HAD I the spirit of an adversary, or were inclined to find entertainment for the satirical reader, it would not be easy for me to overlook the opportunity which Dr. ♦Trapp’s Reply has put into my hands; but as I don’t want to lessen any appearance of ability which the Doctor has shewn on this occasion; so whatever personally concerns him, either as a writer, a scholar, a disputant, a divine, or a Christian, shall have no reflection from me; and tho’ by this means, some sort of readers may be less pleased, yet, the more Christian reader will be glad to find, that thus I must leave two thirds of his reply untouched; and as I neither have, nor (by the grace of God) ever will have any personal contention with any man whatever, so all the triumph which the Doctor has gained over me by that flow of wrath and contempt which he has let loose upon me, I shall leave him quietly to enjoy.
It would be no pleasure to me, nor benefit to the world, to discover that malignity of spirit, that undistinguishing head, that diabolical calumny, that shameful ignorance, that indecent sufficiency, that unbecoming presumption, that nauseous dulness, that ignorance of logic, that insensibility of argument, that want of grammar, which he has so heartily laid to my charge; and if he has any readers that thank him for this, I shall make no attempt to lessen their number.
As I desire nothing for myself, or the reader, but good eyes, and a good heart, seriously attentive to things useful, and always open to the light and influence of the Holy Spirit of God, so I shall endeavour to say nothing but what is suitable to such a state of mind, both in myself and the reader.
* The thing of importance which I shall speak to, shall be with regard to what I have said to the clergy. The miserable state of religion, and the great corruption of manners, so incontestably apparent in this island, gave me a just occasion to desire all the clergy, from the highest to the lowest in the order, to consider their conduct, and see how free they were from the common corruption, and how justly every one could clear himself from having any share in this general depravity of manners. I was not insensible that this was a dangerous attempt, that would expose me to the resentment of not a few of my brethren: but as I wrote for no other end but to do as much good as I could to those who were capable of it, so I had no care but how to speak disagreeable truths, in as inoffensive a manner as I could; how I have succeeded in this, is left to the world to judge. And as it is but too apparent, that the root of all the evil, which but too much spreads itself through the whole body of the clergy, is owing to a worldly, trading spirit, too visible from the top to the bottom of the order, so I pointed at it in the softest manner that I could, in the following words, grounded on a plain apostolical doctrine and practice.
St. Paul, I had observed, had said, it was lawful for those that preach the gospel to live by the gospel, and yet makes it matter of the greatest comfort to himself that he had wholly abstained from this lawful thing; and declares it were better for him to die than that this rejoicing should be taken from him. He appeals to his daily and nightly working with his own hands, that so he might preach the gospel freely, and not be chargeable to those that heard him. And this he said he did, not for want of authority to do otherwise, but that he might make himself an example unto them to follow him. Here, I say, “What awakening instructions are here given to us of the clergy, in a practical matter of the greatest moment? How ought every one to be frighted at the thoughts of desiring or seeking a second living, or of rejoicing at great pay where there is but little duty, when the apostle’s rejoicing consisted in this, that he had passed thro’ all the fatigues and perils of preaching the gospel without any pay at all? How cautious, nay, how fearful ought we to be, of going so far as the secular laws permit, when the apostle thought it more desirable to lose his life, than to go so far as the very law of the gospel would have suffered him?
“It is looked upon as lawful to get several preferments, and to make a gain of the gospel, by hiring others to do duty for us at a lower rate. It is looked upon as lawful to quit a cure of souls of a small income, for no other reason, but because we can get another of a greater. It is looked upon as lawful for a clergyman to take the revenues of the church, which he serves, to his own use, tho’ he has more than a competency of his own, and much more than the apostle could get by his labour. It is looked upon as lawful for the clergy to live in state and equipage, to buy purple and fine linen out of the revenues of the church. It is looked upon as lawful for clergymen to enrich their families, to bring up their children in the fashionable vanities, and corrupting methods of a worldly and expensive life, by money got by preaching the gospel of Christ. But supposing all this lawful, what comfort might we treasure up to ourselves, what honour might we bring to religion, what force might we give to the gospel, what benefit should we do to our neighbour, if we wholly abstained from all these lawful things? Not by working day and night with our own hands, as the great apostle did, but by limiting our wants and desires to the plain demands of nature, and a religious self-denial.”
Now, there are but two possible ways of justly replying to this; first, either by shewing that these observations are falsely drawn from the apostle’s doctrine and practice, that I have mistaken the spirit of St. Paul, and the genius of the gospel, that I am doing what the apostle would not do, was he here in person, and representing such things as corruptions, which the apostle would be glad to see flourishing in the church of Christ: Or, secondly, that though these things are condemnable from the apostle’s doctrine and practice, yet they are not chargeable upon the temper and practice of the clergy of this land. But, though not a word to the purpose could possibly be said, unless by one of these two ways, yet the Doctor shuts his eyes to both of them, and then pronounces sentence upon me, “That a Quaker or Infidel could not well have reflected with more virulency upon the clergy of our church, than I have done in these expressions.”
Must I then suppose, that the Doctor in his sermons never mentions any failings that concern his auditors? If he does, I desire to know, how he clears himself from virulently reflecting upon them? The Quakers and Infidels are ready enough, and able enough to shew, that most congregations of Christians are sadly fallen from the religion of the gospel. But does the Doctor forbear this charge, is he ashamed to call his flock to a more Christian life, or afraid to remind them of their departure from the gospel, lest he should seem to join with Quakers and Infidels? Or, how can the Doctor be thought to have any true love, or just esteem for those Christians, whom he is so often reminding of the corruption of their manners, so contrary to the religion of Jesus Christ? Now, if the Doctor knows how to untie this knot, and to extricate himself from the charge of virulent reflecting upon his parishoners, as Quakers and Infidels do, then he has dissolved his charge against me into a mere nothing.
* If it was a thing required of me, I know no more how to raise in myself the least spark of ill-will towards the clergy, as such, than I know how to work myself up into a hatred of the light of the sun. It is as natural to me, to wish them all their perfection, as to wish peace and happiness to myself here and hereafter; and when I point at any failings in their conduct, it is only with such a spirit as I would pluck a brother out of the fire.
In that part of my answer, which is addressed to the younger clergy, I said, “Lay this down for an infallible principle; that an entire, absolute renunciation of all worldly interest, is the only possible foundation of that exalted virtue, which your station requires; without this, all attempts after an exemplary piety are vain: (and then, by way of limitation and explication of this, it thus immediately follows:) If you want any thing from the world by way of figure and exaltation, you shut the power of your Redeemer out of your own souls, and instead of converting, you corrupt the hearts of those that are about you. Detest therefore, with the utmost abhorrence, all desires of making your fortunes, either by preferments, or rich marriages, and let it be your only ambition, to stand at the top of every virtue, as visible guides and patterns to all that aspire after the perfection of holiness,” p. 61.
Now, one would imagine there was no part of the Christian world, however corrupted, where this doctrine would not be admitted at least in theory; or, that the gospel of Christ should be thought to be reproached, where such advice as this was given to young divines: and yet it is of this very advice, that Dr. ♦Trapp says, “he hopes they will have more grace and sense than to follow it: that it is false doctrine, tending to the reproach and scandal of the Christian religion,” p. 87.
