to overcome their Prejudices and to gain both upon their Esteem and Affections that a very small matter might go a great way towards the healing of those Wounds which have so long weakned and distracted us Speculative Arguments do not reach the Understandings of the greâ—ter part who are only capable of sensible ones and the strongest Reasonings will not prevail till we first force them to think the better of our Church for what they see in our selves and make them wish to be of a Communion in which they see so much â—â—uth and unaffected Goodness and Worth When they are once brought so far it will be easy to compâ—ss all the rest If we did geâ—eâ—ally mind our Duties and discharge them faiâ—hfully this would prepare such as mean well in their Separation from us to consider better of the Grounds on which they maintain it And that will best enforce the Arguments that we have to lay before them And as for such as divide from us with bad Designs and an unrelenting Spite they will have a small party and a feeble support if there were no more occasion given to work on the Affections of the People by our Errours and Disorders If then either the sense of the Wrath of God or the desire of his Favour and Protection if Zeal for our Church and Countrey if a sense of the progress of Atheism and â—rreligion if the contempt that falls on us and the Injustices that are daily done us if a desire to heal and unite to purifie and perfect this our Church If either the Concerns of this World or of the nexâ— can work upon us and affect us all these things concur to call on us to apply our utmost Care and Industry to raise the Honour of our Holy Profession to walk worthy of it to perform the Engagements that we came under at the Altar when we were dedicated to the Service of God and the Church and in all things both to adorn our Religion and our Church It is not our boasting that the Church of England is the best reformed and the best constituted Church in the world that will signifie much to convince others We are too much Parties to be believed in our own Cause There was a Generation of men that cried The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord as loud as we can cry The Church of England the Church of England When yet by their sins they were pulling it down and kindling that Fire which consumed it â—t will have a better grace to see others boast of our Church from what they observe in us than for us to be câ—ying it up with our words when our deeds do decry it Our Enemies will make severe Inferences from them and our Pretensions will be thought vain and impudent things as long as our Lives contradict them It was on design to raise in myself and in others a deep sense of the obligations that we lie under of the Duties of our Functions of the extent of them and of the Rewards that follow them and to observe the proper Methods of performing them so as they may be of the greatest advantage both to our selves and others that I have entred on these Meditations They have been for many years the chief Subjects of my Thoughts If few have writ on them among us yet we have St. Gregory Nazianzen 's Apologetick Saint Chrysostom's Books of the Priesthood Gregory the Great 's Pastoral and Bernard's Book of Consideration among the Ancients and a very great number of Excellent Treatises writ lately in France upon them I began my Studies in Divinity with reading these and I never yet grew weary of them they raise so many Noble Designs they offer such Schemes and carry so much of unction and life in them that I hope an imperfect Essâ—y this way may have some effecâ— For the Searcher of hearts knows I have no Design in it save this of stirring up in my self and others the gift which was giâ—en by the Imposition of hands OF THE Pastoral Care CHAP. I. Of the Dignity of Sacred Imployments and the Names and Designations given to them in Scripture HOW low soever the Esteem of the Clergy may be sunk in a profane and corrupt Age and how much soever the Errors and Disorders of Clergy-men may have contributed to bring this not only upon themselves but upon others who deserve better but are unhappy in being mixed with so much ill Company yet certainly if we either consider the nature of things in themselves or the value that is set on that Profession in the Scriptures it will appear that it ought to be considered at another rate than it is As much as the Soul is better than the Body and as much as the purifying and perfecting the Soul is preferable to all those Mechanical Imployments which relate to the Body and as much as Eternity is more valuable than this short and transitory Life so much does this Imployment excel all others A Clergy-man by his Character and design of life ought to be a man separated from the Cares and Concerns of this World and dedicated to the study and meditation of Divine matters Whose Conversation ought to be a Pattern for others a constant Preaching to his People who ought to offer up the Prayers of the People in their name and as their mouth to God who ought to be praying and interceding for them in secret as well as officiating among them in publick who ought to be distributing among them the Bread of life the Word of God