Two sermons preached at Northampton at two several assizes there The one in the…Two sermons preached at Northampton at two severall assises there The one in the…

First, Able men, apt to fill the place with some competency of parts and equality of worth, to answer and sustain, the heat and burden ⟨p. 60⟩of it, with a fit sufficiency of endowments, ability, activeness, and industry. There ever ought to be a convenient correspondency between the importance of the place, and the capacity of the party. It is a thousand pities to see in a Church, and Common-weal, many places full, and yet so few filled, when there is no proportion, nay a vast distance between the height, or rather the weight of the place, and the weakness, worthlessness, if not the notorious wickedness, of that unworthy person, who either by a golden violence, or temporising baseness, hath most impudently thrust himself into it.

First, Able men, apt to fill the place with some competency of parts and equallity of worth, to answer and sustaine, the heat and burthen ⟨p. 60⟩of it, with a fit sufficiency of endowments, ability, activenesse, and industry. There ever ought to be a convenient correspondency betweene the importance of the place, and the capacity of the party. It is a thousand pitties to see in a Church, and Common-weale, many places full, and yet so few filled, when there is no proportion, nay a vast distance betweene the height, or rather the weight of the place, and the weakenesse, worthlesnesse, if not the notorious wikednesse, of that unworthy person, who either by a golden violence, or temporising basenesse, hath most impudently thrust himielfe into it.

Secondly, Wise, sapient men, Such as are skill-full in the Theory, nature, mystery and meaning of the place, and Office into which they are to be preferred. A man can never happily execute, and successfully, any function, office, or Art, which is not learned in the speculative part, before he descend unto the practic. Is it fit think you, for a man to plead at the Bar, before he hath well studied, and profitably passed through the course of the Common-law? If a Physician should fall to practise, before he be skilled in Hippocrates & Galen, in the natures, causes, signs, symptoms, prognostics, and remedies of diseases, he is like enough to kill all before him. Proportionable miseries and mischief, may be expected, and ensue, when important places are pressed into, and undertaken without habitual understanding, and speculative skill what belongs unto them. It is a pitiful thing, when a man will