Ordain'd his Apostles it was according to the tenor of his own Ordination As my Father sent me so send I you and to shew wherein the Similitude consisted he breathed on them and said Receive ye the Holy Ghost John 20.21 22. Which clearly implies that as at his Mission from his Father to his Office he was Anointed or Consecrated by the Holy Ghost which visibly descended upon him at his Baptism when he entered upon his Ministry So when the Apostles had their Mission from Christ and were to enter upon their Ministry they also were Consecrated by the Holy Ghost Which they received not only to gift and inable their Persons but also to impower them for their Office as is undeniably evident upon the account of the words immediately following Receive ye the Holy Ghost which actually instate upon them the Power of the Keys 'T is true after they had thus received the Holy Ghost and were Commission'd to all the Offices of the Clergy the Apostles were not immediately to fall upon their Execution but were bid to stay at Hierusalem till they should receive such Miraculous Gifts by the visible descent of the Spirit as should render their entrance upon the Ministry more solemn and remarkable and their performance thereof more efficacious and convincing That men seeing the Wonders done by the Apostles none might have the least occasion to doubt of the truth of their Doctrine or their Authority to Preach it But not only in Christs Authorizing the Apostles for the Clergy but also in their Authorizing others and so forward the work is still ascribed to the Holy Ghost As to the Apostles the matter is evident in the Case of Barnabas and Saul whose separation of them to the Ministry is attributed to the Spirit And we find the same verified of the Presbyters of the Churches of Asia and in Timothy the Bishop of Ephesus Of whom it is said expresly The Holy Ghost made them Overseers Act. 20.28 Which according to some may signifie two things First their Ordination to the Ministerial Office attributed to the Holy Ghost as to the Original by whose descent upon the Apostles they were Authorized to Communicate this Authority to give Commissions to others who were to succeed them in the Dignity and Office of instructing and governing the Church Secondly it may signifie the Act of Designation Election Nomination to the Ministry which at that time was done by the Special Revelation of God and might properly be attributed to the Holy Ghost And after this latter manner Matthias was chosen to succeed Judas in his Office and Saul and Barnabas for the work Act. 1.24 Act. 13.2 And if we have recourse herein to Church Story we shall find how that the Apostles Ordain'd none of their Converts till they were Tryed and Approved by the Holy Ghost And that when St. John was return'd into Asia he ordain'd every where such as were signified by the Spirit And we are generally told by the Greek Fathers that the primitive Bishops did not make Clergy of their own Heads but by the order and command of the Spirit Which being understood according to the distinction now mention'd leaves no place of doubting of the manner or reality of the Spirits concernment in ordaining men for the Clergy especially when it is considered that all the sorts and degrees of Primitive Ecclesiasticks are ascribed to the Appointment of the Holy Ghost Eph. 4.11 And we have no ground of surmising that the Holy Ghost hath quitted his Interest in this great Concern but rather to believe that he doth still preside at Holy and Regular Ordinations Which are that Ecclesiastick Generation whereby the Clergy is propagated the Apostles still survive and Christ is still present with them And we have no reason at all to doubt but that the Spirit doth as Truly though not so Visibly assist at the present Ordering of Ministers as he did at the separation of Barnabas and Saul and that Christ is as really present by the same Spirit as when he breathed Him upon the Apostles and thereby gave them Authority for the Work of the Ministry And to this purpose we are to understand our own Church when she bids the Persons to be Ordain'd and Consecrated Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands c. And Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and Work of a Bishop in the Church now committed to thee by the imposition of our hands c. The Holy Ghost in both forms is I doubt not to be taken in the same sense and imports no more but the conferring of Authority for the Execution of the Offices there Specified Which Authority being convey'd by that we call Orders and Consecration is fitly expressed by the same words which were used by our Saviour in bestowing the same power upon the Apostles at his sending of them forth to Preach the Gospel and gather and constitute a Church I have not as yet met with any thing considerable relating to the Forms of Ordination used in the Ancient Church but I suppose they were all agreeable to that our Saviour used at the Ordination of the Apostles But the Form of Ordination being only of Ecclesiastical Institution the Churches might inoffensively