Is it then come to this, that unless young divines chuse to serve mammon as well as God, their profession is a renouncing of grace and sense, and a reproach to religion? And must they that pretend to act in Christ’s name, as successors in his office, take care that they renounce not the politics of the kingdom of this world? For my part, I thought it as consistent with the honour of the gospel, to give this advice, to suppress all worldly views, as to resist the temptations of the devil.
Had Martin Luther, when he gave his reasons for withdrawing from the Pope, been able to have added this; that the advice here given, had been formally condemned by the Pope in a great council, the defenders of that church would have found it as hard to have made such a decree consistent with the gospel, as the selling of ♦indulgences: and it may well be supposed, that no Protestant writer, when setting forth the marks of antichrist, in that church, would have forgot to have made this condemnation to be one of them.
For who can shew it to be so contrary to the whole spirit of the gospel, to call in the assistance of the saints, or to deny the cup to the laity, who can shew this to put so entire a stop to salvation by the gospel, as to condemn this advice to young divines, as a reproach to Christianity? For all the ends of the gospel may be pursued, and men may arise out of the corruption of their nature, notwithstanding these two mistakes: but to condemn it as an error inconsistent with grace and sense, a reproach to Christianity, for young divines to renounce worldly views, and devote themselves wholly to God, is striking at the whole root of all holiness, and a denial of the whole spirit of the gospel.
Our church requires all its candidates for holy orders, to make profession of their being moved and called by the Holy Ghost to enter into the service of the church: this, I should think, is proof enough, that the spirit of this world ought not to be alive in them, when they make this profession; and yet, if any young persons should come to be ordained, thus dead to all worldly views, thus wholly devoted to God, they ought according to the Doctor, to be rejected by the bishop, as being led by a spirit that has lost all grace and sense, and is a reproach to the Christian religion.
It is needless to quote particular texts of scripture, teaching the same that I have here taught; the whole nature of our redemption is a standing proof of the same thing; for we want to be redeemed for no other reason, but because we are born children of this world, ♦and have by nature only the life, spirit and temper of this world, in us: this is our fall, our curse, our separation from God; and therefore we can have no redemption, but by a renunciation of all the workings of the life of this world in us, by a total dying to, and denying ourselves; because all that we are, as to our state, spirit and life in this world, is a life that carries us from God, a life that should not have been in us; ’tis a life begun by the fall, a life of sin and corruption, which cannot enter into heaven. Indeed the life that we have in this world, from Adam, is not to be naturally destroyed, nor are the necessaries and conveniences of life to be rejected, nor is any one to renounce his share in the employments that are useful to social life: the renunciation of this world reaches no farther than the renouncing the spirit, and inclinations of it. We may stand in our stations, when we stand in them as the servants of God, as citizens of the new Jerusalem, who have amongst earthly things, our conversation in heaven: we may keep our possessions, when we possess them as the things of God, and use them not as nature, but as the Spirit directs us; when we do thus, we have the poverty of spirit, which the gospel requires, and come up to the sense of that command given to the young man, to sell all that he had, and give to the poor.
But now, if our natural life is a corrupt, bestial, diabolical life brought forth by the fall, if we want to be born again of the Holy Spirit, because our natural birth is according to the spirit of this world; if nothing of the beast, or the devil, no kind or degree of envy, pride and vanity can enter into the kingdom of God, then it is plain, that all religion which leaves this nature unrenounced, which lets pride, wrath, and vanity subsist in us, which brings us to our graves in the same nature in which we were born, is not the religion that can save us. If this nature in all its most secret workings is not renounced, it matters not what we are, or what we have been doing, it signifies little in what chair we have sat, whether in Italy, or England, how long we have been preachers, how many hereticks and schismaticks we have opposed, or how many books we have written in defence of orthodoxy; it is as vain to appeal to this, as to our having preached and prophesied in the name of Christ: for if this nature is allowed to live in us, all our good works have been governed by it, they are animated with pride, and only serve to gratify our own natural passions. When therefore the Doctor calls upon young divines to have more grace and sense than to be driven from thoughts of advancing themselves by preferments and rich marriages, he would do well to consider, how little short this is of calling them to break their very baptismal vow, of renouncing the pomps and vanities of the world. And if young candidates for holy orders, looking only at their baptismal vow, should be led into this degree of self-denial and detachment from the world, does the Doctor think, that the apostles, from whom this baptismal vow is descended, will rise up in the day of judgment, and condemn such abuse of it? Does he think, that there are any departed saints that will join with him in saying, such a spirit is a reproach to the gospel? What more favourable disposition could the adversary of mankind wish to see, either in young or old divines, than a wanting and desiring to have figure in the world, either by preferments or rich marriages? Would he find it difficult to enter into those hearts, where the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life has thus entered? Or would he look upon such as but half fitted for him, in comparison of those who entered into holy orders in a spirit of self-denial, and renunciation of the pomps and vanities of the world?
* John the Baptist was but the preparer of the way for evangelical purity of life; but does, the Doctor think that if the Baptist was now to come amongst us, he would look at things as the Doctor does, that he would see such perfections and such corruptions, such orthodoxy and such enthusiasm as the Doctor sees; that this burning and shining light would see no generation of vipers but where the Doctor sees them; that he would preach no where but in churches; that he would spare no clergy, nor any church, but that which is established in this island; that he would complain of the hardships of our clergy, and the suffering spirit which they are forced to practise, that he would plead for a priestly liberty of coveting preferments and rich marriages, that he would recommend the Doctor’s discourse of the folly, sin, and danger of being righteous over-much, as the true fruits of that spirit which first preached the gospel? He that can believe this, must believe that the Baptist was come to confess the errors of his first appearance in the world.
I shall therefore proceed to tell young divines, that a total renunciation of the spirit, and inclinations of this life, is the one thing necessary to consecrate them to their holy office; that as sure as the church of Christ is not a kingdom of this world, as sure as Jesus Christ came to deliver us from this evil world, as sure as he requires us to be born again, and to forsake all and follow him, so sure is it that no one has the call of the Holy Spirit to the ministry, nor the least ground of hoping to be led and governed by it in his ministry, till he at least prays, desires, and heartily endeavours to have all that disregard of worldly prosperity, figure, and distinction, which the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the maxims of the gospel, and the practice of the apostles set before him. Till this renunciation of the world is made, we cannot enter into the ministry at its own door, but like thieves and robbers, climb over its walls; and then it will be no wonder if we do no more good to the church than thieves do the house they break open and plunder. If a young minister wants to act the part of a fine gentleman, to go on in the common spirit of the world, to cover a secular spirit with an ecclesiastic garb, and make his fortune in the church, he must be told that it is much safer to be a publican and a sinner, than to be a trader in spiritual things; that he who with unsanctified hands attends at the altar, is farther from the kingdom of God, than a publican.
