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1Tim. 3.5. Our Church fully recognizes the importance of this subject in demanding of each of her candidates for the holy office a distinct pledge of family godliness.—‘Will you be diligent to frame and fashion yourselves and your families according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make both yourselves and them, as much as it lies in you, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ?’ ‘I will apply myself to it, the Lord being my helper.’ Service for Ordination of Deacons. ‘This is the injunction of the Apostle, 1Tim. 3.12. And the same command was enforced by the ancient laws of the church, which were much stricter concerning Clergymen’s wives, children, and servants, than those of the laity. The houses of Ministers should be the schools of virtue, little emblems of a church, and patterns for all their parishioners, of peace and good order, sobriety, and devotion.’ Comber. Compare also Dr. Nicholls, in Bishop Mant’s notes on the service.—It was a frequent petition of the excellent Philip Henry in his family worship ‘That we might have grace to carry it, as a Minister, and a Minister’s wife, and a Minister’s children, and a Minister’s servants, should carry it, so that the Ministry might be blamed in nothing.’ Life, p. 81. The testimony on this point of one of the most determined enemies of Christianity, is also remarkable. The emperor Julian, in endeavouring to re-establish Paganism—and considering (as he declares) ‘the strictness and sanctity professed by Christians, one of the main causes of the prevalence of their faith—gives directions (unquestionably copied from the injunctions to the primitive priesthood) that the heathen priests should be men of serious temper and deportment, that they be neither expensive nor showy in their dress—go to no entertainments except those made by the worthiest persons—never be seen at the public games and spectacles—and take care that their wives and children and servants are pious as well as themselves.’ Fas est et ab hoste doceri. [It is right, and taught by an enemy] Archbishop Seeker thus briefly applies this testimony, ‘Let not (I entreat you) this apostate put you to shame.’ Jul. Epist. 49, ad Arsac, pp. 430, 431. Fragm. Epist. pp. 301-305. Seeker’s Charges, pp. 244, 245.