ter of the gospel by John, to what Christian congregation would it answer any valuable purpose, to make them acquainted with the ravings of the Gnostics and their wild extravagances about the Eons?

I shall add, that particular care ought to be taken in expounding the Scriptures to the people, not to appear overlearned and over-critical in one's explications. There is no occasion to obtrude on an audience, as some do, all the jarring interpretations given by different commentators, of which it is much better that the people should remain ignorant, than that they should be apprized. For this knowledge can serve no other purpose, than to distract their thoughts and perplex their judgment. Before you begin to build, it is necessary to remove such impediments, as lie directly in your way; but you could not account him other than a very foolish builder, who should first collect a deal of rubbish, which was not in his way, and consequently could not have obstructed his work, that he might have the pleasure and merit of removing it. And do the fantastic, absurd and contradictory glosses of commentators deserve a better name than rubbish? No, surely. But if such absurd glosses are unknown to your congregation, they are rubbish which lies not in your way. No interpretation, therefore, or gloss should ever be mentioned in order to be refuted, unless it be such as the words themselves, on a superficial view, might seem to countenance, or such as is generally known to the people to be put upon them by some interpreters, or sects of Christians. Where a false gloss cannot be reasonably supposed to be either known or thought of by the audience, it is in the preacher worse, than being idly ostentatious of his learning, to introduce such erroneous gloss or comment. And as to an excess of criticism in this exercise, it ought also doubtless carefully to be avoided. We must always remember the difference between a church and a college. In most Christian congregations there are very few, if any, linguists. I do not say that in our lectures we ought never to mention the original, or recur to it. Justice to the passage we explain may sometimes require it. Nor is it necessary, that our translators should be deemed infallible even by the multitude. It is enough that we consider as the pure dictates of the Spirit those intimations with which the prophets and apostles were inspired. But then, on the other hand, it is neither modest nor prudent in the preacher, especially if a young man, to be at every turn

censuring the translators, and pretending to mend their version. It is not modest, as they, over whom the corrector assumes a superiority, are allowed on all hands to have been men of eminent talents and erudition. And it is not prudent, as this practice never fails to produce in the minds of the people a want of confidence in their Bible, which tends greatly to lessen its authority. Therefore, though I am by no means for ascribing infallibility to any human expositors, propriety requires, that we should neither too often, nor too abruptly tax with blundering, before such a promiscuous audience as our congregations commonly are, men of so respectable memory. Manly freedom of inquiry, becoming a Protestant, becoming a Briton, tempered with that decent reserve which suits the humble Christian, will guard the judicious against both extremes, an overweaning conceit of his own abilities, and an implicit faith in those of others. And indeed in regard to everything, which may be introduced either in the way of criticism or comment, it ought ever to be remembered, that it is not enough, that such an observation is just, that such an interpretation hath actually been given, or that such an opinion hath been maintained; the previous inquiry, which the preacher ought to make by himself is, whether it be of any consequence to the people to be informed of the observation, comment or opinion. This inquiry impartially made will prove a check against the immoderate indulgence of what is perhaps the natural bent of his own genius, whether it be to critical or controversial disquisition, and which it is not always easy for youth, commonly impetuous and opinionative, duly to restrain. If on other occasions, more especially on this, the apostolical admonition ought to be sacredly observed, that "nothing proceed out of the speaker's mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers." But for our direction in this kind of discernment, no precepts, it must be acknowledged, will suffice. A fund of good sense is absolutely necessary, enlightened by a knowledge of mankind. In this, as in every other kind of composition, the maxim of the poet invariably holds,

Scribendi recte sapere est principium et fons.

I shall just add the fifth and last observation in relation to the remarks or inferences. These, as was hinted already, in the exposition, whose chief aim is to throw light on the sa

ter.

