pass'd with the Solemnity of Hand and Seal to affirm any thing that is beyond one's own Knowledg so it is a Lie made to God and the Church since the design of it is to procure Orders So that if a Bishop trusting to that and being satisfied of the Knowledg of one that brings it ordains an unfit and unworthy Man they that signed it are deeply and chiefly involved in the Guilt of his laying Hands suddenly upon him therefore every Priest ought to charge his Conscience in a deep particular Manner that so he may never testify for any one unless he knows his Life to be so regular and believes his Temper to be so good that he does really judg him a Person fit to be put in Holy Orders These are all the Rules that do occur to me at present In performing these several Branches of the Duty of a Pastor the trouble will not be great if he is truly a good Man and delights in the Service of God and in doing Acts of Charity the Pleasure will be unspeakable first that of the Conscience in this Testimony that it gives and the Quiet and Joy which arises from the Sense of one's having done his Duty and then it can scarce be supposed 〈◊〉 by all this some will be wrought on some Sinners will be reclaimed bad Men will grow good and good Men will grow better And if a generous Man feels to a great degree the Pleasure of having delivered one from Misery and of making him easy and happy how soveraign a Joy must it be to a Man that believes there is another Life to see that he has been an Instrument to rescue some from endless Misery and to further others in the way to everlasting Happiness and the more Instances he sees of this the more do his Joys grow upon him This makes Life happy and Death joyful to such a Priest for he is not terrified with those words Give an Account of thy Stewardship for thou mayest be no longer Steward He knows his Reward shall be full pressed down and running over He is but too happy in those Spiritual Children whom he has begot in Christ he looks after those as the chief part of his Care and as the principal of his Flock and is so far from aspiring that it is not without some Uneasiness that he leaves them if he is commanded to arise to some higher Post in the Church The Troubles of this Life the Censures of bad Men and even the prospect of a Persecution are no dreadful Things to him that has this Seal of his Ministry and this Comfort within him that he has not laboured in vain nor run and fought as one that beats the Air he sees the Travel of his Soul and is satisfied when he finds that God's Work prospers in his hand This comforts him in his sad Reflections on his own past Sins that he has been an Instrument of advancing God's Honour of saving Souls and of propagating his Gospel Since to have saved one Soul is worth a Man's coming into the World and richly worth the Labours of his whole Life Here is a Subject that might be easily prosecuted by many warm and lively Figures But I now go on to the last Article relating to this Matter CHAP. IX Concerning Preaching THE World naturally runs to Extreams in every thing If one Sect or Body of Men magnify Preaching too much another carries that to another Extream of decrying it as much It is certainly a noble and a profitable Exercise if rightly gone about of great use both to Priest and People by obliging the one to much Study and Labour and by setting before the other full and copious Discoveries of Divine Matters opening them clearly and pressing them weightily upon them It has also now gained so much Esteem in the World that a Clergy-man cannot maintain his Credit nor bring his People to a constant Attendance on the Worship of God unless he is happy in these Performances I will not run out into the History of Preaching to shew how late it was before it was brought into the Church and by what steps it grew up to the pitch it is now at How long it was before the Roman Church used it and in how many different shapes it has appeared Some of the first Patterns we have are the best for as Tully began the Roman Eloquence and likewise ended it no Man being able to hold up to the pitch to which he raised it so St. Basil and St. Chrysostom brought Preaching from the dry pursuing of Allegories that had vitiated Origen and from the excessive Affectation of Figures and Rhetorick that appears in Nazianzen to a due Simplicity a native Force and Beauty having joined to the Plainness of a clear but noble Stile the Strength of Reason and the Softness of Persuasion Some were disgusted at this Plainness and they brought in a great deal of Art into the Composition of Sermons Mystical Applications of Scripture grew to be better liked than clear Texts an Accumulation of Figures a Cadence in the Periods a playing upon the Sounds of Words a Loftiness of Epithets and often an Obscurity of Expression were according to the different Tastes of the several Ages run into Preaching has past through many different Forms among us since the Reformation But without flattering the present Age or any Persons now alive too much it must be confessed that it is brought of late to a much greater Perfection than it was ever before at among us It is certainly brought nearer the Pattern that S. Chrysostom has set or perhaps carried beyond it Our Language is much refined and we have returned to the plain Notions of simple and genuine Rhetorick We have so vast a number of excellent Performances in Print that if a Man has but a right understanding of Religion and a true relish