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earth_n	angel_n	great_a	heaven_n	8,212	5	5.4194	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26371	A modest plea for the clergy wherein is briefly considered, the original, antiquity, necessity : together with the spurious and genuine occasions of their present contempt.	Addison, Lancelot, 1632-1703.	1677 (1677)	Wing A524; ESTC R21288	59,187	185

when I see them careful to sort and feed their Flocks according to their Age and Condition giving to every one his portion in due season and with fidelity prudence and industry observing the Rules of their Sacred Function I cannot but think those men to be forsaken both of all justice and ingenuity who now contemn them upon the score of Idleness But if there be any who are herein delinquent it were more justice and generosity to give a Catalogue of such Drones to those who have an undoubted Power to make them Labour or Vnhive them And that the Righteous be not as the Wicked CHAP. XI A view of the Pretences of the Contempt of the Clergy Thirdly of Pride I Shall not here attempt any Philosophical Discourse either of the Nature or Causes of Pride All that concerns our present Enquiry falls under either the contrariety that it bears to the practice and command of Christ or the danger and odiousness thereof in his Ministers And as to the first of these it is so apparent in the Holy Gospel that none thereof can be ignorant who is not an Vtter stranger to that inspired System of Christianity For we plainly find therein how the Blessed Author of Our Faith shows favour to none but the humble nor will admit any to be of his retinue who has not first learned of him to be Meek and Lowly And Christ speaking of that Prelation and Government which was to be in his Church he sufficiently intimated that he would not have it to be like that of the World That is not a Government whose Dominion is Despotic the Coercion imperious the Laws externally Compulsory and the Titles big and swelling But on the contrary he hath insinuated how that he would have the Government of his Church to be paternal and persuasive and the Laws to be full of Admonition and the Titles of the Governours to be significative of Affection and Labour of burden and humility and the Highest Dignity a meek Ministration and a Laborious Imployment And when the Apostles fell into an Ambitious quarrelling which of them should be greatest Christ checkt their Pride and gave them this Everlasting Rule of Clerical deportment He that will be Greatest among you let him be your servant And we need come no nearer to discover the Odiousness of Pride in Christs Ministers seeing both by his Example and Precept he hath thus recommended to them the clear contrary And certainly Christ would have those who for their Greater Dignities in the Church are styled Stars and Angels to imitate the one by appearing less for their greater Height and the other who though Peers of Heaven yet approve themselves Ministring Spirits to the poorest of Gods Servants upon Earth And the same Rule of Clerical Deportment laid down by our Blessed Saviour is no very dark intimation that the Clergy are in danger to fall into this sin And we want not reason to be hereof suspicious when we consider that Pride being an internal Vice is apt to make impression upon those Notions and Speculations of the mind wherein the Office of the Clergy renders them more egregiously Conversant For as Pride took up its first seat in a Spiritual Being so it hath ever since acted with greatest vigor in Spiritual Concernments and been most liable to Spiritual Persons In whom it can never happen without working a less mischief than Strife and Contention And indeed it seems impossible to be otherwise seeing Pride naturally exacts it self above Competition and superadds disdain and revenge to actuate its other Motions As was seen in his Case who being denied a Bishoprick sought to be revenged upon Episcopacy And as Solomons Arraignment of Pride for the Mother of Contention is true in the General so it is more especially true of those Contentions wherewith the Church in any Age hath been afflicted There being none to be met with wherein Pride under several appearances hath not been a principal Actor And without all further Enlargement I am sufficiently enclined to believe upon the account of what is now suggested that there is no Clergy-man will venture to give the least Entertainment to a sin which is fraught with so much mischief For how tolerable soever this Vice may seem in men of another Character yet it can never hope for any good Construction in their Carriage who are his Ministers among whose wonderful works none was more Stupendious than his own Humility And therefore that which most commonly and with greatest assurance some men call Pride in the Clergy seems to be nothing else but a keeping themselves from those Promiscuous Familiarities which experience and reason tell them are apt to be attended with Contempt and Disrespect Now if upon their Separation to the Work of the Ministry the Clergy betake themselves to a Reverend and Pious Reservation as men professing Retirement from the World above others if out of a Conscientious apprehension that an undifferenced Conversation with the Laity of what Rank soever is altogether contrary to the Calling of the Clergy if out of fear that a too free Communion with the people will lessen their Authority and rebate the force of their Instructions and Reproofs when there is most need to deliver them with the greatest Vigor and Power if foreseeing that this Communion I now speak of may engage them if not to commit yet often to connive at those things which they ought altogether to rebuke and that it is one Engine to break down that Veneration which is the Fence to their Function against all Popular Rudeness and Encroachments if some I say of these Considerations or all in Consort shall justly move the Clergy to such a Religious distance and Retirement from the Conversations of the World as the Inconsiderate may call Pride they ought with great satisfaction to bear the imputation and to account it their Crown to be contemn'd upon this Score Especially when they shall consider that their Carriage herein is agreeable to the Canons Constitutions and decrees of the Ancient Church and to the Canons and Injunctions of our own and no way clashing with the Rules of a prudent and Charitable Conduct As to our own Church She commands all Ecclesiastical Persons not to resort to any Taverns or Ale-houses for any other cause than for their honest necessities And that after their Meals they shall not give themselves to Drinking or Riot nor spend their time idlely by day or night at Dice Cards or Tables or any unlawful game But at all times as they shall have leisure to hear or read some part of the Holy Scriptures or imploy themselves with some other honest Studie or Exercise Always doing the things which appertain to honesty and the Profit of the Common-wealth Ever having in their minde that they ought to excel all others in purity of life and to be Examples to the people to live well and Christianly And there was also a time when the Clergy of this Nation was forbid