what St. Paul has set so punctually before our eyes 1 Tim 4.16 Take heed into thy self and unto thy Doctrine continue in it for in doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee But here now I would not all this while be mistaken by such as are not of my own Calling and Profession as if my Masters Commission were so confin'd to those of my own Coat as that it reacht not others too of another calling No I am to charge your all by all that 's dear unto you even as you are Christians that you also be examples of Believers in Word in Conversation in Charity in Spirit in Faith in Purity If we who are your poor devoted Servants preach up Charity and Purity to you in our Pulpits and then sincerely endeavour a more lively expression and representation of them in our Practises and you in the mean time let all get no further then the eyes and ears what I pray is this but to make your own Condemnation the greater What our Saviour then said to some others we may say to you John 17.22 If we had not come and spoken unto you you had not had sin but now you have no cloak for your sin Think not then that God fends you such shining lights for to sport and play withal but rather to improve them Think not that God sends you such burning lights too only to make you a little luke warm but rather that your little spark of grace that your smoaking Flax may by them become an enlarged Flame Think not that the high and holy God sends his Ambassadors for you to laugh at but to make your mourn penitently for those very sins which otherwise will send you mourning perplexedly into infernal flames Think not then That God sends his silver Trumpets sounding daily in your ears only to lull and lay you asleep but rather to rouse and awaken your duller Souls from the sleep of sin unto some higher measures and degrees of of activeness for God and the saving of your immortal Souls Oh Sirs beware of barrenness and sterility after so much labour bestowed upon you You know the fate of the fruitless Figtree Beware then I say after all our weeping over you like some Cloth you shrink not in the wetting Believe me this will send many of us away with Tears in our Eyes to our Graves but your selves I fear with stings in your Consciences Oh then let us all but Officers especially belonging to the Church drive at that eminency of Holiness and Purity that becomes persons in such places of Ecclesiastical Authority Let not your Courts be called Spiritual whilst their Officers appear but Carnal Let not your Consciences tell you at death you had once an opportunity to make those more exemplary by your power whom we of the Clergy could not make so by our preaching yet you either cowardly or corruptly conniv'd at all their obstinacies and wilful affronts offer'd to the Church The Jews I have read had their Terriculamenta Corvorum Certain gastly formidable Pictures or Images set by their Altars to fright away offensive birds but the learned Selden tells us of a complaint of a later Rabbin That when the birds saw these Images or Pictures did them no harm they would commonly steal flesh away from the Altars and sit upon their heads to eat and dung on them when they had done The moral is easie and familiar How happy then were it for the Church and the whole Nation too were all their respective Officers better Examples of Believers themselves in Word Conversation and Charity and in a discreet execution of the Laws without cowardice or corrupt partiality Then I am apt to think we should not have some of our Church-wardens so unmindful of their Oaths and others so unfaithful to their promises as I fear we have many in our Parishes You are all by your places and offices obliged to serve the Church either by the Oath you have taken or the promise you have made Methinks then you should see your selves the more obliged to execute your authority without the least wilsul connivance or partiality But alass how frequent and familiar is it amongst many of you to present only some poor impotent cleeted Delver but pass by the more responsible luxurious Dives how common I say is it with many of you to present your poorer Neighbors whilst you suffer your brutish Betters to make their Chambers their only Churches upon the Lords day and rhe Alehouse or Tavern the chiefest places of resort all the week after Have not many of you a scandalous sort of Superiours such as they be about you who propagate Atheism Irreligion and open prophaness in your Parishes by their daring Oaths Cursings and new coyn'd execrations with many other unchristian practises Oh! then wrong not the Church the Nation and your own Consciences by being such timerous respecters of persons Disgrace not your papers of Presentments with wrapping up in them only the shreds and rags of your Parish since you may so easily find Silks and Sattins enough to supply them and indeed were the spots and stains better rub'd out of these I cannot but think there would be more of the beauty of holiness amongst the rest of your meaner Inhabitants Would you be so piously couragious as to top the luxuriant branches of these taller Cedars you would quickly find the courser Shrubs growing under them to thrive the better Would you weed these scarlet poppies out of your Parishes without partiality you would hardly find so many scarlet sins reigning amongst us would you I say but pull off this green and flourishing Ivy which clings and hangs about the body of the Church as if it lov'd and supported it when indeed nothing less I am sure the Church would flourish the better for it I am far from the design of exasperation but this one thing more I must venture amongst you Let scandalous Great ones know you stand as much upon your Consciences as they upon their supposed Honour and indeed it s a shame to see them draw their Swords to justifie their Credit such as it is and your selves such heartless Cowards in defence of your Consciences to keep them such as they should be Remember it 's the notion of one greater than the greatest of them all no less a person then our late Royal Master in his Icon. Basil where he tells us 'T is dangerous very dangerous gratifying any faction much less such a one as this in a kingdom to the violation of a known law I have one errand more and that 's from the Dead to you the Church-wardens of our Parishes and indeed could the Dead be as effectually summon'd from their silent graves as you have been from your houses to attend this Visitation I doubt not but that many of them would have met some of you here this day with their juster Presentments and Complaints against you not for that they envy you
