there should be no artifices used, no eloquence or power of language employed to persuade the will or work upon the passions, lest the decisive sentence of the judge should be biassed or warped into injustice. For this reason, Mr. Locke would banish all pleaders in the law for fees, out of his government of Carolina, in his posthumous works, though that great man might possibly be too severe in so universal a censure of the profession.

XXXV. But the case is very different with regard to divines: the eloquence of the pulpit beyond all controversy has a much larger extent.

Their business is not to plead a cause of right and wrong before a wise and skilful judge, but to address all the ranks of mankind, the high and low, the wise and the unwise, the sober and the vicious, and persuade them all to pursue and persevere in virtue with regard to themselves, in justice and goodness with regard to their neighbours, and piety towards God. These are affairs of everlasting importance, and most of the persons to whom these addresses are made are not wise and skilful judges, but are influenced and drawn to the contrary side by their own sinful appetites and passions, and bribed or biassed by the cor. rupt customs of the world.

There is therefore a necessity not only of a clear and faithful representation of things to men, in order to convince their reason and judgment, but of all the skill and force of persuasion addressed to the will and the passions. So Tully addressed the whole Senate of Rome, and Demosthenes the Athenian people, among whom were capacities and inclinations of infinite variety; and therefore they made use of all the lightning and thunder, all the entreaties and terrors, all the soothing elegancies and the flowery beauties of language which their art could furnish them with. Divines in the pulpit have much the same sort of hearers, and therefore they should imitate those ancient examples. The understanding indeed ought to be first convinced by

the plainest and strongest force of reasoning; but when this is done, all the powerful motives should be used, which have any just influence upon human nature, all the springs of passion should be touched, to awaken the stupid and the thoughtless into consideration, to penetrate and melt the hardest heart, to persuade the unwilling, to excite the lazy, to reclaim the obstinate, and reform the vicious part of mankind, as well as to encourage those who are humble and pious, and to support their practice and their hope. The tribes of men are sunk into so fatal a degeneracy and dreadful distance from God, and from all that is holy and happy, that all the eloquence which a preacher is master of should be employed in order to recover the world from its shameful ruin and wretchedness by the Gospel of our blessed Saviour, and restore it to virtue and piety, to God and happiness, by the divine power of this Gospel. O may such glorious masters and sacred oratory never be wanting in the pulpits of Great Britain!

XXXVI. Shall I now speak something of my sentiments concerning poesy.

As for books of poesy, whether in the learned or in the modern languages, they are of great use to be read at hours of leisure by all persons that make any pretence to good education or learning; and that for several reasons.

1. Because there are many couplets or stanzas written in poetic measures, which contain a variety of morals or rules of practice relating to the common prudentials of mankind, as well as to matters of religion; and the poetic numbers (or rhyme if there be any) add very considerable force to the memory.

Besides, many an elegant and admirable sentiment or description of things which are found among the poets are well worth committing to memory, and the particular measures of verse greatly assist us in recollecting such excellent passages, which might

both in the necessary and the luxurious refinement of mechanical arts; yet having no tendency to rectify the will, to sweeten the temper, or mend the heart, they often leave a stiffness, a positiveness, and sufficiency on weak minds, which is much more pernicious to society, and to the interests of the great end of our being, than all their advantages can recompense. He adds further, concerning the launching into the depth of these studies, that they are apt to beget a secret and refined pride, an overweening and over-bearing vanity, the most opposite temper to the true spirit of the Gospel. This tempts them to presume on a kind of omniscience in respect to their fellow-creatures, who have not risen to their elevation; nor are they fit to be trusted in the hands of any but those who have acquired a humble heart, a lowly spirit, and a sober and teachable temper. See Dr. Cheyne's preface to his Essay on Health and Long Life.

XII. Some of the practical parts of geometry, astronomy, dialling, optics, statics, mechanics, &c. may be agreeable entertainments and amusements to students in every profession, at leisure hours, if they enjoy such circumstances of life as to furnish them with conveniencies for this sort of improvement: but let them take great care lest they entrench upon more necessary employments, and so fall under the charge and censure of wasted time.

Yet I cannot help making this observation, that where students, or indeed any young gentlemen have, in their early years, made themselves masters of a variety of elegant problems in the mathematical circle of knowledge, and gained the most easy, neat, and entertaining experiments in natural philosophy, with some short and agreeable speculations or practices in any other of the arts and sciences, they have hereby laid a foundation for the esteem and love of mankind among those with whom they converse, in higher or lower ranks of life; they have been often guarded by this means from the

temptation of innocent pleasures, and have secured both their own hours and the hours of their companions from running to waste in sauntering and trifles, and from a thousand impertinencies in silly dialogues. Gaming and drinking, and many criminal and foolish scenes of talk and action, have been prevented by these innocent and improving elegancies of knowledge.

XIII. History is a necessary study in the supreme place for gentlemen who deal in politics. The government of nations, and distressful and desolating events which have in all ages attended the mistakes of politicians, should be ever present on their minds, to warn them to avoid the like conduct. Geography and chronology, which precisely informs us of the place and time where such transactions or events happened, are the eyes of history, and of absolute necessity in some measure to attend it.

But history, so far as relates to the affairs of the Bible, is as necessary to divines as to gentlemen of any profession. It helps us to reconcile many difficulties in Scripture, and demonstrates a divine Providence. Dr. Prideaux's Connection of the Old and New Testament, is an excellent treatise of this kind.

XIV. Among the smaller histories, biography, or the memoirs of the lives of great and good men, has a high rank in my esteem, as worthy of the perusal of every person who devotes himself to the study of divinity. Therein we frequently find our holy religion reduced to practice, and many parts of Christianity shining with a transcendant and exemplary light. We learn there how deeply sensible great and good men have been of the ruins of human nature by the first apostasy from God, and how they have toiled and laboured, and turned themselves on all sides, to seek a recovery in vain, till they have found the Gospel of Christ an all-sufficient relief. We are there furnished with effectual and unanswerable evidences that the religion of

Jesus, with all its self-denials, virtues, and devotions, is a very practicable thing, since it has been carried to such a degree of honour by some wise and holy men. We have been there assured that the pleasures and satisfactions of the Christian life, in its present practice and future hopes, are not mere raptures of fancy and enthusiasm, when some of the strictest professors of reason have added the sanction of their testimony.

In short, the lives or memoirs of persons of piety well written, have been of infinite and unspeakable advantage to the disciples and professors of Christianity, and have given us admirable instances and rules how to resist every temptation of a soothing or frowning world, how to practise important and difficult duties, how to love God above all, and to love our neighbours as ourselves, to live by the faith of the Son of God, and to die in the same faith, in sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life.

XV. Remember that logic and ontology or me taphysics are necessary sciences, though they have been greatly abused by scholastic writers, who have professed to teach them in former ages. Not only all students, whether they design the profession of theology, law, or physic, but all gentlemen should at least acquire a superficial knowledge of them. The introduction of so many subtleties, nice distinctions, and insignificant terms, without clear ideas, has brought a great part of the logic and metaphysics of the schools into just contempt. Their logic has appeared the mere art of wrangling, and their metaphy. sics the skill of splitting an hair, of distinguishing without a difference, and of putting long hard names upon common things, and sometimes upon a confused jumble of things which have no clear ideas belong. ing to them.

It is certain that an unknown heap of trifles and impertinencies have been intermingled with these useful parts of learning, upon which account many