Covetousness is idolatry; it is a heathenish, anti-christian vice, tho’ only trafficking in worldly matters; but when it takes possession of the altar, and makes a trade of the mysteries of salvation, it has a blackness of vice which much exceeds that of the worldly miser. The spirit of an ♦ecclesiastic should be the spirit of heaven, knowing nothing of this world, but how to escape its snares and temptations, burning in the love of God, and holding out light to all that aspire after every perfection of the Christian life.
* ’Tis too commonly thought, that when a young student has taken his degree, and shewn some signs of a genius for learning, he is well prepared to enter into the service of the church. But alas! all the accomplishments of human learning are but the ornaments of the old man, which leave the soul in it slavery to sin, full of all the disorders and corruptions of the fallen nature. If it were not thus, how could the errors of all churches have the greatest scholars for their champions? All the learned Catholic world is amazed at the blindness, the perverseness, the weakness, the sophistry, the unfairness of Protestant critics. All the Protestant world is in the same degree of wonder at the same disorders in Catholic disputants. Is not this a demonstration of the nature, power, and place of human learning? Of its great uselessness to religion? Does not this enough shew, that it is the offspring of the old man, and his nature and qualities dwells in him, and is governed by him? Is not this a demonstration, that the greatest degrees of historical, verbal, critical knowledge are no real hinderance of spiritual blindness? That human learning is as different from divine light as heaven is from earth; and that considered in itself, it leaves us in our slavery to blind and corrupt passions? Now nothing can deliver a man from this state, but the Spirit of God derived into his soul, which alone can bring forth a new man created in Christ Jesus. Nothing can make way for this new birth, but a total dying to all that we are by our natural birth. ’Tis only this separation from things below, that can make us partakers of the truth and light that comes from above. Take away all selfishness from the Papist and the Protestant, let them be dead to the workings of the Spirit, and they will be as fully agreed about gospel truths, as they are in the form of a square or a circle. For nothing stands in the way of divine truth, or hinders its full entrance into us, but this selfishness, which adheres to every one who does not make it his first maxim, prayer, and endeavour to die to, and deny himself in all the tempers and inclinations of our fallen nature. This self-denial is the continual doctrine of our Lord; it is by him made the beginning of all conversion to God, and he that cannot, or will not begin there, can make no beginning of that life, to which he is called in Christ Jesus: therefore he that offers himself for holy orders, without this spirit of self-denial, is a miserable intruder; he only hardens and fixes himself in the corruptions of his own nature, and instead of becoming an instrument of saving others, his very office makes his own salvation more dangerous.
I doubt not but some will here charge me with pleading for poverty in the ministry, and with enmity to that maintenance which they have both from the law and the gospel. But this is so far from being true, that I wish every good minister, whom the Spirit of God has called to this office, and governs in it, had much more of this world’s goods than are needful for his own subsistence; because it is certain, that such a one’s money would all be put into the poor’s bag, and he would as gladly administer to their temporal as to their spiritual necessities. I write against nothing but avarice, pride, and ambition, and the making the provisions of the church subservient to these tempers. A provision arising from the gospel, is consecrated by the gospel, and is profaned by being touched and used by a worldly spirit. And he who turns this provision of the gospel into a gratification of worldly passions, sins against the gospel more than he that pays his tithes with reluctance.
I can easily believe, there are clergy in this land, who labour in the gospel, without having a sufficient subsistence from it; but may not much of this evil be charged upon pluralities, commendams, and such like spiritual trading? If the inferior clergy had their labours only undervalued by the laity, they would be in a much better condition than they are.
When it is complained by what shameful qualifications, empty titles, and unworthy pretences, numbers of persons get loaded and dignified with variety of preferments; it is answered, that if preferments might not be thus crowded together, distinguished abilities and eminent labours for the service of religion, must go unrewarded.
As this answer is not fetched from the gospel, or the primitive church, so it is as little supported by reason. For if this eminent labour is truly pious labour, what state of life can so little want to be rewarded? How can imagination itself place a man more above the thoughts and desires of worldly advancement? If such a one is full of the spirit of the gospel, if his labours have been like those of an apostle, must he not like an apostle, be dead to the world? Can such a one look upon his labour as a hardship, because it has left him as low, and as far from the pomp of the world as it found him? Can he repine because the gospel has not proved a good worldly bargain to him? If the Spirit of God has begun, and directed all his labours, animated all his studies and designs, can such a one think it hard, that he has not by such labours purchased to himself a share in the state and pride of life?
* If by a great divine, is only meant a person well skilled in critical contention, who can artfully defend a set of notions, amongst which he happened to be born and bred, such a divine, I own, may be very impatient, and much cooled in his zeal, unless he finds himself well rewarded. But if an eminent divine is to be understood in a sense suitable to the gospel, he is that particular person that must needs have the greatest contempt and dislike of every thing, that has but the appearance of the pomp and vanity of this world in it. If therefore it was urged, that this conjunction of preferments and dignifying rewards was necessary to bring ambitious scholars into the church, or to keep them in it, there would be some sense, tho’ no gospel in the pretence; but to talk of them as necessary to be the rewards of eminent piety and apostolic labour, is as absurd, as to say, that those who have truly put on Christ, who stand in the highest degree of a renewed nature, who best know and feel the blessing of a mortified, heavenly spirit, have less reason to be content with food and raiment, than those who stand in a lower degree of the Christian life; ’tis saying, that a bishop, because he has most of the spirit and office of an apostle, may well desire more of the pride and figure of this world, than the lower clergy, who have less of the apostolic spirit and perfection in them.
To want to stand in some degree of worldly figure, is the state of a babe in the Christian life, and therefore can no way become those, who are to lead others to fulness of stature in Christ Jesus.
A great divine is but a cant expression, unless it signifies a man greatly advanced in the divine life, whose own experience and example is a demonstration of the reality of all the graces of the gospel. No divine has any more of the gospel in him, than that which proves itself by the spirit, and form of his life: if therefore poverty of spirit, a disregard of worldly figure, a total self-denial is any part of the gospel, an eminent divine, can have no wish with regard to the figure, pride and pomp of life, but to be placed out of every appearance of it: and if the highest in divine knowledge are not the foremost in poverty of spirit, and the outward humility of Christ and his apostles; if they desire to have a dignity of worldly figure, to have respect by any other means than by a divine evangelical spirit and conversation, and are not content with all the contempt that such a life can expose them to, they may be great scholars, but they are little divines, and are wanting in that which is the chief part of the ministers of Jesus Christ.
The next thing I said to the young clergy, was this; “Consider yourselves merely as the messengers of God, that are sent into the world solely on his errand; and think it happiness enough that you are called to the same business for which the Son of God was born into the world.” p. 81.
Now, I thought what I have said, was as unexceptionable, as unfit to be condemned by a professor of Christian theology, as if I had only recommended the loving of God with all our heart and soul, and mind and strength; and that if any clergyman disliked it, he would be forced to keep his dislike to himself; but the Doctor is very open in his indignation at it; the same answer, he says, is to be given here, as before, viz. that it is false doctrine, tending to the scandal and reproach of the Christian religion.
