It is common to hear complaints, from the clergy, of the Inattention of their hearers, even to dozing, and fometimes to profound fleep. But where does this complaint fall at last? Even upon the preachers themselves, who address their hearers with fuch coolness and indifference, as to leave them nothing to do, but to go to fleep. Let the preacher but exert himself properly, and he may defy his hearers to go to fleep, or withdraw their attention for a moment. The clergy are likewise very full of their complaints of the little effect their labours produce. Infidelity and vice, they cry, prevail more than ever. Churches are poorly filled. And thofe who attend, for fashion's fake, are not much better than their neighbours. But what is the plain English of this lamentable outcry? Why, truly, that they find people loth to go to the places of public inftruction to be difgufted or lulled to fleep. And, that, when they have them there, they cannot perfuade them to quit their vices and follies by lolling twenty minutes upon a velvet cushion, and reading to them a learned difcourfe. That they cannot warm them to the love of virtue, by a cold, ill-read pulpit harangue. That they cannot win their affections whilst they neglect all the natural means for working upon the human paffions. That they cannot kindle in them that burning zeal which fuits the most important of all interefts, by talking to them with the coolness of a set of Stoic philofophers, of the terrors of the Lord, of the avorm, that never dies, and the fire, that is not quenched, and of future glory, honour, and immortality, of everlasting kingdoms, and heavenly thrones. I know it is common for preachers to plead, in excufe of the frigidity of their manner in addreffing their audiences, their modefty, and fear of being accused of affectation. But, are thefe any hindrance to the elocution of the actors, or even of the actrees; who, by ftudy and practice, come to get the better of timidity, and to attain an elegant and correct utterance (and are, indeed, the only Speakers we have in England) without any appearance of affectation; which would render them unfufferable. But, do our preachers, in general, beftow any thought, or ufe any means, of any kind, for improving themfelves in fpeaking? The younger part of the players rehearse, and practife over and over, many a time, and are long under the tuition of the principal actors before they appear in public. But there are, I believe, no other public fpeakers among us, who take fuch pains; though they be. flow great pains in improving themfelves in learning; which fhews, that the neglect of this accomplishment is more owing to to the want of a due fenfe of its usefulness, than to any other caufe. And yet, of the two, learning is much less neceffary to a preacher, than skill in perfuading. Quintilian makes this latter the fupreme excellence in his orator. Let the reader only confider, that a fhoemaker, or a taylor, is under a mafter feven years, at least, before he fets up for himfelf. But the preacher goes into the pulpit at once, without ever having had one lefon, or article of instruction in that part of his art, which is the chief and most weighty, and without which all his other accomplishments are worth nothing, toward gaining the end of preaching. It may be alledged, that the clergy cannot be expected to be great orators for fifty, or a hundred pounds a year, which poor pittance is as much as many hundreds, I may say, thousands, of them, have to maintain themselves and their families. The more is the pity. But there are many players who do not get more than the lower clergy. And yet they ftudy hard, for no greater encouragement, and actually acquire fuch skill in working upon the paffions of mankind, that, for my part, if I wanted to have a compofition of mine well spoken, I would put it into the hands of a fecond-rate player, rather than of any preacher I ever heard. What could be imagined more elegant, if entertainment alone were fought; what more useful, if the good of mankind were the object, than the facred function of preaching, properly performed? Were the most interesting of subjects treated with proper perfpicuity and adequate judgment, and well wrought difcourfes delivered to liftening crowds with that dignity which becomes a teacher of Divine truth, and with that energy, which fhould fhew, that the preacher spoke from his own heart, and meant to speak to the bearts of his hearers, what effects might not follow? Mankind are not wood, or ftone. They are undoubtedly capable of being roufed and Atartled. They may be drawn, and allured. The voice of an able preacher, thundering out the Divine threatenings against vice, would be in the ear of the offender as if he heard the found of the laft trumpet fummoning the dead to judgment. And the gentle call of mercy encouraging the terrified, and almost defpairing penitent to look up to his offended heavenly Father, would feem as the fong of angels. A whole multitude might be lifted to the fries. The world of fpirits might be opened to the eyes of their minds. The terrors of that punishment, which awaits vice; the glories of that state, to which virtue will, through Divine favour, raise the pious, might be, by a powerful preacher, rendered present to their understandings, with fuch conviction as would make indelible impreffions upon their hearts, and work a fubftantial reformation in their lives *. The convincing and irrefragable proof, that real and important effects might be produced by preachers, by a proper application of oratory to the purposes of inftructing and amending mankind, is, That oratory has been, in all times, known actually to produce great alterations in men's ways of thinking and acting. And there is no denying facts. To bring inftances of this in a copious manner, as the subject might deferve, would be to quote more hiftory than could be comprehended in fuch a volume as this. Nor can any reader imagine, an art could have been, in all free governments, fo laboriously cultivated by ftatefmen, had they not found it useful in the ftate. Do we not, in our own times, fee the effects produced by it in the British parliament? But if any one should allege, that there is nothing in the power of preachers by means of oratory, does it not follow, that then the whole function of preaching may as well be laid afide? For, if good speaking will have no effect upon mankind, furely bad will have none. Reafoning a priori, one would conclude, that we should fee both the ftudy, and the effects of oratory, carried to a pitch beyond what they reached in the ancient times of Heathenifm. Have we not the advantage of those noble models, which the ancients ftruck out by the mere force of natural unaffifted genius? Ought we not to exceed thofe models? But do we come up to them? Have we not incomparably clearer views of nature, and of all knowledge, than the antients had ? Have we not whole fciences of which they knew nothing? The Newtonian philofophy alone! to what fentiments does it lift the mind! How do the ideas, it gives us, of immenfity filled with innumerable worlds revolving round innumerable funs; thofe worlds themselves the centres of others fecondary to them; all attracting; all attracted; enlightening, or receiving light; at diftances unmeasurable, but all under one law!