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BV 4207 .K4 1889 c.l 
 Ker, John, 1819-1886. 
 Lectures on the history of 
 preaching 
 
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 ^y^f-f>4^^^^i^*^^y 
 
 
LECTURES W .^' 
 
 ^oimi^vi:^^ 
 
 HISTORY OF PREACHING 
 
 BY THK LATE 
 
 REV. JOHN KER, D. D, 
 
 Professor of Practical Training in the United Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Author of 
 
 Strmons ; " The Psalms in History and Biography,'''' <Sbc. 
 
 EDITED BT 
 
 REV. A. R. MACEWEN, M. A., Balliol, B. D., GLAsaow 
 INTRODUCTION BY REV. Wm. M. TAYLOR, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 HODDERe- STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The author of these Lectures stood in the very 
 front rank of the preachers both of his country and 
 his age. His first volume of Sermons, repubHshed 
 on this side of the Atlantic under the title of 
 " The Day Dawn and the Rain," and originally 
 issued in Edinburgh in 1869, as " Sermons by 
 Rev. John Ker," is now in its thirteenth edition in 
 Great Britain, and has attracted the attention 
 and called forth the commendation of the best 
 critics. The discourses which it contains are 
 characterized by originality of thought, simplicity 
 of style, and a certain quiet power that carries 
 conviction without any straining after effect. His 
 Imes of method are all natural without being 
 obvious, and his movement along these is always 
 singularly easy and delightful. The same quali- 
 ties distinguish his second volume, which, though 
 published after his death in 1886, is a worthy com- 
 panion of the first, and has already taken its place 
 among the homiletic models of our times. 
 
 For many years before his death a nervous 
 break-down in health incapacitated him for regular 
 pulpit work. But, at the reorganization of the 
 Theological Seminary of the United Presbyterian 
 Church of Scotland, he consented to attempt the 
 
IN TROD UCTION. 
 
 performance of the duties of the chair of Practical 
 Training for the Ministry, and these he continued 
 to perform, with marked acceptance, till his sudden 
 and lamented decease. 
 
 As a man he possessed large stores of varied 
 information, ample scholarship, thorough acquaint- 
 ance with literature, a true poetic temperament, 
 and sound common sense, while these were all 
 pervaded by the devoutest piety and the sweetest 
 modesty. There was always about him a great 
 amount of reserve force. He never seemed to be 
 making an effort, and, eloquent as his discourses 
 were, they were delivered in a pleasant, conver- 
 sational manner, which won its way and did its 
 work almost before the hearer was aware. These 
 qualities appeared in his work in the professor's 
 chair, as well as in that which he did in the pulpit. 
 His department was new, and he had to act in it 
 the part of a pioneer. But it was one for which 
 his whole previous history had been a preparation, 
 and to which he devoted the maturity of his 
 powers. He went into it with all his heart, and 
 in this volume we have a specimen of the manner 
 in which he dealt with, at least, one part of the 
 field which had been intrusted to him. The opening 
 Historical Lectures, without being exhaustive, are 
 eminently rich, and his treatment of the German 
 Pulpit, which forms the main part of the work, is, 
 so far as we know, the fullest which has yet been 
 given in the English language. It is not, strictly 
 
INTROD UCTION. 
 
 speaking, a work on Homiletics, but the purpose 
 of the Professor is never once lost sight of, and his 
 criticisms on the men who come up before him for 
 review are often more valuable than direct dis- 
 quisitions on the making of sermons would have 
 been, while his obiter dicta are always both in- 
 cisive and suggestive ; so that, as a recent critic 
 has said, " For thoughtful preachers, this volume 
 would prove more helpful than most helps for the 
 pulpit." To the careful study of all such, we 
 heartily commend the work. 
 
 March, 1889. WM. M. TAYLOR. 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 A FEW words of preface are required to 
 ^ *• explain the relation of these Lectures to 
 Dr. Ker's other work, since his own request — the 
 one act of his life which his friends regret — 
 prevents the publication of any memoir or 
 biography. 
 
 In the year 1875, among other changes in the 
 Theological Hall, the United Presbyterian Church 
 resolved to institute a professorship, which should 
 not be tied down to any one department of 
 theology, but should attend to the training of 
 students in its more practical aspects, with 
 special regard to preaching and pastoral work. 
 Such a Chair exists under some name in every 
 complete Theological College, although in some 
 churches, as had previously been the case in 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 the United Presbyterian Church, it is combined 
 with the charge of a departmental subject. The 
 title chosen was the Chair of Practical Training 
 for the Work of the Ministry ; and, in 1876, Dr. 
 Ker was elected by the Synoil as its first occupant. 
 
 For some years he had been laid aside from his 
 Glasgow pastorate, and, although he could not now 
 refuse duties so congenial to him, he declined to be 
 called a " professor," and accepted the appointment 
 on the understanding that he should have such 
 freedom as his health required, in regard to the 
 amount and the duration of his work. Through 
 God's kindness, however, he was enabled, with 
 short interruptions, to discharge the full duties of 
 the Chair for ten years ; and when he died on the 
 4th of October, 1886, he was preparing for the 
 v/ork of another session. 
 
 It was left to a large extent in Dr. Ker's own 
 hands to determine the scope and even the subjects 
 of his lectures. He had no precedent to guide him, 
 nor any rule beyond the understanding that his 
 work was to bear directly on the actual duties of 
 the pastorate. While always careful to observe 
 this limit, he so exercised his freedom as to secure 
 constant variety. At one time he lectured upon 
 the Public Worship of the Church, upon Prayer and 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 Praise and the relation of these to the Sermon. 
 At another time he lectured upon Family Visit- 
 ation and Family Prayer, upon the Care of the 
 Young, and upon general Pastoral Superintendence. 
 He discussed the different conceptions of the 
 Church of Christ as a Society, contrasting the 
 Roman Catholic and the Protestant conceptions, 
 indicating the faults of each, and showing the 
 bearing of such points upon the minister's relation 
 to the work of his own and other denominations. 
 Again, he reviewed the Principles of the United 
 Presbyterian Church, the Forms of Process, and 
 the business of Sessions and other congregational 
 agencies. He occupied several lectures in show- 
 ing the bearing of University studies upon the 
 minister's work, and the advantage to which a 
 preacher may turn his reading in general litera- 
 ture. Indeed, each year seemed to open out to 
 him some new aspect of his office ; he was 
 constantly planning and writing new lectures ; so 
 that very few of his lectures were repeated more 
 than twice or thrice. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the Lectures on the 
 History of Preaching represent only a fragment of 
 his work, and that they consider the subject with 
 a distinctly practical aim. The selection of them 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 from his manuscripts is due to the fact that 
 owing to the nature of the subject they were 
 more closely reduced to writing than the others, 
 and that they deal with a subject of interest to 
 the general Christian public. 
 
 Besides lecturing upon such topics as we have 
 mentioned, Dr. Ker occupied alternate lecture- 
 hours in instruction of a less formal and more con- 
 versational kind. Prescribing texts and topics to 
 the students, he asked them to prepare skeletons of 
 sermons, or sermons, and discussed such exercises 
 in the class. Sometimes he asked them to suggest 
 divisions or plans on the spur of the moment, 
 or after quarter of an hour's reflection ; and he 
 carried out a similar method with regard to other 
 ministerial duties. These are the hours which have 
 left the most lasting impress upon his pupils ; for 
 while he never failed to show his rare combination of 
 critical acumen with appreciation of the freshness 
 and independence of younger minds, it was then 
 that he gave freest scope to his own genial 
 intellect, and revealed most plainly his unfailing 
 spirituality and elevation of tone. Such work, 
 although it leaves the deepest mark on men, 
 cannot be preserved except in living characters. 
 
 With regard to the twenty-one Lectures which 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 are included in this volume, readers will find that 
 the first seven of them form part of a larger plan 
 than is carried out in those which follow. They 
 deal with the general history of the Church prior 
 to the Reformation, while Lectures IX.-XXI. are 
 occupied exclusively with the history of German 
 Protestantism. In the first lecture, Dr. Ker 
 indicates his intention of dealing with the preach- 
 ing of the other branches of the Reformed 
 Church ; and, as a matter of fact, he partially 
 carried out this intention. He lectured upon 
 several of the English Puritan preachers, upon 
 some of the Scottish preachers, and still more fully 
 upon French preaching, both Roman Catholic and 
 Protestant. It is specially to be regretted that his 
 lectures upon the last-mentioned were not written 
 in a form which will permit publication. His 
 own tone of mind had perhaps more affinity to the 
 French than to the German ; his students remem- 
 ber with admiration his sagacious insight into the 
 strength and weakness of Du Moulin, Bossuet, 
 Pierre Du Bosc, and other French orators ; and his 
 manuscript notes testify to the minute study which 
 he had made of their sermons. 
 
 One other word of explanation should be given 
 to readers who will expect to find reference to the 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 influence of TertulHan and Jerome, to those who 
 would fain have had some fuller account from 
 Dr. Ker's pen of Bernard of Clairvaux and John 
 Tauler, and to those who know the direct or in- 
 direct influence of Dorner, Harless, and Ahlfeld 
 upon the modern German pulpit. The lectures 
 now printed were supplemented, in conversation- 
 hours, by discussions of men and of epochs that 
 have influenced the history of preaching — discus- 
 sions which included the above names, with many 
 others. Of these, however, we have no written 
 record. 
 
 The references in the foot-notes are as a rule 
 indicated, if not expressly given, in Dr. Ker's 
 manuscript ; some of them and some of the dates 
 have been added by the editor for the con- 
 venience of students. It should be said that 
 Rothe's Geschichte der Predigt (also a posthumous 
 publication) was issued in 1881, after these lectures 
 had been written, and that the references to 
 that valuable work were inserted by Dr. Ker, to 
 mark some coincidences of opinion and even of 
 expression, of which he once spoke to the editor 
 with amused satisfaction. 
 
 The special thanks of readers are due to the 
 Rev. James Kidd, B.D., of St. Andrews, for the care 
 
EDITORIAL PREFACE. 
 
 with which he has read the proof-sheets, and for 
 other valuable assistance. The index has been 
 prepared by the loving hands of those to whom 
 the editor owes the honourable trust which has 
 been placed in him in the preparation of the 
 volume. It is not easy for one who revered Dr. 
 Ker to judge how far this reproduction of his 
 words will guide and help those to whom he was 
 personally a stranger ; but the words themselves 
 are wise and true, with a clear message for our 
 day, and by God's help they will not fail to reach 
 the heart. 
 
 ^m» MS» ^%« 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 EniTORIAT, PREFACE, 
 
 LECTURE 
 
 I. PREACHERS AND PREACHING — ADVANTAGES OF THE 
 
 STUDY, 
 
 II. ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN THE OLD TESTAMENT, 
 
 III. THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING, 
 
 Note A. — '^ Instructtones Sancti Columbani" . 
 
 IV. ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING, . 
 V. THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH, • . 
 
 VI. WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 20O-430 A.D. 
 
 VII. WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES, 
 Note B. — Universities in the 13th Century^ 
 
 VIII. PREACHING IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THE REFORMATION, 
 
 I 
 
 14 
 32 
 
 53 
 54 
 73 
 91 
 
 no 
 131 
 
 133 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 LBCTURB 
 
 IX. HISTORY OF GERMAN PREACHING FROM THE REFORMA- 
 
 TION — LUTHER, 
 
 Note C. — Sketch of one of Luther's Homilies^ 
 
 X. THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER, . 
 
 XI. SPENER : HIS WORK AND PREACHING, 
 Note D.—Jean de Labadte, 
 
 XII. PIETISM : ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS, 
 
 Note E.— Controversy between Pietists and Orthodox, 
 Note F. — Sketch of Sermon by A. H. Francke, 
 Note G.— The Bible, the Church, and the Individual, 
 
 XIII. THE OFFSHOOTS OF PIETISM : BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF 
 
 Note H. — BengeVs Conjectures on Religious Ufe^ . 
 
 XIV. THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM, 
 
 Note I.— Sketch of a Sermon by Spalding^ 
 
 Note J. — Sketch of a Sermon by Zollikofer, . . 
 
 Note K. — Sketch of a Sermon by Reinhard, 
 
 XV. HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM, .... 
 
 Note L. — The Prevalence of the Illuminism^ . . 
 
 XVI. TRANSITION PERIOD : SCHLEIERMACHER, . 
 Note M. — Schleierniacher's Appearance, , 
 Note N. — Sketch of one of Schleiermachet's Sermons, 
 
 XVII. MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCH AND THOLUCK, . 
 
 Note O. — Plafis of Tholuck^s Sermons : Extracts from 
 " Cuido and fulius^ 
 
 147 
 166 
 
 168 
 
 183 
 199 
 
 200 
 218 
 219 
 221 
 
 223 
 239 
 
 241 
 260 
 260 
 263 
 
 264 
 286 
 
 288 
 304 
 305 
 
 308 
 326 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I.BCTURK 
 
 XVIIL THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY: HOFACKER AND HARMS, 
 
 Note P. — Skeleton of Sermon by Ho/acker^ , 
 Note Q. — Skeleton of Sermon by Harms, . . 
 
 XIX. BIBLICAL PREACHERS : STIER AND KRUMMACHER, 
 
 Note R.—f. F. Meyer and G. H. V. Schubert, . 
 Note S. — Krummachet's pycnching, . 
 
 XX. RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING, . 
 
 XXI. LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING^ • • • • 
 
 INDKS, , ••.••••• • 
 
 328 
 346 
 346 
 
 348 
 366 
 367 
 
 369 
 
 389 
 
 4D3 
 
LECTURE I. 
 
 PREACHERS AND PREACHING — ADVANTAGES OF 
 THE STUDY. 
 
 "\ T fE intend to trace the course of Preaching in 
 ** the history of the Church, and to turn 
 attention to some of the most remarkable and 
 successful preachers. To-day we may briefly 
 sketch the field of survey, and suggest the advan- 
 tages of the study. 
 
 The work of the preacher may first be looked at a sketch of 
 as it is related to the Old and the New Testaments, "^^ ''^^'^• 
 with the view of noting what we may learn from 
 them as to the spirit and the form of preaching, 
 the question of material being meanwhile left out 
 of account. There is then the preaching of the 
 early Church, beginning with the apostles, and 
 going on till the time when Christianity became an 
 acknowledged power in the world of thought 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Thereafter we have two great branches — the 
 Eastern Church represented by Origen, Chryso- 
 stom, and others ; and the Western or Latin 
 Church represented by men Hke Ambrose and 
 Augustine. 
 
 Then follows the long period of the Middle Ages, 
 when preaching sank to a great extent under the 
 weight of ceremonial, or was influenced by the 
 opposite systems of Scholasticism and Mysticism, 
 with many bright examples, however, of a clearer 
 and simpler kind. 
 
 The Reformation marks the commencement of 
 the modern period of preaching, the use of the 
 principle of individuality separating us from the 
 old world as by an ocean. We have now, not only 
 distinct nationalities in preaching, as French, 
 German, English, Scottish, American, but the 
 preaching of different Churches — Roman Catholic, 
 Anglican, Nonconformist ; and this last might even 
 be sub-divided, for the Wesleyan preaching is 
 different from the Congregationalist, and that again 
 to some extent from the Presbyterian. There is a 
 division, also, since the Reformation, into several 
 epochs ; the immediate post- Reformation period — 
 that of the great doctrinal preachers called in our 
 country Puritan ; the period of moral preach- 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 ing, of Tillotson and the Moderates ; that of the 
 revival, called in Germany, Pietism, and in our 
 country, Evangelicalism ; and the various forms 
 which preaching takes in our own time. 
 
 It is evident that we have a field which might Difference 
 occupy us for any length of time, and at which we church '"^^^ 
 can for the present do little more than glance. History. 
 We may meantime point out, in advance, the 
 difference of such a study from the study of 
 Church History as usually given. The outward 
 events with which some Church historians deal 
 are often reflected in it ; it bears the impress of 
 those varying forms of thought which are known 
 to us as philosophies ; the prevailing heresies affect 
 it either in the way of attraction or of repulsion. 
 But besides all this, it leads us into many lines of 
 Christian life which are rarely, if ever, considered 
 in general Church History. I shall mention some 
 of them, and point out certain practical advantages Advantages to 
 which we may derive from tracing them. ^ ^"^^ * 
 
 As a mere matter of instruction, we cannot take General 
 even the slightest view of it without becoming 
 acquainted with the most interesting and important 
 men and events and trains of thought, that have 
 been prominent among the ruling races of man- 
 kind since the Christian era began. It is like 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 sailing down a river, standing in the part of 
 the ship which commands the most characteristic 
 views, and landing to visit the temples, cities, 
 churches, homes of varied races of men that line the 
 banks. It carries us from Jerusalem to Antioch, 
 to Alexandria, to Constantinople, to Rome. We 
 must visit cities on the confines of the great 
 tropical desert, and the lone islands of our own 
 western ocean. The Court of Charlemagne, the 
 forests of Germany, the camp-like settlement of 
 the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had, nearly at one 
 time, their Alcuin, their Boniface, their Bede. 
 The long period of the middle ages, though 
 brightened by many an oasis, is, as a whole, a 
 barren desert, till we reach the time when the 
 fountains are unsealed after the Reformation and 
 the waters break out in France, in Germany, in 
 Britain, and in America, parting, like the primitive 
 river of Eden, into four streams to revive the whole 
 face of the earth. . 
 As to distinc- I" such a survey we meet with what is most 
 distinguished in the Christian Church ; for while 
 we have had thinkers such as Melancthon and 
 Pascal and Milton, whose work was done chiefly 
 or entirely by the pen, the great majority of Christ- 
 ian teachers have been men who were drawn 
 
 tion oi 
 preachers, 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 irresistibly to use the living voice, and to use it in 
 the great congregation. We have an array of 
 instructors and orators, spread through the ages 
 and over the countries, compared with which the 
 schools of Greece and Rome were but a small 
 handful, — an exceeding great army of men, such 
 as the prophet saw in his vision ; the select and 
 chosen of whom might be compared to the company 
 which John saw in the Apocalypse, standing on 
 Mount Zion with the Great Name written on their 
 foreheads. No one will talk lightly or flippantly 
 of sermons and preachers, who thinks of the 
 thousands upon thousands of men, who, in all the 
 countries of Europe and in all the churches, with 
 the most varied ability, but many of them with the 
 very highest, have devoted themselves to God's 
 work in speaking for Him to their fellow-men. 
 What a different Europe this would have been, 
 poor as in many respects it is, and what a different 
 country ours would have been, but for the seeds of 
 truth and freedom and devotion that, among many 
 weeds, have been sown by these preachers of the 
 Word ! 
 
 When we consider the character of preaching. As to state of 
 and the subjects with which it deals in different *^^ ^^""'"^ 
 periods, it casts the most instructive light upon the 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 times, and upon the condition of the Christian 
 Church. The manners of the old nations of 
 Europe come before us, when we find — e.g., 
 Chrysostom and Basil denouncing strongly and 
 repeatedly the sin of drunkenness, and Augustine 
 afraid to shut the guilty out of communion, lest he 
 should lose all influence over so numerous a class. 
 We thus gain a view of the time which does not 
 perhaps comfort us, but which keeps us from say- 
 ing that the " former days were better than these." 
 If you read Gibbon's or even Mosheim's account of 
 sects and heresies, you are ready to think that 
 these old preachers were dry dogmatists, bitter 
 polemical anathematisers, "blowing about a dust 
 and noise of creeds." But when you come to their 
 sermons, and find that with many things alien to 
 our mode of thought they had such a hatred of 
 sin, such an ideal of a high and divine life, you see 
 what slowly raised a new world from the corruption 
 and ruin of the old. To estimate these men from 
 Gibbon, would be like estimating our own Churches 
 from the reports of them in sceptical newspapers. 
 If you would know their influence on their time, 
 you must go to their sermons. At the same time, 
 the faults of the Christian Church and ministry 
 will come into view, and we may see the inherent 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 power of the pulpit, that in spite of all faults, it, or 
 rather God's truth, held its ground and conquered. 
 We shall find the sensational school which sought 
 the applause and the clapping of hands which 
 Chrysostom condemned — men contented to beat 
 the drum and draw a crowd. We shall find the 
 mystic allegorisers who discovered wonders of 
 philosophy in abstruse passages, and preferred 
 obscurity to light. We shall find the pedantic and 
 scholastic who turned the great doctrines of the 
 Bible into a wrangling place for logic. The senses, 
 the fancy, the subtlety of dialectics, have in their 
 turn invaded the sphere of preaching, and yet it 
 has recovered and done its work. It has come 
 back to simplicity and power, and by the foolish- 
 ness of preaching it has pleased God to save them 
 that believe. 
 
 Further, in such a survey there is stimulus to be Stimulus 
 gained from the greatest masters of speech dealing 
 with the greatest of all themes — God, the soul, 
 eternity, sin, Christ, salvation. There is in the high- 
 est sense no such roll of orators, and certainly there 
 are no such themes as are presented in the history 
 of Christian preaching. No similar movement in 
 the life of man has ever been effected by the power 
 of speech — so wide, so deep, so continuous. It may 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 fill US with a high and just ambition, with a noble 
 enthusiasm to share in it and to do our best, with 
 God's help, to prove ourselves not unworthy. 
 
 Guidance. There is much to be learned from these men in a 
 
 directly practical way — from their themes and 
 methods ; from the way in which they addressed 
 themselves to the spirit of their times, sharing and 
 guiding it, or seeking to correct it ; from their 
 sagacity or their fearlessness as reprovers. The 
 greatest of them were all men of their time and yet 
 above their time. 
 
 Warning. We may even learn from their faults, for 
 
 though we may be smaller men in every way, 
 history will teach us to avoid paths that led 
 them astray. We may learn from the allegorical 
 tendency of Origen, and the excesses of fancy to 
 which it led, to keep to a wise and sober interpre- 
 tation of Scripture. From the extreme self-inspec- 
 tion of Jonathan Edwards, which led to the morbid 
 analytic preaching of his school, we may learn to 
 give a large attention to the objective doctrines and 
 duties of the Bible — the heart as well as the Bible 
 but the Bible as well as the heart. From the con- 
 stant moral-essay preaching of the Tillotson school, 
 which ended in a practical ignoring of all that is 
 distinctive in Christianity, we may learn how vitally 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 important it is to breathe into all duties the life and 
 the moving power of the person and work of Christ, 
 to remember that Christianity is a plan, not of 
 moral teaching, but first of all of redemption and 
 reconciliation ; birth before life, and life before 
 work. From the narrowness and the limited view 
 of the power and range of the Gospel exhibited by 
 some good men of the Evangelical school of last 
 century — a narrowness and a limitation which have 
 filled the ranks of Ritualism and Broad-churchism — 
 we may learn, while we hold the central truths of 
 the Cross of Christ, to aim at giving them the widest 
 application to the lives and ways of men, to show 
 that Christianity is consistent with every pure taste 
 and every high position. We may learn to avoid 
 " the falsehood of extremes." For we shall see that 
 one excess leads to another, and when an excess 
 which we deplore manifests itself among men whose 
 sincerity we admit, we shall consider how we can 
 meet it, with loyalty to what we believe to be the 
 truth of God ; not by scolding nor by barren pole- 
 mics, but by putting that into our preaching for the 
 want of which, it may be, men are turning aside to 
 seek satisfaction elsewhere. If some turn to what 
 is called the Broad School, may it not be because 
 Evangelical preachers have not been showing how 
 
10 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Encourtge- 
 ment — 
 
 From the 
 advance of 
 preaching. 
 
 the Gospel touches all that is human and gives 
 to common life a tenderness and beauty and 
 meaning which Broad-church doctrine has not in 
 itself? If others are turning to confessionals and 
 spiritual directions and the corporeal presence of 
 Christ in the sacraments, is it not because we have 
 not shown clearly and warmly enough the human- 
 ity of Christ brought close as a guide and a friend, 
 always and everywhere ? We may have preached 
 Him as the Son of God in heaven, as the Resur- 
 rection and Eternal Hope; we may have pressed the 
 word, "Believe and thou shalt be saved;" but have 
 we shown Him to men who are thirsting for a friend, 
 in the light of His promise, " I will not leave you 
 comfortless ; I will come to you ? " So let us study 
 the preaching of past times that we may add to it 
 that which was wanting ; and while we maintain 
 the unchanged centre, Jesus Christ, we shall bring 
 into the circumference a richer and fuller provision, 
 that, as He himself says, the sheep may go in and 
 out and find pasture. 
 
 I shall mention now, in closing, one or two 
 grounds for encouragement, which we may hope 
 to gain from such a survey. 
 
 One comfort is that, as a whole, errors in preach- 
 ing have tended to correct themselves ; that the 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 
 
 ministry of the Word has not been retrograding 
 in the history of the Church ; that, on the contrary, 
 its tendency has been onward. I do not mean 
 that we have now names equal to those great 
 stars in the firmament — men like Paul, Chrysostom, 
 Augustine, Luther, Knox, Howe, who subdued 
 kingdoms, wrought righteousness, stopped the 
 mouths of lions. These rise rarely, and belong 
 to all time. Neither do I mean to say that there 
 are not little retrogressions, and differences in 
 different places, but that, as a whole, the pulpit 
 has brought home more of Christian truth to the 
 circumstances and wants of men, during the last 
 fifty years, than in any half-century since the be- 
 ginning of Christianity. 
 
 Another ground of comfort is that wherever From its 
 
 vital Christian truth has been presented, with any continued 
 
 attractiveness, 
 measure of adaptation to human wants, men have 
 
 been found ready to listen. There are men who 
 preach the Gospel with so little regard for the 
 circumstances and trials of those around them, 
 with so little life and warmth, that it has no attrac- 
 tions. And there are those who deal with circum- 
 stances and subjects of passing interest, yet show 
 so little of the power of Gospel truth that they 
 only attract the curious, and do not keep them 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 very long. But where the heah'ng and helping 
 truth of Christ is brought home to the wounds and 
 weariness of sinful and suffering human nature, 
 there will always be a power of attraction in it. 
 As God has promised, His blessing and His Spirit 
 attend it. All great revivals, all true advances in 
 the Church, have come from the simple, earnest 
 preaching of the Gospel of Christ. Let us never 
 be allured from this or scoffed out of it. It has 
 shown itself, age after age, the power of God to 
 build up the Church, to convince the gainsaying, 
 and to gather men within the fold of Christ. If we 
 do not succeed, the fault will not be in the weapon, 
 but in our way of handling it. 
 From the And then we may learn this from our survey : 
 
 vane y o -{^^X al! kinds of men may be useful as Christian 
 
 men required. •' 
 
 ministers, provided they are true and earnest and 
 willing to learn, with ordinary capacity for learn- 
 ing. The preacher must be " apt to teach," — i.e. able 
 to think, to arrange his thoughts, and to express 
 them ; but with this, if the heart is right, there 
 may be the greatest variety in the character of 
 mind. This is seen in the past, both in sermons 
 that remain to us and in preaching of which we 
 only read. Each true Christian minister has had 
 his place and circle, and he may have still. He 
 
ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY. 13 
 
 may be a man of genius — there is room for him — 
 or of the plainest, most reah'stic understanding. 
 He may be as learned as the library of Alexandria, 
 or " a man of one book," provided it be the true 
 Book. He may be a philosopher of the schools, 
 or a scholar of common life. He may be original 
 to the verge of eccentricity, or a traveller in well- 
 worn paths. Let him only be resolved to make 
 his gifts the property of his fellow-men in loyal 
 obedience to his Master. Let his genius be tem- 
 pered with humility, his originality not worm-eaten 
 by affectation, his doctrine and duty pervaded by 
 the living Christ ; and there is work for him. Let 
 no one covet or grieve at the gift of his neighbour, 
 but let each diligently cultivate his own. He will 
 have those who draw to him, because in the wide 
 variety of the human mind he meets their need ; 
 and whether his name finds a permanent place in 
 the records of the Church below or not, he will 
 receive the approval, Well done, good and faithful 
 servant 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT. 
 
 Preaching 
 peculiar to 
 Christianity. 
 
 IT may be said that preaching, or regular religious 
 instruction, is pecuHar to Christianity. So far 
 as we know the ancient reh'gions, there was 
 nothing in them resembling it. The priests of 
 Egypt and Chaldea and Greece had their mys- 
 teries, but they were for the initiated. The 
 philosophers had their schools, but they were for 
 the select. No one thought of going out to 
 instruct the masses in moral and religious truth. 
 The orators addressed the people, but it was on 
 political topics for political ends. When Paul 
 began his work in Athens, the philosophers were 
 surprised, not only at the contents of his message, 
 but at the manner of it. He seemed to be " a setter 
 forth (Kara^yeKev^;) of strange gods, because he 
 preached unto them {eviryyeXi^ero) Jesus and the 
 
 T4 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 15 
 
 Resurrection." He proclaimed those truths, 
 making a Gospel of them. This was novel to 
 the Greek mind, and novel to the Greek language. 
 
 Among the religions of the present day, preach- 
 ing is almost as little known. Hindooism cannot be 
 said to have it at all. Buddhism and Mahomet- 
 anism have had their missions, but they have 
 no regular method of instruction for their adhe- 
 rents ; indeed, their preaching, of the early kind at 
 least, has long since ceased. This is scarcely to 
 be wondered at. If you take their sacred books, 
 the Koran for example, you will see how ill adapted 
 they are for continued teaching, how utterly im- 
 possible it would be to deal with them as we do 
 with the Bible, and to gather from them texts 
 subjects, and illustrations for the work of preach- 
 ing. Christianity has this field specially, we may 
 say almost solely, to itself 
 
 But while preaching belongs specially to Christi- itg ancestry, 
 anity, it has an ancestry which can be traced, and 
 that ancestry is in the Old Testament. Our work 
 to-day is to define what we mean when we say this, 
 to trace the line of descent, to look at the place 
 assigned to the prophetic Word. 
 
 When we say that the office of the preacher has 
 an ancestry in the Old Testament, we mean that 
 
l6 LECTURES ON PREAC 
 
 the Old Testament had in it the germ and many 
 features of this office ; that it set apart a special 
 class of men, as does the Christian Church, to 
 learn and to declare the will of God to the people. 
 Prophetic, not This class was the order not of the priests but of 
 pries y. ^j^^ prophets. There is one great High Priest ; 
 
 but all Christians are priests ; this honour have all 
 His saints. The prophets indeed are, so far, 
 represented by all Christians without distinction, as 
 all should in some way be teachers ; but the work 
 of teaching, as fulfilled by ministers in the Church of 
 Christ, follows specially in the line of the prophets. 
 It is true that in many cases the Hebrew 
 prophet had some special function. He had a 
 message direct from God which frequently came 
 with supernatural knowledge in the power of 
 prediction. But it was not always so. The 
 mission of the prophet was often to declare 
 present truth alone, and the great majority of 
 those who bore the name were merely instructors 
 of the people, not foretellers of the future. Taking 
 God's message as it had been already given, they 
 unfolded and enforced it. The Greek word, 
 7rpo(j)7]TT]<;, though it strictly means " one who 
 speaks or interprets for another," came to mean 
 a foreteller, and has thus narrowed the meaning of 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 17 
 
 the Hebrew N''33, wliich might as accurately be 
 rendered " the speaker," the man of the word, 
 corresponding to the Greek K)]pv^. It has some- 
 times the passive shade of meaning (as though 
 from the NipJial, n'3:), denoting a man under Divine 
 influence, and so impelled and guided to speak ; 
 but sometimes the active shade (as though from the 
 Hiphil^ V^?D), suggesting one who uses the human 
 faculty. And is not a preacher of Christ, when he 
 uses his human power, still entitled and urged to look 
 for Divine help ? Thus, with deduction of the super- 
 natural gift, the prophet of the Old Testament is 
 the ancestor and prototype of the Christian preacher. 
 
 Let us then briefly trace the line of this class of The earliest 
 religious teachers — the men of the Word of God. 
 Of their existence in the earlier part of the Old 
 Testament we find little more than an indication ; 
 and this through the New Testament, as when we 
 read of Enoch that he " prophesied," and of Noah 
 that he was a " preacher of righteousness." But 
 this is all. There was no order of men set apart ; 
 the nation had not yet been selected in which the 
 Word of God was to be formed for the world. 
 
 The patriarchal system is a very beautiful and 
 instructive part of Divine history. It shows us 
 religion in the family, scattered here and there 
 
l8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 through the ungodly world, and it has for its 
 watchword the saying of Joshua, "As for me and 
 my house, we will serve the Lord." It has also its 
 peculiar revelation, the Theophany, the appearance 
 of God to the individual and the family as a 
 guardian and friend. This corresponds to the 
 appearance of Christ in His human nature among 
 men. Both of them are at the foundation of all 
 the teaching and preaching that follow, but the 
 command to publish the Divine Word has not yet 
 been received. As in the New Testament this 
 comes when Christ goes forth in His Church, so in 
 the Old Testament it comes when the family goes 
 into the nation. Then the prophet — the preacher 
 — appears with a distinct commission. 
 Moses. This distinct commission begins with Moses. 
 When he is charged to go to Pharaoh with God's 
 message, he shrinks back because he is not eloquent, 
 and pleads that he cannot speak as he ought. He 
 is met by the response, " See, I have made thee 
 a god to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be 
 thy prophet."* Encouraged thereby he fulfils his 
 task, and ultimately holds the office that had been 
 assigned to Aaron. So it often happens ; the man 
 who has most facility at first, falls back if he has 
 * ^^>5; 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 19 
 
 not the higher tone and spirit, and the man who 
 is slow of speech may be kindled into the high- 
 est eloquence. Moses becomes himself a prophet, 
 and there are no words in the Old Testament 
 more full of penetrating power and sublimity than 
 those which he utters. He becomes the guide of 
 Israel, not by his rod only but by his word. He 
 speaks for God to them, and for them to God. 
 But in this Moses is not alone ; there is evidence 
 that he was assisted by a body of prophets or 
 preachers. It could scarcely be otherwise. The 
 Israelites had come out of Egypt ignorant and 
 debased, and they needed instruction about God, 
 and about the mission for which He was preparing 
 them. It was impossible for Moses to do this work 
 alone, and we read that "the Spirit rested upon 
 the seventy elders, so that they prophesied and 
 did not cease." This episode brought out that 
 memorable saying of Moses, "Would God that all 
 the Lord's people were prophets ! " Before Moses 
 died, the promise was given that God would raise 
 op for Israel a prophet from among their brethren 
 like unto him. While this promise is perfectly 
 fulfilled only in Christ, there is a long line of 
 prophets indicated — a chain of many links, ending 
 in one link of gold. 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 It is in every way likely that after Moses there 
 was a continuous class of religious teachers, whose 
 work it was to instruct and warn. We have 
 indications of this in the case of Joshua, in the 
 history of Deborah and Barak, and in the days of 
 solemn assembly, which could not be observed 
 without men being led to speak and listen. 
 Samuel It is, however, in the time of Samuel that we 
 find the first great advance in the place and work 
 of the prophets. The circumstances of Israel led 
 to it, and were overruled by God for this very 
 end. The ark, which was the centre of religious 
 worship, was captured and carried away by the 
 Philistines. It fell into temporary oblivion, and 
 the people were in danger of losing their religion 
 and their unity. It was then that Samuel was 
 raised up as a great teacher and reformer, as was 
 most necessary. The ark and the Mosaic ritual 
 were divinely ordained for instruction, but the 
 people had turned them into idols and charms in 
 place of the living God, and gross immorality had 
 invaded their life. And so the ark must be removed, 
 the priesthood set aside for a while, and the nation 
 instructed in spiritual truth. This accounts for 
 Samuel's offering the sacrifice without restraint 
 of place and for his pressing on the people the 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 21 
 
 great truths of obedience and righteousness as the 
 substance of religion. It was a step toward the 
 spirit of the Psalm, "The sacrifices of God are 
 a broken spirit ; " and of that saying of Christ, 
 "Neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem 
 shall ye worship the Father." 
 
 This is not a violation, as some seem to think, 
 of the unity of the religious worship of the nation. 
 A man was raised by God to restore that unity by 
 giving it spirit and life. The unity of worship 
 around the ark admits the very same exception as 
 the law of the Sabbath, — necessity and mercy. 
 
 It is in the time of Samuel that we first read of The Prophetic 
 companies of prophets under a director, of music "^ °° '* 
 as forming an accompaniment of their prophecies, 
 and of the Spirit of God falling upon them as 
 in the New Testament Church. But doubtless 
 teaching was the chief part of their duty, and it is 
 at this stage that we find the beginning of that 
 great advance in spirituality of view which appears 
 in the Psalms and later prophets, when ritual was 
 seen to be a lower thing than mercy and truth and 
 righteousness. This was so great a step in the 
 prophetic position that Samuel is spoken of in the 
 ninety-ninth Psalm, as occupying a marked place : 
 ** Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 office. 
 
 among them that call upon His name." And he 
 is put in the book of Acts at the head of the 
 prophet-roll : " Yea, and all the prophets from 
 Samuel and those that follow after." 
 The Prophetic We have again a period when the prophetic 
 office is to some extent hidden. A new power 
 has risen in the land, that of the king, which brings 
 danger to religious truth and purity. We read of 
 Gad the seer and Nathan the prophet, who 
 reproved David, of Ahijah and Iddo and others ; 
 but the next notable period is that of Elijah and 
 Elisha. The kingdom of David is rent in twain ; 
 In Israel, two tribes follow his dynasty ; the others, moved 
 by political jealousy and political indifference, 
 take Jeroboam as their king. It is remarkable that 
 the first great outbreak of zeal in prophecy and 
 preaching occurred among the tribes that revolted. 
 . And yet this was natural, for there the need was 
 greatest, and the Spirit of God raised up the 
 standard. The history of Elijah and Elisha, the 
 two witnesses in the kingdom of Israel, is one of 
 wonderful interest and picturesqueness and beauty 
 and grandeur. Elijah, Ahab, Jezebel, Carmel, 
 Horeb, Elisha, Naaman, the widow of Sarepta, the 
 Shunammite — how we turn to them and read of 
 them, and find meanings second only to those in 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 23 
 
 the life of Christ ! It strikes us sometimes as 
 strange that no lengthened discourse from this 
 period is preserved. But the words of these men 
 were thunderbolts; they struck, and struck but once; 
 and the place given to Elijah is seen in this, that 
 the forerunner of Christ is named from him, and 
 that he stands beside Moses on the Mount of 
 Transfiguration to represent the prophets. We 
 have abundant evidence that, at this time, the pro- 
 phetic office had become a fixed institution, even 
 among the ten tribes. We hear of "schools of 
 the prophets " at Bethel and Jericho and Gilgal, 
 the very seats of idolatry ; of the place where some 
 of them met becoming too narrow for them ; and 
 of their going forth to form new schools. These 
 seem to have been gatherings of disciples round 
 noted teachers, and, no doubt, the theme of instruc- 
 tion was the character of the worship of Jehovah, 
 as opposed to the Baal-worship against which they 
 met to protest. In some cases they lived together ; 
 in others they had homes and families of their 
 own. Perhaps, if we were to look for a later 
 analogy, we should find it in the "families of 
 lona," as they called themselves, or the Moravian 
 settlements, or communities of missionaries which 
 form stations like Livingstonia. The position 
 
24 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 which they assumed towards the apostate kingly 
 power reminds us sometimes of the Huguenots of 
 France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
 or of our own forefathers in the time of Charles II. 
 and James — confronting kings, and not afraid. It 
 was by no far-fetched reference that the Camerons 
 and Cargills among our wild mountains made their 
 frequent appeals to the Lord God of Elijah. 
 Injudah. 1" the kingdom of Judah the work of the 
 prophet took a somewhat different form. There 
 were there, no doubt, also teachers and scholars, 
 and frequent protests against the defection of the 
 times. But the temple at Jerusalem, the service of 
 Jehovah there, the line of kingly descent from 
 David, kept the persecution of the prophets from 
 becoming as fierce and sanguinary as it was in the 
 northern kingdom. There was more opportunity 
 for full speech, and God's message to us comes 
 through words spoken there which are still pre- 
 served. Such were Isaiah and Jeremiah and 
 Micah. If we learn from the prophets of the 
 ten tribes to dare and do, to jeopardise our lives 
 even unto death, we learn from those of the 
 two tribes how to be kindled with a high and noble 
 enthusiasm of speech, to ask from God the tongue 
 of the learned, and to speak the word in season 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 25 
 
 With some points of difference, it is like the 
 distinction between Scotland and England in the 
 dark days of the Stuart reign. The hand of perse- 
 cution did not fall so heavily in the south, and 
 England had its Howe and Baxter and Bunyan, 
 who, when they could not speak, could write though 
 it were in the prison. But our forefathers were 
 among those who " wandered in deserts and on 
 mountains ; " they had a short passage from the 
 prison to the scaffold, and their history is that of 
 their devotion to the death. If we had then the 
 fewer prophets, we had the greater martyrs. 
 