Our blessed Lord, when he sent the first preachers of the gospel into the world, said unto them, As my Father hath sent me, so send I you—go ye and teach all nations—and lo I am with you to the end of the world. Now let it be supposed, that these first preachers of the gospel fully believed, that from the time of their appointment to this high office, they were to consider themselves merely as the messengers of God, sent into the world solely on his errand, and that it was happiness enough for them to be called to that business, for which the Son of God was born into the world; if they had this belief, what follows? Why, according to the Doctor, that they set out from the very first in one of the greatest errors, had mistaken the nature and intent of their mission, and had gone into the world upon a principle that was false in itself, and scandalous and reproachful to the Christian religion.
But if this belief is not to be condemned in the first clergy, I desire to know why those who claim their succession from the first, and expect the presence of Christ in and with their ministry, are not to be called upon to be of the same spirit and belief with them, or how can it be a scandal to the gospel, for the modern clergy to be as wholly devoted to the service of God, as the apostles were.
The Doctor sets it out as an extraordinary presumption in such a man as I am, to pretend to give advice to young divines, when it is so sufficiently done already by the offices of our church, the charges, instructions and exhortations of our bishops at their visitation, and so many excellent ordination and visitation sermons, p. 87. Now, granting the plenty and excellency of all these, yet I have some hope, my presumption may be found to be only like that of the poor widow, who after so many rich oblations of great people, presumed to put her little mite into the treasury. And if it be true, that the things suggested by me, are only such as have been already set forth by so many great bishops and excellent preachers, how will the Doctor come off for condemning it, as false doctrine, scandalous, and reproachful to the Christian religion?
Dr. ♦Trapp gives a reason for his condemning this advice, which is thus expressed: “It is, says he, false to say, that clergymen ought to mind nothing, in any degree, but their profession and duty, as clergymen; they are husbands, parents, men, as well as clergymen, and must in some measure be concerned in the affairs of the world. p. 88.”
Part of this I own to be very true, viz. that they are men, and have the wants of human nature which must be supplied; and for proof of this, the Doctor might have appealed to St. Paul, who, tho’ miraculously called to be an apostle, and separated from the world to be merely a messenger and apostle of Jesus Christ; yet, after this high apostleship, worked at his trade, and often spent part of the day and the night in making tents: therefore, if all those whom I have exhorted to consider themselves as set apart for the sole service of God, should shew such a degree of worldly care as St. Paul did, when he worked at his trade, they might yet justly be said to act suitably to their station, as the ministers of God, that are wholly devoted to his service; for who can say that St. Paul departed from his character, as a minister of God, when he laboured with his own hands, that he might gloriously and freely preach the gospel? For it was for the sake of the gospel, to promote and recommend the gospel, to make his preaching the more successful; it was to shew that he had fully renounced the world, and desired nothing from it, but for the glory of God. And thus have all the ministers of the gospel an example in St. Paul, how they may make their care of a livelihood a part of their service to God.
But when the Doctor says, that clergymen are husbands and parents, I must object a little; because no scripture or antiquity shews me, that these characters must belong to a preacher of the gospel; and therefore, when a clergyman excuses himself from any heights of the ministerial service, by saying, he has married a wife and therefore cannot come up to them; it seems to be no better an excuse, than if he had said, he had hired a farm, or bought five yoke of oxen.
I know very well, that the reformation has allowed priests and bishops not only to look out for wives, but to have as many as they please, one after another: but this is only to be considered as a bare allowance, and perhaps granted upon such a motive, as Moses of old made one to the Jews, for the hardness of their hearts, tho’ from the beginning it was not so; and therefore when eulogiums are sometimes made from the pulpit on this matter, I think they had better have been spared; an allowance granted to weakness is but an indifferent subject to be made a matter of glory.
The Doctor should also have observed that my address was made to the young clergy, and such as are only upon entering into holy orders, nine in ten of whom may be supposed to be neither husbands nor fathers. He should also have remembered that our universities are full of clergy, who are obliged to live unmarried, that they may have proper leisure and freedom to attend their studies without impediment from worldly cares. And therefore, if I pointed at such a dedication of the clergy to the service of God, as husbands and fathers cannot enter into, yet the matter is not blameable, because here are so many that have not yet entered into this state, but are at liberty to devote themselves wholly to the service of the gospel. And therefore if to such as these, I can so represent the weight, the duties, the heavenly nature of the priesthood, as to prevent or extinguish in them all thoughts and desires of being thus married to the world, what hurt have I done them, or the married clergy, or the gospel of Jesus Christ?
* Celibacy, when entered into from a principle of divine love, from a heart burning with the desire of living wholly to God, is a state that gives wings to all our endeavours, and fits the soul for the highest growth of every virtue: and if he that is consecrated to the service of the altar, feels not such an ascent of his soul towards heaven, as to have no wish, but that his whole body, soul, and spirit, may be presented to God in its utmost degree of purity, he has his lamp much less kindled, than many of the laity, both men and women have had, in all ages of the church. Custom has too great a power over our judgments, and reconciles us to any thing; but if a Christian, who lived when Christianity was in its glory, when the first apologists for it, appealed to the numbers of both sexes, devoted to a single life, as an invincible proof of the power and divinity of the gospel; if a Christian of those days was now to come into the world, he would be more shocked at Reverend Doctors making love to women, than at seeing a monk in his cell, kissing a wooden crucifix.
* The knowledge and love of the virgin state began with Christianity, when the nature of our corruption, and the nature of our redemption were so fully discovered by the gospel. Then it was, that a new degree of heavenly love was kindled in the human nature, and brought forth a state of life that had not been desired, till the son of the virgin came into the world. John the Baptist was the beginner of the gospel dispensation; this burning and shining light was in his person, the figure of Judaism ending in Christianity. In his outward state he was a Jew, in his inward spirit and character he belonged to the gospel. He came out of the wilderness burning and shining, to preach the kingdom of heaven at hand. This may shew us that heat and light from above, kindled in a state of great self-denial, are necessary to make us able ministers of the gospel; and that if we pretend to the ministry, without these qualifications, and come only burning and shining with the spirit of this world, we are as well fitted to hinder, as the Baptist was to prepare the way to the kingdom of heaven. Look at this great saint, all ye that desire to preach the gospel. He came forth in the highest degrees of mortification and chastity of life. But why did he so come? It was to shew the world that these virtues must form the spirit of every preacher of the gospel. His character does not call you to a wilderness beyond Jordan, or to be cloathed with camel’s hair. Such circumstances are particular to himself; but it calls you to his inward spirit of self-denial, to his death to the world, and all carnal love, if you would not only preach, but prove the perfection of the gospel: For if the Baptist was to be thus dead to the flesh and the world, that he might preach thus much, the kingdom of heaven is at hand; can less self-denial be required of those, who are to preach that which is much more, namely, that the kingdom of heaven is come?
