A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH-CHAPPEL on the 25th of November Upon the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr JOHN DOLBEN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER By ROBERT SOUTH D. D. Public Orator to the University of Oxford and Chaplain to the Lord High Chancellor of ENGLAND SAVOY Printed by Tho. Newcomb for William Nott at the Queen's Arms in the middle of the Old Pellmell near St. James' 1666. To the Right Reverend Father in GOD JOHN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER Dean of the Cathedral Church of WESTMINSTER And Clerk of the Closet to His Majesty My LORD THough the interposal of my Lord of Canterbury's Command for the Publication of this mean Discourse may seem so far to determine as even to take away my Choice yet I must own it to the World that it is solely and entirely my own Inclination seconded by my Obligations to your Lordship that makes this that was so lately an humble Attendant upon your Lordship's Consecration now ambitious to Consecrate itself with your Lordship's Name It was my Honour to have lived in the same College with your Lordship and now to belong to the same Cathedral where at present you credit the Church as much by your Government as you did the School formerly by your Wit. Your Lordship even then grew up into a constant Superiority above others and all your After-greatness seems but a Paraphrase upon those Promising beginnings for what soever you are or shall be has been but an easy Prognostic from what you were It is your Lordship's unhappiness to be cast upon an Age in which the Church is in its Wane and if you do not those glorious things that our English Prelates did two or three hundred Years since it is not because your Lordship is at all less than they but because the Times are worse Witness those magnificent Buildings in Christ Church in Oxford begun and carried on by your Lordship when by your Place you governed and by your Wisdom increased the Treasure of that College and which must eternally set your Fame above the reach of Envy and Detraction these great Structures you attempted at a time when you returned Poor and bare to a College as bare after a long Persecution and before you had laid so much as one Stone in the Repairs of your own Fortunes By which incomparably high and generous undertaking you have shown the World how fit a Person you were to build upon Wolsey's foundation A Prelate whose Noble design you Imitate and whose mind you Equal Briefly That Christ-Church stands so high aboveground and that the Church of Westminster lies not flat upon it is your Lordship's Commendation And therefore your Lordship is not behind hand with the Church paying it as much Credit and Support as you receive from it for you owe your Promotion to your Merit and I am sure your Merit to yourself All men Court you not so much because a great Person as a Public good For as a Friend there is none so hearty so Nobly warm and active to make good all the Offices of that endearing Relation As a Patron none more able to oblige and reward your Dependants and which is the Crowning Ornament of Power none more willing And lastly as a Diocesan you are like even to outdo yourself in all other Capacities and in a word to exemplify and realize every Word of the following Discourse which is here most humbly and gratefully presented to your Lordship by Your Lordship's most obliged Servant ROBERT SOUTH From St. James' Dec. 3. 1666. A SERMON Preached at LAMBETH-CHAPPEL on the 25th of November Upon the Consecration of the Right Reverend Father in God Dr JOHN DOLBEN Lord Bishop of ROCHESTER 2 Titus last Verse These things Speak and Exhort and Rebuke with all Authority let no man Despise thee IT may possibly be expected that the very taking of my Text out of this Epistle to Titus may engage me in a Discourse about the Nature Original and Divine Right of Episcopacy and if it should it were no more than what some of the greatest and the learned'st persons in the world when men served Truth instead of Design had done before For I must profess that I cannot look upon Titus as so far Vnbishopt yet but that he still exhibits to us all the Essentials of that Jurisdiction that to this day is claimed for Episcopal We are told in the fifth Verse of the first Chapter That he was left in Crete to set things in order and to ordain Elders in every City which Text one would think were sufficiently clear and full and too big with Evidence to be perverted but when we have seen Rebellion commented out of the thirteenth of the Romans and since there are few things but admit of Gloss and probability and consequently may be expounded as well as disputed on both sides it is no such wonder that some would bear the world in hand that the Apostles design and meaning is for Presbytery though his words are all the time for Episcopacy No wonder I say to us at least who have conversed with too many strange unparallelled Actions Occurrences and Events now to wonder at any thing Wonder is from Surprise and Surprise ceases upon Experience I am not so much a Friend to