 There is one period of prophetic work to which During the 
 we can refer only briefly, though it is of great Captivity, 
 importance. It is that of the prophets of the 
 Captivity — Ezekiel and Daniel, and of the return — 
 Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. These men had 
 a double duty ; first, to be watchers over the rem- ) 
 nant, and to keep it steadfast as the world's 
 religious hope ; and, next, to represent in some 
 measure to the outside world the great light which 
 was yet to visit it. They were what may be called 
 the " missionary prophets," and after Isaiah, who 
 towers above all, there are none who so dis- 
 tinctly bring out the design of God for the whole 
 race of man, or so prepare the heart of ]q.^ 
 
Return. 
 
 26 LECTURES ON FKE ACHING. 
 
 and Gentile for the coming of Christ. If we find 
 throughout the world at the time of our Saviour 
 h'ttle bands of Jews and proselytes to whom the 
 apostles first addressed themselves, and who 
 became hearths for the sacred fire, we owe it 
 through God's guidance to the men who lifted 
 the thoughts and hopes of the chosen people above 
 the natural limits of their land and race into the 
 atmosphere of those grand truths which express 
 the needs and meet the wants of all mankind. 
 After the This closes the line of divinely inspired teachers 
 whom we call, in the highest sense, prophets. But, 
 as we have already said, the word prophet has 
 a far wider meaning, as applied to all teachers 
 of religious truth. In this sense we find men in 
 the time of Jehoshaphat and Josiah reading and 
 explaining the Word of God, and not less in the 
 time of Ezra and Nehemiah. These were evidently 
 epochs of great religious revival and reformation 
 under what we call " the ordinary teaching of the 
 Word." Such teaching continued down to the 
 time of our Lord, with many a turn of the tide, but 
 exciting desires and giving knowledge which made 
 the world more ready for Him and for the Gospel. 
 
 If the survey we have taken be at all a just one, 
 then the prophetic office grew in importance all 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACIIIXG IN OLD TESTAMENT. 27 
 
 through the Old Testament till it took the leading 
 place. You will not understand me as depreciating 
 the history or the divinely appointed symbolism. 
 The prophet accepts these as the basis of all his 
 teaching, but more and more does he penetrate to 
 the heart of them, show the symbol to be nothing 
 without its inner meaning, and turn away to the 
 great reality, to Christ before and to God above. 
 Moses, Isaiah, Christ — the law, the prophets, the 
 Son of God — that is the ascending scale, and then 
 the Son of God becomes the centre of the law and 
 the prophets, and sends us forth again as His 
 messengers of truth and grace. 
 
 If we follow this ascending scale, we shall be The teaching 
 guarded against several errors. of this survey 
 
 Some critics tell us that the more minute develop- (i) Course of 
 ment of Jewish ritual was superimposed long after J^^'^^^^^'^* 
 the time of David ; that Judaism was simpler in 
 its elements as it came from Moses, but became 
 more detailed and elaborate in its later history. 
 We could understand this if it were a merely 
 human growth ; for it would resemble the addition 
 of ceremonialism to the simplicity of the New 
 Testament by the Romish Church. But if the Old 
 Testament be, as we believe, a Divine education, 
 then to put the law in its full form after the 
 
28 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 prophets, is to misapprehend and invert the whole 
 course of Jewish history. The mission of the 
 prophets was to pass from form to substance, 
 from symbol to reality, from ritual to righteous- 
 ness and truth. God's path is from the dark to 
 the clear and ever clearer, shining more and more 
 unto the perfect day. 
 
 (2) The place We shall also be warned against giving ritual 
 of preac ing. ^^ symbolism a higher place than preaching in the 
 
 Christian Church. Even under the Old Testament, 
 the whole course of progress was towards presenting 
 Divine truth in its simplicity and power by bring- 
 ing it close to the understanding. God gradually 
 sets aside the mere form, and it is not for us to 
 reimpose it. 
 
 (3) The mater- We may also learn something as to the matter 
 lais or preac - ^^ ^^^ preaching. In some respects the work of 
 
 the Old Testament prophets was very different 
 from ours, and yet in many respects it was the 
 same, since they too had to instruct the people. 
 We find that their teaching was occupied with 
 three great spheres, {a) It laid its basis in the past, 
 in the facts of a Divine history — what God had 
 done in His great interpositions. Nothing moves 
 men like this. He who does not care for the 
 past is doomed to mental and spiritual poverty. 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 29 
 
 {b) Further, they faithfully brought the past to bear 
 on the present — present sin, present duty ; without '^ 
 this the past is dead, (r) And still more they 
 pointed to the future, for without the future the 
 present cannot be understood ; unless we know the 
 end how can we know the way ? 
 
 Now the Christian preacher has still these three 
 spheres. He has tJieir past, but a greater added to 
 it in the history of Christ and of what God has 
 done through Him. Yet this will be dead — mere 
 orthodox doctrine, unless you bring it to bear on 
 present life, on the wants and duties that are here 
 and now. And you have also a future to point to, 
 a greater future, when Christ shall return to make 
 all things new. Whatever may be said about the 
 magnanimity of thinking only of the present life, 
 and the grand unselfishness of letting the future 
 alone, we must take our teaching from the apostle's 
 maxim, " If in this life only we have hope in Christ, 
 we are of all men most miserable," and from Christ's 
 saying, " I will see you again, and your heart shall 
 rejoice." I could not believe in a Christ who excited 
 desires which He could not satisfy. I should as 
 soon think of taking the pole-star from the sky, 
 and the haven from the voyage, to make the sailor 
 safe and happy. Men may call it magnanimity tc 
 
30 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 be willing to die and think no more of God, but it is 
 the magnanimity of indifference. Fill your preach- 
 ing with the past, the present, and the future, and let 
 Him to whom prophets looked beautify them all. 
 (4) The spirit of Lastly, acquaintance with them and with their 
 our preac ing. ^^^j-jg ^jjj serve to enkindle our spirit and ennoble 
 our life. To enkindle our spirit, let us study the 
 apostles not less, but the prophets more. The 
 greatest preachers have risen by their inspiration — 
 the deep spirituality of the Psalms, the majesty of 
 Isaiah, the tender pathos of Jeremiah, the dusky 
 grandeur of Ezekiel, and the twelve Lesser Prophets, 
 if we can call them less, who shine with a lustre each 
 his own. And to ennoble our life, we may well 
 follow them. There has seldom been a time when 
 we more needed their singleness of purpose, their 
 steadfastness, their courage, their trust in the living 
 God, who is the God of truth and right. When we 
 look at the materialistic Baal-worship, at the sensu- 
 alism of the Phoenician Ashtaroth, with its gilded 
 corruptions, its hatred of appeals to conscience and 
 righteousness, we seem brought face to face with 
 real dangers of the present day — materialism, the 
 worship of pleasure more or less refined, a religion 
 that shall not stir the conscience nor command the 
 life, a charge of puritanism or fanaticism against 
 
ANCESTRY OF PREACHING IN OLD TESTAMENT. 31 
 
 those who are earnest in any moral or spiritual 
 purpose. Do we not have it in too much of our 
 literature, our press, our society talk? It is the 
 same old battle between the world and the living 
 God, and we may learn from these men how to 
 bear ourselves. Often it must have seemed to them 
 as if all were going to ruin, as if God Himself had 
 gone up and left them to fight the battle alone. 
 But they stood firm, and they have gained the day. 
 Ahab and Jezebel and the abomination of the 
 Zidonians — where are they beside those men whose 
 names are among the cloud of witnesses, and shine 
 out through the troubled skies as a guide and hope 
 to us? Science is good, and literature, and art, 
 and beauty, but separate them from conscience 
 and God and eternal life, and they will lower the 
 world to the abyss into which the Baals and 
 Ashtaroths have long since gone down. If there 
 be any power under God to save the world, it is a 
 living Church with faithful ministers who shall 
 fearlessly witness for the living God. Let us thank 
 Him that we have many true men in all depart- 
 ments of life and thought, but the ministers of God 
 must show the courage of these old prophets, if they 
 are to share in the joy of the victory which shall 
 surely come, though it may not come through us. 
 
LECTURE HI. 
 
 THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 
 
 'T^HE earliest Christian preaching, as we all 
 
 -*■ know, is found in the New Testament, but 
 
 the preaching to be found there is very different 
 
 from that which prevails among us — I mean in shape 
 
 and form. Even the Sermon on the Mount, the 
 
 longest sermon in the New Testament, is not 
 
 meant to serve us for a model of construction. If 
 
 The preach- the New Testament had given us sermons elabor- 
 
 XT° °l! ately and artistically framed like the orations of 
 
 New Testa- ^ •' 
 
 ment. Dcmosthenes and Cicero, it would not have been 
 
 so suitable for the work of the Christian ministry. 
 
 In instructing men in physical science one does 
 
 not go to the product as it is wrought up into 
 
 artificial shapes, but as it is seen in nature — gold 
 
 in the ore, not in the finest vase that workmanship 
 
 can form. The object of the New Testament is to 
 
 give us religious truth in situ, in the original field, 
 32 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 33 
 
 and then to leave successive generations to put it 
 into all the shapes that are needed for the wants of 
 men. Had the Bible given us truth wrought out 
 into all the fitting forms, it would have required to 
 be a very different book as to size — a book which 
 would not have met the daily necessities of the 
 great body of men ; and then, with those fixed 
 forms, it would have led us into uniformity and 
 stagnation. Therefore the Bible, and specially the 
 New Testament, gives primordia, first materials 
 and principles and guiding lines, and sets us forth 
 to the work of preaching in a more free and natural 
 way, with the fresh movement of our own minds, 
 and the help of God's Spirit. 
 
 Still, we may gain from the New Testament, 
 not only materials, but definite suggestions of the 
 highest value ; and in search for these we shall 
 to-day briefly consider the preaching of Christ 
 and His apostles, and then, leaving the New 
 Testament, glance at the preaching of the early 
 Christian Church. 
 
 With regard to the preaching of Christ, we can 
 name only a few points. 
 
 The great work of Christ during His life was christ'g 
 
 preaching. His testimony about Himself is, that ^^^^ '"^" 
 
 He came " to bear witness to the truth." The works 
 
 D 
 
34 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 which He performed in healing men were simply 
 preaching put into visible and palpable form. His 
 miracles are parables clothed in acts. But the 
 spoken word is His great power in life. And this 
 is natural. The word, language, is the highest out- 
 come of human nature, that by which man under- 
 stands himself, holds fellowship with other men, 
 and even communes with God. So Christ, through- 
 out His life, was above all things a preacher. 
 Nicodemus spoke the truth when he said, " no man 
 can do these miracles that thou doest except God 
 be with him ; " but Peter had reached higher 
 ground when he said, " Lord, to whom shall we 
 go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 
 It! aim. Is there, then, nothing greater than Christ's 
 
 preaching ? Yes, certainly, there is Christ himself, 
 Christ in His own person, living, dying, rising, and 
 becoming the mediator between man and God. 
 Accordingly, His own preaching constantly leads 
 us to Himself: "Come unto Me, all ye that 
 labour ; " " I am the good Shepherd ; " " I, if I be 
 lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
 Me ; " " I am the Resurrection and the Life." This 
 would be egotism in any one else than Christ ; but 
 for Him to refrain from it would be to be untrue 
 to His mission. The sun enlightens by shining, 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 35 
 
 and Christ saves by showing Himself. Here, then, 
 are two things to remember: preaching is the great 
 Christian work, and in preaching we have to 
 preach Christ. 
 
 When we come to the characteristics of Christ's its character 
 preaching, we name these as among them. *^^'"' 
 
 There is great simplicity and yet there is a never- 
 fathomed depth. The words and figures are within 
 the comprehension of the most unlettered, and 
 even of children ; while the thoughtful student 
 feels that he cannot exhaust them. If we aimed 
 at this way of preaching, we should suit every 
 capacity. 
 
 There is great variety and yet there is one constant 
 aim. His illustrations are as wide as nature and 
 as human life, but they all bear on God and our 
 relation to Him. This combination reminds us of 
 the two-fold plan of the apostle, who " determined 
 not to know anything save Jesus Christ and Him 
 crucified," yet " was made all things to all men." 
 
 There is great sympathy and yet great faithfulness. 
 He may justly be said to " speak the truth in 
 love ; " piercing to the conscience, bringing it into 
 the presence of the holy law and character of God, 
 and yet appealing so tenderly to the heart. This 
 is, indeed, the meeting together of righteousness 
 
36 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Different 
 spheres of 
 Christ's 
 Preaching. 
 
 and mercy. If we could unite these character- 
 istics, how powerful we should be as preachers ! 
 
 Then we may learn something from the different 
 spheres of Christ's preaching. 
 
 (i.) There is what may be called His stated 
 preaching. We read again and again that He 
 taught in the synagogue ; " as His custom was He 
 went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day." 
 An example is given us of His method. He 
 read the Scripture, explained it, and applied 
 it to the audience : " This day is this Scripture 
 fulfilled in your ears." This corresponds to our 
 regular work among those who know the Bible ; 
 and we learn from it what we have to do, — to take 
 the Bible in its meaning, above all about Christ, 
 and bring it to bear on the hearers. 
 
 (2.) Another sphere was his occasional preach- 
 ing, — on the mountains, by the sea shore, in the 
 city, wherever men gathered round Him. In this 
 He seems to have spent the greater part of His 
 ministry, and though such work falls more rarely 
 to us, His method in it is instructive, specially for 
 the Christian missionary. To begin without a 
 text, from something in God's world, or man's life, 
 that arrests the hearers at the time, is the best 
 way to approach an outside multitude ; and any 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 37 
 
 one who wishes to do this should try to make 
 himself acquainted with nature and life in all 
 their variety, and to learn how to express their 
 spiritual significance. They arc adapted to such 
 use. Nature is a parable, and we find God to be 
 the subject of it when we learn the handwriting. 
 The sooth-sayers and astrologers cannot read 
 it, but it is ours to find out the hidden inter- 
 pretation. It would give even our ordinary preach- 
 ing great freshness and interest, if we could bring 
 the voice of the days and seasons into the pulpit. 
 Christ meant to teach all preachers this ; to make 
 us speak as men who in one sense or another have 
 not only God's Word but God's world in view. 
 
 (3.) The third sphere of Christ's preaching was 
 to the individual, when he spoke to single persons, 
 who touched Him or were touched by Him in the 
 house and by the way. This should still be in- 
 cluded in our work, when we visit Christian families 
 and in the intercourse of life. It may seem like 
 a paradox to say that we shall learn here not to 
 preach at all. Notice how Christ does. He drops 
 a saying, sometimes little more than a word — " Go 
 and sin no more," " Oh, thou of little faith," " One 
 thing is needful ;" and He sends them away with 
 this, to think of it and to preach about it to them - 
 
38 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of the 
 apostles. 
 
 selves. See that you follow His example. You can 
 preach to men gathered together, but when you have 
 a person, do not preach, do not lecture him, whether 
 young or old ; but be a friend, saying no more 
 than the " word in season " : by your very silence 
 you will show that Christ has been your teacher. 
 The Preaching We come now to the preaching of the apostles. 
 We have no complete report of any one sermon. 
 The longest, perhaps, is that of Peter's sermon on 
 the Day of Pentecost, but it is evidently only a 
 summary, for we read at the end that " with many 
 other words did he testify and exhort." But when 
 we look at the book of Acts and the epistles as 
 a whole, we learn some general truths. 
 
 They had two kinds of preaching. The one was 
 " missionary," for bringing men to a knowledge of 
 Christ ; the other was " ministerial," for building 
 them up in the faith and in the practice of it. 
 The first of these we have in the book of Acts ; 
 the second we have in the epistles. 
 
 In their missionary sermons, whether to Jews oi 
 to Gentiles, their chief aim seems to have been to 
 make men acquainted first with the person and 
 history of Christ. This is the foundation of all 
 Christian knowledge and preaching. God's way of 
 saving the world is b\' an interposition in time 
 
 Missionary. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 39 
 
 through the life and death of a person, through the 
 Son of God becoming the son of man, and so making 
 men again the sons of God. It is for this reason 
 that the gospels go before the epistles, and the 
 order suggests a valuable lesson for missionaries 
 either at home or abroad. Give the life, doings, 
 death, resurrection of Christ as clearly and warmly 
 as you can, and with all that variety which the 
 gospels put in your power. To point to Christ as 
 He walks and say, " Behold the Lamb of God ! " is 
 an appeal which reaches men even without argu- 
 ment. No doubt we must tell something of the 
 meaning of His life, but at first the life itself 
 should have the foremost place. I think that 
 even in Home Mission work, and in our ordinary 
 preaching, this should be borne in mind. There 
 are always children, there are always half-instructed 
 people for whom views of the Gospel history are 
 the very best of all preaching, and these may be 
 given in a way that will make them profitable to 
 the most advanced intelligence. Therefore preach 
 a great deal from the gospels. 
 
 But the apostles had another kind of preaching, MinisterUL 
 which followed their missionary labours. We have 
 little of this in the book of Acts, only a glimpse 
 in Paul's address to the elders of Ephesus ; but it is 
 
40 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 fully represented by the epistles. These are really 
 examples of the kind of teaching that must often 
 have been given orally to Christians who were 
 more advanced in knowledge ; and it is a great 
 testimony to the new intelligence that had been 
 called out among the slaves and freedmen of 
 Its character. Rome, that they could have such letters read and 
 such sermons preached to them. You may be 
 sure that Paul measured his audience ; think then 
 of the natural powers of reasoning, of the spiritual 
 insight, of the lofty and sanctified imagination that 
 would be needed to follow the first eight chapters 
 of the Letter to the Romans. 
 
 There are some who say that we should not 
 enter into such subjects as these in Christian 
 preaching, that we should keep simply to the 
 history of Christ and not meddle with doctrine. 
 The life of Christ, they say, is sufficient in itself 
 without these mysterious and metaphysical deduc- 
 tions from it 
 
 But if you consider the gospels by themselves, you 
 will see that they could never be understood with- 
 without some doctrine — i.e., instruction about their 
 meaning. When Christ says, " Dost thou believe 
 on the Son of God ? " the hearer naturally asks, 
 "Who is He, Lord?" Christ Himself presses the 
 
 Preaching 
 should be 
 doctrinal. 
 
 Doctrine in 
 the gospels. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 41 
 
 question — " Whom say ye that I am ? " The 
 answer given is doctrine. He tells them the mean- 
 ing of His death, that it is " a ransom for many ; " 
 and He promises the Spirit of truth to guide them 
 into all truth, to testify of Him, to take of the 
 things that are His, and show them unto them. 
 This, which is the teaching of the epistles, is thus 
 implied in Christ's own plan. 
 
 Now, when we look at the epistles, one or two How pre- 
 
 things may guide us in dealinp- with Christian ^^"*^^^ '" ^'i*'- 
 ^ ■> ^ ^ -> epistles. 
 
 doctrine, so as to make it intelligible and inter- 
 esting. 
 
 First, all their teaching starts from and returns 
 to Christ. I need not prove this ; you can verify it 
 for yourselves. His life -and death and resurrection 
 penetrate everywhere, and are the roots of Christ- 
 ian faith and hope and practice. They are the 
 river of life, by the side of which trees grow and 
 blossom and fructify. If you can connect doctrine 
 in this way with Christ Himself, it will be clear and 
 fresh to everyone. 
 
 Further, they preach doctrine with an eye to the 
 lives of men. It is varied according to the different 
 churches, their circumstances, their faults, their 
 temptations. The Romans, the Corinthians, the 
 Galatians, the Hebrews, have their practical differ- 
 
42 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 ences dealt with, and this holds not only in the 
 case of the churches, but in that of individuals. 
 Our preaching should be so adapted — close, 
 discriminating, individual, without being personal. 
 This, also, will give interest to doctrine. 
 
 Notice, again, how each writer or preacher has 
 his own bent, and yet the preaching is all the 
 while Christian. Christ Himself has all the 
 elements ; the different preachers take their parts. 
 Of the Sermon on the Mount, the practical side is 
 reproduced by James ; the warm, vehement appeal, 
 which is found in the address to the multitudes, is 
 taken up by Peter, both in the Acts and his 
 epistles ; the teaching about redemption and 
 the ransom is specially the work of Paul ; and 
 the spiritual insight belongs to John. Christ and 
 Christ crucified are in all of them, but each has his 
 own manner. We, too, should be true to our own 
 view, provided we are making Christ and His Cross 
 our centre. So the breadth of preaching comes 
 out, and every true Christian minister secures his 
 sphere. 
 
 Lastly, we learn that we must study and think 
 if we are ever to preach well. This is made 
 clear specially in the Pastoral Epistles, which are 
 indeed the Homiletics of the New Testament, and 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 43 
 
 deserve the minute attention of every minister. If 
 there is any enthusiast who thinks he will be able 
 to preach by trusting simply to the inspiration of 
 the Spirit, or any genius who thinks it will come to 
 him by intuition, or any sluggard who is waiting for 
 something to occur, he may be undeceived by read- 
 ing these letters of the great preacher Paul. The 
 preacher may expect Divine help, but only in the 
 use of all proper means. He is to stir up the gift 
 that is in him ; to give himself to reading and to 
 meditation ; to be nourished in the words of faith 
 and sound doctrine ; to make himself acquainted 
 ever more with the Holy Scriptures, though he has 
 learned them from a child ; to distinguish all the 
 relationships of life so that he may touch them 
 with discretion ; and in all things to study to 
 show himself approved unto God — "a workman 
 that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing 
 the word of truth." So good preachers were made 
 at first under apostolic guidance, and so good 
 preachers must be made to the end of the world. 
 Oratio, meditatio, tentatio. 
 
 We shall now glance at the preaching of the The Post- 
 early Church immediately after the time of the church. '^ 
 apostles. The period may be said to extend to 
 the time of Origen, who was born in the year 185 
 
44 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 A.D., and with whom a new epoch in preaching 
 commenced. Our information about the preaching 
 of this period is somewhat scanty. It was a busy 
 time ; the disciples spread the knowledge of the 
 Gospel, organised communities, met persecution ; 
 but they left few written records. The best 
 account of Christian worship, and of the part 
 preaching takes, is given by Justin Martyr, who 
 was put to death at Rome in 165 A.D. It is our 
 chief authority : — 
 The form of " On tl)e day which is called Sunday, all the 
 worship. Christians inhabiting the towns or country assemble 
 
 in the same place. The memorials {airofivr^fiovev- 
 fiaTo) of the apostles and the writings of the 
 prophets are read as time permits. When the 
 reader has finished, the president of the assembly 
 delivers an exhortation and charges his hearers 
 to imitate those holy examples. Then we all rise 
 together and offer up prayers. After the prayer, 
 bread is brought forward, and wine and water ; 
 the president then in his turn presents prayers 
 and praises to God, according to his ability {oar} 
 tvvaiit<i avrm), and the people express their assent 
 by saying, ' Amen.' The Eucharist is distributed, 
 and every one partakes of it, while the deacons 
 carry a share to those who are absent. Those who 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 45 
 
 possess worldly goods bring a free-will offering in 
 proportion to their means. The offerings are 
 collected and placed in the hands of the president, 
 who, by this means, supplies the needs of the 
 orphans and widows, of those who are in want 
 through sickness or other causes, of those who are 
 in prison, and of sojourners who are strangers. 
 In a word, he is the helper of the needy " (Justin, 
 Apol. i. 87-8). 
 
 Without entering into a minute cohsideration of 
 this interesting passage, we may note these points. 
 The meeting together on Sunday, elsewhere called 
 the Lord's Day {KvpmKrj), is now established 
 throughout the Christian Church. The disciples 
 have a central place of worship where they all con- 
 vene, if it can contain them. In some places they 
 have several ; in Rome, e.g., at an early period, 
 above forty. This place of meeting was called 
 KvpiaKov, the Lord's House, an adjective, the origin 
 of our words Kirk or Church.* The name of the 
 Lord is given both to the House and to the Day — 
 in Latin Dominicum or Domi7tica, whence the French 
 word Dimanche. The procuring of a separate 
 meeting-place was gradual. At first they met in 
 the synagogue, and they remained there if the 
 * Not from Kvplov oTkos, as has often been said. 
 
46 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 people became Christian. If not, they adjourned 
 to some convenient place — to a large house of some 
 adherent, or to a hall, as "the school of one 
 Tyrannus." Then they began to erect places 
 of worship. These were constructed not on the 
 model of the Jewish Temple, which had separate 
 courts, nor of pagan temples such as the Pan- 
 theon, but like the Basilica or Court of Justice, 
 and hence early Christian churches are called 
 Basilicas. The form is an oblong, with a raised 
 place at one end occupied by the judge, and 
 in the Christian buildings by the president or 
 bishop or presiding minister, who in Justin's time 
 . was the preacher. Before him was the lector, 
 whose duty it was to read the Scripture, and who 
 is still found in the French Protestant Church, as 
 he was in our early Scottish Church. His descend- 
 ant is the precentor or clerk. Next was a space 
 occupied by the Presby terion or body of Presbyters ; 
 then the company of the faithful, and farthest out 
 the non-Christian hearers. Justin's account of the 
 service is probably an abridged one, but we can see 
 that the sermon occupied a prominent place. It 
 was founded on the portion read by the lector, and 
 had two features — an explanation of the passage, 
 and an exhortation based upon it. It was partly 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 47 
 
 exegetical and partly hortatory. That the minister 
 studied it beforehand, appears from the special 
 praise bestowed by early writers upon men who 
 were known to have preached on certain occasions 
 without opportunity for preparation.* 
 
 The preaching, so far as we can judge from what Character of 
 remains of it, was far beneath the epistles of the P"^^^*^^"^- 
 New Testament in spiritual grasp, and very 
 different from sermons of the present day. Of 
 the teaching of the Apostolic Fathers, as they 
 are called, and of their immediate successors, 
 little remains to us. What we have is of a very 
 simple kind — good, pious exhortation, without 
 much force of thought or breadth of vision, 
 and without any effort at artistic presentation. 
 The light of inspiration has faded, and the human 
 mind has not yet applied itself in its full power 
 to God's revelation. They know that they have 
 a great treasure in the field, but they have not yet 
 explored the veins of gold, nor begun to smelt the 
 ore in the crucible of reflection and to mould it into 
 forms of beauty. It was, besides, a time of heavy 
 persecution, and the preaching was of the kind 
 
 * Eusebius (vi. 36) relates that it was not till Origan was 
 sixty years of age that he allowed shorthand writers to report 
 his lectures. 
 
48 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 that such times require, calh'ng men in few stem 
 words to a watchful course. In this and in other 
 ways, it was no doubt suited to the times and to 
 the audience, which could not be so Christianly 
 intelligent as that to which Paul addressed his 
 letters. A mixed audience, lower in intelligence 
 and tone, had pressed into the Church ; and the 
 Christian thought of the time seems to have been 
 put not so much into sermons as into books, as we 
 find in many parts of Germany in our day. There 
 was a stage of this kind of preaching in Scotland, 
 though it came much later.* 
 Change in During the latter part of this period, however, 
 
 Christian hfe. ^^^ preaching altered greatly. Next to the Cata- 
 combs, perhaps the most interesting walk in Rome 
 for the student of Christian history is through the 
 gallery of the Lateran Museum, which contains 
 the early sepulchral monuments of the Christians. 
 One whole gallery is devoted to inscriptions and 
 emblems and sarcophagi, chronologically arranged. 
 At first they are very simply and rudely executed, 
 apparently in haste and fear, and often by the 
 hands of the poor and illiterate. The orthography 
 and syntax would have brought a sneer to the lips 
 of a Ciceronian or a Platonist, though not perhaps 
 * C/ Note A on page 53. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 49 
 
 to the lips of Cicero and Plato, for through the 
 rude forms the great hope is struggling to find ex- 
 pression — the hope which the Tusculan Questioner 
 and Phaedo would have rejoiced to trace. We have 
 the simple words, " He departed to God," " My dear 
 child fell asleep in Christ," with a lamb or a dove 
 or a palm branch rudely etched above ; the years, 
 the days, the very hours of a child numbered up, 
 as if life had now received a new significance. But 
 as we pass along the gallery we can read the 
 gradual triumph of the Gospel. The style becomes 
 correct ; the rude etchings blossom out into beauty ; 
 the richly sculptured tombs carry us back to the 
 classic times ; only, instead of Bacchus and the 
 Satyrs — " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die" — we have the resurrection of Lazarus, the 
 feeding of the multitude, the appearance in the 
 storm — " It is I, be not afraid." 
 
 A similar change shows itself in the preaching Development 
 of the Church. For the simple-hearted Apostolic ^^ '^''^^^^'^' 
 Fathers, with their persecuted flocks, we have men 
 of learning and culture who addressed thousands 
 of Greek and Roman citizens in the great basilicas, 
 some of which still remain — that of Ambrose at 
 Milan, St. Sophia at Constantinople, and some 
 
 think the Mosque of Omar at Jerusalem. This 
 
 B 
 
5° 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 is a new thing in the world's history. On the 
 Areopagus and in the Forum thousands of men 
 had assembled to listen to eloquent speech, but 
 it was only of civil and secular things — nothing 
 else would attract the masses. There had also 
 been discussions on the gods and their nature, the 
 soul and its essence, the supreme good and law ; 
 but these had been among the few, in the groves 
 of Academus or on the brow of the Alban Hill — 
 " Others apart sat on a hill retired." But to find 
 the multitudes eagerly listening to those questions, 
 awake to the divine, the eternal, the burden of 
 possessing an immortal soul — this was something 
 new ; this could only come from the Great Preacher, 
 His life, His death. His risen power. It was the 
 fulfilment of His own word, " I, if I be lifted up 
 from the earth, will draw all men unto Me." 
 Two centres In this period there were two great centres of 
 o reac ing. pj.g^(,]^jfjg power — the one in the Eastern or Greek 
 Church, represented by Origen, Basil, and, above 
 all, Chrysostom ; the other in the Western or Latin 
 Church, represented by Jerome, Ambrose, and 
 Augustine. Of these, the most worthy of the 
 attention of the preacher are Augustine and 
 Chrysostom, and Chrysostom more that Augustine. 
 Augustine was the greater man and divine, 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 51 
 
 Chrysostom the greater preacher. No one can read 
 of the effect of his preaching in Constantinople 
 without feeling that he was a mighty power. " As 
 well want the sun from the sky, as want Chryso- 
 stom from our city," was the cry when he was 
 banished ; and yet he was constantly preaching to 
 the conscience. The most accessible account of 
 Augustine's idea of preaching is his own De 
 Doctrina Christiana^ especially the fourth book. 
 The student who judges by modern standards will 
 find indeed much imperfection. The form of the 
 sermon has not been reached ; it is rather a 
 discursive lecture on a part of the Bible, with wide 
 digressions. The treatise is also imperfect in 
 doctrinal statements. Augustine is distinct on the 
 broad questions of sin and grace, and powerful 
 on the practical conscience. The life, the death, 
 the resurrection of Christ, the Divine and human, 
 are always prominent ; but the ring of Luther, the 
 jubilee trumpet of the Reformers, is not well heard. 
 The interpretation of the Bible is not infrequently 
 fanciful and far-fetched, though Augustine and 
 Chrysostom are in this more sober than most of 
 their predecessors. Exegesis was not the gift of 
 that age. But they have a freshness and loftiness 
 of thought, a vigour and brevity of expression, a 
 
52 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 high conception of the grandeur of Christian truth 
 in its bearing on life, from which the preacher may 
 always receive inspiration. They preached, more- 
 over, to their own generation and to the conscience 
 of their hearers ; and, lastly, though they knew the 
 Greek philosophy well, and had benefited by the 
 training of its schools, they did not drag it into 
 their preaching. They felt that they had found 
 a far higher Master, and they preached Christ. 
 
THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN PREACHING. 53 
 
 Note A, see page 48. 
 
 In the Advocates' Library of this city (Edinburgh) 
 you will find an old volume which contains the " Instruc- 
 tiones Sancti Columbani " — not of Columba, but a later 
 disciple of his school, who visited France and Switzerland 
 and the north of Italy, and preached both in Latin and in 
 the vernacular. The " Instructiones" are generally brief, 
 giving probably little more than the line pursued, and are 
 headed in this way : — 
 
 Instructio VII. De caecitate hominis qui neglecto spiritu 
 inservit corpori ; he begins with this strong apostrophe, O 
 te caecam insaniam, O te caecam foveam, humanam volun- 
 tatem, quae accepta celas et data non reddis. 
 
 Instructio VIII. Quod ad coelestem patriam, viae prae- 
 sentis finem festinandum sit. 
 
 Instructio IX. De Extremo ludicio. 
 
 „ XI. De Dilectione Dei et proximi. 
 
 There is not much of what we should call profound or 
 fresh thinking, but it is very earnest, very practical, and 
 close up to the condition of the hearers ; and it must have 
 sounded fresh enough to the ears of those wild Scots and 
 Picts who, not long before, had been practising barbarities 
 upon poor provincials whose wailing cries have come down 
 to us. 
 
w 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING 
 
 'E spoke last day of the character of preaching 
 in the Christian Church down to the year 
 200. It was of a simple and natural kind, not 
 aiming at what is called oratory, but rather pious 
 exhortation founded upon the portion of Scripture 
 read in the assembly of Christians. It might be 
 compared to the addresses given at the ordinary 
 prayer-meeting, and was no doubt adapted to the 
 time when Christians were gathered together in 
 small companies, exposed to persecution or newly 
 escaped from it. It has no lesson for us in regard 
 to art, but teaches much in regard to earnestness 
 and adaptation to circumstances. 
 Character of The next period in preaching may be taken as 
 cpeno . extending from 200 to 600 A.D. The reason for 
 selecting 600 is that about that time, the time of 
 Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome, we are at the 
 54 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 55 
 
 commencement of the middle age, when preaching 
 undergoes a change, and declines till it almost 
 disappears. You will understand that this is a 
 gradual process. The decline can be traced before 
 600, and it is not at its lowest till long after that 
 date ; but 600 is a marked epoch. 
 
 The period is a very long and important one, 
 filled with great events and great contests, apologet- 
 ical and polemical, with histories of councils, and 
 of great men in all the fields of Christian thought ; 
 but it is not with these that we have to do. Our 
 concern is with the character of preaching, and 
 with what illustrates it. We can, of course, only 
 select a few preachers of the greatest name and 
 influence, as typical of the time. 
 
 The Church of this period falls into halves — Contrast 
 occasioned by geography, or, more properly speak- ^ ^^^" ^^ 
 ing) by race — the Eastern and the Western Western 
 Churches. Even during the unbroken unity of 
 the Roman Empire, there were two influences at 
 work. Though Greece was conquered, its 
 language, its literature, its philosophy, remained 
 and modified the thinking of the conquerors.* 
 This influence was often of a very subtle and 
 
 * Cf. Horace, Epistles II. i. 156. Graecia capta ferum 
 victorem cepit. 
 
$6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 speculative kind, and became even more so from 
 its proximity to the great mystical systems of the 
 East, — the religions of Zoroaster and Mani, not 
 to speak of others still more oriental. But with 
 all this modification the mind of the West retained 
 its own bias. It was more practical and 
 humanistic. The East tended to ascend from the 
 human to the Divine, the West to descend from 
 the Divine to the human. 
 
 The greatest impulse to the separation of the 
 Churches was given when Constantine transferred 
 330 A.D. the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople. 
 The jealousy of feeling widened till it led to the 
 final breach which continues to this day. The 
 histories of those two Churches have been very 
 different. The Eastern began with wonderful 
 brilliancy, but it was ere long clouded, and it has 
 never returned to its first promise. The Western 
 seemed at first likely to be engulfed and to 
 disappear amidst the irruptions of the heathen 
 hordes of the north. But its missionary zeal 
 subdued these hordes and made them the greatest 
 elements of its strength. It is through them, 
 above all, in Europe and America and our 
 far-off colonies that present history is fulfilling 
 ancient prophecy, and giving to Christ the 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 57 
 
 promise of the world's possession. Out of the 
 eater has come forth meat, and out of the strong 
 has come forth sweetness. 
 
 When Pilate wrote the inscription on the cross, it 
 was in three languages — in Hebrew, in Greek, and 
 in Latin. The word of God passed from the 
 Hebrew and became more living in the Greek ; 
 from the Greek to a wider life in the Latin or 
 great West ; may we not expect that the life 
 will return again and restore what has fallen, that 
 it will revive the East and bring in Israel ? The 
 history of the human race is one of fall and 
 recovery, and it would seem as if this were also to 
 be the history of the Church. " And so shall they 
 fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His 
 glory from the rising of the sun." 
 
 We shall to-day confine ourselves to the change in the 
 preaching of the Eastern Church in its early ^^^'■^"^p^^^J'S of 
 period. After the year 200 A.D., there was a Church, 
 marked change in the character of preaching. 
 It left its simple, unadorned form, and took to 
 itself the helps of knowledge and rhetoric. 
 The causes of this were various, and, so to say, causes, 
 inevitable, 
 
 (i.) First, there was rhe great increase in the increased 
 number of Christians. In spite of all the forces of ""'"^"^- 
 
58 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 persecution, and all the reproaches cast upon 
 Christianity, as they are indicated by the brief 
 descriptions of Pliny and Tacitus, and as they 
 come out more fully in Celsus and Porphyry, it was 
 taking possession of the cities and, ultimately, 
 of the country. The reason lay in the insuffi- 
 ciency of polytheism, and of the philosophies, to 
 satisfy the intellectual and moral want of the time. 
 There was a great void, and there were deep 
 desires which heathenism could not meet. There 
 was, besides, the life of the first Christians, which 
 overcame all calumny, so pure and loving and 
 self-sacrificing and steadfast to the death. And 
 I have no doubt that the preaching, simple as it 
 was, did its work. It brought before those who 
 stole in to hear it a new world and a new power — 
 the love of God in Christ and life eternal. But 
 its success involved a change in its character. 
 You cannot speak to a thousand people as you 
 can to a hundred. When a preacher has a 
 large basilica, and a sea of up-turned faces, he 
 must, in spite of himself, use some of the methods 
 of oratory. 
 Change in (2.) Another cause of the change was the char- 
 
 the audiences. . r .^ ^^ t 11 ^u 
 
 acter of the new audiences. I remarked upon the 
 evidence of this in the Lateran inscriptions, which 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 59 
 
 I .-e, at first, of a very unlettered or indeed illiterate 
 kind, but begin, as time advances, to imitate the old 
 classical sarcophagi, with different emblems. Partly, 
 Christianity was raising its adherents through the 
 character which it gave them; and partly, the upper 
 classes gradually became Christian, till Constantino 
 acknowledged Christianity as the state religion.* 323 a.d 
 This change in the character of the audience 
 affected the preaching by calling for adaptation to 
 a different class of hearers. It became more cul- 
 tured, and also, perhaps, less spiritual. 
 
 (3,) Preaching was also affected by the new The new 
 races that were now receiving and dealing with '^^*^^^' 
 Christian truth. God has made of one blood all 
 nations of men, and the Gospel is adapted to the 
 common needs of human nature ; but each race 
 has its peculiar character of mind. The Semitic 
 has more of the intuitional — of direct vision ; the 
 Aryan, or Indo-European, more of reflection, of 
 criticism, of philosophy. Although this contrast is 
 frequently exaggerated, there is essential truth in it. 
 The Gospel was now entering among the great races 
 of the West — Greek and Roman, Teutonic and 
 
 * Some think it might have been better had he contented 
 himself with the full toleration which he gave it eleven years 
 before. 
 
6o LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Celtic, somewhat as a clear ray from the sun 
 enters the atmosphere of the world to be reflected 
 and also refracted ; and refracted it was, in reason 
 and fancy and imagination, and all those forms of 
 human thought that are so wonderfully interesting 
 to the student of history. This was, no doubt, 
 part of a providential plan, that men might reach 
 the hidden meanings and far-reaching applications 
 which are laid up in the Gospel of Christ. It 
 showed itself, also, in the change which took place 
 in preaching, when it came more fully into the 
 possession of this new race. 
 
 We shall now proceed to mention the more 
 remarkable schools, and some of the preachers of 
 this period. There were two schools pre-eminent, — 
 Alexandria in Egypt, and Antioch in Syria. 
 The School In the school of Alexandria, the first great name 
 
 of Alexandria. ^^^ meets US— the greatest of the school indeed 
 — is that of Origen. Alexandria was at this 
 time one of the most remarkable cities in the 
 world. It was the meeting-place of the world's 
 commerce, where the East poured its treasures into 
 the lap of the West, and received in return, as it 
 still does, the products of industry. It was also 
 the meeting-place of ideas. The Greek philosophy 
 encountered the mystical and pantheistic creations 
 
ORIENTAL CIIURCIT PREACHING. 6l 
 
 of the East, and soared into the speculations of 
 Gnosticism and Neo-Platonism, hke the Alhambra 
 in Spain, and the KremHn in Russia — gorgeous 
 and gigantic elaborations of fancy, where the 
 dreamy waves of the East break on the more 
 solid shores of Europe, and rise in showers of 
 sun-tinted spray. 
 
