that he may find quiet in it. If he is an ignorant man, he is not furnished with those sleights of wit, and shows of learning, that must support it: but if he is really learned, he will soon be beaten out of them; for a learned atheism is so hard a thing to be conceived, that unless a man's powers are first strangely vitiated, it is not easy to see how any one can bring himself to it. There is nothing that can settle the quiet of an ill priest's mind and life, but a stupid formality, and a callus that he contracts by his insensible way of handling divine matters, by which he becomes hardened against them. But if this settles him by stupifying his powers, it does put him also so far out of the reach of conviction, in all the ordinary methods of grace, that it is scarce possible he can ever be awakened, and by consequence that he can be saved; and if he perishes, he must fall into the lowest degree of misery, even to the portion of hypocrites: for his whole life has been a course of hypocrisy in the strictest sense of the word; which is the acting of a part, and the counterfeiting another person. His sins have in them all possible aggravations: they are against knowledge and against vows, and contrary to his character; they carry in them a deliberate contempt of all the truths and obligations of religion; and if he perishes, he does not perish alone, but carries a shoal down with him; either of those who have perished in ignorance through his neglect, or of those who have been hardened in their sins through his ill example. And since all this must be put to his account, it may be justly inferred from hence, that no man can have a heavier share in the miseries of another state, than profane and wicked clerks. On all these things he ought to employ his thoughts frequently, who intends to dedicate himself to God, that so he may firmly resolve not to go on with it, till he feels such seeds and beginnings of good things in himself, that he has reason to hope, that, through the grace and assistance of God, he will be an example to others.

He ought more particularly to examine himself, whether he has that soft and gentle, that meek and humble, and that charitable and compassionate temper, which the gospel does so much press upon all Christians; that shined so eminently through the whole life of the blessed Author of it; and which he has so singularly recommended to all his followers; and that has in it so many charms and attractives, which do not only commend those who have these amiable virtues, but, which is much more to be regarded, they give them vast advantages in recommending

the doctrine of our Saviour to their people. They are the true ground of that Christian wisdom and discretion, and of that grave and calm deportment, by which the clergy ought to carry on and maintain their authority: a haughty and huffing humour, an impatient and insolent temper, a loftiness of deportment, and a peevishness of spirit, rendering the lives of the clergy, for the most part, bitter to themselves, and their labours, how valuable soever otherwise they may be, unacceptable and useless to their people. A clergyman must be prepared to bear injuries, to endure much unjust censure and calumny, to see himself often neglected, and others preferred to him, in the esteem of the people. He that takes all this ill, that resents it, and complains of it, does thereby give himself much disquiet; and to be sure he will, through his peevishness, rather increase than lessen that contempt, under which he is so uneasy; which is both better borne and sooner overcome by a meek and a lowly temper. A man of this disposition affects no singularities, unless the faultiness of those about him makes his doing his duty to be a singularity he does not study to lessen the value that is due to others, on design to increase his own: his low thoughts of himself make that he is neither aspiring, nor envying such as are advanced: he is prepared to stay till God in his providence thinks fit to raise him he studies only to deserve preferment, and leaves to others the wringing posts of advantage out of the hands of those that give them. Such a preparation of mind in a clergyman disposes him to be happy in whatsoever station he may be put, and renders the church happy in him: for men so moulded, even though their talents should be but mean, are shining lights, that may perhaps be at first despised, as men of a low size, that have not greatness of soul enough to aspire; but when they have been seen and known so long, that all appears to be sincere, and that the principle from whence this flows is rightly considered, then every thing that they say or do must have its due weight: the plainest and simplest things that they say have a beauty in them, and will be hearkened to as oracles.

But a man that intends to prepare himself right for the ministry of the church, must indeed, above all things, endeavour to break himself to the love of the world, either of the wealth, the pomp, or the pleasures of it. He must learn to be content with plain and simple diet, and often even abridge that by true fasting. I do not call fasting a trifling distinction of meats, but a lessening of the quan

tity, as well as the quality, and a contracting the time spent at meals, that so he may have a greater freedom both in his time, and in his thoughts; that he may be more alone, and pray and meditate more, and that what he saves out of his meals, he may give to the poor. This is, in short, the true measure and right use of fasting. In cold climates, an abstinence till night may create disorders, and raise such a disturbance both in the appetite and in the digestion, that this managed upon the practices of other countries, especially in young persons, may really distract, instead of furthering, those who do it indiscreetly. In short, fasting, unless joined with prayer and almsgiving, is of no value in the sight of God. It is a vast advantage to a man to be broken to the niceties of his palate, to be content with plain food, and even to dislike delicacies and studied dishes. This will make him easy in narrower circumstances, since a plain bill of fare is soon discharged. A lover of his appetites, and a slave to his taste, makes but a mean figure among men, and a very scurvy one among clergymen.