vary therein In the Greek Church the form was to this effect The Divine Grace which always heals our Infirmities and supplies our wants doth create or promote N. the Venerable Deacon to be a Presbyter the Presbyter most beloved of God to be a Bishop In the Western Church they use another Form wherein they confer upon the Presbyter the power of Consecrating the Elements in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and of Binding and Loosing Our own Church hath a Form peculiar to her self yet much resembling the old Greek Form mention'd by St. Clem. in his Constitutions Lib. 8. c. 16. Wherein the power of Preaching also is confer'd upon the Presbyter And though I am not able at present to give a full account of all the Ancient Forms of Ordination yet it sufficeth our purpose that none was ever yet met with wherein the Original and supreme power of Ordaining is not attributed to the Holy Ghost CHAP. VII Of the incommunicableness of the Offices of the Clergy THough what has been said renders the Holy Ghosts Interest and Agency in the Separation of men to the Calling of the Clergy to be undeniable yet there are still some who opine the Ministery to be a thing of Labour rather than Honor and to which Abilities without Authority are sufficient by which position the Concern of the Spirit must be wholly evacuate as to yielding any orderly power and certain Method of attaining unto the Sacerdotal Office And though the Socinian and Enthusiast are the more known and professed Assertors of this Conceit yet it is much to be feared that all Contemners of the Clergy are sowr'd with the
to keep Hounds Accipitres Falcones c. And as concerning the mind of the Ancient Church in this particular it is sufficiently apparent in those Canons which forbid the Clergy secular Sports and Recreations and all such Correspondencies Entertainments and Familiarities with the Laity as were not the Product of their Office And this was done not out of any supercilious moroseness to restrain but out of a wary foresight to revere the Clergy To whose profession they saw nothing was more contrary than a too great indifferency of conversing with the people whom they were to instruct With whom they must not hope long to enjoy that Credit and Reverence due to their Order which is founded upon the Gravity Abstinence Sobriety and Reservation of their Persons if they license themselves that secular Freedom which we now plead against I have observed a Numerous Clergy in the Roman and not a few in our own Church though of no greater Parts or Vertues than others to have secured to themselves a great share of Veneration chiefly upon the account of a cautious Retreat from the Usages and Liberties of the Many CHAP. XII A Survey of the pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Fourthly of Covetousness THE last Pretence of the Contempt of the Clergy which we shall take notice of in this discourse is their Covetousness And this imputation usually ariseth from a prejudiced consideration of the Clergies carriage First in looking after the Incomes which are appointed for their maintenance Secondly in the frugal management of those Incomes And lastly in their seeking after Preferments And first those who Contemn the Clergy for Covetousness because they are diligent and careful to look after the things which are allotted for their subsistence may manage the same Argument with as much Justice though perhaps not so much speciousness against all those who are studious to reap the due fruits and benefits of their Places and Professions though they have not all things consider'd so great an obligation for so doing as the Clergy Whom we must needs confess to be the Stewards of Gods Patrimony as well as of his Mysteries and that in both it is required of them to be found faithful To which attribute they will have but small reason to intitle themselves unless they be exactly vigilant to preserve those dues rights and profits which the Laws of God and the Land have made accrew to the Church and not to suffer that to be cunningly embezel'd unjustly defalk'd or Alienated which the Bounty and Religion of pious Ancestors devoted to the support and maintenance of the most Holy Worship And if the Clergy shall be thought covetous because by just and amicable Methods they are diligent in the preservation of that wherewith they are intrusted and that out of a due sense that the burden of Sacriledge is already too heavy upon the Nation they labour to prevent its growing heavier by saving men from that most execrable sin from which none can be free who endeavour to defraud the Church and which not a few are ready to do if not studiously prevented Now if this be the Case of the Clergies Covetousness in the first instance thereof let it be left to him That judgeth righteous judgment Nor can they with any better colour brand As Covetous the Clergies wary and frugal management of their incomes so long as they are merciful to their power and that their Alms are cheerful and their hospitality charitable though they never meddle with those secular Entertainments