m > -s Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/chargesofsamuelhOOhors THE CHARGES OF SAMUEL HORSLEY, LL. D. F. R.S. F. A.S. lATE LORD BISHOP OF ST ASAPH. THE CHARGES or SAMUEL HORSLEY, LL.D, F.R.S. F.A.S. • LATE LORD BISHOP OF ST ASAPH ; DELIVERED AT HIS SEVERAL VISITATIONS OF THE DIOCESES OF ST DAVID'S, ROCHESTER, AND ST ASAPH. DUNDEE: pttntcTi It moliert ©tejjen Einttrut ; FOR JAMES CHALMERS J AND SOLD BY LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, 6,- BROWN, r. C. S) J. RIVINGTON, AND T. HAMILTON, LONDON J A. CONSTABLE Sf COMPANY, AND J. BALLANTYNE COMPANY, EDINBURGH. 1813. CHARGE OF SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF ST DAVID'S, TO THE CLERGV OF HIS DIOCESE ; DELIVERED AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION, IN THE YEAR 1790. MY REVEREND BRETHREN, The principal object of episcopal visitation being the remedy or the prevention of such irregularities and abuses, as, without any impeachment of the general good intention and good conduct of the clergy, may be expected from time to time, through mere inadvertence, to creep in, — J should deem every moment lost to the im- mediate purpose of our meeting, which I were to consume either in subtile disquisi- tion upon abstruse points of speculation,orin general exhortation to awaken your zeal and 2 industry in the duties of your sacred func- tion. I trust that I address myself to men well taught in those mysteries of God of which they are the stewards ; from many of whom I might myself be happy to receive instruction, — to faithful servants of the Lord who hath called us ; who need no other incitement to their general duty than their own sense of the obligation that is laid upon them. The advice which I mean to offer upon the present occasion applies specially to your particular situa- tion ais called to the exercise of your mi- nistry in these remote corners of the'island, in congregations which, except in some of the greater towns, are composed almost entirely of the common people ; and of such common people as, from their se- questered situation, are, of all their coun- trymen of the same degree, the least im- proved by early education, and of conse- s quenee the least prepared by any previous tuition to receive the instruction which it is your wish and your duty to convey. It is a question of great moment, in it- self not difficult, but involved in endless intricacies to those who take up the dis- cussion with their minds possessed with certain common prejudices, — and for that reason too often, I fear, erroneously deci- ded, — " What is the proper mattei^ of instruc- tion in siich congregations, more especially in the present circumstances of the esta- blished church ?" I am of opinion, that to stop the progress of that new^ species of infidelity which is propagated by certain of the sectaries of the present day, as well as to cure the fanaticism of some weak but I trust well-intentioned members of our own communion, much might be done by the labours of the country parish-priest, — much more, indeed, than by the learned disqui- 4 sitions of professed polemics ; were it not that erroneous maxims are gone abroad, which for several years past, if my obser- vation deceive me not, have very much governed the conduct of the parochial clergy in the ministration of the word. A just abhorrence of those virulent ani- mosities which in all ages since external persecution ceased have prevailed among Christians, especially, since the Reforma- tion, among Protestants of the different denominations, upon the pretence at least of certain differences of opinion in points of nice and doubtful disputation, hath in- troduced and given general currency to a maxim, which seemed to promise peace and unity by dismissing the cause or ra- ther the pret-ence of dissension, — namely, that the laity, the more illiterate especial- ly, have little concern with the mysteries of revealed religion, provided they be at- tentive to its duties : Whence it hath seemed a safe and certain conclusion, that it is more the office of a Christian teach'- er to press the practice of rehgion upon the consciences of his hearers, than to in- culcate and assert its doctrines. Again, a dread of the pernicious ten^- dency of some extravagant opinions, which persons more to be esteemed for the warmth of their piety than the soundness of their judgment have grafted in modern times upon the doctrine of justification by faith, as it is stated in the 11th, 12th, and 13th of the articles of our church (which, however, is no private tenet of the Church of England, but the common doctrine of all the first reformers, not to say that it is the very corner-stone of the whole system of redemption), — a dread of the pernicious tendency of those extravagant opinions which seem to emancipate the believer 6 from the authority of all moral law, — hath given general credit to another maxim, which I never hear without extreme con- cern from the lips of a divine, either from the pulpit or in familiar conversation, — namely, that practical religion and mora- lity are one and the same thing, — that moral duties constitute the whole or by far the better part of practical Christi- anity. Both these maxims are erroneous ; both, as far as they are received, have a per- nicious influence on the ministry of the word. The first most absurdly separates practice from the motives of practice ; the second, adopting that separation, reduces practical Christianity to heathen virtue ; and the two, taken together, have much contributed to divest our sermons of the genuine spirit and savour of Christianity, and to reduce them to mere moral essays, 7 in which moral duties are enforced, not, as indeed they might be to good purpose, by scriptural motives, but by such argu- ments as nowhere appear to so much ad- vantage as in the writings of thfe heathen moralists, and are quite out of their place in the pulpit. The rules delivered may be observed to vary according to the tempe- rament of tlie teacher ; but the system chiefly in request with those who seem the most in earnest in this strain of preach- ing, is the strict, but impracticable, unso- cial, sullen moral of the Stoics. Thus, un- der the influence of these two pernicious maxims, it too often happens, that we lose sight of that which is our proper of- fice to publish — the word of reconcilia- tion — to propound the terms of peace and pardon to* the penitent ; and we make no other use of the high commission that we bear, than to come abroad one day in the seven, dressed in solemn looks, and in the external garb of holiness, to be the apes of Epictetus. I flatter myself that we are at present in a state of recovery from this delusion. The compositions which are at this day delivered from our pulpits are, I think, in general of a more Christian cast than were often heard some thirty years since, when I first entered on the ministry. Still the dry strain of moral preaching is too much in use, and the er- roneous maxims on which the practice stands are not sufficiently exploded. The first of the two, which excludes the laity from all concern with the doctri- nal part of religion, and directs the preach- er to let the doctrine take its chance, and to turn the whole attention of his hear- ers to practice, must tacitly assume for its foundation (for it can stand upon no other ground) this complex proposition, — not 9 only that the practice of religious duties is a far more excellent thing in the life of man, far more ornamental of the Christian profession, than any knowledge of the doc- trine without the practice ; but, moreover, that men may be brought to the practice of I'eligion without previous instruction in its doctrines ; or, in other words, that faith and practice are in their nature separable things. Now the former branch of this double assumption — that virtue is a more excellent thing in human life than know- ledge, is unquestionably true ; and a truth of great importance, which cannot be too frequently or too earnestly inculcated : But the second branch of the assumption — that faith and practice are separable things, is a gross mistake, or rather a manifest contradiction. Practical holiness is the end, — faith is the means ; and to suppose fiiith and practice separable, is to suppose 10 the end attainable without the use of means. The direct contrsiry is the truth : The practice of religion will always thrive in proportion as its doctrines are generally understood and firmly received ; and the practice will degenerate and decay in pro- portion as the doctrine is misunderstood and neglected. It is true, therefore, that it is the great duty of a preacher of the gospel to press the practice of its precepts upon the consciences of men. But then it is equally true, that it is his duty to enforce this practice in a particular way, — namely, by inculcating its doctrines. The motives which the revealed doctrines furnish, are the only motives he has to do with, and the only motives by which religious duty can be effectually enforced. I am aware, that it has been very much the fashion to suppose a great want of ca- pacity in the common people to be car- 11 ried any great length in religious know- ledge, more than in the abstruse sciences. That the world and all things in it had a Maker, — that the Maker of the world made man, and gave him the life which he now enjoys, — that he who first gave life can at any time restore it, — that he can punish, in a future life, crimes which he suffers to be committed with impunity in this, — some of these first principles of re- ligion, the vulgar, it is supposed, may be brought to comprehend : But the peculiar doctrines of revelation, — the Trinity of Persons in the undivided Godhead, the incarnation of the Second Person, the ex- piation of sin by the Redeemer's sufferings and death, the efficacy of his intercession, the mysterious commerce of the believer's soul with the Divine Spirit, — these things are supposed to be far above their reach. 12 If this were really the case, the condi- tion of mankind would indeed be mise- rable, and the proffer of mercy in the gospel little better than a mockery of their wo ; for the consequence would be, that the common people could never be car- ried beyond the first principles of what is called natural religion. Of the efficacy of natural religion as a rule of action, the world has had the long experience of six- teen hundred years ; for so much was the interval between the institution of the Mo- saic church and the publication of the gospel. During that interval, certainly, if not from an earlier period, natural religion was left to try its powers on the heathen world. The result of the experiment is, that its powers are of no avail. Among the vulgar, natural religion never produced any effect at all ; among the learned, much of it is to be found in their writings, little 13 in their lives. But if this natural religion -r-a thing of no practical efficacy, as experi- ment hath demonstrated — be the utmost of religion which the common people can receive, then is our preaching vain, Christ died in vain, and man must still perish. Blessed be God, the case is far otherwise. As we have, on the one side, experimental proof of the insignificance of what is called natural religion, so, on the other, in the success of the first preachers of Christiani- ty, we have an experimental proof of the sufficiency of revealed religion to those very ends in which natural religion failed. In their success we have experimental proof, that there is nothing in the great mystery of godliness which the vulgar more than the learned want capacity to apprehend ; since, upon the first preach- ing of the gospel, the illiterate, the scorn of Pharisaical pride, who knew not the 14 law, and were therefore deemed accursed, were the first to understand and to em- brace the Christian doctrine. Nor will this seem strange, if it be con- sidered, that religion and science are very different things, and the objects of dif- ferent faculties. Science is the object of natural reason ; religious truth, of faith. Faith, like the natural faculties, may be improved by exercise ; but in its beginning it is unquestionably a distinct gift of God. Were it otherwise, the common people would be just as incapable of receiving those principles of natural religion which are thought so simple, and so much with- in the reach of popular apprehension, as the higher mysteries of the gospel ; for I scruple not to assert, that no proof can be more subtile in its process, or in its principles more abstruse, however just in its conclusions, than the arguments which 15 philosophy furnishes of the being and at- tributes of God and the immortality of the human soul. By mere argument, therefore, addressed to their reason, no convictioft could be wrought in the minds of the common people of the very first principles of religion. By faith, their minds are opened to apprehend all that is reveal- ed of the scheme of redemption, no less than the very first principles, the doctrine of a resurrection, or the first creation of the world out of nothing. Let me entreat you, therefore, my reverend brethren, to discard these injurious uncharitable sur- mises of a want of capacity in your hear- ers. A want of capacity in these subjects is a want of faith ; and the surmise of a want of faith in the common people, more than in their betters, is in truth a dis- trust of God, — as if he would be wanting to his own work, and fail to give all men 16 faith to receive a discovery made by his express command, or rather by himself, to all, of a scheme of mercy in which all are interested. Pray earnestly to God to assist the ministration of the word, by the secret influence of his Holy Spirit on the minds of your hearers ; and nothing doubt- ing that your prayers are heard, however mean and illiterate the congregation may be in which you exercise your sacred func- tion, fear not to set before them the -whole counsel of God. Open the whole of your message without reservation ; that every one of you may have cpnfidence to say, when he shall be called upon to give an account of his stewardship, " Lord, I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart ; I have not concealed thy loving- kindness and truth from the great congre- gation." 17 The second maxim — that mere morahty makes the sum and substance of practi- cal religion, carries in it a double false- hood : It contracts the range of Christian duty ; and it totally misrepresents the for- mal nature of the thing. In direct contra- diction to this wicked maxim, I affirm, that although religion includes morality, as the greater perfection includes the less, — so that an immoral man cannot be religious,^ — yet a man may be irreproachable in his moral conduct and at the same time perfectly ir- religious and profane ; irreligious and pro- fane in that extreme, as to be in danger of being cast at last into outer darkness, with his whole load of moral merit on his back. The- notion that religion and mo- rality are the same, generally as it hath too long prevailed, needs no other confu- tation but what will spontaneously arise from a just definition of the terms. Re- B 18 ligion, in the practical part, is a studious conformity of our actions, our wills, and our appetites, to the revealed will of God, in pure regard to the Divine authority, and to the relation in which we stand to God as discovered to us by revelation : Morali- ty is a conformity of our actions to the re- lation in which we stand to each other in civil society. Morality, therefore, com- prehends some considerable part, but a part only, of the duties of the second table. Morality enjoins filial piety ; it prohibits murder, adultery, theft, false w-itness, and those inferior crimes which, for the like harm that in a less degree they bring to so- ciety, or to the individual in society, bear affinity to these as to the heads of so many different species. But does morality say " Thou shalt not covet?" Does the con- trol of moral obligation reach the secret meditations of the mind, and the silent de- 19 sires of the heart ? does it impose restraint upon the sensuality of the imagination and the private prurience of appetite? Like the Divine law, does it extend to every se- cret energy of the mind, the will, and the appetite ; and require the obedience of the inner no less than of the outer man ? Again, doth morality say " Thou shalt love thine enemies ; thou shalt bless them that curse, do good to them that persecute ?" Doth morality enjoin forgiveness of inju- ries, or the giving of alms to the poor ? — Truly morality " careth for none of these things." How small a part then of social duty, of a Christian's social duty, is the utmost which morality exacts? and how fatally are they misled who are taught that mere morality satisfies the law by which the Christian sfiall be judged, even in the inferior branch of the love of our neigh- bour ? 20 With the higher branch of duty — with the love of God, and of consequence with the duties of tlie first table, morality hath evidently no concern or connexion. The worship which I owe to God is certainly no part of the duty which I owe to man ; it is indifferent to morality whether I wor- ship one god or many ; morality is not of- fended if I worship graven images ; mo- rality enjoins no observance of one day in seven — no feast of faith in sacramental rites upon the body and blood of the Re- deemer : For reason, from which morali* ty derives her whole authority and infor- mation — reason knows not till she hath been taught by the lively oracles of God, that the Creator of the world is the sole object of worship ; she knows of no prohi- bition of particular modes of worship ; she knows nothing of the creation of^ the world in seven days — nothing of redemption — 21 nothing of the spiritual life, and the food brought down from heaven for its suste- nance. Morality, therefore, having no bet- ter instructress than this ignorant reason, hath no sense or knowledge of any part of that great branch of duty which comes un- der the general title of devotion. Let me conjure you therefore, my brethren, to be cautious how you admit, much more how you propagate, that delusive dangerous maxim " that morality is the sum of prac- tical religion," lest you place the totality and perfection of the thing in a very incon- siderable part. Perhaps you will recur to the etymology of the word ; you will contend with me, that the word " morality," in its natural im- port, comprehends every thing which be- longs to manners, — that devotional, no less than social habits, make a part of the man- ners of the man, — and because a man's 22 thoughts, passions, appetites, form his habits and influence his actions, that they also may be considered as a vgry essential part of manners, — that morality therefore, in the natural import of the word, is pre- cisely of the same extent with practical re- ligion, embracing every branch of man's duty to God, his neighbour, and himself ; since, whatever is irreligious in thought, word, or deed, is, no less than an unjust ac- tion, a defect or blemish in the manners of the man ; — and using the word in this large meaning, you think you affirm no- thing but the truth when you say that mo- rality is the sum and substance of practical religion. My brethren, were you capable of ad- vancing this argument, however it might raise my admiration of your grammatical skill, I must take leave to say, it would set you not high in my opinion as logicians. 23 and still lower as divines ; and jet I much suspect that -many have imposed upon themselves by this very reasoning in the point in question. Morality, according to this interpretation of the word, is indeed the same thing with practical religion. In the maxim, therefore, which you would de- fend, substitute for the word " morality " those two words which in your apprehension render its exact meaning ; you will then have before you the proposition you would defend enounced in unequivocal terms. What is it ? — Plainly this. Practical reli- gion is the sum and substance of practical religion. My reverend brethren, is this the important truth we are sent abroad to publish ? this the purport of our high and holy embassy ? The insignificance of the proposition is not the worst part of it ; ' the greater evil is, that it is stated in terms which hide the folly of it and mislead our 24 hearers. The word " morality," in its pubHc acceptation, carries no such extensive mean- ing as they ascribe to it in their private understanding who speak of it as the same thing with reUgion. It is rather a name of distinction, either for social duty as it was miderstood and practised among the hea- then, without the additions and improve- ments of revealed religion, — or for those religious duties which are in tliemselves duties by an inherent fitness and proprie- ty, demonstrable from the relation in which we stand to God our Creator and Redeemer, when once it is made known to us, without regard to any particular command. In the one or the other of these two senses, as distinguishing social duty from religious, or the primary duties of religion from the se- condary, the word " morality" is used even among the learned ; and the unlearned have no apprehension of any other meaning. 