A LETTER TO THE CLERGY OF THE Dioecess of Ely, FROM THE BISHOP OF ELY. Before, and Preparatory TO HIS VISITATION.  
CAMBRIDGE, Printed by J. Hayes. M. DC. LXXXVI.   

Salutem & Officia in Christo Jesus.  
Good Brother,  
I. HAving last Year (the first of My Translation) Personally Visited your Church, and every Parish-Church within My Jurisdiction, to Administer Confirmation, bringing it home even to your own doors, and to know the present State of My whole Dioecess, before I would Enter upon My Triennial Visitation; I thank God, I find no Cause to say upon the whole Account, He that increaseth Knowledge, increaseth Sorrow; Since rather with a great deal of Joy I find my Lott is fallen among a Clergy, for the generality of them, as Devout and Diligent, as Learned and Studious, as Orthodox and Regular, as Able and Willing to Rectify whatsoever is Amiss, as any Clergy Our Holy Mother the Church of England can (I verily believe) show in any Dioecess.  
And now I am very desirous to reap the Fruits of my last Year's Labours, to see very good effects of that particular Inspection, whereupon, I suppose, you Received a special Injunction, to Regulate several things that were out of Order. And I am so full of Concern, that the General Review to be made ere long at the Visitation, may be made effectual, that I cannot forbear Addressing myself to you at this time, Beseeching you now to lend me both your hands, with all your most Active and vigorous Brotherly Assistance; And (if I may presume to use the Apostle's expression) Though I might be much bold in Christ, to enjoin you That which is Convenient, yet for Love's sake I rather beseech you.  
II. I Choose this Way of Communicating my thoughts by Letter, partly to supersede the Necessity of my making any long speeches (when there will be so much other and better work) at our Set-Meeting. May it please God to bless it for the good of his Church! But chief I consider that several Advertisements, which may now be useful Preparatives, would come somewhat too late, when Presentments were once Drawn and Brought and offered to us.  
III. I do therefore in the first place entreat and expect it from you, as you would not be a Partaker of other men's Sins, That you be exceeding Careful at this time to show your Churchwardens their Duty, and especially to make them sensible how great a Gild they contract, if they break the solemn Oath which they must all take upon this Occasion.  
IU. But besides thus giving them warning of their Duty and Danger in General, I am in hopes you will not grudge to give them your best Advise, to compare my Articles with the present condition of your Parish; and Direct them how to Discharge a good Conscience by making a particular, sincere, and sufficient Answer to each Article; and join yourselves with them in the Presentments, as by consequence from the Canon you are Obliged to do, if need be (and 
Can. 113  sure there was never more need) when you cannot otherwise Root out Sin and Impiety.  
And your thus Joining with the Churchwardens in their Presentments, and subscribing them with your own hands, shall be Admitted and Accepted instead of the Ministers presenting separately and by themselves, all those that do not Communicate at Easter, whereas Orders shall Issue speedily to Require that special Presentment (according to the Hundred and twelfth Canon) to be made by those Ministers, whom Reason and This Request will not prevail withal to join with their Churchwardens in this General One.  
V But further let Me prevail with you, that publicly by your Preaching at this time, and professedly, with regard to the Approaching Visitation, you would show the people, they are Obliged in Conscience now to make their just open Complaints, instead of Odious Reflections behind our Backs, and that you would make your Parish understand, what our Blessed Saviour intended, when He expressly commanded, Tell it to the Church, that none may be Deterred by any unworthy Censures, as if they were base Informers, from doing that Christian Office.  
VI That as well in your Sermons, as in your private Conferences with your Parishioners, you labour to make them deeply apprehensive of the great and heavy load, which the just Censures of the Church do lay upon grievous Offenders in any kind; and particularly upon such Officers of her own, as Deliberately Forswear themselves; and that they may have no reason to bear any Malice to such as do but their Duties in making Presentments, you are seriously and vehemently to Represent a well-deserved Excommunication's sad effects on their Souls and Consciences; and besides those Spiritual, to put them in mind of the Temporal ill effects, that in case of extremity may follow on their Fortunes, and Liberties, at least on their Ease and Quiet, and Good Name. Besides what the Laws against Perjury may do, if pressed against such men as make no Conscience of giving in a known notorious Lie, with an Omnia Bene under their own hands, just after having laid them on the Holy Bible.  