of good Sense he may easily furnish himself this way The impertinent Way of dividing Texts is laid aside the needless setting out of the Originals and the vulgar Version is worn ou◠The trifling Shews of Learning in many Quotations of Passages that very few could understand do no more flat the Auditory Pert Wit and luscious Eloquence have lost their relish So that Sermons are reduced to the plain opening the Meaning of the Text in a few short Illustrations of its Coherence with what goes before and after and of the Parts of which it is composed to that is joined the clear stating of such Propositions as arise out of it in their Nature Truth and Reasonableness by which the Hearers may form clear Notions of the several Parts of Religion such as are best suted to their Capacities and Apprehensions to all which Applications are aded tending to the Reproving Directing Encouraging or Comforting the Hearers according to the several Occasions that are offered This is indeed all that can be truly be intended in Preaching to make some Portions of Scripture to be rightly understood to make
and void of themselves And conclude that how strong soever they may be in Law yet they are nothing in Conscience And that they do not free a Man from his Obligations to Residence and Labour And they do generally conclude that he who upon a Dispensaâ—ion which has been obtained upon Carnal accounts such as Birth Rank or great Abilities and qualifications are not yet so good as these does not Reside is bound in Conscience to restore the Fruits of a Beneâ—ice which he has thus enjoyed with a bad Conscience without performing the duty belonging to it in his own Person But though it were very easie to bring out a great deal to this purpose I will go no further at present upon this Head The words of God seem to be so express and positive that such as do not yield to so undisputable an Authority will be little moved by all that can be brought out of Authors of a lower Form against whom it will be easie to muster up many exceptions if they will not be determined by so many of the Oracles of the living God CHAP. IV. Of the Sense of the Primitive Church in this Matter I will not enter here into any Historical Account of the Discipline of the Church during the first and best Ages of Christianity It is the glory of this Church that in her disputes of both hanâ—s aâ— well with those of the Church of Rome as with those that separate from her she has both the Doctrine and the Câ—nstitution of the Primitive Church of her side But this Plea would be more entire and less disputable if our Constiâ—ution were not only in its main and most essential parts formed upon that glorious Model but were also in its Rules and Administrations made more exactly conformable to those best and purest times I can never forget an advice that was given me above thirty years ago by one of the worthiest Clergy-men now alive while I was studying the Controversie relating to the Government of the Church from the Primitive Times he desires me to joyn with the more Speculative Discoveries that I should make the Sense that they had of the Obligations of the Clergy both with relation to their Lives and to their Labours And said that the Argument in favour of the Church how clearly soever made out would never have its full effect upon the World till abuses were so far corrected that we could shew a Primitive Spirit in our Administration as well as a Primitive pattern for our Constitution This made even then deep Impressions on me and I thank God the Sense of it has never left me in the whole course of my Studies I will not at present enter upon so long and so Invidious a work as the descending into all the particulars into which this matter might be branched out either from the Writings of the Fathers the Decrees of Councils the Roman Law and the Capitulars or even from the dreg of all the Canon Law it self which though a Collection made in one of the worst Ages yet carries many rules in it that would seem excessively severe even to us after all our Reformation of Doctrine and Worship This has been already done with so much exactness that it will not be necessary to set about it after the Harvest which was gathered by the learned Bishop of Spalato in the last Book of his great Work which the Pride and Inconstancy of the Author had brought under a disesteem that it no way deserves For whatever he might be that work was certainly one of the best productions of that Age. But this design has been prosecuted of late with much more exactness and learning and with great honesty and fidelity where the interest of his Church did not force him to use a little Art by F. Thomasin who has compared the modern and the ancient Discipline and has shewed very copiously by what steps the Change was made and how abuses crept into the Church It is a work of great use to such as desire to understand that matter truly I will refer the curious to these and many other lesser Treaties writ by the Iansenists in France in which abuses are very honestly complained off and proper Remedies are proposed which in many places being entertained by Bishops that had a right Sense of the Primitive Rules have given the Rise to a great Reformation of the French Clergy Instead then of any Historical deduction of these matters I shall content my self with giving the Sense of two of the Fathers of the Greek Church and one of tâ—e Latin upon this whole business of the Obligations of the Clergy