Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs - 17
It is farther objected, you tell me, that if we have a Royal Government, we must have with it a Bishop, and a Spiritual Court, and must pay Tythes to support an Episcopal Clergy. A Bisho for America has long been talk’d of in England, and probably from the apparent Necessity of the Thing, will sooner or later be appointed; because a Voyage to England for Ordination is extremely inconvenient and expensive to the young Clergy educated in America; and the Episcopal Churches and Clergy in these Colonies cannot so conveniently be governed and regulated by a Bishop residing in England, as by one residing among these committed to his Care. But this Event will happen neither sooner nor later for our being, or not being, under a Royal Government. And the Spiritual Court, if the Bishop should hold one, can have Authority with his own People, if with them, since it is not likely that any Law of this Province will ever be made to submit the Inhabitants to it, or oblige them to pay Tithes; and without such Law, Tithes can no more be demanded here than they are in any other Colony; and there is not a single Instance of Tithes demanded or paid in any Part of America. A Maintenance has, indeed, been established in some Colonies, for the Episcopal Clergy; as in Virginia, a royal