the stale Starched Formality of Preambles as to detain so great an Audience with any praevious discourse extrinsic to the Subject matter and design of the Text and therefore I shall fall directly upon the Words which run in the form of an Exhortation though in appearance a very strange one for the matter of an Exhortation should be something naturally in the Power of him to whom the Exhortation is directed For no man exhorts another to be strong beautiful witty or the like these are the felicities of some Conditions the objects of more Wishes but the effects of no man's Choice Nor seems there any greater reason for the Apostles exhorting Titus That no man should despise him for how could another man's Action be his Duty Was it in his power that men should not be wicked and injurious and if such persons would despise him could any thing pass an obligation upon him not to be despised No this cannot be the meaning and therefore it is clear that the Exhortation lies not against the Action itself which is only in the Despisers power but against the just occasion of it which is in the will and power of him that is Despised it was not in Titus' power that men should not despise him but it was in his power to bereave them of all just cause of doing so it was not in his power not to be Derided but 't was in his power not to be Ridiculous In all this Epistle it is evident that St. Paul looks upon Titus as advanced to the dignity of a prime Ruler of the Church and entrusted with a large Diocese containing many particular Cities under the immediate Government of their respective Elders and those deriving Authority from his Ordination as was specified in the fifth Verse of the first Chapter And now looking upon Titus under this Qualification he addresses a long Advice and Instruction to him for the discharge of so important a Function all along the first and second Chapter but sums up all in this last Verse which is the subject of the ensuing Discourse and contains in it these two things 1. An account of the Duties of his Place or Office 2. Of the means to facilitate and make effectual their Execution The Duties of his place were two 1. To Teach 2. To Rule Both comprised in these words These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all Authority And then the means the only means to make him Successful Bright and Victorious in the performance of these great works was to be above Contempt to shine like the Baptist with a clear and a triumphant Light In a word it is every Bishop's duty to Teach and to Govern and his way to do it is not to be despised We will discourse of each respectively in their Order 1. And first for the first branch of the great work incumbent upon a Church Ruler which is to Teach A work that none is too great or too high for it is a work of Charity and Charity is the work of Heaven which is always laying itself out upon the Needy and the Impotent nay and it is a work of the highest and the noblest Charity for he that teacheth another giveth an Alms to his soul he clothes the nakedness of his Understanding and relieves the wants of his impoverished Reason he indeed that governs well leads the Blind but he that teaches him giveth him Eyes and it is a glorious thing to have been the Recoverer and Repairer of a decayed Intellect and a Sub-worker to Grace in freeing it from some of the inconveniencies of Original sin It is a Benefaction that gives a man a kind of Prerogative for even in the common Dialect of the world every Teacher is called a Master it is the property of Instruction to descend and upon that very account it supposes him that instructs the Superior or at least makes him so To say a man is advanced too high to condescend to teach the Ignorant is as much as to say that the Sun is in too high a place to shine upon what is below him The Sun is said to rule the day and the Moon to rule the night but do they not Rule them only by enlighting them Doctrine is that that must prepare men for Discipline and men never go on so cheerfully as when they see where they go Nor is the dullness of the Scholar to extinguish but rather to inflame the charity of the Teacher for since it is not in men as in vessels that the smallest capacity is the soon filled where the labour is doubled the value of the work is enhanced for it is a sowing where a man never expects to reap any thing but the Comfort and Conscience of having done virtuously And yet we know moreover that God sometimes converts even the dull and the slow turning very Stones into Sons of Abraham where besides that the difficulty of the Conquest advances the Trophy of the Conqueror it often falls out that the backward Learner makes amends another way recompensing Sure for Sudden and expiating his want of Docility with a deeper and a more rooted Sincerity Which alone were argument sufficient to enforce the Apostles injunction of being instant in season and out of season even upon the highest and most exalted Ruler in the Church He that sits in Moses chair sits there to Instruct as well as to Rule and a General's office engages him to Led as well as to