either hand For it is very discernable that the Antipathy against either way is mainly caused by the animosity and mutual opposition between the parties of different persuasions and inclinations in this matter They are too weak and ill-advised at least if not humorous and self-conceited that reject all Sett-Forms and on the other hand to suppress the gift of Prayer in our selves or others is to sin against the grace of God and to hinder much good The use of a Set-Form without an imperious restraint of Prayer thereto will obviate the objection of Stinting the Spirit which means if there be any thing to the purpose in that Phrase a suppressing or undue restraining of this Spiritual gift against which a caution is here given In our addresses to the great God it concerns us to look well both to thoughts and words that in both he may be Sanctified by us and glorified as God indeed And in our publick addresses to him a more special care must be had that nothing be uttered before him that is unmeet to be offered to his dreadfull Majesty Rude clownish and homely expressions as also quibling jingling and all levity and trifling is very loathsome in Preaching but in Prayer much more Affectation of words curiosity and politeness becomes not the weightiness and awfulness of this duty Yea abruptness obscurity and all incongruity of speaking is to be shunned herein as much as possible and that only is to be used which is plain clear seemly weighty savory and affectionate In like manner all indecency of voice and gesture is to be watched against as an offensive thing and apt to expose the Service to the derision of proud scorners Yet a seasonable elevation of the voice or other apt expression of earnestness is not to be counted rudeness Sometimes a worthy man may not be aware of some uncomeliness in his tone or in the posture of his countenance or some other bodily gesture by reason of the fervour of his Spirit in the duty joyned with inadvertency towards those exterior and lesser things And sometimes an ill habit or custom is not easily broken off These inconveniencies are prevented or redressed by a wariness of disposition and a moderate self-distrust and the actual observation of what is gracefull or uncomely in others Prayer is a holy Converse with God wherein an humble confidence and Son-like freedom of Spirit with him is acceptable yet withall it calls for the greatest prostration of soul and the deepest reverence and Subjection Wherefore humbly to expostulate with God is no sauciness The whole current of the Prayers of Saints in Scripture doth warrant it and that not only now and then in extraordinary cases Indeed our ordinary concerns with God are no less than the safety of our immortal Souls the pardoning of our great and numberless offences the subduing of inveterate corruptions our escaping of many deadly dangers our victory over the adverse world the powerfull presence of his Grace the light of his Countenance as also the interests of his glory and of his Church and people and of the world in general that poor Souls may be delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of his dear Son all which are of the highest moment and of themselves exceeding difficult though to God all things are possible and they all require vehemence and importunity not as if God needed to be moved or stirred up but that we may declare our selves duely affected Howbeit even the best things may be over-done and this over-doing is the marring thereof If in the expostulations of Prayer men shall utter perverse or frivolous things or speak absurdly daringly or irreverently they are highly culpable and guilty of abusing the most holy things and of contemning the most glorious and fearfull name of the Lord their God Our freedom of access to God and converse with him must not be turned into an irreverent and presumptuous familiarity Those that are guilty of this rashness are worthy of great rebuke But I-know well that the Spirit of Luke-warmness and profaness doth usually cast reproaches and scorns upon that zeal and fervency of Spirit that well becomes the Servants of the Lord and labours to make the most accceptable and profitable kind of Prayer to seem ridiculous It is against reason to think that the Ministers of the present age brought up under such eminent advantage for Ministerial abilities should not be able to speak to God in good and solid sense in an orderly method and in affective grave and seemly language as becomes the Solemnity of Gods Worship Experience will justifie the sufficiency of serious pious and painfull Preachers in general though the captious and curious and such as love to cavil have found fault and despised the profitable endeavours of those whom God hath owned Besides the offences that are committed in this matter proceed more from inadvertency and imprudence than from insufficiency and may be corrected by care and causion and good advice And it is no vanity to suppose such a competency of prudence easily attainable by all those that are competently qualified for this Office Indeed it cannot be expected but that some will be less able and less perfect than others in this performance and that the same persons may not be alike perfect therein at all times nevertheless there is no such want of Security that the Churches service will be well performed if any Prayer be used in the Church besides a prescribed Form For who can doubt but that persons of competent ability and prudence may upon due incouragement be spread throughout a Nation in such an Age of learning and knowledge And to say otherwise were to disparage the Reformed Religion And there is no just cause of doubt but that an able Minister may make use either of a precomposed or of an immediately conceived Form of words Yet in this matter there is great diversity of judgment and affection even unto much prejudice and opposition But the same minds might well be conciliated to both ways if rightly ordered The Question is here supposed to be of the outward mode in which two things are mainly to be regarded to wit that it be reverend and affective Such as are best persuaded of a pre-composed Form and find it expedient for them doubtless may rightly manage it to the edifying of themselves and others For which end they must needs in some parts thereof make use of occasional variation and inlargement though premeditated as minding the more particular requiries of several times and occasions But others by a habit of ready utterance and much exercise are well prepared to pray by the immediate conceptions of their mind in proper and decent words and can do it without any straining of invention and with much freedom of Spirit No more is here spoken that what impartial men will grant And why should any forbid them that are thus qualified to use their gift But if any should be
