BBecause it is the receiued custom for Preachers to speak1 by heart before the people, some thing must bee here annexed concerning memory.
Artificial memorie, which standeth vpon places and images, will very easilie without labour teach how to commit sermons to the memorie: but it is not to be approoued. 1. The animation of the image, which is the key of memory, is impious; because it requireth absurd, insolent and prodigious cogitations, and those especially, which set an edge vpon and kindle the most corrupt affections of the flesh. 2. It dulleth wit and memorie, because it requireth a threefold memorie for one: the first of the places: the second of the images: the third of the thing that is to be declared.
It is not therefore an vnprofitable aduise, if he that is to preach doe diligentlie imprint in his mind by the helpe of dsposition either axiomaticall, or syllogisticall, or methodicall the seuerall doctrines of the place he meanes to handle, the seuerall proofes and applications of the doctrines, the illustrations of the applications, and the order of them all: in the meane time nothing carefull for the words, Which (as Horace speaketh) will not vnwillingly follow the matter that is premeditated. Uerbaque praeuisam rem non inuita sequentur.
Their studie hath many discommodities, who doe con their written sermons word for word. 1. It asketh great labour. 2. He which through feare doth stumble at one word, doth both trouble the congregation, and confound his memorie. 3. Pronunciation, action, and the holie motions of affections are hindred; because the mind is wholly bent on this, to wit, that the memorie fainting now vnder her burthen may not faile.
Footnotes
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Memoriter. ↩