disparage religion; thefe, being zealous to promote infidelity and vice, learn a rote of buffoonry, that ferveth all occafions, and refutes the ftrongeft arguments for piety and good-manners. Thefe have a fett of ridicule calculated for all fermons, and all preachers, and can be extremely witty as often as they please upon the fame fund.

Let me now, in the laft place, offer fome remedies against this great evil.

It will be one remedy against the contempt of preaching, rightly to confider the end for which it was defigned. There are many who place abundance of merit in going to church, although it be with no other profpect but that of being well entertained, wherein if they happen to fail, they return wholly difappointed. Hence it is become an impertinent vein among people of all forts to hunt after what they call a good fermon, as if it were a matter of paflime and diverfion. Our bufinefs, alas! is quite another thing, either to learn, or, at leaft, be reminded of our duty, to apply the doctrines delivered, compare the rules we hear with our

lives and actions, and find wherein we have tranfgreffed. Thefe are the difpofitions men fhould bring into the houfe of God, and then they will be little concerned about the preacher's wit or eloquence, nor be curious to enquire out his faults or infirmities, but confider how to correct their own.

Another remedy against the contempt of preaching is, that men would confider, whether it be not reafonable to give more allowance for the different abilities of preachers than they ufually do; refinements of ftile, and flights of wit, as they are not properly the bufinefs of any preacher, fo they cannot poflibly be the talents of all. In most other difcourfes, men are fatisfied with fober fenfe and plain reason; and, as understandings ufually go, even that is not over frequent. Then why they fhould be fo over nice in expectation of eloquence, where it is neither neceffary nor convenient, is hard to imagine.

Lafly, The fcorners of preaching would do well to confider, that this talent of ridicule,

ridicule, they value fo much, is a perfection very eafily acquired, and applied to all things whatsoever; neither is any thing at all the worse, because it is capable of being perverted to burlesque: Perhaps it may be the more perfect upon that score; fince we know, the most celebrated pieces have been thus treated with greatest succefs. It is in any man's power to fuppofe a fool's cap on the wifeft head, and then laugh at his own fuppofition. I think there are not many things cheaper than fuppofing and laughing; and if the uniting these two talents can bring a thing into contempt, it is hard to know where it may end.

To conclude. These confiderations may, perhaps, have fome effect while men are awake; but what arguments shall we use to the fleeper? what methods fhall we take to hold open his eyes? will he be moved by confiderations of common civility? We know it is reckoned a point of very bad manners to fleep in private company, when, perhaps, the tedious impertinence of many talkers would render it

at

at leaft as excufable as at the dulleft fermon. Do they think it a fmall thing to watch four hours at a play, where all virtue and religion are openly reviled; and can they not watch one half hour to hear them defended? is this to deal like a judge (I mean like a good judge), to listen on one fide of the cause, and fleep on the other? I fhall add but one word more: That this indecent floth is very much owing to that luxury and excefs men ufually practice upon this day, by which half the fervice thereof is turned to fin; men dividing the time between God and their bellies, when, after a gluttonous meal, their fenfes dozed and ftupified, they retire to God's house to fleep out the afternoon. Surely, brethren, these things ought not fo to be.

He that bath ears to hear, let him bear. And God give us all grace to hear and receive his holy word to the falvation of our own fouls.

REMARKS

UPON

A BO O K,

INTITULED,

The Rights of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH, &c.

Written in the Year 1708, but left unfinished.

BEFORE

EFORE I enter upon a particular examination of this treatise, it will be convenient to do two things:

Firft, To give fome account of the author, together with the motives, that might probably engage him in fuch a work. And,

Secondly, To difcover the nature and tendency in general, of the work itself.

The first of these, although it hath been objected againft, feems highly reasonable, especially in books that inftil pernicious principles. For, although a book is not intrinfically much better or worse,

* Thefe Remarks, though left unfinished by the Dean, and but the flight prolufions of his ftrength, fhew how

fincere, how able a champion he was of Religion and the Church.

according