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visions of the statute. And dispensations not in conformity with the statute were declared void, and heavy penalties were imposed upon persons endeavouring to procure them. But by virtue of such dispensations, spiritual persons of the king's council might hold three benefices with cure, and the other persons qualified by the statute to receive dispensations might each hold two such benefices.

The persons who might receive dispensations were, the king's chaplains, those of the queen and royal family, and other persons who were allowed by the statute to retain a certain number of chaplains, and also the brethren and sons of all temporal lords, the brethren and sons of knights, and all doctors and bachelors of divinity and law admitted to their de grees in due form by the universities. The privilege was not extended to the brethren and sons of baronets, as the rank of baronet did not exist at the time when the statute was passed.

England accepting an Irish bishopric:
for no person can accept a dignity or
benefice in Ireland until he has first re-
signed all his preferments in England;
so that in this case the patron, and not
the king, has the benefit of the avoidance.
The avoidance may be prevented by a
licence from the crown to hold the bene-
fice in commendam. Grants in commen-
dam may be either temporary or per-
petual. They are said to be derived from
an ancient practice in the Roman Catho-
lic church, whereby, when a church was
vacant, and could not be immediately
filled up, the care of it was commended
by the bishop or other ecclesiastical su-
perior to some person of merit, who
should take the direction of it until the
vacancy was filled up, but without med-
dling with the profits. This practice,
however, in process of time being abused
for the purpose of evading the provisions
of the canon law against pluralities, be-
came the subject of considerable com-
plaint, and of some restraints, by the
authority of popes and councils, and par-ries,
ticularly of the celebrated Council of
Trent in the sixteenth century. (See
Father Paul's Treatise on Benefices.')
A benefice may be granted in commendam
to a bishop after consecration, but then
the patron's consent must be obtained, in
order to render the commendam valid.
If the incumbent of a donative be pro-
moted to a bishopric, no cession takes
place, but it seems that he may re-
tain the donative without a commen-
dam. (Viner's Abr. tit. " Presentation,"
K. 6.)

4. If an incumbent of a benefice with cure of souls accepts a second benefice of a like nature without procuring a dispensation, the first, by the provisions of the canon law, is so far void, that the patron may present another clerk, or the bishop may deprive; but till deprivation no advantage can be taken by lapse. The

stat. 21 Henry VIII. c. 13, which was repealed by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, provided that where a person, having a benefice of the value of 8l. per annum or upwards, according to the valuation of the king's books, accepted any other, the first should adjudged void, unless he obtained a ensation in conformity with the pro

The statute expressly excepted deanearchdeaconries, chancellorships, treasurerships, chanterships, prebends, and sinecure rectories. Donatives are within the statute, if a donative is the first living; but if a donative is the second living taken without a dispensation, the first is not made void by the statute, the words of which are "instituted and inducted to any other," words not applicable to donatives. But it seems that both in the cases excepted by the statute, and in the case where the second living is a donative, a dispensation is equally neces sary in order to hold both preferments, as otherwise the first would be voidable by the canon law.

The stat. 36 George III. c. 83, brought chapels and churches augmented ty Queen Anne's Bounty within the Statute of Pluralities, by enacting that such churches and chapels shall be considered as presentative benefices, and that tie licence to serve them shall render other livings voidable in the same manner as institution to presentative benefices. It appears that both by the common law and by the provisions of statute 37 Henry VIII. c. 21, and 17 Charles II. c. 3, a union or consolidation of two bem fces into one might, with consent of patrons,

ordinaries, and incumbents, be made in such a manner as not to be affected by the statute of Pluralities. Under § 72 of 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, benefices may be divided or consolidated with the consent of patrons, and there is a clause for apportioning in certain cases the incomes of two benefices belonging to one patron. (Burn's Eccles. Law, tit. "Union.")

For the manner of obtaining dispensations from the archbishop, and for the form of such dispensations, and of the confirmation thereof by the lord chancellor, and the provisions which the canon law requires to be inserted in such dispensations, see Burn's Eccles. Law, tit. "Plurality."

