--when money was paid or received for presentation to a benefice; oris, of the mouth, by flattery; and obsequii or ministerii, when men did, by domestic attendance, and other employments, by temporal drudgery obtain the spiritual dignity." p. 173. Now, the principles of the Church are the same in every age; and whatever abuses may have insinuated themselves into its practice, the most effectual means to divest the practice of its corruptions must be to assert the principle in its purity. That principle is, that "both as to giver and receiver, the gift of a benefice should be free and voluntary;" not through covetousness, making merchandize of souls. Does not the custom of the present age, then, operate in direct contravention of this ́principle? — and might not the eminent Pontiff,* who first set forth on authority this threefold division, were he now contemplating the disorders of the English church, apply manus to the purchase of Advowsons or next Presentations; oris, to the canvassing of Electors, Corporations, or Trustees; ministerii, to political services rendered to the Patron or his party? "It is all one," declares the good Bishop, "what the consideration is on which the living is bestowed, if regard is not in the first place had to the worth of the person nominated, and if he is not judged fit and proper to undertake the cure of souls. For with relation to the account that is to be given to the great Bishop of souls, it is all one * Gregory the Great, Pope, 590-604.

whether money, friendship, kindred, or any carnal regard was the chief motive to the nomination."

"Hast thou seen this, O son of man ?" asked the mystic voice of the prophet Ezekiel; "Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these." One only of these abominations, indeed, will I further mention, one which is not confined to those

who are by profession traffickers in spiritual merchandize, and which will of itself be sufficient to prove what advances we have made in the downward path since the first appearance of the "Pastoral Care." I allude to the practice of enhancing the value of the living set up to sale; not only in consideration of the Incumbent's age or infirmities, but of his present sickness; and accelerating or retarding the completion of the bargain according to the reports of his Physician. Circumstances of sufficient notoriety, but into which, for obvious reasons, I forbear to enter, have made it but too palpable, that no dignity of rank, no sense of responsibility, no remembrance of parental example, will deter an unconscientious Patron from the atrocity of this cold-blooded and calculating meanness; and however in such cases the letter of the law may remain inviolate, he must be a dexterous casuist indeed who can distinguish, to his own satisfaction, between the moral turpitude of putting up a living to sale while the Incumbent is supposed to be dying, or after he has actually expired! The fact is, that though the reproach

is to the Gospel, the offence is by the law. The expectation held out to the purchaser, that the benefice will shortly be open, is Simony by anticipation; and if, on this ground, either the sale be accelerated, or the price enhanced, I see no way of evading the responsibility that is incurred, but a denial of the Omniscience of God; or what would scarcely be less monstrous, an assumption that it is the law which makes the principle, when surely it is the principle which OUGHT to make the law.

It can avail but little, however, to denounce a practice which few will attempt to vindicate on any better or higher ground, than that vested interests have now made it a necessary evil. To provide a remedy, indeed, would task an ability equal to that of Bishop Burnet, and an authority far superior. It may, nevertheless, be worth while to enquire whether this abuse, if it cannot be abolished, might not be mitigated and restrained. It were an act well worthy of a Christian Legislature, to redeem to itself, on payment of a fair equivalent, all rights of lay patronage, and transfer them in trust to the several Diocesans, under conditions derived, not from the theories of modern legislation, but the practices and usages of the early Church. And the experiment might recently have been tried at least upon a small scale, in regard to the advowsons formerly held by corporate bodies. The auspicious moment, however, was suffered to pass unimproved; and now, whatever might have been

the abuses in the patronage of these municipal bodies, we have seen them removed by a remedy quite as bad as the disease-the sale of livings has been legalised and sanctioned by Act of Parliament! If, accordingly, it be in vain to expect any grand healing measure in times like these-if the national funds are to be preferably expended on prisons, penitentiaries, police, and penal colonies—if men will only serve their God of that which costs them nothing-at least it would be practicable, without the expenditure of a single shilling, materially to diminish an evil, which has been, and still is, fraught with incalculable mischief to the Church; and this, not by redeeming to the State the right of patronage, but by defining more strictly the terms on which it shall be exercised by individuals. However acquired, patronage is a trust; the state has a right to provide that it shall be properly discharged. Where would be the difficulty, or where the injustice of enacting that from and after a given date, no clerk shall be admissible for Institution to a Benefice who has not ministered as licensed Curate in some one diocese for the term of seven or at least five years ?* This would

This principle has been recognised in the Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill, as applicable to the disposal of any capitular living, which shall devolve by lapses to the Bishop of the diocese. The Bishop "shall, within the next three calendar months, collate or license thereto a spiritual person, who shall have actually served within such diocese

at least prevent young and inexperienced men from intruding themselves into the most onerous and responsible stations in the Church, and pretending to teach others while themselves neophytes or novices in the ministry, if not in the faith. "For if Patrons ought to consider themselves under strict obligations in this matter, how much more ought they to lay the sense of the duties of their function to heart, who have by solemn vows dedicated themselves to the work of the ministry? What notion have they of running without being sent, who tread in those steps!-do not they say according to what was threatened as a curse on the posterity of Eli, "Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priest's offices, that I may eat a piece of bread ?" Can they not trust God, that if by a motion of his Spirit, he calls them to holy orders, he will put it into the heart of some one or other to procure them a suitable post, without their own engaging in that sordid merchandize, or descending to any, though less scandalous methods, which bring with them such a prostitution of mind, that they who run into them cannot hope to raise to themselves the esteem due to the sacred function, which is the foundation of all the good they can do by their labours ?" (pp. 181, 182.) Were such sentiments as universally as Curate or Incumbent, for five years at the least." If this provision be necessary in the case of episcopal, is it not far more so in that of lay patronage? Is it too much for the Church to require, or for the Legislature to grant?