Command his Army In the first of Ecclesiastes Solomon represents himself both as Preacher and King of Israel and every soul that a Bishop gains is a new accession to the extent of his Power he preaches his Jurisdiction wider and enlarges his spiritual Diocese as he enlarges men's apprehensions The Preaching part indeed of a Romish Bishop is easy enough whose Grand business is only to teach men to be Ignorant to instruct them how to know Nothing or which is all one to know upon Trust to believe implicitly and in a word to see with other men's eyes till they come to be lost in their own souls But our Religion is a Religion that dares to be understood that offers itself to the search of the Inquisitive to the inspection of the severest and the most awakened Reason for being secure of her substantial Truth and Purity she knows that for her to be seen and look into is to be embraced and admired as there needs no greater argument for men to love the light then to see it It needs no Legends no Service in an unknown tongue no inquisition against Scripture no purging out of the heart and sense of Authors no altering or bribing the voice of Antiquity to speak for it it needs none of all these laborious Artifices of ignorance none of all these cloaks and cover The Romish faith indeed must be covered or it cannot be kept warm and their Clergy deal with their Religion as with a great Crime if it is Discovered they are undone But there is no Bishop of the Church of England but accounts it his Interest as well as his Duty to comply with this Precept of the Apostle Paul to Titus These things teach and exhort Now this Teaching may be effected two ways 1. Immediately by himself 2. Mediately by others And first immediately by himself Where God gives a Talon the Episcopal Robe can be no Napkin to hide it in Change of Condition changes not the abilities of Nature but makes them more illustrious in their exercise and the Episcopal dignity added to a good Preaching faculty is like the erecting of a stately Fountain upon a Spring which still for all that remains as much a Spring as it was before and flows as plentifully only it flows with the circumstance of greater State and Magnificence Height of place is intended only to stamp the endowments of a private condition with Lustre and Authority And thanks be to God neither the Churches professed enemies nor her pretended friends have any cause to asperse her in this respect as having over her such Bishops as are able to silence the Factious no less by their Preaching then by their Authority But then on the other hand let me add also that this is not so absolutely necessary as to be of the vital Constitution of this Function He may teach his Diocese who ceases to be able to preach to it for he may do it by appointing Teachers and by a vigilant exacting from them the care and the instruction of their respective Flocks He is the Spiritual father of his Diocese and a Father may see his Children taught though he himself does not turn Schoolmaster It is not the gift of every Person nor of every Age to harangue the multitude to Voice it high and loud & Dominari in Concionibus And since Experience fits for government and Age usually brings experience perhaps the most Governing years are the least Preaching years In the 2. Second place therefore there is a teaching Mediately by the Subordinate ministration of others in which since the Action of the Instrumental agent is upon all grounds of Reason to be ascribed to the Principal He that ordains and furnishes all his Churches with able Preachers is an Universal Teacher he instructs where he cannot be Present he speaks in every mouth of his Diocese and every Congregation of it every Sunday feels his Influence though it hears not his Voice That Master deprives not his Family of their food who order a faithful Steward to dispense it Teaching is not a Flow of Words nor the Draining of an Hourglass but an effectual procuring that a man comes to know something that he knew not before or to know it better And therefore Eloquence and Ability of speech is to a Church Governor as Tully said it was to a Philosopher Si afferatur non repudianda si absit non magnoperè desideranda and to find fault with such an one for not being a Popular Speaker is to blame a Painter for not being a good Musician To Teach indeed must be confessed his Duty but then there is a Teaching by Example by Authority by restraining Seducers and so removing the Hindrances of knowledge And a Bishop does his Church his Prince and Country more Service by ruling other men's Tongues than he can by employing his own And thus much for the first Branch of the great Work belonging to a Pastor of the Church which was to Teach and to Exhort 2. The second is to Rule Expressed in these words Rebuke with all Authority By which I doubt not but the Apostle principally intends Church-censures and so the Words are a Metonymy of the Part for the whole giving an instance in Ecclesiastical Censures instead of all other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction A Jurisdiction which in the Essentials