Histories in all ages the full of the encroachments of the clergy, yet they all omit one of the most successful stratagems to ingross money. We are indebted to our statute-book for informing us of one of the most notorious pieces of priestcraft that ever was practised. Would one believe, that there is a country, and in Europe too, where the clergy gained such an ascendant over the minds of the people, as tamely to suffer the moveable estate of every man who died intestate, to be swallowed up by them; yet so prevalent was superstition in our country, that it produced a law preferring the Bishop to the next of kin; and in its extension excluding the children, the wife, and the relations of the deceased, nay the creditor; and giving all to the Bishop per aversionem. Such was the shameful rapacity of the clergy here for ages. Such a monstrous practice was established upon this foundation, that the moveable effects of every deceased person, his own appointment failing, ought to be laid out for promoting the good of his soul; and so the ORDINARY took possession, without deigning to account with any mortal.—This began

temp. Hen. I. when the ORDINARY, for the good of the soul of the deceased, obtained a directing power, and was in the nature of an overseer, and somewhat more. In the time of King John, the ORDINARY drew blood, as Bacon well expresses it*; for tho' the possession was as formerly, yet the dividend must be in the view of the church, and by which means, the dividers were but mere instruments, and the right was vanished into the clouds. But temp. Hen. III. it was settled, the ORDINARY had not only gotten the game, but gorged it. Both right and possession were now become the clergy's: the ORDINARY was to distribute it according to pious uses: and no use so pious as to appoint to himself and his brethren.
The 1st statute that limited the power of the ORDINARY was 13th Ed. I. c. 19. By this the ORDINARY was obliged to satisfy the intestate's death so far as the goods extended.—And 31st Ed. III. cap. 2. the actual possession was taken from the ORDINARY, by obliging him to give a deputation to the next and most lawful friends of the intestate, for administrating his goods. But this statute proved but a weak check to the avarice of the clergy. Means were fallen upon to elude it, by preferring such of the intestate's relations, who were willing to