ART. II.-1. A few Historical Remarks upon the supposed Antiquity of Church Rates, and on the Threefold Division of Tithes. By a Lay Member of the Church of England. 12mo: 1837.

2. The Antiquity of the Church Rate System considered, in Reply to a Pamphlet entitled 'A few Historical Remarks,' &c. By the Rev. WILLIAM HALE HALE. 8vo: 1837.

3. Letter to Lord Stanley on the Law of Church Rates. By Sir JOHN CAMPBELL. 8vo: 1837.

4. Observations on the Attorney-General's Letter to Lord Stanley. By JOHN NICHOLL, LL.D. Svo: 1837.

5. The Origin of Church Rates. By the Hon. and Rev. A. P. PERCEVAL. 8vo: 1837.

IT T may be mortifying to the dignity of the clergy, and fatal to their pretension of an inherent Divine Right in the possessions they enjoy, but it cannot be denied, that for ages they were maintained by the voluntary contributions of the laity. In the infancy of the Church it could not have been otherwise, unless a miracle had been wrought in their favour. The Apostles and their immediate successors had no funds of their own to supply their wants and defray the expense of religious worship; and deriving no pecuniary profit from their spiritual services, they had no resource for subsistence but in the liberality of the faithful. Such, however, was the fervour of the early converts to Christianity, that they not only contributed their goods for the benefit of the Church, but sold their possessions and laid the price at the feet of their spiritual instructors. Funds thus amply provided and freely bestowed, after supplying the necessary wants of the Church, were distributed among the more indigent of her members in acts of charity and beneficence. Alms were given to the poor and destitute, succours administered to the aged and infirm, and relief afforded to widows and orphans who were in want. Captives, who had been reduced to slavery, were redeemed; exiles and convicts, doomed to the mines or other servile works on account of their religion, had their sufferings mitigated; and the miseries inflicted by war, pestilence, or famine, were alleviated by the bounty of the Church. Among the secondary causes that promoted the diffusion and success of the gospel, none were more efficacious than these continual and ex

tensive acts of beneficence; and it was the boast of the Christian apologists that means for them were furnished, not from the bitter fruits of taxation, but by the spontaneous collections and voluntary offerings of the faithful.

Such was the ardent zeal, and so munificent the liberality of the early Christians, that even in the second century we hear of many churches contributing largely to the relief of their indigent brethren in distant and remote provinces; and in the third century, if not earlier, donations of land had placed the churches of Rome, and of the other great cities of the empire, above a precarious and uncertain dependence on the monthly or weekly oblations of the pious. It is unnecessary to add, the relaxation of morals and discipline, the contentions for power, and other disorders inseparable from wealth, followed in its train; and though other pretexts might be used, it is no improbable conjecture of a great ecclesiastical historian, that it was to her riches and to the rapacity of the Pagan emperors, rather than to her doctrines, that the Church owed many of the persecutions she under

went.

It was still on the Voluntary principle, as it is called, that the Church depended for her support. The donations of land to particular churches or communities were invalid in law, and could only be enjoyed by the connivance or tacit permission of the magistrate. Accordingly, when Diocletian and Galerius made their last vain effort to extinguish the Christian faith, the first measure they adopted was to seize on the temples and confiscate the lands of the Church; alleging, in their justification, the ancient laws of the empire, which permitted no donation or bequest of land to communities not authorized by the state.

On the accession of Constantine to power, the edicts of Diocletian were repealed, the confiscated possessions restored, new and ample donations added, and regular allowances made by the government to assist in defraying the expenses of worship, and continuing the customary charities of the Church. Permission was at the same time given to all the churches of the empire to receive gifts or bequests in land or money from the faithful. For the first time since the introduction of Christianity, the Church became legally independent of the voluntary support of her votaries. The possessions thus acquired, though in their origin the free offerings of the faithful, when once bestowed, became the irrevocable property of the churches to which they were given, and could not be resumed by the donor or his heirs, nor confiscated by any authority short of the supreme legislature of the state, which had conferred on these churches a legal existence and corporate capacity.

The opportunity thus afforded of enriching their churches was not lost or neglected by the clergy. So rapid were their acquisitions, so indefatigable their exertions, and so unscrupulous the means they employed, that in less than fifty years after the edict of Constantine, it was found necessary, by a most pious and orthodox emperor, to impose legal restraints on their cupidity. An edict of Valentinian forebade them to haunt the houses of widows and orphans, or to receive gifts or bequests from their female penitents and devotees, whose infirmities, weaknesses, and fears at the approach of death, they had abused and perverted to their own advantage. The nickname of Legacy-hunters, which they had earned by their assiduities at the bedsides of the dying and infirm, justified the stigma and severity of this enactment. complain not of the law!' exclaimed St Jerome, but I lament that we deserved it."

