only _not_ to be drunk! then
they speak much to the purpose; but if it be otherwise, very little. It
being not much unlike, as it is the fashion in many places, to the
sending of little children of two or three years old to a School Dame,
without any design of learning one letter, but only to keep them out of
the fire and water.

Last of all, people must not say that "there needs no great store of
learning in a Minister; and therefore a small Living may answer his
deserts: for that there be _Homilies_ made on purpose by the Church for
young beginners and slow inventors. Whereupon it is, that such difference
is made between giving Orders, and License to Preach: the latter being
granted only to such, as the Bishop shall judge able to make sermons."

But this does not seem to do the business. For though it be not necessary
for every Guide of a parish to understand all the Oriental languages, or
to make exactly elegant or profound discourses for the Pulpit; yet, most
certainly, it is very requisite that he should be so far learned and
judicious as prudently to advise, direct, inform, and satisfy the people
in holy matters; when they demand it, or beg it from him. Which to
perform readily and judiciously requires much more discretion and skill,
than, upon long deliberation, to make a continued talk of an hour,
without any great discernible failings. So that were a Minister tied up,
never to speak one sentence of his own invention out of the pulpit in his
whole lifetime; yet doubtless many other occasions there be, for which
neither wisdom nor reputation should be wanting in him that has the care
and government of a parish.

I shall not here go about to please myself with the imagination of all
the Great Tithes being restored to the Church; having little reason to
hope to see such days of virtue. Nor shall I here question the
almightiness of former Kings and Parliaments, nor dispute whether all the
King HENRIES in the world, with ever such a powerful Parliament, were able
to determine to any other use, what was once solemnly dedicated to GOD,
and His service. By yet, when we look over the Prefaces to those _Acts of
Parliament_ whereby some Church revenues were granted to HENRY VIII., one
cannot but be much taken with the ingenuity of that Parliament; that when
the King wanted a supply of money and an augmentation to his revenue, how
handsomely, out of the Church they made provision for him, without doing
themselves any inju