is intimately connected with all the feveral branches of your duty. Application to your ftudies implies a conftant refidence on your cures; it induces thofe habits of temperance and retirement, fo neceffary, fo ornamental to your fituation; it detaches you from a variety of amusements and expences, which, if they do not immediately involve you in dif trefs, unfit you for the bufinefs of your profeffion. It contributes therefore most effentially to form that profeffional character which gives life; and, if I may fo express myself, gives truth both to your public and private inftructions; a character which will insure to you the love and refpect of your people; reflect credit on your order; and, what is more valuable, will fecure to you the approbation of your own mind, for the due discharge of thofe folemn engagements, to the perform ance of which you pledged yourself at your ordination.

$ 4. On the topic of titles to orders I am unwilling to infift, from the perfect confidence I feel that none of you would fo intirely forget what he owes to himself, as to attempt fo difgraceful an impofition.

TESTI

TESTIMONIALS for orders and preferment, I fear, for the credit of the Clergy, the honour of the Church of England, and the interefts of religion, are too often confidered in another view, and as refting on other ground. We are here too apt to be misled by the strange prejudice of the times, that teftimonials are matters of mere form; and to be influenced by a good nature miftaken and mifapplied. I confefs myself at a lofs to conceive what may not be included under the term form, if the most folemn atteftation, not only negative, but pofitive; not only from vague report, but from perfonal knowledge for the time certified, to a character recommended for the strictest purity of life, and foundnefs of doctrine, as qualifications for becoming a public teacher of the gospel, and a public example of it's precepts, can be comprehended under that appellation. On the veracity of the subscribers the Bishop must rely in ordination, inftitution, and licence. If he be deceived, I need not represent in how crucl a fituation he is placed; fince the confequences will be imputed by the world to his fupineness and neglect. But the confequences will not be conC 3 fined

fined folely to him; they will be extended to the most valuable interests of your order, of religion, and of mankind. By the introduction of an unfit or disreputable member, the first is dishonoured, and the two last injured. He occupies a place in a fociety, from which his education, habits of life, imperfections, and perhaps even his vices, should have excluded him; and he may eventually, by the prostitution of patronage, and betraying the trust which it implies, obtain those profes fional emoluments which fhould never be the reward but of talents, induftry, and virtue.;

I am well aware that you will not unfrequently be preffed hard by the importunity of friends; by the tender feelings of your na ture; by an unwillingness to be thought auftere; by the hope of future amendment; by commiferation of diftrefs; and by the profpect of the advantages which may accrue. These are motives which may, at the mo ment, operate on the minds. even of the best of men; and would occafionally bear down all resistance, unlefs the aids of reafon and religion be called in. Let the caufe be tried at their bar, and you cannot long hesitate on which

which fide the truth lies.

Let any man

coolly confult his own heart, and ask himself whether on fimilar pretences he would recommend to an office of civil truft; advance a deliberate falfehood; and abuse the confidence repofed in him? Should the fpiritual and eternal interefts of thousands be facrificed to the temporal interests of an individual? Should affection fo far bias the judgment, as to make you willing inftruments in fixing a relation or a friend in an employment, in which he must disgrace you, himfelf, and his whole order?

your

I have infifted the more earnestly on this topic, from it's importance to yourselves, to fellow creatures, to the church of which you are minifters, and to religion. May the light in which I have placed this most serious and growing evil, ftrike you as forcibly as it does me; and induce you, from the confiderations which have been urged, to fign, or refufe to fign, the teftimonials to which your fubfcription may hereafter be folicited.

YOUR vigilance and concern in this refpect I fhall make it my business to fecond, by re

quiring adequate proofs of literary qualifications. Without entering at large into their extent, I will just point out a very prevailing mistake with regard to thefe qualifications for the first order; and, through you, addrefs myself to future candidates for the miniftry. The mistake to which I allude is, that a flight proficiency in the Greek and Latin languages is a fufficient preparation for Deacon's orders. So far from thinking a flight proficiency in the learned languages fufficient, although I think a confiderable proficiency in them neceffary, I do not confider even the greatest proficiency in them alone fufficient. Why it is not fufficient, a little reflection will convince you. A candidate for orders in the Church of England must, before his admiffion, fubfcribe to it's articles. But can he confcientiously fubfcribe to those articles without being acquainted with their grounds and reafons? Can he know those grounds and reafons without a very diligent study, not only of the books of the New Teftament which contain them, but of fuch books as have been written to explain them? The perufal of the books immediately neceffary lies indeed within a small compass; but

it