Churches and Chapels we have enough, it is to be confessed, if compared with the bigness of our nation: but, in respect of that infinite number that are in Holy Orders, it is a very plain case, that there is a very great want. And I am confident, that, in a very little time, I could procure hundreds that should ride both sun and moon down, and be everlastingly yours! if you could help them but to a Living of £25 or £30 a year. And this, I suppose, to be chiefly occasioned upon these two accounts: either from _the eagerness and ambition_ that some people have, of going into Orders; or from the _refuge of others_ into the Church, who, being otherwise disappointed of a livelihood, hope to make sure of one by that means. First, I say, that which increases the unprovided-for number of the Clergy, is people posting into Orders before they know their Message or business, only out of a certain pride and ambition. Thus some are hugely in love with the mere title of Priest or Deacon: never considering how they shall live, or what good they are likely to do in their Office; but only they have a fancy, that a cassock, if it be made long, is a very handsome garment, though it be never paid for; that the Desk is clearly the best, and the Pulpit, the highest seat in all the parish; that they shall take place [_precedence_] of most Esquires and Right Worshipfuls; that they shall have the honour of being spiritual guides and counsellors; and they shall be supposed to understand more of the Mind of GOD than ordinary, though perhaps they scarcely know the Old Law from the New, nor the _Canon_ from the _Apocrypha_. Many, I say, such as these, there be, who know not where to get two groats, nor what they have to say to the people: but only because they have heard that the office of a Minister is the most noble and honourable employment in the world; therefore they (not knowing in the least what the meaning of that is), Orders, by all means, must have! though it be to the disparagement of that holy function. Others also there be who are not so highly possessed with the mere dignity of the office and honourableness of the employment; but think, had they but licence and authority to preach, O how they could pay it away! and that they can tell the people such strange things, as they never heard before, in all their lives! That they have got such a commanding voice! such heart-breaking expressions! such a peculiar method of Text-dividing! and such notable helps for the interpreting all difficulties in Scripture! that they can shew the people a much shorter way to heaven than has been, as yet, made known by any! Such a forwardness as this, of going in Holy Orders, either merely out of an ambitious humour of being called a Priest; or of thinking they could do such feats and wonders, if they might be but free of the Pulpit, has filled the nation with many more Divines than there is any competent maintenance for in the Church.