reprefentatives for this county in the next Parliament. Let no one be alarmed. I need not, and I do not mean, to give you at a meeting of this nature, my opinion which of the candidates you ought to prefer of that I fay no more here than that you ought to regard, in the firft place, the infeparable intereft of the excellent church we are members of, and, its only human fupport, the juft and gracious government we live under; then other fubordinate confiderations. My purpose is merely to exhort you, (and I beseech you, brethren, fuffer the word of exbortation) (m) that on this occafion, your converfation be fuch, as becometh the Gospel of Chrift: in doing which, I have neither one party, nor one perfon amongst you, more in my view than another: but, if I may use the Apoftle's words, am jealous with a godly jealousy over you all (n). I I cannot indeed fuppofe, that any of you would be guilty of the groffer faults too common at fuch times, or any wilful wrong behaviour. But in the midft of fo many clafhings, provocations, and disappointments, as will happen, fo many mistakes and mifreprefentations as arife one knows not how; the incitements to uncharitable and contemptuous thoughts, to unadvised and injurious words, in anger or in mirth, nay to unkind and hard and even unjuft actions, are very great, and the best of us all fhould be continually fuggefting to our minds proper cautions for avoiding thefe dangers. Elfe we fhall fall into fin against God and our neighbour: we fhall lofe the efteem of part of those whofe improvement by us depends on their efteeming us; and fet a bad inftead of a good example to the reft. Let every one of us therefore be very watchful over our conduct: or if we have not been fo, let us amend it: and if we find preferving our innocence difficult, let us meddle the less with these matters for indeed being over bufy about them is not very fuitable to our function. But while we are strict with ourselves, let us be very mild in regard to others, whom we think to have done amifs: we may blame them without caufe; or if we do not, it is cafy to err; and we, amongst others, are fadly liable to faults. But let us be especially mild towards our own brethren. For why fhould we diminish our little remaining ftrength by inteftine diffenfions, and teach yet more perfons to think ill or meanly of us, than do already? Surely the common caufe of religion and virtue, which we are jointly intrufted to fupport, fhould have infinitely greater force to unite us, than any thing elfe to divide

us.

Next to yourselves, you will ftudy to preferve as many of your parifhioners as poffible, from the fins that fo easily befet them at these feafons of epidemical unreasonableness and licentioufnefs. Thofe, who are of your own fide, you may counfel and reprove more freely. With the reft you must be extremely calm and patient: take the most favourable opportunities, and ufe the most perfuafive methods of fpeaking: but in fome way or other, private or public, all, who need it, fhould be told, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, that the great Chriftian laws of dutifulness to fuperiors, mutual good-will, forbearance, forgivenefs, equity, veracity, moderation, fobriety, lofe not the leaft of their obligation during the continuance of thefe difputes: that all virtues are to be chiefly exercised, when they are chiefly tried: and that therefore

(m) Heb. xiii, 22.

(z) 2 Cor. xi. z.

now

now more particularly, you, as the Apoftle directs, must put them in mind, and they muft keep in mind, to be fubject to principalities and powers, to obey magiftrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers but gentle, fhewing all meekness unto all men (o). I end this long difcourfe in the words of the fame Apoftle: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are venerable, (for fo the word is rightly translated in the margin) whatfoever things are juft, what foever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatfoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praife, think of and do thefe things: and the God of peace shall be with you (p).

A

CHARGE

DELIVERED TO THE

CLERGY of the DIOCESE

OF

CANTERBURY,

In the YEAR 1758.

Reverend Brethren,

**HE Difpofer of all things having permitted his Majefty, by the Tadvice of his faithful fervants, to nominate me for your Bishop: xx though I faw many reasons to dread this promotion, arifing from the difficulties of the office and of the times, from the great qualities of my predeceffors, and my own increafing weakneffes; yet I thought myself bound to obey his commands, and with the fame gratitude for his favourable opinion, as if I had wifhed to receive them: determining, through God's grace, to perform the duties of my station as well as I could; and hoping for the candor, the affiftance and the prayers of good people. To make fome amends by diligence for my deficiences in other

respects,

The Archbishop of Canterbury's first Charge, &c.

69

refpects, I refolved immediately to vifit my Diocese: for which purpose we are here affembled.

These meetings were defigned, partly to give the Clergy opportunities of conferring with each other, and confulting their fuperiors, on matters relating to their profeffion; and I am very defirous, that you should render them as beneficial in this way, as poffible: but principally, to give Bishops opportunities of exhorting and cautioning their Clergy, either on fuch general fubjects as are always ufeful, or on fuch particular occafions as the circumftances of things, or the inquiries, made at or against these times, point out; and of interpofing their authority, if there be need; which, amongst you, I am perfuaded, there will not. To provide more fully for your inftruction, I have ordered a Charge to be fent you, which I delivered to the Clergy of Oxfordshire, and printed at their request, about twenty years ago. Would God it were become unseasonable now. But, as unhappily it is not, I earnestly recommend the contents of it to your most serious thoughts: and would have you look on what I shall at present say further, as supplemental to it.

