Clergy reserve

“ As time has passed on the little band of loyal churchmen, who incurred the Bishop's unmerited censure for opposing his exclusive schemes of Church aggrandisement, has increased to thousands in our day. They deeply regret the success of those schemes, and deprecate the existence of clergy reserves and rectory endowments as in themselves fatal to the healthy development of Church work as an active and aggressive force in the Christian life. ”

“ Want of extension of Catholic services.The Constitutional Act, while limiting the application of the clergy reserves in the townships to a Protestant clergy, made no provision for the extension of the Catholic clerical institution, in the event of the French population settling beyond the limits of the seigniories. ”

“ In no perceptible degree has the evil been remedied.
The Constitutional Act.The system of clergy reserves was established by the act of 1791, commonly called the Constitutional Act, which directed that, in respect of all grants made by the Crown, a quantity equal to one-seventh of the land so granted should be reserved for the clergy. A quantity equal to one-seventh of all grants would be one-eighth of each township, or of all the public land. ”

“ And then, again, they have that admirable loop-hole for escape—the clergy reserves, which seemed to promise everything, but have done scarcely anything; a broken reed, which is perpetually piercing those who lean on it with sorrow; but which affords our people so ready an excuse for refusing to come forward to our aid ”

“ Two aspects of the Clergy Reserves question stand out prominently, the religious and the economic. The religious aspect will be the most difficult for Ontario children, for they have no immediate knowledge of what a State Church is—the point on which the religious dispute turned ”

“ Nevertheless, firmly convinced as I am that such a revolution would be an immeasurable calamity to the people of this country, and especially so to the agricultural districts, I am quite as firmly convinced that the present condition of affairs as regards the tenure and administration of the property now constituting the clergy reserves cannot possibly go on much longer; that the mere mockery and pretence of discipline among the clergy themselves must be replaced by something much more real and effective ”

“ Now, if the clergy did indeed constitute the church, then it would very much resemble the condition of the universities: for it would then be indeed a society very important to the welfare of the whole country, but yet one that was completely distinct, and which had its members, laws, and government quite apart: for men in general do not belong to the clergy, nor are they concerned directly in such canons as relate to the peculiar business of the clergy, nor does the bishop's superintendence, as commonly exercised, extend at all to them. ”

“ In Britain, however, the offerings of the faithful are almost the only means available for the maintenance of divine worship, the building and repair of churches and schools, the support of charitable institutions and of the clergy. Hence it becomes a matter of importance to be able to decide what offerings belong to the clergy as their own property, and what constitute ecclesiastical property and belong to the Church. ”

“ When we have unveiled the sanctuary in which the priest shuts himself, we can hardly expect that he will press his followers to read us. We will be content with a happy revolution, and we will see that, for the honour of reason, it is so complete as to prevent the clergy from doing any further harm to mankind. ”

“ If the clergy preserve their property, the clerical order is not destroyed: you necessarily leave it the right of assembling; you sanction its independence." In no case must ecclesiastics hold possessions. "If they are proprietors they are independent, and if they are independent they will associate this independence with the exercise of their functions." The clergy, cost what it will, must be in the hands of the State, as simple functionaries and supported by its subsidies. ”

“ To its vitality and energy must we attribute, to a very great extent, the rapid increase in the number of churches and other institutions which have sprung up and are still springing up in the United States, and to the same source are the clergy mainly indebted for their support in the exercise of their pastoral ministry. ”

“ Is it not an important thing that the clergy themselves should have something to keep alive powerfully, amongst them the one, universal and everlasting faith? Will not all the faithful find strength in their strength, and light in their light? If they are kept right, the truth spread abroad by them will easily he preserved pure among the masses of the people. Almost all heresies—be it said to our shame—either had their source in the sanctuary, or could not have succeeded if they had not found support there. ”

“ Another consideration, which distinguishes the grounds on which such a question must be decided in old and new countries, is, that the state of society in the latter is not susceptible of such an organization as is necessary for the efficiency of any Church Establishment of which I know, more especially of one so constituted as the Established Church of England; for the essence of the Establishment is its parochial clergy. The services of a parochial clergy are almost inapplicable to a colony, where a constantly varying population is widely scattered over the country. ”

“ I do not make these references to advocate this view of the question, but to show that the Crown has long since assented to the alienation of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves from the support of the clergy of any Church, should the Canadian Legislature think proper to do so, and that the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada agreed with the other religious persuasions, and the great majority of the Canadian people, in the advocacy of such an alienation of said reserves. ”

“ Moreover, a bishop may license a clergyman to administer the Lord's Supper and perform services other than the solemnisation of marriage, and, subject to the direction of the ordinary, to dispose of the offertory and collections, in the chapel of any college, school, hospital, asylum, or public or charitable institution within his diocese; and where this is done, the institution and chapel are withdrawn from the cure of souls and control of the incumbent of the parish. ”

“ The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate duties obliged the legislature to trespass also in the provinces purely spiritual, and undertake the discipline of the clergy. The Commons had complained in their petition that the clergy, instead of attending to their duties, were acting as auditors, bailiffs, stewards, or in other capacities, as laymen; they were engaged in trade also, in farming, in tanning, in brewing, in doing anything but the duties which they were paid for doing; while they purchased dispensations for non-residence on their benefices ”

