being satisfied that such an ordinary man was able to do more good than if he had Latin without any Irish at all. Nor was the bishop deceived in his expectation; for this man, as soon as he had a cure, employed his talents diligently and faithfully, and proved very successful in converting many of the Irish papists to our church, and continued labouring in that work until the rebellion and massacre, wherein he hardly escaped with life."

To those who were just about to engage in ministerial duty he gave most excellent advice; it was in substance as follows:

1. Read and study the Scriptures carefully, wherein is the best learning and only infallible truth. They can furnish you with the best materials for your sermons; the only rules for faith and practice; the most powerful motives to persuade and convince the conscience; and the strongest arguments to confute all errors, heresies, and schisms. Therefore, be sure, let all your sermons be congruous to them. And it is expedient that you understand them as well in the originals as in the translations.

2. Take not hastily up other men's opinions without due trial, nor vent your own conceits; but compare them first with the analogy of faith and rules of holiness recorded in the Scriptures, which are the proper tests of all opinions and doctrines.

3. Meddle with controversies and doubtful points as little as may be in your popular preaching, lest you puzzle your hearers or engage them in wrangling disputations, and so hinder their conversion, which is the main end of preaching.

4. Insist most on those points which tend to effect sound belief, sincere love to God, repentance for sin,

and that may persuade to holiness of life. Press these things home to the consciences of your hearers, as of absolute necessity, leaving no gap for evasions; but bind them as closely as may be to their duty. And, as you ought to preach sound and orthodox doctrine, so ought you to deliver God's message as near as may be in God's words: that is, in such as are plain and intelligible, that the meanest of your auditors may understand. Το which end it is necessary to back all the precepts and doctrines with apt proofs from Holy Scriptures; avoiding all exotic phrases, scholastic terms, unnecessary quotations of authors, and forced rhetorical figures; since it is not difficult to make easy things appear hard; but to render hard things easy is the hardest part of a good orator as well as preacher.

5. Get your heart sincerely affected with the things you persuade others to embrace, that so you may preach experimentally, and your hearers may perceive that you are in good earnest; and press nothing upon them but what may tend to their advantage, and which you yourself would enter your own salvation on.

6. Study and consider well the subjects you intend to preach on, before you come into the pulpit, and then words will readily offer themselves. Yet think what you are about to say before you speak, avoiding all uncouth fantastical words or phrases, or nauseous, indecent, or ridiculous expressions, which will quickly bring your preaching into contempt, and make your sermons and person the subjects of sport and merriment.

7. Dissemble not the truths of God in any case, nor comply with the lusts of men, nor give any countenance to sin by word or deed.

8. But, above all, you must never forget to order your own conversation as becomes the gospel; that so you

may teach by example, as well as precept, and that you may appear a good divine everywhere, as well as in the pulpit; for a minister's life and conversation is more heeded than his doctrine.

9. Yet, after all this, take heed that you be not puffed up with spiritual pride of your own virtues, nor with a vain conceit of your parts and abilities; nor yet be transported with the applause of men, nor be dejected or discouraged by the scoffs or frowns of the wicked or profane."

"He would also," adds Dr. Parr, "exhort those who were already engaged in this holy function, and advise them how they might well discharge their duty in the church of God answerably to their calling, to this effect: You are engaged in an excellent employment in the church, and entrusted with weighty matters as stewards of our Great Master, Christ the great Bishop. Under him, and by his commission, you are to endeavour to reconcile men to God; to convert sinners, and build them up in the holy faith of the Gospel, that they may be saved, and that repentance and remission of sins may be preached in his name. This is of the highest importance, and requires faithfulness, diligence, prudence, and watchfulness. The souls of men are committed to our care and guidance; and the eyes of God, angels, and men, are upon us and great is the account we must make to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the supreme head of his church, and will at length reward or punish his servants in this ministry of his Gospel, as he shall find them faithful or negligent. Therefore it behoves us to exercise our best talents, labouring in the Lord's vineyard with all diligence, that we may bring forth fruit, and that the fruit may remain.

"This is the work we are separated for, and ordained

unto. We must not think to be idle or careless in this office, but must bend our minds and studies, and employ all our gifts and abilities, in this service. We must preach the word of faith, that men may believe aright; and the doctrine and laws of godliness, that men may act as becomes christians indeed. For without faith no man can please God; and without holiness no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Dr. Bernard, one of his chaplains, after stating that the bishop always preached on Sunday mornings, adds,

"in the afternoon this was his order to me, that, besides the catechising of the youth before public prayers, I should, after the first and second lessons, spend about half an hour in a brief and plain opening the principles of religion in the public catechism, and after that, I was to preach also. First, he directed me to go through the Creed alone, giving but the sum of each article; then next time at thrice; and afterwards, each time an article, as they might be more able to bear it; and so proportionably the Ten Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and the doctrine of the Sacraments. The good fruit of which was apparent in the vulgar people upon their approach unto the communion, when, as by the then order, the names of the receivers were to be given in, so some account was constantly taken of their fitness for it."

As one who was appointed to watch, as well as to send out, the shepherds of the flock, he carefully inspected his diocese, making himself well acquainted with the characters and abilities of his clergy, by frequent personal visitations. He loved those whom he knew to be sober, diligent, and pious, rescued them from unmerited poverty as far as he was able, and protected them from injustice and misrepresentations; but he severely re

proved those who were scandalous and vicious in their lives and conversation. He pointed out the beauty of the liturgy and the necessity of agreeing in one mode of public worship; charged the clergy to preach and catechise diligently in their respective cures, and to make the Holy Scriptures the rule as well as the subject of their doctrines and sermons. He also corrected many of the abuses which in popish times had established themselves in the ecclesiastical courts. But he did not carry these reforms so far as many thought to be both practicable and necessary. Burnet, in his Life of Bishop Bedell, after speaking of Usher as one of the greatest and best men of his time, adds:- "But no man is entirely perfect; he was not made for the governing part of his function. He had too gentle a soul to manage that rough work of reforming abuses; and therefore he left things as he found them. He hoped a time of reformation would come. He saw the necessity of cutting off many abuses; and confessed that the tolerating those abominable corruptions that the canonists had brought in was such a stain upon a church that in all other respects was the best reformed in the world, that he apprehended it would bring a curse and ruin upon the whole constitution. But though he prayed for a more favourable conjuncture, and would have concurred in a joint reformation of these things very heartily, yet he did not bestir himself suitably to the obligations that lay on him for carrying it on. It was not without great uneasiness to me that I overcame myself so far as to say anything that may seem to diminish the character of so extraordinary a man, who, in other things, was beyond any man of his time, but in this only he fell beneath himself; and those that upon all other accounts loved and admired him lamented this defect in him, which was the