of it is as old as Christianity and even in those Circumstantial additions of secular Encouragement with which the Piety and Wisdom of Christian Princes always thought necessary to support it against the Encroachments of the injurious World much Older and more Venerable than any Constitution that has divested the Church of it But to speak directly to the Thing before us We see here the great Apostle employing the utmost of his Authority in commanding Titus to use his and what he said to Him he says to every Christian Bishop after him Rebuke with all Authority This Authority is a Spiritual Sword put into the hands of every Church Ruler and God put not this Sword into his hands with an intent that he should keep it there for no other purpose but only for Fashion-sake as men use to wear one by their sides Government is an Art above the Attainment of an ordinary Genius and requires a wider a larger and a more Comprehending Soul than God has put into every Body The Spirit that animates and acts the Universe is a Spirit of Government and that Ruler that is possessed of it is the Substitute and Vicegerent of Providence whether in Church or State Every Bishop is God's Curate Now the Nature of Government Contains in it these three parts 1. An Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it 2. A Protection of them in the performance of their Duty 3. Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect it All which are in their Proportion ingredients of that Government that we call Ecclesiastical 1. And first it implies Exaction of Duty from the Persons placed under it for it is both to be confessed and lamented that men are not so ready to Offer it where it is not exacted Otherwise what means the Service of the Church so imperfectly and by halves read over and that by many who profess a Conformity to the Rules of the Church What makes them mince and mangle that in their Practice which they could swallow whole in their Subscriptions Why are the Public Prayers curtailed and left out Prayers composed with Sobriety and enjoined with Authority only to make the more Room for a long crude impertinent upstart Harangue before the Sermon Such persons seem to Conform a Word whose signification they never make good only that they may despise the Church's Injunctions under the Church's Wing and Contemn Authority within the Protection of the Laws Duty is but another English Word for Debt and God knows that it is well if men pay their Debts when they are called upon But if Governors do not remind men of and call them to Obedience they will find that it will never come as a Free-will-offering no not from many who even serve at the Altar 2. Government imports a Protection and Encouragement of the Persons under it in the Discharge of their Duty It is not for a Magistrate to frown upon and browbeat those who are hearty and exact in the management of their Ministry and with a Grave insignificant Nod to call a well Regulated and Resolved Zeal Want of Prudence and Moderation Such Discouraging of men in the ways of an Active Conformity to the Church's Rules is that that will crack the Sinews of Government for it weakens the Hands and Damps the Spirits of the Obedient And if only Scorn and Rebuke shall attend men for asserting the Church's Dignity and taxing the murder of Kings and the like Many will choose rather to neglect their Duty safely and creditably then to get a Broken Pate in the Church's Service only to be rewarded with that that shall Break their Hearts too 3. The third thing employed in Government is Coercion and Animadversion upon such as neglect their Duty Without which Coercive Power all government is but Toothless and Precarious and does not so much command as beg obedience Nothing I confess is more becoming a Christian of what Degree soever then Meekness Candour and Condescension but they are Virtues that have their proper Sphere and Season to act and show themselves in and consequently not to interfere with others Different indeed in their Nature but altogether as Necessary in their Use. And when an insolent despiser of Discipline nurtured into Impudence and Contempt of all Order by a long Risk of Licence and Rebellion shall appear before a Church governor Severity and Resolution are that Governors' Virtues and Justice itself is his Mercy for by making such an one an example as much as in him lies he will either Cure him or at least Preserve others Were indeed the Consciences of men as they should be the Censures of the Church might be a sufficient Coercion upon them but being as most of them now a days are Hell and Damnation-proof her bare anathemas fall but like so many Bruta fulmina upon the Obstinate and Schismatical who are like to think themselves shrewdly hurt by being cut off from that Body which they choose not to be of and so being punished into a Quiet enjoyment of their beloved Separation Some will by no means allow the Church any further power then only to Exhort and to Advise and this but with a Proviso too that it extends not to such as think themselves too Wise and too Great to be Advised according to the