The first is Gregory of Nazianze whose Father ordained him a Presbyter notwithstanding all his humâ—le Intercessions to the contrary according to the custom of the best Men of that Age who instead of pressing into Orders or aspiring to them fled from them excused themselves and judging themselves unworthy of so holy a Character and so high a Trust were not without difficulty prevailed on to submit to that which in degenerate Ages Men run to as to a subsistance or the mean of procuring it and seem to have no other Sense of that Sacred Institution then Mechanicks have of obtaining their Freedom in that Trade or Company in which they have passed their Apprenticeship It were indeed happy for the Church if those who offer themselves to Orders had but such a Sense of them as Tradesmen have of their Freedom Who do not pretend to it till they have finished the time prescribed and are in some sort qualified to set up in it Whereas alas men who neither know the Scriptures nor the body of Divinity who have made no progress in their Studies and can give no tollerable account of that holy Doctrine in which they desire to be Teachers do yet with equal degrees of confidence and importunity pretend to this Character and find the way to it too easie and the access of it too free But this Holy Father had a very different sense of this matter He had indeed submitted to his Fathers Authority he being his Bishop as well as his Father But immediately after he was ordained he gives this account of himself in his Apologetical Oration That he judging he had not that sublimity of Vertue nor that familiar acquaintance with divine matters which became Pastors and Teachers he therefore intending to purifie his own Soul to higher degrees of Vertue to an Exaltation above sensible Objects above his Body and above the World that so he might bring bis mind to a recollected and divine State and fit his Soul that as a polished mirrour it might carry on it the Impressions of divine Ideas unmixed with the allay of earthly Objects and might be still casting a brightness upon all his Thoughts did in order to the raising himself to that retire to the Wilderness He had observed that many pressed to handle the holy Mysteries with unwashed hands and defiled Souls
And before they were meet to be initiated to the divine Vocation were crouding about the Altar not to set patterns to others but designing only a subsistence to themselves reckoning that the holy dignity was not a Trust for which an account was to be given but a state of Authority and Exemption They had neither piety nor parts to recommend them but were the reproaches of the Christian Religion and were the Pests of the Church Which infected it faster than any plague could do the Air since Men did easily run to imitate bad Examples but were drawn off very hardly by the perfectest patterns to the practice of Vertue Vpon which he formed a high Idea of the eminent worth and vertues which became those who governed the Church And of the great Progress that they ought to be duly making not contented with low measures of it as if they were to weigh it critically in nice ballances and not to rise up to the highest degrees possible in it Yet even this was not all For to govern mankind which was so various and so uncertain a sort of Creature seemed to him the highest pitch of knowledge and wisdom as far above that skill and labour that is necessary to the curing of bodily Diseases as the Soul is superiour to the Body and yet since so much Study and Observation was necessary to make a Man a skillful Physician he concluded that much more was necessary for the Spiritual Medicine The design of which was to give Wings to the Soul to raise it above the World and to consecrate it to God here he runs out into a noble rapture upon the excellence and sublimity of the Christian Religion and upon the art of governing Souls of the different methods to be taken according to the diversity of mens capacity and tempers and of dividing the word of God aright among them The difficulties of which he prosecutes in a great variety of sublime Expressions and Figures but concludes lamenting that there was so little order then observed that men had scarce passed their Childhood when before they understood the Scriptures not to say before they had washed off the spots and defilements of their Souls if they had learned but two or three pious words which they had got by heart or had read some of the Psalms of David and puâ— on an outward garb that carried an appearance of piety in it these men were presently pushed on by the Vanity of their minds to aspire to the Government of the Churâ—h To such Persons he addresses himself very Rhetorically and asks them what they thought of the commonest imployments such as the playing on Instruments or of dancing in comparison with Divine Wisdom For acquiring the one they know great pains and muâ—h practice was necessary could they then imagin that the other should be so easily attained but he adds that one may as well sow upon Rocks and talk to the deaf as hope to work upon Persons who have not yet got to that degree of Wisdom of being sensible of their own ignorance This evil he had often with many tears lamented but the pride of such men was so great that nothing under the Authority of a St. Peter or a St. Paul could work upon them Upon this mention of St. Paul he breaks out into a rapture upon his labours and sufferings and the care of all the Churches that