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A CHARGE &c.

MY REVEREND BRETHREN,

THE relation I bear to you makes it necessary for me on this occafion to remind you, though of yourfelves, I trust, not unmindful, of the duty incumbent on you as minifters of the Gospel of Chrift.

To go through the feveral parts of the paftoral office would require more time than can be allowed for it at present: I fhall therefore confine myself to fuch particulars as feem, in the prefent circumstances of things, to require our more immediate attention.

The duties of the paftoral office are to be learned from the general rules and directions of the Gofpel, and the nature of the office, as there described; and in the exercise of these duties we must govern ourfelves by the particular laws and conftitutions of this Christian church and kingdom, of which we are members. These are the lights by which we must walk and I fhall confider the duties which fall within the compass of my present defign, as they flow from the nature of your office, and the precepts of the Gospel, and as they are adjusted and enforced by the laws of this church and kingdom.

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The first thing, and the only one I fhall now mention to you, is the obligation you are under to a con

stant attendance upon your several cures: I mention it first, because it is the foundation of all other duties, and it would be abfurd to speak of any other without prefuppofing this.

This duty arifes by neceffary confequence from the nature of the office which you have undertaken. The ministers of the Gospel are ambassadors of Christ, to exhort and pray the people in his flead to be reconciled to God: they are overfeers of the flock, and bound to feed the church of God, which he hath purchafed with his own blood: they are minifters and Hewards of the myfteries of God, and it is required of them that they be found faithful: they are watchmen for the fouls of those committed to their care, and muft give account to Him, who is ready to judge the quick and dead.

Tell me now, which of these duties can be difcharged by one who abfents himfelf from his cure? Can you deliver the meffage of Chrift, as his ambaffador, to perfons to whom you have no accefs? Can you oversee the flock, or feed the church, which have forfaken? Can you difpenfe the myfteries of God to those whom you neither fee nor fpeak to? Or can you watch for their fouls, to whose persons, as well as to their spiritual wants, you are a stranger?

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Attendance upon the flock or people of Chrift does fo naturally follow from these descriptions of the paftoral office, that there could be no occafion to mention it as a diftinct and particular duty. Were you to agree with a pilot to conduct a ship to the Eaft Indies, it would be almoft abfurd to add, as a particular covenant, that he should refide in the ship during the voyage; fince, without it, he could not

poffibly fulfil the effential part of the contract, of conducting the ship to port. The cafe is the very fame in your office: when you accept of a cure, you are as much bound to refide among the people committed to your care, as the pilot is to abide in the ship which he has undertaken to manage and conduct for this reafon the canonifts generally hold, that refidence is jure divino naturali, meaning, that it is a duty deducible from the divine law by a natural and neceffary confequence.

This duty, with respect to the substance of it, has been invariably the fame in all times of the church: the effential part is, a personal attendance upon the discharge of the paftoral office: fo far there has been no change. But the circumftances of the duty have varied according to the different fettlements and provifions made for the preachers of the Gospel in different times. In early times the clergy lived with their bishop in the city of the diocese, and were sent, as occafion required, to inftruct the people in the country, and to adminifter the facraments to them; and then their refidence, with refpect to the locality of it, was of equal extent with the diocefe.

Since the dividing of diocefes into parishes, and the appointing a particular curate to every particular parish, the bounds of this duty have been contracted; and refidence has been confidered, in the law of the church, as the curate's perfonal attendance upon the duties of his office within the limits of the parish, where the cure of fouls is committed to him by the bishop.

Under this restriction, the provincial conftitutions of the church, and the laws of the realm, confider

refidence as a perpetual duty; and every non-refident rector or vicar of a parish is, prima facie, criminal in the eye of both laws, till he fhews a legal difpenfation to justify or excuse himself.

These difpenfations create the whole difficulty of this cafe, and therefore I fhall confider them particularly.

That the obligation to refidence may be diffolved in fome cafes, there is no doubt: all infirmities, either of body or of mind, which totally disable an incumbent from performing his duty, are cases of this kind for as refidence is of no value, but for the fake of performing the duty, it is of no confequence to the church and religion where the man refides, who is under an utter incapacity of doing any part of the parochial duty. Cafes of this kind speak for themfelves. But there are difpenfations introduced and admitted by law, and which are fuppofed to be founded in the general confideration of the good of the church. I wish thefe difpenfations had not, many of them, outlived the reafons upon which they were introduced. Wherever that happens to be the cafe, it is a matter for every clergyman to confider, whether he can, in good confcience, make use of a mere legal exemption to discharge himself of a duty to which he is bound by the strongest obligations? But this judgment must be left to yourselves; and the bifhop's authority in the cafe must be confidered as bounded by the rules of law. I will inquire therefore, I. In what cafes difpenfations are grantable, and by whom.

II. Upon what conditions they are grantable.
The canon law has mentioned fome cafes, in which

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