“ The essential or inseparable powers of the clergy are "the power to bless the bread and wine, and turn them into the blessed body and blood of Christ, to administer the other sacraments of the church, and to bind and to loose men from their sins." Non-essential or separable functions are the government or control of one priest over others (i.e., the offices of bishop, archbishop, etc.) , the administration of the sacraments, etc., in a certain place and to a certain people, and the administration of temporal possessions of the church. ”

“ As it is, and in regard to the churches which exist, you must do what you can. If the faithful freely give you enough, then let them stand. If not, you must let them go. England never will lack altars. In any case, encumber yourselves with no more unpaid-for buildings. Accept what is given: but ask for nothing and suggest nothing. Lord Cardinal, the clergy do not act as though they trusted the Divine Disposer of Events. ”

“ It is interesting to note that the great coal-field is, for the most part, inside the border of eleven parishes. In 1801 there were eleven churches and eleven clergy. Those parishes have now multiplied into forty-five, and the clergy who minister in them are not less than one hundred. The churches and mission-rooms number 148 or thereabouts. That gives you some idea of the growth of the population on the one hand, and the needs that population represent, together with the efforts that have been made to supply them, on the other. ”

“ A single bishop in a colony, where large funds are provided by the State for Church purposes, and where he is beyond the reach of the public opinion of England, exercises a very great and irresponsible authority. If a zealous man, of extreme views on points of doctrine, the clergy of the diocese, looking to him alone for advancement in their profession, are apt to echo his sentiments ”

“ In conformity with a decree issued by Pope Gelasius, he ordained that the produce of the tithe should be equally divided amongst the bishop, the priests, the fabrics in each diocese, and the poor—that is to say, the hospitals. These establishments were administered and provided with religious services by the charity of the clergy; thus the increase of ecclesiastical wealth turned to the profit of the needy. ”

“ The Fathers of that Council had already formally recognised the grand evils of the age, which cried for a remedy, to be the want of sound religious instruction among the people and of theological science among the clergy. And a decree had been passed directing the bishops in each diocese to choose persons capable of preaching and instructing the people who were to be employed in this office; and requiring that certain learned men should be appointed in all churches, whether cathedral or conventual, to assist the bishops in preaching the Word of God and administering the Sacraments. ”

“ While moreover the clergy have no right to engross the name of church man, x they have also no right to extend the application of the word spiritual to all they do, as when they use it to cover their property and incomes in order to exempt them from legal burthens or conditions. The clergy have indeed a spiritual office in the church, but their dealings outside these definite functions, their tenure of land, their financial and other temporal engagements, are just as much secular as those of their lay brethren, and are just as much subject to the law of the state. ”

“ The clergy, therefore, had no enemy or rival to dread, for they had all the constituents of power which the other portions of the population wanted. Their property was more secure; their lands were better cultivated; they were exempt from many of [146] the dangers and burdens to which the lay barons were exposed; they were not liable to the risks and losses of private war; they had more intelligence than their neighbours, and could summon assistance, either in advice, or support, or money, from the farthest extremity of Europe. ”

“ The fear that a clergy supported by the free gifts of the people would prove subservient and truckling to the hand by which it is fed has been proved groundless. Of course there have been time-servers in the American ministry, as in every other; but flagrant instances of the abasement of a whole body of clergy before the power that holds the purse and controls promotion are to be sought in the old countries rather than the new. ”

“ But where the inclination to popery lay, whether in her majesty who proposed this benefaction, the parliament which confirmed, or the clergy who accepted it, his lordship has not thought fit to determine.
The other popish expedient for augmenting church-revenues, is, engaging the clergy to renew no leases. Several of the most eminent clergymen have assured me, that nothing has been more wished for by good men, than a law to prevent bishops, at least, from setting leases for lives. ”

“ Many of the clergy flew to the metropolis, where they imagined they might be more safe, and a vast number to caverns and mountains, in order to avoid the common danger, and especially from a wholesome, terror of that class of men called priest-hunters. The Catholic peasantry having discovered their clergy in these wild retreats, flocked to them on Sundays and festivals, in order to join in private—not public-worship, and to partake of the rites and sacraments of their Church. ”

“ The clergy were set apart from the laity in several ways. The higher orders—bishop, priest, deacon, and sub-deacon—were required to remain unmarried, and in this way were freed from the cares and interests of family life. The Church held, moreover, that the higher clergy, when they had been properly ordained, received through their ordination a mysterious imprint, the "indelible character," so that they could never become simple laymen again, even if they ceased to perform their duties altogether or were cast out of the Church for crime. ”

“ It is also equally obvious that by the act authorizing the selectmen to take care of the glebe lots, and obtain possession by action of ejectment of those which were possessed by squatters, the legislature designed not to filch away the land from the church, and in the plenitude of their power to forget right, but to secure the title and promote the interests of the church. If not, why in the proviso are the Episcopal clergy preferred to other clergy in the management of the lands ”

“ Such influence on the manners and habits of the people [in that state] is next to nothing, and yet you extol your Church above that of England, and exclaim against establishment! Add to this, the dependence of your clergy upon the people for support—a state of things which is attended with most pernicious consequences ... but in general, the clergy of all denominations in the United States, are miserably dependent upon their congregations.... It is the duty of Christian nations to constitute, within their boundaries, ecclesiastical establishments.... ”