22 St. Augustine and the Pope Dissenters.

in England, managed, in their respective systems, in the same year, to become big men by making recruits for political purposes, under the cloak of religion.

Oh! Augustine, Augustine, why didst thou work through a woman, and not through the clergy who were in England, when the Pope sent thee. Thou hast ever since caused parish work to be done by a Bishop through a layman, who is nicely set up to be a church guardian, or a churchwarden, corresponding to the Queen of Kent, as if a Vicar were a Druidical Priest. Thou hast caused worldly men, in high position, however bad, to be esteemed by the Church, and by the Bishops, as angels, and holy clergymen, when poor, to be despised. O! Augustine, I cannot invoke thee, for I am a greater martyr, and an humbler saint than thou; and thou hast ruined religion, by having put civil position before Conversion by the Holy Ghost.

O! Englishmen, never forget that Augustine humbled you, by ignoring your Bishops, clergy, church, and Liturgy. In fact, Augustine and the Pope were Dissenters in opposing the Church of God in England. John Wesley, whom you consider a Dissenter, worked through your church, which had then many more faults, in its worldly system, than it had when Augustine appeared. You took Augustine to Court, to begin with; you set him up to be a ruler in the Archbishoprick, to go on with ; and you Canonized him a Saint for having taken care of himself, to end with. Better far to give sufficient food to your thousands of Vicars and Curates. These do not take care of themselves; and they are equal to what he was before he came among you. This foreigner

The English Church borrowing her religion. 23

worked himself up to get into a Queen's Palace, an Archbishoprick, and to be made a National Church Saint. Be not so unreasonable, therefore, as to blame another pastor, more foreign still, coming from Ireland, but made by your own English Church, for finding sufficient food for all future vicars in one of the churches which he, with his august saintship, and Felix with his happy felicity, were not able to protect against Henry VIII. You, Englishmen, are, I must own, the most large-hearted race in the world, as you receive with open arms all foreigners, "Irishmen excepted, who need not apply."

O! Englishmen, or German foreigners, how strange it is that, with all your boast of having an Anglican Church of your own, you take the foreign business of Augustine to be of your own English growth; and that you follow in his footsteps, by adopting the old Pope's tricks, and by discarding the pure primitive faith of the English Church, which was here when he arrived. How strange, too, that you put before the Bible, the Prayer Book which is not of your own making, with all your claims to having Divines; but borrowed from the service books of all sects and parties, from the Greek Church to the Lutheran, French, German, and Genevese congregations, and from what you call schismatical upstarts. I will not say you borrowed from the old Pope, because you make him your own for being so foreign; and because his invented stores can never miss what you steal from him.

Although Felix and St. Augustine used the religion of the church for political and selfish purposes, still God's blessing, in some measure, attended them and

24

Lay-Rectors the Enemies of Ministers.

their work; because while they did much for themselves, they did some little thing for the Lord. But lay-rectors, being unordained ministers, are not only altogether worldly and selfish, as a class, but also the disguised opponents of the church and her ministers, quite as much, in their way, as were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. These are rewarded with punishments from God, and made to suffer in some way, like "Korah and his company." When a poor vicar is attacked a son or daughter dies at once, and other troubles attend such treatment. Even little children were torn by bears because they ridiculed Elisha, God's prophet and minister.

Surely according to all law, moral and divine, nay, according to a regard for business or the views of common sense, it is improper and unreasonable that a minister of religion, or any human being, in a layrector's service, should not be allowed sufficient food and decent clothes for his work. Even if there was no God at all, to interfere specially as occasion may require, but the ordinary working of the Course of Nature, such treatment of vicars must, in the end, defeat itself. I find by observation that, in the long run, evil proceedings, wrong things, and abuses, do put themselves right. God and Nature put us into this world to get food. But to starve vicars is a violation of the laws of God and of Nature; and those who fight in this way against the higher powers, must suffer defeat by losses and misfortunes.

But even Church Dignitaries, and Universities with their clerical staff, as well as lay-rectors, take the tithes away, in many cases, from parishes and poor vicars,

All holders of Church Plunder punished. 25

without allowing them a sufficient maintenance. Then these nursing Divines of holy mother Church, and teachers of learning and virtue, leave people in vice and ignorance, and allow souls to go to hell in consequence. All I have to say is, that when the ecclesiastical conscience, which was once good, becomes perverted, it is like the mind of the fallen angel; as is proved by the conduct of the heads of the Popish Inquisition tortures. The better the thing the worse it becomes when it grows bad. The church dignitaries are "weighed in the balances and are found wanting" toward poor vicars. The Dissenters will, by means of measures in Parliament, confer the dignity upon them of shewing fellow-feeling toward poor vicars, by saving them the trouble of having too much weight to carry in money, or too much work to worry their brains. The Universities will be made to feel, too, the importance of showing respect and consideration toward learned, but starved ministers, and toward ignorant and vicious minds in parishes, whose tithes they take to swell their excessive revenues. The useful school-boards, and practical provincial colleges, are now going to give them a new problem to solve.

CHAPTER IV.

A poor Vicar like Noah's dove on her missionary journey—The state of things in a disendowed parish-The difference between a missionary clergyman and a Bishop's Priest-A vicar's difficulties in reforming things of long standing, but still successful by the dint of persever

ance.

B

LOMEFIELD, in his History of Norfolk, tells us that "Flitcham Church had eight acres of land, valued at eight pence," in the reign of Edward the Confessor. But when the Faith-Defender took away the land and secularized the Church of Felix and St. Augustine, Noah's dove and raven were far better off than the vicar; for these flying missionaries had the ark allowed them which was set apart by God; while the vicar's church was in worldly hands. The vicar here was like the dove which could find no rest for the sole of her foot (Gen. viii. 9); for even the church and the very churchyard were claimed from him. Henry VIII. flooded this church with worldly laymen. The vicars were no more than tolerated trespassers in either of these consecrated places. Still it was a great gain to the church's cause that the vicars could not be prevented from officiating in them, owing to the "church" not being disestablished by Henry VIII., although this particular one was utterly disendowed by him.

Lay people, at the time of the Reformation, were looked upon here as clergymen in charge of consecrated