of every Age to harangue the multitude to Voice it high and loud Dominari in Concionibus And since Experience fits for government and Age usually brings experience perhaps the most Governing years are the least Preaching years In the 2. Second place therefore there is a teaching Mediately by the Subordinate ministration of others in which since the Action of the Instrumental agent is upon all grounds of Reason to be ascribed to the Principal He that ordains and furnishes all his Churches with able Preachers is an Universal Teacher he instructs where he cannot be Present he speaks in every mouth of his Diocess and every Congregation of it every Sunday feels his Influence though it hears not his Voice That Master deprives not his Family of their food who orders a faithful Steward to dispence it Teaching is not a Flow of Words nor the Draining of an Hour-glass but an effectual procuring that a man comes to know something that he knew not before or to know it better And therefore Eloquence and Ability of speech is to a Church Governour as Tully said it was to a Philosopher Si afferatur non repudianda si absit non magnoperè desideranda and to find fault with such an one for not being a Popular Speaker is to blame a Painter for not being a good Musician To Teach indeed must be confest his Duty but then there is a Teaching by Example by Authority by restraining Seducers and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge And a Bishop does his Church his Prince and Countrey more Service by ruling other mens Tongues then he can by imploying his own And thus much for the first Branch of the great Work belonging to a Pastor of the Church which was to Teach and to Exhort 2. The second is to Rule Expressed in these words Rebuke with all Authority By which I doubt not but the Apostle principally intends Church-censures and so the Words are a Metonymy of the Part for the whole giving an instance in Ecclesiastical Censures instead of all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction A Jurisdiction which in the Essentials of it is as old as Christianity and even in those Circumstantial additions of secular Encouragement with which the Piety and Wisdom of Christian Princes alwayes thought necessary to support it against the Encroachments of the injurious World much Older and more Venerable then any Constitution that has divested the Church of it But to speak directly to the Thing before us We see here the great Apostle employing the utmost of his Authority in commanding Titus to use his and what he said to Him he says to every Christian Bishop after him Rebuke with all Authority This Authority is a Spiritual Sword put into the hands of every Church Ruler and God put not this Sword into his hands with an intent that he should keep it there for no other purpose but onely for Fashion-sake as men use to wear one by their sides Government is an Art above the Attainment of an ordinary Genius and requires a wider a larger and a more Comprehending Soul than God has put into every Body The Spirit that animates and acts the Universe is a Spirit of Government and that Ruler that is possessed of it is the Substitute and Vicegerent of Providence whether in Church or State Every Bishop is Gods Curate Now the Nature of Government Contains in it these three parts 1. An Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it 2. A Protection of them in the performance of their Duty 3. Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect it All which are in their Proportion ingredients of that Government that we call Ecclesiastical 1. And first it implies Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it for it is both to be confessed and lamented that men are not so ready to Offer it where it is not exacted Otherwise what means the Service of the Church so imperfectly and by halves read over and that by many who profess a Conformity to the Rules of the Church What makes them mince and mangle that in their Practise which they could swallow whole in their Subscriptions Why are the Publick Prayers curtail'd and left out Prayers composed with Sobriety and injoyned with Authority onely to make the more Room for a long crude impertinent upstart Harangue before the Sermon Such persons seem to Conform a Word whose signification they never make good onely that they may despise the Churches Injunctions under the Churches Wing and Contemn Authority within the Protection of the Laws Duty is but another English Word for Debt and God knows that it is well if men pay their Debts when they are call'd upon But if Governors do not remind men of and call them to Obedience they will find that it will never come as a Free-will-offering no not from many who even serve at the Altar 2. Government imports a Protection and Encouragement of the Persons under it in the Discharge of their Duty It is not for a Magistrate to frown upon and brow-beat those who are hearty and exact in the management of their Ministry and with a Grave insignificant Nodd to call a well Regulated and Resolved Zeal Want of Prudence and Moderation Such Discouraging of men in the ways of an Active Conformity to the Churches Rules is that that will crack the Sinews of Government for it weakens the Hands and Damps the Spirits of the Obedient And if onely Scorn and Rebuke shall attend men for asserting the Churches Dignity and taxing the murder of Kings and the like Many will choose rather to neglect their Duty safely and creditably then to get a Broken Pate in the Churches Service onely to be rewarded with that that shall Break their Hearts too 3. The third thing implyed in Government is Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect their Duty Without which Coercive Power all government is but Toothless and Precarious and does not so much command as beg obedience Nothing I confess is more becoming a Christian of what Degree soever then Meekness Candor and Condescension but they are Vertues that have their proper Sphere and Season to act and shew themselves in and consequently not to interfere with others Different indeed in their Nature but altogether as Necessary in their Use. And when an insolent despiser of Discipline nurtur'd into Impudence and Contempt of all Order by a long Risk of Licence and Rebellion shall appear before a Church governour Severity and Resolution are that Governours Vertues and Justice it self is his Mercy for by making such an one an example as much as in him lies he will either Cure him or at least Preserve others Were indeed the Consciences of men as they should be the Censures of the Church might be a sufficient Coercion upon them but being as most of them now a days are Hell and Damnation-proof her bare Anathema's fall but like so many Bruta fulmina upon the Obstinate and Schismatical who are like to think themselves
shrewdly hurt by being cut off from that Body which they choose not to be of and so being punished into a Quiet enjoyment of their beloved Separation Some will by no means allow the Church any further power then onely to Exhort and to Advise and this but with a Proviso too that it extends not to such as think themselves too Wise and too Great to be Advised according to the Hypothesis of which persons the Authority of the Church and the obliging force of all Church Sanctions can bespeak men onely thus These and these things it is your Duty to do and if you will not do them you may as well let them alone A strict and efficacious Constitution indeed which invests the Church with no power at all but where men will be so Civil as to obey it and so at the same Time pay it a Duty and do it a Courtesie too But when in the Judgement of some men the Spiritual Function as Such must render a Churchman though otherwise never so Discreet and qualified yet meerly because he is a Church-man unfit to be intrusted by his Prince with a share of that Power and Jurisdiction which in many Circumstances his Prince has judged but too necessary to secure the Affairs and Dignity of the Church and which every thriving Grasier can think himself but ill dealt with if within his own Countrey he is not mounted to It is a sign that such discontented Persons intend not that Religion shall advise them upon any other Terms then that they may Ride and Govern their Religion But surely all our Kings and our Parliaments understood well enough what they did when they thought fit to prop and fortifie the Spiritual Order with some Power that was Temporal and such is the present state of the World in the judgment of any observing Eye that if the Bishop has no other defensives but Excommunication no other power but that of the Keys he may for any notable effect that he is like to do upon the factious and contumacious surrender up his Pastoral Staff shut up the Church and put those Keys under the Door And thus I have endeavored to show the Three things included in the general Nature of Government but to prescribe the manner of it in Particular is neither in my Power nor Inclination onely I suppose the Common Theory and Speculation of things is free and open to any one whom God has sent into the world with an ability to contemplate and by continuing him in the World gives him also opportunity In all that has been said I do not in the least pretend to Advise or Chalk out Rules to my Superiors for some men cannot be Fools with so good acceptance as others But whosoever is call'd to speak upon a certain occasion may I conceive without offence take any Text sutable to that occasion and having taken it may or at least ought to speak sutably to that Text. I proceed now to the second thing proposed from the Words which is the Means assigned for the Discharge of the Duties mentioned and exhibited under this one short Prescription Let no man despise thee In the handling of which I shall shew 1. The ill effects and destructive Influence that Contempt has upon Government 2. The groundless Causes upon which Church-Rulers are frequently despised 3. And lastly the just Causes that would render them or indeed any