But I shall not trouble you any further upon this subject: but, if you have a mind to hear any more of this stuff, I shall refer you to the learned and judicious Author of the Friendly Debates [i.e., SIMON PATRICK, afterwards Bishop of ELY, who wrote A Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist, in two parts, 1669]: who, particularly, has at large discovered the intolerable fooleries of this way of talking.
I shall only add thus much, that such as go about to fetch blood into their pale and lean discourses, by the help of their brisk and sparkling similitudes, ought well to consider, Whether their similitudes be true?
I am confident, Sir, you have heard it, many and many a time, or, if need be, I can shew you it in a book, that when the preacher happens to talk how that the things here below will not satisfy the mind of man; then comes in, "the round world which cannot fill the triangular heart of man!" whereas every butcher knows that the heart is no more triangular than an ordinary pear, or a child's top. But because triangular is a hard word, and perhaps a jest! therefore people have stolen it one from another, these two or three hundred years; and, for aught I know, much longer! for I cannot direct to the first inventor of the fancy.
In like manner, they are to consider, What things, either in the heavens or belonging to the earth, have been found out, by experience, to contradict what has been formerly allowed of?
Thus, because some ancient astronomers had observed that both the distances as well as the revolutions of the planets were in some proportion or harmony one to another: therefore people that abounded with more imagination than skill, presently fancied the Moon, Mercury, and Venus to be a kind of violins or trebles to Jupiter or Saturn; that the Sun and Mars supplied the room of tenors, and the Primum Mobile running Division all the tune. So that one could scarce hear a sermon, but they must give you a touch of "the Harmony of the Spheres."
Thus, Sir, you shall have them take that of St. PAUL, about "faith, hope, and charity." And instead of a sober instructing of the people in those eminent and excellent graces, they shall only ring you over a few changes upon the three words; crying, "Faith! Hope! and Charity!" "Hope! Faith! and Charity!" and so on: and when they have done their peal, they shall tell you that "this is much better than the Harmony of the Spheres!"
At other times, I have heard a long chiming only between two words; as suppose Divinity and Philosophy, or Revelation and Reason. Setting forth with Revelation first. "Revelation is a Lady; Reason, an Handmaid! Revelation is the Esquire; Reason, the Page! Revelation is the Sun; Reason, but the Moon! Revelation is Manna; Reason is but an acorn! Revelation, a wedge of gold; Reason, a small piece of silver!"
Then, by and by, Reason gets it, and leads it away, "Reason indeed is very good, but Revelation is much better! Reason is a Councillor, but Revelation is the Lawgiver! Reason is a candle, but Revelation is the snuffer!"
Certainly, those people are possessed with a very great degree of dulness, who living under the means of such enlightening preaching, should not be mightily settled in the right notion and true bounds of Faith and Reason.
No less ably, methought, was the difference between the Old Covenant and the New, lately determined. "The Old Covenant was of Works; the New Covenant, of Faith. The Old Covenant was by MOSES; The New, by CHRIST. The Old was heretofore; the New, afterwards. The Old was first; the New was second. Old things are passed away: behold, all things are become new." And so the business was very fundamentally done.