 Origen was born in the year 185 A.D., a time Origen, 
 when the advance of Christianity was calling forth ' ^'^^"^ ^^' 
 bitter persecution, both from the populace and from 
 the government. His father died as a martyr, and 
 it was with great difficulty that Origen could be pre- 
 vented from offering himself also to death, yielding 
 to the spirit of the time. He learned more wisdom 
 afterwards, but he never abated in his fidelity and 
 zeal to the cause of Christ. He spent a life of 
 seventy years in continuous labour — lying down to 
 sleep among his books, and waking after brief 
 repose to study. He travelled, studying by the 
 way, to all parts of the known world, in quest of 
 learning — to Greece, to Rome, to Jerusalem and 
 the East During the Decian persecutions, he was 
 imprisoned and tortured, and, after a history which 
 would make a strange romance, he died — worn 
 out with work and suffering — at Tyre, where his 
 tomb was long afterwards shown. 
 
62 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 The character There can be no doubt that Origen's mind, de- 
 ofhisgemus. spj^-g strange aberrations, was one of the greatest 
 that have appeared in the history of Christianity. 
 When he was a child he was taught by his father 
 to read and commit daily to memory portions of 
 the Bible ; and the strange searching questions 
 which he asked filled those who heard them with 
 a kind of fear. As he grew up, this bold spirit of 
 inquiry continued to manifest itself. He sought 
 to master all the learning of his time, sacred and 
 secular, but he handled it in the freest manner. 
 He was a critic, a polemist, an apologist, a natural 
 philosopher, a metaphysician, a speculator in theo- 
 logy and theosophy ; but withal he was a sincere 
 and devoted Christian, amid strange fancies, loving 
 Jesus Christ as the Son of God with a single- 
 hearted love. This is not the time to examine the 
 system or rather the systems of theology which he 
 propounded, touching the Trinity, the doctrine of 
 sin, the Atonement, the intermediate state, and the 
 final condition of souls and of the universe ; but it 
 may be said that many of the theories thrown out 
 in later times are only fragments of his teaching. 
 His mind had in it something of Plato, something 
 of Jacob Bohme, something of Schelling ; but still 
 his heart was with Christ 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 63 
 
 It is necessary to say this, in order that we may His place in 
 understand his place in the history of preaching. me,^t^Jf^ °^' 
 Origen has been called the father of Christian Preaching. 
 preaching ; yet he rarely wrote or delivered 
 sermons, and he was never what would be 
 termed a great preacher. I shall try briefly to 
 explain how he stood related to the office and 
 helped its progress. When he began his course, 
 numbers of the heathen of the middle and higher 
 ranks, as well as of the lower, were passing over to 
 Christianity. They needed instruction, and catc- 
 chetics became the most important part of the 
 work of the Church. During most of his life, 
 Origen devoted himself to imparting a knowledge 
 of Christianity through the explanation of the 
 Bible. Men and women gathered round him till 
 his classes became little congregations, and his 
 instructions took the form of lectures which 
 reviewed the greater part of the Bible. So he 
 became the founder of the popular exegesis or 
 lecture, which deals with the Scripture on a sus- 
 tained system of interpretation. Further, the kind 
 of interpretation adopted by him sprang from the 
 necessity of the time. The condition of the new 
 converts required a higher kind of teaching than 
 had sufficed for the first simple-minded Christians, 
 
64 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 and led to the application of learning and philo- 
 sophy and criticism to the interpretation of the 
 Bible. 
 
 His Mysticism. There was still another circumstance. In the 
 early Church the bare Jewish element largely 
 prevailed, and it induced a love of the letter, a 
 narrowing of the sphere of Christianity, a lowering 
 even of the nature of Christ, which would have 
 brought back a kind of modified Judaism. Its 
 common name was Ebionitism, and its successor 
 was the Arian system. To oppose this interpreta- 
 tion of the letter, Origen dwelt on the interpreta- 
 tion of the spirit, and found mysteries of know- 
 ledge — indeed a whole system of the universe — in 
 the sentences and words of the Bible. By this he 
 has become the father of all the mystics and mys- 
 tical interpreters, who carry their fancies to the 
 Bible, and find in its words, and even in its 
 silence, endless allegories. On the one side, the 
 Bible is turned into hard clay in which nothing can 
 grow ; on the other, it is sublimated into a cloud 
 which takes the shape of the onlooker's fancy. 
 
 ITie School of We may pass to the other great school of the 
 
 Antioch. Eastern Church, that of Antioch. 
 
 Antioch, in Syria, where the disciples were first 
 called Christians, was a great and noble city — so it 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 65 
 
 is named by Cicero — standing in a beautiful posi- 
 tion on the river Orontes, noted then for its com- 
 merce, its wealth, and its intelligence, and noted 
 long afterwards for its varying fortunes in the wars 
 of Crusader and Saracen. Very early it became 
 decidedly Christian, and was the seat of several 
 famous bishops. The distinction of its school 
 from that of Alexandria was that it applied the 
 practical reason rather than philosophy or specula- 
 tion to the interpretation of the Bible. It was, 
 therefore, more moderate in its treatment both 
 of the Bible and of Christian doctrine, accepting 
 those views of the nature of the Trinity, the 
 person of Christ, and the uses of the Bible, which 
 in the course of ages have prevailed. It differed 
 also in this, that while the teaching of Alexandria 
 was more for the learned, that of Antioch was 
 more for the people, and was, therefore, more 
 oratorical. 
 
 The great man of Antioch was John — in after Chrysostom, 
 ages Chrysostomus, " of the golden-mouth." He ^'*^''*°^ ^"^ 
 was born at Antioch in 347, and died in 407 A.D. 
 He was brought up in a Christian family, like 
 Augustine, by a devoted Christian mother ; though, 
 unlike him, he never wandered. He was trained 
 
 with great care in the learning of his day, and in 
 
 F 
 
66 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 the schools of rhetoric. At one time he thought of 
 devoting himself to the Forum and to law, but 
 deep religious impression led him to give his great 
 abilities to the ministry of the Church. He studied 
 theology for three years under Meletius, Bishop of 
 Antioch, and for six years at a later period in the 
 silence of a monastery among the,mountains. He 
 commenced his work of preaching when not much 
 under forty, being ordained as a presbyter in 
 386 A.D., so that he had only twenty years to do 
 his work and to acquire the name that has been 
 his ever since. 
 
 He had scarcely begun his work in Antioch 
 when he rose at once to the summit of his fame. 
 The crowds that thronged to listen to him were 
 immense, and he had to repress, by rebuke, the 
 applause which followed his eloquent appeals. He 
 was called to Constantinople (aet. 50), to take the 
 place of bishop and patriarch, and the great church 
 of St. Sophia was crowded with all classes, some- 
 times for days in succession. He denounced with 
 fearless honesty the vices of the clergy, the people, 
 and the court. He was banished by a faction of 
 the bishops and courtiers, but recalled in com- 
 pliance with the urgent demand of the people, * 
 * See page 51. 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 67 
 
 Through the persistent machinations of his enemies, 
 and the hatred of the Empress Eudoxia, he 
 was again banished in 404 A.D., and died in 
 exile near Comana, on the bleak shores of the 
 Euxine. Thirty-one years afterwards his body 
 was brought back and buried amid the tears of 
 the multitude. 
 
 It is evident from these few facts that the dis- His preaching 
 course of Chrysostom was of a different kind from 
 that of Origen. It had not so much of teaching 
 but more of preaching ; less statement of truth or 
 endeavour after it, more appeal to the feelings, the 
 fancy, and the conscience. In this power he would 
 seem to have been unrivalled. His appeals to the 
 feelings held men enchained in interest, his brilliant 
 declamation drew rapturous applause, and the 
 pungency of his addresses to the conscience is 
 attested by his repeated banishment. He was Its boldness, 
 evidently a preacher who had in him the spirit of 
 Stephen and Paul, and was willing to make men 
 enemies by daring to tell them the truth. It is his 
 first and highest praise that, with such power and 
 popularity, he thought so little ot them, compared 
 with fidelity to his Master. He wrote a treatise on 
 the Priesthood, Uepi 'lepoavvT]!?, the earliest surviv- 
 ing discussion of Homiletics. Although imperfect as 
 
68 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 compared with Augustine's, it is strong on this side, 
 that the first duty of the preacher is to deHver God's 
 message, to look for His approbation, and to think 
 nothing of man's applause. If the Eastern empire 
 could have been saved from its corruptions, we 
 can conceive of no more fitting instrument than 
 Chrysostom. Si Pergama dextra defendi possent, 
 etiivm hac defensa fuissent. But it trampled him 
 down, as Judaism did Stephen, to its ruin. 
 Its rhetoric. The next excellence in Chrysostom was his great 
 power of enlisting the feelings and exciting the 
 imagination. This largely came from his natural 
 sympathy with what is pure and noble — an elevation 
 of soul that gave him wings — but also partly from 
 the careful culture of his oratorical powers which 
 made him the first and perhaps the greatest master 
 of pulpit rhetoric. Yet his strength was the source of 
 failings. It often betrayed him into false glitter, 
 forced antithesis, occasionally into hollow and 
 affected pomp. The Roman Catholic Church has 
 set him up as a spotless model. He was constantly 
 before the eyes of ecclesiastical orators of the reign 
 of Louis XIV., in his eloquence, if not in his honest 
 truth-speaking. Luther, on the other hand, calls 
 him the " gilder," not the golden ; but the truth 
 lies between ; indeed, when we think of his deep 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 69 
 
 sincerity, it lies on the side of gold rather than 
 gilding. 
 
 The weakest side of Chrysostom is the want of its defect. 
 Scriptural instruction in his sermons or homilies. 
 He takes a portion of the Bible, says something 
 about it, and then leaves it for digressions which, 
 though interesting and eloquent, fail to bring out 
 the depth and power of the Word of God in its 
 bearing on the heart and conscience. This, again, 
 was the fault of the time and school, rather than of 
 the man. As Origen was led astray by philosophy, 
 Chrysostom was led astray by art ; and the best 
 preaching would be that true treatment of the 
 Word of God to which Origen pointed, with that 
 application of it to the nature of man at which, 
 after all, Chrysostom was sincerely aiming. The 
 Christian Church has been slow in learning to 
 preach, if she has learned yet. 
 
 There is still one man of the Eastern Church of EphremSyrus, 
 whom something should be said, as typical of ^ 
 Orientalism in its monastic and imaginative form : 
 Ephrem the Syrian, called in the East Mor 
 Ephrem — my lord Ephrem. If he belongs to any 
 school it is to that of Antioch, but he has a place 
 by himself. He was born after 306 and died in 
 373 A.D., and thus comes in time between Origen 
 
7o LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 and Chrysostom. He belonged to the Syrian — «>., 
 Semitic race, and he is still regarded with rever- 
 ence throughout the Christian East. He is the 
 prophet of the Maronite Church, and his writings, 
 which have been translated into Armenian, are held 
 in the highest veneration. They are very volumi- 
 nous,* including poetry in the form of hymns, prose 
 in the form of commentaries, and homilies, some of 
 which are mid-way between poetry and prose, being 
 composed in a kind of rhythmical swing, resembling 
 the old ballads without the rhyme. Ephrem was 
 born in a heathen family ,-f but he early became a 
 Christian, embraced the life of a hermit, which was 
 coming into favour in that troubled land and time, 
 retired to a cave near the city of Nisibis, on the 
 frontier of Persia, composed his works in that 
 solitude, and came forth to deliver or chant the 
 strange homilies that still remain. At Edessa, 
 which was latterly the centre of his influence, he 
 had a hard battle to maintain against heathens, 
 heretics, and prevalent vices, and his homilies are 
 
 * Sozomen (Eccl. Hist. III. i6) says that Ephrem wrote 
 three million lines. 
 
 t This is the account given in the Acta^ prefixed to the 
 Roman edition of his works, although it differs from the 
 statement made in his own Confessions (0pp. Gr. I. 
 129). 
 
ORIENTAL CHURCH PREACHING. 71 
 
 of a very practical kind,* Sometimes they are 
 paraphrases of Scripture narratives, in a bold, 
 dramatic style, that must have deeply affected 
 such an audience. They remind one of the 
 more elevated passages of Zachary Boyd, and still 
 more of the Gospel paraphrases of the Saxon 
 monk, Caedmon of Streaneshalch, of whom you 
 will find a short account in Dr. Eadie's English 
 Bible — the first versions, or rather paraphrases, of 
 the Bible in our mother tongue. Ephrem does 
 not seem to have known Hebrew or Greek,f and 
 his knowledge of Scripture was from the old 
 Peshito or Syriac version, to the elucidation of 
 which his works are a great help. Unfortunately, 
 I have none of his works near, and could make 
 little of them if I had ; but I shall translate a few 
 lines from Bassler's "Collection of Old Christian 
 Poetry." It is on the appearance of the star to the 
 wise men : — 
 
 ♦ It was at Edessa that he adopted the plan of meeting 
 the fatalistic heresies of the Gnostic Bardesan by composing 
 popular and orthodox hymns. 
 
 t This point is discussed in the Dictionary of Christian 
 Biography. One may also refer to Roediger's account of 
 him in Herzog. Some of his homilies and hymns have 
 been translated into English by the Rev. J. B. Morris and 
 by the Rev. H. Burgess. 
 
72 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Suddenly shines a clear star in Heaven, 
 
 Strange and sparkling, smaller than the Sun, 
 
 But greater than he when its secret is known. 
 
 The star of the East shot forth its rays 
 
 To the land of darkness where men were groping. 
 
 And showed them the way to the soul's true light. 
 
 They offered their gold and received life eternal : 
 
 They worshipped and they went. 
 
 Two heralds had the Son of God, 
 
 The one in the height, the other here below ; 
 
 The bright star sang of Him in Heaven, 
 
 And John preached upon the earth ; 
 
 The heavenly guide showed majesty Divine, 
 
 The earthly showed Him made like to man. 
 
 We are far enough away from the cave on the 
 Persian frontier, and our time requires a different 
 kind of preaching ; but it is something to know 
 that we belong to the same Church, and that the 
 Gospel, in a purer form, is finding its way back to 
 these Churches of the East. 
 
LECTURE V. 
 
 THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 
 
 A17"E propose to-day to consider the condition 
 * • of preaching in the later Oriental Church, 
 the causes of its decline, and its present prospects. 
 We have looked at the two early schools, Alex- 
 andria and Antioch, with their two great figures, 
 Origen and Chrysostom. Let us return to these 
 and follow their course. We have seen that the 
 characteristic of Origen was the mystic-allegorical. 
 This marked his interpretation of the Bible. He 
 looked on the letter as the shell, the inner sense as 
 the kernel ; and he set himself to reach its meaning 
 chiefly through the imagination. Scripture became 
 the storehouse of cosmogonies, philosophies, and 
 eschatologies, prima, media, et ultima, which had 
 also, however, their application to human life. But 
 knowledge rather than life is the aim of Origen, 
 and he is the father of all the dreamers and system- 
 makers. 
 
 73 
 
74 LECTURES ON PREACHING 
 
 Oiigen, He had one of the most active minds that have 
 appeared in the world. The first part of his Hfe 
 was spent in constant learning, the later part in 
 learning and teaching. He taught for hours every 
 day. His lectures on the Bible, from Genesis to 
 Luke, were take-n down by shorthand writers, 
 chiefly ladies, and it is to them that we are most 
 indebted for our knowledge of his teaching. One 
 hundred and ninety-six of his homilies, chiefly on 
 the Old Testament, have in this way been preserved. 
 They witness to his wonderful learning, his fancy, 
 his original genius, and must have excited a great 
 commotion in the Christian thought of the time, A 
 painful picture of the turbid after-currents is given 
 by Kingsley in his Hypatia, but it should be said 
 that in Origen himself the movement had a moral 
 earnestness and a charity which it too often lost 
 among those who followed. 
 
 When Origen died, the school divided itself, as 
 generally happens, into a " left " and a " right." 
 The "left" developed his method of allegorising and 
 theorising, until Christianity passed into clouds and 
 ether not unlike some forms of modern Hegelian- 
 ism. The " right " took up the study of Scripture 
 in a more sober spirit than Origen, and produced 
 some great theologians and preachers. To this 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CIIURC/L 75 
 
 side belonged the celebrated Athanasius. Some Athanasius, 
 few homilies of his remain, but compared with ^^ '^^^ '^'^' 
 his other writings, they give an imperfect view 
 of him. Great controversialists are not always 
 great preachers. There were others of the 
 school of Origen much more important in this 
 respect. 
 
 The three greatest are nearly of the same age The Clover- 
 and of the same country, called the Clover-leaf of ,^^.° ^'^^^'^ 
 Cappadocia. They are Basil the Great, Gregory 
 of Nyssa, his brother, and Gregory Nazianzen, his 
 chosen friend. 
 
 Basil the Great, who died as Bishop of Caesarea, Basil the 
 has left the highest name as a preacher, and was ^q.^yq a d 
 compared by his contemporaries to Moses, Elijah, 
 and Paul. One of his chief productions in preach- 
 ing remains to us — the Hexaemeron, Sermons on 
 the Six Days of the Creation, which describe the 
 animals with lively fancy, and present lessons for 
 human life, with reflections on the goodness and 
 wisdom of God. His brother, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of 
 has less mental power with a tendency to mysti- ^y^^*^' 
 
 335-395 A.D. 
 
 cism ; and Gregory Nazianzen, his friend, has less Gregory 
 imaginative power, with oratorical flights that rise Nazianzen, 
 
 325-390 A.D. 
 
 at times into the falsetto. In all of them the 
 Influence of Origen is discernible in a kind of 
 
76 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 cosmic rather than human handling, but this is 
 more temperate in them than in their master. 
 Chrysostom. The Other school, that of Antioch, produced the 
 one great preacher of whom we have already spoken, 
 John Chrysostom. He was a man, as we have said, 
 of great honesty and zeal, admired and beloved by 
 the people, feared by princes, envied by many of his 
 fellows on account of his popularity, and disliked 
 by them because of his secluded life and reserved 
 manner. The people do not feel this fault ; fellow- 
 ministers do. If a popular preacher is to be liked 
 by his brethren, he must be very frank and human. 
 It should be said that what remains of Chryso- 
 stom cannot give us a full idea of his power. 
 This is in a degree true of all men who have pro- 
 duced the most remarkable effect. They had the 
 individuality, the fire of electric power, which no 
 writings can reproduce. A sermon of Whitfield, 
 say, or Chalmers, lies like a meteoric stone com- 
 pared with the flash of the meteor. Chrysostom's 
 sermons have come down to us chiefly through 
 reporters ; and, preaching as he did almost daily, 
 he had little time to correct and restore their pro- 
 portion and point. Nevertheless they reveal to us 
 his fearless moral earnestness, his power to inter- 
 est hearers, his elevation of thought. When one 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 77 
 
 reads or hears the sermons of a great preacher, 
 it is not so much by the form as by the inspiration 
 that one receives benefit, though no doubt the form 
 intensifies the inspiration. 
 
 The greatest of the school of Antioch, after Theodoret, 
 Chrysostom, is perhaps Theodoret, Bishop of "" "^^^ '^'^^ 
 Cyrus, in Asia Minor. He also owed much to a 
 pious mother. He is noted in the controversies of 
 the time, being a defender of the views of the 
 Antioch School, and an opponent of the theory that 
 two natures mingled in the person of Christ. The 
 Divine, he said, took the nature of the human, 
 but was not changed into the human. So he 
 denied that the Divine could be said to be cruci- 
 fied or even born, though he yielded to the spirit of 
 the time in giving to Mary in a modified sense the 
 title 06ot6«o9, out of which sprang Mariolatry. 
 His style as a preacher is simple and clear, but he 
 tends to be too minute, and loses himself in detail 
 till he reaches triviality. This is often a difficulty 
 in preaching — to be graphic, without being small 
 and shallow and becoming like the river Euphrates, 
 smitten in the seven streams till men can go over 
 dry-shod. 
 
 The last preacher of the Eastern Church whom John of 
 we shall name is John of Damascus. We select ^^""^^'^S' 
 
 ' died 759 A.D. 
 
78 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 him because he marks an epoch. He was born at 
 Damascus, and lived at the court of the Arabian 
 Caliph, true to his religion. He is greatly praised 
 for his smooth and fluent speech, and is called 
 Chrysorrheus, the gold-flowing. In his preaching we 
 trace for the first time the influence of the Mahom- 
 etan power, which has now seized a central city in 
 Syria. It is notable that many of John's sermons 
 are directed to the praise of the Virgin. He gives 
 an account of her birth and early life, of the minutest 
 incidents of her history, of her death, and her 
 assumption, with the most unquestioning credulity. 
 Defect of The defect of the preaching of both schools 
 
 both Schools, j-^^g j^Q^ fully appeared. It may be described in 
 one word as want of Scripturalness. Antioch had 
 less of this defect at first than Alexandria, but ere- 
 long no great difference could be discerned. A 
 portion of Scripture was taken to head the dis- 
 course, but it was not dealt with in the way of 
 reasonable interpretation and application to doc- 
 trine and life. There was a lack of instruction in 
 the great truths of the Gospel, and of the quicken- 
 ing that springs from them. This developed two 
 tendencies which have frequently reappeared from 
 the same cause. The one is towards the preaching 
 of nature and morality on a mere theistic basis, which 
 
THE LA TER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 79 
 
 in our day would be called Broad-churchism ; the 
 other is the laudation of saints and martyrs and 
 ecclesiastical seasons, which in our day would be 
 called High-chuichism. These go on often hand in 
 hand or by reaction, till the ecclesiastical gains the 
 mastery, and Christianity hardens into a stiff clay 
 crust. No doubt many Christians remained with a 
 true life in the midst of all the coldness, and 
 preachers could not take the Bible and the great 
 facts of Christianity in any way for a theme with- 
 out doing good ; but the good was neutralised and 
 weakened by great defects and aberrations. 
 
 It is not our part to trace the history of the The decline 
 Eastern Church or Churches— of the Orthodox p^^^^^j^fj^ 
 Greek with its own patriarch, the Russo-Greek 
 with the Czar at its head, the Maronite, Armenian, 
 Nestorian, and Coptic. It is enough to say that a 
 great torpor has benumbed the preaching of this 
 church for centuries. No great name stirring the 
 hearts of the masses, and shining out to lands 
 beyond, has appeared for more than a thousand 
 years.* The Latin Church has had its Alcuins 
 and Bedes, its Anselms and Bernards, its Fenelons 
 and Bossuets ; the Protestant Churches have given 
 to God's ordinance of preaching a place and a 
 
 * See Dorner's Hist. I. 18. 
 
strife. 
 
 80 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 power unknown since the days of the apostles ; 
 but in the East there have been no such men, no 
 such movements. What is the reason of this? 
 Are we to look for no change? We shall 
 attempt to answer this question. 
 
 Causes. The reasons for the decline of preaching in ^h^ 
 Eastern Church, and for that decline of the Church 
 itself which always accompanies this, may be 
 ranged under two heads — things within the Church, 
 and events outside. 
 
 Polemical I. Within the Church there was fierce polemical 
 strife. The first great controversies between 
 Christians were in the East, and they were carried 
 on with peculiar bitterness. I need only remind 
 you of some names — Athanasius, Arius, Nestorius, 
 Eutyches, Macedonius — and of the factions and 
 fightings which took place around the most solemn 
 questions that can be proposed to the thought of 
 man. Itwas impossible but that such contests should 
 have a hardening and petrifying effect ; and the 
 first decline of Christianity began amid those furious 
 polemics. Men could fight with less harm, as they 
 did in the West, about Pelagianism and Augustin- 
 ianism, about faith and works, and free-will and 
 predestination, than they could about the person 
 of Christ, the nature of the Holy Spirit, and the 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 8l 
 
 most sacred mysteries of the Christian faith. This 
 brought them near to crucifying the Son of God 
 afresh, and putting Him to an open shame. 
 
 It is right that the faith deHvered to the .saints 
 should be defended, and, so far, these conflicts 
 were unavoidable in the face of error ; but if the 
 conflict is to end in good, it must be conducted 
 with some measure of charity. Otherwise, though 
 orthodoxy be maintained, Christianity will suffer, 
 for Christianity is orthodoxy plus charity. When 
 the Apostle says, " Hold fast the form of sound 
 words," he adds, " in faith and love which is in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 If you ask here, how their polemics came to be 
 
 so bitter, we answer, — so far, from the general 
 
 spirit of the time, but specially from their ideas 
 
 of the constitution of the Church. The political 
 
 system of one great empire had led to the thought 
 
 of a great external Church, with visible unity and The idea of 
 
 an earthly head. To belong to this Church was to ^^ ^"^"^ ""' ^" 
 
 be within the pale of safety, and to be outside was 
 
 to be lost. Extra ecclesiam nulla sahis. This idea 
 
 of outward unity to be maintained at any cost was 
 
 asserted with persecuting violence both in the 
 
 East and the West, and it spread even into the 
 
 churches of the Reformation. But when men 
 
 G 
 
82 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 came to see that the unity of the true Church is 
 spiritual and invisible, that those who hold various 
 views in separate communities may yet constitute 
 the real Church of Christ, the chief reason for 
 pushing polemics to physical force and for excom- 
 municating others from the body of Christ disap- 
 pears. We may organise ourselves separately for 
 the sake of more harmonious worship and action ; 
 but we need not thereby unchristianise and un- 
 church one another, and so destroy that higher unity 
 which comes of charity, and of the exchange of 
 Christian service as far as this is possible. Those 
 are chargeable with schism who exalt their out- 
 ward unity into a denial of the Christianity of 
 those who are not within it. And we may say 
 that those also are guilty of schism who persist in 
 remaining in a community when they have 
 abandoned its principles. It is in the interests of 
 love, as well as of truth, that we should have 
 separate communities, co-operating in a catholic 
 spirit with one another. This is " the unity of the 
 Spirit in the bond of peace." 
 
 Thus the idea of an imperial Christianity, like 
 that of Orbis Romanus, embittered those factions 
 and fightings. We can trace its growth in the edicts 
 of the emperors of the East and the wars that 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 83 
 
 followed. It prevailed, no doubt, in the West with 
 similar effects ; but through the weakness of the 
 Popes it was later in assorting itself, and through 
 the arrival of the Reformation it had a speedier 
 antidote. This, then, was one great cause of the 
 decline of life and of preaching in the East ; 
 for life affects preaching, as preaching affects 
 life. 
 
 Another cause of decay, closely connected with Dogmatism, 
 this, was that the doctrines of Christianity were 
 made into dogmas. This comes about in times of 
 conflict, unless there be great charity and a high 
 Christian life, and these were wanting in the 
 Church of that day. If you ask the difference 
 between a doctrine and a dogma, I should say 
 it is this : a doctrine is a truth held for its 
 practical value, a dogma is a truth held merely for 
 its place in the creed. The dogma is ut credam^ 
 the doctrine is ut vivam. E.g., the belief in 
 the Trinity is a mere dogma if it is only the recita- 
 tion of the Athan?sian Creed, although that is 
 good in its place, if you keep away the subtle 
 distinctions and the anathemas ; but the dogma 
 rises into a precious doctrine when we appropriate 
 the promise, " I will pray the Father, and He shall 
 give you another Comforter, that He may abide 
 
84 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 with you for ever." Now, when a church passes 
 from doctrine to hard barren dogma, one of 
 two things happens — either there comes the torpor 
 of spiritual death, an ossification that penetrates 
 to the very heart ; or, if there be intellectual move- 
 ment left, there comes a recoil, not merely from 
 dogma but from doctrine, and men pass under the 
 reign of rationalism ; they denounce the formalis- 
 ing of spiritual truth in any way, and give up 
 the hard shell of dogmatism for the formless gas 
 of negativism. The first of these has prevailed 
 in the East ; for a time it affected the West also, 
 until there the Reformation came to give dogma 
 the life of doctrine. 
 
 Ecclesiastic- There is still another cause common to both 
 iim. _, 
 
 East and West, but prevailing first, and most 
 
 strongly, in the East. When the great truths of 
 
 Christianity became dead dogmas, and men ceased 
 
 to have a living interest in them, there sprang up 
 
 an abnormal brood of subjects which became 
 
 matter of study and preaching, but hindered 
 
 instead of helping the Christian life. There were 
 
 the questions of the merits of saints and martyrs, 
 
 and orations on these took the place of Christian 
 
 preaching. There were the practices of asceticism ; 
 
 the exact time of the keeping of Easter ; the 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 85 
 
 forms of the Tonsure ; the question of the differ- 
 ence between adoring an image and a picture ; the 
 number of days and weeks for fasting ; the forms 
 of genuflection ; and all the bhnd, creeping things 
 that spring up when Hfe goes and corruption comes. 
 Good men, and even great men, occupied them- 
 selves with these themes in that age of littleness 
 and decay. So the shadows fell East and West, 
 but in God's providence the West has had an 
 earlier dawn. 
 
 2. We come now to a cause of decline in the Failure nf 
 Eastern Church which lay in outside events. There ^'^fjj'^^^lhe 
 was a marked difference between the ways in Ea&t. 
 which the West and the East met the wants of 
 heathen masses. In the West, the Goths, the 
 Vandals, and the Franks were more open at the 
 time to Christianity ; while the Church there had 
 more life to labour and preach, her corruption not 
 having as yet sunk so deep. There is probably 
 truth in both explanations. The Western races 
 were then more susceptible, and the Church 
 had more of a living missionary spirit ; thus 
 these races, when converted, became a source of 
 new strength and life. We cannot tell how much 
 we owe to men like Ninian and Columba and 
 Boniface, who went out into the deep dark around. 
 
86 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 In times of decay and failing faith, the zeal of the 
 missionary brings in new tides of life. 
 
 But in the East it was otherwise. The hordes 
 of barbarous races that came rolling in — Saracens, 
 Turks, and Tartars — were, by temperament or 
 circumstances, less susceptible of Christian influ- 
 ence ; and the Eastern Empire had to breast the 
 first rush of that terrible series of waves. But 
 worse than this, Christianity had become so 
 corrupt and effete that it could do little or nothing 
 to win them for the Gospel. If there had been 
 a living active Church, Mahometanism would 
 either never have arisen, or would have been 
 limited in its sphere. The stern, simple Monothe- 
 ism of Mahomet came in as a recoil from the 
 idolatrous saint-worship of Eastern Christianity ; 
 and the corrupting luxury and weak, unmanly 
 asceticism of people and priests went down like 
 a barrier of sand before the fanatic sweep of the 
 Saracen armies. But worse than the Saracens 
 were the Turks who followed. The Saracens gave 
 the Turks the fierce bigotry of their religion with- 
 out communicating to them the civilisation which 
 they then had, and the stolid weight of Turkish 
 despotism has lain like a curse upon the East ever 
 since. The struggle of Christianity has been to 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 87 
 
 live, and the wonder is that it has survived. It 
 has survived under the Turks, but in a state of 
 torpor alternating with torture ; and under the Czar, 
 in a state of torpor which has had no alternative, 
 through that protecting pressure and jealous super- 
 intendence which is often as hurtful as persecution. 
 
 And yet, since it cannot but be for some end in The projects 
 God's providence that sixty millions of professing 
 Christians are still preserved in those lands of the 
 East, let us briefly consider what are the prospects 
 of Christianity and, with Christianity, of preaching 
 in the land of Origen and Chrysostom. 
 
 There is no doubt that both civil and religious Turkey, 
 liberty are making their way through those 
 countries in the midst of, and often in spite of, 
 man's struggles to repress them. The day of the 
 conquering Saracen and Turk is far in the past, 
 and it would be impossible to repeat what took 
 place little more than fifty years ago, when the 
 Patriarch of Constantinople, his clergy, and 30,(X)0 
 Christians were massacred in cold blood. The 
 religion of Mahomet is shewing signs of a fatal 
 decay, fatal because it is connected with its first 
 principles, — not like that of Eastern Christianity, 
 with a departure from them. These principles are 
 a sensual paradise, degraded womanhood, and the 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 fusion of the religious and the political in such a 
 way that the fall of the political is the fall of the 
 religious. It is not with it as with Christianity, 
 which can live without pope, king, or emperor. The 
 Caliphate of the Sultan, the spiritual chieftainship 
 of the Mussulmans, decays and dies with his 
 secular power. Life may survive for a while in 
 the extremities, but the head is wounded to death. 
 Christianity, in its most extreme State Church 
 form, in its most Erastian conjunctions, is not 
 thus vulnerable. 
 Russia. If we turn to Russia, again, where the majority 
 
 of Eastern Christians are to be found, we can see 
 a great change imminent. The only way in which 
 society can be maintained in that country is by 
 the granting of constitutional government ; and, 
 with this, religious liberty must enter. It is 
 impossible for us to say what the results will be, 
 but almost any change in religion will be for the 
 better. From what we know of the sects in 
 Russia, there is life waiting to break forth. Those 
 Eastern lands have a deep spirit of devotion, which 
 takes abnormal and superstitious shapes under 
 repression, but which, with the Bible and clear 
 Christian teaching, may, and we bcl'eve will, come 
 out with a power we have never yet seen. 
 
THE LATER ORIENTAL CHURCH. 89 
 
 There are two methods by which the West is Western 
 even now seeking to influence the East. The one p "^hTh" 
 is that of the Church union, in which the union. 
 hierarchies are negotiating, as they have often 
 negotiated to no purpose before, to bring the 
 AngHcan and Greek Churches together. This is 
 a movement of priests without the people, and 
 history tells us that such movements never succeed. 
 If a system of hierarchies and of ritualism has 
 reduced Eastern Christianity to its present level, 
 we need not expect that the reassertion of those 
 influences will elevate it. When liberty and light 
 come, in the natural course of things, there will 
 be a reaction to the other and older side, — to 
 the life and light of the great Eastern dawn. 
 The people will desire not more ritualism, but less. 
 
 The second way of approaching them has given jjy missions, 
 us proof of this. Those who come in contact with 
 Russians of the more educated class speak of the 
 desire which they have for simple Gospel truth ; 
 and the little churches, planted chiefly by 
 American missionaries, in Asia Minor and Egypt, 
 among Armenians and Copts, tell of a fuel there 
 ready for the kindling. We live in great times. 
 As Jean Paul has said, " The times are great if the 
 men are not." But God will send us the men, — 
 
go 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 in the West men of power to shake us from our 
 apathy, and in the East men with Chrysostom's 
 eloquence, but in happier days. Meanwhile let us 
 not be moved away from the hope of the Gospel, or 
 from the simplicity of Scriptural truth, the loss of 
 which has brought about such long decay, and the 
 recovery of which has given us all that we possess. 
 We spoke the other day of the history of Israel 
 and Judah, as applicable to the history of Scotland 
 and England ; but on a larger scale we may apply 
 it to the East and West. The East has been 
 trodden, like Israel, under the feet of invading 
 hordes, and led into a long captivity ; while the 
 West, like Judah, has had its great prophets of the 
 Word of God, its preachers, and its teachers. 
 But though there are long circuits in Divine 
 Providence, they have a destined end, and the 
 times seem to point to a union of these far-divided 
 branches of the Church of God. " In His day 
 Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell 
 safely : and this is His name whereby He shall 
 be called, The Lord our Righteousness" — this, 
 this the name that must guide preaching if it is to 
 be strong against rationalism and ecclesiasticism, 
 the one name under Heaven given among men 
 whereby we must be saved ! 
 
LECTURE VI. 
 
 WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 2OO-43O A.D. 
 
 '\j[7'E have spoken of the preaching of the 
 ^ ^ Eastern Church in the time of its fullest 
 blossom ; of its decline ; and of the reasons why 
 there has been no revival until now, when we see 
 promise both in political events and in internal 
 tokens. 
 
 We come to the Western Church, and we take The two 
 the period from 200 to 430 A.D. By the Eastern ?,"'^'^^^.\ , 
 
 ^ ^^ ^ distinguished 
 
 Church we understand generally, that which began by language, 
 to develop itself through the Greek language ; by 
 the Western, that which employed the Latin. In 
 both Churches there were exceptions. In the East 
 there was preaching in the Syriac, the Armenian, 
 the Coptic ; in the West, in the Celtic and Ger- 
 manic tongues ; but Greek and Latin were the 
 great central languages; the greatest preachers 
 spoke in them, and by far the largest amount of 
 
 91 
 
92 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 homiletic literature has come to us through these 
 channels. The gift of tongues at Pentecost was a 
 prophecy that fulfilled itself slowly in the history 
 of the Church. 
 The era of There is a question that presents itself when- 
 preac ing ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ consider the preaching of the 
 
 later in the ^ ° 
 
 West. West — viz., why did the great era of preaching 
 
 come later than in the East ? 
 
 Reasons. I shall try briefly to answer this. One reason 
 
 was that Christianity was later in reaching the 
 West with full power. Almost all the epistles of 
 the New Testament were written to Eastern or 
 Greek-speaking churches. There is indeed only 
 one epistle to a Western church, the Epistle to 
 the Romans, and it is in Greek, no doubt because 
 so many early converts used that language. This 
 is an indication of what took place in the early 
 history of Christianity. It found its way west- 
 ward with wonderful power, but somewhat slowly, 
 and this naturally affected the development of 
 preaching. 
 
 Another reason connected with this was that 
 the schools of learning in the East were sooner 
 brought under Christian influence, and made 
 available for the training of Christian preachers. 
 We have already referred to Alexandria and 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-^SO A.D. 93 
 
 Antioch, but the chief cities of Greece and Asia 
 Minor had similar institutions. There were, no 
 doubt, also in the West many such schools, — at 
 Rome, at Carthage, at Marseilles, and elsewhere ; 
 but, partly because these had a strong Greek 
 infusion, and were therefore not suited to those 
 who had to speak to Latin audiences, and partly 
 because they retained longer the non-Christian 
 spirit, they were not so soon engaged in training 
 a cultivated Christian ministry. 
 
 There was still a third reason belonging to the 
 same class. The great documents of Christianity, 
 the New Testament and the Septuagint, were in 
 Greek, and it was only by degrees that they found 
 their way into Western tongues, through the Vul- 
 gate and the Moesogothic. To the great West 
 the language of the Bible was for a considerable 
 time foreign and unknown. This affected also 
 the early Christian literature. Little was written 
 to develop the intelligence of a Christian public 
 inclined to listen to a higher style of preaching, 
 and it is from an intelligent Christian public that 
 a high class of Christian preachers is produced. 
 All this naturally took place later in the West 
 than it did in the East. I do not mean that there 
 was no Christian teaching or preaching, but it 
 
94 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 continued longer on the simple basis of the first 
 two centuries, and resembled somewhat that which 
 we seek to carry on through native catechists and 
 preachers in India and China. It is after Christian- 
 ity has laid hold of the masses, and has possession 
 of schools and of a native Christian literature, that 
 great preachers arise. 
 The era of This may be a fitting place to glance at the 
 
 loneer kfthe l^i"*^^^^ questions, why the line of great preachers 
 West. was not cut off in the West as it was in the East, 
 
 and why those two different states of Christendom 
 present so striking a contrast at this day in regard 
 to the influence of preaching, and in regard to the 
 consequent activity of Christian life? You will 
 understand that I do not mean to ignore the 
 Providence of God, and the quickening power of 
 His Holy Spirit, but I speak of causes which we 
 Reasons. are able to trace. I mentioned as one reason for 
 the decay of spiritual life, and therefore of 
 preaching among Eastern Christians, the bitter 
 polemical struggles in which they became involved. 
 Conflict was inevitable, but the spirit in which it 
 was carried on, about the most solemn truths that 
 relate to the nature and person of Christ, had a 
 hardening effect which was seen in the dead state 
 that followed the Athanasian and Nestorian 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-t(S0 A.D. 95 
 
 controversies. This is a lesson for us in our 
 
 preaching. The West got the benefit of this 
 
 struggle without paying the full cost, for though 
 
 it had its Arian controversies, they were not as 
 
 a whole marked by the same factious spirit, and 
 
 left large room for the preaching of a simple 
 
 and practical Christianity. The questions agitated 
 
 in the West, about original sin and free-will 
 
 and grace, were bitter enough, but passion when 
 
 stirred by such topics is less hurtful to the spiritual 
 
 nature. 
 
 The next great cause why the West has not 
 
 suffered the same eclipse in its preaching and 
 
 spiritual power — and I must repeat that those two 
 
 always go together — was the providence of history. 
 
