ing at all. The cure of this evil is, bý a natural exhibition, without artifical colouring, to make the matter of our discourse the prominent part of it. True eloquence requires that the speaker subdue the expreffion to the fentiment, and the pronunciation to both. And as this is dealing fairly with our hearers, fo it is the true way of showing our own merit, if we have any. For, however paradoxical it may appear, it is a certain fact, that many have the power of talking prettily or pompously, who have very little power of thinking.

Let it appear that we have something to fay, rather than that we are anxious how to fay it I obferved, that it behoves the preacher to attend to the manner of conveying his fentiments; but by no means to let that attention appear to the hearers. It is the perfection of manner, when it fhows the matter, without fhowing itfelf, and when a hearer, of plain natural understanding, imagines, that were he to utter the fame fentiment, he would use the fame expreffions. And it is a proof of a depraved tafte in the hearer, to which the dignity of eloquence will never fubmit, if the juftnefs and weight of the fentiment, clearly and naturally expreffed, do not more than make amends for the want of ambitious or naments.

Let it not be objected, that the tendency of what hath been now faid is to deprive our com pofitions of all beauty. It may have this tendency through our own want of taste and capa

city; and then all the beauties we may be o-· therwife able to reach will be frivolous or falfe, and fuch as eloquence muft fcorn. But, confidered in themfelves, fimplicity and beauty are fo far from being incompatible, that, on the contrary, the most refined and delicate, and the most durable beauties, fuch as have food the test of all ages, have been unanimoufly allowed to many of thofe compofitions that are characterifed by their fimplicity. Simplicity is diftinguished by that graceful eafe which is the foundation of elegance; and without which all other beauties become aukward, and lofe their name *.

To conclude. In a difcourfe concerning the qualifications of a preacher of righteousness, it would be highly blameable to omit mentioning one, without which all other qualifications will be fruitless, and even difgufting; and that is, goodness of heart, and a thorough integrity of inward character. The wife preacher will not content himself with an external decorum: He will afpire after the beauties, and cultivate the graces which adorn the mind. It is this that muft give him comfortable hopes of fuccefs in his labours; for it is this that will make his duty his delight; that will lead him to enter.

* Some, as Lord Shaftbury, who in their own writings have run into a turgid manner, have yet in quality of critics, dropping that vanity and af fectation which adhered to them as authors, been moft earnest in the praife and recommendation of fimplicity.

with feeling into the fpiritual concerns of his people, and to pour inftruction and confolation into their hearts, warm and living from his inmoft foul. It is the people's conviction: of this that will carry his miniftrations beyond. the low end of being merely entertaining. The defires of their fouls will rife to meet them ;, and by the bleffing of God, inftruction, reproof, or confolation, descending with a fweet, yet irrefiftible influence, will fink to the bottom of their hearts. His doctrine will drop as the rain, his fpeech diftil as the dew: As the fmall rain upon the tender herb, and as the Showers upon the grafs.

But after all, much, my Brethren, the hear ers of the gospel, will depend upon you. Doubt. lefs ye may, if ye refolve it, defeat the beft. and most promifing endeavours for restraining your vices. Ye may drown your convic-tions in bufinefs, or debauchery, or amufement; or ye may diffipate them in company,. and laugh, or join in the laugh, at your being furprised into ferioufnefs. But is this to act the part of reasonable creatures? And for what purpose, I pray, fhould ye defire this ? At best, ye are able to cheat yourfelves but. poorly; for endeavour it as ye will, your fuccefs can never be accompanied with that entire, thorough-felt fatisfaction and joy which attends the confcioufnefs of truth and right.. Or though ye could deceive yourfelves ever fo completely, yet fince ye cannot deceive God, what would it avail you? Would not your

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your ruin be rendered thereby the more irretrievable? Surely then your concern is to act like men who fee it to be their interest not to fhut but open their eyes, and to know the truth. There are fome, God grant they may

be few! who poffefs the unhappy art of clothing vice in the mantle of virtue. But there are many, very many, who are well able to turn. away their eyes from viewing its native deformity. Ye may manage with yourselves, fo as to be like the man that beholdeth his natural face in a glass: Who beholdeth his face, and goeth his way, and fraightway forgetteth. what manner of man he was.. But tell me, will your forgetting this change the nature of things will it make wrong to become right,. or falfehood to become truth? Wherefore, be ye not unwife, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. Laying afide all malice, and all guile and hypocrify, not only towards men, but towards God and your own confciences, ast new born babes, defire the fincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby..

SER

ed upon it, there is a teft, by which doctrines claiming to be evangelical, may, and ought to be tried, a criterion to which the advocates for human reason should not object, because it accords, at least to a certain extent, with their own plan, and that is the standard of human nature; not indeed as it is exhibited in the fancied portraits of poets and philofophers, but as it is feen and felt in observation and experience.

Is the gospel, in the full extent and connec tion of its doctrines, adapted to the state and circumstances of man? Is it fitted, with exquifite skill, to afford a fupply to his fpiritual wants, and a remedy to his intellectual diforders? Is its native tendency to elevate our species to a rank in the scale of moral excellence, far beyond what any other system evër proposed or attempted? Then, from its own nature arifes an argument for its Divine Original, amounting almoft to demonftration; and every ferious and candid inquirer will acknowledge with the Apostle, in the words of my text, that "Chrift is the wisdom of God," or, in other words, that thofe doctrines and that fyftem which have Chrift for their author and object, by their structure and tendency afford evidence of wifdom more than human, and could have proceeded only from God.

This is the fubject to which I wish to direct the attention of my much refpected hearers, upon the prefent occafion. It is evidently an important theme. It places the scheme of the

gofpel,