Hypothesis of which persons the Authority of the Church and the obliging force of all Church Sanctions can bespeak men only thus These and these things it is your Duty to do and if you will not do them you may as well let them alone A strict and efficacious Constitution indeed which invests the Church with no power at all but where men will be so Civil as to obey it and so at the same Time pay it a Duty and do it a Courtesy too But when in the Judgement of some men the Spiritual Function as Such must render a Churchman though otherwise never so Discreet and qualified yet merely because he is a Churchman unfit to be entrusted by his Prince with a share of that Power and Jurisdiction which in many Circumstances his Prince has judged but too necessary to secure the Affairs and Dignity of the Church and which every thriving Grazier can think himself but ill dealt with if within his own Country he is not mounted to It is a sign that such discontented Persons intent not that Religion shall advise them upon any other Terms then that they may Ride and Govern their Religion But surely all our Kings and our Parliaments understood well enough what they did when they thought fit to prop and fortify the Spiritual Order with some Power that was Temporal and such is the present state of the World in the judgement of any observing Eye that if the Bishop has no other defensives but Excommunication no other power but that of the Keys he may for any notable effect that he is like to do upon the factious and contumacious surrender up his Pastoral Staff shut up the Church and put those Keys under the Door And thus I have endeavoured to show the Three things included in the general Nature of Government but to prescribe the manner of it in Particular is neither in my Power nor Inclination only I suppose the Common Theory and Speculation of things is free and open to any one whom God has sent into the world with an ability to contemplate and by continuing him in the World gives him also opportunity In all that has been said I do not in the least pretend to Advise or Chalk out Rules to my Superiors for some men cannot be Fools with so good acceptance as others But whosoever is called to speak upon a certain occasion may I conceive without offence take any Text suitable to that occasion and having taken it may or at least ought to speak suitably to that Text. I proceed now to the second thing proposed from the Words which is the Means assigned for the Discharge of the Duties mentioned and exhibited under this one short Prescription Let no man despise thee In the handling of which I shall show 1. The ill effects and destructive Influence that Contempt has upon Government 2. The groundless Causes upon which Church-Rulers are frequently despised 3. And lastly the just Causes that would render them or indeed any other Rulers worthy to be despised All which being clearly made out and impartially laid before our eyes it will be easy and obvious for every one by avoiding the Evil so marked out to answer and come up to the Apostles Exhortation And first we will discourse of Contempt and the malign hostile Influence it has upon Government As for the thing itself every man's Experience will inform him that there is no Action in the Behaviour of one man towards another of which humane Nature is more Impatient than of Contempt It being a thing made up of these two Ingredients an undervaluing of a Man upon a belief of his utter uselessness and Inability and a Spiteful endeavour to engage the rest of the World in the same Belief and slight Esteem of him So that the immediate Design of Contempt is the shame of the Person contemned and Shame is a Banishment of him from the good Opinion of the World which every man most earnestly Desires both upon a Principle of Nature and of Interest For it is Natural to all men to affect a good Name & he that despises a man Libels him in his Thoughts Reviles and Traduces him in his Judgement And there is also Interest in the Case For a Desire to be well thought of directly Resolves itself into that owned and mighty Principle of self-Preservation For as much as Thoughts are the first wheels and motives of Action and there is no long passage from one to the other He that Thinks a man to the ground will quickly endeavour to Lay him there for while he Despises him he Arraigns and Condemns him in his Heart and all the after Bitterness and Cruelties of his Practices are but the Executioners of the Sentence passed before upon him by his Judgement Contempt like the Planet Saturn has first an ill Aspect and then a destroying Influence By all which I suppose it is sufficiently proved how Noxious it must needs be to every Governor for can a man respect the Person whom he Despises and can there be Obedience where there is not so much as Respect will the Knee bend while the Heart Insults and the Actions Submit while the Aprehensions Rebel And therefore the most experienced Disturbers and Underminers of Government have always laid their first Train in Contempt endeavouring to blow it up in the Judgement and Esteem of the Subject And was