 It is right that we should recognise God's hand in 
 
 these things. There were two great battles, to 
 
 speak of no more, on which, so far as we can see, 
 
 the fate of all Christian Europe depended. The 
 
 first was on the field of Chalons in the north of^S^^.a 
 
 France, when Attila and his Huns were defeated 
 
 by the Roman General Aetius, but chiefly through 
 
 the aid of the Gallic and German peoples,* 
 
 * Gibbon (chap. 35) says that the exaggerations of 
 Idatius and Isidore, who reckon the slain at 300,000, justify 
 the historian's remark, that whole generations may be swept 
 away in a single hour by the madness of kings. 
 
96 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Jornandes, the Gothic historian, gives the number 
 slain at 162,000, which is not thought by modern 
 historians to be an exaggeration, for it was a 
 battle of continents. The popular mind was so 
 impressed by the bloody pertinacity, that a weird 
 story rose of the spirits of the slain fighting for 
 three days in the air over the field of battle, and 
 Kaulbach has made it the subject of his great fresco 
 painting of the Hunnen-Schlacht, at Berlin. The 
 732 A.D. second battle was at Tours, where Charles Martel, 
 who gained his name from that fight, defeated the 
 Saracens under Abdalrahman.* The Mussulman 
 power had conquered all the north of Africa, had 
 advanced through Spain like a nation in move- 
 ment, and the question seemed to be, — Will 
 Europe for the time be Mahometan or Christian ? 
 The battle lasted seven days, and it is said that 
 fully 300,000 Saracens were left on the field. It 
 saved Europe from the fate of Asia Minor and the 
 East-i* I do not say that, even if these battles had 
 
 * Cf. Gibbon, chap. 52, and Milman's Latin Chrisiianity, 
 Book IV. chap. 9. 
 
 t A victorious line of march, says Gibbon, had been 
 prolonged above a thousand miles from the Rock of 
 Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire ; the repetition of an 
 equal space would have carried the Saracens to the confines 
 of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland. . . . The Arabian 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-430 A.D. 97 
 
 been lost, Christianity would have perished ; for, 
 apart from the direct movement of God's hand, 
 there is a moral power in Christianity which insures 
 its' victory in the end. Frederick the Great's 
 saying that " victory always goes to the strongest 
 battalion," is frequently untrue in the immediate 
 issue, and always in the final result. The victory 
 goes in the end to the strongest moral force, and 
 this is one proof that there is a God. But those 
 battles insured for Europe a quicker religious 
 development, and saved it from the long winter 
 through which Eastern Christianity has passed. 
 They did for Europe what Joshua did for the old 
 prophets and teachers ; what Wallace and Bruce 
 and John Knox did for Scotland. They gave a 
 field, and guarded the unfolding life from being 
 trodden down by barbarous hordes. Te Deum 
 Latidamus, has often been desecrated on battle- 
 fields, but I think we might have joined in it on 
 the fields of Chalons and Tours. 
 
 The third influence that has made the West 
 different from the East in the history of preaching 
 is the Reformation. I shall, meantime, do little 
 
 fleet might have sailed without a naval combat into the 
 mouth of the Thames. Perhaps the interpretation of the 
 Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING, 
 
 Western 
 Preaching. 
 
 Cyprian, 
 200-258 A.D. 
 
 more than name it. It was intimately connected 
 with the events of which we have been speaking, 
 having its roots in the far past ; but it was also 
 the inspiring breath of God, and it has made 
 preaching within the Roman Catholic Church, and 
 still more outside it, the chief Christianising power 
 of modern civilisation. Thereafter, whether men 
 took the side of the Reformation or not, it was 
 necessary that they should preach ; and evermore, 
 in these days, the Church that cannot and will not 
 preach, and preach well, must go down. The 
 Eastern Church has not yet had her Reformation. 
 Let us pray that the dayspring from on high 
 may soon visit her, to give light to them that sit 
 in darkness. 
 
 Having traced some causes of the differences 
 between East and West, we shall now return to 
 the course of preaching in the West, selecting the 
 three most important names. 
 
 The first is that of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage. 
 He was born, probably near Carthage, of heathen 
 parents ; became a Christian ; and, after a bishopric 
 of thirteen years, suffered martyrdom with great 
 courage. He had a short but very active time 
 of work, being occupied in the keenest ecclesi- 
 astical and doctrinal discussions. He adopted 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200- J^O A.D. 99 
 
 what we should call " High Church " principles 
 in the matter of the Church, and in his view 
 of the Sacraments ; opposing the power of the 
 presbyters and people on the one side, and 
 the authority of the bishops of Rome on the 
 other. His life is specially significant, therefore, 
 for Church history. We have, however, to form 
 an opinion of him as a preacher at second-hand, 
 for it is doubtful if any of his sermons survive ; 
 but we have some of his work akin to sermons, and 
 we have references to him by Augustine, in his 
 Doctrina Christiana, and by Lactantius. Augus- 
 tine quotes him, and praises him highly ; Lactantius 
 says of him, " One man stood forth chief and 
 illustrious, since he had acquired great glory 
 from his profession as an orator, and he wrote 
 many admirable things of his own kind. He had 
 a ready, copious, and pleasant faculty, and that 
 clearness which is the greatest excellence in a 
 discourse, so that it would be difficult to say 
 whether he was more ornate in stating, or ready 
 in illustrating, or powerful in persuading."* The 
 significance of Cyprian in the history of preaching, His signifi. 
 is that he was the first, or one of the first, who ^^"tTry of 
 
 preaching. 
 ♦ Lactantius De lustitia, V. I. Cf. Augustine's Sermons^ 
 
 312-4. 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 introduced oratory into the preaching of the 
 Western Church.* This was owing to his pre- 
 vious training as a secular orator, and also to his 
 natural temperament, which was of an ardent kind. 
 It is noteworthy that we owe to Africa the first 
 marked step in the preaching of both Eastern and 
 Western Churches. The faults of Cyprian are that 
 he falls into Origen's allegorising style in explaining 
 Scripture, and that he shews a one-sided extreme- 
 ness which belonged to his fiery character. But 
 he had a true idea of what preaching should be, 
 as will be seen by a short quotation from one of his 
 letters : " In courts of law, in platform speeches, 
 the resources of eloquence are at the disposal of 
 voluble ambition, but when the voice is raised 
 about our Lord and God, its pure sincerity aims at 
 conviction, not by the strength of eloquence, but 
 by realities. In a word, lay hold not of what 
 is elegant, but of what is powerful ; not of 
 things that are coloured by polished speaking, so 
 as to allure a popular audience, but of things that 
 have the simplicity of unadorned truth, and set 
 forth the Divine compassion."i- 
 
 * He is said to have edited a phraseological dictionary of 
 Cicero for the use of Christian preachers. 
 
 t Cyprian ad Donatutn, chap. ii. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-430 A.D. loi 
 
 The second name we take is a remarkable one — Ambrose, 
 that of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, born probably ^'^°'-^9' 
 at Treves, in Gaul. The story of his life gives 
 a curious picture of the time. His father was 
 " Prefect of the Gauls," and the young Ambrose 
 was destined for a civil career. The quarrel 
 between the orthodox and the Arian parties was 
 running high at Milan after the death of one of the 
 bishops (Auxentius), and Ambrose, then thirty- 
 four, was sent to still it. His wisdom and decision 
 were such that the people raised the cry, " he shall 
 be our bishop," and, after vain attempts at refusal, 
 Ambrose yielded. He had received no religious 
 training, he could scarcely be called a professing 
 Christian, and the whole procedure shows how 
 Paganism and Christianity were blended within 
 the Church. But Ambrose was a sincere man, and 
 with all his might he strove to qualify himself for 
 his office. He began to study the Bible, and took 
 for his masters Origen, Athanasius, and the Cappa- 
 docian Clover-leaf, especially Basil. It is not our 
 part here to tell how he became a great prince and 
 power in the Church, through the assertion of its 
 independence as against the civil authority ; how 
 his anti-Erastianism, long before the time of 
 Erastus, has been celebrated in painting and 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 speech ; and how he has made famous the old 
 Basilica at Milan, from the door of which he 
 repelled the emperor. These are for Church 
 As a preacher, history. As to his preaching, it shows such defects 
 as we might expect from what has been said. 
 Augustine, who was bound to him by ties of 
 deep reverence and affection, praises him beyond 
 measure.* It is the custom also of Roman 
 Catholic historians to speak of his sermons as 
 spotless models, but they are of comparatively little 
 value for us, either in their contents or in their 
 form. They are marred by the deep defect of 
 the Origen school — endless and lawless allegoris- 
 ing. E.g., he has twenty-two sermons on the 119th 
 Psalm. In the division into sections of eight 
 verses, he finds mysteries of the unity and purity 
 of the Christian life, because the eighth day was 
 the day of purification ; and then he finds mystical 
 meanings in every letter. But with all this, there 
 are many sweet wells and green spots of true 
 religion, with a tendency to the practical which 
 often carries him from the school of Alexandria to 
 that of Antioch. The two chief merits of Ambrose 
 are — that he gave us church music, and that he 
 helped to give us Augustine. 
 
 * See his Cottfissums. Book IX. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-430 A.D. 103 
 
 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in Africa, his Augustine, 
 native land, was born at Tagaste. Augustine is 354-43° a.d. 
 the greatest figure in the Christian Church from 
 its origin to the Reformation, and his life and 
 work deserve the study of every minister. Their 
 chief features are well known — his early youth and 
 the influence of his mother, Monica — his fall 
 through sensual passion into sin and unbelief — his 
 recovery through the influence of Ambrose, and 
 the voice that sent him to the Bible (first of all to 
 Romans xiii. 13) — his subsequent life of thought 
 and toil and battle. These are best described in his 
 own book of Confessions, which must be ranked 
 beside the De Imitatione CJiristi, Pascal's Pens^eSy 
 and Bunyan's Pilgrinis Progress, among the great 
 classics of the Universal Church. 
 
 Augustine rendered more important service to 
 preaching than any other before the time of the 
 Reformation. He has left 394 sermons, and the 
 notices of him tell of his power as a preacher. At 
 meetings of bishops the sermon was always assigned 
 to him. His preaching was brief, as befitted 
 the impatient, fiery Africans whom he addressed, 
 but it was pregnant, and often called forth that 
 applause which was a feature of the time, and not 
 the best. Yet he was not free from the faults of 
 
I04 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 His place in 
 the develop- 
 ment of 
 preaching. 
 
 his age. He did not escape the spirit of allegoris- 
 ing, though he had less of it than many others, 
 and he shared that ascetic and superstitious 
 tendency which deepened in following centuries. 
 It is possible for both Romanists and Protestants 
 to appeal to him, though, as I think, he was much 
 j more of a Protestant than of a Romanist. The 
 spirit of Paul flowed through him to Luther and 
 Calvin, to Pascal and Arnauld and the Jansenists, 
 to Baxter and Howe, and to our own Secession 
 fathers and Chalmers. They were all of one spirit 
 and one Church. 
 
 The merits of Augustine, so far as the develop- 
 ment of preaching is concerned, were very great — 
 (i.) There was his strong adhesion to the Word of 
 God, which, with all his wanderings into allegory, 
 he grasped in the breadth and depth of its meaning. 
 (2.) There was the emphatic impulse which he 
 gave to instruction in truth and to impression 
 through it, as opposed to the arts of the mere 
 orator. (3.) There was an apprehension of the 
 great antithesis of sin and grace, of man's fall 
 and the redemption through Christ, which must 
 always be the central theme of preaching, and 
 round which it may circle with infinite variety. 
 (4.) There was the intense moral earnestness and 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-430 A.D. 105 
 
 deep spiritual insight by which he searched the 
 hidden man of the heart, as from his own self- 
 knowledge. These points suggest the broad 
 lessons we have to learn from Augustine as a 
 preacher. 
 
 But more important as a study for us is his own His idea of 
 idea of preaching, as given in the De Doctrina ^^'^^'^ ^'"^' 
 Christiana. While Chrysostom's treatise on the 
 Sacred Office contains some excellent thoughts as 
 to the motives that should govern the preacher's 
 mission, Augustine's work is really the first Manual 
 for Preachers that was written in the Christian 
 Church. As such it deserves careful reading, and, 
 though we now have many works more fitted to 
 our time, there is no one of us who may not derive 
 guidance and stimulus from it. It shows the 
 wonderful genius of the man, that he should be so 
 far in advance of his own age and even of later 
 ages, and that in many things he should come close 
 to our own. The work consists of four books ; the 
 first three are occupied with the method of discover- 
 ing matter for preaching, modus inveniendi quae 
 intelligenda sunt ; the fourth and last, with the mode 
 of setting it forth, modus proferendi quae intellecta 
 sunt. In the third book, however, he also discusses 
 such points as, how the pronunciation of one who 
 
and form. 
 
 lo6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 reads the Bible in public may affect the interpreta- 
 tion of it by the hearer. 
 Its substance In dealing with " the discovery of truth," he gives 
 directions for the searching of Scripture, and dis- 
 cusses both the substance of the truth and the 
 forms through which we have to reach it — words 
 and symbols. Here he virtually lays down the 
 Protestant principle, that all preaching is to be 
 founded on the Word of God ; the sound rule of 
 interpretation that we must pay regard to the unity 
 of Scripture, — i.e.^ the " analogy of faith ; " and the 
 obligation to use such human means as language, 
 history, and logic, in dependence on God's help. 
 In the fourth book, on " setting it forth," he gives 
 illustrations from Scripture itself, and from Ambrose 
 and Cyprian. He applies to Cicero for rules of 
 speech, but draws the distinction between sapieittia^ 
 the divine wisdom, and eloqtientia, the best human 
 expression. Sapientia without eloquentia will do 
 good ; eloque^itia without sapientia will do no good, 
 and will often do harm ; but the union of sapientia 
 with eloquentia must be our ideal. He closes by 
 showing that the life and earnestness of the preacher 
 himself are the greatest and the hidden power.* 
 
 * Habet autem ut obedienter audiattcr quantacunque gran 
 ditate dictionis maius potjdus vita docentis : chap, xxvii. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-1,30 A.D. 107 
 
 It should be said that the fourth book was not 
 written at the same time as the others, but nearer 
 the close of his life, so that it shews us the result of 
 his own experience as a preacher. Here are some 
 headings of the pages : — The duty of a Christian 
 teacher — Wisdom of more importance than elo- 
 quence to the Christian orator — The sacred 
 writers unite eloquence with wisdom — The culti- 
 vation of perspicuity of style — The aim of the 
 orator is to teach, to delight, and to move* — The 
 spirit of the hearer must be stirred — The Church 
 teacher should pray before his sermon — Human 
 direction not to be despised, though God makes 
 the true teacher — The Christian teacher must use 
 different styles on different occasions — Examples 
 of various styles drawn from Scripture and from 
 teachers of the Church. 
 
 One meets with such thoughts as these : " If a Some of hit 
 man desire to speak not only with wisdom, but ^^'^^^' 
 also with eloquence (and assuredly he will prove 
 of greater service if he can do both), I should rather 
 send him to read and hear and practise himself in 
 imitating eloquent men, than advise him to spend 
 time with the masters of rhetoric, but only if his 
 
 * He quotes loosely the maxim of Cicero — Est igitur 
 eloquens qui ita dicet ut probet, ut delect et, utflectat. 
 
io8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 models are wise as well as eloquent." " It is especi- 
 ally necessary for the man who is bound to speak 
 wisely, even what he cannot say eloquently, to 
 retain in memory the words of Scripture ; for the 
 more he discerns the poverty of his own words, 
 the richer ought he to be in the words of the Bible, 
 that he may prove his own statements from them, 
 and that, though defective in what is his own, he 
 may so far gain power by the testimony of the 
 great." " As soon as the speaker has ascer- 
 tained that what he says is understood, he ought 
 either to bring his address to a close or to pass on 
 to other topics." " A true teacher prefers to please 
 by matter rather than by words ; nor should he 
 think that a thing is well said except in proportion 
 to its truth ; the teacher should be the master 
 not the servant of his words, lest, as the apostle 
 says, the Cross of Christ should be made of none 
 effect." ♦ 
 
 And thus he concludes : " This book has ex- 
 tended to a greater length than I expected or 
 desired, but the reader or hearer who finds pleasure 
 in it will not think it long. He who thinks it long, 
 yet is anxious to know its contents, may read 
 
 * De Doctrina Christiana, Book IV., chaps, v., x., xxviii. ; 
 the first of these quotations is abbreviated. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING, 200-4S0 A.D. 109 
 
 it in parts. He who does not care to be acquainted 
 with it should not complain of its length. I, how- 
 ever, give thanks to God that, with what little 
 ability I possess, I have in these four books striven 
 to depict not the sort of man I am myself (for my 
 defects are very many), but the sort of man he 
 ought to be who desires to labour in sound — i.e., in 
 Christian doctrine, not for his own profit only, 
 but for that of others also." 
 
 This was the tide-mark of Homiletics for many 
 a day, and I commend it to your reading. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING — MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 T N this lecture, the last of the Session, we must 
 •'■ cover a very long period — from the death of 
 Augustine to the Reformation. 
 
 It may be divided into two, from the death of 
 Division of Augustine to the time of Charlemagne, and from 
 period. ^.j^g ^jj^g Q^ Charlemagne to the Reformation. 
 
 In the earlier half of the period, the three chief 
 First section, figures are Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, 
 430-800 A.D. and Bede. Leo the Great was Bishop of Rome, 
 Leo the Great, or Pope, as he was now frequently called, for 
 395-461 A.D. twenty-one years. He is the first Pope of whom 
 we have any Homiletic remains, and he has left 
 ninety-six sermons. The style of his sermons is 
 His preaching, peculiar. They are generally very brief, they some- 
 times have no text, and they aim at a kind of anti- 
 thetic smartness, which must have pleased the ear, 
 but which to us seems puerile, and is often gained 
 
 at the expense of justness of thought and clea/'ness 
 no 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MluDLh AG'i.'^. iii 
 
 of statement. In the choice of topics, too, his 
 sermons are much beneath those of Chrysostom 
 and Augustine. They are occupied with ecclesi- 
 astical days, saints' festivals, the dignity of the 
 Virgin, the merit of alms-giving and fasting, and 
 the pains of purgatory. A new class of mate- 
 rials takes the place of the practical appeals of 
 Chrysostom, and the deep experience of Augus- 
 tine.* 
 
 Gregory the Great stands much higher. He Gregory the 
 was a man who had all the learning of his time, - g' ^^^ 
 but was none the less entangled in its faults. His 
 early life was first devoted to study, and then to the 
 severe duties of the cloister. When raised to the 
 Popedom, he befriended the monastic orders-}- and 
 sent them out on their missions of preaching. There 
 still stands in the Gregorian Way, between the Via 
 Sacra and the Via Appia, the church from which it 
 is said he sent out that Augustine who became the 
 apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, and whose follower, 
 Wilfrith, came into collision with the Culdees of 
 lona at Whitby. You recollect the story — how he 
 
 * Milman (Book II. chap, iv.) estimates Leo's sermons 
 more highly. 
 
 t In him, says Milman (Book III. chap, vii.), monasticism 
 ascended the Papal throne 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 saw some fair-haired captives in the Forum, and 
 learned that they were called Angli. 
 
 " Angli? yes, angels indeed. From what pro- 
 vince ? " 
 
 " Deirar 
 
 " Yes, de Dei ira they must be saved. And their 
 > King?" 
 
 " Aellar 
 
 " Alleluia must be sung in his dominions." 
 His relations Gregory attached much importance to preaching, 
 wo preac ing. j^.^ constitution had been weakened through fast- 
 ing and austerity, and he had sometimes to give the 
 sermons he composed to others to read. But he 
 made great exertions to deliver them himself, as the 
 sermon, he says, has most effect when given by 
 the person whose it is. Gregory has left a book 
 on preaching, far inferior to that of Augustine, but 
 so highly esteemed that it was translated into the 
 Frankish, the Anglo-Saxon, the Greek, and other 
 tongues.* It is not so much on Homiletics as on 
 Pastoral Theology, or rather cases of conscience, 
 
 * Liber Regulae Pastoralis j it is in four parts, and is ad- 
 dressed to a certain Bishop John. Leander of Seville circu- 
 lated it in Spain. Mauricius had it translated into Greek. 
 Several Gallic synods appointed it to be read by all bishops. 
 Hincmar of Rheims, in the 9th century, says that a copy of it 
 was always delivered to bishops at their ordination. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING—MIDDLE AGES. 113 
 
 showing how to deal with different ages and states 
 of mind according to the ideas of that time. His 
 own sermons, of which many remain, are superior to 
 those of Leo, as they keep closer to Scripture and 
 seek to give a practical application of it. But the 
 exegesis is often of the most extravagant kind, not 
 merely three but seven senses being found in the 
 passage, one within the other — historical, moral, 
 spiritual, mystical, analogic, anagogic, and so on. 
 He deals with such questions as, Why the angel at 
 the grave of Christ sat on the right hand, and 
 What is the significance of the 153 fishes that 
 Peter caught. His style, however, is natural and 
 popular. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the preach- Bede, 
 ing of the descendants of Columba,* which seems '-^'^^ ad 
 to have been on the whole more Scriptural and 
 practical than that which prevailed elsewhere, and 
 I may here speak of Bede whom we are accustomed 
 to term the Venerable. If you are a day or two in 
 Newcastle, you will find two places of antiquarian 
 interest. Besides the remains of the famous Wall 
 of Hadrian, of which a worthy Presbyterian elder 
 has published the best account, there is the 
 Church of Ceolfrith, in J arrow, where Bede lived, 
 * See pages 48 and 53. 
 
114 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 read, wrote, and died. He was perhaps the most 
 learned man of his time — a good Latin and Greek 
 scholar ; a geographer and an historian, as far as 
 geography and history could then go ; a musician 
 and a poet. His great work is an Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory of Britain, which gives us the fullest and most 
 faithful view which we have of the early condition of 
 our country, for he was a painstaking and thoroughly 
 
 His sermons, trustworthy man. His sermons, of which we are to 
 speak, are in Latin, and were, therefore, probably 
 meant for the clergy. He preached and wrote 
 poetry in Anglo-Saxon, but unfortunately nothing 
 of this is left. The sermons are brief homilies, 
 giving a simple commentary on a portion of 
 Scripture. Their lessons are sometimes very good, 
 although over and over again the allegorising 
 spirit of the time comes in and spoils them. But 
 there is this peculiarity in Bede, that he often in- 
 troduces his subject by a description of the place 
 and the time, and thus vivifies the passage ; while 
 everywhere the genuine sincerity and piety of the 
 speaker are apparent.* 
 
 General char- On the whole, however, the times are evil for 
 
 acter of 
 
 K • ? * Palmer in Herzog, s.v. Predtgt, ascribes to Bede the in- 
 
 troduction of the novelty of arranging his sermons according 
 to the seasons of the ecclesiastical year. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 115 
 
 preaching. The manner of Origen carries the 
 day ; while the roots of the Middle Ages are in 
 the ground, and already show signs of growth. 
 Credulity and affectation carry us as far from 
 the good taste of the classical age as from the 
 spiritual insight and divine wisdom of the New 
 Testament. It rouses a curious sense of contrast 
 to read one of these sermons after one of the 
 epistles of Paul, or a chapter of the gospels. 
 
 We come now to the second section of the period, Second 
 
 „ section. 
 
 800-1517 A.D. 
 
 The year 800 is a remarkable one. Charlemagne Charlemagne 
 — Carolus Magnus — was the greatest warrior and 
 organiser between Caesar and Napoleon, and in some 
 respects a more enlightened and less selfish man 
 than either. He was born probably at Aix la 
 Chapelle, where he lies buried. His life was one 
 of incessant war against the Huns in the East, the 
 Saracens in the South, and the Saxons in the 
 North. The last of these he compelled by force 
 to renounce heathenism, and was therefore called 
 Armatus Saxoniae Apostolus, the armed apostle of 
 Saxony. His kingdom extended from Hungary to 
 the German Ocean, and from the Elbe to the 
 Pyrenees. He carried his arms into Italy, subdued 
 the Lombards, then a formidable power, and estab 
 
Ii6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Ushed the temporal dominion of the Pope, which 
 has continued down to our time. When he was 
 worshipping in St. Peter's church, Pope Leo III, 
 suddenly, though no doubt by agreement, put a 
 gold crown on his head and saluted him, " Carolus 
 Augustus Imperator ! " This was in 800 A.D., and 
 marks the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire, 
 the cause of innumerable wars, for it expressed the 
 idea that there could be only one empire in the 
 world, as there could be only one Church. Charle- 
 magne and the Pope were lords of all, bodies and 
 souls, and they helped one another in their govern- 
 ment. It is well to remember the year 800, and 
 to reflect how far we are from it with our ideas of 
 nationality on the one side, and of conscience on 
 the other. 
 His efforis on The name of this great monarch, who figures so 
 preachin frequently in the romances of chivalry with Roland 
 
 and Oliver and the twelve Paladines, seems far 
 removed from the subject of preaching. But Char- 
 lemagne concerned himself with all the interests of 
 his subjects. He attended to commerce, to agri- 
 culture, to education, and to the Church. After 
 Constantine, he was the chief champion of State- 
 churchism. He held church councils at Rheims, 
 Tours, Chalons, and other places, at which there 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 117 
 
 was much discussion about preaching. Charles saw 
 its great power as an educator and civiliser of the 
 people, and he required the bishops to give them- 
 selves to the work of instruction. They were 
 ordered to study the Catholic creed and the Lord's 
 Prayer, that they might understand them and be 
 able to explain them to the people. When the 
 bishops were absent, portions of the Bible and of 
 the writings of the Fathers were to be read to 
 congregations. That this might be carried out, 
 Paul Warnefrid, called Paulus Diaconus, was com- 
 manded to make a collection of " the best flowers 
 out of the beautiful meadows of the Fathers, that 
 those who were unable to preach might read 
 them." This collection, which was called the 
 Homiliarium, was the beginning of those books of 
 homilies which became afterwards so famous. The 
 homilies were arranged according to the festivals 
 and seasons of the year, and as the passage for the 
 day was called a Pericope or section, this gave rise 
 to the Pericopic system of preaching, which prevails 
 still on the Continent in many Protestant churches, 
 and which leads English clergymen to select the 
 text from the lesson for the day. Each homily 
 began : Post ilia verba textus, " after these words of 
 the text ; " whence these homilies came to be named 
 
Ii8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Postils, a term which, with the verb postillare, to 
 
 preach, often occurs in mediaeval Latin,* and is 
 
 still in use. 
 
 Injurious This attempt of Charlemagne was well meant, 
 
 result of them. i-i i i • ■,• i 
 
 and it IS quite likely that it did some good at first, 
 
 but it led to harm. The clergy and the bishops 
 came to depend on the Homiliarium and its Pos- 
 tils, instead of thinking out the subject for them- 
 selves, and all that was necessary was to be able 
 to read, not to preach, and to read a language 
 which t'ley often understood imperfectly. They 
 became therefore more and more indolent and 
 ignorant, and incompetent to give instruction either 
 publicly or privately. 
 
 A corresponding effect was produced upon the 
 people. Few of them understood the homilies, 
 which were in Latin,-f- and those who did understand 
 them came to regard them, when they returned again 
 and again, as parts of a piece of mechanism, and not 
 
 * The principal authorities with regard to the Honii- 
 liarimn are quoted by Gieseler, Part II., chap, iii., sec. lo. 
 
 f Efforts were repeatedly made to prevent this. Thus the 
 third council of Tours held in 813 A.D., expressly enjoins — 
 ut easdevi hojnilias quisque aperte transferre studeat in rusti- 
 c'am linguatn Latinam aut Theottscam, quo facilius cuncti 
 possint intelligere qttae dicuntur. Capit, Turon iv,, 1 7. 
 Hincmar of Rheims insists that parish priests should be 
 able to expound the Athanasian creed in the vernacular. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 119 
 
 as the living words of living men. They generally 
 left the church when the homily began, and we find 
 orders from time to time to compel them to remain. 
 " To read a homily," " as dry as a homily," became 
 proverbial expressions. The mass and other cere- 
 monies which appealed to the senses gained the 
 upper hand, while instruction and intelligence 
 among the common people died out. Thus the 
 darkness deepened till about the year 1200. 
 
 I have heard some people among ourselves say His mistake 
 that it would be well if many ministers, instead of 
 giving us their own sermons, would make selec- 
 tions from those of other men, and read them 
 to us ; and then, with good music, we could 
 enjoy the service. This system was tried more 
 than a thousand years ago, and it produced an 
 ignorant ministry and a careless people. Those 
 who would persuade you to anything like this, 
 would rob you of your power. Whenever a 
 thing becomes easy, it is thought to be of little 
 worth, and such a plan would soon bring the 
 ministry into contempt. People would buy their 
 own sermon-books, and read them at home, if they 
 read them at all. What is needed in the pulpit is 
 living Christian men who give their own thoughts 
 and feelings to the people, and the people soon 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 discover from the very manner of the preacher 
 whether he does so or not. The same rule applies 
 to periodicals of the Homilist and Expositor type. 
 If they help us to think for ourselves and put us 
 on the track, they are good, giving us stimulus 
 and guidance which no man should be above 
 accepting. But if they take the place of our 
 own thinking, they are very evil. All that you 
 get from them should be incorporated with your 
 own mind and heart, and brought out in your 
 own way. 
 Light in the We are not to think, however, that the light of 
 Christian truth was entirely veiled in the preaching 
 of those times. Although the sermons were chiefly 
 about the Virgin and the saints, and relics and 
 legends, and dry etymologies ; yet in the midst of 
 them there was warning against vice and inculcation 
 of Christian virtue, which gathered in some way 
 round the name of Christ. And outside the Papal 
 Church, or half outside, there are tokens of a cur- 
 rent of a purer kind in the valleys of the Alps, 
 both on the French and the Italian side, among 
 the Bohemian mountains, and, it may be, in some 
 of the secret places of our own land. Sometimes 
 it was in the heart of a bishop such as Claude of 
 Turin, sometimes under the cowl of a monk or the 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 121 
 
 coat of a peasant* There is a river in Spain called 
 the Guadalquivir, which disappears underground, 
 and comes up again after some miles, but ever 
 and again it has openings where it visits the day- 
 light for an interval to show that it is flowing on. 
 The Spaniards call these los ojos del Guadalquivir^ 
 the eyes of the Guadalquivir. The spiritual Church 
 of Christ has such eyes in the dark ages, looking 
 up even at midnight to the stars. 
 
 It is about the year 1200 that the dawn begins, The dawn, 
 when we see and hear preaching again, and, as 
 Milton says, " the bird of morning begins to sing." 
 
 Some of the causes of this movement towards Causes. 
 light and life may be mentioned. 
 
 The clergy came to be better instructed, and Better insiruc 
 more able to deal with the old stores of learning, j 
 and with the Bible, first in the Vulgate, then in 
 Greek and Hebrew. Very curiously this was due 
 to contact with the Saracens, who at that time 
 were admirers of the Greek literature, especially of 
 Aristotle. From them we got our beginnings of 
 algebra, of chemistry, and of astronomy ; in which 
 
 * This is one of our answers to those who ask : " Where 
 was your Church before Luther.?" It was where the Christ- 
 ian Church was before Christ — mixed up with ceremonial 
 elements ; when He lifted up the standard it went one 
 way, and the men of ceremonies another 
 
122 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 sciences a number of their terms survive. They 
 also gave a stimulus to theology. Then there 
 came direct contact with the East through the 
 Crusades. Constantinople was still in the hands 
 of a Greek-speaking population, and a taste for 
 Greek arose, leading to the foundation of univer- 
 sities — Bologna and Paris among the first. There 
 was a general stirring of thought which raised up 
 men more fitted to teach.* 
 Use of the The next cause was, a general attempt to speak 
 
 V£rii3.cul3,r • • 
 
 to the people in their own mother-tongue. There 
 had been such attempts before. Columba addressed 
 the Picts of Inverness in the Celtic ; St. Gall 
 learned the Franconian, that he might preach to 
 the Franks round Lake Constance ; Bede used 
 the Anglo-Saxon as well as the Latin ; Alfred had 
 homilies on sacred history rendered into the 
 Anglo-Saxon ; and similarly in the rest of Europe. 
 In the commotions of the time, however, the 
 confusion of tongues was great ; disorder and 
 irregularity prevailed. It was the time of Babel, 
 and Pentecost had not fully come. But about 1200, 
 the present languages of Western Europe began to 
 take shape, and to be the medium of communi- 
 cation between teachers and taught. There were 
 * See Note B on page 131. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 123 
 
 two great branches : the Lingua Rustica Latina, in 
 the south, became the mother of the Italian, 
 French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romance 
 tongues, all drawing more or less from the old 
 Latin of the common people ; in the north, the 
 Lingua Theotisca became the mother of the Ger- 
 man, Dutch, English, and Scoto-Saxon. Lays, 
 viinnelieder, were chanted ; poems were made ; 
 and great writers by-and-by arose, notably Dante 
 in Italy. Preaching in the vernacular became 
 more frequent ; the peaks were appearing above 
 the long flood ; the dove with the olive leaf 
 was moving over the waters around the ark of 
 promise ; and in time the ark would open and a 
 new world begin. 
 
 We who believe that the God of history is the Godinhistorj 
 Lord Jesus Christ should recognise these move- 
 ments, and try to see how they are connected with 
 His cause. He makes an opportunity, and when 
 He gives the command, " Go, stand and speak in 
 the temple," there are men ready to fulfil it. But 
 besides this gradual movement, we cannot doubt 
 that there was a direct impulse from God's own 
 presence. Those who watch the currents of history 
 in their higher aspect must recognise epochs when, 
 without secondary causes, or above them, there are 
 
124 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Different 
 forms of 
 levivaL 
 
 The Scholas- 
 tics. 
 
 Thomas 
 Aquinas, 
 1225-1274. 
 
 tides of great revival, as when God at first, over 
 the waste and emptiness of chaos, said, " Let there 
 be light," and there was light. It is not through fate 
 or accident, but through the Divine plan, that we 
 hear the trumpet-call of the Gospel waxing louder 
 and louder like that of Sinai, till men begin to stir 
 and wake. I thank God that I believe in this, for it 
 comforts me in times of reaction and decay, or 
 what seem so to us. " They have seen Thy goings, 
 O God, even the goings of my God, my King, in 
 the sanctuary." Such a time was this — slow at 
 first, but ever growing. 
 
 The lowest period in the life of Christianity, and 
 therefore in preaching, was from 800 to I2(X) A.D. 
 Thereafter it began to rise, though with many 
 fluctuations, and we shall glance at the different 
 forms which the revival took in preparation for the 
 Reformation. 
 
 There is first the Scholastic type of preaching, 
 of which the most eminent example is Thomas 
 Aquinas. He is the great master of the Domini- 
 cans, the most celebrated order in the Roman 
 Catholic Church. He was born at Aquino, in 
 Italy, of a noble family ; was a student and 
 teacher in the most celebrated universities in 
 Europe ; and is the standard theologian of the 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 125 
 
 Roman Catholic Church, recommended by the 
 present Pope as the best antidote to the scepti- 
 cism of the age. His great work is the Suvima 
 Theologice, in which he seeks to reconcile theology, 
 as he understood it, with the philosophy of Aris- 
 totle, The preaching founded on it addresses 
 itself to the intellect rather than to the heart or 
 conscience, and to the intellect of the Schools 
 rather than to common intelligence and reason. 
 It often introduces questions of the most fanciful 
 kind, and abounds in divisions and sub-divisions, 
 and in the most subtle distinctions. And yet it is 
 from this, simplified and purified, that we have 
 learned to apply method to our preaching as well 
 as to many other things. 
 
 The second school of preachers was the order of The Mystics, 
 the Mystics. They were very numerous, and held 
 different positions. Within the Roman Catholic 
 Church was the celebrated Bernard of Clairvaux, the Bernard; 
 preacher of the Second Crusade, and author of the 
 hymn, Salve caput crue7itaUim. There were other 
 Mystics whose object was to serve not so much the 
 Church as Christianity, and who were therefore 
 under suspicion. The most famous, though not 
 the earliest, of these was John Tauler of Strasburg, Tauler, 
 a great favourite with Luther, who filled the im- ^^9o-i3 ^ 
 
126 : LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 mense cathedral with crowds, and preached the 
 Gospel fervently when the black death raged in 
 1348. He had the same effect on Luther as the 
 mystic William Law, the author of A Serious 
 Call, had on John Wesley, filling him with a 
 hazy warmth, and preparing him for that clear 
 view of the Gospel which he afterwards gained.* 
 Both of these men preached in the vernacular ; 
 Bernard in the Romance, then forming itself into 
 a language that is now dying before our eyes, 
 and Tauler in German. Tauler professes that he 
 will quote little Latin and prove everything from 
 Scripture. 
 
 If the Scholastics were light without heat, the 
 Mystics were heat without light. You may gain 
 a very good view of them from Vaughan's Hours 
 with the Mystics, or in a popular way from Theo- 
 logia Germanica (translated by Miss Winkworth), 
 a book by an unknown mystic, which also Luther 
 much admired at an early period of his life. The 
 Mystics did good service, as preachers of feeling 
 who spoke to the conscience and spirit, though 
 
 * Tauler, who was strongly influenced by Nicolas von Basel, 
 a Waldense, preached with wonderful power on behalf of the 
 oppressed, and against the avarice and luxury of clergy and 
 laity, not sparing even the Pope. 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 127 
 
 in a darkling way. Their sermons want form 
 and clearness of arrangement, dealing greatly in 
 iteration.* 
 
 Allied to this, there grew up a popular school, The populai 
 with much of the Mystical in its character 
 though clearer in form and presentation, and with 
 more direct hold of Christian truth than the 
 Scholastics. They resembled Latimer of the 
 English Reformation more than Luther — i.e., they 
 dealt more with duty than with doctrine, and ~ 
 yet we feel that doctrine is underneath. They 
 are entirely Christian, and set little importance 
 on rites and ceremonies. 
 
 The most eminent representative of this school Berthold, 
 was Berthold of Regensburg or Ratisbon, a 
 number of whose sermons still remain. He has a 
 Bunyan-like power of using quaint similitudes, 
 and can still be read with interest for his parables 
 and comparisons. No church could hold the multi- 
 tudes that flocked to hear him, and he preached 
 in the market-places and fields to thousands, 
 reckoned by the fifty or the hundred — vague 
 numbers, but telling of the immense popularity 
 
 * Herder says that " he who has read two of Tauler's 
 sermons has read all." Cf, Milman's Latin Christianity. 
 Book XIV. chap. vii. 
 
128 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of the man, and of the growing desire to listen 
 to Christian truth when presented plainly in the 
 mother-tongue. 
 
 Some of these men were all but outside of 
 the Roman Church, and entirely so were others 
 of whom we have glimpses among the mountains 
 of Dauphiny and Piedmont, and also in Bohemia. 
 Character- Their preaching had a tone which has never 
 
 ******* been heard in the Eastern Church. Whether from 
 
 the trials through which the Western world had 
 passed, or from the influence of new races, there 
 arose a sense of the imperfection of life, and yet of 
 its grandeur, a feeling of the mystery of existence, 
 and a bending of the heart reverently before it, 
 which we do not find either in the speculation of 
 Origen or in the eloquence of Chrysostom. This 
 perception of an infinite ideal of the soul above the 
 finished completeness of the human intelligence, 
 became in religion the entrance of the heart 
 and spirit within the range of deeper and higher 
 questions than can be settled by the common 
 understanding, or by the ordinary laws of ethics. 
 The rise of the Thus, as we advance, the word " reform " is 
 
 mo em ee - j^^^j.^j f^j-g^- ^^rith reference to manner, and then with 
 mg. ' ' 
 
 reference to doctrine. There is an element of 
 earnestness and pathos, deeper and more search- 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 129 
 
 ing than anything in the old patristic preaching, 
 revealing that more sensitive openness to the 
 world's imperfection and its mysteries which dis- 
 tinguishes romanticism from classicism. It was all 
 there in the Bible — in the Psalms, in the New 
 Testament, in the life and death of Christ ; but it 
 becomes the possession of the people only when 
 the Bible touches the hearts of the northern races. 
 There spring up the Gothic architecture, which is 
 mysticism put into stone, and the Divina Comedia, 
 and the hymns of Thomas of Celano and Bernard 
 of Cluny, and the Imitation of Christ, and all the 
 products of feeling that make the modern world 
 so distinct from the full, rounded, self-inclosed life 
 of the classics. 
 