* Now if this holy Baptist, when he had preached awhile upon penitence, and the kingdom of heaven at hand, had made an offering of his heart to some fine young lady of great accomplishments, had not this put an end to all that was burning and shining in his character? And if those clergy who date their mission from Jesus Christ himself, sent by him as he was by his Father, to stand as his representatives, applying the means and mysteries of salvation to all that desire to be born again; if they, whether they be vicars, rectors, arch-deacons, deans, or bishops, should look upon their office to be as sacred, and their station as high in the kingdom of God, as the Baptist’s was; if they should look upon love addresses to the sex, as unbecoming, as foreign, to their character, as to the Baptist’s, could any one say, that they took too much upon them, or paid too great a reverence to the holiness of the priesthood, which they derived from the very person and office of Jesus Christ?
* Our blessed Lord improved upon these two articles of mortification and chastity, and sets them before every preacher of the gospel in a yet fuller light. It is needless to shew how much he speaks of the nature and necessity of a total self-denial; but what he says of the virgin life, as to be chosen by those who are able to chuse it, for the kingdom of heaven’s sake, Matthew xix. 12. is more than a volume of human eloquence in praise of it. What wonder is it, if after this, great numbers both of men and women were found in the first ages of the church, that chose to know no love, but that of God in a single life?
* St. Paul has done every thing to hinder a minister of Jesus Christ from entering into marriage, except calling it a sinful state, when he says, He that is married careth for the things of the world, how he may please his wife; and how could he more powerfully press the virgin life upon the clergy, than when he says, He that is unmarried, careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.
* I shall conclude this matter with a passage taken from the Serious Call to a devout and Holy Life; it is a quotation from Eusebius, who lived at the time of the first general council, when the faith of our Nicene Creed was established: his words are these, “There have been, saith he, instituted in the church of Christ, two ways or manners of living; the one raised above the ordinary state of nature, and common ways of living, rejects wedlock, possessions, and worldly goods, and being wholly separated and removed from the ordinary conversation of common life, is appropriated and devoted solely to the worship and service of God, through an exceeding degree of heavenly love: they who are of this order of people, seem dead to the life of this world, and having their bodies only upon earth, are in their minds and contemplations dwelling in heaven; from whence, like so many heavenly inhabitants, they look down upon human life, making intercessions and oblations for the whole race of mankind; and this, not with the blood of beasts, or the fat, or smoak and burning of bodies, but with the highest exercises of true piety, with cleansed and purified hearts, and with a whole form of life strictly devoted to virtue: these are their sacrifices, which they are continually offering unto God, and implore his mercy and favour for themselves and their fellow-creatures. Christianity receives this as the perfect manner of life.
“The other is of a lower form, and suiting itself more to the condition of human nature, admits of chaste wedlock, the care of children and families, of trade and business, and goes through all the employments of life, under a sense of piety and fear of God: now, they who have chosen this manner of life, have their set times for retirement and spiritual exercise, and particular days are set apart for their hearing and learning the word of God: and this order of people are considered as in the second state of piety.”¹ Here you see the perfection of the Christian life plainly set out, and how it was, what numbers of private persons, men and women, who had no share in the ecclesiastical office, yet, by their perfection of life, were holy and heavenly intercessors for the whole race of mankind. * Now, may we not suppose, that the clergy were in this number of people that were thus heavenly in the whole form of their life, thus devoted to God and the edification of the church, by embracing the perfect life of Christianity? If they were not, do they not stand plainly condemned, since Christianity held this to be the perfect manner of life? I shall only add, that till such a degree of heavenly love, such a sense of the holiness and heavenly nature of the sacred calling, till such a desire of perfection is awakened in the clergy, as shuts out all carnal love and worldly tempers from their hearts, they cannot be such priests and intercessors with God, such patterns of holiness, such kindlers of divine love and heavenly desires amongst men, as the nature of their office both intends and requires of them.
* If a candidate for holy orders dares not make this total donation of himself to God, to be an instrument of his good pleasure only in the service of the gospel, if it is not his real state, to wish nothing in this world but the most perfect purification of his nature, if he desires any thing in and by his office, but a concurrence with Jesus Christ in the salvation of souls; if he has any reserves of self-seeking, or self-advancement in the world, and fleshly passions which he hopes to make consistent with the duties of his profession: if he is not separated in will and desire from all that is not God, and the service of God, he must be said to want the best proofs of his being called by the Holy Ghost.
But the Doctor has a second reply, Whether you consider the divinity, or the sense of this, could George Fox himself have outdone it? p. 48. This reply, considered in itself, might have its place amongst those algebraic quantities, that are some degrees less than nothing; but with regard to the Doctor’s purpose it has something in it, for it is an appeal to that which is very powerful, which has suppressed many a good truth: it is an appeal to vulgar prejudice; and shews that the Doctor is not without his expectations from that quarter. And thus it is, that the Catholic artist in his country plays a Martin Luther, when he wants to reproach that which he knows not how to confute. What degree of sense, or divinity George Fox was possessed of, I cannot pretend to say, having never read any of his writings; but if he has said any divine truths, I should be as well pleased in seeing them in his books, as in any of the fathers of the primitive church. For as the gospel requires me to be as glad to see piety, equity, strict sobriety, and extensive charity in a Jew or a Gentile, as in a Christian; as it obliges me to look with pleasure upon their virtues, and be thankful to God, that such persons have so much of true and sound Christianity; so it cannot be an unchristian spirit to be as glad to see truths in one party of Christians as in another; and to look with pleasure upon any good doctrines that are held by any sect of Christian people, and be thankful to God, that they have so much of the genuine truths of the gospel. * For if we have no complaint against those that are divided from us, but what proceeds from a Christian fear, that what they hold and practise will not be so beneficial to them, as our religion will be to us, must we not have the utmost readiness and willingness to find, own, and rejoice in those good doctrines and practices which they still retain? If a poor pilgrim, under a necessity of travelling a dangerous and difficult road, had, through his own perverseness lost the use of a leg, and the sight of one eye, could we be said, to have any charitable concern for his perverseness and misfortune, unless we were glad to see that he had one good leg, and one good eye still left, and unless we hoped and desired they might bring him at last to his journey’s end? Now let every part of the church which takes itself to be sound and good, and is only angry at every other part, because they have lessened the means of their own salvation; let her but have thus much charity in her anger, and then she will be glad to see, in every perverse division, something like the one good leg, and the one good eye of the pilgrim, and which she will hope and wish may do them the same good.
* Selfishness and partiality are very base qualities, even in the things of this world; but in the doctrines of religion they are of a baser nature. Now this is the greatest evil that the division of the church has brought forth; it raises in every communion a selfish, partial orthodoxy, which consists in courageously defending all that it has, and condemning all that it has not. And thus all champions are trained up in defence of their own truth, their own learning, and their own church; and he has the most merit, who likes every thing, defends every thing among themselves, and leaves nothing uncensured in those that are of a different communion. Now how can truth, and goodness, and religion be more struck at, than by such defenders of it? If you ask why the great bishop of Meaux wrote so many learned books against all parts of the reformation, it is because he was born in France, and bred up in the bosom of mother church. Had he been born in England, had Oxford, or Cambridge been his alma mater, he might have rivaled our great bishop Stillingfleet, and would have wrote as many learned folios against the church of Rome as he has done. And yet I will venture to say, that if each church could produce but one man a-piece that had the piety of an apostle, and the impartial love of the first Christians, in the first church at Jerusalem, a Protestant and a Papist of this stamp, would not want half a sheet of paper to hold their articles of union, nor be half an hour before they were of one religion. If therefore it should be said, that churches are divided, and made unfriendly to one another, by learning, a logic, a history, a criticism in the hands of partiality, it would be saying that which every particular church too much proves to be true. Ask why even the best amongst the Catholics are very shy of owning the validity of the orders of our church; it is because they are afraid of removing any odium from the reformation. Ask why no Protestants touch upon the benefit of celibacy in those who are separated from worldly business to preach the gospel, ’tis because that would be seeming to lessen the Roman error of not suffering marriage in her clergy. Ask why even the most pious amongst the clergy of the established church, are afraid to assert, the necessity of seeking only to the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; ’tis because the Quakers, who have broken off from the church, have made this doctrine their corner stone.
