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DISCOURSE 
 
 PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT REV. FATHER IN GOD, 
 
 GILBERT,, LATE LORD BISHOP OF SARUM. 
 
 FIFTEENTH EDITION. 
 
 PRINTED VERBATIM FROM THE AUTHOR'S LAST CORRECTED EDITION. 
 TO WHICH is PREFIXED, 
 
 A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR* 
 
 Hontron : 
 
 WILLIAM TEGG AND Co., CHEAPSIDE. 
 
 M.DCCC.XL1X. 
 

 LC Control Number 
 
 tmp96 031636 
 
TO THE QUEEN'S 
 MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY* 
 
 MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, 
 
 The title of Defender of the Faith is so inherent 
 in the royal dignity, and so essential a part of its 
 security, as well as of its glory, that there was no 
 need of papal bulls to add it to the crown your 
 Majesty now wears : you hold it by a much better 
 tenure, as well as by a more ancient possession. 
 Nor can one reflect on the pope's giving it to king 
 Henry VIII., without remembering what is said 
 of Caiaphas, that " being high priest that year, he 
 prophesied. ,, For since that time the true faith 
 hath been so eminently defended by our princes, 
 and that of both sexes, we having had our Pul- 
 cherias as well as our Constan tines and our Theo- 
 doses, that this church has been all along the chief 
 strength and honour of the Reformation, as well 
 as the main object of the envy and spite of those 
 of the Roman communion. 
 
 But though your Majesty's royal ancestors have 
 done so much for us, there remains yet a great 
 deal to be done for the completing of our reforma- 
 tion, especially as to the lives and manners of men. 
 
 * Mary, the pious and excellent queen of King Wil- 
 liam III. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 This will most effectually be done, by obliging the 
 clergy to be more exemplary in their lives, and 
 more diligent and faithful in the discharge of their 
 pastoral duty. And this work seems to be re- 
 served for your Majesties, and designed to be the 
 felicity and glory of your reign. To serve God 
 by promoting this great and glorious design, which 
 is so truly worthy of your Majesty's best care and 
 endeavours, I have purposely written this treatise, 
 which I do with all humility dedicate and present 
 to your Sacred Majesty. 
 
 May that God who is the King of kings, and 
 hath blessed us with two such excellent princes, 
 preserve you both long to us, and make you as 
 happy in us as we are in you ! May you reign 
 over us till you have accomplished all those great 
 designs for which God hath raised you up, and 
 with which he hath filled your hearts : and may 
 this church be made, by your means, the "per- 
 fection of beauty," and "the joy of the whole 
 earth I" 
 
 These are the daily and most fervent prayers of, 
 
 May it please your Majesty, 
 Your Majesty's most loyal, 
 
 Most humble, and most obedient 
 Subject and Chaplain, 
 
 GIL. SARUM. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Lifb of the Author i 
 
 The Preface to the First Edition xviii 
 
 The Preface to the Third Edition xxxiv 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Of the Dignity of Sacred Employments, and the 
 Names and Designations given to them in Scripture 5 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Of the Rules set down in Scripture for those that 
 minister in Holy Things, and of the Corruptions 
 that are set forth in them 63 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Passages out of the New Testament relating to the 
 same Matter 75 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 Of the sense of the Primitive Church in this Matter. 97 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 An Account of some Canons in divers Ages of the 
 Church, relating to the Duties and Labours of the 
 Clergy 122 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Page 
 Of the declared Sense and Rules of the Church of 
 England in this Matter 138 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Of the due Preparation of such as may, and ought to 
 be put in Orders 167 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Of the Functions and Labours of Clergymen 197 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Concerning Preaching 229 
 
 The Conclusion 253 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Of Presentations to Benefices and Simony 262 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Gilbert Burnet, bishop of Salisbury, was born 
 at Edinburgh, Sept. 18, 1643. His father was the 
 younger brother of an ancient family in the county 
 of Aberdeen, and was bred to the civil law, which 
 he studied for seven years in France : at the Res- 
 toration he was made one of the lords of the session 
 by the title of lord Cramond. His wife, our au- 
 thor's mother, was very eminent for her piety and 
 virtue, and a warm zealot for the presbyterian dis- 
 cipline, in which way she had been very strictly 
 educated. 
 
 Our author received the first rudiments of his 
 education from his father; under whose care he 
 made so quick a progress, that, at ten years of age, 
 he perfectly understood the Latin tongue ; at which 
 time he was sent to the college of Aberdeen, where 
 he acquired the Greek, and went through the usual 
 course of Aristotelian logic and philosophy with un- 
 common applause. He was scarcely fourteen when 
 he commenced master of arts, and then applied 
 
 B 
 
11 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 himself to the study of the civil law ; but, after 
 a years diligent application to that science, he 
 changed his resolution, and turned his thoughts 
 wholly to the study of divinity. At eighteen years 
 of age, he was put upon his trial as a probationer 
 or expectant preacher; and, at the same time, was 
 offered the presentation to a very good benefice, 
 by his cousin-german, sir Alexander Burnet ; but 
 thinking himself too young for the cure of souls, he 
 modestly declined that offer. His education, thus 
 happily begun, was finished by the conversation 
 and advice of the most eminent Scotch divines. In 
 1663, about two years after his father's death, he 
 came into England, where he first visited the two 
 universities. At Cambridge he had an opportunity 
 of conversing with Dr. Cud worth, Dr. Pearson, Dr. 
 Burnet, author of the " Sacred Theory," and Dr. 
 Henry More, one of whose sayings, in relation to 
 rites and ceremonies, then made a great impression 
 on him: " None of these," said he, "are bad 
 enough to make men bad, and I am sure none of 
 them are good enough to make men good." At 
 Oxford our author was much caressed, on account 
 of his knowledge of the councils and fathers, by 
 Dr. Fell, and Dr. Pocock, that great master of 
 Oriental learning. He was much improved there, 
 in his mathematics and natural philosophy, by the 
 instructions of Dr. Wallis, who likewise gave him 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. Ill 
 
 a letter of recommendation to the learned and pious 
 Mr. Boyle, at London. Upon his arrival there, he 
 was introduced to all the most noted divines, as 
 Tillotson, Stillingfle.et, Patrick, Lloyd, Whichcote, 
 and Wilkins ; and, among others of the laity, to 
 sir Robert Murray. 
 
 In 1665 he was ordained a priest by the bishop 
 of Edinburgh, and presented by sir Robert Fletcher 
 to the living of Saltoun, which had been kept va- 
 cant during his absence. He soon gained the af- 
 fections of his whole parish, not excepting the 
 presbyterians, though he was the only clergyman 
 in Scotland that made use of the prayers in the 
 liturgy of the church of England. During the five 
 years he remained at Saltoun, he preached twice 
 every Sunday, and once on one of the week-days : 
 he catechised three times a week, so as to examine 
 every parishioner, old or young, three times in the 
 compass of a year : he went round the parish from 
 house to house, instructing, reproving, or comfort- 
 ing them, as occasion required : the sick he visited 
 twice a day : he administered the sacrament four 
 times a year, and personally instructed all such as 
 gave notice of their intention to receive it. All that 
 remained above his own necessary subsistence, (in 
 which he was very frugal,) he gave away in charity. 
 A particular instance of his generosity is thus re- 
 lated : one of his parishioners had been in execu- 
 b 2 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 tion for debt, and applied to our author for some 
 small relief, who inquired of him how much would 
 again set him up in his trade : the man named the 
 sum, and he as readily called to his servant to pay- 
 it him : " Sir," said he, " it is all we have in the 
 house." " Well," said Mr. Burnet, " pay it this 
 poor man : you do not know the pleasure there is 
 in making a man glad." 
 
 In 1669 he was made professor of divinity at 
 Glasgow; in which station he executed the follow- 
 ing plan of study. On Mondays he made each of 
 the students, in their turn, explain a head of divi- 
 nity in Latin, and propound such theses from it as 
 he was to defend against the rest of the scholars ; 
 and this exercise concluded with our professors de- 
 cision of the point in a Latin oration. On Tuesdays 
 he gave them a prelection in the same language, 
 in which he proposed, in the course of eight years, 
 to have gone through a complete system of divinity. 
 On Wednesdays he read them a lecture, for above 
 an hour, by way of a critical commentary on St. 
 Matthew's Gospel; which he finished before he 
 quitted the chair. On Thursdays the exercise was 
 alternate ; one Thursday he expounded a Hebrew 
 Psalm, comparing it with the Septuagint, the Vul- 
 gar, and the English version ; and the next Thurs- 
 day he explained some portion of the ritual and 
 constitution of the primitive church, making the 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. V 
 
 apostolical canons his text, and reducing every ar- 
 ticle of practice under the head of one or other of 
 those canons. On Fridays he made each of his 
 scholar, in course, preach a short sermon upon 
 some text he assigned ; and, when it was ended, he 
 observed upon any thing that was defective or 
 amiss in the handling of the subject. This was 
 the labour of the mornings : in the evenings, after 
 prayer, he every day read some parcel of scripture, 
 on which he made a short discourse ; and, when 
 that was over he examined into the progress of 
 their several studies. All this he performed during 
 the whole time the schools were open ; and, in or- 
 der to acquit himself with credit, he was obliged to 
 study hard from four till ten in the morning ; the 
 rest of the day being of necessity allotted, either 
 to the care of his pupils, or to hearing the com- 
 plaints of the clergy, w T ho, finding he had an in- 
 terest with men of power, were not sparing in 
 their applications to him. In this situation he con- 
 tinued four years and a half, exposed, through his 
 principles of moderation, to the censure both of the 
 episcopal and presbyterian parties. About this 
 time he was intrusted, by the dutchess of Hamilton 
 with the perusal and arrangement of all the papers 
 relating to her father's and uncle's ministry, which 
 induced him to compile " Memoirs of the dukes of 
 Hamilton/' and occasioned his being invited to 
 b3 
 
VI LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 London, to receive farther information, concerning 
 the transactions of those times, by the earl of Lau- 
 derdale ; between whom and the duke of Hamilton 
 he brought about a reconciliation. During his stay- 
 in London he was offered a Scotch bishoprick, 
 which he refused. Soon after his return to Glasgow 
 he married the lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of 
 the earl of Cassilis. In 1673 he took another jour- 
 ney to London ; where, at the express nomination 
 of the king, after hearing him preach, he was 
 sworn one of his majesty's chaplains in ordinary. 
 He became likewise in high favour with his majesty 
 and the duke of York. At his return to Edinburgh, 
 finding the animosities between the dukes of Ha- 
 milton and Lauderdale revived, he retired to his 
 station at Glasgow ; but was obliged the next year 
 to return to court, to justify himself against the 
 accusations of the duke of Lauderdale, who had re- 
 presented him as the cause and instrument of all 
 the opposition the measures of the court had met 
 with in the Scotch parliament. Thus he lost the 
 favour of the court ; and, to avoid putting himself 
 into the hands of his enemies, he resigned the pro- 
 fessor's chair at Glasgow, and resolved to settle in 
 London, being now about thirty years of age. 
 Soon after he was offered the living of St. Giles's, 
 Cripplegate, which he declined accepting, because 
 he heard that it was intended for Dr. Fowler, after- 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. VU 
 
 wards bishop of Gloucester. In 1675, our author, 
 at the recommendation of lord Holies, and notwith- 
 standing the interposition of the court against him, 
 was appointed preacher at the Rolls chapel, by sir 
 Harbottle Grimstone, master of the Rolls. The 
 same year he was examined before the house of 
 commons in relation to the duke of Lauderdale, 
 whose conduct the parliament was then inquiring 
 into. He was soon after chosen lecturer of St. 
 Clement's, and became a very popular preacher. 
 
 Although our author at this time had no parochial 
 cure, he did not refuse his attendance to any sick 
 person who desired it ; and was sent for, amongst 
 others, to one who had been engaged in a criminal 
 amour with Wilmot, earl of Rochester. The man- 
 ner he treated her, during her illness, gave that lord 
 a great curiosity of being acquainted with him ; and 
 for a whole winter, in a conversation of at least one 
 evening in a week, Burnet w T ent over all those to- 
 pics with him, upon which sceptics, and men of 
 loose morals, are wont to attack the Christian reli- 
 gion. The effect of these conferences, in convincing 
 the earl's judgment, and leading him to a sincere 
 repentance, became the subject of a well-known 
 and interesting narrative, which he published in 
 1680, entitled, "An account of the Life and Death 
 of the earl of Rochester." This work has lately 
 been reprinted more than once, perhaps owing to 
 
Vlll LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 the character Dr. Johnson gave of it in his ' ' Life of 
 Rochester :" he there pronounces it a book " which 
 the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philo- 
 sopher for its arguments, and the saint for its 
 piety." 
 
 In 1682, when the administration was wholly 
 changed in favour of the duke of York, he conti- 
 nued steady in his adherence to his friends, and 
 chose to sacrifice all his views at court, particularly 
 a promise of the mastership of the Temple, rather 
 than break off his correspondence with them. As 
 he was about this time much resorted to by persons 
 of all ranks and parties, as a pretence to avoid the 
 returning of so many visits, he built a laboratory, 
 and, for above a year, went through a course of 
 chemical experiments. Upon the execution of the 
 lord Russel, with whom he was familiarly ac- 
 quainted, he was examined before the house of 
 commons, with respect to that lord's speech upon 
 the scaffold, in the penning of which he was sus- 
 pected to have had a hand. Not long after he re- 
 fused the offer of a living of three hundred pounds 
 a year, in the gift of the earl of Halifax, who would 
 have presented him, on condition of his residing 
 still in London. In 1683 he went over to Paris, 
 where he was well received by the court, and be- 
 came acquainted with the most eminent persons, 
 both popish and protestant. The year following 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. ix 
 
 the resentment of the court against our author was 
 so great, that he was discharged from his lecture at 
 St. Clement's by virtue of the king's mandate to 
 Dr. Hascard, rector of that parish ; and in Decem- 
 ber the same year, by an order from the lord-keeper 
 North to sir Harbottle Grimstone, he was forbidden 
 preaching any more at the Rolls chapel. Upon the 
 death of king Charles, and accession of king James, 
 having obtained leave to go out of the kingdom, he 
 went first to Paris, where he lived in great retire- 
 ment, to avoid being involved in the conspiracies 
 then forming in favour of the duke of Monmouth- 
 But, having contracted an acquaintance with bri- 
 gadier Stouppe, a protestant officer in the French 
 service, he was prevailed upon to take a journey 
 with him into Italy, and met with an agreeable re- 
 ception at Rome and Geneva. After a tour through 
 the southern parts of France, Italy, Switzerland, 
 and many places of Germany, he came to Utrecht, 
 and intended to have settled in some quiet retreat, 
 within the Seven Provinces; but, being invited to 
 the Hague by the prince and princess of Orange, he 
 repaired thither, and had a great share in the coun- 
 cils then carrying on, concerning the affairs of 
 England. The high favour shewn him at the Hague 
 disgusting the English court, king James wrote two 
 severe letters against him to the princess of Orange, 
 and insisted, by his ambassador, on his being for- 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 bidden the court; which, at the king's importuni- 
 ty, was done ; though our author continued to be i 
 employed and trusted as before. Soon after a pro- j 
 secution for high treason was commenced against 
 him, both in Scotland and England, but the States : 
 refusing, at the demand of the English court, to 
 deliver him up, designs were laid of seizing his 
 person, and even destroying him, if he could be 
 taken. About this time Dr. Burnet married Mrs. 
 Mary Scott, a Dutch lady of large fortune and no- 
 ble extraction. He had a very important share in 
 the whole conduct of the Revolution in 1688 ; the 
 project of which he gave early notice of to the court 
 of Hanover, intimating that the success of this en- 
 terprise must naturally end in an entail of the Bri- ! 
 tish crown upon that illustrious house. 
 
 King William had not been many days on the 
 throne before Dr. Burnet was advanced to the see 
 of Salisbury, and consecrated March 31, 1689. 
 Our prelate had scarcely taken his seat in the 
 house of lords, when he distinguished himself by 
 declaring for moderate measures with regard to the 
 clergy who scrupled to take the oaths, and for a 
 toleration of the protestant dissenters ; and when 
 the bill for declaring the rights and privileges of the 
 subject, and settling the succession of the crown, 
 was brought into parliament, he was the person 
 appointed by king William to propose naming the 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XI 
 
 dutchess (afterwards electress) of Brunswick, next 
 
 in succession after the princess of Denmark and 
 
 ' her issue ; and when this succession afterwards 
 
 : took place, he had the honour of being chairman 
 
 ' of the committee to whom the bill was referred. 
 
 This made him considered by the house of Han- 
 
 ' over as one firmly attached to their interests, and 
 
 engaged him in an epistolary correspondence with 
 
 the princess Sophia, which lasted to her death. 
 
 ' After the session of Parliament was over, the bishop 
 
 - went down to his diocese, where, by his pious, 
 
 : prudent, and vigilant discharge of the episcopal 
 
 functions, he gained universal esteem. 
 
 As we have before given some account of his 
 conduct as a parish priest, and as professor of di- 
 vinity, it is no less necessary to specify some par- 
 ticulars of his management when in this higher 
 station. 
 
 As he had always looked upon confirmation as 
 the likeliest means of reviving a spirit of Christi- 
 anity, he wrote a short " Directory," for preparing 
 the youth upon such occasions, and sent copies of 
 it, some months beforehand, to the minister of 
 every parish where he intended to confirm. Every 
 summer he made a tour, for six weeks or two 
 months, through some district of his bishoprick, 
 daily preaching and confirming from church to 
 church, so as, in the compass of three years (be- 
 
Xll LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 sides his triennial visitation), to go through all the 
 principal livings of his diocese. In these circuit? 
 he entertained all the clergy that attended upon 
 him at his own expense, and held conferences with 
 them upon the chief heads of divinity. During 
 his residence at Salisbury he constantly preached 
 a Thursday's lecture, founded at St. Thomas's 
 church : he likewise preached and confirmed every 
 Sunday morning, in some church of that city, or 
 of the neighbourhood round about it ; and, in the 
 evening, he had a lecture in his own chapel, wherein 
 he explained some portion of scripture. Every 
 week, during the season of Lent, he catechised 
 the youth of the two great schools in the cathedral 
 church, and instructed them in order for confirma- 
 tion. He endeavoured, as much as possible, to 
 reform the abuses of the bishops' consistorial court. 
 No part of the episcopal office was more strictly 
 attended to by him, than the examination of can- 
 didates for holy orders. He examined them him- 
 self as to the proofs of the Christian religion, the 
 authority of the Scriptures, and the nature of the 
 gospel covenant ; and, a day or two before ordina- 
 tion, he submitted all those whom he had accepted 
 to the examination of the dean and prebendaries. 
 As the qualification of clergymen for the pastoral 
 care was always uppermost in his thoughts, he 
 instituted at Salisbury a little nursery of students 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. . Xlll 
 
 in divinity, being ten in number, to each of whom 
 he allowed a salary of thirty pounds a year. Once 
 every day he examined their progress in learning, 
 and gave them a lecture on some speculative or 
 practical point of divinity, or some part of the 
 pastoral function. But this foundation being con- 
 sidered as reflecting upon the method of education 
 at the universities, he was prevailed upon, after 
 some years, to lay it wholly aside. He was a 
 warm and constant enemy to pluralities, where 
 non-residence was the consequence of them, and 
 in some cases hazarded a suspension, rather than 
 give institution. In the point of residence he was 
 so strict, that he immediately dismissed his own 
 chaplains, upon their preferment to a cure of souls. 
 He exerted the principle of toleration, which was 
 deeply rooted in him, in favour of a nonjuring 
 meeting-house at Salisbury, which he obtained the 
 royal permission to connive at ; and this spirit of 
 moderation brought over several dissenting fami- 
 lies of his diocese to the communion of the church. 
 In 1692 he published a treatise entitled " The 
 Pastoral Care/' in which the duties of the clergy 
 are laid down with great strictness, and enforced 
 with no less zeal and warmth. In 1694 our au- 
 thor preached the funeral sermon of archbishop 
 Tillotson, with whom he had long kept up an 
 intimate acquaintance and friendship, and whose 
 
XIV LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 memory he defended in " A Vindication of Abp. 
 Tillotson," 1696. The death of queen Mary, 
 which happened the year following, drew from our 
 author's pen that " Essay on her Character," which 
 her uncommon talents merited at the hands of a 
 person who enjoyed so high a degree of her favour 
 and confidence. After the decease of that princess, 
 through whose hands the affairs and promotions of 
 the church had wholly passed, our prelate was one 
 of the ecclesiastical commission appointed by the 
 king to recommend to all bishopricks, deaneries, 
 and other vacant benefices in his majesty's gift. 
 
 In 1698 the bishop lost his wife by the small- 
 pox : but the consideration of the tender age of 
 his children, and his own avocations, soon induced 
 him to supply that loss by a marriage with Mrs. 
 Berkley. This year he was appointed preceptor 
 to his highness the duke of Gloucester, and em- 
 ployed great care in the education of that young 
 prince. 
 
 In 1704 the scheme for the augmentation of 
 poor livings, first projected by bishop Burnet, took 
 place, and passed into an act of parliament. This 
 learned and eminent prelate died the 17th of 
 March 1714-15, in the seventy-second year of 
 his age, and was interred in the parish church of 
 St. James, Clerk enwell, in London. 
 
 The events of his life shew that both at home 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XV 
 
 and abroad he stood high in the estimation of his 
 contemporaries ; and his errors and prejudices, of 
 whatever kind, would not have excited so many- 
 enemies, had not his talents given him an unusual 
 degree of consequence both in church and state. 
 We shall conclude this article with some particu- 
 lars of his private habits, which, as well as the 
 above account of his life, stand uncontradicted, 
 and surely entitle him to our respect. 
 
 His time, we are told, was employed in one 
 regular and uniform manner : he was a very early 
 riser, seldom in bed later than five or six o'clock 
 in the morning. Private meditation took up the 
 two first hours, and the last half- hour of the day. 
 His first and last appearance to his family was at 
 the morning and evening prayers, which he always 
 read himself, though his chaplains were present. 
 He took the opportunity of the tea-table to instruct 
 his children in religion, and in giving them his 
 own comment upon some portion of scripture. He 
 seldom spent less than six, often eight, hours a day 
 in his study. He kept an open table, in which 
 there was plenty, without luxury : his equipage 
 was decent and plain ; and all his expenses gene- 
 rous, but not profuse. He was a most affectionate 
 husband to his wives ; and his love to his children 
 expressed itself, not so much in hoarding up wealth 
 for them, as in giving them the best education. 
 c 2 
 
XVI LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 After his sons had perfected themselves in the 
 learned languages, under private tutors, he sent 
 them to the university, and afterwards abroad, to 
 finish their studies at Leyden, In his friendships 
 he was warm, open-hearted, and constant ; and 
 though his station and principles raised him many 
 enemies, he always endeavoured, by the kindest 
 good offices, to repay all their injuries, and over- 
 come them by returning good for evil. He was a 
 kind and bountiful master to his servants, and 
 obliging to all in employment under him. His 
 charities were a principal article of his expense. 
 He gave an hundred pounds at a time for the aug- 
 mentation of small livings ; he bestowed constant 
 pensions on poor clergymen and their widows, on 
 students for their education at the universities, 
 and on industrious, but unfortunate families : he 
 contributed frequent sums towards the repairs or 
 building of churches and parsonage-houses, to all 
 public collections, to the support of charity schools 
 (one of which, for fifty children, at Salisbury, was 
 w 7 holly maintained by him), and to the putting out 
 apprentices to trades. Nor were his alms confined 
 to one nation, sect, or party ; but want, and merit, 
 in the object, were the only measures of his libe- 
 rality. He looked upon himself, with regard to 
 his episcopal revenue, as a mere trustee for the 
 church, bound to expend the whole in a decent 
 
LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XV11 
 
 maintenance of his station, and in acts of hospita- 
 lity and charity ; and he had so faithfully balanced 
 this account, that, at his death, no more of the 
 income of his bishoprick remained to his family 
 than was barely sufficient to pay his debts. 
 
 c3 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FIRST EDITION, PUBLISHED IN 1692. 
 
 THIS subject, how important soever in itself, yet has 
 been so little treated of, and will seem so severe in many 
 parts of it, that if I had not judged this a necessary ser- 
 vice to the church, which did more decently come from 
 one, who, how undeserving soever he is, yet is raised to a 
 post that may justify the writing on so tender a head ; I 
 should never have undertaken it. But my zeal for the 
 true interests of religion, and of this church, determined 
 me to set about it : yet since my design is to correct things 
 for the future rather than to reproach any for what is 
 past, I have resolved to cast it rather into advices and 
 rules, into plain and short directions, than into long and 
 laboured discourses, supported by the shews of learning, 
 and citations from fathers, and historical observations : 
 this being the more profitable, and the less invidious way 
 of handling the subject. 
 
 It ought to be no imputation on a church, if too many 
 of those that are dedicated to her service have not all the 
 characters that are here set forth, and that are to be 
 desired in clergymen. Even in the apostles' days there 
 were false apostles, and false teachers : as one of the 
 twelve was a traitor, and had a devil. Some loved the 
 pre-eminence ; others loved this present world to a scan- 
 dalous degree. Some of those that preached Christ, did 
 
XIX 
 
 it 4< not sincerely, but out of contention* :" they vied with 
 the apostles, and hoped to have carried away the esteem 
 from them, even while they were suffering for the faith : 
 for envying their credit, they designed to raise their own 
 authority, by lessening the apostles, and so hoped to have 
 " added affliction to their bonds." In the first and purest 
 ages of the church we find great complaints of the neglects 
 and disorders of the clergy of all ranks. Many became the 
 stewards and bailiffs of other people's estates, and while 
 they looked too diligently after those cares which did not 
 belong to them, they even in those times of trial grew very 
 remiss in the most important of all cares, which was their 
 proper business. 
 
 As soon as the empire became Christian, the authority, 
 the immunity, and the other advantages, which by the 
 bounty of princes followed the sacred functions, made 
 them to be generally much desired ; and the elections 
 being then for the most part popular, (though in some of 
 the greater cities the magistracy took them into their 
 hands, and the bishops of the province w T ere the judges 
 both of the fitness of the person and of the regularity of 
 the election) ; these were managed with much faction 
 and violence, which often ended in blood, and that to so 
 great an excess, that if we had not witnesses to many 
 instances of this among the best men in those ages, it 
 would look like an uncharitable imputation on those 
 times, to think them capable of such enormities. Indeed 
 the disorders, the animosities, the going so oft backwards 
 and forwards in the matters of faith, as the emperors 
 happened to be of different sides, are but too ample a 
 proof of the corruptions that had then got into the 
 
 * Phil. i. 16. 
 
XX PREFACE. 
 
 church. And what can we think of the breach made in 
 the churches of Africa by Donatus and his followers, upon 
 so inconsiderable a point, as whether Cecilian and his 
 ordainers had denied the faith in the last persecution, or 
 not? which grew to that height, that almost in every 
 town of Africa there were divided assemblies, and sepa- 
 rating bishops, upon that account. Nor was this wound 
 healed but with the utter ruin of those churches. St. 
 Jerome, though partial enough to his own side, as appears 
 by his espousing Damasus' interests, notwithstanding that 
 vast effusion of blood that had been at his election ; which 
 was set on by him, and continued for four days with so 
 much violence, that in one night, and at one church, a 
 hundred and seven and thirty were killed; yet he could 
 not hold from laying open the corruptions of the clergy in 
 a very severe style. He grew so weary of them, and they 
 of him, that he went and spent the rest of his days at 
 Bethlehem. 
 
 Those corruptions were so much the more remarkable, 
 because the eminent men of those times procured a great 
 many canons to be made, both in provincial and general 
 councils, for correcting abuses as soon as they observed 
 them creeping into the church. But it is plain from St. 
 Chrysostom's story, that though bad men did not oppose 
 the making good rules, while they were so many dead 
 letters in their registers, yet they could not bear the rigor- 
 ous execution of them : so that those good canons do shew 
 us indeed what were the growing abuses, of the times in 
 which they were made, and how good men set themselves 
 against them ; but are no sure indications of the reform- 
 ation that was effected by them. 
 
 The tottering state of the Roman empire, which had 
 then fallen under a vast dissolution of discipline and man- 
 
PREFACE. XXI 
 
 ners, and coming into feeble hands, was then sinking with 
 its own weight, and was become on all sides an easy prey 
 to its invaders, who were either Pagans or Arians, ought 
 to have awakened the governors of the church to have ap- 
 prehended their approaching ruin ; to have prevented it by 
 their prayers and endeavours ; and to have corrected those 
 abuses which had provoked God, and weakened and dis- 
 tracted both church and empire. But if we may believe 
 either Gildas here in Britain, or Salvian in France, they 
 rather grew worse, more impenitent, and more insensible, 
 when they saw the judgments of God coming upon the 
 empire, province after province rent from it, and overrun 
 by the barbarians. 
 
 When that great wound was in some sort healed, and 
 a second form of Christianity rose up and prevailed again 
 in the western parts, and the world became Christian, 
 with the alloy that dark and superstitious ages had brought 
 into that holy doctrine ; then all the rules of the former 
 ages were so totally forgotten, and laid aside, that the 
 clergy universally lost their esteem : and though Charles 
 the Great, and his son, held a great many councils for cor- 
 recting these abuses, and published many capitulars on the 
 same design, yet all was to no purpose. There was neither 
 knowledge nor virtue enough left to reform a corruption 
 that was become universal. The clergy by these disorders 
 fell under a general contempt ; and out of that rose the 
 authority, as well as the wealth of the monastic orders; 
 and when riches and power had corrupted them, the beg- 
 ging orders took away the credit from both : yet even their 
 reputation, which the outward severity of their rule, habit, 
 and manner of life did both establish and maintain long, 
 was at last so generally lost, that no part or body of the 
 Roman clergy had credit enough to stop the progress of 
 
XX11 PREFACE. 
 
 the Reformation : which was in a great measure occasioned 
 by the scorn and hatred that fell on them, and which was 
 so spread over all parts of Europe, that to it even their 
 own historians do impute the great advances that Luther's 
 doctrine made for about fifty years together ; whole king- 
 doms and provinces embracing it as it were all of the 
 sudden. 
 
 It has now for above an hundred years made a full 
 stand, and in most places it has rather lost ground than 
 gained any. The true account of this is not easily given ; 
 the doctrine is the same ; and it has been of late defended 
 with greater advantages, with more learning, and better 
 reasoning, than it was at first; yet not with much less 
 success. The true reason of the slackening of that work, 
 must be imputed to the reformation made in several 
 points with relation to the manners and the labours of 
 the clergy, by the church of Rome, and the depravation 
 under which most of the reformed churches are fallen. 
 For the manners and the labours of the clergy, these are 
 real arguments, which al people do both understand and 
 feel ; they have a much more convincing force, they are 
 more visible, and persuade more universally, than books 
 can do, which are little read and less considered. And 
 indeed the bulk of mankind is so made, that there is no 
 working on them, but by moving their affections, and 
 commanding their esteem. It cannot be denied but that 
 the council of Trent established the errors of popery in 
 such a manner as to cut off all possibility of ever treating, 
 or re -uniting with them; since those decisions, and their 
 infallibility, which is their foundation, are now so twisted 
 together; yet they establish such a reformation in disci- 
 pline, as may make churches that pretend to a more glo- 
 rious title justly ashamed. For though there are such 
 
PREFACE. XX111 
 
 reserves made for the plenitude of the papal authority, 
 that in great instances, and for a favourite, all may be 
 broke through; yet the most notorious abuses are so 
 struck at, and this has been in many places so effectually 
 observed, chiefly where they knew that their deport- 
 ment was looked into, and watched over by protestants, 
 that it must be acknowledged, that the cry of the scandals 
 of religious houses is much laid. And though there is still 
 much ignorance among their mass priests ; yet their parish 
 priests are generally another sort of men, they are well in- 
 structed in their religion, lead regular lives, and perform 
 their parochial duties with a most wonderful diligence : 
 they do not only say mass, and the other public functions 
 daily, but they are almost perpetually employing them- 
 selves in the several parts of their cures: instructing the 
 youth, hearing confessions, and visiting the sick : and be- 
 sides all this, they are under the constant obligation of the 
 breviary: there is no such thing as non -residence or 
 plurality to be heard of in whole countries of that com- 
 munion ; and though about cathedrals, and in greater 
 cities, the vast number of priests give still great and just 
 occasion to censure, yet the parish priests have almost uni- 
 versally recovered the esteem of the people : they are no 
 more disposed to think ill of them, or to hearken to any 
 thing that may give them a just cause, or at least a plausi- 
 ble colour, for departing from them. So that the reforma- 
 tion that popery hath been forced to make, has in a great 
 measure stopped the progress of the reformation of the 
 doctrine and worship that did so long carry every thing 
 before it. 
 
 But this is the least melancholy part of the account 
 that may be given of this matter. The reformers began 
 that blessed work with much zeal ; they and their first 
 
XXIV PREFACE. 
 
 successors carried it on with learning and spirit: they 
 were active in their endeavours, and constant and patient 
 in their sufferings ; and these things turned the esteem of 
 the world, which was alienated from popery, by the igno- 
 rance and scandals of the clergy, all towards them. But 
 when they felt the warmth of the protection and encou- 
 ragement that princes and states gave them, they insensibly 
 slackened : they fell from their first heat and love ; they 
 began to build houses for themselves, and their families, 
 and neglected the house of God ; they rested satisfied with 
 their having reformed the doctrine and worship ; but did 
 not study to reform the lives and manners of their people : 
 and while in their offices they lamented the not having a 
 public discipline in the church, as it was in the primitive 
 times; they have either made no attempts at all, or at 
 least very faint ones, for restoring it. And thus, while 
 popery has purified itself from many former abuses, 
 reformed churches have added new ones to the old, that 
 they still retain, and are fond of. Zeal in devotion, and 
 diligence in the pastoral care, are fallen under too visible 
 and too scandalous a decay. And whereas the understand- 
 ing of the Scriptures and an application to that sacred 
 study, was at first the distinguishing character of protes- 
 tants, for which they were generally nicknamed gospellers : 
 these holy writings are now so little studied, that such as 
 are obliged to look narrowly into the matter, find great 
 cause of regret and lamentation, from the gross ignorance 
 of such as are either in orders, or that pretend to be put in 
 them. 
 
 But the most capital and comprehensive of all abuses 
 is, that the false opinion of the worst ages of popery, that 
 made the chief, if not the only obligation of priests to be 
 the performing offices, and judged, that if these were done, 
 
PREFACE. XXV 
 
 the chief part of their business was also done, by which 
 the pastoral care came to be in a great measure neglected, 
 does continue still to leaven us : while men imagine that 
 their whole work consists in public functions, and so 
 reckon, that if they eitberdo these themselves, or procure 
 and hire another person in holy orders to do them, that 
 then they answer the obligation that lies on them. And 
 thus the pastoral care, the instructing, the exhorting, the 
 admonishing and reproving, the directing and conducting, 
 the visiting and comforting the people of the parish, is 
 generally neglected ; while the incumbent does not think 
 fit to look after it, and the curate thinks himself bound to 
 nothing but barely to perform offices according to agree- 
 ment. 
 
 It is chiefly on design to raise the sense of the obliga- 
 tions of the clergy to the duties of the pastoral care, that 
 this book is written. Many things do concur in our pre- 
 sent circumstances, to awaken us of the clergy, to mind 
 and do our duty with more zeal and application than ever. 
 It is very visible, that in this present age the reformation 
 is not only at a stand, but is going back, and grows sensi- 
 bly weaker and weaker. Some churches have been plucked 
 up by the roots, and brought under a total desolation and 
 dispersion ; and others have fallen under terrible oppres- 
 sions and shakings. We have seen a design formed, and 
 carried on long, for the utter destruction of that great 
 work. The clouds were so thick gathered over us, that 
 we saw we were marked out for destruction : and when 
 that was once compassed, our enemies saw well enough, 
 that the rest of their designs would be more easily brought 
 about. It is true, our enemies intended to set us one upon 
 another by turns, to make us do half their work ; and to 
 have still an abused party among us ready to carry on 
 
 D 
 
XXVI PREFACE. 
 
 their ends ; for they thought it too bold an attempt to fall 
 upon all at once : but while they were thus shifting hands, 
 it pleased God to cut them short in their designs, and to 
 blast that part of them in which we were concerned, so 
 entirely that now they carry them on more bare-facedly ; 
 and drive at conquest, which is at one stroke to destroy 
 our church and religion, our laws and our properties. 
 
 In this critical state of things, we ought not only to 
 look at the instruments of the calamities that have fallen 
 so heavily on so many protestant churches, and of the 
 dangers that hang over the rest ; but we ought chiefly to 
 look up to that God, who seems to be provoked at the 
 whole Reformation, because they have not walked suitably 
 to the light that they have so long enjoyed, and the bless- 
 ings which had been so long continued to them, but have 
 corrupted their ways before him. They have lost the 
 power of religion, whilst they have seemed to magnify the 
 form of it, and have been zealous for opinions and cus- 
 toms : and therefore God has, in his wrath, taken even that 
 form from them, and has loathed their solemn assemblies ; 
 and brought them under a famine of the word of the Lord, 
 which they had so much despised. While these things 
 are so, and while we find that we ourselves are as a brand 
 plucked out of the fire, which may be thrown back into it 
 again, if we are not alarmed by the just but unsearchable 
 judgments of God, which have wasted other churches so 
 terribly, while they have only frighted us : what is more 
 evident, than that the present state of things, and the 
 signs of the times, call aloud upon the whole nation to bring 
 forth fruits meet for repentance : since the axe is laid to 
 the root of the tree. And as this indeed concerns the 
 body of the nation, so we, who are the priests and minis- 
 ters of the Lord, are under more particular obligations, 
 
PREFACE. XXV11 
 
 first to look into our own ways, and to reform whatsoever 
 is amiss among us, and then to be intercessors for the peo- 
 ple committed to our charge; to be mourning for their 
 sins, and, by our secret fastings and prayers, to be stand- 
 ing in those breaches which our crying abominations have 
 made : and so to be averting those judgments which may 
 be ready to break in upon us ; and chiefly to be lifting up 
 our voices, like trumpets, to shew our people their trans- 
 gressions : to be giving them faithful warning, from which 
 we may expect this blessed success, that we may at least 
 gain upon such a number, that for their sakes, God who 
 will not slay the righteous with the wicked, may be yet 
 entreated for our sins ; and that the judgments which 
 hang over us, being quite dissipated, his gospel, together 
 with peace and plenty, may still dwell among us, and may 
 shine from us, with happy influences, to all the ends of 
 the earth. And even such pastors as shall faithfully do 
 their duty, but without any success, may depend upon 
 this, that they shall save their own souls ; and shall have 
 a distinguished fate, if we should happen to fall under a 
 common calamity : they having on them not only the mark 
 of mourners and intercessors, but of faithful shepherds ; 
 whereas, if an overflowing scourge should break in upon 
 us, we have all possible reason, both from the judgments 
 of God and the present situation of affairs, to believe that 
 it will begin at the sanctuary, at those who have profaned 
 the holy things, and have made the daily sacrifice to be 
 loathed. 
 
 There is another, and perhaps yet a more dismal cha- 
 racter of the present state of the age, that calls on the 
 clergy to consider well both their own deportment and 
 the obligations that lie upon them; which is the growing 
 atheism and impiety that is daily gaining ground, not only 
 d2 
 
XXV1U PREFACE. 
 
 among us, but indeed all Europe over. There is a circula- 
 tion observed in the general corruptions of nations : some- 
 times ignorance and brutality overruns the world, that 
 makes way for superstition and idolatry: when mankind 
 is disgusted with these, then fantastical and enthusiastical 
 principles, and under these hypocritical practices, have 
 their course : these being seen through, give great occa- 
 sions to profaneness; and with that atheism, and a disbelief 
 of all religion, at least of all revealed religion, is nourished : 
 and that is very easily received by depraved minds, but 
 very hardly rooted out of them. For though it is very 
 easy to beat an inquirer into things out of all speculative 
 atheism ; yet when a disbelief of sacred matters, and a 
 profane contempt of them, has once vitiated one's mind, 
 it is a very extraordinary thing, and next to miraculous, 
 to see such an one reduced. Now this I am forced to 
 declare, that having had much free conversation with 
 many that have been fatally corrupted that way, they 
 have very often owned to me, that nothing promoted this 
 so much in them, as the very bad opinion which they took 
 up of all clergymen of all sides; they did not see in them 
 that strictness of life, that contempt of the world, that 
 zeal, that meekness, humility and charity, — that diligence 
 and earnestness, with relation to the great truths of the 
 Christian religion, which they reckoned they would most 
 certainly have, if they themselves firmly believe it. There- 
 fore they concluded, that those, whose business it was 
 more strictly to inquire into the truth of their religion, 
 knew that it was not so certain, as they themselves, for 
 other ends, endeavoured to make the world believe it was : 
 and that though for carrying on of their own authority 
 or fortunes, which, in one word, they call their trade, they 
 seemed to be very positive in affirming the truth of their 
 
 
PREFACE. XXIX 
 
 doctrines ; yet they in their own hearts did not believe it ; 
 since they lived so little suitable to it, and were so much 
 set on raising themselves by it ; and so little on advancing 
 the honour of their profession, by an exemplary piety, and 
 a shining conversation. 
 
