our blessed Lord, whose innocence and conduct were both equally divine, could not in his converse with men wholly escape them. Now in this case the Church could prescribe no other rule, but that of patience and Christian con solation, given by our Saviour to his Apostles; "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven." "When we have done," says St. Austin,2 “all that in justice and prudence we could to preserve our good name, if after that some men, notwithstanding, will endeavour to blemish our reputation, and blacken our character, either by false suggestions or unreasonable suspicions, let conscience be our comfort, nay, plainly our joy, that great is our reward in heaven. For this reward is the wages of our warfare, whilst we behave ourselves as good soldiers of Christ, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report."-So much of the laws of the Church, relating to the life and conversation of the ancient clergy,

CHAP. III.

Of Laws more particularly relating to the Exercise of the Duties and Offices of their Function.

SECT. 1.-The Clergy obliged to lead a studious Life.

I COME now to speak of such laws as more immediately related to their function, and the several offices and duties belonging to it. In speaking of which, because many of these offices will come more fully to be considered hereafter, when we treat of the liturgy and service of the Church, I shall here speak chiefly of such duties, as were required of them by way of general qualification, to enable them the better to go through the particular duties of their function. Such was, in the first place, their obligation to lead a stu

2

dious life. For since, as Gregory Nazianzen observes,1 the meanest arts could not be obtained without much time, and labour, and toil, spent therein; it were absurd to think, 1 that the art of wisdom, which comprehends the knowledge of things human and divine, and comprises every thing that is noble and excellent, was so light and vulgar a thing, as that a man needed no more but a wish or a will to obtain it. Some indeed, he complains, were of this fond opinion, and therefore, before they had well passed the time of their childhood, or knew the names of the books of the Old and New Testament, or how well to read them, if they had but got two or three pious words by heart, or had read a few of the Psalms of David, and put on a grave habit, which made some outward show of piety, they had the vanity to think, they were qualified for the government of the Church. They then talked nothing but of Samuel's sanctification from his cradle, and thought themselves profound scribes, and great rabbies and teachers, sublime in the knowledge of divine things, and were for interpreting the Scripture, not by the letter, but after a spiritual way, propounding their own dreams and fancies, instead of the divine oracles, to the people. This, he complains, was for want of that study and labour, which ought to be the continual employment of persons, who take upon them the offices of the sacred function. St. Chrysostom pursues this matter a little further, and shows the necessity of continual labour and study in a clergyman, from the work and business he has upon his hand, each part of which requires great sedulity and application. For, first, he ought to be qualified to minister suitable remedies to the several maladies and distempers of men's souls; the cure of which requires greater skill and labour than the cure of their bodily distempers. And this is only to be done by the doctrine of the Gospel, which therefore required, that he should be intimately acquainted with every part of it." Then again, he must be able to stop the mouths of all gainsayers, Jews, gentiles, and heretics, who had different arts and different weapons to assault the

truth by; and unless he exactly understood all their fallacies and sophisms, and knew the true art of making a proper defence, he would be in danger not only of suffering each of them to make spoil and devastation of the Church, but of encouraging one error, whilst he was opposing another." For nothing was more common, than for ignorant and unskilful disputants to run from one extreme to another; as he shows in the controversies, which the Church had with the Marcionites and Valentinians on the one hand, and the Jews on the other, about the law of Moses; and the dispute about the Trinity between the Arians and Sabellians. Now, unless a man was well skilled and exercised in the Word of God, and the true art and rules of disputation, which could not be attained without continual study and labour, he concludes, "it would be impossible for him to maintain his ground, and the truth, as he ought, against so many subtle and wily opposers." Upon this he inculcates' that direction of St. Paul to Timothy, 1 Tim. iv. 13. "Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine: meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all men." Thirdly, he shows, "how difficult and laborious a work it was to make continual homilies and set discourses to the people, who were become very severe judges of the preacher's composures, and would not allow him to rehearse any part of another man's work, nor so much as to repeat his own upon a second occasion. Here his task was something the more difficult, because men had generally nice and delicate palates, and were inclined to - hear sermons as they heard plays, more for pleasure than profit. Which added to the preacher's study and labour; who, though he was to contemn both popular applause and censure, yet was also to have such a regard to his auditory, as that they might hear him with pleasure to their edification and advantage." "And the more famed and eloquent the preacher was, so much the more careful and studious ought he to be, that he may always answer his character, and not expose himself to the censures and accu

sations of the people." These and the like arguments does that holy father urge, to show how much it concerns men of the sacred calling to devote themselves to a studious and laborious life, that they may be the better qualified thereby to answer the several indispensible duties of their functions.