 This one feature is enough to disprove the posi- Havet's 
 tion of Professor Ha vet, who seeks to shew that the ^°'^^' 
 present form of Christianity is to be traced to the 
 Greek mind. We owe the Greek mind very much 
 in regard to form and expression ; but the forma- 
 tive spirit and the contents lie far beyond, by Siloa's 
 brook that flowed fast by the oracle of God, and 
 the receptive spirit lies more in the blood of the 
 northern races, which has given us this element of 
 mysticism. Yet there was still wanting the clear- 
 ness of expression which was necessary to make 
 
 K 
 
130 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Christianity once more the religion of preaching, 
 as it had been in the days of Augustine and Chry- 
 sostom, only now in a still richer and clearer and 
 hig^her way. 
 Harbingers of There were harbingers of the new era, men 
 the new era. ^^y^^ united warmth with clearness — the great chan- 
 cellor, John Gerson, in France, a man of noble 
 spirit who turned from the cares of State to teach 
 little children ; John WyclifTe in England ; John 
 Huss in Bohemia ; Savonarola in Italy. All these 
 were men of immense popular power; and what 
 distinguishes most of them is a new view of the 
 questions of sin and redemption — an approxima- 
 tion to the doctrine of Luther and the Reformers, 
 and an evident advance on the preaching of even 
 the greatest of the Fathers. We can see, like 
 Columbus when he was approaching America, 
 that a new world is at hand by the fresh leaves 
 and fruits that are drifting on the current 
 
WESTERN CHURCH PREACHING— MIDDLE AGES. 131 
 
 Note B, see page 122. 
 Universities in the 13TH Century. 
 
 At the suppression of convents in 1803, there was found 
 in the Abbey of Benedict-beuren a MS. of the 13th century, 
 previously unknown. It is now at Munich, called Codex 
 Buranus, and M. de Boernstein has published from it 
 Carmitia Bur ana Select a. They are in German and Latin. 
 M. Laistner has translated some from the Latin, and pub- 
 lished them under the name Golias. Many of the songs are 
 so gross that they have to be excluded. The whole codex 
 is a curious picture of the student life of the time. 
 
 In the 1 2th and 13th centuries a number of German con- 
 vents had flourishing schools with monks for teachers, 
 Fulda, Reichenau, St. Gall, Hirschau, Benedict-beuren, &c., 
 In France there were Paris, Rheims, Laon, &c. The stu- 
 dents travelled from school to school, and had important 
 privileges in journey and residence. As long as the monks 
 were moral, order and discipline were maintained ; but 
 when they fell into license, the schools fell into disorder and 
 all sorts of excesses. The songs belong to that period 
 (Minnegesang). The scholars of Paris were accused of 
 playing dice on the altars, and were forbidden by edict to 
 commit murder, brigandage, and house-breaking when jour- 
 neying. In France, in Germany, in England, they went in 
 troops that were formidable, and gave up study altogether 
 for a wandering libertinage. Most of them were theological, 
 and became a scourge to the lower clergy and convents on 
 whom they lived, many adopting their profession merely that 
 they might live a life of idleness and vice. The banks of the 
 Rhine, which were called " The Highway of the Priests," 
 swarmed with them. The Synod of Passau (1248) and the 
 Council of Salzburg (1291^ issued decrees against them, and 
 
132 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 after the foundation of lay universities there was an improve- 
 ment for a time. These students called themselves Goliards 
 or Golias, from the Goliath of the Bible, who was canonised 
 in jest. (From this probably the boy's rhyme " Here come 
 I, Goloshau — Goloshau is my name," the picture of a brag- 
 gadocio ; the modern tramp is the feeble type of the race 
 oi clerici vagi!) The movement broke out again in the 15th 
 and 1 6th centuries among the lay universities, and great 
 numbers, Poles, Bohemians, &c., travelled as low comedians 
 and jugglers under the guise of students. The songs were 
 in all the European tongues, with the Latin, and spread 
 thus from land to land. The Gaudeaimes, Crambambuli, 
 &c., of the Studenten-Lieder are purified relics. Spain is 
 the only country where this usage survives in any measure, 
 and at a carnival in Paris in 1878, the Estadiantatia of 
 Spain made a sensation. — See Revue Suisse, February, 1880. 
 
LECTURE VIII. 
 
 PREACHING IMMEDIATELY BEFORE THM 
 REFORMATION.* 
 
 T N order to understand the effect of the Reforma- 
 ■*■ tion on the history of preaching, we must 
 look a Httle more closely into the state of things 
 that immediately preceded it. 
 
 The change that took place in the thought and Importance of 
 
 life of Europe at the Reformation is one of the ^. j 
 
 ^ period. 
 
 most remarkable in the history of the world. We 
 are accustomed to speak of the present epoch as 
 more important than any previous one, and, no 
 doubt, it is a period of wonderful activity in every 
 department of knowledge ; but, if you look at 
 the state of things before and after the Reforma- 
 tion, you will see that there was then a revolu- 
 tion far surpassing that of our own time, striking 
 
 * This Lecture and those which follow were addressed to 
 students, only half of whom had heard Lectures I.-VIL 
 
 133 
 
134 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Revival of 
 learning. 
 
 Inventions 
 and dis- 
 coveries. 
 
 as it is. Indeed, the only other that will compare 
 with it for importance is that which occurred at the 
 Christian Era. 
 
 You have to think how the revival of learning 
 brought Europe face to face with the old world of 
 Greece and Rome which had previously been 
 buried except to a few, and by these few had 
 been imperfectly known. The capture of Con- 
 stantinople by the Turks in 1453 had sent num- 
 bers of Greeks, even nobles and princes, over the 
 Western world, who taught their language and 
 literature in Italy, France, and England. The old 
 classic authors were sought out, annotated, and 
 commented on, and some of the greatest scholars 
 in classic literature appeared. The Bible began 
 to be read and studied in the original, and the 
 laws of hermeneutics and exegesis were applied to 
 it with unprecedented accuracy. 
 
 The various discoveries of the time made know- 
 ledge the property of many. The invention of 
 paper and of printing multiplied books, and put it 
 in the power of vast multitudes to study them, 
 Never before in the world's history had there been 
 so many readers and thinkers. 
 
 The invention of gunpowder had its influence. It 
 introduced science into war, and secured Europe 
 
PRE-REFORMATION PREACHING. 135 
 
 against inroads of barbarism like those which 
 had destroyed the ancient civilisation. It gave a 
 sense of leisure for study such as a man feels who 
 knows that the policeman is patrolling the bounds, 
 compared with one who has to watch every sound 
 for house-breakers' footsteps. If you consider what 
 it cost Europe to repel Huns, Tartars, Saracens, and 
 Turks, you will see that even our bloated arma- 
 ments, bad as they arc, are not so disturbing as 
 were the terrors of the Middle Ages. Now, for the 
 first time, burghers and peasants, formerly forced 
 to follow some feudal lord with spear and hauberk 
 to foreign lands, could cultivate their fields and 
 their minds. 
 
 The physical discoveries of the time stimulated 
 men's thoughts. A new world was added to the 
 old by Columbus ; the way to India and China was 
 made accessible by Vasco di Gama ; the heavens 
 were penetrated by Copernicus and Kepler ; and 
 men's minds were open and sensitive to the new 
 and strange. 
 
 The national languages of Europe were now National 
 formed and made fit for being vehicles of instruc- *"S"'^se- 
 tion to all the people. Italian, French, German, 
 and English took their shapes about this time, 
 and learning was brought to the poor man's door. 
 
136 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Preaching 
 prior to the 
 Reformation 
 
 non-existent 
 as a Church 
 institution ; 
 
 These few words will serve to indicate the im- 
 portance of the period at which the Reformation 
 was born, and of the influences which were around 
 the Bible, when Luther brought it from his cell at 
 Erfurt. So it was that, when the Lord gave the 
 word, the company of them that published \t was 
 very great. 
 
 " Then," as Milton says, " was the sacred Bible 
 sought out of the dusty corners where profane 
 falsehood and neglect had thrown it, the schools 
 opened, divine and human learning raked out of 
 the embers of forgotten tongues, the princes and 
 cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of 
 salvation ; the martyrs, with the unresistible might 
 of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness, and 
 scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon." 
 
 We shall be better able to understand the 
 change that came upon preaching, if we look 
 at its condition immediately before this great 
 upheaval. 
 
 It may be said that for several centuries 
 preaching, as a recognised institution of the 
 Christian Church, had been non-existent. Bishops 
 who preached were rare exceptions. As a rule 
 they were occupied in contests for power and 
 honour, many of them being feudal lords who 
 
PRE-REFORMA TION PRE A CHING. 1 37 
 
 headed their vassals clad in armour, while not a 
 few of them led lives of shameless and uncon- 
 cealed immorality. You have but to read such a 
 book as Ranke's Lives of the Popes to see this. 
 Better that these men did not try to preach even 
 if they were able. It would have been to add 
 scandal and hypocrisy to sin. Scotland was then 
 as bad as the rest of Europe — in some respects 
 worse. You may remember the anecdote of the 
 bishop who came to head a fray in the High Street 
 of Edinburgh with armour beneath his gown ; 
 protesting eagerly about something, he struck his 
 breast till the coat of mail rattled. "Be my 
 conscience ! " he said. " My lord," said one of the 
 bystanders, "your conscience is not guid, for I hear 
 it clattering." When George Wishart was preach- 
 ing in Ayr, Dunbar, Bishop of Glasgow, who had 
 never before preached, took possession of the pulpit 
 to exclude the reformer, but all he could say was, 
 " They say we sold prieche. Quhy not ? Better 
 late thryve nor never thryve. Haud us still for your 
 bishope, and we sail provide better the next time." 
 Among the secular clergy, i.e., the clergy who 
 had charge of parishes, things were much the same 
 as among the bishops. Their chief work was 
 performing the offices of the Church, reading the 
 
138 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 mass, and giving absolution. David Lyndsay says 
 
 in regard to them — 
 
 " War nocht the precheing of the begging freris, 
 Tint war the faith amang the seculeris." 
 
 owing to It could not well be otherwise when these places 
 
 Church, were put up openly for sale, or bestowed on strolling 
 
 bards and players, and on creatures of the courtiers 
 and bishops. The people came to lose faith in the 
 secular or parish clergy, and the churches were in 
 a large measure deserted, or frequented only on 
 certain festival days when the more solemn rites 
 were performed. The Romish churches were worse 
 attended in these " ages of faith," as they have been 
 called, than they are now when Protestantism has 
 given a stimulus to Popery, Those who say that 
 the union of Christian Churches would bring the 
 lapsed masses to the church may have some 
 reason if they mean a true, living, and loving 
 union ; but if they mean merely the uniformity 
 of the Churches, they are utterly wrong. There 
 were never more " lapsed masses " in Europe than 
 when there was the greatest uniformity, never 
 more ignorance and vice and immorality. What 
 is wanted in Churches is life — spiritual life ; union, 
 if you will, but only with living unity, the unity of 
 the Spirit. The army that is to conquer the world 
 
PRE- REFORM A TION PRE A CHING. 139 
 
 is not to be a collection of dead bones, such as the 
 prophet saw in his vision, but a force of living men. 
 
 There were, however, in the ages before the The rise of 
 Reformation, organisations for preaching. There ^'^j''.""^ 
 were the monks of different Orders. When the 
 secular clergy became so corrupt and indolent that 
 religion seemed likely to die, an attempt was made 
 to reform the Church from within, a reformation 
 of the Church from without having indeed scarcely 
 been thought of The monkish orders sprang up 
 for this work. They were called friars, brothers, 
 or " regulars," being bound by the " regula," or 
 rule of their order ; and this distinguished them 
 from the secular clergy, who had parishes and 
 benefices connected with them. Among them the 
 most numerous were the Franciscans or Grey Friars, 
 founded by St. Francis d'Assisi, and the Dominicans 
 or Black Friars, founded by Dominic, or Domingo, 
 a Spaniard. These two orders had great variety 
 among themselves, but the Dominicans carried 
 off the palm as preachers. It was to them that 
 the famous Thomas Aquinas belonged. They 
 were known also as the Jacobines, and gave name 
 to the famous Jacobin party in the French 
 Revolution, because their sittings were held in the 
 Jacobine or Dominican monastery — a curious 
 
140 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 irony, the Romish order giving name to the 
 reddest republicans. 
 
 Their success. At first these Orders did good. They were 
 founded by zealous men who, with all their errors, 
 wished to serve their time faithfully. They had 
 their centre in some abbey where they observed 
 their rules of devotion,, and from which they issued 
 to preach and to teach the people, after special train- 
 ing for this purpose. They had such zeal and 
 gained such influence that often the parish churches 
 were given over to them, along with the revenues. 
 E.g., Holyrood Abbey had the charge of Corstor- 
 phine and Liberton and various places round 
 Edinburgh. This produced great enmity between 
 them and the parish clergy. 
 
 Their corrup- But, with time, the preaching Orders became as 
 bad as the parish clergy, or worse. Their monas- 
 teries increased in wealth, and became seats of 
 immorality. Their preaching power declined. 
 They either entered into the region of polemics, or 
 became lazy, and yielded to the temptation of 
 easy popularity. Thus the Dominicans were the 
 fathers of the Inquisition, and much of their preach- 
 ing was bitter denunciation of the growing heresies 
 of the time — Albigenses, Waldenses, Bohemian 
 Brethren, and Lollards. They held up the cross in 
 
 tion. 
 
PRE- REFORM A TION PRE A CUING. \\\ 
 
 one hand, and applied the faggot with the other ; 
 and their preaching was as fiery and fierce as 
 their conduct In this they were consistent 
 Others set themselves to please the people with 
 legends and amusing stories. The time of Easter 
 was the great season for this, when it was sup- 
 posed that people needed amusement after their 
 fast ; and so " a paschal laugh," risus paschalis^ 
 became a proverb for the greatest merriment 
 The Carnival, which has now fallen into the hands 
 of the mob, and of which it is getting ashamed, 
 was then a Church ordinance. There were ex- 
 ceptions to all this — men who deplored it, and 
 protested, and preached in a very different way ; 
 but I speak of what was the prevailing practice 
 in Europe before the Reformation. 
 
 But we must give some account of the sermons Different types 
 that were in use ; for sermons were preached, and °^ sermons, 
 collections of them remain to us, besides the re- 
 cords preserved by literary men like Stephanus 
 and Erasmus and Ulrich von HUtten. They may 
 be said to have been of four kinds.* 
 
 * A succinct account of those preachers will be found in 
 Rothe's Geschichte der Predigt, section 8i ; specimens of 
 their sermons are given by Lentz in his Geschichte der 
 (hristlichen Hotniletik, vol. I., part iii. 
 
142 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Ready-made. I. There were those who read the sermons that 
 came ready made to hand. The Homiliariiun of 
 Charlemagne, to which I have already referred, 
 was within reach, and sometimes the king or bishop, 
 if he were a more than ordinarily zealous man, 
 enjoined the use of it. It was followed and varied 
 by a number of collections bearing such titles as 
 Gesta Romatwrum — a curious name to give to a 
 homily-book — which led to a facetious parody that 
 has given origin to our word "jest." Another was 
 called Lwnen Animae, light of the soul ; and 
 another Dormi Secure, sleep at ease, intended to 
 assure a man of his Sabbath night's rest. Some 
 of these, and especially the earlier, were more 
 Scriptural, and consisted of a comment on some 
 part of the gospels or epistles, too generally of a 
 fantastic and allegorical type. The evil of this 
 method, as we have seen, was that it destroyed the 
 native power of the preacher, and the sermons, 
 being in Latin, were unintelligible to a great mass 
 of the hearers. 
 
 Scholastic. 2. On the other hand, the more learned preached 
 
 sermons of a Scholastic type, full of plays upon 
 words and ridiculous conceits. Erasmus gives an 
 account of one which he heard from an old theo- 
 logian who " looked so wise that you thought 
 
PREREFORMA TION PRE A CHING. 143 
 
 Duns Scotus had come to life again." He took 
 the word " Jesus " as his text, and showed 
 what wonders it contained, i. It is declined in 
 three cases, Jesus, Jesum, Jesu ; wherein we have 
 manifestly an image of the Trinity. Then, the 
 first of these ends in j, the second in m, the 
 third in u \ which is a deep mystery, summum^ 
 medium, ultimum. Further, if Jesus is divided 
 into two equal portions, s is left in the middle, 
 which in the Hebrew is K', sin, and this in the 
 language of the Scots {Scotorum opinor lingua) 
 signifies peccatum ; it is thus implied that Jesus 
 takes away the sin of the world. 
 
 The custom of those preachers was to have an 
 introduction, which they called praeambuluin, as far 
 from the text as possible, so as to keep the hearers 
 in suspense, and make them say, Quo nunc se 
 proripit ilk ? Where is the man rushing to now ? 
 
 Stephanus tells of similar preachers who dealt 
 with such questions as these : — Whether God could 
 sin if He chose ; whether He could know what He 
 did not know ; whether Christ would have been 
 crucified if Judas had not betrayed Him ; and 
 so on. 
 
 3. A third class' of preachers, found chiefly, Legendary 
 as already indicated, among the monastic orders, 
 
144 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 related stories about saints and legends of the 
 most trifling and irreverent kind. 
 
 Testing. 4. Others again amused their hearers with 
 
 ridiculous anecdotes, and acted the part of 
 comedians and jesters. In this the parish clergy- 
 showed as much skill as the friars. Their extra- 
 vagances would be almost incredible, if we had 
 not the authority of grave and trustworthy writers 
 who give the names and parts of the sermons 
 of some of the preachers. Maillard, Menot, and 
 Barletta were noted in this department. 
 
 While such preachers made it their sole aim to 
 gain a laugh or to excite empty wonder at their 
 learned nonsense, men like Tauler and Berthold 
 and Wycliffe were gathering round them those 
 who had become conscious of their spiritual needs. 
 Unfortunately the Papal Court of the time was 
 afraid of the earnestness of the true preachers, 
 and put itself on the side of the triflers or 
 story-tellers. And so the Reformation came. 
 
 Survival of It was ncccssary to give some idea of this 
 
 ose ypes. g^-^^.g qJ- things, that you may understand what 
 the Reformers had to do, and that you may 
 have some idea of the change that took place. 
 And yet, I am afraid that this kind of preaching 
 has not wholly passed away. It is true that we 
 
PRE-REFORMA TION PRE A CHING. 145 
 
 do not have it in the same gross and palpable 
 forms ; but we have its counterparts. 
 
 We have the men who patch up sermons out 
 of old Homiliaria, worth as little as if they were 
 given in the Latin tongue — dull and dead, never 
 passing beyond the ears of the people. We have 
 the Scholastics — men who deal with subjects that 
 have no connection with life and practice, who 
 ring the changes on syllogism and premiss and 
 entity and etymological profundities, while " the 
 hungry sheep look up, and are not fed." We have 
 not perhaps, in Scotland at least, the old-legend- 
 man, but in his room we have the modern 
 question-of-the-day handler. What says so and 
 so on some political or social topic — and the 
 newspaper gets it to rehearse, advised of k by 
 the careful author or some admiring friend. 
 And we have the sensational advertiser and 
 religious jester, as far as decency will now 
 permit. 
 
 Let me only hope that you will take a dif- 
 ferent way ; that you will speak to men, feeling 
 that they have souls, and knowing that you 
 have a message from God to them ; and that 
 you will make it your endeavour to declare 
 simply, faithfully, and earnestly the word of 
 
146 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 eternal life. If religion is to be preserved, if 
 we are to be delivered from reaction to a 
 dead ceremonialism, and from stumbling forward 
 into an empty paganism, it must be by living 
 preachers, and the preaching of Life. 
 
LECTURE IX. 
 
 HISTORY OF GERMAN PREACHING FROM THB 
 REFORMATION — LUTHER. 
 
 pHRISTIANITY has shown that it possesses Chiistiai 
 ^ the power of pubh'c speech in a special 
 and unprecedented degree. In Greece and Rome 
 we have distinguished orators — Demosthenes and 
 Cicero are transcendent names — and the power 
 of speech was placed by such rhetoricians as 
 Aristotle and Quintilian at the summit of all the 
 arts ; yet it is only when Christianity enters 
 the world that we see its highest achievements. 
 If the value of speech may after all be best 
 measured by its effects, then no other sphere in 
 which language has been employed can be com- 
 pared with Christian preaching ; for, by what the 
 apostle calls its "foolishness," it has produced 
 unparalleled results. We have but to think how 
 it evoked the cry, " Men and brethren, what shall 
 
 147 
 
148 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 we do ? " and how the apostles met that cry, 
 drawing both Jews and Gentiles to the Gospel. 
 Here lay the true apostolical succession : " The 
 things which thou hast heard of me, the same 
 commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to 
 teach others also." There never has been such 
 a company of men as followed in the history 
 of the early Church — men like Origen and Chrys- 
 ostom and Ambrose and Augustine, on whose 
 lips thousands hung. No doubt they gained their 
 power over their fellow-men from the new truths 
 which had been disclosed, but God's blessing was 
 shown in the burning eloquence with which they 
 proclaimed them ; for when His Spirit converts 
 men. He puts earnestness into their heart and lips, 
 and conveys the word " from heart to heart." 
 Protestantism But it may be said, also, that Protestantism, 
 
 the religion of ^^ compared with Romanism, is the religion of 
 public speech. 
 
 public speech. The early fire of Christianity 
 
 died away, and its heat survived only in a blind 
 
 devotion choked up and covered with the ashes 
 
 of ceremonial. There are great preachers in 
 
 the Middle Ages ; but they are rare, and they 
 
 have their power in spite of the system, not in 
 
 consequence of it. Many of them scarcely belong 
 
 to the Romish Church, Tauler, Wycliffe, Jerome 
 
LUTHER. 149 
 
 of Prague, Huss, and Savonarola — the Reformers 
 before the Reformation. 
 
 It is with the Reformers that the new era of The Reforma- 
 preachin? begins, an era greater even than that *'°" ^ "f^ ^" 
 
 ^ ° ° ° in preaching. 
 
 of the early Church, if we except the apostles. 
 The Roman Catholic Church, and especially the 
 French part of it, has since then produced great 
 preachers, but their advent was the result of 
 Protestantism. They did not appear until the 
 quickening power of the Reformation was felt 
 within the Romish Church. Leaving this, how- 
 ever, for the present, we shall speak specially of 
 the preaching of the Reformation, beginning with 
 Germany and with Luther. 
 
 We shall not consider Luther's general work, Luther, 
 which was enormous — a volume large or small on ^^ ^'^^"^ " 
 an average every fortnight of his active life. 
 We shall speak of him as a preacher, and explain 
 his views on preaching. Preaching was the centre 
 and spring of his power ; by preaching he moved 
 Germany and then Europe, till he shook the Papal 
 throne. Melancthon was a scholar and theologian, 
 Calvin was a theologian and an exegete, Cranmer 
 was a religious statesman ; Luther was great in 
 all those respects, but still greater as a preacher. 
 In this, he and John Knox had much in common ; 
 
ISO 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Luther's 
 reluctance to 
 preach. 
 
 His earlier 
 sermoos. 
 
 Knox also being statesman and educationist but 
 principally preacher. 
 
 It is remarkable that Luther was at first un- 
 willing to preach. Like Moses, he did not re- 
 cognise his work. He distrusted himself, or he 
 had not yet the impelling fire of Jeremiah and 
 Paul : " It was as a fire within me ; " " Woe is 
 unto me if I preach not." It was at the com- 
 mand of his superior, under the vow of obedi- 
 ence, that he first preached in the refectory 
 or dining-room of the cloister at Erfurt, and 
 afterwards in the little cloister church of 
 Wittenberg.* But when he once began, the 
 spirit of preaching grew upon him, and at the 
 request of the town's-people, he agreed to preach 
 in the town church of Wittenberg, which after- 
 wards became so famous, and in which he lies 
 buried side by side with Melancthon. This was 
 about the middle of 15 15, two years before his 
 rupture with the Romish Church. Some of his 
 sermons of this period were composed in Latin, 
 and for the learned, discussing the nature of the 
 Eternal Word and His relation to God the Father, 
 with references to the Schoolmen. He has not 
 a definite idea of the Scripture doctrines, nor of 
 
 * The room was thirty feet long and twenty feet broad. 
 
LUTHER. 151 
 
 what preaching should be. But he is growing. 
 He preaches more frequently, sometimes four 
 sermons a-day, in German, and on practical 
 subjects : on the Ten Commandments, the Lord's 
 Prayer, Repentance, the True Life. He presses 
 the importance of the Bible and of Christ, but he 
 has not yet gained a clear view of Christ's Cross 
 and its meaning, nor of justification without the 
 works of the law. He has glimpses ; he sees 
 rivulets of the river of life, but has not reached 
 the stream and fountain-head. 
 
 The preaching of Luther soon excited move- Their power, 
 ment. Wittenberg on the Elbe, the university 
 of Gesenius and Tholuck and Julius Muller, was 
 the chief seat of learning in the north of Ger- 
 many,* and students as well as town's-men flocked 
 to hear him. They felt the newness and bold- 
 ness of his style and even of his doctrine. 
 His sermons did not treat of ceremonies and 
 fasts, but addressed the moral and spiritual 
 nature of his hearers with unmistakable meaning 
 and directness. He was taking aim at the heart, 
 with arrows which reached their mark ; and men 
 love this in preachers. But in the midst of the 
 
 * The University of Wittenberg was transferred to Halle 
 in 181 5 
 
152 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 attraction there was repulsion and opposition. 
 There were Scribes and Pharisees — the cere- 
 monialists and legaHsts ; there were also Saddu- 
 cees — the worldlings and secularists. Yet Luther 
 went on, and the body of the people were with 
 
 him. 
 His matured Then came the breach with the Papal system 
 preac lag. through his opposition to indulgences, and this 
 led him to the simplicity of the Gospel, and to 
 the central truth of his preaching — ^justification 
 by faith.* He now found firm footing, and his 
 preaching gained a power which roused all 
 Germany and shook the souls of men. There 
 had been nothing like it since the day of Pente- 
 cost. On his way to Worms, to meet the Diet, 
 he could not escape from the crowds. At Erfurt 
 where he had commenced in the little refectory, 
 the great church was so crowded that they 
 feared it would fall. At Zwickau, the market- 
 place was thronged by 25,000 eager listeners, and 
 Luther had to preach to them from the window. 
 
 * " When I was young," he says, " and especially before I 
 was acquainted with theology, I dealt largely in allegories, 
 and tropes, and a quantity of idle craft ; but now I have let 
 all that slip, and my best craft is to give the Scripture, 
 with its plain meaning ; for the plain meaning is learning 
 and life." 
 
LUTHER. 153 
 
 When the Reformation was finally established, 
 regular pastors were placed at Wittenberg, the 
 well-known Bugenhagen and others. Luther 
 had pressing work — the care of the Church and 
 all the controversies, the training of preachers, 
 translating the Bible, writing pamphlets and 
 volumes, giving counsel to princes and people ; 
 but nothing could keep him from preaching, at 
 home and wherever he went, on Sabbath-days 
 and during the week. He continued to preach all 
 his lifelong, though broken in health — in this, too, 
 like Knox — and so enfeebled that he often fainted 
 from exhaustion. But to the end he retained his 
 wonderful power. The last time he ascended the 
 pulpit was on February 14th, 1546, a few days 
 before he died. 
 
 We shall now briefly explain Luther's idea His view of 
 of preaching.* After the revival of learning, two P'^^^^^'"S- 
 treatises on the subject appeared, both in Latin, 
 and both by humanists or classical scholars — 
 Reuchlin-f- and Erasmus ;| but Luther's views, 
 although not presented in definite shape and only 
 
 * The passages in Luther's writings which bear upon his 
 views of preaching are carefully collected by Nebe in his 
 Geschichte der Predigt. 
 
 + De Arte Pradicandi, 1 504. 
 
 X Ecdesiastes, s. Concionator Evangelictis^ I534- 
 
154 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 scattered through his letters and his Table-talk^ 
 are more valuable than theirs, as being given by a 
 man who had deep experience and who dealt not 
 only with form but with matter. 
 
 Its import- Luther holds that preaching is the most im- 
 portant part of public worship, and agrees therein 
 with Paul, who sets it above mere outward 
 ordinances — Christ sent him " not to baptise, 
 but to preach the Gospel." He gives to preach- 
 ing a place even above the written Word. 
 This may startle us at first, but Luther is 
 speaking not of the authority of the Bible 
 but of the ordinary use of it, and he means 
 no more than our Shorter Catechism, that God 
 " maketh the reading, and especially the preaching 
 of the Word, a means of convincing and con- 
 verting sinners." By " the preaching " is meant 
 the Word of God passing through the heart of 
 the living witness, and carried home to the heart 
 of the hearer. It is the Church of Christ, with 
 the aid of the Holy Spirit, using the Word of 
 Christ. " The Spirit and the bride say, Come." 
 
 Its basis. He says that, while preaching " rises above the 
 
 Bible," and gives it life and application, it must 
 always be rooted in the Bible, and go back to 
 it for its authority. The best preacher is the man 
 
LUTHER. 155 
 
 who is best acquainted with the Bible, who has 
 it not only in his memory but in his mind, who 
 understands its true meaning, and can handle it 
 with effect. 
 
 But to understand it, is not merely to know 
 the words and the grammar, and to reach the 
 literal meaning, though all this has its place 
 and use ; it is to enter into its real meaning 
 and to feel its living power as imparted by the 
 Spirit of Christ. " He shall receive of Mine, and 
 shall show it unto you." 
 
 What, then, is the great subject of preach- its subject 
 ing ? " It is," says Luther, " the glory of God in 
 Jesus Christ. We preach always Him, the true 
 God and man who died for our sins, and rose 
 again for our justification. This may seem a 
 limited and monotonous subject, likely to be 
 soon exhausted, but we are never at the end of 
 it. We preachers are like young children who 
 are learning to speak, and can use only half-words 
 and quarter -words." And then he gives the 
 excellent counsel that each one should speak as 
 he feels, and try to feel more, in order to speak 
 better. "If you wish to preach, go to God and 
 say : * Dear God, I wish to preach to Thy glory, to 
 speak of Thee, to praise Thee, and to show forth 
 
IS6 LECTURES ON PREACHINV. 
 
 Thy name, though I cannot do so as I would.' Do 
 not look to Philip, to me, or to any learned man, 
 but be sure that you are best taught when you 
 speak of God in the pulpit. I have never 
 troubled myself with fears about not preaching 
 well, but I have often been troubled and terrified, 
 that I must stand in God's presence and speak 
 of His great majesty and glorious nature. There- 
 fore, only be strong and pray."* 
 
 If this be so, it is easy to judge of sermons. 
 How do they deal with Christ? If He is ab- 
 sent, or if they make little of Him, they are 
 poor. " Better," he says, " that sermons and 
 pulpits were burned to ashes, as they deserve 
 to be, than that they should betray poor souls 
 to their ruin." 
 The form of As to the form of the sermon, Luther re- 
 e sermon, commends the use of a text ; but every text, 
 even a single verse, has many things in it, and 
 may lead many ways. The preacher, then, 
 
 * This reminds us of the story of John Welsh, who 
 preached before the famous university of Saumur, with as 
 much ease as if he had been in a Scottish village, and was 
 asked by Boyd how he could venture it ; he replied that he 
 was so filled with the dread of God that he had learr>ed to 
 have no apprehension of man at all. This is misapplied by 
 some forward preachers, who neither fear God nor regard man. 
 
LUTHER. 157 
 
 d 
 
 while he may use other parts, should seize 
 fast hold of the main thought and keep a 
 firm grasp of it. He cannot speak on every- 
 thing ; men who try to do so never reach the 
 end. In his quaint way he compares them to 
 a maid-servant going to market, who wastes 
 her time in talking with this one and that 
 one on the road, and arrives too late. We 
 should impress the leading thought, and send away 
 the people saying, " the sermon was on such and 
 such a point." He makes little of the beginning 
 or the close of the sermon, of fine introductions 
 or brilliant perorations. It is the main body 
 of it that should be considered ; and in this the 
 preacher has two things to do — to instruct and to 
 impress ; he must be dialectiais and rhetor — tell 
 his hearers some things for the understanding, 
 and give them some things for the heart and con- 
 science. Teaching and exhortation — these are the 
 two parts of a sermon. One man may give more 
 of the one, another man more of the other ; but 
 QM^xy preacher should aim at something of both. 
 
 In regard to style, Luther is never weary of Its style, 
 insisting on the necessity for clearness and sim- 
 plicity. Everything in regard to division and ex- 
 pression ends in this — Have the people understood 
 
158 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 me ? Can they carry this away in order to apply it ? 
 We must call white white, and black black, and 
 speak in a way that every one can comprehend. 
 Children and servants and old men and women 
 come to our church to hear what will do their souls 
 good, and we are not to hunt for big Greek and 
 Latin words and spin long involved sentences, but 
 to speak home to them in their own tongue. How 
 careful was our Lord Christ to speak simply of 
 the vine and its branches, of sheep and lambs, 
 of trees and fields, of wheat and tares ; and how 
 anxious He was to make His meaning plain ! 
 There are no more important rules than these 
 two — to preach the great saving truths of the 
 Bible, and to preach them clearly and simply. 
 To preach clearly and simply is a great art. 
 Luther's own Of Luther's own preaching it is difficult to form 
 
 preaching. ... 
 
 a proper idea from what is left to us. We have 
 a great mass of sermons, or lectures as we should 
 call them ; but he wrote none or very few of 
 them ; they were taken down by others, and sent 
 out without his being able even to look at them. 
 There were what are called his House-postils — 
 lectures on portions of Scripture to his family, 
 friends, and neighbours who filled a large room. 
 These are like our week-evening lectures, evidently 
 
LUTHER. 
 
 IS9 
 
 poured forth out of his fulness at the time. There 
 were also his public discourses, in the Church, at 
 home, and wherever he went, which were delivered 
 much in the same way, only after more careful pre- 
 paration. It was his habit, when he had chosen a 
 text or a subject, to meditate upon it, to arrange 
 his thoughts, jotting them down perhaps in outline 
 with his leading illustrations, and then to throw 
 his heart into the theme. He did not see the 
 sermon till it had been taken down and printed, 
 and frequently he did not see it even then. In- 
 deed, he was so occupied with the preaching of 
 other sermons, with the duties of the Church, the 
 university, the Protestant community, and with the 
 incessant consultation and correspondence which 
 these involved, that when a sermon was once 
 delivered, all thought of it was gone. 
 
 He almost always took for his subject a por- His theme, 
 tion of Scripture, and a considerable portion, most 
 frequently from the gospels or epistles. This re- 
 sulted from the system of Pericopes,* which pre- 
 scribed a " section " for every season, and required 
 the preacher to deal with it. It had the disadvant- 
 age that, since the same section returned year after 
 year, the preacher was driven either to repeat him- 
 * See page 117. 
 
seized. 
 
 l6o LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 self and land in monotony, or to exercise a fatal 
 ingenuity in finding new and sometimes forced 
 meanings. It had the advantage of letting the 
 people know the subject beforehand, and of pre- 
 senting large and important passages so as to 
 increase their acquaintance with the Word of God. 
 With a view to this result every minister who 
 cares to have an intelligent congregation should 
 adopt some " pericopic " system, reserving freedom 
 for occasional divergence from it. 
 Central truth The next thing to be remarked in Luther is his 
 skill in seizing the central truth in his subject or 
 text. He does this by a kind of instinct, and 
 throws all his strength into its enforcement, that 
 the people may carry away one leading thought. 
 His treatment is two-fold, moral and spiritual — 
 i.e.^ he deals directly with duty, and also with the 
 inner nature, which is the spring of duty ; some- 
 times with the one, sometimes with the other, but 
 generally with both. He was far from holding 
 the bare, superficial idea of duty, as a number 
 of external acts unconnected with the inner life ; 
 and on the other hand he was equally far from 
 the idea that religion consists in meditation or 
 conviction without reference to the regulation of 
 conduct and character. Duty founded on doctrine, 
 
LUTHER. l6l 
 
 works springing from faith, the fruits from the root 
 — these were Luther's constant points. 
 
 There were two extravagances of these which Extremes 
 Luther often reproved ; the one was the running reproved 
 of duty into outward ceremony and ritualism— the 
 idea of the Romish church ; the other was the 
 running of the spiritual into the mystical and the 
 morbid — the idea of the mystics, which led to an 
 unnatural interpretation of Scripture in the manner 
 of Origen, and took shape in modern Sweden- 
 borgianism. Both ceremonialism and forced 
 mysticism were abhorrent to Luther's strong, 
 practical mind. In giving instruction and enforcing 
 duty, he made direct appeal first to Scripture and 
 then to healthy reason ; and he was at the furthest 
 remove from the petty profundities and misty 
 nothings that are based on fancies and covered 
 with vague, sounding phrases. 
 
 Next, while this was the matter of Luther's Manner of 
 
 teaching, his manner of expressing it was ^^P""^^^'*^"' 
 
 singularly clear, direct, and forcible. He aimed 
 
 at this constantly, and he reached it sometimes 
 
 by what we should esteem roughness and want of 
 
 taste. But we are to remember the age in which 
 
 he lived and the work he had to do. He had to 
 
 wield a sledge-hammer, and a sledge-hammer 
 
 M 
 
I&2 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 cannot always measure its touch like a graver's 
 
 tool. It is a question whether we should not 
 
 wield the hammer sometimes even now. Luther 
 
 chose the simplest and most telling words, he 
 
 seized and sought out figures drawn from things 
 
 that could be seen and felt, he employed parables 
 
 and proverbs, he frequently took one of .^sop's 
 
 fables and put a Christian meaning into it ; in 
 
 short, he used every means to make people listen 
 
 and comprehend and feel, without condescending to 
 
 trick or sensationalism.* He was, beyond almost 
 
 any other, the preacher of the people, and would 
 
 have been a Bunyan had he possessed more ot 
 
 the dramatic and poetic gifts, and had the prison 
 
 in the Wartburg given as much leisure as the 
 
 prison on the bridge at Bedford. But, though 
 
 primarily a preacher to the people, Luther could 
 
 * "When I preach I regard neither doctors nor magistrates, 
 of whom there are in this church about forty ; but I have 
 an eye to the muhitude of young people, children, and 
 servants, of whom there are more than two thousand. Will 
 the rest hear me ? The doors are open unto them : they 
 may begone. I see that the ambition of preachers grows 
 and increases, and this will do the utmost mischief in the 
 Church. . . . When they come to me, to Melancthon, to 
 Dr. Pomer, &c., let them show how learned they be ; they 
 shall be well put to their trumps. But to sprinkle their 
 sermons with Hebrew, Greek, and Latin savours merely of 
 show, according with neither time nor place." 
 
LUTHER. 163 
 
 speak to all classes. Indeed, his presentation 
 of truth, while simple, clear, and graphic, was so 
 broad and deep in addressing the wants of men 
 as to reach the wise and noble and learned. This 
 is the perfection of preaching. It is a vulgar mis- 
 take to think that there is one .way of speaking to 
 the rich and another way of speaking to the poor. 
 Yet, on fitting occasion, Luther could vary his 
 mode. He could preach to children and write 
 hymns for them ; he could thunder among strong, 
 passionate hearts, and write his Ein feste Burg ; 
 and, when it was needed, he could quote Homer 
 and Aristotle, as Paul quoted the Greek poets on 
 Mars' Hill. He could become, like Paul, all things 
 to all men.* 
 
 There was this, lastly, about Luther's preaching, The control- 
 which also makes him like Paul, that he had one ^°^ ' °"^ ** 
 over-mastering thought, and that thought was 
 Christ. At all times his central idea was " Christ 
 our righteousness, that He may be Christ our 
 strength and sanctification." Without this his 
 varied gifts would have left little trace, but this 
 made him, in God's hand, the instrument of the 
 most wonderful awakening of the Church since the 
 
 * A sketch of one of his Homilies will be found on 
 page 166. 
 
i64 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 days of the apostles, the greatest preacher of his 
 own or of later times, at least the one to whom God 
 has assigned the greatest work. We may find other 
 preachers greater than Luther in their own depart- 
 ments. He has not the majesty of Howe, the 
 spiritual fervour of Baxter, the searching spiritual 
 insight of Jonathan Edwards, the ideal beauty of 
 Vinet, the concentrated rush of Chalmers ; but, for 
 his own work, Luther was the man chosen of God, 
 and the Church of Christ bears the mark of his 
 personality as of none other since the canon of 
 Scripture was closed. 
 