 This is a thing not to be answered by being angry at 
 them for saying it, or by reproaching »ucL as repeat it, as 
 if they were enemies to the church; these words of heat 
 and faction signifying nothing to work upon, or convince 
 any. For how little strength soever there may be in this, 
 as it is made an argument, it is certainly so strong a pre- 
 judice, that nothing but a real refutation of it, by the 
 eminent virtues and labours of many of the clergy, will 
 ever conquer it. To this, as a branch or part of it, an- 
 other consideration from the present state of things is to 
 be added, to call upon the clergy to set about the duties 
 of their calling ; and that is, the contempt they are gene- 
 rally fallen under, the injustice they daily meet with, in 
 being denied their rights, and that by some out of prin- 
 ciple, and by others out of downright and undisguised 
 sacrilege. I know a great deal of this is too justly and too 
 truly to be cast on the poverty of the clergy : but what 
 can we say, when we find often the poorest clerks in the 
 richest livings? whose incumbents, not content to devour 
 the patrimony of the church, while they feed themselves, 
 and not the flock out of it, are so scandalously hard in 
 their allowance to their curates, as if they intended equally 
 to starve both curate and people. And is it to be sup- 
 posed., that the people will think themselves under a very 
 strict obligation of conscience, to pay religiously all that 
 is due to one, who seems to think himself under no obli- 
 gation to labour for it? And since it is a maxim, founded 
 upon natural equity, that the benefice is given for the 
 d3 
 
XXX PREFACE. 
 
 office ; men will not have great scruples in denying the 
 benefice, where the office is neglected, or ill-performed. 
 And as for the too common contempt that is brought on 
 the clergy, how guilty soever those may be, who out of 
 hatred to their profession despise them for their work's 
 sake ; yet w 7 e who feel ourselves under these disadvan- 
 tages, ought to reflect on those words of the prophet, and 
 see how far they are applicable to us: "The priest's lips 
 should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at 
 his mouth : for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. 
 But ye are departed out of the way ; ye have caused many 
 to stumble at the law ; — therefore have I also made you 
 contemptible and base before all the people, according as 
 ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the 
 law*.'' If we studied to honour God, and so to do honour 
 to our profession, we might justly hope that he would 
 raise it again to that credit which is due to it ; and that 
 he would make even our enemies to be at peace with us, 
 or at least afraid to hurt or offend us. And in this we 
 have good reason to rest assured, since we do not find 
 many instances of clergymen, who live and labour, who 
 preach and visit as they ought to do, that are under any 
 eminent degrees of contempt : if some do despise those 
 that are faithful to their trust, yet they must do it 
 secretly ; they dare not shew it, as long as their deport- 
 ment procures them the esteem which we must confess 
 does generally follow true worth, and hearty labours in the 
 ministry. 
 
 These are things of such consequence, that it may seem 
 a consideration too full of ill nature, of emulation, and of 
 jealousy, if I should urge upon the clergy the divisions 
 
 * Mai. ii. 7, 8, 9. 
 
PREFACE XXXI 
 
 and separation that is formed among us ; though there is 
 a terrible word in the prophet, that belongs but too evi- 
 dently to this likewise : " The pastors are become brutish, 
 and have not sought the Lord ; therefore, they shall not 
 prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered*." If we 
 led such exemplary lives as became our character, if we 
 applied ourselves wholly to the duties of our profession, if 
 we studied to outlive and outlabour those that divide from 
 us ; we might hope, by the blessing of God, so far to over- 
 come their prejudices, and to gain both upon their esteem 
 and affections, that a very small matter might go a great 
 way towards the healing of those wounds which have so 
 long weakened and distracted us. Speculative arguments 
 do not reach the understandings of the greater part, who 
 are only capable of sensible ones : and the strongest rea- 
 sonings will not prevail, till we first force them to think 
 the better of our church for what they see in ourselves, 
 and make them wish to be of a communion in which they 
 see so much truth, and unaffected goodness and worth : 
 when they are once brought so far, it will be easy to com- 
 pass all the rest. If we did generally mind our duties, and 
 discharge them faithfully, this would prepare such as 
 mean well in their separation from us, to consider better 
 of the grounds on which they maintain it. And that 
 . will best enforce the arguments that we have to lay before 
 them. And as for such as divide from us with bad designs 
 and an unrelenting spite, they will have a small party, 
 and a feeble support, if there were no more occasion given 
 to work on the affections of the people by our errors and 
 disorders. 
 
 If, then, either the sense of the wrath of God, or the 
 
 * Jer. x. 21. 
 
XXX11 PREFACE. 
 
 desire of his favour and protection ; if zeal for our church 
 and country ; if a sense of the progress of atheism and 
 irreligion ; if the contempt that falls on us, and the injus- 
 tices that are daily done us ; if a desire to heal and unite, 
 to purify and perfect this our church ; if either the con- 
 cerns of this world, or of the next, can work upon us, and 
 affect us ; all these things concur to call on us, to apply 
 our utmost care and industry to raise the honour of our 
 holy profession, to walk worthy of it, to perform the en- 
 gagements that we came under at the altar, when we were 
 dedicated to the service of God and the church ; and in all 
 things both to adorn our religion and our church. 
 
 It is not our boasting that the church of England is the 
 best reformed and the best constituted church in the 
 world, that will signify much to convince others : we are 
 too much parties to be believed in our own cause. There 
 was a generation of men that cried, The temple of the 
 Lord ! the temple of the Lord ! as loud as we can cry, 
 The church of England ! the church of England ! when 
 yet by their sins they were pulling it down, and kindling 
 that fire which consumed it. It will have a better grace 
 to see others boast of our church, from what thay observe 
 in us, than for us to be crying it up with our words, when 
 our deeds do decry it. Our enemies will make severe in- 
 ferences from them ; and our pretensions will be thought 
 vain and impudent things, as long as our lives contradict 
 them. 
 
 It was on design to raise in myself, and in others, 
 a deep sense of the obligations that we lie under, of the 
 duties of our functions, of the extent of them, and of the 
 rewards that follow them; and to observe the proper me- 
 thods of performing them, so as they may be of the great- 
 est advantage both to ourselves and others, that I have 
 
PREFACE. XXX111 
 
 entered on these meditations. They have been for many 
 years the chief subjects of my thoughts : if few have writ 
 on them among us, yet we have St. Gregory Nazianzen's 
 Apologetic, St, Chrysostom's Books of the Priesthood, 
 Gregory the Great's Pastoral, and Bernard's Book of 
 Consideration, among the ancients : and a very great 
 number of excellent treatises, writ lately in France, upon 
 them. I began my studies in divinity with reading these, 
 and I never yet grew weary of them ; they raise so many 
 noble designs, they offer such schemes, and carry so much 
 of unction and life in them, that I hope an imperfect essay 
 this way may have some effect. For the Searcher of 
 hearts knows, I have no design in it, save this of stirring 
 up, in myself and other, the gift which was given by the 
 imposition of hands. 
 
PKEFACE 
 
 TO 
 THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 IT is above twenty years since this book was first pub- 
 lished by me ; and now that those who have a concern in | 
 it think fit to reprint it, I thought it became me to review 
 it carefully, to see if there was cause given to alter any 
 part of it, or to add any thing to it. 
 
 I wrote it when I was newly put into the post in which, 
 by the providence of God, I still am ; so that a longer 
 course of experience and observation may have brought 
 more things to my view than I could at that time reflect 
 on. 
 
 I own this is my favourite book : which, if it has raised 
 indignation in the minds of some, who are perhaps sensible 
 that many things in it touch them in too tender a part ; 
 yet, on the other hand, it has brought me such serious 
 acknowledgments from many persons, to me otherwise 
 unknown but by their letters, of the benefit they received by 
 it, that I humbly bless God who made me an instrument 
 in any sort of promoting his glory, and edifying his church, 
 by awakening the consciences of so many clergymen to a 
 better sense of their duty, and to more diligence in the 
 discharge of it. 
 
 I am now in the 70th year of my age ; and as I cannot 
 speak long to the world in any sort, so I cannot hope for 
 a more solemn occasion than this, of speaking with all due 
 
PREFACE. XXXV 
 
 freedom both to the present and to the succeeding ages : 
 therefore I lay hold on it to give a free vent to those sad 
 thoughts that lie on my mind both day and night, and are 
 the subject of many secret mournings. I dare appeal to 
 that God to whom the secrets of my heart are known, and 
 to whom I am shortly to give an account of my ministry, 
 that I have the true interests of this church ever before 
 my eyes, and that I pursue them with a sincere and fer- 
 vent zeal : if I am mistaken in the methods I follow, God, 
 to whom the integrity of my heart is known, will not lay 
 that to my charge. I cannot look on without the deepest 
 concern, when I see imminent ruin hanging over this 
 church, and by consequence over the whole reformation. 
 The outward state of things is black enough, God knows ; 
 but that \rhich heightens my fears rises chiefly from the 
 inward state into which we are unhappily fallen. I will, in 
 examining this, confine myself to that which is the subject 
 of the following book — I mean the clergy. 
 
 Our ember weeks are the burden and grief of my life. 
 The much greater part of those who come to be ordained 
 are ignorant to a degree not to be apprehended by those 
 who are not obliged to know it. The easiest part of know- 
 ledge is that to which they are the greatest strangers ; I 
 mean the plainest parts of the Scriptures, which they say, 
 in excuse of their ignorance, that their tutors in the uni- 
 versities never mention the reading of to them ; so that 
 they can give no account, or at least a very imperfect one, 
 of the contents even of the gospels. Those who have read 
 some few books, yet never seem to have read the Scrip- 
 tures. Many cannot give a tolerable account even of the 
 catechism itself, how short and plain soever. They cry, 
 and think it a sad disgrace to be denied orders, though the 
 ignorance of some is such, that, in a well-regulated state 
 
XXXVI PREFACE. 
 
 of things, they would appear not knowing enough to be 
 admitted to the holy sacrament. 
 
 This does often tear my heart. The case is not much 
 better in many, who having got into orders, come for 
 institution, and cannot make it appear that they have 
 read the Scriptures, or any one good book, since they 
 were ordained ; so that the small measure of knowledge 
 upon which they got into holy orders not being improved, 
 is in a way to be quite lost ; and then they think it a 
 great hardship if they are told, they must know the 
 Scriptures and the body of divinity better, before they can 
 be trusted with a care of souls. These things pierce 
 one's soul, and make him often cry out, " Oh that I had 
 wings like a dove, for then would 1 fly away and be at 
 rest V What are we like to grow to ? In what a case are 
 we, to deal with any adversary, atheist, papist, or dis- 
 senters, or in any sort to promote the honour of God, and 
 carry on the great concerns of the Gospel, when so gross 
 an ignorance in the fundamentals of religion has spread 
 itself so much among those who ought to teach others ; 
 and yet need that one teach them the first principles of 
 the oracles of God. 
 
 Politics and party eat out among us not only study 
 and learning, but that which is the only thing that is 
 more valuable, a true sense of religion, with a sincere 
 zeal in advancing that for which the Son of God both 
 lived and died, and to which those who are received 
 into holy orders have vowed to dedicate their lives and 
 labours. Clamours of scandal in any of the clergy are 
 not frequent, it is true ; and God be thanked for it : but a 
 remiss unthinking course of life, with little or no appli- 
 cation to study, and the bare performing of that which, 
 if not done, would draw censures when complained of, 
 
PREFACE. XXXVU 
 
 without ever pursuing the duties of the pastoral care in 
 any suitable degree, is but too common, as well as too evi- 
 dent. 
 
 But if there is too visible a coldness among us in that 
 which requires our greatest heat and zeal, there is a 
 great deal of flaming heat about matters in which more 
 gentleness and a milder temper would both look better, 
 and more effectually compass that which is designed by- 
 it : I mean the bringing the dissenters into our com- 
 munion. Bitter railings, and a rough behaviour, cannot 
 make many converts. To study the grounds of their 
 separation thoroughly, to answer them calmly and solidly, 
 and to treat their persons with all gentleness, expressing 
 no uneasiness at the liberty granted them by law, is a 
 method that will never fail of succeeding to a great 
 degree, especially on the rising generation. Other me- 
 thods do confirm their prejudices, and heighten their 
 aversion to those who treat them as enemies on design 
 to ruin them, and not as friends on design to gain 
 them. 
 
 God be thanked, we are delivered from a remnant of 
 popery that stuck too long to us, I mean persecution 
 for conscience sake ; for the breaches on a man's liberty 
 or goods are as really a persecution, as that which strikes 
 at his person. They may be in some instances more un- 
 easy, as a single death is not so formidable as to be forced 
 to live under great necessities, perhaps with a numerous 
 family. And if we judge of this matter by our Saviour's 
 rule, of doing to others what we would have others do to 
 us, our consciences would soon decide the question : if we 
 will but honestly ask ourselves, how we would have those 
 of another religion deal with us, if we were living in 
 countries where we must depart from the legal establish- 
 
 E 
 
XXXV111 PREFACE. 
 
 ment, if we do truly follow the dictates of our conscience. 
 But if our zeal in point of conformity seems too strong, 
 there is no great reason to suspect many of much zeal 
 with relation to popery, though that is our standing 
 enemy, perpetually employed in working our ruin, with 
 many hands and much heat ; while we seem to be in a 
 state of indolence and insensibility on that side, as if there 
 was no danger from thence. When at any time we are 
 in a fright, w T e are apt to cry out ; but that is no sooner 
 over, than we are in no apprehensions of any further danger. 
 And, to their great comfort, we have found out a new 
 division to add to those we laboured under before ; which 
 we know they managed very dexterously for their own 
 ends ; shifting sides as a turn was to be served by it : but 
 now the mine is more successfully played, since not only 
 the breach between us and dissenters is very artfully 
 widened, but we are unhappily broken among ourselves ; 
 and under the names of high and low church, there is a 
 new scene opened for jealousy and animosity, which has 
 been managed with such art and success, that bodies of 
 men, owning the same religion and worship, and the same 
 government both in temporals and spirituals, are yet as 
 much alienated from one another, if not more, than if their 
 differences were ever so great and visible. 
 
 I will say nothing that may justly provoke any; but 
 since I myself am ranked among the low churchmen, I will 
 open all that I know that is particular to them ; and then 
 leave it to others to judge what reason can be given for 
 entertaining such hard thoughts of them. 
 
 They are cordially and conscientiously zealous for the 
 church, as established by law; but yet they think no 
 human constitution is so perfect, but that it may be made 
 better, and that the church would be both more secure 
 
PREFACE. XXXIX 
 
 and more unexceptionable, if the administration of the 
 discipline were put into other hands, and in a better 
 method. They lay the foundation of all that they be- 
 lieve in the Christian religion in the Scriptures : these and 
 these only are the measures and standard of their faith. 
 No great names nor shews of authority overawe them ; 
 they search the Scriptures, there they seek and find their 
 faith. 
 
 They think that in matters declared to be indifferent, 
 no harm could follow on it, if some regard were had to the 
 scruples of those who divide from us, in order to the 
 fortifying the whole by uniting us among ourselves ; but 
 till that can be done, they think a kind deportment to- 
 wards dissenters softens their prejudices, and disposes 
 them to hearken to the reasons which they offer to them, 
 with all the force they can, but without the asperity of 
 words, or a contemptuous behaviour ; in which they have 
 succeeded so well, that they see no cause to change their 
 conduct. 
 
 They do indeed make a great difference between dis- 
 senters and papists : they consider the one as a handful 
 of people true to the protestant religion and to our na- 
 tional interests, not capable of doing us much mischief, 
 and who are, as far as appears to them, contented with 
 their toleration, and are only desirous to secure and main- 
 tain it. They have another and a very different opinion 
 of popery : they consider that church, not only with rela- 
 tion to the many opinions and practices held by them, 
 such as transubstantiation, purgatory, and the worship- 
 ping saints and images, and a great many more ; they are 
 persuaded that these are false and ill-grounded, but they 
 could easily bear with them, as they do with other errors : 
 but they consider popery as a conspiracy against the 
 
XI PBEFACE. 
 
 liberty and peace of mankind, on design to engross the 
 wealth of the world into their own hands ; and to destroy 
 all that stand in their way, sticking at no practice, 
 how false, base, or cruel soever, that .can advance this. 
 This is the true ground of their zeal against popery, 
 and indeed against every thing that has a tendency that 
 way. 
 
 The pretending to an independency of the church on 
 the state, is not only, in their opinion, a plain attack 
 made on the supremacy vested by law in the crown, and a 
 casting a disgrace on our reformers, and on every step 
 made in the reformation, which are openly owned by the 
 chief promoters of this new conceit; but it is a direct 
 opposition to the famed place, so much stretched by the 
 same persons to serve other purposes, in the xiiith of the 
 Romans, "Let every soul be subject to the higher pow- 
 ers;" in which all subjects are equally comprehended. The 
 laws of God are certainly of a superior obligation to any 
 human authority : but where these laws are silent, cer- 
 tainly all subjects, of what sort soever, are bound to obey 
 the laws of the land where they live. 
 
 The raising the power and authority of sacred functions 
 beyond what is founded on clear warrants in Scripture, is, 
 they think, the readiest way to give the world such a 
 jealousy of them, and such an aversion to them, as may 
 make them lose the authority that they ought to have 
 while they pretend to that they have not. 
 
 They dare not unchurch all the bodies of the protest- 
 ants beyond sea ; nor deny to our dissenters at home the 
 federal rights common to all Christians, or leave them to 
 uncovenanted mercy. They do not annul their baptisms, 
 or think that they ought to be baptized again in a more 
 regular manner, before they can be accounted Christians. 
 
PREFACE. xli 
 
 They know of no power in a priest to pardon sin, other 
 than the declaring the Gespel pardon, upon the conditions 
 on which it is offered. They know 7 of no sacrifice in the 
 eucharist, other than the commemorating that on the 
 cross, with the oblation of the prayers, praises, and alms- 
 giving, prescribed in the office. They are far from con- 
 demning private judgment in matters of religion : this 
 strikes at the root of the wiiole Reformation, which, 
 could never have been compassed, if private men have 
 not a right to judge for themselves : on the contrary, 
 they think every man is bound to judge for himself, 
 which indeed he ought to do in the fear of God, and with 
 all humility and caution. They look on all these notions 
 as steps towards popery : though they do not conclude, 
 that all those who have made them designed that by so 
 doing. 
 
 This is a short account of the low churchmen's notions, 
 with relation to matters of religion among us. As to our 
 temporal concerns, they think all that obedience and 
 submission that is settled by our laws, to the persons of 
 our princes, ought to be paid them, for conscience sake; 
 but if a misguided prince shall take on him to dissolve 
 our constitution, and to subject the laws to his pleasure, 
 they think that if God offers a remedy, it is to be received 
 with all thankfulness. For these reasons they rejoice in 
 the revolution, and continue faithful and true to the 
 settlement then made, and to the subsequent settlements. 
 They think there is a full power in the legislature to 
 settle the crown, and to secure the nations : and so they 
 have taken the oaths enjoined with a good conscience, 
 and with fixed resolutions of adhering firmly to them, 
 without any other views but such as the laws and the 
 oaths pursuant to therri do direct. They know of no 
 e3 
 
Xlii PREFACE. 
 
 unalterable or indefeasible right, but what is founded on 
 the law. 
 
 This is their fixed principles, and they are the more 
 fixed in this, when they remember that a prince educated 
 among us, and singularly obliged by the zeal our church 
 expressed for his advancement to the throne, upon which 
 he made great acknowledgments and promises, and who 
 by his temper seemed as much inclined to keep them as 
 his religion could admit of; yet upon his elevation did so 
 entirely forget all this, that he seemed peculiarly sharpened 
 against those who of all others had the least reason to have 
 expected it from him. 
 
 This was notorious and evident in the father : what then 
 can be expected from him who calls himself his son, who 
 has had his breeding in an absolute government, where 
 protestants are persecuted with an unrelenting cruelty, and 
 who has been obliged to wander so long beyond sea, and 
 stands attainted and abjured here, and is loaded with other 
 indignities, but that as his religion is still the same cruel 
 and bloody conspiracy against protestants that it was, so it 
 must have its full swing in one sharpened by so much pro- 
 vocation ? 
 
 It betrays a monstrous ignorance of the principles and 
 maxims, as well as of the history of popery, to imagine 
 that they can ever depart from the design of extirpating 
 heretics settled by so much authority, held sacred by them. 
 Every look in the low churchman towards a popish pre- 
 tender is to him both perjury and treason. 
 
 I have thus freely opened all that I know of the prin- 
 ciples of those called the low churchmen among us. I 
 will not pretend to tell what are the principles^ of those 
 called the high churchmen : I know them too little to 
 pretend to tell what their maxims and views are. I will 
 
PREFACE. Xliil 
 
 with great joy own my mistakes and misapprehensions of 
 any of them, who, upon this candid avowing what the low 
 churchmen hold, will come to have juster and more chari- 
 table thoughts of them j and upon that will concur with 
 them in such measures and counsels as may yet give us 
 some hope, if that is not now too late, or may be at least 
 an abatement of our misery, if not a reprieve from it. I 
 unwillingly mention a long disappointing among us as to 
 convocation matters. 
 
 I will avoid saying any thing that may give a new 
 irritation, my design being to do all 1 can to heal our 
 breaches. I will not enter into the merits of the cause 
 further, than to observe that the bishops have begun no 
 new practices, but go in the steps in which their prede- 
 cessors went, without varying from their practices in a 
 tittle : they find themselves bound down to the methods 
 they adhere to, by such a series of precedents, that unless 
 the legislature interposes, they think they cannot alter 
 them. They have made no new attempts, nor have they 
 invaded any rights of which they found the clergy in 
 possession. And what is there in all this to occasion such 
 tragical outcries; and to engage so many of the bodies of 
 the clergy into jealousies of their bishops, and into com- 
 binations against them, as if they were betraying the 
 church and its liberties ? 
 
 'Tis true, many of us opposed the occasional bill, from 
 which such great things were expected. We thought 
 there were ill designs under it ; we thought it ill-timed ; 
 we looked on it as tending to a breach on the toleration : 
 and now that the bill is past without any opposition, we 
 hear of no great effects it has had ; nor are jealousies 
 extinguished : the chief promoters of it are scarce thanked 
 for it. But since we are so openly attacked, and, as it 
 
xliv 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 were, exposed to the insults and fury of distracted multi- 
 tudes, we may be pardoned if we venture on somewhat 
 like an imitation of what the great apostle writ upon a 
 like occasion, calling it indeed a folly, for it will pass for 
 such with inveterate and inflamed spirits. What have 
 other bishops done to express their zeal for the church, 
 and their fidelity to their vows and to what became their 
 character and station, that we have not done ? Have we 
 not lived so that we may say, Ye are witnesses ? and, 
 which is more, God also, how holily, justly, and unblame- 
 ably we have behaved ourselves among you ? How ready 
 have we been preaching, in season and out of season, 
 opening the whole counsels of God to the flock committed 
 to our charge ! How careful are we in examining and 
 instructing those who come to us for orders and institu- 
 tions ! How frequent in confirming, and in the other 
 duties belonging to our function ! So that we may say, 
 What have we done, or what have we left undone, to 
 merit the unkind returns we meet with? What reason 
 have we given to the world, by our manner of living, to 
 think we had our posts only for the advantages we reap 
 by them, and that we do it even against our consciences, 
 and are only waiting an opportunity to betray them ? 
 
 This is such a pitch both of impiety and baseness, that 
 few of the worst sort of libertines are capable of it ; and 
 yet how oft have we been charged with it ! If this had 
 come only from the enemies of our present constitution, 
 on design to destroy the reputation to which we hope we 
 have some right, it was what we might expect from 
 active and indigent writers, who are looking for another 
 face of things, hoping then to be enriched by our spoils. 
 But that those who have taken all the oaths enjoined by 
 law, and who daily concur in all the public devotions, 
 
PREFACE. Xlv 
 
 should entertain and spread such calumnies, and act as 
 the under- workmen to those who seek our ruin, is that 
 which deserves the severest censures. 
 
 Great regard is indeed due to such as avow their prin- 
 ciples, and act according to them ; especially when they 
 are losers and sufferers by it : even their passions and 
 frailties are to be lamented and gently censured. But the 
 impiety of men's taking oaths against their consciences, 
 and, in hope to compensate for that, their acting contrary 
 to them, is of so monstrous a nature, that our language 
 does not afford words black enough to set out its de- 
 formity. 
 
 We are soon to go off the stage, to a region of peace 
 and love, where malice and envy cannot follow us. He 
 to whom our integrity is known, will pardon all our 
 frailties, and even all our omissions, and will deal with us 
 according to our sincere endeavours ; from whose hands 
 we may expect to receive the more entire reward, the less 
 of it that we receive from men. 
 
 Our late blessed primate was persecuted by malice 
 to the grave ; and that has followed him ever since he 
 was laid in the dust. His great concern at those black 
 efforts of malice that he was pursued with, was, because 
 he saw they stood in the way to defeat all the good de- 
 signs with which his mind laboured. It is true, that 
 retirement to which his high post led him, he never em- 
 barking in designs that he thought foreign to it, gave 
 him leisure to review and retouch the noblest body of 
 sermons that, I hope I may be allowed to say, this nation 
 or the world ever saw; which I mention the rather here, 
 because they have been published since this book was 
 first printed. 
 
 His chief support, next to his own conscience, and his 
 
Xlvi PREFACE. 
 
 confidence in God, was from our late blessed queen, who 
 was incessantly employed in possessing her mind with the 
 best schemes that were either laid before her by others, or 
 suggested to her by her own royal heart, for correcting 
 every thing that was amiss, and improving every thing 
 that wanted finishing among us. And she was waiting for 
 a happy peace to set about the executing them : she had 
 arrived at such a superior degree of knowledge, and had 
 such a force of reasoning with an irresistible sweetness of 
 temper, that if our sins had not provoked God to blast all 
 those hopes by her early admission to a better crown, we 
 might, have seen a glorious face put on our church with 
 relation to all its concerns. 
 
 I am in some sort obliged to mention her, because I writ 
 this book by her order, as well as by our primate's, as an 
 attempt to prepare the scene to many noble designs, which 
 may be opened at some time or other, if ever we are so 
 happy as to endeavour to carry on our constitution to per- 
 fection ; which, in our present distracted, if not desperate 
 state, is far out of view, and therefore must be reserved to 
 a more proper occasion. 
 
 But to return to the sad view of our distractions at 
 home : the bishops who find themselves so unjustly cen- 
 sured, and their designs so unhappily obstructed, ought to 
 humble themselves before God ; for it is meet to be said 
 to him, I have borne chastisement; that which I know 
 not, teach thou me. They ought to examine and consider 
 how far their other sins may have provoked God to deny 
 his blessing to their best endeavours ; they ought to ask 
 themselves, what have they done to render them un- 
 worthy to build up the house of God, and to repair its 
 breaches : they ought to mourn in secret, both for their 
 own sins, and for the sins of those who set themselves 
 
PREFACE. xlvii 
 
 against them. They ought to search and try their own 
 hearts, to find out if their pride or vanity, their love of 
 ease and pleasure, or any other secret sin, is at root, and 
 defeats all their labours ; they ought to pray more earn- 
 estly both for themselves and their families, for their clergy 
 and their people; and in so doing they may hope either to 
 draw down a blessing from heaven on all that they set 
 about, or at least that their prayers shall return into their 
 own bosom. 
 
 They ought also to cry mightily to God, that if they 
 are to have a share in the fiery trial, they may be so 
 strengthened in the inner man, that they may by no unbe- 
 coming practices decline or avoid it ; but may rejoice if 
 they are called to suffer for the name of Christ, and to 
 seal that doctrine, which they have so long preached, with 
 their blood ; and so may glorify him by their patient con- 
 tinuance in well-doing", till they receive their crown. This 
 will be, through the blessing of God, an effectual means, 
 either to dissipate the clouds that seem to gather, and are 
 ready to break out into a storm and horrible tempest, or 
 to procure such a measure of Divine assistances to them in 
 their sufferings, as may make their blood a seed for a no- 
 ble spring of a better state of things among us. If with 
 bishops so employing their time, many both of their clergy 
 and laity did concur in lying in the dust before God, and 
 turning to him with their whole hearts, we might hope to 
 see better times than we have now in view. God has 
 often delivered us, when we were near the last extremi- 
 ties ; we have seen in our own time such a chain of kind 
 providences happily interposing, when we saw no reason- 
 able prospect, that we ought not to give all or lost, how 
 dark soever the face of things may look, if we bring our- 
 
Xlviii PREFACE. 
 
 selves to such a state, that we may have still a right to 
 hope for the like protection. 
 
 It cannot be denied but the appearance is formidable, 
 when we see that prince who has engaged the longest and 
 the deepest in the design of extirpating our religion, get 
 out of all his troubles, and accomplish his vast designs, 
 that seemed once to be so blasted that they could not be 
 retrieved ; another scene is now opening to him that pro- 
 mises all he can wish for, and must bring such an accu- 
 mulation of power and treasure to him, that, humanly 
 speaking, nothing can stand in his way. When a great al- 
 liance is once quite dissolved, and when a word so often 
 broken, and edicts so often violated, are trusted to and re- 
 lied on ; such an unexpected turn will no doubt be con- 
 strued as a reward from heaven for his zeal against heresy; 
 and may very probably encourage him to finish what he 
 has done at home, by bringing us under the same cala- 
 mity. 
 
 We know what engagement he lies under to a dying 
 prince ; but we cannot know how far his bigotry may even 
 outdo these, when he finds himself at the height of power 
 and wealth that he is almost possessed of : promises 
 and oaths can work but feebly on one so accustomed to 
 break through them. 
 
 When not only dispensations, but solicitations from 
 Rome, with the practices of a confessor, the view of that 
 glory that the work must bring him on earth, with the 
 imaginary view of a more eternal w T eight of glory in hea- 
 ven, concur ; what may not be apprehended from thence ? 
 Chiefly when such of that religion, whose interests obliged 
 them hitherto to join in preserving us, seeing these all 
 abandoned and blasted, may either be at best indifferent 
 
PREFACE. xlix 
 
 spectators, or the bigotry that surrounds them may be 
 quickened, by a desire of revenging what they will call the 
 giving them up, to concur in completing our ruin ; which 
 in such a state of things cannot reasonably be thought to 
 be far from us. Besides, if an avowed departing from the 
 sacred ties of treaties and alliances is once openly practised, 
 it may prove a fatal precedent. Such maxims are catching 
 and contagious. The woe denounced by the prophet against 
 those that deal treacherously when they are not dealt 
 treacherously with, that when they shall make an end to 
 deal treacherously they shall be dealt treacherously with, 
 may come heavily, with a face of retribution, and without 
 pity. 
 
 Upon the whole matter, that I may bring this discourse 
 to a conclusion ; as our disunion does not only weaken 
 us, but diverts us from that which ought to be our main 
 concern, to the unhappy consequences that follow formed 
 parties ; so if we will not take warning from our Saviour's 
 words, " That a city or kingdom divided against itself 
 cannot stand, but must come to an end ;" we have reason 
 to apprehend that such a breach, even without the advan- 
 tage that an enemy may make of it, will be fatal; while, 
 by our devouring one another, we may come to be con- 
 sumed of one another : but how much more certain will 
 this be, if we have a watchful and powerful enemy so near 
 us, to whom we may justly apply the character given 
 of the evil spirit, that he " goes about as a roaring lion, 
 seeking whom he may devour." But even our union, 
 though it may fortify us in the methods of human policy, 
 yet it will not signify much, unless we do unite in order 
 to our applying ourselves to the great duties of our pro- 
 fession, so as to secure the favour and protection of Hea- 
 ven. We ought not to hope that if we continue still in 
 
 F 
 
1 PREFACE. 
 
 our sins, and in our security, saying with the Jews, The 
 temple of the Lord ! the temple of the Lord ! or in the mo- 
 dern style, The church ! the church 1 we shall not at last 
 fall under the severest of all judgments, denounced by St. 
 Paul against the unbelieving Jews, in the words of Isaiah : 
 " Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and 
 shall not understand) and seeing ye shall see, and shall 
 not perceive ; for the heart of this people is waxed gross, 
 and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they 
 closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with 
 their ears, and understand with their hearts, and should be 
 converted, and I should heal them," 
 
 To avert all this, let us, the priests, and ministers of the 
 Lord, weep before him, and say, " Spare thy people, O 
 Lorol, and give not thy heritage to reproach, that the hea- 
 then (or idolaters) should rule over them. Wherefore 
 should they say among the people, Where is their God," 
 where is their Church, where is their Reformation ? In 
 these exercises I desire to employ many of my own hours ; 
 and to these I invite all who have a true zeal for God and 
 his Church. 
 
 GIL. SARU1VL 
 Salisbury, 15th of 
 
 November, 1712. 
 
OF 
 
 THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 OF THE DIGNITY OF SACRED EMPLOYMENTS, AND 
 
 THE NAMES AND DESIGNATIONS GIVEN TO THEM 
 IN SCRIPTURE. 
 
 HOW low soever the esteem of the clergy may 
 he sunk in a profane and corrupt age, and how 
 much soever the errors and disorders of clergymen 
 may have contributed to bring this, not only upon 
 themselves, but upon others who deserve better, 
 but are unhappy in being mixed with so much ill 
 company : yet certainly, if we either consider the 
 nature of things in themselves, or the value that 
 is set on that profession, in the Scriptures, it will 
 appear that it ought to be considered at another 
 rate than it is. As much as the soul is better than 
 the body, and as much as the purifying and per- 
 fecting the soul is preferable to all those mechani- 
 cal employments which relate to the body, and as 
 much as eternity is more valuable than this short 
 and transitory life ; so much does this employ- 
 ment excel all others. 
 
 f 2 
 
52 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 A clergyman, by his character and design of life, 
 ought to be a man separated from the cares and 
 concerns of this world, and dedicated to the study 
 and meditation of divine matters : whose conver- 
 sation ought to be a pattern for others ; a constant 
 preaching to his people ; who ought to offer up the 
 prayers of the people in their name, and as their 
 mouth to God : who ought to be praying and in- 
 terceding for them in secret, as well as officiating 
 among them in public : who ought to be distribut- 
 ing among them the bread of life, the word of God ; 
 and to be dispensing among them the sacred rites, 
 which are the badges, the union, and the supports 
 of Christians. He ought to admonish, to reprove, 
 and to comfort them, not only by his general doc- 
 trine in his sermons, but from house to house ; that 
 so he may do these things more home and effectu- 
 ally than can be done from the pulpit. He is to 
 watch over their souls, to keep them from error, 
 and to alarm them out of their sins, by giving 
 them warning of the judgments of God ; to visit 
 the sick, and to prepare them for the judgment 
 and life to come. 
 
 This is the function of a clergyman; who, that 
 he may perform all these duties with more advan- 
 tage and better effect, ought to behave himself so 
 well, that his own conversation may not only be 
 without offence, but be so exemplary, that his peo- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 53 
 
 pie may have reason to conclude, that he himself 
 does firmly believe all those things which he pro- 
 poses to them ; that he thinks himself bound to 
 follow all those rules that he sets them ; and that 
 they may see such a serious spirit of devotion in 
 him, that from thence they may be induced to be- 
 lieve, that his chief design among them is to do 
 them good, and to save their souls ; which may 
 prepare them so to esteem and love him, that they 
 may not be prejudiced against any thing that he 
 does and says in public, by any thing that they 
 observe in himself in secret. He must also be em- 
 ploying himself so well in his private studies, that 
 from thence he may be furnished with such a va- 
 riety of lively thoughts, divine meditations, and 
 proper and noble expressions, as may enable him 
 to discharge every part of his duty in such a man- 
 * ner, as may raise not so much his own reputation, 
 as-the credit of his function, and of the great mes- 
 sage of reconciliation that is committed to his 
 charge. Above all studies, he ought to apply him- 
 self to understand the holy Scriptures aright; to 
 have his memory well furnished that way, that so 
 upon all occasions he may be able to enforce what 
 he says out of them, and so be an able minister of 
 the New Testament. 
 
 This is in short the character of a true clergy- 
 man, which is to be more fully opened and enlarged 
 f3 
 
54 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 on in the following parts of this book. All this 
 looks so great and so noble, that it does not appear 
 necessary to raise it, or to insist on it more fully. 
 Indeed it speaks its own dignity so sensibly, that 
 none will dispute it but such as are open enemies 
 to all religion in general, or to the Christian reli- 
 gion in particular ; and yet even few of these are 
 so entirely corrupted as not to wish that external 
 order and policy were kept up among men, for re- 
 straining the injustice and violence of unruly appe- 
 tites and passions; which few, even of the tribe of 
 the libertines, seem to desire to be let loose ; since 
 the peace and safety of mankind require that 
 the world be kept in method, and under some 
 yoke. 
 
 It will be more suitable to my design, to shew 
 how well this character agrees with that which is 
 laid down in the Scriptures concerning these of- 
 fices. I shall begin first with the names, and then 
 go on to the descriptions, and lastly proceed to the 
 rules that we find in them. 
 
 The name of deacon, that is now appropriated 
 to the lowest office in the church, was, in the time 
 that the New Testament was writ, used more 
 promiscuously : for the apostles, the evangelists, 
 and those whom the apostles sent to visit the 
 churches, are all called by this name. Generally 
 in all those places where the word minister is in 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 55 
 
 our translation, it is deacon in the Greek, which 
 signifies properly a servant, or one who labours 
 for another. Such persons are dedicated to the 
 immediate sendee of God, and are appropriated 
 to the offices and duties of the church ; so this 
 term both expresses the dignity and the labour of 
 the employment. 
 
 The next order carries now the name of presby- 
 ter, or elder, which, though at first it was applied 
 not only to bishops, but to the apostles themselves, 
 yet in the succeeding ages it came to be appropri- 
 ated to the second rank of the officers in the 
 church. It either signifies a seniority of age, or 
 of Christianity, in opposition to a neophite or no- 
 vice, one newly converted to the faith ; but by 
 common practice, as senate or senator, being at 
 first given to counsellors by reason of their age, 
 came afterwards to be a title appropriated to them, 
 so the title presbyter (altered in pronunciation to 
 be in English, priest) or elder, being a character 
 of respect, denotes the dignity of those to whom it 
 belongs : but since St. Paul divides this title 
 either into two different ranks, or into two dif- 
 ferent performances of the duties of the same 
 rank, " those that rule well/' and " those that la- 
 bour in word and doctrine* ;" this is a title that 
 
 * 1 Tim. v, 17. 
 
56 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 speaks both the dignity and likewise the duty be- 
 longing to this function. 
 
 The title which is now by the custom of many 
 ages given to the highest function in the church, 
 of bishop, or inspector, and overseer, as it imports 
 a dignity in him, as the chief of those who labour* 
 so it does likewise express his obligation to care 
 and diligence, both in observing and overseeing 
 the whole flock, and more especially in inspecting 
 the deportment and labours of his fellow- workmen, 
 w r ho are subordinate to him in the constitution of 
 the church, yet ought to be esteemed by him, in 
 imitation of the apostles, his brethren, his fellow- 
 labourers, and fellow-servants. Next to the names 
 of the sacred functions, I shall consider the other 
 designations and figures made use of to express 
 them. 
 
 The most common is that of pastor, or shepherd. 
 It is to be remembered, that in the first simplicity 
 of mankind for many ages, men looked after their 
 own cattle, or employed their children in it ; and 
 when they trusted that care to any other, it was 
 no small sign of their confidence, according to 
 what Jacob said to Laban. The care of a good 
 shepherd was a figure then so well understood, 
 that the prophet expresses God's care of his peo- 
 ple, by this, of " his feeding them as a shepherd* 
 carrying his lambs in his bosom, and gently lead- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 57 
 
 ing them that were with young*." Christ also 
 calls himself " the good shepherd, that knew his 
 sheep, and did not, as a hireling, fly away when 
 the wolf came, but laid down his life for his 
 sheepf." This then being so often made use of in 
 both Testaments, is an expression of the great 
 trust committed to the clergy, which likewise sup- 
 poses a great, a constant, and a tender care in 
 looking to, in feeding or instructing, in watching 
 over, and guarding the flock against errors and 
 sins, and their being ready to offer themselves to 
 the first fury of persecution. 
 
 The title of stewards, or dispensers, which is the 
 most honourable in a household, is also given to 
 them. These assign to every one his due share, 
 both of labour and of provision ; these watch over 
 them, and have the care and order of the other 
 servants assigned to them. So in this great family 
 of which Christ is the headj, the stewards are not 
 only in a post of great dignity, but also of much 
 labour. They ought to be observing the rest of 
 this household, that they may be faithful in the 
 distribution, and so encourage, admonish, reprove, 
 or censure, as there is occasion for it. 
 
 They are also called ambassadors, and this upon 
 the noblest and most desirable message ; for their 
 
 * Isa. xl. 11. f John x. IK J 1 Cor. iv. 1, 2. 
 
58 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 business is to treat of peace between God and 
 man' 1 ' : to them is given the word or doctrine of 
 reconciliation; they are sent by Christ, and do 
 speak in God's name, as if God did beseech men 
 by them ; so do they in Christ's stead, who is the 
 Mediator, press men to be reconciled to God — 
 words of a very high sound, of great trust and 
 dignity, but which import likewise great obliga- 
 tions. An ambassador is very solicitous to main- 
 tain the dignity of his character, and his master's 
 honour, and chiefly to carry on that which is the 
 main business that he is sent upon, which he is 
 always contriving how to promote : so if the 
 honour of this title affects us as it ought to do, 
 with a just value for it, we ought at the same time 
 to consider the obligations that accompany it, of 
 living suitable to it, answering in some sort the 
 dignity and majesty of the King of kings, that has 
 committed it to us, and of labouring, with all pos- 
 sible diligence, to effectuate the great design on 
 which we are sent, the reconciling sinners to 
 God : the work having in itself a proportion to the 
 dignity of him, that employs us in it. 
 
