can any objection we may make against the particular checks adopted under the feudal system be an argument for abolishing them without finding a substitute.
The object of these remarks is not to raise impatience and complaint, or to suggest changes in present arrangements, which, except under certain contingencies, it might be wrong to contemplate, but merely to set before the Church its position. I have shown what it was in the middle ages, in order to assist our minds in the inquiry; let us, with the same object, now advance to the consideration of its present condition.
It cannot be denied that at present it is treated far more arbitrarily, and is more completely at the mercy of the chance government of the day, than ever our forefathers were under the worst tyranny of the worst times. Election, Confirmation, Consecration, instead of being rendered more efficient checks than formerly, are now so arranged as to offer the least possible hindrance to the most exceptionable appointments of a godless ministry. As to Election; the Dean and Chapter, with whom it still formally rests, have only twelve days given them to inquire into the character of the person nominated, who may be an entire stranger to every one of them, or known through report most unfavourably; if they fail to elect in this time, election becomes unnecessary, and the Crown presents without it. And now the Dean and Chapter have eight days given them, and the Archbishop twenty for reflection; if within these periods the former fails to go through the form of election, and the latter to consecrate, both parties subject themselves to the pains and penalties of a Præmunire, i. e. all their goods, ecclesiastical and personal, are liable to confiscation, and themselves to imprisonment till such time as they submit. Such is the legal urgency which has been substituted for the violence of former times: and thus, as the law now exists, we have actually no check on the appointments of a Socinian (if it so happen) or Infidel Minister, guided by the more violent influences of a legislative body, for which I feel too much respect as a political power, to express an opinion about certain portions of its members.
Again, with regard to the inferior patronage of the Church: a large proportion of our benefices are, as has been already noticed, in the hands of laymen, who may be of any religion