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In the primitive ages of Christianity, no bishop or presbyter pretended to be proprietor of the lands or chattels bestowed on the Church. The property was in the community of the faithful, and its destination was for pious uses. The bishops were merely the stewards and superintendents, and the deacons the managers and distributors of the revenues of their several churches. No specific rules or restraints were imposed on these officers, because no such rules or restraints were thought necessary. If the income of any church was misapplied, it was in the power of the congregation to withhold their contributions, or to direct them. into a worthier channel. Not that this check was always sufficient: As early as the third century we hear of bishops applying to the gratification of their personal vanity or private indulgence the funds that had been placed at their disposal for the relief of the indigent. When churches acquired independent endowments, these irregularities must have become more frequent, and before the end of the fifth century we find the famous quadripartite division established at Rome. By this disposition, the whole income of every church, whether arising from rents, oblations, alms, or other voluntary contributions, was divided into four parts. one for the bishop, one for the servants of the altar, one for the repair and decoration of the church, and one for the neighbouring poor dwelling in the adjacent district. It is probable, as Paul Sarpi has conjectured,* that these divisions were not arithmetically equal, but variable according to times and circumstances. When the Church was rich, and the clergy were few in number, less than a fourth was probably assigned to

*Sarpi delle materie beneficiare, $ 7.

them; the portion allotted to their use being nothing more than what was strictly necessary for their decent subsistence. Where the Church required little or no reparation, and possessed a sufficient assortment of vestments, vessels, and other utensils for religious worship, less was set apart for these purposes. Where the poor were numerous and necessitous, their share was proportionally augmented. The bishop had the superintendence of the whole; and whatever surplus remained of his income, after discharging the duties of hospitality to wayfarers and strangers, he bestowed in charity. But in whatever proportions the revenue of the Church was distributed, there was every year a division made of it into four parts, and the principle thereby maintained that its riches were not the sole property of the clergy; that for the greater part of its income they were trustees and not proprietors; that it was not merely as a moral duty that they were bound to bestow a portion of its wealth on the indigent, but that all it possessed, after defraying the necessary subsistence of its ministers, and providing for public worship, belonged to the poor. So deeply-rooted were these notions, that long after they were departed from in practice, it was a question among the schoolmen whether the alms of the clergy partook of the nature of charity, or were not rather to be considered as the discharge and payment of a lawful debt. Nor was this language confined to the schools. It is to be found in the Acts of Councils, and Edicts of Popes and Princes. Charlemagne designates the possessions of the Church as the patrimony of the poor; and the same appellation is given to them in the reign of his grandson, by Archbishop Hincmar, and in the twelfth century by Pope Calixtus. By English metropolitans, and in English councils, tithes are repeatedly termed tributa egentium animarum ; and so late as the time of the Reformation, it appears from the injunctions of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, that the goods of the Church were still called the goods of the poor,' though little or none of them, it is confessed, ever reached the hands of their nominal proprietors.

That the quadripartite division of the rents, oblations, tithes, and other emoluments of the Church remained in force at the commencement of the seventh century, appears from the celebrated letter of Pope Gregory to Austin, the Romish missionary, who first introduced Christianity among the Saxons. This letter is frequently referred to in the pamphlets before us, and we are sorry to perceive that it has given occasion to many angry and acrimonious observations. We shall not follow the example set to us, but content ourselves with a plain and simple exposition of its contents, so far as they relate to the present subject. Aus

tin is in the first place told, that whenever a bishop is ordained by the Apostolic See, he is directed to divide the income of his bishopric into four parts,-one for himself, one for his clergy, one for the poor, and one for the reparation of churches. He is then reminded, that being a monk he can have no provision apart from his clergy. If any of his clerks, who are not in holy orders, have wives, he is desired to assign them pensions according to their wants; but for those who live in common, there are to be no separate portions. All that remains, after providing for these necessary purposes, is to be dedicated to pious and religious uses.* The general rule of a quadripartite division is laid down by the head of the Western Church. The exception in the case of Austin and his followers is not to relax the rule, but to make it stricter than usual. The whole income of the infant church is to be devoted to pious and religious uses, after providing for the expense of worship, and the necessary subsistence of the clergy.

The destruction of the Western Empire, which speedily followed the establishment of Christianity, brought much good and evil to the Church. The rapacious and insolent barbarian, in the first exultation of victory, plundered the temples and despoiled the clergy of their wealth; but when converted to the religion of the vanquished, he became profuse in his gifts and offerings to the servants of the altar; and when assailed by the terrors of dissolution, he sought, by his bequests to the Church, to atone for the immorality, violence, and cruelty of his past life. It was not, however, to the pious devotee and penitent sinner alone that the Church was indebted for her riches. The timid and helpless, the selfish and luxurious, contributed their share. To secure her protection, and add at the same time to their means of enjoyment, many were tempted to sell their estates to the Church, receiving a life annuity in return, which was sometimes twice or thrice as great as their former income. By such arts the Church rose with rapidity to affluence. In France, long before the close of the Merovingian dynasty, one of their kings was heard to exclaim, The state is reduced to beggary; its riches have pass⚫ed to the Church; the clergy alone have wealth; the splendour of the Crown has vanished, and gone to decorate the mitre of the bishop.' Exorbitant wealth, without military power to make it respected, led naturally, in a rude and barbarous age, to spoliation. Charles Martel having saved Christendom from the irruption of the Saracens, recompensed his soldiers with the lands of

*

Omne quod superest in causis piis et religiosis erogandum est, + Sarpi, § 19.