Quid nunc? Selections from the poems of the late W. Cowper, Esq., contrasted with the works of Knox, Paley, and others / [William Cowper].

  • Cowper, William, 1731-1800
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Quid nunc? Selections from the poems of the late W. Cowper, Esq., contrasted with the works of Knox, Paley, and others / [William Cowper]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/48 (page 17)
    ficent in an exemplary degree ; forgiving injuries, and teaching more forcibly by his life than by his discourses. He must not be a more constant attendant on levees and courts than at church, a sycophant, & parasite, or o, pro¬ fessed preferment hunter, for we cannot esteem him who, while he recommends to us pursuit of crowns of glory in a better world, appears to fix his own heart on the charms of a mitre, and to love this world, vain and transitory as he describes it, with peculiar constancy of affection. But when I turn my attention to real facts, I fre¬ quently find the Ministers of parishes neither the objects of love or esteem. This is sometimes occasioned by the prevalence of infidelity, and sometimes, as it must happen while the Clergy are men, .by their own want of merit, and their bad behaviour. But one cause of their losing their influence is, that the laity, in this age of scepticism, grudge them their tithes. The decay of religion, and the contempt of the Clergy, arise in a great measure from this source. Let the laity ask themselves. By whal te¬ nure any one among them has a better right than any other to reap the produce of any particular field, and to exclude others of the laity from it ? They must answer. By the laws of the country in which they* reside. But the same laws have given the Clergy a right to a deci¬ mal part. If obedience is due to the laws in one respect, it is due also in another. And a man who has no land at all, may as justly complain that his neighbour assumes an exclusive right to the acres contiguous to his dwell¬ ing, as the possessor of the acres, that the Clergyman has a right to a tenth part of their produce3 Knox. £ PRiEST.