and for ever. Amen. With this Prayer, and part of that with which S. Ambrofe ended his Book of the Sacerdotal Dignity, I conclude this Difcourfe of the Chriftian Priesthood:

Quanquam fciam pro hoc libello plurimos mihi Sacerdotes, qui que loquimur agere nolunt, infideliter effe detracturos, Credo tamen plurimos, qui hæc agunt, vel agere obnituntur, fideliter pro nobis Oraturos. Sed ficut lacerationibus obtrectatorum minime prægravamur, fic demum probatorum, & fanctorum virorum orationibus adjuvamur. Age jam nunc fanctifi cus fpiritus, qui nos in hoc opere divinis infpirationibus adjuvifti, cunctos Sacerdotes adjuva, & præfta, ut faciant que in hoc opufculo ipfe eloqui infpirafti.

Amen.

FINIS.

DIGNITY

OF THE

Episcopal Order,

AND

OFFICE:

IN A

LETTER

Written to a

Serjeant at Law.

By GEO. HICKES, D. D.

Grandis dignitas Sacerdotum, fed Grandis

ruina eorum, fi peccant.

Hierom. in Ezekiel xliv. 30.

I.

'I

Let

Am glad to find by your Answer to my ter, that you object fo little to my Propofi tions, and that the Objections you make against them affect neither the Truth, nor Order, nor Connexion of them. First, you object, that my way of fpeaking of Bishops as Spiritual Princes, and of their Diocefes as Spiritual Principalities, feems to you novel and uncouth, and will be apt to give Offence to fome good Churchmen, who do not think fo loftily, as I write of the Epifcopal Office; but that the Terms of Princes, and Lords, and Principalities, and Lordships, are fitter for Temporal Sovereigns, according to what our Saviour faith to his Apoftles, Whosoever will be great

among you let him be your Minifter, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your Servant. Indeed, Sir, I grant, that in a Church and Age wherein the Epifcopal Office has been fo many ways deprefs'd, fome good People may be choqued at thofe Expreffions; but when they fhall have the fame Idea of it, and of the Church, which I hope this Letter will help to raise in you, they will be no longer offended at them, but think them juft, and proper, and fuch as the Nature of that high Truft, and Office requires. It is the Unhappiness of our Times, that Men have too mean and low Notions of the Epifcopal Authority, and thofe who by Succeffion, and Ordination are advanced to it. But, Sir, if you had the fame Notion of the Dignity, and Honour of the Priesthood, that the Jews had of it, I believe you would not think, I had spoken too loftily of the Archieratical, or Epifcopal Office, or that the Terms of Princes, and Spiritual Sovereigns, were too high for it. Philo in his firft Book Movagxias, faith that God rewarded Phineas for his Zeal with the Honour of the Priesthood, or Service of the Father; i. e. of God, whofe Service was not only Freedom, but more excellent, than the Kingly Office, and that it was the Intention of the Jewish Law, that the Priefts fhould have equal Honour, and Veneration with their Kings. And Jofephus in the beginning of his Life, written by himself, to fet forth his illuftrious and moft honourable Original, tells us he defcended of a Prieftly Race, which he faith was a Proof of the Splendor of his Family, and

• Τὸ δολώειν ἐκ ἐλευθερίας μόνον, ἀλλὰ ἢ βασιλείας ἄμεινον.

d Father was a folemn Appellation of a Heathen Deity among the Greeks and Romans, as is obferved by Briffonius de Formul. 1. 1. p.48, 49, &c. in the Edit. in Folio. Paris 1583.

e

Ἐξ ὧν ἀπάνων ἐξὶ δῆλον ὅτι βασιλέως εἰς σεμνότητα και τιμὴν πείαπτει τοῖς ἱεροῦσιν ὁ νόμο

then