disease upon him that I have, and he would bid me do one thing, and he do quite another, could I believe him?

XIV. Preaching the same sermon to all sorts of people, is, as if a schoolmaster should read the same lesson to his several forms if he reads amo, amas, amavi, the highest forms laugh at him; the younger boys admire him so it is in preaching to a mixed auditory..

Objection. But it cannot be otherwise; the parish cannot be divided into several forms: What must the preacher then do in discretion ?

Answer. Why then let him use some expressions by which this or that condition of people may know such doctrine does more especially concern them, it being so delivered that the wisest may be contented to hear. For if he delivers it altogether, and leaves it to them to single out what belongs to themselves, which is the usual way, it is as if a man would bestow, gifts upon children of se veral ages two years old, four years old, ten years old, &c. and there he brings tops, pins, points, ribbands, and casts them all in a heap together upon a table before them; though the boy of ten years old, knows how to choose his top, yet the child, of two years old, that should have a ribband, takes a pin, and the pin, ere he be aware, prieks his fingers, and then all is out of order,dec.Preaching

for

for the most part is the glory of the preacher, to shew himself a fine man. Catechising would do much better.

XV. Use the best arguments to persuade, though but few understand; for the ignorant will sooner believe the judicious of the parish, than the preacher himself; and they teach when they dispute what he had said, and believe it the sooner confirmed by men of their own side. For betwixt the laity and the cler gy there is, as it were, a continual driving of a bargain; something the clergy would still have us be at, and therefore many things are heard from the preacher with suspicion. They are afraid of some ends, which are easily assented to, when they have it from some of themselves. It is with a sermon as it is with a play; many come to see it, which do not understand it; and yet hearing it cried up by one, whose judgement they cast them. selves upon, and of power with them, they swear and will die in it, that it is a good play; which they would not have done if the priest himself had told them so. As in a great school, it is the master that teaches all; the monitor does a great deal of work, it may be the boys are afraid to see the master; so in a parish it is not the minister does all; the greater neighbour teaches the lesser, the master of the house teaches his servants, &c.

XVI. First in your sermons use your logic and then your rhetoric. Rhetoric without

logic,

logic is like a tree with leaves and blossoms but no root; yet I confefs more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are catched with a free expression, when they understand not reason. Logic must be natural, or it is worth nothing at all your rhetoric figures may be learned; that rhetoric is best which is most seasonable and most catching. An instance we have in that old blunt commander at Cadiz, who fhewed himself a good orator, being to say something to his soldiers, which he was not used to do, he made them a speech to this purpose: "What a fhame will it "be to you Englishmen, that feed upon good "beef, and brewis, to let those rascally Spa❝niards beat you, that eat nothing but oranges

and lemons!" And so put more courage into his men than he could have done with a more learned oration. Rhetoric is very good, or stark naught: there is no medium in rhe. toric. If I am not fully persuaded, I laugh at the orator.

XVII. It is good to preach the same thing again, for that is the way to have it learned. You see a bird by often whistling to learn a tune, and a month after record it to herself.

XVIII. It is a hard case a minister should be turned out of his living for something they inform he has said in his pulpit. We can no more know what a minister said in his sermon by two or three words picked out G

of

of it, than we can tell what tune a musician played last upon the lute, by two or three single notes.

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PREDESTINATION.

I. THEY that talk nothing but predestination, and will not proceed in the way of Heaven till they be satisfied in that point, do, as a man that would not come to Lon. don, unless at his first step he might set his foot upon the top of St. Paul's.

II. For a young divine to begin in his pulpit with predestination, is as if a man were coming into London, and at his first step would think to set his foot, &c.

III. Predestination is a point inaccessible, out of our reach; we can make no notion of it, it is so full of intricacy, so full of contradiction; it is, in good earnest, as we state it, half a dozen bulls one upon another.

IV. Doctor Prideaux, in- his lectures, several days used, arguments to prove predestination at last tells his auditory they are damned that do not believe it. Doing herein just like school boys, when one of them has got an apple, or something the rest have a mind to, they use all the arguments they can to get some of it from them: "I gave you some the other day: you shall have some with me another time," When they can

not prevail, they tell him he is a jackanaps, a rogue, and a rascal.

PREFERMENT.

I. WHEN you would have a child go to such a place, and you find him unwilling, you tell him he shall ride a cock horse, and then he will go presently: so do those that govern the state, deal by men, to work them to their ends; they tell them they shall be advanced to such or such a place, and they will do any thing they would have them.

II. A great place strangely qualifies. John Read, groom of the chamber to my Lord of Kent, was in the right. Attorney Noy being dead, some were saying, how will the King do for a fit man? "Why, any man," says John Read," may execute the place.”—“ I "warrant," says my Lord, "thou thinkest "thou understandest enough to perform it."

"Yes," quoth Jolin; "let the King make 26 me Attorney, and I would fain see that "man that durst tell me there is any thing "I understand not."

III. When the pageants are a coming, there is a great thrusting and a riding upon one another's backs, to look out at the window ; stay a little and they will come just to you, you may see them quietly. So it is when a new statesman or officer is to be chosen; there is great expectation and listening who

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it