and expensive Correspondencies to which the occasions of their Office and expressions of Charity do neither oblige nor invite them And if the Clergy according to the best and Ancientest Canons secure the interest of the poor in the goods of the Church reserving unto themselves only such a portion thereof as may suffice for their own sober maintenance and to make honest provision for their Families and not tenaciously to hoard them up for no better purposes than either to gratifie a covetous humour or to furnish out a Worldly pomp and parade or what is not much better to enrich a Relation that in the next Age if not sooner will Contemn their Extraction and vilify the Function by which they were raised But on the contrary if the Clergy are conscientiously careful not to dissipate the Spiritual Patrimony in any needless profusions idle curiosities unclerical splendor or any thing disagreable to that Christian Austerity and Rigor which is ever to be expected in that Calling But shall with a Religious providence and Charitable Frugality endeavour so to husband that Holypittance whereof they are not the Proprietaries but Stewards as to be just and Charitable they ought upon these terms neither to be censured nor despised as Covetous Which is an imputation never to be fasten'd upon any Who do justice and love mercy And we must think that Order of men we speak of to be wonderfully devoid of conscience and ingenuity when they are guilty of any egregious failures in the things now mention'd Especially when they shall perceive them to be so equitable in themselves so answerable to the nature of their Calling and so strictly injoyn'd by the laws of the Church and so highly recommended by all the learned and pious of their own Character and Profession As to the Goods of the Church we know they are frequently styled the Goods of the Poor and the Ancient Church was so careful to maintain them in that state that she allowed not a Bishop to bestow them upon their nearest Relations further than to help them as they were indigent lest they should be said to prey upon the Churches Incomes I must take care saith St. Augustin lest the estate of the poor which belongs to the Church of Hippo be given to the Rich. In which matter I have hitherto quit my self well For I have kindred which call themselves Noble who come to me being a Bishop one while with Menaces and another while with Flatteries to move me to confer something upon them because of our Relation and yet through Gods grace I do not remember that I ever enriched any of them Enough to this purpose is to be met with in the Canons concerning Ecclesiastical Discipline and in those Authors who have writ De Eccles Repub. I have been told that a late Bishop of this Nation in his Epistle to Trinity-Colledge in Cambridge set before his Mysteries of Christian Religion doth impute the late Sacriledge committed in this Land to the spending of Church-means in an un-church-like manner and that this was done by the Clergies converting them to their private uses or otherwise misimploying them And therefore saith he God justly takes them away and permits Sacriledge we our selves having first offended in the same kind For certainly Church-means should have relation as well to the uses as to the persons and a Church-man in mispending them commits Sacriledge And I find it likewise expressly affirm'd by a Divine of
Singular Learning and Piety in his just weights and measures that for any degree or order of the Clergy to increase their Estates out of Church goods was in the better and purer times of Christianity a thing which the Canons did not only prohibit but make void And that the Canons from the Canon of the Apostles to those at this day in force in the Church of Rome disable the Clergy to dispose of Church-goods by Will and Testament In the 25th Session of the Council of Trent and in the first Chapter concerning Reformation among many other things very worthy of remark the Synod expressly forbids the Bishops to augment the incomes of their Kindred and Familiars with those of the Church According to the Canons of the Apostles prohibiting the Goods of the Church which are Gods to be given to Relations but if they are poor to deal with them as with the rest of their rank and not to dissipate them for their sakes Imo quà m maximè potest eos sancta Synodus monet ut omnem humanum hunc erga fratres Nepotes propinquosque carnis affectum unde multorum malorum in Ecclesia Seminarium extat penitus deponant And what is said of the Bishops is also to be understood of the rest of the Clergy 'T is true where the Clergy as in our own Church are authorized to marry the Case seems to be otherwise and the Church as she has given them leave to marry must also give them leave even out of her own Revenues to make provision for their Wives and Children But this doth not abrogate but only relax the Canons and the married Clergy are herein to express a singular moderation and so to provide for Wife and Children out of Church-goods as not to extinguish the interest of the poor therein For