2& When we say, then, that morahty and re^ ligion are the same, I rear we are general- ly understood to set aside all the additions and improvements of revealed religion, as things at the utmost of very inferior im- portance, or at least to set aside positive precepts. I could propose an experiment by which it would be easy to determine how the peo- ple really understand us when we use this language. None here, I apprehend, would be at a loss to find among his own parish- ioners more than one person living in good credit and esteem among his neighbours, irreproachable in his general dealings with the world, a prudent manager of his affairs, and of consequence not addicted to any public scandalous excess ; but, with all this, grossly negligent of religious ordinances. Go and expostulate with such a man : Tell him that you are sorry to observe that he 26 is seldom seen at church, — that he never eomes to the Lord's table, — that he never sends his children to you to be instructed in the catechism, — that, from these symp- toms, notvt^ith standing the general probity of his life, you are apprehensive he thinks less than it may be his interest to do about the concerns of futurity. The man, who is by no means lost to all sense of duty, will take your admonition in good part ; but he will defend himself; and his defence will be that he is at least a moral man. Press him farther, — ask him what particular me- rit he means to attribute to himself under that character : Would he be understood to plead " not guilty" to your accusation ? would he pretend that he is a scrupulous observer of the Sabbath — never absent without necessity from public worship, and frequent in his attendance on the Lord's table? — He \v'\l\ confess to you that he 27 means no such thljigj.the contrary is no- torious, and he would be sorry to be thought capable of setting his face to so gross a falsehood. Does he mean, that notwith- standing his neglect of the external forms of religion, he hath still been exact in the better part — in the social duties of the Christian life? — that he is liberal in alms, tender-hearted to the poor, slow to anger, patient of injuries, ready to forgive, — that his affections are so set on heavenly things that he is cautious of excess in the use even of lawful pleasure ? — Nothing ol all this : The man is no hypocrite ; he will not pretend that his life will bear so strict a scrutiny. But still he is a moral man, — that is to say (for every thing more is ex- cluded by his own confessions), he is no murderer, no adulterer, no thief, no liar, no spendthrift ; and, with nothing more of the Christian character about him than is 28 supposed to be contained in the negation of these crimes, he hopes to find admission into the kingdoiji of heaven ; for if at any time he hath chanced to drop in while you have been preaching, he has heard you tell your congregation that morality is all in all. Again, religion and morality differ, not only in the extent of the duty they pre- scribe, but in the part in which they are the same in the external work : They differ in the motive ; they are just as far asun- der as heaven is from the earth. Morality finds all her motives here below : Religion fetches all her motives from above. The highest principle in moral§ is a just re- gard to the rights of each other in civil society : The first principle in religion is the love of God, — or, in other words, a regard to the relation which we bear to him, as it is made known to us by reve- lation ; and no action is religious, other- wise than as it respects God, and pro- ceeds from a sense of our duty to him, or at least is regulated by a sense of that duty. Hence it follows, as I have before observed, that although religion can never be im- moral, because moral works are a part of the works of religion, yet morality may be irreligious ; for any moral work may pro- ceed from mere moral motives, apart from all religious considerations : And if a mo- ral work be done by a person not suffi- ciently instructed in religion to act upon religious considerations, it cannot proceed from any other than mere moral motives ; and of consequence, it must in that in- stance be irreligious, — not contrary to re- ligion, but without it. Upon this ground stands the doctrine of the first reformers, concerning works done 30 bfefdre justification, which is laid down in the 1 3th of our Articles, — " Works done be- fore the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit are not pleasant to God ; for- asmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the school authors say) deserve grace of congruity ; yea rather, for that they are not done as God had commanded and willed them to be done, we doubt not (saith the Church) but that they have the nature of sin." Not that they are in such sort sins, that in the mere overt act, without consideration had of the obliquity of the motive, they add to the guilt of the doer of them ; but being done without any thought of God, though not in defiance and despite of him, they have nothing in them that should make them pass for marks or symptoms of the regene- SI rate character : On the contrary, in all these works merely moral, the Atheist may be as perfect as the Christian. And this explains what at the first sight may seem a strange fact in the history of man, and is very apt to be misinterpreted, as if it disproved the connexion which divines are desirous to maintain between the truth of religious opinion and true practical godliness, — namely, that Infide- lity and Atheism boast among their dis- ciples eminent examples of moral recti- tude. History records, I think, of Serve- tus, Spinoza, and Hobbes, that they were men of the strictest morals ; the memory of the living witnesses the same of Hume ; and history in some future day may have to record the same of Priestley and Lindsay. But let not the morality of their lives be mistaken for an instance of a righteous practice resulting from a perverse faith, or 32 admitted as an argument of the indiffe- rence of error. Their moral works, if they be not done as God hath willed and com- manded such works to be done, have the nature of sin ; and their religion, consisting in private opinion and will-worship, is sin, for it is heresy. You see, my brethren, of what impor- tance it is to the edification of your people that you maintain the distinction between religion and morality, and set forth the superior excellence of the former both in the external and the internal part. An over-abundant zeal to check the phrensy of the Methodists first introduced that un- scriptural language which confounds the two ; and an apprehension that the preva- lence of their numbers in these parts might make you too ready to adopt it hath in- duced me to discourse to you so largely upon the subject. Bear with me if I add. 33 that the propagation of Methodism hath been less owing to its own powers than to the injudicious manner in which it hath been resisted. In the controversy about faith and works, either side of the question hath had pious, learned, and enlightened men among its advocates. When the pious, the learned, and the wise, on both sides, explain, the controversy turns out to be a mere contest about words ; the matter in dispute being nothing more than this, — in what words a proposition in Vv'liich all agree may be best enounced. That man is justified by faith, without the works of the law, was the uniform doctrine of the first reformers. It is a far more ancient doctrine, — it was the doctrine of the whole college of apostles : It is more ancient still, — it was the doctrine of the prophets : It is older than the prophets, — it was the religion of the patriarchs. And no one c 34 who hath the least acquaintance with the writings of the first reformers will impute to them, more than to the patriarchs, the prophets, or apostles, the absurd opinion, that any man leading an impenitent wick- ed life, will finally, upon the mere pretence of faith (and faith connected with an impeni- tent life must always be a mere pretence), obtain admission into heaven. Whether our Methodists are justly chargeable with this Antinomian doctrine, is what I will not take upon me to decide ; I would cha- ritably hope that it is to be found only in the lanouaoe of the more illiterate of their teachers: Whether they be justly charged with it or no, it is your duty to be careful, that, in your anxiety to expose this foil}', you yourselves run not into the opposite extreme of the Pelagian heresy. Be care- ful, that you ascribe no such merit to the good works of men as may claim immor- 35 talitj as the wages of a service, — that you ascribe no power to man to perform works truly good without the assistance of the Divine Spirit. But then, be careful, on the other hand, to explain on what ground merit is denied to the best works of the faithful. It is not that the works in them- selves are not good — such as being well done would be meritorious — such that the leaving of them undone, or the doing of them with negligence and indiffereoce, while we profess to be believers, is a de- ceiving of our own souls : But the want of merit lies in the imperfection and deficiency of our best performances. And remember always to inculcate, that in this respect our faith is no less defective than our works, — that it is not by the merit of our faith, more than by the merit of our works, that we are justified, — that there is, indeed, no hope for any merit of our own, but through 36 the efficacy of our Lord's atonement ; for that we are justified by faith, is not on ac- count of any merit in our faith, but because faith is the first principle of that commu- nion between the behever's soul and the Divine Spirit on which the whole of our spiritual life depends. These doctrines are delivered with admirable perspicuity and precision in the Homilies of our Church upon these subjects : " The Misery of all Mankind;" " the Salvation of INIankind by Christ " the True Lively and Chris- tian Faith;" and " Good Works Annexed to Faith." These discourses I would ear- nestly recommend to your frequent study, as an unexceptionable summary of doctrine upon these important points, and an excel- lent model of composition for popular in- struction. Were you in a situation to pro- cure scarce books for yourselves, or to have easy access to well-furnished libraries, I 37 shoulcf recommend a perusal of tlie " Con- fession of Faith of the Church of Saxony," with the elucidations upon particular points which are to be found in the works of Phi- lip Melancthon ; and, as a preservative of your own minds from the contagion of the Antinomian folly, I would recommend the " Harmonia Apostolica" of my illus- trious predecessor. Bishop Bull. I am much mistaken, if a proper diligence on our own parts to inculcate these doctrines (which are indeed the very basis of the Christian system), which the philosophizers of the present times explain away, and the illiterate enthusiast by the meanness of his style and the absurdity of his illustrations too often burlesques, — I am mistaken, if a proper diligence on our part to inculcate these doctrines would not soon supersede the necessity of all controversj^ Truth deeply planted in the public mind would 38 keep possession by its own native strength : The common people, made proficients in the faith, however in other respects ilHterate, and accustomed to the doctrine originally delivered to the saints, would turn with horror from every thing of a contrary sound ; nourished with the sincere milk of the word by their proper pastors, they would refuse a drink of doubtful quality mingled by a stranger : In a word, our churches would be thronged ; while the moralizing Unitarian would be left to read his dull weekly lecture to the walls of his deserted conventicle, and the field-preach- er w ould bellow unregarded to the wilder- ness. There is yet another thing to be done for the security of the common people from delusion. The great crime and folly of" the Methodists consists not so much in he- terodoxy as in fanaticism, — not in perverse 39 doctrine, but rather in a disorderly zeal for the propagation of the truth ; which is the pretence for that irregular ministry which is exercised by their teachers, en- couraged by the leaders of the sect, and greedily followed by the people. The im- mediate remedy for this evil, and indeed the best security against the seductions of false teachers of all denominations, would be, that our laity should be frequently taught with what hazard to himself the private Christian officiously meddles in the preacher's office, — how strictly it is required of him to submit himself to those teachers who are by due authority set over the people to watch over their souls. Upon these topics the clergy of late years have been more silent than is per- fectly consistent with their duty ; from a fear, as I conjceive, of acquiring the name and reputation of high-churchmen. But, 40 my brethren, you will not be scared from your tluty by the idle terror of a nickname, artfully applied, in violation of the true meaning of the word, to entrap the judg- ment of the many, and bring the discredit of a folly long since eradicated upon prin- ciples which have no connexion with it. You promote the stratagem of your ene- mies, you are assisting in the fraud upon the public, and you are accessaries to the injury to yourselves, if you give way to a dread of the imputation. To be a high- churchman, in the only sense which the word can be allowed to bear, as applicable to any in the present day, — God forbid that this should ever cease to be my pub- lic pretension, my pride, my glory ! To be a, high-churchman in the true import of the word in the English language, — God forbid that ever I should deserve the im- putation ! A high-churchman, in the true sense of the word, is one that is a bigot to the secular rights of tlie priesthood, — one who claims for the hierarchy, upon pre- tence of a right inherent in the sacred of- fice, all those powers, honours, and emo- luments, which they enjoy under an esta- blishment ; which are held indeed by no other tenure than at the will of the prince or by the law of the land. To the prince or to the law we acknowledge ourselves indebted for all our secular possessions — for the rank and dignity annexed to the superior order of the clergy — for our se- cular authority — for the jurisdiction of our courts, and for every civil effect which fol- lows the exercise of our spiritual authori- ty. All these rights and honours, with which the priesthood is adorned by the piety of the civil magistrate, are quite distinct from the spiritual commission which we bear for the administration of 42 our Lord's proper kingdom. They have no necessary connexion with it : They stand merely on the ground of human law ; and vary, hke the rights of other citizens, as the laws whicli create them vary ; and in every church connected like our church with the state by an establish- ment, even the spiritual authority cannot be conferred without the consent of the supreme civil magistrate. But in the lan- guage of our modern sectaries, every one is a high-churchman who is not unwillino- to recognize so much as the spiritual au- thority of the priesthood, — every one who, denying what we ourselves disclaim, any thing of a divine right to temporalities, acknowledges, however, in the sacred cha- racter, somewhat more divine than may belong to the mere hired servants of the state or of the laity ; and regards the ser- vice which we are thought to perform for 43 our pay as something more than a part to be gravely played in the drama of human politics.- My reverend brethren, we must be content to be high-churchmen according to this usage of the word, or we cannot be churchmen at all j for he who thinks of God's ministers as the mere servants of the state, is out of the church — severed from it by a kind of self-excommunication. Much charitable allowance is to be made for the errors of the laity upon points to which it is hardly to be expected they should turn their attention of their own accord, and upon which, for some time past, they have been very imperfectly in- structed. Dissenters are to be judged with much candour, and with every possible al- lowance for the prejudices of education. But for those who^ have been nurtured in the bosom of the church, and have gained admission to the ministry, if from a mean 44 compliance with the humour of the age, or ambitious of the fame of Uberalily of senliment (for under that specious name a profane indifference is made to pass for an accomplishment), the j affect to join in the disavowal of the authority which they share, or are silent when the validity of their divine commission is called in ques- tion, — for any (I hope they are few) who hide this weakness of faith, this poverty of religious principle, under the attire of a gown and cassock, they are in my estima- tion little better than infidels in masque- rade. To fortify your own principles, and to qualify yourselves to give the laity the in- struction they so much need in this impor- tant subject — of the deference due from the private Christian, in matters purely spi- ritual, to the authority of the church, and to a ministry of divine institution, — I would 45 advise that you make the wwtings that re- main of the apostolical fathers, more espe- cially of St Clement and St Ignatius, your constant stu.dy. They may be read either in the original, or in Bishop Wake's trans- lation. Much edification on the same sub- ject is to be drawn from the " Ecclesiastical Polity" of the learned Hooker; and from the writings of an eminent divine of the Church of Ireland in the last century — the celebrated Charles Leslie. And to the younger clergy more especially, as an in- troduction to these necessary studies, — and to all, as an excellent commentary of first principles, which may suggest some of the best topics of popular discourse upon this important question of church authority, — I would earnestly recommend a tract which was printed at Gloucester in the year 1787, under the title of" An Essay on the Church." It is the work of a venerable clergyman in- 46 the diocese of Norwich, to whom the world is indebted for many valuable disquisitions in divinity and in other subjects, and for a popular tract against the errors of the So- cinians, which hath been circulated with good effect in all parts of the kingdom, to the amount of several thousand copies, by the Society for the Promoting of Christian Knowledge. THE CHARGE OF SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, TO THE CLERGY OF HJS DIOCESE; DELIVERED AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION, IN THE YEAR 1796. MY REVEREND BRETHRES^, We are fallen upon times which more perhaps than any which the Christian church hath seen, since its first struggles with the powers of darkness in the three first centuries, require in the preachers of the gospel those two qualities in particular which our Lord told the Twelve he required in them^ when first he invested them with their high commission, — the po- licy of the serpent, united with the harm- lessness of the dove. 48 Those first preachers were sent forth upon a work of singular difficulty ; — in which, it is obvious, that so far as any hu- man talents were in any degree concerned in the effect that was to be wrought, po- licy was of all others a most essential re- quisite to regulate the measures that were to be used for the final success of so extra- ordinary an enterprise ; which was of a nature to excite in the first outset, as in fact it did excite, the enmity and opposition of all mankind. The Apostles were to preach up a religion which in its doctrines and its worship was shocking in the first place to the prejudices of their own coun- trymen, superstitiously attached to the JVIosaic institution, ill understood : Among the heathen, they had to encounter preju- dices no less inveterate, arising from the general devotion of the nations to an ido- latry grown venerable by its antiquity, and 49 calculated to captivate the many, by the pomp of its rites, the magnificence of its temples, and the gayety of its festivals : They had in every country to struggle with that which by the very principles of their religion they were nowhere permitted to resist, the authority of government. The sovereigns of the world had long expe- rienced the utility even of a false religion to the purposes of social life ; and they entertained apprehensions of the dangers of innovation. They perhaps besides view- ed the rising church in some degree with a jealous eye. They saw, or they knew by report, the internal good order of the so- ciety, — the conscientious submission of the laity to their spiritual pastors, the re- spectful attendance of the deacons upon the priests, and the obedience of the whole congregation to the bishop. They were perhaps apprehensive that the hie- D 50 rarchy might in time become the rival of the secular authority ; for tliey knew not, that so long as it adhered to the genuine principles of Christianity, this could never be. Tliey thought it prudent to take part with the old idolatry, as a religion already possessing the minds of the people to an extent sufficient for their purposes, while they, on the other hand, had the religion and its ministers perfectly at command. And upon these principles, — which were proved by the event to be in this case er- roneous, but in any other than this single case of the Christian religion would have been just and sound policy, — the sovereigns of the world became persecutors. The pride of philosophy too was wounded by pretensions to discoveries which were be- yond its reach, in subjects which had been, thought to be the most within its pro-, vince. The philosophers ranged them-. 51 selves on the side of the popular su])ersti- tion ; and the learning, the rhetoric, and. the logic of their schools, were added to the host of adversaries to which the first preachers of our religion found themselves opposed. It may seem, perhaps, at first sight, that , our situation is in every particular the re- verse of this : But it will be found, upon examination, that the change of circum- stances, though much to our advantage in respect to our ease and comfort in the pre- sent world, is such, as not much to lessen the difficulty of our work, if we would do it well, but rather to render the objects of our policy more complex. In the first place, to take the comparison in a retrograde order, the treasures of phi- losophy are very much in our possession, and the weapons of learning in our own hands. In this respect we have changed 52 position with the enemy ; and it is a great matter of policy, first, to form a true esti- mate of the vast importance of this advan- tage, and then to consider in what manner it may best be used. The vast importance of the advantage arises from its reference to another circum- stance of great disadvantage on our side ; and lies in this, — that it is the only thing we have to set against the want of that pre- eminent advantage which the first preach- ers exclusively enjoyed, the preternatural illumination of their understandings by the immediate operation of the Holy Ghost. Learning is to us the best substitute, — an imperfect substitute, but the best and the only one that is now to be had j and suffi- cient, no doubt, since Providence sees not fit to supply us with any other for the exi- gencies of our present situation, — learning, I say, is to us the best substitute for that 53 preternatural illumination of the under- standing which was the privilege of the first preachers. They were qualified, with- out any previous study, for the office to which they were called, because they had that other source of fuller and more cer- tain information. But if we inquire in what particular way the Holy Spirit, acting upon the understanding, gave these fisher- men of Galilee the superiority which they displayed over the theology of the Sanhe- drim and the metaphysics of the Porch and the Academy, — we shall find, if we turn for satisfaction upon the question to their writings, — we shall there find, what we should call, if the thing had been learnt before, a ready and accurate recollection of the history of their own nation, and of what was closely connected with it, the universal antiquities of religion. Some- thing always presented to their minds the 54 particular events of ancient story which were most directly to the purpose of that particular argument in which they chan- ced at any time to be engaged. We find them happy in applications of the prophe- cies, able expositors of those adumbrations of the scheme of redemption which were contained in the mystic rites of the Mosaic law ; we find them learned in the juris- prudence of their country ; and in their reasonings uppn the most abstruse subjects, we find a self-evidence of the principles assumed, a coherence of the argument pursued, a solidity of the conclusion de- duced, a justness of distinction, and a per- spicuity of language, not surpassed by any thing of the same kind in the very best of the Greek writers. Whence the conclu- sion seems inevitable, that the knowledge which the Holy Spirit conveyed to the un- derstandings of these chosen instruments 55 of God, was the very same in kind, con- sisting of the same particulars, which in the ordinary way is attained in a more imperfect degree by study. You will care- fully observe, my reverend brethren, that when I compare the effect and fruit of study with the gift and operation of the Holy Ghost, I speak of that operation only which produced a miraculous information of the understanding of the first preachers, and chiefly for the purpose of controversy with gainsayers. The sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of the be- liever is quite another thing ; and though far more genei*al, being indeed universal, it is an operation of a much higher order. If ever this influence is withdrawn, the man is lost ; nothing within tlie reach of man's industry can supply the want of it. But the miraculous infusion of know- ledge which was peculiar to the first preach- 56 ers, may be in some degree supplied, cer- tainly in a sufficient degree for the work of the ministry in these times, by knowledge acquired in the ordinary way ; provided we fail not earnestly to pray to the Father of Lights to bless our diligence in the pursuit of it, and to turn it to his glory. If therefore it be an object of our policy to execute our task in a manner that may at all agree with the example of the first preachers, and command the respect and reverence of the world, a very great pro- portion of our leisure, — by our leisure, I mean so much of our time as is not engaged in the actual labours of the ministry — in preaching the word, administering the sa- craments, and visiting the sick — and in a necessary attention to our secular concerns, — so much of a clergyman's time as is not thus engaged should be devoted in the far greater part to a diligent pursuit of science 51 and literature. It is not indeed necessary that every moment of his time should be employed in the immediate studies of the profession, — though the profession is an object of which he never should lose sight ; but there is hardly any branch of polite learning or abstract science which may not be made subservient to it, and many are of absolute necessity. A man is not, literally speaking, studying divinity when he h learning the grammar of the Hebrew lan- guage ; but he is acquiring that which whoever wants, wants, I had almost said, an essential accomplishment of a divine. A man may seem still farther Irom the study of divinity when he is learning the elements of the conic sections ; but he is learning that without which he never will be a proficient in natural philosophy ; and without some good proficiency in natural philosophy, he will be an incompetent ex- 58 posltor of many parts of the Bible. It might easily be shown, that a divine will not be the worse accomplished in his pro- fession for an accurate knowledge of the proportions of architecture or the divisions of the musical chord. I choose these in- stances, because they are things which at first sight seem to relate only to the elegancies of the present life : And what I mean to infer is this, — that since so many branches of knowledge are of necessity to the divine, — languages, for instance, an- cient and modern, history ancient and mo- dern, sacred and profane, secular and ec- clesiastical, ethics, politics and jurispru- dence in their general principles, meta- physics, and many others which it were te- dious to enumerate, — since all these are ne- cessary, and since so many more than are of absolute necessity may be made useful, a clergyman is by no means to