 Another, and yet a more glorious title, is that of 
 angels, who, as they are of a pure and sublime 
 nature, and are called a flaming firef, so they do 
 
 * 2 Cor. v. 19, 20. f &ev. ii. 3. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 59 
 
 always behold the face of our heavenly Father, and 
 ever do his will* ; and are also ministering spirits, 
 sent forth to minister to them that are appointed 
 to be the heirs of salvation. This title is given to 
 bishops and pastors ; and as if that was not 
 enough, they are in one place called not only the 
 messengers or angels of the churches, but also the 
 glory of Christ. The natural importance of this 
 is, that men to whom this title is applied ought to 
 imitate those heavenly powers, in the elevation of 
 their souls, to contemplate the works and glory of 
 God, and in their constant doing his will, more 
 particularly in ministering to the souls of those for 
 whom the great Angel of the covenant made him- 
 self a sacrifice. 
 
 I do not among these titles reckon those of rulers 
 or governors!, that are also given to bishops, be- 
 cause they seem to be but another name for 
 bishops, whose inspection was a rule and govern- 
 ment, and so carried in its signification both autho- 
 rity and labour. To these designations, that carry 
 in them characters of honour, but of honour joined 
 to labour ; and for the sake of which the honour 
 was due, according to that, " esteem them very 
 highly for their work's sake :" I shall add some 
 other designations, that in their significations carry 
 
 * 2 Cor. viii. 23. f Heb. ii. 7. 
 
60 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 only labour without honour, being borrowed from 
 labours that are hard, but no way honourable. 
 
 They are often called watchmen*, who used to 
 stand on high towers, and were to give the alarm 
 as they saw occasion for it: these men were 
 obliged to a constant attendance to watch, in the 
 night as well as in the day : so all this being ap- 
 plied to the clergy, imports that they ought to be 
 upon their watch-tower, observing what dangers 
 their people are exposed to, either by their sins, 
 which provoke the judgments of God, or by the 
 designs of their enemies. They ought not, by a 
 false respect, to suffer them to sleep and perish 
 in their sins ; but must denounce the judgments 
 of God to them, and rather incur their displeasure 
 by their freedom, than suffer them to perish in 
 their security. 
 
 St. Paul does also call churchmen by the name 
 of builders, and gives to the apostles the title of 
 master-buildersf : this imports both hard and pain- 
 ful labour, and likewise great care and exactness 
 in it, for want of which the building will be not 
 only exposed to the injuries of weather, but will 
 quickly tumble down; and it gives us to under- 
 stand, that those who carry this title ought to 
 study well the great rule by which they must 
 
 * Ezek. iii. 17, t 1 Cor. iii. 10. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 61 
 
 carry on the interest of religion, that so they may 
 •' build up their people in their most holy faith, " 
 so as to be "a building fitly framed together." 
 
 They are also called labourers in God's hus- 
 bandry*, labourers in his vineyard, and harvestf, 
 who are to sow, plant, and water, and to cultivate 
 the soil of the church J. This imports a continual 
 return of daily and hard labour, which requires 
 both pain and diligence [|. They are also called 
 soldiers, men that did war and fight against the 
 powers of darkness§. The fatigue, the dangers, 
 and difficulties of that state of life, are so well 
 understood, that no application is necessary to 
 make them more sensible. 
 
 And thus, by a particular enumeration of either 
 the more special names of these offices, such as 
 deacon, priest and bishop, ruler and governor, or 
 of the designations given to them, of shepherds, or 
 pastors, stewards, ambassadors, and angels, it ap- 
 pears that there is a great dignity belonging to 
 them, but a dignity which must carry labour with 
 it, as that for which the honour is due. The other 
 titles, of watchmen, builders, labourers, and sol- 
 diers, import also that they are to decline no part 
 of their duty, for the labour that is in it, the 
 
 * 1 Cor. iii. 9. f Matt. xx. 1. t Matt. ix. 37, 38. 
 H 1 Cor. iii. 6. § Philip, ii. 25. 
 
 G 
 
62 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 dangers that may follow, or the seeming meanness 
 that may be in it, since we have for this so great 
 a rule and pattern set us by our Saviour, who has 
 given us this character of himself, and in that a 
 rule to all that pretend to come after him. "The 
 Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but 
 to minister *." This was said upon the proud con- 
 tentions that had been among his disciples, who 
 should be the greatest ; two of them presuming 
 upon their near relation to him, and pretending to 
 the first dignity in his kingdom t upon that he 
 gave them to understand that the dignities of his 
 kingdom were not to be of the same nature with 
 those that were in the world. It was not rule or 
 empire to which they were to pretend : " the dis- 
 ciple was not to be above his Lord :" and he that 
 humbled himself to the last and lowest in his ser- 
 vice, was by so doing really the first. 
 
 He himself descended to the " washing his dis- 
 ciples' feetf," which he proposeth to their imita- 
 tion ; and that came in latter ages to be taken up 
 by princes, and acted by them in pageantry : but 
 the plain account of that action is, that it was a 
 prophetical emblem ; of which sort we find several 
 instances, both in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel ; 
 the prophet doing somewhat that had a mystical 
 
 * Matth. xx. 28. + John, xiii. 5. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 63 
 
 signification in it, relating to the subject of his 
 prophecy : so that our Saviour's washing the feet 
 of his disciples imported the humility, and the de- 
 scending to the meanest offices of charity, which 
 he recommended to his followers, particularly to 
 those whom he appointed to preach his Gospel to 
 the world. 
 
 CHAP. IL 
 
 OF THE RULES SET DOWN IN SCRIPTURE FOR 
 THOSE THAT MINISTER IN HOLY THINGS; AND 
 OF THE CORRUPTIONS THAT ARE SET FORTH 
 IN THEM. 
 
 I intend to write with all possible simplicity 
 without the affectations of a strictness of method : 
 and therefore I will give one full view of this 
 whole matter, without any other order than as it 
 lies in the Scriptures ; and will lay both the rules 
 and the reproofs that are in them together, as 
 things that give light to one another. In the law 
 of Moses* we find many very particular rules 
 given for the washing and consecration of the 
 priests and Levites, chiefly of the holy priest. 
 
 * Levit. viii. 
 g 2 
 
64 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 The whole tribe of Levi was sanctified, and sepa- 
 rated from the common labours either of war or 
 tillage ; and though they were but one in twelve, 
 yet a tenth of all was appointed for them : they 
 were also to have a large share of another tenth ; 
 that so they might be not only delivered from all 
 cares by that large provision that was made for 
 them, but might be able to relieve the necessities 
 of the widows and fatherless, the poor and the 
 strangers that sojourned among them, and by their 
 bounty and charity be possessed both of the love 
 and esteem of the people. They were " holy to 
 the Lord ;" they were said to be sanctified or 
 dedicated to God : and the head of their order 
 carried on his mitre this inscription, " Holiness to 
 the Lord." The many washings that they were 
 often to use, chiefly in doing their functions, car- 
 ried this signification in them, that they were 
 appropriated to God, and that they were under 
 very strict obligations to a high degree of purity. 
 They might not so much as mourn for their dead 
 relations, to shew how far they ought to rise 
 above all the concerns of flesh and blood*, and 
 even the most excusable passions of human nature. 
 But, above all things, these rules taught them, 
 with what exactness, decency, and purity they 
 
 * Levit. xxi. 1. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 65 
 
 ought to perform those offices that belonged to 
 their functions* ; and therefore, when Aaron's two 
 sons, Nadab and Abihu, transgressed the law that 
 God had given, " fire came out from the Lord, and 
 devoured themf ;" and the reason given for it car- 
 ries in it a perpetual rule : ** I will be sanctified in 
 all them that draw near to me, and before all the 
 people I will be glorifiedj :" which import, that 
 such as minister in holy things ought to behave 
 themselves so, that God's name may be glorified 
 by their means : otherwise, that God will glorify 
 himself by his severe judgments on them : a signal 
 instance of which we do also find in Eli's two sons||, 
 whose impieties and defilements, as they made the 
 people to abhor the offering of the Lord, so they 
 also drew down, not only heavy judgments on 
 themselves, but on the whole house of Eli, and in- 
 deed on the whole nation. 
 
 But besides the attendance which the priests and 
 Levites were bound to give at the temple, and on 
 the public service there, they were likewise obliged 
 to study the law, to give the people warning out of 
 it, to instruct them in it, and to conduct them, and 
 watch over them : and for this reason they had 
 cities assigned them in all the corners of the land. 
 
 * Levit. xxii. 3, 4. f Levit. x. 1. % Ver. 3. 
 
 || 1 Sam. ii. iii. 
 
 g3 
 
66 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 that so they might both more easily observe the 
 manners of the people, and that the people might 
 more easily have recourse to them. Now when 
 that nation became corrupted both by idolatry and 
 immorality, God raised up prophets to be extraor- 
 dinary monitors to them, to declare to them their 
 sins, and to denounce those judgments which were 
 coming upon them, because of them : we find the 
 silence, the ignorance, and the corruption of their 
 pastors, their shepherds, and their watchmen, is a 
 main article of their charge ; so Isaiah tells them, 
 that their " watchmen were blind, ignorant, dumb 
 dogs, that could not bark; sleeping, lying down, 
 and loving to slumber* :" yet these careless watch- 
 men were covetous and insatiable : " they were 
 greedy dogs, which could never have enough ; shep- 
 herds they were that could not understand ;" but 
 how remiss soever they might be in God's work, 
 they were careful enough of their own : " they all 
 looked to their own way, every one to his own 
 gain from his quarter." They were, no doubt, ex- 
 act in levying their tithes and first-fruits, how little 
 soever they might do for them, bating their bare 
 attendance at the temple to officiate there ; so 
 guilty they were of that reigning abuse, of think- 
 ing they had done their duty, if they, either by 
 
 * Is. lvi. 10. 
 
 
OF THE l'ASTORAL CAKB. 67 
 
 themselves or by proxy, had performed their func- 
 tions, without minding what was incumbent on 
 them, as watchmen or shepherds. In opposition to 
 such careless and corrupt guides, God promises to 
 his people, " to set watchmen over them that 
 should never hold their peace day or night." 
 
 As the captivity drew nearer, we may easily 
 conclude that the corruptions both of priest and 
 people increased, which ripened them for the judg- 
 ments of God, that were kept back by the reforma- 
 tions which Hezekiah and Josiah had made : but at 
 last all was so depraved, that though God sent two 
 prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, to prepare them 
 for that terrible calamity, yet this was only to save 
 some few among them ; for the sins of the nation 
 were grown to that height, that though Moses and 
 Samuel, Noah, Job, and Daniel*, had been then 
 alive to intercede for them, yet God declared that 
 he would not hear them, nor spare the nation for 
 their sakes ; so that even such mighty intercessors 
 could only save their own souls. In this deplora- 
 ble state we shall find that their priests and pastors 
 had their large share. " The priests said not, 
 Where is the Lord ? They that handled the law 
 knew me not, the pastors also transgressed against 
 mef ;" and their corruption went so far, that they 
 
 * Jer. v. 2. Ezek. xiv. 14. t Jer. ii. 8. 
 
es 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 had not only false prophets to support them, but 
 the people, who, how bad soever they may be 
 themselves, do generally hate evil priests, grew to 
 be pleased with it. " The prophets prophesy falsely ; 
 and the priests bear rule by their means : and my 
 people love to have it so ; from the prophet even 
 to the priest, every one dealt falsely*." And upon 
 that a " woe is denounced against the pastors that 
 destroyed and scattered the sheep of God's pas- 
 turef." They by their office ought to have fed the 
 people ; but instead of that, " they had scattered 
 the flock, and driven them . away, and had not 
 visited them. Both prophet and priest were pro- 
 fane ; their wickedness was found even in the 
 house of God." In opposition to all which, God 
 promises by the prophet, that he would set " shep- 
 herds over them, that should feed them ; so that 
 the people should have no more reason to be afraid 
 of their pastors^," or of being misled by them ; and 
 he promised, upon their return from the captivity, 
 to " give them pastors according to his own heart, 
 who should feed them with knowledge and under- 
 standing||." 
 
 In Ezekiel we find the solemn and severe charge 
 given to watchmen twice repeated ; that they 
 
 * Jer. v. 31. vi. 13. f Jer. xxiii. 1. 
 
 J Jer. xxiii. 4. || Jer. iii. 15. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 69 
 
 I ' ought to warn the wicked from his wickedness ; 
 otherwise, though he should indeed die in his sin, 
 God would require his blood at the watchman's 
 hand : but if he gave warning, he had by so doing 
 delivered his own soul*." In that prophecy we 
 have the guilt of the priests set forth very hein- 
 ously. " Her priests have violated my law, and 
 profaned my holy things ; they have put no differ- 
 ence between the holy and profane, the clean and 
 the unclean ; and have hid their eyes from my 
 sabbathsf ;" the effect of which was, that " God 
 was profaned among them." This is more fully 
 prosecuted in the xxxivth chap, which is all ad- 
 dressed to the shepherds of Israel : " Woe be to 
 the shepherds of Israel, that do feed themselves ! 
 should not the shepherds feed the flockj ? Ye eat 
 the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool; ye kill 
 them that are fed, but ye feed not the flock||." Then 
 follows an enumeration of the several sorts of trou- 
 bles that the people were in, under the figure of a 
 flock, to shew how they had neglected their duty, 
 in all the parts and instances of it : and had trusted 
 to their authority, which they had abused to ty- 
 ranny and violence : " The diseased have ye not 
 strengthened, neither have ye healed that which 
 
 * Ezek. iii. 17. xxxiii. 7. f Chap. xxii. 26. 
 
 X Chap, xxxiv. 2. }| Ver. 3. 
 
70 OF THE PASTORAL CARE 
 
 was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was 
 broken, neither have ye brought again that which 
 was driven away, neither have ye sought that 
 which was lost ; but with force and with cruelty 
 have ye ruled them* :" upon which follows a ter- 
 rible expostulation, and denunciation of judgments 
 against them : "I am against the shepherds, saith 
 the Lord : I will require my flock at their hands, 
 and cause them to cease from feeding the flock ; 
 neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any 
 moref." And in the xlivth chap, of that prophecy, 
 one rule is given, which was set up in the primi- 
 tive church as an unalterable maxim, that such 
 priests as had been guilty of idolatry should not 
 do the office of a priest any more, nor come near 
 to any of the holy things, or enter within the 
 sanctuary, but were still to bear their shame ; they 
 might minister in some inferior services, such as 
 keeping the gates, or slaying the sacrifice; but 
 they were still to bear their iniquity. 
 
 I have passed over all that occurs in these pro- 
 phets which relates to the false prophets, because 
 I 'will bring nothing into this discourse that relates 
 to sins of another order and nature. In Daniel we 
 have a noble expression of the value of such as 
 " turn men to righteousness; that they shall shine 
 
 * Ezek. xxxiv. 4. f Ver. 10, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 71 
 
 as the stars for ever and ever*." In Hosea we find 
 among the sins and calamities of that time, this 
 reckoned as a main cause of that horrid corruption 
 under which they had fallen; there "being no 
 truth, no mercy, nor knowledge of God in the 
 land ; which was defiled by swearing, lying, killing, 
 stealing, and committing adultery. My people are 
 destroyed for lack of knowledgef." To which is 
 added: "Because thou hast rejected knowledge" 
 (or the instructing the people), " I will also reject 
 thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me ; seeing thou 
 hast forgot the law of thy God, I w r ill also forget 
 thy children." That corrupt race of priests at- 
 tended still upon the temple, and offered up the 
 sin-offering, and feasted upon their portion ; which 
 is wrong rendered, " They eat up the sin of my 
 people ;" for sin stands there, as in the law of 
 Moses, for sin-offering : because of the advantage 
 this brought them, they were glad at the abound- 
 ing of sin ; which is expressed by their setting their 
 heart, or lifting up their soul to their iniquity : 
 the conclusion of which is, that they "should be 
 given up for a very heavy curse, of like priests 
 like people." In Joel w r e find the duty of the 
 priests and ministers of the Lord set forth in times 
 of great and approaching calamities, thus : They 
 
 * Dan. xii. 3. f Hosea iv. 1, 2, 6. 
 
72 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 ought to be intercessors for the people, and "to 
 weep between the porch and the altar, and say, 
 Spare thy people, and give not thine heritage to 
 reproach, that the heathen (strangers and idolaters) 
 should rule over them : wherefore should they say 
 among the people, Where is their God* I" There 
 is in Micah a very black character of a depraved 
 priesthood : " Their priests teach for hire, and their 
 prophets divine for moneyf." 
 
 These were the forerunners of the destruction of 
 that nation : but though it might be expected that 
 the captivity should have purged them from their 
 dross, as it did indeed free them from all inclina- 
 tions to idolatry, yet other corruptions had a deeper 
 root. We find in Zechariah a curse against the 
 idol shepherd, who resembled the true shepherd 
 as an idol does the original ; but he was without 
 sense and life : " Woe be to the idol shepherd that 
 leaveth the flockj." The curse is figuratively ex- 
 pressed ; * ' The sword shall be upon his arm, and 
 his right eye (the things that he valued most) : his 
 arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall 
 be utterly darkened." But this is more copiously 
 set out by Malachi, in an address made to the 
 priests : " And now, O ye priests, this command- 
 ment is for you : If you will not hear, and if you 
 
 Joel, ii. 17. f Chap. iii. 11. J Zech. xi. 17. 
 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 73 
 
 will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my 
 name, I will even send a curse upon you, and I 
 will curse your blessings ; yea I have cursed them 
 already, because ye do not lay it to heart*." Then 
 the first covenant with the tribe of Levi is set 
 forth : u My covenant was with him, of life and 
 peace : The law of truth was in his mouth, and 
 iniquity was not found in his lips : He walked with 
 me in peace and equity, and did turn many from 
 their iniquity : For the priest's lips should preserve 
 knowledge, and they should seek the law at his 
 mouth ; for he is the messenger of the Lord of 
 Hosts." All this sets forth the state of a pure and 
 holy priesthood. But then follow terrible words : 
 " But ye are departed out of the way, ye have 
 caused many to stumble at the law : Ye have cor- 
 rupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of 
 Hosts. Therefore have I also made you contempt- 
 ible and base before all the people ; according as 
 ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial 
 in the law." Their ill example made many 
 loathe both their law and their religion. They 
 had corrupted their institution, and studied by a 
 gross partiality to bring the people to be exact 
 in those parts of the law in which their wealth 
 or their authority was concerned ; while they 
 
 * Mai. ii. 2. 
 H 
 
74 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 neglected the more essential and indispensable 
 duties. 
 
 Thus far have I gone over the most important 
 places that have occurred to me in the Old Testa- 
 ment relating to this matter; upon all which I 
 will only add one remark ; that though some ex- 
 ception might be made to those expressions that 
 import the dignity and sanctification of those who 
 were then consecrated to the holy functions, as 
 parts of that instituted religion, which had its 
 period by the coming of Christ ; yet such passages 
 as relate to moral duties, and to the obligations 
 that arise out of natural religion, have certainly a 
 more binding force, and ought to be understood 
 and explained in a more elevated and sublime 
 sense, under the new dispensation which is inter- 
 nal and spiritual ; compared to which, the old is 
 called the letter and the flesh. Therefore the ob- 
 ligations of the priests, under the Christian reli- 
 gion, to a holy strictness of life and conversation, 
 to a diligent attendance on their flock, and for in- 
 structing and watching over them, must all be as 
 much higher, and more binding, as this new cove- 
 nant excels the old one. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 75 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 PASSAGES OUT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, RE- 
 LATING TO THE SAME MATTER. 
 
 This general consideration receives a vast im- 
 provement from the great example that the Author 
 of our religion, " the great Bishop and Shepherd 
 of our souls," has set us ; who went about, ever 
 doing good; to whom, " it was as his meat and 
 drink to do the will of his Father that sent him : 
 he was the good Shepherd, that knew his sheep, 
 and laid down his life for them." And since he 
 set such a value on the souls of that flock which 
 he hath redeemed, and purchased with his own 
 blood, certainly those to whom he has committed 
 that work of reconciliation which stood himself so 
 dear, ought to consider themselves under very- 
 strict obligations, by that charge of which they 
 must give a severe account at the great day, in 
 which the blood of all those who have perished 
 through their neglect and default shall be required 
 at their hands. Yet, because I will not aggravate 
 this argument unreasonably, I will make no use 
 of those passages which relate immediately to the 
 postles: for their function being extraordinary, as 
 ^ere also the assistances that were given them for 
 h 2 
 
76 OF THE PASTOKAL CARE. 
 
 the discharge of it, I will urge nothing that belongs 
 properly to their mission and duty. 
 
 In the character that the Gospel gives of the 
 priests and Pharisees of that time, we may see a 
 just and true idea of the corruptions into which a 
 bad clergy is apt to fall. They studied to engross 
 the knowledge of the law to themselves, and to 
 keep the people in ignorance, and in a blind de- 
 pendence upon them : they were zealous in lesser 
 matters, but neglected the great things of the law ; 
 they put on an outward appearance of strictness, 
 but under that there was much rottenness : they 
 studied to make proselytes to their religion, but 
 they had so depraved it, that they became thereby 
 worse men than before : they made great shews 
 of devotion, of praying, and fasting much, and 
 giving alms ; but all this was to be seen of men, 
 and by it they devoured the estates of poor and 
 simple people : they were very strict in observing 
 the traditions and customs of their fathers, and of 
 every thing that contributed to their own autho- 
 rity or advantage ; but by so doing they made 
 void the law of God : in a word, they had no true 
 worth in themselves, and hated such as had it. 
 They were proud and spiteful, false and cruel ; 
 and made use of the credit they w T ere in with the 
 people, by their complying with them in their 
 vices, and flattering them with false hopes, to set 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 77 
 
 them on to destroy all those who discovered their 
 corruptions, and whose real and shining worth 
 made their counterfeit shew of it the more conspi- 
 cuous and odious. In this short view of those enor- 
 mous disorders which then reigned amongst them, 
 we have a full picture of the corrupt state of bad 
 priests in all ages and religions, with this only dif- 
 ference, that the priests in our Saviour's time were 
 more careful and exact in the external and visible 
 parts of their conversation, than they have been in 
 other times, in which they have thrown off the 
 very decencies of a grave and sober deportment. 
 
 But now to go on with the characters and rules 
 that we find in the New Testament. Our Saviour, 
 as he compared the work of the Gospel in many 
 parables to a field and harvest, so he calls those 
 whom his Father was to send, " the labourers in 
 that harvest;" and he left a direction to all his 
 followers, to "pray to his Father that he would 
 send labourers into his harvest* :" out of which 
 both the vocation and Divine mission of the clergy, 
 and the prayers of the church to God for it, that 
 are among us fixed to the ember-weeks, have been 
 gathered by many pious writers. In the warnings 
 that our Saviour gives to prepare for his second 
 coming, we find the characters of good and bad 
 
 * Matt. ix. 38. 
 
 H 3 
 
78 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 clergymen stated, in opposition to one another, 
 under the figure of stewards : The good are both, 
 " wise and faithful ; they wait for his coming/' 
 and in the mean while are " dividing to every one 
 of their fellow-servants his portion to eat in due 
 season* :" that is, their proportion both of the doc- 
 trine and mysteries of the Gospel, according to 
 their several capacities and necessities : but the bad 
 stewards are those w T ho put the evil day far from 
 them, and " say in their heart, The Lord delay eth 
 his coming/' upon which " they eat, drink, and are 
 drunken :" they indulge their sensual appetites even 
 to a scandalous excess ; and as for their fellow-ser- 
 vants, instead of feeding, of instructing, or watch- 
 ing over them, they beat them, they exercise a 
 violent and tyrannical authority over them. Their 
 state in the next world is represented as different 
 as their behaviour in this was : the one shall be 
 exalted from being a steward to be a ruler over 
 the household, to be a "king and a priest for 
 ever unto God ;" whereas the other shall be cut 
 asunder, and shall have his portion with unbe- 
 lievers. 
 
 The xth of St. John is the place which both fa- 
 thers and more modern writers have chiefly made 
 use of to shew the difference between good and 
 
 * Luke xii. 42. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 79 
 
 bad pastors. The good shepherds enter by the 
 door ; and Christ is this door by whom they must 
 enter; that is, from whom they must have their 
 vocation and mission : but the thief and robber, 
 who comes to kill, steal, and destroy, climbeth 
 up some other way ; whatever he may do in the 
 ritual way for form's sake, he has in his heart no 
 regard to Jesus Christ, to the honour of his per- 
 son, the edification of his church, or the salva- 
 tion of souls : he intends only to raise and en- 
 rich himself; and so he compasses that, he cares 
 not how many souls perish by his means, or 
 through his neglect. " The good shepherd knows 
 his sheep so well, that he can call them by name, 
 and lead them out, and they hear his voice ; but 
 the hireling careth not for the sheep," he is a 
 stranger to them, they know not his voice, and will 
 not follow him. This is urged by all who have 
 pressed the obligation of residence, and of the per- 
 sonal labours of the clergy, as a plain Divine and 
 indispensable precept : and even in the council of 
 Trent, though by the practices of the court of 
 Rome it was diverted from declaring residence to 
 be of Divine right, the decree that was made to 
 enforce it urges this place to shew the obligation 
 to it. The good shepherd feeds the flock, and looks 
 for pasture for them, and is ready to give his life 
 for the sheep ; but the bad shepherd is represented 
 
80 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 as a hireling, that careth not for the flock, that 
 sees the wolf coming, and upon that leaveth the 
 sheep and fleeth." This is, it is true, a figure, 
 and therefore I know it is thought an ill way of 
 reasoning to build too much upon figurative dis- 
 courses ; yet, on the other hand, our Saviour hav- 
 ing delivered so great a part of his doctrine in 
 parables, we ought at least to consider the main 
 scope of a parable ; and may well build upon that, 
 though every particular circumstance in it cannot 
 bear an argument. 
 
 I shall add but one passage more from the Gos- 
 pels, which is much made use of by all that have 
 writ of this matter. When our Saviour confirmed 
 St. Peter in his apostleship, from which he had 
 fallen by his denying of him, as in the charge 
 which he thrice repeated of " feeding his lambs and 
 his sheep*," he pursues still the figure of a shep- 
 herd ; so the question that he asked preparatory to 
 it, was, " Simon, lovest thou me more than these ?" 
 from which they justly gather, that the love of 
 God, a zeal for his honour, and a preferring of that 
 to all other things whatsoever, is a necessary and 
 indispensable qualification for that holy employ- 
 ment ; which distinguishes the true shepherd from 
 the hireling, and by which only he can be both 
 
 * John xxi. 15. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 81 
 
 animated and fortified to go through with the la- 
 bours and difficulties, as well as the dangers and 
 sufferings, which may accompany it. 
 
 When St. Paul was leaving his last charge with 
 the bishops that met him at Ephesus, he still makes 
 use of the same metaphor of shepherd, in those 
 often cited words, " Take heed to yourselves, and 
 to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath 
 made you bishops or overseers, to feed the church 
 of God, which he hath purchased with his own 
 blood*". The words are solemn, and the conside- 
 ration enforcing them is a mighty one ; they import 
 the obligations of the clergy, both to an exactness 
 in their own deportment, and to earnest and con- 
 stant labours, in imitation of the apostle, who dur- 
 ing the three years of his stay among them, had been 
 " serving God with all humility of mind, with many 
 tears and temptations! ; and had not ceased to warn 
 every one both night and day, with tears ; and had 
 taught them publicly, and from house to house:J:." 
 Upon which he leaves them, calling them all to 
 witness that "he was pure from the blood of all 
 men||." There has been great disputing concern- 
 ing the persons to whom these words were ad- 
 dressed ; but if all parties had studied more to fol- 
 low the example here proposed, and the charge 
 
 * Acts xx. 28. t Ver. 19. 
 
 X Ver. 20. || Ver. 26. 
 
82 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 that is here given, which are plain and easy to be 
 understood, than to be contending about things 
 that are more doubtful, the good lives and the 
 faithful labours of apostolical bishops would have 
 contributed more, both to the edifying and healing 
 of the church, than all their arguments or reason- 
 ings will ever be able to do. 
 
 St. Paul, reckoning up to the Romans the seve- 
 ral obligations of Christians of all ranks to assiduity 
 and diligence in their callings and labours, among 
 others he numbers these: " Ministers, let us wait 
 on our ministering ; or he that teacheth, on teach- 
 ing ; he that ruleth, with diligence*." In his epis* 
 tie to the Corinthians, as he states the dignity of 
 the clergy in this, that they ought to be accounted 
 of " as the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the 
 mysteries of Godf;" he adds, " that it is required 
 in stewards that a man be found faithful." In that 
 epistle he sets down that perpetual law, which is 
 the foundation of all the provision that has been 
 made for the clergy, " That the Lord hath ordain- 
 ed, that they which preach the gospel should live of 
 the gospel]:." But if, upon that, the laity have 
 looked on themselves as bound to appoint so plen- 
 tiful a supply, that the clergy might have whereon 
 to live at their ease and in abundance, then cer- 
 
 * Rom. xii. 7. t 1 Cor. iv. 1. X 1 Cor. ix. 14. 
 
OF THE TASTORAL CARE. 83 
 
 tainly this was intended, that they, being freed 
 from the troubles and cares of this world, might 
 attend continually " on the ministry of the word of 
 God, and on prayer*." Those w T ho do that work 
 negligently, provoke the laity to repent of their 
 bounty, and to defraud them of it. For certainly 
 there are no such enemies to the patrimony and 
 rights of the church, as those who " eat the fat, 
 but do not preach the gospel, nor feed the flock." 
 Happy, on the other hand, are they to whom that 
 character, which the apostle assumes to himself 
 and to Timothy, does belong: " Therefore, seeing 
 we have received this ministry, as we have received 
 mercy, we faint not ; but have renounced the hid- 
 den things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, 
 nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but, by 
 manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves 
 to every man's conscience in the sight of Godf." 
 In the epistle to the Ephesians, we have the ends 
 of the institution of all the ranks of clergymen set 
 forth in these words : " He gave some, apostles ; 
 and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and 
 some pastors and teachers ; for the perfecting of 
 the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the 
 edifying the body of Christ : till w T e all come in the 
 unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son 
 
 * Acts, vi. 4. f 2 Cor. iv. 1, 2. 
 
84 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of 
 the stature of the fulness of Christ*." In these 
 words we see something that is so vast and noble, 
 so far above those slight and poor performances in 
 which the far greater part do too easily satisfy 
 themselves, that in charity to them we ought to 
 suppose that they have not reflected sufficiently on 
 the importance of them; otherwise they would 
 have in some sort proportioned their labours to 
 those great designs for which they are ordained ; 
 and would remember the charge given to the Colos- 
 sians to say to Archippus, who it seems was remiss 
 in the discharge of his duty, " Take heed to the 
 ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, 
 that thou fulfil it.f" 
 
 The epistles to Timothy and Titus are the foun- 
 dation of all the canons of the church. In these 
 we have the characters of bishops and deacons, as 
 well as the duties belonging to those functions, so 
 particularly set forth, that from thence alone every 
 one who will weigh them well, may find sufficient 
 instruction "how he ought to behave himself in 
 the house of God." In these we see what patterns 
 those of the clergy ought to "be in word (or doc- 
 trine), in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in 
 faith, and in purity; they ought to give attend- 
 
 * Eph. iv. 11, 12, 13. f Col.iv 17. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 85 
 
 ance to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine* ;** 
 that is, both to the instructing and exhorting of 
 their people. " They ought not to neglect the 
 gift that was given to them by the laying on of 
 hands ; they ought to meditate on these things, to 
 give themselves wholly to them, that so their pro- 
 fiting may appear unto all, and to take heed to 
 themselves and their doctrine, and to continue in 
 them ; for in so doing they shall both save them- 
 selves and those that hear them." Those that 
 govern the church are more particularly charged, 
 " before God, the Lord Jesus, and the holy angels, 
 that they observe these things without preferring 
 one before another, doing nothing by partiality t>" 
 by domestic regards, the considerations of friend- 
 ship, intercession, or importunity; and, "above 
 all, that they lay hands suddenly on no man :" to 
 which are added words of great terror, u neither 
 be thou partaker of other men's sins ; keep thyself 
 pure/' Which ought to make great impression 
 on all those with whom the power of ordination is 
 lodged, since they do plainly import, that such as 
 do ordain any rashly, without due inquiry and a 
 strict examination, entitle themselves to all the 
 scandal they give, and become partners of their 
 guilt ; which, if well considered, must needs make 
 
 * I Tim. iv. 12—16. t Tim. v. 21, 22 
 
 I 
 
86 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 all such as are not past feeling, use great care and 
 caution in this sacred trust. Bishops are the de- 
 positories of the faith, which they are to keep 
 pure, and to hand down faithfully according to 
 these words, " and the things which thou hast 
 heard of me among many witnesses, the same 
 commit thou to faithful men, who may be able to 
 teach others also*." Upon this he prepares the 
 bishops for difficulties, "to endure hardness, as a 
 good soldier of Jesus Christ." And, according to 
 that figure, since those that go to war do not carry 
 unnecessary burthens with them, which may en- 
 cumber or retard their march, he adds, " No man 
 that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of 
 this life, that he may please him who hath chosen 
 him for a soldier." Upon this it is that all those 
 canons, which have been made in so many ages of 
 the church, against churchmen's meddling with 
 secular affairs, have been founded; than which 
 we find nothing more frequently provided against, 
 both in the apostolical canons, in those of Antioch, 
 in those made by the general council of Calcedon, 
 and in divers of the councils of Carthage : but 
 this abuse had too deep a root in the nature of 
 man to be easily cured. St. Paul does also in 
 this place carry on the metaphor, to express the 
 
 * 2 Tim. ii. 2, 3, 4, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 87 
 
 earnestness and indefatigableness of clergymen's 
 zeal; that as officers in an army were satisfied 
 with nothing under victory, which brought them 
 the honours of a triumph ; so we ought to fight, 
 not only so as to earn our pay, but for mastery, 
 to spoil and overcome the powers of darkness : 
 yet even this " must be done lawfully*," not by 
 deceiving the people with pious frauds, hoping 
 that our good intentions will atone for our taking 
 bad methods : war has its laws as well as peace, 
 and those who manage this spiritual warfare ought 
 to keep themselves within the instructions and 
 commands that are given them. Then the apostle, 
 changing the figure from the soldier to the work- 
 man and steward, says, " Study to shew thyself 
 approved unto God," (not to seek the vain ap- 
 plause of men, but to prefer to all other things 
 the witness of a good conscience, and that in sim- 
 plicity and godly sincerity he may walk and labour 
 as in the sight of God, " a workman that needeth 
 not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of 
 truthf." This is, according to the figure of a 
 steward, giving every one his due portion ; and a 
 little after comes a noble admonition relating to 
 the meekness of the clergy towards those that 
 divide from them : ' ' The servant of the Lord must 
 
 * 2 Tim. ii 5. f Ver. 15. 
 
 i2 
 
88 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 not strive ; but be gentle to all men, apt to teach, 
 patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose 
 themselves ; if God peradventure will give them 
 repentance to the acknowledging of the truth*/' 
 This is the passage that was chiefly urged by our 
 reformers against the persecuting that the Roman 
 clergy did every where set on against them. The 
 extent of it ought to be well considered, that so it 
 may not be said, that we are only against persecu- 
 tion when it lies on ourselves ; for if it is a good 
 defence to some, it is as good to others; unless 
 we own that we do not govern ourselves by that 
 rule "of doing to others that which we would 
 have others do to us." In the next chapter we 
 find the right education of this bishop, and that 
 which furnishes a clergyman to perform all the 
 duties incumbent on him : " From a child thou 
 hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to 
 make thee wise unto salvation, through faith in 
 Christ Jesusf." That is, the Old Testament well 
 studied, by one that believed Jesus to be the Mes- 
 sias, and that was led into it by that faith, did 
 discover to man the great economy of God in the 
 progress of the light, which he made to shine upon 
 the world by degrees, unto the perfect day of the 
 appearing of the Sun of righteousness : and to 
 
 * Tim. ii. 24, 25, 26. f 2 Tim. iii. 15, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 89 
 
 this he adds a noble character of the inspired writ 
 ings : " All scripture is given by inspiration of 
 God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for 
 correction, for instruction in righteousness; that 
 the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur- 
 nished unto all good works*." The apostle goes 
 on, and gives Timothy the most solemn charge 
 that can be set out in words ; which, if understood 
 as belonging to all bishops, as the whole church 
 of God has ever done, must be read by them with 
 trembling. " I charge thee therefore before God, 
 and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the 
 quick and dead at his appearing and his kingdom ; 
 preach the word, be instant in season, out of sea- 
 son ; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffer- 
 ing and doctrinef," (that is, with great gentleness 
 in the manner, and clearness and strength in the 
 matter of their instructions.) And a little after, 
 "Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do 
 the work of an evangelist, make full proof of (or 
 fulfil) thy ministry {." And, as a consideration to 
 enforce this the more, he tells what a noble and 
 agreeable prospect he had in the view of his ap- 
 proaching dissolution ; " the time of his departure 
 drew nigh, he was ready to be offered up||," as a 
 
 * 2 Tim. hi. 16, 17. f 2 Tim. iv. 1, 2. 
 
 t Ver. 5. || Ver. 6. 
 
 i 3 
 
90 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 sacrifice for that faith which he had so zealously 
 and so successfully preached. And here we have 
 his two great preparatives for martyrdom ; the one 
 was looking on his past life and labours ; ■ * I have 
 fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I 
 have kept the faith*" : the other was looking for- 
 ward to the reward, " that crown of righteousness 
 which w r as laid up for him, which the Lord, the 
 righteous judge, would give him at that day ; and 
 not only to him, but also to all those that loved 
 his appearingf ;" and certainly more especially to 
 those who not only loved it themselves, but who 
 laboured so as to dispose others also to love it. 
 To all these considerations, though nothing needed 
 to have been added, to one upon whom they made 
 so strong an impression as they did upon Timo- 
 thy, yet one comes after all, which ought to teach 
 us to work out our salvation with fear and trem- 
 bling, since St. Paul tells Timothy, that Demas, 
 one of the companions of his labours, "had for- 
 saken him ;" and that which prevailed over him 
 was, "the love of this present world J." 
 
 These are the rules and charges given by St. 
 Paul to Timothy, and in him to all the bishops 
 and pastors that were to come after him in the^ 
 church. Some of these are again repeated in his 
 
 * 2 Tim. iv. 7. + 2 Tim. iv. 8. J Ver. 10. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 91 
 
 Epistle to Titus, where we have the characters set 
 out, by which he was to prepare and examine 
 those elders, or bishops, who were to rule the 
 house of God ; that those being well chosen, they 
 might be able, " by sound doctrine, both to exhort 
 and convince the gainsay ers* ;" and that he might 
 do his duty with the more advantage, he charges 
 him to " shew himself in all things a pattern of 
 good works ; in doctrine shewing uncorruptness, 
 gravity, sincerity; and using such sound speech 
 as could not be condemned ; that so those who 
 are of the contrary party (the Judaizers, who were 
 studying to corrupt the Christian religion, by mak- 
 ing a medley of it and Judaism) might have no 
 evil thing to say of himf ." And after a glorious 
 but short abstract of the design of their holy re- 
 ligion, he concludes that part of the epistle in 
 these words : " these things speak and exhort, 
 and rebuke with all authority." To which he 
 adds a charge, that may seem more proper to be 
 addressed to others than to himself; "Let no 
 man despise theej." The same is likewise in his 
 Epistle to Timothy, with this addition, " Let no 
 man despise thy youth||." But these words do 
 import, that it is in a bishop's own power to pro- 
 
 Tit. i. 9. t Tit. ii. 7, 8. J Ver. 15. 
 
 1 Tim. iv. 12. 
 
92 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 cure due esteem to himself, at least to prevent 
 contempt ; since a holy and exemplary deport- 
 ment, and faithful and constant labours, never fail 
 to do that. In the conclusion of the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews we find both the characters of those 
 who had laboured among them, and had ruled 
 them, but who were then dead ; and also of such 
 as were yet alive. " Remember them who have 
 the rule over you, who have spoken to you the 
 word of God : whose faith follow, considering the 
 end of their conversation*." They had both lived 
 and died, as well as laboured, in such a manner, 
 that the remembering of what had appeared in 
 them, was an effectual means of persuading the 
 Hebrews to be steady in the Christian religion. 
 For certainly, though while a man lives, let him 
 be ever so eminent, there is still room for illna- 
 ture and jealously to misrepresent things, and to 
 suspect that something lies hid under the fairest 
 appearances, which may shew itself in due time ; 
 all that goes off w T hen one has finished his course, 
 so that all appears to be of a piece, and that he 
 has died as he had lived ; then the argument from 
 his conversation appears in its full strength, with- 
 out any diminution. But the charge given with 
 relation to those who then had the rule over them, 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 7. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 93 
 
 is no less remarkable ; " Obey them that have the 
 rule over you, and submit yourselves ; for they 
 watch for your souls, as they that must give ac- 
 count, that they may do it with joy, and not with 
 grief: for that is unprofitable for you*." Here 
 obedience and submission are enjoined upon the 
 account of their " rulers watching over them and 
 for them ;" and therefore those who do not watch 
 like men that know that they must give account 
 of that trust, have no reason to expect these from 
 their people. Of a piece with this is St. Paul's 
 charge to the Thessalonians : "We beseech you 
 to know (or to acknowledge) them which labour 
 among you, and are over you in the Lord, and 
 admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in 
 love for their works' sake." Here both the sub- 
 mission and esteem, as well as the acknowledg- 
 ment that is due to the clergy, is said to be for 
 their works' sake ; and therefore such as do not the 
 work, and that do not labour and admonish their 
 people, have no just claim to them. There is another 
 expression in the second Epistle to the Thessalo- 
 nians that is much urged by those who have written 
 on this head, " That if any would not work he 
 should not eat ;" which, if it is a rule binding all 
 men, seems to lie much heavier on the clergy. 
 
 * Heb. xiii. 17. 
 