other Rulers worthy to be despised All which being clearly made out and impartially laid before our eyes it will be easie and obvious for every one by avoiding the Evil so markt out to answer and come up to the Apostles Exhortation And first we will discourse of Contempt and the maligne hostile Influence it has upon Government As for the thing it self every mans Experience will inform him that there is no Action in the Behaviour of one man towards another of which humane Nature is more Impatient than of Contempt It being a thing made up of these two Ingredients an undervaluing of a Man upon a belief of his utter Uselesnesse and Inability and a Spightful endeavour to engage the rest of the World in the same Belief and slight Esteem of him So that the immediate Design of Contempt is the shame of the Person contemned and Shame is a Banishment of him from the good Opinion of the World which every man most earnestly Desires both upon a Principle of Nature and of Interest For it is Natural to all men to affect a good Name he that despises a man Libels him in his Thoughts Reviles and Traduces him in his Judgement And there is also Interest in the Case For a Desire to be well thought of directly Resolves it self into that owned and mighty Principle of self-Preservation For as much as Thoughts are the first wheels and motives of Action and there is no long passage from one to the other He that Thinks a man to the ground will quickly endeavour to Lay him there for while he Despises him he Arraigns and Condemns him in his Heart and all the after Bitterness and Cruelties of his Practices are but the Executioners of the Sentence passed before upon him by his Judgement Contempt like the Planet Saturn has first an ill Aspect and then a destroying Influence By all which I suppose it is sufficiently proved how Noxious it must needs be to every Governour for can a man respect the Person whom he Despises and can there be Obedience where there is not so much as Respect will the Knee bend while the Heart Insults and the Actions Submit while the Aprehensions Rebel And therefore the most experienced Disturbers and Underminers of Government have always laid their first Train in Contempt endeavouring to blow it up in the Judgement and Esteem of the Subject And was not this method observed in the late most flourishing and succesful Rebellion for how studiously did they lay about them both from the Pulpit and the Press to cast a slurr upon the Kings Person and to bring his governing Abilities under a Disrepute and then after they had sufficiently Blasted him in his Personal Capacity they found it easie Work to dash and overthrow him in his Political Reputation is Power and consequently to Despise is to Weaken For where there is Contempt there can be no Awe and where there is no Awe there will be no Subjection and if there is no Subjection it is impossible without the help of the â—ormer Distinction of a Politick Capacity to imagine how a Prince can be a Governour He that makes his Prince despised and undervalued blows a Trumpet against him in mens Breasts beats him out of his Subjects hearts and fights him out of their Affections and after this he may easily strip him of his other Garrisons having already dispossest him of his strongest by dismantling him of his Honour and seising his Reputation Nor is what has been said of Princes less true of all other Governours form Highest to Lowest from him
Authority from his Ordination as was specified in the fifth Verse of the first Chapter And now looking upon Titus under this Qualification he addresses a long Advice and Instruction to him for the discharge of so important a Function all along the first and second Chapter but summs up all in this last Verse which is the subject of the ensuing Discourse and contains in it these two things 1. An account of the Duties of his Place or Office 2. Of the means to facilitate and make effectual their Execution The Duties of his place were two 1. To Teach 2. To Rule Both comprized in these words These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all Authority And then the means the onely means to make him Successful Bright and Victorious in the performance of these great works was to be above Contempt to shine like the Baptist with a clear and a triumphant Light In a word it is every Bishops duty to Teach and to Govern and his way to do it is not to be despised We will discourse of each respectively in their Order 1. And first for the first branch of the great work incumbent upon a Church Ruler which is to Teach A work that none is too great or too high for it is a work of Charity and Charity is the work of Heaven which is always laying it self out upon the Needy and the Impotent nay and it is a work of the highest and the noblest Charity for he that teacheth another gives an Almes to his soul he cloathes the nakedness of his Understanding and relieves the wants of his impoverished Reason he indeed that governs well leads the Blind but he that teaches him