CHAPTER VI. 203 and his gospel, and the impenitent and immoral are convinced and softened, are melted and reformed. The inward voice of the Holy Spirit joins with the voice of the minister ; the good man and the hypocrite have their proper portions assigned them, and the work of the Lord prospers in his hand. This is the usual course and manner of his ministry. This method being natural, plain and easy, he casts many of his dis- courses into this form ; but he is no slave to forms and methods of any kind : he makes the nature of his subject, and the neces- sity of his hearers, the great rule to direct him what method he shall choose in every sermon, that he may the better enlighten, convince, and persuade. Ergates well knows, that where the subjectitself is entirely practical, he has no need of the formality of long uses and exhortations : he knows that practice is the chief design of doctrine ; therefore he bestows most of his labour upon this part of his office, and intermingles much of the pathe- tic under every particular : yet he wisely observes the special dangers of his flock, and the errors of the time he lives in ; and now and then (though very seldom) he thinks it necessary to spend almost a whole discourse in mere doctrinal articles. Upon such an occasion, he thinks it proper to take up a little larger part of his hour in explaining and confirmingthe sense of his text, and brings it down to the understanding of a child. At another time, perhaps, he particularly designs to enter- tain the few learned and polite among his auditors : and that with this view, that he may ingratiate his discourses with their ears, and may so far gratify their curiosity in this part of his sermon, as to give an easier entrance for the more plain, necessary, and important parts of it into their hearts. Then he aims at, arid he reaches the sublime, and furnishes out an entertainment for the finest taste ; but he scarcely ever finishes his sermon without compassion to the unlearned, and an address that may reach their consciences with words of salvation. I have observed him sometimes after a learned discourse, come down from the pulpit as a man ashamed and quite out of countenance : he has blushed and complained to his intimate friends lest he should be thought to have preached himself; and not Christ Jesus his Lord : he has been ready to wish he had entertained the audience in a more unlearned manner, and on a more vulgar subject, lest the servants and the labourers and tradesmen there, should reap no advantage to their souls, and the important hour of worship should be lost, as to their im- provement. Well he knows, and keeps it upon his heart, tbat the middle and lower ranks of mankind, and people of an unlet- tered character, make up the greater part of the assembly ; therefore he is ever seeking how to adapt his thoughts and his language, and far the greatest part of all his ministrations, to
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