SECT. 2.-No Pleas allowed as just Apologies for the contrary.

Some indeed, St. Chrysostom says, were ready to plead even the Apostle's authority for their ignorance, and almost value themselves for want of learning, because the Apostle says of himself, that he was rude in speech. But to this the holy father justly replies, "that this was a misrepre sentation of the great Apostle, and vainly urged to excuse any man's sloth and negligence in not attaining to those necessary parts of knowledge, which the clerical life required. If the utmost heights and perfections of exotic eloquence had been rigidly exacted of the clergy; if they had been to speak always with the smoothness of Isocrates, or the loftiness of Demosthenes, or the majesty of Thucydides, or the sublimity of Plato; then indeed it might be pertinent to allege this testimony of the Apostle. But rudeness of style, in comparison of such eloquence, may be allowed; provided men be otherwise qualified with knowledge, and ability to preach and dispute accurately concerning the doctrines of faith and religion; as St. Paul was, whose talents in that kind have made him the wonder and admiration of the whole world; and it would be unjust to accuse him of rudeness of speech, who by his discourses confounded both Jews and Greeks, and wrought many into the opinion, that he was the Mercury of the gentiles. Such proofs of his power of persuasion were sufficient evidence, that he had spent some pains in this way; and therefore his authority was fondly abused to patronise ignorance and sloth, whose example was so great a reproach to them." Others again there were, who placed the whole of a minister in a good life, and that was made another excuse for the want of knowledge and study, and the art of preaching and disputing. But to this St. Chrysostom also replies, "that

1 Chrys, de Sacerd. lib. iv. c. 6,

2 Ibid. c. 8 et 9.

both these qualifications were required in a priest; he must not only do, but teach the commands of Christ, and guide others by his word and doctrine, as well as his practice: each of these had their part in his office, and were necessary to assist one another, in order to consummate men's edification. For otherwise, when any controversy should arise about the doctrines of religion, and Scripture was pleaded in behalf of error; what would a good life avail in this case? What would it signify to have been diligent in the practice of virtue, if after all a man, through gross ignorance and unskilfulness in the Word of Truth, fell into heresy, and cut himself off from the body of the Church? as he knew many that had done so. But admit a man should stand firm himself, and not be drawn away by the adversaries; yet when the plain and simple people, who are under his care, shall observe their leader to be baffled, and that he has nothing to say to the arguments of a subtle opposer, they will be ready to impute this not so much to the weakness of the advocate, as the badness of his cause: and so, by one man's ignorance, a whole people shall be carried headlong to utter destruction; or at least be so shaken in their faith, that they shall not stand firm for the future." St. Jerom1 gives also a smart rebuke to this plea, telling his clerk, "that the plain and rustic brother should not value himself upon his sanctity, and despise knowledge; as neither should the artful and eloquent speaker measure his holiness by his tongue. For though of two imperfections it was better to have a holy ignorance, than a vicious eloquence; yet to consummate a priest, both qualifications were necessary, and he must have knowledge, as well as sanctity, to fit him for the several duties of his function." Thus did those holy instructors plead against ignorance in the clergy, and urge them with proper arguments to engage them upon a studious life, which was the only way to furnish them with sufficient abilities to discharge many weighty duties of their function.

1 Hieron. Ep. 2. ad Nepotian. Nec rusticus et tamen simplex frater ideò se sanctum putet, si nihil noverit: nec peritus et eloquens in linguâ æstimet sanctitatem. Multoque melius est è duobus imperfectis rusticitatem sanctam habere, quàm eloquentiam peccatricem.