The subject of Pluralities is now regulated by 1 & 2 Vict. c. 106, entitled An Act to abridge the holding of Benefices in Plurality, and to make better provision for the residence of the clergy.' By this act no persons holding more benefices than one shall hold therewith any cathedral preferment or any other benefice. The term "cathedral preferment" comprehends every dignity and office in any cathedral or collegiate church. An archdeacon may hold two benefices with his archdeaconry under the limitations of the act. Two benefices held by one person must be within ten miles of each other, and a licence of dispensation must be obtained from the archbishop of Canterbury. No person is to hold a benefice with a population of more than three thousand persons, if he has already a benefice with a population exceeding five hundred persons; and two benefices cannot be held if their joint yearly value exceeds 1000l. If, however, the yearly value of one of the benefices be under 1507., and the population does not exceed 2000, two benefices may be held together, although their joint value exceed 1000l.; but the incumbent must give to the bishop a statement in writing of the reasons why the two benefices should be held together, and the bishop may require him to reside nine months in the year on one of them.

5. Another mode of avoidance of a benefice is by deprivation under a sentence of an ecclesiastical court. The principal causes on which sentence of deprivation is usually founded are heresy,

blasphemy, gross immorality; or conviction of treason, murder, or felony.

6. A benefice may be avoided by act of the law; as where the incumbent omits or refuses to subscribe the Thirty-Nine Articles, or declaration of conformity to the Liturgy, or to read the Articles or Book of Common Prayer, in pursuance of the statutes which render those acts necessary. But the most remarkable mode of avoidance which is to be classed under this head is that for simony, in pursuance of the statute 31 Elizabeth, c. 6. By this statute for the avoiding of simony, it is among other things enacted, that if any patron, for any sum of money, reward, profit, or benefit, or for any promise, agreement, grant, bond, of or for any sum of money, reward, gift, profit, or benefit, shall present or collate any person to an ecclesiastical benefice with cure of souls or dignity, such presentation or collation shall be utterly void, and the crown shall present to the benefice for that turn only. The statute also imposes a penalty upon the parties to the simoniacal contract to the amount of double the value of a year's profit of the benefice, and for ever disables the person corruptly procuring or accepting the benefice from enjoying the same. And by statute 12 Anne, sess. 2. c. 12, a purchase by a clergyman, either in his own name or that of another, of the next presentation for himself, is declared to be simony, and is attended with the same penalties and forfeiture as are imposed by the statute of Elizabeth. Upon the construction of this statute of Elizabeth it has been held, that if the next presentation can be shown to have been purchased with the intention of presenting a particular person, who, upon a vacancy taking place, is presented accordingly, this fact is sufficient to render the transaction simoniacal. An exception has in

deed been made in the case of a father

providing for his son by the purchase of a next presentation, but the principle of this exception has lately been denied. (2 B. & C. 652.)

The circumstance of the incumbent being at the point of death at the time of the contract, may also vitiate the transaction; except where the fee simple of the advowson is purchased, in which case

it has been decided that the knowledge of the state of the incumbent's health does not make the purchase simoniacal.

It has been a question much agitated in our courts, whether a presentation is valid where the person presented enters into a bond or agreement, either generally to resign the benefice at the patron's request, or to resign it in favour of a particular person specified in the instrument. After several contrary decisions in the courts below, it was finally decided by the House of Lords, towards the latter end of the last century, that general bonds of resignation were simoniacal and illegal. A similar decision has lately been made by the same tribunal with respect to bonds of resignation in favour of specified persons. As there is no objection on the grounds of public policy to the last-mentioned instruments, if restrained within due limits, the interference of the legislature has been thought necessary in order to regulate transactions of this nature. On this account, after a retrospective act (7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 25) had been passed, to remedy the hardships that might otherwise have been occasioned by the lastmentioned judgment of the House of Lords, it was finally enacted by the 9 Geo. IV. c. 94, that every engagement, bona fide made for the resignation of any spiritual office or living, in favour of a person, or one of two persons to be specially named therein, being such persons as were mentioned in a subsequent section of the act, should be valid and effectual in law, provided such engagement were entered into before the presentation of the party entering into the same. By the section referred to, where two persons are specially named in the engagement, each of them must be, either by blood or marriage, an uncle, son, grandson, brother, nephew, or grand-nephew of the patron (provided the patron is not a mere trustee), or of the person for whom the patron is a trustee, or of the person by whose direction the presentation is intended to be made, or of any married woman whose husband in her right is patron, or of any other person in whose right the presentation is intended to be made. The deed containing the engageent to resign must be deposited for

inspection with the registrar of the diocese wherein the benefice is situated, and every resignation made in pursuan of such an engagement must refer t the same, and state the name of the person for whose benefit it is made and becomes void, unless that person is presented within six months. The statu is limited in its operation to cases where the patronage is strictly private property.

There are certain benefices of which the patronage is either by custom or d of parliament vested in certain pube officers or corporations. Thus, the lost chancellor has the absolute patronage of all the king's livings which are valued at 20l. per annum or under in the king's books. It is not known how this patreage of the chancellor was derived; he it appears from the rolls of parliament in the 4 Edward III., that the chancellor at that time had the patronage of all the king's livings of the value of 20 marks or under, and it is not improbable that at the time of making the new valuation of benefices in the reign of Henry VIIL new grant was made to the chancellor by the crown, in consideration of the altered value or ecclesiastical property.

By the Municipal Corporations Act (3& 6 Will. IV. c. 76) all advowsons, rights of presentation or nomination to any bene fice or ecclesiastical preferment in the gift of any body corporate, according to the meaning of the act, were required to be sold under the direction of the ecciesiastical commissioners, and the proceeds invested in government securities, the interest on which was to be carried to the account of the borough fund (§ 139. The act 1 & 2 Vict. c. 31, was passed for facilitating this transfer of patronage.

By stat. 3 Jac. I. c. 5, popish recussats are disabled from exercising any right of ecclesiastical patronage; and the patronage of livings in the gift of such per sons is vested in the two universities, a cording to the several counties in which the livings are situate. This disability was confirmed by the subsequent statutes 1 William and Mary, c. 26, 12 Anne sess. c. 14, and extended to cases where the right of patronage was vested in a trustee for a papist; and is not removed (along with the other disabilities affecting Roman

Catholics) by statute 10 George IV. c. 7. But the last-mentioned act provides, that where any ecclesiastical patronage is connected with any office in the gift of the crown, which office is held by a Roman Catholic, the patronage, so long as the office is so held, shall be exercised by the archbishop of Canterbury. The clause in 3 Jac. I. c. 5, relating to patronage held by Roman Catholics, is saved in the act 7 & 8 Vict. c. 102, for repealing a number of penal enactments against the Roman Catholics.

The church of Ireland being the same with that of England, the ecclesiastical polity of each is in its main principles the same. The same law of ecclesiastical patronage, the same classification of benefices, the same circumstances of lay impropriations, and, in short, the same ecclesiastical privileges and disabilities, may prevail in each country. But a most important alteration in the distribution of the revenues of the Irish church was effected by the 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 37, amended by 4 & 5 Will. IV. c. 90. By this act certain ecclesiastical commissioners are established as a corporation for the augmenting of small livings out of the funds which come into their hands by virtue of the act, and for other ecclesiastical purposes. The funds in question are to arise partly from the revenues of certain bishoprics which are abolished, and the surplus revenues of the rest above certain limits fixed by the act; partly from the money paid by the tenants of lands held under bishops' leases renewable for ever, for a conversion of such leasehold interest into a perpetuity; and partly from a tax levied on all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices, according to a scale of taxation specified in a schedule to the act; in consideration of which tax all first-fruits are abolished.

