Linguistic DNA - Concept Modelling Demonstrator

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	good_a	great_a	person_n	2,760	5	4.6597	4	true

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26371	A modest plea for the clergy wherein is briefly considered, the original, antiquity, necessity : together with the spurious and genuine occasions of their present contempt.	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1677 (1677)	Wing A524; ESTC R21288	59,187	185

A Modest Plea FOR THE CLERGY WHEREIN Is Briefly considered the Original Antiquity Necessity TOGETHER With the Spurious and Genuine Occasions of their present Contempt Honor Sacerdotii firmamentum potentiae LONDON Printed for William Crook at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar 1677. IMPRIMATUR G. Jane R. R. D. Hen. Episc Lond. Ã sacris dom To the Right Honourable Sir JOSEPH WILLIAMSON Principal Secretary of STATE and one of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council c. SIR I Do not here imploy your Name either to rescue these Papers from contempt or to raise in the Reader an expectation of meeting in them something fit to be offer'd to such a Personage but out of great assurance that your Honour will readily grant them your Protection as beeing honestly designed for the Vindication of that Order of Men toward whom your Respects are constantly manifested and through the sides of whose Contempt both Church and State have ever received their deepest Wounds If by this short Discourse I may serve God and the Truth I have my End but shall think my Return full of Reward if Your Honour shall please to approve thereof and give me pardon for the Address That you may long live to be under Our Gracious Soveraign an happy Instrument of Peace and Prosperity to this Church and Nation is the hearty Prayer of Your Honour 's most humble and most obliged Servant TO THE READER I Have little hopes to charm the Reader with a Preface and think it to as little purpose to Court him into a favourable Opinion of the ensuing Plea For when I have said what I can he will judge and think what he pleaseth Let him free me from the Errata of the Press and I will stand to his Mercy for the rest The Contents THe Introduction Page 1. CHAP. I. Of the Name and Original c. of the Clergy p. 6. CHAP. II. Of the Antiquity of the Clergy a rational account of and enquiry into the Institution c. p. 12. CHAP. III. Out of what Rank and Condition the Clergy were elected among the Jews and Pagans The respect shown them c. p. 25. CHAP. IV. A brief account of the Institution of the Levitical Clergy p. 34. CHAP. V. Of the Institution of the Evangelical Clergy p. 40. CHAP. VI. Of the Spirits Agency in respect of the Clergy c. p. 48. CHAP. VII Of the Incommunicableness of the Offices of the Clergy p. 55. CHAP. VIII How the Clergy in all Ages have undergone Contempt The Character of their Contemners c. p. 70. CHAP. IX A Survey of the pretences for the Contempt of the Clergy First want of Example p. 79. CHAP. X. A Survey of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Secondly Idleness p. 90. CHAP. XI A view of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Thirdly of Pride p. 99. CHAP. XII A Survey of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Fourthly of Covetousness p. 107. CHAP. XIII A Survey of some of the real Grounds of the Contempt of the Clergy p. 124. CHAP. XIV A further Examination of the Grounds of the Contempt of the Clergy respecting their Condition in the World and Extraction p. 136. The Introduction IF there were not in man a natural desire to convey something of himself to Posterity and that his Memory might survive his Ashes we had never heard of the Egyptians expending their Treasures in Pyramids nor of the Greeks and Romans bestowing their Wealth and Care in Statues Monuments and Inscriptions And this desire is so naturalized into all Qualities of men that even the poor Statuary express'd no less when he so cunningly placed his Name in the Image of his God that it might last as long as that Master-piece of his Art And yet men are not more ambitious of Memory than Fame as is clearly to be seen in those very persons who though never so careless of a vertuous Conversation are yet marvellous greedy of that Reputation which is its natural appendage Nor can this be any matter of our Admiration when it is duly considered That Reputation goes furder than Power and that men are serviceable or otherwise according to the Opinion which is had of their Persons For let two men saith that Oracle of the Chair and Pulpit speak the same words give the same advice pursue the same business drive the same design with equal right equal means equal diligence and every other thing equal yet commonly the success is strangely different if the one be well thought of and the other labour of an ill report So that he loseth the chief advantage of his Cause who loseth the good Opinion of his Person And though a good Opinion of mens Persons be of great moment in all ranks of men yet in none can it be of greater than in the Clergy For if we take our measures from the things wherein they deal the Credit of their Persons is very highly considerable because thereon in a great measure depend the success and belief of their Office and consequently the welfare of Religion which with no small numbers of men hath just so much Belief as its Ministers have Credit And yet we see no Order of men upon every slight and frivolous occasion so scornfully exposed as the Clergy and that not seldome too for doing those very things which with equal Esteemers ought to be the matter of their Commendation and Reverence For let Clergy-men with a zeal and impartiality becoming their Function press the due exercise of Holiness and Vertue and the forsaking those courses of vicious and ungodly Living wherewith so many are debauched let them following the method of the Gospel teach us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and our obligation to live soberly righteously and godly all the time of our being upon Earth let Clergy-men I say conscientiously pursue these and the like Instances of their Office and men commonly deal with them as the Greeks dealt with their two Gods Hercules and Mercury when they worship't the one with reviling Speeches and the other with casting Dirt and Stones at his Image Now when with not a little resentment I seriously consider that the Contempt of the Clergy is not the ruffianly and borish Humour only of the Rude and less-Civilized but even of many of those who would be looked upon as the Great Lights of Deportment and the Refin'd and Philosophical Persons of the Age moved with this Consideration I began to stagger in my good Opinion of the Clergy and to suspect there might be sufficient matter for the Tempest especially when I saw it raised against them by persons of too much seeming Genteelness and Philosophy to pour Contempt upon any without all just Cause or Pretence And yet fearing to be seduced with popular Examples and unwarily to imbibe a groundless prejudice against that Order of Men for which I have ever retain'd so Singular a Reverence and Esteem I thought it the most Christian and

