truth and virtue, we may impress it for that service; and
good it were to rescue so worthy a faculty from so vile abuse. It
is the right of reason and piety to command that and all other
endowments; folly and impiety do only usurp them. Just and fit
therefore it is to wrest them out of so bad hands, to revoke them to
their right use and duty.

It doth especially seem requisite to do it in this age, wherein
plain reason is deemed a dull and heavy thing. When the mental
appetite of men is become like the corporal, and cannot relish any
food without some piquant sauce, so that people will rather starve
than live on solid fare; when substantial and sound discourse
findeth small attention or acceptance; in such a time, he that can,
may in complaisance, and for fashion's sake, vouchsafe to be
facetious; an ingenious vein coupled with an honest mind may be a
good talent; he shall employ wit commendably who by it can further
the interests of goodness, alluring men first to listen, then
inducing them to consent unto its wholesome dictates and precepts.

Since men are so irreclaimably disposed to mirth and laughter, it
may be well to set them in the right pin, to divert their humour
into the proper channel, that they may please themselves in deriding
things which deserve it, ceasing to laugh at that which requireth
reverence or horror.

It may also be expedient to put the world out of conceit that all
sober and good men are a sort of such lumpish or sour people that
they can utter nothing but flat and drowsy stuff, by showing them
that such persons, when they see cause, in condescension, can be as
brisk and smart as themselves; when they please, can speak
pleasantly and wittily, as well as gravely and judiciously. This
way at least, in respect to the various palates of men, may for
variety sake be sometimes attempted, when other means do fail; when
many strict and subtle arguings, many zealous declamations, many
wholesome serious discourses have been spent, without effecting the
extirpation of bad principles, or conversion of those who abet them;
this course may be tried, and some perhaps may be reclaimed thereby.

7. Furthermore, the warrantableness of this practice in some cases
may be inferred from a parity of reason, in this manner. If it be
lawful (as by the best authorities it plainly doth appear to be), in
using rhetorical schemes, poetical strains, involutions of sense in
alle