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Instructed. Scott has made good use of the Platonical notions in the service of religion, as South of the Schoolmen. Dr. Stanhope's Translations are very useful to excite devotion; and so are the works of Dr. Horneck.

nervous;

We have likewise some laymen who have laboured to good purpose on religious subjects. Judge Hale is strong, pious, and Nelson, genteel, affecting, zealous, and instructive. Leslie against the Jews and Deists, is demonstration; and his Snake in the Grass, as useful as entertaining. Kettlewell, wonderfully pious and devout. Dr. Hickes's Letters against the Papists, I think unanswerable: but I find I have stumbled from the laymen to the Non-jurors; some of whom have writ well against the Deists; and I wish they had never worse employed their labour.

Nor must my old friends (and I think yours) the Dissenters, be entirely forgot. Some of Mr. Baxter's works are useful as well as pious: his Christian Directory, though voluminous, has many cases in it; and he could not but have much experience in those matters. His Saints' Rest, and Family Book, and Call to the Unconverted, I believe, may have done good, notwithstanding some nostrums in them. I wish I had his Gildas Salvianus again: Directions to the Clergy for the Management of their People, which I lost when my house was last burnt, among all the rest. He had a strange pathos and fire in his practical writings, but more in his preaching; and, as I remember, spoke well. Dr. Annesley was not only of great piety and generosity, but of very good learning, especially among the Schoolmen and commentators; notwithstanding Mr. Wood's unjust reflections upon him. In these collections of Morning Lectures, you will find the cream of the Dissenters' sermons. Charnock, though too diffuse and lax, after their way, and dying young, had much learning, and has very good stuff in him. Howe is close, strong, and metaphysical. Alsop, merry, and, as it were, witty. Bates, polite, and had a good taste of the Belles Lettres; being well read in the Latin, English, and Italian poets, and personally and intimately acquainted with Mr. Cowley, as he told me at the last visit I made him at Hackney, after I was (as I remember) come over to the Church of England. Williams was orthodox, had good sense, and especially that of getting money; he was the head of the Presbyterians in his time, and not frowned on by the Government. He has writ well against the Antinomians; and, as I have heard, hindered Pierce, the Arian, from burrowing in London, I think, as long as he lived. Calamy, as I heard, has succeeded his brother doctor in some things; I wish he had in his best. His style is not amiss, but I think I have proved he is not a fair writer. Bradbury is fire and feather; Burgess had more sense than he

thought it proper to make use of; Taylor, a man of sense; Shower, polite; Cruso, unhappy; Owen is valued amongst them, for some skill in antiquity; the elder (Dr.) Owen was a gentleman and a scholar; the younger Henry is commended for his laborious work on the Old Testament. Clarkson (Dr. Tillotson's Tutor) had more of the Fathers than all of them; though Dr. Maurice over-matched him, and had, besides, the better cause. Gale's Court of the Gentiles is admired by them, and has some useful collections in it. Tombes and Stennet have all for the Anabaptists, as Wall enough against them; and Robert Barclay more than all the Quakers have for themselves.

to say From these last, it is an easy transition to our Deists and heretics, which it is not impossible to meet with here: however, we ought to be prepared against them. Hobbs was a man of wit, and melted the terms of philosophy into clean English; but is a fallacy almost from one end of his works to the other; and I do not know whether I have read one concluding argument in him; and therefore, though Bramhall, Clarendon, and Tenison have dealt well enough with him, yet I think Echard was the fitter match for him. I wish Mr. Locke had not traced him too near, though he is easily traced in him; he had a much stronger head, believed there was such a being as a spirit, and seems to have been, at least, almost a Christian, by his Reasonableness of Christianity, which is, in the main, a very good book; though you will have better eyes than I have, if you can find anything in it, or in all his contests with Bishop Stillingfleet, wherein, though sufficiently pressed, he owns the Divinity of our Saviour. Spinoza seems to me to have no great matter in him, though so much magnified by his party. The Oracles of Reason, the Rights of the Church, the Freethinker, Blount himself, and the rest of the gang, have reflection enough, and assurance enough, but little or no argument; and, for the most part, only say the same thing over and over. As for the Arians, I wish Dr. Clarke were a more contemptible adversary; but if he will speak out, I doubt not but Dr. Waterland will be able to deal with him and all his party together.

I am now almost weary myself, and well may I weary you. I think I have not writ all this out of ostentation; for it is an easy thing to keep a small catalogue of books in one's memory, and one thing draws on another. I do not think all these books absolutely necessary, though I wish you knew where to find them, or but one half of them, for your own sake as well as mine: where I know any of them are to be found near us, I shall mark them in a catalogue at the end. However, this general view may do you no harm; and if you light on any of them, you may read what you please, and

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leave the rest to cobwebs. But there are two or three books which were liked to have slipped my memory, which you cannot well be without those are Watson's Complete Incumbent, and the Clergyman's Vade Mecum; and if you or I could compass Bishop Gibson's Codex, we should be a great deal richer than we are like to be. But the grapes are nevertheless sweet because we cannot reach them. When you have read a book once over, if it be worth it, I would advise you to schematise it; at which your brother has the best hand of any that I know. After that, you may make alphabetical references to your scheme, of any passages you would remember, with page, or line, or section, that you may have immediate recourse to it on occasion, and thereby save the drudgery of tran scribing; unless the book be not your own, or the passage very well worth it. If you think all this a great deal of trouble, I own it is so, but pleasing trouble, if our great end be right; for one soul is worth infinitely more than all our pains and labour. The Materia Medica is large; a skilful Physician will get as well acquainted with it as he can, though a quack will content himself with two or three remedies.

