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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A40819	A sermon preached at the triennial visitation of the Right Reverend Father in God, James, Lord Bishop of Lincoln held at Hartford, June 12, 1700 / by Philip Falle ...	Falle, Philip, 1656-1742.	1700 (1700)	Wing F342; ESTC R16543	31,663	66

A SERMON Preached at the Triennial Visitation Of the Right Reverend Father in God JAMES Lord Bishop of LINCOLN Held at HARTFORD June 12. 1700. By PHILIP FALLE Rector of Shenley in the County of Hartford Prebendary of Durham and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Published by his Lordship's Command LONDON Printed by W. Bowyer for John Newton at the Three Pigeons over-against the Inner-Temple Gate in Fleet-street 1700. TO THE Right Reverend Father in GOD JAMES By Divine Permission Lord Bishop of LINCOLN MY LORD WHEN Your Lordship was pleased upon a Motion of the Reverend Dr. Stanhop seconded by the rest of the Clergy who heard this Sermon to command me to print it I had nothing left me but to obey at the hazard of meeting with Readers less equal or less indulgent than the Learned Auditory in which I preached it I was called upon to attend His Majesty into Holland before I could transcribe it for the Press which is the Excuse I have to plead for its not appearing sooner And here I must crave leave to acquaint Your Lordship that the first New Book put into my hands at my Landing on the Other Side chanc'd to be the Rotterdam Journal that gives an account of the Works of the Learned In the Article relating to England I found a glut of Printed Sermons amongst us complained of and reflected on in so rude and in so injurious a manner * On voit icy Londres des Sermons sortir en foule de dessous la Presse Nos yeux ne voyent que Manne En voulez vous sçavoir la raison C'est que les Ministres ayant la liberté de lire leur Sermons en Chaire en achétent de tout faits et n'ent d'autre peine que de les lire passent ●our habiles gens à peu de frais Histoire des Ouvrages des Sçavans par Monsieur B Docteur en Droit Mois de Mars 1700. Art XIII pag. 124. as might well discourage me and others of my Brethren from troubling the World any more with our Labours in this kind could we believe that the Author of that Journal spoke any body's Sense but his own He chargeth us indiscriminately with a Plagiarism of which I doubt whether the best Intelligence and Information he could get if he were put to it would furnish him many Instances Indeed we do not usually hear of our Printed Sermons being preached over again among our selves but we have heard of their being frequently so by certain Gentlemen abroad with whom we shall never quarrel for doing us that honour The committing of Sermons to the Memory is no such infallible Means to prevent pilfering of other Men's Works as the Journalist would insinuate and perhaps the Press has as often helped out at a dead lift those who use that Way as those who use the other He might have learnt from My Lord of Sarum's excellent History * History of the Reformation of the Ch. of England Vol. l. Book III. pag. 317 318. what Reasons set our First Reformers who were Great and Wise Men upon Writing and Reading their Sermons contrary to the general Practice before in England and what Accuracy and Exactness in those Composures has resulted from the keeping up of that Vsage among us ever since And certainly so long as good Sense good Method and good Language shall make up the Character of good Preaching that which obtains in the Church of England shall take place of the Declamatory Way which for the most part has little to recommend it besides the Noise and Heat of Action Such flashy and frothy Pomp of Words without Matter shall vanish with the Breath of the Speakers when the finished and elaborate Discourses of our Sandersons and Tillotsons read from the Pulpit shall weigh upon the Judgment and the Vnderstanding and shall convey a Light and Conviction into the Mind that shall make every Man wiser and better who once heard or now reads them I forbear saying any more lest while I am endeavouring to right the Learnedest and most deserving Body of Men in the Christian Church from the Exceptions of a Person who has not treated them with Common Respect or Good Manners in a Paper designed to fly over all Europe I should seem to magnifie my own Performance The Meanness of it is as it happens the best Apology that can be made for its Publication for that will render it less liable to the Suspicion of making Plagiaries as there would be no Robbers if none Travelled but Poor People Your Lordship knows how willing I was to have the Province assigned me at Hartford transferred to another who would have discharged in much better but your Lordship insisting on your first designation and appointment of me it became me to submit I then began to think what would be most proper to say at that Meeting and was determined to the Choice of my Subject by the Consideration of the State of that Part of Your Lordship's Diocese where the Visitation was to be abounding with ignorant Fanatical Lay-Teachers who make a Property of our People And I entred the more readily upon the Subject that I was sure to have the best sort of Dissenters on my side who joyn with us in declaring against an Anarchy in the Church and in asserting a Separation from Other Works to Ministerial Functions Whatever Defects of another nature this Sermon may labour under I hope it will be found to contain honest and seasonable Truths and to have Some Things set right in it which peradventure were not altogether so before Such as 't is I lay it at Your Lordship's feet and gladly embrace this occasion of telling the World what satisfaction we the Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln take in having a Prelate of so much Candor and Temper Affability and Goodness and of such other excellent Qualifications set by a Great and Just King to preside over us Your Lordship fills a Chair venerable for Antiquity for extent of Jurisdiction and for a long Succession of pious and learned Bishops in whose steps Your Lordship worthily treads As Your Lordship goes before us and governs us with the Care and Tenderness of a Father so in return I dare promise Your Lordship without fear of being disowned by my Brethren a Filial Duty and Adherence on our part I have always thought the Strength and Glory of a Clergy to lie in their being thus united to their Bishop and of so happy an Vnion may we York Lordship's Clergy ever be an Example and a Pattern to others As for my self besides the Tyes of a Presbyter to his Diocesan I have very particular Obligations to Your Lordship as my Benefactor I hold my Preferment in Hartfordshire from Your Lordship's Gift and tho' the Possession of it has been hitherto attended with some Trouble yet that does in no wise diminish my Gratitude and Thankfulness for the same That Your Lordship may never blush to have conferred

