h minister.'[669] Even Dr.
Johnson, that stout defender of the Established Church, and of
everything connected with the administration of its affairs, was obliged
to own that 'no man can now be made a bishop for his learning and piety;
his only chance of promotion is his being connected with some one who
has parliamentary interest.'[670] He seems, however, to think the system
inevitable and justifiable, owing to the weakness of the Government, for
he prefaces his admission by remarking that 'all that Government, which
has now too little power, has to bestow, must be given to support
itself; it cannot reward merit.' Mr. Grenville's well-known remark to
Bishop Newton,[671] that he considered bishoprics of two sorts, either
as bishoprics of business or bishoprics of ease, is another instance of
the low views which statesmen took, and were not ashamed to avow, of
their responsibilities as dispensers of Church preferment.

Such a system naturally tended to foster a false estimate of their
duties on the part of those who were promoted. If the dispenser of
Church preferment was too apt to regard merely political ends, the
recipient or expectant was on his part too often ready to play the
courtier or to become the mere political partisan. Whiston complains
that 'the bishops of his day were too well known to be tools of the
Court to merit better bishoprics by voting as directed.'[672] Warburton
owns that 'the general body of the clergy have been and (he is afraid)
always will be very intent upon pushing their temporal fortunes.'[673]
Watson considered 'the acquisition of a bishopric as no proof of
personal merit, inasmuch as they are often given to the flattering
dependants and unlearned younger branches of noble families.' Nay,
further, he considered 'the possession of a bishopric as a frequent
occasion of personal demerit.' 'For,' he writes, 'I saw the generality
of bishops bartering their independence and dignity of their order for
the chance of a translation, and polluting Gospel humility by the pride
of prelacy.'[674] Lord Campbell informs us that 'in spite of Lord
Thurlow's living openly with a mistress, his house was not only
frequented by his brother the bishop, but by ecclesiastics of all
degrees, who celebrated the orthodoxy of the head of the law and his
love of the Established Church.'[675] If one might trust two memoir
writers who had better opportunities of acquiring correct information
than almost any of their con