This deadness to the world must raise one above the affectations of pomp and state, of attendance and high living which to a philosophical mind will be heavy, when the circumstances he is in seem to impose and force it on him. And therefore he who has a right sense finds it is almost all he can do, to bear those things which the tyranny of custom or false opinions put upon him; so far is he from longing for them. A man that is truly dead to the world would choose much rather to live in a lowly and narrow figure, than to be obliged to enter into the methods of the greatness of this world; into which if the constitutions and forms of a church and kingdom put him, yet he feels himself in an unnatural and uncouth posture it is contrary to his own genius and relish of things, and therefore he does not court nor desire such a situation, but, even while he is in it, he shews such a neglect of the state of it, and so much indifference and humility in it, that it appears how little power those things have over his mind, and how little they are able to subdue and corrupt it. This mortified man must likewise become dead to all the designs and projects of making a family, or of raising the fortunes of those that are nearly related to him: he must be bountiful and charitable; and though it is not only lawful to him, but a necessary duty incumbent on him, to make due provision for his family, if he has any; yet this must be so moderated, that no vain nor sordid designs, no indirect nor

unbecoming arts may mix in it; no excessive wealth nor great projects must appear; he must be contented with such a proportion as may set his children in the way of a virtuous and liberal education; such as may secure them from scandal and necessity, and put them in a capacity to serve God and their generation in some honest employment. But he who brings along with him a voluptuous, an ambitious, or a covetous mind, that is carnal and earthly minded, comes as a hireling to feed himself, and not the flock; he comes to steal and to destroy. Upon all, this great reflection is to be made concerning the motives that determine one to offer himself to this employment.

In the first beginnings of Christianity, no man could reasonably think of taking orders, unless he had in him the spirit of martyrdom. He was to look for nothing in this service but labour and persecution: he was indeed to live of the altar, and that was all the portion that he was to expect in this world. In those days an extraordinary measure of zeal and devotion was necessary to engage men to so hard and difficult a province, that, how great soever its reward might be in another world, had nothing to look for in this but a narrow provision, and the first and largest share of the cross: they were the best known, the most exposed, and the soonest fallen upon in the persecution. But their services and their sufferings did so much recommend that function in the succeeding ages, that the faithful thought they could never do enough to express their value for it. The church came to be richly endowed; and though superstition had raised this out of measure, yet the extreme went as far to the other hand at the reformation, when the church was almost stripped of all its patrimony, and a great many churches were left so poor, that there was not, in most places, a sufficient, nay, not so much as a necessary maintenance reserved for those that were to minister in holy things. But it is to be acknowledged that there are such remnants preserved, that many benefices of the church still may, and perhaps do but too much work upon men's corrupt principles, their ambition and their covetousness: and it is shrewdly to be apprehended, that of those who present themselves at the altar, a great part comes, as those who followed Christ, for the loaves; because of the good prospect they have of making their fortunes by the church.

If this point should be carried too far, it might perhaps seem to be a pitch above human nature; and certainly very far above the degeneracy of the age we live in: I

shall therefore lay this matter with as large an allowance as I think it can bear. It is certain, that since God has made us to be a compound of soul and body, it is not only lawful, but suitable to the order of nature, for us, in the choice we make of the state of life that we intend to pursue, to consider our bodies in the next place after our souls: yet we ought certainly to begin with our souls, with the powers and faculties that are in them, and consider well of what temper they are, and what our measure and capacity is; that so we may choose such a course of life for which we seem to be fitted, and in which we may probably do the most good to ourselves and others from hence we ought to take our aims and measures chiefly. But in the next place, we not only may, but ought to consider our bodies, how they shall be maintained in a way suitable to that state of life, into which we are engaged. Therefore though no man can, with a good conscience, begin upon a worldly account, and resolve to dedicate himself to the church, merely out of carnal regards; such as an advowson in his family, a friend that will promote him, or any other such like prospect, till he has first consulted his temper and disposition, his talents and his capacities; yet though it is not lawful to make the regards of this world his first consideration, and it cannot be denied to be a perfecter state, if a man should offer himself to the church, having whereon to support himself, without any assistance or reward out of its patrimony; and to be nearer to St. Paul's practice, whose hands ministered to his necessities, and who reckoned, that in this he had whereof to glory, that he was not burdensome to the churches yet it is, without doubt, lawful for a man to design, that he may subsist in and out of the service of the church: but then these designs must be limited to a subsistence, to such a moderate proportion as may maintain one in that state of life; and must not be let fly by a restless ambition, and an insatiable covetousness, as a ravenous bird of prey does at all game. There must not be a perpetual inquiry into the value of benefices, and a constant importuning of such as give them: if laws have been made in some states restraining all ambitus and aspirings to civil employments, certainly it were much more reasonable to put a stop to the scandalous importunities that are every where complained of; and no where more visible and more offensive than at court. This gives a prejudice to men, that are otherwise inclined enough to search for one, that can never be removed, but by putting an effectual bar in the way of