Audience as is here this day But since your very great Charity hath been already experienc't by me upon a like occasion and since the meanest Priest too may bring without offence a Cole to that very Altar where the Greater Aaron serves himself and since but a silly Cock may be serviceable for the awakening of no less a Saint than an inspired Peter I shall presume the more upon the suggestion of some few of the most important ond weighty considerations respecting this great Duty of an exemplary conversation from the voice of that high and holy Calling of our own you are all I doubt not so well skil'd in and so very great Masters of already Suffer me then to put you in remembrance That 't is a Calling of whose very Essence and vital Constitution it is to bind the Owners of it not only to their good behaviour but to be eminent examples too of Believers in all godliness and honesty It obligeth us above all that being Lights and Leaders to others we should all so walk in the world that others may see our good works as well as hear our good words Like St. Basil of whom it was said That he look't upon himself as eminently bound by his Calling not more to (*) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak what was to be done than to do what he spake professing it seems his bounden duty not only to order his preaching aright in the ears but his conversation too in the eyes of the people It 's a Notion of the Naturalist Quanto purius Coelo vicinius elementum tanto magis obsequitur motui Coeli That the purer and nearer any Element is to the heavens above the greater yieldableness and compliance it alwaies manifests to all their respective motions How heavenly then should we be who are all the profest Ambassadors of heaven whose proper sphere whose special office and imployment stands in so near a dependance and vicinity to this place of so pure and spotless a nature and society It 's an excellent pen therefore which tells us That want of leisure and breeding want of knowledge and study blind zeal course company secular worldly affairs and less obligation may a tanto and in part excuse many persons but 't is impossible sayes my Author for a Minister of the Gospel to be tolerably dishonest The case is our own so much being given to us the more 's expected from us and hence no doubt it was That the sin of the Priest cost as much sacrifice as the sin of the whole people 'T was a meditation worthy the person that first suggested it when he tells us That our calling as 't is most Eminent so 't is most ey'd and worst censur'd If an Apostle rub an ear of Corn upon the Sabbath day 't is breaking the day The people's motes are accounted the Priest's beams and anothers indifferency is my Evil some things being expedient in respect of the man which are really scandalous and inexcusable in respect of the Coat I am not ignorant that many of us impatient of the Sacerdotal Yoke line it with a silken invention smoothing over the maâ—ter and excusing their own inexcusable vanities With the Rhetorical varnish of telling their people That they are flesh and blood men of like failings and infirmities with others whom they teach when God knows many of them need not tell their people so since they know it but too well already But then others there are who that their poor scandaliz'd prejudic't patients may swallow down all their ill prepared prescriptions the better they smilingly tell them sometimes That the Gold 's never the worse for coming from a sullied hand The good Prophet Elijah refused not his breakfast because brought to him by a black Raven What say they if the Sacrificer be unclean is the offering so too Was the Ark the glory of Israel e're the worse for coming from the foul fingers of the Philistines Sampson made much of his honey although it came from a stenchy putrifi'd Lion But alas My Brethren these Sirengers are too foul themselves to cleanse the mouths of the people being furr'd and foul'd so much as they are through all those gross conceptions and intemperate expressions they often breath forth against such sulli'd and disobedient Sons of the Church The people knew well enough that all these pretences and excuses with many more they have sometimes put upon them though they 'l pass for colourable Rhetorick yet never for solid reason especially since our Hearers are most of them sensible already that they can as well tell such loose and scandalous Teachers from as good Scripture and Reason too Exod. 37.23 That the very snuffers of the Sanctuary made to top others were to be of pure Gold And they read Levit. 