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 nothing 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 show itself in the discharge of their duty, in the reproving of sin, and venturing on the indignation 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 became this function; nor that softness and gentleness 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 digression upon the great mischiefs that a fretful and spiteful temper did to him that was under * Ch. x. 224. Ch. x. 228. || Ch. xi. 238—240. + Ch. x. 225. § Ch. xi. 229233. Ch. xii. 243, 244. 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 scandal: 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.† Allowances 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 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 calumnies, 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 prudence, the courage and patience, that were necessary 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; * Ch. xiii. 246. 248—250. Ch. xiv. 261, 262. || Ch. xv. 271. + Ch. xiv. 264. § Ch. xiv. 267. who were so meddling, so immoral, so factious, and so clamorous, 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 they 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 were expected from bishops; the several civilities they were obliged to; which it was hard to manage 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 sentence of excommunication; between a gentleness to vice on the one hand, and the driving men to despair and apostacy on the other. And he concludes that book with reflections on the vast burden that follows the care of souls.§ In his fourth book he runs through a variety of arts and professions, and shows 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 himself in some sort qualified for it: ¶ more particularly he ought to be ready to give an account of his faith,** and * Ch. xvi. 302. † Ch. xviii. 326-329. Ch. xviii. 333–335. Ch.viii. 337-340. || Ch. i. 147-150. ** Ch. iii. Ch. ii. 365-369. to stop the mouths of all gainsayers, Jews, Gentiles, and heretics;* in which the ignorance 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 book sets out the labour of preaching,|| the temptations 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 preserving his reputation, yet without vanity, observing a due temper between despising the censures of the multitude, and the servile courting of applauses.++ 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 applause 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 employed to show 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 matter of instruction and meditation. But I go, in the last place, to offer St. Jerome's sense in this matter. I shall not bring together what lies scattered 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 possessed of him. He that has this portion must be satisfied with it, and pretend to nothing, but having 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 continued 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. 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, |