which they had abused to Tyranny and Violencâ— The diseased have ye not strengthened neither have ye healed that which 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 terrible 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 more And in the 44th Chap of that Prophecy one Rule is given which was set up in the Primitive 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 past over all that occurs in these Prophets 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 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 knowledge 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 will also forget thy children That corrupt Race of Priests attended still upon the Temple and offered up the Sin-Offering and feasted upon their Portion which is wrong rendred 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 abounding 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 Ioel we find the Duty of the Priests and Ministers of the Lord set forth in times of great and approaching Calamities thus They 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 There is in Amos a very black Character of a depraved Priesthood Their Priests teach for hire and their Prophets divine for money These were the forer unners 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 inclinations to Idolatry yet other Corruptions had a deeper root We find in Zechary a Curse against the Idol Shepherd who resembled the true Shepherd as an Idol does the Original But he was without sense and life Wo be to the Idol Shepherd that leavâ—th the Flock The Curse is figuratively expressed 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 darkned But this is more copiously set out by Malachi in an Address made to the Priests And now O ye Priests this Commandment is for you If you will not hear and if you 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 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 Priests 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 corrupted the Covenant of Levi saith the Lord of Hosts Thâ—râ—fore have I also made you contemptible and bâ—sâ— bâ—fore all the people according as ye have not kept my ways but have been partial in the Law Their ill example made many loath 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 neglected the more essential and indispensible Duties Thus far have I gone over the most important places that have occurred to me in the Old-Testament relating to this matter upon all whcih I will only add one Remark That though some exception might be made to those â—xpressions that import the Dignity and Sanctiâ—ication 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 Obligâ—tions that arise out of Natural Religion have certainly a more binding force and ought to be understood and expâ—ained in â— mâ—â—e elevated and sublime sense under thâ— new Dispensation which is Iâ—ternâ—l and Sâ—irâ—â—uaâ— compared to which the Old is câ—lled the Letter and the Flesh Therefore the Obligations of the Priests under the Christian Religion to a holy strictness of Life and Conversation to a diligent attendance on their Flock and for instructing and watching over them must all be as much higher and more binding as this New Covenant cancels the old one CHAP. III. Passages out of the new-New-Testament relating to the same matter THIS General Consideration receives a vast improvement 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
Sherlock of Death and Iudgment and Dr. Scot's Books in particular that great distinction that runs through them of the means and of the ends of Religion To all which I shall add one small Book more which is to me ever new and fresh gives always good Thoughts and a Noble Temper Thomas a Kempis of the Imitation of Christ. By the frequent 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 heigâ—h 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 moved by the Holy Ghost to undertake that Office So far have I dispatch'd 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 Inferiour to the other and have been convinced by so much Experience that a great Measure of Piety with a very small Proportion 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 Compleat 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 Testament weâ—l 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 of 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 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 Easie Parts of it such as relate to Mens Livâ—s and their Duties such as strike and awaken direct comfort or terrifie 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 having a clear and ready view of the New Covenant in Christ Iesus is of such absolute necessity that it is a profaning of Orders and a defiling of the Sanctuary to bring any into it that do not rightly understand 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 Abridgements of them and turn them so oft in his Thoughts that he must thoroughly 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 Divine Hymns to which Bishop Patrick's Paraphrase will help to carry him A System of Divinity must be read with exactness They are almost all alike When I was young Wendelin and Maresius were the two shortest and fullest Here is a vast Errour 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 help'd to possess Peoples Minds too early with Prejudices and to shut them up in too implicite a following of others But the throwing off all these Books makes that many who have read a great deal yet have no intire 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 balancing 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 which 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 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 Sanmur or Blanc's Theses will compleat him in that These Books well read digested into Abstracts and frequently reviewed 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 Religion must be well laid Bishop Wilkins 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 his Book of the truth of the Christian Religion with his Notes upon it ought to be read and almost got by heart The whole Controversie both of Atheism and Deism the Arguments both for the Old and New Testament are fully opened with a great variety both of Learning and Reasoning in Bishop Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae There
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 to Christianity and therefore after one has in general 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 reading the Scriptures is to be done merely with a view to Practice to raise Devotion to encrease Piety and to give good Thoughts and severe Rules In this a Man is to imploy himself much This is a Book always at hand and the getting a great deal of it by heart is the best part of a Clergy-man'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 Discourses of a Clergy-man CHAP. VIII Of the Functions and Labours of Clergy-men I Have in the former Chapter laid down the Model and Method by which a Clerk is to be formed and prepared I come now to consider his Course of Life his Publick 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 Priests Life and Conversation so much was said in the former Chapter in which as a preparation 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 being Christians it is quite otherwise with the Clergy 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 Calling when well performed raises good Thoughts brings good Idea's into their Mind and tends both to encrease their Knowledge and quicken their Sense of Divine Matters A Priest therefore is more accountable to God and the World for his Deportment and will be more severely accounted with 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 who sat in Moses his Chair and to observe and do whatsoever 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 Tipling nor go to Taverns or Ale-houses except some urgent occasion requires 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 Vanities 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 Diversions 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 squandring away his time in too much vain and idle Discourse His chearfulness ought to be frank but neither excessive nor licentious His Friends and his Garden ought to be his chief Diversions as his Study and his Parish ought to be his chief Imployments 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 Testament by heart or at least a great part of them If there are any Books belonging to his Church such as Iewels Works and the Book of Martyrs which lie tearing in many Places these he may 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 Iews adhering 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 Rabbi's have it to that Perfection that they have the Concordance of their whole Bible in their Memories which give 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 the best
the Divine Vocation The Grace of God that perfects the feeble and heals the weak promotes 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 easie to justifie the use of this Form Receive the Holy Ghost which as it was not used in the Primitive Church nor by the Roman till within these five Hundred 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 joyning with him For this is done by him alone as the final consummation 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 terrour into them the Forms of our Ordinations are the most effectually contrived 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 motion 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 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 to God and his Church If a Man pretends a Commission 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 he 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 perhaps they understand not the Importance of it nay and perhaps some laugh at it as an Enthusiastical 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 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 Enthusiasme and therefore it was put here without 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 themselves 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 Ministring 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 submitted to He that loves it and feels the excellency 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 Iesus Christ whom he has sent may be more universally glorified and served by his Creatures And when to this he has added a concern of the Souls for Men a Tenderness for them a Zeal to rescue them from endless Misery and a desire to put them in the way 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 saying 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 particular 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 Watchmen Shepherds and Stewards are pursued and the places of Scripture relating to these are applied to them They are required to have always printed in their Remembrance How great a Treasure 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