EXTRAVAGANCE. 247 



a privilege to live in an age when such 

 absurdities are exploded, and the com- 

 mon sense of the people seems to have 

 set bounds to the extravagances of self- 

 constituted preachers ; and when those 

 only are listened to of any sect, who 

 have at least the pretensions of educa- 

 tion and preparation for the office of 

 ministers of Christ. 



He would probably overlook that weak- 

 ness in our nature, that is now so con- 

 spicuous in the crowd who hang upon 

 the originality of style, tinged by buf- 

 foonery; and eccentric declamation, some- 

 times approaching blasphemy, practised by 

 a loud and voluble, but vain and pre- 

 sumptuous, popular preacher. 

 ' The enthusiast would avow, and the 

 sceptic would admit, that men of less pre- 

 tensions, and under less favourable circum- 

 stances, have, at different epochs in the 

 history of our Church, founded sects, and 

 "led away divers people having itching 



