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. I shall say no more upon this subject, but this one thing, which relates to what was said a little before. He that has got a set of similitudes calculated according to the old philosophy, and PTOLEMY's system of the world, must burn his commonplace book, and go a-gleaning for new ones; it being, nowadays, much more gentle and warrantable to take a similitude from the Man in the Moon than from _solid_ orbs: for though few people do absolutely believe that there is any such Eminent Person there; yet the thing is possible, whereas the other is not. I have now done, Sir, with that imprudent way of speaking by Metaphor and Simile. There are many other things commonly spoken out of the pulpit, that are much to the disadvantage and discredit of the Clergy; that ought also to be briefly hinted. And that I may the better light upon them, I shall observe their _common method of Preaching_. [1.] Before the text be divided, a _Preface_ is to be made. And it is a great chance if, first of all, the Minister does not make his text to be _like something or other_. For example. One, he tells you, "And now, methinks, my Text, like an ingenious [_clever_] Picture, looks upon all here present: in which, both nobles and people, may behold their sin and danger represented." This was a text out of _Hosea_. Now, had it been out of any other place of the _Bible_; the gentleman was sufficiently resolved to make it like "an ingenious Picture." Another taking, perhaps, the very same words, says, "I might compare my Text to the mountains of Bether, where the LORD disports Himself like a young hart or a pleasant roe among the spices." Another man's Text is "like the rod of MOSES, to divide the waves of sorrow"; or "like the mantle of ELIJAH, to restrain the swelling floods of grief." Another gets to his Text thus, "As SOLOMON went up six steps to come to the great Throne of Ivory, so must I ascend six degrees to come to the high top-meaning of my Text."