Another cause of this neglect is, a heart set upon worldly things.  Men whose minds are much enslaved to earthly affairs all the week, cannot disengage or break the chain of their thoughts so suddenly, as to apply to a discourse that is wholly foreign to what they have most at heart.  Tell a usurer of charity, and mercy, and restitution, you talk to the deaf; his heart and soul, with all his senses, are got among his bags, or he is gravely asleep, and dreaming of a mortgage.  Tell a man of business, that the cares of the world choke the good seed; that we must not encumber ourselves with much serving; that the salvation of his soul is the one thing necessary:  You see, indeed, the shape of a man before you, but his faculties are all gone off among clients and papers, thinking how to defend a bad cause, or find flaws in a good one; or, he weareth out the time in drowsy nods.

A third cause of the great neglect and scorn of preaching, ariseth from the practice of men who set up to decry and disparage religion; these, being zealous to promote infidelity and vice, learn a rote of buffoonery that serveth all occasions, and refutes the strongest arguments for piety and good manners.  These have a set of ridicule calculated for all sermons, and all preachers, and can be extreme witty as often as they please upon the same fund.

Let me now, in the last place, offer some remedies against this great evil.

It will be one remedy against the contempt of preaching, rightly to consider the end for which it was designed.  There are many who place abundance of merit in going to church, although it be with no other prospect but that of being well entertained, wherein if they happen to fail, they return wholly disappointed.  Hence it is become an impertinent vein among people of all sorts to hunt after what they call a good sermon, as if it were a matter of pastime and diversion.  Our business, alas! is quite another thing, either to learn, or, at least, be reminded of our duty, to apply the doctrines delivered, compare the rules we hear with our lives and actions, and find wherein we have transgressed.  These are the dispositions men should bring into the house of God, and then they will be little concerned about the preacher’s wit or eloquence, nor be curious to enquire out his faults and infirmities, but consider how to correct their own.

Another remedy against the contempt of preaching, is, that men would consider, whether it be not reasonable to give more allowances for the different abilities of preachers than they usually do; refinements of style, and flights of wit, as they are not properly the business of any preacher, so they cannot possibly be the talents of all.  In most other discourses, men are satisfied with sober sense and plain reason; and, as understandings usually go, even that is not over frequent.  Then why they should be so over nice in expectation of eloquence,[2] where it is neither necessary nor convenient, is hard to imagine.