trifle with holy things he shuns vanity and curiosity and doth not ramble into impertinences and cares not to utter any thing for ostentation He hath in his eye the end of his Ministry and the usefulness and importance of what he hath to communicate that as it said of the Scripture from whence he takes it it may be profitable for Doctrine for Reproof for Correction for instruction in Righteousness that it may come home to the hearts and lives of men and be fit to raise their attention by their own concernment in it He considers withall what the hearers can best receive that is not what the flesh can well digest for then the most necessary truths must be forborn but that which carries its own evidence to that it must be owned or the gain-sayers must be self-condemned And this is to prepare mens minds and to make way for such harder sayings and stricter precepts as must be manifested in due season Moreover the Dispensation of the word of God should be as the word it self is quick and powerfull and in all reason that is to be most esteemed such which is most apt to be effectual to the end for which God hath ordained it which is to open mens eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that be sanctified through faith in Christ. That kind of preaching that hath most tendency to convince direct and move toward this end is without controversie the most powerfull The pressing of Doctrines with solid and cogent reason provided they be made plain and obvious to the capacity of the hearers appertains to this manner of preaching and in a chief point therein Strong reason may be so delivered as to be too hard and strong for plain people to receive and digest it Here Condescention is a great Duty and perspicuity a great Gift But the bare evidence of reason doth not all For to gain the Will which is the man besides the judgment the fancy and affections had need be gained We find it the condescention of God himself in his word to deal very much with these lower faculties which belonging not to brutes only but to men also it is not brutish but human to be moved by them in subordination to the judgment Even the most learned and prudent men are found to take no small impression from them and therefore the most proper ways of soliciting and exciting them are not to be neglected much less contemned Now dry reason though strong enough is not so fit to take the affections or raise the fancy Wherefore some other helps among which there are comparatively little things are herein used as familiar expressions apt similitudes expostulations lively representations and such like to which may be added a voluble tongue a moving tone and taking gesture And though much noise and action make not a powerfull Preacher yet earnestness of speech and elevation of the voice is not of little force and especially with vulgar hearers who being the greatest number in most Auditories are very regarnable And truly the weight of the business requires due fervour Should the matters of life and death eternal be delivered without feeling as by men half asleep And people's drowsiness doth no less require it Yea possibly the apprehensions and affections of the common people may better be roused up by a somewhat boysterous way of excitation which for this reason should not displease the learned or most judicious sort who are in this case to consider not what would most affect themselves but the greater multitude who stand in greatest need of help and whose souls are not less precious nor redeemed with a lesser price than the souls of the greatest Scholars and Sages of this world Indeed much judgment and and circumspection is here called for that all rudeness and homeliness of expression all curiosity levity and loathsom affectation and all manner of undecency be avoided and that what is comely and congruous and apt to convince and move be used and that nothing be overstrained And in this matter self-distrust if not too excessive will do better than Self-confidence and conceitedness Here it should be considered that very worthy men may have some indecencies in voice and gesture which they cannot well remedy and others who are very usefull and whose Service in Gods Church could not be well spared may be liable to some lesser mistakes and incongruities in expression which critical hearers may discern yet they hinder not the efficacy of the word And withall let it be considered whose work they do that aggravate such weaknesses to make sport for themselves and others to the contempt of Gods ordinance And for them that pour out scorn upon the most Pious Serious Solid and profitable kind of Preaching and make ridiculous representations of it to the world because it suits not their seeming wisdom I am rather inclined to lament their folly then to emulate their Wit or envy their Applause with some men We read that the wise Preacher sought out acceptable words that is words pleasing to edification that would reach home and were piercing as goads and nails The Preachers inward feeling of what he speaks hath a secret force to cause his words to be felt by others and what comes from the heart is aptest to go to the heart by a Sympathy in the Spirits of men And that any should speak of Seeing and Feeling in some sort the things that are written in Gods word will not seem strange to them who have tasted that the Lord is gracious The powerfull dispensing of the word depends chiefly on the assistance of the Holy Spirit though both natural and acquired parts and the industrious exercise thereof be likewise necessary For which cause the spiritual man hath unspeakable advantage of the meerly natural man in this Service The special presence of the Spirit with him and the grace of God in him causeth him to speak in a strain more apposite and sutable to the forming of the new creature Yea such illumination and conviction and tast of heavenly things as proceeds from a more common or less than regenerating grace will do more in this business with less abilities of art and nature than far greater abilities in those kinds can do by themselves alone The common Sense of the faithfull is a witness to the truth hereof And it must needs be so that he who hath some savour of the things of God should speak more Savorily of them then he can to whom they are tastless or unsavory Wherefore there is a Spiritual kind of preaching not indeed opposite to rational nor taken so to be by any that talk of it with understanding though the Assertors of it have been abusively personated as holding such a dotage They do not say that the Spirit shews any thing about the sense of Scripture or divine matters which is