the World has reviled under the most hateful and ignominious Titles it is but Reason for his Ministers to expect to be proportionably dealt with in their respective Orders and Places And as Christ exhorted his first Clergy not to despond or be terrified by any thing should befal them but on the contrary to be Courageous and Undaunted in their Ministry So the Regular Clergy of our own Church ought not to let their present contempt damp their Spirits depress their Courage dishearten their industry or weaken their hands in the Work of the Lord. For duly considered this doth altogether oblige them to a more signal care that through this Cloud of Ignominy and Contempt their innocency may break forth as the Light and their just dealing as the Noon-day And with a greater zeal they should now assert the Sacredness and Honor of their Calling against the Affronts and Prejudices of an unpropitious and gainsaying World 'T is true the contempt we speak of is able to vie Antiquity with the best things but the Persons that now use it have no more cause to glory in this Antiquity than in murder and lying which are no less Ancient than the Old Serpent Nor will they have greater Reason to vindicate themselves upon the Quality of their Predecessors when they shall see them to have been persons of Corrupt Judgments Factious Schismatical and Apostates Men of the greatest Vices and basest Interests of the worst Principles and most ill-govern'd Passions Rash Inconsiderate and foolish in the Things of God Raging Waves of the Sea foaming out their own shame The rest of whose Character may be made out of St. Jude one main end of whose Epistle was to acquaint the World what kind of persons those are who Speak evil of Dignities or deal contumeliously with the Clergy And St. Peter speaking of the same Subject describes the Contemners to be a bold insolent sort of men 2 Pet. 2.10 c. CHAP. IX A Survey of the pretences for the Contempt of the Clergy First want of Example THe first Pretence which with greatest speciousness and plausibility is brought to adjust the contempt of the Clergy is the faultiness of their carriage For this being once surmised we quickly find them reflected upon with a Physitian Cure thy self pluck the Beam out of thine own eye thou that teachest others why dost thou not teach thy felf Thou that sayest another shall not steal dost thou commit Sacriledge Turpe est Doctori c. Such as these are the usual Topicks whence Contempt is poured upon the Clergy in general especially by those who by an Uncharitable Synecdoche impute unto all the failures of a very few making the whole twelve to be unfaithful because one of them betray'd his Master And yet were this accusation as true as it is manifestly otherwise and that the Clergy were as ill-govern'd men as those usually are who despise them Yet those who reflect mens bad examples when they may possibly happen to the prejudice of their Calling seem either not rightly to understand or not duly to consider what that is which with so much noise they make use of For if they did either clearly apprehend or maturely weigh the nature and importance of Examples they would certainly confess that the Bad are utterly to be avoided and the Good â—ever to be made the Rule and measure of our Actions but that the best Examples are chiefly to be looked upon as helps and furtherances Spurs and Incentives to well-doing And that when we grow dull and unactive flat and drowsie in our duties we may rouse and awaken our selves to a greater Vigour and Fervency by reflecting upon the Zeal and Industry of others 'T is true Example is a very short and plain way of Instruction but it is true also that as our actions at the last shall be Examin'd Tried and Sentenced so they are now to be Directed only by Divine precept He therefore justly incurs the imputation of obeying Man rather than God who in this case follows Example and not the Cammandment Those who upon this account assault the Clergy with no less clamour than I am afraid ill-will seem not always to be men of so much justice and ingenuity as to afford that good example they so loudly call for Notwithstanding that every one from the Spade to the Scepter are as much obliged to an Exemplary Conversation as those of the Priesthood For as to the influence of Examples it is proportionably the same in all Ranks of Men and at the great impartial Audit accounts thereof will undoubtedly be exacted without respect of Persons and the people as strictly reckon'd with as the Priests The quality of Persons can make no Alteration in the Nature of things nor render that a Vice or Vertue in one man which is none in another And when men of any Rank or Condition high or low become defective in that Exemplariness of Life which the quality and relation wherein they stand require from them then I conceive that all those Coals may be heap'd upon their heads which with so great impetuousness are cast upon the Clergies It will also highly import those who Contemn the Clergy upon the account we now speak of to be soberly careful lest by giving too much to their personal concernments they make not the power and efficacy of Gods Ordinances to depend upon the Holiness of those who dispense them And if in some measure men were not tainted with this Error they would fix their eyes upon God and his Institution and look upon the Ministers of his Word and Sacraments c. as the Greek Church did in the Euchologue already mention'd wherein she praiseth God that of his infinite Condescension he hath given them Masters and Teachers not only of the same Nature and like infirmities with themselves but also of like guilt and under the same Condemnation And we have no small obligation to be truly thankful to the Almighty that he hath placed in the Ministry of the Glorious Gospel such to offer Spiritual Oblations and Sacrifices in behalf of the people as have a sense of their Infirmities and who in themselves know the burden and subtilty of sin To whom our Access might be the more free and easie and whom we are to value according to their Office and Imployment For who is Paul or who is Apollos but Ministers by whom we believe Even as God gave to every man Paul may plant and Apollos Water but neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the Encrease If the eloquent Apollos or learned Paul live the holy lessons they teach it is their Crown Praise and likewise of great moment to the people who out of weakness and infirmity are hardly brought to believe the truth of that Doctrin which is not attested by the Example and Practice of those who preach it But still the water is the same and as full of cooling and

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