virtue and heaven. It was Ergates' lot to fulfil the service of the afternoon; he is an excellent preacher, both for the wise and for the unwise: in the evening Myrtilla very prettily entertained her mother with a repetition of the most considerable parts of the sermon; for Here (said she) I can fix my thoughts upon first, secondly, and thirdly; upon the docUtrine, the reasons, and the inferences, and I know what I must try to remember, and repeat it when 'my friends shall ask me: but as for the morning ⚫ sermon, I could do nothing but hear it, for I could not tell what I should get by heart.'

This manner of talking in a loose harangue has not only injured our pulpits, but it makes several essays and treatises that are written now-a-days less e pable of improving the knowledge or enriching the memory of the reader. I will easily grant, that where the whole discourse reaches not beyond few pages, there is no necessity of the formal proposal of the several parts before you handle each of them distinctly; nor is there need of such a set method: the unlearned and narrow understanding can take an easy view of the whole, without the author's pointing to the several parts. But where the essay is prolonged to a greater extent, confusion grows upon the reader almost at every page, without some scheme or method of successive heads in the discourse to direct the mind and aid the memory.

If it be answered here, That neither such treatises nor sermons are a mere heap, for there is a just method observed in the composure, and the subjects are ranked in a proper order, it is easy to reply, That this method is so concealed, that a common reader or hearer can never find it; and you must suppose every one that peruses such a book, and much more that attends such a discourse, to have some good knowledge of the art of logic before he can distinguish the various parts and branches, the connections and transitions of it. To an unlearned eye or ear it appears a mere heap of good

things, without any method, form, or order; and if you tell your young friends they should get it into their heads and hearts, they know not how to set about it.

If we enquire how it comes to pass that our modern ingenious writers should affect this manner, I know no juster reason to give for it, than a humorous and wanton contempt of the customs and preaching of our forefathers; a sensible disgust taken at sore of their mistakes and ill conduct at first tempted a vain generation into the contrary extreme near sixty years ago; and now, even to this day, it continues too much in fashion, so that the wise, as well as the weak, are ashamed to oppose it, and are borne down with the current.

Our fathers formed their sermons much upon the model of doctrine, reason, and use; and perhaps there is no one method of more universal service, and more easily applicable to most subjects, though it is not necessary or proper in every discourse: but the very names of doctrine and use are become nowa-days such stale and old-fashioned things, that a modish preacher is quite ashamed of them; nor can a modish hearer bear the sound of those syllables. A direct and distinct address to the consciences of saints and sinners must not be named or mentioned, though these terms are scriptural, lest it should be hissed out of the church like the garb of a roundhead or a puritan.

Some of our fathers have multiplied their particulars under one single head of discourse, and run up the tale of them to sixteen or seventeen. Culpable indeed, and too numerous! But in opposition to this extreme, we are almost ashamed in our age to say thirdly; and all fourthlies and fifthlies are very unfashionable words.

Our fathers made too great account of the sciences of logic and metaphysics, and the formalities of definition and division, syllogism and method, when they brought them so often into the pulpit;

but we hold those arts so much in contempt and defiance, that we had rather talk a whole hour without order, and without edification, than be suspected of using logic or method in our discourses.

Some of our fathers neglected politeness perhaps too much, and indulged a coarseness of style, and a rough or awkward pronunciation; but we have such a value for elegancy, and so nice a taste for what we call polite, that we dare not spoil the cadence of a period to quote a text of scripture in it, nor disturb the harmony of our sentences to number or to name the heads of our discourse. And for this reason I have heard it hinted, that the name of Christ has been banished out of polite sermons, because it is a monosyllable of so many consonants and so harsh a sound.

But after all, our fathers, with all their defects, and with all their weaknesses, preached the gospel of Christ to the sensible instruction of whole parishes, to the conversion of sinners from the errors of their way, and the salvation of multitudes of souls. But it has been the late complaint of Dr. Edwards, and other worthy sons of the established church, that in too many pulpits now-a-days there are only heard some smooth declamations, while the hearers that were ignorant of the gospel abide still without knowledge, and the profane sinners are profane still. O that divine grace would descend and reform what is amiss in all the sanctuaries of the nation! *

*It appears by the date 1718, at the bottom of this paper, in the manuscript, that it was written more than thirty years ago. The first, and perhaps the second section of it may seem now to be grown, in a great measure, out of date; but whether the third is not at least as seasonable now as ever, may deserve serious consideration. The author has, since this was drawn up, delivered his sentiments more fully in the first part of that excellent piece entitled, An humble Attempt for the Revival of Religion, &c.

CHAP. VII.

Of Writing Books for the Public.

IN the explication aud distinction of words and things by definition and description, in the division of things into their several parts, and in the distribution of things into their several kinds, be sure to observe a just medium. We must not always explain and distinguish, define, divide, and distribute; nor must we always omit it: sometimes it is useless and impertinent, sometimes it is proper and necessary. There is confusion brought into our argument and discourse by too many or by too few of these. One author plunges his reader into the midst of things without due explication of them; another jumbles together, without distinction, all those ideas which have any likeness; a third is fond of explaining every word, and coining distinctions between ideas which have little or no difference; but each of these runs into extremes, for all these practices are equal hindrances to clear, just, and useful knowledge. It is not a long train of rules, but observation and good judgment can teach us when to explain, define, and divide, and when to omit it.

In the beginning of a treatise it is proper and necessary sometimes to premise some præcognita, or general principies, which may serve for an introduction to the subject in hand, and give light or strength to the following discourse; but it is ridiculous, under a pretence of such introductions or prefaces, to wan der to the most remote or distant themes, which have no near or necessary connection with the thing in hand; this serves for no other purpose but to make a gaudy shew of learning. There was a professor of divinity who began an analytical exposition of the Epistle to the Romans with such præcognita as these:

first he shewed the excellence of inan above other creatures, who was able to declare the sense of his mind by arbitrary signs; then he harangued upon the origin of speech; after that he told of the wonderful invention of writing, and enquired into the author of that art which taught us to paint sounds; when he had given us the various opinions of the learned on this point, and distributed writing into its several kinds, and laid down definitions of them all, at last he came to speak of epistolary writing, and distinguished epistles into familiar, private, public, recommendatory, credential, and what not: thence he descended to speak of the superscription, subscriptions, &c. and some lectures were finished before he came to the first verse of St. Paul's epistle. The auditors, being half-starved and tired with expectation, dropped away, one by one, so that the professor had scarce any hearer to attend the college or lectures which he had promised on that part of scripture.

The rules which Horace has given in his Art of Poetry would instruct many a preacher and professor of theology, if they would but attend to them. He informs us that a wise author, such as Homer, who writes a poem of the Trojan war, would not begin a long and far-distant story of Jupiter, in the form of a swan, impregnating Leda with a double egg; from one part whereof Helen was hatched, who was married to Menelaus, a Greek general, and then stolen from him by Paris, son of Priam, kiug of Troy; which awakened the resentment of the Greeks against the Trojans :

Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo.

But the writer, says he, makes all proper haste to the event of things, and does not drag on slowly, perpe. tually turning aside from his point, and catching at every incident to prolong his story, as though he wanted matter to furnish out his tale: