In all his discourses on the subject, he as much as may be, carefully avoided _his own_ words, both in explaining, and enforcing its nature, extent, and the means of attaining thereto. He did it in the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, explaining those spiritual things, with spiritual words: (1 Corinthians ii. 13.) while in the mean time, his fervent and affecting manner of urging them, and indeed every other part of the doctrine of salvation, commanded, ―――“Audience and attention, still as night Or summers noon-tide air.” He had not, it must be acknowledged, at least he had but little made use of, the _art_ of preaching: not indeed that he was ignorant of such rules as, orators lay down for ordering, and conducting public discourses. His knowledge both of _Logic_ and _Rhetoric_ was far from being inconsiderable. He had both read, and in some good degree, digested the principles of both. But the eagerness with which he proceeded in his work; and the rapid flow of his soul, sending forth its _good matter_, not like the distilling of a water-pot, but as a plentiful shower from the heavens, watering deep and wide all around, did not suffer him to attend, with exactness, to such niceties in composition or delivery: nay, even prevented that moderation, as to the length, and manner of delivering his discourses, which would have been much more easy to himself, and to his audience, many of them being often in pain for him. *Yet afterwards, when the repeated advice of his friends, and the necessity of his constitution, obliged him to a more slow, and deliberate manner, some ascribed it to (what they called) his _want of power_; such is the folly and weakness of many, in their sentiments with regard to this particular! How common is it to imagine, that the presence and power of the Spirit of God, and that influence by which souls are awakened, justified, or built up in holiness, depends upon the loudness of the preacher’s voice, or the swiftness of his expression? In other words, upon the strength of a man’s lungs, and it may be, the assurance of his gesture and utterance. A sentiment not more strange to the truly wise, than it is common with many. As though noise, and animal activity should be dignified with the names of _spirit and power_, and the want of them ascribed to dryness, deadness and formality! Strictly speaking indeed, there is no _necessary_ divine power in any man’s _manner_ of speaking, whether loud or low, swiftly or softly. _It is the Spirit that quickeneth_, and as he pleaseth; and it may be questioned, whether effects that have been sometimes produced, by a loud, vehement, and overbearing manner of speaking, were not in great measure merely mechanical, if not of _Satan_ himself, to cast an odium upon the work of God. In truth the most substantial, genuine effects of the gospel ministry, arise from its delivery, not with noise and human vehemence, (which often rather calls off the mind from the