Five disputations of church-government and worship

but being balanced with the sense of everlasting things, and seasoned with the Light and Life of Christ, they are as careful to keep under and rule their wit, as others are diligent to feed its wantonness, and make ostentation of it to the world. It will shortly appear but ingenious folly which was not animated and regulated by Christ. The wisdom of the world is foolishness with God: and the foolishness of God is wiser then men, 1 Cor. 1.25. &c. We find the most experienced Learned Divines betake themselves to the plainest stile; and much more addicted to the ancient simplicity, then green, inflated, empty brains. When we displease both our selves, and ou• queasy▪ co•e and acry auditors by the homeliness of our style, w• usually hear more of the success of those sermons, then of those wherein by a ⟨image 102⟩wordy Curiosity, we procure from the acry more applause. Saith Augustine (de Catechiz▪ •ud•b cap. 2.) [Na• & mihi semper prope sermo me•s di•plicet sic & tu eo ipso quod ad te saep•us adducu•tur baptizandi — deb•s intelligere n•n ita displicere aliis sermonem tuum ut displicet tibi: nec infru•tuosum •e debes puta•e, quod ea quae cernis non explicas ita ut cupis; quando fo•te ut cupis nec cernere valeas] Our business is to teach the ignorant, to convert the impenitent, and to edify and confirm the weak; and therefore if repetitions, and homely expressions, with all the seriousness we can use, be found the fittest means to attain these ends, we shall study them and not decline them, though some dislike them. Augustine de doctrin. Christ lib. 4. cap. 12. Qui ergo dicit cum docre vult, quamdiu non intelligitur, nondum see existimet dixisse quod vult e quem vult docere: quia etsi dixit quod ipse intelliit, nondum ille (illi) dixisse putandus est, a quo intellectus non est: si vero intellectus est, quocunque modo dixerit, dixit.]