best Word, that is often given to their best Friend; and fometimes all of them are given.

ALL other Societies of Men are contented with the Esteem and Honour, which refult from the Usefulness of their Employments and Profeffions, from the Worth and Capacity of their Members: Yet none stand in fuch a Situation, none have so many Advantages to acquire Refpect and Homage, as the Clergy.

THEIR Office is evidently adapted to promote the Welfare of Human Nature, to propagate its Peace and Profperity in this World, as well as its eternal Felicity in the next; fo that it is the Interest of all Men to honour it: and none but a Madman will condemn and ridicule what has a manifeft Tendency to the Security and Happiness of all Mankind.

THE Temporal Condition of the Clergy does likewife place them far above Contempt: They have great Revenues, Dignities, Titles, and Names of Reverence, to distinguish them from the rest of the World; and it is too well known that Wealth, Power, and Learning, carry to the Vulgar a kind of Mystery, and distant Grandeur, and command not only Admiration and Reverence, but often a fuperftitious Veneration.

ADDED to this, they have the Poffeffion and Direction of our Fears; they are admitted in Health and Sickness: Every Sunday they

have the fole Opportunity of gaining our Efteem by worthy and ufeful Inftructions, and all the Week by their good Lives: They educate us whilst young, influence us in our middle Age, govern us in our Dotage, and we neither live nor die without them.

A numerous Body of Men, fo constituted and endowed, fo privileged and pofted, are capable of being moft ufeful and beneficent to Society, if their Actions be fuitable to their Profeffions. All the World will acknowledge and pay a willing Homage to their Merit, and there will be no need of demanding, much less of extorting Respect, or of Complaints and Exclamations for want of it. The Danger lies on the other Side; for there are fuch Seeds of Superftition in Human Nature, that all our Prudence and Caution will be little enough to prevent even Adoration to their Perfons. If, therefore, they want that Respect which they are so fond of, they cannot be to seek for the true Reasons, namely, their own Corruptions and Worthleffnefs, which must be exceeding great to get the better of fo many Advantages.

IF Clergymen would avoid Contempt, let them avoid the Causes of it. Let them not be starting and maintaining eternal Claims to worldly Power: Let them not be hunting after Honours, courting Preferments, and bustling for Riches: Let them not be affuming to give Models of Human Government, or to adjust and determine the Titles of Princes: Let them

not

not pretend to punish any Man for his Way of Worship, and to give him to the Devil for his Money or Opinion: Let them not join in Factions, and foment Rebellions: Let them not defy Heaven by fwearing falfly: Let them not promote Servitude in the People, and Barbarity in the Prince; and let them not flatter wicked Kings, and plague and disturb good Ones.

LET them win Refpect and wear it; but let them not earn Infamy, and demand Veneration. Let not thofe of them, who gratify Brutish Appetites, and live in all Vilenefs, add Want of Shame to their Want of Grace, and bewail that they are contemned, while they are deferving it. If a Man pretending to great Gravity and Regard, fhould drefs himself up in a Fool's Coat, and a Pair of Horns, would not People laugh at him in fpite of themselves? And would not his Refentment and Rebukes add ftill to their Mirth? A Clergyman who is drunk on Saturday, will but, with an ill Grace, talk of his Dignity and Embaffadorship on Sunday. Ought we to own and reverence that Man as our Guide to Heaven, who is himself going a contrary Road, and rioting in those Vices which his whole Duty is to restrain?

THE Honour therefore of the good Clergy is confulted and promoted by expofing the bad. A profane Prieft is the Difgrace and Bane of his own Order, and they who ftand by him, adopt his Infamy, and defile themselves. If he neglect God, and difturb Human Society,

how

how do the Clergy fuffer though he be whipped or hanged? His Punishment is their Credit and Security, because by it is lopped off from their Body a gangrened Limb, that incumbred and deformed the rest.

ATHEISTS, who are not reftrained by the Fear of God, which is ftronger than all the Laws in the World, ought, in the Opinion of Politicians, as well as Cafuifts, to be expelled from the Society of Men. And fhall more Mercy be fhewn to those who are so hardened in Impiety, that though they believe a God, yet dread not his Vengeance, but fwear by his great and terrible Name to an avowed Falfhood? Or can the Clergy, fuffer by the Lofs of fuch execrable Company?

AN unfortunate Levite, fome Years fince, had his Head cleft by a Butcher, who caught him in Bed with his Wife; and neither the Number of Reverend Auditors, who attended the Tryal, a due Regard to the Cloth, or an Apprehenfion of the Carnage it might produce, could hinder the Judge from directing the Jury to call the Crime only Man-Slaughter. This fo provoked the meek Spirit, and Patience, of a Holy Brother, then prefent, that he cried out in the Court, Here's a fine World! if thefe Things be fuffered, there will be no living for us.

No chafte or fober Clergyman could be terrified with fuch an Example, or think the Church

Church in any Danger by it. Does any virtuous Member of the Holy Order fuffer either in his Person or Character, if Bifs divert his Spectators in a Pillory, or Parfon Paul his Auditors upon a Gallows? None can share in their Difgrace but those who fympathize in their Crimes, or cenfure their Punishment. How much more honeft, as well as prudent, would it be to remove the Guilt from themfelves, by throwing it all upon the devoted Head; to put the evil Thing out of the City; and to imitate the Sagacity of the horned Herd, who always drive the blown Deer from amongst them, where he feeks his Refuge, though at the Hazard of involving the whole Tribe in his Misfortune!

T. & G.

NUM