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you well observe, he does not say eorundem, and I will tell what you he does say, to every reader who will abide by his expression; he says that they were not the same. It is some other pretenders, who can "say that the number of manuscripts quoted by Stephens amounted to sixteen," and we have seen how they justify such a pretence (Michaelis, ii. 861, n. 43.) The man himself tells you that he took "editio" -quæ fuit excusa" (words which do not find their way into any of these criticisms), and he has thus as decidedly proved to you by his statement that you must at least except the codex a, as Bishop Marsh has shewn you, that, by your own, you must except at least the codex ß. FRANCIS HUYSHE.

ON PATRONAGE OF LIVINGS.

Furneaux Pelham, July 10. MR. EDITOR,-Existing calls for churches, we are often told, would more commonly be answered by opulent individuals, if such persons had a reasonable prospect of securing the patronage of their foundations. Remarks of this kind naturally direct attention to the mode in which calls for churches were anciently answered. No doubt, the great bulk of men loosely attribute this to some legislative enactment; but those who have read and thought upon ecclesiastical subjects, are unacquainted with any such enactments. Nor, probably, have they failed of remarking that the topography of Doomsday does not very exactly correspond with the parochial topography of modern England, and that the mention of village priests is somewhat rare in that venerable record. Hence, it seems reasonable to infer, that our parishes could not have assumed their present appearances at the Conquest; and, consequently, that the legislative liberality which is thought to have overspread our land with churches, must have occurred, if it ever occurred at all, at some period when transactions of far less importance, being abundantly recorded, are accurately known.

The following verse, preserved by the ancient canonist, Athon,* may, probably, throw some light on these difficulties :

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"Patronum faciunt Dos, Edificatio, Fundus."

The dowry of a church appears from the following passage in Lindwood to be the Glebe: Gleba. i. terra in qua consistit dos ecclesie. (Provinc. Guil. Lindewode, Antw. 1525. f. 184.) The building, is obviously that of the church, or parsonage house, or of both : most probably, however, the building intended is that of the church. Fundus appears to mean the estate of some landed proprietor. Thus Matthew Paris, (Hist. Angl., Lond. 1640. p. 138,) in his abstract of the canons enacted in the third council of Lateran, in 1179, has the following passage:-Quod patroni ab ecclesiis in suo fundo constitutis, exactiones non faciant.

* Constitutiones legitime ecelesie totiusq. regiõis Anglicane ab legatis a latere summoru potificù collecte: et a do. Johāne de Aton deligēter explanate. De his qui pact, &c. f. 105.

Ecclesiastical patronage, then, we learn, was acquired by wealthy individuals who built, from time to time, churches on their estates, and severed portions from these estates to serve as glebes. We also know that these individuals, in many cases, expressly allotted, by legal instruments, the tithes of such Fundus, or Estate, to the church which thay had founded. Many of such instruments are in print, and many more might, probably, be discovered in libraries, and other repositories of ancient deeds. Known documents of this kind render it, indeed, hardly doubtful that every church in England, when originally built, was endowed by some individual, or by more than one, with all the formalities required for a legal surrender of property. Ancient calls for churches, therefore, were answered as they were felt, upon the principle often advocated now as reasonable and politic. Opulent individuals built and endowed places of public worship out of their own private resources, being allowed, in consideration of such sacrifice, to secure the patronage of their foundations to themselves and their representatives.

Later ages have rendered many services of the same kind to dissenting congregations; and it would, probably, be considered as an intolerable hardship and oppression, if the arm of power were to interfere with patronage thus acquired, or to curtail emoluments thus settled. The Established Church merely claims the same views for her own patronage and emoluments. As for assertions, that the Reformation affords abundant precedents, of no easy disposal by Protestants, fatal to such claims, nothing farther is needed in reply, than to deny the validity of bad precedents. The truth, however, is, that those who would fain look to the Reformation for an inexhaustible armoury of precedents, are seldom skilled in religious history. Were it not for this deficiency, they would know, that much, loosely assumed by the multitude as incontrovertible, is, to say the least, of a very disputable character. Nor would they readily think of many things more open to reasonable doubt than the religious principles of ancient England. Hence the arguments of Protestants against precedents drawn from the Reformation, might be found to possess a strength little suspected by meddling spirits and advocates for spoliation.

