Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/371

 soon disgusted. If therefore these Inconveniences are, in a great Measure, avoided by Modern Preachers, their Sermons are, in their Kind, more perfect, though the Matter which both of them work upon be the same. And if these Things be the Effects of great Study, and of an exact Judgment, at least in those who contributed the most to so great an Alteration, then this also may come in as a proper Evidence of the Increase of Modern Learning; and with much more Reason than those Things which only tend to divert a Man when he is unfit for serious Business. Who those are who have succeeded the Hookers, the Chillingworths, the Sandersons, and the Hammonds of this last Age, to such excellent purpose for the present, and those that shall come after, I need not name; but shall rather conclude with that Saying in Velleius Paterculus, upon a not much unlike Occasion; Vivorum ut admiratio magna, ita censura difficilis est.

The last Thing which I mentioned as necessary for a Divine, is, To be able to answer such Objections as have been, or may be raised against the Christian Faith. Of the Controversies which