They can see, without pain or
grudging, an archbishop precede a duke. They can see a bishop of
Durham, or a bishop of Winchester, in possession of ten thousand
pounds a year, and cannot conceive why it is in worse hands than
estates to the like amount in the hands of this earl or that squire,
although it may be true that so many dogs and horses are not kept by
the former and fed with the victuals which ought to nourish the
children of the people. It is true, the whole church revenue is not
always employed, and to every shilling, in charity, nor perhaps
ought it, but something is generally employed. It is better to cherish
virtue and humanity by leaving much to free will, even with some
loss to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and
instruments of a political benevolence. The world on the whole will
gain by a liberty without which virtue cannot exist.
When once the commonwealth has established the estates of the
church as property, it can, consistently, hear nothing of the more
or the less. "Too much" and "too little" are treason against property.
What evil can arise from the quantity in any hand whilst the supreme
authority has the full, sovereign superintendence over this, as over
all property, to prevent every species of abuse, and, whenever it
notably deviates, to give to it a direction agreeable to the
purposes of its institution?
In England most of us conceive that it is envy and malignity
toward those who are often the beginners of their own fortune, and not
a love of the self-denial and mortification of the ancient church,
that makes some look askance at the distinctions, and honors, and
revenues which, taken from no person, are set apart for virtue.
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