VII. But there is certainly another part of your Office, which in Order of Nature and time should go before that of presenting Delinquents. And the part which I mean is this: you are personally (and now most concernedly) to Apply yourselves in Order to the Convincing and Reclaiming such as stand liable to Ecclesiastical Censures, so as (if it be possible) to prevent the Necessity of using Rigour with them: you may Divide such Obnoxious Persons into three Generals; those who are wholly out of the Church's Communion; or those who pretending to be partly in it, yet Omit their Christian Duties of frequenting the Divine Service, and the Holy Sacrament, from some Erroneous Principle they have taken up; Or those, who are forward as the foremost to come even to the Spiritual Feast itself, But without the wedding Garment, i. e. In their Ignorance, or their Wickedness, still leading their Lives in Scandalous and Notorious Sin, such as Common Swearing, habitual Drunkenness, Fornication, Adultery. According to their special Exigences and several wretched Circumstances you are to treat with these. If you cannot Obtain of them to come and discourse with you at your own Houses, you must even go to Theirs; remembering, who it was that went about doing good, and healing even at their Houses where He knew they Watched him, and laid Wait to entangle him in his Talk. And considering His express and most wise Appointment, First to tell the Offending Brother his fault between you and Him; But if that do not gain your Brother, then to take with you two or three Witnesses; As you may do your Churchwardens or some other steady understanding Men in your Parish, and Try again to Reduce and Persuade him to give satisfaction to the Church, before you present him; Nay in Extraordinary Cases you may call in the help of some Discreet and Worthy Neighbour-Minister: And if neither of these Courses prevail, than your Third step must be Telling it to the Church, whose heaviest Sentence of Excommunication ought not indeed to be pressed and passed without such fair Admonitions, as I hope you now will give. And I should be glad, if there be time at Our Meeting, to consult with you, and make some Proposals to you, how more particularly to form our Methods of inflicting the Spiritual Censures within this Dioecese so leisurely, orderly, and openly, that no Body may pretend to be surprised, and it shall be long of his own Obstinacy, if any one see himself in that Deplorable State, that He is to be as an Heathen to other Christians.  
VIII. Now to prepare us both for our preaching to the People on this subject of Excommunication, and for Discoursing it among ourselves, or designing the means of managing it to Edification, not to Destruction, I Recommend it to you (especially if you live not in the University but in the Country, where you have not the use of many Books) to procure and peruse One instead of All, and that is My Reverend Friend, Dr. Comber's late excellently learned, and no very long Treatise of Excommunication.  
In order to the Restoring of this, and several other parts of our lost Discipline, I am resolved to Revive (if God bless me) that ancient, and useful Custom of my Reverend Predecessors the Bishops of Ely, immediately before the Great Rebellion (a Custom according to an excellent Ancient Canon of the British Church) to have Synodical Meetings of the Clergy once a year at least. At which Assemblies I will not fail (with God's help) when I can, to Attend constantly. I also Design as often as I can to have inspection into the state and condition of each Cure of Souls in the Dioecese.  