cred text and remove the difficulties, are to be considered as only a subordinate part of the discourse; in the lecture, they are to be considered as the principal. In the former therefore they do not require to be so fully treated, as in the latIt is enough, that the remarks are just in themselves, pertinent in regard to the subject of discourse, and expressed with sufficient perspicuity and energy. But in the lecture, properly so called, where the observations are the primary object of the speaker, and that for which the passage of Scripture was chosen as a text, it is not enough that they be just, pertinent and perspicuous; they require besides, to be more copiously treated, and such of them as are of a practical nature to be more warmly enforced. Nay, they admit all that variety in respect of illustration, proof and recommendation, which are to be found in discourses explanatory, controversial or persuasive. Only for the sake of unity, it may be proper to add, that all the remarks compared among themselves should be congenial, and tend to illustrate one another, that is, all doctrinal or all practical; and whether the one or the other, that they be points nearly and mutually related, that thus the discourse may, if I may so express myself, be of one color and tenor throughout. Quick transitions from the warmth of the pathos to coldness of criticism, from the moral and persuasive to the abstract and argumentative, or inversely, from the critical to the pathetic and from the abstract to the persuasive, are neither natural nor easy. Now the transitions here, if there be any, must be quick, even immediate, since they result from the different natures of the remarks that immediately succeed one another. In the first kind, which we distinguished by the name exposition, there is no occasion for so much delicacy in regard to the inferences deduced; because in it, they being only of a secondary nature in respect to the scope of the performance, particular discussions would neither be proper nor expected. All that is requisite is, that they be true, fairly deduced and properly expressed. Now thus much, whatever be the nature of the truths remarked, can make no alteration in the character of the performance. In this species, the observations are properly no more than inferences, whose evidence, illustration or enforcement, should always be found in the exposition that preceded them; whereas in the lecture properly so called, though the connection of the remarks with the portion of Scripture previously and briefly explained, ought to be very

clear, they are introduced with express view of being supported, illustrated or enforced in the body of the discourse, to which the explication of the text serves only as an introduction. So much shall serve for what we call expositions or lectures; I shall next proceed to the different sorts of sermons above defined.

LECTURE VII.

OF EXPLANATORY SERMONS-THE CHOICE OF A SUBJECT AND OF TEXTS.

In my last prelection on the subject of pulpit eloquence, after enumerating the different sorts of discourses, from the consideration of the faculty addressed, I entered particularly into the examination of those, which with us are commonly called lectures, and which we divided into two sorts, one, whose principal end was to remove difficulties in a passage not perfectly clear; the other whose aim was to form and enforce useful observations from a passage naturally fitted to give scope for reflection. The first, we called exposition; the second, lecture. I now return to the consideration of those discourses, which come under the general denomination of sermons, and which were distributed into five orders, the explanatory, the controversial, the commendatory, the pathetic and the persuasive. The first and the simplest is the explanatory, which may be defined a sermon addressed to the understanding of the hearers, and of which the direct view is to explain some doctrine of our religion, or the nature and extent of some duty. In this species of discourses, the preacher's antagonist (if I may so express myself) is ignorance, which it is his business to dispel.

The first thing, that falls under consideration, is the choice of a subject. And in this, care ought to be taken, that whether it be more or less extensive, it may be strictly and properly one, that it may neither be imperfect, and consequently afford the audience but an indistinct apprehension of the matter discussed, whether it be the explication of a tenet, or of a precept of Christianity; nor redundant, by being conjoined with other points or topics, which however useful in

themselves, are neither immediately connected with, nor necessary to the elucidation of what is properly the subject. The rule of the poet,

Sit quod vis simplex duntaxat et unum,

will be found a good rule, not only in epic and dramatic poetry, but in every kind of composition without exception. The reason is, it is founded in nature, and what is adapted to the faculties of a being such as man. When things are brought together into a discourse, between which there is no immediate connection, that which happens to be last said, goes far to obliterate out of the minds of the hearers all that went before. There being no natural and manifest relation between the things themselves, and no dependence that the one has on the other, the last mentioned thought or topic doth as it were exclude its predecessor, by entirely occupying its place. Whereas in clearing up the several parts of one entire subject, whatever it be, the explication of every other branch or member, as you advance, necessarily tends, by the laws of association in our ideas, to recall to our reflections the account given of those that preceded, with which its several parts are naturally and intimately connected. That we may form some idea of the influence of connection, simplicity and unity upon the memory, do but consider the effect in point of remembrance, for it is of this only I am now speaking, that would be produced upon an audience by one of our Lord's parables, for example, or by a distinct passage of his history, or of that of the apostles, or by any one speech of Peter or Paul recorded in the Acts, and compare with it the effect that will be produced by reading an equal portion of the book of Proverbs, or of the 119th Psalm, in neither of which was there any connection of sentiments proposed: the greater part of the first being intended merely as a collection of wise observations, but independent one of another, on the conduct of life; and the other as a collection of pious ejaculations, arranged, not by affinity in the sentiments, but by the letters in the Hebrew alphabet with which the several sentences begin. But what is necessary to constitute this unity of subject and design, we shall have occasion more particularly to consider afterwards.

A subject being chosen, the next thing to be sought is the text. This seems calculated to answer a double purpose. In the first place, it serves as a motto to the discourse, notifying