Counfels and admonitions to parochial ministers pre-suppose their refidence. The founders of parishes provided them with glebes, and built houses for them, purposely that they might refide. The laws of the church have from the beginning, and do ftill require, as indeed common equity doth, that this valuable confideration, for which thefe endowments were given, fhould be faithfully paid. And going over and performing the service from time to time, or engaging fome other clergyman to take care of it, or of the occafional part of it, feldom answers the original intention. Your people will not fo readily, and cannot so conveniently apply to the minifter of another parish: and when they do, his affiftance, for the most part, will be less early, or less constant, than it should: though doubtless they, who have undertaken to fupply their neighbours absence, ought to do it very confcientiously. But befides, even the Sunday-duty, when the incumbent unneceffarily comes from a diftant place to do it, will be confidered as accompanied with something like a breach of the Sunday, will not always be kept to the stated hours, will often be hurried over indecently: the catechifm will either not be taught or not expounded, if the distance be at all confiderable; nor probably will the fermon be well adapted to the audience. For it is only living amongst your people, and knowing them throughly, that can fhew you, what is level to their capacities, and fuited to their circumftances; what will reform their faults, and improve their hearts in true goodness. Yet this is your bufinefs with them: and unless you perform it, every thing else is nothing. Further, fuch as want your help moft may not come to your fermons, or may not apply them to their own cafe, or may need to have them enforced by confiderations peculiar to themselves, and unfit to be specified in public. Speaking to them separately, and agreeably to their several states of mind and life, may have unforeseen influence. And being always at hand, to awe the disorderly and countenance the well-behaved, to advise and comfort the diseased and afflicted, to relieve or procure relief for the neceffitous, to compofe little differences and discourage wrong customs in the beginning, to promote friendly

E 3

offices

offices, and keep up an edifying and entertaining converfation in a neighbourhood, muft add incredible weight to public inftruction.

Indeed your congregations expect thefe things from you, and have a right to expect them. The nature of your office requires them: you have all at your ordination exprefsly promised to ufe both public and private monitions and exhortations, both to the fick and whole within your cures, as need shall require and occafion be given, the Lord being your helper. Now we cannot use them duly, without being refident. But further still, fince their ordination, all vicars have fworn particularly to be refident unless they are difpenfed with, which means by lawful authority: nor doth any difpenfation of a Bishop laft beyond his own time; or beyond the term, for which he gave it; or, if that were indefinite, beyond his pleasure points, which vicars ought to confider much more seriously, than they often do. And every rector hath fworn in general, to obey his Bihop in all things lawful and honeft. Now furely refidence is lawful and honeft: and what is punifhable by a Bishop may, if done without his Heave, be well interpreted disobedience to him: and the non-refidence of rectors is punishable juft in the fame manner with that of vicars.

4

It must not therefore be pleaded, that however neceffary the refidence of fome minifter may be, that of a curate may fuffice. For your engagement is, not merely that the feveral duties of your parish fhall be done, but that you perfonally will do them and if it were enough to fubftitute another to do them, a layman would be, in point of reafon and confcience, as capable of holding a benefice, as a man in holy orders. Befides, a curate will ufually have lefs knowledge and less experience, than the incumbent: and he and the parishioners will conceive, that they are lefs related to each other. He will confider himself, as being with them only for an uncertain, and he may hope, a fhort time; which will tempt him to neglect them. And they will confider him, as not the perfon, who hath authority over them; which will tempt them to difregard him: efpecially as the largest salary, that can be legally appointed, or generally afforded to a curate, will not enable him to recommend himself to them by doing good amongst them in any expenfive way: whilft yet the people will think, and justly too, that the whole income of the benefice was intended to procure them a minifter, to do them as much good in every way, as could reasonably be expected from it.

There are indeed cafes, in which the law dispenses with holding two livings, and by confequence allows abfence from one. But perfons ought to confider well; fuppofing they can with innocence take the benefit of that law; whether they can do it on other terms, than their dispenfation and their bond expreffes, of preaching yearly 13 fermons, and keeping two months hofpitality, in the parish, where they refide leaft. For the leave given them on these conditions, is not intended to be given them, however legally valid, if the conditions are neglected: always excepting where juft impediments happen. There are likewise cases, in which the non-refidence of perfons, who have only one living, is permitted by law. But fome of thefe also are put under limitations, beyond which the permiffion doth not reach.

Further ftill, I am fenfible, that confiderations of health and strength, and particular circumftances of incumbents or their families, require leave