94 OF THK PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 I shall conclude all that I intend to bring out of 
 the Scripture upon this argument, with St. Peter's 
 charge to the elders of the churches to which he 
 wrote, which is indeed so full, that though in the 
 course of the New Testament it had not lain last, 
 it deserved by the rules of method to be kept last, 
 for the closing and enforcing all that has gone be- 
 fore, and for giving it its full weight. St. Peter 
 descends, Epist. 1. chap. v. ver. 1. to a level with 
 them, calling himself no better than a "fellow- 
 elder, and a witness of the suffering of Christ ; and 
 also a partaker of the glory which was to be re- 
 vealed. Feed the flock of God," says he, " which 
 is among you, (these words will bear another ren- 
 dering, as much as lieth in you) taking the over- 
 sight thereof, not by constraint, (as forced to it by 
 rules, canons, or laws) but willingly ; not for filthy 
 lucre, (for though God has ordained that such as 
 preach the gospel should live of the gospel, yet 
 those who propose that to themselves as the chief 
 motive in entering into holy orders, are hereby 
 severely condemned) but of a ready mind, neither 
 as being lords over God's heritage, (or not using a 
 despotic authority over their several lots or divi- 
 sions) but being examples to the flock, not tyran- 
 nizing it over their people ; but acquiring their 
 authority chiefly by their own exemplary conversa- 
 tion. The conclusion of the charge is suitable to 
 
, 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 95 
 
 the solemnity of it, in these words ; and " when the 
 chief shepherd shall appear, ye shall likewise re- 
 ceive a crown of glory, that fadeth not away." 
 
 With this I make an end of citations from Scrip- 
 ture. I think it is as plain as words can make any 
 thing, that such as are dedicated to the service of 
 God and of Ins church, ought to labour constantly 
 and faithfully, and that in their own persons ; for 
 it is not possible to express a personal obligation in 
 terms that are both more strict and more solemn 
 than these are which have been cited ; and all the 
 returns of obedience and submission, of esteem and 
 support, being declared to be due to them on the 
 account of their watching over and feeding the 
 flock of God, those who pretend to these, without 
 considering themselves as under the other obliga- 
 tions, are guilty of the worst sort of sacrilege, in 
 devouring the things that are sacred, without doing 
 those duties for which these are due ; and what 
 right soever the law of the land ma}' give them to 
 them, yet certainly, according to the divine law, 
 those who do not wait " at the altar, ought not to 
 be partakers with the altar; those who do not mi- 
 nister about holy things, ought not to live of the 
 things of the temple ; nor ought those who do not 
 preach the gospel, live of the gospel*.' ' If I had a 
 
 * 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14. 
 
96 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 mind to make a great shew of reading, or to tri- 
 umph in my argument with the pomp of quota- 
 tions, it were very easy to bring a cloud of wit- 
 nesses to confirm the application that I made of 
 these passages of scripture. Indeed all who have 
 either written commentaries on the Scriptures, 
 ancient and modern, or have left homilies on these 
 subjects, have pressed this matter so much, that 
 every one that has made any progress in ecclesias- 
 tical learning, must know that one might soon stuff 
 a great many pages with abundance of quotations 
 out of the authors both of the best and of the worst 
 ages of the church. Not only the fathers, but even 
 the schoolmen, and which is more, the canonists 
 have carried this matter very high, and have even 
 delivered it as a maxim, that all dispensations that 
 are procured upon undue pretences, the chief of 
 which they reckon the giving a man an easy and 
 large subsistence, are null 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 con- 
 clude, that he who upon a dispensation, 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 benefice which 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 97 
 
 he has thus enjoyed with a bad conscience, with- 
 out performing the duty belonging to it in his own 
 person. But though it were very easy 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 indisputable an authority, 
 will be little moved by all that can be brought out 
 of authors of a lower form, against whom it will 
 be easy 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 the 
 church, that in her disputes on both hands, as well 
 with those of the church of Rome, as with those 
 that separate from her, she has both the doctrine 
 and the constitution of the primitive church on 
 her side. But this plea would be more entire and 
 less disputable, if our constitution were not only 
 in its main and most essential parts, formed upon 
 
98 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 that glorious model ; but were also in its rules 
 and administrations, made more exactly conform- 
 able 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 clergymen now 
 alive : while I was studying the controversy relat- 
 ing to the government of the church, from the 
 primitive times, he desired me to join 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 fa- 
 vour of the church, how clearly soever made out, 
 would never have its full effects 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 par- 
 ticulars, into which this matter might be branched 
 out : either from the writings of the fathers, the 
 decrees of councils, the Roman law and capitulars, 
 or even from the dregs of all, the canon law itself, 
 which though a collection made in one of the 
 worst ages, yet carries many rules in it, tha*" 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 99 
 
 would seem excessively severe, even to us, after 
 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 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 ha? compared the modern and 
 the ancient discipline, and has showed very co- 
 piously, 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 treatises, writ by the Jansen- 
 ists in France, in which abuses are very honestly 
 complained of, 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 
 k 2 
 
100 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 matters, I shall content myself with giving the 
 sense of two of the fathers of the Greek church, 
 and one of the Latin, upon this whole business, of 
 the obligations of the clergy. The first is Gregory 
 of Nazianzen, whose father ordained him a pres- 
 byter, notwithstanding all his humble 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, ex- 
 cused themselves, and judging themselves unwor- 
 thy 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 subsistence, or the means of procuring it, and 
 seems to have no other sense of that sacred insti- 
 tution, than mechanics 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 trades- 
 men 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 Scrip- 
 tures, nor the body of divinity, who have made no 
 progress in their studies, and can give no tolerable 
 account of that holy doctrine, in which they desire 
 to be teachers, do yet with equal degrees of confi- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 101 
 
 dence, and importunity, pretend to this character, 
 and find the way to it too easy, and the access to 
 it too free. But this holy father had a very dif- 
 ferent sense of this matter. He had indeed sub- 
 mitted to his Father's authority, he being his 
 bishop as well as his father. But immediately 
 after he was ordained, he gave this account of 
 himself in his Apologetical Oration, that he judg- 
 ing he had not that " sublimity of virtue, nor that 
 familiar acquaintance with divine matters, which 
 become pastors and teachers ;" he therefore in- 
 tending to purify his own soul " to higher degrees 
 of virtue, to an exaltation above sensible objects, 
 above his body, and above the world, that so he 
 might bring his mind to a recollected and divine 
 state, and fit his soul that, as a polished mirror, 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 be- 
 fore they were meet to be initiated to the divine 
 vocation, were crowding about the altar ; not to 
 set patterns to others, but designing only a sub- 
 sistence to themselves ; reckoning that the holy 
 dignity was not a trust for which an account was 
 k3 
 
102 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 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 : w T hich 
 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 virtue. Upon which 
 he formed a high idea of the eminent worth and 
 virtues which became those who governed the 
 church ; and of the great progress that they ought 
 to be daily making ; not contented with low mea- 
 sures of it, as if they were to weigh it critically in 
 nice balances, and not to rise up to the highest de- 
 grees 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 superior 
 to the body ; and yet since so much study and 
 observation was necessary to make a man a skilful 
 physician, he concluded that much more was ne- 
 cessary 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, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 103 
 
 and upon the art of governing souls, of the differ- 
 ent methods to be taken, according to the diversity 
 of men's capacities and tempers ; and of dividing 
 the word of God aright, among them; the diffi- 
 culties 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 child- 
 hood, 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 put on an outward garb that carried an ap- 
 pearance of piety in it, these men were presently 
 pushed on by the vanity of their minds, to aspire 
 to the government of the church.' ' To such per- 
 sons he addresses himself very rhetorically, and 
 asks them, " what they thought of the commonest 
 employments, such as the playing of instruments, 
 or of dancing, in comparison with Divine wisdom : 
 fur acquiring the one, they knew great pains and 
 much practice was necessary : could they then 
 imagine that the other should be so easily at- 
 tained ?" 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 
 
104 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 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 con- 
 stancy, and his prudence, in fulfilling all the parts 
 of his ministry. Then he cites several of the pas- 
 sages of the prophets, particularly those of Jere- 
 miah and Ezekiel, Zachariah 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 ail the woes 
 denounced against the Scribes and Pharisees be- 
 longed 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 judgments 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, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 105 
 
 while so young, meet to handle the holy things." 
 Where he runs out into a new rapture in magnify- 
 ing the dignity of holy functions, and upon that 
 says, " That though he had been dedicated to God 
 from his mother's womb, and had renounced the 
 world and all that was charming in it, even elo- 
 quence itself, 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 notion of the care and government of 
 souls, that he thought it above his strength ; espe- 
 cially 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 j and thereby impious men daily blas- 
 phemed his name." And indeed, all the shew of 
 religion that remained, was in their mutual heats 
 and animosities, concerning some matters of reli- 
 gion ; <e 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 inquired very narrowly into the failings 
 of those that differed from them, not that they 
 
106 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 might lament them, but that they might reproach 
 them for them. The same faults which they ex- 
 cused in some, were declaimed against in others ; 
 so that the very name of a good or a bad man was 
 not now considered, as the character of their lives, 
 but of their being of or against a side. And these 
 abuses were so universal, that they were like 
 people like priest : if those heats had arisen upon 
 the great heads of religion, he should have com- 
 mended 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, though the root of all was men's private 
 animosities : these things had exposed the Chris- 
 tian 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 
 people's scorn. So that by their means, the name 
 of God was blasphemed : this was that which gave 
 them much sadder apprehensions, than all that 
 could be feared from that wild beast, that was then 
 beginning to vex and persecute the church," (by 
 which probably Julian is meant) " the comfortable 
 prospect of dying for the name of Christ, made 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 107 
 
 that a persecution was not so dreadful a thing, in 
 his account, as the sins, the divisions, and distrac- 
 tions of Christians /' This then was the reason 
 that had made him fly to the wilderness ; for the 
 state of the church had made him despond, and 
 lose all his courage : he had also gone thither, that 
 he might quite break himself to all his appetites 
 and passions, and to all the pleasures and concerns 
 of this life, that did darken the shinings of the 
 Divine image upon his soul, and the emanations 
 of the heavenly light. When he considered the 
 judgments of God upon bad priests, and many 
 other strict rules in the old dispensation, and the 
 great obligations that lay upon those who were 
 the priests of the living God, and that ought, 
 before they presumed to offer up other sacrifices, 
 to begin with the oblation of themselves to God ; 
 he was upon all these reasons moved to prepare 
 himself by so long a retreat. 
 
 I have given this long abstract of his Apologe- 
 tical Oration, not only to set before my reader the 
 sense that he had of the sacred functions, but 
 likewise to shew what were the corruptions of 
 that age, and with how much freedom this holy 
 father laid them open. If there is any occasion 
 for applying any part of this to the present age, 
 or to any persons in it, I chose rather to offer it 
 in the words of this great man, than in any of my 
 
108 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 own. I wish few were concerned in them ; and 
 that such as are, would make a due application of 
 them to themselves, and save others the trouble 
 of doing it more severely. 
 
 I go next to another father of the Greek church, 
 St. Chrysostom, whose hooks of the priesthood 
 have been ever reckoned among the best pieces of 
 antiquity. The occasion of writing them was 
 this : he had lived many years in great friendship 
 with Basil; at last, they having both dedicated 
 themselves to sacred studies, the clergy of Antioch 
 had resolved to lay hold on them, and to use that 
 holy violence which was in those times often done 
 to the best men, and to force them to enter into 
 orders : which when Basil told Chrysostom, he 
 concealed his own intentions, but pressed Basil to 
 submit to it, who from that, believing that his 
 friend was of the same mind, did not go out of 
 the way, so he was laid hold on, but Chrysostom 
 had hid himself. Basil, seeing he could not be 
 found, did all that was possible to excuse himself; 
 but that not being accepted of, he was ordained. 
 Next time that he met his friend, he expostulated 
 severely with him for having forsaken him upon 
 that occasion : this gave the occasion to those 
 books, which are pursued in the way of a dia- 
 logue. 
 
 The first book contains only the preparatory 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 109 
 
 discourses, according to the method of such writ- 
 ings. In the second he runs out to shew, from 
 our Saviour's words to St, Peter, " Simon, lovest 
 thou me ?" what tender and fervent love both to 
 Christ and to his church, a priest ought to feel in 
 himself before he enters upon the feeding those 
 sheep, which Christ " has purchased with his own 
 blood." To lose the souls of the flock first, and 
 then one's own soul, through remissness, was no 
 light matter. To have both the powers of dark- 
 ness, and the works of the flesh to fight against, 
 required no ordinary measure both of strength and 
 courage. He pursues the allegories of a shepherd, 
 and a physician, to shew by the parallel of these 
 laid together, the labours and difficulties of the 
 priesthood, especially when this authority was to 
 be maintained only by the strength of persuasion ; 
 and yet sometimes severe methods must be taken, 
 like incisions to prevent gangrenes, or to cut off a 
 part already corrupted. In the managing this, 
 great art and prudence was necessary. A bishop 
 ought to have a great and generous, a patient and 
 undaunted mind ; therefore, Chrysostom says that 
 he found, though he truly loved his Saviour, yet 
 he was so afraid to offend him, that he durst not 
 undertake a charge, that he did not yet judge him- 
 self qualified for. It was not enough that a man 
 was tolerably well esteemed by others : he ought 
 
1 10 OF THE PASTOHAL CARE. 
 
 to examine himself; for that of a bishop's being 
 " well reported of," is but one of many characters 
 declared necessary by St. Paul. He complains 
 much that those who raised men to orders, had 
 more regard to rank and wealth, and to much 
 time spent in a vain search into profane learning, 
 (though Christ chose fishermen and tentmakers), 
 than to true worth, and an earnest zeal for the 
 real good of the church. In the third book, he 
 runs out with a great compass on the praises of 
 the priestly function ; he looked upon it as a dig- 
 nity raised far above all the honours of this world, 
 and approaching to the angelical glory. A priest 
 ought to aspire to a purity above that of other 
 mortals, answering that of angels. When a priest 
 performs the holy functions, is sanctifying the 
 holy eucharist, and is offering a crucified Christ 
 to the people, his thoughts should carry him hea- 
 venwards, and, as it were, translate him into those 
 upper regions. If the mosaical priest was to be 
 holy, that offered up sacrifices of a lower order, 
 how much holier ought the priests of this religion 
 to be, to whom Christ has given the power both 
 of retaining and forgiving of sins : but if St. Paul, 
 after all his visions and labours, after all his rap- 
 tures and sufferings, yet was inwardly burnt up 
 with the concerns of the church, and laboured 
 with much fear and trembling, how much greater 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE* 111 
 
 apprehensions ought other persons to have of 
 such a trust? If it were enough to be called to 
 this function, and to go through with the duties 
 incumbent on it in some tolerable manner, the 
 danger were not great; but when the duty, as 
 well as dignity, together with the danger belong- 
 ing to it, are all laid together, a man is forced to 
 have other thoughts of the matter. No man that 
 knows he is not capable of conducting a ship, will 
 undertake it, let him be pressed to it ever so 
 much. Ambitious men, that loved to set them- 
 selves forward, were of all others the most exposed 
 to temptations. They were apt to be inflamed by 
 the smallest provocations, to be glad at the faults 
 of others, and troubled if they saw any do well ; 
 they courted applause, and aspired to honour; 
 they fawned on great persons, and trod on those 
 that were below them ; they made base submis- 
 sions, indecent addresses, and often brought pre- 
 sents to those in authority ; they durst not in any 
 sort reprove them for their faults, though they 
 reproached the poor out of measure for their 
 failings. These were not the natural consequences 
 of the dignity of the priesthood; but unworthy 
 and denied persons, who, without true merit, had 
 been advanced to it, had brought it under reproach. 
 There had been no due care used in the choice 
 of bishops, and by the means of bad choices the 
 l2 
 
112 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 church was almost ruined, through the gross ig- 
 norance and unworthiness of many in that post. 
 Certainly a worthy priest has no ambitious aspir- 
 ings ; those who fly to this dignity from that base 
 principle, will give a full vent to it when they 
 have attained it. If submissions, flatteries, and 
 money itself, are necessary, all will be employed ; 
 therefore it was an indispensable preparation to it, 
 that one should be duly sensible of the greatness 
 of the trust, and of his own unfitness for it, that 
 so he might neither vehemently desire it, nor be 
 uneasy if he should happen to be turned out of it. 
 A man may desire the office of a bishop, when he 
 considers it as a work of toil and labour ; but no- 
 thing is more pestiferous than to desire it because 
 of the power and authority that accompanies it. 
 Such persons can never have the courage that 
 ought to shew itself in the discharge of their duty, 
 in the reproving of sin, and venturing on the in- 
 dignation of great men. He confesses he had not 
 yet been able to free his mind from that disease, 
 and, till he had subdued it, he judged himself 
 bound to fly from all the steps to preferment ; for 
 the nearer he should come to it, he reckoned the 
 appetite to it would rage the higher within him ; 
 whereas the way to break it quite, was to keep 
 himself at the greatest distance from it : nor had 
 he that vivacity, or lively activity of temper, which 
 
ii 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 113 
 
 became this function ; nor that softness and gen- 
 tleness of mind that was necessary to prepare him 
 to bear injuries, to endure contempt, or to treat 
 people with the mildness that Christ has enjoined 
 his followers, which he thought more necessary to 
 a bishop than all fastings, or bodily mortifications 
 whatsoever : and he runs out into a long digres- 
 sion upon the great mischiefs that a fretful and 
 spiteful temper did to him that was under the 
 power of it, and to the church, when a bishop 
 was soured with it. It will often break out, it 
 will be much observed, and will give great scan- 
 dal : for as a little smoke will darken and hide the 
 clearest object, so if all the rest of a bishop's life 
 were brighter than the beams of the sun, a little 
 blemish, a passion, or indiscretion, will darken 
 all, and make all the rest be forgotten. Allow- 
 ances are not made to them as to other men, the 
 world expects great things from them, as if they 
 had not flesh and blood in them, not a human, but 
 an angelical nature ; therefore a bishop ought, by 
 a constant watchfulness, and a perpetual strictness, 
 to be armed with armour of proof on all sides, 
 that no wound may hurt him. Stories will be 
 easily believed to his disadvantage, and his clergy 
 about him will be ready to find them out, and to 
 spread them abroad. He lays this down for a 
 certain maxim, that every man knows^ himself 
 l 3 
 
114 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 best ; and therefore, whatsoever others might think 
 of him, he who knew well that he had not in 
 himself those qualifications that were necessary 
 for this function, ought not to suffer himself to be 
 determined by that. After this he lays open the 
 great disorders, factions, partialities, and calum- 
 nies, with which the popular elections were at 
 that time managed, and the general corruption 
 that had overrun the whole church : so that the 
 strictness and authority, the gentleness and pru- 
 dence, the courage and patience, that were neces- 
 sary to a bishop, were very hard to be found all 
 together. He instances, to make out the difficulty 
 of discharging the duty of a bishop, in that single 
 point, of managing the widows ; who were so 
 meddling, so immoral, so factious, and so clamor- 
 ous, that this alone was enough to employ a 
 bishop's prudence, and exercise his patience. From 
 that, and another article relating to it concerning 
 the virgins, he goes to consider the trouble, the 
 difficulties and censures that bishops were subject 
 to, by the hearing of causes that were referred to 
 them; many pretending thej- were wronged by 
 their judgments, made shipwreck of the faith in 
 revenge : and they pressed so hard upon the 
 bishop's time, that it was not possible for him to 
 content them, and discharge the other parts of his 
 duty. Then he reckons up the many visits that 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 115 
 
 were expected from bishops -, the several civilities 
 they were obliged to ; which it was hard to ma- 
 nage so as not to be either too much or too little 
 in them : matter of censure would be found in 
 both extremes. Then he reflects on the great 
 temper that ought to be observed in the final sen- 
 tence of excommunication ; between a gentleness 
 to vice on the one hand, and the driving men to 
 despair and apostasy on the other. And he con- 
 cludes that book with reflections on the vast bur- 
 den that follows the care of souls. In his fourth 
 book he runs through a variety of arts and profes- 
 sions, and shews how much skill and labour were 
 necessary for every one of them : from whence he 
 concludes strongly, that much more was necessary 
 for that which was the most important of all 
 others ; so that no consideration whatsoever should 
 make a man undertake it, if he did not find him- 
 self in some sort qualified for it: more particu- 
 larly he ought to be ready to give an account of 
 his faith, and to stop the mouths of all gainsayers, 
 Jews, Gentiles, and heretics ; in which the igno- 
 rance of many bishops, carrying things from one 
 extreme to another, had given great occasion to 
 errors. A bishop must understand the style and 
 phrase of the Scriptures well. From this he runs 
 out into a very noble panegyric upon St. Paul, in 
 whom a pattern was set to all bishops. His fifth 
 
116 OF THE PASTORAL OARE. 
 
 book sets out the labour of preaching, the tempta- 
 tions to vanity in it, the censures that were apt to 
 be made if there was either too much or too little 
 art or eloquence in sermons. To this he adds the 
 great exactness that a bishop should use in pre- 
 serving his reputation, yet without vanity, observ- 
 ing a due temper between despising the censures 
 of the multitude, and the servile courting of ap- 
 plauses. In his sermons he ought, above all things, 
 to study to edify, but not to flatter his hearers, or 
 to use vain arts to raise esteem or admiration from 
 them : since a bishop, whose mind was not purged 
 from this disease, must go through many tossings 
 and be much disquieted. And upon that he runs 
 out so fully upon the temptations to desire ap- 
 plause for eloquence, and a readiness in speaking, 
 that it plainly appears that he felt that to be his 
 own weak side. The sixth book is chiefly em- 
 ployed to shew how much a harder thing it was 
 to govern the church, than to live in a desert 
 under the severest mortifications. 
 
 I will go no further in this abstract ; I hope I 
 have drawn out enough to give a curiosity to such 
 as have not yet read those excellent books, to do 
 it over and over again ; for to any that has a true 
 relish, they can never be too often read; every 
 reading will afford a fresh pleasure, and new mat- 
 ter of instruction and meditation. But I go, in 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 117 
 
 the last place, to offer St. Jerome's sense in this 
 matter. I shall not bring together what lies scat- 
 tered through his works upon this argument, nor 
 shall I quote what he writ in his youth upon it, 
 when the natural flame of his temper, joined with 
 the heat of youth, might make him carry his 
 thoughts further than what human nature could 
 bear : but I shall only give an abstract of that 
 which he writ to Nepotion on this head in his old 
 age, as he says himself, a good part of that epistle 
 being a reflection upon the different sense that old 
 age gives of these things, from that which he felt 
 during the ardour of youth. 
 
 He begins with the title clerk, which signifying 
 a lot or portion, '* imports either that the clergy 
 are God's portion, or that God is theirs, and that 
 therefore they ought to possess God, and be pos- 
 sessed of him. He that has this portion must be 
 satisfied with it, and pretend to nothing, but hav- 
 ing food and raiment, be therewith content, and, 
 as men carried their crosses naked, so to be ready 
 to carry his. He must not seek the advantages 
 of this world in Christ's warfare. Some clerks 
 grew richer under Christ, who made himself poor, 
 than ever they could have been if they had conti- 
 nued in the service of the God of this world ; so 
 that the church groaned under the wealth of those 
 who were beggars before they forsook the world. 
 
118 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 Let the strangers and the poor be fed at your 
 tables, says he, and in these you entertain Christ 
 himself. When you see a trafficking clerk, who 
 from being poor grows rich, and from being mean 
 becomes great, fly from him as from a plague. 
 The conversation of such men corrupted good 
 minds ; they sought after wealth, and loved com- 
 pany, the public places of conversation, fairs, and 
 market-places ; whereas a true clerk loves silence 
 and retirement. Then he gives him a strong cau- 
 tion against conversing with women, and in parti- 
 cular against all those mean compliances which 
 some of those clerks used towards rich women, 
 by which they got not only presents during their 
 lives, but legacies by their wills. That abuse had 
 grown to such an intolerable excess, that a law 
 was made, excluding priests from having any be- 
 nefit by testaments. They were the only persons 
 that were put under that incapacity. Heathen 
 priests were not included in the law, yet he does 
 not complain of the law, but of those who had 
 given just occasion for making it. The laws of 
 Christ had been contemned, so it was necessary to 
 restrain them by human laws. It was the glory 
 of a bishop to provide for the poor, but it was the 
 reproach of a priest to study the enriching of him- 
 self. He reckons up many instances of the base 
 and abject flattery of some clerks, to gain upon 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 119 
 
 rich and dying persons, and to get their estates. 
 Next he exhorts him to the constant and diligent 
 study of the Scriptures ; but to be sure to do 
 nothing that should contradict his discourses, or 
 give occasion to his hearers to answer him thus, 
 Why do not you do as you say ? Then he speaks 
 of the union that ought to be between the bishop 
 and his clergy ; the affection on the one side, and 
 the obedience on the other. In preaching, he must 
 not study to draw applauses, but "groans from his 
 hearers. Their tears was the best sort of com- 
 mendation of a sermon, in which great care was 
 to be taken to avoid the methods of the stage, or 
 of common declamations. Great use was to be 
 made of the Scriptures. The mysteries of our 
 faith and the Sacraments of our religion ought to 
 be well explained : grimaces and solemn looks are 
 often made use of to give weight and authority to 
 that which has none in itself. He charges him to 
 use a plain simplicity in his habit, neither shewing 
 too much nicety on the one hand, that savours of 
 luxury, nor such a neglect on the other, as might 
 savour of affectation. He recommends particularly 
 the care of the poor to him. Then he speaks of 
 clergymen's mutually preferring one another ; con- 
 sidering that there are different members in one 
 body, and that every one has his own function 
 and peculiar talent; and that therefore no man 
 
120 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 ought to overvalue his own, or undervalue his 
 neighbour's. A plain clerk ought not to value 
 himself upon his simplicity and ignorance, nor 
 ought a learned and eloquent man to measure his 
 holiness by his rhetoric ; for indeed, of the two, a 
 holy simplicity is much more valuable than un- 
 sanctified eloquence. He speaks against the af- 
 fectation of magnificence and riches, in the worship 
 of God, as things more becoming the pomp of the 
 Jewish religion, than the humility of the spiritual 
 doctrine of Christ. He falls next upon the high 
 and sumptuous way of living of some priests, which 
 they pretended was necessary to procure them the 
 respect that was due to them, and to give them 
 interest and credit : but the world, at least the 
 better part of it, would always value a priest more 
 for his holiness than for his wealth. He charges 
 him strictly to avoid all the excesses of wine, and, 
 in opposition to that, to fast much, but without 
 superstition, or a nicety in the choice of such 
 things as he was to live on in the time of fasting. 
 Some shewed a trifling superstition in those mat- 
 ters, as well as vanity and affectation that was 
 indeed scandalous. Plain and simple fasting was 
 despised, as not singular nor pompous enough for 
 their pride. For it seems by what follows, that 
 the clergy was then corrupted with the same dis- 
 orders, w T ith which our Saviour had reproached the 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 121 
 
 Pharisees, while they did not study inward purity, 
 so much as outward appearances ; nor the pleasing 
 of God, so much as the praise of men. But here 
 he stops short, for it seems he went too near the 
 describing some eminent man in that age. From 
 that he turns to the government of a priest's 
 tongue : he ought neither to detract from any one 
 himself, nor to encourage such as did : the very 
 hearkening to slander was very unbecoming. They 
 ought to visit their people, but not to report in 
 one place what they observed in another ; in that 
 they ought to be both discreet and secret. Hip- 
 pocrates adjured those that came to study from 
 him, to be secret, grave, and prudent in their whole 
 behaviour ; but how much more did this become 
 those to whom the care of souls was trusted ! Ke 
 advises him to visit his people rather in their af- 
 flictions, than in their prosperity ; not to go too 
 often to their feasts, which must needs lessen him 
 that does it too much. He, in the last place, 
 speaks very severely of those who applied the 
 wealth of the church to their own private uses. It 
 was: theft to defraud a friend, but it was sacrilege 
 to rob the church. It was a crime that exceeded 
 the cruelty of highwaymen, to receive that which 
 belonged indeed to the poor, and to withdraw any 
 part of it to one's private occasions. He concludes 
 with this excuse, that he had named no person, 
 
 M 
 
122 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 he had not writ to reproach others; but to give 
 them warning. And therefore since he had treated 
 of the vices of the clergy in general terms, if any 
 was offended with him for it, he thereby plainly 
 confessed, that he himself was guilty." 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OP SOME CANONS IN DIVERS AGES 
 OF THE CHURCH, RELATING TO THE DUTIES 
 AND LABOURS OF THE CLERGY. 
 
 I will go no further, in gathering quotations to 
 shew the sense that the fathers had in these mat- 
 ters ; these are both so full and so express, that I 
 can find none more plain and more forcible. I 
 shall to these add some of the canons that have 
 been made both in the best and in the worst ages 
 of the church, obliging bishops and other clerks to 
 residence, and to be contented with one cure. In 
 that at Sardica that met in the year 347, consist- 
 ing of above 350 bishops, two canons were made, 
 (the 11th and the 12th,) against bishops who, 
 without any urgent necessity, or pressing business, 
 should be absent from their church above three 
 weeks, and thereby grieve the flock that was com- 
 mitted to their care : and even this provision was 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 123 
 
 made because bishops had estates lying out of 
 their dioceses ; therefore they were allowed to go 
 and look after them, for three weeks, in which 
 time they were to perform the divine function in 
 the churches to which those estates belonged. 
 
 Many provisions were also made against such as 
 went to court, unless they were called by the em- 
 perors, or went by a deputation from the church 
 upon a public account. There is not any one 
 thing more frequently provided against, than that 
 any of the clergy should leave their church, and 
 go to any other church, or live anywhere else 
 without the bishop's leave and consent ; nor is 
 there any thing clearer from all the canons of the 
 first ages, than that they considered the clergy of 
 every church as a body of men dedicated to its 
 service ; that lived upon the oblations of the faithful, 
 and that was to labour in the several parts of the 
 ecclesiastical ministry, as they should be ordered 
 by the bishop. 
 
 In the fourth general council at Calcedon, plu- 
 ralities do first appear : for they are mentioned 
 and condemned in the tenth canon, which runs 
 thus : No clerk shall at the same time belong to 
 two churches ; to wit, to that in which he was first 
 ordained, and that to which, as being the greater, 
 he has gone, out of a desire of vain glory ; for such 
 as do so, ought to be sent back to that church 
 m 2 
 
124 OF THE TASTORAL CARE. 
 
 in which they were at first ordained, and to serve 
 there only : but if any has been translated from 
 one church to another, he shall receive nothing 
 out of his former church, nor out of any chapel or 
 alms-house belonging to it ; and such as shall 
 transgress this definition of this general council, 
 are condemned by it, to be degraded. I go next 
 to a worse scene of the church, to see what pro- 
 visions were made in this matter about the eighth 
 century, both in the east and in the west: the 
 worse that those ages and councils were, it makes 
 the argument the stronger; since even bad men 
 in bad times, could not justify or suffer such an 
 abuse. 
 
 In the year 787, the second council of Nice was 
 held, that settled the worship of images. The 15th 
 canon of it runs thus : " No clerk shall from 
 henceforth be reckoned in two churches,' ' (for 
 every church had a catalogue of its clergy, by 
 which the dividends were made,) " for this is the 
 character of trafficking, and covetousness, and 
 wholly estranged from the ecclesiastical custom. 
 We have heard from our Saviour's own words, 
 that no man can serve two masters ; for he will 
 either hate the one or love the other, or cleave to 
 the one and despise the other : let every one there- 
 fore, according to the apostle's words, continue in 
 the vocation in which he is called, and serve in 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 125 
 
 one church : for those things which filthy lucre has 
 brought into church matters, are contrary to God. 
 There is a variety of employments, for acquiring 
 the necessary supplies of this life : let every one 
 that pleases, make use of these, for furnishing 
 himself : for the apostle says, ' These hands mi- 
 nistered to my necessities, and to those that were 
 with me/ This shall be the rule in this town, 
 which is guarded by God ; but in remote villages 
 an indulgence may be granted, by reason of the 
 want of men/' It is upon this that the canonists 
 do found the first of the two reasons, for which 
 only they allow that a dispensation for holding 
 two benefices may be lawful; one is, the want of 
 fit and sufficient men for the service of the church. 
 The foundation of the other will be found in the 
 canon, which I shall next set down. 
 
 It is the 49th canon of the sixth council at Pa- 
 ris, under Lewis the Good, in the year 829. This 
 council came after a great many that had been 
 held by Charles the Great and his son, for purging 
 out abuses, and for restoring the primitive disci- 
 pline. These councils sat at Frankfort, Mentz, 
 Aken, Rheims, Chalons, Tours, Aries ; and this 
 of Paris was the last that was held upon that de- 
 sign. In these, all the primitive canons relating 
 to the lives and labours, and the government of 
 the clergy, were renewed. Among others is that 
 m 3 
 
126 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 of Calcedon formerly mentioned; but it seems 
 there was no occasion given to make a special one 
 against pluralities, before this held at Paris, which 
 consisted of four provinces of France, Rheims, 
 Sens, Tours, and Rouen. The canon runs thus : 
 — " As it becomes every city to have its proper 
 bishop ; so it is also becoming and necessary that 
 every church dedicated to God, should have its 
 proper priest. Yet covetousness, which is idolatry, 
 (of which we are much ashamed,) has so got hold 
 of some priests, and caught them captives in its 
 fetters, that they, blinded with it, know neither 
 whither they go, nor what they ought to be or do ; 
 so that they being kindled with the fire of covet- 
 ousness, and forgetful of the priestly dignit)^ neg- 
 lecting the care of those churches to which they 
 were promoted, do by some present given or 
 promised, procure other churches not only from 
 clerks, but from laymen, in which they do against 
 law undertake to perform the ministry of Christ. 
 It is not known whether their bishops are con- 
 sulted in this matter, on not ; if they are, without 
 doubt, their bishops become partakers of their sin : 
 but if they presume to do it without consulting 
 them, yet it is to be imputed to the bishop's neg- 
 ligence. There is scarce a priest to be found who 
 warreth worthily and diligently in that church in 
 which he is dedicated, to the divine service : but 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 127 
 
 how much less will he be able to do that worthily 
 in two, three, or more churches? This practice 
 brings a reproach on the Christian religion, and a 
 confusion on the priestly order. The covetousness 
 of the clergy is censured by their people ; the 
 worship of God is not performed in places conse- 
 crated to him ; and as was observed in the former 
 chapters, the souls of the people are thereby much 
 endangered. Wherefore, we do all unanimously 
 appoint, that no bishop suffer this to be done in 
 his parish (or diocese, these words being used 
 promiscuously) any more ; and we decree that 
 every church that has a congregation belonging to 
 it, and has means by which it may subsist, shall 
 have its proper priest ; for if it has a congregation, 
 but has not means by which it may subsist, that 
 matter is left to the bishop, to consider whether it 
 can or ought to be supported or not. But it is 
 specially recommended to their care, to see that 
 under this pretence, no priest may, out of covet- 
 ousness, hold two or three churches, in which he 
 cannot serve, nor perform the worship of God." — 
 The last provisions in this canon, are the grounds 
 upon which the canonists found the second just 
 cause of dispensing with pluralities, which is, 
 when a church is so poor, that the profits which 
 arise out of it cannot afford a competent main- 
 tenance to a clerk : but then the question arises, 
 
128 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 What is a competent maintenance ? This they do 
 all bring very low, to that which can just maintain 
 him : and they have so clogged it, that no pretence 
 should be given by so general a word, to covet- 
 ousness, voluptuousness or ambition. And indeed 
 while we have so many poor churches among us, 
 instead of restraining such pluralities, it were ra- 
 ther to be wished that it were made easier than by 
 law it is at present, either to unite them together, 
 or to make one man capable of serving two 
 churches, when both benefices make but a tolera- 
 ble subsistence, rather than to be forced to have 
 a greater number of clerks than can be decently 
 maintained ; since it is certain, that it is more for 
 the interest of religion, and for the good of souls, 
 to have one worthy man serving two churches, 
 and dividing himself between them, than to have 
 clerks for many benefices, whose scandalous pro- 
 visions make too many scandalous incumbents, 
 which is one of the greatest diseases and miseries 
 of this church. 
 
 But a due care in this matter has no relation to 
 the accumulation of livings at great distances, 
 (every one of which can well support an incum- 
 bent,) upon the same person merely for the mak- 
 ing of a family, for the supporting of luxury or 
 vanity, or for other base and covetous designs. 
 But I go next to two of the worst councils that 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 129 
 
 ever carried the name of general ones, the third 
 and the fourth of the Lateran, that we may see 
 what was the sense of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries in this matter, notwithstanding the cor- 
 ruption of those ages. The thirteenth canon of 
 the third Lateran council runs thus : — " Foras- 
 much as some, whose covetousness has no bounds, 
 endeavour to procure to themselves divers eccle- 
 siastical dignities, and several parish churches, 
 against the provisions of the holy canons, by which 
 means, though they are scarce able to perform the 
 office of one, they do claim the provisions due to 
 many ; we do severely require, that this may not 
 be done for the future ; and therefore, when any 
 church or ecclesiastical ministry is to be given, 
 let such a one be sought out for it, as shall reside 
 upon the place, and shall be able to discharge the 
 care in his own person : if otherwise, he who re- 
 ceives any such benefice, contrary to the canons, 
 shall lose it, and he who gave it shall likewise lose 
 his right of patronage." This canon not being 
 found effectual to cure so great an abuse, the 
 twenty-ninth canon of the fourth council in the 
 Lateran was penned in these words : "It was 
 with great care forbidden in the council of the 
 Lateran, that any one should have divers ecclesias- 
 tical dignities, and more parish churches than one, 
 which is contrary to the holy canons. Otherwise 
 
130 OF THK PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 he that took them should lose them, and he that 
 gave them should lose the right of giving them : 
 but by reason of some men's presumption and co- 
 vetousness, that decree has had little or no effect 
 hitherto ; we, therefore, desiring to make a more 
 evident and express provision against these abuses, 
 do appoint, That whosoever shall receive any be- 
 nefice to which a cure of souls is annexed, shall 
 thereupon, by law, be deprived of any other such 
 benefice, that he formerly had ; and if he endea- 
 vours still to hold it, he shall lose the other like- 
 wise ; and he to whom the right of the patronage 
 of his first benefice did belong, is empowered to 
 bestow it upon his accepting another ; and if he 
 delays the bestowing it above three months, not 
 only shall his right devolve to another, according 
 to the decree of the council in the Lateran, but he 
 shall be obliged to restore to the church to which 
 the benefice belongs, all that which he himself re- 
 ceived during the vacancy. This we do likewise 
 decree as to parsonages, and do further appoint, 
 That no man shall presume to hold more dignities 
 or parsonages than one in the same church, even 
 though they have no cure of souls annexed to 
 them. Provided always, that dispensations may 
 be granted by the apostolical see, to persons of 
 high birth, or eminently learned (sublimes et lite- 
 ratas personas) or dignified in universities (for so the 
 
OF THE PASTOBAL CARE. 131 
 
 word literati was understood), who, upon occasion, 
 may be honoured with greater benefices. " " It was 
 by this last proviso, that this, as well as all other 
 canons made against these abuses, became quite 
 ineffectual; for this had no other effect, but the 
 obliging people to go to Rome for dispensations ; 
 so that this canon, instead of reforming the abuse, 
 did really establish it ; for the qualifications here 
 mentioned, were so far stretched, that any person 
 that had obtained a degree in any university, came 
 within the character of lettered, or learned ; and 
 all those that were in any dependence upon great 
 men, came likewise within the other qualification 
 of high rank and birth. " 
 
 This was the practice among us during the reign 
 of Henry VIII. ; and he, when he was beginning 
 to threaten the See of Rome in the matter of his 
 divorce, got that act to be passed, which has been 
 the occasion of so much scandal and disorder in 
 this church. It seems to one that considers it 
 well, that the clauses which qualify pluralities, 
 were grafted upon another bill against spiritual 
 persons taking estates to farm, with which that 
 act begins : and that in the carrying that on, such 
 a temper shewed itself that the other was added to 
 it. It contained indeed a limitation of the papal 
 authority ; but so many provisions are made, that 
 the nobility, clergy, and the more eminent of the 
 
132 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 gentry, knights in particular, were so taken care 
 of, that it could meet with no great opposition in 
 the parliament ; but from the state of that time, 
 and from several clauses in the act itself, it ap- 
 pears it was only intended to be a provisional act, 
 though it is conceived in the style of a perpetual 
 law. By it then, and by it only, (for I have not 
 been able to find that any such act ever passed in 
 any kingdom or state in Christendom, many hav- 
 ing been made plainly to the contrary in France, 
 declaring the obligation to residence to be of Di- 
 vine right,) were the abuses that had risen out of 
 the canon of one of the worst councils that ever 
 was, authorized and settled among us, as far as 
 the law of the land can settle them. But, after all, 
 it is to be considered, that a law does indeed 
 change the legal and political nature of things, it 
 gives a title to a freehold and property ; but no hu- 
 man law can change the moral and Divine laws, 
 and cancel their authority. If a false religion is 
 settled by law, it becomes indeed the legal religion, 
 but is not a whit the truer for that : and therefore 
 if the laws of the gospel oblige clerks to personal 
 labour, as w r as formerly made out, an act of parlia- 
 ment may indeed qualify a man in law to enjoy 
 the benefice, whether he labours in it or not; but 
 it can never dissolve his obligation to residence 
 and personal labour. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 133 
 
 But, to bring this chapter to an end, I shall only 
 add three decrees that were made by the council 
 of Trent in this matter, that so it may appear 
 what provisions they made against abuses, which 
 are still supported by laws among us. A part 
 of the first chapter of Reformation, that past in 
 the sixth session, runs thus : — " This synod admo- 
 nishes all that are set over any cathedral churches, 
 by what title soever, that they take heed to them- 
 selves, and to all the flock over which the Holy 
 Ghost has set them, to govern the church of God,-, 
 which he has purchased with his own blood, do 
 watch and labour, and fulfil their ministry, as the 
 apostle has commanded. And they must know 
 that they cannot do this, if, as hirelings, they for- 
 sake the flock committed to them, and do not 
 watch over those sheep, whose blood will be re- 
 quired at their hands in the last day. Since it is 
 certain that no excuse will be received, -if the wolf 
 devours the sheep when the shepherd does not 
 look after them. Yet since, to our great grief, it 
 is found, that some at this time neglect the salva- 
 tion of their souls, and preferring earthly things to 
 heavenly, are still about courts, and forsaking the 
 fold, and the care of the sheep trusted to them, 
 do give themselves wholly to earthly and temporal 
 cares ; therefore, all the ancient canons, which, 
 by the iniquity of times, and the corruptions of 
 
134 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 men, were fallen into desuetude, were renewed 
 against non-residents." To which several com- 
 pulsory clauses are added, which are indeed slight 
 ones, because the execution of them was entirely 
 put into the pope's power, and the punishment did 
 only lie, if the bishop was absent six months in a 
 year. 
 