lay on him his becoming all things to all men his gentleness where that was necessary and his authority upon other occasions his zeal his patience his constancy and his prudence in fullfilling all the parts of his Ministry Then he cites several of the Passages of the Prophets particularly those of Ieremy and Ezekiel Zachary and Malachi which relate to the corruptions of the Priests and Shepherds of Israel And shews how applicable they were to the Clergy at that time and that all the woes denounced against the Scribes and Pharisees belonged to them with heavy aggravations These thoughts possessed him day and night they did eat out his very strength and substance they did so afflict and deject him and gave him so terrible a Prospect of the Iudgments of God which they were drawing down upon the Church that he instead of daring to undertake any part of the Government of it was only thinking how he should cleanse his own Soul and fly from the wrath which was to come and could not think that he was yet while so young meet to handle the Holy Things Where he runs out into a new Rapture in magnifying the dignity of holy Functions and upon that says that tho' he had been dedicated to God from his Mothers Womb and had renounced the World and all that was charming in it even Eloquence it self and had delighted long in the Study of the Scriptures and had subdued many of his Appetites and Passions yet after all this in which perhaps he had become a Fool in glorying he had so high a Nation of the care and government of Souls that he thought it above his strength especially in such bad times in which all things were out of order Factions were formed and Charity was lost so that the very Name of a Priest was a Reproach as if God had poured out Contempt upon them and thereby impious Men daily blasphemed his Name And indeed all the shew of Religion that remained was in their mutual heats and animosities concerning some matters of Religion they condemned and censured one another they cherished and made use of the worst Men so they were true to their Party they concealed their Crimes nay they flattered and defended some that should not have been suffered to enter into the Sanctuary They gave the holy things to Dogs while they enquired very narrowly into the failings of those that differed from them not that they might lament them but that they might reproach them for them The same faults which they excused in some were declaimed against in others So that the very Name of a good or a bad Man were not now considered as the Characters of their Lives but of their being of or against a side And these abuses were so Vniversal that they were like People like Priest If those heats had arisen upon the great Heads of Religion he should have commended the Zeal of those who had contended for the Truth and should have studied to have followed it But their disputes were about small Matters and things of no consequence and yet even these were fought for under the Glorious Title of the Faith tho the root of all was Men's private Animosities These things had exposed the Christian Religion to the hatred of the Heathen and had given even the Christians themselves very hard Thoughts of the Clergy This was grown to that height that they were then acted and represented upon the Stage and made the Subject of the Peoples scorn So that by their means the name of God was blasphemed This was that which gave him much
in their Hands Give heed to Reading Exhortation and Doctrine Think upon the things contained in this Book be diligent in them that the increase coming thereby may be manifest unto all Men. Take heed unto thy Self and to Doctrine and be diligent in doing them for by doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee Be thou to the Flock of Christ a Shepherd not a Wolf feed them devour them not Hold up the weak heal the sick bind up the broken bring again the out-casts seek the lost Be so merciful that you be not too remiss So Minister Discipline that you forget not Mercy That when the chief Shepherd shall appear you may receive the never fading Crown of Glory through Iesus Christ our Lord. In these Words the great Lines of our Duty are drawn in very expressive and comprehensive Terms We have the several Branches of our Function both as to Preaching and Governing very solemnly laid upon us And both in this Office as well as in all the other Offices that I have seen it appears that the constant sence of all Churches in all Ages has been that Preaching was the Bishops great Duty and that he ought to lay himself out in it most particularly I shall only add one advice to all this before I leave this Article of the Sence of our Church in this matter both to those who intend to take Orders and to those who have already taken them As for such as do intend to dedicate themselves to the service of the Church they ought to read over these Offices frequently and to ask themselves solemnly as in the presence of God Whether they can with a good Conscience make those answers which the Book prescribes or not and not to venture on offering themselves to Oders till they know that they dare and may safely do it Every person who looks that way ought at least on every Ordination Sunday after he has once formed the resolution of dedicating himself to this work to go over the Office seriously with himself and to consider in what disposition or preparation of mind he is suitable to what he finds laid down in it But I should add to