And now your armoury is (it is to be hoped) well furnished, it will be proper to draw out and exercise; since otherwise you will make but a poor fight on it, though you had the best weapons in the world for the greatest Clerks are not always the best Preachers, any more than the wisest men: which brings us to,

V. The fifth head,-that of preaching; not indeed the whole of a Minister's office, but a great part of it: for to this very thing we are ordained, "Take thou authority to preach the word of God!"

And here I am sure I ought to blush, for pretending to give rules for that wherein I was never master: yet it is far easier to direct than it is to practise. I think I have in my time aimed at something, which I have with some attention read and heard from the best Preachers; and though I have come short of it for want of constancy and opportunity, you may, and I hope will, attain it. In order whereunto, it may not be improper to consider some generals relating to sermonizing: and then to add a little of the structure and requisites of particular sermons.

And your best that I can

First: a general method for sermons. think on, is to begin a course as accurate as you can make them, on all the principles of religion, so as to comprise, as near as may be, the whole body of divinity. Some have done this on the Thirty-nine Articles; others on the Catechism; and I believe both may be wrought into one scheme, which might be still better. Proper texts you will be furnished with in those scriptures which you have for proof of our Articles; though I had rather you

gathered them from your own reading and observation: for, as the religion of the Church of England came first from the Bible, so, thanks be to God, it may be unanswerably proved from it, and resolved into it; and we only make use of the Fathers, as did St. Basil and Nazianzen, for illustration, and probable, not infallible, interpretation. This great work should be set about immediately, because it will take you up some years; and you are not sure that life will be long enough to finish it. These sermons may be best written, or rather copied, as this letter is, on one side of a large quarto, (though I would advise you to write them in a much larger character,) and the other side blank, for additions and alterations; as you will see great occasion for both, as you increase in knowledge and judgment; and that perhaps to the last moment of your life.

And now, secondly, as to the structure and requisites of particular sermons, as well those already mentioned, as others occasional, and of another character, on common or extraordinary subjects. Nothing is more evident than that a sermon may be too close and strong in a common course of preaching, and for a popular auditory though this is an error on the right-hand, especially at the beginning; and out of one such sermon you may honestly make two or three afterwards, and that with more edification to your people; as at the first, one would, if one could, make one out of two or three; and it is well if we can do it to our own satisfaction. And yet there is a worse extreme than this; for I must own I do sincerely hate what some call a fine sermon, with just nothing in it. I know not whether I ought to make such a comparison; but I cannot for my life help thinking, that it is very like our fashionable poetry,-a mere polite nothing.

The first thing I would advise, after you had pitched on the subject and text, (if not before,) is, that you should humbly and earnestly pray unto God to assist you in that work; that you may write and speak that which is right of Him, and most proper for his people; and that He would grant success to your labours, as knowing who it is that only gives the increase. It was Bishop Sanderson, as I remember, as quoted by Bishop Bull, that was wont to say, "The violence of the closet" (meaning the Minister's fervent prayer there) "does more than the violence of the pulpit, in the great work of the conversion of sinners, and towards success in our office;" and then fall to in the name of God. And the first thing I would set about, should be the short plan or outlines of the sermon the explication of the text and context should not be over short, but of a just length, which is nearest the ancient Homily-way of preaching. The propositions or doctrines, which

would not be too long, or too many, and the clearer the better, include and open the main drift of the design. The illustrations should be proper and lively; the proofs close and home; the motives strong and cogent; the inferences and application, natural, and yet laboured with all the force of sacred eloquence: nor should human helps be slighted, especially Aristotle's Rhetoric, which, when mellowed down and adapted, as far as circumstances will permit, to our age and taste, I should think might do wonders; and so might Longinus's Rules for the Sublime; for is not human nature still the same? Though if our pulpit-oratory be wanting in any part, it seems to be so in this, our English Preachers having depended chiefly on the strength of their reasonings; which yet, if you cannot persuade the passions (or, if you please, the affections) to vote on the same side, we find, in fact, will go but a little way with most of the world.

It is evident, that every Priest is obliged, by his own solemn stipulation, not only to "minister the doctrine and sacraments, but likewise the discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded, and as this realm hath received the same;" and yet further, "to teach the people committed to our charge, with all diligence to observe them; and with the like faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine, contrary to God's word: " the want of doing which, if not the direct contrary thereto, has brought many mischiefs upon the nation. And if ever you should live in such times, that this should not be thought the way to rise, as in the days of our forefathers, you would yet find your account in it, though you waited for your preferment till another world. In order to perform this solemn vow and promise, a prudent occasional mixture of controversial divinity (impartially levelled, though without bitterness, against the Papists, sectaries, and heretics) with practical,-reducing all thither, and showing what influence one has on the other, (wherein Bishop Beveridge is, almost every where, equally zealous and happy,)-is the best method that I can think of, will bring you solid comfort in the faithful discharge of your duty, and a well-grounded reputation in the church of God. Nor shall I add any more of preaching, both for the reasons given at the entrance on this head; and because you may almost everywhere meet with better directions than I am capable of giving you; especially in our Bishop Gibson's printed letter to his Clergy. Only this; that if you would be popular, you must get your sermons without book, which would be a double advantage on account of the shortness of your sight; and which less than a twelvemonth's practice would make much more easy to you than you can now imagine.

I do not think you will much trouble your parishioners with

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