I humbly conceive that it is no small mistake in any Clergy-men to imagine that having out of the Goods of the Church soberly disposed of their Children in the World they should also labour to raise them Estates and strive in their own Port to equal that of the higher Laity With whom the Canons never intended them a greater conversation than arose from the Tenor of their Function and requires that their chiefest Hospitality should respect the relief and support of the Indigent and Necessitous As to the last instance of Covetousness in the Clergy which respects their eager hunting after Preferments and Promotions in the Church which the best and wisest have ever esteem'd a notable blemish in them it surpasseth my abilities to vindicate and is against my conscience to excuse And therefore I shall deeply lament what I cannot redress and humbly beseech Almighty God to restore those to a better minde who herein are guilty And that some are guilty in this particular seems undeniable upon that general complaint made against that multiplicity of Church-preferments wherewith not few are ever surcharged Ridente fanatico nec dolente Papista Or rather indeed to the distress and injury of those Clergy-men who would esteem it a good Vintage to have but the gleanings of their Brethren and think themselves well provided for if they had but one of those Numerous preferments which are so venturously piled upon such as are no more laborious in the Word and Doctrin than others But I shall forbear to enlarge lest I should be mistaken in this particular and only make it my humble Supplication that the Canons respecting the Clergy in this Affair may impartially be considered by them to the end that their manifest opposition to this enormous practice may through God somewhat contribute to its amendment or at least so far open their eyes as to let them see the utter inexpediency if not unlawfulness of what they do That which we call Pluralities in this Church has long time been complain'd of as a thorn in her side which some of the Reverend Fathers the Bishops have very lately been projecting to pull out But in stead of the Extirpation of Pluralities I could wish they were well prun'd for till their abuses be retrenched and they be restored to their first design they will scarce be capable of any conscientious Apology And it is to be hoped that those corruptions which tract of time and negligence of some may seem to have brought upon the first Concessions thereof might for the future be prevented if three or four obvious things were duly taken notice of As First That those unto whom the granting of dispensations is committed or which otherwise have any stroke in the disposal of such Preferments as appertain unto Learned Men would bethink themselves what it is to respect any thing either above or beside Merit considering how hard the World taketh it when to men of commendable Note and Quality there is so little respect had or so great unto them whose deserts are very mean that nothing doth seem more strange than the one sort because they are not accounted of and the other because they are It being every mans expectation and hope in the Church of God that the only purchase of greater rewards should be always greater deserts and that nothing should be able to plant a Thorn where a Vine ought to grow Secondly That Honorable Personages and they who by vertue of any principal Office in the Common-wealth are inabled to qualify a certain number and to make them capable of benefices and faculties above others would not suffer their priviledges to be abused contrary to the true intent and meaning of wholesom Laws by men in whom there is nothing notable besides Covetousness and Ambition Ignorance and Idleness Thirdly That the Universities would bestow their degrees not as meer kindnesses by way of Civility but as favours which always imply a Testimony given to the Church and Common-wealth concerning mens sufficiency for Manners and Knowledge Considering that upon the credit of this Testimony sundry Statutes of the Realm are built and that it is so far available that nothing is more respected for the Warrant of Divers mens Abilities to serve both in Church and State And if the Universities shall violate that Religion wherewith this Testimony ought to be given they do not only disparage themselves if it be known but also involve those in error who deem it a thing uncivil to call the Credit of their Testimony in question by doubting either of the Manners or Abilities of those upon whom they have confer'd their Degrees And therefore are never to be granted to any one without due Caution and Advice Fourthly That the Indulgence of Pluralities be restored to its first design by being allowed only to men of Note to signify and reward Eminent Services done for the Church and to encourage a more remarkable progress in Vertue and Science Ends shamefully neglected in the present Indulgence of Pluralities if we consider who they are who most bountifully enjoy them In the last place it would not a little help to the removal of the scandalous