*

found, than perhaps in all the Kingdom befides: Before you, laftly, who, befides your Epifcopal, are invefted with the additional Honour and Office of being provincial Dean to our great and wife METROPOLITAN; and having the Charge of his Mandates and Miffives to us, upon all Occasions, may be prefum'd the propereft Hand to carry up our Petitions and Requests to him again. Could I prevail with your Lordship to be our Advocate and Interceffor there; to intreat of him that he would take our Caufe under his Patronage likewife, and reprefent it in fome fuch View, as I am going to place it, to the Eye of the Legiflature; I might promife myfelf the happy Iffue of a well-meant Defign: and from the Concurrence of fo much Intereft and Address, fuch an Elevation of Mind and Station, fuch wife Zeal and true Concern for the Honour of Religion, as are found confpicuous in you both, hope to fee the Condition of the lower Clergy fettled upon a better Basis, the Senfe of their Sufferings entering the Confideration of both Houfes, and the Rights and Immunities, which, upon Examination, are found to be their own, fecur'd and perpetuated to them by Law.

THIS, my Lord, is a glorious Work, and a Field of Honour worth your Cultivation. The Magiftrate, whether in a civil or religious Capacity, never fhines fo bright, in my Opinion, as Job xxix. when he puts on Righteousness and Judgment for a Robe and Diadem; as when he is a Father to the Poor, and the Caufe that he knows not, fearcheth out; as when he breaks the Jaws of

14, &c.

Epifcopus Londinenfis (faith an antient record) fpeciali quadam dignitate cæteris anteponendus, quia ecclefiæ Cantuarienfis Decanus eft Provincialis. Vid. Prefent State of GreatBritain, p. 72.

the

the Wicked, and plucketh the Spoil out of his Teeth Princes and Nobles, we are told, admire him then, and the Bleffing of him that was ready to perifh, comes upon him.

THE Bounty of Heaven has given us a Prince, that will fuffer none of his Royal Authority to be wanting in the Relief and Protection of the meanest Subject that he has : The fame kind Heaven has placed you in a Sphere, where your Example muft needs be influential, and difpofe other People to a right Conception of things. The great and opulent Clergy will forget their fancied Superiority, be afraid to infult, and afhamed to treat us otherwife than Brethren, when they see you equally covering us under the Shadow of your Wing, and not difdaining to call us Sons. I muft fly therefore to your Lordship's Throne, and invoke your Favour and Protection, while I endeavour to fet before you (not to the beft Advantage, that I cannot do, but fairly and impartially, and as it has. been tranfmitted to me) the present State of fome of your inferior Clergy; a thing which others perhaps have induftriously conceal'd from your Knowledge too long, for Reasons that will not bear the Light. At this Throne I must take the Freedom to plead the Rights, I conceive, we have; and to complain of the Wrongs, I am fure, we fuffer; to fuggeft fome Remedies, that perhaps may be of ufe, and incite your Lordship to purfue them; with all due Deference to your Lordship's Character and confummate Wisdom, but perhaps wirh lefs Tenderness towards thofe that are of the fame Order and Equality with us (a few Appendages of Fortune only excepted) and whofe unworthy Treatment of us (to give it no harder Term as yet) has compell'd us at laft to break a long-continued Silence,

B 3

Silence, if not to work upon other Mens Minds, at least to ease our own.

To fet our Plea then in fome Method before you.

I. As we are the Minifters of the most High God, we think we have a Right to Honour and Refpect.

II. As our Labour and Time is entirely devoted to his Service, a Right to Maintenance and Support.

III. BECAUSE the Paffions of Men are not to be trufted, and that this Maintenance may not be precarious, a Right to fome legal Security for it. And,

IV. BECAUSE Offences will come, and that the weakest may not be undone; a Right to Juftice and Impartiality, when we appeal. And,

V. To Mercy and Lenity, when we have offended.

THESE are Rights that I think we may call our own, because they are made over to us in the Word of God, which is the great Charter of our Privileges: They are confirm'd to us by the Laws of Nature, and Confent of all Ages: They are maintain'd in the Decrees and Doctrines of antient Churches, and antient Fathers; and again, renewed and established to us in the Laws, and Offices, and Conftitutions of our own. But this I am to prove; and then, in Contrapofition, fhew your Lordship how grofly, at this time, they are invaded.

*Eft aliquod calamitatum delinimentum dediffe lacrymas malis, & pectus laxaffe fufpiriis; & nulla major eft poena quam effe miferum, nec videri, Drep. Paneg. ad Theod.

THE

1. YOUR Lordship is too converfant in all Hiftories, both facred and profane, to need any Information from me, upon what honourable Terms the Priesthood began, when the First- Numb. iii. born, and Head of the Family, was appointed 12. to that Office; when the Prince and the Priest were united in one and the fame Perfon; * and to have a Right of miniftring about holy things, was reckoned among the Jews, one of the higheft kinds of Nobility*: How all other Nations, both civiliz❜d and barbarous, that had a Senfe of God, or Form of Religion, among them, unanimously agreed to reverence the Priefts, the Minifters thereoft: How the Gospel bestows upon them the highest Titles and Appellations of Honour; and commands them to be obey'd, Heb. xiii. and to be efteemed very highly in Love for their 7. Theff. Work's fake: How the apoftolical Age received V. 13. them, even as the Angels of God, gladly minif tred to their Neceffities, and were ready in comparifon to pluck out their very Eyes to do them Gal. iv. good: How converted Kingdoms admitted them 15. to the nearest Truft, made Edicts, fettled Revenues, and granted Immunities in their Favour, protecting their Perfons from Violence, and their Reputations from Slander and Reproach: And in latter Times, when this Zeal began to abate, how the Laws of the Church endeavor'd continually to revive it, ut omnes fuis Sacerdotibus, tam majoris Ordinis, quam inferioris, a minimo ufque ad maximum, ut fummo Deo, cujus vice

* Εξ ῶν ἁπάντων ἐςὶ δῆλον ὅτι Βασιλέως εἰς σεμνότητα καὶ τιμὴν περιάπτει τοῖς ἱεράσι ὁ νόμος. Phil. de pram Sacerd. p. 832.

† Vid. Fofeph. vita, Tom. ii. p. 661.

Vid. Cave's Primitive Chriftianity, p. 158. and Bingham's Orig. Eccl. vol. 2. Gib. Cod. Can. Eccl. Cumber's Difcourfe upon the Ordination-Office.

P. I, &c. and

I.

in Ecclefia Legatione funguntur obedientes exiftant, as we find it in one of the * Capitulars

WHAT I chofe rather to fuggeft to your Lordship's Obfervation, is, the Grounds upon which the Scripture requires that the Clergy in all Ages fhould be held in fuch Honour and Eftimation. And,

1. ONE of thefe is the Dignity and great 1 Cor. iv. Majefty of the Mafter they ferve: Let a Man account of us, fays the Apoftle, as of the Minifters of Chrift. The Ufe of the Word Minister indeed is almoft brought down to the literal Acceptation of it, a Servant; for to ferve and to minifter, fervile and minifterial, are Terms in a manner equivocal. But when 'tis remembred, that we are not the Servants of Men, but of Chrift; of him, who is the Fountain and Original of Honour, and to whom all Powers and Principalities both in Heaven and Earth do bow and obey; whofe Name reflects Luftre, and whofe Promises affure us, that the leaft Kindness or Affront offer'd to us, fhall be refented as done to himself; when this is remembred, I say, the Word rifes in its Signification, and our Imagination begins to feel a grateful Senfe, upon the Reflexion of our being thought worthy to attend in the meaneft Offices about fo great a Mafter. For this Reafon perhaps it is, that the fame Word, in the Old Teftament, fignifies both a Priest and a Prince; and that the Royal Prophet, who had no contemptible Notion of Greatnefs himself, makes Pf. lxxxiv. it his Option to be a Door-keeper in the House of God, rather than to dwell in the Tents of Wickedness. For this reafon, I am fure, it is, that fuch Care was taken in the Levitical Law,

10.

Lev. ii.

17, &c.

* Cap. Car. Mag. An. 805. ch. 35. p. 437

that