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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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on every Clause according to its natural or spiritual Force where to be quicker or more vehement where slower and more sedate how to observe equally all Pauses and Distances how to avoid Monotonies on the one hand and immoderate Elevations and Depressions on the other Yet where to use the same Tones where to rise or fall in the right place When I say the Reader shall be throughly expert and vers'd in practising these and many more such natural Decencies of Pronouncing tho' they may seem but light and petty things taken singly and a part yet all together in their full united Power they will be found to have an admirable Concurrence towards the creating augmenting well tempering and well-governing of Devotion Had I time it were easie to exemplifie this in every Office of our Church Give me leave only to mention one Instance within the compass of my own Knowledge which perhaps may not be unworthy your special remarking Tho' I doubt not but many of you have met with several Examples of the like nature It was immediately after the Happy Restoration of King Charles the Second when together with the Rights of the Crown and the English Liberties the Church and the Liturgy were also newly restored that a noted Ringleader of Schism in the former times was to be buried in one of the principal Churches of London The Minister of the Parish being a wise and regular Conformist and he was afterwards an eminent Bishop in our Church well knew how averse the Friends and Relations of the Deceased had always been to the Common Prayer Which by hearing it so often call'd a low Rudiment a beggarly Element and Carnal Ordinance they were brought to contemn to that degree that they shunned all occasions of being acquainted with it Wherefore in order to the Interment of their Friend in some sort to their Satisfaction yet so as not to betray his own Trust he used this honest Method to undeceive them Before the day appointed for the Funeral he was at the pains to learn the whole Office of Burial by Heart And then the time being come there being a great Concourse of Men of the same Phanatical Principles when the Company heard all delivered by him without Book with a free Readiness and profound Gravity and unaffected composure of Voice Looks and Gestures and a very powerful Emphasis in every part as indeed his Talent was excellent that way they were strangely surprised and affected Professing they had never heard a more sutable Exhortation or a more edifying Exercise even from the very best and most precious Men of their own Persuasion But they were afterwards much more surprised and confounded when the same Person who had officiated assured the principal Men among them that not one Period of all he had spoken was his own and convinc'd them by ocular Demonstration how all was taken Word for Word out of the very Office ordained for that purpose in the poor contemptible Book of Common Prayer Whence he most reasonably inferr'd how much their ill grounded Prejudice and mistaken Zeal had deluded them that they should admire the same Discourse when they thought it an unprepared unpremeditated Rapture which they would have abominated had they known it to be only a set Form prescribed by Authority And from the same Observation we also may as justly infer that all the Coldness and Dulnes which too many such abused and wanton Spirits have complain'd they find in set Forms is not really in the Forms themselves in ours it is far otherwise If there be any colour for the Complaint that can only proceed from a cold flat supine insipid manner of repeating them Upon the whole Matter it is most certain that in the public Worship of GOD nothing can be more grave or moving more lofty or Divine either in the confessing petitioning or praising part than where the Thoughts and Expressions are strictly weigh'd and prudently reduced into standing unalterable Forms Provided also those very Forms be not pronounced in a formal way but that they be assisted inflamed inspired as I may say with such a present Ardour and sprightly Zeal in reading them as will always make them seem to be extempore Extempore I mean in the new ready vehement manner of their Pronunciation but set Forms still in the solid Ripeness of the Sense and the due Choice and deliberate ordering of their Phrases and Figures Which are the peculiar Advantages of set Forms And therefore so spoken they will in all Reason produce a far more real unfeigned and durable Devotion than all the other meerextempore raw and indigested Effusions ought to pretend to I should crave your pardon that I have dwelt so long on this first Head of Advice But it appear'd to me so very material that I could not hastily pass it over Especially since what I have now said on this Subject may concern in common all your public Ministrations and is equally applicable not only to the well-performing the daily morning and evening Prayers throughout the Year both of ordinary Days and Sundays and extraordinary Fasts and Festivals but also to the Offices of Baptism Matrimony and the Holy Communion and indeed to every other part of our established Liturgy In all which as the Reader officiates better or worse so most usually is their Benefit and Efficacy more or less on the Minds of the Hearers Nay I will now make bold to go farther to apply the Usefulness of this Counsel not only to the Praying Part but also to another Part of your Office I am next to consider which is that of Preaching I am verily persuaded that the Sermons preached every Sunday in this one Kingdom by the Church of England Clergy in this Age are more excellent Compositions of that kind than have been delivered in the same space of time throughout the whole Christian World besides Only let me take the Freedom to suggest that perhaps it would add much tho' not to the solid and substantial Part of such Discourses yet to their just popularity and more general Acceptance and to the greater Edification of our Hearers if we would universally addict our selves a little more to this Study of Pronunciation By which Advantages alone of the Freedom and life of their Elocution we know the Preachers of some other Nations do seem to reign and triumph in the Pulpit whilest their Sermons as far as we can judge by those we have of them in Print are not comparable to the English An Observation which methinks may rouze our Preachers to out do them in this kind of Perfection also I mean in a natural comely modest yet undaunted force of Pronunciation Not such as is full of over-Action and mimical Gesticulations which though some Parties may admire for a time and to serve a Turn yet the serious Temper of our Nation will never long approve or admit of But I intend such a steddy composed severe decent lively and apposite managing your Voices
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