_The social position of the English Established Clergy, in 1669, A.D._
[_Angliae Notitia_, or the Present State of England, 1st _Ed_. 1669.]
At present, the revenues of the English Clergy are generally very small
and insufficient: above a third of the best benefices of England, having
been anciently, by the Pope's grant, appropriated to monasteries, were on
their dissolution, made _Lay fees_; besides what hath been taken by secret
and indirect means, through corrupt compositions and compacts and customs
in many other parishes. And also many estates being wholly exempt from
paying tithes, as the lands that belonged to the Cistercian Monks, and to
the Knights Templars and Hospitallers.
And those benefices that are free from these things are yet (besides
First Fruits and Tenths to the King, and Procurations to the Bishop)
taxed towards the charges of their respective parishes, and towards the
public charges of the nation, above and beyond the proportion of the
Laity.
The Bishoprics of England have been also since the latter of HENRY
VIII.'s reign, to the coming in of King JAMES, most miserably robbed and
spoiled of the greatest part of their lands and revenues. So that, at
this day [1669], a mean gentleman of £200 from land yearly, will not
change his worldly estate and condition with divers Bishops: and an
Attorney, a shopkeeper, a common artisan will hardly change theirs, with
the ordinary Pastors of the Church.
Some few Bishoprics do yet retain a competency. Amongst which, the
Bishopric of Durham is accounted one of the chief: the yearly revenues
whereof, before the late troubles [_i.e., the Civil Wars_] were above
£6,000 [= £25,000 _now_]: of which by the late _Act for abolishing Tenures
in capite_ [1660], was lost about £2,000 yearly.
Out of this revenue, a yearly pension of £800 is paid to the Crown, ever
since the reign of Queen ELIZABETH; who promised, in lieu thereof, so
much in Impropriations: which was never performed.
Above £340 yearly is paid to several officers of the County Palatine of
Durham.
The Assizes and Sessions, also, are duly kept in the Bishop's House, at
the sole charges of the Bishop.
Also the several expenses for keeping in repair certain banks of rivers
in that Bishopric, and of several Houses belonging to the Bishopric.
Moreover, the yearly Tenths, public taxes, the charges of going to and
waiting at Parliament, being deducted; there will remain, in ordinary
years, to the Bishop to keep hospitality, which must be great, and to
provide for those of his family, but about £1,500 [= £4,500 _now_] yearly.
The like might be said of some other principal Bishoprics.
The great diminution of the revenues of the Clergy, and the little care
of augmenting and defending the patrimony of the Church, is the great
reproach and shame of the English Reformation; and will, one day, prove
the ruin of Church and State.
"It is the last trick," saith St. GREGORY, "that the Devil hath in this
world. When he cannot bring the Word and Sacraments into disgrace by
errors and heresies; he invents this project, to bring the Clergy into
contempt and low esteem."
As it is now in England, where they are accounted by many, the Dross and
Refuse of the nation. Men think it a stain to their blood to place their
sons in that function; and women are ashamed to marry with any of them.
It hath been observed, even by strangers, that the iniquity of the
present Times in England is such, that the English Clergy are not only
hated by the Romanists on the one side, and maligned by the Presbyterians
on the other...; but also that, of all the Christian Clergy of Europe,
whether Romish, Lutheran, or Calvinistic, none are so little _respected,
beloved, obeyed_, or _rewarded_, as the present pious, learned, loyal
Clergy of England; even by those who have always professed themselves of
that Communion.
THE GROUNDS & OCCASIONS OF THE CONTEMPT
OF THE CLERGY AND RELIGION
Enquired into.
_In a_ LETTER _written to_ R.L.
LONDON,
Printed by W. GODBID for N. BROOKE
at the _Angel_ in Cornhill. 1670.
This work is dated August 8, 1670. ANTHONY A. WOOD in his _Life_ (_Ath.
Oxon._ I. lxx. Ed. 1813), gives the following account of our Author.
_February_ 9 [1672] A.W. went to London, and the next day he was kindly
receiv'd by Sir LIOLIN JENKYNS, in his apartment in Exeter house in the
Strand, within the city of Westminster.
Sunday 11 [Feb. 1672], Sir LIOLIN JENKYNS took with him, in the morning,
over the water to Lambeth, A. WOOD, and after prayers, he conducted him
up to the dining rome, where archb. SHELDON received him, and gave him
his blessing. There then dined among the company, JOHN ECHARD, the author
of _The Contempt of the Clergy_, who sate at the lower end of the table
between the archbishop's two chaplaynes SAMUEL PARKER and THOMAS
THOMKINS, being the first time that the said ECHARD was introduced into
the said archbishop's company. After dinner, the archbishop went into his
withdrawing roome, and ECHARD with the chaplaynes and RALPH SNOW to their
lodgings to drink and smoak.
[JOHN EACHARD, S.T.P., was appointed Master of Catherine Hall, Cambridge,
in 1675.]
_THE PREFACE TO THE READER_.
_I can very easily fancy that many, upon the very first sight of the
title, will presently imagine that the Author does either want the Great
Tithes, lying under the pressure of some pitiful vicarage; or that he is
much out of humour, and dissatisfied with the present condition of
affairs; or, lastly, that he writes to no purpose at all, there having
been an abundance of unprofitable advisers in this kind.
As to my being under some low Church dispensation; you may know, I write
not out of a pinching necessity, or out of any rising design. You may
please to believe that, although I have a most solemn reverence for the
Clergy in general, and especially for that of England; yet, for my own
part, I must confess to you, I am not of that holy employment; and have
as little thought of being Dean or Bishop, as they that think so, have
hopes of being all Lord Keepers.
Nor less mistaken will they be, that shall judge me in the least
discontented, or any ways disposed to disturb the peace of the present
settled Church: for, in good truth, I have neither lost King's, nor
Bishop's lands, that should incline me to a surly and quarrelsome
complaining; as many be, who would have been glad enough to see His
Majesty restored, and would have endured Bishops daintily well, had they
lost no money by their coming in.
I am not, I will assure you, any of those Occasional Writers, that,
missing preferment in the University, can presently write you their new
ways of Education; or being a little tormented with an ill-chosen wife,
set forth the doctrine of Divorce to be truly evangelical.
The cause of these few sheets was honest and innocent, and as free from
all passion as any design.
As for the last thing which I supposed objected_, viz., _that this book
is altogether needless, there having been an infinite number of Church
and Clergy-menders, that have made many tedious and unsuccessful offers:
I must needs confess, that it were very unreasonable for me to expect a
better reward.
Only thus much, I think, with modesty may be said; that I cannot at
present call to mind anything that is propounded but what is very
hopeful, and easily accomplished. For, indeed, should I go about to tell
you, that a child can never prove a profitable Instructor of the people,
unless born when the sun is in_ Aries; _or brought up in a school that
stands full South: that he can never be able to govern a parish, unless
he can ride the great horse; or that he can never go through the great
work of the Ministry, unless for three hundred years backward it can be
proved that none of his family ever had cough, ague, or grey hair; then I
should very patiently endure to be reckoned among the vainest that ever
made attempt.
But believe me, Reader! I am not, as you will easily see, any contriver
of an incorruptible and pure crystaline Church, or any expecter of a
reign of nothing but Saints and Worthies: but only an honest and hearty
Wisher that the best of our Clergy might, for ever, continue as they are,
rich and learned! and that the rest might be very useful and well esteemed
in their Profession!_
THE GROUNDS & OCCASIONS OF THE CONTEMPT
OF THE CLERGY AND RELIGION
Enquired into.