be supposed 59 to misemploy every moment of his time which is not bestowed upon the study of divinity properly so called ; but it certainly is his duty, and it will be the best policy of his conduct,' under the absence of that miraculous infused learning which was pe- culiar to the first ages, to devote his time to a variety of literary pursuits. He will- pay due attention to his ordination vow ; he will give himself wholly to his office as his principal business, and will draw all his cares and studies that way ; and, under the influence and regulation of this principle, there is hardly any branch of learning or of science on which some portion of his time may not laudably and profitably for him- self and for the church of God be be- stowed. I must indeed distinctly make exception of one study, if study it may be called, which has lately begun to come into credit 60 with the younger clergy ; which my imagi- nation cannot in the remotest degree con- nect with the business of our profession, nor reconcile the pursuit of it with the good policy of a clergyman's conduct. It is become the practice among many of the younger clergy, to shut up their books when they quit the university, and to think no more of literature sacred or profane. The practice is too manifest to be denied ; for they who are to be found in every sea- son of the year, and at every hour of the day, in circles of dissipation (and every season and every hour has now its appro- priate amusement), are not likely to be found at any time in their studies. Their defence is, that although they read but little — nothing indeed beyond a review or magazine, they are engaged in a most edi- fying study : They tell us gravely they are studying men ; and the knowledge of man, 61 they say, is infinitely more useful than that of books, and must be of particular im- portance to those who by profession are the teachers of mankind. My reverend brethren, the philosophi- cal knowledge of man, that last work of the Creator— that wonderful compound of brute matter, of life, the vegetable and the animal, of soul, and of intellect, — the know- ledge of the structure and mechanism of this creature's body, of its mental faculties, of its passions and its appetities — how its passions and its appetites modify its facul- ties — of the mixed sway of appetite and judgment over its actions, — this knowledge of man forms indeed a science of the high- est curiosity and of the first importance j of particular importance to the divine, as it is nearly connected wuh that which is his proper province — the knowledge of this creature's fallen state, and of tlie means 62 provided for its recovery. But this know-« ledge of man is not to be acquired without much abstract study and intense applica- tion. It is best acquired by those who add to much retired meditation of the subject accurate observation of what is passing in the world, and in a mixed life of business and speculation have opportunity to no- tice the natural spring and play of the talents and passions of man, in all the va- riety of combinations in which they are exhibited upon the world's vast theatre* It is never to be picked up in the giddy rounds of folly : It is not to be acquired by an incessant attendance in scenes of dis- sipated pleasure ; where every man's speci- fic character, if he has any, is obliterated in the gayety of the moment ; and, except in those infamous nocturnal revels in which clergymen, it is hoped, never mix — infa- mous though held in private families of no 63 mean distinction, where the passions are kept upon the rack by the vicissitudes of play, nothing is called forth to meet the observer's eye, but what these students of men need not stir from home to find — a certain insipid good-humoured insignifi- cance of character, habitual to the majo- rity of such assemblies, and induced for the moment in those of better habits. So far as it has fallen in my way to ob-^ serve the good effects of this study of men, they amount not certainly to what those who addict themselves to the pursuit tell us we might expect from it. I have never perceived among these juvenile divines any extraordinary unction in the usual strain of their preaching ; nor have 1 dis- covered any thing more seemly in the fa- shion of their lives than the common po- lish of good-breeding : Of all that wear the garb of clergymen, they have certainly 64 the least about them either of the policy of the serpent or of the hurmlessness of tlie dove. And if the taste for this study of men, with a neglect of books and the true study of men, should become general among our younger brethren (which God avert!) the enemy in the next generation would be likely to regain the advantageous post we have for many centuries main- tained. When the Christian preacher of the pre- sent times has made a just estimate of the importance of human learning to the ac- complishment of his character, the next object of his policy is to consider the man- ner in which it is to be used. This subject embraces so great a variety of matter, that I cannot upon the present occasion engage in the discussion of it in all its parts. I shall confine myself to a single point, which I conceive to be of great importance ; and 65 take the liberty to give you my opinion in what manner metaphysical learning in par- ticular may be employed to serve the cause of religion ; for I have long been convin- ced, that, by a misuse of it, it has actually done upon the whole more harm than good. Now the safest rule by which a Christian divine may conduct himself in metaphysical researches, or in the use of metaphysical arguments (researches which I would by no means dissuade, arguments which I would not be thought to under- value), the safest rule I take to be this, — that he never allow himself to philosophize, or at least to draw conclusions in theology upon philosophical reasonings, without his Bible. He may investigate, he may di- vide, compound, and hypothetically draw conclusions : But then, for a certain test of the truth of the conclusions so drawn, " to the Word and to the Testimony if they 66 are not confirmed by that, " there is no light in them." In every thing relating to God — to the origin of evil — to a future state, he must divest himself of all the pride of philo- sophy, and implicitly resign his understand- ing to the authority of the written word. He is not to suppose, that in these subjects he can discover certain first principles by the natural strength of his own mind, and that he is at liberty to adjust the sense of the Scriptures to these principles of his own. It has been much the practice with some of our metaphysical divines, to talk of na- tural religion and revealed religion as if they were distinct, and as if the former were the necessary foundation of the latter, — as if men by their natural talents had made certain discoveries of religious truths before revelation came, and revelation had only made additional discoveries in the same subject; and that for the right 67 apprehension of these additions, those an- tecedent discoveries of reason and nature must be well understood. Now it is very true, that many of the first principles of religion are capable of scientific proof Such, in myjudgment, are the immateriality, the omnipresence, and eternity of the Deity. The immateriality of the hiunan soul, the natural immortali- ty of the soul, and the probability of a fu- ture retribution, when the things have once been mentioned, may be made evident to man's natural reason. There are other par- ticulars in the doctrines of revelation, which, if they are not to be received upon the au- thority of the revelation, or if the testi- mony of revelation should be lost, are in- capable of any proof to men at all. Such are the doctrines of the Trinity, of the in- carnation, of atonement, and grace. Now, if we are to separate those parts of the reveal- 68 ed doctrine which are the easiest to man's natural apprehension, from the more dif- ficult ; and choose to call that assent which the mind may give to the first, merely as inference from argument, without regard to the testimony afforded by revelation, and without any knowledge of the rest of the revealed doctrine, — if we are to call this natural religion, I wish the name had never been introduced, because it has given oc- casion to mistakes : But the distinction may be of use ; and it is not worth while to dispute about the name when the thing is understood. More or less of natural re- ligion, in this sense of the words, was to be found among the heathen in all ages. But if it is implied, in this name of natural religion, that the very plainest of these truths was the discovery of man's own rea- son, before any revelation had been made, — I scruple not to deny, that any thing of a 69 natural religion, in this sense of the words — a religion of man's own discovery (though you reduce it to the most simple principles), neither now exists nor was ever to be found in any part of the world. If we believe the sacred history, the visible intercourse of the Creator with our first parents com- menced with their existence, and was gra- ciously continued with their posterity be- fore and after the flood for several ages. The first revelations therefore were ante- cedent to any possible date of these pre- tended discoveries of reason ; and from these early revelations came whatever we find of what is called natural religion among the heathen. Some of the first principles of these revelations laid strong hold upon the minds of men, and were traditionally remembered, when not only all the rest, but even the manner by which the knowledge of what was remembered 70 first came into the world, was gone into utter oblivion. These traditional frag- ments of the creed of the protoplasts and the patriarchs made what is called the na- tural religion of the heathen of ancient times ; and whatever notions of God and of a future state are to be found at thio day among savages are to be referred to the same source. Reason, whatever its abilities may be, was never left to itself to try its strength in original discovery in these subjects. In argument, indeed, upon principles given, its strength was tried ; it was left to itself, for many ages, to make the most of the few principles remember- ed : And much it made of them in theory, nothing at all in practice. It was not un- natural for the heathen to imagine that they Jiad been the discoverers of those truths which they found they could prove : But the conclusion, that reason was equal to 11 the first discovery of these principles, be- cause it can syllogize about them when propounded, is precarious. It is one thing to perceive the truth of a proposition once offered to the mind, and quite another for the mind to suggest the proposition to itself And the question in this case is not abstract — what Reason may have the ability to do ; the question is upon a matter of fact — what she did. W ere these things, in point of fact, man's own disco- very ? — The sacred history is explicit that they were not. And notwithstanding the many useful lessons of morality we find in the writings of the heathen sages — the many eloquent discourses upon provi- dence and the immortality of the soul — the many subtile disquisitions upon the great questions of necessity and moral free- dom, upon fate and chance, — I am per- suaded, that had it not been for the early 72 communications of the Creator with man- kind, man never would have raised the conceptions of his mind to the idea of a God, he never would have dreamt of the immaterial principle within himself, and he never would have formed any general notions of right and wrong in the abstract; he would have had no religion, perhaps no morality. Revealed religion therefore stands not upon the ground of any antece- dent discoveries of natural reason ; and it is highly impolitic to attempt to place it upon any such false foundation : By itself it must stand or fall : It is in itself the first and the last, the beginning and the end. The prudent dispenser of the word will resort to revelation for his first principles, as well as for more mysterious truths. He will not trust to philosophy for any disco- veries ; he will suffer philosophy to be no- thing more than his assistant in the study 13 of the inspired word : She must herself be instructed by those lively oracles before she can be qualified to take part in the in- struction of men. To lay the foundation of revelation upon any previous discoveries of reason, is in fact to make reason the su- perior teacher. It' is not improbable, that idolatry itself had its first beginning in an early adoration of this phantom of natural religion — the idol, in later ages, of impolitic metaphysical divines. A second circumstance in which our si- tuation may seem the very reverse of that of the first preachers, is that we are not per- secuted ; we are protected, honoured, and caressed, by the sovereigns of the world. This indeed, at present, is our situation in the far greater part of Europe. Would God this state of things might be perpe- tual! but we shall do well to remember that it is otherwise ordained. The prophe-' 74 cies of the New Testament foretell that in the latter days perilous times will come — times of grievous and general persecution. The season of suffering will bring indeed this consolation with it, whenever it shall arrive, that it is to terminate in the final peace and triumph of the church. The signs of the times are such as may create an apprehension that the hour of trial is not far distant : Certainly, that in less than seven years a general persecution of the Christian name may be raging in every part of Europe, is far less improbable, in the * present moment, than the tragical catas- trophe of the church of France was, a twelvemonth before it happened. It is our policy therefore in these times not to be high-minded and secure, but to. fear, — to think seriously beforehand to what we may be called, — to- meditate on the glory- that awaits those who shall endure unto 75 the end, and the shame that will light on those who shall fall away, — to pray for the succour of God's grace to support us in the hard conflict. If it shall please God, in his mercy, so to direct the storm that it come not nigh our dwelling, it will not harm us to have been prepared : Perhaps a serious devout preparation for the worst is the most likely means to avert the ca-, lamity, or at least to shorten its duration. It may seem, again, that our situation is almost the reverse of that of the first Christians with respect to the tide of vul- gar prejudice. The world, our Western world at least, for several ages has been Christian ; and those who exercise the ministry in a country where, as in this, Christianity has taken root, have not to en- counter any attachment of the people to any other religion in preference to the 76 Christian : Popular opinion in this instance, fortunately for us, is on the side of truth. The advantage of our situation in this respect, when it comes to be examined, will not be found so great as it may at first seem. It is very true that we have not to contend with any prejudice of mankind in general in favour of a religion different from our own ; the singularity of the times is that there are no prejudices in favour of any religion : But we have to encounter a malignant aversion of some part of the people to every thing that carries the name of religion; arising from that ferocious im- patience of restraint, and those mad notions of liberty, which the fiend of French Demo- cracy — the most wicked hateful fiend which Providence hath ever made the instrument of his WTath upon guiltynations — hath with- in the last six years spread throughout all Europe. The dismal scenes that have ta- 77 ken place in France — the misery in which that people was instantly plunged upon the overthrow of their august monarchy and their venerable church establishment — the sanguinary violence under which they have ever since groaned, have proved, I believe, a useful warning to this country. The ex- ample has damped the rising spirit of Ja- cobinism among us ; and with the spirit of » Jacobinism, it has damped the spirit of Irreligion ; for these are twin furies, which cannot have a separate existence. They are damped in such a degree, that I believe the enemies either of our constitutional monarchy or of our church are at present in proportion to the general body of the people very few. I fear, however, that we are not to conclude that all who are not Jacobins are conscientiously or otherwise than politically attached to the Established Church, or even to the general cause of 78 Christianity. I believe the laity of this country may be divided with respect to their religious sentiments into three classes. Those of the first class, — which I would hope, and do indeed believe, makes a very great majority of the whole peo- ple, — are Christians, not in name only and profession, but in conscience and in truth. Another very small class is composed of the Democratists, — void of all religion, and Avowed enemies to its ministers. These are few, as I have said, in number ; but they are loud in their invectives, and inde- fatigably busy in their machinations against all government civil and ecclesiastical. Be- tween these two, there is a middle class ; which may be called the class of the Mo- ralists, — respectable serious men ; but men - who have never set themselves to think se- riously about the intrinsic importance of religion, or the evidences of the truth and 79 reality of revelation ; and, being of a turn of mind not to take things upon trust, have ra- ther perhaps a secret leaning to speculative infidelity. They are friends however to reli- gion, for its good services in civil life ; but seeing nothing more in it, they would always take up with the religion which they find established ; and upon that principle they unite themselves in profession to the Esta- blished Church. They have, perhaps, be- sides, something of a respect in preference for Christianity, on account of the purity of its moral precepts and the importance of the doctrine of retribution which it asserts ; they have a respect in preference for the reformed churches, as maintaining the pu- rest form of Christianity ; and they have a respect in preference for the Church of England in particular, as the most consi- derable among the reformed. Now, of the people of this middle class, we may say, 80 that " so long as we do well unto ourselves, these men will speak good of us." At pre- sent they are our friends. They consider us, however, as persons set to act a part. They are our friends, because they think the part we act essential to the good of the community ; but that being the ground of their friendship, they will be our friends no longer than while we act it well. They consider the emoluments and privileges of the order as a pay that we receive from the public for the performance of the part assigned us ; and if they discover in u» (and none will be more sharp-sighted to discover) any negligence in the execution, distant as they are in principle from the Democratists, they will be very apt to con- cur with them, one time or another, in some goodly project for the confiscation of our property and the abolition of our pri- vileges. 81 It is a very important object of our po- licy, to retain the friendship and good opi- nion of this middle class, and to improve it what we can. And the means which an upright policy will suggest are very ob- vious : We have only to take care, that we adorn the doctrine of our Saviour by the example of our lives ; and most of all, that we show, by diligence in the ministry, that our hearts and affections are seriously en- gaged in it. This conduct will attach to us the affections of our flocks ; it will se- cure the friendship of the Moralists ; and it will probably baffle, if it should not mi- tigate, the malice of our enemies. But a contrary conduct—any thing of sloth or lukewarmness in the labours of the mini- stry — any thing that may show more greedi- ness of the gains of our office than concern for the duties of it, will scandalize the church of God and give a handle to our F 82 enemies, and perhaps may provoke God to employ the fire of persecution to purge away the dross. The conduct of the clergy of the Church of England, for some years past, in one particular, has not been exactly what their friends might wish, and an upright policy, attentive to the interests of the order as well as to the duties of the profession, would recommend. I speak of the very general practice, among the beneficed cler- gy, of non-residence, and what necessarily results from it — a very insufficient perform- ance of parochial duty : Nothing has so much lessened the general influence of the clergy ; nothing so much threatens the stability of the national church. The evil of non-residence is much greater upon livings of small value than upon the more productive. If the revenues of a non-re- sident are narrow, he can make but a scan- 83 tj allowance to his curate : The curate, finding the salary of one curacy insufficient for his maintenance, is reduced to the ne- cessity of taking a second ; he serves, as it is called, at least two parishes ; and the consequence is, that divine service is per- formed but once each Lord's day in either church, — in the forenoon and evening, perhaps, in the two alternately : The cu- rate, in many cases, resides in neither of the parishes which he is said to serve ; and, if his attendance be wanted on the dying or the sick, or baptism is suddenly to be ad- ministered to an infant in danger of death, he is not easily to be found. I am well aware, that many non-resi- dents are conscientiously engaged in va- rious ways in promoting the general cause of Christianity ; and are perhaps doing bet- ter service than if they confined them- selves to the ordinary labours of the mi- 84 nistry in a country parish. It would be no less impolitic than harsh to call persons so employed to residence. I am well aware, that non-residence may often have a just excuse in considerations of another kind ; and must, in such cases, be connived at. I must however declare that I acknow- ledge no connivance to be due, and as far as my own authority extends I will show no connivance, to the non-residence of the younger clergy who absent themselves from their parishes for no better purpose than " to study men" in the manner in which that delightful study is usually pursued by them. But however justifiable non-residence may be in many cases, the non-resident in all cases is at least bound in conscience to do to the utmost by another all that which he does not by himself It is his duty to maintain a resident curate, Avith 85 such a stipend, if the revenues of the liv- ing will afford it, as may supply the curate with a decent maintenance, without his engaging in a second cure, and doing but half the duty of both parishes. If the re- venues of the living will not afford this provision for the curate, there must be something very singular in the case indeed to justify either the incumbent's non-resi- dence or the bishop's connivance at it. The curate should be nominated to the bishop to be licensed by him ; for two rea- sons, — both because this is the surest way to guard against the admission of impro- per persons, and because, in every parish, the person exercising the ministry ought to be completely amenable to the ecclesi- astical jurisdiction. I am not singular in the opinion I en- tertain, that the present omission of paro- chial duty is a great want of policy in the. 86 conduct of the clergy, and threatens the Established Church with the greatest dan- ger. The size and growth of the evil has been thought of sufficient importance to engage the attention of the liCgislature. In a late period of the last Parliament, a bill was introduced in the House of Lords, upon the motion of the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and has been passed into a law, providing certainly the gentlest reme- dy that could be devised. It generally goes by the name of " The Curates Act;" but the title of it is " An act for the farther support and maintenance of curates with- in the Church of England, and for making certain regulations respecting the appoint- ment of such curates, and the admission of persons to cures augmented by Queen Anne's bounty, with respect to the avoid- ance of other benefices." It passed almost in silence through the Upper House of Par- 87 liament ; for as the general expedience of the measure was universally allowed, and the bill was originally drawn with the as- sistance of one of the greatest living or- naments of the bench of justice, and the clauses of it had been long under the con- sideration of the bishops, and had been revised and digested by the first practition- ers both in the secular and the ecclesiasti- cal courts, — there was nothing to occasion debate in its progress through the House of Lords. In the Lower House it received some alterations ; but none but what were consistent with the general spirit and pur- view of the bill, and such as upon the whole may be deemed amendments. Hav- ing reason to think that this bill is not well understood among the clergy, and feeling that it will be the duty of every bishop to enforce it, I shall detain you some little 88 time longer to explain to you briefly the principal provisions of it. It is certainly, both by the canon law and the statute, law, the province of the bishop of the diocese to assign the stipends of the curates of non-residents. The scan- tiness of their stipends is a great aggrava- tion, as I have explained at large, of the mischief of non-residence. This appears to have been a complaint of long stand- ing ; for so early in this century as the 12tli of Queen Anne, we have an act " for the better maintenance of curates." This act confines the discretion of the bishop be- tween the limits of 20/. as the least annual stipend to be granted, and 50/. as the great- est. It was probably a great relief to the curates at the time, that they could not be paid with less than 20/. per annum^ and might have any thing between 20/. and 50/. 