not this method observed in the late most flourishing and successful Rebellion for how studiously did they lay about them both from the Pulpit and the Press to cast a slur upon the King's Person and to bring his governing Abilities under a Disrepute and then after they had sufficiently Blasted him in his Personal Capacity they found it easy Work to dash and overthrow him in his Political Reputation is Power and consequently to Despise is to Weaken For where there is Contempt there can be no Awe and where there is no Awe there will be no Subjection and if there is no Subjection it is impossible without the help of the ●ormer Distinction of a Politic Capacity to imagine how a Prince can be a Governor He that makes his Prince despised and undervalved blows a Trumpet against him in men's Breasts beats him out of his Subjects hearts and fights him out of their Affections and after this he may easily strip him of his other Garrisons having already dispossessed him of his strongest by dismantling him of his Honour and seizing his Reputation Nor is what has been said of Princes less true of all other Governors form Highest to Lowest from him that Heads an Army to him that is but Master of a Family or of one single Servant the formal Reason of a thing equally extending itself to every particular of the same kind It is a Proposition of Eternal Verity that None can Govern while he is Despised We may as well imagine that there may be a King without Majesty a Supreme without Sovereignty It is a Paradox and a Direct contradiction in Practice for where Contempt takes place the very Causes and Capacities of Government cease Men are so far form being Governed by a despised Person that they will not so much as be taught by Him Truth itself shall lose its Credit if Delivered by a Person that has none As on the Contrary be but a Person in Vogue and Credit with the Multitude he shall be able to commend and set off whatsoever he says to authorise any Nonsense and to make Popular rambling incoherent Stuff seasoned with Twang and Tautology pass for high Rhetoric and moving Preaching such indeed as a Zealous Tradesman would even Live and Die under And now I suppose it is no ill Topick of Argumentation to show the Prevalence of Contempt by the contrary Influences of Respect which thus as it were Dubbs every little pettit Admired person Lord and Commander of all his Admirers And certain it is that the Ecclesiastical as well as the Civil Governor has cause to pursue the same Methods of Securing and Confirming himself the grounds and means of Government being founded upon the same bottom of Nature in both though the Circumstances and Relative Considerations of the Persons may differ And I have nothing to say more upon this Head but that if Churchmen are called upon to Discharge the parts of Governors they may with the highest Reason expect those Supports and Helps that are indispensably Requisite thereunto and that those men are but Trepanned who are called to Govern being invested with Authority but bereft of Power which according to a true and plain Estimate of things is nothing else but to mock and betray them into a Splendid and Magisterial way of being Ridiculous And thus much for the ill Effects and destructive Influence that Contempt has upon Government I pass now to the 2d. Thing which is to show the Groundless Causes upon which Church-Rulers are frequently Despised Concerning which I shall premise this That nothing can be a reasonable Ground of Despising a man but some Fault or other chargeable upon him and nothing can be a Fault that is not Naturally in a man's power to prevent Otherwise it is a man's Unhappiness his Mischance or Calamity but not his Fault Nothing can justly be Despised that cannot justly be Blamed and it is a most certain Rule in Reason and moral Philosophy That where there is no Choice there can be no Blame This premised we may take notice of two usual grounds of the Contempt men cast upon the Clergy and yet for which no man ought to think himself at all the more worthy to be Contemned 1. The first is their very Profession itself Concerning which it is a sad but an experimented Truth that the Names derived from it in the refined Language of the present Age are made but the Appellatives of Scorn This is not charged Universally upon all but experience will Affirm or rather proclaim it of much the greater part of the World and men must persuade us that we have lost our Hearing and our common Sense before we can believe the Contrary But surely the Bottom and Foundation of this Behaviour towards Persons set apart for the Service of God that this very Relation should entitle them to such a peculiar Scorn can be nothing else but Atheism the growing rampant Sin of the Times For call a man Oppressor gripping Covetous or overreaching person and the Word indeed being ill befriended by Custom perhaps sounds not well but generally in the apprehension of the Hearer it signifies no more then that such an one is a Wise and a Thriving or in the common Phrase a Notable man which will certainly procure him a Respect And say of another that he is an Epicure a Loose or a Vicious man and it leaves in men no other Opinion of him then that he is a Merry a Pleasant and a Gentile Person and that he that taxes him is but a Pedant an Unexperienced and a Morose fellow one that does not know men nor understand what it is to Eat and Drink well But call a man Priest or Parson and you set him in some men's Esteem ten degrees below his own Servant But let us not be Discouraged or Displeased either with ourselves or our Profession upon this account Let the Vertuoso's Mock Insult and Despise on yet after all they shall never be able to Droll away the Nature of things to trample a Pearl into a Pibble nor to make Sacred things Contemptible any more than themselves by such speeches Honourable 2. Another groundless Cause of some men's despising the Governors of our Church is their loss of that former Grandeur and Privilege that they enjoyed But it is no real Disgrace to the Church merely to lose her Privileges but to forfeit them by her Fault or Misdemeanour of which she is not Conscious Whatsoever she enjoyed in this kind she readily acknowledges to have streamed from the Royal Munificence and the favours of the Civil Power shining upon the Spiritual which Favours the same Power may retract and gather back into itself when it pleases And we Envy not the Greatness and Lustre of the Romish Clergy neither their Scarlet Gowns nor their Scarlet Sins If our Church cannot be Great which is better she can be Humble and content to be Reform into as low a Condition as men for their own private Advantage would have her who wisely tell her that it is best and safest for her to be without any Power or Temporal advantage like the good Physician who out of tenderness to his Patient lest he should hurt himself by Drinking was so kind as to rob him of his silver Cup. The Church of England Glories in nothing more then that she is the truest Friend to Kings and to Kingly Government of any other Church in the World that they were the same Hands and Principles that took the Crown from the King's Head and the Mitre from the Bishops It is indeed the Happiness of some Professions and Callings that they can equally square themselves to and thrive under all Revolutions of Government but the Clergy of England neither know nor affect that Happiness and are willing to be Despised for not doing so And so far is our Church from encroaching upon the Civil Power as some who are Back-friends to both would maliciously Insinuate that were it stripped of the very Remainder of its Privileges and made as like the Primitive Church for its Bareness as it is already for its Purity it could Cheerfully and what is more Loyally want all such Privileges and in the want of them pray heartily that the Civil Power may flourish as much and stand as secure from the Assaults of Fanatic antimonarchical Principles grown to such a dreadful height during the Churches late Confusions as it stood while the Church enjoyed those Privileges And thus much for the two groundless Causes upon which Church Rulers are frequently Despised I descend now to the 3d and Last thing which is to show those just Causes that would render them or indeed any other Rulers worthy to be Despised Many might be Assigned but I shall pitch only upon Four in Discoursing of which rather the Time than the Subject will force me to be very Brief 1. And the first is Ignorance We know how great an Absurdity our Saviour accounted it for the Blind to lead the Blind and to put him that cannot so much as See to discharge the Office of a Watch. Nothing more exposes to Contempt then Ignorance When Sampsons' eyes were out of a public Magistrate he was made a public Sport And when Eli was blind we know how well he Governed his Sons and how well they Governed the Church under him But now the Blindness of the Understanding is Greater and more Scandalous especially in such a seeing Age as Ours in which the very Knowledge of former times passes but for Ignorance in a better Dress an Age that flies at all Learning and inquires into every thing but especially into Faults and Defects Ignorance indeed so far as it may be Resolved into Natural inability is as to men at least Inculpable and consequently not the Object of Scorn but Pity but in a Governor it cannot be without the Conjunction of the highest Impudence For who bid such an one Aspire to Teach and to Govern A blind man sitting in the Chimney-corner is pardonable enough but sitting at the Helm he is Intolerable If men will be Ignorant and Illiterate let them be so in Private and to themselves and not set their Defects in an high Place to make them Visible and Conspicuous If Owls will not be hooted at let them keep close within the Tree and not Perch upon the upper Bows 2. A Second thing that makes a Governor justly despised is Viciousness and ill Morals Virtue is that that must Tipp the Preachers Tongue and the Ruler's Sceptre with Authority And therefore with what a Controlling Overpowering force did our Saviour Tax the Sins of the Jews when he ushered in his Rebukes of them with that high assertion of himself Who is