ADVERTISEMENT.

I regret that this Tract makes its appearance so late. It has been longer in going through the press than I had calculated upon. I fear I must not hope that any thing here advanced will induce many of my Clerical Brethren to pause in their career of "Voluntary Commutation." Still, some good may be effected, should these pages only render them more upon their guard against a subtle, unrelenting adversary.

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The great end this Commentary has in view is to dissuade them from engaging in Voluntary Agreements" for their Tithes, on the ground that, by such agreements, nine clergymen out of ten will be injured. For my own part, I would rather diminish

my preferment one half by a "Compulsory Award," than be a party in so sad a transaction as the overthrowing that right which both God and man have, for so many centuries, invested us with. If the sacrilege must be committed, let it be committed by those who were the contrivers of it; and

there, and there alone, "let the great axe fall."

I HOPE I shall stand excused, in the present state of tithe matters among us, for hazarding a few remarks on a subject with which I am, I confess, not very intimately acquainted. Still I may know as much about it as many that will soon figure among us in the capacity of Sub-Commissioners, Solicitors, Tithe and Land Agents, &c., who, to do them justice, seldom acknowledge any ignorance where there is a prospect of the least gain.

This "ACT FOR THE COMMUTATION OF TITHES IN ENGLAND AND WALES" is now become a law of the land, and my Reverend Brethren-for I write this work for you, and address myself to you-we must obey it; and we will faithfully obey it. Still we are, I presume, at liberty to protest against any law which we may think injurious, and to speak our full convictions of its tendency. We are not, I trust, even yet so down-hearted, so lost to the dignity of our calling, as to suffer and say nothing; as to read every clause of this Act-baleful as the deadly night-shade-and exclaim, O, what a tender and affectionate nursing mother of the Church!

B

It is unnecessary to remark that we can, in this business, feel no resentment against the Commissioners, Assistant Commissioners, or any one employed under them. We consider them as the mere instruments to execute the instructions of the Act, and as tied down to a rule of conduct from which they will rarely be able to depart. When they can, in any respect, depart from it, then they may become amenable.

I beg to say that I look upon this "Commutation Act" to be the deed, not of the House of Lords, not of the Bench of Bishops, not of his late revered Majesty, but of the Whig-radical Members of the Commons, aided by the popular cry which my Lord Grey and his exalted son-in-law, Lord Durham, with others of the like stamp, had previously raised against the Church and her Clergy; and when men's minds were sufficiently excited, out came this Bill as the natural offspring of such exertions. I consider it in exactly the same light with the "Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill," as a measure altogether of whig origin, whig nurture, whig treachery, and whig completion.

I will not therefore say, O, how could such an Act pass the House of Lords; how could it pass the Right Reverend Bench; how could such men as the Bishops of London, Exeter, and Lincoln consent to it? In both these great measures the Conservatives felt themselves obliged to follow the stream, and, under the cruel circumstances of the times, to make the best terms they could for our devoted church; nor was it until these Whigs had encouraged, and would have accomplished, a spirit of open rebellion among us, that either the Emancipation or the Commutation Bill made part or parcel of the laws of our country. Though, however, we ought not to censure our best and firmest supporters, it is yet deeply to be regretted that this

bold, radical Act did not receive a sterner opposition, and far larger emendations in the Upper House.

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I beg further to observe that, so far as I am able to judge, the "Act of 1 VICT. c. 69," to amend this Commutation Act," is a sorry, tinkering piece of journeywork, and only makes bad worse, giving a larger power to a party which has already too much, and stripping the Church, her revenues and privileges more bare than before.

I must apologize, my Reverend Brethren, for drawing together such an altogether imperfect "Commentary," by observing, that it is written, not so much for your use as for your consideration, and to afford you hints to work upon. As a plain, retired clergyman, and, I thank God, totally unacquainted with the technical language of the law, I may, perhaps, stand excused if I occasionally fail, with these legislators themselves, in comprehending the precise bearing of the Act. I may, however, have gleaned enough from it to induce you to "look before you leap," no unnecessary caution, where we have to deal with documents drawn up by a Whig Administration, and in the true weather-cock spirit of their usual way of doing business.

But whatever I may have misconceived, of one thing I feel assured, that the quo animo of this new Law of Tithes is altogether against the interests of the Church and her Clergy; is not at all friendly towards the mere occupier of the soil; consults, in no one respect, the good of the poor cottager; and can only be contemplated as a bonus to the large and opulent land-owners, the very men that needed no spark of assistance, and that have been the passive receivers of too many of our stolen goods already. This, however, is the crooked channel in which whig legislation usually runs.

I have selected such of the Clauses of this Act as appeared to me most important, and as I was