89 at the discretion of the bishop. But in the present times, this statute of Queen Anne, by the change of the expenses of hving, was become a hardship upon the curates : For it is evident, that in all cases in which 50/. was not too much in the reign of Queen Anne, it would be greatly too little now ; and yet it was the utmost stipend the bi- shop in any case could grant. The conse- quence was, that the bishop often thought it the best thing to be done for the curate to leave him to the liberality of the in- cumbent, and to connive at his officiating without a licence ; and this was a great blow upon the discipline of the church. The new statute has enlarged the limit of the bishop's discretion, carrying it to 75/. per annum in the .shape of stipend, besides other emoluments, which I shall mention more particularly in their proper place. 90 I have understood, that some non-re- sidents with small benefices have taken alarm, as if the stipend of every curate in the kingdom was forthwith to be raised to 75/. per annum^ be the living great or small. But no such absurdity is to be found either in the spirit or in the letter of the act : The bishop is impowered to give 75/. when he thinks fit ; he is in no case im- powered to grant more ; and he is in no case compelled to give so much : The mi- nimum remains where the statute of Queen Anne fixes it, at 20/. : And by this statute of Queen Anne, — which, you will observe, is not repealed, but is still in force, except so far as it is altered by this new statute, — the bishop is admonished, in assigning the stipend of the curate, " to have regard to the greatness of the cure and the value of the ecclesiastical benefice." 91 At the same time, it must be distinctly imderstood, that although regard is to be had to the value of the benefice, yet if 151. per annum be considered as the greatest stipend to be allowed out of the greatest living, the incumbents upon poorer livings are not to expect that the stipends of their curates will be less in exact geometrical pro- portion to the less value of the benefice. No such rule can be adopted ; for observe only to what an absurdity it would lead. Let us suppose, that upon a living of 750/. per annuni^ a stipend is assigned to the curate of the non-resident incumbent of 75/.; which is the most that can be assigned, though the annual value of the benefice were twice 750/. : The incumbent of the adjoining parish, we will suppose, is also a non-resident ; but his living shall be worth but 100/. per annum: He comes there- fore to the bishop, and he says " You have lassigned my neighbour's curate 75/. pei- annum ; which is just one tenth of the an- nual income of the Hving, for his Hving renders a clear annual income of 750/. : My living produces but 100/. per annujn ; there- fore, by the rule of three, my curate must be paid with 10/." I should certainly pay no great attention to this conclusion, had the law left me at liberty ; which it has not done, having fixed a minimum : And yet it is the true conclusion from this principle of proportion ; which, because it leads to such impracticable conclusions, cannot be adopted. The truth is, that this is one of innumerable cases, in which the greater burden in proportion must fall upon the smaller income. It is well, in this case, that it does ; because it magnifies what every friend to the church must wish to see magnified — the inconvenience, to the beneficed clergy, of non-residence upon 93 small livings : It magnifies this inconve- nience just as it ought to be magnified, — that is to say, in proportion to the small- ness of the living. A more specious objection to this clause has been started, as I have heard, on the part of the curates. It has been said for them, that if it was the intention of the Legislature that their condition should be rendered now just what it was intended to be in former times under the statute of Queen Anne, the discretionary power of the bishop should have been extended to 150/. rather than stopped at 75/. ; for the increase of the expense of life, since the time of Queen Anne, has been at least in the proportion of three to one. I believe the estimate may be tolerably accurate, — that is to say, I believe that 150/. iier an- num in the present time will not purchase more of the conveniencies of life than 50/. 94 per annum would have purchased in the time of Queen Anne. But the claim of an advance of the stipend in this full pro- portion is beyond all measure of reason and equity, and is not to be endured. For the plain justice of the case is this, — the increase of the necessary articles of ex- pense is an evil which ought to fall in even proportions upon all ranks of the commu- nity, and upon all incomes : Those, there- fore, who subsist upon the salary of a ser- vice, have no equitable claim to an increase of salary proportional to the increased price of the articles of life, unless they can al- lege that the funds from which the salary is to proceed are increased in the same proportion ; which is notoriously not the, case of ecclesiastical benefices: To in- crease the salary in this full proportion, the incomes of those who pay it being not so increased, would be to exempt the person 95 receiving salary from his whole share of the burden of the increase of expenses, and to throw both shares upon the person paying it ; — and the equity of this I cannot under- stand. A more reasonable demand M^ould be, that the increase of the stipend should be in proportion to the average improve- ment of the revenues of ecclesiastical bene- fices ; and I very much question, whether this improvement, since the time of Queen Anne, upon the average of all the livings in the kingdom, improved and unimpro- ved, has been more than in tlie proportion of three to two ; with which it happens that the proportion of the rise of stipend (to 151. from 501.) exactly corresponds. But the truth is, that neilher of these pro- portions of increased expense or improved value was distinctly in contemplation in the framing of the bill : The intention was simply this, — to do as much as could be 96 done for the curates, without imposing an excessive burden upon the beneficed cler- gy ; and both parties, I trust, will find that they have reason to be satisfied. In addition to this 75/. per annum at the utmost granted in the shape of stipend, the bishop or ordinary by this same clause is invested with a discretionary power of assigning to the curate, if the incumbent be not personally resident upon his living four months in the year at least, " the use of the rectory or vicarage-house, and the garden and stable thereunto belonging." The grant is to be by writing, under hand and seal of the bishop or ordinary, for twelve calendar months only ; but with power in the bishop or ordinary to renew the grant from time to time. In case there should be no house upon the living, or the bishop or ordinary should not deem it con- venient to allot and assign the same to the 97 curate, he is authorized to assign to the curate, in lieu of such house, garden, and stable, a farther sum not exceeding 15/. per annum, over and above the stipend of 75/. : A proviso is added, that " the said house, garden, and stable, shall be for the use of the said curate and his family only during his actual residence in the said rectory and vicarage-house." This power of granting the use of the house to the curate has raised great mur- murs, as I am informed, among the bene- ficed clergy in some places. They argue against it thus : " It is not for our advan- tage that the curate should have the house. " The most that can be saved to us, by the al- lotment of the house to his use, is 1 51. per annum ; with the payment of which, at the utmost, we may be charged, if the house, with garden and stable, be not allotted. But leave us to choose our own tenants, G 98 and we shall often let our houses upon much better terms." Those who argue in this manner against the equity of the clause are certainly not aware that the let- ting of a rectorial or vicarage house to any other person but the curate was an illegal act before this statute passed, — positively forbidden, under heavy penalties, by the statute law, so long since as the reign of Elizabeth. Such houses were not intend- ed to swell the emoluments of non-resident incumbents, but to afford a comfortable and convenient mansion for the officiating ministers j which in many places would not be to be found at all if a house were not appropriated. And for this reason, and to discourage non-residence, non-residents are restrained by statutes of Elizabeth, at first temporary, but since made perpetual, from leasing any part of the benefice (and the house is a very principal part of it), ex- 99 cept to the curate (Jnly, and to him in par- ticular cases only. The non-resident there- fore, by this power over the house granted to the bishop, is not restrained in the free- dom of any thing he could legally do be- fore this act was passed ; and the comfort of the curate, and the facility of his at- tendance on parochial duties, are very ma- terially promoted by it. I understand very well, that in many cases it might be a great hardship to an in- cumbent not totally non-resident, that the use of the house should be allotted to the curate, though the incumbent's residence should not usually amount to so much as four months in the year. I understand be- sides, that in certain cases, the letting of the house to other than the curate, though not strictly legal, might be very properly connived at. But you will remember, that the bishop has the power of the alterna- lob tive to allot the use of the house or to grant an addition of stipend in lieu of it ; and I cannot but suppose, that in the exercise of this discretionary power, the bishop will attend to the circumstances of every case, and consult the convenience of both parties. By the following clause, the bishop is impowered to insert in the grant of the house, garden, and stable, " such terms and conditions to be observed on the part of the curate as he shall think reasonable" — to revoke the grant of the whole or any part of the premises, by writing under his hand and seal, at any time ; and heavy penalties are imposed upon the curate if he shall refuse " peaceably to deliver up the possession of the premises granted to him at the expiration or other sooner de- termination of the grant thereof." The power of inserting conditions in the grant 101 is in aid of the proviso at the end of the- preceding clause, — to restrain the curate from making any other use of the premises than for the residence of himself and his family, — to restrain him from the admis- sion of improper inmates — from making alterations in the premises granted for his own accommodation to the prejudice of the estate, — to provide for the care of any articles of furniture which the incumbent may think proper to leave in the house, — and for many other things which may be- come the subject of such conditions, in which it will be much for the accommodation of both parties that the bishop should have authority to interfere. One is unwilling to suppose the case of a litigious curate ; but laws must suppose and must provide against all possible cases. It would be a great hard- ship upon the incumbent if he could not get possession of his own house, for his 102 T)wn use, even with the bishop's consent and approbation, without the expense and delay of a writ in ejectment. The power of revocation given to the bishop, and the necessity laid upon the curate of peaceably delivering up possession, secure the incum- bent against this inconvenience. The pe- nalties upon the curate have been thought enormous : But it is to be remembered, that the case in contemplation in these provisions is such as, I hope, will hardly ever happen ; but if it should ever hap- pen, it is a case in which moderate penal- ties would have no effect. It is not to be supposed that the bishop will ever suffer an abrupt expulsion of a curate, without rea,sonable notice, from the house in which his family is settled ; but on the other hand, it would be hard if the incumbent had not a more summary remedy against the obstinacy and caprice of a litigious 103 temper than the ordinary forms of law- afford. The next clause, which is the third, in the latter part of it gives the bishop and the ordinary the same discretionary power of assigning the stipends of the officiating curates in perpetual cures augmented by Queen Anne's bounty, as are given to them by the two former clauses in the case of benefices presentative. And the fifth clause extends those powers, under the like limi- tations, and with the like remedies, to the case of officiating curates in perpetual cures not augmented ; for this very good rea- son, assigned in the preamble of the clause, — that " many such perpetual curacies, al- though not augmented by the bounty of Queen Anne, have nevertheless become considerable in value, by the improvement of the tithes or glebe of which they hap- 104 pen to be endowed, or by other circum- stances." The sixth clause of the act gives a power to the bishop or the ordinary which nei- ther is supposed to have possessed before, and of which the beneficed clergy in some places are said to have expressed much jealousy. The bishop's power of appoint- ing the curate's stipend, under the statute of Queen Anne, was in effect confined to curates licensed by the bishop upon the nomination of the incumbent : For it is enacted, *' that if any rector or vicar having cure of souls, should, after the 29th day of September 1714, nominate and present any curate to the bishop or ordinary, to be li- censed or admitted to serve the cure of such rector or vicar, the said bishop or or- dinary, and so forth, shall appoint a suf- ficient certain stipend or allowance," &c. 105 And again, " And if it shall appear to the hishop or ordinary, upon complaint or otherwise, that any curate of such rector or vicar, licensed or admitted before the 29tli of September 1714, had not a sufficient maintenance, it shall be lawful for the said bishop, &c. to appoint him a certain sti- pend," &c. The enacting words, you see, are such as confine the power of the bish- op (though the thing, probably, was not intended) to curates nominated by rectors or vicars in order to be licensed or already licensed under such nomination. Incum- bents (for a reason which I shall mention presently) have for many years past been very unwilling that their curates should be licensed ; they have been averse to a nomination of their curates : Few curates have been nominated ; few have been li- censed ; few stipends have been fixed by the discretion of the bishop or ordinary : 106 And thus, for many years past, the statute of Queen Anne, as far as it relates to this matter, has been a mere dead letter. In the present statute, great care has been taken to avoid the error of our an- cestors, and to use such enacting words from beginning to end as might embrace all those cases which evaded the operation of the former act. By the third and fifth clauses, whatever discretionary power is given to the bishop and ordinary, with re- spect to the stipends of the curates of rec- tors and vicars, is extended to the stipends of clergymen officiating as curates under the incumbents upon those livings which are called perpetual curacies ; and thus the operation of the act is extended to all incumbents, whether rectors or vicars or perpetual curates only. But besides this, in the first clause, the enacting words by which the bishop or ordinary is impowered 107 to appoint the quantum of stipend are these : " That it shall and may be lawful for the bishop or ordinary to appoint under his hand and seal any stipend or allow- ance for any curate heretofore nominated or employed or hereafter to be nominated or employed," &c. ; and in every subse- quent part of the act, in the description of the curate, whose stipend the bisliop or or- dinary is impowered to appoint, the words " or employed " are constantly added to the word " nominated ; " or else, as in the fifth clause, the word "employed " is used alone, and the word "nominated" is omitted. And by this form of the enacting words, the operation of the act is extended to all cu- rates, or quasi-ciirates, — if that expression may be allowed to describe persons em- ployed as curates but not nominated : For if a person be employed as a curate upon any rectory, vicarage, or perpetual curacy. 108 thongli he hath not been nominated and is not licensed, the bishop or ordinary, as these clauses are expressed, hath full power to appoint liim a stipend, and to compel- payment of the stipend appointed in a summary way. This, however, was not thought suffi- cient. The authority of the bishop to appoint the curate's stipend seemed a matter of too much importance to be trust- ed to constructions of words that might be in the least degree uncertain, — or to the distinction, very familiar to lawyers, but, as may appear by the inaccurate comments upon this statute which are already in print and in circulation, easily overlooked by others, — the distinction between the co- pulative " and" and the disjunctive " or." This sixth clause, therefore, was added ; which puts the matter out of all doubt, expressly taking away from the incumbent 109 the option, which the statute of Queen Anne had inadvertently left with him, whether his curate should be licensed or no. This sixth clause gives a power to the ordinary " to license any curate who is or shall be actually employed by the rector, vicar, or other incumbent of any parish church or chapel; although no ex- press nomination of such curate shall have been made, either in words or in writing, to the ordinary, by the said rector, vicar, or other incumbent:" So that, if an in- cumbent should be obstinate, and refuse to nominate, the ordinary may avail himself of the actual employment of the curate, as a virtual nomination, and proceed to li- cense and assign him a stipend. This clause contains another provision, of which, perhaps, the curates may be jea- lous. It gives the ordinary power " to re- voke, summarily and without process, any 110 license granted to any curate employed within his jurisdiction, and to remove such curate, for such good and reasonable cause as he shall approve." This power is granted to the ordinary for the ease of the incumbent. Incum- bents, as I have said, have been very un- willing that their curates should be li- censed. This unwillingness proceeded not from any general aversion to the canonical authority of the bishop, but from an erro- neous notion, that a curate, once licensed, could not be removed against his own will, even by the bishop, without a tedious and expensive process. The clergy were con- firmed in this strange notion, by conclu- sions which they were rather in haste to draw from the famous case of Martin against Hinde ; the real merits of which have been little understood. Dr Hinde indeed was put to much trouble and expense by that Ill curate ; and, to get rid of his curate, he was obliged at last to get rid of his living : But the difficulty of his case arose not from any licensing of the curate; — Dr Hinde lay under the obligation of a title which he had given to Martin for priest's orders; and he had no proof against him of any such misconduct as could be deemed suffi- cient to annul that obligation. But the difficulty of his case was greatly aggravated by this very circumstance, that the curate was not licensed : Had Martin been a li- censed curate, his action against the rector would not have lain in the secular courts ; and the great Earl Mansfield, the venerable Lord Chief Justice of the times, is well known to have declared, that " had there been a license, he could not have inter- fered; he must have sent the parties to their bishop." This statute, however, has effectually provided that no difficulty shall 112 ever arise upon a license. If an incumbent has any reasonable cause to desire the re- moval of his curate, he will represent the case to the ordinary ; and the ordinary, if he is satisfied with the cause, may sum- marily and without process remove the curate. In both these cases — that of the appoint- ment of a curate's stipend without nomi- nation, and that of the revocation of a li- cense without process — summary appeal is given to the archbishop of the province. There is another matter in this statute, which makes a sort of rider, and has little or no connexion with its main object. The third clause in the former part declares a point of law with respect to augmented cures, — namely, that though held by li- cense, they are to be considered in law as benefices presentative to this effect, that one such living, together with another liv- 113 ing, shall make a plurality. And the fourth clause quiets the present possessors of such pluralities in those possessions. Thus I have given you a full detail of the contents of this statute — " the Curates Act ;" a most seasonable measure, in my judgment, to promote the interests of re- ligion and exalt the credit of the Church of England. I think it becomes me now to declare, that the only condition upon which I will tolerate non-residence is, that a resident curate be retained, to be approved and licensed by me, and with such a stipend and such other emolu- ments as (regard being had to the great- ness of the cure and the value of the bene- fice) it shall seem good to me, according to the spirit of this statute, to appoint. I have caught a whisper, — not in any part of this diocese ; no matter where, — but I have caught a whisper which I cannot pass un- H 114 noticed. It is whimpered that it will be a very easy matter to elude all the wise pro- visions of this act, by a civil contract be- tween the non-resident incumbent and his substitute. I think it my duty to give ex- plicit warning of the very bad policy of any such attempt, and the disappointment that must attend it. Any clergyman who shall presume to do the office of a curate, in any part of my diocese, without a regular li- cence from me or my official, will be liable (without any regard to this statute) to cen- sures and penalties in the spiritual courts ; of which I promise him he shall feel the utmost weight. And the non-resident who shall attempt any such evasions, will find that there are both canons and statutes against non-residence, of some or other of which, whatever may be dreamt of the privileges of particular situations, it will be difficult for him in any situation to 115 escape tlie clutch. But this, my reverend brethren, is not said to you : It is rephed to the ill-omened whisper of defiance that has fallen upon my ear. To you I look — to the ingenuous, learned, and exemplary clergy of this diocese, I look with the greatest confidence, for their cordial con- currence in the measures which may be necessary to carry into effect the wise and pious intention of this statute. It will re- flect great disgrace upon the parochial clergy, if it should be reluctantly obeyed ; and very great disgrace upon the bishops, if it be not vigorously enforced. TUB CHARGE OP SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF ROCHESTER, TO THE CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE; DELIVERED AT HIS SECOND GENERAL VISITATION IN THE YEAR 1800. MY REVEREND BRETHREN, No crisis at any pe- riod of time since the moment of our Lord's departure from the earth has more demanded than the present the vigilant attention of the clergy of all ranks and or- ders, from the prelate to the village curate, to the duties of the weighty charge to which we are called. When our Lord withdrew from us his visible presence, and committed the family to our stewardship, he left us not without explicit warning of 117 the conflict we should have for ages to sus- tain with the powers of darkness — the dangers we should have to encounter — ' and