and to be dispensing among them the sacred Rites which are the Badges the Union and the Supports of Christians He ought to admonish to reprove and to comfort them not only by his general Doctrine in his Sermons but from House to House that so he may do these things more home and effectually than can be done from the Pulpit He is to watch over their Souls to keep them from error and to alarm them out of their sins by giving them warning of the Judgments of God to visit the sick and to prepare them for the Judgment and life to come This is the Function of a Clergy-man who that he may perform all these Duties with more advantage and better effect ought to behave himself so well that his own Conversation may not only be without offence but be so exemplary that his People may have reason to conclude that he himself does firmly believe all those things which he proposes to them that he thinks himself bound to follow all those Rules that he sets them and that they may see such a serious spirit of Devotion in him that from thence they may be induced to believe that his chief design among them is to do them good and to save their Souls which may prepare them so to esteem and love him that they may not be prejudiced against any thing that he does and says in publick by any thing that they observe
his Taste makes but a mean Figure among Men and a very scurvy one among Clergy-men This deadness to the World must raise one above the Affectations of Pomp and State of Attendance and high Living Which to a Philosophical Mind will be heavy when the Circumstances he is in seem to impose and force it on him And therefore he who has a right Sense finds it is almost all he can do to bear those things which the Tyranny of Custom or false Opinions put upon him So far is he from longing for them A Man that is truly dead to the World would chuse much rather to live in a lowly and narrow Figure than to be obliged to enter into the Methods of the greatness of this World into which if the Constitutions and Forms of a Church and Kingdom put him yet he feels himself in an unnatural and uncouth Posture It is contrary to his own Genius and Relish of things and therefore he does not court nor desire such a situation but even while he is in it he shews such a Neglect of the State of it and so much Indifference and Humility in it that it appears how little power those things have over his Mind and how little they are able to subdue and corrupt it This mortified Man must likewise become dead to all the Designs and Projects of making a Family or of raising the Fortunes of those that are nearly related to him He must be Bountiful and Charitable and tho' it is not only lawful to him but a necessary Duty incumbent on him to make due provision for his Family if he has any yet this must be so moderated that no vain nor sordid Designs no indirect nor unbecoming Arts may mix in it no excessive Wealth nor great Projects must appear he must be contented with such a proportion as may set his Children in the way of a vertuous and liberal Education such as may secure them from Scandal and Necessity and put them in a Capacity to serve God and their Generation in some honest Employment But he who brings along with him a Voluptuous an Ambitious or a Covetous Mind that is Carnal and Earthly minded comes as a Hireling to feed himself and not the Flock he comes to Steal and to Destroy Upon all this great Reflection is to be made concerning the Motives that determine one to offer himself to this Employment In the first beginnings of Christianity no Man could reasonably think of taking Orders unless he had in him the Spirit of Martyrdom He was to look for nothing in this Service but Labour and Persecution He was indeed to live of the Altar and that was all the Portion that he was to expect in this World In those Days an extraordinary Measure of Zeal and Devotion was necessary to engage Men to so hard and difficult a Province that how great soever its Reward might be in another World had nothing to look for in this but a narrow Provision and the first and largest share of the Cross They were the best known the most exposed and the soonest fallen upon in the Persecution But their Services and their Sufferings did so much recommend that Function in the succeeding Ages that the Faithful thought they could never do enough to express their Value for it The Church came to be Richly endowed and tho' Superstition had raised this out of measure yet the Extreme went as far to the other hand at the Reformation when the Church was almost stript of all its Patrimony and a great many Churches were left so poor that there was not in most Places a sufficient nay not so much as a necessary Maintenance reserved for those that were to minister in Holy Things But it is to be acknowledged that there are such Remnants preserved that many Benefices of the Church still may and perhaps do but too much work upon Mens corrupt Principles their Ambition and their Covetousness And it is shrewdly to be apprehended that of those who present themselves at the Altar a great part comes as those who followed Christ for the Loaves Because of the good Prospect they have of making their Fortunes by the Church If this