As I said before, the good preacher should adopt no model, write no sermons, study no periods; let him but understand his subject, the language he speaks, and be convinced of the truths he delivers. It is amazing to what heights eloquence of this kind may reach! This is that eloquence the ancients represented as lightning, bearing down every opposer; this the power which has turned whole assemblies into astonishment, admiration, and awe, that is described by the torrent, the flame, and every other instance of irresistible impetuosity.

But to attempt such noble heights belongs only to the truly great, or the truly good. To discard the lazy manner of reading sermons, or speaking sermons by rote; to set up singly against the opposition of men, who are attached to their own errors, and to endeavour to be great instead of being prudent, are qualities we seldom see united. A minister of the church of England, who may be possessed of good sense and some hopes of preferment, will seldom give up such substantial advantages for the empty pleasure of improving society. By his present method he is liked by his friends, admired by his dependants, not displeasing to his bishop; he lives as well, eats and sleeps as well, as if

a real orator, and an eager assertor of his mission; he will hardly therefore venture all this to be called perhaps an enthusiast; nor will he depart from customs established by the brotherhood, when, by such a conduct he only singles himself out for their contempt.

CUSTOM AND LAWS COMPARED.

WHAT, say some, can give us a more contemptible idea of a large state than to find it mostly governed by custom; to have few written laws, and no boundaries to mark the jurisdiction between the senate and people? Among the number who speak in this manner is the great Montesquieu, who asserts that every nation is free in proportion to the number of its written laws; and seems to hint at a despotic and arbitrary conduct in the present king of Prussia, who has abridged the laws of his country into a very short compass.

As Tacitus and Montesquieu happen to differ in sentiment upon a subject of so much importance, (for the Roman expressly asserts, that the state is generally vicious in

proportion to the number of its laws); it will not be amiss to examine it a little more minutely, and see whether a state which, like England, is burthened with a multiplicity of written laws, or which, like Switzerland, Geneva, and some other republics, is governed by custom and the determination of the judge, is best.

And to prove the superiority of custom to written law, we shall at least find history conspiring. Custom, or the traditional observance of the practice of their forefathers, was what directed the Romans as well in their public as private determinations. Custom was appealed to in pronouncing sentence against a criminal, where part of the formulary was more majorum. So Sallust, speaking of the expulsion of Tarquin, says, mutato more, and not lege mutatâ; and Virgil, pacisque imponere morem. So that in those

times of the empire in which the people retained their liberty, they were governed by custom; when they sunk into oppression and tyranny, they were restrained by new laws, and the laws of tradition abolished.

As getting the ancients on our side is half a victory, it will not be amiss to fortify the argument with an observation of Chrysostom's: "That the enslaved are the fittest to

be governed by laws, and free men by custom." Custom partakes of the nature of parental injunction; it is kept by the people. themselves, and observed with a willing obedience. The observance of it must therefore be a mark of freedom, and coming originally to a state from the reverenced founders of its liberty, will be an encouragement and assistance to it in the defence of that blessing; but a conquered people, a nation of slaves, must pretend to none of this freedom, or these happy distinctions; having, by degeneracy, lost all right to their brave forefather's free institutions, their masters will, in a policy, take the forfeiture; and the fixing a conquest must be done by giving laws, which may every moment serve to remind the people enslaved, of their conquerors, nothing being more dangerous than to trust a late-subdued people with old customs, that presently upbraid their degeneracy, and provoke them to revolt.

The wisdom of the Roman republic, in their veneration for custom, and backwardness to introduce a new law, was perhaps the cause of their long continuance, and of the virtues of which they have set the world so many examples. But to show in what that wisdom consists, it may be proper to

observe, that the benefit of new-written laws is merely confined to the consequences of their observance; but customary laws, keeping up a veneraion for the founders, engage men in the imitation of their virtues as well as policy. To this may be ascribed the religious regard the Romans paid to their forefathers' memory, and their adhering for so many ages to the practice of the same virtues, which nothing contributed more to efface than the introduction of a voluminous body of new laws over the neck of venerable custom.

The simplicity, conciseness, and antiquity of custom, gives an air of majesty and immutability that inspires awe and veneration; but new laws are too apt to be voluminous, perplexed, and indeterminate; whence must necessarily arise neglect, contempt, and ig

norance.

As every human institution is subject to gross imperfections, so laws must necessarily be liable to the same inconveniences, and their defects soon discovered. Thus, through the weakness of one part, all the rest are liable to be brought into contempt. But such weaknesses in a custom, for very obvious reasons, evade an examination; besides, a friendly prejudice always stands up in their favour.