-how do thefe ideas tend to raise our conceptions of the Author of fuch a work! Ought not our productions to exceed theirs, who had no fuch helps to enrich and enliven their imaginations? But, above all, as much as the heavens Quintilian (INST. ORAT. L. vi. C. ii.) makes the knowledge and command of the pathetic, the main inftrument of perfuafion, which, according to him, is the great business of the orator. are are higher than the earth, fo much ought the views which revelation prefents us with, to ennoble all our productions above thofe of the antients, on which that glorious light never fhone! What had a Demofthenes, or a Cicero, to inspire fo divine an ardour into their addreffes to the people, compared with thofe fublime doctrines, which angels defire earnestly to pry into? If the poetical defcription of Jupiter fhaking heaven with his nod, warmed the imagination of a Phidias to such a pitch, as enabled him to produce the moft majeftic piece of ftatuary, that ever was beheld; and if the imagination of the author + of that poetical defcription was exalted by the scenes he saw, and the learning he acquired by travelling into Egypt, and other parts; how ought the genius of the Chriftian orator to be elevated, how ought both his compofitions, and his manner of delivering them, to fhine fuperior to all that antiquity ever faw; as he enjoys fuperior advantages for ennobling all his fentiments, and giving dignity and fpirit to all he composes, and utters! If we find a Plato, or a Cicero, whenever they touch upon the fublime doctrine of a future ftate, rise above themselves, warmed with-fhall I fay, the prospect? no-with the poffibility, or, at moft, with the hope of immortality; how animated ought our defcriptions to be, how forcible our manner of treating of what we pretend firmly to believe; of what we know the Author of our religion confirmed by actually rifing from the grave, triumphing gloriously over death, and afcending vifibly to heaven! Poor were the motives, and cold the encouragements, which they could offer, to excite their hearers to bravery and to virtue, compared with those which we have to propose. For, if they put them in mind of their country, their wives, their children, their aged and helplefs parents; if they called upon them to fhew themselves worthy defcendants of their illuftrious ancestors; if they roufed their fhame, or their fenfe of bonour; if they held forth the prize of deathlefs fame ; all these are as cogent arguments now, as they were then. What advantage our Chriftian orators have over them toward gaining their end of alarming, perfuading, and reforming mankind, appears from confidering how little chance we fhould have of producing any good effect upon a people ftrongly attached to pleasures, riches, and honours, by telling them, that, if they continued to pursue these their beloved objects by unlawful means, they might expect, after their • Gr. Εις ὁ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν αγγελοι παρακύψαι, 2 Pet. i. 17ο D 3 death. death, to be carried before Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Eacus, who would condemn their fouls to Tartarus, where the foul of Ixion was tied upon a wheel, and whirled about without reft; where Prometheus had his liver gnawed by a vulture, which grew again, as fast as it was devoured; and where Danaus's fifty daughters had a fet of barrels with holes in their bottoms to keep continually full to the top: and where all wicked fouls would be condemned to fome fuch punishment; but if, on the contrary, they would act the part of honeft and worthy men, and exert themselves to the hazard, and, perhaps, lofs of their lives, in defence of the liberties of their country, their fouls would be ordered, by the judges of the dead, to be placed in the Elyfian fields, where were pleafant greens, and lucid ftreams, and fragrant groves; and where they should amufe themselves with the innocent pleafures, which delighted them while here. Had our Chriftian orators no better motives to urge, than fuch as could be drawn from the confideration of certain imaginary rewards and punishments to be diftributed in a certain poffible, but doubtful future ftate, in fome unknown fubterranean region, it might be expected, that their zeal in urging them would be but cold, and the effects of their addreffes to the people, inconfiderable. But the ancient orators had no better motives, from futurity, than these which I have mentioned; and those they could draw from other confiderations were the fame, which we may ufe now. What accounts fhould we have had of the power with which they fpoke, and of the effects of their speeches, if they had the awful fubjects to treat of, and the advantages for treating of them with effect, which our preachers have! O fhame to modern times! A Pericles, or a Demosthenes, could shake all Greece, when they warned their countrymen against an invafion, or alarmed them about the danger of their liberties! Whilft we can hardly keep our hearers awake, when we ftand forth to warn them, in the name of God, against the confequences of vice, ruinous to individuals, ruinous to nations; the cause not only of the fubversion of ftates and kingdoms, when luxury, and corruption spread their fatal contagion, and leave a people the unthinking prey of tyranny and oppreffion; but of utter, irretrievable deftruction of the fouls and bodies of half a fpecies from the prefence of God, and from the glory of his power, at that tremendous day, when the trumpet fhall found, and the dead fhall be raised, and when he shall fit "Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leadeth to life, and "few there be who find it." Matt. vii, 13, upon |