IX. And that I may not then proceed in the Dark, and that you may be able to give me, and yourselves such Lights as are but Necessary for us, I do most earnestly Desire you, and sure I need not say I require (the thing that I ask being so very Requisite in its own Nature) that you will make, and bring in with you to the Visitation (besides the Presentments) fairly written in a Paper by its self, a Notitia of your Parish; By Notitia I mean an Account of every Family, expressing the Christian and surname of the Housekeeper, the Number and Names of all Persons above Sixteen Years old in that Family by themselves, and of all under Sixteen by themselves, setting for a Mark the Letters A. C. overright the Name of every Adult, that is an Actual Communicant in each Family, and C. A. for a Mark over the Name of every Child that has been sufficiently well Catechised; and Con. for a Mark over every One that has been already Confirmed: by this means, both you and I, shall be able to Discern at one view, what is already done, and what there is yet to do. And I desire each Minister carefully to keep a Copy by him of his Notitia, remembering 'tis One part of the Character of the Good Shepherd, not only to Know his sheep, and be known of them, But 
Joh. 10. 3, 14.  even to Call his own sheep by Name. And since he is even to lay down his Life for the sheep, 'tis hard if he will not lay out a little of his time for them, while his flocks pass under the 
Jer. 33. 13▪  hands of him that Telleth them. And his pains will be much for his Ease afterward, and of great use to him as well as to me upon several Occasions.  
For this being easily Revised and Produced at Confirmations, will also serve to prevent the Common irregular practice of Men, and Women, and Children coming over and over again to be Confirmed; and will presently show the Minister whom he ought to instruct and prepare for Confirmation.  
This List will be also very serviceable in order to those Personal Applications to your Parishioners before the Holy Communion; and this List, being filled up or altered (as your Parish changes) from time to time, will always lay before you the State of that Cure of Souls, which in the Name of God was at your Institution committed to your Charge.  
X. Of some other things fit to be done, or at least begun before the Visitation, and of some things at it, for the better and more Orderly Management of it, I think fit to give you Notice and Intimation.  
For such Matters as should be taken care of before we meet, I must observe to you:  
That having in the Circuit I made about this time Twelve Month, found very many of the chancels, and Churches, and Houses belonging to the Church, very sadly Dilapidated, or at least mightily out of Repair, I have now so pleasing Accounts from many places of the Care already taken, not only to keep up those Fabrics, but to make them Decent, as I think myself Obliged to make these my express Acknowledgements to those my good Brethren of the Clergy, and I desire they will do it for me to those Worthy Gentlemen, that have been forward to promote so Good Works, and to show their Love of Decency in the house of God.  
Yet being well informed, that in several of those places where I found things most amiss, the Orders sent them have not hitherto found their effects, not so much as to Begin the Repairs, I must and do Require it of the Ministers themselves in those places, to press hard for the putting of things on the Mending hand before our Meeting, or if they cannot prevail, then to meet me with Presentments in their hands against such Churchwardens as think to Wear out their Year without doing any thing in their Office toward such Reparations.  
And when you are set into the work for the due execution of those Orders sent for Repairing and Adorning of Holy Places, I trust you will procure that your Churches and chancels be not only secured from Wind and Wether, but from the coming in of Birds, and from all manner of foulness; considering the just scandal it gives to such as are not in Communion with our Church, and that the sordidness of so many Country-Churches must needs be one great Cause of the slovenliness (so much to be Deplored) that too many show in their performance of the Public Worship itself, the Common People hardly persuading themselves to show more Reverence there, where they see less Cleanliness, than in their meanest Cottages.  
XI. Being extreme loath to find many Faults, and wishing all might be Rectified by yourselves without me, if in any Places there be not constant Catechising on all Sundays in the Afternoon (for to have it only in Lent-time, as in many places, will never sufficiently Answer the ends of it) I do with all imaginable earnestness call upon those that fail in this main point, to consider (besides the Necessity of the thing) the new Obligation upon them from His Majesty's late Royal and Gracious Letters for the Reinforcing of Catechising, an Exercise upon which I must always lay so much stress, as to exact it indispensably, where I have to do.  
And by Catechising is meant and intended (as plainly appears from His Majesties said Royal Leters, as well as from our Canons and Rubrics) not only your Examining the Children, and Teaching them the words of the Catechism, But instructing them, and others of riper years (who yet may need Instruction and receive no small advantage) by your Explaining it publicly, so as in a short time, all, if they be not to blame, may understand their common Christianity.  
