two extreme syllables, making a kind of pentameter, the word consisting
of five letters: and this intermedial S being in the Hebrew alphabet
called sin, which in the English language signifies what the Latins term
_peecatum_, was urged to imply that the holy Jesus should purify us
from all sin and wickedness. Thus did the pulpiteer cant, while all the
congregation, especially the brotherhood of divines, were so surprised
at his odd way of preaching, that wonder served them, as grief did
Niobe, almost turned them into stones. I among the rest (as Horace
describes Priapus viewing the enchantments of the two sorceresses,
Canidia and Sagane) could no longer contain, but let fly a cracking
report of the operation it had upon me. These impertinent introductions
are not without reason condemned; for of old, whenever Demosthenes among
the Greeks, or Tully among the Latins, began their orations with so
great a digression from the matter in hand, it was always looked upon
as improper and unelegant, and indeed, were such a long-fetched exordium
any token of a good invention, shepherds and ploughmen might lay claim
to the title of men of greatest parts, since upon any argument it is
easiest for them to talk what is least to the purpose. These preachers
think their preamble (as we may well term it), to be the most
fashionable, when it is farthest from the subject they propose to treat
of, while each auditor sits and wonders what they drive at, and many
times mutters out the complaint of Virgil:--

_Whither does all this jargon tend?_ In the third place, when they come
to the division of their text, they shall give only a very short touch
at the interpretation of the words, when the fuller explication of their
sense ought to have been their only province. Fourthly, after they are
a little entered, they shall start some theological queries, far enough
off from the matter in hand, and bandy it about pro and con till they
lose it in the heat of scuffle. And here they shall cite their doctors
invincible, subtle, seraphic, cherubic, holy, irrefragable, and such
like great names to confirm their several assertions. Then out they
bring their syllogisms, their majors, their minors, conclusions,
corollaries, suppositions, and distinctions, that will sooner
terrify the congregation into an amazement, than persuade them into
a conviction. Now comes the fifth act, in which they must exert their
utmost skill to come off with applause. Here therefo