God's Glory, or the Good of ourselves or others.

AGAIN, Conversation takes up a great deal of our Time, and a due Management of our Time is a most important Concern; it is not fufficient not to employ it to ill Purposes, we are to employ it to all the Advantages we are able; it is therefore a Mifapplication of a most precious Talent to spend much of our Time, if not in fuch Converfation as is not directly finful, yet in such as is productive of no Good The Notion of Duty requires fomething pofitive, and we muft not content ourselves with barely ceafing to speak Evil, we must learn to speak well; not that we need to be continually dwelling on pious Subjects: The Affairs of this Life challenge fome Regard, and may be managed in Converfation to great Advantage; our Faculties call for Improvement in a natural as well as a moral Way, and fuch an Improvement will be found on many Accounts to be of true and abfolute Service. Farther yet, the Tongue is a Member of great Confequence, for Life and Death are in the Power of the Tongue:

Tongue: It is likewise very unruly; give it but an innocent Loofe, and you will foon find it too headftrong to be again eafily restrain'd; it is a Member of all other the moft forward and unwearied in Exercife, and requires great Care and Diligence to exercise it aright: In much Talk there is much Danger, and he that multiplieth Words, multiplieth Mischiefs. As therefore Society makes Speech neceffary, and as our Corruptions make it dangerous; as Difcourfe ftreams forth into numberless Channels, and as it is apt while it flows continually to degenerate, it will become us to guard against its ill Tendency in every the most minute Circumstance, to obferve every Channel through which it paffes, and to endeavour to keep it up to its proper Strength and Purity. And that we may the better be able to do this, let us proceed,

I. To confider what are proper Topicks for Discourse under this Branch of our Divifion, and

II. WE

II. WE may remark a little upon those, which however improperly, are nevertheless generally made the Topicks of common Conversation.

If, THEN, let us confider what are proper Topicks for Discourse under this Branch of our Divifion.

Now the End of Converfation being both to improve and gratify, we may confider what Topicks thofe are which with respect to this Life fall under these Two Heads. The proper Topicks for Improvement, are fuch as tend to enlarge our Minds, to exercife our Reason, to inform our Understanding, to encrease our Knowledge, &c. in a natural Way. Topicks for Gratification, are fuch as tend to polish and civilize Society, as render Mankind pleas'd with one another, and give Life a chearful Mixture of Innocence and Complacency. The first of these Sorts are Arts and Sciences, Obfervations drawn from Hiftory or Experience, &c. Now it is our Duty to converse upon fuch Subjects, because it is

Our

our Duty to improve in every Inftance of Excellency which it hath pleas'd the Almighty to place within the Reach of our Abilities; the more we know, the more we are enabled to glorify our Great Creator, and to benefit Mankind; and Converfation is an obvious Means of improving in all Sorts of Knowledge; it lets us into Mens Thoughts of Things, and we are thereby either confirm'd or rectified in our own Judgments; we likewife make our own Notions more intimately our own, by expreffing them to others: Our inward Conceptions are, as it were, the Embrios of Knowledge, which would frequently prove abortive, did not Conversation give them their true Life; we always feel more strong Impreffions of that which we labour to inculcate, and become beft informed ourfelves by endeavouring to inform others.

THESE Topicks of Discourse relate not only to the Learned, but to every Perfon whatever: There is no one fo ignorant, as not to know fomething at leaft of fome Art or Science; no one fo dull, as not to be able to make fome VOL. I. Obfer

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Obfervations for regulating the Conduct of Human Life: Men of low Capacities and Attainments cannot indeed converfe fo well as Men of more deep and extenfive Knowledge, but they can converfe according to their Knowledge, and wherever there is any Knowledge, there is room for Improvement.

AGAIN, Such Difcourfe as this is a great Spur to Industry; Difficulties in Converfation are made extremely flight, and Men are fond of endeavouring to act over that in reality, which is fo cafily transacted in common Talk: Business paffeth off much better when Men are appriz'd of the Neceffity and Practicablenefs of it from others, and we are more able to ftruggle in Life to Advantage by understanding the various Turns of Affairs, the different Tempers of Men, and the due Management of those Tempers: All this while the Mind is cultivating and fitting itself for brighter Scenes of Action, raising itself out of the cloudy Regions of Brutality and Ignorance, into a State of a more refined Humanity, and in all refpects