XII. But there is one thing more which I do exceedingly long to see introduced, and would fain obtain; that which the Rubric in the true Intent of it still exacts of you, to have Morning and Evening Prayer every day of the week in your Church, if you live upon your Cure, or keep a Curate upon it, and not extreme far from your Church; And if by any means in the world you can prevail with at least a few of your Parishioners, which sure cannot be wanting in most Parishes, where there are either some devout Gentry, and Persons of Quality, or at least some piously disposed People; and to all such I could almost kneel, most earnestly begging of them as they love God, and their own and other Christian souls, that they will do their parts towards the promoting so good a Work, perhaps the Best, and the most Public Good they can ever do in the places where they live: and where there are either poor Widows, who may well afford to be at Prayers, for those whose Pensioners they are; or where there are Children taught by a Schoolmaster, or Mistress, there it is very hard, if some little Daily Congregation might not be found, would but the Minister attempt, and labour it with as much Application and Zeal, as the thing itself mightily deserves. Nay better the Minister with, or without his Parish Clerk, and with but some of his own Family, that He may say When two or three are gathered together in thy Name, than not to begin this worthy Design of Prayers twice a day in your Churches; But where that cannot be for the Distance of your houses, there to have them without fail in your private families.  
But on Holy-day-Eves and holidays, on all Litany-days, and all the Fasts of the Church, in the time of Advent and Lent, Ember-Weeks and Rogation-days, I live in good hopes, and great Expectation, you will by Degrees gain such ground upon them, that you will bring so many to Church, as shall make up a numerous Congregation.  
XIII. I should not Doubt to see such very considerable good effects in a short time, if you could and would either yourself bestow, or prevail with any your Parishioners of Ability to bestow, and disperse about the Parish among your People Copies of Dr Beveridge's excellent Sermon concerning the Excellency and usefulness of the Common Prayer, (a Sermon which now We have Reprinted of the seventh Edition) Or the second Edition of that devout Laic Mr Seamour's most pious little Book of Advice to the Readers of the Common Prayer, and to the People Attending the same; to which let me add that small piece, but very well and Wisely Designed, and lately published at Oxford, Entitled, The Common Prayer Book the best Companion in the House and Closet, as well as in the Temple, with a particular Office for the Sacrament: Which last Collection, if it be once commonly Received, and Reverently used, will at the same time secure the keeping up sober Religion in private Families, and in Closets, while it also brings the People to a good liking, pious using, and easily remembering of those same Prayers, which at other times they shall hear Read in your Churches.  
But having touched accidentally on the Devotions of the Family, & on those that are more Private and Particular, both which I assure Myself you will always Preach up, and that most effectually, by letting your Light so shine before Men, that they may see your Good Works, and Good Example of devout Practice; let me Recommend to you, for the sake of the Poorest and Meanest sort of your people, the short Directions for Prayer taken out of the Church-Catechism and Printed in one single sheet by my honoured Dear Friend, and Brother, The Right Reverend Father in God, The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells; And for the use of those that are more Capable, His Revised Exposition on the Church Catechism, or the Practice of Divine Love; By the Distribution of these few short cheap Treatises I have seen a World of Good has been done already, and though these may seem but small things to fill a Letter withal, yet they are such things as without them the Greatest things can never be Compassed.  
XIV. I must also insist, and enjoin you to insist from this time forward upon that Rubric for Bringing Children to Public Baptism in your Church; which as it will keep up the Solemnity, and secure the Decent performance of the thing, so the Office it's self being Excellent will very much edify the people. And in case of the Child's sickness, or extraordinary weakness, though you yield to christian it at home with the Office for private Baptism, yet you are by no means to do it with Godfathers and Godmothers, except in the Church; But when it gathers strength, than you are strictly to require that it be brought to Church, and its Baptism published there according to our Rubrics and Offices; which if Parent's refuse to Observe, you are to refuse entering their children's Names into the Churches-Register, and to see such Parents proceeded against in the Spiritual Court.  
