God hath seemed to have reserved it for a great Blessing to the last age of the World, that (for ought appears to us from any Books) it hath been more fertile of such Preaching, than any since that of the Apostles. The ancient Church had Persons that did famously in their Generations, such were Chrysostom in the Greek, and Augustine in the Latin Church; but besides that they were but very few, whose reads the one and the other, must complement Antiquity at a great rate, if himself hath any judgment, and doth not say that Multitudes in the last Age have been as to Preaching greater than they. In the former are to be found many judicious Explications of Scripture, many honest and spiritual Discourses: In the latter, not these things only, but a pleasantness of Wit, and Fancy; but for plenty of Matter, clearness of Judgment, Orderliness of Method, and many other things, they have not been a little exceeded by men of this last age. Nor is it any disparagement to them, more than it was to John the Baptist, that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven was to be greater than he; or to Christ, that the Apostles, Joh. 14.12. were to do greater things than he had done. In the middle Ages of the Church, Preaching generally was turned into trifling about Scholastic niceties; and to the very dawning of the Reformation, the Priests Texts were out of Scotus, or Aquinas; and we remember, they were not ashamed, when Luther, Melancton, &c. restored in some degree the true kind of Preaching, to petition Magistrates for the suppression of it, and a liberty to trifle still in that great work of God, with discourses upon Scotus and Aquinas. Though Luther, Zuinglius, and others in Germany; and Mr. Calvin, Farellus, and Viret, and Beza, in France, about a hundred and fifty years since, mended this matter in a great degree; yet we all know how ill their Examples were followed: So as Mr. Perkins, who began to flourish about the year 1580. is generally judged to have been the first who amongst us restored Preaching to its true use, and taught us the true manner of it, whose Piety was followed by many; but as their Number hath vastly increased since that time (especially in the fifty or sixty years last past) so God hath seemed to pour out his Spirit upon Ministers, as to spiritual Gifts, in a more plentiful measure:
God hath seemed to have reserved it for a great Blessing to the last age of the World, that (for ought appears to us from any Books) it hath been more fertile of such Preaching, than any since that of the Apostles. The ancient Church had Persons that did famously in their Generations, such were Chrysostom in the Greek, and Augustine in the Latine Church; but besides that they were but very few, whose reads the one and the other, must complement Antiquity at a great rate, if himself hath any judgment, and doth not say that Multitudes in the last Age have been as to Preaching greater than they. In the former are to be found many judicious Explications of Scripture, many honest and spiritual Discourses: In the latter, not these things only, but a pleasantness of Wit, and Fancy; but for plenty of Matter, clearness of Iudgment, Orderliness of Method, and many other things, they have not been a little exceeded by men of this last age. Nor is it any disparagement to them, more than it was to John the Baptist, that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven was to be greater than he; or to Christ, that the Apostles, Joh. 14.12. were to do greater things than he had done. In the middle Ages of the Church, Preaching generally was turn'd into trifling about Scholastick nicetyes; and to the very dawning of the Reformation, the Priests Texts were out of Scotus, or Aquinas; and we remember, they were not ashamed, when Luther, Melancton, &c. restored in some degree the true kind of Preaching, to petition Magistrates for the suppression of it, and a liberty to trifle still in that great work of God, with discourses upon Scotus and Aquinas. Thô Luther, Zuinglius, and others in Germany; and Mr. Calvin, Farellus, and Viret, and Beza, in France, about a hundred and fifty years since, mended this matter in a great degree; yet we all know how ill their Examples were followed: So as Mr. Perkins, who began to flourish about the year 1580. is generally judged to have been the first who amongst us restored Preaching to its true use, and taught us the true manner of it, whose Piety was followed by many; but as their Number hath vastly increased since that time (especially in the fifty or sixty years last past) so God hath seemed to pour out his Spirit upon Ministers, as to spiritual Gifts, in a more plentiful measure:
