stage, and the most sovereign remedy against sin into the sacrifice of fools; making it a matter of sport to the light and vain, of pity to the devout, and of scorn and loathing to all; and, I believe, never yet drew a tear or a sigh from any well disposed auditor, unless perhaps for the sin and vanity of the speaker: So sad a thing it is, when sermons shall be such, that the most serious hearer of them shall not be able to command his attention and his countenance too.* For can it be imagined excusable, or indeed tolerable, for one, who owns himself for God's ambassador to the people, to speak those things, as by his authority, of which it is hard to judge whether they detract from the honour or honesty of an ambassador most? But in a word, when the professed dispensers of the weighty matters of religion shall treat them in a way so utterly unsuitable to the grandeur of them, do they not come too near the infamous example of Eli's two sons, who managed their priestly office (as sacred as it was) in so wretched a manner, that it is said, that the people abhorred the offering of the Lord; and if so, we may be sure, abhorred the offerers much more?

Second, As the two forementioned ways mightily discredit the great ordinance of preaching, so they equally discredit the church itself. It is the unhappy fate of the clergy above all men, that their defects never terminate in their own persons, but still rebound upon their function; a manifest injustice certainly; where one is the criminal, and another must be the sufferer: But yet as bad as it is, from the practice of some persons, to take occasion to reproach the church; so on the other side, to give occasion, is undoubtedly much worse. And therefore, whatsoever relation to, or whatsoever interest in the church, such may pretend to, they are really greater enemies, and fouler blots to

[By a large proportion of readers, the writer is in some danger, with all his merits, of being thought the most signal example of the foible he condemns; and such must wonder or smile at the seeming unconsciousness which pervades this stricture.-ED.]

her excellent constitution, than the most avowed maligners of it, and consequently would have disobliged her infinitely less, had they fallen in with the schismatics and fanatics in their bitterest invectives against her; and that even to the renouncing her orders (as some of them have done) and an entire quitting of her communion. For better it is, to be hissed at by a snake out of the hedge or the dunghill, than to be hissed at, and bitten too, by one in one's own bosom. But I trust, that when men shall seriously consider, how and from whence the church's enemies have took advantage against her, there will be found those whose preaching shall both answer and adorn her constitution, and withal make her excellent instructions from the pulpit so to suit, as well as second her incomparable devotions from the desk, that they shall neither fly out into those levities and indecencies (so justly before condemned) on the one hand; nor yet sink into that sordid, supine dulness on the other, (which our men of the Spirit so much affect, and which we by no means desire to vie with them in.) In sum, we hope, that all our church performances shall be such, that she shall as much outshine all those about her, in the soundness and sobriety of her doctrines, as in the primitive excellency of her discipline.

2. I shall now pass to the concluding inference from this whole discourse; and that shall be, to exhort those who have already heard what preparations are required to a gospel scribe &c. and who withal design themselves for the same employment, with the utmost seriousness to consider the reasonableness, or rather necessity of bestowing a competent and sufficient time in the universities for that purpose. And to dissuade such from a hasty relinquishment of them, (besides arguments, more than enough, drawn from the great inconveniences of so doing, and the implicit prohibition of St. Paul himself, that he who undertakes a pastoral charge, must not be a novice,) there is still a more co

gent reason for the same, and that from the very nature of the thing itself: For how, naturally speaking, can there be a fitness for any great work, without preparation? And how can there be preparation, without due time and opportunity? It is observed of the Levites, though much of their ministry was only shoulder work, that they had yet a very considerable time for preparation. They were consecrated to it, by the imposition of hands, at the age of five and twenty; after which they employed five years in learning their office, and then at the thirtieth year they began their Levitical ministration; at which time also our blessed Saviour began his ministry. But now, under the gospel, when our work is ten times greater, (as well as twice ten times more spiritual than theirs was,) do we think to furnish ourselves in half the space? There was lately a company of men called tryers, commissioned by Cromwell, to judge of the abilities of such as were to be admitted into the ministry; who (forsooth) if any of that Levitical age presented himself to them for their approbation, they commonly rejected him with disdain; telling him, that if he had not been lukewarm, and good for nothing, he would have been disposed of in the ministry long before; and they would tell him also, that he was not only of a legal age, but of a legal spirit too; and as for things legal, (by which we poor mortals, and men of the letter, understand things done according to law,) this they renounced, and pretended to be many degrees above it; for otherwise we may be sure, that their great master of misrule Oliver, would never have commissioned them to serve him in that post. And now what a kind of ministry (may we imagine) such would have stocked this poor nation with, in the space of ten years more? But the truth is, for those, whose divinity was novelty, it ought to be no wonder, if their divines were to be novices too; and since they intended to make their preaching and praying an extemporary work, no

wonder if they were contented also with an extemporary preparation, and after two or three years spent in the university, ran abroad, under a pretence of serving God in their generation; (a term in mighty request with them) and that for reasons ('tis supposed) best known to themselves. But as for such mushroom divines, who start up so of a sudden, we do not usually find their success so good as to recommend their practice. Hasty births are seldom longlived, but never strong: And therefore, I hope, that those who love the church so well, as not to be willing that she should suffer by any failure of theirs, will make it their business so to stock themselves here, as to carry from hence both learning and experience to that arduous and great work, which so eminently requires both. And the more inexcusable will an over hasty leaving this noble place of improvement be, by how much the greater encouragement we now have to make a longer stay in it, than we had some years since; Providence having broken the rod of (I believe) as great spiritual oppression, as was ever before exercised upon any company or corporation of men whatsoever. When some spiritual tyrants, then at the top of it, not being able to fasten any accusation upon men's lives, mortally maligned by them, would presently arraign and pass sentence upon their hearts, and deny them the proper encouragement of scholars, because, forsooth, they were not, in their refined sense, godly and regenerate; because they would not espouse a faction, by resorting to their congregational, house-warming meetings, where the brotherhood, or sisterhood rather, used to be so very kind to their friends and brethren in the Lord. Besides the barbarous, raving insolence, which those spiritual dons from the pulpit were wont to show to all sorts and degrees of men, high and low; representing every casual mishap, as a judgment from God upon such and such persons, who being implacably hated by the

party, could not, it seems, be otherwise by God himself. For* mark the men, said holderforth, (as I myself with several others frequently heard him.) And then having thus fixed his mark, and taken aim, he would shoot through and through it with a vengeance. But, I hope, things are already come to that pass, that we shall never again hear any, especially of our own body, in the very face of loyalty and learning, dare in this place (so renowned for both) either rail at majesty, or decry a standing ministry, and in a most unnatural and preposterous manner plant their batteries in the pulpit for the beating down of the church.

In fine, therefore, both to relieve your patience, and close up this whole discourse, since Providence, by a wonder of mercy, has now opened a way for the return of our laws and our religion, it will concern us all seriously to consider, that as the work before us is the most important, both with reference to this world, and the next, so likewise to lay to heart, that this is the place of preparation, and now the time of it; and consequently, that the more time and care shall be taken by us, to go from hence prepared, the better, no doubt, will be our work, and the larger our reward.

*Dr. H. W. violently thrust in, canon of Christ church, Oxon, by the parliament visitors, in the year 1647.