A64998:139
The wells of salvation opened, or, Words whereby we may be saved
The wells of salvation opened, or, Words whereby we may be saved by Thomas Vincent.
London: printed for Thomas Parkhurst, 1668
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. Ministers must not use such words and speeches as gender strife, I mean the perverse disputings which Sceptical Philosophy will put them upon, whereby they may be spoiled, and deceive both themselves and others, through the errors and mistakes, which hereby they may run into.
3. Ministers must not use such words and speeches as gender strife, I mean the perverse disputings which Sceptical Philosophy will put them upon, whereby they may be spoyl'd, and deceive both themselves and others, through the errors and mistakes, which hereby they may run into.
4. Ministers must not use in preaching too much neatness of speech, and humane Eloquence: The most excellent, and enticing words of mans wisdom the Apostle did forbear, 1 Cor. 2.4. It is not needful for a Minister to read all Heathen Poets and Orators, that he may fill his Sermons with their fancies and rhetorical expressions; but he should chiefly fetch his Rhetoric from the Bible; Indeed Apollos was commended for his Eloquence, Act. 13.24. not humane Eloquence but divine. It is not said, he was mighty in other Learning, but mighty in the Scriptures; not ⟨p. 70⟩mighty in the writings of Heathens, but mighty in the writings of God; his Eloquence was drawn from the Word, which is most persuasive. The Lord doth not require that his Ministers should preach the Gospel neatly, but plainly; the former may make them esteemed as the better Scholars, but the latter wil• make their hearers the better Christians: That way of preaching th•y should use which is most intelligible and profitable, not that which is most learned and Scholastical, Melius est ut nos reprehendant Grammatici, quàm non intelligant populi; saith one, that could speak in an eloquent strain. It is better that Grammarians should reprehend us, than that the people should not understand us: and he desired that since the vulgar could not ascend so high as to understand a more refined language, that learned men would stoop so low as to accommodate their speech to their capacities.