and from being mean becomes great, fly from him as from a plague. The conversation of such men corrupted good minds; they sought after wealth, and loved company, the public places of conversation, fairs, and market-places; whereas a true clerk loves silence and retirement. * Then he gives him a strong caution against conversing with women, and in particular against all those mean compliances which some of those clerks used towards rich women, by which they got not only presents during their lives, but legacies by their wills. That abuse had grown to such an intolerable excess, that a law was made, excluding priests from having any benefit by testaments. They were the only persons that were put under that incapacity. Heathen priests were not included in the law, yet he does not complain of the law, but of those who had given just occasion for making it. The laws of Christ had been contemned, so it was necessary to restrain them by human laws. It was the glory of a bishop to provide for the poor, but it was the reproach of a priest to study the enriching of himself. He reckons up

many instances of the base and abject flattery of some clerks, to gain upon rich and dying persons, and to get their estates. Next he exhorts him to the constant and diligent study of the Scriptures; but to be sure to do nothing that should contradict his discourses, or give occasion to his hearers to answer him thus, Why do not you do as you say? Then he speaks of the union that ought to be between the bishop and his clergy; the affection on the one side, and the obedience on the other. In preaching, he must not study to draw applauses, but groans from his hearers. Their tears was * P. 159. Paris, 1613. + Pp. 159, 160.

P. 159.

the best sort of commendation of a sermon, in which great care was to be taken to avoid the methods of the stage, or of common declamations. Great use was to be made of the Scriptures. The mysteries of our faith and the sacraments of our religion ought to be well explained: grimaces and solemn looks are often made use of to give weight and authority to that which has none in itself. He charges him to use a plain simplicity in his habit, neither showing too much nicety on the one hand, that savours of luxury, nor such a neglect on the other, as might savour of affectation. He recommends particularly the care of the poor to him. Then he speaks of clergymen's mutually preferring one another; considering that there are different members in one body, and that every one has his own function and peculiar talent; and that therefore no man ought to overvalue his own, or undervalue his neighbour's. A plain clerk ought not to value himself upon his simplicity and ignorance, nor ought a learned and eloquent man to measure his holiness by his rhetoric; for indeed, of the two, a holy simplicity is much more valuable than unsanctified eloquence. † He speaks against the affectation of magnificence and riches, in the worship of God, as things more becoming the pomp of the Jewish religion, than the humility of the spiritual doctrine of Christ. He falls next upon the high and sumptuous way of living of some priests, which they pretended was necessary to procure them the respect that was due to them, and to give them interest and credit: but the world, at least the better part of it, would always value a priest more for his holiness than for his wealth. He charges him strictly to avoid all * P. 160. † P. 161. P. 162. § Pp. 162, 163.

the excesses of wine, and, in opposition to that, to fast much, but without superstition, or a nicety in the choice of such things as he was to live on in the time of fasting. Some showed a trifling superstition in those matters, as well as vanity and affectation that was indeed scandalous.* Plain and simple fasting was despised, as not singular nor pompous enough for their pride. For it seems by what follows, that the clergy was then corrupted with the same disorders, with which our Saviour had reproached the Pharisees, while they did not study inward purity, so much as outward appearances; nor the pleasing of God, so much as the praise of men. But here he stops short, for it seems he went too near the describing some eminent men in that age. From that he turns to the government of a priest's tongue: he ought neither to detract from any one himself, nor to encourage such as did: the very hearkening to slander, was very unbecoming. They ought to visit their people, but not to report in one place what they observed in another; in that they ought to be both discreet and secret. † Hippocrates adjured those that came to study from him, to be secret, grave, and prudent in their whole behaviour; but how much more did this become those to whom the care of souls was trusted! He advises him to visit his people rather in their afflictions, than in their prosperity; not to go too often to their feasts, which must needs lessen him that does it too much. He, in the last place, speaks very severely of those who applied the wealth of the church to their own private uses. It was theft to defraud a friend, but it was sacrilege to rob the church. It was a crime that exceeded the cruelty of highway* P. 163. + P. 164.

men, to receive that which belonged indeed to the poor, and to withdraw any part of it to one's private occasions.* He concludes with this excuse, That he had named no person, he had but to give them warning. treated of the vices of the

not writ to reproach others ; And therefore since he had clergy in general terms, if

any was offended with him for it, he thereby plainly confessed, that he himself was guilty. †

CHAPTER V.

AN ACCOUNT OF SOME CANONS IN DIVERS AGES OF THE CHURCH, RELATING TO THE DUTIES AND LABOURS OF THE CLERGY.

I

WILL go no further, in gathering quotations to show the sense that the fathers had in these matters; these are both so full and so express, that I can find none more plain and more forcible. I shall to these add some of the canons that have been made both in the best and in the worst ages of the church, obliging bishops and other clerks to residence, and to be contented with one cure. In that at Sardica, that met in the year 347, consisting of above 350 bishops, two canons were made (the 11th and the 12th), against bishops who, without any urgent necessity, or pressing business, should be absent from their church above three weeks, and thereby grieve the flock that was committed to their care and even this provision was made, because bishops had estates lying out of their dioceses; therefore they were allowed to go and look after them, for three weeks, in which time they were to perform the divine function in the churches to which those estates belonged.*

Many provisions were also made against such as went to court, unless they were called by the emperors, or went by a deputation from the church upon a public * Labbe, vol. iii. col. 13. 16. Venet. 1769.