o form a large fund, to be at the disposal of
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners,[243] and to be applied by them chiefly
to meet the wants of the more populous parishes in different large
towns, for which it had hitherto been difficult to make any
provision,[244] by contributing to the erection of additional churches,
by increasing the incomes of the incumbents in cases where it was
insufficient, or in any other way which the practical experience of the
members of the commission might suggest. One very important reform of a
different kind was also provided for in the abolition of pluralities,
the bill prohibiting the holding of two livings by the same person
except they were within ten miles of each other. The measure was
objected to by Sir Robert Inglis, who had represented Oxford as the
peculiar champion of Protestant and Church principles ever since 1829,
and by a party which shared his views, as one calculated to be "fatal to
the best interests of the Church." They looked on the property of the
Church and everything connected with it as invested with so peculiar a
character, that they not only contested the right of Parliament to take
any step to diminish its revenues or to change the employment of them,
but they even "disputed its right to deprive one class of the clergy of
any portion of their revenues for the purpose of distributing it among
another." But the distinction thus made between Church property and that
of any other public body seems one which can hardly be supported. The
purposes for which ecclesiastical chapters or officials have been
endowed with possessions and revenues are undoubtedly of a more sacred
character than the duties imposed on lay corporations; but that
consideration cannot be regarded as affecting the tenure of those
possessions, or as inconsistent with the doctrine that they are national
property, bestowed by the nation on the Church for the service and
advantage of the people; deeply interested not only in the maintenance
of an Established Church, but in that Church being in the highest
possible degree efficient for its holy objects. Being so bestowed and
appropriated, that property must, on every principle of the
constitution, be subject to the control of the national Parliament. And
surely that control could never be more legitimately exerted than in
carrying out the recommendations of a commission which numbered among
its members several of the prelates of the Church, whose profession