UL, 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.

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