Point should be carried too far it might perhaps seem to be a pitch above Humane Nature and certainly very far above the degeneracy of the Age we live in I shall therefore lay this matter with as large an allowance as I think it can bear It is certain that since God has made us to be a Compound of Soul and Body it s not only lawful but suitable to the order of Nature for us in the Choice we make of the state of Life that we intend to pursue to consider our Bodies in the next place after our Souls Yet we ought certainly to begin with our Souls with the Powers and Faculties that are in them and consider well of what Temper they are and what our Measure and Capacity is that so we may chuse such a course of Life for which we seem to be fitted and in which we may probably do the most good both to our selves and others From hence we ought to take our Aims and Measures chiefly But in the next place we not only may but ought to consider our Bodies how they shall be maintained in a way suitable to that state of Life into which we are engaged Therefore tho' no Man can with a good Conscience begin upon a worldly Account and resolve to dedicate himself to the Church merely out of Carnal regard such as an Advowson in his Family a Friend that will Promote him or any other such like Prospect till he has first consulted his Temper and Disposition his Talents and his Capacities yet tho' it is not Lawful to make the Regards of this World his first Consideration and it cannot be denied to be a perfecter state if a Man should offer himself to the Church having whereon to support himself without any Assistance or Reward out of its Patrimony and to be nearer to S. Paul's practice whose hands ministred to his necessities and who reckoned that in this he had whereof to glory that he was not burthensome to the Churches Yet it is without doubt Lawful for a Man to Design that he may subsist in and out of the Service of the Church But then these Designs must be limited to a Subsistence to such a moderate Proportion as may maintain one in that state of Life And must not be let fly by a restless Ambition and an insatiable Covetousness as a ravenous Bird of prey does at all Game There must not be a perpetual Enquiry into the Value of Benefices and a constant Importuning of such as give them If Laws have been made in some States restraining all Ambitus and aspirings to Civil Imployments certainly it were much more reasonable to put a stop to the scandalous Importunities that are every where complained of and no where more visible and more offensive than at Court This gives
aâ—â—â—e Business and Labour of their Lives Having known the very good effect that this Method has had on some I dare the more confidently recommend it to all others Before I conclude this Chapter I will shew what Rules our Reformers had prepared with Relation to Non-Residence and Pluralities which tho they never passed into Laws and so have no binding force with them yet in these we see what was the sense of those that prepared our Offices and that were the chief Instruments in that blessed Work of our Reformation The 12 th Chapter of the Title concerning those that were to be admitted to Ecclesiastical Benefices runs thus Whereas when many Benefices are conferred on one Person every one of these must be served with less order and exactness and many learned Men who are not provided are by that means shut out therefore such as examine the Persons who are proposed for Benefices are to ask every one of them whether he has at that time another Benefice or not and if he confesses that he has then they shall not consent to his obtaining that to which he is presented or the first Benefice shall be made void as in case of Death so that the Patron may present any other Person to it Chap 13. is against Dispensations in these Words No Man shall hereafter be capable of any Privilege by virtue of which he may hold more Parishes than one But such as have already obtained any such Dispensations for Pluralities shall not be deprived of the effects of them by virtue of this Law The 14 th Chapter relates to Residence in these Words If any Man by reason of Age or Sickness is disabled from discharging his Duty or if he has any just cause of absence for some time that shall be approved of by the Bishop he must take care to place a worthy Person to serve during his absence But the Bishops ought to take a special Care that upon no regard whatsoever any Person may upon feigned or pretended Reasons be suffered to be longer absent from his Parish than a real necessity shall require These are some of the Rules which were then prepared and happy had it been for our Church if that whole work of the Reformation of the Ecclesiastical Law had been then setled among us Then we might justly have said that our Reformation was compleat and not have lamented as our Church still does in the Office of Commination that the godly Discipline which was in the Primitive Church is not yet restored how much and how long soever it has been wished for It is more than probable that we should neither have had Schisms nor Civil Wars if that great design had not been abortive If but the 19 th and 20 th Titles of that work which