Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n
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A61157
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A discourse made by the Ld Bishop of Rochester to the clergy of his diocese at his visitation in the year 1695 : published at their request.
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Church of England. Diocese of Rochester. Bishop (1684-1713 : Sprat); Sprat, Thomas, 1635-1713.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing S5031; ESTC R39999
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25,340
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72
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THE L d Bishop of Rochester's DISCOURSE TO His Clergy c. A DISCOURSE Made by the L d Bishop OF ROCHESTER TO THE Clergy of his Diocese AT His Visitation in the Year 1695. Published at their Request In the SAVOY Printed by Edw. Iones MDCXCVI A DISCOURSE MADE BY The L d Bishop of Rochester TO THE CLERGY c. I Can scarce think it worth my while or yours my good Brethren that I should now spend much time in any long general Exhortation to your Diligent and Conscientious performing the Duties incumbent on you as you are the Ministers of GOD duly called according to the Will of of our Lord Christ and the Order of this Excellent Church of England Did I find there were here any absolute need to use many Words towards the exciting your Care in the several Administrations of your Holy Calling yet I am persuaded I my self might well spare my own Labour and your Patience on this Subject since all that kind of wholesome Advice has been already so very sufficiently and so much better given you in Arguments deduced out of the Holy Scriptures and most fitly applied to this Purpose by the venerable Compilers of our Public Liturgy in the Forms appointed for the Ordering of Deacons and Priests There you know this Work has been so wisely and so fully long ago done to a Bishop's hands there all the Parts of your weighty Office are so judiciously laid before you the high Dignity and great Importance of it towards the Salvation of Mankind is so substantially urg'd the blessed Fruits and everlasting Rewards of well-attending it and the extreme Dangers of neglecting it are so justly amplified the Necessity of adorning your Doctrine by an innocent virtuous and pious Life of your own towards the rendring it efficacious on the Lives of others is so pathetically inforc'd that I am confident the very best Charge a Bishop could give to his Clergy were to recommend seriously to all their Memories as I now do most affectionately to yours those very same Questions and Answers those very same Promises and Vows as you ought to esteem them where-with every one of you did most solemnly charge his Conscience at the time of your Admission into Holy Orders I profess I cannot nor I believe can the the Wit of Man invent any more proper Method of Instruction to Men in your Circumstances from a Man in mine than to exhort you all to a continual Recollection of and Meditation upon those many and great Obligations you then seem'd voluntarily and cheerfully to lay on your selves Whence there could not but ensue by GOD's Blessing a firm Resolution in your Minds to endeavour the performance of them and a Holy Perseverance in those Endeavours and in Conclusion the happy Effects of all on your selves and the Flocks committed to you That by thus Meditating on these Things and giving your selves wholly to them your profiting may appear to all and that by taking heed to your selves and your Doctrines and continuing in them you may both save your selves and those that hear you Wherefore seeing that which else had been a Bishop's proper Business in such Meetings as this I hope is or may be so easily shorten'd for me by you your selves by your having recourse to a Rule so well known and so obvious to you in a Book which ought scarce ever to be out of your hands I shall the rather at this time purposely omit the prescribing you many Admonitions touching the matter and substance of the Duties of your Sacred Function Instead of them I shall only offer you some few familiar Considerations which may serve as so many friendly and brotherly Advices concerning chiefly the Manner and Way of performing some of the principal Offices of your Ministry And I trust in GOD that if these Advices shall be as carefully examin'd and if you find them useful as industriously observed by you as they are honestly intended by me they may in some sort enable you to do laudably and with Commendation the same Things which I hope you already do without just Exception Only in this place let me premise once for all that whatever Instructions I shall now give you I intend them not only as Directions to you but especially to my self As indeed in all Matters that come under Deliberation he ought to be esteem'd no good Counsellor who is very ready and eager in giving but averse from receiving the same Counsel as far as it may be also proper for himself The first Advice I presume to set before your view shall relate to the Manner of doing your part in all the ordinary Offices of the Public Liturgy As to that it is my earnest Request that you would take very much Care and use extraordinary Intention of Mind to perfect your selves in a true just sensible accurate becoming way of Reading and administring them as you have occasion A Suggestion which some perhaps at first hearing may think to be but of a slight and ordinary Concernment Yet if I am not much deceiv'd it will be found of exceeding Moment and Consequence in its Practice and of singular Usefulness towards the raising of Devotion in any Congregation piously inclined When your weekly or rather daily labours of this kind shall be thus performed I mean not with a meer formal or artificial but with such a grave unaffected Delivery of the Words as if the defect be not in our selves will indeed naturally flow from a right and serious considering of their Sense I pray therefore take my Mind a-right in this particular I do not only mean that you should be very punctual in reading the Common Prayer Book as the Law requires that is not only to do it constantly and entirely in each part without any maiming adding to or altering of it that so Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving of Thanks may be made by you for all Men For Kings and for all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty If you do not so you are liable to a Legal Punishment and Censure But my aim now is not meerly to prevent that or to provide only against your breaking the Law What I intend is something higher and more excellent something that you cannot be punish'd for tho' you do it not but if you shall do it in any reasonable Perfection it will redound to the unspeakable Benefit of your Congregations The purpose then of this my plain Motion to you is in short to beseech you all to employ much serious Pains in practising the public and private Reading of all your Offices as the Use of any of them shall occur distinctly gravely affectionately fervently so as every where to give them all that Vigour Life and Spirit whereof they are capable Which certainly is as great as in any human Writings whatsoever if we be not wanting to them in the Repetition The Truth is whatever some may imagine