the sulFerings which, with remissions at one time and aggravations at another, but never without a gracious succour duly proportioned to our need, we must expect to undergo. We are particularly premon ish- ed, that, previous to the commencement of that happy state of internal purity and ex- ternal peace which is promised to the church on earth in the latter ages, a season of trial will fall upon his chosen servants, brief we hope in its duration, but severe far beyond any thing that hath been yet endured ; and they must have given little attention to the prophetic word who dis- cern not in the features of the present times awful signs of its approach. The whole of Europe, with the excep- tion of France only, and those miserable 118 countries which France has fraternized, is yet nominallj Christian : But, for the last thirty years or more, we have seen in every part of it but little correspondence between the lives of men and their professions — a general indifference about the doctrines of Christianity — a general neglect of its duties — no reverent observance of its rites. The centre from which the mischief hath spread is France. In that kingdom, the mystery of iniquity began to work, some- what earlier than the middle of the cen- tury which is just passed away. Its ma- chinations at first were secret, unperceived, disguised. Its instruments were persons in no conspicuous stations. But by the persevering zeal of an individual, who, by an affectation of a depth of universal learn- ing which he never possessed — by auda- city in the circulation of what he knew to be falsified history — by a counterfeit 119 zeal for toleration — but above all, by a cer- tain brilliancy of unprincipled wit — contri- ved to acquire a celebrity for his name and a deference to his opinions far beyond the proportion of what might be justly due either to his talents or his attainments (though neither the one nor the other were inconsiderable), — by the persevering zeal, I say, of this miscreant, throughout a long- though an infirm and sickly life of bold active impiety, a cpnspiracy was formed of all the wit, the science, the philosophy, and the politics, not of France only, but of many other countries, for the extirpation of the Christian name. The art, the in- dustry, the disguise, the deep-laid policy with which the nefarious plot was carried on, — the numbers of all ranks and descrip- tions which were drawn in to take part in it — men of letters first ; then magistrates, nobles, ministers of state, sovereign princesj 120 last of all, the inferior ranks, merchants, at-^ tornies, bankers' clerks, tradesmen, mecha- nics, peasants, — the eagerness with which, under the direction of their chief, all these contributed their power, their influence, their ingenuity, their industry, their la- bour, in their respective situations and oc- cupations in life, to the advancement of the one great object of the confederacy, are facts that are indeed astonishing. In this confederacy, the men of science and letters certainly played the principal part; and with so much earnestness they played it, that for many years nothing was done in France for the improvement of science without a view to the disservice of religion. To this purpose every discovery was bent, every advancement in learning was appli- ed. When they pretended to embrace the Newtonian physics, they in earnest em- braced nothing but certain abstract mathe- 121 matical propositions : Tliey caught up the terms indeed of gravitation and attraction, but they sHly mistook the meaning j they applied them in senses in which Newton never used them, and which he had re- peatedly and explicitly disowned ; they em- ployed these terms as names of certain original active powers in matter by which the motions of the universe might be car- ried on without any superintendence of an intelligent mind ; they always spoke of such powers as the basis of the Newtonian philosophy ; and by this artful perversion of Newton's language, they thought to pro- cure a general credit and reputation for their vain and wicked system of material- ism, as if it were founded on the immove- able rock of Newton's mathematical de- monstrations. When they embraced the metaphysics of the sage Locke, as they ever affect to call him, it was to apply 122 them to a purpose to which the sage Locke himself, it must be owned, never perceived that they were applicable. More sagacious perhaps in this than their mas- ter, they saw, that upon his principles, once admitted, it would be easy to build a theory of mind which would make the immaterial principle as unnecessary in the microcosm of man as it was ac- cording to their distorted Newtonianism in the universe; reducing all the phasno- mena of sensation, thought, reason, in- tellect, to a mere system of vibrations. From the middle of the century to the period of the French Revolution, every great literary undertaking in that kingdom, every considerable publication upon what- ever subject — natural philosophy, natural history, chemistry, anatomy, morals, law, and politics, was in some way or other brought to bear, directly or indirectly. 123 upon the great object of the conspiracy — the defamation and discredit of the Chris- tian reHgion. This was seldom indeed the immediate and avowed object ; but it was a sort of under-plot, if the expression may be allowed, in every piece, to which what ap- peared to be the main action was in truth subservient. The stratagem was in this part the more certain of success, and of a wide and permanent effect, because many of the works which had this tendency were performances of great merit in their avow- ed subjects, and for a long time will be standard books among those who apply themselves to the sciences of which they treat. Thus they convey the poison in the most unsuspicious form ; they have scatter- ed it wide over the civilized world ; and they will transmit it to remote ages. Of many instances which I might pro- duce in proof of this assertion, I shall se- 124 lect only two, — the one, a work universal* ly known and read j the other, from the abstruseness of the subject, read only by scholars of a particular class, for by such only it can be read, and known perhaps to no other ; yet both works, in a scientific light, of a very superior cast. The one is the famous " Encyclopedic." This was un- dertaken by a knot of atheists, at the sug- gestion of the leader of the band, as a work which would prove highly conducive to the success of their plot, by the opportunities it would afford them, in the way in which it was proposed to them to manage it — in which indeed they have managed it, of dis- seminating their own principles; of bring- ing darkness, doubt, and uncertainty, upon the first principles of religion and morals ; and of perplexing the inquisitive mind with the subtilty of dismembered disquisition up- on abstruse metaphysical questions, — dis- 125 quisition not given altogether, but broken into parts, and scattered as it were in frag- ments through the work ; care being taken that what seen^s proved in one article shall seem to be confuted under another ; while the reader is studiously referred from the one to the other of these contradictory articles, that if he is a studious inquirer after truth he may derive nothing from the most dili- gent consultation of these omniscient vo- lumes, but the torment of doubt, mistrust, and universal scepticism. Floundering in that muddy ocean for a certain length of time, it will be well with him indeed if its troubled waters float him not at last, when his strength is spent, to the dreary shores of atheism ; for if a man who has once believed in God can but be brought to waver and doubt in that belief, the end will generally be that there will be no God for him. To bring mankind in gene 126 ral slily and unawares to this state, was the object of the " Encyclopedie." The other instance I would mention of science pressed into the cause of irrehgion, is a work of the Marquis de Condorcet, — a profound mathematician, but a most hardened atheist, and, as atheists always are, an enemy to all moral order. This wretch, a few years before the French Re- volution, composed a work of deep erudi- tion in the doctrine of chances ; in which problems of great curiosity and great dif- ficulty were successfully discussed : But the book, besides its visible scientific pur- port, had a latent moral object ; and this was, to insinuate an opinion that there is no such thing as certainty, consequently no such thing as truth, — that verisimilitude or probability is the utmost to which we can attain, — and that the only standard of verisimilitude is a majority of suffrages ; 127 for this problem was the professed subject of the book, " To estimate the probabiHty of right decision by the majority of votes in popular assemblies." While these machinations were going on in France, attempts of anotlier kind to- wards the same end were made in other parts of Europe by the emissaries and cor- respondents of the French conspirators ; and particularly by a set of men, most of them of very inferior rank, but excelling the Frencli atheists in ancient literature, and if possible in wicked policy. I speak of the Illumines of Bavaria, — a society so formed as to extend its ramifications from the centre of Germany to the most distant vshores of Europe, and, I fear, into the is- lands ; and yet in all its parts to be under the absolute direction of one head, and to be put in motion in such manner and by such means, that the great majority in 128 number of this wonderful conspiracy should never know the real object of their associ- ation, nor, when their energies were called forth, to what end they were really em- ployed. It was a machine of stupendous size and endless complications, instanta- neously set at work at any time in all its parts, by touching a central spring, with- out any consciousness in itself of its own powers, and without any knowledge of the effects actually produced. The success of this vast enterprise of impiety was beyond any thing that could have been expected by any but the first projector, from the littleness of its begin- nings. " You have a hard task upon your hands," said a worthy French magistrate to Voltaire, just returned to his own coun- try from England in the year 1730. " What- ever you may write," — he was then be- ginning to be known as a scribbler on the * 129 side of infidelity, — " you will never carry your point of demolishing the Christian religion." " Nous verrons," replied the crafty villain : " We shall see." And the astonished world hath seen ! We have seen an open apostacy of one of the most dis- tinguished nations of Christendom — one the most distinguished as a Christian na- tion ; and in her apostacy, many circum- stances are open to observation, which give too much ground to fear that it is but the beginning of that from which the great Antichrist is to arise. The democracy of apostate France seems indeed, in many particulars, to be doing the work of Anti- christ before he comes, and preparing his way before him. The new government had no sooner renounced the faith, than they proceeded to a malignant persecution of it ; and they used their utmost endea- vours to excite similar persecutions and 130 an equal hatred of the clergy in other countries. We have seen them anticipat- ing the work of Daniel's wilful king, by re- markably changing times and laws. They gave their calendar a form entirely new, on purpose to obliterate the memory of the festivals of the church. They openly re- nounce the first principles of morality ; and they " use no discretion in the plea- sures of women;" dishonouring, not mere- ly by the gallantries of private life, but even by their laws, the holy institution of marriage. The more effectually to wean men from Christianity, they have intro- duced something like the old Pagan idola- try — much of the pomp and lasciviousness of its rites. In their constitution, they af- fect to imitate the form of the old Ro- man republic ; restoring the powers and the titles of the principal magistrates in the different departments. The countries a- 131 gainst which their arms have been turned, either in the West or in the East, have been principally those which formed the body of the Roman empire. Insomuch, that in this odious French republic, aping the manners, grasping the dominion, speak- ing to friends and to enemies the high vaunting language of ancient Rome, we seem to behold the dreadful Apocalyptic Beast, which, at the time of the desolation of the Pagan Whore exhibited in vision to St John, had been, but was not, but was to be again, — we seem, I say, to be- hold, in the French republic, this dreadful monster beginning to rise in its ancient form out of the raging sea of anarchy and irreligion. The time will not permit me to pro- ceed in this detail: Indeed, I have en- tered upon it only from a desire of im- pressing as strongly upon your minds as 182 it is impressed upon my own, the magni- tude of the danger which threatens all Christendom, and the assiduity which the dreadful crisis requires of you in watching over the souls committed to your care. The phrensy which has seized the French is of that nature, that it must be expected to spread wherever it is not encountered by the most determined energies of go- vernment, and by a great strength of sound religious principle in private life. All will be lost (for a season at least) where the government ' is patient and passive ; or, which is more immediately your concern, my reverend brethren, where individuals are lukewarm, and most of all, where the. ministers of the gospel are remiss and ne- gligent. Upon this I have much to say ; but I must premise some farther observa- tions upon what has befallen the Gallican church, which I conceive to be of great 133 importance, as involving matter of very ge- neral concern, and such as will give some degree of weight, I hope, to the advice I mean to offer. First, then, I observe, that the apostacy of the French nation, and the subversion of the Gallican church, however unexpec- ted at the time in Europe, was not a sud- den event : It was not one of those spon- taneous revolutions in public opinion which are to be traced to no detinite beginning, to no certain cause • It was not the effect of any real grievance of the people, pro- ceeding, as hath been falsely pretended, from the rapacity and the ambition of their clergy : It was the catastrophe and ac- complishment of a premeditated plot, — a plot conceived in mere malice, carried on with steady unrelenting malignity for half a century, — a plot in which the crooked policy of infiituated statesmen, the whee- 134 dling arts of intriguing women, the authori- ty of sceptred pedants, alkired by the paltry pride of literary fame to league with trai- tors for the subversion of the thrones on which they sat, — a plot in which all these conspired to abet and aid the chimerical project, as it might at first seem, of a few lettered infidels. The history of this plot has been given in detail, and the proofs laid before the public, by two writers, who, without any concert or communication, have with great ability and unwearied industry, and with particular opportunities of information, engaged in the detection of these works of darkness. I speak of the Abbe Bar- ruel and Professor Robison. Their sepa- rate narratives, the result, as I have said, of separate inquiry, have all that agreement in the essential parts which is the infal- lible character of truth. It is not to be 135 wondered that the Jacobins should be anx- ious to sink the credit of these valuable works, the records of the infamy of their party ; and for that purpose, should have endeavoured to make the most of minute mistakes, not at all affecting the sum of the evidence, which in inquiries of such length and detail are almost unavoidable. But there are few histories supported in all ma- terial points by such a mass of authentic document as the consentient narratives of Barruel and Bobison ; * and if any one • In this opinion of the works of Barruel and Robison, I am happy to have the concurrence of a reverend prelate, whose extensive erudition and comprehensive knowledge of the present state of Europe entitle his judgment upon such points to the greatest deference. " The conclusion," he says of the historical investigations of these two wri- ters, " remains established by the most incontrovertible proofs, — by the records of societies engaged in this diabo- lical purpose ; by the letters of the chief conspirators them- selves ; by the writings of others, who either openly avow- ed their design or inadvertently betrayed it in the heat of 136 can withhold his belief, when he has per- used their memoirs with attention, I scruple not to pronounce, that if his judgment is not biassed by strange partialities, he is one who knows not how to appreciate the value and amount of historical evidence. A second remark I have to make upon the French business is, that the apology which is sometimes attempted for the French Atheists, and may pass too easily upon persons of superficial information and weak discernment, — that their enmity against the religion of their country was excited by a just abhorrence of the corrup- tions of the Church of Rome ; that they were no enemies to the gospel in its purity, and have even rendered service to true re- contention ; and by the actual state of religion in those countries in which their emissaries iiave been most active and successful. "i — See the Bishop of Litiroln's late Charge. p. 9. 137 ligion, by their successful opposition, as I liave heard it said, to intolerance and su- perstition, — is a most unfoundedfalse asser- tion. The real object of the settled aver- sion of the Atheistical conspiracy was no- thing that is erroneous and exceptionable in Popery : It was every thing that is good, amiable, and holy in Christianity. They railed, it is true, at superstition : But religion and superstition in their phraseo- logy were synonymes ; and religion was the real object of their abuse. They talk- ed in raptures of universal toleration : But what they meant by the word, as appears by their confidential explanations to one another, was neither more nor less than the sacrilegious project of seizing upon all property set apart for the maintenance of any established church of any form or of any religious institution. Had the twelve apostles been living upon earth, and preach- 138 ing the gospel in France, in the times of Voltaire, D'Alembert, and Diderot, — the twelve apostles, as they would have exceed- ed all other clergy in the energy of their preaching and the sanctity of their lives, would have incurred more than any other clergy the reproach and insult of those children of hell. The proofs of this heavy accusation are easily to be drawn from the principles avowed in their publications, from the sen- timents expressed in their familiar epistles, and from every step in their conduct. What are the opprobrious names which Voltaire bestows upon Christ himself,* and upon the holy Apostles ? f — Such, my brethren, as I cannot repeat nor could you hear without horror. What are the maxims which we find in the works of his favourite * L'Infame. •}■ Douze Faquins. 139 disciples ? — " The Universal Cause," says one, " tliat God of the philosophers, the Jews, and the Christians, is nothing more than a chimera and a phantom." " The wonders of nature," says another, " far from proclaiming a God, are but the ne^ cessary effects of matter prodigiously di- versified." " There are no means of know- ing," says a third, " whether there be or be not a God, — no means of knowing whe- ther there be any difference between good and evil." " The immortality of the soul," says a fourth, " is a dogma of barbarians, gloomy, disheartening, and contrary to all legislation." " Virtue and probity," says a fifth, " in private life, is but the habit of actions personally useful : Personal interest is the only and universal criterion of the merit of human actions." " Modesty in the female sex," says the same grave mo- ralist, " is but an invention of refined vo- 140 luptuousness ; and morals have nothing to fear from the generous passion of love. Filial piety is more an affair of education than of nature ; and the laws which enjoin the perpetual cohabitation of man and wife are barbarous and cruel." Now, I ask upon what principle is this abuse of the Son of God — these daring disputations against the very being of a God — these attempts to obliterate the distinc- tions of right and wrong, to confound the fair with the useful, and to reconcile men to all manner of immorality, — how are such language and such maxims to be reconciled with that reverence for the substance of pure Christianity which is ascribed to this flagitious junto by their apologists, when they gravely tell us, that the quarrel was with the abuses of religion, not with religion itself — at most but with Popery, not with Christianity in the form in which it appears 141 in the Protestant Churches of England, Sweden, Germany, and Geneva ? How is it then that these friends of the Reform- ed Churches could find no better name for the faith of the Genevois but that of " the fooleries of John Calvin?"* How is it that they never speak of Luther, but — in contradiction to the truth of history, and to the evidence of the man's own writings, in which though dead he yet speaketh — as a dull stupid fellow, given up to wine and women ? Whence was Voltaire's exultation in the prospect of the fall of the Church of England, upon which he feasted his imagi- nation, as the inevitable consequence of the truths, he calls them, propagated in this island by the pen of his brother-blasphe- mer Hume ? Was all this from pure love of the Reformation ? And was the offence * " Les sottises de Jean Chauvin." 142 taken at the worship of the Blessed Virgin in the Church of Rome the motive, with the democracy of apostate France, to dress up a strumpet in the emblems of the God- dess of Liberty, and under that title to pay divine honours to that living idol of their own creation ? Was it abhorrence of ido- latry that induced them to revive the Pagan rites in the dedication of altars to Liberty and Reason, and in the ceremonies by which they honour the memory of their dead, while they consign their bodies to eternal sleep ? If these things are too absurd to be believed, the inevitable conclusion must be, that pure genuine Christianity is what the impious confederacy would obliterate ; — which carries us on to this farther conclu- sion, that they will attack it in every shape and in every place ; and for this purpose, indeed, they have their emissaries in every quarter. 