If we loved truth as such; if we sought it for its own sake; if we loved our neighbour as ourselves; if we desired nothing by our religion but to be acceptable to God; if we equally desired the salvation of all men; then nothing of this spirit could have any place in us.
* There is therefore a Catholic spirit, a communion of saints in the love of God and all goodness, which no one can learn from that which is called orthodoxy in particular churches. It is only to be had by a total dying to all worldly views, by a pure love of God, and by such an unction from above, as delivers the mind from all selfishness, and makes it love truth and goodness with an equality of affection in every man, whether he be Christian, Jew, or Gentile. He that would obtain this divine spirit in this disordered state of things, and live in a divided part of the church, without partaking of its division, must have these three truths deeply fixed in his mind: first, that universal love, which gives the whole strength of the heart to God, and makes us love every man as we love ourselves, is the noblest, the most God-like state of the soul, and the utmost perfection to which the most perfect religion can raise us; and that no religion does any man any good, but so far as it brings this love into him. This will shew us, that true orthodoxy can no where be found, but in a pure disinterested love of God and our neighbour. Secondly, That in the present divided state of the church, truth itself is torn and divided asunder; and that therefore he is the only true Catholic, who has more of truth, and less of error, than is hedged in by any divided part. This truth will enable us to live in a divided part, unhurt by its division, and keep us in a true liberty and fitness to be assisted by all the good that we hear or see in any other part of the church. And thus uniting in heart and spirit with all that is holy and good in all churches, we enter into the true communion of saints, and become real members of the holy Catholic church, tho’ we use the outward worship of only one part of it. It is thus, that the angels, as ministring spirits, assist, unite and co-operate with every thing that is holy and good, in every division of mankind. Thirdly, he must always have in mind this great truth, that it is the glory of the divine justice to have no respect of parties or persons, but to stand equally disposed to that which is right and wrong, in Jew and Gentile. He therefore that would like as God likes, and condemn as God condemns, must have neither the eyes of the Papist nor the Protestant; he must like no truth the less because Ignatius Loyola or John Bunyan were very zealous for it; nor have the less aversion to any error, because Dr. ♦Trapp or George Fox had brought it forth. Now if this impartial justice, is the spirit which will judge the world at the last day, how can this spirit be too soon or too much in us? Or what can do us more hurt than that which is an hindrance of it? When I was a young scholar of the university, I heard a great religionist say, that if he could believe the late king of France was in heaven, he could not wish to go thither himself. This was exceeding shocking: yet something of this temper must be more or less in those, who have, as a point of orthodoxy, worked themselves up into a hearty contempt and hatred of those that are divided from them. He that has been all his life long used to look with great abhorrence upon those whom he called superstitious bigots, dreaming visionaries, false saints, canting enthusiasts, must naturally expect they will be treated by God as they have been by him; and if he had the keys of the kingdom of heaven, such people would find it hard to get a place in it. But it stands us greatly in hand to get rid of this temper before we die: since nothing but universal love can enter into the kingdom of God.
We often hear of people of great zeal and orthodoxy, declaring on their death-beds their strict attachment to the church of England, and making solemn protestations against all other churches: but how much better would it be, if such a person was to say, “In this divided state of Christendom, I must conform to some divided part of it, and therefore I live and die in communion with the church of England; fully believing, that if I worship God in spirit and in truth in this divided part of the church, I shall be as acceptable to him, as if I had been a faithful member of the one whole church, before it was broken into separate parts. But as I am now going out of this disordered division, into a more universal state of things, as I am now falling into the hands of the great Creator and lover of all souls; as I am going to the God of all churches, to a kingdom of universal love, which must have its inhabitants from all people, nations, and languages of the earth; so in this spirit of universal love, I desire to perform my last act of communion in this divided church, uniting in heart with all that is holy, good, and acceptable to God in all other churches; praying, from the bottom of my soul, that every church may have its saints; that God’s kingdom may come, his will be done in every division of Christians and men, and that every thing that hath breath may praise the Lord.”
We have often seen learned Protestants very zealous in pulling to pieces the lives of the saints of the Romish church, and casting all the reproach and ridicule they can, upon their wondrous spirit; tho’ the lives of the saints of the primitive church may be exposed in the same manner. Now, whence does this proceed? Why, from a secret touch of that spirit which could not bear to have the late king of France in heaven; it proceeds from a partial, selfish orthodoxy, which cannot bear to hear, or own, that the spirit and blessing of God are so visible in a church from which it is divided. But if a person be of this spirit, what does it signify where he has his outward church? If a Romish priest in the north of England could not bear the splendor of a life so devoted to God, so fruitful in all good works, as was that of the lady Elizabeth Hastings, if he should want to sully the brightness of her Christian graces, and prove her to have been no saint, lest it should appear, that the Spirit of God was not confined to the Romish church, would not such a zeal shew a worse spirit, than that of superstition, a greater depravity of heart, than the saying now and then an Ave Mary?
* The more we know of the corruptions and hindrances of piety in the church of Rome, the more we should rejoice, that in every age so many eminent saints, have appeared in it, whom we should thankfully behold as so many great lights hung out by God, to shew the true way to heaven, as so many joyful proofs that Christ is still present, even in that church, and that the gates of hell have not quite prevailed against it. Who that has the least spark of heaven in his soul, can help rejoicing in this manner at the appearance of St. Bernard, a Teresa, a Francis de Sales, in that church? Who can help praising God, that her invented devotions, superstitious use of images, and invocation of saints, have not so suppressed the graces of an evangelical life, but that amongst cardinals, jesuits, priests, friars, monks and nuns, some have been found, who seemed to live for no other end, but to give glory to God and edification to men, and whose writings have every thing in them, that can guide the soul out of the corruption of this life into union with God? And he who through a partial orthodoxy is diverted from feeding in these green pastures of life, whose abhorrence of jesuitical craft, keeps him from reading the works of an Alvares du Pas, a Rodrigues, a Pere Surin, and such like jesuits, has a greater loss than he can easily imagine: and if any clergyman can read the life of Bartholomeus a Martyribus a Spanish archbishop, who sat with great influence at the very council of Trent, without being edified by it, and desiring to read it again and again, I know not why he should like the lives of the apostolical fathers: and if any Protestant bishop should read the Stimulus Pastorum wrote by this Popish prelate, he must confess it to be a book, that would have done honour to the best archbishop, that the reformation has to boast of. O my God, how shall I unlock this mystery? In the land of darkness, over-run with superstition, where divine worship seems to be all shew and ceremony, thou hast those, who are fired with the pure love of thee, who renounce every thing for thee, who are devoted wholly to thee, who think of nothing, write of nothing, desire nothing but the honour, and praise, and adoration that is due to thee, and who call all the world to the maxims of the gospel, the perfection of the life of Christ. But in the regions where light is sprung up, whence superstition is fled, where all that is outward in religion seems to be pruned, dressed, and put in its true order; there a cleansed shell, a whited sepulchre, seems too generally to cover a dead Christianity.