postpone the discharge of their Duty to them Indeed he who has an awful sense of God and of Holy Things upon his Mind who is convinced of the infinite value of Souls and has duely weighed the importance of the Work laid before him will not think that he has much leisure to spare in the pursuit of Pleasures and Recreations be they otherwise never so harmless and inoffensive in their own nature When Synesius was named to fill the vacant See of Ptolemais the Good Man pleaded a certain inclination he had for Hunting as a reason for which he conceived himself unapt for so great a Charge For a Bishop thus he expresses himself ought to be a God-like Man like the Deity he must be above all Sports and Divertisements † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epist CV ad Fratrem pag. 247. St. Isidore will not allow so much as a little Mirth and Laughter to a Priest saying that a Priest is the Angel of Almighty God but Angels know not what Laughter is those glorious Creatures minister to God with Reverence and Fear ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. I. Epist 319. ad Derotheum Presbyterum pag. 85. These are the Thoughts which those two excellent Men had of the Ministry from which they banished every thing that favoured of a light and frivolous Spirit If we therefore of the Clergy enjoy a demission from Secular Cares and Toils it is not that we may thereby have an opportunity to be Idle and to bury our selves in a soft casie and voluptuous Life but that being freed from all interruptions we may give the better attendance on our Calling and labour so much the more sedulously and indefatigably in our own Way and we should have very ill grace to claim such a Privilege upon other Terms than these 3. Even they make but an ill use of this Exemption and Immunity who addict themselves to fruitless and unprofitable Studies In Men who ought to spend their Time to worthier purposes even this is a Fault and deserves no better name than that of a more laborious sort of Idleness And verily when we consider the vast number of Books that swell up the accounts in our Libraries and have been written by Divines on all the various Topics of Profane Learning we cannot but wonder how Men labouring in God's Vineyard should find vacant Hours for such Productions and Superfetations as those Had not the Titles taken care to inform us of the Quality and Profession of the Men we could never have guessed from the Contents of the Books in which nothing is found having a tast and relish of that Spirit of Religion which should have animated the Authors that such Works had been the Lucubrations of Persons in Holy Orders A Minister's Pen ought to be dedicated to God's Glory and to the Defence of the Truth He unhallows it and desecrates himself that turns it to light and unbecoming Subjects The fabulous Relation of the Adventures of Theagenes and Chariclaea which appeared in the IVth Century written with all the beauties of Language and Invention might have passed uncensured had a Lay-man been the Author of it But when that Romance began to walk abroad with the venerable name of Heliodorus Bishop of Trica in Thessaly prefixed to it the whole Church was offended and scandalized at it notwithstanding what was said to lessen the Scandal viz. that it was a Work which Heliodorus had composed in his younger years A Synod of the Bishops of the Province met in which Heliodorus was called upon to disown and retract the Book Upon his refusal he was deservedly Deprived † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hist Eccles Lib. XII cap. xxxiv pag. 296 297. Vid. etiam Soerat Hist Ecc. Lib. V. cap. xxii pag. 287. The vain Man was so blown up with the pride and conceit of being the Parent of that Fiction that rather than lose the merit of it he was contented to see himself degraded of the Episcopal Dignity and Character which is the glory and perfection of the Evangelical Sacerdoce I would not seem by any thing I have here said to condemn Humane Learning which at the entrance of this Discourse I have laid down as a necessary Qualification for the Ministry in opposition to those Ignorant Pretenders who assume the one without any Tincture of the other But as the best of it ought to be used only as an Accessory to Divine Researches and Enquiries so there are Studies in that way that are indeed but Trifling And you will all no doubt concurre with me that a Minister of the Gospel who when he should be laying himself out in things solid and useful should be writing Sonnets and Epigrams or evaporating his Thoughts in Airy Speculations and Theories that have no subserviency to Religion and can only conduce to the gratifying of an idle and itching Curiosity would be able to give but a very ill account of his Time to God Therefore 4. It is they that make a right use of that Leisure which an Exemption from secular Cares and Labours affords them who bend their utmost application and endeavours to the enriching of their Minds daily more and more with the Knowledge of Divine Things This is the Knowledge in the acquisition of which it is intended that Christian Ministers should spend their still quiet and peaceful Hours And indeed how can they find a gust for such Studies as I last spoke of who have for the proper Objects of their Meditations the glorious Attributes and Works of God the wonderful Mysteries of our Redemption by Jesus Christ the great and saving Doctrines of the Gospel and all the august Evidences given there concerning a Futur State and our hopes of a better Life after this Such Matters as these are worthy of the profoundest Contemplation and Incumbency not only of Men but of Angels To these the Clergy are understood to have consecrated their Studies and could it be supposed that any one of that Sacred Order should prove deficient in the Knowledge of these so as not to carry a perfect Scheme of them in his Mind and be able to account readily for them he knows nothing to any purpose though otherwise he could number the Sands on the Sea-shore or solve the most difficult Phenomena of Nature 'T is a noble Thought of St. Isidore † 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. I. Epist 151. pag. 47. as there are many in that Author that the Priests of God ought to ressemble those Living Creatures attending on the Divine Majesty in a Vision to Ezekiel (g) Chap. i. 18. and x. 12. and said to have been full of eyes to denote their sagacity and insight into Heavenly Revelations and Oracles And if ever it was necessary for the Clergy to excell in that Knowledge and in those Studies which peculiarly belong to their Profession if ever it concerned them to be conversant about and to strive for a Mastery in the Divine Tactics it is