SECTION Il. ell I grant it is necessary to use good reason through your Whole discourse, and connect all theparts of it 'with justice ; but as I hinted before, let your arguments to prove any point be ge- nerally short and easy, and within the grasp of a common. under- standing : remember that a few plain and obvious reasoning, from familiar and well known principles, and some clear and well chosen texts of scripture, with a word or two to explain or apply them to the understanding and conscienceof men with light and zeal, will impress the judgment and pierce the heart with more speedy and powerful conviction : and our hearers, who regard a plain scriptural argument as the word f the living God, will touch more readily receive it, and submit much sooner to the force and authority of it. Thas.saith the prophet, or tints salth the apostle, carries greater weight with it, both to convince and to persuade, than a long series of demnnstrptions from re- mote principles, though they should be firm and strong as those of.Euclid or Sir Isaac Newton. Andas for bright, warm and pathetic language, to strike the imagination or-to affect the heart, to kindle the divine pas- sions or to melt the soul, there is noue of the heathen orators can better furnish you,-than the moving expostulations of the ancient prophets, the tender and sprightly odes of holy David, or the affectionate part of the letters of St. Paul, which even his enemies in the church of Corinth confess to he powerful. The Eastern writers, amongwhom we number the Jews, were par- ticularly famous for lively oratory, for bright images, and bold and animated figures of speech. Could I have heard Isaiah or Jeremy pronouncing seine of their sermons, or attended St. Paulin some pf his pathetic strains of preaching, I should never mourn a want of acquaintance with 'Tully or Demosthenes. A preacher whose mind is well stored and enriched with the divine sense and sentiments, the reasoning and the language of scripture, (and especially if these are wrought into his heart by Christian experience) supposing his other talents are equal to those of his brethren, will always -have a considerable advantage over them in composing such discourses, as shall be most popo. lar and most useful in christiatr assemblies : and he may better expect the presence and blessing of God, to make his word tri- umph over the souls of men, and will generally speak to their hearts'with more power for their eternal salvation. Shrew uìe one sinner turned to God and holiness by the labours of a otitis. tian preacher, who is generally entertaining the audience with-4 long and weighty chain of reasoning from the principles of natures and teaching virtue in the language ofheathen philosophy : ands I think I may undertake to spew you ten who have been cou* vinced and converted, 'and have become holy persons and lively Christians by áµ atteudance upon. a scriptural, airetiouatc and
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