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.

Another great crowd that is made in the Church is by those that take in there only as a place of shelter and refuge.  Thus, we have many turn Priests and Deacons, either for want of employment in their profession of Law, Physic, or the like; or having been unfortunate in their trade, or having broken a leg, or an arm, and so disabled from following their former calling; or having had the pleasure of spending their estate, or being (perhaps deservedly) disappointed of their inheritance.  The Church is a very large and good “Sanctuary”; and one Spiritual shilling is as good as three Temporality shillings.  Let the hardest come to the hardest! if they can get by heart, Quid est fides?  Quid est Ecclesia? quot