treat of the publick offices and Officers in the Church had became a part of our Law and been duly executed we should indeed have had matter of glorying in the World In the Canons of the Year 1571. tho there was not then strength enough in the Church to cure so inveterate a Disease as Non-Residence yet she expressed her detestation of it in these Words The absence of a Pastor from the Lord's Flock and that supine negligence and abandoning of the Ministry which we observe in many is a thing vile in it self odious to the People and pernicious to the Church of God therefore we exhort all the Pastors of Churches in our Lord Iesus that they will as soon as is possible come to their Churches and diligently Preach the Gospel and according to the value of their Livings that they will keep House and hospitably relieve the Poor It is true all this is much lessened by the last Words of that Article That every Year they must reside at least Threescore daies upon their Benefices By the Canons made at that time Pluralities were also limited to 20 miles distance But this was enlarged to 30 miles by the Canons in the Year 1597. Yet by these the Pluralist was required to spend a good part of the Year in both his Benefices And upon this has the matter rested ever since but there is no express definition made how far that general word of a good part of the Year is to be understood I will not to this add a long invidious History of all the attempts that have been made for the Reforming these abuses nor the methods that have been made use of to defeat them They have been but too successful so that we still groan under our abuses and do not know when the time shall come in which we shall be freed from them The defenders of those abuses who get too much by them to be willing to part with them have made great use of this that it was the Puritan Party that during Q. Elizabeth and K. Iames the 1 sts Reign promoted these Bills to render the Church odious Whereas it seems more probable that those who set them forward what invidious Characters soever their Enemies might put them under were really the Friends of the Church and that they intended to preserve it by freeing it from so crying and so visible an abuse which gives an offence and scandal that is not found out by much learning or great observation but arises so evidently out of the nature of things that a small measure of common sense helps every one to see it and to be deeply prejudic'd against it But since our Church has fallen under the evils and mischiefs of Schism none of those who divide from us have made any more attempts this way but seem rather to be not ill pleased that such Scandals should be still among us as hoping that this is so great a load upon our Church that it both weakens our strength and lessens our Authority It is certainly the interest of an Enemy to suffer the body to which he opposes himself to lie under as many Prejudices and to be liable to as much censure as is possible whereas every good and wise Friend studies to preserve that body to which he unites himself by freeing it from every thing that may render it less acceptable and less useful Here I will leave this Argument having I think said enough to convince all that have a true Zeal to our Church and that think themselves bound in conscience to obey its Rules and that seem to have a particular jealousie of the Civil Powers breaking in too far upon the Ecclesiastical Authority that there can be nothing more plain and express than that our Church intends to bring all her Priests under the strictest obligations possible to constant and personal Labour and that in this she pursues the designs and Canons not only of the Primitive and best times but even of the worst Ages Since none were ever so corrupt as not to condemn those abuses by Canon even when they maintained them in practice She does not only bind them to this by the Charge she appoints to be given
Words in a Sermon must be simple and in common use not savouring of the Schools nor above the understanding of the People All long Periods such as carry two or three different Thoughts in them must be avoided for few Hearers can follow or apprehend these Niceties of Stile are lost before a common Auditory But if an easy Simplicity of Stile should run through the whole Composition it should take place most of all in the explanatory part for the thing being there offered to be understood it should be stript of all garnishing Definitions should not be offered in the Terms or Method that Logick directs In short a Preacher is to fancy himself as in the room of the most unlearned Man in his whole Parish and therefore he must put such parts of his Discourse as he would have all understand in so plain a form of Words that it may not be beyond the meanest of them This he will certainly study to do if his desire is to edify them rather than to make them admire himself as a learned and high-spoken Man But in the Applicatory part if he has a true taste of Eloquence and is a Master at it he is to employ it all in giving sometimes such tender Touches as may soften and deeper Gashes such as may awaken his Hearers A vain Eloquence here is very ill plac'd for if that can be born