XV. I do also Recommend it to your effectual care and pains, to procure the due Execution of that wise and useful Rubric (however Disused) that so many as intent to be partakers of the Holy Communion shall signify their Names to the Curate at least some time the day before; through the Inobservance of which Rule some Excommunicated Persons, or that richly Deserve to be so, and some that have cut themselves off from the Church, may surprise you, and be Admitted. And as I hope you will never fail on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday in the afternoon before the Communion-day, to have prayers in your Church, so methinks I ought not in Charity to Doubt, but All such as intent to be Communicants will at least at some of those times (if They cannot at all of them) be present at the Prayers, and then, and there may they give in their Names most conveniently in the Church, where to their inexpressible advantage they may be Discoursed separately without shaming any grown persons, who still may need some Instruction, or exposing any one, that requires either Counsel or Comfort; in either of which Cases, the Church of England Invites and Enjoins their coming to the Minister of their own Parish, or some other Godly Minister, for ghostly Advice.  
XVI. And having in my last years progress found no fault so common, and almost General, as the Careless making up and Keeping of Parish Registers, (whereas great care should be taken of those Records, which may be brought for Evidence in Law) you are to make them up exactly, and at this next Visitation to bring them in so perfected to the Matricula of the Dioecese, i. e. the Bishop's Register, and to see them kept hereafter under three locks and keys according to the Canon.  
XVII. And whereas many of the Old Terriers have been lost in the Great Rebellion, and perhaps not Renewed since the Happy Restauration, and the Names of Places, by which their boundaries were Adjusted and set forth, must needs be much changed in so long a Time, let every Incumbent, that has any Glebe, bring in a New Terrier made upon the best Information he can get, between this and the 25th of next March, and let those who have certain Modes and Compositions, set down a particular Account of them, that the poor remains of the Church's Patrimony may not be Devoured.  
XVIII. For our more orderly proceeding at the Visitation itself, endeavour I pray to bring your Churchwardens with you by 10 of the Clock in the Morning to the Beginning of Divine Service, on Monday the sixth of September, the day of Visitation for the Isle, at Ely; or as you are respectively concerned, by 9 of the Clock in the Morning on Wednesday Sept. 22. and Friday the 24th, at Cambridge, for the Visitation of those parts of the Dioecese lying in the County; which Wednesday & Friday being days of Abstinence, and like to be our most busy Days, it will be proper, decent, and most convenient to Dispatch All  We Rise, and then have Evening Prayer together, before we of the Clergy take our short Evening Refreshment, time enough for all to go home (if they please) that Night, not having more than 10 Miles to ride.  
XIX. Lastly though it may seem altogether foreign, and no way preparatory to the Business and Inquiries of an Episcopal Visitation, to say any thing of Ordination; yet in this Dioecese I'm sure there is need to give Warning, and settle the Measures of giving and receiving Holy Orders before our Meeting; not only because one of the stated times for Conferring Orders is near, but also, because several of your Curates lately were but Deacons, who must therefore immediately (if they be found worthy) come into the Order of Priesthood, or quit their Employments; wherein they can neither officiate throughout at the Common Prayer, having no power to give the Absolution, nor Consecrate the Holy Sacrament in case any be sick, and dying unexpectedly. I shall therefore set down some Rules, which I will inviolably Observe in my Ordinations, that I may at least keep my own hands clean then when I am to lay them on others, and That I may lay them suddenly on no man, the Rules I shall offer are such, as have been Agreed upon at Lambeth, and subscribed to by several of the Bishops.  
I will Ordain no Man a Deacon unless he be 23 years of Age, none Priest unless he be full and complete 24, as it is indispensably required in the Preface to the Book of Ordinations; nor unless that Canonical Age be Attested by a Certificate under the hands and seals of the Minister and Churchwardens where the Person was born.  