 This decree did not satisfy those who moved for 
 a reformation; so a fuller one was made in the 
 23d session, 1st chap., in these words : " Where- 
 as, by the law of God, all those to whom the care 
 of souls is committed, are commanded to know 
 their sheep, to offer sacrifice for them, to feed 
 them by the preaching of the word of God, the 
 administration of the sacraments, and by the ex- 
 ample of a good life, to have a tender care of the 
 poor, and all other miserable persons, and to lay 
 themselves out upon all the other functions of the 
 pastoral care ; which cannot be performed by those 
 who do not watch over, nor are present with their 
 flock : Therefore this synod does admonish and 
 exhort them, that they, remembering the Divine 
 precepts, and being made an example to their 
 flock, may feed and govern them in righteousness 
 and truth. Upon this they declare, that all bi- 
 shops, even cardinals themselves, are obliged to 
 personal residence in their church and diocese, 
 and there to discharge their duty, unless upon some 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 135 
 
 special occasions." By which indeed a door is 
 opened to as many corruptions as the court of 
 Rome thinks fit to dispense with. Yet without 
 this none may be absent above two, or at most 
 three months in the whole year ; and even that 
 must be upon a just reason, and without any pre- 
 judice to the flock : " And they leave this upon the 
 consciences of such as withdraw for so long a 
 time, who they hope will be religious and tender 
 in this matter, since all hearts are known to God, 
 and it is no small sin to do his work negligently." 
 They declare the breaking this decree to be a mor- 
 tal sin, and that such as are guilty of it cannot, 
 with a good conscience, enjoy the mean profits 
 during such their absence, but are bound to lay 
 them out on the fabric, or give them to the poor : 
 and all these provisions and punishments they do 
 also make against the inferior clergy, that enjoyed 
 any benefice to which the care of souls was an- 
 nexed ; and the execution of that is put in the 
 bishop's hands, who is required not to dispense 
 with their residence, unless upon a very weighty 
 occasion, above two months ; and in this they give 
 the bishop so full an authority, that no appeal or 
 prohibition was to lie against his sentence upon 
 non-residents, even in the court of Rome. By 
 these decrees, though the papal party hindered a 
 formal declaration of the obligation to residence by 
 n2 
 
136 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 Divine right, that so room might be still left for the 
 dispensing power ; yet they went very near it ; they 
 applied passages of Scripture to it, and laid the 
 charge of mortal sin upon it. 
 
 In the last place, I shall set down the decree 
 that was made in the 24th session, chap. 17, 
 against pluralities, in these words : " Whereas the 
 ecclesiastical order is perverted, when one clerk 
 has the offices of many committed to him, it was, 
 therefore, well provided by the holy canons, that 
 no man should be put into two churches. But 
 many, led by their depraved covetousness, deceiv- 
 ing themselves, but not God, are not ashamed to 
 elude those good constitutions by several artifices, 
 and obtain more benefices than one at the same 
 time : Therefore, the synod, being desirous to re- 
 store a proper discipline for the government of 
 churches, does, by this decree, by which all per- 
 sons of what rank soever, even cardinals them- 
 selves, shall be bound, appoint, that, for the fu- 
 ture, one man shall be capable of receiving only 
 one ecclesiastical benefice. But if that is not suf- 
 ficient for the decent maintenance of him that has 
 it, then it shall be lawful to give him another sim- 
 ple benefice, provided that both benefices do not 
 require personal residence. This rule must be ap- 
 plied not only to cathedrals, but to all other bene- 
 fices, whether secular, regular, or such as are held 
 
 
OF THE TASTORAL CARE. 137 
 
 by Commendam, or of what sort or order soever 
 they may be. And as for such as do at present 
 possess either more parish churches than one, or 
 one cathedral and another parish church, they 
 shall be forced, notwithstanding any dispensations 
 or unions that may have been granted them for 
 term of life, to resign within the space of six 
 months all they do now hold, except one cathedral, 
 or one parochial church ; otherwise all the bene- 
 fices, whether parochial or others, shall be by law 
 esteemed void, and as such they shall be disposed 
 of to others. Nor may those who formerly en- 
 joyed them, receive the mean profits after the 
 term of six months with a good conscience. But 
 the synod wishes that some due provision might 
 be made, such as the pope shall think fit, for the 
 necessities of those who are hereby obliged to re- 
 sign." 
 
 These were the decrees that were made by that 
 pretended general council : And wheresoever that 
 council is received, they^are so seldom dispensed 
 with, that the scandal of non-residence, or plura- 
 lity, does no more cry in that church. In France, 
 though that council is not received, yet such re- 
 gard is had to primitive rules, that it is not heard 
 of among them. Such examples are to us re- 
 proaches indeed, and that of the worst sort ; when 
 the argument, from the neglect of the pastoral 
 n3 
 
138 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 care, which gave so great an advantage at first to 
 the reformers, and turned the hearts of the world 
 SO much frjora their careless pastors to those who 
 Viewed more zeal and concern for them, is now 
 against us, and lies the other way. If the nature 
 of man is so made, that it is not possible but that 
 V offences must come/' yet fC woe be to him by 
 whom thev come." 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 OF THE DECLARED SENSE AND RULES OF THE 
 CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN THIS MATTER. 
 
 Whatsoever may be the practice of any among 
 us, and whatsoever may be the force of some laws 
 that were made in bad times, and perhaps upon 
 bad ends, yet we are sure the sense of our church 
 is very different : she intended to raise the obliga- 
 tion of the pastoral care higher than it was before ; 
 and has laid out this matter more fully and more 
 strictly than any church ever did in any age, as 
 far, at least, as my inquiries can carry me. The 
 truest indication of the sense of a church is to be 
 taken from her language in her public offices : this 
 is that which she speaks the most frequently and 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 139 
 
 the most publicly ; even the articles of doctrine 
 are not so much read, and so often heard, as her 
 liturgies are. And as this way of reasoning has been 
 of late made use of with great advantage against 
 the church of Rome, to make her accountable for 
 all her public offices in their plain and literal mean- 
 ing, so will I make use of it on this occasion. It 
 is the stronger in our case ; whose offices being in 
 a tongue understood by the people, the argument 
 from them does more evidently conclude here. 
 
 In general, then, this is to be observed, — that 
 no church before ours., at the Reformation, took a 
 formal sponsion at the altar from such as were 
 ordained deacons and priests : that was, indeed, 
 always demanded of bishops ; but neither in the 
 Roman nor Greek Pontifical do we find any such 
 solemn vows and promises demanded or made by 
 priests or deacons ; nor does any print of this ap- 
 pear in the Constitutions, the pretended Areopa- 
 gite, or the ancient canons of the church. Bishops 
 were asked many questions, as appears by the first 
 canon of the fourth council of Carthage. They 
 were required to profess their faith, and to promise 
 to obey the canons ; which is still observed in the 
 Greek church. The questions are more express 
 in the Roman Pontifical; and the first of these 
 demands a promise, "That they will instruct their 
 people in the Christian doctrine, according to the 
 
140 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 holy Scriptures:" which was the foundation upon 
 which our bishops justified the Reformation ; since, 
 the first and chief of all their vows binding them 
 to this, it was to take place of all others ; and if 
 any other parts of those sponsions contradicted 
 this, such as their obedience and adherence to 
 the see of Rome, they said that these were to be 
 limited by this. 
 
 All the account I can give of this general prac- 
 tice of the church, in demanding promises only of 
 bishops, and not of the other orders, is this : That 
 they considered the government of the priests and 
 deacons as a thing that was so entirely in the 
 bishops, — as it was, indeed, by the first constitu- 
 tion, — that it was not thought necessary to bind 
 them to their duty by any public vows or pro- 
 mises, (though it is very probable that the bishops 
 might take private engagements of them before 
 they ordained them,) it being in the bishop's power 
 to restrain and censure them in a very absolute 
 and summary way. But the case was quite dif- 
 ferent in bishops, who were all equal by their rank 
 and order ; none having any authority over them, 
 by any Divine law, or the rules of the Gospel ; 
 the power of primates and metropolitans having 
 arisen out of ecclesiastical and civil laws, and not 
 being equally great in all countries and provinces ; 
 and therefore it was more necessary to proceed 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 141 
 
 with greater caution, and to demand a further 
 security from them. 
 
 But the new faee of the constitution of the 
 church, by which priests were not under so abso- 
 lute a subjection to their bishops as they had been 
 at first, which was occasioned partly by the tyranny 
 of some bishops, to which bounds were set by laws 
 and canons ; partly by their having a special pro- 
 perty and benefice of their own, and so not being 
 maintained by a dividend out of the common stock 
 of the church, as at first ; had so altered the state 
 of things, that indeed no part of the episcopacy 
 was left entirely in the bishop's hands, but the 
 power of ordination. This is still free and unre- 
 strained ; no writs nor prohibitions from civil 
 courts, and no appeals, have clogged or fettered 
 this, as they have done all the other parts of their 
 authority. Therefore our reformers, observing all 
 this, took great care in reforming the office of or- 
 dination ; and they made both the charge that is 
 given, and the promises that are to be taken, to be 
 very express and solemn, that so both the ordain- 
 ers and the ordained might be rightly instructed 
 in their duty, and struck with the awe and dread 
 that they ought to be under in so holy and so 
 important a performance. And though all man- 
 kind does easily enough agree in this, that pro- 
 mises ought to be religiously observed which men 
 
142 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 make to one another, how apt soever they may be 
 to break them ; yet, to make the sense of these 
 promises go deeper, they are ordered to be made 
 at the altar, and in the nature of a stipulation or 
 covenant ; the church conferring orders, or indeed 
 rather Christ, by the ministry of the officers that 
 he has constituted, conferring them upon those 
 promises that are first made. The forms of ordi- 
 nation in the Greek church, which we have reason 
 to believe are less changed, and more conform to 
 the primitive patterns, than those used by the 
 Latins, do plainly import that the church only de- 
 clared the Divine vocation. " The grace of God, 
 that perfects the feeble and heals the weak, pro- 
 motes this man to be a deacon, a priest, or a 
 bishop ;" where nothing is expressed as conferred, 
 but only as declared : so our church, by making 
 our Saviour's words the form of ordination, must 
 be construed to intend by that, that it is Christ 
 only that sends, and that the bishops are only his 
 ministers, to pronounce his mission ; otherwise it 
 is not so easy to justify the use of this form, " Re- 
 ceive the Holy Ghost ;" which, as it was not used 
 in the primitive church, nor by the Roman, till 
 within these 500 years, so in that church it is not 
 the form of ordination, but a benediction given by 
 the bishop singly, after the orders are given by 
 the bishop and the other priests joining with him ; 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 143 
 
 for this is done by him alone, as the final consum- 
 mation of the action. But our using this as the 
 form of ordination shews, that we consider our- 
 selves only as the instruments that speak in Christ's 
 name and words : insinuating thereby that he only 
 ordains. Pursuant to this, in the ordaining of 
 priests, the questions are put " in the name of God 
 and of his church," which makes the answers to 
 them to be of the nature of vows and oaths : so 
 that if men do make conscience of any thing, and 
 if it is possible to strike terror into them, the forms 
 of our ordinations are the most effectually con- 
 trived for that end that could have been framed. 
 
 The first question that is put in the Office of 
 Deacons is, "Do you trust that you are inwardly 
 moved by the Holy Ghost to take upon you this 
 office, to serve God, for the promoting of his 
 glory, and the edifying of his people ?" To which 
 he is to answer, " I trust so." This is put only in 
 this office, and not repeated afterwards ; it being 
 justly supposed, that where one has had this mo- 
 toin, all the other orders may be in time conferred, 
 pursuant to it : but this is the first step by which 
 a man dedicates himself to the service of God, and 
 therefore it ought not to be made by any that has 
 not this Divine vocation. Certainly the answer 
 that is made to this ought to be well considered ; 
 for if any says, " I trust so," that yet knows nothing 
 
144 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 of any such motion, and can give no account of 
 it, he lies to the Holy Ghost, and makes his first 
 approach to the altar with a lie in his mouth, and 
 that not to men, but to God. And how can one 
 expect to be received by God, or be sent and 
 sealed by him, that dares do a thing of so crying 
 a nature, as to pretend that he trusts he has this 
 motion, who knows that he has it not, who has 
 made no reflections on it, and when asked what 
 he means by it, can say nothing concerning it, 
 and yet he dares venture to come and say it before 
 God and his church ? If a man pretends a com- 
 mission from a prince, or indeed from any person, 
 and acts in his name upon it, the law will fall on 
 him, and punish him; and shall the " great God 
 of heaven and earth" be thus vouched, and his 
 motion be pretended to, by those whom he has 
 neither called nor sent ? And shall not he reckon 
 with those who dare to run without his mission, 
 pretending that they trust they have it, when per- 
 haps they understand not the importance of it; 
 nay, and perhaps some laugh at it, as an enthusi- 
 astical question, who yet will go through with the 
 office ? They come to Christ for the loaves ; they 
 hope to live by the altar and the gospel, how little 
 soever they serve at the one, or preach the other : 
 therefore they will say any thing that is necessary 
 for qualifying them to this, whether true or false. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 145 
 
 It cannot be denied, but that this question carries 
 a sound in it that seems a little too high, and that 
 may rather raise scruples, as importing somewhat 
 that is not ordinary, and that seems to savour of 
 enthusiasm ; and therefore it was put here, with- 
 out doubt, to give great caution to such as come 
 to the service of the church. Many may be able 
 to answer it truly, according to the sense of the 
 church, who may yet have great doubting in them- 
 selves concerning it ; but every man that has it 
 not, must needs know that he has it not. 
 
 The true meaning of it must be resolved thus : 
 The motives that ought to determine a man to 
 dedicate himself to the ministering in the church, 
 are, a zeal for promoting the glory of God, for 
 raising the honour of the Christian religion, for the 
 making it to be better understood, and more sub- 
 mitted to. He that loves it, and feels the excel- 
 lency of it in himself, that has a due sense of God's 
 goodness in it to mankind, and that is entirely 
 possessed with that, will feel a zeal within himself 
 for communicating that to others : that so ' ' the 
 only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has 
 sent/' may be more universally glorified, and 
 served by his creatures. And when to this he 
 has added a concern for the souls of men, a ten- 
 derness for them, a zeal to rescue them from end- 
 less misery, and a desire to put them in the wijr 
 o 
 
146 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 to everlasting happiness ; and from these motives, 
 feels in himself a desire to dedicate his life and 
 labours to those ends ; and in order to them, 
 studies to understand the Scriptures, and more 
 particularly the New Testament, that from thence 
 he may form a true notion of this holy religion, 
 and so be an able minister of it. This man, and 
 only this man, so moved and so qualified, can in 
 truth and with a good conscience answer, "That 
 he trusts he is inwardly moved by the Holy 
 Ghost;" and every one that ventures on the say- 
 ing it without this, is a sacrilegious profaner of 
 the name of God and of his Holy Spirit. He 
 breaks in upon his church, not to feed it, but to 
 rob it : and it is certain, that he who begins with 
 a lie may be sent by the father of lies; but he 
 cannot be thought to enter in by the door, who 
 prevaricates in the first word that he says in order 
 to his admittance. 
 
 But if the office of deacons offers no other par- 
 ticular matter of reflection, the office of ordaining 
 priests has a great deal ; indeed, the whole of it 
 is calculated to the best notions of the best times. 
 In the charge that is given, the figures of watch- 
 men, shepherds, and stewards are pursued, and 
 the places of Scripture relating to these are ap- 
 plied to them : " They are required to have always 
 printed in their remembrance, how great a trea- 
 
OF THB PASTORAL CARE. 147 
 
 sure was committed to their charge: the church 
 and congregation whom you must serve, is his 
 spouse and body. Then the greatness of the fault 
 of their negligence, and the horrible punishment 
 that will follow upon it, is set before them, in case 
 the church, or any member of it, take any hurt 
 or hinderance by reason of it. They are charged 
 never to cease their labour, care, and diligence, 
 till they have done all that lieth in them, accord- 
 ing to their bounden duty, towards all such as 
 are or shall be committed to their care, to bring 
 them to a ripeness and perfection of age in Christ/' 
 They are again urged to M consider with what care 
 and study they ought to apply themselves to this ; 
 to pray earnestly for God's Holy Spirit, and to be 
 studious in reading and learning of the Scriptures ; 
 and to forsake and set aside, as much as they 
 may, all worldly cares and studies. It is hoped 
 that they have clearly determined, by God's grace, 
 to give themselves wholly to this vocation; and, 
 as much as lieth in them, to apply themselves 
 wholly to this one thing, and to draw all their 
 cares and studies this way, and to this end ; and 
 that by their daily reading and weighing the Scrip- 
 tures, they will study to wax riper and stronger 
 in their ministry." These are some of the words 
 of the preparatory charge given by the bishop 
 when he enters upon this office, before he* r>uts 
 o2 
 
148 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 the questions that follow to those who are to be 
 ordained. What greater force or energy could be 
 put in words, than is in these ? Or where could 
 any be found that are more weighty and more ex- 
 press, to shew the entire dedication of the whole 
 man, of his time and labours, and the " separating 
 himself from all other cares, to follow this one 
 thing with all possible application and zeal V[ 
 There is nothing in any office, ancient or modern, 
 that I ever saw, which is of this force, so serious 
 and so solemn; and it plainly implies, not only 
 the sense of the church upon this whole matter, 
 but likewise their design who framed it, to oblige 
 priests, notwithstanding any relaxation that the 
 laws of the land had still favoured, by the firmest 
 and sacredest bonds possible, to attend upon their 
 flocks, and to do their duties to them. For a 
 bare residence, without labouring, is but a mock 
 residence ; since the obligation to it is in order to 
 a further end, that they may " watch over" and 
 " feed their flock, " and not enjoy their benefices 
 only as farms or as livings, according to the gross 
 but common abuse of our language, by which the 
 names of cures, parishes, or benefices, which are 
 the ecclesiastical names, are now swallowed up into 
 that of ' ' living," which carries a carnal idea in the 
 very sound of the word, and I doubt a more carnal 
 effect on the minds of both clergy and laity. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 149 
 
 Whatever we may be, our church is free of this 
 reproach, since this charge carries their duty as 
 high and as borne as any thing that can be laid in 
 words. And it is further to be considered, that 
 this is not of the nature of a private exhortation, 
 in which a man of lively thoughts and a warm 
 fancy may be apt to carry a point too high ; it is 
 the constant and uniform voice of the church. 
 Nor is it of the nature of a charge, which is only 
 the sense of him that gives it, and to which the 
 person to whom it is given is only passive : he 
 hears it, but cannot be bound by another man's 
 thoughts or words, further than as the nature of 
 things binds him. But orders are of the nature 
 of a covenant between Christ and the clerks, in 
 which so many privileges and powers are granted 
 on the one part, and so many duties and offices 
 are promised on the other ; and this charge being 
 the preface to it, it is stipulatory. It declares the 
 whole covenant of both sides ; and so those who 
 receive orders upon it are as much bound by every 
 part of it, and it becomes as much their own act, 
 as if they had pronounced or promised it all in 
 the most formal words that could be ; and indeed 
 the answers and promises, that are afterwards 
 made, are only the application of this to the par- 
 ticular persons, for giving them a plainer and 
 livelier sense of their obligation, which yet, in 
 o 3 
 
150 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 itself, was as entire and strong, whether they had 
 made any promise by words of their own or not. 
 
 But, to put the matter out of doubt, let us look 
 a little further into the office, to the promises that 
 they make with relation to their flock, even to 
 such " as are or shall be committed to their 
 charge." They promise, " That, by the help of 
 the Lord, they will give their faithful diligence 
 always so to minister the doctrine and sacraments, 
 and the discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath com- 
 manded, and as this realm hath received the same, 
 according to the commandment of God; so that 
 they may teach the people committed to their care 
 and charge, w T ith all diligence to keep and observe 
 the same." This does plainly bind to personal 
 labour : the mention that is made of " what this 
 realm has received' ' being limited by what follows, 
 " according to the commandment of God," shews, 
 that by this is meant the reformation of the doc- 
 trine and worship that was then received, and 
 established by law ; by which these general words, 
 " the doctrine, and sacraments, and discipline of 
 Christ," to which all parties pretend, are deter- 
 mined to our constitution ; so that though there 
 were some disorders among us, not yet provided 
 against by the laws of the land, this does not 
 secure a reserve for them. This is so slight a 
 remark, that I should be ashamed to have made 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 151 
 
 it, if it had not been urged to myself, slight as it 
 is, to justify, in point of conscience, the claiming 
 all such privileges or qualifications as are still 
 allowed by-law, But I go on to the other pro- 
 mises. The clerk says, " He will, by the help 
 of God, be ready, with all faithful diligence, to 
 banish and drive away all erroneous and strange 
 doctrines, contrary to God's word ; and to use 
 both public and private admonitions and exhorta- 
 tions, as well to the sick as to the whole within 
 his cure, as need shall require, and as occasion 
 shall be given." This is as plainly personal and 
 constant as words can make any thing ; and in 
 this is expressed the so much neglected, but so 
 necessary duty, which incumbents owe their flock, 
 in a private way, visiting, instructing, and admo- 
 nishing them, w T hich is one of the most useful and 
 important parts of their duty, how generally soever 
 it may be disused or forgotten : these being the 
 chief instances and acts of * ' watching over and 
 feeding the flock/' that is committed to their care. 
 In the next place, they promise, " That they will 
 be diligent in prayers, and in reading of the holy 
 Scriptures, and in such studies as help the know- 
 ledge of the same, laying aside the study of the 
 world and the flesh." This still carries on that 
 great notion of the pastoral care, which runs 
 through this whole office ; that it is to be a man's 
 
152 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 entire business, and is to possess both his thoughts 
 and his time. They do further promise, " That 
 they will maintain, and set forward, as much as 
 lieth in them, quietness, peace, and love among 
 all Christian people, and especially among them 
 that are, or shall be, committed to their charge." 
 
 These are the vows and promises that priests 
 make before they can be ordained. And, to com- 
 plete the stipulation, the bishop concludes it with 
 a prayer to God, " who has given them the will 
 to do all these things, to give them also strength 
 and power to" perform the same ; that he may 
 accomplish his work that he hath begun in them, 
 until the time that he shall come, at the latter 
 day, to judge the quick and the dead." Upon 
 the whole matter, either this is all a piece of gross 
 and impudent pageantry, dressed up in grave and 
 lofty expressions, to strike upon the weaker part 
 of mankind, and to furnish the rest with matter to 
 their profane and impious scorn ; or it must be 
 confessed that priests come under the most formal 
 and express engagements, to constant and diligent 
 labour, that can possibly be contrived or set forth 
 in words. It is upon this that they are ordained ; 
 so their ordination being the consummation of this 
 compact, it must be acknowledged that, accord- 
 ing to the nature of all mutual compacts, a total 
 failure on the one side does also dissolve all the 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 153 
 
 obligation that lay on the other. And, therefore, 
 those who do not perform their part, that do not 
 reside and labour, they do also, in the sight of 
 God, forfeit all the authority and privileges that 
 do follow their orders, as much as a Christian at 
 large, that does not perform his baptismal vow, 
 forfeits the rights and benefits of his baptism, in 
 the sight of God; though, both in the one and in 
 the other, it is necessary that, for the preventing 
 of disorder and confusion, a sentence declaratory 
 of excommunication in the one, as of degradation 
 in the other, pass, before the visible acts and 
 rights, pursuant to those rites, can be denied. 
 
 To all this I will add one thing more; which 
 is, that since our book of ordination is a part of 
 our liturgy, and likewise a part of the law of the 
 land ; and since constant attendance, and diligent 
 labour, is made necessary by it, and since this 
 law is subsequent to the act of the 21st of Henry 
 VIII., that qualifies so many for pluralities and 
 non-residence, and is, in plain terms, contrary to 
 it ; this, as subsequent, does repeal all that it 
 contradicts. It is upon all this a matter that 
 to me seems plain, that by this law the other is 
 repealed, in so far as it is inconsistent with it. 
 This argument is by this consideration made the 
 stronger, that the act of king Henry does not 
 enact that such things shall be, but only reserves 
 
154 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 privileges for such as may be capable of an ex- 
 emption from the common and general rules. 
 Now, by the principles of law, all privileges or 
 exemptions of that sort are odious things ; and the 
 construction of law lying hard and heavy against 
 odious cases, it appears to me, according to the 
 general grounds of law, very probable, (I speak 
 within bounds when I say only probable,) that 
 the act of uniformity, which makes the offices of 
 ordination a part of the law of England, is a repeal 
 of that part of the act of king Henry, which qua- 
 lifies for pluralities. To conclude, whatsoever 
 may be the strength of this plea in bar to that 
 act, if our faith, given to God and his church in 
 the most express and plainest words possible, does 
 bind, if promises given at the altar do oblige, and 
 if a stipulation, in the consideration of which or- 
 ders are given, is sacred, and of an indispensable 
 obligation, then, I am sure, this is. 
 
 To make the whole matter yet the stronger, 
 this office is to be completed with a communion ; 
 so that upon this occasion, that is not only a piece 
 of religious devotion accompanying it, but it is 
 the taking the sacrament upon the stipulation that 
 has been made between the priest and the church : 
 so that those who have framed this office, have 
 certainly intended, by all the ways that they could 
 think on, and by the weightiest words they could 
 
OF THE TASTORAL CARE. 155 
 
 choose, to make the sense of the priestly function, 
 and of the duties belonging to it, give deep and 
 strong impressions to such as are ordained. I 
 have compared with it all the exhortations that 
 are in all the offices I could find, ancient and 
 modern, whether of the Greek or the Latin 
 church ; and this must be said of ours, without 
 any sort of partiality to our own forms, that no 
 sort of comparison can be made between ours and 
 all the others ; and that as much as ours is more 
 simple than those as to its rites and ceremonies, 
 which swell up other offices, so much is it more 
 grave and weighty in the exhortations, collects, 
 and sponsions that are made in it. In the Roman 
 Pontifical no promises are demanded of priests, 
 but only that of obedience ; bishops, in a corrupted 
 state of the church, taking care only of their own 
 authority, while they neglected more important 
 obligations. 
 
 In the office of consecrating bishops, as all the 
 sponsions made by them, when they w r ere ordained 
 priests, are to be considered as still binding, since 
 the inferior office does still subsist in the superior ; 
 so there are new ones superadded, proportioned to 
 the exaltation of dignity and authority that ac- 
 companies that office. In the Roman Pontifical 
 there are indeed questions put to a bishop, before 
 he is consecrated ; but of all these, the first only 
 
156 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 is that which has any relation to his flock, which 
 is in these words : ' ' Wilt thou teach the people 
 over whom thou art to be set, both by the exam- 
 ple and doctrine, those things that thou learnest 
 out of the holy Scriptures ?" All the rest are 
 general, and relate only to his conversation, but 
 not at all to his labours in his diocese ; whereas, 
 on the contrary, the engagements in our office do 
 regard not only a bishop's own conversation, but 
 chiefly his duty to his people : he declares, that 
 "he is determined to instruct the people commit- 
 ted to his charge, out of the holy Scriptures ; that 
 he will study them, so as to be able, by them, to 
 teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine, and 
 withstand and convince the gainsay ers ; that he 
 will be ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish 
 and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine 
 contrary to God's word; and both privately and 
 openly to call upon, and encourage others to the 
 same ; that he will maintain and set forward, as 
 much as lies in him, quietness, love, and peace 
 among all men, and correct and punish such as 
 be unquiet, disobedient, and criminous, within his 
 diocese, according to such authority as he has. 
 In particular ; he promises to be faithful in or- 
 daining, sending, or laying hands upon others ; 
 he promises also to shew himself to be gentle and 
 merciful, for Christ's sake, to poor and needy 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 157 
 
 people, and to all strangers destitute of help." 
 These are the covenants and promises under which 
 bishops are put, which are again reinforced upon 
 them, in the charge that is given immediately 
 after their consecration when the bible is put into 
 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 thyself, and to doctrine, and be 
 diligent in doing them ; for by doing this thou 
 shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. 
 Be thou to the flock of Christ a shepherd, not a 
 w r olf ; feed them, devour them not. Hold up the 
 weak, heal the sick, bind up the broken, bring 
 again the outcasts, 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 Jesus 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 func- 
 tion, 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 sense of all churches 
 in all ages has been, that preaching was the 
 
158 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 bishop's great duty, and that he ought to lay him- 
 self out in it most particularly. 
 
 I shall only add one advice to all this, before I 
 leave this article of the sense 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 orders, 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 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 159 
 
 the oftener 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 join 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 easy in itself, 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 maimer, 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 come to it, to bring along with him a 
 p2 
 
160 OF THK PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 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 bishop's life, who truly minds his duty in 
 this weighty trust of sending out labourers into 
 God's 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 can- 
 not 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 humi- 
 lity, 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 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 161 
 
 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 be- 
 fore God, who will judge them at the great day 
 upon their religious performance of them, w T hether 
 they have been true to them or not ; that so they 
 may humble themselves for their errors and omis* 
 sions, 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, ob- 
 serving 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 performance. 
 It will give a vast joy to those who can go through 
 it with some measure of assurance, and finds, that, 
 though in the midst of many temptations 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 certain- 
 est evidence possible, that it shall be publicly said 
 at the last great day. This exercise will also offer 
 checks to a man that looks for them, and intends 
 both to understand his errors, and to cleanse him- 
 self from them. It will, upon the whole matter, 
 p3 
 
162 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 make clergymen go on with their profession, as 
 the business and labour of their lives. 
 
 Having known the very good effect that this 
 method has had on some, I dare the more confi- 
 dently recommend it to all others. 
 
 Before I conclude this chapter, I will shew what 
 rules our reformers had prepared with relation to 
 non-residence and pluralities ; which though they 
 never passed into laws, and so have no binding 
 force with them, yet in these we see what was 
 the sense of those that prepared our offices, and 
 that were the chief instruments in that blessed 
 work of our reformation. The 12th chapter of the 
 title, concerning those that were to be admitted 
 to ecclesiastical benefices, runs thus : " Whereas, 
 when many benefices are conferred on one person, 
 every one of these must be served with less order 
 and exactness, and many learned men, who are 
 not provided, are by that means shut out; there- 
 fore, such as examine the persons who are pro- 
 posed for benefices, are to ask every one of them, 
 whether he has at that time another benefice or 
 not ; and if he confesses that he has, then they 
 shall not consent to his obtaining that to which he 
 is presented, or the first benefice shall be made 
 void, as in case of death, so ihtt the patron may 
 present any other person to it," Chapter 13th is 
 against dispensations, in these words : "No man, 
 
OF THE PASTOHAL CARE. 163 
 
 shall hereafter be capable of any privilege, by- 
 virtue of which he may hold more parishes than 
 one ; but such as have already obtained any such 
 dispensations for pluralities, shall not be deprived 
 of the effects of them by virtue of this law." 
 The 14th chapter relates to residence, in these 
 words : "If any man, by reason of age or sick- 
 ness, is disabled from discharging his duty, or if 
 he has any just cause of absence for some time, 
 that shall be approved of by the bishop, he must 
 take care to place a worthy person to serve during 
 his absence. But the bishops ought to take a 
 special care, that, upon no regard whatsoever, 
 any person may, upon feigned or pretended rea- 
 sons, be suffered to be longer absent from his 
 parish, than a real necessity shall require. " 
 
 These are some of the rules which were then 
 prepared, and happy had it been for our church, 
 if that whole work of the reformation of the eccle- 
 siastical law had been then settled among us. Then 
 we might justly have said, that our reformation 
 was complete, and not have lamented, as our 
 church still does in the office of commination, 
 4i that the godly discipline which was in the pri- 
 mitive church is not yet restored, 1 ' how much and 
 how long soever it has been wished for. It is 
 more than probable that we should neither have 
 bad any schisms, nor civil wars, if that great de- 
 
164 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 sign had not been abortive. If but the 9th and 
 20th titles of that work, which treat of the pub- 
 lic offices and officers in the church, had become a 
 part of our law, and been duly executed, we 
 should, indeed, have had matter of glorying in the 
 world. 
 
 In the canons of the year 1571, though there 
 was not then strength enough in the church to 
 cure so inveterate a disease, as non-residence ; yet 
 she expressed her detestation of it, in these words : 
 M The absence of a pastor from the Lord's flock, 
 and that supiiife negligence and abandoning of the 
 ministry, which we observe in many, is a thing 
 vile in itself, odious to the people, and pernicious 
 to the church of God : therefore we exhort all the 
 pastors of churches in our Lord Jesus, that they 
 will, as soon as possible, come to their churches, 
 and diligently preach the Gospel ; and, according 
 to the value of their livings, that they will keep 
 house, and hospitably relieve the poor." It is true* 
 all this is much lessened by the last words of that 
 article, " That every year they must reside, at 
 least, threescore days upon their benefices." By 
 the canons made at that time, pluralities were also 
 limited to twenty miles' distance. But this was 
 enlarged to thirty miles, by the canons in the year 
 1597. Yet by these the pluralist was required to 
 spend " a good part of the year" in both his bene- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 165 
 
 fices. And upon this has the matter rested ever 
 since ; but there is no express definition made how 
 far that general word of " a good part of the year" 
 is to be understood. 
 
 I will not to this add a long invidious history of 
 all the attempts that have been made for the re- 
 forming these abuses, nor the methods that have 
 been made use of to defeat them. They have been 
 but too successful, so that we still groan under our 
 abuses, and do not know when the time shall 
 come in which we shall be freed from them. The 
 defenders of those abuses, who get too much by 
 them to be willing to part with them, have made 
 great use of this, that it was the puritan party 
 that, during queen Elizabeth and king James the 
 First's reign, promoted these bills to render the 
 church odious : whereas it seems more probable 
 that those who set them forward, what invidious 
 characters soever their enemies might put them 
 under, were really the friends of the church ; and 
 that they intended to preserve it, by freeing it 
 from so crying and so visible an abuse ; which 
 gives an offence and scandal that is not found out 
 by much learning and great observation, but arises 
 so evidently out of the nature of things, that a 
 small measure of common sense helps every one to 
 see it, and to be deeply prejudiced against it. But 
 since our church has fallen under the evils and 
 
166 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 mischiefs of schism, none of those who divide from 
 us have made any more attempts this way; hut 
 seem rather to be not ill pleased that such scan- 
 dals should be still among us, as hoping that this 
 is so great a load upon our church, that it both 
 weakens our strength and lessens our authority. 
 It is certainly the interest of an enemy, to suffer 
 the body to which he opposes himself to lie under 
 as many prejudices, and to be liable to as much 
 censure *as is possible ; whereas every good and 
 wise friend studies to preserve that body to which 
 he unites himself, by freeing it from every thing 
 that may render it less acceptable and less use- 
 ful. 
 
 Here I will leave this argument, having, I think, 
 said enough to convince all that have a true zeal to 
 our church, and that think themselves bound in 
 conscience to obey its rules, and that seem to have 
 a particular jealousy of the civil power's breaking 
 in too far upon the ecclesiastical authority, that 
 there can be nothing more plain and express, than 
 that our church intends to bring all her priests un- 
 der the strictest obligations possible to constant 
 and personal labour, and that in this she pursues 
 the designs and canons, not only of the primitive 
 and best times, but even of the worst ages ; since 
 none were ever so corrupt, as not to condemn 
 those abuses by canon, even when they maintained 
 
OP THE PASTORAL CARE. 1 67 
 
 them in practice. She does not only bind them to 
 this, by the charge she appoints to be given, but 
 also by the vows and promises that she demands 
 of such as are ordained. When all this is laid to- 
 gether, 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 tribu- 
 nal, will be of any force in that last and dreadful 
 judgment ? This I leave upon all men's con- 
 sciences ; hoping that " they will so judge them- 
 selves, 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 pre- 
 
168 OP THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 judices 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 prac- 
 tice, 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 en- 
 gaged, truer views and juster ideas 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 prepara- 
 tory to his being initiated into orders. 
 
 These are of two sorts : the one is of such pre- 
 parations 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 en- 
 able him to go through with the several parts of his 
 duty. Both are necessary ; but the first is the more 
 indispensable 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 employment that is not above his 
 talent : whereas unsancthied 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 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 169 
 
 is above what the common frailties of human na- 
 ture, or the age we live in, can bear : and after all, 
 if in any thing I may seem to exceed these mea- 
 sures, 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 cor- 
 ruption 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 may stick long on 
 him afterwards, and make such ill impressions on 
 himself, as may not be easily w T orn 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 w T orld, and dedicated 
 to God and to his church. He who looks this w r ay, 
 must break himself to the appetites of pleasure or 
 wealth, of ambition or authority ; he must consi- 
 der that the religion in which he intends to offi- 
 Q 
 
170 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 ciate calls all men to great purity and virtue, 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 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 recom- 
 mended by the unblemished pattern that the Au- 
 thor 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 accus- 
 tom 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 instruct- 
 ing the people, and exhorting them to the practice 
 of them, — unless he is in some sort all this himself 
 w T hich he teaches others to be. 
 
 Indeed, to be tied to such an employment, while 
 one has not an inward conformity to it, and com- 
 placence 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 men's censures and reproaches, who, when 
 they see things amiss in his conduct, do not only 
 reproach him, but the whole church and body to 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 171 
 
 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 senti- 
 ments, are a visible and continual opposition to it. 
 On all these things, he whose thoughts carry him 
 toward 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 ambassador that is abject, are 
 not such unseemly things, as a bad or vicious, a 
 drunken or dissolute clergyman. 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 lie 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 pro- 
 nouncing 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 uncom- 
 fortable things. He is forced to manage himself 
 with a perpetual constraint, and to observe a deco- 
 rum in his deportment, lest he fall under a more 
 q2 
 
172 OF THE FASTORAL CARE. 
 
 public censure. Now, to be bound to act a part, 
 and live with restraint one's 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 in the way 
 to find them as is possible. But a clerk cannot 
 keep himself out of their way ; he must remember 
 them, and speak of them, at least upon some occa- 
 sions, whether he will or no : he has no other way 
 to secure himself against them, but by trying what 
 he can do to make himself absolutely disbelieve 
 them. Negative atheism, that is, a total neglect 
 of all religion, is but too easily arrived at : yet this 
 will not serve his turn ; he must build his atheism 
 upon some bottom, that he may find quiet in it. 
 If he is an ignorant man, he is not furnished with 
 those flights of wit, and shews of learning, that 
 must support it : but if he is really learned, he 
 will soon be beaten out of them; for a learned 
 atheism is so hard a thing to be conceived, that 
 unless a mans powers are first strangely vitiated, 
 it is not easy to see how any one can bring himself 
 to it. There is nothing that can settle the quiet of 
 an ill priest's mind and life, but a stupid formality, 
 and a callus that he contracts by Ins insensible way 
 of handling divine matters, by which he becomes 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 173 
 
 hardened against them. But if this settles him, by 
 stupifying his own powers/ it does put him also so 
 far out of the reach of conviction, in all the ordi- 
 nary methods of grace, that it is scarce possible he 
 can ever be awakened, and, by consequence, that 
 he can be saved : and if he perishes, he must fall 
 into the lowest degree of misery, even to the por- 
 tion of hypocrites; for his whole life has been a 
 course of hypocrisy, in the strictest sense of the 
 word, — which is the acting of a part, and the 
 counterfeiting another person. His sins have in 
 them all possible aggravations ; they are against 
 knowledge and against vows, and contrary to his 
 character ; they carry in them a deliberate con- 
 tempt of all the truths and obligations of religion : 
 and if he perishes, he does not perish alone, but 
 carries a shoal down with him, either of those who 
 have perished in ignorance, through his neglect, or 
 of those who have been hardened in their sins 
 through his ill example. And since all this must 
 be put to his account, it may be justly inferred 
 from hence, that no man can have a heavier share 
 in the miseries of another state, than profane and 
 wicked clerks. On all these things he ought to 
 employ his thoughts frequently, who intends to 
 dedicate himself to God, that so he may firmly re- 
 solve not to go on with it, till he feels such seeds 
 and beginnings of good things in himself, that he 
 Q 3 
 
174 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 has reason to hope, that, through the grace and 
 assistance of God, he will be an example to 
 others. 
 
