An ESSAY on the FATES of CLERGY

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HERE is no talent fo ufeful towards rifing in the world, or which puts men more out of the reach of fortune, than that quality generally poffeffed by the dulleft fort of men, and in common speech called difcretion: a fpecies of lower prudence, by the affiftance of which people of the meaneft intellectuals, without any other qualification, pafs through the world in great tranquillity, and with univerfal good treatment, neither giving nor taking offence. Courts are feldom unprovided of perfons under this character; on whom, if they happen to be of great quality, moft employments, even the greatest, naturally fall, when competitors will not agree; and in fuch promotions no body rejoices or grieves. The truth of this I could prove by feveral inftances within my own memory; for I fay nothing of present times.

AND indeed, as regularity and forms are of great ufe in carrying on the bufinefs of the world, fo it is very convenient, that perfons endued with this kind of difcretion fhould have that fhare which is proper to their talents, in the conduct of affairs, but by no means meddle in matters which require genius, learning, ftrong comprebenfion, quickness of conception, magnanimity, generofity, jagacity, or any other fuperior gift of human minds: because this fort of difcretion is ufually attended with a ftrong defire of money, and few fcruples about the way of obtaining it; with fervile flattery and fubmiffion; with a want of all public fpirit or principle; with a perpetual wrong judgment, when the owners come into power and high place, how to difpofe of favour and preferment; having no meafure for merit and virtue in others, but thofe very steps by which themselves afcended; nor the leaft intention of doing good or hurt to the public, farther than either one or t'other is likely to be fubfervient

to

This effay was printed in the intelligencer, No 5. and No. 7. See vol. 3. p. 344.

to their own fecurity or intereft. Thus, being void of all friendship and enmity, they never complain, or find fault with the times, and indeed never have reason to do fo.

MEN of eminent parts and abilities, as well as virtues, do fometimes rife in the court, fometimes in the law, and fometimes even in the church. Such were the Lord Bacon, the Earl of Strafford, Archbishop Laud, in the reign of King Charles I. and others in our own times, whom I fhall not name: but thefe, and many more, under different princes, and in different kingdoms, were difgraced, or banished, or fuffered death, merely in envy to their virtues and fuperior genius, which emboldened them, in great exigencies and diftreffes of ftate, (wanting a reafonable infufion of this aldermanly difcretion,) to attempt the fervice of their prince and country out of the common forms.

THIS evil fortune which generally attends extraordinary men in the management of great affairs, hath been imputed to divers caufes, that need not be here fet down, when fo obvious an one occurs; if what a certain writet obferves be true, that when a great genius appears in the world, the dunces are all in confederacy against him And if this be his fate, when he employs his talents wholly in his clòfet, without interfering with any man's ambition or avarice, what must he expect, when he ventures out to feek for preferment in a court, but univerfal oppofition, when he is mounting the ladder, and every hand ready to turn him off when he is at the top? And in this point, fortune generally acts directly contrary to nature for in nature we find, that bodies full of life and fpirit mount eafily, and are hard to fall; whereas heavy bodies are hard to rife, and come down with greater velocity, in proportion to their weight: but we find fortune every day acting, juft the reverfe of this.

THIS talent of difcretion, as I have described it in its feveral adjuncts and circumftances, is no where fo ferviceable as to the clergy; to whofe preferment nothing is fo fatal as the character of wit, politenefs in reading or manners, or that kind of behaviour which we contract

by

* See the author's thoughts on various fubje&s, at the end of vol. 5. par. xv.

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by having too much converfed with perfons of high ftation and eminency; thefe qualifications being reckoned by the vulgar of all ranks to be marks of levity, which is the laft crime the world will pardon in a clergyman: to this I may add, a free manner of fpeaking in mixed company, and too frequent an appearance in places of much refort, which are equally noxious to fpiritual pro

motion.

I have known indeed a few exceptions to fome parts of thefe obfervations. I have feen fome of the dulleft men alive aiming at wit, and others, with as little pretenfions, affecting politenefs in manners and difcourfe; but never being able to perfuade the world of their guilt, they grew into confiderable ftations, upon the firm affurance which all people had of their discretion, because they were a fize too low to deceive the world to their own difadvantage. But this, I confefs, is a trial too dangerous often to engage in.

*

THERE is a known ftory of a clergyman, who was recommended for a preferment by fome great man at court to an archbishop. His grace faid, he had heard that the clergymen used to play at whift and fwobbers; that, as to playing now and then a fober game at whift for paftime, it might be pardoned; but he could not digeft those wicked fwobbers; and it was with some pains that my Lord Sommers could undeceive him. I afk, by what talents we may suppose that great prelate afcended fo high, or what fort of qualifications he would expect in thofe whom he took into his patronage, or would probably recommend to court for the government of diftant churches?