 If you wish to have a good view of Luther as a 
 teacher in the house, and of his singular gift of 
 retailing wisdom, read his Tischreden — his Table- 
 talk. If you want to know the doctrine he 
 preached, read his standard Commentary, that on 
 the Galatians. If you wish to see his character 
 cleared, read the vindication of him by Julius Hare 
 — a noble book. 
 Lessons for Luther is above our reach in almost every- 
 
 T) r 6 3. c ii crs* 
 
 thing, but there are many things which, as 
 preachers, we all can learn from him : to be lay- 
 ing up stores of knowledge on all subjects, especi- 
 ally by the study of human nature ; to seek a 
 thorough acquaintance with the Bible, the book of 
 
LUTHER. l6s 
 
 the preacher, the sword that nothing can with 
 stand ; to have sympathy with men and a single 
 desire to do them good ; to aim at a clear, natural, 
 direct style of speech ; and to grasp the grand 
 doctrine of justification by faith, and hold it up as 
 the standard of the Church of Christ, and the 
 source of comfort and strength and holiness in 
 the Christian life. 
 
l66 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note C, see page 163 
 
 Sketch of one of Luther's Homili&s. 
 Luke xiv. 16-24 — The Marriage Feast. 
 
 He begins without any introduction by saying that in the 
 gospel for the day two points are notable. The first is, how 
 gracious and merciful God is in wishing that everyone should 
 be saved. He causes a great feast to be made, and invites 
 the Jews first, because they had the promise of the woman's 
 seed, the Lord Christ, &c. The second is, the frightful 
 ingratitude of the Jews in refusing to receive such grace. 
 From this he proceeds to show what the spiritual blessings 
 are which the feast typifies, and how it came about that the 
 Jews would not have them. When speaking of their excuses, 
 he turns round on the errors of the monks and Anabaptists, 
 who would not have marriage and property. To have oxen 
 and fields and families, is not in itself an evil, nor is there 
 any holiness in dispensing with them. Holiness is to be 
 gained, first, by coming to the feast and sharing in it ; and, 
 next, by patiently discharging worldly business, whatever it 
 may be, and attending to it honestly. For this is God's 
 command, and He will graciously give His blessing to it. 
 So much for the Jews and for the first part of the gospel of 
 to-day. 
 
 The next part applies to us heathen (Gentiles), showing 
 how we have been compelled to attend the feast. God, 
 through this gospel, condemns and casts away all merit and 
 work-righteousness as serving nothing to salvation, and 
 points to His Son alone, that we may put our confidence 
 in Him, believing that for His sake God will forgive our sins 
 and save us. When our hearts hear this truth they are 
 alarmed, and lose their confidence in their good works and 
 
Z UTHER. 167 
 
 merits, and hang humbly on the Lord Jesus, and desire, 
 through His merit and death and resurrection, the grace of 
 God and the forgiveness of our sins. So it is that we are 
 compelled to attend this feast. 
 
 We should not, then, think of our earthly goods more than 
 of the Gospel, but take warning from the punishment of the 
 Jews, for our hearts are as weak and bad as theirs were. . . . 
 Remember, again, that, when we take the Gospel, we are not 
 to forsake our family or our business. ' If thou desirest to be 
 a Christian, thou art not to leave thy place and trade and 
 calling, nor to alter it, so far as it is honest and good. Keep 
 by it ; be diligent to support, with God's help and with 
 honour, thy wife and child and household, and, if thou 
 doest this in the fear of God, He will help thee with His 
 blessing. . . . Yet be sure thou dost not forget the feast or 
 despise it; seek first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
 ness, for so shalt thou make certain that God will both bless 
 thee for time and save thee for eternity. He will give His 
 blessing to thy work and care, and will bestow salvation 
 on thee for Christ's sake.' The sermon ends with a short 
 prayer. 
 
 This is a fair specimen of his house-postils, which were 
 very simple, not seeking out plans or words or skilful 
 transitions, but going straight to the substance and speak- 
 ing to the times 
 
LECTURE X. 
 
 THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. 
 
 Period of 
 decline of 
 preaching. 
 
 Causes. 
 
 National and 
 
 political 
 
 disquiet. 
 
 npHIS is a long period ; for Luther died in 1546, 
 
 ■■■ and Spener was born in 1635, so that it was 
 
 more than a hundred years from Luther's death 
 
 till the time of Spener's full activity. But the 
 
 character of the preaching during this period may 
 
 be dealt with in one survey. Although it had its 
 
 changes and varieties, it was, on the whole, a period 
 
 of decline, and we shall look to-day at some of the 
 
 causes of the decline. 
 
 I. The first of these was national and political 
 
 disquiet. During Luther's lifetime insurrections 
 
 had broken out ; and one of them, the Peasants' 
 
 War, known also as the War of the Anabaptists, 
 
 had brought special discredit on the Reformation, 
 
 and wasted a great part of the west of Germany. 
 
 It was a kind of communistic rebellion, and was 
 
 suppressed with difficulty. In the very year of 
 168 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. 169 
 
 Luther's death, Charles V., urged by the court of 
 Rome, made a determined effort to suppress the 
 reh'gious freedom of the Protestants, and sanguin- 
 ary battles were fought between him and the Saxon 
 princes. At last the emperor, Ferdinand II., fana- 
 ticised by the Jesuits, began in 161 8 the terrible 
 Thirty Years' War. First, Bohemia, with its Re- 
 formation, was trampled under foot, and then the 
 war was carried by the savage Tilly and the formid- 
 able Wallenstein into the heart of Germany. Den- 
 mark and afterwards Sweden were called in by the 
 Protestants to their help. Gustavus Adolphus fell 
 in victory at Liitzen in 1632, but the war went on, 
 and when it was closed in 1648, by the Peace of 
 Westphalia, a great part of Germany was left a 
 desert. The peasants had given up the cultivation 
 of their fields ; the inhabitants of captured towns 
 had been massacred in cold blood ; three hun- 
 dred Protestant ministers had been slaughtered ; 
 and in many districts it took more than a century 
 to remove the marks of the struggle. Religious 
 liberty was secured in some parts of Germany ; 
 in others, especially within the Austrian dominion, 
 Protestantism was crushed ; thus Germany was 
 divided into two camps. 
 
 The effect upon religion and, as a consequence, 
 
disputes. 
 
 170 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 upon preaching can be understood. The Protest- 
 ants had to fight for their freedom ; and although 
 to some extent they secured it, the passions that 
 were ,roused were not favourable to the studies of 
 ministers or to the edification of the people. The 
 wonder, indeed, is that religion survived. 
 Doctrinal 2. There was another kind of war that told un- 
 favourably on preaching — the war of doctrine. 
 There was first the polemic of Protestant with 
 Roman i.st. The Reformed church had to justify 
 itself to its own adherents ; and all the preachers of 
 the time, not only in Germany but in France, 
 England, and Scotland, were occupied with the 
 Romish controversy. There were, besides, the 
 controversies between the Protestant churches. 
 Very early the Reformation divided itself into two 
 great parts — the Lutheran, to which the name 
 Protestant first belonged, and the Reformed, which 
 followed Zwingle and Calvin. Both of these 
 found a footing in Germany ; the Lutheran chiefly 
 in the north, the Reformed along the Rhine. 
 Their controversies are now well-nigh laid, but 
 then they were very keen and long. The precise 
 import of the Sacraments, of Justification, of Suffi- 
 cient Grace, &c., was debated in every possible 
 form, and absorbed the attention of most of the 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SRENER. 171 
 
 prominent preachers. Out of those controversies 
 arose another, about peace and union. Calixtus, 
 professor at Helmstadt, and one of the most 
 distinguished divines of the day, seeing the evil of 
 those divisions, proposed terms of concession by 
 which the contending churches might be brought 
 together.* He was attacked for the proposal, and 
 for the heresy of holding that there could be 
 open questions in such a case. His chief antago- 
 nist was Calovius, professor at Konigsberg, a 
 man of ability and great learning, but of the most 
 combative and dogmatic spirit. This controversy, 
 known as that of Syncretism, filled all Germany, 
 and raged for years. Its effects on the minds of 
 preachers and of people were of a very hurtful 
 kind. 
 
 3. There arose out of this still another evil, that Dogmatism, 
 of hard dogmatism in matters of faith. The truths 
 of the Gospel were considered in their relation not 
 to heart and conscience, but to the logical reason. 
 The aim of Christian teaching was not so much 
 that they should be felt in their saving and re- 
 
 * Calixtus suggested the concurrence of the first five cen- 
 turies {consensus quinqueseculans) as a common basis for 
 all the churches, maintaining that the diversities which have 
 since arisen are secondary. 
 
172 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 generating power, as that they should be held in an 
 orthodox creed, and defended to the utmost edge 
 and article. Thus religion hardened into a crust; 
 and the doctrines of religion, instead of being like 
 the bones and vertebrae of a man, covered by the 
 muscles and flesh and skin, yet giving strength, 
 solidity, and form to his structure, came to re- 
 semble those hard surface shells which shelter 
 feeble and molluscous creatures. Appeal was now 
 made to the authority of Luther and Calvin, rather 
 than to the Bible ; and these great reformers 
 would have been as much surprised and pained 
 had they seen the use made of their names, as 
 Peter would be if he came back to find how the 
 Romish church regards him. Let it be under- 
 stood, also, that those were days of gigantic industry 
 in learning — in philology, in antiquities, in writing 
 commentaries, above all in framing theological 
 systems ; and this not only in Germany, but 
 throughout Protestant Christendom. It was the 
 age of the great French Huguenot divines, of the 
 English Puritans, of those Scottish theologians 
 whose names and works are enumerated by Dr. 
 Walker of Carnwath, and of the Dutch theologians 
 of the Federal School, Cocceius and Witsius. These 
 men did great work for their time in settling the 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. i73 
 
 basements of Christian belief, and their writings are 
 mines of thought and learning for those who can 
 use them. But they are not models for preachers, 
 and the evil was that they were so used. The 
 preaching which resulted became in many cases of 
 a Scholastic kind, dry and hard and formal, full 
 of endless disputes. One well-known volume of 
 sermons, for example, preached in 1658, by Jacob 
 Andrea of Esslingen, is divided into four parts, 
 for the four quarters of the year ; the first against 
 the Papists, the second against the Zwinglians, the 
 third against the Schwenkfeldians, who were the 
 mystics and perfectionists of that time, and the 
 fourth against the Anabaptists. When such here- 
 sies had all been dealt with, preachers turned to 
 the early Christian age, and in their sermons the 
 Patripassians, the Nestorians, and the Valentinians 
 rose and fought again like the dead at Chalons. 
 
 There were men, however, who were conscious Efforts to 
 of the evil of all this, and of its bewildering and tendency- 
 deadening effect on the people ; and various 
 attempts were made by them to remedy it. 
 
 The first of these was the issue of works on the By variety in 
 best manner of preaching. There were as yet no ' 
 
 lectures on homiletics or pastoral theology in any 
 of the universities \ but books were issued by 
 
174 LECTURES ON TREACHING. 
 
 scholars and divines. Scarcely any work on homi- 
 letics worthy of the name had been published since 
 the De Doctrina Christiaiia of Augustine. In 
 the very beginning of the Reformation, Erasmus 
 issued an elaborate treatise in four books, Ecclesi- 
 asfes, or the Preacher, which was, however, of a 
 scholastic character ; Luther gave valuable hints 
 in his Tahle-talk ; and Melancthon, in his Loci 
 Communes, suggested from the Bible topics for 
 preaching, which served a useful purpose in the 
 way of guidance.* But the man who did most 
 Hyperius, in this direction was Andreas Hyperius of Mar- 
 burg, who may be called the father of the later 
 Reformation preaching. He was too little appreci- 
 ated in his time, but his merits are being now 
 acknowledged, and his homiletic treatise, De For- 
 inandis Concionibus Sacris, which deals with the 
 discovery of texts, the finding of materials, and the 
 form of the sermon, has in it the foresight of 
 genius. Had he been taken as a guide, the preach- 
 ing of his country would have escaped many errors 
 and a long decline. But he was followed by a 
 number of men who either neglected his prin- 
 ciples or pushed them to an extreme. The chief 
 
 * Cf. page 153; see Rothe's Geschichte der Predigt, 
 section 88. 
 
 died 1564. 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. 175 
 
 of these was Andreas Pancratius. This Pancratius 
 often receives the credit of being the inventor of 
 the synthetic mode of preaching, which was called 
 after him the Pancration. It was, however, in use 
 long before, as it could not but be, only he brought it 
 more fully into notice. You are aware that there 
 are two recognised methods of dividing sermons, 
 the textual, or analytical, following the contents of 
 the text, and the topical, or synthetical, selecting 
 one or more points, generally one, from which the 
 preacher branches forth. The earliest preaching 
 was, as we have seen, of the textual kind, in the 
 extended form of a Scriptural lecture, but there 
 was alwaj^s a tendency to pass from this to the 
 synthetical or topical. Now, however, there were 
 found out endless methods which were discussed 
 in special treatises. As many as twenty-five are 
 reckoned up in the Scholastic style — metJiodus 
 parapJirastica simplex, metJiodiis parapJirastica mixtUy 
 metJiodus zetetica, &c. There were also methods 
 named after the different universities, the Witten- 
 berg method, the Jena method ; and methods were 
 imported from other countries, the English method, 
 the Dutch method ; books being published with 
 these titles as commendations. Exact rules were 
 laid down for the treatment of texts ; sometimes 
 
176 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 three introductions, special, more special, most 
 special, were recommended, with five different 
 kinds of appHcations. Nature was sacrificed to 
 art ; texts were stretched out on the rack, and 
 dealt with, not according to their contents or the 
 wants of the people, but according to the method 
 of some particular homilete or university. The 
 formalism of the dogmatic theology of the time 
 thus found its way into the manner of preaching, 
 and the attempt to improve sermons by such 
 means only made them worse. 
 By variety in Reform was attempted in another way, not so 
 " ^^ much by dealing with the form of sermons, as by 
 
 varying the choice of subjects and matter. There 
 were such men as Spangenberg who set them- 
 selves to comment on books of the Bible, and 
 they no doubt did good. But the fashion of 
 the time, which was for minuteness and word- 
 hunting, led commentators into microscopic 
 minutiae, till they became wearisome to the last 
 degree, while they overlooked the great moral and 
 spiritual truths, and forgot the wants of the people. 
 It was the old tithing of mint and anise and 
 cummin, to the neglect of the weightier matters 
 of the law. Others again gave discourses on 
 the hymns of Luther and the other great Ger- 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. 177 
 
 man hymn-writers, approaching the old Scottish 
 custom of prefacing the psalms that were sung by 
 an explanation ; and this served a very good pur- 
 pose, for people had come to sing without 
 intelligence, if they sang at all. But as a substitute 
 for preaching it failed, for it left the breadth and 
 depth of God's Word out of sight. There were 
 others who made it their chief aim to avoid doc- 
 trine, since dry dogmatics had done so much harm. 
 If they were of a fanciful temperament, they took 
 some emblem, — a rose, or a lily, or honey, and 
 pursued it through all forms of allegory, ending in 
 nothing. If they were of a practical turn, they 
 took a proverb, not always a Bible proverb, and 
 applied it to some phase of social life. There 
 were sermons on the dressing of the hair, tobacco 
 smoking, and so forth. Scarcely one of the 
 subjects chosen by our sensational advertising 
 preachers had not its prototype more than two 
 hundred years ago in Germany. 
 
 But we are not to suppose that these things give x^e true 
 us a full view of the state of things in Germany "^^^edy. 
 during this period. There were men who not only 
 felt the evil, but saw where it lay, and sought the 
 true remedy. There was Valentin Andrea, of v. Andrea, 
 Stuttgart, whom Spener wished he could recall *58o-i654- 
 
 N 
 
178 LECTURES ON PPF ACHING. 
 
 from the dead, and whom Herder has called " a 
 rose among thorns." He was a living preacher, 
 and also a poet, who satirised in verse the form- 
 alists and scholastics of his time. There was 
 Scriver, Christian Scriver, a man devout beyond most, 
 1629-1693. ^yj^Qgg works are still read by pious people in 
 Germany, and whose " emblems " have something 
 of the curious quaintness of old Francis Quarles. 
 But the chief, and in some respect the master, of 
 J. Arndt, this school was John Arndt. For preaching and 
 '555- 1021, pQpui^j. edification he is the foremost figure 
 between Luther and Spener, and has, more than 
 any other of that time, the characteristics of our 
 Puritans— of men like Baxter and Rutherford and 
 Bunyan, though without Bunyan's genius. His 
 principal book, Das waJire Christent/mm, " The true 
 Christianity," which has lately been republished by 
 Stier with some of Scriver's writings, was long a 
 classic in Germany, and has gone through more 
 editions on the Continent than any other book 
 of devotion except The Imitation of Christ. It 
 circulated even in Roman Catholic countries, with 
 some changes and without the author's name. 
 His avowed aim in writing it was (i) to draw the 
 minds of students and preachers away from com- 
 bative and scholastic theology ; (2) to lead good 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. 179 
 
 Christians from a formal to a fruit-bearing faith ; 
 (3) to bring them from the mere science and 
 theory of Christianity to the enjoyment and the 
 practice of it ; (4) to show the meaning of a 
 Christian life as indicated by the apostle's words, 
 " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." 
 
 While seeing the evils of the hard dogmatism of 
 his time, Arndt did not cast aside doctrine, but 
 rather sought to quicken it with life, and to preach 
 to the heart as well as to the head. He was, like 
 Luther, a lover of John Tauler, and he was attacked 
 at the time as a mystic and an enthusiast, but 
 his defence was that when he was thirsty he would 
 rather go to a troubled spring than to a dry well. 
 While the sermons of the dry dogmatisers and the 
 trifling moralisers are forgotten or quoted only as 
 curiosities, Arndt is still a source of life in Ger- 
 many ; and when the Gospel of Christ revives in 
 that land, the hearts of the children will turn to 
 him as one of the best fathers of the Lutheran 
 church. 
 
 Arndt was followed by two noted men of the The Gerhards, 
 name of Gerhard, cousins ; the one, John Gerhard, 
 the greatest theologian of his time, who owed his 
 warmth to Arndt ; the other, Paul Gerhard, a 
 great hymn-writer, whose sacred songs have done 
 
l8o LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 much to keep alive religious feeling in Germany. 
 Indeed Arndt had scholars in many districts 
 who struggled for a while to preserve Christian 
 warmth ; but the spirit of the time was too 
 strong for them, and they could not resist its 
 chilling forces.* 
 The teaching The survey of this period, however, is fitted to 
 IS peno . i^g useful to US. It may teach us never to despair 
 of the revival of religion in any country. For 
 a whole century after the death of the leaders 
 of the Reformation, Germany was in a state of 
 spiritual hardness and coldness of the most dis- 
 tressing kind. The warmth and life were chiefly 
 in polemical passion. Witnesses for the better 
 kind of Christianity were rare, and they were sub- 
 jected to bitter attacks as enthusiasts. Yet a 
 genuine revival came in the course of the seven- 
 teenth century, and we shall hope that another 
 and a more lasting one will dispel the rationalism 
 of the present day. 
 
 In regard to preaching, we may learn not to 
 give ourselves much to polemics. Mere ortho- 
 doxy is nothing without life. A man may hold 
 all the articles of the creed, and preach them 
 regularly and in close harmony, without producing 
 * See Nebe's Geschichte der Predigt, vol. 1 1., page 97. 
 
THE PERIOD FROM LUTHER TO SPENER. i8i 
 
 more than a jointed skeleton, from which his 
 hearers will turn with disgust. And if he preach 
 them with bitterness and hate towards those who 
 doubt them, he prepares the way for rationalism 
 and indifference. On the other hand, life is not 
 to be gained by rejecting doctrine, and railing at 
 it, as some seem to think. This is only meeting 
 one dogmatism with another — the positive with 
 the negative. What is wanted is to present doc- 
 trine, i.e., Gospel truth, with life, to speak the 
 truth in love. Man must have doctrine for his 
 head, and love for his heart. Christianity needs 
 both a body and a soul. While the body cannot 
 live without a soul, the soul cannot live in this 
 world without a body. 
 
 Next, we may learn in regard to the form of 
 preaching that, though the rules of homiletics are 
 useful in their own way, especially in helping to 
 correct errors, they are hurtful whenever they re- 
 press nature. Elaborate plans for introductions 
 and divisions and perorations, which were once so 
 much in fashion, have happily fallen into disre- 
 pute. Still some are apt to be led away by them. 
 If you look into Claude's Essay on a Sermon^ 
 or into Simeon's writings, you will see how slavish 
 the mind must become in trying to apply their 
 
i82 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 confessedly elaborate schemes. Rules about mak- 
 ing sermons are of use only so far as they help 
 to cultivate nature, and teach us how to present 
 truth clearly, connectedly, and impressively ; and 
 to this there is no royal road in ready-made 
 processes. The faculty must be gained by our 
 own thought and practice, and by counsel as to 
 how we can correct mistakes. 
 
 There are two advices which I must repeat, for 
 they are all-important. Go to the Bible for your- 
 self, and try to reach the meaning and touch the 
 life of the special text with which you deal. 
 Every text has a life ; seek to seize it and draw 
 it into the warmth of your own heart. 
 
 And then to your fellow-men in sympathy ! 
 Ask yourself what are their struggles and sorrows, 
 and how this text of yours may help them ; and 
 aim with all your might to bring these two to- 
 gether, the Bible and the heart of man. This will, 
 with God's help, save you from the long error of 
 the times we have been considering, and will give 
 to your preaching spirit and life. 
 
LECTURE XI. 
 
 SPENER: his work and PREACHINa 
 
 TT has sometimes been said that Spener was the 
 -■■ reformer of the life of the German church, as 
 Luther was the reformer of its doctrine. This may- 
 place him too high, but it is certain that he was 
 the most remarkable theological figure in Germany 
 during the seventeenth century, and that he began 
 a movement in the German church which long 
 survived him, and which exercises an effect even 
 on our country and our time. That we may 
 understand his position, we must glance at the 
 interval between Luther and him. 
 
 Luther was a preacher by his own natural gifts The successors 
 and by the grace of God, not by art and rule. °^ ^'''^^'' 
 Such a man gives a mighty impulse, but cannot 
 himself train successors, and we noted, in last 
 lecture, the comparative failure of those who sought 
 to continue his preaching work by forming rules 
 
 183 
 
l84 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 and writing books on homiletics. Indeed, from 
 the history of the Church, not excluding our own 
 country, it would seem as if after every great 
 upheaval, there must be a pause and re-action. 
 After the giants of the Reformation time, there 
 came a race of smaller men. They were distin- 
 guished scholars and hard students, but they 
 expected to bind the world by rules of grammar 
 and logic — all good in their place. They often 
 furnished fuel without fire, the fuel of the old 
 altar, but drenched with the water of cold sec- 
 ularism. There were dictionaries of arguments 
 and emblems and sermon-methods, to save the 
 preacher from thinking ; there were books of 
 quotations from the Christian Fathers and the 
 Schoolmen, to save him from reading ; everything 
 was provided for him, only the spirit and the life 
 were wanting. The Bible was still in his hands, 
 but instead of being studied as a living, gladsome 
 book, it was read through the spectacles of sketch 
 and skeleton makers. The doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith was often in his mouth, but it had 
 become a dogma, a piece of hard surface ortho- 
 doxy, separated from heart and life, not connected 
 with the blessedness of forgiveness, nor leading 
 to a spiritual and active Christian course. 
 
SPENER: HIS WORK AND PREACHING. 185 
 
 Then came the terrible Thh'ty Years' War, The Thirty 
 which barbarised the German people, provoked 
 them by the despotism of the Pope and the 
 Emperor, and in many other ways left a legacy 
 of hatred and misery. Schools, colleges, churches, 
 were broken up ; and though the majority of the 
 nation clung more closely than ever to a nominal 
 Protestantism, they had lost in great measure 
 the knowledge and life of Christ. It was some- 
 thing like the twenty-eight years' persecution in 
 Scotland, which hunted out and killed the best of 
 the people, and, through the ignorance of the 
 curates and the profligacy of the rulers, introduced 
 an indifferentism and spiritual death, from which, 
 in many districts, we have not recovered to this 
 day. 
 
 Thus the place of Spener resembled that of our 
 
 Secession and Relief forefathers ; he was a repairer 
 
 of the breach, a restorer of paths to dwell in. 
 
 As we have already seen, there had been men of 
 
 light and power before him, but he was the man 
 
 appointed by God to make head against the evil 
 
 of the time, and to bring in a new movement 
 
 We shall first sketch his life and then his work, 
 
 specially in regard to preaching. 
 
 Philipp Jakob Spener was born in 1635 in Alsace, Spener, 
 
 1635-1705. 
 
i86 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 which then belonged to Germany. He had truly- 
 Christian parents, and from his youth up showed a 
 quiet, reflective nature, with a religious bent, A 
 strong impression was made upon him by the 
 Christian spirit in which a relative of his own met 
 His training, her death. His first religious nourishment, apart 
 from the Bible, was drawn, as he himself says, 
 from Arndt's True Christianity, and from some 
 writings of Baxter, in all probability the earliest, 
 TJie Sainfs Rest. His studies were pursued at the 
 university of Strassburg, under S. Schmidt and 
 Dannhauer, both thorough men ; the latter of 
 whom wrote The Milk of the Catechism in ten 
 thick volumes, but was none the less a living 
 Christian. On leaving Strassburg, Spener, as was 
 then the custom, visited other universities, not only 
 in Germany but in Switzerland and France, where 
 Protestantism was comparatively free. He studied 
 Hebrew at Bale under the younger Buxtorf, the 
 greatest orientalist of his time. At Geneva 
 he remained a whole year, and was greatly 
 impressed by the piety and activity of the pro- 
 fessors and ministers. He was himself a Lutheran, 
 but the constitution of the Genevan or Reformed 
 church commended itself to him in .nany respects; 
 especially did he admire the place which it gave 
 
SPENER: HIS IVOR A' AND PREACHING. 187 
 
 to the eldership and members. He was also 
 moved by the fiery preaching of Labadie,* so 
 different from the stiff and formal methods which 
 then prevailed in Germany, 
 
 When he returned from his studies, his reputa- His careei 
 tion had preceded him, and an attempt was made 
 to secure him for a professorship in Wurtemberg, 
 but he accepted a place as preacher in Strassburg, 
 where he also delivered lectures in connection with 
 the university. Thence he was called after three 
 years to an important post as Senior or chief 
 minister at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, the scene of his 
 first exertions for the reform of preaching and of 
 religious life. In 1686 he was promoted to 
 Dresden as Court-preacher to the Saxon Dukes, 
 the descendants of the first friends of the Reforma- 
 tion.f During his stay at Dresden, which lasted 
 for five years, there were indications of jealousy 
 among the clergy, and of dislike for his spiritual 
 teaching at the Court ; and he was not reluctant to 
 remove to Berlin, in 1691, where he was appointed 
 
 * A short notice of Labadie will be found in note D on 
 page 199. 
 
 t The Dukes had degenerated sadly from the spirit of 
 their ancestors. To secure the crown of Poland, one of them 
 eventually became a Roman Catholic ; he lost the crown, 
 but the royal family still remains of that religion. 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 to be Provost and Head of the Consistory under 
 the Elector of Brandenburg, the ancestor of the 
 kings of Prussia, who succeeded to the leadership 
 of German Protestantism when it was abandoned 
 by the Duke of Saxony. In Berlin he spent the 
 rest of his days. 
 His activity. His influence now extended over the whole of 
 Germany, and his life was one of great and inces- 
 sant labour. In addition to the duties of his office 
 as preacher and superintendent, he published 63 
 volumes in quarto, 7 in octavo, and 46 in 
 duodecimo, besides numberless pamphlets and 
 prefaces. He had constant engagements from 
 8 A.M. till 7 P.M. At the end of one year in which 
 he had replied to 622 letters, 300 remained 
 unanswered ; for wherever in Germany men were 
 stirred by the new Christian life they appealed to 
 him for guidance. In order to overtake such work, 
 he withdrew entirely from company, and only 
 twice in nine years did he visit his garden. He 
 took little share in polemics, and that only when 
 it was forced upon him, being a man of the most 
 charitable spirit, although he held fast by central 
 truths. Towards the close of his life, the Germans 
 were divided in their attitude, some being strongly 
 opposed to him, others warmly devoted. Yet 
 
SPENER: HIS WORK' AND PREACHING. 189 
 
 even his enemies admitted that his life was blame- 
 less, and that he was sincere in what he believed 
 to be the cause of God, Having passed threescore 
 years and ten, he died as he had lived, testifying 
 that he was at peace with God through Jesus Christ. 
 
 Such was Spener's career ; perhaps the best 
 account of him, and of the movement which he in- 
 itiated, is given by Freytag, the German novelist, in 
 his Sketches. It is no wonder that even the secular 
 mind of Germany cherishes fond memories of him. 
 Had he been a Roman Catholic, he would be 
 represented as a saint, with an aureole of special 
 brightness round his head. 
 
 Of his general religious attitude, the most His religious 
 succinct explanation will be found in his Pia De- ^ 
 sideria, or Pious Wishes, prefixed to an edition of 
 Arndt's sermons which he issued in the year 1676. 
 After describing the lamentable condition of the 
 German church, and bewailing it in the words of 
 Jeremiah, " Oh ! that my head were waters," he 
 defines six desires which he cherishes for reform, 
 as follows : — 
 
 (i.) The larger circulation of the Word of God, 
 and private meetings of Christians for the study of 
 it. (2.) The diligent exercise of the Christian 
 priesthood — i.e., the co-operation of the members 
 
190 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 with the minister for prayer and edification. 
 (3.) The earnest conviction that knowledge is not 
 enough in Christianity, and that we must also have 
 life and action. (4.) A right bearing towards 
 unbelievers, so as to carry on discussion with heart- 
 felt love, and to seek not merely to answer them 
 but to gain them and do them good. (5.) Such a 
 course of theological training as will make students 
 feel that they should seek progress in heart and 
 life as much as in learning. (6.) A new way of 
 preaching, in which the great aim will be to show 
 that Christianity consists in the inner or new man, 
 whose soul is found in faith, with the fruits of a 
 good life as the results. 
 
 It will be seen that a number of those points 
 
 anticipate the lessons of the revival in our own 
 
 country at the end of last century, and that we 
 
 His view of have much to learn from them still. At present we 
 
 preac mg. shall confine ourselves to his ideas about preaching. 
 
 The form of Of the form of the sermon and the rules of 
 
 t e sermon, rhetoric, Spener makes little or nothing. He 
 
 admits that they may be of some use in assisting 
 
 the preacher to attain more clearness, and to 
 
 divide his subject properly ; but occasionally he 
 
 decries them altogether as having done far more 
 
 harm than good. He says that, though worldly 
 
SPENER: HIS WORK AND PREACHING. 191 
 
 causes may need the arts of oratory, in preaching 
 the Gospel the truth itself and the conviction and 
 earnestness of the speaker will, with God's bless- 
 ing, gain the desired res-ult. No doubt this view 
 was a valuable protest against the formalism and 
 pedantry of the time, but Spener pushed it too 
 far; for logic and even rhetoric have their value 
 for the preacher as well as for other speakers, 
 and in this, as in all occupations, God blesses the 
 use of means. Rules of logic and rhetoric do 
 harm whenever they lead us to think more of the 
 form than of the substance, and whenever they 
 impair the individuality of the speaker ; but they 
 may guide us to present the substance in the best 
 possible form, and may even help to develop and 
 express our individuality. The injunction, " study 
 to show thyself a workman that needeth not to 
 be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth," 
 implies that we are to do all in our power to make 
 our discourse clear, impressive, and orderly. Yet 
 the use of logic and rhetoric, especially with a weak 
 mind, may pass into pedantry, and Spener's warn- 
 ing was needed for his time.* 
 
 * This may be seen by a reference to the French Roman 
 Catholic preaching of that time, and to such English preach- 
 ers as Tillotson. 
 
192 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 The substance The two great essentials of preaching, then, 
 of the sermon, i • , r- 11 r ■, 
 
 according to bpener, are the substance of the ser- 
 mon and the personaHty of the preacher. As to 
 the substance of the sermon, he never wearies of 
 insisting that it is to be found not in philosophy or 
 science, but in the Scriptures, and that the man 
 who knows the Scriptures best will, other things 
 being equal, be the best preacher. The knowledge 
 of philosophy is helpful, but a man who is mighty 
 in the Scriptures will always be a better minister 
 than one who is only or chiefly a philosopher. 
 One must know them, however, not in a loose, dis- 
 jointed way, but according to the "analogy of 
 faith." Although given at different times and in 
 divers manners, they form one book and have one 
 plan. The two hinges on which all Scripture turns 
 are Law and Gospel, to both of which the true 
 preacher will have regard. He will preach the 
 law not as the slave of Moses, but as the servant of 
 Christ. He must so set forth its claims that men 
 will feel that there is no hope for them in law, and 
 that they are shut up to the Gospel. To Christ- 
 ians he will preach the law as a rule of life in its 
 higher purity, which they are to follow as Christ's 
 freemen out of love to Him. As to the Gospel 
 Spener would have it preached always. Morality 
 
SPENER: HIS WORK AND PREACHING, 193 
 
 is nothing without it. The free justification of the 
 sinner by faith in Christ is the necessary requisite 
 for the keeping of the law in heart and life. Yet he 
 insists very strongly upon the new life as a conse- 
 quence of faith ; indeed the emphasis which he 
 lays on this distinguishes him from Luther. The 
 great reformer dwelt upon justification because he 
 was opposing the doctrine of salvation by works. 
 Spener dwelt on the necessity for a new heart and 
 life because he was opposing a dead, formal 
 Protestantism. It was on this ground that some 
 dogmatical theologians of his day charged him 
 with denying the Lutheran doctrine of justification 
 by faith ; but the charge was utterly unjust. If 
 anyone compares the first edition of Luther's 
 Commentary on the Galatians with the second, 
 he will see how the Antinomianism of the new 
 sects that had arisen led him to insist more on the 
 fruits of faith as necessary to Christianity, and it 
 was this side of Luther's teaching that Spener 
 developed. The new birth, the new life, heart- 
 holiness as inseparably connected with faith — that 
 is the key to the whole of his preaching and work. 
 
 As for the particular treatment of the sermon, His own 
 though he disregarded form, he had his manner, ™^ ° ' 
 
 and a rule of his own which he prescribes and fol- 
 
 O 
 
194 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 lows. Recalls it " the natural rule of the subject." 
 The first thing is to determine the meaning of the 
 text, and that by consulting the original, by exam- 
 ining the context, by comparing parallel parts of 
 Scripture, and by referring to commentaries ; 
 though these must always be sifted and judged by 
 the preacher with the help of God's Spirit sought 
 in prayer. After this comes the exposition of the 
 doctrine of the text, both in itself and in its relation 
 to other truths of the Bible ; and then its application 
 to different classes of hearers, which is made very 
 minutely and at great length, after the manner of 
 the Puritans. Spener has a long introduction to 
 each discourse, and sometimes two, a general, and 
 a special. Each one of these parts — the intro- 
 duction, the exposition, and the application — is as 
 long as a good modern sermon. He is said to 
 have often preached for two hours. He com- 
 plained of himself that he could not be brief, and 
 that since he had not the gift of putting truth 
 into happy, memorable forms, he needed time for 
 impression. Yet his audiences gave him time, 
 though he was never brilliant, never used figures, 
 and was not impassioned. They were wearied of 
 the dull dogmatism of the previous school ; they 
 felt him to be a man of entire sincerity and 
 
SPENER: HIS IVORK AND PREACHING. 195 
 
 earnestness, bent on his sacred work ; and his 
 preaching had the variety that is gained from 
 an independent study of the Bible, and indepen- 
 dent views of human Hfe. It was the heart that 
 made him an acceptable preacher.* 
 
 Besides knowledge of the Scriptures, Spener The person- 
 required something in the personality of the ^ '|^ ° ' ^^ 
 preacher. He was anxious for a well-trained 
 ministry, and two German universities, Tubingen 
 in Wiirtemberg and Halle in Prussian Saxony, 
 owe their origin to his exertions. But he 
 always insisted that the preacher must himself 
 be a Christian, and must speak from conviction. 
 The truth he preaches must first be proved in 
 his own heart, and then borne to his hearers by 
 prayer. The most useful sermons, he said, are 
 those in which there is least thought of self, and 
 most thought of God and of the souls of men. 
 
 He had a strong aversion to polemical preach- His aversion 
 
 , , . . . ..r J 1 .L to polemics, 
 
 mg ; and his aversion was justified by the usage, 
 
 * Spener wrote out his sermons carefully and, after three 
 readings, was able to preach them in their substance without 
 the use of notes. He quotes, with approval, one of S. 
 Schmidt's sayings, y««^<? Bldttler, alte Bettler, which may be 
 translated, " young extemporeness, old emptiness." Thoughts 
 that occurred to him during delivery, he inserted afterwards 
 into his manuscript. 
 
196 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 then prevalent in Germany, of marching round the 
 walls of the Augsburg Confession, and doing battle 
 with the various enemies of the Lutheran doctrines. 
 He objected in toto to the introduction of polemics 
 into sermons, except when the text required it, or 
 when there was danger of the people being misled 
 by some doctrinal error ; and, even then, contro- 
 versy should be left to those who were qualified to 
 handle the controverted point convincingly. He 
 saw that the polemics of the incompetent were 
 more likely to awaken the doubts of believers 
 than to convince gainsayers, and he trusted to 
 the earnest declaration of the truth as the most 
 fitting method of preventing and removing error. 
 It was one of his maxims that sermons should 
 always be simple, since the common people form 
 the majority of almost every congregation. His ideal 
 preacher was a man eager to communicate to others 
 truths which he had tested in his own heart and life. 
 The success oi During Spener's life, his work produced remark- 
 his work. ^i^jg results, and for some time after his death 
 its influence continued and even increased. Some 
 of his opponents, such as J. B. Carpzov,* were 
 
 * Johann Benedict Carpzov, the opponent of Spener, is to 
 be distinguished from J. Gottlob Carpzov, the opponent of 
 R. Simon, Clericus, and Spinoza. 
 
SPENER: HIS WORK AND PREACHING. 197 
 
 eminent men, but they were chiefly found among 
 the high and dry churchmen, whose motto was 
 quieta non movere, and who disliked the freedom 
 and life of his action. Throughout Germany there 
 was a marked reform in the style of preaching. 
 The new university of Halle, which became, under 
 his bosom friend Francke, of whom we shall 
 presently speak, the head-quarters of the move- 
 ment, had soon more than a thousand students 
 fired with religious zeal ; and Halle became also 
 a great printing-house for Bibles, not only in 
 German but in the original languages.* The 
 religious education of the young was cared for as 
 it had never been before. Societies for reading 
 and studying the Scriptures were formed in many 
 parts of the country, and spread into Denmark 
 and Sweden and Norway ; into Holland, England, 
 Scotland, and America. Certainly we cannot 
 ascribe all this to Spener, for it was one of those 
 great religious movements, waves of the Spirit's 
 influence, which from time to time have visited 
 the world. But in Germany, and the neighbour- 
 ing countries, he was the chief instrument in 
 God's hand for commencing and diffusing it. 
 
 * The valuable HebrewBibleof J. D. Michaelis was issued 
 from the Halle press. 
 
igS LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 We must reserve for other lectures that more 
 interesting period of the history of the German 
 church which shows us how Spener's work devel- 
 oped in the Pietistic School, and led to a wide and 
 deep reaction from which Germany is only now 
 emerging. We shall find it to be a period full of 
 practical lessons as to what we should cultivate 
 and what we should avoid. 
 
SPENER: HIS WORK AND PREACHING, 1 99 
 
 Note D, see page 187. 
 
 Jean de Labadie, 
 
 Jean de Labadie, not to be confounded with Abbadie, was 
 born in 1610, in Guyenne, and died in 1674, at Altona. He 
 was a singular man, of wonderful fire and energy, called the 
 greatest and truest preacher of his time. Originally a 
 Roman Catholic and a Jesuit, he became a Protestant 
 through reading Calvin's Instiiiites, and had a strong desire 
 to form a pure Christian community. He preached at 
 Geneva with wonderful power and acceptance, and estab- 
 lished Bible-meetings, house visitation, and strict discipline ; 
 passed to Holland where he formed a separate community ; 
 gathered devoted adherents, and exercised much influence 
 especially on the upper classes ; and moved finally into 
 Germany where he died. His followers increased for a 
 while, and spread to the West Indies and America, under 
 the name of Labadists, but they are now absorbed in other 
 churches. They may be compared with the early Quakers 
 or the Irvingites, but they bore more resemblance to the Ply- 
 mouth Brethren ; and they had good and evil about them. 
 The evil was an uncompromising and narrow temper, a 
 desire to form a perfectly pure community for which they 
 had peculiar marks, and so a leaning to spiritual pride and 
 intolerance. Their good was great earnestness and self- 
 sacrifice, and the value which they set upon the life of 
 Christianity, as distinguished from form and doctrinal 
 orthodoxy. They influenced Spener, Tersteegen the mystic, 
 and ultimately Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren, 
 though in their case in a charitable and Scriptural direction. 
 