 He ought more particularly to examine himself, 
 whether he has that soft and gentle, that meek and 
 humble, and that charitable and compassionate tem- 
 per, which the Gospel does so much press upon all 
 Christians ; that shined so eminently through the 
 whole life of the blessed Author of it, and which 
 he has so singularly recommended to all his fol- 
 lowers ; and that has in it so many charms and at- 
 tractives, which do not only commend those who 
 have these amiable virtues, but, which is much 
 more to be regarded, they give them vast advan- 
 tages, in recommending the doctrine of our Saviour 
 to their people. They are the true ground of that 
 Christian wisdom and discretion, and of that grave 
 and calm deportment, by which the clergy ought 
 to carry on and maintain their authority ; a haughty 
 and huffing humour, an impatient and insolent tem- 
 per, a loftiness of deportment, and a peevishness of 
 spirit, rendering the lives of the clergy, for the 
 most part, bitter to themselves, and their labours, 
 how valuable soever otherwise they may be, unac- 
 ceptable and useless to their people. A clergyman 
 must be prepared to bear injuries, to endure much 
 unjust censure and calumny, to see himself often 
 neglected, and others preferred to him, in the es- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 175 
 
 teem of the people. He that takes all this ill, that 
 resents it, and complains of it, does thereby give 
 himself much disquiet; and to be sure he will, 
 through his peevishness, rather increase than lessen 
 that contempt, under which he is so uneasy, which 
 is both better borne, and sooner overcome, by a 
 meek and a lowly temper. A man of this disposi- 
 tion affects no singularities, unless the faultiness of 
 those about him makes his doing his duty to be a 
 singularity : he does not study to lessen the value 
 that his due to others, on design to increase his 
 own : his low thoughts of himself make that he is 
 neither aspiring, nor envying such as are ad- 
 vanced : he is prepared to stay till God in his pro- 
 vidence thinks fit to raise him : he studies only to 
 deserve preferment, and leaves to others the wring- 
 ing posts of advantage out of the hands of those 
 that give them. Such a preparation of mind in a 
 clergyman disposes him to be happy in whatsoever 
 station he may be put, and renders the church 
 happy in him : for men so moulded, even though 
 their talents should be but mean, are shining lights, 
 that may, perhaps, be at first despised, as men of a 
 low size, that have not greatness of soul enough 
 to aspire ; but when they have been seen and 
 known so long, that all appears to be sincere, and 
 that the principle from whence this flows is rightly 
 considered, then every thing that they say or do 
 
176 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 must have its due weight*: the plainest and sim- 
 plest things that they say have a beauty in them, 
 and will be hearkened to as oracles. 
 
 But a man that intends to prepare himself right 
 for the ministry of the church, must indeed, above 
 all things, endeavour to break himself to the love 
 of the world, either of the wealth, the pomp, or the 
 pleasures of it. He must learn to be content with 
 plain and simple diet, and often even abridge that, 
 by true fasting. I do not call fasting a trifling dis- 
 tinction of meats ; but a lessening of the quantity, 
 as well as the quality, and a contracting the time 
 spent at meals, that so he may have a greater free- 
 dom both in his time and in his thoughts ; that he 
 may be more alone, and pray and meditate more ; 
 that what he saves out of his meals, he may give 
 to the poor. This is, in short, the true measure 
 and right use of fasting. In cold climates, an ab- 
 stinence till night may create disorders, and raise 
 such a disturbance both in the appetite and in the 
 digestion, that this, managed|upon the practices of 
 other countries, especially in young persons, may 
 really distract, instead of furthering, those who do 
 it indiscreetly. In short, fasting, unless joined 
 with prayer and almsgiving, is of no value in the 
 sight of God. It is a vast advantage to a man to 
 be broken to the niceties of his palate, to be con- 
 tent with plain food, and even to dislike delicacies 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 177 
 
 and studied dishes. This will make him easy in 
 narrower circumstances, since a plain bill of fare 
 is soon discharged. A lover of his appetites, and a 
 slave to his taste, makes but a mean figure among 
 men, and a very scurvy one among clergymen. 
 
 This deadness to the world must raise one above 
 the affectations of pomp and state, of attendance and 
 high living ; which to a philosophical mind will be 
 heavy, when the circumstances he is in seem to im- 
 pose and force it on him : and therefore he who has 
 a right sense finds it is almost all he can do, to 
 bear those things which the tyranny of custom or 
 false opinions put upon him ; so far is he from 
 longing for them. A man that is truly dead to the 
 world, would choose much rather to live in a lowly 
 and narrow figure, than to be obliged to enter into 
 the methods of the greatness of this world ; into 
 which if the constitutions and forms of a church 
 and kingdom put him, yet he feels himself in an 
 unnatural and uncouth posture : it is contrary to 
 his own genius and relish of things, and therefore 
 he does not court nor desire such a situation ; but 
 even while he is in it, he shews such a neglect of 
 the state of it, and so much indifference and humi- 
 lity in it, that it appears how little power those 
 things have over his mind, and how little they are 
 able to subdue and corrupt it. This mortified man 
 must likewise become dead to all the designs and 
 
178 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 projects of making a family, or of raising the for- 
 tunes of those that are nearly related to him : he 
 must be bountiful and charitable, and though it is 
 not only lawful to him, but a necessary duty in- 
 cumbent on him, to make due provision for his fa* 
 mily, if he has any ; yet this must be so moderated, 
 that no vain nor sordid designs, no indirect nor 
 unbecoming arts, may mix in it ; no excessive 
 wealth nor great projects must appear ; he must be 
 contented with such a proportion as may set his 
 children in the way of a virtuous and liberal edu- 
 cation ; such as may secure them from scandal and 
 necessity, and put them in a capacity to serve God 
 and their generation in some honest employment. 
 But he who brings along with him a voluptuous, 
 an ambitious, or a covetous mind, that is carnal 
 and earthly-minded, comes asa " hireling to feed 
 himself, and not the flock ; he comes to steal and 
 to destroy." Upon all this, great reflection is to 
 be made concerning the motives that determine one 
 to offer himself to this employment. 
 
 In the first beginnings of Christianity, no man 
 could reasonably think of taking orders, unless he 
 had in him the spirit of martyrdom. He was to 
 look for nothing in this service, but labour and 
 persecution ; he was indeed to " live of the altar," 
 and that was all the portion that he was to expect 
 in this world. In those days an extraordinary mea- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 179 
 
 sure of zeal and devotion was necessary to engage 
 men to so hard and difficult a province, that, how 
 great soever its reward might be in another world, 
 had nothing to look for in this, but a narrow pro- 
 vision, and the first and largest share of the cross : 
 they were the best known, the most exposed, and 
 the soonest fallen upon in the persecution. But 
 their services and their sufferings did so much re- 
 commend that function in the succeeding ages, that 
 the faithful thought they could never do enough 
 to express their value for it. The church came to 
 be richly endowed ; and though superstition had 
 raised this out of measure, yet this extreme went 
 as far to the other hand at the Reformation, when 
 the church was almost stript of all its patrimony, 
 and a great many churches were left so poor, that 
 there was not, in most places, a sufficient, nay, 
 not so much as a necessary maintenance, reserved 
 for those that were to minister in holy things. But 
 it is to be acknowledged that there are such rem- 
 nants preserved, that many benefices of the church 
 still may, and perhaps do but too much work upon 
 men's corrupt principles, their ambition, and co- 
 vetousness : and it is shrewdly to be apprehended, 
 that of those who present themselves at the altar, 
 a great part comes, as those who followed Christ, 
 for the loaves ; because of the good prospect they 
 have of making their fortunes by the church. 
 
180 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 If this point should be carried too far, it might, 
 perhaps, seem to be a pitch above human nature, 
 and certainly very far above the degeneracy of the 
 age we live in ; I shall therefore, lay this matter 
 with as large an allowance as I think it can bear. 
 It is certain, that since God has made us to be a 
 compound of soul and body, it is not only lawful, 
 but suitable to the order of nature, for us, in the 
 choice we make of the state of life that we intend 
 to pursue, to consider our bodies in the next place 
 after our souls ; yet we ought certainly to begin 
 with our souls, with the powers and faculties that 
 are in them, and consider well of what temper 
 they are, and what our measure and capacity is ; 
 that so we may choose such a course of life, for 
 which we seem to be fitted, and in which we may 
 probably do the most good to ourselves and others : 
 from hence we ought to take our aim and mea- 
 sures chiefly. But, in the next place, we not only 
 may, but ought to consider our bodies, how they 
 shall be maintained in a way suitable to that state 
 of life, into which we are engaged. Therefore, 
 though no man can, with a good conscience, begin 
 upon a worldly account, and resolve to dedicate 
 himself to the church, merely out of carnal re- 
 gards ; such as an advowson in his family, a friend 
 that will promote him, or any other such like 
 prospect, till he has first consulted his temper and 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 181 
 
 disposition, his talents and his capacities ; yet 
 though it is not lawful to make the regards of this 
 world his first consideration, and it cannot be de- 
 nied to be a perfecter state, if a man should offer 
 himself to the church, having whereon to support 
 himself, without any assistance or reward out of 
 its patrimony; and to be nearer to St. Paul's 
 practice, " whose hands ministered to his neces- 
 sities," and who reckoned, that in this he had 
 "whereof to glory, that he was not burthensome to 
 the churches :" yet it is without doubt, lawful for 
 a man to design, that he may subsist in and out of 
 the service of the church. But then these designs 
 must be limited to a subsistence, to such a mode- 
 rate proportion as may maintain one in that state 
 of life ; and must not be let fly by a restless ambi- 
 tion, and an insatiable covetousness, as a ravenous 
 bird of prey does at all game. There must not be 
 a perpetual inquiry into the value of benefices, 
 and a constant importuning of such as give them : 
 if laws have been made in some states restraining 
 all ambitus and aspirings to civil employments, 
 certainly it were much more reasonable to put a 
 stop to the scandalous importunities that are every 
 where complained of; and no where more visible 
 and more offensive than at court. This gives a 
 prejudice to men, that are otherwise inclined 
 enough to search for one, that can never be re- 
 
182 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 moved, but by putting an effectual bar in the way 
 of that scrambling for benefices and preferments ; 
 •which will ever make the lay part of mankind con- 
 clude, that, let us pretend what we will, covetous- 
 ness and ambition are our true motives, and our 
 chief vocation. It is true, the strange practices of 
 many patrons, and the constitution of most courts, 
 give a colour to excuse so great an indecency. 
 Men are generally successful in those practices ; 
 and as long as human nature is so strong, as all 
 men feel it to be, it will be hard to divert them 
 from a method which is so common, that to act 
 otherwise would look like an affectation of singu- 
 larity. And many apprehend, that they must 
 languish in misery and necessity if they are want- 
 ing to themselves in so general a practice. And 
 indeed if patrons, but chiefly if princes would ef- 
 fectually cure this disease, which gives them so 
 much trouble as well as offence, they must resolve 
 to distribute those benefices that are in their gifts, 
 with so visible a regard to true goodness and real 
 merit, and with so firm and so constant an oppo- 
 sition to application and importunity, that it may 
 appear that the only way to advancement is to live 
 well, to study hard, to stay at home, and labour 
 diligently ; and that applications by the persons 
 themselves, or any set on by them, shall always 
 put those back who make them. This would more 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 183 
 
 effectually cure so great an evil, than all that can 
 be said against it. One successful suitor who car- 
 ries his point, will promote this disorder more than 
 twenty repulses of others ; for unless the rule is 
 severely carried on, every one will run into it, and 
 hope to prosper as well as he, who, they see, has 
 got his end in it. If those who have the disposi- 
 tion of benefices, to which the cure of souls is an- 
 nexed, did consider this as a trust lodged with 
 them, for which they must answer to God : and 
 that they shall be, in a great measure, accountable 
 for the souls that may be lost, through the bad 
 choice that they make, knowing it to be bad ; if, 
 I say, they had this more in their thoughts, than 
 so many scores of pounds as the living amounts to ; 
 and thought themselves really bound, as without 
 ioubt they are, to seek out good and worthy men, 
 well qualified, and duly prepared, according to the 
 nature of that benefice which they are to give ; 
 then we might hope to see men make it their chief 
 study to qualify themselves aright ; to order their 
 lives, and frame their minds as they ought to do, 
 and to carry on their studies with all application 
 and diligence. But as long as the short methods 
 of application, friendship, or interest, are more 
 effectual than the long and hard way of labour 
 and study, human nature will always carry men to 
 r2 
 
184 OF THK PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 go the surest, the easiest, and the quickest way to 
 work. 
 
 After all, I wish it were well considered by all 
 clerks, what it is to run without being either called 
 or sent ; and so to thrust one's self into the vine- 
 yard, without staying till God, by his providence, 
 puts a piece of his work in his hands. This will 
 give a man a vast ease in his thoughts, and a great 
 satisfaction in all his labours, if he knows that no 
 practices of his own, but merely the directions of 
 Providence, have put him in a post. He may well 
 trust the effects of a thing to God, when the 
 causes of it do plainly flow from him. And though 
 this will appear to a great many a hard saying, so 
 that few will be able to bear it, yet I must add 
 this to the encouragement and comfort of such as 
 can resolve to deliver themselves up to the conduct 
 and directions of Providence, that I never yet knew 
 any one of those few (too few, I confess, they 
 have been,) who were possessed with this maxim, 
 and that have followed it exactly, that have not 
 found the fruit of it even in this world. A watch- 
 ful care hath hovered over them : instruments 
 have been raised up, and accidents have happened 
 to them so prosperously, as if there had been a 
 secret design of Heaven, by blessing them so sig- 
 nally, to encourage others to follow their mea- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 185 
 
 sures, to depend on God, to deliver themselves up 
 to his care, and to wait till he opens a way for 
 their being employed, and settled in such a portion 
 of his husbandry, as he shall think fit to assign to 
 them. 
 
 These are preparations of mind, with which a 
 clerk is to be formed and seasoned. And in order 
 to this, he must read the Scriptures much, he must 
 get a great deal of those passages in them that 
 relate to these things, by heart, and repeat them 
 often to himself; in particular, many of the most 
 tender and melting Psalms, and many of the most 
 comprehensive passages in the Epistles ; that by 
 the frequent reflecting of these, he may fill his me- 
 mory with noble notions, and right ideas of things. 
 The Book of Proverbs, but chiefly Ecclesiastes, if 
 he can get to understand it,, will beget in him a 
 right view of the world, a just value of things, and 
 a contempt of many objects that shine with a false 
 lustre, but have no true worth in them. Some of 
 the books taught at schools, if read afterwards, 
 when one is more capable to observe the sense of 
 them, may be of great use to promote this temper. 
 Tully's Offices will give the mind a noble set ; all 
 his philosophical discourses, but chiefly his Conso- 
 lation ; which, though some critics will not allow 
 to be his, because they fancy the style has not all 
 the force and beauty in it that was peculiar to him, 
 r 3 
 
1 86 OF THE PASTOKAL CARE. 
 
 yet it is certainly the best piece of them all ; these, 
 I say, give a good savour to those who read them 
 much. The satirical poets, Horace, Juvenal, and 
 Persius, may contribute wonderfully to give a man 
 a detestation of vice, and a contempt of the com- 
 mon methods of mankind ; which they have set 
 out in such true colours, that they must give a 
 very generous sense to those who delight in read- 
 ing them often. Persius's second Satire may well 
 pass for one of the best lectures in divinity. Hiero- 
 cles upon Pythagoras's Verses, Plutarch's Lives, 
 and, above all books of heathenism, Epictetus and 
 Marcus Aurelius, contain such instructions, that 
 one cannot read them too often, nor repass them 
 too frequently in his thoughts. But when I speak 
 of reading these books, I do not mean only to run 
 through them, as one does through a book of his- 
 tory, or of notions; they must be read and weighed 
 with great care, till one is become a master of all 
 the thoughts that are in them : they are to be often 
 turned in one's mind, till he is thereby wrought 
 up to some degrees of that temper which they 
 propose. And as for Christian books, in order to the 
 framing of one's mind aright, I shall only recom- 
 mend " The Whole Duty of Man," " Dr. Sherlock 
 of Death and Judgment," and Dr. Scott's books ; 
 in particular, that great distinction that runs 
 through them, of the means and of the ends of 
 
OP THE PASTORAL CAKE. 187 
 
 religion. To all which I shall add one small book 
 more, which is to me ever new and fresh, gives al- 
 ways good thoughts and a noble temper : " Thomas 
 a Kempis of the Imitation of Christ." By the fre- 
 quent reading of these books, by the relish that 
 one has in them, by the delight they give and the 
 effects they produce, a man will plainly perceive, 
 whether his soul is made for divine matters or not ; 
 what suitableness there is between him and them ; 
 and whether he is yet touched with such a sense 
 of religion, as to be capable of dedicating himself 
 to it. 
 
 I am far from thinking that no man is fit to be 
 a priest, that has not the temper which I have been 
 describing, quite up to that height in which I have 
 set it forth ; but this I will positively say, that he 
 who has not the seeds of it planted in him, who 
 has not these principles, and resolutions formed to 
 pursue them, and to improve and perfect himself in 
 them, is in no wise worthy of that holy character. 
 If these things are begun in him, if they are yet 
 but as a grain of mustard seed, yet if there is a life 
 in them, and a vital sense of the tendencies and 
 effects they must have, such a person, so moulded, 
 with those notions and impressions, and such only, 
 are qualified, so as to be able to say with truth 
 and assurance, that they " trust they are inwardly 
 
188 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 moved by the Holy Ghost to undertake that of- 
 fice." 
 
 So far have I despatched the first and chief part 
 of the preparation necessary before orders, The 
 other branch of it relates to their learning, and to 
 the knowledge that is necessary. I confess I look 
 upon this as so much inferior to the other, and 
 have been convinced by so much experience, that 
 a great measure of piety, with a very small pro- 
 portion of learning, will carry one a great way, 
 that I may perhaps be thought to come as far short 
 in this, as I might seem to exceed in the other. 
 I will not here enter into a discourse of theological 
 learning, of the measure that is necessary to make 
 a complete divine, and of the methods to attain it.' 
 I intend only to lay down here, that which I look 
 on as the lowest degree, and as that which seems 
 indispensably necessary, to one that is to be a 
 priest. He must then understand the New Testa- 
 ment well. This is the text of our religion, that 
 which we preach and explain to others ; therefore 
 a man ought to read this so often over, that he 
 may have an idea of the whole book in his head, 
 and pf all the parts of it. He cannot have this so 
 sure, unless he understands the Greek so well, as 
 to be able to find out the meaning of every period 
 in it, at least of the words and phrases of it ; any 
 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 189 
 
 book of annotations or paraphrase upon it, is a 
 great help to a beginner ; Grotius, Hammond, and 
 Lightfoot are the best. But the having a great 
 deal of the practical and easy parts of it, such as 
 relate to men's lives and their duties, such as strike 
 and awaken, direct, comfort, or terrify, are much 
 more necessary than the more abstruse parts. In 
 short, the being able to state right the grounds of 
 our hope, and the terms of salvation, and the hav- 
 ing a clear and ready view of the new covenant in 
 Christ Jesus, is of such absolute necessity, that it 
 is a profaning of orders, and a defiling of the sanc- 
 tuary, to bring any into it, that do not rightly un- 
 derstand this matter in its whole extent. Bishop 
 Pearson on the Creed is a book of great learning, 
 and profound exactness. Dr. Barrow has opened it 
 with more simplicity ; and Dr. Towerson more 
 practically : one or other of these must be well 
 read and considered. But when I say read, I mean 
 read and read over again, so oft that one is master 
 of one of these books ; he must write notes out of 
 them, and make abridgments of them ; and turn 
 them so oft in his thoughts, that he must tho- 
 roughly understand, and well remember them. He 
 must read also the Psalms over so carefully, that 
 he may at least have a general notion of those di- 
 vine hymns ; to which Bishop Patrick's Paraphrase 
 will help to carry him. 
 
190 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 A system of divinity must be read with exact- 
 ness. They are almost all alike. When I was 
 young, Wendelin and Maresius were the two 
 shortest and fullest. Here is a vast error in the 
 first forming of our clergy, that a contempt has 
 been cast on that sort of books ; and indeed to 
 rise no higher, than to a perpetual reading over 
 different systems, is but a mean pitch of learning ; 
 and the swallowing down whole systems by the 
 lump, has helped to possess people's minds too 
 early with prejudices, and to shut them up in too 
 implicit a following of others. But the throwing off 
 all these books, makes that many who have read a 
 great deal, yet have no entire body of divinity in 
 their head ; they have no scheme or method, and 
 so are ignorant of some very plain things, which 
 could never have happened to them, if they had 
 carefully read and digested a system into their 
 memories. But because this is indeed a very low 
 form ; therefore, to lead a man farther, to have a 
 freer view of divinity, to examine things equally 
 and clearly, and to use his own reason, by balanc- 
 ing the various views that two great divisions of 
 protestants have, not only in the points which 
 they controvert, but in a great many others, in 
 w r hich, though they agree in the same conclusions, 
 yet they arrive at them by very different premises ; I 
 would advise him that studies divinity, to read two 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 191 
 
 larger bodies, writ by some eminent men of both 
 sides ; and because the latest are commonly the 
 best ; Turretin for the whole Calvinist hypothesis, 
 and Limburgh for the Arminian, will make a man 
 fully the master of all the notions of both sides. 
 Or if one would see how far middle ways may be 
 taken, the Theses of Saumur, or Le Blanc's The- 
 ses, will complete him in that. These books well 
 read, digested into abstacts, and frequently re- 
 viewed or talked over by two companions in study, 
 will give a man an entire view of the whole body 
 of divinity. 
 
 But by reason of that pest of atheism, that 
 spreads so much among us, the foundations of re- 
 ligion must be well laid : Bishop Wilkins's book of 
 Natural Religion will lead one in the first steps, 
 through the principles that he has laid together in 
 a plain and natural method. Grotius's book of the 
 Truth of the Christian Religion, with his notes 
 upon it, ought to be read and almost got by heart. 
 The whole controversy both of Atheism and Deism, 
 the arguments both for the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, are fully opened, with a great variety both 
 of learning and reasoning, in Bishop Stillingneet's 
 Origines Sacrse. 
 
 There remains only to direct a student how to 
 form right notions of practical matters ; and parti- 
 cularly of preaching. Dr. Hammond's Practical 
 
192 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 
 Catechism is a book of great use ; but not to be 
 begun with, as too many do. It does require a 
 good deal of previous study, before the force of his 
 reasonings is apprehended ; but when one is ready 
 for it, it is a rare book, and states the grounds of 
 morality, and of our duty, upon true principles. To 
 form one to understand the right method of preach- 
 ing, the extent of it, and the proper ways of appli- 
 cation, Bishop Sanderson, Mr. Faringdon, and Dr. 
 Barrow, are the best and the fullest models. There 
 is a vast variety of other sermons, which may be 
 read with an equal measure of advantage and plea- 
 sure. And if, from the time that one resolves to 
 direct his studies towards the church, he would, 
 every Lord's day, read two sermons of any good 
 preacher, and turn them a little over in his 
 thoughts, this would insensibly, in two or three 
 years' time carry him very far, and give him a 
 large view of the different ways of preaching, and 
 furnish him with materials for handling a great 
 many texts of Scripture when he comes to it. 
 
 And thus I have carried my student through 
 those studies, that seem to me so necessary for 
 qualifying him to be an able minister of the New 
 Testament, that I cannot see how any article of 
 this can be well abated. It may seem strange, 
 that in this whole direction, I have said nothing 
 concerning the study of the fathers or church his- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 193 
 
 tory. But I said at first, that a great distinction 
 •was to be made between what was necessary to 
 prepare a man to be a priest, and what was 
 necessary to make him a complete and learned 
 divine. 
 
 The knowledge of these things is necessary to 
 the latter, though they do not seem so necessary 
 for the former : there are many things to be left 
 to the prosecution of a divine's study, that there- 
 fore are not mentioned here, not with any design 
 to disparage that sort of learning ; for I am now 
 only upon that measure of knowledge, under 
 which I heartily wish that no man were put in 
 priest's orders ; and therefore I have passed over 
 many other things, such as the more accurate un- 
 derstanding of the controversies between us and 
 the church of Rome, and the unhappy disputes be- 
 tween us and the dissenters of all sorts ; though 
 both the one and the other have of late been 
 opened with that perspicuity, that fulness of argu- 
 ment, and that clearness as well as softness of 
 style, that a collection of these may give a man the 
 fullest instruction, that is to be found in any books 
 I know. Others, and perhaps the far greater 
 number, will think that I have clogged this mat- 
 ter too much. But I desire these may consider 
 how much we do justly reckon, that our profes- 
 sion is perferable either to law or medicine. Now, 
 s 
 
194 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 if this is true, it is not unreasonable, that since 
 those who pretend to these, must be at so much 
 pains, before they enter upon a practice which re- 
 lates only to men's fortunes, or their persons, we 
 whose labours relate to their souls and their eter- 
 nal state, should be at least at some considerable 
 pains, before we enter upon them. Let any 
 young divine go to the chambers of a student in 
 the inns of court, and see how many books he 
 must read, and how great a volume of a common- 
 place book he must make, he will there see through 
 how hard a task one must go, in a course of many 
 years, and how ready he must be in all the parts 
 of it, before he is called to the bar, or can manage 
 business. How exact must a physician be in ana- 
 tomy, in simples, in pharmacy, in the theory of 
 diseases, and in the observations and counsels of 
 doctors, before he can either with honour, or a 
 safe conscience, undertake practice ! He must be 
 ready with all this, and in that infinite number of 
 hard words, that belong to every part of it, to give 
 his directions and write his bills by the patient's 
 bed-side ; who cannot stay till he goes to his 
 study and turns over his books. If then so long a 
 course of study, and so much exactness and readi- 
 ness in it, is necessary to these professions ; nay, 
 if every mechanical art, even the meanest, re- 
 quires a course of many years, before one can be 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 195 
 
 a master in it, shall the noblest and the most im- 
 portant of all others, that which comes from Hea- 
 ven, and leads thither again ; shall that which 
 God has honoured so highly, and to which laws 
 and governments have added such privileges and 
 encouragements, that is employed in the sublimest 
 exercises, which require a proportioned worth in 
 those who handle them, to maintain their value and 
 dignity in the esteem of the world ; shall all this, 
 I say, be esteemed so low a thing in our eyes, that 
 a much less degree of time and study is necessary 
 to arrive at it, than at the most sordid of all trades 
 whatsoever ? And yet, after all, a man of a tole- 
 rable capacity, with a good degree of application, 
 may go through all this well, and exactly, in two 
 years' time. I am very sure, by many an experi- 
 ment I have made, that this may be done in a 
 much less compass : but because all men do not go 
 alike quick, have not the same force, nor the same 
 application, therefore I reckon two years for it ; 
 which I do thus divide : One year before deacon's 
 orders, and another between them and priest's or- 
 ders. And can this be thought a hard imposition ? 
 Or do not those, who think thus, give great occa- 
 sion to the contempt of the clergy, if they give the 
 world cause to observe, that how much soever we 
 may magnify our profession, yet by our practice, 
 we shew that we do judge it the meanest of all 
 s2 
 
196 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 others, which is to be arrived at upon less previ- 
 ous study and preparation to it, than any other 
 whatsoever ? Since I have been hitherto so minute, 
 I will yet divide this matter a little lower into 
 those parts of it, without which deacon's orders 
 ought not to be given, and those to be reserved to 
 the second year of study. To have read the New 
 Testament well, so as to carry a great deal of it in 
 one's memory, to have a clear notion of the several 
 books of it, to understand well the nature and the 
 conditions of the covenant of grace, and to have 
 read one system well, so as to be master of it to 
 understand the whole catechetical matter, to have 
 read Wilkins and Grotius ; this, I say, is that part 
 of his task, which I propose before one is made 
 deacon. The rest, though much the larger, will 
 go the easier, if those foundations are once well 
 laid in them. And upon the article of studying the 
 Scriptures, I will add one advice more. 
 
 There are two methods in reading them; the 
 one ought to be merely critical, to find out the 
 meaning and coherence of the several parts of 
 them, in which one runs easily through the 
 greater part, and is only obliged to stop at some 
 harder passages, which may be marked down, and 
 learned men are to be consulted upon them : those 
 that are really hard to be explained, are both few, 
 and they relate to matters that are not so essential 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 197 
 
 to Christianity ; and therefore after one has in ge- 
 neral seen what is said upon these, he may put off 
 the fuller consideration of that to more leisure, and 
 better opportunities. But the other way of read- 
 ing the Scriptures, is to be done merely with a 
 view to practice, to raise devotion, to increase 
 piety, and to give good thoughts and severe rules. 
 In this a man is to employ himself much. This is 
 a book always at hand, and the getting a great 
 deal of it always by heart, is the best part of a 
 clergyman's study : it is the foundation, and lays 
 in the materials for all the rest. This alone may 
 furnish a man with a noble stock of lively thoughts 
 and sublime expressions ; and therefore it must be 
 always reckoned as that, without which all other 
 things amount to nothing; and the chief and main 
 subject of the study, the meditation, and the dis- 
 courses of a clergyman. 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 OF THE FUNCTIONS AND LABOURS OF 
 CLERGYMEN. 
 
 I have in the former chapter laid down the 
 model and method by which a clerk is to be formed 
 s 3 
 
198 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 and prepared : I come now to consider his course 
 of life, his public functions, and his secret labours. 
 In this, as well as in the former, I will study to 
 consider what mankind can bear, rather than what 
 may be offered in a fair idea, that is far above 
 what we can hope ever to bring the world to. As 
 for a priest's life and conversation, so much was 
 said in the former chapter, in which, as a prepa- 
 ration to orders, it was proposed what he ought 
 to be, that I may now be the shorter on this 
 article. 
 
 The clergy have one great advantage, beyond all 
 the rest of the world, in this respect besides all 
 others, that whereas the particular callings of other 
 men prove to them great distractions, and lay 
 many temptations in their way, to divert them 
 from minding their " high and holy calling" of be- 
 ing Christians, it is quite otherwise with the cler- 
 gy; the more they follow their private callings, 
 they do the more certainly advance their general 
 one. The better priests they are, they become 
 also the better Christians : every part of their call- 
 ing, when well performed, raises good thoughts, 
 brings good ideas into their mind, and tends both 
 to increase their knowledge, and quicken their 
 sense of divine matters. A priest, therefore, is more 
 accountable to God and the world for his deport- 
 ment, and will be more severely accounted with, 
 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 199 
 
 than any other person whatsoever. He is more 
 watched over and observed than all others : very 
 good men will be, even to a censure, jealous of 
 him ; very bad men will wait for his halting, and 
 insult upon it; and all sorts of persons will be 
 willing to defend themselves against the authority 
 of his doctrine and admonitions by this, " He says, 
 but does not :'• and though our Saviour charged 
 his disciples and followers, " to hear those w T ho 
 sat in Moses' chair, and to observe and do what- 
 soever they bid them observe, but not to do after 
 their works, for they said and did not ;" the world 
 will reverse this quite, and consider rather how a 
 clerk lives than what he says. They see the one, 
 and from it conclude what he himself thinks of 
 the other; and so will believe themselves not a little 
 justified, if they can say that they did no worse 
 than as they saw their minister do before them. 
 
 Therefore a priest must not only abstain from 
 gross scandals, but keep at the furthest distance 
 from them : he must not only not be drunk, but he 
 must not sit a tippling, nor go to taverns or ale- 
 houses, except some urgent occasion require it, 
 and stay no longer in them, than as that occasion 
 demands it. He must not only abstain from acts 
 of lewdness, but from all indecent behaviour, and 
 unbecoming raillery. Gaming and plays, and every 
 thing of that sort, which is an approach to the va- 
 
200 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 nities and disorders of the world, must be avoided 
 by him : and, unless the straitness of his condition 
 or his necessities force it, he ought to shun all 
 other cares ; such as, not only the farming of 
 grounds, but even the teaching of schools, since 
 these must of necessity take him off both from his 
 labour and study. Such diversion as his health or 
 the temper of his mind may render proper for him, 
 ought to be manly, decent, and grave ; and such 
 as may neither possess his mind or time too much, 
 nor give a bad character of him to his people : he 
 must also avoid too much familiarity with bad 
 people, and the squandering away his time in too 
 much vain and idle discourse. His cheerfulness 
 ought to be frank, but neither excessive nor licen- 
 tious. His friends and his garden ought to be his 
 chief diversions, as his study and his parish ought 
 to be his chief employments. He must still carry 
 on his study ; making himself an absolute master 
 of the few books he has, till his circumstances 
 grow larger, that he can purchase more. He can 
 have no pretence, if he were ever so narrow in 
 the world, to say, that he cannot get, not only 
 the Collects, but the Psalms, and the New Testa- 
 ment, by heart, or at least a great part of them. 
 If there be any books belonging to his church, 
 such as Jewel's Works, and the Book of Martyrs, 
 which lie tearing in many places, these he may 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 201 
 
 read over and over again, till he is able to furnish 
 himself better, I mean with a greater variety ; but, 
 let him furnish himself ever so well, the reading 
 and understanding the Scriptures, chiefly the 
 Psalms and the New Testament, ought to be still 
 his chief study, till he becomes so conversant in 
 them, that he can both say many parts of them, 
 and explain them without book. 
 
 It is the only visible reason of the Jews adher- 
 ing so firmly to their religion, that during the ten 
 or twelve years of their education, their youth are 
 so much practised to the Scriptures, to weigh every 
 word in them, and get them all by heart, that it 
 is an admiration to see how ready both men and 
 women among them are at it : their Rabbies have 
 it to that perfection, that they have the concord- 
 ance of their whole Bible in their memories : 
 which gives them vast advantages, when they are 
 to argue with any that are not so ready as they 
 are in the Scriptures. Our task is much shorter 
 and easier; and it is a reproach, especially to us 
 Protestants, who found our religion merely on the 
 Scriptures, that we know the New Testament so 
 little, which cannot be excused. 
 
 With the study of the Scriptures, or rather as 
 a part of it, comes in the study of the Fathers, as 
 far as one can go. In these their Apologies and 
 Epistles are chiefly to be read, for these give us 
 
202 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 the best views of those times ; Basil's and Chry- 
 sostom's Sermons are by much the best. To 
 these studies history comes in as a noble and plea- 
 sant addition ; that gives a man great views of the 
 providence of God, of the nature of man, and of 
 the conduct of the world. This is above no man's 
 capacity; and though some histories are better 
 than others, yet any histories, such as one can get* 
 are to be read, rather than none at all. If one 
 can compass it, he ought to begin with the history 
 of the church, and there at the head Josephus, and 
 go on with Eusebius, Socrates, and the other his- 
 torians, that are commonly bound together; and 
 then go to other later collectors of ancient history, 
 The history of our own church and country is to 
 come next ; then the ancient Greek and Roman 
 history ; and after that as much history, geogra- 
 phy, and books of travels as can be had, will give 
 an easy and a useful entertainment, and will fur- 
 nish one with great variety of good thoughts, and of 
 pleasant as well as edifying discourse. As for all 
 other studies, every one must follow his incli- 
 nations, his capacities, and that which he can pro- 
 cure to himself. The books that we learn at 
 schools are generally laid aside, with this preju- 
 dice, that they were the labours as well as the 
 sorrows of our childhood and education ; but they 
 are among the best of books : the Greek and Ro- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 203 
 
 man authors have a spirit in them, a force both of 
 thought and expression, that later ages have not 
 been able to imitate, — Buchanan only excepted, 
 in whom, more particularly in his Psalms, there 
 is a beauty and life, an exactness, as well as a 
 liberty, that cannot be imitated, and scarce enough 
 commended. The study and practice of physic, 
 especially that which is safe and simple, puts the 
 clergy in a capacity of doing great acts of charity, 
 and of rendering both their persons and labours 
 very acceptable to their people ; it will procure 
 their being soon sent for by them in sickness, and 
 it will give them great advantages in speaking to 
 them of their spiritual concerns, when they are so 
 careful of their persons ; but in this nothing that 
 is sordid must mix. 
 
 These ought to be the chief studies of the clergy. 
 But to give all these their full effect, a priest that 
 is much in his study ought to employ a great part 
 of his time in secret and fervent prayer, for the di- 
 rection and blessing of God in his labours, for the 
 constant assistance of his Holy Spirit, and for a 
 lively sense of divine matters, that so he may feel 
 the impressions of them grow deep and strong 
 upon his thoughts. This, and this only, will make 
 him go on with his work without wearying, and 
 be always rejoicing in it : this will make his ex- 
 pressions of these things to be happy and noble, 
 
204 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 when he can bring them out of the " good treasure 
 of his heart," that is ever full, and always warm 
 with them. 
 
 From his study, I go next to his public functions. 
 He must bring his mind to an inward and feeling 
 sense of those things that are prayed for in our of- 
 fices : that will make him pronounce them with an 
 equal measure of gravity and affection, and with a 
 due slowness and emphasis. I do not love the 
 theatrical way of the church of Rome, in which it 
 is a great study, and a long practice, to learn in 
 every one of their offices how they ought to 
 compose their looks, gesture, and voice; yet a 
 light wandering of the eyes, and a hasty running 
 through the prayers, are things highly unbecom- 
 ing ; they do very much lessen the majesty of our 
 worship, and give our enemies advantage to call it 
 ° dead and formal," when they see plainly, that 
 he who officiates is " dead and formal" in it. A 
 deep sense of the things prayed for, a true recol- 
 lection and attention of spirit, and a holy earnest- 
 ness of soul, will give a composure to the looks, 
 and a weight to the pronunciation, that will be 
 tempered between affectation on the one hand, 
 and levity on the other. As for preaching, I refer 
 that to a chapter apart. 
 
 A minister ought to instruct his people fre- 
 quently of the nature of Baptism, that they may 
 
OF THE TASTORAL CARE. 205 
 
 not go about it merely as a ceremony, as it is 
 too visible the greater part do ; but that they 
 may consider it as the dedicating their children to 
 God, the offering them to Christ, and the holding 
 them thereafter as his ; directing their chief care 
 about them to the breeding them up in the " nur- 
 ture and admonition of the Lord." There must 
 be care taken to give them all a right notion of 
 the use of godfathers and godmothers, which is a 
 good institution, to procure a double security for 
 the education of children ; it being to be supposed, 
 that the common ties of nature and religion bind 
 the parents so strongly, that if they are not mind- 
 ful of these, a special vow would not put a new 
 force in them : and therefore a collateral security 
 is also demanded, both to supply their defects, if 
 they are faulty, and to take care of the religious 
 education of the infant, in case the parents should 
 happen to die before that is done. And therefore 
 no godfather or godmother are to be invited to 
 that office, but such with whom one would trust 
 the care of the education of his child ; nor ought 
 any to do this office for another, but he that is 
 willing to charge himself with the education of 
 the child for whom he answers. But when am- 
 bition or vanity, favour or presents, are the consi- 
 derations upon which those sureties in baptism 
 are chosen, great advantage is hereby given to 
 
 T 
 
206 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 those who reject infant baptism, and the ends of 
 the church in this institution are quite defeated ; 
 which are, both the making the security that is 
 given for the children so much the stronger, and 
 the establishing an endearment and a tenderness 
 between families ; this being, in its own nature, 
 no small tie, how little soever it may be appre- 
 hended or understood. 
 
 Great care must be taken in the instruction of 
 the youth : the bare saying the Catechism by rote 
 is a small matter; it is necessary to make them 
 understand the weight of every word in it : and for 
 this end, every priest, that minds his duty, will find 
 that no part of it is so useful to his people, as once 
 every year to go through the whole Church Cate- 
 chism, word by word, and make his people under- 
 stand the importance of every tittle in it. This 
 will be no hard labour to himself ; for after he has 
 once gathered together the places of Scripture that 
 relate to every article, and formed some clear il- 
 lustrations and easy similes, to make it under- 
 stood; his catechetical discourses, during all the 
 rest of his life, will be only the going over that 
 same matter again and again. By this means his 
 people will come to have all this by heart ; they 
 will know what to say upon it at home to their 
 children ; and they will understand all his sermons 
 the better, when they have once had a clear notion 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 207 
 
 of all those terms that must run through them ; 
 for those not being understood, renders them all 
 unintelligible. A discourse of this sort would be 
 generally of much greater edification than an after- 
 noon's sermon. It should not be too long ; too 
 much must not be said at a time, nor more than 
 one point opened : a quarter of an hour is time 
 sufficient ; for it will grow tedious, and be too 
 little remembered, if it is half an hour long. This 
 would draw an assembly to evening prayers, which, 
 we see, are but too much neglected, when there 
 is no sort of discourse or sermon accompanying 
 them. And the practising this, during the six 
 months of the year in which the days are long, 
 would be a very effectual means both to instruct 
 the people, and to bring them to a more religious 
 observation of the Lord's Day, which is one of the 
 most powerful instruments for the carrying on and 
 advancing of religion in the world. 
 
 With catechising, a minister is to join the pre- 
 paring those whom he instructs to be confirmed ; 
 which is not to be done merely upon their being 
 able to say over so many words by rote. It is 
 their renewing their baptismal vow in their own 
 persons, which the church designs by that office ; 
 and the bearing in their own minds a sense of 
 their being bound immediately by that which their 
 sureties then undertook for them. Now, to do 
 t2 
 
208 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 this in such a manner as that it may make impres- 
 sion, and have a due effect upon them, they must 
 stay till they themselves understand what they do, 
 and till they have some sense and affection to it ; 
 and therefore, till one is of an age and disposition 
 fit to receive the holy sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper, and desires to be confirmed, as a solemn 
 preparation and qualification to it, he is not yet 
 ready for it : for in the common management of 
 that holy rite, it is but too visible, that of those 
 multitudes that crowd to it, the far greater part 
 come merely as if they were to receive the bishop's 
 blessing, without any sense of the vow made by 
 them, and of their renewing their baptismal en- 
 gagements in it. 
 
 As for the greatest and most solemn of all the 
 institutions of Christ, the commemorating his 
 death, and the partaking of it in the Lord's Sup- 
 per ; this must be well explained to the people, 
 to preserve them from the extremes of superstition 
 and irreverence ; to raise in them a great sense of 
 the goodness of God, that appeared in the death 
 of Christ; of his love to us, of the sacrifice he 
 once offered, and of the intercession which he still 
 continues to make for us ; a share in all which* 
 is there federally offered to us, upon our coming 
 under engagements, to answer our part of the 
 covenant, and to live according to the rules it sets 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 209 
 
 us. On these things he ought to enlarge himself, 
 not only in his sermons, but in his catechetical 
 exercises, and in private discourses ; that so he 
 may give his people right notions of that solemn 
 part of worship, that he may bring them to delight 
 in it ; and may neither fright them from it, by 
 raising their apprehensions of it to a strictness 
 that may terrify too much, nor encourage them in 
 the too common practice of the dead and formal 
 receiving, at the great festivals, as a piece of 
 decency recommended by custom. 
 
