whole controversy both of atheism and deism, the arguments both for the Old and New Testament, are fully opened, with a great variety both of learning and reasoning, in bishop Stillingfleet's Origines Sacræ.

There remains only to direct a student how to form right notions of practical matters; and particularly of preaching. Dr. Hammond's Practical Catechism is a book of great use; but not to be begun with, as too many do: it does require a good deal of previous study, before the force of his reasonings is apprehended; but when one is ready for it, it is a rare book, and states the grounds of morality, and of our duty, upon true principles. To form one to understand the right method of preaching, the extent of it, and the proper ways of application, bishop Sanderson, Mr. Faringdon, and Dr. Barrow, are the best and the fullest models. There is a vast variety of other sermons, which may be read with an equal measure of advantage and pleasure. And if from the time that one resolves to direct his studies towards the church, he would every Lord's day read two sermons of any good preacher, and turn them a little over in his thoughts, this would insensibly, in two or three years time, carry him very far, and give him a large view of the different ways of preaching, and furnish him with materials for handling a great many texts of scripture when he comes to it.

And thus I have carried my student through those studies, that seem to me so necessary for qualifying him to be an able minister of the New Testament, that I cannot see how any article of this can be well abated. It may seem strange, that in this whole direction I have said nothing concerning the study of the fathers or church-history. But I said at first, that a great distinction was to be made between what was necessary to prepare a man to be a priest, and what was necessary to make him a complete and learned divine.

The knowledge of these things is necessary to the latter, though they do not seem so necessary for the former: there are many things to be left to the prosecution of a divine's study, that therefore are not mentioned here, not with any design to disparage that sort of learning; for I am now only upon that measure of knowledge, under which I heartily wish that no man were put in priest's orders; and therefore I have passed over many other things, such as the more accurate understanding of the controversies between us and the church of Rome, and the unhappy disputes between us and the dissenters of all sorts; though

both the one and the other have of late been opened with that perspicuity, that fulness of argument, and that clearness as well as softness of style, that a collection of these may give a man the fullest instruction, that is to be found in any books I know. Others, and perhaps the far greater number, will think that I have clogged this matter too much. But I desire these may consider how much we do justly reckon, that our profession is preferable either to law or medicine. Now, if this is true, it is not unreasonable, that since those who pretend to these must be at șo much pains, before they enter upon a practice which relates only to men's fortunes, or their persons, we, whose labours relate to their souls and their eternal state, should be at least at some considerable pains before we enter upon them. Let any young divine go to the chambers of a student in the Inns of Court, and see how many books he must read, and how great a volume of a common-placebook he must make he will there see through how hard a task one must go in a course of many years, and how ready he must be in all the parts of it, before he is called to the bar, or can manage business. How exact must a physician be in anatomy, in simples, in pharmacy, in the theory of diseases, and in the observations and counsels of doctors, before he can either with honour, or a safe conscience, undertake practice! He must be ready with all this, and in that infinite number of hard words, that belong to every part of it, to give his directions and write his bills by the patient's bed-side; who cannot stay till he goes to his study and turns over his books. If then so long a course of study, and so much exactness and readiness in it, is necessary to these professions; nay, if every mechanical art, even the meanest, requires a course of many years, before one can be a master in it, shall the noblest and the most important of all others, that which comes from heaven, and leads thither again; shall that which God has honoured so highly, and to which laws and governments have added such privileges and encouragements, that is employed in the sublimest exercises, which require a proportioned worth in those who handle them, to maintain their value and dignity in the esteem of the world; shall all this, I say, be esteemed so low a thing in our eyes, that a much less degree of time and study is necessary to arrive at it, than at the most sordid of all trades whatsoever? And yet, after all, a man of a tolerable capacity, with a good degree of application, may go through all this well, and exactly, in two years time. I am very sure,

by many an experiment I have made, that this may be done in a much less compass: but because all men do not go alike quick, have not the same force, nor the same application, therefore I reckon two years for it; which I do thus divide one year before deacon's orders, and another between them and priest's orders. And can this be thought a hard imposition? Or do not those, who think thus, give great occasion to the contempt of the clergy, if they give the world cause to observe, that how much soever we may magnify our profession, yet by our practice we shew that we do judge it the meanest of all others, which is to be arrived at upon less previous study and preparation to it, than any other whatsoever? Since I have been hitherto so minute, I will yet divide this matter a little lower into those parts of it, without which deacon's orders ought not to be given, and those to be reserved to the second year of study. To have read the New Testament well, so as to carry a great deal of it in one's memory, to have a clear notion of the several books of it, to understand well the nature and the conditions of the covenant of grace, and to have read one system well, so as to be master of it, to understand the whole catechetical matter, to have read Wilkins and Grotius; this, I say, is that part of this task, which I propose before one is made deacon. The rest, though much the larger, will go the easier, if those foundations are once well laid in them. And upon the article of studying the scriptures, I will add one advice more.

