be ill taken, yet she is a woman as well as she; let her send her woman at least.

2. You shall pray, is the right way, because, according as the church is settled, no man may make a prayer in public of his own head.

3. It is not the original Common Prayer Book; why, show me an original Bible, or an original Magna Charta.

4. Admit the preacher prays by the spirit, yet that very prayer is common prayer to the people; they are tied as much to his words, as in saying, Almighty and most merciful Father. Is it then unlawful in the minister, but not unlawful in the people?

5. There were some mathematicians, that could with one fetch of their pen make an exact circle, and with the next touch point out the centre; is it therefore reasonable to banish all use of the compasses? Set forms are a pair of compasses.

6. God hath given gifts unto men. General texts prove nothing: let him show me John, William, or Thomas in the text, and then I will believe him. If a man hath a voluble tongue, we say, he hath the gift of prayer. His gift is to pray long, that I see; but does pray better?

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7. We take care what we speak to men, but to God we may say any thing.

8. The people must not think a thought towards God, but as their pastors will put it into their mouths: they will make right sheep of us.

9. The English priests would do that in English which the Romish do in Latin, keep the people in ignorance; but some of the people outdo them at their own game.

us.

10. Prayer should be short, without giving God Almighty reasons why he should grant this, or that; he knows best what is good for If your boy should ask you a suit of clothes, and give you reasons (otherwise he cannot wait upon you, he cannot go abroad but he shall discredit you) would you endure it? You know it better than he: let him ask a suit of clothes.

11. If a servant that has been fed with good beef, goes into that part of England where salmon is plenty, at first he is pleased with his salmon, and despises his beef, but after he has been there a while, he grows weary of his salmon, and wishes for his good beef again. We have awhile been much taken with this praying by the spirit, but in

time we may grow weary of it, and wish for our Common Prayer.

12. It is hoped we may be cured of our extemporary prayers the same way the grocer's boy is cured of his eating plums, when we have had our belly full of them.

PREACHING.

1. NOTHING is more mistaken than that speech, Preach the Gospel; for it is not to make long harangues, as they do now a-day's, but to tell the news of Christ's coming into the world; and when that is done, or where it is known already, the preacher's work is done.

2. Preaching, in the first sense of the word, ceased as soon as ever the gospels were

written.

3. When the preacher says, this is the meaning of the Holy Ghost in such a place, in sense he can mean no more than this, that is, I, by studying of the place, by comparing one place with another, by weighing what goes before, and what comes after, think this is the meaning of the Holy Ghost; and for shortness of expression I say, the Holy Ghost

says thus, or this is the meaning of the Spirit of God. So the judge speaks of the king's proclamation; this is the intention of the king, not that the king had declared his intention any other way to the judge; but the judge examining the contents of the proclamation, gathers by the purport of the words, the king's intention; and then for shortness of expression says, this is the king's intention.

4. Nothing is text but what was spoken in the Bible, and meant there for person and place; the rest is application, which a discreet man may do well; but it is his Scripture, not the Holy Ghost.

5. Preaching by the Spirit, as they call it, is most esteemed by the common people, because they cannot abide art or learning, which they have not been bred up in. Just as in the business of fencing; if one country fellow amongst the rest, has been at the school, the rest will undervalue his skill, or tell him he wants valour: You come with your school tricks-There is Dick Butcher has ten times more mettle in him. So they say to the preachers, You come with your school learning-There is such a one has the Spirit.

6. The tone in preaching does much in working upon the people's affections. If a

man should make love in an ordinary tone, his mistress would not regard him; and therefore he must whine. If a man should cry fire, or murder, in an ordinary voice, nobody would come out to help him.

7. Preachers will bring any thing into the

text. The young masters of arts preached against non-residency in the university; whereupon the heads made an order, that no man should meddle with any thing but what was in the text. The next day one preached upon these words, Abraham begat Isaac; when he had gone a good way, at last he observed, that Abraham was resident, for if he had been non-resident, he could never have begat Isaac; and so fell foul upon the non-residents.

8. I could never tell what often preaching meant, after a church is settled, and we know what is to be done; it is just as if a husbandman should once tell his servants what they are to do, when to sow, when to reap, and afterwards one should come and tell them twice or thrice a day what they know already. You must sow your wheat in October, you must reap your wheat in August, &c.

9. The main argument why they would have two sermons a day, is, because they