 About the time of the sacrament, every minister 
 that knows any one of his parish guilty of emi- 
 nent sins, ought to go and admonish him to change 
 his course of life, or not to profane the table of 
 the Lord ; and if private admonitions have no 
 effect, then, if his sins are public and scandalous, 
 he ought to deny him the sacrament ; and upon 
 that he ought to take the method which is still 
 left to the church to make sinners ashamed, — to 
 separate them from holy things, till they have 
 edified the church as much by their repentance 
 and the outward profession of it, as they had for- 
 merly scandalized it by their disorders. This we 
 must confess, that though we have great reason 
 to lament our want of the " godly discipline that 
 was in the primitive church," yet we have still 
 authority for a great deal more than we put in 
 t3 
 
210 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 practice. Scandalous persons ought, and might 
 be more frequently presented than they are, and 
 both private and public admonitions might be 
 more used than they are. There is a flatness 
 in all these things among us. Some are willing 
 to do nothing, because they cannot do all that 
 they ought to do ; whereas the right way for pro- 
 curing an enlargement of our authority, is to use 
 that we have well ; not as an engine to gratify 
 our own or other people's passions, not to vex 
 people, nor to look after fees, more than the cor- 
 rection of manners, or the edification of the people. 
 If we began much with private applications, and 
 brought none into our courts, till it was visible 
 that all other ways had been unsuccessful, and 
 that no regard was had either to persons or par- 
 ties, to men's opinions or interests, we might again 
 bring our courts into the esteem which they ought 
 to have, but which they have almost entirely lost. 
 We can never hope to bring the world to bear the 
 yoke of Christ, and the order that he has appointed 
 to be kept up in his church, " of noting those 
 that walk disorderly, of separating ourselves from 
 them, of having no fellowship, no, not so much as 
 to eat with them ;" as long as we give them cause 
 to apprehend, that we intend by this to bring them 
 under our yoke, to subdue them to us, and to 
 "rule them with a rod of iron :" for the truth is, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 211 
 
 mankind is so strangely compounded, that it is 
 very hard to restrain ecclesiastical tyranny on the 
 one hand, without running to a lawless licentious- 
 ness on the other; so strangely does the world 
 love extremes, and avoid a temper. 
 
 Now, 1 have gone through the public functions 
 of a priest ; and in speaking of the last of these, 
 I have broken in upon the third head of his duty, 
 his private labours in his parish. He understands 
 little of the nature and the obligations of the 
 priestly office, who thinks he has discharged it by 
 performing the public appointments ; in w r hich if 
 he is defective, the laws of the church, how feeble 
 soever they may be as to other things, will have 
 their course. But as the private duties of the 
 pastoral care are things upon which the cogni- 
 zance of the law cannot fall, so they are the most 
 important and necessary of all others ; and the 
 more praiseworthy, the freer they are, and the 
 less forced by the compulsion of law. As to the 
 public functions, every man has his rule ; and in 
 these all are almost alike : every man, especially 
 if his lungs are good, can read prayers, even in 
 the largest congregation; and if he has a right 
 taste, and can but choose good sermons, out of 
 the many that are in print, he may likewise serve 
 them well that way too. But the difference be- 
 tween one man an I another shews itself more 
 
212 OF THK PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 sensibly in his private labours, in his prudent de- 
 portment, in his modest and discreet way of pro- 
 curing respect to himself ; in his treating his 
 parish, either in reconciling such differences as 
 may happen to be among them, or in admonish- 
 ing men of rank who set an ill example to others, 
 which ought always to be done in that way which 
 will probably have the best effect upon them,— 
 therefore it must be done secretly, and with ex- 
 pressions of tenderness and respect for their per- 
 sons. Fit times are to be chosen for this : it may 
 be often the best way to do it by a letter; for 
 there may be ways fallen upon, of reproving the 
 worst men in so soft a manner, that if they are 
 not reclaimed, yet they shall not be irritated or 
 made worse by it, which is but too often the effect 
 of an indiscreet reproof. By this a minister may 
 save the sinner's soul ; he is at least sure to save 
 his own, by having discharged his duty towards 
 his people. 
 
 One of the chief parts of the pastoral care is the 
 visiting the sick : not to be done barely when one 
 is sent for ; he is to go as soon as he hears that 
 any of his flock are ill. He is not to satisfy him- 
 self with going over the office, or giving them 
 the sacrament when desired : he ought to inform 
 himself of their course of life, and of the temper 
 of their mind, that so he may apply himself to 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 213 
 
 them accordingly. If they are insensible, he ought 
 to awaken them with the terrors of God, the judg- 
 ment, and the wrath to come. He must endeavour 
 to make them sensible of their sins ; particularly 
 of that which runs through most mens lives, their 
 forgetting and neglecting God and his service, and 
 their setting their hearts so inordinately upon the 
 world. He must set them on to examine their 
 dealings; and make them seriously to consider, 
 that they can expect no mercy from God, unless 
 they restore whatsoever they may have got un- 
 justly from any other, by any manner of way, 
 even though their title were confirmed by law : 
 he is to lay any other sins to their charge that he 
 has reason to suspect them guilty of; and must 
 press them to all such acts of repentance as they 
 are then capable of. If they have been men of a 
 bad course of life, he must give them no encou- 
 ragement to hope much from this death-bed re- 
 pentance; yet he is to set them to implore the 
 " mercies of God in Christ Jesus/' and to do all 
 they can to obtain his favour. But unless the 
 sickness has been of a long continuance, and that 
 the persons repentance, his patience, his piety, 
 has been very extraordinary, during the course of 
 it, he must be sure to give him no positive ground 
 of hope, but leave him to the mercies of God : 
 for there cannot be any greater treachery to souls, 
 
214 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 that is more fatal and more pernicious, than the 
 giving quick and easy hopes, upon so short, so 
 forced, and so imperfect a repentance. It not 
 only makes those persons perish securely them- 
 selves, but it leads all about them to destruction, 
 when they see one, of whose bad life and late 
 repentance they have been the witnesses, put so 
 soon in hopes, nay, by some unfaithful guides, 
 made sure of salvation : this must make them go 
 on verj' secure in their sins, when they see how 
 small a measure of repentance sets all right at 
 last. All the order and justice of a nation would 
 be presently dissolved, should the howlings of cri- 
 minals, and their promises of amendment, w T ork 
 on juries, judges, or princes : so, the hopes that 
 are given to death-bed penitents must be a most 
 effectual means to root out the sense of religion 
 of the minds of all that see it. And therefore, 
 though no dying man is to be driven to despair, 
 and left to die obstinate in his sins, yet, if we love 
 the souls of our people, if we set a due value on 
 the blood of Christ, and if we are touched with 
 any sense of the honour or interests of religion, 
 we must not say any thing that may encourage 
 others, who are but too apt of themselves to put 
 all off to the last hour. We can give them no 
 hopes from the nature of the Gospel covenant; 
 yet, after all, the best thing a dying man can do 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 215 
 
 is to repent : if he recovers, that may be the seed 
 and beginning of a new life and a new nature in 
 him. Nor do we know the measure of the 
 "riches of God's grace and mercy ;*' how far he 
 may think fit to exert it beyond the conditions 
 and promises of the new covenant, at least to the 
 lessening of such a person's misery in another 
 state. We are sure he is not within the new 
 covenant ; and since he has not repented, accord- 
 ing to the tenour of it, we dare not, unless we 
 betray our commission, give any hopes beyond it, 
 But one of the chief cares of a minister about the 
 sick ought to be, to exact of them solemn vows 
 and promises of a renovation of life, in case God 
 shall raise them up again ; and these ought to be 
 demanded, not only in general words, but if they 
 have been guilty of any scandalous disorders, or 
 any other ill practises, there ought to be special 
 promises made with relation to those : and upon 
 the recovery of such persons, their ministers ought 
 to put them in mind of their engagements, and 
 use all the due freedom of admonitions and re- 
 proof, upon their breaking loose from them. In 
 such a case, they ought to leave a terrible denun- 
 ciation of the judgments of God upon them, and 
 so, at least, they acquit themselves. 
 
 There is another sort of sick persons, who 
 abound more in towns than in the country ; those 
 
216 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 are the troubled in mind. Of these there are two 
 sorts : some have committed enormous sins, which 
 kindle a storm in their consciences ; and that ought 
 to be cherished, till they have completed a repent- 
 ance proportioned to the nature and degree of their 
 sin. If wrong has been done to another, repara- 
 tion and restitution must be made, to the utmost 
 of the party's power. If blood has been shed, a 
 long course of fasting and prayer ; a total absti- 
 nence from wine, if drunkenness gave the rise to 
 it ; a making up the loss to the family on which 
 it has fallen, must be enjoined. But, alas ! the 
 greater part of those that think they are troubled 
 in mind, are melancholy hypochondriacal people, 
 — who, what through some false opinions in re- 
 ligion, what through a foulness of blood, occa- 
 sioned by their inactive course of life, in which 
 their minds work too much, because their bodies 
 are too little employed, — fall under dark and 
 cloudy apprehensions, of which they can give no 
 clear nor good account, This, in the greatest 
 part, is to be removed by strong and chalybeate 
 medicines ; yet such persons are to be much pitied, 
 and a little humoured in their distemper. They 
 must be diverted from thinking too much, being 
 too much alone, or dwelling too long on thoughts 
 that are too hard for them to master. 
 
 The opinion that has had the chief influence in 
 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 217 
 
 raising these distempers, has been that of praying 
 by the Spirit ; when a name of thought, a melting 
 in the brain, and the abounding in tender expres- 
 sions, have been thought the effects of the Spirit, 
 moving all those symptoms of a warm temper. 
 Now, in all people, especially in persons of a me- 
 lancholy disposition, that are much alone, there 
 will be a great diversity, with relation to this, at 
 different times. Sometimes these heats will rise 
 and flow copiously, and at other times there will 
 be a damp upon the brain, and a dead dryness in 
 the spirits. This, to men that are prepossessed 
 with the opinion now set forth, will appear as if 
 God did sometimes " shine out," and at other 
 times "hide his face ;" and since this last will be 
 the most frequent in men of that temper, as they 
 will be apt to be lifted up when they think they 
 have a "fulness of the Spirit" in them, so they 
 will be as much cast down when that is with- 
 drawn; they will conclude from it, that " God is 
 angry with them," and so reckon that they must 
 be in a very dangerous condition. Upon this, a 
 vast variety of troublesome scruples will arise, out 
 of every thing that they either do or have done. 
 If, then, a minister has occasion to treat any in 
 this condition, he must make them apprehend that 
 the heat or coldness of their brain is the effect of 
 temper ; and flows from the different state of the- 
 ir 
 
218 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 animal spirits, which have their diseases, their hot 
 and their cold fits, as well as the blood has ; and 
 therefore no measure can be taken from these, 
 either to judge for or against themselves. They 
 are to consider what are their principles and reso- 
 lutions, and what is the settled course of their 
 life : upon these they are to form sure judgments, 
 and not upon any thing that is so fluctuating and 
 inconstant as fits or humours. 
 
 Another part of a priest's duty is with relation 
 to them "that are without/' I mean, that are not 
 of our body, which are of the side of the church 
 of Rome, or among the dissenters. Other churches 
 and bodies are noted for their zeal in making pro- 
 selytes, for their restless endeavours, as well as 
 their unlawful methods in it ; the reckoning, per- 
 haps, that all will be sanctified by the increasing 
 their party ; which is the true name of " making 
 converts," except they become at the same time 
 good men, as well as votaries to a side or cause. 
 We are certainly very remiss in this on both hands ; 
 little pains is taken to gain either upon papist or 
 nonconformist. The law has been so much trusted 
 to, that that method only was thought sure : it 
 was much valued, and others at the same time 
 as much neglected; and whereas at first, with- 
 out force or violence, in forty years' time, popery, 
 from being the prevailing religion, was reduced to 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 219 
 
 a handful, we have now, in above twice that num- 
 ber of years, made very little progress. The favour 
 shewed them from our court made us seem, as it 
 were, unwilling to disturb them in their religion ; 
 so that we grew at last to be kind to them, to 
 look on them as harmless and inoffensive neigh- 
 bours, and even to cherish and comfort them : we 
 were very near the being convinced of our mistake, 
 by a terrible and dear-bought experience. Now 
 they are again under hatches, certainly it becomes 
 us, both in charity to them and in regard to our 
 own safety, to study to gain them by the force of 
 reason and persuasion ; by shewing all kindness 
 to them, and thereby disposing them to hearken 
 to the reasons that we may lay before them. We 
 ought not to give over this as desperate, upon a 
 few unsuccessful attempts ; but must follow them 
 in the meekness of Christ, that so* we may at last 
 prove happy instruments, in delivering them from 
 the blindness and captivity they are kept under, 
 and the idolatry and superstition they live in : we 
 ought to visit them often in a spirit of love and 
 charity, and to offer them conferences ; and upon 
 such endeavours, we have reason to expect a bless- 
 ing, at least this, of having done our duty, and so 
 delivering our own souls. 
 
 Nor are we to think, that the toleration, under 
 which the law has settled the dissenters, does 
 u2 
 
220 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 either absolve them from the obligations that they 
 lay under before, by the laws of God and the 
 Gospel, to maintain the unity of the church, and 
 not to rend it by unjust or causeless schisms ; or 
 us from using our endeavours to bring them to it, 
 by the methods of persuasion and kindness : nay, 
 perhaps, their being now in circumstances, that 
 they can no more be forced in these things, may 
 put some of them in a greater towardness to hear 
 reason ; a free nation naturally hating constraint : 
 and certainly the less we seem to grudge or envy 
 them their liberty, we will be thereby the nearer 
 gaining on the generous and better part of them, 
 and the rest would soon lose heart, and look out 
 of countenance, if these should hearken to us. It 
 was the opinion many had of their strictness, and 
 of the looseness that was among us, that gained 
 them their credit, and made such numbers fall off 
 from us. They have in a great measure lost the 
 good character that once they had ; if to that we 
 should likewise lose our bad one ; if we were 
 stricter in our lives, more serious and constant in 
 our labours ; and studied more effectually to re- 
 form those of our communion, than to rail at 
 theirs ; if we took occasion to let them see that 
 we love them, that we wish them no harm, but 
 good ; then we might hope, by the blessing of 
 God, to lay the obligations to love and peace, to 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 221 
 
 unity and concord before them, with such advan- 
 tages, that some of them might open their eyes, 
 and see at last upon how slight grounds they have 
 now so long kept up such a wrangling, and made 
 such a rent in the church, that both the power of 
 religion in general, and the strength of the protes- 
 tant religion, have suffered extremely by them. 
 
 Thus far I have carried a clerk through his 
 parish, and all the several branches of his duty to 
 his people. But that all this may be well gone 
 about, and indeed as the foundation upon which all 
 the other parts of the pastoral care may be well 
 managed, he ought frequently to visit his whole 
 parish from house to house : that so he may know 
 them, and be known of them. This I know will 
 seem a vast labour, especially in towns, where 
 parishes are large ; but that is no excuse for those 
 in the country, where they are generally small ; 
 and if they are larger, the going this round will 
 be the longer a doing : yet an hour a day, twice 
 or thrice a week, is no hard duty : and this, in 
 the compass of a year, will go a great way, even 
 in a large parish. In these visits, much time is 
 not to be spent : a short word for stirring them 
 up to mind their souls, to make conscience of their 
 ways, and to pray earnestly to God, may begin it 
 and almost end it. After one has asked in what 
 union and peace the neighbourhood lives, and in- 
 u3 
 
222 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 quired into their necessities, if they seem very 
 poor, that so those to whom that care belongs may 
 be put in mind, to see how they may be relieved. 
 In this course of visiting, a minister will soon find 
 out, if there are any truly good persons in his 
 parish, after whom he must look with a more par- 
 ticular regard. Since these are the excellent ones, 
 in whom all his delight ought to be. For let their 
 rank be ever so mean, if they are sincerely reli- 
 gious, and not hypocritical pretenders to it, who 
 are vainly puffed up with some degrees of know- 
 ledge, and other outward appearances, he ought 
 to consider them as the most valuable in the sight 
 of God ; and, indeed, as the chief part of his care ; 
 for a living dog is better than a dead lion. I know 
 this way of parochial visitation is so worn out, 
 that, perhaps, neither priest nor people will be 
 very desirous to see it taken up. It will put the 
 one to labour and trouble, and bring the other 
 under a closer inspection, which bad men will no 
 ways desire, nor perhaps endure. But if this 
 were put on the clergy by their bishops, and if 
 they explained in a sermon before they began it, 
 the reason and ends of doing it ; that would re- 
 move the prejudices which might arise against it. 
 I confess this is an increase of labour, but that 
 will seem no hard matter to such as have a right 
 sense of their ordination vows, of the value of 
 
OK THE PASTORAL CARE. 223 
 
 souls, and of the dignity of their function. If 
 men had the spirit of their calling in them, and a 
 due measure of flame and heat in carrying it on ; 
 labour in it would be rather a pleasure than a 
 trouble. In all other professions, those who fol- 
 low them, labour in them all the year long, and 
 are hard at their business every day in the week. 
 All men that are well suited in a profession, that 
 is agreeable to their genius and inclination, are 
 really the easier and the better pleased, the more 
 they are employed in it. Indeed there is no trade 
 nor course of life, except ours, that does not take 
 up the whole man : and shall ours only, that is 
 the noblest of all others, and that has a certain 
 subsistence fixed upon it, and that does not live 
 by contingencies, and upon hopes, as all others 
 do, make the labouring in our business an objec- 
 tion against any part of our duty ? Certainly 
 nothing can so much dispose the nation, to think 
 on the relieving the necessities of the many small 
 livings, as the seeing the clergy setting about 
 their business to purpose ; this would, by the 
 blessing of God, be a most effectual means of 
 stopping the progress of atheism, and of the con- 
 tempt that the clergy lies under ; it would go a 
 great way towards the healing our schism, and 
 would be the chief step that could possibly be 
 made, towards the procuring to us such laws as 
 
224 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CAKE. 
 
 are yet wanting to the completing our reforma- 
 tion, and the mending the condition of so many 
 of our poor brethren, who are languishing in want, 
 and under great straits. 
 
 There remains only somewhat to be added con- 
 cerning the behaviour of the clergy towards one 
 another. Those of a higher form in learning, dig- 
 nity, and wealth, ought not to despise poor vicars 
 and curates ; but, on the contrary, the poorer they 
 are, they ought to pity and encourage them the 
 more, since they are all of the same order, only 
 the one are more happily placed than the others : 
 they ought therefore to cherish those that are in 
 worse circumstances, and encourage them, to come 
 often to them ; they ought to lend them books, 
 and to give them other assistances in order to their 
 progress in learning. It is a bad thing to see a 
 bishop behave himself superciliously towards any 
 of his clergy, but it is intolerable in those of the 
 same degree. The clergy ought to contrive w T ays 
 to meet often together, to enter into a brotherly 
 correspondence, and into the concerns one of an- 
 other, both in order to their progress in know- 
 ledge, and for consulting together in all their 
 affairs. This would be a means to cement them 
 into one body ; hereby they might understand 
 what were amiss in the conduct of any in their 
 division, and try to correct it either by private ad- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 225 
 
 vices and endeavours, or by laying it before the 
 bishop, by whose private labours, if his clergy 
 would be assisting to him, and give him free and 
 full informations of things, many disorders might 
 be cured, without rising to public scandal, or 
 forcing him to extreme censures. It is a false pity 
 in any of the clergy, who see their brethren run- 
 ning into ill courses, to look on and say nothing : 
 it is a cruelty to the church, and may prove a 
 cruelty to the person of whom they are so unsea- 
 sonably tender : for things may be more easily 
 corrected at first, before they have grown to be 
 public, or are hardened by habit and custom. 
 Upon these accounts it is of great advantage, and 
 may be matter of great edification to the clergy, 
 to enter into a strict union together, to meet often, 
 and to be helpful to one another. But if this 
 should be made practicable, they must be ex- 
 tremely strict in those meetings, to observe so 
 exact a sobriety, that there might be no colour 
 given to censure them, as if these were merry 
 meetings, in which they allowed themselves great 
 liberties. It were good, if they could be brought 
 to meet to fast and pray : but if that is a strain 
 too high for the present age, at least they must 
 keep so far within bounds, that there may be no 
 room for calumny. For a disorder upon any such 
 occasion, would give a wound of an extraordinary 
 
226 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 nature to the reputation of the whole clergy, when 
 every one would bear a share of the blame, which 
 perhaps belonged but to a few. Four or five such 
 meetings in a summer, would neither be a great 
 charge, nor give much trouble ; but the advan- 
 tages that might arise out of them, would be very 
 sensible. 
 
 I have but one other advice to add ; but it is 
 of a thing of great consequence, though generally 
 managed in so loose and so indifferent a manner, 
 that I have some reason in charity to believe, that 
 the clergy make very little reflection on what they 
 do in it : and that is, in the testimonials that they 
 sign in favour of those that come to be ordained. 
 Many have confessed to myself, that they had 
 signed these upon general reports, and importu- 
 nity, though the testimonial bears personal know- 
 ledge. These are instead of the suffrages of the 
 clergy, which in the primitive church were given 
 before any were ordained. A bishop must depend 
 upon them ; for he has no other way to be cer- 
 tainly informed : and therefore, as it is a lie, pass- 
 ed with the solemnity of hand and seal, to affirm 
 any thing that is beyond one's own knowledge, 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 
 knowledge of one that brings it, ordains an unfit 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 227 
 
 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 particu- 
 lar 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 judge 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 w r hich arises from the sense of one's having 
 done his duty : and then it can scarce be supposed 
 but, 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 plea- 
 sure of having delivered one from misery, and of 
 making him easy and happy, how sovereign 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 w T ay to everlasting happiness ? And 
 
228 OF THE FAST0RAL CARE. 
 
 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 
 travail 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 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 229 
 
 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 extremes in every 
 thing. If one sect or body of men magnify preach- 
 ing too much, another carries that to another ex- 
 treme, 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 dis- 
 coveries 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 clergyman cannot maintain his credit, nor 
 bring his people to a constant attendance on the 
 worship of God, unless he is happy in these per- 
 formances. 
 
 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 
 
230 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 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 m^n 
 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 alle- 
 gories that had vitiated Origen, and from the ex- 
 cessive affectation of figures and rhetoric that 
 appears in Nazianzen, to a due simplicity, — a 
 native force and beauty, — having joined to the 
 plainness of a clear but noble style, 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 ser- 
 mons. Mystical applications of Scripture grew to 
 be better liked than clear texts ; an accumula- 
 tion 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 accord- 
 ing to the different tastes of the several ages run 
 into. Preaching has passed through many differ- 
 ent forms among us, since the Reformation ; but, 
 without flattering the present age, or any person 
 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 cer- 
 tainly brought nearer the pattern that St. Chry- 
 
OF THE TASTORAL CARE. 231 
 
 sostom has set, or perhaps carried beyond it. Our 
 language is much refined, and we have returned 
 to the plain notions of simple and genuine rhe- 
 toric. 
 
 We have so vast a number of excellent perform- 
 ances in print, that if a man has but a right under- 
 standing 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 out. 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 re- 
 duced to the plain opening the meaning of the text, 
 in a few short illustrations cf its coherence with 
 what goes before and after, and of the parts cf 
 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 suited to their 
 capacities and apprehensions : to all which appli- 
 cations are added, tending to the reproving, direct- 
 ing, encouraging, or comforting the hearers ac- 
 cording to the several occasions* that are offered. 
 
 This is, indeed, all that can truly be intended 
 x2 
 
232 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 in preaching : to make some portions of Scripture 
 to be rightly understood ; to make those truths 
 contained in them to be more fully apprehended ; 
 and then to lay the matter home to the consciences 
 of the hearers, so directing all to some good and 
 practical end. In the choice of the text, care is 
 to be taken not to choose texts that seem to have 
 humour in them ; or that must be long wrought 
 upon, before they are understood. The plainer a 
 text is in itself, the sooner it is cleared, and the 
 fuller it is of matter of instruction ; and therefore 
 such ought to be chosen to common auditories. 
 Many will remember the text, that remember no- 
 thing else ; therefore such a choice should be made, 
 as may at least put a weighty and speaking sen- 
 tence of the Scriptures upon the memories of the 
 people. A sermon should be made for a text, and 
 not a text found out for a sermon ; for, to give 
 our discourses weight, it should appear that we 
 are led to them by our texts. Such sermons will 
 probably have much more efficacy than a general 
 discourse, before which a text seems only to be 
 read as a decent introduction, but to which no 
 regard is had in the progress of it. Great care 
 should be also had, both in opening the text and 
 of that which arises from it, to illustrate them by 
 concurrent passages of Scripture. A little of this 
 ought to be in every sermon, and but a little ; for 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 233 
 
 the people are not to be overcharged with too 
 much of it at a time ; and this ought to be done 
 with judgment, — and not be made a bare concord- 
 ance exercise, of citing Scriptures, that have the 
 same words, though not to the same purpose, and 
 in the same sense. A text being opened, then 
 the point upon which the sermon is to run is to 
 be opened ; and it will be the better heard and 
 understood, if there is but one point in a sermon ; 
 so that one head, and only one, is well stated, and 
 fully set out. In this, great regard is to be had 
 to the nature of the auditory, that so the point 
 explained may be in some measure proportioned 
 to them. Too close a thread of reason, too great 
 an abstraction of thought, too sublime and too 
 metaphysical a strain, are suitable to very few au- 
 ditories, if to any at all. 
 
 Things must be put in a clear light, and brought 
 out in as short periods and in as plain words as 
 may be. The reasons of them must be made as 
 sensible to the people as is possible : as in virtues 
 and vices, their tendencies and effects, their being 
 suitable and unsuitable to our powers, to both souls 
 and bodies, to the interests of this life as well as 
 the next ; and the good or evil that they do to 
 human societies, families, and neighbourhoods, 
 ought to be fully and frequently opened. In set- 
 ting these forth, such a measure is to be kept, 
 x 3 
 
234 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 that the hearers may perceive that things are not 
 strained, in the way of a declamation, into forced 
 characters ; but that they are set out, as truly 
 they are, without making them seem better by- 
 imaginary perfections, or worse by an undue ag- 
 gravation : for the carrying those matters beyond 
 the plain observation of mankind, makes that the 
 whole is looked on as a piece of rhetoric ; the 
 preacher seeming to intend rather to shew his 
 skill, in raising his subject too high, or running 
 it down too low, than to lay before them the 
 native consequences of things; and that which, 
 upon reflection, they may be all able to perceive 
 is really true. Virtue is so good in itself, that it 
 needs no false paint to make it look better ; and 
 vice is so bad, that it can never look so ugly as 
 when shewn in its own natural colours : so that 
 an undue sublime in such descriptions does hurt, 
 and can do no good. 
 
 When the explanatory part of the sermon is 
 over, the application comes next : and here great 
 judgment must be used, to make it fall the hea- 
 viest, and lie the longest, upon such particulars as 
 may be within the compass of the auditory. Di- 
 rections concerning a high devotion, to a stupid, 
 ignorant company, — or of generosity and bounty, 
 to very poor people, — against pride and ambition, 
 to such as are dull and low-minded, — are ill 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 235 
 
 suited, and so must have little effect upon them. 
 Therefore care must be taken that the application 
 be useful and proper ; that it make the hearers 
 apprehend some of their sins and defects, and see 
 how to perform their duty ; that it awaken them 
 to it, and direct them in it : and therefore the 
 most common sins, — such as men's neglecting 
 their duty to God, in the several branches of it, — 
 their setting their hearts inordinately upon the 
 world,- — their lying in discourse, but chiefly in 
 bargainings, — their evil- speaking, and their hatred 
 and malice, — ought to be very often brought in. 
 Some one or other of these ought to be in every 
 application that is made, by which they may see, 
 that the whole design of religion lies against them. 
 Such particular sins, swearing, drunkenness, or 
 lewdness, as abound in any place, must likewise 
 be frequently brought in here. The application 
 must be clear and short, very weighty, and free 
 of every thing that looks like the affectations of 
 wit and eloquence ; here the preacher must be 
 all heart and soul, designing the good of his peo- 
 ple, The whole sermon is directed to this : there- 
 fore, as it is fit that the chief point which a sermon 
 drives at should come often over and over, that so 
 the hearers may never lose sight of it, but keep 
 it still in view ; so, in the application, the text 
 must be shewn to speak it ; all the parts of the 
 
236 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 explanation must come in to enforce it. The 
 application must be opened in the several views 
 that it may have ; but those must be chiefly in- 
 sisted on, that are most suitable both to the capa- 
 cities and the circumstances of the people : and 
 in conclusion, all ought to be summed up in a 
 weighty period or two ; and some other signal 
 passages of the Scriptures relating to it may be 
 sought for, that so the matter may be left upon 
 the auditory in the most solemn manner possible. 
 
 Thus I have led a preacher through the com- 
 position of his sermon ; I will next lay before 
 him some particulars relating to it. The shorter 
 sermons are, they are generally both better heard 
 and better remembered. The custom of an hour's 
 length forces many preachers to trifle away much 
 of the time, and to spin out their matter, so as to 
 hold out. So great a length does also flat the 
 hearers, and tempt them to sleep ; especially 
 when, as is usual, the first part of the sermon is 
 languid and heavy. In half an hour, a man may 
 lay open his matter in its full extent, and cut off 
 those superfluities which come in only to lengthen 
 the discourse ; and he may hope to keep up the 
 attention of his people all the while. As to the 
 style, sermons ought to be very plain. The 
 figures must be easy ; not mean, but noble, and 
 brought in upon design to make the matter better 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 237 
 
 understood. The words in a sermon must be 
 simple, and in common use ; not savouring of the 
 schools, nor above the understanding of the peo- 
 ple. All long periods, such as carry two or three 
 different thoughts in them, must be avoided ; for 
 few hearers can follow or apprehend these : nice- 
 ties of style are lost before a common auditory. 
 But if an easy simplicity of style should run 
 through the whole composition, it should take 
 place most of all in the explanatory part ; for the 
 thing being there offered to be understood, it 
 should be stripped of all garnishing : definitions 
 should not be offered in the terms or method that 
 logic directs. In short, a preacher is to fancy 
 himself as in the room of the most unlearned man 
 in his whole parish ; and therefore he must put 
 such parts of his discourse as he would have all 
 understand, in so plain a form of words, that it 
 may not be beyond the meanest of them. This 
 he will certainly study to do, if his desire is to 
 edify them, rather than to make them admire 
 himself as a learned and high-spoken man. 
 
 But ia the applicatory part, if he has a true 
 taste of eloquence, and is a master at it, he is to 
 employ it all, in giving sometimes such tender 
 touches as may soften, and deeper gashes, such as 
 may awaken his hearers. A vain eloquence here 
 is very ill placed : for if that can be borne any 
 
238 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 where, it is in illustrating the matter ; but all 
 must be grave where one would persuade ; the 
 most natural, but the most sensible expressions 
 come in best here. Such an eloquence as makes 
 the hearers look grave, and as it were out of 
 countenance, is the properest. That which makes 
 them look lively, and as it were, smile upon one 
 another, may be pretty ; but it only tickles the 
 imagination, and pleases the ear ; whereas that 
 which goes to the heart, and wounds it, makes 
 the hearer rather look down, and turn his thoughts 
 inward upon himself. For it is certain that a 
 sermon, the conclusion whereof makes the audi- 
 tory look pleased, and sets them all a talking one 
 to another, was either not right spoken, or not 
 right heard; it has been fine, and has probably 
 delighted the congregation, rather than edified it. 
 But that sermon that makes every one go away 
 silent and grave, and hastening to be alone, to 
 meditate or pray over the matter of it in secret, 
 has had its true effect. 
 
 He that has a taste and genius for eloquence, 
 must improve it by reading Quintilian, and Tully's 
 Books of Oratory, and by observing the spirit and 
 method of Tully's Orations : or if he can enter 
 into Demosthenes, there he will see a much better 
 pattern ; there being a simplicity, a shortness, and 
 a swiftness and rapidity in him, that could not be 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 239 
 
 heard without putting his auditors into a great 
 commotion. All our modern books upon these 
 subjects are so far short of those great originals, 
 that they can bear no compaiison: yet F. Rapin's 
 little Book of Eloquence is by much the best, only 
 he is too short. Tully has so fully opened all the 
 topics of invention, that a man who has read him 
 will, if he has any invention of his own, and if he 
 knows thoroughly his matter, rather have too much 
 than too little in his view, upon every subject that 
 he treats. This is a noble study, and of great use 
 to such as have judgment to mana.ge it; for arti- 
 ficial eloquence, without a flame within, is like ar- 
 tificial poetry ; all its productions are forced and 
 unnatural, and in a great measure ridiculous. Art 
 helps and guides nature ; but if one was not born 
 with this flame, art will only spoil him, make him 
 luscious and redundant. To such persons, and, 
 indeed, to all that are not masters of the body 
 of divinity and of the Scriptures, I should much 
 rather recommend the using other men's sermons, 
 than the making any of their own. But in the 
 choice of these great judgment must be used. 
 One must not take an author that is too much 
 above himself ; for by that, compared with his 
 ordinary conversation, it will but too evidently 
 appear, that he cannot be the author of his own 
 sermons ; and that w r ill make both him and them 
 
240 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 lose too much of their weight. He ought also 
 to put those printed sermons out of that strength 
 and closeness of style, which looks very well 
 in print, but is too stiff, especially for a com- 
 mon auditory. He may reverse the method a 
 little, and shorten the explanations, that so he 
 may retain all that is practical : and that a man 
 may form himself to preaching, he ought to take 
 some of the best models, and try what he can do 
 upon a text handled by them, without reading 
 them, and then compare his work with theirs; 
 this will more sensibly, and without putting him 
 to the blush, model him to imitate, or, if he can, 
 to excel the best patterns : and by this method, if 
 he will restrain himself for some time, and follow 
 it close, he may come to be able to go without 
 such crutches, and to work without patterns. Till 
 then, I should advise all to make use of other men's 
 sermons, rather than to make any of their own. 
 
 The nation has got into so good a taste of ser- 
 mons, from the vast number of those excellent 
 ones that are in print, that a mean composition 
 will be very ill heard ; and therefore it is an un- 
 seasonable piece of vanity, for any to offer their 
 own crudities, till they have well digested and 
 ripened them. I wish the majesty of the pulpit 
 were more looked to ; and that no sermons were 
 offered from thence, but such as should make the 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 241 
 
 hearers both the better and the wiser, the more 
 knowing, and the more serious. 
 
 In the delivering of sermons, a great composure 
 of gesture and behaviour is necessary, to give them 
 weight and authority. Extremes are bad here, as 
 in every thing else. Some affect a light and flip- 
 pant behaviour, and others think that wry faces 
 and a tone in the voice will set off the matter. 
 Grave and composed looks, and a natural, but 
 distinct pronunciation, will always have the best 
 effects. The great rule, which the masters of rheto- 
 ric press much, can never be enough remembered ; 
 that to make a man speak well, and pronounce with 
 aright emphasis, he ought thoroughly to understand 
 all that he says, be fully persuaded of it, and bring 
 himself to have those affections which he desires to 
 infuse into others. He that is inwardly persuaded 
 of the truth of what he says, and that has a con- 
 cern about it in his mind, will pronounce with a 
 natural vehemence, that is far more lively than 
 all the strains that art can lead him to. An orator, 
 if we hearken to him, must be an honest man, 
 and speak always on the side of truth, and study 
 to feel all that he says ; and then he will speak it 
 so as to make others feel it likewise. And there- 
 fore such as read their sermons, ought to practise 
 reading much in private, and read aloud, that so 
 their own ear and sense may guide them, to know 
 
 Y 
 
242 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 where to raise or quicken, soften or sweeten their 
 voice, and when to give an articulation of autho- 
 rity, or of conviction: where to pause, and where 
 to languish. We plainly see by the stage, what 
 a force there is in pronunciation : the best compo- 
 sitions are murdered, if ill spokea ; and the worst 
 are acceptable when well said. In tragedies, 
 rightly pronounced and acted, though we know 
 that all is a fable and fiction, the tender parts do 
 so melt the company, that tears cannot be stop- 
 ped, even by those who laugh at themselves for it. 
 This shews the power of apt words, and a just 
 pronunciation : but because this depends, in a 
 great measure, upon the present temper of him 
 that speaks, and the lively disposition in which he 
 is, therefore he ought, by much previous serious- 
 ness, and by earnest prayer to God, to endeavour 
 to raise his mind to as warm a sense of the things 
 he is to speak of as possibly he can, that so his ser- 
 mons may make deep impressions on his hearers. 
 
 This leads me to consider the difference that is 
 between the reading and speaking of sermons. 
 Reading is peculiar to this nation, and is endured 
 in no other. It has, indeed, made that our ser- 
 mons are more exact, and so it has produced to us 
 many volumes of the best that are extant ; but, 
 after all, though some few read so happily, pro- 
 nounce so truly, and enter so entirely into those 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 243 
 
 affections which they recommend, that in them 
 we see both the correctness of reading, and the 
 seriousness of speaking sermons, yet every one is 
 not so happy. Some, by hanging their heads 
 perpetually over their notes, by blundering as 
 they read, and by a cursory running over them, 
 do so lessen the matter of their sermons, that as 
 they are generally read with very little life or 
 affection, so they are heard with as little regard 
 or esteem. Those who read, ought certainly to 
 be at a little more pains than for most part they 
 are, to read true, to pronounce with an emphasis, 
 and to raise their heads, and direct their eyes to 
 their hearers ; and if they practised more alone 
 the just way of reading they might deliver their 
 sermons with much more advantage. Man is a 
 low sort of creature ; he does not, nay, nor the 
 greater part cannot, consider things in themselves, 
 without those little seasonings that must recom- 
 mend them to their affections. That a discourse 
 be heard with any life, it must be spoken with 
 some ; and the looks and motions of the eye do 
 carry in them such additions to what is said, that 
 where these do not all concur, it has not all the 
 force upon them that otherwise it might have : 
 besides that, the people, who are too apt to cen- 
 sure the clergy, are easily carried into an obvious 
 y 2 
 
244 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 reflection on reading, that it is an effect of lazi- 
 ness. 
 
 In pronouncing sermons, there are two ways. 
 The one is when a whole discourse is got by heart, 
 and delivered word for word, as it was writ down. 
 This is so vast a labour, that it is scarce possible 
 that a man can be able to hold up long to it : yet 
 there is an advantage even in this to beginners ; 
 it fills their memories with good thoughts and re- 
 gular meditations : and when they have got some 
 of the most important of their sermons by heart in 
 so exact a manner, they are thereby furnished with 
 topics for discourse. And therefore there are, at 
 least, two different subjects, on which I wish all 
 preachers would be at the pains to form sermons 
 well in their memories. The one is the grounds 
 of the covenant of grace, of both sides, — God's 
 offers to us in Christ, and the conditions that he 
 has required of us, in order to our reconciliation 
 with him. This is so important a point, in the 
 whole course of our ministry, that no man ought 
 to be to seek in the opening or explaining it : and 
 therefore, that he may be ripe in it, he ought to 
 have it all rightly laid in his memory, not only as 
 to the notions of it, but to have such a lively de- 
 scription and illustration of it all, as to be able to 
 speak of it sensibly, fully, and easily, upon all 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 245 
 
 occasions. Another subject, in which every minis- 
 ter ought also to be well furnished, is concerning 
 death and judgment; that so, when he visits the 
 sick, and, as is common, that the neighbours come 
 in, he may be able to make a grave exhortation, 
 in weighty and fit words, upon those heads. Less 
 than this, I think no priest ought to have in his 
 memory. But, indeed, the more sermons a young 
 beginner gets by heart, he has still thereby the 
 more discourse ready upon those heads ; for though 
 the whole contexture of the sermon will stick no 
 longer than he has occasion for it, yet a great deal 
 will stay with him ; the idea of the whole, with the 
 most important parts of it, will remain much longer. 
 But now I come to propose another method of 
 preaching, by which a priest may be prepared, 
 after a right view of his matter, a true under- 
 standing his text, and a digesting of his thoughts 
 upon it into their natural and proper order, to 
 deliver these both more easily to himself, and 
 with a better effect both upon himself and his 
 hearers. To come at this, he must be for some 
 years at a great deal of pains to prepare himself 
 to it ; yet when that is over, the labour of all the 
 rest of his life, as to those performances, will be- 
 come very easy and very pleasant to him. The 
 preparations to this must be these : first, he must 
 read the Scriptures very exactly, — he must have 
 y 3 
 
246 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 great portions of them by heart ; and he must also, 
 in reading them, make a short concordance of 
 them in his memory; that is, he must lay toge- 
 ther such passages as belong to the same matter : 
 to consider how far they agree, or help to illustrate 
 one another, and how the same thing is differently 
 expressed in them ; and what various ideas, or 
 ways of recommending a thing, rise out of this 
 concordance. Upon this a man must exercise 
 himself much, draw notes of it, and digest it well 
 in his thoughts. Then he must be ready with the 
 whole body of divinity in his head ; he must know 
 what parts come in as objections to be answered, 
 where difficulties lie, how one part coheres with 
 another, and gives it light. He must have this 
 very current in his memory, that he may have 
 things lie before him in one full view ; and upon 
 this he is also to work, by making tables, or using 
 such other helps as may lay matters clearly before 
 him. He is, more particularly, to lay before him 
 a system of morality, of all virtues and vices, and 
 of all the duties that arise out of the several rela- 
 tions of mankind ; that he may have this matter 
 very full in his eye, and know what are the Scrip- 
 tures that belong to all the parts of it. He is 
 also to make a collection of ail such thoughts, as 
 he finds either in the books of the ancient philoso- 
 phers, (where Seneca will be of great use to him,) 
 
OF THE PASTGKAL CARE. 1247 
 
 or of Christian authors. He is to separate such 
 thoughts as are forced, and that do become rather 
 a strained declamation, made only to please, than 
 a solid discourse, designed to persuade. All these 
 he must gather, or at least such a number of them, 
 as may help him to form a distinct notion of that 
 matter, so as to be able both to open it clearly, 
 and to press it with affection and vehemence. 
 
 These are the materials that must be laid toge- 
 ther ; the practice in using them comes next. He, 
 then, that would prepare himself to be a preacher 
 in this method, must accustom himself to talk 
 freely to himself, to let his thoughts flow from 
 him, especially when he feels an edge and heat 
 upon his mind ; for then happy expressions will 
 come in his mouth, things will ventilate and open 
 themselves to him, as he talks them thus in a 
 soliloquy to himself. He must also be writing 
 many essays upon all sorts of subjects ; for by 
 writing he will bring himself to a correctness both 
 in thinking and in speaking : and thus, by a hard 
 practice for two or three years, a man may render 
 himself such a master in this matter, that he can 
 never be surprised, nor will new thoughts ever dry 
 up upon him. He must talk over to himself the 
 whole body of divinity ; and accustom himself to 
 explain, and prove, to clear objections, and to ap- 
 ply every part of it to some practical use. He 
 
248 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 must go through human life, in all the ranks and 
 degrees of it, and talk over all the duties of these ; 
 consider the advantages or disadvantages in every 
 one of them, their relation to one another, the 
 morality of actions, the common virtues and vices 
 of mankind ; more particularly the duties of Chris- 
 tians, their obligations to meekness and humility, 
 to forgive injuries, to relieve the poor, to bear the 
 cross, to be patient and contented in every state of 
 life, to pray much and fervently, to rejoice ever in 
 God, and to be always praising him, and most par- 
 ticularly to be applying seriously to God through 
 Jesus Christ, for mercy and pardon, and for his 
 grace and Spirit ; to be worshipping him devoutly 
 in public, and to be delighting frequently to com- 
 memorate the death of Christ, and to partake of 
 the benefits of it. All these, I say, he must talk 
 over and over again to himself; he must study to 
 give his thoughts all the heat and flight about them 
 that he can : and if, in these his meditations, happy 
 thoughts and noble and tender expressions do at 
 any time offer themselves, he must not lose them, 
 but write them down : and in his pronouncing 
 over such discourses to himself, he must observe 
 what words sound harsh, and agree ill together ; 
 for there is a music in speaking, as well as in 
 singing, which a man, though not otherwise cri- 
 tical in sounds, will soon discover. By a very few 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 249 
 
 years' practice of two or three such soliloquies a 
 day, chiefly in the morning, when the head is clear- 
 est, and the spirits are liveliest, a man will contract 
 a great easiness both in thinking and speaking. 
 
 But the rule I have reserved last is the most 
 necessary of all, and without it all the rest will 
 never do the business; it is this: That a man 
 must have in himself a deep sense of the truth 
 and power of religion ; he must have a life and 
 flame in his thoughts with relation to those sub- 
 jects : he must have felt in himself those things 
 which he intends to explain and recommend to 
 others. He must observe narrowly the motions 
 of his own mind, the good and bad effects that the 
 several sorts of objects he has before him, and 
 affections he feels within him, have upon him ; 
 that so he may have a lively heat in himself when 
 he speaks of them, and that he may speak in so 
 sensible a manner, that it may be almost felt that 
 he speaks froai his heart. There is an authority 
 in the simplest things that can be said, when they 
 carry visible characters of genuineness in them. 
 Now, if a man can carry on this method, and by 
 much meditation and prayer draw down divine 
 influences, which are always to be expected, when 
 a man puts himself in the way of them, and pre- 
 pares himself for them; he will often feel, that 
 " while he is musing, a fire is kindled within 
 
250 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 him," and then he will " speak with authority,' ' 
 and without constraint ; his thoughts will be true, 
 and his expressions free and easy. Sometimes 
 this fire will carry him, as it were, out of himself, 
 and yet without any thing that is frantic or enthu- 
 siastical. Discourses brought forth with a lively 
 spirit and heat, where a composed gesture, and 
 the proper motions of the eye and countenance, 
 and the due modulations of the voice concur, will 
 have all the effect that can be expected from any 
 thing that is below immediate inspiration : and as 
 this will be of use to the hearers, so it will be of 
 vast use to the preacher himself, to oblige him to 
 keep his heart always in good tune and temper ; 
 not to suffer irregular and forbidden appetites, pas- 
 sions, or projects, to prepossess his mind : these 
 will both divert him from going on in the course 
 of meditation, in which a man must continue 
 many years, till all his thoughts are put in order, 
 polished, and fixed ; they will make him likewise 
 speak much against the grain, with an aversion 
 that will be very sensible to himself, if not to his 
 hearers : if he h?,s guilt upon him, if his conscience 
 is reproaching him, and if any ill practices are 
 putting a damp upon that good sense of things 
 that makes his thoughts sparkle upon other occa- 
 sions, and gives him an air and authority, a tone 
 of assurance, and a freedom of expression. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 251 
 
 Such a method as I have been opening, has had 
 great success with all those that I have known to 
 have tried it. And though every one has not that 
 swiftness of imagination, nor that clearness of ex- 
 pression that others may have, so that in this men 
 may differ, as much as they do in their written 
 compositions ; yet every man by this method may 
 rise far above that which he could ever have at- 
 tained to any other way : it will make even exact 
 compositions easier to him, and him much readier 
 and freer at them. But great care must be used 
 by him, before he suffers himself to speak with the 
 liberty here aimed at in public : he must try him- 
 self at smaller excursions from his fixed thoughts, 
 especially in the applicatory part, where flame and 
 life are more necessary, and where a mistaken 
 word or an unfinished period are less observed, 
 and sooner forgiven, than in the explanatory part, 
 where men ought to speak more severely. And 
 as one succeeds in some short excursions, he may 
 give himself a further scope : and so, by a long 
 practice, he will at last arrive at so great an easi- 
 ness both in thinking and speaking, that a very 
 little meditation will serve to lay open a text to 
 him, with all the matter that belongs to it, toge- 
 ther with the order in which it ought to be both ex- 
 plained and applied. And when a man has attained 
 to a tolerable degree in this, he is then the master 
 
252 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CARE 
 
 of his business ; he is master also of much time, 
 and of many noble thoughts, and schemes that 
 will arise out of them. 
 
 This I shall prosecute no further; for if this 
 opening of it does not excite the reader to follow 
 it a little, no enlargements I can offer upon it will 
 work upon him. But to return to preaching, and 
 so conclude this chapter. He that intends truly to 
 ''preach the Gospel," and not himself, — he that 
 is more concerned to do good to others, than to 
 raise his own fame, or to procure a following to 
 himself, — and that makes this the measure of all 
 his meditations and sermons, that he may put 
 things in the best light, and recommend them with 
 the most advantage to his people, — that reads the 
 Scriptures much, and meditates often upon them, 
 — that prays earnestly to God for direction in his 
 labours, and for a blessing upon them, — that di- 
 rects his chief endeavours to the most important 
 and most indispensable, as well as the most unde- 
 niable duties of religion, and chiefly to the inward 
 reformation of his hearers' hearts, which will cer- 
 tainly draw all other lesser matters after it, — and 
 that does not spend his time, nor his zeal, upon 
 lesser or disputable points, — this man, so made 
 and so moulded, cannot miscarry in his work. He 
 will certainly succeed to some degree : " the word 
 spoken by him shall not return again ■:" he shall 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 253 
 
 have his crown, and his reward from his labours : 
 and, to say all that can be said in one word, with 
 St. Paul, " He shall both save himself and them 
 that hear him." 
 
 THE CONCLUSION. 
 
 I have now gone over all that seemed to me 
 most important upon this head, " Of the Pastoral 
 Care," with as much shortness and clearness as I 
 could ; so now I am to conclude. The discourse 
 may justly seem imperfect, since I say nothing 
 concerning the duties incumbent on bishops ; but 
 I will upon this occasion say very little on that 
 head. The post I am in gives me a right to teach 
 priests and deacons their duty ; therefore I thought, 
 that without any great presumption I might ven- 
 ture on it : but I have been too few years in 
 the high order, to take upon me to teach them, 
 from whom I shall ever be ready to learn. This 
 is certain ; that since, as was formerly said, the 
 inferior orders subsist in the superior, bishops must 
 still be under all the obligations of priests. They 
 are, then, take the matter at lowest, bound to live, 
 to labour, and to preach, as well as they. But 
 
254 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 why are they raised to a higher rank of dignity 
 and order, an increase of authority, and an extent 
 of cure? And why have Christian princes and 
 states given them great revenues, and an accession 
 of secular honours ? All this must certainly im- 
 port their obligation to labour more eminently, 
 and to lay themselves out more entirely in the 
 " work of the Gospel ;" in which, if the great- 
 est encouragements and assistances, the highest 
 dignities and privileges belong to them, then, ac- 
 cording to our Saviour's example and decision, 
 " who came not to be ministered unto, but to 
 minister/' and who declared, that " he who is first 
 shall be last," and " he who is the greatest must 
 be the servant of all;" then, I say, the higher that 
 any are raised in this ministry, they ought to lay 
 themselves out the more entirely in it, and labour 
 the more abundantly. And as our obligations to 
 Christ and his church tie us to a greater zeal and 
 diligence, and to a more constant application of 
 our care and thoughts, so the secular supports of 
 our honours and revenues were given us, to enable 
 us to go through with that extent of care and 
 jurisdiction that lies upon us. We are not only 
 watchmen to watch over the flock, but likewise 
 over the watchmen themselves. We keep the door 
 of the sanctuary ; and will have much to answer 
 for, if through our remissness or feeble easiness, if 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 255 
 
 by trusting the examination of those we ordain to 
 others, and yielding to intercession and importu- 
 nity, we bring any into the service of the church 
 who are not duly qualified for it. In this we must 
 harden ourselves, and become inexorable, if we 
 will not partake in other men's sins, and in the 
 mischiefs that these may bring upon the church. 
 It is a false pity, and a cruel compassion, if we 
 suffer any considerations to prevail upon us in this 
 matter, but those which the Gospel directs. The 
 longer that we know them before we ordain them, 
 the more that we sift them, and the greater variety 
 of trials through which we make them pass, we 
 do thereby both secure the quiet of our own con- 
 sciences the more, as well as the dignity of holy 
 things, and the true interest of religion and the 
 church : for these two interests must never be sepa- 
 rated : they are but one and the same in them- 
 selves ; and " what God has joined together, we 
 must never set asunder." 
 
 We must be setting constantly before our clergy 
 their obligations to the several parts of their duty ; 
 we must lay these upon them, when we institute 
 or collate them to churches, in the most solemn 
 manner, and with the weightiest words we can 
 find. We must then lay the importance of 
 the care of souls before them ; and adjure them, 
 as they will answer to God in the great day, in 
 z2 
 
256 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 which we must appear to witness against them, 
 that they will seriously consider and observe their 
 ordination vows, and that they will apply them- 
 selves wholly to that one thing. We must keep 
 an eye upon them continually, and be applying 
 reproofs, exhortations, and encouragements, as 
 occasion offers : we must enter into all their 
 concerns, and espouse every interest of that part 
 of the church that is assigned to their care : 
 we must see them as oft as we can, and en- 
 courage them to come frequently to us ; and 
 must live in all things with them, "as a father 
 with his children." And that every thing we say to 
 stir them up to their duty may have its due weight, 
 we must take care so to order ourselves, that 
 they may evidently see that we are careful to do 
 our own, We must enter into all the parts of the 
 worship of God with them ; not thinking ourselves 
 too good for any piece of service that may be done ; 
 visiting the sick, admitting poor and indigent per- 
 sons, or such as are troubled in mind, to come to 
 us ; preaching oft, catechising and confirming fre- 
 quently ; and living in all things like men that 
 study to " fulfil their ministry, and to do the work 
 of evangelists. " 
 
 There has been an opinion of late, much fa- 
 voured by some great men in our church, that 
 <f the bishop is the sole pastor of his whole dio- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 257 
 
 cese ;" that the care of all the souls is singly in 
 him, and that all the incumbents in churches are 
 only his curates in the different parts of his parish, 
 which was the ancient designation of his diocese. 
 I know there are a great many passages brought 
 from antiquity to favour this : I will not enter into 
 the question, no, not so far as to give my own opi- 
 nion of it. This is certain ; that such as are per- 
 suaded of it, ought thereby to consider themselves 
 as under very great and strict obligations to con- 
 stant labour and diligence ; otherwise it will be 
 thought, that they only favour this opinion because 
 it increases their authority, without considering 
 that necessary consequence that follows upon it. 
 
 But I will go no further on this subject at this 
 time ; having said so much only that I may not 
 seem to fall under that heavy censure of our Sa- 
 viour's with relation to the Scribes and Pharisees, 
 " That they did bind heavy burdens, and grievous 
 to be borne, upon others ; and laid them upon 
 men's shoulders, when they themselves would not 
 move them with one of their fingers. " I must 
 leave the whole matter with my readers. I have 
 now laid together, with great simplicity, what has 
 been the chief subject of my thoughts for above 
 thirty years. I was formed to them by a bishop, 
 that had the greatest elevation of soul, the largest 
 compass of knowledge, the most mortified and most 
 z 3 
 
258 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 heavenly disposition, that I ever yet saw in mor- 
 tal ; that had the greatest parts as well as virtues, 
 with the most perfect humility that I ever saw in 
 man ; and had a sublime strain in preaching, with 
 so grave a gesture, and such a majesty both of 
 thought, of language, and of pronunciation, that I 
 never once saw a wandering eye where he preached, 
 and have seen whole assemblies often melt in tears 
 before him ; and of whom I can say, with great 
 truth, that in a free and frequent conversation 
 with him, for above two-and-twenty years, I never 
 knew him say an idle word, that had not a direct 
 tendency to edification ; and I never once saw him 
 in any other temper, but that which I wished to 
 be in, in the last minutes of my life. For that 
 pattern which I saw in him, and for that conversa- 
 tion which I had with him, I know how much I 
 have to answer to God ; and though my reflecting 
 on that which I knew in him, gives me just cause 
 of being deeply humbled in myself, and before 
 God, yet I feel no more sensible pleasure in any 
 thing, than in going over in my thoughts all that I 
 saw and observed in him. 
 
 I have also another reason, that has determined 
 me at this time to prepare this discourse, and to 
 offer it to the public, — from the present posture of 
 our affairs. We are now brought very near the 
 greatest crisis that ever church or nation had ; and 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE, 259 
 
 as, on the one hand, if God should so far punish 
 us for our sins, for our contempt of his Gospel, 
 and neglect of our duties, as to deliver us over to 
 the rage of our enemies, we have nothing to look 
 for, but a persecution more dreadful than any is in 
 history ; so, if God hears our prayers, and gives us 
 a happy issue out of all those dangers with which 
 the malice of our enemies threatens us, we have 
 in view the greatest prospect of a blessed and last- 
 ing settlement, that even our wishes can propose 
 to us. Now, nothing can so certainly avert the 
 one, or prepare us to glorify God in it, if he, in 
 his justice and wisdom, should call us to a fiery 
 trial of our faith and patience, as the serious mind- 
 ing of our functions, of our duties and obligations, 
 the confessing of our sins, and the correcting of 
 our errors. We shall be very unfit to suffer for 
 our religion, much less to die for it, and very little 
 able to endure the hardships of persecution, if our 
 consciences are reproaching us all the while, that 
 we have procured these things to ourselves ; and 
 that, by the ill use of our prosperity and other ad- 
 vantages, we have kindled a fire to consume us. 
 But as we have good reason, from the present 
 state of affairs, as well as from the many eminent 
 deliverances and happy providences which have of 
 late, in so signal a manner, watched over and pro- 
 tected us, — to hope that God, according to the 
 
260 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 riches of his mercy, and for the glory of his great 
 name, will hear the prayers that many good sonls 
 offer up, rather than the cry of those abominations 
 that are still among us; so nothing can so cer- 
 tainly hasten on the fixing of our tranquillity, and 
 the completing our happiness, as our lying often 
 between the porch and the altar, and interceding 
 with God for our people, and our giving ourselves 
 wholly to the ministry of the word of God and to 
 prayer. These being, then, the surest means, both 
 to procure and to establish to us all those great 
 and glorious things that we pray and hope for, 
 this seemed to me a very proper time to publish a 
 discourse of this nature. 
 
 But that which made it an act of obedience, as 
 well as zeal, was the authority of my most reve- 
 rend metropolitan ; who, I have reason to believe, 
 employs his time and thoughts chiefly to consider 
 what may yet be wanting to give our church a 
 greater beauty and perfection, and what are the 
 most proper means both of purifying and uniting 
 us : to which I thought nothing could so well pre- 
 pare the way, as the offering to the public a plain 
 and full discourse of the Pastoral Care, and of 
 every thing relating to it. His Grace approved 
 of this, and desired me to set about it. Upon 
 these motives I wrote it, with all the simplicity 
 and freedom that I thought the subject required, 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 261 
 
 and sent it to him ; by whose particular approba- 
 tion I published it, as I wrote it at his direction. 
 
 There is, indeed, one of my motives that I have 
 not yet mentioned, and on which I cannot enlarge 
 so fully as I well might. But while we have such 
 an invaluable and unexampled blessing in the per- 
 sons of those princes whom God hath set over us, 
 — if all the considerations which arise out of the 
 deliverances that God has given us by their means, 
 of the protection we enjoy under them, and of the 
 great hopes we have of them, — if, I say, all this 
 does not oblige us to set about the reforming of 
 every thing that may be amiss, or defective among 
 us, to study much, and to labour hard, — to lead 
 strict and exemplary lives, and so to stop the 
 mouths and overcome the prejudices of all that 
 divide from us ; — this will make us look like a 
 nation cast off and "forsaken of God," which is 
 "nigh unto cursing/' and "whose end is burn- 
 ing." We have reason to conclude, that our pre- 
 sent blessings are the last essays of God's good- 
 ness to us ; and that if we bring forth no fruit 
 under these, the next sentence shall be, " Cut it 
 down, why cumbereth it the ground ?'• These 
 things lie heavy on my thoughts continually, and 
 have all concurred to draw the treatise from me, 
 which I have written with all the sincerity of 
 heart and purity of intention that I should have 
 

 262 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 had, if I had known that I had been to die at the 
 conclusion of it, and to answer for it to God. 
 
 To Him I humbly offer it up, together with my 
 most earnest prayers, that the design here so im- 
 perfectly offered at may become truly effectual, 
 and have its full progress and accomplishment, 
 which whensoever I shall see, I shall with joy 
 say, " Nunc dimittis," &c. 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 OF PRESENTATIONS TO BENEFICES AND SIMONY. 
 
 I do not intend to treat of this matter as it is 
 a part of our law ; but, leaving that to the gentle- 
 men of another robe, I shall content myself with 
 offering an historical account of the progress of 
 it, with the sense that the ancient church had of 
 it, together with such reflections as will arise out 
 of that. 
 
 At first, the whole body of the clergy, in every 
 city, parish, or diocese, was as a family under the 
 conduct and authority of the bishop, who assigned 
 to every one of his presbyters their peculiar dis- 
 trict, and gave him a proper maintenance out of 
 the stock of the oblations of the faithful. None 
 were ordained but by the approbation, or rather 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 263 
 
 the nomination of the people, the bishop being to 
 examine into the worth and qualifications of the 
 persons so nominated. In the first ages, which 
 were times of persecution, it is not to be supposed 
 that ambition or corruption could have any great 
 influence, while a man in holy orders was, as it 
 were, put in the front, and exposed to the first 
 fury of the persecutors. So that what Tertullian* 
 says on this head will be easily believed, "That 
 those who presided over them were first tried; 
 having obtained that honour, not by paying a price 
 for it, but by the testimony that was given of 
 them ; for the things of God were not purchased 
 by money :" he alluding, probably, to the methods 
 used by the heathens to arrive at their pontifical 
 dignities. 
 
 But as soon as wealth and dignity was, by the 
 bounty of Christian emperors, made an appendix 
 to the sacred function, then we find great com- 
 plaints made of disorders in elections, and of par- 
 tiality in ordinations, on which we see severe re- 
 flections made by the best men both in the Eastern 
 and Western churches. They not only condemned 
 the purchasing elections and holy orders with 
 money, but all the train of solicitations and inter- 
 
 * Apology. 
 
264 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 cessions, with all flattery and obsequious court- 
 ship, in order to those things. 
 
 They, indeed, laid the name of simony chiefly 
 on the purchasing of orders by money, which was 
 attempted by Simon of Samaria, commonly called 
 Simon Magus ; but they brought other precedents 
 to shew how far they carried this matter. Ba- 
 laam's hire of divination, Gehazi's going after 
 Naaman for a present, and Jeroboam's making 
 priests of those " who filled his hands*," are pre- 
 cedents much insisted on by them, to carry the 
 matter beyond the case of a bargain beforehand ; 
 every thing in the way of practice to arrive at 
 holy orders was all equally condemned. When 
 things were reduced into methodical divisions, 
 they reckoned a three-fold simony: that of the 
 hand, when money was given ; that of the mouth, 
 by flatteries ; and that of service, when men, by 
 domestic attendance and other employments, did, 
 by a temporal drudgery, obtain the spiritual dig- 
 nity. 
 
 Chrysostomf expresses this thus; " If you do 
 not give money, but instead of money, if you flat- 
 ter ; if you set others at work, and use other 
 artifices, you are as guilty." Of all these he adds, 
 
 * 2 Chron. xiii. 3. f Horn, in Acta Ap. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 265 
 
 that as St. Peter said to Simon, " Thy money- 
 perish with thee, so may thy ambition perish with 
 thee." St. Jerome* says : " We see many reckon 
 orders as a benefice, and do not seek for persons 
 who may be as pillars erected in the house of 
 God, and may be most useful in the service of the 
 church ; but they do prefer those for whom they 
 have a particular affection, or whose obsequious- 
 ness has gained their favour, or for whom some of 
 the great men have interceded ; not to mention the 
 worst of all, those who, by the presents they make 
 them, purchase that dignity." 
 
 A corruption began to creep into the church in 
 the fifth century, of ordaining vagrant clerks, with- 
 out any peculiar title, of whom we find St. Jerome 
 often complaining. This was condemned by the 
 Council of Chalcedonf, in a most solemn manner. 
 "The orders of all who were ordained presbyters, 
 deacons, or in the inferior degrees, without a spe- 
 cial title, either in the city, in some village, some 
 chapel, or monastery, are declared null and void ; 
 and, to the reproach of those who so ordained 
 them, they are declared incapable of performing 
 any function.' , But how sacred soever the autho- 
 rity of this council was, it did not cure this great 
 evil, from which many more have sprung. 
 
 * In Isai. f Can. 6. 
 
266 
 
 OF THE PASTORAL CAKE. 
 
 A practice rose, not long after this, which 
 opened a new scene. Men began to build churches 
 on their own grounds, at their own charges, and 
 to endow T these ; and they were naturally the 
 masters, and in the true signification of the Roman 
 word, the patrons of them. All the churches in 
 the first Matricula were to be served by persons 
 named to them by the bishop, and were to be 
 maintained by him, out of the revenue of the 
 church ; but these were put upon another foot, 
 and belonged to the proprietors of the ground, to 
 the builders, and the endowers*. They were also 
 to offer to the bishop a clerk to serve in them. 
 It seems they began to think, that the bishop was 
 bound to ordain all such as were named by them : 
 but Justinianf settled this matter by a law ; for 
 he provided that the " patriarch should not be 
 obliged to ordain such as were nominated by the 
 patron, unless he judged them fit for it :" the 
 reason given is, that "the holy things of God 
 might not be profaned J." It seems he had this in 
 his eye, when by another law he condemns those, 
 who received any thing for such a nomination; 
 for so I understand the Patrocinium Ordinationis, 
 
 The elections to most sees lay in many hands ; 
 
 * Fundus, Edificatio, et Dos. 
 X Ibid. 6, c. 1. 
 
 f Nov. 57, c. 2. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 267 
 
 and, to keep out not only corruption, but par- 
 tiality, from having a share in them, he by a 
 special law required*, "That all persons, seculars 
 ecclesiastics, who had a vote in elections, should 
 join an oath to their suffrage, that they were nei- 
 ther moved to it by any gift, promise, friendship, 
 or favour, or by any other affection ; but that they 
 give their vote upon their knowledge of the merits 
 of the person :" it will easily be imagined, that no 
 rule of this kind could be much regarded in cor- 
 rupt ages. 
 
 Gregory the Greatf is very copious in lament- 
 ing these disorders ; and puts always the three- 
 fold division of simony together, " manus, oris, et 
 ministerii." Hincmar cites the prophet's wordsj, 
 " He that shaketh his hands from holding of 
 bribes;" in the Vulgar it is, "from every bribe," 
 applying it to three sorts of simony. And in that 
 Letter to Louis III., king of France, he protests, 
 " He knew no kinsman nor friend ; and he only 
 considered the life, learning, and other good qua- 
 lities necessary to the sacred ministry." Those 
 ages were very corrupt ; so that the great advan- 
 tages that the popes had, in the disputes concern- 
 ing the investitures into benefices, were taken 
 
 * Nov. 137, c. 2. f Tom. ii. 195. 
 
 % Isa. xxxiii. 15. 
 
 A A2 
 
268 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 from this, That servile obsequiousness and flatteries 
 were the methods used in procuring them ; of 
 which it were easy to bring a great and copious 
 proof, but that it is needless. 
 
 I shall only name two provisions made against 
 all these sinistrous practices. One was among us, 
 in a council at Exeter*, in which this charge is 
 given: "Let all men look into their own con- 
 sciences, and examine themselves, with what de- 
 sign they aspire to orders : if it is that they may 
 serve God more virtuously and more acceptably ; 
 or if it is for the temporals, and that they may 
 extort benefices from those who ordain them ; for 
 we look on such as simoniacs." In the Council 
 of Basilf, in which they attempted the restoring 
 the freedom of elections, as a mean to raise the 
 reputation of the sacred function, they appointed 
 that an oath should be taken by all electors, 
 "That they should not give their voice for any 
 who had, as they were credibly informed, endea- 
 voured to procure it to themselves, either by pro- 
 mising or giving any temporal thing for it, or by 
 any prayer or petition, either by themselves, or 
 by the interposition of any other ; or by any way 
 whatsoever, directly or indirectly. " This w r ould 
 go as far, as those who took it considered them- 
 
 * Synod. Exon. 1287, c. 8. f Sess. 12. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 269 
 
 selves bound by an oath, to secure elections from 
 corruption or practice. 
 
 I will go no farther to prove, that both fathers 
 and councils, in their provisions against simony, 
 considered the practices of application, importu- 
 nity, solicitations, and flatteries, as of the same 
 nature with simony : and therefore, though our 
 law considers only simony as it is a bargain, in 
 which money or the equivalent is given or pro- 
 mised, yet the sense of the church went much 
 further on this head, even in the most corrupt 
 ages. The canon law does very often mention 
 simony in its three-fold distinction, " manus, lin- 
 gua), et obsequii ;" it being still reckoned a duty, 
 both in the giver and receiver, that the gift should 
 be free and voluntary. 
 
 In the church of Rome, a right of patronage is, 
 according to their superstition, a matter of great 
 value ; for in every mass the patron is to be re- 
 membered by a special collect, so that it saves 
 them a great charge in the daily mass said for 
 them. To us this effect ceases ; but still it is a 
 noble piece of property, since a patron has a no- 
 mination of him that has a care of souls committed 
 to him : but as it is in itself highly valuable, so a 
 great account is to be given for it, to Him who 
 made and purchased those souls, and in whose 
 sight they are of inestimable value, and who will 
 a a 3 
 
270 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 reckon severely with such patrons as do not ma- 
 nage it with due care. 
 
 It is all one, what the consideration is on which 
 it is bestowed, if regard is not in the first place 
 had to the worth of the person so nominated, and 
 if he is not judged fit and proper to undertake the 
 cure of souls ; for with relation to the account 
 that is to be given to the great Bishop of souls, it 
 is all one, w r hether money, friendship, kindred, or 
 any carnal regard, was the chief motive to the 
 nomination. 
 
 I know it may be said, no man but one in holy 
 orders is capable of being possessed of a benefice ; 
 and in order to that, he is to be examined by the 
 bishop, though already ordained, before he can be 
 possessed of it : but the sin is not the less, because 
 others come in to be partakers of it. Still a patron 
 must answer to God for his share, if he has nomi- 
 nated a person without due care, and without con- 
 sidering whether he thinks him a proper person 
 for undertaking so great a trust. 
 
 I will not carry this matter so far as to say, that 
 a patron is bound to choose the fittest and most 
 deserving persons he can find out : that may put 
 him under great scruples ; and, there being a 
 great diversity in the nature of parishes, and in 
 the several abilities necessary for the proper duties 
 of the pastoral care, it may be too great a load to 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 271 
 
 lay on a man's conscience an obligation to distin- 
 guish who may be the fittest person. But this 
 is very evident ; that a patron is bound to name 
 no person to so important a care as the charge of 
 souls, of whom he has not at least a probable rea- 
 son to believe, that he has the due qualifications, 
 and will discharge the trust committed to him. 
 Some motives may be baser than others : but even 
 the consideration of a child to be provided for, by 
 a cure of souls, when the main requisites are 
 wanting, is in the sight of God no better than 
 simony : for in the nature of things it is all one, 
 if one sells a benefice, that by the sale he may 
 provide for a child, and if he bestows it on a child, 
 only out of natural affection, without considering 
 his son's fitness to manage so great a trust. Per- 
 petual advowsons, which are kept in families as a 
 provision for a child, who must be put in orders, 
 whatever his aversion to it or unfitness for it may 
 be, bring a prostitution on holy things. And pa- 
 rents who present their undeserving children, have 
 this aggravation of their guilt, that they are not so 
 apt to be deceived in this case, as they may be 
 when they present a stranger. Concerning these, 
 they may be imposed on by the testimony of those 
 whom they do not suspect ; but they must be sup- 
 posed to be better informed as to their own chil- 
 dren. 
 

 272 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 It is also certain, that orders are not given by 
 all bishops with that anxiety of caution that the 
 importance of the matter requires. And if a per- 
 son is in orders, perhaps qualified for a lower sta- 
 tion, yet he may want many qualifications neces- 
 sary for a greater cure : and the grounds on which 
 a presentation can be denied are so narrow, that 
 a bishop may be under great difficulties, who yet 
 knows he cannot stand the suit to which he lies 
 open, when he refuses to comply with the patron's 
 nomination. 
 
 The sum of all this is, that patrons ought to 
 look on themselves as bound to have a sacred re- 
 gard to this trust that is vested in them ; and to 
 consider very carefully, what the nature of the be- 
 nefice that they give is, and what are the qualifica- 
 tions of the person they present to it ; otherwise, 
 the souls that may be lost by a bad nomination, 
 whatsoever may have been their motive to it, will 
 be required at their hands. 
 
 At first, the right of patronage was an appen- 
 dant of the estate in which it was vested, and was 
 not to be alienated but with it : and then there 
 was still less danger of an ill nomination : for it 
 may be supposed, that he who was most concerned 
 in a parish, would be to a good degree concerned 
 to have it well served. But a new practice has 
 risen among us, and, for aught I have been able to 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 273 
 
 learn, it is only among us, ana! is in no other na- 
 tion or church whatsoever. How long it has been 
 among us, I am not versed enough in our law- 
 books to be able to tell. And that is, the separat- 
 ing the advowson from the estate to which it was 
 annexed ; and the selling it, or a turn in it, as an 
 estate by itself. This is so far allowed by our law, 
 that no part of such a traffick comes within the 
 statute against simony, unless when the benefice 
 is open. I shall say nothing more on this head, 
 save only, that whosoever purchases a turn, or a 
 perpetual advowson, with a design to make the 
 benefice go to a child, or remain in a family, with- 
 out considering the worth or qualifications of the 
 person to be presented to it, put themselves and 
 their posterity under great temptations. For here 
 is an estate to be conveyed to a person, if he can 
 get but through those slight examinations upon 
 which orders are given, and has negative virtues, 
 that is, he is free from scandalous sin, though he 
 has no good qualities, nor any fixed intentions of 
 living suitably to his profession, of following the 
 studies proper to it, and of dedicating himself to 
 the work of the ministry : on the contrary, he 
 perhaps discovers a great deal of pride, passion, 
 covetousness, and an ungoverned love of pleasure ; 
 and is so far from any serious application of mind 
 
274 OF THE PASTOHAL CARE. 
 
 to the sacred functions, that he has rooted in him 
 an aversion to them. 
 
 The ill effects of this are but too visible ; and we 
 have great reason to apprehend, that persons who 
 come into the service of the church with this dis- 
 position of mind, will despise the care of souls, as 
 a thing to be turned over to one of a mechanic 
 genius, who can never rise above some low per- 
 formances : they will be incessantly aspiring higher 
 and higher ; and, by fawning attendances, and the 
 meanest compliances with such as can contribute 
 to their* advancement, they will think no services 
 too much out of their road that can help to raise 
 them. They will meddle in all intrigues, and will 
 cry up and cry down things in the basest me- 
 thods, as they hope to find their account in them* 
 I wish, with all my heart, that these things were 
 not too notorious; and that they did not lay 
 stumbling-blocks in men's way, which may give 
 advantages to the tribe of profane libertines, to 
 harden them in their prejudices against not only 
 the sacred functions, but all revealed religion in 
 general. I shall end this head, leaving it on the 
 consciences of all patrons, and obtesting them by 
 all that is sacred, to reflect seriously on this great 
 trust that the law has put in their hands, and to 
 consider what account they are to give of it in the 
 great day. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 275 
 
 But if patrons ought to consider themselves un- 
 der strict obligations in this matter, how much 
 more ought they to lay the sense of the duties of 
 their function to heart, who have, by solemn vows, 
 dedicated themselves to the work of the ministry ! 
 What notion have they of running without being 
 sent, who tread in those steps ? Do not they say, 
 according to what was threatened as a curse on 
 the posterity of Eli*, " Put me, I pray thee, into 
 one of the priest's offices, that I may eat a piece 
 of bread }'' Do they not feel these words as a cha- 
 racter of what they say within themselves, when 
 they come up to the altar ? Can they not trust 
 God, and go on, fitting themselves, in the best 
 manner they can, for holy functions, waiting for 
 such an interposition of providence as shall open 
 a clear way to them to some station in the church ; 
 not doubting, but that if God, by a motion of his 
 Spirit, called them to holy orders, he will raise up 
 instruments to bring that about ; and put it in the 
 heart of some one or other, to give or to procure to 
 them a post, without their own engaging in that 
 sordid merchandise, or descending to any, though 
 less scandalous methods, which bring with them 
 such a prostitution of mind, that they who run 
 into them, cannot hope to raise to themselves the 
 
 * 1 Sam. ii. 36. 
 
276 OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 
 
 esteem due to the sacred function, which is the 
 foundation of all the good they can do by their la- 
 bours. If things turn cross to them, in a post to 
 which such endeavours may have brought them 
 what comfort can they have within them ? Or 
 what confidence can they have in God, when their 
 own consciences will reproach them with this, 
 that it is no wonder if what was so ill acquired 
 should prosper no better. When they come to die, 
 the horror of an oath falsely taken, which they 
 palliated by an equivocating sense, will be a terri- 
 ble companion to them in their last minutes; when 
 they can no more carry off the matter by evasions 
 or bold denials, but are to appear before that God, 
 to whose eyes all things are naked and opened. 
 Then all the scandal they have given, all the souls 
 that they have lost or neglected, all the reproaches 
 that they have brought on their function and on 
 the church, for which, perhaps, they have pre- 
 tended no ordinary measure of zeal ; all these, I 
 say, will come upon them as an armed man, and 
 surround them with the sense of guilt, and the 
 terrors of that " consuming fire" that is ready to 
 devour them. Men who have by unlawful me- 
 thods and a prevaricating oath come into a bene- 
 fice, cannot truly repent of it, but by departing 
 from it ; for the unlawful oath will still lie heavy 
 on them, till that is done. This is the indispen- 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 277 
 
 sable restitution in this case ; and unless this is 
 done, they live on and die in the sin unrepented 
 of. u God is not mocked," though men are. I 
 will leave this here, for I can carry it no higher. 
 
 As for those who have not prevaricated in the 
 oath, but yet have been guilty of practice and me- 
 thods to arrive at benefices, I do not lay this of re- 
 linquishing their benefices on them. But certainly, 
 if they ever come to right notions of the matter, 
 they will find just grounds to be deeply humbled 
 before God for all their practices that way. If 
 they do truly mourn for them, and abstain from 
 the like for the future, and if they apply them- 
 selves with so much the more zeal to the labours of 
 their function, and redeem the meanness of their 
 former practices by a stricter course of life, by 
 their studies and their diligence, they may by that 
 compensate for the too common arts by which 
 they arrived at their posts. 
 
 I know these things are so commonly practised, 
 that as few are out of countenance who tread in 
 such beaten paths, so I am afraid they are too little 
 conversant in just notions to feel the evil of them. 
 It is no wonder if their labours are not blest, who 
 enter on them by such low and indirect methods ; 
 whereas men who are led by an overruling pro- 
 vidence into stations, without any motions or pro- 
 curement of their own, as they have an unclouded 
 
 B B 
 
278 OF THE PASTORAL CAttfi. 
 
 call from God, so they have the foundation of a 
 true firmness in their own minds. They can appeal 
 to God, and so have a just claim to his protection 
 and blessing. Every thing is easy to them, because 
 they are always easy within. If their labours are 
 blessed with success, they rejoice in God ; and are 
 by that animated to continue in them, and to in- 
 crease their diligence. If that is denied them, so 
 that they are often forced to cry out, " My lean- 
 ness, my leanness*," I have laboured in vain ; 
 they are humbled under it ; they examine them- 
 selves more carefully, if they can find any thing 
 in their own conduct that may occasion it, which 
 they will study to correct, and still they persist in 
 their labour ; knowing that if they continue doing 
 their duty, whatever other effects that may have* 
 those faithful shepherds, when the chief Shepherd 
 " shall appear, shall receive from him a crown of 
 glory that fadeth not awayf." 
 
 To all this I will only add somewhat relating to 
 bonds of resignation. A bond to resign at the 
 pleasure of the patron carries with it a base ser- 
 vitude, and simony in its full extent ; and yet, be- 
 cause no money is given, some who give those 
 bonds do very ignorantly apprehend that they 
 may, with a good conscience, swear the oath of 
 
 * Isa. xxiv. 16. f 1 Pet. v. 4. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 279 
 
 simony. There is but one way to cure the mis- 
 chief of this great evil, which can have no effect, 
 if bishops will resolve to accept of no resignation 
 made upon such bonds ; since, by the common 
 law, a clerk is so tied to his bishop and to his 
 cure, that he cannot part with it without the bi- 
 shop's leave. By this all these bonds may be made 
 ineffectual. 
 
 Other bonds are certainly more innocent, by 
 which a clerk only* binds himself to do that which 
 is otherwise his duty. And since the forms of our 
 courts are dilatory and expensive, and there is 
 not yet a full provision made against many abuses 
 which a good patron would secure a parish from, 
 I see no just exception to this practice, where the 
 abuse is specially certified ; so that nothing is re- 
 served in the patron's breast, by general words, 
 of which he, or his heirs, who perhaps may not 
 inherit his virtues as they do his fortunes, may 
 make an ill use. It is certain, our constitution 
 labours yet under some defects, which were pro- 
 vided against by that noble design, brought so 
 near perfection, in that work entitled " Reformatio 
 Legum Ecclesiasticarum," which, it is to be 
 hoped, will be at some time or other taken up 
 again, and perfected. 
 
 The affinity of the former matter leads me to 
 give an account of somewhat relating to myself. 
 
 BB 2 
 
280 OF THE PASTORAL CARE, 
 
 When I was first put in the post which I still 
 hold, I found there were many market towns in 
 the diocese very poorly provided. So, since there 
 are about fifty dignities and prebends belonging 
 to the cathedral, I considered how, by the dis- 
 posing of these, I might mend the condition of 
 the incumbents in the market towns, and secure 
 such a help to their successors. And, by the ad- 
 vice of some very eminent divines and canonists, 
 this method was resolved on,-~-That when I gave 
 a prebend to any such incumbent, he should give 
 a bond, that if he left that benefice, he should at 
 the same time resign his prebend, that it might go 
 to his successor. This went on for some years, 
 with a universal approbation. 
 
 But when a humour began to prevail of finding 
 fault, this was cried out upon as a grievance bor- 
 dering upon simony. I upon that drew up a vin- 
 dication of my practice, from great authority, out 
 of civilians and canonists. But, upon second 
 thoughts, I resolved to follow that saying of Solo- 
 mon's*, " Leave off contention before it be med- 
 dled with or engaged in." So, to lay the clamour 
 that some seemed resolved to raise, I resolved to 
 drop my design, and so delivered back all the 
 bonds that I had taken. 
 
 * Prov. xix. 14. 
 
OF THE PASTORAL CARE. 281 
 
 I will offer nothing either in the way of vindi- 
 cation or resentment ; being satisfied to give a true 
 relation of the matter, leaving it to the reader's 
 judgment to approve or censure, as he sees cause. 
 And thus I conclude this chapter, which I thought 
 was wanting to complete my design in writing 
 this treatise. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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