strument, and they mistook that for devotion; but their heads are dark still, and their hearts earthly; they are mere heathens with a christian name, and know little more of God than their yokes of oxen. In short, Polyramus' auditors have some confusion in their knowledge, but Fluvio's hearers have scarcely any knowledge at all.

But you will tell me, your discourses are not all made up of harangue; your design is sometimes to inform the mind by a train of well connected reasonings, and that all your paragraphs in their long order prove and support each other; and though you do not distinguish your discourse into particulars, yet you have kept some invisible method all the way, and by some artificial gradations, you have brought your sermon down to the concluding sentence. It may be so sometimes, and, I will acknowledge it: but believe me Fluvio, this artificial and invisible method, carries. darkness with it instead of light; nor is it by any means a proper way to instruct the vulgar, that is, the bulk of your auditory; their souls are not capable of so wide a stretch, as to take in the whole chain of your long connected consequences; you talk reason and religion to them in vain, if you do not make the argument so short as to come within their grasp, and give a frequent rest for their thoughts; you must break the bread of life into pieces to feed children with it, and part your discourses into distinct propositions, to give the ignorant a plain scheme of any one doctrine, and enable them to comprehend or retain it.

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Every day gives us experiments to confirm what I say, and to encourage ministers to divide their sermons into several distinct beads of discourse. Myrtilla, a little creature of nine years old, was at church twice yesterday in the morning the preacher entertained his audience with a running oration, and the child could give her parents no other account of it, but that he talked smoothly and sweetly about virtue and heaven. It was Ergates' lot to fulfil the service of the afternoon; he is an excellent preacher, both for the wise and 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 doctrine, 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 loose harangue, has not only injured our pulpits but it makes the several essays and treatises, that are written now-a-days, less capable of improving the knowledge or enriching the memory of the reader. I will easily grant, that where the whole discourse reaches not beyond a 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, bow it comes to pass that our modern ingenious writers should affect this manner? I know no juster reason to give for it, than a humourous and wanton contempt of the customs and practices of our forefathers; a sensible disgust taken at some 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 now-a-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 round-head, 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 fourthly's and fifthly's 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 aukward pronunciation; but we have such a value for elegance, 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 har mony 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, be cause 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. *

CHAP. VII.-Of writing Books for the Public.

IN the explication and 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

* It appears by the date, at the bottom of this paper in the MSS. that it was written in the year 1718. 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 co. sideration. The author since this was drawn up, hath delivered his sentiments more fully in the first part of that excellent piece, entitled, An humble Attempt for the Revival of Religion, &c.

VOL. VIII.

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 where to omit it.

In the beginning of a treatise, it is proper and necessary sometimes to premise some praecognita or general principles, 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 wander to the most remote or distant themes, which have no near or necessary connexion 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 praecognita as these: first he shewed the excellence of man 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 credentials, and what not? Thence he descended to speak of the superscription, subscription, &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 hearers to attend the college or the 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 king 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, perpetually turning aside

from his point, and catching at every incident to prolong his story, as though he wanted matter to furnish out his tale.

Semper ad eventum festinat.

Though I must confess, I cannot think Homer has always followed this rule in either of his two famous epic poems: but Horace does not hear what I say. There is also another rule near a-kin to the former.

As a writer or a speaker should not wander from his subject to fetch in foreign matter from afar, so neither should he amass together and drag in all that can be said even on his appointed theme of discourse; but he should consider what is his chief design, what is the end he hath in view, and then to make every part of his discourse subserve that design. If he keep his great end always in his eye, he will pass hastily over those parts or appendages of his subject which have no evident connexion with his design, or he will entirely omit them, and hasten continually towards his intended mark; employing his time, his study and labour, chiefly on that part of his subject which is most necessary to attain his present and proper end. This might be illustrated by a multitude of examples; but an author who should heap them together on such an occasion, might be in danger of becoming himself an example of the impertinence he is cautioning others to avoid.

After you have finished any discourse which you design for the public, it would be always best, if other circumstances would permit, to let it sleep some time before you expose it to the world, that so you may have opportunity to review it with the indifference of a stranger, and to make the whole of it pass under a new and just examination: for no man can judge so justly of his own work, while the pleasure of his invention and performance is fresh, and has engaged his self-love too much on the side of what he has newly finished. If an author would send a discourse into the world, which should be most universally approved, he should consult persons of every different genius, sentiment and party, and endeavour to learn their opinions of it. In the world it will certainly meet with all these. Set it therefore to view amongst several of your acquaintance first, who may survey the argument on all sides, and one may happen to suggest a correction which is entirely neglected by others; and be sure to yield yourself to the dictates of true criticism, and just censure, wheresoever you meet with them; nor let a fondness for what you have written, blind your eyes against the discovery of your own mistakes.

When an author desires a friend to revise his work, it is too frequent a practice to disallow almost every correction which a judicious friend would make; he apologizes for this word, and the other expression; he vindicates this sentence, and gives his

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