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The commissioners are invested with extraordinary powers by the act. Thus, they have authority to disappropriate benefices united to dignities, and to unite them to vicarages in lieu thereof. They have also the power of suspending the appointment to benefices which are in the gift either of the crown, of archbishops, bishops, or other dignitaries, or of ecclesiastical corporations, where it appears that divine service has not been performed

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The law respecting benefices in the church of Scotland will be found under the head of SCOTCH CHURCH.

We have already mentioned the attempts of the popes to acquire the right of patronage to all ecclesiastical benefices in Europe, and the successful measures that were taken in England for resisting their pretensions. After ineffectual attempts had been made at the councils of Constance and Basle, in 1414 and 1433, to check the papal encroachments, each of the principal European governments seems to have asserted in some measure its own ecclesiastical independence, either by entering into concordats with the pope, or assuming the right of controlling his pretensions by national legislation. [CONCORDAT.]

For the numerous abuses with respect to the patronage, acquisition, and transmission of benefices that prevailed in the Roman Catholic Church, especially in Italy, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, see Father Paul's Treatise on Benefices,' cap. 44-46.

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The Council of Trent in 1547 attempted to reform some of these evils, as that of pluralities and commendams, hereditary succession to the benefices, and non-residence; but left the great abuse of papal reservations untouched. The consequence of this, according to Father Paul (cap. 50), was that in his time (at the beginning of the seventeenth century) the reservations were multiplied to such a degree, that the pope had five-sixths of the bene fices in Italy at his disposal.

The following Table is abstracted partly from a Parliamentary Return presented 1the House of Commons in 1834, and partly from the Report of the Commissier appointed to inquire into the Ecclesiastical Revenues of England and Wales, pa lished June, 1835.*

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St. Asaph, 143 benefices, comprises-
Salop (part), Carnarvon (part),
Denbigh (part), Flint (part), Me-

CH

rioneth (part), Montgomery (part) 139 143 191,156 42,592 43
Bangor, 123 benefices, comprises-
Anglesey, Carnarvon (part), Den-
bigh (part), Merioneth (part), Mont-
gomery (part)

Bath and Wells, 430 benefices, com-
prises part of Somerset
Bristol, 253 benefices, comprises-
Dorset, Gloucester (part), Somerset
(part).
Canterbury, 346 benefices, comprises
-Bucks (part), Essex (part), Kent
(part), Middlesex (part), Oxford
(part), Suffolk (part), Surrey (part),|
Sussex (part)

Carlisle, 124 benefices, comprises-
Cumberland (part), Westmoreland
(part)...

Chester, 630 benefices. comprises-
Chester, Cumberland (part), Lan-
caster, Westmoreland (part), York,
N. Riding (part), York, E. Riding

179 192 163,712 35,064

£

3,5642

61

4,928

9

479 493 403,795 120,310| 231 18,57813

298 306

232,026 77,056 133 10,668

369 374 405,272 123,946 174 14,656 2

100 129 135,002 22,487 44 3,684

(part), Denbigh (part), Flint (part) 530 631 1,883,958 169,495 267 23,239 + Chichester, 267 benefices, comprises

-Sussex (part)......

St. David, 409 bencfices, comprises--
Hereford (part), Brecon, Cardigan,
Carmarthen, Glamorgan (part),
Montgomery (part), Pembroke,

289 302 254,460 82,673 122 9,440

Radnor (part), Monmouth (part).. 525 561 358,451 60,653 207 11,464

* It must be recollected that since the Report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1835, various alterations have been made in several Dioceses, and that the new Diocese of Ripon has been create but no official return has yet been published showing the number of Benefices in each Diocese is now settled.

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A. Diocese and number of Benefices in each returned to the Commissioners, including eneste Rectories, but exclusive of Benefices annexed to other Preferments. Total number of Beac 10,517. B. Aggregate Amount of the gross Incomes of Incumbents in each Diocese, excisse before mentioned. Total, 3,193,4981. C. Number of Curates in each Diocese. Total. D. Amount of Stipends to Curates in each Diocese. Total, 424,5491. E. Number of Beneices each Diocese not returned to the Commissioners. Total, 178.

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