I will Ordain none who hath not taken some Degree in One of the Universities of these Realms, unless there appear such extraordinary Qualifications in the Person, as move the Lord Archbishop of the Province to Grant his Faculty; nor without such a Faculty will I Ordain any Man but upon the Lord's Day immediately following One of the Fasts of the Four Seasons; And none (of what Qualities or Gifts soever) both Priest, and Deacon, without Interposing some time between the two Orders.  
I will Ordain none but such as have lived in my Dioecess for 3 years' last passed, and are either personally known to me, or recommended by a Certificate of 3 Neighbour Ministers at least, such as I shall think fit to Rely on, and by Them under their hand and seals declared in their Judgement worthy of what they desire, or pretend to; or else do bring sufficient and authentic testimony from the Bishop or Bishops within whose Dioecess they have resided, or from some College in the Universities in which they have been Gremialls.  
And I desire that each College, and all the Clergy would please to procure and observe My Lord Archbishop's Letters of Direction sent us, I think in the year 1678, for the forming of Letters Testimonial for Holy Orders, for I can hereafter Admit no Certificates in any other Form than as His Grace there Directed most prudently, and very particularly.  
I will Ordain none into Holy Orders, but such as are Presented, or Entitled to some Ecclesiastical Preferment, then void in my Dioecese, or have some Title specified and allowed in the 33d Canon, among which a Curacy during pleasure under a Parson or Vicar (which is the common abuse) is not to be accounted; nor any Curacy, unless that Parson or Vicar doth under his hand and seal, and before witness, oblige himself to accept of the Person to be Ordained, and allow him such a Salary as I shall approve of; and lastly, not to put the Person away, unless for reasons and cause to be by Me approved.  
I will Ordain none but such as shall a full Month before the day of Ordination, bring or send to me, or my Register, notice in writing of their desire to enter into Holy Orders, together with a Certificate of their age, and such Testimonials of their Conversation as aforesaid, to the end that I may inquire into all particulars, and also give public notice, and monitions to all Persons to except against such as they may perhaps know not to be Worthy, as is expressly required in the Canon 1564. Moreover I shall Ordain none but such as shall repair to the place of Ordination, at latest upon Thursday in Ember week; to the end that there may be time for the strict and careful Examination of every Person not only by myself and my Chaplains, but also by the Dean and Archdeacon, who are by the Canon required to assist; as also that the Persons to be ordained may be present in the Cathedral, and observe the Solemn Fast, and join in the Solemn Prayers which are at that time to be put up to God in their behalf.  
XX. If your setting to work for the gaining of so many good points Oblige you, or a sufficient Able Curate for you, not only to a strict Residence between this and the Visitation, but after that to an extraordinary Diligence; Consider I beseech you, that the Life of a Christian, especially of a Clergyman, is compared to a Warfare, a Husbandry, a Fishery, a Building, a Trading, a Pilgrimage, all full of Pains, and Toils; but then your Labour is the Labour of Love. If any one still thinks I take too much upon Me, and put too much Task upon Others, let him but attentively read over those two excellent Offices, the One for the Ordination of Priests, the Other for the Consecration of Bishops. And I hearty wish that once a Week at least, We all of Us would Revise, and Reflect on those our Sacerdotal Obligations; I wish it as hearty as I do that every Layman, and every Christian would make it a piece of his every-days Devotion, to Repeat and Renew his Baptismal Vow. Consider pray how we solemnly plighted our Faith to God, and his Church, before we Received Imposition of hands, and the holy Sacrament; And to what we promised all our Endeavours in those engaging words, I will do so, the Lord being my Helper; Then you will Discern what I must needs acknowledge, that I have done hitherto but the least part of my Duty, and that I could do no less than call you to Do yours; and you will grant me that you, as well as I, have a great deal more to do for the freeing of our own Souls, and for securing to ourselves any Title to that conditional promise, in the words of St Paul to Timothy his beloved Son, In doing this, thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. Which that we may All do shall be my daily hearty prayer, in which I beseech you earnestly to join with, and for  
Your Affectionate Friend and Brother in Christ, Fran. Ely. Dated from my House at Ely, August 4th 1686.