Among precedents afforded by the Reformation, few, however, apply to the existing state of ecclesiastical patronage. Our churches, to all appearance, are still generally presentable to by the legal representatives of the very parties who built them originally; formally settling upon them, respectively, at the same time, from land of their own, a dowry of glebe, and the tithes of their own estates. This property in advowsons, thus fairly acquired, and justly secured to its lawful owners, has led to the planting of England, in a very great degree, by a body of clergy, seated on preferments, either long in the patronage of their families, or purchased expressly for themselves by their more immediate relatives. In other words, a large proportion of English country livings are the patrimonies of their several incumbents. They are earnings, then, which these incumbents are fairly entitled to inherit : since no great acquaintance with genealogy is required for knowing, that, even among fortunes of ancient acquisition, very many were

gained in the ordinary course of professional or commercial industry. Now, what right has that to the name of justice, which would respect the patrimonies of other men, and invade those of clergymen ? As for assertions, that this latter class of patrimonies are holden upon conditions, which are most inadequately performed, they are, for the most part, utterly untrue. The fact is, that clergymen generally, although so many of them receive no other requital for professional services than a patrimonial income, render important and multifarious services to their several parishes and neighbourhoods. The most remarkable deficiency resulting from their existing position, is their freedom from an exclusive, noisy spirit. Hence they very rarely enter upon sectarian illiberality, or political strife. No doubt this is a disadvantage in any struggle for ascendancy. But is it any disadvantage to the cause of truth, to the peace of society, or to the character and usefulness of a Christian minister?

But besides patrimonial preferments, there are many at the disposal of universities, dignified ecclesiastics, ecclesiastical corporations, the crown, and various public bodies. Of these benefices, such as are conferred by colleges, with very few exceptions, fall to the lot of individuals established as superior scholars by severe examinations. They are earned, then, by undeniable learning. Other preferments in public patronage have ever been extensively made the rewards of services rendered by tutors, chaplains to bishops, literary men, eminent preachers, zealous parochial ministers, and other persons honourably distinguished. What are beneficiary acquisitions thus made, but the earnings of such persons? and why should not their industry be respected as much as that of any other men?

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Preferments also appear commonly to have come into public patronage, as one may say, by the same means that placed them at the disposal of private individuals. Athon speaks of benefices, dotata ab et cap'lo. (f. 27.) Bishops, then, and chapters, (no doubt, likewise individual deans and prebendaries,) expended resources upon the building and endowing of churches, which law and general usage freely allowed them to spend upon their personal gratifications, or the enriching of their families. The results of their pious, noble disinterestedness have been, that many a village tower rises in spots where, otherwise, it would have been hopeless to expect one; that many a parsonage house secures civilized habits, and the disbursement of a respectable income, for places long deserted by lay proprietors; and that many a clergyman, eminent in his profession, has not gone to his grave unrequited by such rewards as that profession has to offer. Such clergymen, it should never be forgotten, have usually owed preferment to public patronage; very generally to that in ecclesiastical hands.

In some cases, public patronage has been abused. Parties upon whom it has devolved appear to have considered it as a trust for the benefit of their own families and immediate connexions; not as it is, for the benefit of the community. Such instances, however, are neither so flagrant, so injurious, nor so frequent, as persons unacquainted with the church might suppose. It should be added, that public patrons.

have an equitable claim, within reasonable bounds, upon their patronage, on behalf of promising relatives and connexions. Individuals thus preferred may not, indeed, from age, have earned anything for themselves; but they are fairly entitled, if apparently eligible, to be benefited, even professionally, by the earnings of one bound by domestic ties to consider them.

At the same time, it must be owned, that the principal abuse (perhaps the only one) which the church has to fear, and of which the laity has any right to complain, is the abuse of patronage. It was this, a century and more ago, which ordinarily made eminent preferments the rewards of political subserviency. Hence arose professional negligence and incompetence; and from them, methodism. Would patrons, then, consult for the safety of our venerable establishment? (the safety of our church is above their aid.) Let them look upon their patronage as a public trust. With holders of a single advowson, or even of two or three, this disinterested view cannot be reasonably expected. But there seems no reason why private patrons of distinguished opulence and station should not hold themselves responsible to God and their country for the exercise of their privilege in providing parishes with ministers. At all events, the dispensers of professional and royal patronage have no excuse for overlooking all claims but those of affection and interest. Nor, although the origin of their right is far better founded, and the exercise of it far less practically exceptionable than envious and ignorant detractors represent, can such patrons be acquitted of a most injurious breach of trust. HENRY SOAMES.