this that for a Year before he comes to be ordained he should every first Sunday of the Month read over the Office very deliberately and frame resolutions conform to the several parts of it and if he can receive the Sacrament upon it with a special set of private Devotions relating to his intentions As the time of his Ordination draws near he ought to return the oftner to those exercises It will be no hard task for him to read these over every Sunday during the last Quarter before his Ordination and to do that yet more solemnly every day of the week in which he is to be ordained and to joyn a greater earnestness of fasting and prayer with it on the Fast-days of his Ember Week Here is no hard imposition The performance is as easie in it self as it will be successful in its effects If I did not consider rather what the Age can bear than what were to be wished for I would add a great many severe Rules calculated to the Notions of the Primitive times But if this advice were put in practice it is to be hoped that it would set back many who come to be ordained without considering duly either what it is that they ask or what it is that is to be asked of them which some do with so supine a negligence that we plainly see that they have not so much as read the Office or at least that they have done it in so slight a manner that they have formed no clear Notions upon any part of it and least of all upon those parts to which they themselves are to make answers And as such a method as I have proposed would probably strike some with a due awe of Divine matters so as to keep them at a distance till they were in some sort prepared for them so it would oblige such as came to it to bring along with them a serious temper of mind and such a preparation of soul as might make that their Orders should be a blessing to them as well as they themselves should be a blessing to the Church It must be the greatest joy of a Bishops life who truly minds his duty in this weighty trust of sending out Labourers into Gods Vineyard to Ordain such persons of whom he has just grounds to hope that they shall do their duty faithfully in reaping that Harvest He reckons these as his Children indeed who are to be his strength and support his fellow Labourers and Helpers his Crown and his Glory But on the other hand how heavy a part of his Office must it be to Ordain those against whom perhaps there lies no just objection so that according to the Constitution and Rules of the Church he cannot deny them and yet he sees nothing in them that gives him courage or cheerfulness They do not seem to have that love to God that zeal for Christ that tenderness for souls that meekness and humility that mortification and deadness to the world that becomes the Character and Profession which they undertake so that his heart fails him and his hands tremble when he goes to Ordain them My next advice shall be to those who are already in Orders that they will at least four times a year on the Ordination Sundays read over the Offices of the Degrees of the Church in which they are and will particularly consider the Charge that was given and the Answers that were made by them and then ask themselves as before God who will Iudge them at the Great-day upon their Religious performance of them whether they have been true to them or not that so they may humble themselves for their Errours and Omissions and may renew their Vows for the future and so to be going on from Quarter to Quarter through the whole course of their Ministry observing still what ground they gain and what progress they make to such as have a right Sense of their Duty this will be no hard perforformance It will give a vast joy to those that can go through it with some measure of assurance and find that tho in the midest of many tentations and of much weakness they are sincerely and seriously going on in their work to the best of their skill and to the utmost of their power So that their Consciences say within them and that without the partialities of self love and flattery Well done good and faithful servant The hearing of this said within upon true grounds being the certainest Evidence possible that it shall be publickly said at the Last and Great-day This exercise will also offer checks to a man that looks for them and intends both to understand his errours and to cleanse himself from them It will upon the whole matter make Clergy Men go on with their Profession
but also by the Vows and Promises that she demands of such as are Ordained When all this is laid together and when there stands nothing on the other side to balance it but a Law made in a very bad time that took away some abuses but left pretences to cover others Can any man that weighs these things together in the sight of God and that believes he must answer to him for this at the great Day think that the one how strong soever it may be in his favour at an earthly Tribunal will be of any force in that last and dreadful Iudgment This I leave upon all Mens Consciences hoping that they will so judge themselves that they shall not be judged of the Lord. CHAP. VII Of the due preparation of such as may and ought to be put in Orders THE greatest good that one can hope to do in this World is upon young Persons who have not yet taken their ply and are not spoiled with Prejudices and wrong Notions Those who have taken an ill one at first will neither be at the pains to look over their Notions nor turn to new Methods nor will