understanding is to be addreffed, Theodorus now goes on to fhew how the preacher fhould proceed with the other powers of our mixed nature.

The next grand principal, fays he, to which the preacher ought to addrefs himself with a peculiar energy, I take to be the CONSCIENCE, or that moral faculty of perception, by which we diftinguish between virtue and vice, are confcious of good or bad order within, and approve or condemn accordingly. To addrefs this faculty to purpose, and to roufe its inmoft feelings, is a matter of infinite delicacy and moment. That preacher who would speak home to the confciences of men, muft lay open the human heart, and trace its windings, its difguifes and corruptions: he muft unfold the principles and fprings of human conduct, remove from actions their falfe colourings, and distinguish appearances from realities: he must detect the various biaffes of felf-love and felf-deceit, expofe the files of interfering paffions, paint the several virtues and vides, in all the beauty of one, and deformity of the other, give to every character its juft form and boundaries, bring it to the teft of the great rule of life, and, in fhort, draw voice and paffion from the heart of man; fo that every one fhall hear, fee, and recognize himfelf, and ftand acquitted or condemned in his own breaft, according as he deferves one or the other. This is to addrefs the confcience. And whoever can do this to purpose, has hit upon the true masterkey of facred eloquence, and poffeffes that powerful art, by which he may alarm, controul, and govern the human mind.

"A faculty immediately fubordinate to this, and which must be employed as a main inftrument to work upon it, is the IMAGINATION, that active and wonderful power, which prevents to us the various images of things, and invefts them, with the mighty force they have to charm or frighten, to attract our admiration, or excite our averfion. It must therefore be no mean part of the preacher's business to apply himself to this noble faculty, by laying proper materials before it, combining ftrong images, felecting thofe circumftances which are moft adapted to imprefs the mind, and to fhew things as it were prefent to its very fenfe, exhibiting natural and moving pictures of life and manners, employing bold fentiments and glowing figures, animating the whole with fuch ftrength and fpirit, and adorning it with fuch elegance and grace, both in his diction, and manner, as are fitteft to allure, to feize, and tranfport the hearers. E e 4 • The

The are you talk of, fays Agoretes, feems to be of wide extent, and of great difficulty in the execution: but should a preacher indulge to the flights of fancy, which you appear to recommend, is there no danger of his lofing himfelf in thofe airy regions, which terminate in chimera, of his quitting the fimplicity or debafing the dignity, of fuch compofitions, by an affectation of too much ornament, and appearing to lay baits for catching the imagination, rather then to offer arguments for convincing the judgment? Would it not, therefore, be better to keep to the more plain and fafe road of common fenfe and fober reafoning?

I frankly acknowledge, fays Theodorus, there is abundance of danger in the wild excurfions of an ungoverned fancy; and perhaps it is no eafy matter to rein it well : but fhould we forbid the preacher the use of so efficacious anengine, we should deprive him of a main inftrument of perfuafion, and hardly leave him any thing to move the paffions, which are however the great and immediate springs of action. Man is too liftless and lazy a creature, to be actuated by cool views of interefts, or dry fpeculations concerning his duty and happiness. One who is fuch a dupe to his pleasures, and who is always engaged in fome prefent purfuit, which engroffes all his thought and care, needs many powerful motives to make him quit the chace, very interefting views to win his attention, and very convincing reafons to allure him to a different courfe. Objects which are remote from sense and matter, as moral and divine truths are, muft be brought near the mind, and rendered palpable and familiar to it by the beauty or ftrength of imagery : objects diftant as to time and place, can only have that dif tance leffened, by being represented in fuch a lively and fenfible manner, as to appear almoft prefent to the mind. But how is this to be done, without borrowing all the lights and colouring which a bright and glowing fancy can beftow; without giving a body to our conceptions, by ftriking allufions, comparisons, and reprefentations, in fhort, without making the imagination fubfervient to reafon, and judgment It is therefore by natural and animated pictures of good and evil, virtue and vice, heaven and hell, and all thofe other awful and momentous topics which religion affords, that the imagination is to be roufed, and the various affections of our nature interested. It is thus our admiration and love are to be kindled, our averfion and indignation raised, our hopes and fears awakened, our joy and forrow, our sympathy, and other paffions, excited. In doing this, there will

be

be both neceffity and scope for all the bold, the tender, the fublime, and the pathetic figures, which have been employed, or recommended by the greatest masters of eloquence. Laft of all, to fet this whole machinery a-going, and to make a difcourfe come home with full weight on the hearer's mind, the preacher muft add the majefty and harmony of found, with all the strength and propriety of action; that the ear and eye may be fully fatisfied, and concur to enforce the authority of the fpeaker, and to leave his words as ftings in the hearts of the audience.This, gentlemen, I offer you only as a fhort and imperfect fketch of the preacher's duty, or the method of fetting about the inftruction and perfuafion of mankind. Your own reflections will eafily fuggeft a thousand particulars on the fubject, which are fcarce to be reduced to rules, and are best learned from good models, but above all from the practice of the art."