There are two methods in reading them; the one ought to be merely critical, to find out the meaning and coherence of the several parts of them, in which one runs easily through the greater part, and is only obliged to stop at some harder passages, which may be marked down, and learned men are to be consulted upon them: those that are really hard to be explained are both few, and they relate to matters that are not so essential to Christianity; and therefore after one has in general seen what is said upon these, he may put off the fuller consideration of that to more leisure, and better opportunities. But the other way of reading the scriptures is to be done merely with a view to practice, to raise devotion, to increase piety, and to give good thoughts and severe rules. In this a man is to employ himself much. This is a book always at hand, and the getting a great deal of it always by heart is the best part of a clergyman's study; it is the foundation, and lays in the materials for all the rest. This alone may furnish a man with a noble stock of lively thoughts and sublime ex

pressions; and therefore it must be always reckoned as that, without which all other things amount to nothing; and the chief and main subject of the study, the meditation, and the discourses of a clergyman.

CHAP. VIII.

Of the functions and labours of clergymen. I HAVE in the former chapter laid down the model and method, by which a clerk is to be formed and prepared: I come now to consider his course of life, his public functions, and his secret labours. In this, as well as in the former, I will study to consider what mankind can bear, rather than what may be offered in a fair idea, that is far above what we can hope ever to bring the world to. As for a priest's life and conversation, so much was said in the former chapter; in which, as a preparation to orders, it was proposed what he ought to be; that I may now be the shorter on this article.

The clergy have one great advantage, beyond all the rest of the world, in this respect, besides all others, that whereas the particular callings of other men prove to them great distractions, and lay many temptations in their way, to divert them from minding their high and holy calling of being Christians; it is quite otherwise with the clergy; the more they follow their private callings, they do the more certainly advance their general one: the better priests they are, they become also the better Christians: every part of their calling, when well performed, raises good thoughts, brings good ideas into their mind, and tends both to increase their knowledge, and quicken their sense of divine matters. A priest therefore is more accountable to God and the world for his deportment, and will be more severely accounted with, than any other person whatsoever. He is more watched over and observed than all others; very good men will be, even to a censure, jealous of him; very bad men will wait for his halting, and insult upon it; and all sorts of persons will be willing to defend themselves against the authority of his doctrine and admonitions by this," He says, but does not :" and though our Saviour charged his disciples and followers, to hear those who sat in Moses' chair, and to observe and do whatsoever they bid them observe, but not to do after their works, for

they said and did note; the world will reverse this quite, and consider rather how a clerk lives, than what he says. They see the one, and from it conclude what he himself thinks of the other; and so will believe themselves not a little justified, if they can say that they did no worse than as they saw their minister do before them.

Therefore a priest must not only abstain from gross scandals, but keep at the furthest distance from them: he must not only not be drunk, but he must not sit a tippling, nor go to taverns or alehouses, except some urgent occasion requires it, and stay no longer in them, than as that occasion demands it. He must not only abstain from acts of lewdness, but from all indecent behaviour, and unbecoming raillery. Gaming and plays, and every thing of that sort, which is an approach to the vanities and disorders of the world, must be avoided by him. And, unless the straitness of his condition or his necessities force it, he ought to shun all other cares; such as, not only the farming of grounds, but even the teaching of schools, since these must of necessity take him off both from his labour and study. Such diversions as his health, or the temper of his mind, may render proper for him, ought to be manly, decent, and grave; and such as may neither possess his mind or time too much, nor give a bad character of him to his people. He must also avoid too much familiarity with bad people, and the squandering away his time in too much vain and idle discourse. His cheerfulness ought to be frank, but neither excessive nor licentious: his friends and his garden ought to be his chief diversions, as his study and his parish ought to be his chief employments. He must still carry on his study, making himself an absolute master of the few books he has, till his circumstances grow larger, that he can purchase more. He can have no pretence, if he were ever so narrow in the world, to say, that he cannot get not only the Collects, but the Psalms, and the New Testament by heart, or at least a great part of them. If there be any books belonging to his church, such as Jewel's Works, and the Book of Martyrs, which lie tearing in many places, these he may read over and over again, till he is able to furnish himself better, I mean with a greater variety but let him furnish himself ever so well, the reading and understanding the scriptures, chiefly the Psalms and the New Testament, ought to be still his chief study, till he becomes so conversant in them, that he can both say many parts of them, and explain them without book.