there amongst you that convinces me of Sin Otherwise we may easily guests with what impatience the world would have heard an incestuous Herod discoursing of Chastity a Judas condemning Covetousness or a Pharisee Preaching against Hypocrisy Every word must have recoiled upon the Speaker Gild is that that quells the Courage of the Bold ties the Tongue of the Eloquent and makes Greatness itself sneak and lurk and behave itself poorly For let a Vicious Person be in never so high Command yet still he will be looked upon but as one great Vice empowered to Correct and Chastise others A Corrupt Governor is nothing else but a reigning Sin And a Sin in Office may Command any thing but Respect No Man can be Credited by his Place or Power who by his Virtue does not first Credit that 3. A Third thing that makes a Governor justly despised is fearfulness of and Mean Compliances with Bold Popular Offenders Some indeed account it the very Spirit of Policy and Prudence where Men refuse to come up to a Law to make the Law come down to them And for their so doing have this infallible Recompense that they are not at all the more Loved but much the less Feared and which is a sure Consequent of it accordingly Respected But believe it it is a Resolute tenacious Adherence to well Chosen Principles than adds Glory to Greatness and makes the face of a Governor shine in the Eyes of those that see and examine his Actions Disobedience if complied with is infinitely encroaching and having gained one degree of Liberty upon Indulgence will demand another upon Claim Every Vice Interprets a Connivance an Approbation Which being so is it not an Enormous indecency as well as a gross impiety that any one who owns the Name of a Divine hearing a great Sinner brave it against Heaven talk Atheistically and scoff Profanely at that Religion by which he owns an Expectation to be saved if he cares to be saved at all should instead of Vindicating the Truth to the Blasphemers Teeth think it Discretion and Moderation forsooth with a Complying Silence and perhaps a Smile to boot tacitly to approve and strike in with the Scoffer and so go Sharer both in the Mirth and Gild of his profane Jests But let such an one be assured that even that Blasphemer himself would inwardly Reverence him if Rebuked by him as on the Contrary he in his Heart really Despises him for his Cowardly base Silence If any one should reply here that the Times and Manners of men will not bear such a Practice I confess that it is an Answer from the mouth of a Professed  very Rational But as for that man that is not so Let him satisfy himself of the Reason Justice and Duty of an Action and leave the Event of it to God who will never fail those who do not think themselves too wise to Trust Him For let the worst come to the worst a man in so doing would be ruined more Honourably then otherwise preferred 4. And lastly A fourth thing that makes a Governor justly Despised is a proness to Despise others There is a kind of Respect due to the Meanest Person even from the Greatest for it is the mere favour of Providence that he who is Actually the Greatest was not the Meanest A man cannot cast his Respects so low but they will Rebound and Return upon him What Heaven bestows upon the Earth in kind Influences and benign Aspects is paid it back again in Sacrifice Incense and Adoration And surely a great Person gets more by Obliging his Inferior then by Disdaining him as a man has a greater advantage by Sowing and Dressing his Ground than he can have by trampling upon it It is not to Insult and Domineer to look Disdainfully and Revile Imperiously that procures an Esteem from any one it will indeed make men keep their Distance sufficiently but it will be Distance without Reverence And thus I have shown four several Causes that may justly render any Ruler Despised and by the same Work I hope have made it Evident how little Cause men have to Despise the Rulers of our Church God is the Fountain of Honour and the Conduit by which he Conveys it to the Sons of men are Virtuous and Generous Practices But as for Us who have more Immediately and Nearly Devoted both our Persons and Concerns to his Service it were infinitely vain to expect it upon any other Terms Some indeed may 〈…〉 from full Revenues stately Palaces Court Interests and great Dependences But that which makes the Clergy glorious to be Knowing in their Profession Unspotted in their Lives Active and Laborious in their Charges Bold and Resolute in opposing Seducers and daring to look Vice in the face though never so Potent and Illustrious And lastly to be Gentle Courteous and Compassionate to all These are our Robes and our Maces our Escutenions and highest Titles of Honour for by all these things God is honoured who has Declared this the Eternal Rule and Standard of all Honour deriveable upon men That those who Honour Him shall be Honoured by Him To which God fearful in Praises and working Wonders be rendered and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both now and for evermore Amen FINIS Page 7. 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