He further adds, “Now that these feet may be able to bear us thither, we must put on the Hose [stockings] of Faith; for the Apostle says, ’Our feet must be shod with the preparation of the Gospel of Peace.’”

The truth of it is, the Author is somewhat obscure:  for, at first, Faith was a Foot, and by-and-by it is a Hose, and at last it proves a Shoe!  If he had pleased, he could have made it anything!

Neither can I let pass that of a later Author; who telling us, “It is Goodness by which we must ascend to heaven,” and that “Goodness is the Milky Way to JUPITER’s Palace”; could not rest there, but must tell us further, that “to strengthen us in our journey, we must not take morning milk, but some morning meditations:”  fearing, I suppose, lest some people should mistake, and think to go to heaven by eating now and then a mess of morning milk, because the way was “milky.”

Neither ought that to be omitted, not long since printed upon those words of St. JOHN, “These things write I unto you, that ye sin not.”

The Observation is that “it is the purpose of Scripture to drive men from sin.  These Scriptures contain Doctrines, Precepts, Promises, Threatenings, and Histories.  Now,” says he, “take these five smooth stones, and put them into the Scrip of the heart, and throw them with the Sling of faith, by the Hand of a strong resolution, against the Forehead of sin:  and we shall see it, like GOLIATH, fall before us.”

But I shall not trouble you any further upon this subject:  but, if you have a mind to hear any more of this stuff, I shall refer you to the learned and judicious Author of the Friendly Debates [i.e., SIMON PATRICK, afterwards Bishop of ELY, who wrote A Friendly Debate between a Conformist and a Nonconformist, in two parts, 1669]:  who, particularly, has at large discovered the intolerable fooleries of this way of talking.

I shall only add thus much, that such as go about to fetch blood into their pale and lean discourses, by the help of their brisk and sparkling similitudes, ought well to consider, Whether their similitudes be true?

I am confident, Sir, you have heard it, many and many a time, or, if need be, I can shew you it in a book, that when the preacher happens to talk how that the things here below will not satisfy the mind of man; then comes in, “the round world which cannot fill the triangular heart of man!” whereas every butcher knows that the heart is no more triangular than an ordinary pear, or a child’s top.  But because triangular is a hard word, and perhaps a jest! therefore people have stolen it one from another, these two or three hundred years; and, for aught I know, much longer! for I cannot direct to the first inventor of the fancy.

In like manner, they are to consider, What things, either in the heavens or belonging to the earth, have been found out, by experience, to contradict what has been formerly allowed of?