Three Sermons and Prayers | Page 6

wit and deep understanding to
stay at home on Sundays. Others again discover strange fits of laziness,

that seize them particularly on that day, and confine them to their beds.
Others are absent out of mere contempt of religion. And lastly, there
are not a few who look upon it as a day of rest, and therefore claim the
privilege of their cattle, to keep the Sabbath by eating, drinking, and
sleeping, after the toil and labour of the week. Now in all this, the worst
circumstance is that these persons are such whose company is most
required, and who stand most in need of a physician.
Secondly, Men's great neglect and contempt of preaching appear by
their misbehaviour when at church.
If the audience were to be ranked under several heads, according to
their behaviour when the Word of God is delivered, how small a
number would appear of those who receive it as they ought! How much
of the seed then sown would be found to fall by the wayside, upon
stony ground, or among thorns! and how little good ground would there
be to take it! A preacher cannot look round from the pulpit without
observing that some are in a perpetual whisper, and by their air and
gesture give occasion to suspect that they are in those very minutes
defaming their neighbour. Others have their eyes and imagination
constantly engaged in such a circle of objects, perhaps to gratify the
most unwarrantable desires, that they never once attend to the business
of the place; the sound of the preacher's words do not so much as once
interrupt them. Some have their minds wandering among idle, worldly,
or vicious thoughts; some lie at catch to ridicule whatever they hear,
and with much wit and humour, provide a stock of laughter by
furnishing themselves from the pulpit. But of all misbehaviour, none is
comparable to that of those who come here to sleep. Opium is not so
stupefying to many persons as an afternoon sermon. Perpetual custom
hath so brought it about that the words of whatever preacher become
only a sort of uniform sound at a distance, than which nothing is more
effectual to lull the senses. For that it is the very sound of the sermon
which bindeth up their faculties is manifest from hence, because they
all awake so very regularly as soon as it ceaseth, and with much
devotion receive the blessing, dozed and besotted with indecencies I am
ashamed to repeat.

I proceed, secondly, to reckon up some of the usual quarrels men have
against preaching, and to show the unreasonableness of them.
Such unwarrantable behaviour as I have described among Christians in
the house of God in a solemn assembly, while their faith and duty are
explained and delivered, have put those who are guilty upon inventing
some excuses to extenuate their fault; this they do by turning the blame
either upon the particular preacher or upon preaching in general. First,
they object against the particular preacher: his manner, his delivery, his
voice, are disagreeable; his style and expression are flat and slow,
sometimes improper and absurd; the matter is heavy, trivial, and insipid,
sometimes despicable and perfectly ridiculous; or else, on the other
side, he runs up into unintelligible speculation, empty notions, and
abstracted flights, all clad in words above usual understandings.
Secondly, They object against preaching in general. It is a perfect road
of talk; they know already whatever can be said; they have heard the
same a hundred times over. They quarrel that preachers do not relieve
an old beaten subject with wit and invention, and that now the art is lost
of moving men's passions, so common among the ancient orators of
Greece and Rome. These and the like objections are frequently in the
mouths of men who despise the foolishness of preaching. But let us
examine the reasonableness of them.
The doctrine delivered by all preachers is the same: "So we preach, and
so ye believe." But the manner of delivering is suited to the skill and
abilities of each, which differ in preachers just as in the rest of mankind.
However, in personal dislikes of a particular preacher, are these men
sure they are always in the right? Do they consider how mixed a thing
is every audience, whose taste and judgment differ, perhaps, every day,
not only from each other, but themselves? And how to calculate a
discourse that shall exactly suit them all, is beyond the force and reach
of human reason, knowledge, or invention. Wit and eloquence are
shining qualities that God hath imparted in great degrees to very few,
nor any more to be expected in the generality of any rank among men
than riches and honour. But further, if preaching in general be