21.17 18. That no person having any blemish was to offer the oblation of the Lord and our Saviour himself tells those that are to pull the mote out of their Brothers eye they had need first to cast out the beam that is in their own I find it therefore observed by a learned person out of Hippocrates very aptly for this purpose when he tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That a Physitian had need to be a person alwaies in good plight of a good colour and complexion himself otherwise the Patient will be ready to bid the Physitian heal himself first and having through his ill looks a prejudice against his physick his fancy will greatly hinder its efficacy the applications easie We read Math. 7. that Christ taught his Disciples as one having authority and not as the Scribes And thus no doubt if ever we would preach to purpose we must be followers of him Labouring after the same mind and the same manners too which were so visible and conspicuous in his own most excellent person that we may with a like ingenuous confidence appeal to our conversation as did he for his better reception John 10.28 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the works which I do they testifie of me This is that which above all our Comminations Excommunications and other severer methods will make us to exhort and rebuke with authority and success This is that which will convey such a might and swaying Majesty into all our Prayers and Sermons as must needs conquer our discomposed and unruly people into a better and more kindly compliances yea this is that which will give life and spirits to our Liturgy and make our Common Prayer to come with an extraordinary power upon the hearts of the people making that truly amiable and venerable which through the manifest impiety of some persons appears to some people the more despicable And indeed to hear a Priest upon the Lords Day reading the holy prayers of the Church punctually and without partiality with a taking tone with his eyes and hands lifted up with reverence to heaven and with all other postures and expressions of a devout Soul in the eyes of the people and yet
Love from the Levite 3 for more Pity from the Priest towards that distressed Traveller than from any other Passenger If a Samaritane can bestow but a single sigh upon a poor bleeding Brother he expects the Tribute of Tears from the other But suppose the Priests case be really that of St Peter 3 Acts 6. That silver and gold he hath none yet he is bound to give an example of giving such as he hath If he cannot shew he hath bags yet he is bound to shew he hath bowels yea what he wants in the one he 's oblig'd to double in the other If Moses stoop so low as to sit at the table with the Father less and the Widow methinks it will not ill become Aaron to lie at their Feet for their Good We read John 13. that our Lord Jesus Christ having first wash't his Disciples feet presently prescribes a law for them to do the like ver 15. I have given you an example sayes he that you should do as I have done to you But Secondly There is the voice of the Gospel our Rule very pressing too in this particular You know in the general it calls upon all but especially upon us that preach it 2 Titus 12. That we we live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Indeed iâ— layes a necessity upon all but upon us the dispensers of it above all 1 Peter 2.12 to have our conversation honest among the Gentiles that whereas they speak against us as evil-doers they may by our good works which they behold glorifie Gid in the day of visitation The truth is if we who preach the Gospel do not adorn and make it bright and glorious in the eyes of the prophaner part of the world by such an holy conversation as it especially calls for from us and it as really deserves from all this must needs be the black sequel of it That we shall to our own greater infamy and confusion be found such who basely strangled that we pretended to strengthen and appear very murderers of that friend we once made the world believe in our Pulpits we all valued above our lives and dearest possessions Thirdly There is the voice of the Church our Reverend Mother very importunate too in this matter Concluding it indeed as well she may the actual prostitution of her just honour and reputation by so many of her professed sons as are not thus examples of Believers in life and conversation It were to disparage so Learned an Assembly as is here for so mean an Orator as my self to display before you the incomparable Excellencies of this our aged Mother the Church of England This is done already especially of late by so many and matchless Pens that it makes it unquestionably superfluous form were I as able as willing to attempt it from the Pulpit But this I may and must say That She remains to this day not withstanding all the malitious imputations and aspersions of the black mouth'd Jesuit and all his disguised agents a Mother transcendent for an exemplary purity and many other graceful perfections Her respective Laws and prescriptions though it hath pleas'd some certain selfish prejudicate and vain Opiniators of the age we live in to vilifie and undervalue her and them are yet known to persons if not more yet altogether as pious and learned as themselves to be such as drive at nothing more than to dispose all her sons but especially those that serve at the altar to a superlative degree of holiness towards God and 2 Tit. â— in all things to shew themselves patterns of good works to men It must be confest indeed her sons are not all alike It 's possible some there are to be found of St Bernard's black brood whom he brands for being (a) De honestamenta Cleri atatis atramentum blots of their profession the very scorn and scars of the age they live in And it may be too St. Auguâ—tin his complaint may not be altogether unjust viz. That (b) Adhuc Arca Corvum columbaâ—â— Continet Ang. 145. Epist the clean and unclean birds the Dove and the Raven are to this day in the Ark and Church of God Like the holy Families of the Patriarchs so it is with many Churches they have their impurer mixtures Thus in Adams Family there was holy Abel and wicked Cain Noah's Family there was blessed Shem and cursed Ham In Abraham's Family there was devout Isaac and ungodly Ishmael in Isaac's Family there was religious Jacob and prophane Esau yea in Christ's