The promising perhaps in its first aspect, but fraught with ruin in its certain consequences had it been adopted, was the plan of abolishing the subordinate dignities of the hierarchy, in order to apply their revenues to the better maintenance of the parochial clergy. The parts of civil societies, as of all things in this nether world, are severally wholes, similar to the compounds. Every order of men in the great society of a nation is but a smaller society within itself. same principles which render a variety of ranks essential in the composition of a state require inequalities of wealth and authority among the individuals of which each rank is composed. These inequalities, to form a harmonized consistent whole, require a regular gradation between the opposite extremes; which cannot be taken away, but the extinction must ensue of the whole description of men in which the chain is broken. Nor less fatal to our order would be any change in the tenure of ecclesiastical property; especially the favourite project of an exchange of tithes for an equivalent in - land. Many of us here have felt, in some part of our lives, the inconvenience of succeeding to dilapidated houses, with small resources in our private fortunes, and restrained by the circumstances of a predęcessor's family from the attempt to enforce our legal claims. But what would be the situation of a clergyman who in coming to a living should succeed to nothing better than a huge dilapidated farm? which would too soon become the real state of every living in the kingdom in which the tithes should have been converted into glebe: Not to mention the extinction of our spiritual character, and the obvious inconveniences to the yeomanry of the kingdom, which would be likely to take place, should this new manner of our maintenance send forth the spirit of farming among the rural clergy. The truth is, that the hardships of our order arise from causes which defy the relief of human laws and mock the politician's skill. They arise, in part, from the nature of our calling; in part, from the corrupt manners of a world at enmity with God; but primarily, from the mysterious. counsels of Providence, which, till the whole world shall be reduced to the obedience of the gospel, admit not that the ministry should be a situation of ease and enjoyment. The Christian minister, in the present state of Christianity, hath indeed an indisputable right to a maintenance, from the work of the ministry, for himself and for his family; as he had indeed from the very earliest ages; "For the labourer is worthy of his hire." In a Christian government, he justly may expect to be put, so far as the secular powers can effect it, into the same situation of credit and respect which might belong to a diligent exertion of equal talents in any other of the liberal professions. Such provision for the maintenance and for a proper influence of the clergy is at least expedient, if not necessary for the support of Christianity, now that its miraculous support is withdrawn, and the countenance of the magistrate is among the means which God employs for the maintenance of the truth. Yet after all that can be done by the friendship of the civil powers, since our Lord's kingdom is not of the present world, it upon would indeed be strange, if his service, in the ordinary course of things, were the means of amassing a fortune for posterity, more than of rising to hereditary honours. Our great Master, when he calls us to the ministry, holds out no such expectation. He commands us to wean our affections from this transitory world, and to set our hearts upon a heavenly treasure, to be more anxious for the success of our labours the hearts and lives of men than for the prosperity of our own families. He warns us, by his inspired apostle, that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will more or less sustain a damage by it in their temporal interests. Yet he promises, that "if we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all those things" that are necessary for our support and consolation in our pilgrimage shall be added to our lot, by him who feeds the fowls of the air with grain which they neither sow nor reap, and arrays the lilies of the field in a more elegant apparel than the East manufactures for her kings. On this promise it is fitting we rely; and in the effect of this charity, and of similar institutions in different parts of the kingdom, the clergy of the church of England see its daily verification. As the providence of God for the most part effects its purposes by secondary causes, the charity of the church is the means which it hath appointed for the relief of her suffering ministers. The same authority which commands us to be ready to forego the enjoyments of the world hath commanded that the faithful bear one another's burdens. The same authority which promises the faithful minister support in this world and enjoyment in the next promises an equal weight of glory to him who shall administer relief. Relying on these promises, secure of our unwearied attention to the commands of our invisible but not absent Lord, our departed brethren (not insensible in death to that concern for their surviving families which they knew to be sanctified by Christ's own 'example, when in his agonies he consigned his mother to his favourite disciple's care,) submitted with composure and complacency to the stroke which severed them from all which in this world they held dear; trusting to us, |