such as are dedicated to the service of God and of his church, ought to labour constantly and faithfully; and that in their own perschs. 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 obligations, are guilty of the worse 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 may give unto them, yet certainly according to the divine law, those who do not wait at the alter, ought not to be partakers with the alter: Those who do not minister 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. (Cor. ix. 13, 14.) If I had a mind to make a great shew of reading or to triumph in my argnment with the pomp of quotations, it were very easy to bring a cloud of witnesses, to confirm the application that I have made of these passages of scripture: Indeed all those who have either writ commentaries on the scripturés, 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 ecclesiastical 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 school-men; and which is more, the canonists have carried this matter very high,

1

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 conclude, 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 he has thus enjoyed with a bad conscience, without 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 undisputable authority, will be little moved by all that can be brought ought 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 that glorious model; but were also in its rules and administrations, made more exactly conformidable to those best and purest times. I can never forget an advice that was given me about thirty years ago, by one of the worthiest Clergy-men now alive; while I was studying the controversy relating 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 favour of the church, how clearly soever made out, would never have its full effect upon the world, till abuses were so far corrected, that we could shew a primitive spirit in our administration, as well as a primitive pattern for our constitution. This made, even then, deep impressions on me, and I thank God the sense of it has never left me in the whole course of my studies.

I will not at present enter upon so long and so invidious a work as the descending into all the particulars, into which this matter might be branched out; either from the writings of the fathers, the decrees of councils, the Roman law and capitulars, or even from the dreg of all, the Canon law itself, which though a collection made in one of the worst ages, yet carries many rules in it, that would seem excessively severe, even to us, after 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 has compared the modern and the ancient discipline, and has shewed very copiously, by what steps the change was made; and how abuses crept into the church. It is a work of great use, to such as desire to understand the matter truly. I will refer the curious to these, and many other lesser treatises, writ by the Jansenists, 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 mat-ters, 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 Nazianzum, whose father ordained him a Presbyter, 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, excused themselves and judging themselves unworthy

of so holy a character and so high a trust, were not without difficulty prevailed on to submit to that, which in degenerate ages men run to as to a subsistence, or the means of procuring it, and seem to have no other sense of that sacred institution, 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 tradesmen have of their freedom: Who do not pretend to it till they have finished the time prescribed; and are in some sort qualified to set up in it: Whereas, alas! men who neither know the scriptures, nor the body of divinity, who have made no progress in their studies, and can give no tolerable account of that holy doctrine, in which they desire to be teachers, do yet, with equal degrees of confidence and importunity, pretend to this character, and find the way to it too easy, and the access to it too free. But this holy father had a very different sense of this matter. He had indeed submitted to his fathers authority, he being his bishop, as well as his father. But immediately after he was ordained, he gives this account of himself in his apologetical oration; that he judging he had not that sublimity of virtue, nor that familiar acquaintance with divine matters, which became Pastors and Teachers; he therefore intending 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