EXCELLENT CHURCH'S MAXIMS. 1. For the rendering of service in respect of an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, neither aptitude nor inclination are necessary. It suffices that the desire of the pay allotted for the purchase of the service is strong enough to cause a man to engage to render it: and this whether he does or does not intend to render it.1* 2. For the possession of an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, neither aptitude nor inclination, with reference to the rendering of the service, for the purchase of which the office is professed to have been instituted and to be kept on foot, being necessary,-it is not necessary that, for the proof of the existence of adequate aptitude, any adequate security should be taken in any shape, nor therefore in the shape of public examination.2 3. The greater the quantity of pay attached to an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, be it what it may, the greater in value,-quality and quantity taken together into the account,-will be the service rendered by the possessor of it.3 4. The magnitude of the pay attached to an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, affords of itself an adequate security for the rendering, in adequate quality and quantity, the service, for the rendering of which the office is professed to have been created and kept on foot.* 5. The greater the quantity of pay is, which is attached to an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, the better. No quantity, how great soever, requires for the justification of it any determinate ground for the supposition, that See Notes, p. 253. OXFORD GRADUATE'S MAXIMS. 6. Unless, in so far as adequate superiority, in respect of value, i. e. quantity or quality of service performed, as above, can be shewn to result, from the employing of hands, paid at the public expense by money exacted from unwilling hands,-service ought rather to be received from unpaid,-if spontaneously offering, or otherwise willing hands, or from hands paid by contributions furnished by willing hands. 7. Unless, in case of special and preponderant reason to the contrary, for the purpose of affording pay for the purchase of public service, contributions ought rather to be received from willing, than from unwilling, hands. 8. In no case, in virtue of any office, by the possessor of which as such, no laborious function is performed, nor any service rendered to the public, should money be received or paid at the expense of unwilling hands. In four words, no service, no pay! in two words, no Sinecures." N. B. No public office having ever been created, but under the notion of service to be done in respect of it by the possessor,-every penny, received in virtue of an office, in which no labour regarded as serviceable to the public, is performed by the possessor, is so much received on a false pretence. 9. As the mass of pay, allotted to the office in question, for the purchase of the service attached to it, should not in the whole together be given and received, unless the whole of such service be rendered,-so neither should any particle of such mass of pay be given and received, unless a correspondent portion of service be rendered. 10. In respect of each portion of service required in EXCELLENT CHURCH'S MAXIMS. extra-magnitude, in any degree, in the value of the service performed by the possessor of it, will be the result of any extra-magnitude in the quantity of the pay.' 6. So long as money, exacted by public authority from unwilling hands, can be found for the purchase of an engagement to render the service, it is not good that it be rendered either gratuitously, or for pay received altogether from willing hands." 7. For the furnishing of pay for the purchase of Ecclesiastical service, it is not good that contributions be received from none but willing hands: they ought to be exacted from unwilling ones." 8. By the possessor of an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, in return for pay, be the amount of it ever so great, no service need in any shape be rendered. In three words, Sinecures are necessary! N. B. By the power, the opulence, the dignity, and the high connexion, of the person by whom the money is received, that mode of obtaining it, which on the part of a powerless, indigent, undignified and unconnected person would be justly punishable and accordingly punished, is rendered innoxious, justifiable, and beneficial to the state. 9. By the possessor of an Ecclesiastical (or Lay) office, as, in return for the pay taken on the whole, be the amount of it ever so great, no service need in any shape be rendered, so neither in return for any part of it.9 10. If, in respect of any part of the service, so it has 2 OXFORD GRADUATE'S MAXIMS. virtue of any office, every security necessary to the causing it to be rendered should be taken.d 11. The classes, whose place in the scale of opulence is lowest, are those to whose exigencies in all shapes the service performed by a Parish Priest, as such, ought to be preferably adapted:-and this on a double account : viz. because it is in this instance that the need of such service, and in particular of such service as is rendered by the performance of the duties of imperfect obligation,— is most pressing, and because it is of them that the greatest part of the population is composed. 12. In the situation of Parish Priest, the greater the quantity of the pay received by a man, the more powerfully is he drawn from, and set above, the habit of holding, and disposition to hold, intercourse with those persons, by whom, as above, in all respects, and in particular in respect of the duties of imperfect obligation his services are most needed. 13. To the Minister, who, on no occasion uses any fired form, the talent of discoursing without book, and in a great degree without special premeditation, is necessary. EXCELLENT CHURCH'S MAXIMS. happened, that payment for it has been made and received by the day, or, as in the case of services paid for by surplice-fees, by the job,-whereby the rendering of that part has been secured, while every other part has remained unperformed, it is not necessary that the security thus found to be efficacious in these instances, or that any other efficacious security, should be extended to other instances.10 11. The classes, whose place in the scale of opulence is lowest, are those by whom it is either not at all necessary, or least necessary, that the service rendered by a Parish Priest, and in particular, that the service rendered by the performance of the duties of imperfect obligation should be rendered." 12. In the situation of Parish Priest,-though, the greater the quantity of pay is which is received by a man, the more powerfully he is drawn off from, and set above, those classes of persons to whom the performance of his duties promises to be of the greatest use, and in particular in whose instance the need of that service, which is rendered by the performance of his duties of imperfect obligation, is at the highest pitch, yet the quantity of pay cannot be too great: because to whatever extent it may happen that no service shall in any shape have been received by them at his hands; yet had such service been rendered to them, the greater the quantity of pay received by him, the greater would have. been the quantity of respect paid by them to him, and thence to the religion which he professes to teach.12 13. To the Ecclesiastical Minister, who, on no occasion, should use any fixt form,—the talent of discoursing without book, and in a great degree without special premeditation, would be altogether necessary. But, in the instance of a |