they by any change of Practice seem to confess that they were once in the wrong so that if Matters that are amiss can be mended or set right it must be by giving those that have not yet set out and that are not yet engaged truer views and juster Idea's of things I will therefore here lay down the model upon which a Clerk is to be formed and will begin with such things as ought to be previous and preparatory to his being initiated into Orders These are of two sorts the one is of such preparations as are necessary to give his Heart and Soul a right temper and a true sense of things The other is of such studies as are necessary to enable him to go through with the several parts of his Duty Both are necessary but the first is the more indispensible of the two for a Man of a good Soul may with a moderate proportion of knowledge do great Service in the Church especially if he is suited with an imployment that is not above his Talent Whereas unsanctified knowledge puffs up is insolent and unquiet it gives great scandal and occasions much distraction in the Church In treating of these qualifications I will watch over my thoughts not to let them rise to a pitch that is above what the common frailties of humane Nature or the Age we live in can bear and after all if in any thing I may seem to exceed â—hese measures it is to be considered that it is natural in proposing the Ideas of things to carry them to what is wished for which is but too often beyond what can be expected considering both the corruption of mankind and of these degenerated times First of all then he that intends to dedicate himself to the Church ought from the time that he takes up any such Resolution to enter upon a greater Decency of Behaviour that his Mind may not be vitiated by ill Habits which may both give such bad Characters of him as maystick long on him afterwards and make such ill Impressions on himself as may not be easily worn out or defaced He ought above all things to possess himself with a high Sense of the Christian Religion of its Truth and Excellence of the Value of Souls of the Dignity of the Pastoral Care of the Honour of God of the Sacredness of Holy Functions and of the Great Trust that is committed to those who are set apart from the World and dedicated to God and to his Church He who looks this way must break himself to the Appetites of Pleasure or Wealth of Ambition or Authority he must consider that the Religion in which he intends to Officiate calls all Men to great Purity and Vertue to a Probity and Innocence of Manners to a Meekness and Gentleness to a Humility and Self-denial to a Contempt of the World and a Heavenly Mindedness to a Patient Resignation to the Will of God and a readiness to bear the Cross in the hopes of that everlasting Reward which is reserved for Christians in another State All which was eminently recommended by the unblemish'd Pattern that the Author of this Religion has set to all that pretend to be his Followers These being the Obligations which a Preacher of the Gospel is to lay daily upon all his Hearers he ought certainly to accustom himself often to consider seriously of them and to think how Shameless and Impudent a thing it will be in him to perform Offices suitable to all these and that do suppose them to be Instructing the People and Exhorting them to the Practice of them unless he is in some sort all this himself which he teaches others to be Indeed to be tied to such an Employment while one has not an inward Conformity to it and Complacence in it is both the most unbecoming the most unpleasant and the most uncomfortable State of Life imaginable Such a Person will be exposed to all Mens Censures and Reproaches who when they see things amiss in his Conduct do not only Reproach him but the whole Church and Body to which he belongs and which is more the Religion which he seems to recommend by his Discourses though his Life and Actions which will always pass for the most real Declaration of his inward Sentiments are a visible and continual opposition to it On all these things he whose Thoughts carry him towards the Church ought to reflect frequently Nothing is so odious as a Man that disagrees with his Character a Soldier that is a Coward a Courtier that is Brutal an Ambassadour that is Abject are not such unseemly things as a bad or vicious a drunken or dissolute Clergy-man But though his Scandals should not rise up to so high a pitch even a Proud and Passionate a Worldly Minded and Covetous Priest gives the Lye to his Discourses so palpably that he cannot expect they should have much weight Nor is such a Man's State of Life less unpleasant to himself than it is unbecoming He is obliged to be often performing Offices and pronouncing Discourses in which if he is not a Good Man he not only has no Pleasure but must have a formed Aversion to them They must be the heaviest Burden of his Life he must often feel secret Challenges within and though he as often silences these yet such unwelcome Reflections are uncomfortable things He is forced to manage himself wiâ—h a perpetual constraint and to observe a decorum in his Deportment lest he fall under a more publick Censure Now to be bound to act a Part and live with restraint ones whole Life must be a very Melancholy thing He cannot go so quite out of sight of Religion and Convictions as other bad Men do who live in a perpetual hurry and a total forgetfulness of Divine Matters They have no Checks because they are as seldom