143 The mode of the attack will however be different in different places, according to the varieties of national temper they will have to encounter. And this observation brings me home at last to my own country, and to you, my reverend brethren. In this country, I believe, they know very well that bold undisguised Atheism, pro- ceeding directly and openly to its horrid purpose, will never be successful. They must have recourse therefore to cautious stratagem ; they must pretend that their object is not to demolish but reform : And it was with a view of giving colour to this pretence, that the impudent lie — for such I have proved it to be — -has been propagated in this country of their reverence for pure Christianity and for the Reformation. In their first attempts in this way, we trust, they have been completely foiled. The laity of this country — the great majority I 144 mean — have no better relishforthe Socinian heresy than for plain Atheism they think much alike of him who openly disowns the^ Son of God and of him who denies the Father : Insomuch, that the advocates of that blasphemy have preached themselves out of all credit with the people : The pa- triarch of the sect is fled ; and the orators and oracles of Birmingham and Essex Street are dumb, — or if they speak, speak only to be disregarded. Still the operations of the enemy are going on, — still going on by stratagem, — the stratagem still a pretence of reforma- tion, — but the reformation the very reverse of what was before attempted. Instead of divesting religion of its mysteries, and re- ducing it to a mere philosophy in specula- tion and to a mere morality in practice, the plan is now to affect a great zeal for or- thodoxy, — to make great pretensions to an 145 extraordinary measure of the Holy Spirit's influence, — to alienate the minds of the people from the Established clergy, by re- presenting them as sordid worldlings, with- out any concern about the souls of men, indifferent to the religion which they ought to teach and to which the laity are attach- ed, and destitute of the Spirit of God. In many parts of the kingdom, new conven- ticles have been opened in great number, and congregations formed of one knows not what denomination. The pastor is often, in appearance at least, an illiterate peasant or mechanic. The congregation is visited occasionally by preachers from a distance. Sunday-schools are opened in connexion with these conventicles. There is much reason to suspect, that the ex- penses of these schools and conventicles are defrayed by associations formed in dif- ferent places ; for the preachers and schoolr K m masters are observed to engage iii ex- penses, for the support and advancement of their institutions, to which, if we may judge from appearance, their own means must be altogether inadequate. The poor are even bribed, by small pecuniary gifts from time to time, to send their children to these schools of they know not what, rather than to those connected with the Established Church, in which they would be bred in the principles of true religion and loyalty. It is very remarkable, that these new congregations of non-descripts have been mostly formed since the Jacobins have been laid under the restraint of those two most salutary statutes commonly known by the names of the Sedition and the Treason Bill ; a circumstance which gives much ground for suspicion, that sedition and atheism are the real objects of these institutions, rather than religion. Indeed, 147 in some places this is known to be the case. In one topic the teachers of all these congregations agree, — abuse of the Esta- blished clergy, as negligent of their flocks, cold in their preaching, and destitute of the Spirit. In this they are joined by persons of a very different cast ; whom a candour of which they on their part set but a poor example is unwilling to suspect of any ill design, though it is difficult to acquit them of the imputation of an indiscretion in their zeal, which in its consequences may be productive of mischief, very remote, I be- lieve, from their intentions. It is a dread- ful aggravation of the dangers of the pre- sent crisis in this country, that persons of real piety should without knowing it be lending their aid to the common enemy, and making themselves in effect accom- plices in a conspiracy against the Lord and against his Christ. The Jac?obins of thU 148 country, I very much fear, are at this mo- ment making a tool of Methodism, just as the Illumines of Bavaria made a tool of Freemasonry ; whil^ the real Methodist, like the real Freemason, is kept in utter ignorance of the wicked enterprise the counterfeit has in hand. What measures it may become the wis- dom of the Legislature to adopt to stop the progress of this growing evil, is a point upon which I shall not touch in this as- sembly. The question, my brethren, for your consideration, is what assistance the Church of God has a right to expect from you. Much she has a right to expect ; for much may be done by you in your proper character (a character of great public utility and of high dignity when it is well sus- tained) of parish-priests. Upon this I mean to offer my advice ; and if I have succeeded in the attempt to impress upon 149 your minds a sense of the present danger, you will take in good part the word of ex- hortation. I might deliver all that I wish to say with great brevity, if I were to address every one of you in the words of St Paul to Timothy : " Meditate upon these things," — the things of which the apostle had dis- coursed, the corruptions of false teach- ers in the latter ages, the very things of which we have been now discoursing, and the truths of Christianity as opposed to them : " Meditg,te upon these things. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them ; for in doing this, thou shalt save thyself and them that hear thee." * But it may be not unprofitable to open the particulars of this comprehen- sive admonition ; as the conduct it enjoins 1 Timothy, iv. 15, 16, 150 will ever be the most effectual opposition which the holy ministrj can make to the attacks of their enemies open or dis- guised. The first part of the injunction, " Take heed unto thyself," is fulfilled in the fun- damental part by those who never suffer themselves to lose sight of the great work to which the Holy Ghost has called them, and who devote the far greater proportion of their leisure hours to useful study and de- vout meditation. By the leisure hours of a clergyman, I understand all that portion of his time which is not taken up with his public functions. I am not at all aware that it is the duty of a clergyman to as- sume such an austerity of character as would entirely exclude him from general society : A different conduct seems to be recommended by the example of our Lord j who, while he went about doing good, re- 151 fused not to eat with publicans and sin- ners ; I rather think that the duty of a clergyman cannot be performed without something of a familiarity with his flock in particular, and with the world in ge- neral : Nevertheless, it is always dan- gerous to religion when the manners of the clergy become too much secularized. This will always lower the order in the eyes of the people, and lessen their ge- neral reverence for the offices of religion. This, however, will not happen when the private hours of the clergy, the younger clergy in particular, are devoted, as tiiey ought to be, to useful studies. The stu- dious clergyman will not be shy of being seen in public : He will freely come abroad for recreation ; he will make himself agree- able in the company with which it becomes him to associate ; and will not scruple to take a part in their amusements ; But 152 he will neither have leisure nor inclina- tion to run the eternal round of giddy pleasure, as if diversion were the business of his life, and his professional business only his diversion. On the contrar}^ a mind habitually intent upon the gravest subjects, and a thirst for the highest knowledge, will discover itself in the dignified sobriety even of his relaxations ; which will impress his familiar friends and companions with re- spect, and the profane with awe ; while the latter, however they may delight in the company, and pretend to applaud what they call the free and easy manners, will in their hearts despise, and not seldom to his face make a jest of, the jovial gay Anacreon, in the formalities of a gown and cassock. The admonition of " taking heed to yourselves" relates not, however, solely to your private pursuits, or to the manner of your ordinary conversation with the world 153 at large : It extends also to your deport- ment in your intercourse with your parish- ioners individually in your spiritual capa- city ; which ought to be such as to ma- nifest a real conscientious concern for their everlasting interests. This will best be done by a cheerful unwearied assiduity in the charitable office of visiting the dying and the sick ; and by taking advantage of the opportunities which those seasons of af- fliction afford, of administering wholesome advice, not only to the sick themselves, but to their friends and relations. Upon these occasions, you will not think it enough to repeat the prayers at the bed-side which the Church has provided, but you will make inquiry into the actual state of the sick person's soul; that you may administer such advice or consolation as his case may demand, and give him all the assistance your external ministry can give in making 154 his peace with God. Nothing will so much attach your parishioners to you, in preference to all intruders, as a conscien- tious attendance upon this duty. You must not excuse yourselves from the trouble of it, upon a pretence that religion being a business to be attended to in health, your utmost services will come too late upon the death-bed to be of any real be- nefit. You are not so little acquainted with human nature, my reverend breth- ren, as not to know that even the most re- ligious persons are apt, when death ap- proaches, to feel alarms and disquietudes, which the word of consolation delivered by God's appointed messengers may com- pose and relieve. But taking the worst case — the case of one who has led a very sinful life : To delay repentance to the last, is certainly most dangerous ; and men cannot be too earnestly warned of the 1^ danger ; but yet I cannot think we are warranted to say that repentance is never wrought upon a death-bed ; I am confi- dent we are warranted to say, that at what- ever period repentance is wrought, the soul is saved : It is our duty, therefore, to do all we can, — to persuade an early but to assist and encourage even a late repent- ance ; to set forth to the terrified soul the merit of Christ's blood ; to hold up to the eye of faith the crucified Redeemer ; to join our prayers to the sinner's tears ; and in the very worst cases, to cry aloud to Him that is mighty to save. Remember, breth- ren, that " God was in Christ reconciling sinners to himself ; and that he hath com- mitted to us the word and ministry of re- conciliation." The, care of the youth of your parish, is another matter that falls, in part at least, under this injunction of ** taking heed to 156 yourselves." Public catechising indeed be- longs rather to the liead of doctrine ; but there is a duty that you owe to the children of the poorer class, the due discharge of which is much for your own interest and your own credit, — the duty, I mean, of pro- viding as far as in you lieth for their godly education. For this purpose I would ad- vise, that you should by all means in your power promote the establishment of Sun- day-schools in your respective parishes, and take the trouble to superintend the management of them. A report has been circulated, by a mis- representation, I suppose, in the public prints, that in a debate in the House of Peers in which I had a considerable share, just at the close of the last session of Par- liament, I spoke with decided disappro- bation of all these institutions. The report is false : I spoke of them upon that occa- 157 sion, as I always have spoken, and always shall speak, as institutions that may be very beneficial or very pernicious, accord- ing as they are well or ill conducted, and according as they are placed in proper or improper hands. I said, that " schools of Jacobinical religion and Jacobinical poli- tics — that is to say, schools of Atheism and disloyalty — abound in this country ; schools, in the shape and disguise of cha- rity-schools and Sunday-schools, in which the minds of the children of the very low- est orders are enlightened — that is to say, taught to despise religion and the laws and all subordination." This I know to be the fact. But the proper antidote for the poison of the Jacobinical schools, will be schools for the children of the same class under the management of the paro- chial clergy. Sunday-schools, therefore, under your own inspection, I would ad- 158 vise you to encourage. But you must keep a vigilant eye over them. Leave nothing to the discretion of a master or a mistress ; Suffer no books to be introduced but such as have had your previous approbation ; and in the choice of expositions of the Church Catechism, which are almost the only books requisite in such schools, be- sides Psalters, Prayer-books, Testaments, and Bibles, — ^you would do well to fix on some of those which you will find upon the lists of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge ; upon which you will be sure to find none that are in any way exceptionable. Much of your conduct in the exercise oi your public functions, where it is not posi- tively ruled by the Rubric or the Canons, or wliere a relaxation of discipline leaves more, perhaps, than ought to be so left to Jhe conscience and discretion of the indi- 159 vidual, will come under the rule of " taking heed unto yourselves.'* It is not only in- cumbent upon you to perform the public offices with due solemnity and with fervour of devotion, but the performance should not be in scanty measure, as a toil to which the labourer reluctantly submits. Take care how you give the laity reason to sus- pect that you desire to make the most of your livings, and to do as little for it as you can. Nothing hath so much hurt the general interests of religion or the Esta- blished Church, as the lazy practice whicli of late years has gained ground in country parishes, of opening the church for divine service on one part only of the Lord's-day. The sectaries take great advantage of this ; and, what is much worse, the Devil also takes advantage of it : On that half of the day on which there is no admission at the parish-church, good inclinations carry the 160 more pious part of your parishioners to the conventicle; and the Devil invites those of anotlier cast to the alehouse. My reverend brethren, these are plain hints ; I beseech you to give them due consideration. I have good hope they may produce an effect which may prevent the necessity of those exertions of authority, which, if hints prove insufficient, must be used for the remedy of this crying sin and scandal. The festivals and fasts of the Church are, I fear not without some connivance of the clergy, gone much into oblivion and ne- glect. There can be no excuse for the neglect of the feast of our Lord's Nativity, and the stated fasts of Ash ^Vednesday and Good Friday, even in the smallest country parishes ; but in towns and the more po- pulous villages, the church ought certainly to be opened for worship on the forenoon 161 at least of every day in the Passion-week, of the Mondays and Tuesdays in the weeks of Easter and Whitsuntide, on the Epiphany, and on some if not all of the other festivals. Besides the restoration of the canonical service of the church twice every Lord's day, and once at least on many of the fes- tivals, I very much wish a more frequent celebration than I find in many places of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Four celebrations in the year are the very fewest that ought to be allowed in the very small- est parishes : It were to be wished that it were in all more frequent : I am confi- dent, that the oftener it is administered, the more numerous the communicants will be. But the frequency of the celebration will be of little use, unless your people are well instructed in the nature and use of this L 162 most holy and mysterious ordinance. If they are suffered to consider it as nothing more than a rite of simple commemora- tion of Christ's death — a mere external form of thanksgiving on the part of the receiver, they will never come to it with due reverence. You will instruct them, therefore, in the true nature of a sacrament, — that the sacraments are not only signs of grace, but means of the grace signified; the matter of the sacrament being, by Christ's appointment and the operation of the Holy Spirit, the vehicle of grace to the believer's soul. The Lord's Supper is in this sense a sacrament in the very highest import of the word ; for you will remem- ber, that the Church of England, although she rejects the doctrine of a literal transub- stantiation of the elements, which is taught in the Church of Rome, denies not, but ex- 163 plicitly maintains, that "the body and blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper," — though they are taken " after a spiritual manner;" and " the mean by which they are received is faith." It is with much satisfaction that I recommend to your perusal a work not long since pub- lished upon this sublime subject, by a learned divine of this diocese, under the title of " Considerations on the Nature and Efficacy of the Lord's Supper." I have re- quested the reverend author to reduce it to a form and size fit for general dispersion among the laity, which I mean to recom- mend. Meanwhile, it highly deserves the attention of the profession ; to whose parti- cular use it is perhaps better adapted in its present shape than in one more popular ; and it is no inconsiderable monument of the learning and piety of the writer. 164 Our meditations have insensibly, I think, made a transition from the topic of " take heed unto thyself," to the topic of " take heed unto the doctrine." The terms of this admonition are very remarkable, — " Take heed unto the doctrine," not " unto thy doctrine ;" although, by a typographical error, we read " thy" in many copies of our English Bible.* " Take heed unto * Tlie oldest edition, among those which I have inspec- ted, ill which this erratum appears, is the magnificent foh'o of Buck and Daniel, printed at Cambridge, in the year 1638. The text is correciiy given, "the," not "thy," in the black letter folio of 1611, in the Roman letter quarto of 1612, and in the black letter folio of 1617; — all from the excellent press of Robert Barker. The first of these three is the editio princep^ of the English Bible now in use ; and the second was the first impression in quarto. From the year 1638 to the middle of the ])ast century, editors seem to have fluctuated between the true and corrupt reading, without giving themselves the trouble to consult either the original Greek or the first editions of King James's English text; and the error prevailed, as appears from the annexed colla- tion, — which shows the reading, the year, the printer's name, size, and place, of many editions in that interval. 165 the (not thy) doctrine;" as if the apostle studiously avoided a form of expression ,which might seem to imply that even St THE 1648. Daniel. 12mo. Cam- bridge. 1658. Field. 24mo. London. 1756. Thomas Baskett. 4to. Oxford. THY 1638. Buck and Daniel. Fo- lio. Cambridge. 1657. Field. 8vo. Cambridge. 1660. Field. Folio. Cam- bridge. 1660. Hill and Field. 8vo. London. 1663. Field. 4to. Cambridge. 1666. Field. 4-to. Cambridge. 1679. The Theatre. 4to. Ox- ford. 1701 Folio. Lon- don. 1722. Folio. Edin- burgh. 1762. Bentham. 4to. Cam- bridge. 1767. Mark Baskett. 12mo. London. 166 Timothy had any doctrine to dehver of his own. He is enjoined to take heed to the doctrine^ — i. e. to the doctrine dehvered by the inspired apostles, and by the authority of the church committed to St Timothy. And this, my brethren, must be your rule : You have no authority to preach any new- fangled opinions of your own, or to adopt those of any uninspired self-commissioned teachers ; you must stick close to the doc- Since the year 1756, the true reading seems to have maintained its ground in the Oxford and the best of the London Bibles. Whether Thomas Baskett, in 1756, was the restorer of the text, I cannot tell, not having examined the whole series from 1638 downwards: But after 1756, I find the text correctly given in all the Oxford Bibles that I have examined (except a small octavo of Wright and Gill in 1776) ; particularly in the folio of Wright and Gill m 1770, the folio of the Clarendon Press in 1781, the quarto of Wright and Gill in 1777, a duodecimo of the Clarendon Press in 1782, an octavo of the Clareni'on Press in 1788. I find the text correct also in the London folio of Eyre and Strahan in 1772, and in the octavo of the same printers without date of the year. 167 trine^ to the form of sound words original- ly delivered to the saints ; you are to lay open the wonderful scheme of man's re- demption ; you are to lay it open in its en- tireness ; you are to set it forth faithfully and exactly, as it is exhibited in the holy Scriptures, — and, upon the authority of the Scriptures, in their plain, natural, unsophis- ticated meaning, in the Offices, the Thirty- nine Articles, and the Homilies of the Church of England. This doctrine will always find its way to the hearts of those that shall be saved, and bear down all op- position internal or external of the carnal man. But if, instead of thus preaching Christ, you are content to preach only So- crates or Seneca, — if, instead of the ever- lasting gospel of the living God, you preach some extract only of your own, accommo- dated, by a bold retrenchment of mysteries, to the blindness and the pride of human rea- 168 son, — depend upon it, animated enthusiasm will be an overmatch for dry frigid ethics; superstition will be an overmatch for all such mutilated gospels ; and crafty Atheism, taking advantage of the extravagance of the first, the insipidity of the second, the enormities of the thu'd, and of the rash concessions of half-believers, will make an easy conquest of them all. In delivering the great mysterious truths of the gospel, — and I repeat it, the whole gospel, with all its mysteries, must be preached in all con- gregations, — I would advise you to use in general not an argumentative but a plain didactic style : " Teach with authority, not as the Scribes :" Upon the momentous doc- trines of man's corruption — of Christ's atonement — the gratuitous acceptance of man's imperfect works in regard to Christ's merits — of the justification of man — of good works, always adhering strictly, as I have 169 before said, to the Scriptures, the Thirty- nine Articles, and the Homilies. I would entreat you of all things to avoid contro- versial argument in the pulpit upon what are called the Calvinistic points, — the dark subject of predestination and election, I mean, and the subordinate questions. Dif- ferences of opinion upon these subjects have subsisted among the best Christians from the beginning ; and will subsist, I am persuaded, to the end. They seem to me to arise almost of necessity from the inar bility of the human mind to reconcile the doctrine of a Providence irresistibly ruling all events, with the responsibility of man as a moral agent ; and persons equally zeal- ous for God's glory have taken different sides of the question, according as their minds liave been more forcibly impressed with awful notions of God's right of sove- reignty on the one hand, or of his justice 170 on the other. But in certain leading prin- ciples, Lutherans, Calvinists, Arminians, and we of the Church of England, are all, I trust, agreed. W e are agreed in the fun- damental doctrine of the Trinity ; all be- lieving in the united operation of the Three Persons in their distinct offices in the ac- complishment of man's redemption : We are all agreed that the foreknowledge of God is, like himself, from all eternity and absolute ; that his providence is universal, controlling not only all the motions of matter but all the thoughts and actions of intelligent beings of all orders ; that, nevertheless, man has that degree of free- agency which makes him justly respon- sible ; that his sins certainly are his own ; and that " without holiness no man shall see God." While we agree in these principles, I cannot see to what purpose, we agitate endless disputes upon dark (I had almost 171 said presumptuous) questions, about the order of the Divine decrees (as if there could be any order of time in the eternal energies of the Divine mind), and about the manner of the communion between the Spirit of God and the soul of the believer. When, by assiduity in your public and private ministry — by the purity of your lives and the soundness of your doctrine, you have gained the good-will and esteem of your parishioners, they will be ready to give you their attention upon a subject upon which the people of this country in general much want good teaching, — I mean the nature of the church, the necessity of church communion, and the danger of schism. Upon these points, I know no- thing so well calculated for general edifica- t-ion as a tract entitled " An Essay on the Church," by the late Reverend William Jones, sometime of Pluckley in this coun- 172 ty, but last of Najland in Suffolk. It has lately been republished in a small size and at a cheap rate, by tlie Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge: of which the author had been many years a most use- ful member. Of that faithful servant of God, I can speak, both from personal knowledge and from his writings. He was a man of quick penetration, of extensive learning, and the soundest piety ; and he had beyond any other man I ever knew the talent of writing upon the deepest sub- jects to the plainest understandings. He is gone to his rest ; and his works, we trust, follow him. His " Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity," and this " Essay on the Church," cannot have too wide a circulation. When you find occasion — which should be often — to preach, or to write, or to talk, upon this duty of living in the communion of the church, never make it an occasion 173 of bringing up the controversy, which is always better avoided, upon points of doc- trine with the Calvinists ; except so far as to show tliat a difference of opinion upon what are called the Calvinistic points is no sort of reason for a separation of commu- nions. I confess, I cannot understand upon what principle our brethren of the Calvinistic persuasion should demand of us, that we should adopt either the Resolu- tions of the Synod of Dort, or what are called the Lambeth Articles, as the ne- cessary exposition of the Articles of our Church ; but I as little understand upon what principle our Arminian brethren should insist that we should set forth their opinions, as if they were asserted in our Articles, in their true and plain meaning, in condemnation of the Calvinistic. I know not what hinders but that the highest Su- pralapsarian Calvinist may be as good a 174 churchman as an