Just thus it is in the dispensation of the word. We apply ourselves, first and principally, to relieve the more importunate demands of our hearers; and, not being able, at the same time, to provide for all, we prefer the case of those who are starving for the want of necessary instruction, to that of others who are in a condition to subsist on what hath already been imparted to them.
Hence it is, that we are most frequent in pressing the fundamental truths of the Gospel: as well knowing, that very many have yet to learn, or at least to digest, the first principles of their religion; and that few, in comparison, are either prepared, or enough disposed, _to go on to perfection_.
There are those, perhaps, who expect us to clear up some nice point of casuistry, or to lay open to them the grounds and reasons of some obnoxious article in the Christian Creed: in a word, they would take it kindly of us, if, dropping the common topics, which have been long and much worn in the service of religion, we provided some fresh ones, for their entertainment; and instead of the stale fragments, which are always at hand, and lie open to all the family, we served up to them something of better taste from the inner rooms of our store-house, where our choicest viands are laid up. All this is extremely well: and in due season, so far as is fitting, the charitable dispenser of God’s word will not be wanting to their expectations; for he has gathered nothing, however rare or exquisite, in the course of his _household_ industry, of which he does not wish them to partake. But, for the present, he finds this indulgence to be out of place: he sees, that the plainest duties of life, and the most unquestioned articles of the faith, are, first of all, to be inculcated: he perceives, that numbers want to be put in mind of old practical truths; and perhaps he understands, that even those, who are the most forward to call out for novelties in speculation, do not make this demand with the best grace. He could amuse them, it may be, with a curious theological Lecture: but what if their sense of divine things be dead? what if they want to have their minds stimulated by the admonitions, and their consciences alarmed with the terrors, of the Gospel?