own Family there was a Judas a son of perdition And thus if the Church of England our Mother may complain of her mixtures of some Reubens for being as unstable as water of some Simeon's and Levi's too for having the instruments of cruelty in their habitations yet all these and all such she carefully consignes to punishment never approves of These I say with Jacob there she pathetically disclaims Gen. 49.6 O my soul come not thou into their secret unto their assembly mine honour be not thou united And is it not pity yea is it not a great shame for any of us the professed sons of such a Mother by our inexemplary and unsuitable lives to scandalize her purer Doctrine and by a loose add licentious carriage to bring an ill report upon her discipline I would it were better considered by us all how much it gratifies the many Papal Spies crept into our Canaan when they hear of the high animosities and heart-burnings the censorious language and the bitter invectives of Brother against Brother even in the bosom of this their Mother I could heartily wish I say it were taken into all our most retired thoughts how much it hardens and confirms the factious and schismatical when they observe the soft and pacifique voice of this our Mother so little minded by her own Sons It was a tart reprehension therefore but how true and deservedly given I know not which a Romanist I am told gave to one of us as of old was said of the Monk Tu praeter amictum Nil aliud verae religionis habes I am loath to English it for I come not hither to fling dirt or play the Satyrist but I fear too too many of us much more mind the formality of our habits than the real honesty of our hearts thinking it enough to wear our Mother the Churches Livery not concerning our selves whether we do her either service or credit by our lives But let not oh let not this our Mother complain of us as Zion once Lament 4.13 14. How is the gold become dim how is the most fine gold changed For the sins of my Prophets and the iniquity of my Priests the people have wandred as blind men in the streets But Fourthly Methinks I now hear St. Peter's Cock crowing I mean the voice of conscience our impartial controller calling on us too in this concern and telling even the best of us were we all well
the priviledges of the living but because Ah lass you 'l scarce allow them that of the Dead I mean of resting from all their labours Such are the scandalous ruins of some Churches and Chancels and such are the intolerable neglects of the consecrated ground belonging to them That the Dead can scarce lie dry or safe from either Oh Sirs give the Dead their due your Churches their just repairs and your Church-yards their decent Fences Such as may be a better guard to the Dead a better credit to the Living and a greater comfort to your selves when dying Remember you all expect e're long the Church or it's Ground must hide your nakedness when you are dead be then so just and good to them as to hide their's whilst you are living I shall now conclude with a short and humble address to all my Reverend Brethren of the Clergie and oh that my words might live when I am laid in my grave You have all now given me the honour and undeserved patience of hearing me plead and display before your more knowing selves the great influence and efficacy together with the great obligation and necessity of a religious exemplariness on our parts especially And now methinks I see it in all your faces a thing resolv'd upon viz. That this Auditory and those you are going to shall all see an happy and more particular enlargement upon the rest of the Text in the rest of your lives Methinks I say I now see you all going out of this sanctuary as so many flaming Lamps to your own a fresh blown up and kindled by my weaker breath Such as may by heavens benediction and assistance fire and inflame your peoples hearts with a greater zeal for God and Religion in the life and efficacy of it Such as may make your people say after your preaching as they after Christ speaking Did not our hearts burn within us whilst he spake to us Such I say as may convince all your unreasonable and bitter adversaries That God is in and with you of a truth and then such too as may make the world otherwise prone enough to despise you now really to love and honour you all for your being not only learned Preachers but living Paterns too and examples of Believers in Word in Conversation in Charity in Spirit in Faith and in Purity which God in his mercy grant that you may all be from this day of your Visitation to the day of your approaching death and Dissolution Amen FINIS ERRATA PAge 2 in marg read contemplatione p. 7. Lucelius Line 27. for quis r. qui p. 9. l. Antepenult for this r. his p. 14. l 28. for form r. for me Epist Ded. l. 2. for in r. into the world p. 6. l. 11. dele in p. 9. l. 36. for This r. his people p. 10. l. 8. dele Them p. 17. l. 1. sor heard r. read somewhere p. 18. l. 10. put in I come now to the fifth voice put in the word fifth p. 18. last line for Honesty read Honey pag. 20. line 9. dele lâ—ss page 21 l. 2. put in it professing it pag. 22. line 15. for Sirengers read Syringes p. 22. l. 21. for knew read know p. 22. l. 36. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 23 l. 13 for John 10.28 read John 5.36 And read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 25. first line dele Of the. page 25. line 17. read Mark 1 14. pag. 25. line 19 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 25. line 22. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 25. line 29. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 27. line 1. read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 27. line 26. for the eyes read your eyes pag. 29. line 25. read Timorous for Timerous pag. 29. line 33. read lop for top the luxuriant branches p. 30. read in for from either