LECTURE XII. 
 
 PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 
 
 Importance of JN speaking of Spener and his work, we have 
 Pietism. I , . , . ... 
 
 •■• indicated his relation to that rehgious move- 
 ment of his time which is commonly called 
 Pietism. But Pietism is so important in itself, 
 and in its effect upon many parts of Europe, 
 that it deserves separate consideration. We shall, 
 therefore, deal to-day with its growth, its decline, 
 and some of its lessons. 
 Part of a Germany was evidently prepared for such a 
 
 movement. movement, and not Germany only but other coun- 
 tries. We find similar manifestations in Holland 
 and Denmark, and in England and Scotland in 
 various forms of Puritanism, followed by Method- 
 ism. We can trace the movement even among 
 Roman Catholics, in Jansenism and Pension, and 
 in abnormal shapes in Madame de Guyon and 
 
 Madame Bourignon. Indeed, throughout Christian 
 200 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 201 
 
 Europe there were traces of weariness of dry dog- 
 matic teaching and incessant polemics, and of a 
 wish to find relief in a religion of feeling. Whilst 
 Spener, more than any other in Germany, gave 
 voice to this movement, he was the child as much 
 as the father of it, and it cannot be understood 
 without reference to another German who, after 
 Spener, held the chief place in promoting it, and in 
 giving it shape. 
 
 August Hermann Francke* was born at Lubeck Francke, 
 in 1663, and died at Halle in 1727. He conse- ' 
 crated himself early to the ministry, and, being told 
 that Hebrew and Greek were " the two eyes of 
 Bible knowledge," entered with the greatest ardour 
 into the study of these languages. In one year, 
 under the care of a learned Rabbi, he read the Old 
 Testament in Hebrew seven times. He acknow- 
 ledges, however, that his aim was to become a 
 learned man, not to know the will of God. One His conver- 
 day, in preparing a sermon upon the words, " Peace ^^°°' 
 be unto you, as My Father hath sent Me, even so 
 send I you," he suddenly felt that he had not heard 
 these words, nor received any such commission. 
 A terrible darkness came over him, and in the 
 inward struggle which followed, the whole of his 
 
 • He was a contemporary and correspondent of Boston. 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 life rose before him " as if he were standing on 
 the high tower of Llineburg and looking down on 
 its houses." He fell down and prayed that, if 
 there were a God and a Saviour, he might know 
 them in forgiveness and love. His prayer was 
 answered, and he looked back to this season as 
 the birth-time of his soul. " Thenceforward," he 
 says, " I was in earnest for God and willing to 
 suffer all for His sake, and from that time also I 
 had more to suffer." 
 
 We cannot here give even a sketch of the 
 varied events of his life. Amidst continuous work 
 and severe struggles, he was sustained by a natur- 
 ally cheerful heart and by reliance on God, and 
 was crowned at last by eminent success. He was 
 opposed, like Spener, by the hard and dry party, 
 calumniated and driven from his post, but re- 
 instated to labour with increased activity.* While 
 Spener's sphere was Frankfurt and Berlin, that of 
 Francke was the newly-formed university of Halle, 
 which became the head-quarters of the Pietists, a 
 name at first given derisively by the enemies of the 
 His pastoral movement. He was not only a professor in the 
 university, but minister of one of the town churches. 
 
 * An epitome of the controversy between the Pietists and 
 the Orthodox will be found in note E, on page 218. 
 
 work. 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 203 
 
 The congregation was in a broken and desolate 
 state. The previous minister had been deposed 
 for gross immorah'ty, and his example had told on 
 the people. There was sensuality among the rich, 
 misery and discontent among the poor ; while the 
 other ministers of the town drew their stipends 
 without caring for their flocks, and preached the 
 dry, thrashed straw of formal phrases. Francke's 
 church was at once crowded through the attractive 
 power of his preaching. It was not sensational, 
 nor filled with figures and stories, but drawn from 
 the Bible through his own heart. It was full of 
 faith and warmth, simple and direct, referring con- 
 stantly to Christ, and to life through Him. All 
 the doctrines were in his sermons, but they were 
 more than doctrines, they were filled with spirit 
 and life ; and the presence of these makes the 
 difference between orthodox and evangelical.* 
 Presently he opened his morning family worship 
 to his neighbours, and gave a short exposition 
 of the Bible. The room was crowded ; he had to 
 move to the church ; and this informal meeting 
 became a regular morning service. He began to 
 seek out the young who were growing up in 
 ignorance, and held catechetical classes which 
 * A sketch of one of his sermons will be found on page 219. 
 
204 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 were frequented by the old. He circulated little 
 tractates on Christian knowledge, on the Bible, on 
 prayer, on family religion, and against prevailing 
 Hi* orphan- vices. He took special pity upon the children who 
 ^*^' had been made orphans by the German wars, and 
 
 provided food for the most destitute of them in his 
 own house, placing a box at the door for contri- 
 butions — the first instance, perhaps, of a ragged 
 school. The largest room in his house was filled, 
 and he put it under the care of some of his senior 
 students. Finding that constant personal influ- 
 ence was required to do the children any real 
 good, he arranged for lodging them in Christian 
 families. Encouraged by a few large donations, he 
 resolved to found a home for them ; and at length 
 he raised an immense building, or rather pile of 
 buildings, in which, at his death, one hundred and 
 thirty-four infants were lodged and trained. With 
 this were joined schools for teaching the children 
 of poor parents, and others for giving a higher 
 style of instruction to those who could pay for it. 
 In these there were about two thousand children 
 when he died. He also set up a great Apothecary 
 Institute for supplying medicine and medical 
 advice, and an establishment for printing the Bible 
 in different languages, and other books for the 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 205 
 
 people. Those buildings still excite the wonder of 
 every one who visits Halle, and the remarkable 
 little book in which he tells how they were reared. 
 The Footsteps of God z« the Building of the Orphan 
 House at Halle, may well be reckoned among the 
 classics of Christian faith. 
 
 At the same time he was carrying on his work His university 
 in connection with the university. He delivered 
 lectures in successive years on the various branches 
 of theology — on Dogmatics, on Homiletics, on 
 Casuistics or questions of conscience, and on the 
 Bible. His motto was, tJieologns nascitur in Scrip- 
 turisy and he gave himself systematically to the 
 special study of the books of the Old and New 
 Testaments, He founded the Collegium Minis- 
 teriale for the exercise of preaching and 
 catechising, and the Collegium Orientale for the 
 study of the Old Testament, in which it was the 
 rule that all the discourses should be in Latin, and 
 that the Old Testament should be read in Hebrew 
 once a year. At the same time, it was his desire 
 that the studies should be carried on, not so much 
 in the method of a science, as with a view to per- 
 sonal edification. He had a saying that theology 
 is Christianismi cultura uberior, " the richer culture 
 of Christianity ; " and in everything he made 
 
2o6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Christ the beginning and the end of his work. 
 He taught that the motive of all study is the 
 glory of God ; that the means is the knowledge 
 of His truth in the Bible ; that the object is the 
 conversion of man by word and example. In this 
 he was supported by his colleagues, and the effect 
 was great. While Wittenberg, the university of 
 Luther and Melancthon, had become the habita- 
 tion of a dead and formal orthodoxy, Halle was 
 the home of living faith. As yet rationalism was 
 unknown in any prominent part of the Church, but 
 outside of the Church there was much infidelity. 
 Halle had soon eight hundred theological students, 
 and before many years twelve hundred, a greater 
 number by far than attended any other of the 
 German universities ; and the students spread the 
 The spreail of movement throughout Germany. Before the death 
 the movement, ^j. prancke it was felt everywhere, and extended 
 into the neighbouring lands. One cannot but 
 admire the lofty faith, the untiring energy, the 
 administrative power and tact of this good man. 
 Although he was assisted by others into whom he 
 had breathed his spirit, his health repeatedly broke 
 down under the burden of toil and care ; and he 
 had to seek for recovery in journeys to different 
 parts of Germany and to Holland. These journeys 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 207 
 
 became serviceable to the Christian cause, for 
 wherever he went he removed prejudices, changed 
 enemies into friends, and planted the principles 
 of a living religion. At length he became con- 
 scious of the final failure of his strength, and 
 in his last lecture he gave a farewell blessing 
 to his hearers. Lingering afterwards with some 
 friends in the garden of the Orphan House, he 
 traced his life experience, and poured out his 
 heart in a fervent prayer of thanksgiving for the 
 gracious leadings of God. Not long afterwards he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 One would have thought that German Christ- The rise of 
 
 . . 1111 counter infli; 
 
 lanity was now entermg upon a long cloudless ^^^^^ 
 day. And, indeed, for a season those influences 
 were productive of great good. We may say 
 of the generation of ministers reared under 
 Francke, as of Israel in the days of Joshua, that 
 they "served the Lord all the days of the elders 
 that outlived him, who had seen all the great 
 works of the Lord that He did for Israel." 
 But there were other forces already at work. The 
 infidelity which became so prominent in the 
 middle and at the end of last century had its 
 seeds in the ground and was shooting up. It has 
 been said by enemies that the seed was sown by 
 
2oS LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Pietism, but it may rather be said that Pietism 
 delayed the growth. For the infidelity of the next 
 age appeared in England before it came into 
 Germany, and it was strongest in France, where 
 the only Pietism was the short-lived and limited 
 school of Jansenism. Yet it is true that Pietism 
 failed to deliver Germany from unbelief In the 
 time of Frederick, named the Great, and his friend 
 Voltaire, it invaded all ranks. Under Semler, the 
 father of modern rationalism, it proceeded to sap 
 the Bible, book after book, and to carefully remove 
 every trace of the supernatural by glosses and 
 fanciful explanations. It assailed the Canon under 
 Reimarus. Then at last under Strauss, taking 
 Hegelianism into its service, it sought to resolve 
 the gospels into myth and legend, left Christ a 
 shadow, and denied the personality of God and of 
 the soul. This spirit pervaded Germany until it 
 turned the ministers into teachers of little morali- 
 ties, emptied the churches, and formed a mass of 
 indifferentism, which the believing men of the 
 present day are slowly endeavouring to leaven. 
 Failure of Although German Pietism did not cause this 
 
 infidelity, we may naturally ask how it is that it did 
 not prevent it. This is a very important question, 
 bearing as it does on our teaching, our preaching, 
 
 Pietism. 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 209 
 
 and our Christian life, and we shall try to give 
 some thoughts by way of answer. 
 
 There is an easy way of answering which some 
 take. They say : " Things never abide in one 
 stay ; men will have change, and they are right to 
 seek for change, since, as the poet says, ' one good 
 custom would corrupt the world.' When they 
 weary of dogmatism they take to pietism, when 
 they weary of pietism they take to rationalism." 
 There is enough of truth in this to make it plaus- 
 ible. A great mass of men — we may say the great 
 mass of men — are fickle, and like the old Athenians 
 are bent on hearing " some new thing." But we 
 who believe in a Bible, in a Christ, and in a Church 
 of the living God, believe also that there is some- 
 thing fixed, that the ground we stand upon is not 
 shifting sand, and that if there be change, not in 
 forms merely but in essential truths, there is a real 
 reason for the change. Further, since we hold 
 that religion is primarily of the heart, with conver- 
 sion and regeneration as its central elements, we 
 may be sure that if these truths failed to secure 
 permanence when they were so earnestly impressed 
 by men like Spener and Francke, there must have Its defects 
 been defects in the method of their work, real ^\_'^ 
 defects, although perhaps not apparent at the first. 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 In seeking to indicate its defects, we may classify 
 them as they concerned the mind, the heart, and 
 the active life. 
 (I.) The mind. i. As to the mind, it cannot be said that the first 
 leaders of Pietism neglected it, for they sought to 
 give the rising ministry a thorough knowledge of 
 the Bible, and also of Bible doctrine. Yet one 
 can see that they made this training bear very 
 largely, if not almost exclusively, on the question 
 of conversion and the state of the heart. Now, 
 these are not the only aspects of Christianity. 
 There is what the apostle calls " the building up in 
 our most holy faith," when we " leave the principles 
 of the doctrine of Christ, and go on unto perfec- 
 tion." There is the light which the Gospel casts on 
 the works and ways of God in the world, on the 
 plan of the universe, and on the varied forms of 
 human life and action. Among the leaders of the 
 Pietistic movement there was an avoidance of such 
 themes, and this grew into a prohibition of them 
 on the part of many of their followers. They 
 distrusted science and literature and those healthy 
 modes of thought and feeling which are also part 
 of God's truth and God's world. Thus the preach- 
 ing of the later Pietists became dull, tame, and 
 monotonous, not merely unattractive to men of 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 211 
 
 the world, but deadening to Christians, because 
 it did not furnish food for thought and for spiritual 
 growth. While it is right that we should aim at 
 conversion in our preaching, and also that we 
 should seek for revivals, we shall lose all the blessing 
 which these may bring into the Church, unless we 
 cultivate growth, and lead Christian men into the 
 treasures of knowledge and understanding. The 
 want of breadth and variety and freshness in their 
 supply of mental nourishment had much to do 
 with the failure of the Pietists. 
 
 In connection with this we cannot overlook their 
 notable neglect of the arts of oratory, which was 
 aggravated by the undue attention they gave to 
 speaking and writing in Latin. They gained no 
 proficiency either in clear or in coloured language, 
 and indeed were gradually unfitted to make any 
 powerful use of their native tongue. If we are to 
 maintain popular interest in religious truth, we 
 must bend all our strength towards making our 
 speech telling apd pointed ; we must not think 
 that even Bible truth, if it is served out in dull, 
 heavy fashion, with length as a substitute for 
 strength, will produce its proper result. 
 
 2. A second reason for the decline of Pietism (2.) The heart 
 lay in its relation to the heart. It is true that the 
 
212 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 very strength of the early Pietists lay in their 
 appeal from the dead dogmatism of the under- 
 standing to the living experience of the heart. 
 Yet the heart cannot continue to live on its first 
 experiences. These must indeed remain, but in 
 new forms ; like the life in a tree, which grows 
 naturally into leaf and flower and fruit, but 
 dwindles and decays when crushed back on its 
 root. If the Christian heart constantly reverts to 
 the fact of its conversion and examines its own 
 moods and motives, it becomes morbid from its 
 self-inspection, conceives doubts and phantoms, 
 and pines away into an unhealthy subjectivity. 
 Those who are acquainted with James' Anxiou-s 
 Enguirer, Edwards' On the Religious Affection.^, 
 and other such books in our own language, know 
 that with all their excellence this is their danger. 
 While there are frivolous, superficial people who 
 need to be told to go into themselves, there are 
 Christians who need to be told to go out of them- 
 selves, to be less concerned for the state of their 
 hearts, and to pay more attention to Christian 
 truth and Christian work. Sometimes it needs 
 courage to say this plainly to those who think that 
 they show their Christianity by discussing and 
 exhibiting their feelings and their motives, but no 
 
riETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 213 
 
 honest Christian minister will shrink from telling 
 them the truth. The prevalence of this intro- 
 spective habit in the days of German Pietism 
 produced many excesses and eccentricities in reli- 
 gious life ; it assumed heights of asceticism that 
 were inconsistent with a real belief in God's guid- 
 ance of the world, and with the fulfilment of the 
 duties of the Christian Church. This led Spener 
 himself to say that "he had more to fear from 
 the follies of his friends than from the attacks of 
 his enemies." 
 
 There came to be associated with this an affected 
 language about spiritual experiences, real in the 
 first gush of emotion, but sought out and mechan- 
 ised when it was no longer fully real. Not only 
 was this injurious to the individual, it sounded 
 hollow to the hearers. While speech should be 
 " with grace," it should be seasoned with salt, with 
 enough of salt to keep it fresh. Christian ministers 
 lose their influence if they rigidly avoid the or- 
 dinary methods of conversation, and abstain from 
 discussing serious topics in a free and open way. 
 
 This, then, was the second error of the Pietists ; 
 they tried to detain the heart in a state of self- 
 inspection, and they cultivated language about it 
 that became unreal. 
 
214 LECTURES ON PRE ACHING. 
 
 (3.) The active 3. This leads US to the third of their faults, which 
 
 life 
 
 concerned the active life. In the beginning of the 
 
 movement there was, indeed, a considerable amount 
 of Christian effort, especially at Halle. One might 
 find there the germs of most of our modern religi- 
 ous movements — of Home Missions, Ragged 
 Schools, Bible-circulation, Tract Societies, and 
 Foreign Missions. Francke, more than any man 
 of his time, anticipated that practical aspect of 
 Christianity which has marked the present century. 
 But elsewhere it was different. The societies 
 that arose throughout Germany aimed chiefly at 
 edification, and confined their attention to their 
 own members, as " brethren " and " sisters " who 
 possessed a higher amount of religious life than 
 other Christians. Spener hoped at one time that 
 the whole Lutheran church would be pervaded 
 by a personal awakening; but the opposition he 
 met with disappointed him, and led him to foster 
 these select companies, ecclesiolcB in ecdesia, little 
 churches within the church, as they were called, 
 • They lacked the power of united government, 
 discipline, and action, and they tended to keep 
 their members aloof in a self-satisfied isolation, not 
 only from the ungodly world but from the formal- 
 ism which prevailed in the church around them. 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 215 
 
 This isolation, and the sense of superiority which 
 it nourished, led to a species of religious pride, and 
 their very pity for others was ready to pass into 
 uncharitableness and contempt. Had they been 
 able to form separate and independent churches, as 
 the Methodists did in England, and our own fore- 
 fathers in Scotland, those consequences might have 
 been largely prevented ; the religious history of 
 Germany would, it is true, have seen more denomi" 
 nations, but also more Christian activity, with a 
 healthier development in the train of its great 
 spiritual impulse. But the Lutheran church at 
 that time had a very strong feeling against any- 
 thing like Separatism or free self-government of 
 churches, and it is a question whether the civil 
 authorities of the time would have permitted 
 separation. So it happened that the Pietists, cut 
 off from healthy independent action, became gradu- 
 ally isolated companies or coteries, with a large 
 amount of spiritual pride, and a growing narrow- 
 ness which kept the name Pietism from rising to 
 the honourable significance of Methodism and 
 Nonconformity in England. It passed through 
 stages of decay, and sank at last into a part}', 
 like that well-known section of the church of 
 England which, though once represented by large- 
 
2i6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 minded men, ultimately became a narrow ecclesiola 
 in ecclesia, and drove such men as Frederick 
 Robertson and Charles Kingsley into prejudices 
 against evangelical doctrine. 
 
 Yet this was not the whole outcome of Pietism. 
 God can make His truth outlive and triumph over 
 human error, and in another lecture we shall try to 
 show how men like Spener and Francke were, in 
 their noble earnestness and self-denial, doing 
 lasting work. 
 Lessons. Meanwhile, we may learn this, that in our 
 preaching we must aim at dealing with all 
 the breadth of man's nature. If we address the 
 mind alone, we shall make hard, cold dogmatists ; 
 but if we address the heart alone, we shall pro- 
 duce weak and narrow sentimentalists. Our aim 
 should be both light and life. Again, when God 
 sends times of quickening, through conversion and 
 revivals, we should be specially careful to lead men 
 out from dwelling on moods and frames, into the 
 more bracing elements of Christian edification and 
 Christian service, into the breadth of God's Word 
 and the activities of God's world. Lastly, we 
 should be thankful that the history of Chris- 
 tianity in our country has saved us from being 
 an ecclesiola in ecclesia^ living in morbid and 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 117 
 
 inactive self-congratulations. That is the heresy 
 of " schism in the body," of which Scripture speaks. 
 Our fathers formed a Christian church which has 
 power of free independent action, and whic'i finds 
 in that action life and health and strength. For 
 what the individual needs, the Church needs — 
 action to help her to recognise and to preserve the 
 truth, and to bring her at the same time into 
 sympathy with all who are seeking to do good to 
 men in Christ's name and for His sake* 
 
 * See Note G, on page 221. 
 
3i8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note E, see page 202. 
 
 The Controversy between the Pietists and thk 
 Orthodox. 
 
 Oii the Orthodox side, with bad temper, were Mayer of 
 Hamburg, Schelwig of Dantzic, J. B. Carpzov, and Deutsch- 
 mann ; and in a good spirit, Ernst. Loscher of Dresden, a 
 pious and learned man. The watchword of the Orthodox 
 was, "The Church and the doctrines ;" of the Pietists, "The 
 Individual and Life." The Orthodox held by the Confes- 
 sion ; the Pietists by the Bible. The Orthodox looked to 
 ordinances as means of quickening ; the Pietists, to the 
 Holy Spirit. Their spedal differences gathered round the 
 following questions : — 
 
 (l.) Is knowledge or life (will) first in conversion.'' The 
 Orthodox said " knowledge ; " the Pietists ultimately 
 admitted that knowledge is first logically, but they held 
 that really they are simultaneous. 
 (2.) Can an unconverted man have a saving knowledge of 
 the Gospel? In answering this in the negative, the 
 Pietists were led into confusion ; and they eventually 
 said that an unconverted man may gain much know- 
 ledge that appertains to salvation, it being felt that 
 otherwise there could be no response, and conversion 
 would be mechanical. 
 (3.) In what sense does faith justify? The Pietists answered, 
 *' in virtue of the germ of life which God discerns in it." 
 The Orthodox charged them with confounding Justifi- 
 cation and Sanctification. Loscher says : Fidem justi- 
 ficare non quatenus agit vel suam activitateni exerit, sed 
 quatenus recipit et habet. 
 (4.) Can an unregenerate minister be a means of conversion ? 
 The Orthodox answered: " Yes j the Church acts through 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 219 
 
 liim ; " the Pietists said: "Nothing good can come 
 tlirniigh him ; but good may be done by the Word of 
 God in his mouth." 
 (5.) Can Christian men reach perfection in this life * The 
 Orthodox said "No;" while the Pietists spoke of a 
 modified perfection, which, though not sinless, may be 
 full and rounded. 
 (6.) In what relation does the Confession stand 1 1 tue Jjible? 
 The Orthodox insisted on adhering to the fo-mer, qtna 
 not quaientis, ascribing to it a kind of inspiration ; the 
 Pietists inclined to accept the Confession qtda, so far as 
 its chief points are concerned, but to leave room for a 
 quatemts in secondary matters. 
 In addition to the above, which may be compared with 
 the summary given by Kurtz (Vol. II., sec. 46), there were 
 differences with regard to Eschatology, the Pietists looking 
 for a literal Millennium, the Orthodox for a time of general 
 improvement. As to secular amusements, the Pietists 
 forbade many which the Orthodox permitted as dSto^o/)(il. 
 
 Note F, see page 203. 
 
 Sketch of Sermon by A. H. Francke. 
 Luke viii. 4-16 — The Parable of the Sower. 
 
 Introduction : Not enough to hear the Word of God, we 
 must take heed what and how we hear, and ask if we are 
 bearing fruit from it. 
 
 Theme stated: How we are to act so that the Word of 
 God may come to a true, ripe, and rich fruit. 
 
 Short prayer bearing on the subject. 
 
 I. A man must learn to know the right seed, and that 
 by looking to the Good Sower, Jesus Christ. It is in His 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Word, the Word of God, specially the Gospel Word — " Thy 
 sins are forgiven thee." This is the beautiful and precious 
 little seed which, when falling into the sinner's heart, brings ' 
 the sweet and joyful message of grace, and springs up in the 
 soul as righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. 
 We also know the right seed by its power. Man's seed can- 
 not over' ome sin or fill the heart ; power comes only from 
 
 II. A man must see that the field is prepared. Here the 
 husbandman may be taken for a copy, and the parable fol- 
 lowed, (i.) The heart must be freed from the hard wayside 
 surface ; the thinking, speaking, or doing of evil makes the 
 ground so hard that the seed cannot enter ; there must 
 come the plough of the law, the stern plough of Sinai. 
 (2.) The heart must be freed from the rock below the sur- 
 face. The understanding often takes the seed and talks 01 
 it ; the fancy takes it and is pleased with it ; while the 
 heart beneath is rocky and callous. The heart must be 
 broken — a contrite heart. The rock must be pierced. We 
 need repentance to open it for the seed, and for this we 
 must plead with God who alone can take away the hard and 
 stony heart. (3.) The heart must be free from thorns 
 and thistles — />., the worldly mind, the love of worldly 
 pleasures, the anxiety of worldly cares, which deprive the 
 seed of room for growth. Therefore, pray the Lord that He 
 may tear out such thorns and thistles, clearing the field for 
 the precious seed. 
 
 III. A man must work and wait for the seed to grow. 
 Here, again, the husbandman is our example with his har- 
 rows and his roller waiting through weeks and months in 
 sunshine and rain, in drought and frost, in weariness and 
 fainting of heart, till the grain is ripe. Therefore (i.) the 
 Word must be kept in the heart, not in the memory only, 
 hidden there and pondered. Parents, hide the Word in 
 your children's hearts. (2.) It must be commended in faith 
 
PIETISM: ITS HISTORY AND LESSONS. 221 
 
 and prayer to God, who is the God of the harvest, of the 
 early and latter rain. (3.) It must be waited for. It does 
 not grow in a day, at least in its fulness. It needs the 
 cross, and often many crosses to drive it in and cover it up. 
 (Then follow words of sorrow for the small spiritual harvest 
 in Germany after so many years of waiting, and the sermon 
 closes with a suitable prayer.) 
 
 It will be seen that the substance of the sermon is 
 Scriptural and evangelical. The form is easy and natural, 
 following the passage ; the illustrations are homely ; and 
 there is a constant endeavour to come into contact with the 
 hearers. There is a tendency to diffuseness and repetition 
 in the language of the sermon, which was one of the faults 
 of the Pietists. 
 
 Note G, see page 217. 
 The Bible, the Church, and the Individual, 
 
 The growth and decline of Pietism show us that while 
 there are three great factors in Christianity — the Bible, the 
 Church, and the Individual — healthy Christian life is main- 
 tained by giving each of these its proper place. 
 
 If the Church be exalted to the repression or depression 
 of the Bible, we have Romanism or High Churchism. The 
 individual life withers from want of contact with the quick- 
 ening power of God's Word, while the activity that remains 
 tends to externality both in motives and in manifestations, 
 or retreats into Asceticism. 
 
 If the Church be exalted to the repression of the Individ- 
 ual, we have formal Orthodoxy and rigid Confessionalism ; 
 the tendency then is to narrowness and intolerance of 
 spirit, and to mechanism and partisanship in work. 
 
 If the Individual be put above the Bible, we have either 
 
LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Rationalism or Mysticism. The Individual selects for him- 
 self according to his inner light, whether that be the light of 
 the bare understanding or of unregulated feeling ; he thus 
 becomes his own Bible. 
 
 If the Individual be placed above the Church to its 
 depreciation, and as a critic, we have Brethrenism and 
 Atomism. This promotes a spirit as intolerant as that of 
 hard Orthodoxy. 
 
 It is also possible to set the Bible unduly above the 
 Church and the Individual by a rigid literalism, which 
 regards it as a book of legal precepts and restrictions, 
 instead of as a history of revelation supplying us with facts 
 and principles. This attitude also leads to hardness, and 
 produces fanaticism. Many points of Church government 
 and individual duty must be determined by principles, which 
 can be reached only by a liberal and intelligent method of 
 interpretation. 
 
 Interpret the Bible in its breadth ; stir the depths of indi- 
 vidual life ; employ the Church for both of those purposes ; 
 so Romanism, Brethrenism, and Rationalism will be best 
 eacountered. 
 
LECTURE XIII. 
 
 THE OFFSHOOTS OF PIETISM: BENGEL ANU 
 ZINZENDORF. 
 
 'T^HE later history of Pietism is very sad and yet 
 ■'■ very instructive. It reached its strongest 
 period about the time of Francke's death, and 
 then it entered upon a course of decline which 
 continued to the middle of last century, when 
 it almost disappeared. Those who followed its 
 great leaders — viz., Francke the younger, Joachim 
 Lange, and others, had neither their mental power 
 nor their spirit. They became narrow and ascetic, 
 dark and bigoted, and for the freshness and 
 strength of feeling of the earlier men, they sub- 
 stituted an affected talk and a withdrawal from the 
 ordinary employments and enjoyments of human 
 life. They divorced Christianity from humanity, 
 and there came a recoil, a revolt against their Recoil from 
 aberrations in behalf of the bare, cold understand- Pietism. 
 
 ing which assumed the name of reason. This is 
 
 223 
 
1725-1791- 
 
 224 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 one of the most usual movements in Church 
 History. One-sided, over-strained mysticism leads 
 to its opposite in a one-sided rationalism which 
 leaves no room for feeling and rejects everything 
 it cannot understand. This spirit found its expres- 
 sion in Semler, the father of modern destructive 
 Semler, criticism. Curiously enough, Semler made his 
 appearance in Halle, where he was appointed a 
 professor in 175 1. His chief attention was directed 
 to the Canon of Scripture. He was a man of great 
 acuteness and unwearied industry, and of wide but 
 unregulated learning, strangely deficient in guiding 
 principle and unable to see whither his conclusions 
 were carrying him. In the latter period of his life 
 he shrank from some of the conclusions which 
 others drew from his views, but in the beginning 
 his bold utterances knew no bounds. They gained 
 a new importance from their appearance in so 
 orthodox and pious a university as Halle, though 
 they were to be found half a century before in the 
 writings of Richard Simon, Leclerc, and Astruc. 
 We have not time now to trace the development of 
 these views. It must suffice to say that at the end 
 of the century no trace of Pietism or orthodoxy 
 survived in Halle except in the person of the 
 venerable Georg Knapp, who remained faithful 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF. 225 
 
 among the faithless, and whose lectures on theo- 
 logy * will well repay a perusal. 
 
 Is this, then, the end of the Pietism of Spener Survivals of 
 and Francke, and of the life which it poured into '^''^™- 
 the Lutheran and Reformed churches of Germany? 
 Does that fresh, noble river that promised such 
 fertility end in a waste of sand ? There are two 
 rivulets from it, which were small at first but 
 became rivers that afterwards approached each 
 other ; and it is to these that I turn your attention 
 to-day. 
 
 Johann Albrecht Bengel, who was born near J. A. Eengel, 
 Stuttgart in 1687 and died in 1752, is a name of' 7-1752. 
 the very first importance in the religious history 
 of Germany, and especially of Wurtemberg, His 
 great work is his Gnomo7t or Index to the New His Gnomon, 
 Testament, which should be in the hands of 
 every student, and which has done more for the 
 study of the Bible than any book since the Cojii- 
 mentaries of John Calvin. It contains, as the title 
 implies, finger-points towards interpretation, full 
 of pregnant meaning and of that insight which 
 amounts to genius, and which comes from the 
 enlightening of natural gifts by God's spirit. In 
 
 * Translated and annotated by Dr. Leonard Woods, of 
 Andover. 
 
 Q 
 
226 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 its original shape the Gnomon formed two moderate- 
 sized octavo volumes, which were edited in Latin 
 by Bengel's son, with a short life prefixed. It has 
 given tone to the best German commentaries of 
 modern times, those that unite thought and learn- 
 ing with reverence and piety ; and it was of God's 
 providence that such a book was being prepared 
 just before Semler began his cold-blooded and 
 destructive criticism at Halle. Semler dealt with 
 details without regard to spirit or unity ; Bengel 
 dealt with details but with a regard for unity. We 
 may give a brief resum^ of his principles, which 
 are important to all students of the Bible. 
 His principles. Holy Scripture shews a connected divine 
 economy. The same God who in the Old 
 Testament calls Himself the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, is in the highest sense the 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has revealed 
 in the Bible His one clear and perfect word, and 
 has fulfilled in the New Testament what He 
 promised in the Old. The Holy Scripture is 
 itself the best vindication of the truth of its 
 contents. Its effect on man is of a kind that can 
 be ascribed only to God. For this effect, however, 
 it is necessary that we should not pick out separate 
 parts, but appropriate and imbibe the whole. 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZEiVDORF. 227 
 
 While the thoughts of the different writers must 
 be understood in their grammatical and historical 
 sense, each part must also be referred to the com- 
 plete revelation taken as an intelligible unity. 
 Further, as interpreters, we must carry nothing of 
 our own into the Scripture ; we must take out of 
 it only what is there, nor dare we disregard any- 
 thing that it contains. 
 
 Besides writing the Gnomon and other books on His mtitufle 
 the interpretation of Scripture, Bengel was occupied 
 during his long and active life in teaching, in 
 preaching, and in superintendence. He was a man 
 in whom piety, learning, and sagacity or balance 
 of mind, were finely blended. His piety had 
 grown from early training in a religious home, but 
 it was quickened and moulded, as he tells us, by 
 the writings of the Pietists and afterwards by 
 intercourse with them. He did not, however, 
 connect himself with the Bible unions which 
 Spener and Francke formed in the course of their 
 visits to Wiirtemberg, and when the later Pietists 
 showed a separatist spirit he held aloof and 
 pursued his work steadily and in all charity. 
 His judgment preserved him from extremes both 
 of hard dogmatism and of heated fancy, while I e 
 was far removed from the rationalistic tendencies 
 
228 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 which were fast rising. His preaching was 
 thoroughly evangelical, though he did not dwell 
 upon conversion as constantly as did the Pietists. 
 " That doctrine," he said, " is very important ; it 
 is the finger-hand of the clock, but we must 
 remember also the round dial-plate — all duties in 
 their turn." His preaching was also more exposi- 
 tory than that of the body of the Pietists, and had 
 therefore more of the breadth and variety of 
 Scripture. His weakness, if we can call it so, 
 was that he dealt rather frequently with pro- 
 phetical chronology. He fixed, e.g., upon 1836 
 as the year when a great catastrophe would befall 
 the kingdom of evil — a catastrophe still delayed. 
 Some of his general conjectures, however, have 
 been remarkably verified, and are quoted by the 
 Christians of Wiirtemberg, as Fleming's Fulfilling . 
 of the Scriptures used to be quoted among us.* 
 His charac- The character of Bengel shows a rare combina- 
 tion of moderation with depth. It may be illus- 
 trated by one of the extracts from his journal 
 quoted by his son : — " My greatest burden is not 
 my weak physical frame, or my relative afflic- 
 
 * Bengel was led towards this line of study by reading 
 Vitringa on the Apocalypse. Examples of his conjectures 
 will be found in Note H on page 239. 
 
 ter, 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF. 229 
 
 tions, or the attacks made on me, though from all 
 these I have suffered. It has been hidden in the 
 heart, the burden of eternity. Eternity itself in its 
 infinite moment has pressed upon me, and some- 
 times entered my soul like a sword." This, he 
 said, caused him to be taken for sad among the 
 joyful, and for joyful among the sad. He died 
 with great calmness, pointing to his breast when 
 the words were quoted, "Living or dying, I am the 
 Lord's." His celebrated scholar Oetinger, the 
 Christian philosopher, says of him, " He died 
 according to his desire ; for his wish was not to 
 leave the world with spiritual pomp and triumph, 
 but in a common way, as when one is called to the 
 door from the business of the house." 
 
 It was through Bengel, on the side of thought 
 and Bible study, that the Pietism of Spencer and 
 Francke revived in Germany after the reign of 
 rationalism.* 
 
 The other channel through which Pietism reach- ^j^g ]yjoj.avian 
 ed later times was Zinzendorf and the Moravian Brethren. 
 
 * In Wurtemberg the influence of the old Pietism is still 
 felt. Those who adhere to it in fellowship meetings, while 
 they also attend the ordinary church services, are reckoned 
 at about 30,000. Some of them are very practical, and sup- 
 ply labourers for the mission field. Their standard books 
 are those of Arndt and Bengel. Another section of a more 
 
230 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Brethren. We put these together, because they 
 are both included in the history of a movement 
 which is full of romantic interest, and which can be 
 verified at each step. The Moravian or Bohemian 
 
 Tbeii origin. Brethren are said to have had their rise among 
 scattered Waldensians who fled from persecution. 
 They were in their turn subjected to bitter harass- 
 ment, and were compelled to conceal their views 
 except in their homes and at private meetings. 
 
 Their revival In the eighteenth century, when a breath of 
 revival was passing over all the Protestant 
 churches, it visited them in their loneliness. 
 There was a powerful longing for renewal and 
 unity which was met in an unlooked-for way. 
 One, Christian David, a carpenter in a Moravian 
 village, was impressed by a sense of sin, and driven 
 to seek for rest. Born and brought up a Roman 
 Catholic, he knew nothing beyond his own church. 
 A Bible which fell into his hands brought him to 
 a degree of knowledge, and he had to leave his 
 native land. He went to Berlin and joined the 
 
 speculative temper, whose meetings I have attended at 
 Wildbad, in the Schwartzwald, read Oetinger and Fricker ; 
 while a third is notably given to singing hymns with lively 
 popular melodies. The most noted preacher of the Beneel 
 school was Georg Conrad Rieger, one of the most gifted 
 men of his time. 
 
BEN GEL AND ZINZENDORF. 231 
 
 Lutheran church, but he found it at the time cold 
 and dead. Thence he passed to Gorlitz, in Silesia, 
 where he met with believing, warm-hearted Christ- 
 ians, who instructed and encouraged him. He 
 conceived a great desire to do something for his 
 own countrymen, and revisited Moravia several 
 times. He came at last in contact with the hidden 
 " Bible Christians," and gave them news of the 
 Christian world outside. They also were seized 
 with a desire to find some place where they would 
 be free to read the Bible and to profess their 
 faith. David left them, bent on securing the 
 fulfilment of their wish, and in the course of his 
 search he was introduced by the friends at Gorlitz 
 to young Count Zinzendorf This was in May, 
 1722. 
 
 A place of refuge was provided by Zinzendorf, Their settle, 
 on the northern slopes of the Giant Mountains, "^"^ t^ 
 
 ^ HerrnhuL 
 
 whither many Moravian families fled, leaving 
 
 house and lands for the Gospel's sake. Here they 
 
 raised a village, which became the mother of all 
 
 their communities, and which they named Herrn- 
 
 hut, " the Lord's watch." From this name they 
 
 are called in Germany Herrnhiiter, " the Lord's 
 
 watchmen." Although Moravian in origin, and 
 
 connected with the ancient church of the Unitas 
 
232 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Fratrum, they became ere long more German 
 than Moravian, and spread through the rest of 
 Germany in communities that took Herrnhut for 
 their parent and model. 
 
 Zinzendorf. That we may see their connection with Pietism, 
 
 we must turn to Count Zinzendorf, the adoptive 
 father of the community. He was descended from 
 an old and noble Austrian family, who had been 
 forced to emigrate into Germany from having 
 embraced Protestantism. Born in 1700, he was 
 reared in a religious home, and when ten years 
 old, was sent to Halle, where for six years he was 
 under the influence of Francke. At an early age 
 he became decided in his religious life, and he 
 
 His character, never swerved till he died. He was a man of 
 lively fancy and poetic temperament, with consider- 
 able power of judgment, which, however, was ready 
 to be carried away by his ardour and restless 
 activity. Plis devotion to the Gospel took the 
 form of an intense personal love to the Saviour, 
 sometimes marked by an over-sweetness and 
 familiarity which made his hymns distasteful to 
 Bengel, whose depth disliked rreat demonstrative- 
 ness. Bengel and Zinzendorf were men who show 
 in what different moulds Christianity may be cast; 
 the one full of thought and regulated feeling, the 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF. 233 
 
 other full of impulse, demonstrative expression, 
 and action. 
 
 Zinzendorf devoted his whole life to the com- His devoted- 
 munity which he had been led by Christian 
 David to found. All his means, all his powers of 
 body and soul, were expended upon it. He wrote 
 its hymns, he drew up its regulations, he attended 
 universities that he might reduce its theology to a 
 system, and he received license as a regular 
 preacher that he might set an example to its 
 ministers. He took on him the care of all the 
 churches, and attended to the minutest concerns 
 and to the humblest members. He travelled 
 through Germany, into Austria, Russia, England, 
 the West Indies, and America, to found communi- 
 ties and establish missions, and everywhere he 
 was fervid and unwearied in work. There were 
 present in him qualities that are seldom united — 
 a simple, child-like faith, great elasticity and 
 geniality, the power of organising and administer- 
 ing, and an indefatigable activity. 
 
