those, who are employed to preach its doctrine, from sharing in the civil power, farther than as senators: yet this was a privilege began in times of popery, many hundred years before the reformation, and woven with the very institution of our limited monarchy.
There is indeed another method, whereby the stipends of dissenting teachers may be raised, and the farmer much relieved; if it should be thought proper to reward a people so deserving, and so loyal by their principles. Every bishop, upon the vacancy of a church-living, can sequester the profits for the use of the next incumbent. Upon a lapse of half a year, the donation falls to the archbishop, and after a full year to the crown, during pleasure. Therefore it would be no hardship for any clergyman alive, if (in those parts of Ireland, where the number of sectaries much exceeds that of the conformists) the profits, when sequestered, might be applied to the support of the dissenting teacher, who has so many souls to take care of: whereby the poor tenants would be much relieved in those hard times, and in a better condition to pay their rents.
But there is another difficulty in this matter, against which a remedy does not so readily occur. For, supposing the test act repealed, and the dissenters, in consequence, fully qualified for all secular employments; the question may still be put, whether those of Ireland will be often the persons on whom they shall be bestowed; because it is imagined, there may be another seminary[1] in view, more numerous, and more needy, as well as more
- ↑ Scotland.
