How to do good to many, or, The public good is the Christians life…How to do good to many, or, The publick good is the Christians life…

2. Seeing Pastors are here obtruded on the flock, it is a work of great importance for Religious Gentlemen to buy as many Advowsons or Presentations, as they can, that they may introduce the best that they can get.

God hath hitherto made use of the qualifications of the Ministers, as the special means for the welfare of his Church. The bare ⟨p. 19⟩title and office is so far from sufficing without the skill and fidelity of the persons, that such have been the great corrupters and disturbers of the Church: When pious men have heaped up riches and honours on the Clergy, these have been baits for the worst men to become seekers, and make the sacred Ministry but a trade for wealth. And if carnal worldly men be Ministers, alas! what plagues may they be to the people and themselves? They will hate the Spiritual practice of doctrine which they Preach; when they have told men of a Heaven and Hell, and the necessity of a holy heart and life, as if they had been in jest; they will take those for hypocrites that believe them, and live accordingly: They will take the best of the flock for their Enemies, because they are Enemies to their hypocrisy and vice: Instead of imitating Saint Paul Act. 20. who taught them publicly and from House to House, day and night, with tears; they will turn the Ministry into Complement and formality, and think that by saying a cold unskilful Sermon, and by rotting over a few heartless words, they have laudably performed their part. They will take those for their best hearers who will most honour them and best pay them, tho never so ignorant and ungodly; and their spleen will swell against the best, and most Religious people, because they dislike their unfaithful lives and Ministration. If Religion should be in public danger, these will be the Judases that will sell it for gain. They will do anything rather than suffer much. They are Ministers of the world, and not of Christ: Readier to make Crosses for others than to bear the Cross of Christ: For it is Gain that is their Godliness: And when their treachery is seen and hated, they will hate the haters of it: And the studies of Malignant men will be their Laboratories, and the Pulpits the place where the sublimate and essence of malice must be vended: How effectually will Satan's work be done when it is performed in the formalities of the Sacred Ministry, and in the name of Christ? O what hath the Church suffered by a worldly graceless Ministry these thousand years and more; and what doth it yet suffer by them in East and West!