piety, and authority that you can; and let not your own corrections of criminals be to any purpose but for their amendment, for the cure of offenders as long as there is hope, and for the security of those who are sound and whole. Preach often, and pray continually; let your discipline be with charity, and your censures slow; let no excommunications pass for trifles, and drive not away the fly from your brother's forehead with a hatchet; give counsel frequently, and dispensations seldom, but never without necessity or great charity; let every place in your diocese say, Invenerunt me vigiles", the watchmen have found me out,' hassovevim, they that walk the city round, have sought me out and found me.' "Let every one of us," as S. Paul's expression is, "shew himself a workman that shall not be ashamed;" operarium inconfusibilem, mark that, 'such a labourer as shall not be put to shame' for his illness or his unskilfulness, his falseness and unfaithfulness, in that day when the great Bishop of souls shall make IIis last and dreadful visitation. For be sure there is not a carcass, nor a skin, nor a lock of wool, nor a drop of milk of the whole flock, but God shall for it call the idol shepherd to a severe account and how, think you, will His anger burn, when He shall see so many goats standing at His left hand, and so few sheep at His right, and upon enquiry shall find that His ministering shepherds were wolves in sheep's clothing, and that by their ill example or pernicious doctrines, their care of money and carelessness of their flocks, so many souls perish, who if they had been carefully and tenderly, wisely and conscientiously handled, might have shined as bright as angels? And it is a sad consideration to remember how many souls are pitifully handled in this world, and carelessly dismissed out of this world; they are left to live at their own rate, and when they are sick they are bidden to be of good comfort, and then all is well; who when they are dead, find themselves cheated of their precious and invaluable eternity. Oh, how will those souls in their eternal prisons for ever curse those evil and false guides! And how will those evil guides themselves abide in judgment, when the angels of wrath 'snatch their abused people into everlasting torments? For will God bless them, or pardon them, by whom so many souls perish? shall they reign with Christ who evacuate the death of Christ, and make it useless to dear souls? shall they partake of Christ's glories, by whom it comes to pass that there is less joy in heaven itself, even because sinners are not converted, and God is not glorified, and the people is not instructed, and the kingdom of God is not filled? Oh no; the curses of a false prophet will fall upon them, and the reward of the evil steward will be their portion; and they who destroyed the sheep, or neglected them, shall have their portion with goats for ever and ever in everlasting burnings, in which it is impossible for a man to dwell. Can any thing be beyond this, beyond damnation? Surely a P [Cant. iii. 3; v. 7.] [2 Tim. ii. 15.] : 330 A CONSECRATION SERMON PREACHED AT DUBLIN. [SERM. IV. man would think not: and yet I remember a severe saying of S. Gregory', Scire debent prælati quod tot mortibus digni sunt quot perditionis exempla ad subditos extenderunt, one damnation is not enough for an evil shepherd; but for every soul who dies by his evil example or pernicious carelessness, he deserves a new death, a new damnation.' Let us therefore be wise and faithful, walk warily, and watch carefully, and rule diligently, and pray assiduously; for God is more propense to rewards than to punishments; and the good steward that is wise and faithful in his dispensation, shall be greatly blessed but how? "He shall be made ruler over the household." What is that? for he is so already. True, but he shall be much more; ex dispensatore faciet procuratorem, God will treat him as Joseph was treated by his master, he was first a steward and then a procurator, one that ruled his goods without account and without restraint: our ministry shall pass into empire, our labour into rest, our watchfulness into fruition, and our bishopric to a kingdom. In the mean time our bishoprics are a great and weighty care, and in a spiritual sense our dominion is founded in grace, and our rule is in the hearts of the people, and our strengths are the powers of the holy Ghost, and the weapons of our warfare are spiritual; and the eye of God watches over us curiously, to see if we watch over our flocks by day and by night: and though the primitive church, as the ecclesiastic histories observe, when they deposed a bishop from his office, ever concealed his crime, and made no record of it; yet remember this, that God does and will call us to a strict and severe account. Take heed that you may never hear that fearful sentence, : I was hungry, and ye gave Me no meat." If you suffer Christ's little ones to starve, it will be required severely at your hands and know this, that the time will quickly come in which God shall say unto thee in the words of the prophets, "Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock? what wilt thou say when He shall visit thee?" God of His mercy grant unto us all to be so faithful and so wise as to convert souls, and to be so blessed and so assisted, that we may give an account of our charges with joy, to the glory of God, to the edification and security of our flocks, and the salvation of our own souls, in that day when the great Shepherd and Bishop of our souls shall come to judgment, even our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; to whom, with the Father and the holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, love and obedience, now and for evermore. Amen. r [Scire.. prælati debent, quia si perversa unquam perpetrant, tot mortibus digni sunt, quot ad subditos suos perditionis exempla transmittunt.-Reg. past., part. iii. cap. 4.-tom. ii. col. 38 A. Quoted by pope Nicolas, Gratian. decret. part. ii. caus. 11. q. 3. cap. 3, 'Præcipue.' col. 999.] S [Jer. xiii. 20, 21-] THURSDAY, MAY 9. ORDERED, that the speaker do give the reverend father in God, the lord bishop of Down, the thanks of this house for his yesterday's pains; and that he desire him to print his sermon. JOHN KEATING, Cler. Parl. XI. die Maii, 1661. ORDERED, that Sir Theophilus Jones, knight, Marcus Trever, esq., Sir William Domvile, knight, his majesty's attorney-general, and Richard Kirle, esq., be and are hereby appointed a committee to return thanks unto the lord bishop of Down for his sermon preached on Wednesday last unto the lords justices, and lords spiritual and temporal, whereunto the house of commons were invited; and that they desire his lordship from this house to cause the same to be forthwith printed and published. Copia vera. Ex. per PHILIP FERNELY, Cler. Dom. com. |