Two clergymen, in my memory, flood candidates for a fmall free fchool in Yorkshire, where a gentleman of quality and intereft in the country, who happened to have a better understanding than his neighbours, procured the place for him who was the better fcholar, and more gentlemanly perfon of the two, very much to the regret of all the parish. The other being disappointed, came up to London; where he became the greateft pattern of this lower difcretion that I have known, and poffeffed it with

* Dr. Tennison, late Archbishop of Canterbury.

with as heavy intellectuals; which, together with the coldness of his temper, and gravity of his deportment, carried him fafe thro' many difficulties, and he lived and died in a great station; while his competitor is too obfcure for fame to tell us what became of him.

THIS fpecies of discretion, which I so much celebrate, and do moft heartily recommend, hath one advantage not yet mentioned; it will carry a man safe thro' all the malice and variety of parties, fo far, that whatever faction happens to be uppermoft, his claim is ufually allowed for a fhare of what is going. And the thing feems to me highly reasonable. For in all great changes, the prevailing fide is ufually fo tempeftuous, that it wants the ballaft of those whom the world calls moderate men, and I call men of difcretion; whom people in power may with little ceremony load as heavy as they pleafe, drive them thro' the hardest and deepest roads, without danger of foundering, or breaking their backs, and will be fure. to find them, neither refty nor vitious.

I will here give the reader a short hiftory of two clergymen in England, the characters of each, and the progrefs of their fortunes in the world; by which the force of worldly difcretion, and the bad confequences from the want of that virtue, will ftrongly appear.

CORUSODES, an Oxford ftudent, and a farmer's fon, was never abfent from prayers or lecture, nor once out of his college after Tom had tolled. He spent every day ten hours in his clofet, in reading his courfes, dozing, clipping papers, or darning his ftockings; which laft he performed to admiration. He could be foberly drunk, at the expence of others, with college ale, and at those feasons was always moft devout. He wore the same gown five years, without draggling or tearing. He never once looked into a play-book or a poem. He read Virgil and Ramus in the fame cadence, but with a very different tafte. He never understood a jeft, or had the leaft conception of wit.

FOR One faying he stands in renown to this day. Being with fome other ftudents over a pot of ale, one of the company faid fo many pleafant things, that the rest were much diverted, only Corufodes was filent and unmoved. When they parted, he called this merry com

⚫panion

panion afide, and faid, "Sir, I perceive by your often. • speaking, and our friends laughing, that you fpoke

many jefts; and you could not but observe my fi"lence but, Sir, this is my humour ; I never make a "jeft myself, nor ever laugh at another man's. "

CORUSODES, thus endued, got into holy orders; having, by the moft extreme parfimony, faved thirty-four pounds out of a very beggarly fellowship; went up to London, where his filter was waiting-woman to a lady; and fo good a folicitor, that, by her means, he was admitted to read prayers in the family twice a day, at ten fhillings a month. He had now acquired a low, obsequious, awkward bow. and a talent of grofs flattery, both in and out of season; he would shake the butler by the hand; he taught the page his catechifm; and was fometimes admitted to dine at the fteward's table. In fhort, he, got the good word of the whole family, and was recommended by my Lady for chaplain to fome other noble houses, by which his revenue (befides vails) amounted to about thirty pounds a year. His fifter procured him a scarf from my Lord, who had a small defign of gallantry upon her; and, by his Lordship's folicitation, he got a lectureship in town of fixty pounds ayear; where he preached conftantly in perfon, in a grave manner, with an audible voice, a ftyle ecclefiaftic, and the matter (fuch as it was) well fuited to the intellectuals of his hearers. Some time after, a country-living fell in my Lord's difpofal; and his Lordship, who had now fome encouragement given him of fuccefs in his amour, beftowed the living on Corufodes; who ftill kept his lectureship and refidence in town; where he was a conftant attendant at all meetings relating to charity, without ever contributing farther than his frequent pious exhortations. If any woman of better fashion in the parish happened to be absent from church, they were fure of a vifit from him in a day or two, to chide and to dine with them.

He had a felect number of poor, conftantly attending at the ftreet-door of his lodgings, for whom he was a common folicitor to his former patronefs, dropping in his own half-crown among the collections, and taking it out when he difpofed of the money. At a person of VOL. VII. quality's

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