, we humbly hope that your Grace, of whose
fatherly care, vigilance, and tenderness, we have had so many and great
instances, will represent our case to his Most Excellent Majesty, or to
the chief governor in this kingdom, in such a manner, that we may be
neither under the necessity of declining His Majesty's commands in his
letters patent, or of taking new and grievous burthens upon ourselves
and our church-wardens, to which neither the rubric nor any other law in
force oblige us to submit.

***** ***** ***** *****

ON

THE BILL

FOR

THE CLERGY'S RESIDING ON THEIR LIVINGS.

NOTE.

In the note to the tract, "Some Arguments against enlarging the Power of
Bishops in letting Leases" (p. 219), it was pointed out that the Bill
against which this tract was written was an attempt on the part of the
bishops to get back a power which they once had abused. Failing in this
attempt, in 1723, they renewed the attack in 1731 by promoting two
bills, one called a Bill of Residence, the other a Bill of Division.

The ostensible object of the Bill of Residence was to compel the clergy
to reside on their livings. By this bill, any person taking a benefice,
with cure of souls, of the annual value of L100, was forced, if the land
attached to that benefice had no house fit for residence, to build one
thereon, in any situation the bishop might think suitable, this house to
cost one year and a half's income, and to be completed within a time
fixed by the bishop. It will at once be seen that the power over the
inferior clergy which this bill placed in the bishops' hands was by no
means insignificant; and Swift felt that to make such a bill law would
not only tend to impoverish, the inferior clergy, but would place them
in a position of subjection at once degrading and dispiriting. He
opposed the bill, with the consequence that the House of Commons
rejected it.

By the Bill of Division "it was intended to be enacted that whenever a
church should become vacant, although the incumbent should refuse his
consent, it might be lawful for the chief governor, with the assent of
the major part of the Privy Council, six at least consenting, by and
with the consent of the ordinary and the patron, to subdivide any parish
into as many portions as they might think fit, provided that, after such
division, the church of the old parish should continue worth, at the
least, L300 per annum." This bill, which passed the Hou