Table-Talk: BEING THE DISCOURSES OF John Selden, Efq. Being His Senfe of various Matters of Weight and high Consequence; RELIGION and STATE. Diftingue Tempora. LONDON: Printed for E. SMITH, in the Year MDC LXXXIX. TO THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE HALE, ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE COMMON PLEAS AND TO THE MUCH HONOURED EDWARD HEYWARD, JOHN VAUGHAN, and Most worthy Gentlemen, WERE you not Executors to that Person, who (while he liv'd) was the Glory of the Nation, yet I am Confident any thing of his would find Acceptance with you; and truly the Sense and Notion here is wholly his, and most of the Words. I had the opportunity to hear his Discourse twenty Years together; and lest all those Excellent things that usually fell from him might be lost, some of them from time to time I faithfully committed to Writing, which here digested into this Method, I humbly present to your Hands. You will quickly perceive them to be his by the familiar Illustrations wherewith they are set off; in which way you know he was so happy, that, with a marvellous delight to those that heard him, he would presently convey the highest Points of Religion, A V and the most important Affairs of State, to an ordinary apprehension. In reading be pleased to distinguish Times, and in your Fancy carry along with you, the When and the Why many of these things were spoken; this will give them the more life, and the smarter Relish. 'Tis possible the Entertainment you find in them may render you the more inclinable to pardon the Presumption of Your most Obliged and most Humble Servant, RICH. MILWARD. |