CHAPTER VÍ. 207 strement, and they mistook that fòr devotion ; but their heads aredark still, and their hearts earthly ; they are mere heathens with a christian name, and know little more of God than their yokes of oxen. In short, Polyramus' auditors have some con- fusion in their knowledge, but Fluvio's hearers have scarcely any knowledge at all. But you will tell me, your discourses are not all made up of harangue; your design is sometimes to inform the mind by a train of well connected reasonings, and that all your paragraphs in their long order prove and support each other; and though you do not distinguish your discourse into particulars, yet you have kept some invisible method all the way, and by some arti- ficial gradations, you have brought your sermon down to the concluding sentence. It may be so sometimes, and I will ac- knowledge it: but believe me Fluvio, this artificial and invisible method, carries darkness with it instead of light; nor is it by any means a proper way to instruct the vulgar, that is, the bulk of your auditory; their souls are not capable of so wide a stretch, as to take in the wholechain ofyour long connected consequences; you talk reason and religion to them in vain, if you do not snake the argument so short as to come within their grasp, and give a frequent rest for their thoughts ; you must break the bread of life into pieces to feed children with it, and part your discourses into distinct propositions, to give the ignorant a plain scheme of any one doctrine, and enable them to compre- hend or retain it. . Every day gives us experiments to confirm what I say, and to encourage ministers to divide their sermons into several distinct heads of discourse. Myrtille, a little creature of nine years old, was at church twice yesterday : in the morning the preacher en- tertained his audience with a running oration, and the child could give her parents no other accountof it, but that he talked smooth- ly and sweetly about virtue and heaven. It was Ergates' lot to fulfil the service of the afternoon ; he is an excellent preacher, both for the wise and unwise : in the evening, Myrtilla very prettily entertained her mother with a repetition of the most con- siderable parts of the sermon ; for " Here," said she, f0 I can fix my thoughts upon first, secondly, and thirdly, upon the doctrine, the reasons, and the inferences ; and I know what I must try to remember, and repeat it when my friends shall ask me : but as for the morning sermon I could do nothing but hear it, for I could not tell what I should get by heart." This manner of talking in loose harangue, has not only injur- ed our pulpits but it makes the several essays and treatises, that are written now-a-days, less capable of improving the knowledge or enriching the memory of the reader. 1. will easily grant, that where the whole discourse reaches not beyond a few pages,
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