, in old chiefries, and even among the clergy themselves, in those payments which, I think, they call a modus.[6]