But why was it necessary, if the fund for small Livings was
such a paramount consideration, that the future Archbishops of
Canterbury should be left with two palaces, and L15,000 per annum? Why
is every future Bishop of London to have a palace in Fulham, a house
in St. James's Square, and L10,000 a year? Could not all the Episcopal
functions be carried on well and effectually with the half of these
incomes? Is it necessary that the Archbishop of Canterbury should give
feasts to Aristocratic London; and that the domestics of the Prelacy
should stand with swords and bag-wigs round pig, and turkey, and
venison, to defend, as it were, the Orthodox gastronome from the
fierce Unitarian, the fell Baptist, and all the famished children of
Dissent? I don't object to all this; because I am sure that the method
of prizes and blanks is the best method of supporting a Church which
must be considered as very slenderly endowed, if the whole were
equally divided among the parishes; but if my opinion were
different--if I thought the important improvement was to equalize
preferment in the English Church--that such a measure was not the one
thing foolish, but the one thing needful--I should take care, as a
mitred Commissioner, to reduce my own species of preferment to the
narrowest limits, before I proceeded to confiscate the property of any
other grade of the Church.
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