410 ADVICE TO SIR GEORGE VILLIERS. 



cannot flatter, the world believes that some near in 

 blood to you are too much of that persuasion ; you 

 must use them with fit respects, according to the 

 bonds of nature ; but you are of kin, and so a friend 

 to their persons, not to their errors. 



5. The archbishops and bishops, next under the 

 king, have the government of the Church and eccle 

 siastical affairs : be not you the mean to prefer any 

 to those places for any by-respects ; but only for their 

 learning, gravity, and worth : their lives and doctrine 

 ought to be exemplary. 



6. For deans, and canons or prebends of cathedral 

 churches ; in their first institution they were of great 

 use in the Church ; they were not only to be of 

 counsel with the bishop for his revenue, but chiefly 

 for his government in causes ecclesiastical : use your 

 best means to prefer such to those places who are fit 

 for that purpose, men eminent for their learning, 

 piety, and discretion, and put the king often in mind 

 thereof; and let them be reduced again to their first 

 institution. 



7. You will be often solicited, and perhaps im 

 portuned to prefer scholars to church living : you 

 may further your friends in that way, &quot; cateris 

 paribus.&quot; ; otherwise remember, I pray, that these are 

 not places merely of favour ; the charge of souls lies 

 upon them ; the greatest account whereof will be 

 required at their own hands ; but they will share 

 deeply in their faults who are the instruments of their 

 preferment. 