Spiritual strain which is most agreeable to the things of the Spirit of God and which as coming from life and Spirit is better discerned than described There is a speaking not in words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth And though this more eminently took place in the Apostles and such other extraordinary persons yet there is no sufficient reason to restrain it to them alone St. Paul may well be understood to speak of this as a gift received by them that had received not the Spirit of the world but that which is of God and as something suted to the perception and taste of all Spiritual men It doth not exclude the use of human wisdom though the wisdom of the Spirit sway in chief For no doubt even Paul's human learning and prudence was herein serviceable though in subserviency to the influence and conduct of the Spirit This Spirituality of expression is conformable to that of the Spirit of God in Scripture though not confined to the words thereof Surely the mysteries of Salvation cannot be better handled than in those terms in which they were first delivered to wit in Scripture expressions or others consonant thereto solidly and pertinently used and to call this canting savours to much of that Spirit to which holy language is unsavory Without controversie the strongest reason is of greatest force to gain the wills of men to imbrace true Religion For that which crosseth sensuality selfishness and all the depraved appetite of our lapsed nature as Religion doth must needs have its greatest strength next under the power of divine grace in the force of right reason But care and skill is requisite that it be so prepared offered and set home that it may be sutable to them that should receive it and that the cogency thereof may so reach unto and fasten upon their judgments as to gain their wills Philosophical ratiocinations are too remote not only from low and dull capacities but also from the greater part of them that are competently apprehensive and intelligent and so being too much estranged from them they do not touch them to the quick A familiar natural plain and obvious way of reasoning comes home to all men and is most felt at the heart and that by Scholars themselves though their intellect may be more delighted in more accurate or reserved Speculations Scriptural preaching is indeed the most rational as coming with such reason as is of greatest force with men in matters of Salvation For Gods written word is a treasure of divine wisdom that throughly furnisheth the man of God Besides the infallible testimony thereof hath more authority than Philosophical reason though sound and true can have upon Christian hearers and it peirceth deeper and sticks closer And arguments taken and words spoken from Scripture wherewith the people converse dayly are more easily apprehended and retained and so are more instructive and every way more usefull than other reasonings Though numerous citations of sentences out of human Authors be an unprofitable kind of ostentation yet the Sentences of Holy Writ which is the evidence of our Christian hope and the testimony of him who is truth it self are most effectual to edification And whosoever is able to speak reason in divine matters is to make a rational use of Scripture and if any quote it impertinently and absurdly it is through defect of reason and they would be as injudicious in their Sermons without those quotations But nice and haughty wits mostly cavil without cause and charge profitable Preachers with injudiciousness meerly through their own vain curiosity and inconsiderateness Scripture quotations are sometimes used by way of allusion or for illustration not for strict proof and that which is brought for proof if it be not full and cogent yet it may add some weight and then it is not abused Besides if a passage be used in a sound and pious though not in its proper sense it is pardonable It is fit indeed that in citing Texts we know their true import and go more by weight than number shunning impertinency and superfluity yet it is not unfit to note that all sound and good Preachers are not alike judicious and those that are very solid may be guilty of some oversights and 't is a bad matter that their Ministery which God hath owned and honoured with good success in his Service should be set at nought for a few mistakes perhaps more pretended than real about the sense of some Scripture when it is not applyed otherwise than the Analogy of faith will bear and nothing is defended but known truth I have known a pious but strangely mistaken sense of a Scripture sentence cast into the mind and there fixed to have been the first occasion of seriousness in Religion to one that afterward lived and dyed a godly Christian. Now that which was causal in this conversion was the godly truth it self which was written in Gods word and the mistaking it to lie in such a sentence where it did not being but accidental was no hinderance I do in no wise countenance the irrational use of Scripture but am sensible of the importance of good judgment and due care about the sense thereof yet I cannot approve the scornful haughtiness of some men who deride godly persons well instructed in the Scripture as having nothing but words and Phrases and senseless notions either because they come short of Scholar-like exactness or because they speak of the things of God in a more Evangelicall and Spiritual strain than these can well bear In speaking the best use of art is to speak to best purpose and for that end in divine matters to speak with greatest Majesty and authority And this is done not by ostentation of wit by puerile and effeminate rhetorications by a rapsody of flanting words by starched speech by cadency of sounds or any too elaborate politeness that please the shallow fancy but by the evidence of reason set forth in a masculine and unaffected Eloquence that hath power over the wills of men which are tough and knotty peices Perspicuity is a great vertue and felicity in discourse for hereby what is offered gains attention and enters the mind and abides therein but intricacy and obscurity is a bar to its entrance and entertainment Hereunto an easie and obvious method evident coherence and plainness of expression conduceth mainly Wherefore he that minds what he hath to do is not careful by a more curious artifice to please the fancies of some itching hearers but hath most regard to that composure that makes most for a general benefit and edification And for this cause as he would not multiply words without need and become tedious so he would not be too succinct and close and by that means either too dark or too quick to inform or effect the people In vulgar auditories a dilating of the matter is most necessary so that idle tautologies and prolixity be avoided and it may be