This Fulness of Method does not require that every thing should be faid which can be faid upon any Subject; for this would make each fingle Science endless: But you fhould fay every thing which is neceffary to the Defign in View, and which has a proper and direct Tendency to this End; always proportioning the Amplitude of your Matter, and the Fulness of your Discourse to your great Defign, to the Length of your Time, to the Convenience, Delight and Profit of your Hearers.

Vth RULE. As your Method must be full without Deficiency, fo it must be fhort, or without Superfluity. The Fulness of a Difcourfe enlarges our Knowledge, and the well-concerted Brevity faves our Time. In order to obferve this Rule, it will be enough to point out the chief of those Superfluities or Redundancies, which fome Perfons are guilty of in their Difcourfes, with a due Caution against them.

1. Avoid all needlefs Repetitions of the fame Thing in different Parts of your Difcourse. It must be confeffed there are feveral Cafes wherein a Review of the fame foregoing Propofition is needful to explain or prove feveral of the following Pofitions; but let your Method be fo contrived, as far as poffible, that it may occafion the fewest Rehearsals of the fame Thing; for it is not grateful to the Hearers without evident Neceffity.

2. Have a Care of a tedious Prolixity, or drawing out any Part of your Difcourfe to an unnecessary and tiresome Length. It is much more honourable for an Inftructor, an Orator, a Pleader, or a Preacher, that his Hearers fhould fay, I was afraid he would have done, than that they fhould be tempted to fhew Signs of Uneafinefs, and long for the Conclufion.

Befides,

a

Besides, there is another Inconvenience in it; when you affect to amplify on the former Branches of a Discourse, you will often lay a Necessity upon yourself of contracting the latter and most useful Parts of it, and perhaps prevent yourself in the most important part of your Design. Many a Preacher has been guilty of this fault in former Days, nor is the present Age without some Instances of this Weakness.

3. Do not multiply Explicatians where there is no Difficulty, or Darkness, or Danger of Mistake. Be not fond of tracing every Word of your Theme thro' all the grammatical, the logical and metaphyfical Characters and Relations of it, nor shew your critical Learning in spreading abroad the various Senses of a Word, and the various Origin of those Senses, the Etymology of Terms, the synonymous and the paronymous or kindred Names, &c. where the chief Point of Discourse does not at all require it. You would laugh at a Pedant, who professing to explain the Athanafian Creed, should acquaint you, that Athanasius is derived from a Greek Word, which signifies Immortality, and that the same Word 'Abavaria signifies also the Herb Tansie.

There are some Persons fo fond of their learned Distinctions, that they will shew their Subtilty by distinguishing where there is no Difference : And the same filly Affectation will introduce Distinctions upon every Occurrence, and bring three or four Negatives upon every Subject of Discourse ; first to declare what it is not, and then what it is : Whereas such Negatives ought never to be mentioned where there is no apparent Danger of Mistake. How ridiculous would that Writer be, who, if he were speaking of the Nicene Creed, should declare negatively, 1. That he did not

Part IV. mean the Doctrine which the Inhabitants of Nice believed, nor (2.) A Creed written by them, but (3.) Pofitively a Creed compofed by feveral Chriftian Bishops met together in the City of Nice? The Pofitive is fufficient here, and the two Negatives are impertinent.

4. Be not fond of proving thofe Things which need no Proof, fuch as felf-evident Propofitions and Truths univerfally confeffed, or fuch as are intirely agreed to and granted by our Opponents. It is this vain Affectation of proving every Thing that has led Geometricians to form ufelefs and intricate Demonstrations to fupport fome Theorems, which are fufficiently evident to the Eye by Inspection, or to the Mind by the firft mention of them; and it is the fame Humour that reigns fometimes in the Pulpit, and spends half the Sermon in proving fome general Truth which is never difputed or doubted, and thereby robs the Auditory of more ufeful Entertainment.

5. As there are fome things fo evidently true, that they want no Proof, fo there are others fo evidently falfe that they want no Refutation. It is mere trifling, and a waste of our precious Moments, to invent and raife fuch Objections as no Man would ever make in earnest, and that merely for the fake of anfwering and folving them: This breaks in notoriously upon the due Brevity of Method.

6. Avoid in general all learned Forms, all Trappings of Art, and Ceremonies of the Schools, where there is no need of them. It is reported concerning the late Czar of Muscovy, that when he firft acquainted himself with mathematical Learning he practifed all the Rules of Circumvallation and Contravallation, at the Siege of a Town in Livonia

Livonia; and by the Length of thofe Formalities he loft the Opportunity of taking the Town.

7. Don't fuffer every occafional and incidental Thought to carry you away into a long Parenthefis, and thus to stretch out your Difcourfe, and divert you from the Point in Hand. In the Purfuit of your Subject, if any ufeful Thought occur which belongs to fome other Theme, note it down for the fake of your Memory on fome other Paper, and lay it by in referve for its proper Place and Seafon : But let it not incorporate itself with your prefent Theme, nor draw off your Mind from your main Bufinefs, tho' it fhould be never fo inviting. A Man who walks directly but flowly towards his Journey's End, will arrive thither much fooner than his Neighbour, who runs into every crooked Turning which he meets, and wanders afide to gaze at every thing that strikes his Eyes by the Way, or to gather every gaudy Flower that grows by the fide of the Road.

To fum up all; There is an happy Medium to be obferved in our Method, fo that the Brevity may not render the Senfe obfcure, nor the Argument feeble, nor our Knowledge merely fuperficial: And on the other Hand, that the Fulness and Copioufness of our Method may not waste the Time, tire the Learner, or fill the Mind with Trifles and Impertinencies.

The copious and the contracted Way of writing have each their peculiar Advantages. There is a proper Ufe to be made of large Paraphrafes, and full, particular, and diffusive Explications and Arguments; these are fittest for those who defign to be acquainted thoroughly with every Part of the Subject. There is alfo a Ufe of horter Hints, Abstracts and Compendiums to inftruct those who feek only a flight and general Knowledge, as well as to refresh the Memory of those who have learnt

the

Part IV. the Science already, and gone thro' a larger Scheme. But it is a grofs Abuse of these various Methods of Inftruction, when a Person has read a mere compend or Epitome of any Science, and he vainly imagines that he understands the whole Science. So one Boy may become a Philofopher by reading over the mere dry Definitions and Divifions of Scheibler's Compendium of Peripateticifm: So another may boaft that he underftands Anatomy, because he has seen a Skeleton; and a third profess himself a learned Divine, when he can repeat the Apoftles Creed.

VIth RULE. Take care that your Method be proper to the Subject in Hand, proper to your prefent Defign, as well as proper to the Age and Place wherein you dwell.

1. Let your Method be proper to the Subject. All Sciences muft not be learnt or taught in one Method. Morality and Theology, Metaphyfics and Logick, will not be eafily and happily reduced to a ftrict mathematical Method: Those who have tried have found much Inconvenience therein.

Some things have more need to be explained than to be proved; as Axioms or felf-evident Propofitions; and indeed all the first great Principles, the chief and moft important Doctrines both of natural and revealed Religion; for when the Sense of them is clearly explained, they appear fo evident in the Light of Nature or Scripture, that they want no other Proof. There are other Things that stand in need of Proof, as well as Explication, as many mathematical Theorems, and several deep Controverfies in Morality and Divinity. There are yet other forts of Subjects which want rather to be warmly impreft upon the Mind by fervent Exhortations, and ftand in more need of this than

they