Arminian ; and if the Church of England in her moderation opens her arms to both, neither can with a very good grace desire that the other should be excluded. This I know, that the points of doctrine in dispute between the Arminians and the Calvinists have so little to do with the points of dis- cipline in dispute between churchmen and schismatics, that the opinions of St Austin, which are the basis of Calvinism, have had their strenuous assertors in the Church of Rome itself; — indeed, for a longtime they were the prevailing opinions of the Latin Church. Among us, Archbishop Laud was an Arminian ; as since his time many other good servants of God, bright orna- ments and luminaries of our Church, have been. But if we would look for warm ad- vocates of church-authority in general, and for able writers in defence of our own form 175 of church-government in particular, such we shall find among those divines of our Church who were called in their day the Doctrinal Calvinists. I must however declare, that when I speak of Calvinism and Arminianism as capable of uniting in one communion, and that one the communion of the Church of England, I look only to Calvinism such as the venerable Calvin would himself have owned, not enriched and embellished with the extravagancies of later visionaries ; and I look to Arminianism such as the pious Arminius would have owned, not fouled and tainted with loathsome admixtures of the Arian and Pelagian heresies. My reverend brethren, my discourse with you has run to so great a length, that I must now somewhat abruptly close it. You may think it strange that I have not touch- ed at all upon a duty which I hold indeed 176 to be of the very first importance, — the re- sidence of tlie beneficed clergy upon their livings. The truth is, that in all that I have said I have supposed your residence. I know not how to talk with a clergyrnan about any part of his duty, without assu- ming residence as a prerequisite; or without assuming, at least, that, in particular cases in which non-residence may be allowable, as in some it certainly is, the absent incum- bent is represented in every part of his cha- racter by an adequate substitute, without abatement of an iota of the full duty of the resident parochial priest. The hypothesis, I know, fails me in too many instances. If the high inexpediency of non-residence is not suggested to your own minds, by the detail I have set before you of the particu- lars of your duty, I know not by what words of mine I could hope to turn your atten- tion to the subject. All that I shall at- 177 tempt to say is this, — that it will be highly to the credit of the clergy, if the timely re- formation of so serious an evil should ap- pear to come from themselves, without any exercise of a compulsive authority, eccle- siastical or secular. The evil is grown to that gigantic size that a remedy in one way or another can be at no great distance ; and if persuasion prove ineffectual, or take not indeed a very speedy effect, other measures must be taken and other remedies pro- vided. But of that in another place. M CHARGE or SAMUEL, LORD BISHOP OF ST ASAPH, TO THE CLERGY OF HIS DIOCESE ; DELIVERED AT HIS PRIMARY VISITATION, IN THE MONTH OF AUGUST 1806. HY REVEREND BRETHREN, From the answers you have returned to tlie articles of inquiry addressed to you, though in many instances not so distinct and particular as I expect- ed (a circumstance which will occasion some trouble to the clergy themselves, and to me ; for I shall think it my duty to re- peat my inquiries in all cases where the questions have not been answered to my satisfaction), yet from the information I have received from you, it gives me plea- 179 sure to say, that I have reason to think well upon the whole of the state of my diocese with respect to the discharge of parochial duties. It affords but few in- stances (I wish I could say it afforded none; but it certainly affords but few) of culpable non-residence; and with respect to the public service of the church, I am willing to flatter myself, that it is less in this than ir^ many other parts of the kingdom ne- glected or curtailed. I must mention, however, one irregu- larity which prevails to a very great extent, and must be remedied. I speak of the great number of clergymen who are offi- ciating as curates in all parts of the diocese without a licence. This is a very high of- fence against ecclesiastical discipline ; the continuance of which, I think it neces- sary to declare, I shall not endure. Even a resident incumbent has no right to intro- 180 duce any one to exercise the sacred func- tions in his parish, under the character ol' an assistant, without the authority of the bishop. It will open the door to the great- est enormities, if it be left to every incum- bent to retain any assistant he thinks fit, without bringing him before the bishop to make the proper inquiry into the regulari- ty of his orders, the godliness of his life and conduct, and his ability to instruct the people ; and to give him authority to ex- ercise his ministry in the parish, if he ap- pears to be qualified for it. But the enor- mity is much greater, when a non-resident incumbent abandons the whole of his duty — the care and government of the souls of his parishioners, to a person unapproved by the bishop, and unknown to him, not bound by any oath of canonical obedience, nor by any declaration of conformity to the liturgy of the united Church of England and Ire- 181 land, nor otherwise amenable to the ec- clesiastical jurisdiction but for offences of that enormity for which he would be ame- nable to the secular tribunals. I think it my duty to apply myself immediately to the reformation of these flagrant abuses ; and for that purpose, I require every person officiating as a curate in any part of my diocese, without farther notice or requisi- tion than that which I now give, on or be- fore the 1st day of the month of October next ensuing, to go before the rural dean of the district in which the parish or chapelry in which he serves is situated, and to exhibit to the said rural dean his letters of orders, a testimonium signed by three clergymen of his godly, life and con- versation, and his nomination to the cure by the incumbent of the living. These particulars I expect the rural dean to re- port to me ; and if I see reason to be satis- 182 fied with that report, I shall authorize the rural dean to receive the declarations, wit- ness the subscriptions, and administer the oaths by law required to be made and taken, and in my name to license him to the cure. And if any person shall presume to officiate as a curate, in any part of my dio- cese, after the 1st of October, without having obtained my licence, or without having gone before the rural dean in or- der to obtain it, I shall institute a process in my court against every person so offend- ing. I am confident, my reverend brethren, that I shall meet with no unwillingness on your part to submit to so ancient and so essential a part of the discipline of the church ; which, though ancient, is by no means obsolete, and is of the first impor- tance to the interests of religion and the credit of the order. But if in any case a 183 plea should be set up on the part of the curate, that the incumbent will not grant him a nomination in order to his being li- censed, my remedy in the case of a resi- dent incumbent will still be against the curate. That the incumbent refuses him a nomination, will be no excuse in law for his officiating without a license : He will only appear in court as a person acting in defiance both of the incumbent and of the bishop ; doing that, without so much as the authority of a nomination, which, under the authority of a nomination, he could not legally do without a farther authority of a far superior kind. The fault perhaps in such a case may be in the incumbent ; and he will suffer for it, if the assistance of a curate be necessary to him, as he will find that he must go without it; for I shall proceed against the curate till I compel him to desist from officiating. 184 In the case of a non-resident incumbent who should refuse to nominate a curate, the remedy would be much more simple and direct. In such a case, I should not hesitate to avail myself, to the utmost ex- tent, of the large and summary authority with which I am invested by the 36th of the King, chap. 83, commonly known by the name of the Curates Act ; — by which I am impowered to nominate a curate for any non-resident incumbent who refuses to nominate a curate for himself ; and to appoint to that curate such a stipend with- in a certain limit, as, regard being had to the value of the living and the greatness of the cure, I may think fit. This is what I can do, and will do, if the occasion for it should arise ; but I am persuaded, the good sense and the orderly dispositions of the clergy over whom I have the happiness and honour to preside, will supersede the 185 necessity of any such exertions of autho- rity. With respect to the stipend, a sti- pend must be offered in the nomination, and assigned in the hcence : A Hcence without a stipend assigned is a nullity. But between resident incumbents and their curates, I shall interfere but little in the matter of stipend ; leaving them to settle the quantum of it by agreement between themselves. In the case of non-resident incumbents, it will be my duty to take care that the hire of the labourer is duly pro- portioned to his service : But in this case I shall interfere no farther than the inte- rests of religion and the credit of the order may seem in every particular case to de- mand. And here again I cherish a confi- dent hope, that the liberality of the bene- ficed clergy will leave little occasion for the interposition of my authority. 186 I am aware, that many of the beneficed clergy have entertained an apprehension that a curate once licensed is not easily re- movable, — that he is so fastened upon the incumbent, that the incumbent has no longer the command over him ; and this has given rise to the irregular practice of retaining unlicensed curates. And it is very true, that a licensed curate is not to be removed at the mere will and pleasure of the incumbent : An incumbent is not to dismiss his curate with as little ceremo- ny as he might turn away his menial ser- vant, at a month's warning or with a month's wases. Nor ought this to be : It would be a lowering of the order in the eyes of the laity, if a clergyman could be so dis- missed ; and this sort of mastership over him the incumbent ought not to hold, for the relation is not that of master and ser- vant, but of fellow-labourers ; and it is for 187 the interest of the incumbent himself, — for whatever is for the dignity of the order is for the interest of every individual belong- ing to it, — it is for the interest of the in- cumbent to uphold the rank of the curate in the eyes of his parishioners, and to set him forth to them as his own equal ; as in^ deed in clerical rank he is ; for in the church, one priest is upon an even footing with another, whatever may be the dispa^ rity of worldly circumstances. A clergy- man therefore ought not to be removed from his cure, and cannot lawfully be re- moved from it, but by the same authority which placed him in it : But where a rea- sonable cause can be assigned for his re- moval, it cannot be supposed that the bi- shop would refuse to remove him. It is true, that licences were formerly granted in such terms as not to be revoca- ble by the bishop in a summary way, with- 188 out a process in the consistory court ; which often was productive of trouble and ex- pense : But this error has been long under- stood, and the practice has been altered ; no bishop now grants a licence but in such terms as to be revocable at any time by himself at pleasure. Some thirty years since, or more, a great alarm was sgread among the beneficed clergy, by the deci- sion in the case of JNIartin against the Rec- tor of St Ann's, who failed in an attempt to displace his curate; and such was the curate's triumph, that the rector found it necessary to the quiet of the sequel of his life to make an exchange of his prefer- ments. A report immediately went abroad, and obtained general credit, that the cu- rate, by virtue of a licence, had been main- tained in the possession of his curacy in defiance of both the incumbent and the bishop. This report was groundless ; and 189 the whole alarm was owing to a misappre- hension of the case. The fact was, that jNlartin had no hcence at the time of the suit, and never had been licensed ; and this very circumstance, that the curate was not licensed, was the thing which occasioned the rector's miscarriage : The cause was tried before the great Lord iNlansfield ; and in giving judgment, Lord Mansfield said, that if the curate had been duly Hcensed by the bishop of the diocese, he shouJd have dis- missed the suit, and referred it to the ec- clesiastical court, in which alone a licence would have been cognizable. But there was no licence, but a mere contract between the rector and the curate. Of such con- tract the ecclesiastical court had no cog- nizance ; it could be tried only in the secular courts, and must be tried upon the same principles as any other mere civil contract. The true inference, therefore. 190 from this case, is, — that the incumbent's best security against a litigious disposition in his curate, is that the curate should be licensed by the bishop. If the curate is not licensed, but a written agreement has passed between the incumbent and his cu- rate, the curate may sue the incumbent in the courts of law upon the terms of that agreement. If there is neither licence nor written agreement, the curate, upon a dif- ference with the incumbent, may still re- sort to a court of law to have his pay for the service done assigned by a jury, upon the principle of quantum ineruit. But the bishop's licence takes the matter wholly out of the hands of the secular courts. The bishop himself is to judge between in- cumbent and curate ; with appeal, indeed, in some cases, to the archbishop of the pro- vince, but without any interference of the secular courts. 191 But, to make an end of this subject, the law is clear and explicit : To officiate as a clergyman in any diocese without the au- thority of the bishop, is a high offence against ecclesiastical order ; it is contrary to the most ancient constitutions, forming what may be called the common law of the church ; and it is contrary to the explicit injunctions of the canons of the Church of England. The practice is pregnant with so much mischief and disorder, that I am determined to put an end to it, as far as my authority extends ; and any one who after the 1st of October shall continue to officiate without a licence, or without re- sorting to the rural dean in order to obtain one, in the manner I have enjoined, — I am persuaded I shall not have to encounter any such contumacious spirit ; but any one (if such a one should be) who will persist 192 in this irregular unlawful practice, at his peril will persist in it. Having thus opened my mind to you, my reverend brethren, upon what I per- suade myself is the only gross irregularity Avhich is generally prevalent in this dio- cese, I shall now proceed to animadvert upon a point of misconduct for which I am at a loss to find a name. It is not pe- culiar to this diocese ; but is to be found, I fear, among the clergy in all parts of the kingdom : It amounts not certainly to crime, — it is nothing worse than mere in- advertence ; but of such a sort as may ex- pose those who are guilty of it to very serious consequences, of which they are not at all aware. I speak of a general in- attention among the clergy to tlie various statutes which have been passed at different periods of our history for regulating many 193 of the offices of the church. It seems to me, that the clergy take no more pains to acquire a knowledge of those statutes, than if they were aS little concerned in them as in the laws respecting the collection of the customs or the excise ; though, for want of that knowledge, they will often be apt to violate them unawares, and, without guilt in the intention, expose themselves to the heaviest penalties. In the beginnings of Christianity, the church, in her first state of persecution, was independent of the state, and governed by herself. After the establishment of Chris- tianity in the Roman empire by Constan- tine the Great, the laws which we find in the imperial code relating to the church are chiefly such as establish the rights and immunities of the clergy and the monastic orders. And so it was among ourselves in the earlier periods of our history. But N 1^4 upon the Reformation, when the king took upon himself — what indeed of right belongs to the kingly office — to be the head of the ecclesiastical establishment of the nation, a necessity arose for the frequent interference of Parliament to regulate even the public offices of religion; which, in many points, would have been otherwise governed by no law at all, when the usurp- ed authority of the Pope was renounced. And I need not tell you, my reverend brethren, that so much now are we under statute law, that the Common Prayer Book itself is nothing but a long act of Pai^ia- ment. All the Rubrics are clauses in that statute : But these, in some points of great importance, have been changed by statutes of a much later date than the latest of the acts of uniformity ; and hence arises the danger to those of the clergy who are con- tented to remain in ignorance of the laws f95 which immediately concern themselves. They think they are safe while they follow the Rubric ; but in points in which the en- actments of the Rubric have been altered by later statutes, by that very obedience to the old law of the Rubric, they violate the law as it now stands, and incur penal- ties. I have been much astonished to disco- ver how much the provisions of so import- ant a statute as the 26th George II. chap- ter 33, entitled " An act for the better preventing of clandestine marriages," and known, where it is known at all, by the name of the Marriage Act, are gone into neglect and oblivion. It is some years since, that in a parish-church in a great town not very many miles from the metropolis, and within a stone's- throw al- most of a bishop's palace, to my great sur- prise, I heard banns of marriage published 196 bjthe officiating clergyman at the altar after the Nicene Creed. The clergyman, I dare say, had no notion he was doing wrong ; — he followed the Rubric : But the direction of the Rubric in that particular has been al- tered by the Marriage Act ; which directs that banns of marriage shall be published immediately after the Second Lesson ; — and it seems to me very doubtful, whether a publication after the Nicene Creed be, as the law now stands, any publication at all ; and whether a marriage had under such irregular publication be a good and valid marriage. How those questions might be determined in a court of law, if in any case they w-ere to be brought under the consi- deration of a court, I will not take upon me to say j but upon the supposition that the determination were to be the most favourable, — that the marriage were allow- ed to stand good, and the clergyman were 197 not to incur the penalties of an illegal so- lemnization of marriage, — you are not to imagine that the practice, which I have reason to fear is become too frequent, may be persisted in with impunity, the act hav- ing provided no specific penalties for this offence if the great penalties of the eighth section of the act attach not upon it. An act of Parliament is never with more danger made free with than when it does not en- act its own penalties. If an act says such an offence shall be so punished, then the punishment is certain and limited ; no other and no greater punishment than that appointed by the act can be applied : But if an act of Parliament creates an offence without assigning the particular punish- ment that shall follow it, the punishment in that case is uncertain and indefinite; for the violation of an act of Parliament, by doing what it forbids, or not doing what it 198 enjoins, or not doing it in the manner in which it enjoins it to be done, — the viola- tion of an act of Parliament in any of these ways is an offence at common law : It is in- dictable at common law as a misdemeanour; and punishable as a misdemeanour, upon conviction, at the discretion of the judge, if the act itself has not appointed the punishment. The clergy in future will be less excusable than hitherto they have been, if they persist in this irregularity in the publication of banns. The Rubric prefix- ed to the marriage-service has been alter- ed in the latest editions of the Common Prayer Book — at least in the latest Oxford editions, and made conformable with the Marriage Act. Tn all parishes where divine service is usually performed, or in part only perform- ed, in the English language, the rural deans should immediately take order, that the 199 English Common Prayer Book of any edi- tion anterior to this correction be forth- with removed from the reading-desk and the akar, and books of the later editions procured instead of the old ones. In another point, the provisions of the Marriage Act are too little regarded. By that statute, a marriage cannot lawfully h& solemnized but in the church or chapel of the parish or chapelry where both or one at least of the parties have been inhabi- tants during the publication of tlie banns j or, in case of marriage by a licence, for a whole month next before the a-rantinff of the licence : And to prevent any imposi- tion upon the minister of the parish or chapelry in the case of banns, he is autho- rized to refuse to publish banns without a previo-us notice of seven days. The inten- tion was, to give him time to inquire into the truth of the allegation of the residence 200 of either party in his parish or his cha- pelry. This inquiry it is his duty to make ; and he is expected to make it : But there is much reason to fear that it is too often neglected ; and the consequence is, that in populous towns, parties are often married contrary to the statute, where they are perfect strangers, where neither of them has been an inhabitant of the parish for a single day. I have been informed, upon unquestionable authority, that this practice prevails to a shameful extent in two very considerable cities on the confines of this northern part of the principality. I hope the contagion of the infamous example will not spread into my diocese. If the dan- ger could be supposed to exist, it might be a means of preventing it, to apprize you, that the curates of some large parishes in the vicinity of the metropolis have been very harshly reprimanded in the high Court 201 of Chancery, and have very narrowly esca- ped commitment, for nothing worse than this neglect ; for in them, I am persua- ded, it was neglect — perhaps less, ignorance —of the statute. But if in any case there should appear any thing of connivance on the^art of the clergyman for the sake of his own gain, I know not to what severity of punishment the secular courts might not think proper to proceed ; and I should think it my duty, upon proof of the fact, to suspend the offending clergyman : For you will observe, that this is an offence in the court Christian, as well as in the temporal courts; and all the penalties of the Mar- riage Act are in addition to the ecclesiasti- cal penalties ; and the Marriage Act, in all points in which it has not altered the Ru- brics and the Canons, confirms them ; and the punishment of this offence, by the sixty-second canon, is suspension. 202 By the eighth section of the JV^jirriage Act, " no marriage can be lawfully solem- nized, unless by virtue of special licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury, in any other place than a church or chapel, in which banns had been usually published antecedently to the passing of that act ; and all marriages solemnized after Lady- day 1754 in any other place than a church or such public chapel, unless by virtue of such licence, are made null and void to all intents and purposes wliatsoever : And any person who, after the said 25th day of March 1754, should solemnize matrimony in any other place than a church or such public chapel, unless under the authority of such special licence, is to be deemed and adjudged to be guilty of felony ; and is to be transported for fourteen years, accord- ing to the laws in force for the transporta- tion of felons." 