THE Percy Anecdotes. ANECDOTES OF THE PULPIT. "I say the PULPIT (in the sober use Of its legitimate, peculiar pow'rs,) Must stand acknowledg'd, while the world shall stand, COWPER. WHAT IS TRUTH? FATHER FULGENTIO, the friend and biographer of the celebrated Paul Sarpi, both of them secret friends to the progress of religious reformation, was once preaching upon Pilate's question, "What is truth ?” He told the audience that he had at last, after many searches, found it out, and holding forth a New Testament, said, "Here it is, my friends;" but added sorrowfully, as he returned it to his pocket, "It is a sealed book." It has been since the glory of the reformation to break the seal which priestly craft had imposed upon it, and to lay its blessed treasures open to the universal participation of mankind, READING SERMONS. "Behold the picture! Is it like?---Like whom? COWPER. The practice of reading sermons from the pulpit is now so common, that were a minister of the established church to preach extemporaneously, he would subject himself to the imputation of being a Sectarian, and would be regarded in the diocese with almost as much jealousy as if he had violated the whole of the articles in the rubric. This custom, now so prevalent, was well reproved by Charles II. who issued the following ordinance on the subject, to the University of Cambridge. "6 VICE CHANCELLOR AND GENTLEMEN---Whereas his majesty is informed, that the practice of reading sermons is generally taken up by the preachers before the University, and therefore continues even before himself; his majesty hath commanded me to signify to you his pleasure, that the said practice, which took its beginning from the disorders of the late times, be wholly laid aside; and that the said preachers deliver their sermons, both in Latin and English, by memory without book; as being a way of preaching which his majesty judgeth most agreeable to the use of foreign churches, to the custom of the University heretofore, |