gives him Eyes and it is a glorious thing to have been the Recoverer and Repairer of a decayed Intellect and a Sub-worker to Grace in freeing it from some of the inconveniencies of Original sin It is a Benefaction that gives a man a kind of Prerogative for even in the common Dialect of the world every Teacher is called a Master it is the property of Instruction to descend and upon that very account it supposes him that instructs the Superiour or at least makes him so To say a man is advanced too high to condescend to teach the Ignorant is as much as to say that the Sun is in too high a place to shine upon what is below him The Sun is said to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night but do they not Rule them onely by enlighting them Doctrine is that that must prepare men for Discipline and men never go on so cheerfully as when they see where they goe Nor is the dullness of the Scholar to extinguish but rather to enflame the charity of the Teacher for since it is not in men as in vessels that the smallest capacity is the soonest filled where the labour is doubled the value of the work is enhaunced for it is a sowing where a man never expects to reap any thing but the Comfort and Conscience of having done vertuously And yet we know moreover that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow turning very Stones into Sons of Abraham where besides that the difficulty of the Conquest advances the Trophee of the Conquerer it often falls out that the backward Learner makes amends another way recompencing Sure for Suddain and expiating his want of Docility with a deeper and a more rooted Sincerity Which alone were argument sufficient to inforce the Apostles injunction of being instant in season and out of season even upon the highest and most exalted Ruler in the Church He that sits in Moses chair sits there to Instruct as well as to Rule and a Generals office engages him to Lead as well as to Command his Army In the first of Ecclesiastes Solomon represents himself both as Preacher and King of Israel and every soul that a Bishop gains is a new accession to the extent of his Power he preaches his Jurisdiction wider and enlarges his spiritual Diocess as he enlarges mens apprehensions The Preaching part indeed of a Romish Bishop is easie enough whose Grand business is onely to teach men to be Ignorant to instruct them how to know Nothing or which is all one to know upon Trust to believe implicitly and in a word to see with other mens eyes till they come to be lost in their own souls But our Religion is a Religion that dares to be understood that offers it self to the search of the Inquisitive to the inspection of the severest and the most awakened Reason for being secure of her substantial Truth and Purity she knows that for her to be seen and look into is to be embraced and admired as there needs no greater argument for men to love the light then to see it It needs no Legends no Service in an unknown tongue no inquisition against Scripture no purging out of the heart and sence of Authors no altering or bribing the voice of Antiquity to speak for it it needs none of all these laborious Artifices of ignorance none of all these cloaks and coverings The Romish faith indeed must be covered or it cannot be kept warm and their Clergy deal with their Religion as with a great Crime if it is Discovered they are undone But there is no Bishop of the Church of England but accounts it his Interest as well as his Duty to comply with this Precept of the Apostle Paul to Titus These things teach and exhort Now this Teaching may be effected two ways 1. Immediately by himself 2. Mediately by others And first immediately by himself Where God gives a Talent the Episcopal Robe can be no Napkin to hide it in Change of Condition changes not the abilities of Nature but makes them more illustrious in their exercise and the Episcopal dignity added to a good Preaching faculty is like the erecting of a stately Fountain upon a Spring which still for all that remains as much a Spring as it was before and flows as plentifully onely it flows with the circumstance of greater State and Magnificence Height of place is intended onely to stamp the endowments of a private condition with Lustre and Authority And thanks be to God neither the Churches profess'd enemies nor her pretended friends have any cause to asperse her in this respect as having over her such Bishops as are able to silence the Factious no less by their Preaching then by their Authority But then on the other hand let me add also that this is not so absolutely necessary as to be of the vitall Constitution of this Function He may teach his Diocess who ceases to be able to preach to it for he may do it by appointing Teachers and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the instruction of their respective Flocks He is the Spiritual father of his Diocess and a Father may see his Children taught though he himself does not turn Schoolmaster It is not the gift of every Person nor