Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/368

 particular Circumstances of the Person who desires Satisfaction; and also may be perfectly agreeable to the Law of God. A Preacher then seems to perform his Office best, when he can at once instruct and move his Auditors; can raise their Passions, and inform their Judgment: That so every Sermon upon a Doctrinal Head may contain the Solution of a Case of Conscience. For the first of these; It is certain that many of the ablest of the Ancient Fathers were very excellent Casuists; as, indeed, every Man who has a right Judgment, an honest Mind, and a thorough Acquaintance with the Design of our Blessed Saviour, revealed in the Gospel, must of necessity be. And if, at this distance, many of their Decisions seem over-severe, there is as great, at least, if not greater Reason to suspect, that the Complaints now-a-days raised against them, may arise from our Degeneracy, as from their unwarrantable Strictness. But for the Ancient Way of Preaching, there is much more to be said. The great Handle by which an Hearer is enabled to carry along with him a Preacher's Arguments, is, Method and Order. Herein the Ancient Homilists are very defective: Flights of Rhetorick, which are more or less judiciously applied, ac-