for CHRIST keeps
within the Tropics! He goes not out of the Pale of the Church;
but yet he is not always at the same distance from a believer.
Sometimes he withdraws himself into the _apogaeum_ of doubt,
sorrow, and despair; but then he comes again into the _perigaeum_
of joy, content, and assurance; but as for heathens and
unbelievers, they are all arctic and antarctic reprobates!

Now when such stuff as this, as sometimes it is, is vented in a poor
parish, where people can scarce tell, what day of the month it is by the
Almanack? how seasonable and savoury it is likely to be!

It seems also not very easy for a man in his sermon to learn [_teach_]
his parishioners how to dissolve gold, of what, and how the stuff is
made. Now, to ring the bells and call the people on purpose together,
would be but a blunt business; but to do it neatly, and when nobody
looked for it, that is the rarity and art of it!

Suppose, then, that he takes for his text that of _St. Matthew_,

"Repent ye, for the Kingdom of GOD is at hand." Now, tell me,
Sir, do you not perceive the gold to be in a dismal fear! to curl
and quiver at the first reading of these words! It must come in
thus, "The blots and blurs of our sins must be taken out by the
_aqua-fortis_ of our tears; to which _aqua-fortis_, if you put a
fifth part of _sal-ammoniac_, and set them in a gentle heat, it
makes _aqua-regia_ which dissolves gold."

And now it is out! Wonderful are the things that are to be done by the
help of metaphors and similitudes! And I will undertake that, with a
little more pains and considerations, out of the very same words, he
could have taught the people how to make custards, or marmalade, or to
stew prunes!

But, pray, why "the _aqua-fortis_ of tears?" For if it so falls out that
there should chance to be neither Apothecary, nor Druggist at church,
there is an excellent jest wholly lost!

Now had he been so considerate as to have laid his wit in some more
common and intelligible material; for example, had he said the "blots of
sin" will be easily taken out "by the soap of sorrow, and the
fullers-earth of contrition," then possibly the Parson and the parish
might all have admired one another. For there be many a good-wife that
understands very well all the intrigues of pepper, salt, and vinegar, who
knows not anything of the all-powerfulness of _aqua-fortis_, how that it
is such a spot-removing l