any where it is in illustrating the Matter but all must be grave where one would perswade the most natural but the most sensible Expressions come in best here Such an Eloquence as makes the Hearers look grave and as it were out of Countenance is the properest That which makes them look lively and as it were smile upon one another may be pretty but it only tickles the Imagination and pleases the Ear whereas that which goes to the Heart and wounds it makes the Hearer rather look down and turns his Thoughts inward upon himself For it is certain that a Sermon the Conclusion whereof makes the Auditory look pleased and sets them all a talking one with another was either not right spoken or not right heard it has been fine and has probably delighted the Congregation rather than edified it But that Sermon that makes every one go away silent and grave and hastning to be alone to meditate or pray over the matter of it in secret has had its true effect He that has a Taste and Genius for Eloquence must improve it by reading Quintilian and Tully's Books of Oratory and by observing the Spirit and Method of Tully's Orations or if he can enter into Demosthenes there he will see a much better Pattern there being a simplicity a shortness and a swiftness and rapidity in him that could not be heard without putting his Auditors into a great Commotion All our Modern Books upon those Subjects are so far short of those great Originals that they can bear no Comparison yet Rapin's little Book of Eloquence is by much the best only he is too short Tully has so fully opened all the Topicks of Invention that a Man who has read him will if he has any Invention of his own and if he knows throughly his Matter rather have too much than too little in his view upon every Subject that he treats This is a Noble Study and of great use to such as have Judgment to manage it for Artificial Eloquence without a Flame within is like Artificial Poetry all its Productions are forced and unnatural and in a great measure ridiculous Art helps and guides Nature but if one was not born with this Flame Art will only spoil him make him luscious and redundant To such Persons and indeed to all that are not Masters of the Body of Divinity and of the Scriptures I should much rather recommend the using other Mens Sermons than the making any of their own But in the choice of these great Judgment must be used one must not take an Author that is too much above himself for by that compared with his Ordinary Conversation it will but too evidently appear that he cannot be the Author of his own Sermons and that will make both him and them lose too much of their weight He ought also to put those printed Sermons out of that strength and closeness of Stile which looks very well in print but is too stiff especially for a common Auditory He may reverse the Method a little and shorten the Explanations that so he may retain all that is practical and that a Man may form himself to Preaching he ought to take some of the best Models and try what he can do upon a Text handled by them without reading them and then compare his Work with theirs this will more sensibly and without putting him to the Blush model him to imitate or if he can to excel the best Patterns and by this Method if he will restrain himself for some time and follow it close he may come to be able to go without such Crutches and to work without Patterns till then I should advise all to make use of other Mens Sermons rather than to make any of their own The Nation has got into so good a Taste of Sermons from the vast number of those excellent ones that are in print that a mean Composition will be very ill heard and therefore it is an unseasonable piece of Vanity for any to offer their own Crudities till they have well digested and ripened them I wish the Majesty of the Pulpit were more looked to and that no Sermons were offered from thence but such as should make the Hearers both the better and the wiser the more knowing and the more serious In the Delivering of Sermons a great Composure of Gesture and Behaviour is necessary to give them Weight and Authority Extreams are bad here as in every thing else some affect a light and flippant Behaviour and others think that wry Faces and a tone in the Voice will set off the Matter Grave and composed Looks and a natural but distinct Pronunciation will always have the best Effects The great Rule which the Masters of Rhetorick press much can never be enough remembred that to make a Man speak well and pronounce with a right Emphasis he ought throughly to understand all that he says be fully persuaded of it and bring himself to have those Affections which he desires to infuse into others He that is inwardly persuaded of the Truth of what he says and that has a Concern about it in his Mind will pronounce with a natural Vehemence that is far more lively than all the Strains that Art can lead him to An Orator if we hearken to them must be an honest Man and speak always on the side of Truth and study to feel all that he says and then he will speak it so as to make others feel it likewise And therefore such as read their Sermons ought to practise Reading much in private and read aloud that so their