In an ordination sermon he warned the aspirant student against the fault which would most easily beset him: "Do not say within yourself, how much or how elegantly I can talk upon such a text; but what can I say most usefully to those who hear me, for the instruction of their minds, for the correction of their consciences, and for the persuasion of their hearts. Be not fond of displaying your learned criticisms in clearing up the terms and phrases of a text, when scholars only can be edified by them; nor spend away the precious moments of the congregation, in making them hear you explain what is clear enough before, and hath no need of explaining; nor in proving that which is so obvious that it needs no proof. This is little better than trifling with God and man. Think not, how can I make a sermon correct and earnest, but how I can make the most profitable sermon for my hearers: :—not what fine things I can say, either in a way of criticism or philosophy, or in a way of oratory or harangue; but what powerful words I can speak to impress the consciences of those that hear with a serious and lasting sense of moral, divine and eternal things. Judge wisely what to leave out, as well as what .o speak. Let not your chief design be to work up a sheet, or to hold out an hour, but to save a soul.” In another part of the same exhortation, he says, "Get the substance of your sermon which you have prepared for the pulpit, so wrought into

your head and heart, by reason and meditation, that you may have it at command, and speak to your hearers with freedom; not as if you were reading or repeating your lesson to them, but as a man sent to teach and persuade them to faith and holiness. Deliver your discourses to the people like a man that is talking to them in good earnest about their most important concerns, and their everlasting welfare — like a messenger sem from heaven, who would fain save sinners from hell, and allure souls to God and happiness. Do not indulge that lazy way of reading over your prepared paper, as a schoolboy does an oration out of Livy or Cicero, who has no concern in the things he speaks. But let all the warmest zeal for God, and compassion for perishing men, animate your voice and countenance; and let the people see and feel, as well as hear, that you are speaking to them about things of infinite moment, and on which your own eternal interest lies as well as theirs.

'If you pray and hope for the assistance of the Spirit of God in every part of your works, do not resolve always to confine yourself precisely to the mere words and sentences which you have written down in your private preparations. Far be it from me to encourage a preacher to venture into public work without due preparation by study, and a regular composure of his discourse. We must not serve God with what cost us nothing.

All our wisest thoughts and cares are due to the sacred service of the temple. But what I mean is, that we should not impose upon ourselves just such a number of precomposed words and lines to be delivered in the hour, without daring to speak a warm sentiment that comes fresh upon the mind. Why may you not hope for some livėly turns of thought, some new pious sentiments which may strike light and heat and life into the understandings and hearts of those that hear you? In the zeal of your ministrations, why may you not expect some bright and warm and pathetic forms of argument and persuasion to offer themselves to your lips, for the more powerful conviction of sinners, and the encouragement and comfort of humble Christians? Have you not often found such an enlargement of thought, such a variety of sentiment and freedom of speech, in common conversation upon an important subject, beyond what you were apprised of beforehand? And why should you forbid yourself this natural advantage in the pulpit, and in the fervour of sacred ministrations, when also you have more reason to hope for divine assistance?"

Whitefield appears to have followed Dr. Watts's advice in this respect, and to have owed to it, in great measure, his extraordinary success as a preacher; for in his printed sermons there are none of those sparks of fancy or flashes of imagination, none of those bursts of oratory, none of

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that eloquence, true or false, with which he is known to have enlivened what in the dead letter every reader feels to be poor and dull discourses. Watts himself preached upon the plan which he advised; he wrote, it is said, and committed to memory the leading features of his cursory sermons; the rest he trusted to his extemporary power and the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit. But it is not likely that, as in Whitefield's case, the better portion of Watts's sermons (if the extemporaneous parts were the better) has evaporated. He prepared them for the press as well as for the pulpit: much therefore of what had been introduced in delivery, his own memory, we may be sure, would retain; and as the practice of taking notes from a distinguished preacher was at that time not unusual, it is probable that in this way, by which so many of Owen's sermons were preserved by Sir John Hartopp, his recollection may have been assisted.

Dr. Johnson has observed that "his low stature, which very little exceeded five feet, graced him with no advantage of appearance in the pulpit;" but the pulpit is a place in which that defect could entirely be supplied, and where the feebleness of his form and figure would be least perceived, while his benign countenance, and strong eye, and animated manner, produced their full effect. His friend, Dr. Gibbons, once asked him if he did not sometimes find himself too much awed by his

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auditory; he replied, that when such a gentleman of eminent abilities and learning had come into the assembly and taken his eye, he felt something like a momentary tremour; but that he recovered himself by remembering what God said to the prophet Jeremiah, 'Be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.' It was little likely that he should be confounded, deservedly popular as he was in his own sphere, and properly conscious of his own power, and carefully as he had studied both the arts of composition and delivery. "I once mentioned," says Dr. Johnson, "the reputation which Mr. Foster had gained by his proper delivery to my friend Dr. Hawkesworth, who told me, that in the art of pronunciation he was far inferior to Dr. Watts." The correctness of his pronunciation, and the elegance of his diction, are said to have contributed greatly to his uncommon popularity as a preacher. It was doubtless as much from feeling, as for the sake of oratorical effect, that he always paused at the conclusion of any weighty sentence; this gave a solemnity to his words, and allowed time for the impression to be deeply and strongly fixed.

1 Some curious instances of the change to which this is subject appear in Dr. Watts's "Table of proper Names written very different from the Pronunciation;" whereby it appears that Esther was in his time pronounced Eastur, Sarab Sarey, St. Paul's Church, Pole's, and Guildhall, Eelhall