The error of all errors, and that which makes the blackest charge against the Romish church, is persecution, a religious sword drawn against the liberty of serving God according to our best light. Now, tho’ this is the frightful monster of that church, yet, even here, who, except it be the church of England, can throw the first stone at her? Where must we look for a church that has so renounced this persecuting beast, as they have renounced the use of incense, the sprinklings of holy water, or extreme unction? What part of the reformation abroad has not practised and defended persecution? What sect of dissenters at home have not, in their day of power dreadfully condemned toleration?
When it shall please God to dispose the hearts of all Christian princes, entirely to destroy this anti-christian beast, and leave all their subjects in that religious freedom which they have from God; then the light of the gospel, the power of its ministers, the usefulness of its rites, the benediction of its sacraments will have proper time and place to shew themselves; and that religion which has the most of a divine power in it, whose offices and services do most good to the heart, whose ministers are most devoted to God, and have the most proof of the presence of Christ with them, will become, as it ought, the most universal. All that I have said on this matter, has been occasioned by the Doctor’s appeal to vulgar prejudice; and is only to intimate, that the greatest evil which the division of the church brings forth, is a sectarian, selfish spirit, which with the orthodoxy of the old Jews, would have God to be only their God, and themselves only, his chosen people. If therefore we would be true Christians of the Catholic church, we must put off this partiality of the carnal Jew; we must enter into a Catholic affection for all men, love the spirit of the gospel wherever we see it; not work ourselves up into an abhorrence of a George Fox, or an Ignatius Loyola; but be equally glad of the light of the gospel wherever it shines, or from whatever quarter it comes; and give the same praise to God for an eminent example of piety, wherever it appears, either in Papist or Protestant.
To return. Dr. ♦Trapp supposing the world running into a charity that would ruin wife and family, asks his charitable half-thinker, “Did you never hear that charity begins at home? Did you never read that of St. Paul, If any provide not for his own, and especially those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an Infidel?” The Doctor’s proverb I meddled not with, but the text of St. Paul I rescued from his gross misapplication. That text has no more relation to an excessive charity, than to an excessive fasting. The apostle neither thought of this sin in this place, nor in any other part of his writings; nor does he ever give the smallest hint of the danger of falling into it. The only question was, whether poor widows, who had near relations, that could supply their wants, should be maintained by the church? The apostle determines the matter thus; that if such persons, who were thus able, did not thus provide for, that is, supply the wants of their poor kindred, they were so far from having the faith of Christians, that they wanted a goodness that was to be found amongst Infidels: this is the whole of the apostle’s doctrine in this text. He speaks of providing for those of our own house or family, in no other sense, than as it signifies our charity to them, when they fall into distress; but the Doctor, trusting to the sound of the English word provide, grafts all these errors upon this plain text. When it is said, a person has provided well for his family, every one supposes that he has laid up well in store, or got an estate to be divided amongst them for their future subsistance. From this use of the English word, provide; the Doctor would have it believed, that the apostle teaches every head of a family to be carefully and continually laying up in store for his kindred. But the apostle is as infinitely distant from this thought, as from teaching them to get their cellars filled with strong liquors: when he here says, provide, he says only this, shut not your eyes to the wants of your poor kindred, but provide them with what they have need of, and don’t let them fall to the charge of the church. The Doctor’s second error is this; according to this text, a Christian ought not to hinder himself from thus laying up in store for his family, or leave them to live by their labour and industry, thro’ an excess of charity to his poor neighbours. But the apostle has not one single syllable about this; and is as far from saying any thing like it, as from saying, that a Christian, when he makes a feast, should only invite his rich kindred and acquaintance. The one has as much of the apostle and the gospel for it, as the other. The Doctor’s third error is this; that, according to this text, he, who by a daily, continual charity, has incapacitated himself to lay up in store, a fixed provision for the future maintenance of his family, is condemned by the apostle as denying the faith, and worse than an Infidel: tho’ the apostle speaks no more here against such a person, than he speaks in the praise of Ananias and Sapphira.
The person here condemned, is not he who thro’ a continual charity, is hindered from laying up in store; not he, who, thro’ a Christian love of relieving the distressed members of Christ, is content with helping his own family to food and raiment; but it is that Christian, who being able, is yet unwilling to support his near relations, that are fallen into poverty, and leaves them to be maintained by the church: this is the only Christian the apostle here condemns, as having put off the piety of the gospel, and wanting even the virtue of good-natured Infidels.
I said further, Had the apostle known a parent in his days, who, thro’ his great charity for others, had reduced his own family to want of relief, he would have been so far from rebuking him as an half-thinking fool, or exposing him to others, as guilty of madness, that he would have told them, such a one had consecrated himself and family to the church, as the proper objects of their care. To which the Doctor gives this answer, “This he affirms, and this I deny; and as he produces no other proof, so I give no other answer,” p. 69. What I said, has its proof from the common voice of Christianity in the apostles days; as may sufficiently appear from the following passage of St. Clement, fellow-labourer of the apostle, and bishop of no less a church than that of Rome. “We have known many amongst us, who have delivered themselves into bonds and slavery, that they might restore others to their liberty; many who have hired out themselves servants unto others, that by their wages they might feed and sustain them that wanted.”¹
Will the Doctor now say, that this is no proof of that which I affirmed of the apostle, that he would have had a love for those who were become sufferers by their own charity to others? Does not this apostolical bishop make it his boast, and the glory of Christianity; not that they had some, but many such among them?
It was not only in the first church at Jerusalem, that the Christians had all things common. For St. Barnabas writing to some converted Jews, teaches them to call nothing their own in this world, because they were called to the common enjoyment of the things of eternity. Communicabis in omnibus rebus proximo tuo; nihil dices quicquam tibi proprium; si enim communicatis invicem, in bonis, incorruptibilibus, quanto magis in corruptibilibus.¹
* An age after this, Justin Martyr thus glories of the power of the gospel-faith; “We, says he, who before we became Christians, loved our wealth and possession above all things, now give up all property in them, that they may be in common for all that want them. Qui pecuniarum & possessionum fructus ac proventus præ rebus omnibus adamabamus, nunc etiam quæ habemus in commune conferimus, & cum indigentibus quibuscunque communicamus.”¹ What a lean, heathenish figure must the Doctor’s proverb of charity beginning at home, have made in the days of St. Barnabas, Clement, or Justin Martyr? Or who durst then have made such an use of the text of St. Paul, as the Doctor has done, or coupled it with such a proverb? Were any of these first saints to judge of this matter, the Doctor might, for ought I know, have a worse reprimand from them for so doing, than if he had only coupled Cardinals with Pluralists.
In order to shew the Doctor that he was very unseasonably preaching against the sin and folly of an excessive charity, when yet every part of the church wanted to be shewn how they were fallen from the gospel degree of it, I set before him an imaginary Bishop of Winchester, yet drawn according to the model of the holy Bishops of the first ages. I supposed this Bishop so filled with the Spirit of Christ, that he looked upon all the revenues of his see, with no other eyes, than as our Saviour looked at that bag that was carried along with him by his disciples, as so much for his own necessities and the necessities of others. I supposed that in this spirit, he so expended his yearly income, that he chose to bring up his children strangers to all worldly figure, and in as low a state of labour as that to which our Lord and his apostles had been used. I supposed, that by a piety of life and conversation, equal to this exalted charity, he had instilled such an heavenly spirit into his wife and children, as made them highly thankful for their condition, and full of praise to God for the blessing of such a relation. Dr. ♦Trapp, tho’ an antient divine, seems to start back with fright, at the sight of this apostolical bishop, and supposes, that if such a monster of a man was now to get into a bishoprick, he must needs make his children extraordinary wicked, fill them with abhorrence of his memory, and spread infidelity in the world, by making Christianity a jest to Infidels, p. 71.
I say, says the Doctor, very clearly and plainly, that such a bishop must be a mad man, p. 70. Now, if the Doctor will prove from the scriptures this bishop to be a mad man, it must be for the following reasons: First, because he had so mean a spirit, as to suffer the son of a bishop to work under a carpenter, as the Redeemer of mankind had done. Secondly, because he taught himself and his family to believe that which St. Paul believed, that having food and raiment, we ought to be therewith content. Thirdly, because he came up to the very letter of the great commandment, of loving our neighbour as ourselves. Fourthly, because he imitated the spirit of the first Christians at Jerusalem, who accounted nothing to be their own that they possessed. Fifthly, because he had turned himself and family from all the vanity of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Sixthly, because he seemed to have this of the apostle fixed in his mind, “He that saith, he abideth in Christ, ought so to walk, as he walked.” Seventhly, because his life was fashioned according to this doctrine of the Holy Jesus, “Learn of me, for I am meek, and lowly of heart: I am among you, as he that serveth: whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; even as the Son of man came not to be ministred unto, but to minister.” For it may be said with the greatest certainty, that if the Doctor will have any proof from the scripture of the madness of this bishop, it must be as absurd as the reasons here alledged.
Come we now to consider this bishop according to the spirit, practice and laws of the church in all ages. Any one versed ever so little in the history of the church, must see at the first sight, that this supposed bishop is a true copy of the first apostolical fathers. And if this bishop was to be accounted a madman, because of the manner of his life, we must come down several ages after Constantine, to the mitre and triple crown, before we could find a bishop in his senses. The Clements, the Polycarps, the Ignatius’s, the Irenæus’s, the Cyprian’s, the Basils, the Ambrose’s, and a number that have long graced our calenders, as saints, must take their place among bedlamites: for they were all of them to a tittle, the very man I have supposed at Winchester. They considered every penny that was brought in by the gospel, as a provision for the poor, and themselves as only entitled to their common share out of it. They durst no more raise any of their relations to a splendor of life, or give them any figure from the revenues of the church, than commit sacrilege. They gloried as much in their own strict poverty and want of worldly figure, as in their having totally renounced idols.
But we have much more than primitive example for our bishop of Winchester: the doctrine and laws of the church have unanimously from age to age, to the very council of Trent, required every bishop to be of the same spirit of which we have supposed him. The church, both by the doctrine of fathers, and the canons of councils, constantly maintains; First, that the clergy are not proprietors, but barely stewards of the benefices they enjoy: having them for no other end, but for their own necessary, frugal subsistence, and the relief of the poor.¹ Secondly, that a clergyman using his benefice for his own indulgence, or the enriching his own family, is guilty of sacrilege, and is a robber and murderer of the poor.² Thirdly, that if a clergyman has a reasonable subsistence of his own, and is not in the state of the poor, then let his benefice be what it will, he has no right to use any part of it for himself, nor for his kindred, unless they be fit to be considered among those poor that are to be relieved by the church.³ Fourthly, that every bishop and clergyman is to live in an humble, frugal, outward state of life, seeking for no honour or dignity in the world, but that which arises from the distinction and lustre of his virtues.⁴ Fifthly, that a beneficed clergyman using the goods of the church for his own indulgence, or raising fortunes for his children, or their expensive education, is sacrilegious, and a robber of the poor.⁵ Sixthly, that every clergyman is to die out of the church as poor as he entered into it.⁶ Seventhly, that a clergyman dying, cannot leave or bequeath any thing to his children or friends, but barely that which he had independently of the church.⁷
* May it not therefore well be wondered what could provoke Dr. ♦Trapp to censure our bishop as a madman, whose whole form of life, and use of his bishoprick, is not only after the model of the first and greatest saints that ever were bishops, but also such as the whole church from the beginning, both in council and out of council, from age to age, hath absolutely required of every beneficed clergyman, who would not be condemned by her, as sacrilegious, and a robber of the poor? They who would see the whole matter set in a clear light, may read an excellent treatise of the learned Dupin, wrote near the end of his life, where this truth is by him asserted and incontestably proved, viz. That whatever changes have been made in the nature and tenure of the goods and revenues of the church, or however they have been variously divided amongst ecclesiasticks, yet this has remained always unchangeable and undeniable, That a clergyman was no proprietor of his benefice; that he could only take so much of it to his own use, as was necessary to his subsistance, and then the remainder, be it what it would, belonged to the poor. This, says he, is strictly maintained by the canons of councils, both before and after the division of ecclesiastical revenues.
* But if this be the case, if this be an incontestable doctrine, supported by every authority that can be brought for any one doctrine of the gospel, have we not here an utter condemnation of pluralities? Is it not an affront to the gospel, to the plainest maxims of right and wrong, the whole authority of the church, to offer one single word in defence of them? Logical, scholastic distinctions and definitions of the nature of parishes and residence, can signify no more here, where the whole nature of the thing is to be avoided, than the same art of words, when used by Jesuitical Casuists, can justify the violation of moral duties. And if Dr. ♦Trapp was only to look at this one doctrine, he would have no reason to think it so sad a thing, to see Pluralists coupled with Cardinals. “See, says the learned Dupin, rules which will appear hard to many of the beneficed clergy, but yet, they are true, conformable to natural equity, the laws, custom, and tradition of the church, and the practice of the most holy bishops; and woe be to those that observe them not! Malheur a Ceux qui ne les suivent pas.”¹ And therefore he concludes thus, “There may be many amongst the beneficed clergy who err in this matter, thro’ an ignorance of that which is required of them; therefore what I have said ought to be taken in good part, as proceeding from charity, and a sincere love of truth.”