expungings made by great authors in thofe treatifes, which they prepare for the publick. Befides, that excellent prelate abovementioned was known to preach after a much more popular manner in the citycongregations: and if in those parts of his works he be any where too obfcure for the understandings of many, who may be fuppofed to have been his hearers, it ought to be numbred among his omissions. The fear of being thought pedants hath been of pernicious confequence to young divines. This hath wholly taken many of them off from their feverer ftudies in the university; which they have exchanged for plays, poems, and pamphlets, in order to qualify them for tea-tables and coffee-houfes. This they ufually call polite converfation, knowing the world, and reading men inftead of books. Thefe accomplishments, when applied in the pulpit, appear by a quaint, terse, florid ftyle, rounded into periods and cadencies, commonly without either propriety or meaning. I have liftened with my utmost attention for half an hour to an orator of this fpecies, without being able to understand, much much less to carry away one fingle fentence out of a whole fermon. Others to fhew that their ftudies have not been confined to sciences, or ancient authors, will talk in the stile of a gaming ordinary, and White Friers, when I fuppofe the hearers can be little edified by the terms of palming, shuffling, biting, bamboozling, and the like, if they have not been fometimes converfant among pickpockets and fharpers. And truly, as they fay, a man is known by his company, so it should seem, that a man's company may be known by his manner of expreffing himself, either in publick affemblies or private conversation, It would be endless to run over the feveral defects of ftyle among us: I shall therefore fay nothing of the mean and the paultry, (which are ufually attended by the fuftian) much less of the flovenly or in The ftile of White Friers was that of fharpers, bullies, and other fugitives from the Jaw. This precinct in 1609 obtained from king James a charter of exemption from parish, ward, and city offices, except in the militia: being poffeffed thereof, the inhabitants claimed afterwards a power and right to protect the perfons of debtors, whereby the place became filled with lawlefs refugees of all forts, who grew to fuch a heighth of wickedness and impudence, that it was found neceffary in King William's time by act of parliament to fupprefs and bring them to juftice. decent. decent. Two things I will just warn you against the first is, the frequency of flat unneceffary epithets; and the other is, the folly of using old thread-bare phrases, which will often make you go out of your way to find and apply them, are naufeous to rational hearers, and will feldom express your meaning as well as your own natural words. Although, as I have already observed, our english tongue is too little cultivated in this kingdom, yet the faults are nine in ten owing to affectation, and not to the want of understanding. When a man's thoughts are clear, the propereft words will generally offer themselves firft, and his own judgment will direct him in what order to place them, fo as they may be beft underftood. Where men err againft this method, it is ufually on purpose, and to fhew their learning, their oratory, their politeness, or their knowledge of the world. In fhort, that fimplicity, without which no human performance can arrive to any great perfection, is no where more eminently useful than in this. I have been confidering that part of ora tory, tory, which relates to the moving of the paffions: this I obferve is in efteem and practice among fome church-divines, as well as among all the preachers and hearers of the fanatick or enthufiaftick ftrain. I will here deliver to you (perhaps with more freedom than prudence) my opinion upon the point. The two great orators of Greece and Rome, Demofthenes and Cicero, though each of them a leader (or as the Greeks called it, a demagogue) in a popular ftate, yet feem to differ in their practice upon this branch of their art: the former, who had to deal with a people of much more politenefs, learning, and wit, laid the greatest weight of his oratory upon the ftrength of his arguments offered to their understanding and reafon: whereas Tully confidered the difpofitions of a fincere, more ignorant, and less mercurial nation, by dwelling almost entirely on the pathetick part. But the principal thing to be remembered is, that the conftant defign of both these orators in all their speeches was to drive fome one particular point, either the condemnation or acquital of an accused per fon, son, a persuasive to war, the enforcing of a law, and the like: which was determined upon the spot, according as the orators on either fide prevailed. And here it was often found of abfolute neceffity to inflame or cool the paffions of the audience; efpecially at Rome, where Tully fpoke, and with whose writings young divines (I mean those among them who read old authors) are more converfant than with those of Demofthenes, who by many degrees excelled the other, at least as an orator. But I do not fee how this talent of moving the paffions can be of any great ufe towards directing christian men in the conduct of their lives, + at leaft in these northern climates, where I am confident the ftrongest eloquence of that kind will leave few impreffions upon any of our fpirits deep enough to laft till the next morning, or rather, to the next meal. But what hath chiefly put me out of conceit with this moving manner of preaching, is the frequent difappointment it + This diffuafive against an attempt to move the paffions is not intended to cenfure thofe difcourfes, by which hope and fear are excited by an exhibi tion of their proper objects in proper language; but that cant only, by which hypocrites affect to be melted into tears, fee p. 16. meets |