been solicitous not to provoke it, or to lay any unnecessary difficulties either in your way, or in my own. Many persons, whose good sense and liberal education exempt or free them from prejudices of other kinds, are frequently almost as much under the power of religious prejudices as the vulgar. We lament this more than we wonder at it. The reason is obvious. In temporal concerns they examine and judge for themselves. But in religious matters, they are content to let others judge for them, and (if I may so speak) to swim with the stream of a prevailing opinion. To this cause I must ascribe some of the exceptions that are taken to my ministry. In almost every age and country where Christi. anity has been professed, some hard name or term of reproach has been imposed upon those who ventured to maintain a more evangelical strain of doctrine, or a stricter course of conduct, than was agreeable to the spirit of the times in which they lived. Even the Christian name, honourable as we may now think it, was used by the heathens, when it first obtained, as a stigma, a term of the utmost contempt and hatred; and Christians were, by common consent, reputed the off-scouring, and filth of all things, 1 Cor. iv. 13. In a like reproachful sense the names of Lollards and Gospellers were applied, by the papists, to those whom God honoured as his instruments in freeing our fore-fathers from the shackles of popery, by introducing that light of truth which issued in the reformation. Men of the same spirit were afterwards branded in protestant nations with the terms Pietist and Puritan. Of late years the name of Methodist has been imposed as a mark and vehicle of reproach. I have not hitherto met with a person who could give me a definition or precise idea of what is generally intended by this formidable word, by those who use it to express their disapprobation. Till I do, I am at a loss whether to confess or deny that I am (what some account me) a methodist. If it be supposed to include any thing, whether in principle or conduct, unsuitable to the character of a regular minister of the church of England, I may, and I do, disown it. And yet it is probable, that some of my parishioners hearing, and easily taking it for granted, that I am a methodist, think it a sufficient proof that it cannot be worth their while to hear me. That I may not disgust and weary my hearers by the length of my sermons, I carefully endeavour not to exceed three quarters of an hour, at those seasons when I have most reason to hope for the presence of my parishioners. At other times I allow myself a longer term; but even this, I understand, is thought too long. If I considered my preaching only as a customary appendage, without which I could not, with a good grace, collect my dues, we should not long differ upon this point. So far as brevity would be pleasing, it would cost me little trouble to please. But if the proper ends of preaching are to instruct, to admonish, to exhort, and to persuade; if the great truths of Scripture are to be explained, illustrated, and applied; if the various known or probable states and cases of the several persons who compose our auditories are to be attended to; in a word, if, as a preacher, I am conscientiously to endeavour to save myself and them that hear me; 1 Tim. iv. 16. then I confess I know not how to answer these ends, were I to limit myself to a much shorter space than I do. And sometimes, when my heart has been deeply impressed with a sense of the worth of souls, the brevity and uncertainty of life, and the solemnity of that hour when both preachers and hearers must give an account of themselves to God, I have, perhaps, in defiance of my previous determi. nation, been constrained to exceed it a few minutes, though but seldom. I am persuaded you are mistaken, when you think the length of my discourses is the cause of your dissatisfaction. It is not so much the length, as the subject-matter that wearies you. It is possible I could, if I durst, preach a sermon, which, though it exceeded three quarters of an hour, you would not think too long. Many persons can afford their attention for several hours to pleaders at the bar, or to speakers in parliament, without weariness, whose patience is quickly exhausted under a sermon, where the principles of Scripture are plainly enforced, and a faithful application of them is addressed to the conscience. I mean not to vie with the public speakers you admire. I lay no claim to the honour of an orator, nor do I expect, or even wish, to engage your attention by the elegance and modulation of my periods. If I possessed abilities of this kind, I must decline the use of them. I must speak to the unlearned as well as to the wise, and therefore my principal aim is to be understood. Yet I would hope I am not justly chargeable with speaking nonsense, or expressing myself with a levity or carelessness unsuitable to the pulpit, or disrespectful to the auditory. But, alas! there are too many hearers, who seem more desirous of entertainment, than of real benefit from a sermon! They do not act thus in the affairs of common life. Were they to consult a physician or a lawyer, they would not be content with having their opinion upon a point of law, or a case of medicine in which they themselves had no personal concern. It is their own case they expect should be considered. But when they come church, if the discourse be ingenious, and the elocution of the preacher agreeable, it suffices; and the less the subject comes home to their personal con cernment, the more (in general) they are pleased with it. That is, they are disposed to be pleased with the preacher, if he says nothing to make them displeased with themselves. This Another objection which I must likewise treat as a prejudice is, that I am an extempore preacher. The practice of reading sermons to a public assembly, has been hitherto peculiar to the English nation. Bishop Burnet observes, that it took its rise soon after the dawn of the reformation amongst us. Latimer and other great men, whose names, now they are dead, are mentioned with some respect, were, when living, treated by many as if they had been methodists. They were contemptuously styled Gospellers, and preaching in unquiet times, when there were insurrections in different parts of the kingdom, they were traduced as our Saviour and his apostles had been before them, and charged with having a design to foment sedition by their sermons. was done with a view of awakening the suspicion and distrust of Henry VIII. against them, who was a prince sufficiently jealous of his authority. The preachers not only disavowed the charge, but were led to write their discourses, that they might, if necessary, confute their slanderers, by producing what they had actually delivered. The like accusations, and the like suspicions, in some succeeding reigns, rendered the same precaution expedient. At length the custom became general and established. In most, if not in all other parts of Christendom, a man who should attempt to read his sermon from the pulpit, would find but few hearers; he would be judged disqualified for the office of a preacher by his own confession. Insomuch that they who after having previously considered their subject, are not able to speak upon it with some degree of readiness, are obliged not only to write their sermons, but to subVol. II. A a mit to the burdensome task of committing them to memory; for reading them would not be endured. With us, on the contrary, the prejudice in favour of reading is so strong, that many people can form no expectation of sense, argument, or coherence, from a man who preaches without a book. They will require little more proof of its being unworthy of their notice, than to be told he is an extempore speaker. Here again, in the concerns of common life, they judge and act otherwise. There is little doubt but the theatres would soon be much less frequented, if the performers were to appear with books in their hands, and each one to read his respective part. And perhaps the theatre is the only place where a public speaker would be much admired, if it were known that he spoke neither more nor less than he had previously determined to say. In parliamentary debates, and in pleadings in our courts of justice, the occurrence of unexpected replies and objections, and other new circumstances, renders it necessary that a man should be so far master of his subject and his thoughts, as to be able to accommodate himself to those sudden turns, which often lead him into a train of discussions and arguments, which could not be premeditated, because the occasions could not be foreseen. If this habit and facility of speaking offhand, and applying principles of general knowledge to particular subjects and incidents as they offer, be allowed, approved, and even required in other public speakers, why should it be supposed that the preacher is the only person who cannot, or must not, express his thoughts, but in that order, and in those words, in which he has previously written them? Is not Divinity a subject sufficiently copious? Are not the topics which the Scriptures afford, well suited by their importance, certainty, and authority, to awaken the strongest emotions, and to draw forth the |