014 AN HUMBLE ATTEMPT, &C. winter, without the beautiful and profitable appearanceof leaves and fruit. Cast the scheme of your discourse into some distinct general heads, and lesser subdivisions, in your first sketches and indigents of it : this will greatly assist you in the amplification; this will help you to preserve a just method throughout, and secure you from repeating the same thòughts too often : this will enable you to commit your sermon to your own memory the better, that you may deliver it with ease, and it will greatly assist the understanding as well as the memory of all that hear you. It will furnish them with matter and method for an easy recollection at home ; for meditation in their devout retirement, and for religious conference or rehearsal after the public worship is ended. Consider again, your business is with the consciences, and wills, and affections of men. A mere conviction of the reason and judgment, by the strongest arguments, is hardly sufficient, in matter of piety andvirtue, to coìnmand the will into obedi- ence; because the appetites of the flesh and the interests of this world are engaged 'on the opposite side. It is a very common case with the sons anddaughters of Adam, to see and know their proper duty, and to have the reasons that enforce it fresh in their memory ; and yet the powerful effbrts of the flesh and the world withhold the will from the practice, forbid its holy resolutions for God and heaven, or keep them always feeble, doubtful and wavering. The God of stature therefore has furnished mankind with those powers, which we call passions, or affections of the heart, in order to excite the will,with superior vigour and activity to avoid the evil and pursue the good. Upon this account the- preacher must learn to address the passions' in a proper manner, and I cannot but think it avery imperfect character ofa christian preacher, that he reasons well upon every subject, and talks clearly upon his text, if he has nothing of the pathetic in his ministrations, no talent at all to strike the passions of the heart. Awaken your spirit therefore in your composures, contrive all:lively, forcible and penetrating forms of speech, to make . your words powerful and impressive on the hearts of your hearers, when light is first let into the mind. Practise all the awful and solemn ways of address to the conscience, all the soft and tender influences on the heart. 'fry all methods to rouze and awaken the cold, the stupid, the sleepy race of sinners ; learn all the language of holy jealousy and terror, to affright the presump- tuous ; all the compassionate and encouraging manners of speak- ing, to comfort, encourage and direct the awakened, the penitent, the willing and the humble; all the winning and engaging modes of discourse and expostulation, to constrain the hearers of every character to attend. Seek this happy-skill of reigning -und"triumphing over the hearts of au assembly : persuade them
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