B. I. certain end. Paffion is for the most part but the means employed for effecting the end, and therefore, like all other means, will no further be regarded in any cafe, than it can be rendered conducible to the end.

Now the preacher's advantage even here, in point of facility, at leaft in feveral fituations, will not appear, on reflection, to be fo great, as on a fuperficial view it may be thought. Let it be observed, that in fuch congregations as was fuppofed, there is a mixture of fuperior and inferior ranks. It is therefore the business of the fpeaker, fo far only to accommodate himself to one clafs, as not wantonly to difguft another. Befides, it will fcarcely be denied, that those in the fuperior walks of life, however much by reading and converfation improved in all genteel accomplishments, often have as much need of religious inftruction and moral improvement, as thofe who in every other particular are acknowledged to be their inferiors. And doubtlefs the reformation of fuch will be allowed to be, in one respect, of greater importance, (and therefore never to be overlooked) that, in confequence of fuch an event,, more good may redound to others, from the more extenfive influence of their authority and example.

SEG

SECTION III.

In regard to the Subject.

THE third particular mentioned was the fubject of difcourfe. This may be confidered in a twofold view; firft, as implying the topics of argument, motives, and principles, which are fuited to each of the different kinds, and muft be employed in order to produce the intended effect on the hearers; fecondly, as implying the perfons or things in whofe favour, or to whofe prejudice, the fpeaker purposes to excite the paffions of the audience, and thereby to influence their determinations.

ON the first of thefe articles, I acknowledge the preacher hath incomparably the advantage

of every other public orator. At the bar, critical explications of dark and ambiguous ftatutes, quotations of precedents fometimes contradictory, and comments on jarring decifions and reports, often neceffarily confume the greater part of the speaker's time. Hence the mixture of a fort of metaphyfics and verbal criticism, employed by lawyers in their pleadings, hath come to be distinguished by the name chicane, a fpecies of reasoning too abftrufe to command attention of any continuece eyen from the ftudious, and

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confe

confequently not very favourable to the powers of rhetoric. When the argument doth not turn on the common law, or on nice and hypercritical explications of the ftatute, but on the great principles of natural right and juftice, as fometimes happens, particularly in criminal cafes, the speaker is much more advantageously fituated for exhibiting his rhetorical talents, than in the former cafe. When, in confequence of the imperfection of the evidence, the queftion happens to be more a question of fact, than either of municipal law, or of natural equity, the pleader hath more advantages than in the firft cafe, and fewer than in the fecond.

AGAIN, in the deliberations in the fenate, the utility or the disadvantages that will probably follow on a measure propofed, if it should receive the fanction of the legislature, conftitute the principal topics of debate. This, though it fometimes leads to a kind of reafoning rather too complex and involved for ordinary apprehenfion, is in the main more favourable to the difplay of pathos, vehemence, and fublimity, than the much greater part of forenfic caufes can be faid to be. That these qualities have been fometimes found in a very high degree in the orations pronounced in the British fenate, is a fact unntrovertible.

BUT

BUT beyond all queftion, the preacher's fubject of argument, confidered in itself, is infinitely more lofty and more affecting. The doctrines of religion are fuch as relate to God, the adorable Creator and Ruler of the world, his attributes, government, and laws. What fcience to be compared with it in fublimity! It teaches alfo the origin of man, his primitive dignity, the fource of his degeneracy, the means of his recovery, the eternal happiness that awaits the good, and the future mifery of the impenitent. Is there any kind of knowledge, in which human creatures are fo deeply interested! In a word, whether we confider the doctrines of religion or its documents, the examples it holds forth to our imitation, or its motives, promises, and threatenings, we fee on every hand a fubject that gives scope for the exertion of all the highest powers of rhetoric. What are the fanctions of any human laws, compared with the fanctions of the divine law, with which we are brought acquainted by the gospel? Or where fhall we find inftructions, fimilitudes, and examples, that speak fo directly to the heart, as the parables and other divine leffons of our bleffed Lord?

In regard to the fecond thing which I took notice of as included under the general term subject, namely,

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namely, the perfons or things in whofe favour, or to whofe prejudice the fpeaker intends to excite the paffions of the audience, and thereby to influence their determinations, the other two have commonly the advantage of the preacher. The reafon is, that his fubject is generally things; theirs, on the contrary, is perfons. In what regards the painful paffions, indignation, hatred, contempt, abhorrence, this difference invariably obtains. The preacher's bufinefs is folely to excite your deteftation of the crime, the pleader's bufinefs is principally to make you deteft the criminal. The former paints vice to you in all its odious colours, the latter paints the vicious. There is a degree of abftraction, and confequently a much greater degree of attention requifite, to enable us to form juft conceptions of the ideas and fentiments of the former; whereas, thofe of the latter, referring to an actual, perhaps a living, prefent, and well-known fubject, are much more level to common capacity, and therefore not only are more eafily apprehended by the underftanding, but take a fironger hold of the imagination. It would have been impoffible even for Cicero, to inflame the minds of the people to fo high a pitch against oppreffion confidered in the abstract, as he actually did inflame them

against