203 Now it is a notorious fact, that many churches and chapels have been erected and consecrated since the time when this Marriage Act was passed ; and in such cha- pels there could have been no usage of publication of banns anterior to the Mar- riage Act, which was itself anterior to their existence ; and yet in many of these cha- pels, the officiating clergy have perpetually solemnized matrimony, not aware that they were doing any thing unlawful. A short time before I was removed from the see of St David's, it came to my know- ledge, that in a very considerable town in that diocese, the irregularity of marrying in a chapel in which, though indeed it was an ancient chapel, banns never in any one instance had been published, had gone to Siuch an extent, that there was hardly a couple in the town who, while they con- ceived themselves to be man and wife^ 204 were not actually living in the eye of the law in concubinage ; nor a child in any fa- mily born in lawful wedlock ; nor a clergy- man in the place, though the clergymen in the place were highly respectable, who had not, not once or twice, but repeatedly for many years of his life, been committing acts of felony. Soon after my translation to this see, I dis- covered that the like irregularity had been going on here. The chapel of Voelas is a public chapel duly consecrated, in the dis- trict of Tir Abbot, in the parish of Lla- nufydd in Denbighshire ; but the first erection of it was of later date by many years than the passing of the Marriage Act ; consequently there had been no usage of the publication of banns in that chapel anterior to the Marriage Act : Yet, from the time of its consecration, the perpetual cnrate went on solemnizing matrimony ijj §05 the chapel, with as little apprehension of his own danger, or the nullity of the mar- riages so solemnized, as if it had been a parish-church. However, my reverend brethren, you may put your minds at ease ; and the par- ties so unlawfully married may put their minds at ease, — if it may give ease to your minds, to know that all that is past is par- doned and obliterated ; and to theirs, to know that the knot so loosely tied at first is now drawn tight and hard and made in- dissoluble, and that the legitimacy of their olfspring is secured. In the spring of the year 1804, 1 carried two bills through Parliament : The one is a general act, the 77th chapter of the 44th of the King, entitled " Ar^ act to render valid certain marriages solemnized in cer- tain churches and public cliapels in which banns had not usually been published be- 206 fore or at the time of passing an act made in the 26th year of the reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, entitled " An act for the better preventing clandes- tine marriages." The other specially re- lates to the chapel of Voelas : It is the 88th chapter of those acts of the same year of the King which are local and personal, but to be judicially noticed. It is entitled " An act for enabling the officiating mini- ster for the time being of the chapel of Voelas, in the county of Denbigh, to pub- lish banns and solemnize marriages in the said chapel." By the former, tlie public act, all mar- riages solemnized in public chapels in which banns had not usually been publish- ed, without any other deviation from the provisions of the Marriage Act, before the 25th day of March 1805, are made good and valid ; and the clergymen who so so- 207 lemnized them are indemnified against the penalties of the Marriage Act ; and the re- gisters of such marriages are made good and lawful evidence in all courts of law and equity. But it is farther enacted, " that the registers of all such marriages as here- by are made to be valid in law, shall, within fourteen days next after the said 25th day of March 1805, be removed to the parish- church of the parish in which such chapel shall be situate ; or, in the case of a chapel extra-parochially situate, then to the pa- rish-church next adjoining to such extra- parochial place." I hope the provisions of this statute have been attended to ; and you will take especial notice, that the benefit of this sta- tute comes down only to the 25th of March 1805. If since that day any marriages have been or shall be solemnized in cha- pels in which banns had not been usually 208 published bteforq the passirig of the act of the 26th of George the Second, all such marriages are still null and void, as thej would have been if this act of mine never had been passed ; the clergymen so solem- nizing them are not indemnified ; and the registers are not evidence in any court of law or equity. - By the other, the local statute, the cu- rate of the chapel of Voelas, in the district of Tir Abbot, in the parish of Llanufydd in Denbighshire, but of that chapel only, is impowered, from and after the 25th day of March 1805, to publish banns of marriage in the said chapel, between persons residing, or one of them residing, in the district of Tir Abbot ; and to solemnize marriages in the said chapel, according to the form con- tained in the Book of ComnM)n Prayer, in pursuance of such banns, or by licence law- fully granted J and to continue to keep a 209 register of such marriages according to the form required by law. All marriages so solemnized in the said chapel, and duly registered, are made good and valid in law; and the register is made evidence in all courts of law and equity. It seemed expedient to the patron of the chapel, to the rector of Llanufydd, and to myself, that this privilege of marrying should be granted to the chapel of Voelas on account of the immoderate distance of the district of Tir Abbot from the mother- church. Upon that ground, upon my mo- tion, and with their consent, this act was passed. But you will remember, that this act applies to the chapel of Voelas only ; and the curate of any other chapel, cir- cumstanced like that of Voelas, is not to imagine that he is at liberty to do in that other chapel what the curate of Voelas lawfully does in his. o 210 The instances I have alleged (and many more might be added) are sufficient to show of what importance it is to the parochial clergy to acquire some knowledge of the laws which relate to their ministration in the public offices of the church. But, I may be asked, how are the clergy to acquire this knowledge, of so much im- portance to them ? The law, even the first principles of the law, unfortunately make no part of the education of persons intended for holy orders, even of those who are the best educated ; and if it did, these , laws lie scattered all over the statute-book, mixed with the general mass of the statute law upon all sorts of subjects ; and the sta- tutes at large are far above the purchase of the greater part of the parochial clergy, even if the house upon the living be large enough to contain the volumes, which is not the case of every Welsh vicarage* 211 8ome of tlie beneficed clergy indeed are put into the commission of the peace; and thej have an opportunity of acquiring what little smattering of the law they may derive from occasionally consulting " Burn's Jus- tice" and " Burn's Ecclesiastical Law," elu- cidated to them by the wise comments of the village attorney, and by conferences with their brother justices at the quarter- sessions. But, with the exception of these distinguished few, how is the parish-priest to attain to a knowledge of the secular laws framed for the regulation of the ministry, beyond what he finds in the Rubric, till unfortunately he becomes the victim of their penalties, — especially, considering the number of new laws that are passing every day? In another place, I should take upon me to say that this well deserves the attention of the Legislature ; and should be a hint to 212 them to be less prompt than of late they have shown a disposition to be, to meddle in matters purely ecclesiastical. But it is with great pleasure that I inform you, that the University of Oxford has lately done much to remedy the evil, and remove the difficulties the clergy lie under in this par- ticular. A book has been published by the University, under the title of " The Cler- gyman's Assistant," very moderate in size, and cheap in price ; it contains almost all the laws prescribing the clergyman's duty in the public offices of the church, with some others in which the clergy are much interested. I v»'ould advise every clergyman to possess himself without delay of this "Clergyman's Assistant;" a very useful assistant he will find it. In particular, I would request the rural deans to possess themselves of it, — that they may be able •with more ease to themselves to assist the 213 clergy of their respective districts with their advice. I have found so much to say upon these topics, which I conceive to be of great im- portance, that I have yet said nothing up- on a point that must deeply interest both you and me, — the present state of religion and of religious sects in this diocese. But I cannot permit this assembly to break up without more than a word or two upon that subject. It appears to me, by your returns, that Dissenters of any denomination, over and above so many of them as may be mixed with the Methodists, are not numerous. The Methodists are very numerous ; and, if I am rightly informed, their numbers have been for some years in these parts in- creasing. Under the general denomina- tion of Methodists, a great variety of per- sons, differing in many points from one 214 another, some Churchmen, some Dissent- ers of different denominations, but chief- ly, I believe. Anabaptists, are included ; a very large proportion of them pious, well- meaning people; and none of them, as far as I can understand, dissenters in doctrine from the Established Church. In doctrine, I say, they are not dissenters, however some of them may disapprove and many of them lightly regard her discipline. A- mong themselves, they were originally di- vided into two principal branches, dis- tinguished by a difference in their religious opinions, — the followers of Mr John Wes- ley, who were Arminians; and the followers of Mr George Whitfield, who were Cal- vinists. The distinction, I believe, still subsists though the leaders are gone ; and it is said, with what truth I pretend not to know, that the Arminian branch is lowered in its numbers since Mr Wesley's death, 215 many of them going over to the Calvinists. How the fact may be, I know not ; and I hold it of very little importance. Some few years since, there was much reason to apprehend a coalition between the Methodists and the Jacobins j the latter, in the depth of their hypocrisy, affecting a zeal for the religious opinions of the Methodists, in order to draw them over to their own political opinions. But, by the events of the times, and the good sense of the people of Great Britain, Jacobinism, thanks be to God, is extinguished in this country : The Methodists, with their fel- low subjects, are rescued from that delu- sion ; and are now, we hope, what the greater part of them in the lifetime of Mr John Wesley unquestionably were, well-r affected loyal subjects. It may seem strange to some, that I should have said,, that none of the Metho- 216 dists are dissenters from the Established Church in doctrine^ — ^when at the same time I have said, that they consist of two prin- cipal branches, the one Arminian, and the other Calvinistic ; since it has been the fashion of late to talk of Arminianism as the system of the Church of England, and of Calvinism as something opposite to it, to which the Church is hostile. That I may not be misunderstood in what I have said or may have occasion farther to say upon this subject, I must here declare, that I use the words Arminianism and Calvin- ism in that restricted sense in which they are now generally taken, — to denote the doctrinal part of each system, as unconnec- ted with the principles either of Arminians or Calvinists upon church discipline and church government. Tliis being premi- sed, I assert, what I often have before as- serted, and by God's grace I will persist 217 in the assertion to my dying-day, that so far is it from the truth that the Church of England is decidedly Arminian and hostile to Calvinism, that the truth is this, — that upon the principal points in dis- pute between the Arminians and the Cal- vinists — upon all the points of doctrine cha- racteristic of the two sects, the Church of England maintains an absolute neutrality ; her Articles explicitly assert nothing but what is believed both by Arminians and by Calvinists. The Calvinists indeed hold some opinions relative to the same points which the Church of England has not gone the length of asserting in her Articles ; but neither has she gone the length of ex- plicitly contradicting those opinions ; in- somuch, that there is nothing to hinder the Arminian and the highest Supralapsarian Calvinist from walking together in the Church of England and Ireland as friends 218 and brothers, if they both approve the discipline of the Church, and both are wil- ling to submit to it. Her discipline has been approved — it has been submitted to — it has been in former times most ably and zealously defended — by the highest Su- pralapsarian Calvinists. Such was the great Usher; such was Whitgift; such were many more,^ — ^burning and shining lights of our Church in her early days (when first she shook off the Papal tyranny), long- since gone to the resting-place of the spi- rits of the just! The Methodists, therefore, of the Cal- vinistic, are not, more than those of the Arminian persuasion, dissenters from the Established Church in doctrine. The Cal- vinists contradict not the avowed dogmata of the Church ; nor has the Church in her dogmata explicitly condemned or contra- dicted them. They have, therefore, no 219 ground or excuse in the opinions which they profess to hold for separation from the Church ; and Churchmen, on the other hand, would be mucli to blame, if by quar- relling with their doctrinal Calvinism they were to provoke them to a separation. Any one may hold all the theological opinions of Calvin, hard and extravagant as some of them may seem, and yet be a sound mem- ber of the Church of England and Ireland, — certainly a much sounder member tlian one who, loudly declaiming against those opinions (which, if they be erroneous, are not errors that affect the essence of our common faith), runs into all the nonsense, the impiety, the abominations, of the Arian, the Unitarian, and the Pelagian heresies j denying in effect " the Lord who bought him." These are the things against which you should whet your zeal, rather than against 220 opinions which, if erroneous, are not sin- ful. What the Church has tolerated, her sons are bound to tolerate ; and to treat dif- ferences of opinion, which may subsist with- out blame within the pale of the Church itself, with lenity and gentleness. Indeed it may seem strange, that any one who has gone deep enough in the subject to be aware of the doubts and difficulties which hang upon both sides of the ques- tion (it is hard to say on which side they are the greatest), whichsoever way his own opinion may incline, should venture to be confident and peremptory in the condem- nation of the opposite. Certainly the greatest fault of the Calvinists has been their want of charity for those who differ from them. It is to be hoped that this un- charitable spirit will not take possession of the other side ; but, as far as my observa- tion goes, moderation has not prevailed in 221 the controversies with the Methodists, in which some have been of late perhaps too forward to engage. It is said that the Methodists are un- remitting in their attempts to alienate the minds of the laity from their proper pas- tors, the*regular clergy. I fear there is too much truth in the accusation ; and this schismatical spirit, and this desire of pro- moting schism, I take to be their principal crime ; and a heavy crime indeed it is. But the effectual way to counteract these at- tempts, and to stifle schism in it§ very birth, is not to enter into controversy in the pul- pit upon abstruse points of doctrine, which have no sort of connexion with the ques- tion concerning the duty of church com- munion and the sinfulness of causeless se- paration. But the effectual and sure way to counteract their attempts against you, is not to attack their religious opinions, but 22^ to take heed to the soundness of jour own doctrine and the innocency of your own lives. If you preach a doctrine that goes to the hearts of your hearers (and the ge- nuine doctrines of Christianity will always go to the heart of every one who hears them), — if you adorn that doctri'ne by the good example of your ovrn lives, the laity will be attached to you in spite of all your enemies can say against you. The pure, unsophisticated, unmutilated doctrine of the gospel, will always speak for itself : If you really preach tliat doctrine, they who tell the people you preach it not will meet with no credit ; and what is more, many of those schismatics themselves w'lW be conciliated, — they will be cured of their schism, and brought to repent of it. This is the method of self-defence I would ad- vise you to pursue. To which I must add, that you ought, in your discourses from 225 the pulpit, to take frequent occasion to in„ struct the people in the origin, the nature, and the privileges, of that society which is called the Church ; and set forth to them how much it is the duty of every member of the Church to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, and the guilt that is incurred by separations of commu- nion. From controversy in your sermons upon what are called the Calvin istic points, I would by all means advise you to ab- stain : Believe me, they are not the proper subjects for the village pulpit. Mistake me not. It is not my meaning, that you are ne- ver to preach upon the subjects of faith and repentance — Christ's atonement — justifica- tion — grace — the new birth — good works, as the necessary fruits of that faith which justifies, and the symptoms of the believer's sanctification — of the merit of Christ's obe- dience, and the want of merit in our own : 224 Upon these subjects you cannot preach too often ; but handle them not controversi'ally, but dogmatically ; — lay down the doctrine categorically, without disputing about it ; taking care to stick close to the Bible, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Homilies : Let your proofs be texts of Scripture apply- ing immediately to the point in their first and obvious meaning, without the aid either of critical inference or metaphysical argu- ment. By this method and way of preach- ing, you will never bewilder either your- selves or your hearers ; and you will effec- tually secure the people against the errors of the Antinomians on the one hand and of the Pelagians on the other. The Cal- vinistic doctrine is too apt to degenerate into the one, and the Arminian into the other ; but true Calvinism and true Ar- minianism are guiltless of both. 225 I have long been persuaded, that the best thing for the Church would be, that the Calvin istic controversy, as it is called, should be suffered to go to sleep ; and the worst thing for the Church will be, if it is kept alive by being made the perpetual topic of preachers in common congrega- tions. It relates to points involved in so much obscurity — so far above the powers of the human mind, that the differences of opinions upon them among the very best Christians can never cease, because the difficulties never can be cleared up ; and the effect of the controversy will never be to reconcile the jarring opinions, but to dissolve brotherly love and disunite the members of Christ's body. But if ever you should be provoked to take a part in these disputes, of all things I entreat you to avoid, what is now become very com- mon, acrimonious abuse of Calvinism and r 226 of Calvin. Remember, I beseech you, that some tenderness is due to the errors and extravagancies of a man eminent as he was in his day for his piety, his wis- dom, and his learning, and to whom the Reformation in its beginnings is so much indebted. At least take especial care, be- fore you aim your shafts at Calvinism, that you know what is Calvinism and what is not, — that in that mass of doctrine which it is of late become the fashion to abuse under the name of Calvinism, you can dis- tinguish with certainty between that part of it which is nothing better than Calvin- ism, and that which belongs to our com- mon Christianity and the general faith of the Reformed Churches ; lest, when you mean only to fall foul of Calvinism, you should unwarily attack something more sacred and of higher origin. I must say, that I have found great want of this disr 227 crimination in some late controversial wri- tings, on the side of the Church, as they were meant to be, against the Methodists ; the authors of which have acquired much applause and reputation, but with so little real knowledge of their subject, that give me the principles upon which these writers argue, and I will undertake to convict — I will not say Arminians only and Archbi- shop Laud — but upon these principles, I will undertake to convict the fathers of the Council of Trent of Calvinism : So closely is a great part of that which is now ignorantly called Calvinism interwoven with the very rudiments of Christianity. Better were it for the Church if such apologists would withhold their services. " Non tali auxillo, nec defensoribus istis." But the true lesson to be drawn from the failure of such disputants is, — that it is not 228 for every one who may possess somewhat more than the ordinary share of learning to meddle with these difficult subjects. My reverend brethren, I am sensible I am addressing a body of men who have had the advantage of a liberal and a learn- ed as well as a religious education ; and I would not have it supposed that I think meanly of their talents and endowments. To some among you, — perhaps, however, not to the greater part, certainly not to all, — a residence of many years at the univer- sity, with access to its well-furnished li- braries, may have aiforded opportunity, which those to whom it was afforded doubt- less would improve, of acquiring a minute and accurate knowledge of the whole his- tory of the Reformation, its beginnings and its progress, — of the divisions arising from differences of opinion among the dif- ferent denominations of the Reformed — 229 the differences between the Lutherans and the Calvinists from one another — the dif- ferences of the various subdivisions of the Lutherans and the various subdivisions of the Calvinists among themselves. In the same years of academic leisure, you will have studied the controversial writings of Luther on the one side and Erasmus on the other, upon the subjects of original sin, free will, and sovereign grace ; you will have made yourselves acquainted with the Confessions of Faith of the different Re- formed Churches j of the Churches of Sax- ony in particular ; and you will have given the attention they deserve to the excellent discussions of the most learned and most enlightened of the reformers, Philip Me- lancthon ; you will have studied the Ca- nons of the Council of Trent, and the De- crees of the Synod of Dort ; you will not have neglected the writings of the twa 230 great metaphysical fathers, St Austin of the Latin Cliurch, and Johannes Damas- cenus of the Greek ; and you will have conversed so familiarly with the sages of the Academy and the Porch, that you will be able to talk as if you had a meaning when you venture to discourse of the order of the Divine decrees and to speak of first and last in the energies of the Divine mind. With all this learning, but not with- out a very considerable share of it, and with these dialectic talents, you may per- haps be able to grapple with the difficulties of the Quinquarticular controversy without discredit to yourselves. Still would I ear- nestly persuade those who may feel them- selves the best qualified for the argument, to abstain from it in their discourses before common congregations. They might en- gage in it without discredit to themselves ; but, with what profit or advantage, I would 231 ask, to themselves or to their hearers ? — Certainly with none at all. These intricate questions tend to nothing but perplexity and scepticism ; and the discussions of them conduce to endless discord and dis- sension. You know who they were who are said to have sought the solitude of a retired hill there to pursue their arrogant speculations, " Of things abstruse they reason'd high, — Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate — Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute ; And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." Leave these barren disquisitions to the theologians of that school. . Apply your- selves with the whole strength and power of your minds to do the work of evange^ lists. Proclaim to those who are at enmity with God, and children of his wrath, the glad tidings of Christ's pacification ; sound 232 the alarm to awaken to a life of righteous- ness a world lost and dead in trespasses and sins ; lift aloft the blazing torch of reve- lation, to scatter its rays over them that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and guide the footsteps of the benighted wan- derer into the paths of life and peace. THE END. Primed byJa. S. Huitouj., Dondee. Dqsxg paoT 'A9"[saoH xanuiBS JO saSjBiio am D8I-eeZT 'lenuiBS 'AeisjOH eisi 99H- ^7eo5 xa