BISHOP OF ROME.

MY DEAR SIR,-I hope PHILALETHES CANTABRIGIENSIS, to whom, for his mild and quite manly rebuke of the Irish Traveller, all the readers of your Magazine are indebted, will not be offended with me if I request your insertion of the following extract from a small work which I had prepared for publication some time back, but laid aside. It relates to one of the points touched upon in his letter, in which it will be seen that my view is different from his.

My reason for sending it to you is, because I have ever considered it a matter of very great moment that in all our contests with the church of Rome we should always make the very greatest allowances that truth will permit.* It is only by so doing that we can hope (vain hope I fear) to soften the hard hearts of her sons, and to overcome evil with good. And though the hope be looked upon as desperate

Even this may be carried to excess; and I am conscious of having done so in one or two passages of my "Peace-Offering"-in which, from an anxious desire to allow the Romanists all that they could claim, I have allowed them more than, strictly speaking, was due to them. Of course, this is an error to be avoided. Butabusus non tollit usum,-and the principle itself I am sure is not only most true, but the only one by which there can be any hope to reconcile the differences among Christians.

or none at all, it is not the less our duty to do every thing that lies in us to promote it; that so, if the Christian church shall be found still in a state of division when our blessed Master returns, we may be quit of blame ever remembering that in our disputes with this or any other class of Christians, truth, and not victory, is the object to be aimed at.

"Whether in respect of deference to the Bishop of Rome anything could in safety be conceded, is a delicate point, and would require the nicest handling. That from the very earliest ages of Christianity some deference was paid to that see cannot, I think, be disputed: the writings of the Apostolical Fathers afford strong presumptive evidence in favour of it. It is hardly possible to read the Epistles of St. Ignatius, the friend and disciple of St. John, without being struck with the very remarkable difference between the tone of his Epistle to the Romans, and that of those to the Magnesians, Trallians, Smyrnæans and others. In all these the tone is one of authority, advice being offered, and directions given concerning their conduct: but in that to the Romans it is one of deference. The Epistle of Clemens also, the contemporary of St. Paul, "whose name" is "in the book of life," and who was afterwards Bishop of Rome, is still plainer. His Epistle is to the Corinthians, who had referred some disputes to Rome for arbitration; and he writes, not in his own name, but in the name of" the church of God which is at Rome." What makes this still more remarkable, is, that at the very latest period assigned by any as the date of this Epistle, St. John must have been alive, probably in Asia Minor, considerably nearer to Corinth than Rome was. That this deference was paid by Polycarp, another disciple of St. John's, seems likewise to be inferred from the account of his journey to Rome with a view to settle the dispute about Easter.* That it was so in Irenæus's time is manifest from his writings;† the same may be inferred from those of Tertulliant and Cyprian,§ and after this there is no dispute.

This much truth and impartiality oblige me to acknowledge, as the conviction which an examination, such as I could make, of the writings of these ages forced upon me. How far it will help the claim put forth by the Popes of Rome we shall presently see.

In the first place, the ground upon which the Popes rest their claim, that they are successors to St. Peter, and, as such, have received, by Divine appointment, authority to govern all other churches, which alone could make such deference binding, has not a shadow of countenance from the early ages. The reason which Irenæus gives why the churches on all sides should send to Rome was "propter potentiorem principalitatem," that is, I conceive, as being the metropolis of the empire, where the most learned and eminent Christians would generally be found. I put this interpretation on his words because I find S. Gregory Nazianzen, in his speech before the 2nd General

Euseb. Eccles. Hist., iv. 4. + Iren, adv. Hæres. ii. 3. + Depudicitia. S Passim. Hardly an event occurs in the church at Carthage, but he seems to consider it a matter of respect to send information of it to the church at Rome.

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