Theodorus, after fhewing the tefts whereby an indifferent perfon may judge of the excellence of a fermon, proceeds to point out the qualifications neceffary to a preacher. The principal qualification, and that which he moft enlarges upon, is that of being a good man; a lover of God, and a friend of men. A preacher, fays he, who has not felt the power, and imbibed the spirit of christianity, is the moft unfit perfon in the world, to teach and recommend it to others. Chriftianity is not fo much a bare fyftem of doctrines, or of rules, as an inftitution of life, a discipline of the heart and its affections, a vital and vivifying spirit, a ray of light, fent down from the father of lights, to illuminate a benighted world, and to conduct wandering mortals to a state of perfection and happiness. He, into whofe mind this all-irradiating and all quickening light has not fhone, is yet dark and dead; and, whilft he continues fo himself, how can he enlighten or vivify others?—

• You know, gentlemen, how much the foundest of the antient philofophers required, as well as recommended, a previous courfe of trial and preparation, before they admitted their scholars, or thought them fit to be admitted, to a participation of the more fublime myfteries of fcience. What compofure of mind and paffion, what discipline of filence and retirement, what difengagement from sense and the world, what purity of heart and manners, were deemed neceffary to qualify them for being let into the arcana, the fundamental principles of their philofophy? Now, as the christian institution is only a more refined fpecies of philofophy, a more efficacious art of purging the foul from the

dregs

dregs of fenfe and paffion, and renuniting it to truth, reafon, and virtue, and by confequence to the Divinity; as Jefus Christ is the author of this divine philofophy, and our great mystagogue to introduce us into the Holy of Holies, and to impart the auguft myfteries of faith; he must certainly expect of all his difciples, and particularly require of those who are to minister to others, a more than ordinary refinement and fimplicity of manners. A man must have conversed much with Jefus, must have long studied his maxims, and been formed after his holy and felf-denying fpirit, before he can thoroughly comprehend and relifh his pure and heavenly doctrines, or be qualified to teach them to others. What watchful difcipline of the heart, what severe correction of the fancy, what ftruggles with himself, what contrition, what penitence, what humiliation must he have gone thorough, in order to conquer the prejudices of nature, and the prepoffeffions of habit, to reconcile him to the myfteries of the cross, and to make him fubmit chearfully to the ftrictness of the gospel-law? How often must he have fat at the feet of Jefus, before he learned to lofe the fubtilty of the man in the fimplicity of the child, the art of the Sceptic in the candour and ingenuity of the believer? I will be bold to say, that no man can truly understand the dogmata of the christian faith, whofe mind is fwell'd with vanity, fullied with vice, or funk in pleafure. This divine light cannot dwell amidst such impure fumes. Whatever principles of knowledge, whatever rules of life, we pretend to communicate to others, will take a tincture of the veffel thro' which they pass. To the clean, all will be clean; and to the impure, all will be impure. The good man, out of the abundance of his heart, will bring forth good things; but a wicked man evil things. And furely it may be laid down as a maxim, that, as a corrupt heart can dictate no language, that is not in fome refpect adulterated; fo a corrupt life can enforce no practice, but what is of a colour with itself."

Another effential and indifpenfible qualification of a preacher, we are told, is the knowledge of human nature, and of life. The end of preaching, fays Theodorus, which may be confidered as the art of spiritual medicine, is, to remove a vicious temperament of mind, to introduce a good one, and to confirm it by proper applications and a right regimen. But it is evident, that this end can never be attained, without a thorough knowledge of the heart of man, of the diforders which arife there, and the

various

various appearances which these put on in the characters of men, and the conduct of life. In order to acquire this neceffary branch of knowledge, the paffions must be accurately furveyed, because these are the grand fprings of action: the motives and caufes which influence them, those species of good and ill which impel or reftrain their motions, their mutual connexions and dependance, together with those circumstances and relations in life that contribute to their growth or decay, must be carefully ftudied. For it is from a full and exact detail of the process of nature in the structure and operations of its leading powers, that we must deduce the true healing art, or the fureft rules for restoring and perfecting the human constitution. Therefore a preacher must study his own heart well, and be much converfant with mankind, with thofe especially who refign the health of their fouls to his care, if he would practise with fuccefs upon fuch nice subjects.'

You feem, Sir, fays Agoretes, in the laft part of your difcourfe, to have mentioned a very material branch of the preacher's business; we fhould be glad to hear it explained at more length, and to know what are the best methods for carrying on the cure of difeafed minds.

For my part, replies Theodorus, I know no certain or univerfal recipes for the recovery of mental disorders. After the utmost care that mortals can take of them, they must be left at last in the hands of the almighty physician of fouls, who knows their inmoft frame, and can apply fovereign and infallible remedies. Different minds must be treated differently, according to their feveral conftitutions. We fhall, however, apply the healing art the more successfully, if we remember what is the immediate cause of moft diftempers that attack the human conftitution. Now by obferving the various complexions and characters of men, and analysing the several diforders to which they are obnoxious, we shall find, that it is generally some mistaken opinion of right and wrong, of God and religion, or the admiration of fome partial, and generally fome external good, that mifleads and governs the bulk of mankind, and gives rife to all the irregular paffions which difquiet their minds, and to all the wild diforders which deform their lives. Some falfe fpecies of good, borrowing delufive colours from the fair and genuine forms of virtue, beauty, or happiness, and having paft into the region of fancy, unexamined and undiftinguished by the judgment, firft raises admiration, then paffion; which, being fucceeded by choice, gives birth to

refolution,