 As a preacher, he attracted thronging multitudes. His preaching. 
 In Berlin, the highest State officials, artisans and 
 servant girls, officers and common soldiers, stood 
 side by side in his crowded audiences. His 
 sermons, or at least sketches of them, have been 
 
234 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 printed from the notes of one of his scholars. 
 They are founded on the doctrine of justification 
 by faith, but they have poured into them the spirit 
 of John, caught from the school of Francke. The 
 ransom paid by Christ, does not, to his mind, 
 bring merely an outward pardon but an inward 
 redemption from the power of sin ; the fervour 
 with which this truth is pressed home, and the 
 knowledge of the human heart which he possessed, 
 constitute the power of his preaching. 
 The United Without entering into the history of the church 
 which he founded or renewed, the church of the 
 United Brethren, we may mention some of its 
 leading features. It held in the main by the 
 doctrine of the Augsburg Confession, placing 
 emphasis upon the necessity of spiritual life. Its 
 views as to the authority of Scripture were at first 
 somewhat vague. Like many mystics, the Mora- 
 vians tended to put the inner light over the Word 
 of God, and to select those parts of the Bible 
 which edified them, disregarding the rest as 
 unimportant or uninspired. Their historian, Plitt, 
 acknowledges that this method, which left them 
 without a fixed objective guide, was apt to land 
 them in rationalism ; but in the end they worked 
 themselves clear of this danger. They made a dis- 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF. 235 
 
 tinguishing feature of the oneness of the Christian 
 Church {unitas fratruui) ; and, while they formed 
 themselves into a separate organism, they acknow- 
 ledged the true Christianity of all who have the 
 spirit of Christ, without which acknowledgment, 
 indeed, the largest church reduces itself to a mere 
 sect. In its action, accordingly, their church set 
 itself to quicken what it called the BiaaTropd, the 
 Church scattered throughout the world, and spoke 
 of itself as merely the TrpoacoTrov, or face, which 
 represented the unity of Christendom. It was Their 
 especially active in mission work. There had been 
 individual missionary efforts before this, but the 
 Brethren were among the first Protestants to send 
 out missionaries as a church, or rather the first to 
 view the Church itself as a mission both at home 
 and abroad. Their work in Greenland, in the 
 West Indies, and in North America is celebrated. 
 
 " See Germany send forth 
 Her sons, to pour them on the farthest north ; 
 Fired with a zeal pecuhar, they defy 
 The rage and rigour of the Polar sky, 
 And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose 
 In icy wastes, and 'mid eternal snows." 
 
 Their simple faith was unconquerable. Every- 
 one has heard of the two Moravians who offered 
 
236 . LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 themselves as slaves that they might gain access 
 to the negroes, and of those who entered the leper 
 enclosure with the prospect of remaining in it for 
 life. When Zinzendorf himself was approaching 
 the Island of St. Thomas, where their mission- 
 aries had been persecuted and imprisoned, he 
 said to his companion, a humble Moravian from 
 Herrnhut, " What if we find no one ? " He calmly- 
 replied, " Well, we are there ; " whereon Zinzendorf 
 exclaimed, " Sterna gens Moraviormn ! " 
 
 To the Moravians, then, we owe a stronger 
 conviction of the unity of the Church of Christ, 
 as well as a powerful stimulus to missionary 
 enterprise. On these questions they have led the 
 van.* 
 The later These are the two offshoots from the Pietism 
 
 of Spener and Francke which gave it a pernjanent 
 interest and influence — the school of Bengel 
 led to a deeper and more comprehensive study 
 of the Bible ; and the school of Zinzendorf and 
 the Moravian Brethren transformed the ecclesioloe 
 of Spener into an ecclesia that exercised an 
 
 * PHtt is the great historian of the United Brethren, but 
 his work is in MS. It has been condensed by Burkhardt 
 in his full article on Zinzendorf in Herzog, in which he 
 corrects mistakes in Kurtz. 
 
 influence of 
 those schools 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF. 237 
 
 important influence on the Church and the 
 world, Bengel said of himself, " I shall be for- 
 gotten at first, but I shall be remembered again," 
 and the influence of his Gnovioti reappeared 
 when the reign of the Illuminism of Semler was 
 over. It is seen in the best modern com- 
 mentaries — those which are marked by the inter- 
 pretation of spiritual insight and of the analogy of 
 faith as distinguished from that of mere grammar 
 and detail. In a similar way the Moravian church 
 may be said to lie at the root of the great 
 Methodist movement, which has done so much for 
 all English-speaking communities. When John 
 Wesley, in his first religious fervour, was ready to 
 be carried away by the mysticism of William 
 Law, he met with Peter Bohler, a Moravian, who 
 revealed to him the way of God more perfectly, 
 and showed him the great doctrine of justifica- 
 tion which set him at liberty in keeping God's 
 commandments. The Wesleyans took from the 
 Brethren many points in their system — the watch- 
 night, the love feasts, the idea that the whole 
 Church is a missionary society, and the spirit of 
 Christian song, so marked in Methodist communi- 
 ties. Both John and Charles Wesley were led by 
 the Moravians to explore the treasures of the 
 
23S LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 German hymns, some of which they have trans- 
 lated, besides transfusing their general spirit into 
 their own compositions. 
 
 In later times another link was formed. 
 Schleiermacher, the founder of the new school of 
 German theology, which rose to protest against 
 the supcrficialism of the school of Semler, was 
 educated in a Moravian community, and owed to 
 its influence the principle with which he started 
 — the religion of feeling. This connection is well 
 traced in the finest of Tholuck's smaller works, 
 Guido and Julius. 
 
 So true it is that no work of faith or labour of 
 love is ever wasted. Though, like the old fountain 
 of the Greeks, it sink below the sea and seem lost 
 in sand and bitter waters, it rises in another land, 
 and, as a streamlet of the river of life, makes glad 
 in after years the City of our God. 
 
BENGEL AND ZINZENDORF. 239 
 
 Note H, see page 228. 
 
 Examples of Bengel's Conjectures cm 
 Religious Life. 
 
 The spirit of the time, he says, will become increasingly 
 one of scepticism and naturalism. The powers of nature 
 and reason will be so extolled that men will lose sight of the 
 supernatural ; people will be paid for attacking with their 
 pens the bases of Christianity. Everywhere men will 
 declare for the sufficiency of bare morality ; and not only 
 with the higher but with the lower classes free-thinking and 
 mockery of faith will take the upper hand. The Westeri 
 Empire will last for sixty years after 1740 A.D. (it really 
 ceased in 1804), the face of the world will be changed, and 
 the old maps be useless. The Latin tongue will not be 
 current. Marvellous tales and romances, be they true or 
 feigned, will be prevalent, and amusement the chief thing 
 sought in reading. If anything spiritual is introduced, it will 
 be in attractive tales, and the form of the representation, 
 not the improvement of the mind and heart, will be the 
 chief thing sought for. The doctrine of the internal word 
 will work immense mischief when it is carried out to its 
 consequences. Those who use it will say that they wish for 
 *' the kernel without the husk " — i.e.^ Christianity without the 
 Bible, and, from subtle beginnings, they will advance to 
 destructive consequences. Scepticism and superstition will 
 prevail together. People who have not an inner taste of 
 truth will thus fall into the hands of Rome. Socinianism 
 and Romanism seem far enough asunder now, but they will 
 then work together, and that will knock the bottom out of 
 the vessel. It is a great mistake that in Protestant churches 
 we have not begun sooner with foreign missions. Eut 
 
240 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 beginnings are made in the East and West Indies, which 
 give a hope that other lands will receive what we refuse ; 
 soon greater and brighter things will follow. 
 
 In the end, he proceeds, there will be a time of victory, 
 when the Kingdom of God will bring in an overflowing 
 fulness of the Spirit, and a deliverance from the wrong and 
 suffering which men have inflicted on one another through 
 their wickedness. Christians will still walk by faith and not 
 by sight, and they will have to contend with sin and meet 
 death. The law will remain, the Gospel will be preached, 
 the commemoration of the death of Christ will continue till 
 He comes ; but these will have a higher power. Kings and 
 magistrates will exist, but they will go about among men as 
 their brethren. Family and social life and husbandly and 
 handiwork will continue, but extravagance and luxury will 
 be unknown, and men will live in charity and mutual 
 benevolence. 
 
 Many of the evils which Bengel foretold have come and 
 still remain ; surely we also see the beginnings of the fulfil- 
 ment of his hopes ? 
 
LECTURE XIV. 
 
 THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 
 
 'T^HE Illuminism or Aufklarung, as the Germanij 
 
 •*■ name the next stage of their reh'gious history, 
 
 has its roots in the early part of the eighteenth 
 
 century, but it does not appear in full force till 
 
 1760, and it lasts till the beginning of the present 
 
 century, when it took new shapes and found new 
 
 opponents. It thus coincides in the main with 
 
 that period of our own Church history which we 
 
 call the reign of Moderatism. 
 
 Before entering on it, however, we may speak j.L.Mosheim 
 
 briefly of a preacher who stands half-way between '^93-i755' 
 
 Pietism and Illuminism, the well-known Church 
 
 historian, Johann Lorenz Mosheim. He died in 
 
 1755, and must have been over sixty years of age 
 
 at the time, but the year of his birth is not 
 
 certainly known. His birthplace was Lubeck, and 
 241 R 
 
242 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 the chief spheres of his activity were Kiel, Helm- 
 stadt in Brunswick, and Gottingen, where he was 
 both a professor and Chancellor of the university. 
 He was a man of universal learning, at home alike 
 in history, in ancient and modern philosophy, in 
 every branch of theology, and in the modern litera- 
 ture not only of his own country but of England, 
 France, and Italy. He gave lectures and wrote 
 on almost every subject except science. As a 
 theologian, he does not belong to the school of 
 the Pietists, but seeks to hold the balance between 
 reason and feeling. While he generally maintains 
 the orthodox faith, he tones down its strong 
 features, and presents it in such a way that it 
 awakens a sense of chill. His history of the 
 Church is a history of the circumference rather 
 than the centre, of the community rather than the 
 religion. It shows Christianity in a state of 
 perpetual war with heretics and heresies. Yet 
 his narrative; so far as it goes, is clear and free 
 from bias, and has still its value for the student. 
 His theory of Besides being the most learned man, Mosheim 
 preac ing. ^^^ ^^ most popular preacher of his time. His 
 lectures on Homiletics, which were published after 
 his death, explain his distinctive theory of preach- 
 ing. *' A sermon," he says, " is a discourse in which, 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 243 
 
 following the guidance of a portion of Scripture, an 
 assembly of Christians, already instructed in the 
 elements of religion, is confirmed in knowledge or 
 roused to zeal in godliness." This, which he terms 
 " edification," addresses both the intellect and the 
 will, and is the sole aim of preaching. It follows 
 that whatever is not for edification should be left 
 out, and that whatever is serviceable for edification 
 should be carefully adapted to the hearers. This 
 leads to the question of form, and Mosheim lays 
 down these rules : — that it should be in keeping 
 with the dignity and importance of the subject ; 
 that it should be lively and have as much ornament 
 as does not interfere with clearness ; and that the 
 language should, as far as possible, be that which is 
 used in ordinary life among cultivated people. 
 
 Mosheim acted on these rules, and his popularity His own 
 was of a corresponding character. His audiences, ^'^^^'^ ""^* 
 which were often so large that soldiers were required 
 to keep order, were composed not so much of the 
 masses as of the middle and upper ranks. He was 
 the preacher of the educated and the enlightened ; 
 his style and manner were novel in the German 
 pulpit, and awakened the greatest admiration. 
 
 It will be seen that this is widely different from Different from 
 the preaching of the Pietists. The special points ^^^ ^'^^'''^' 
 
244 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of difference are these : — (i) His object is edifica- 
 tion, not conversion. (2) He takes a portion of 
 Scripture for guidance (Anleitung), not for the 
 purpose of ascertaining its meaning and enforcing 
 it. (3) Further, he deliberately leaves out what is 
 not for edification — a method which often comes 
 to mean that preachers omit doctrines which they 
 dislike. (4) There is also a difference in the 
 importance which he attaches to culture, form, and 
 language. 
 
 We may remark here that, while special atten- 
 tion to form is frequently a sign of a preacher's 
 conscious divergence from the opinions or senti- 
 ments of his audience, preachers who are in full 
 sympathy with the popular doctrine of their time 
 generally pay less attention to form. This should 
 not be so. We should be as careful of the form of 
 our discourses when we agree with our hearers as 
 when we differ from them. 
 
 On the whole, however, the preaching of Mosheim 
 was orthodox, although showing a measured moder- 
 ation of feeling and a tendency to tone down or 
 avoid some Bible doctrines. 
 Rise of This brings us to the commencement of the age 
 
 of lUuminism, which came in like a flood. There 
 were influences now at work unknown in the 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 245 
 
 previous century.* In Scotland, Hume was 
 writing his Essay against miracles, and Blair was 
 the great preacher. In England, it was the age of 
 the deists who followed Tillotson, the English 
 Mosheim ; and the old Presbyterian church of 
 Howe, Baxter, and Henry was passing along the 
 road of culture and progress, to drop one after 
 another of the Christian doctrines, till it became 
 the church of Taylor of Norwich, Price, and 
 Priestley, and the sparse Unitarianism of our day. 
 In France, Voltaire had taken the place of Pascal 
 and Bossuet, and, worse than Voltaire, the materi- 
 alism of the Encyclopaedists was sowing the seeds , 
 of the Revolution. 
 
 The deism of England and the materialism of Its theology. 
 France invaded Germany, and found the soil more 
 than half prepared. Wolf, the successor of 
 Ixibnitz in philosophy, but much his inferior every 
 way, had set up his system, which was, that what- 
 ever could not be demonstrated could not be 
 believed, being at best only a probability or a 
 possibility. Everything in heaven and on earth and 
 in the water under the earth was bound to stand 
 and explain itself to the enlightenment of the age. 
 The theology of the Illuminism was in harmony 
 * See Rothe's Geschichte, section 105. 
 
246 LECTURES ON' PREACHING. 
 
 with Wolf's philosophy. It would have neither 
 the doctrine of the dogmatists nor the feeling of 
 the Pietists, but a "religion of common-sense." 
 At first the Illuminists did not attack the authority 
 of the Bible, but presented a number of ingenious 
 explanations of its statements. The burning bush 
 of Moses was the sun shining on a desert shrub 
 covered with drops of dew. The angels at 
 Bethlehem were the aurora borealis, the fancy of 
 the shepherds having supplied the rest of the 
 narrative. The cures of the sick by Christ were 
 effected by animal magnetism. When He walked 
 on the sea, He was only on the shore, but seen 
 through the morning mist. . His teaching about 
 Satan and about the Old Testament prophecies was 
 an accommodation to the prejudices of the Jews. 
 His recorded resurrection is to be accounted for 
 by the supposition either that He was not dead or 
 that His disciples were under a hallucination. 
 So they plodded through the Bible, laboriously 
 ejecting everything that did not agree with 
 their "common-sense," till a more advanced class 
 arose who said that it required more faith to 
 believe their explanations than to believe the Bible 
 as it stands. But this belongs to a subsequent 
 period. 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUmlNISM. ia:i 
 
 The preaching of this period was different in Preaching ol 
 different parts of Germany.* In some places, as in 
 Wurtemberg, the country of Bengel. and also 
 around Elberfeld and Bremen, the old Pietism 
 held its ground, sharing only in the improvement 
 of form to which Mosheim had given an impulse. 
 But in places where Illuminism prevailed the 
 matter of the sermons was entirely changed. 
 Some preachers, unable to find in the Bible, as they 
 read it, topics of sufficient interest, gave lectures 
 upon economical or social subjects, such as agri- 
 culture, vaccination, and the making of wills, — or 
 upon subjects taken from the natural sciences, such 
 as the structure of fishes and birds. Most of this 
 school, however, a very numerous one, took to 
 " moral preaching." Sometimes they changed the 
 language of the Bible, in order to make it, as they 
 said, more rational. For conversion or regenera- 
 tion, they spoke of amendment of life ; for justifica- 
 tion, of forgiveness on condition of repentance ; for 
 the Holy Spirit, of the exercise of the higher 
 reason ; for the atonement of Christ, of the spirit 
 of sacrifice which He has taught us by His 
 example, and so on. Sermons in our day 
 
 * See Schuler's Geschichte der Verdnderungen des Ge- 
 schtnacks im Predigen. 
 
248 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 preached and published with blast of trumpet 
 as being new and up to the coming time, may 
 find their parallel in volumes on which the dust of 
 a hundred years has gathered. I have waded 
 through three thick octavo volumes of sermons 
 by the most noted preachers of the period, and 
 other three volumes containing a history of the 
 change in German preaching by a man who hailed 
 the advent of rationalism as the dawn of a new 
 day, and I had to cut the pages of the books from 
 the first to the last. Yet some few men — the best 
 of the school — may be briefly mentioned. 
 J. J. Spalding, Johann Joachim Spalding was born in Pomerania 
 1714-1804. j,-) 1714^ and died in 1804. He was a very diligent 
 student and minister, and wrote some books that 
 attained great popularity. His first, The Destiny 
 of Man, went through many editions, and was 
 translated into French. He says of it very 
 modestly that it made an impression merely 
 because he had written it in a simple, straight- 
 forward style, and that there were many who could 
 do far better if they would give up the attempt to 
 be fine and clever. In another work, on The 
 Utility of the Office of the Preacher, he seeks to 
 present his subject in such a light as to save the 
 ministry from the attacks made on it by the infi- 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 249 
 
 dclity of the day. He is evidently very sincere 
 and earnest, but the ground he takes shows the 
 character of the time. After a strong appeal to 
 preachers to consider their obligation to instruct 
 and improve those who are entrusted to them, he 
 discusses how this may be done. Resting upon 
 the distinction, of which we hear a great deal at 
 present, between religion and theology, he insists 
 that a preacher is to teach not theology but 
 religion. He is to leave out metaphysical doctrines, 
 as unintelligible to common people, and indeed 
 useless in any case ; among these he reckons the 
 doctrine of the Trinity, the two natures in Christ, 
 the atonement, the depravity of man by nature, 
 and the power of faith without works. He advises 
 the preacher to confine himself to the teaching and 
 example of Christ, and to be most earnest and 
 minute in impressing on men all their relative and 
 social duties. 
 
 Spalding's books excited considerable contro- 
 versy. The celebrated scholar, Ernesti, who took 
 part in it, declared that no ordinary man with 
 Spalding's views could honestly baptise children 
 in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or 
 could read much of the Isew Testament with an> 
 ntelligence. Spalding's first sphere of labour was 
 
250 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 in the country, where he was a most diligent 
 
 pastor, but could not gain the sympathy of his 
 
 hearers, who still clung to the old Bible doctrines. 
 
 He was removed to Berlin in 1764, where his 
 
 simple natural style, and his amiable, upright 
 
 character made him a great favourite. He was 
 
 certainly one of the best rationalists of that 
 
 generation, though the atmosphere which he 
 
 breathed, and his easy accommodating nature, 
 
 kept him from those deeper views of Christian 
 
 truth which since then have penetrated Germany.* 
 
 Zollikofer, Gcorg Joacliim Zollikofer was born at St. Gall 
 
 t/jo-iy • jj-, Switzerland in 1730, and died at Leipzig in 
 
 1788, having been minister there for thirty years. 
 
 He was considered the most eloquent German 
 
 preacher of his day, and was called " the Cicero of 
 
 the pulpit." On his monument at Leipzig one 
 
 reads : " He lives on here by his teaching, and he 
 
 lives on there in the sphere of souls, where Socrates 
 
 and Jesus live." It may be inferred from this that 
 
 he did not belong to the stock of Luther or 
 
 Spener, of Bengel or Zinzendorf. He was the 
 
 * Spalding's position is illustrated by the fact that besides 
 translating Butler's A?iaIogy into German, he translated 
 several professedly deistical books both from French and 
 from English, such as The Prmciples of Deism fairly stated. 
 A sketch of one of his sermons will be found on page 260. 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 251 
 
 child of his time, and his preaching was of forti- 
 tude and tolerance and charit}', as the way to God 
 which Jesus has opened up by His teaching and 
 example. His subjects are such as these — dili- 
 gence, patriotism, national faults, and moderation ; 
 and his method is entirely topical. The general 
 fault of Zollikofer, and indeed of most of the 
 preachers of the time, is that the subject is turned 
 away from its context and connection, and the text 
 becomes little more than a motto. The sermon on 
 moderation, e.g., is based upon i Peter iv. 7, 
 " But the end of all things is at hand ; be ye there- 
 fore sober, and watch unto prayer." Nothing is 
 said in the sermon of the reason for moderation — 
 " the end of all things is at hand ; " nor of the 
 means — "watch unto prayer." The deepest cur- 
 rents and springs of Christian life had escaped his 
 view. With those serious deductions, it may be 
 said that his sermons, which have been printed in 
 fifteen volumes, are remarkable for their knowledge 
 of human nature, for the skill displayed in what 
 the French call " invention," or the raising of 
 topics, and for the exactness and force of their 
 expression. When one reads that the delivery of 
 them corresponded with their form, and was indeed 
 faultless, it is easy to understand his great popu- 
 
252 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 larlty. The language of James was commonly 
 applied to him — the perfect man who never 
 offended in a word.* 
 Reinhard, The last of wliom we shall speak in connection 
 
 1753-1812. ^yjj.jj ^.j^g period of Illuminism is Franz Volkmar 
 Reinhard. It is perhaps scarcely fair to class him 
 with the Illuminists, for he strove very hard to 
 resist their influence, and had a longing after 
 better times than those in which he lived ; but he 
 had not the strength of deep conviction that makes 
 a Luther and a Spener, and so he failed to rise to 
 the first rank. Nevertheless, such a high estimate 
 was set on his sermons that thirty-nine volumes of 
 them have been printed, and if you were to 
 ask any ordinary German to name the greatest 
 preacher since the time of Luther, in nine cases 
 out of ten the answer would be Reinhard. Not 
 that his sermons are now read, but such is his 
 fame. 
 
 Reinhard was born in the Ober-Pfalz in 1753, 
 and died in 18 12. The great scene of his activity 
 was Dresden, where he was Chief-preacher, though 
 he filled Germany with his renown, and also with 
 his labours. Instead of following his career, which 
 from the very beginning of his studies excited 
 •A sketch of one of his sermons will be found on page 260, 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 253 
 
 attention, and raised the highest hopes of him, it 
 may be more useful to show the character of his 
 preaching, and to give some of his own thoughts 
 about sermons. 
 
 There can be no doubt that he yielded, so far, His posUIoa 
 to the influence of his age, and that his views of 
 Gospel truth want the thoroughness of statement 
 and the clear ring which distinguished the preachers 
 of the Reformation, and which we shall also find 
 in later German preachers. His treatment of duty, 
 the favourite theme of his time, is not baptised as 
 it should be in the doctrine of the Cross of Christ. 
 There is a tendency to furl the banner, and he 
 sometimes half draws the sword from the scabbard ; 
 none the less he is a decided supernaturalist, 
 has a portion of the warmth of the old Pietism, 
 and laments and struggles against the coldness 
 and the secular spirit of the time. He preaches 
 the doctrine of the free grace of God in Christ. 
 One extract will show this, and will be at the same 
 time an example of his manner : — 
 
 " It is not to be denied, my brethren, that there Illustrated. 
 are moments when the awak^xicd conscience speaks 
 with a remorseless claim ; when it shows us our 
 sins in all their magnitude ; when it makes us feel 
 with deep conviction and with humbling power 
 
254 LECTURES QN PREACHING. 
 
 the want of any good in us ; when our guilt before 
 God, and the punishment we deserve, are set before 
 us in a light that strikes us to the ground and 
 leaves us in a condition the most helpless. Woe, 
 then, to the sinner who feels himself so convicted, 
 so condemned, so agonised, if he does not know 
 the hope of the Gospel, if it has not been pro- 
 claimed to him that we are justified freely by His 
 grace through the redemption that is in Christ 
 Jesus ! Happy then all who know this Gospel 
 and hope in it ! They will grieve for their sins, but 
 not despair ; they will humble themselves before 
 God, but look up to Him with trust ; they will 
 seek to be holy as He is holy, and yet have no 
 confidence in their attainments. Their desire will 
 be to be accepted in the beloved, and to fall asleep 
 at last, calm and comforted, on the bosom of a 
 mercy that gives us everything with Christ. And 
 so grace, mercy, and peace be with all who love 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen." 
 
 In a sermon to those who are wounded in con- 
 science, he says : — 
 
 " You are miserable, miserable indeed, who feel 
 
 .the stings of a wounded conscience ; nothing on 
 
 earth can ease your pain ; no abundance of worldly 
 
 wealth, no brightness of power and honour, no 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 255 
 
 intoxication of pleasure will help you. What the 
 world offers becomes ever more distasteful, and 
 fills you at last with loathing ; but I rejoice the 
 more to lead you to the fountain of healing which 
 is opened in the grace of God through Christ, 
 since for you, specially for you, this fountain 
 stands open. For you the comfort of the Gospel 
 is pre-eminently ordained. Well for you that you 
 feel your guilt, that your conscience is awakened 
 and shows you your need, that with a recoil of 
 terror you perceive how great is your danger and 
 how little you can do in self-help. The pain you 
 feel is salutary. You are troubled, as the apostle 
 says, 'after a godly sort,' and this godly sorrow 
 works repentance which needs not to be repented 
 of Only remain by this repentance. You must 
 feel that in God's sight no flesh can be justified, 
 and that it is impossible for you to pay the debt 
 you have incurred. Be willing to be justified with- 
 out merit by His grace. Grasp and take home 
 the assurance of this word, * He that spared not 
 His own Son ;' for so it is, -ny brethren, God him- 
 self must declare whether after so many sins He 
 will be gracious, and He alone has the right to 
 settle the conditions under which He will forgive. 
 He himself has declared and made known 
 
2S6 LECTURES O.V PREACHING. 
 
 the order to which every sinner must submit. 
 Therefore praise God for His love, that Christ 
 died for us when we were sinners, and we shall 
 be saved from wrath when we are justified through 
 His blood. Look on the death of Jesus as an 
 atonement for sin. Lay hold by faith of God's 
 pardon through Him, and live no more to sin, but 
 to Him who died for you and rose again." 
 
 Nothing seems to be wanting here as a state- 
 ment of the way of pardon, and yet one feels that 
 it is not the tone of Luther and Spener. It is not 
 merely that it is less direct, more rhetorical, and 
 redundant, but that he presents the Gospel as 
 working more in the way of doctrine, and less in 
 the way of life. There is an erroneous method of 
 preaching Christ in us and not for us ; but there 
 is also an erroneous method of preaching Christ 
 for us and not in us, converting and quickening us 
 by His Holy Spirit. Strange, also, as it may seem 
 after the passage we have read, Reinhard does not 
 appear to have held the true and proper divinity 
 of the Saviour. Jesus was, he said, in the most 
 intimate union with God, but not himself very God. 
 This creates a weakness in the centre of his preach- 
 ing, which kept him from bringing the deliverance 
 which his time needed. He seems at seasons to 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLU MINIS M. 257 
 
 have felt what was wanting, but the chill and the 
 mist by which he was surrounded benumbed 
 and dimmed his vision. His sermons, too, have in 
 their form a kind of mannerism and monotony 
 that would make the reading of many of them a 
 great burden. They aim at a logical precision 
 in the divisions, which gives them a stiff and 
 scholastic air, and which was relieved only by the 
 free and graceful delivery to which he attained. 
 
 He has left us a very interesting paper explain- His idea of 
 ing his ideas of preaching, and his own mode of ^'^^'' "^^' 
 preparation for the pulpit. He worked out each 
 sermon with the greatest care. First he sketched 
 a scheme in which the chief thoughts were out- 
 lined in logical order, and on this he set great 
 value, both for its own sake and as an aid to his 
 memory. His memory for words was very weak, 
 and, despite all the exercise he gave it, did not 
 improve. But he had a memory for the logical 
 outline, and he constructed his discourse accord- 
 ingly, filling up the parts of the plan as a painter 
 might do with a sketch. The committing of the 
 sermon was to him the most disagreeable part of 
 his work. But he did not shirk it. Beginning on 
 Monday, he committed a section every morning, 
 so that on the Saturday the whole sermon was 
 
258 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 fast and firm. While he was committing one thus 
 piecemeal, he was working out another, and by 
 the time he had the first committed, the second 
 was ready in his desk. The sermon, in his view, is 
 a piece of art, to which, as to its outer form, both 
 logic and rhetoric must contribute, but logic is the 
 more important Its thoughts must come up in 
 regular order, group themselves in proportion, and 
 lead to proper conclusions. The language should 
 be suited to this, simple, clear, pointed. The 
 preacher must never forget that he is above all 
 a teacher ; he who makes it his chief aim to 
 awaken and move robs his office of much of its 
 value, for if we are to reach the heart it must be 
 through the understanding.* 
 Reinhard and Reinhard was an able, conscientious, and in 
 fi-n!'!!]! '^^^' niany respects a useful man, but he stood as far 
 distant from the school of Spener as it was 
 possible for one to stand who was not a ration- 
 alist. Spener's element was feeling ; Reinhard's, 
 the understanding. With Spener, form was dis- 
 regarded ; with Reinhard, all must be according 
 to the logic of the schools. With Spener, the 
 
 * A sketch of one of his sermons will be found on page 
 262 ; an extract from his Gestandnisse is given in Note L ou 
 page 286. 
 
 trasted. 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 259 
 
 great aim was to comfort and move ; with Rein- 
 hard, it was to fill and convince the reason. We 
 may surely hold that there is a method by which 
 these may be united ; but Spener's idea must in 
 any case form our basis. Men must live before 
 they learn. The order is — first conversion, then 
 edification. In Him is life, and the life is the 
 light of men ; only if we have life, do we, through 
 the truth spoken in love, grow up unto Him in »U 
 things which is the head, even Christ 
 
a6o LECTURES ON PREACHING, 
 
 Note I, see page 250. 
 
 Sketch of a Sermon by Spalding. 
 
 Luke ii. 33-40 — Simeon and Anna in the Temple. 
 
 The whole life of a Christian can, and should be, the 
 service of God. 
 
 I. The whole life can be divine service, for — 
 
 1. Every benevolent deed in God's name is service. 
 
 2. The common work of life, with the feeling of 
 
 religion, is service. 
 
 3. The pleasures of life, when innocent and God- 
 
 grateful, are service. 
 II. Our whole life should be divine service, for — 
 
 1. All our life belongs to God, as its Author and 
 
 Owner. 
 
 2. All our life may thus be made true happiness. 
 The division of this sermon is natural : the defect, as 
 
 concerns substance, is want of depth and grasp. The 
 choice of subject illustrates the pericopic system, for the 
 portion came round in regular course and only a part is 
 selected, that there may be variety another year. 
 
 Note J, see page 252. 
 
 Sketch of a Sermon by Zollikofer. 
 
 Proverbs iii. 21, 22 — "Keep sound wisdom and discretion; 
 so shall they be life unto thy soul." 
 
 The difference between what happens (Gliick) and what 
 makes happy (Gliickseligkeit). 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 261 
 
 Definition: "What happens "is all the circumstances and 
 changes that affect our position in the world ; what makes 
 happy is what gives satisfaction and peace. 
 
 I. Show the difference between what happens and what 
 makes happy. 
 
 1. What happens is without, what makes happy is 
 
 within. 
 
 2. What happens is not in our control, what makes 
 
 happy is. 
 
 3. What happens is passing, what makes happv is 
 
 abiding. 
 
 4. What happens has a limit, what makes happy is 
 
 boundless. 
 
 5. What happens can be only a means, what makes 
 
 happy is an end. 
 II. Show the importance of attending to this distinction. 
 
 1. Every one cannot have good hap^ every one can 
 
 have true happiness. 
 
 2. A man is not happy through what happens to 
 
 him, and he is not unhappy through what does 
 not happen. 
 
 3. To think, not of what may happen, but of what 
 
 makes happy is the way to all true wisdom, 
 genius, virtue, and lasting power. 
 This plan is very ingenious and clever, but the second 
 head is a repetition of the first, and would have been better 
 as a brief application. In regard to the substance, what 
 makes truly happy is never stated. We are told things 
 about it, not what it is. The sermon is introduced by a 
 prayer which begins, " God, &c.," and which might be taken 
 for a thesis, were it not in the second person singular. 
 
262 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note K, see page 258. 
 
 Sketch of a Sermon by Reinhard. 
 
 Phil. lii. 8 — " Yea doubtless, and I count all things 
 but loss," &c. 
 
 Theme: The feeling that to be a Christian is to have a 
 'higher happiness. 
 
 I. Description of the feeling. 
 
 1. It does not renounce all other kinds of happiness. 
 
 2. It is superior to them all. 
 
 3. It controls the whole character. 
 II. Justify this feeling. 
 
 1. It is acceptable to God. 
 
 2. It is useful to the world. 
 
 3. It is advantageous for time and eternity. 
 III. Apply this so as to — 
 
 1. Judge the state of our hearts (unsers sittlichen 
 
 Zustandes). 
 
 2. Regulate our conduct. 
 
 3. Seek the welfare of our fatherland. 
 
 He rose to a higher style than this in later life, as we have 
 shown. This is a specimen of his moderate tone. The 
 marrow of the text is not reached — the excellency of the 
 knowledge that I may win Christ and be found in Him. He 
 is guided by the usefulness (Nutzbarkeit) of religion. 
 
 Professor Palmer, in his article in Herzog, gives instances 
 of the way in which Illuminism weakened his language. He 
 covers plain Bible language with words about conditions, 
 and circumstances, and relations, and hypotheses, and terms 
 drawn from the Wolfian school, that look as if, to use 
 Milton's words, "he thought our religion had been guilty 
 of the first trespass, and needed fine rounded phrases to 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE ILLUMINISM. 263 
 
 cover its nakedness ; " e.g., he defines saving faith to be reli- 
 ance on the death of Jesus and acquiescence in this arrange- 
 ment on the part of God. Instead of saying that there is no 
 condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus, he says that 
 " God remits to them the unpleasant conditions that are 
 suspended over them in a future life." There are certain 
 words that act as non-conductors, and these are examples 
 of theia. 
 
LECTURE XV. 
 
 HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 
 
 Extent and 
 influence of 
 lUuminism. 
 
 n^HE Illuminism, which was the first period of 
 ■'■ decline in evangelical faith, lasted from about 
 1750 to the early part of the present century, 
 extending steadily till it had taken possession of 
 the greater number of the pulpits and professors' 
 chairs.* There were degrees in its influence. In 
 a few places evangelical warmth remained, in 
 others there was orthodoxy without life — a form of 
 sound words. But as a rule it transformed Christ- 
 ianity into a system of morality mixed often with 
 the secular topics of the day. The result was not 
 such as to encourage those who think that in our 
 day preaching of a similar kind will gain the ear of 
 the masses. No doubt some men of rhetorical 
 power drew crowds to listen to them, as crowds 
 
 * This is well illustrated in Reinhard's Gestdndnisse. 
 extract will be found in Note L on page 286. 
 264 
 
 An 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 265 
 
 will gather to any intellectual display ; but in no 
 generation are the majority of preachers great 
 orators, and when the people found the pulpit 
 occupied with bare moralities and cold secularism, 
 they gradually fell away from church attendance, 
 discovering that there was more to interest them 
 elsewhere — in the fields, in art galleries, and even 
 in beer-gardens. The change was, as we have said, 
 gradual, for men were held for a while by old habits, 
 and the Illuminist preaching had a kind of novelty 
 at first, so that the rationalists deceived themselves, 
 and boasted in some places of the large congrega- 
 tions which listened with curiosity to their reckless 
 speculations or their profane sensationalism. But 
 when the heart was not met nor the spirit stirred, a 
 great weariness began to grow, and the churches 
 became more and more empty, till only some 
 women and a few old people were to be seen in 
 them. And so it remains in many parts of 
 Germany to this day ; for, though the professors* 
 chairs and the pulpits have now more faith in 
 them, it takes a long time and much hard and 
 earnest work to reclaim the masses from indiffer- 
 ence. It is easy to slip down — 
 
 Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, 
 Hoc opus, hie labor est. 
 
266 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Unchecked Had it been in our country, denominations 
 
 bydenomina- ^^^j^ ^^^^ 1^^^^^ formed outside the national 
 tiona. 
 
 church, and these would have kept up life and 
 
 ultimately quickened the older church by their 
 
 example and their influence. But this way was 
 
 not open to the Germans. As I indicated in a 
 
 recent lecture, they had a great fear of what they 
 
 called Separatism, and the Government would not 
 
 at that time have permitted it. 
 
 Hidden life. What remained, then, was for life to draw 
 together where it was possible within the national 
 church, and I shall turn attention in this lecture to 
 some cases where this occurred — to some watch- 
 men of the night, or waiters for the morning, as we 
 may call them ; wells of water they were to those 
 around them in this march of the German church 
 through the dry wilderness. 
 
 Oetingerand They were, as we have said, of different kinds. 
 In Wiirtemberg there was a scholar of Bengel, 
 Oetinger, who died in 1782 at the age of eighty, 
 and one of his scholars, Wizenmann, who had a 
 brief career. Both of these had and still have 
 influence with a certain class of minds in Germany. 
 Oetinger belonged to the theosophist school, and 
 was in his deepest nature opposed to the rational- 
 ism of the time. 
 
 Wizenmann. 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 267 
 
 There was Jung-Stilling, who was a professor, Stilling, 
 first at Heidelberg and afterwards at Marburg. '74o-i i;- 
 In his later years he lived in the palace of the 
 Elector Palatine, at Carlsruhe, as Court-counsellor 
 or spiritual adviser. He was a man of remarkable 
 but eccentric genius, with a gift of insight that gave 
 him the reputation of a seer, and carried him at 
 times into extravagances. He had correspondence 
 all over Germany with those who were called " the 
 quiet in the land," the evangelical believers in that 
 time of noisy unbelief; and he died, worn out with 
 labour, with the words, " Lord, cut the thread and 
 give me rest." 
 
 There was Lavater of Zurich^ a Swiss pastor. Lavater, 
 He is known to many only by his theories and '^^ii ^^ 
 researches in physiognomy ; but apart from, or 
 rather notwithstanding these, he was one of the 
 most remarkable men of his time. He was an 
 intimate friend of Goethe, Herder, and other 
 notables ; beloved and revered by them for the 
 simplicity and loftiness of his nature, and for the 
 charity and boldness with which he confessed the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, whom most of them would 
 not receive. His nature had such a thirst for the 
 divine that Goethe compared him to " a dry plant 
 to which the least drop of the feeling of God's 
 
268 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 own presence brought more joy than other men 
 have in the possession of all the good things 
 God can give with His hand." His most charac- 
 teristic book is Pontius Pilate, written on the 
 question : What is truth ? He has poured all 
 his heart into it ; indeed he said of it, " that 
 book is myself; he that hates it hates me, he 
 that loves it loves me ; " and it was in fact 
 received with scorn on the one side, and with deep 
 affection on the other. He died from a treacherous 
 blow dealt by a French soldier at the taking of 
 Zurich. When the assassin was brought before 
 him, he refused to identify him, and exclaimed as 
 he departed, " Pray, pray ! " The longing of his 
 nature is expressed in his beatitude, " Blessed are 
 the home-sick, for they shall reach home." Yet 
 in that age there was no more uncompromising 
 and heroic confessor of Christ. 
 
 There were several others of the same school, 
 chiefly in South Germany, all marked by a spirit of 
 warm mysticism, with that tone of love to Christ as 
 a personal friend which we find in the letters of 
 Samuel Rutherford and in Halyburton. This spirit 
 seems to belong not merely to particular tempera- 
 ments, but to special times, when the very influ- 
 ences which chill some natures call out in others 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 269 
 
 the resisting warmth of love unto death. While 
 
 we have a Judas and a Peter at the cross, we have 
 
 also a John. There are, however, two circles of Two drcles- 
 
 which we may speak specially, since with each of 
 
 them a remarkable man is connected. 
 
 The first was at Munster in Westphalia. In the {a) At 
 neighbourhood of that town the Princess Galitzin represented 
 had her seat, and it became the resort of Germans L>y— 
 who were interested in general literature, but 
 specially of those who still were concerned for 
 religion. Most of them were Protestants, although 
 the Princess was a Roman Catholic. At that par- 
 ticular time Romanism was not ultramontane, the 
 Jesuits were in discredit, and the tone of Roman 
 Catholic devotion was that of F^nelon or Pascal. 
 The Princess was a woman of genius and of high 
 accomplishments. She had been one of the gayest 
 of a gay circle, when the hollowness of the prevail- 
 ing life impressed her, and she turned another 
 way. While attracted by all questions that touch 
 the mind and soul, by literature, art, philosophy, 
 she was most frequently engrossed with religious 
 topics, which were to her of the deepest personal 
 moment. 
 
 In her doubts she found special aid from Hamann, 
 Johann Georg Hamann, whose name constantly ^'^°'^' 
 
270 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 recurs in the history of the thought of that day. 
 He was not a minister nor a priest, nor did he 
 make any marked profession of behef, but he had 
 a powerful rehgious influence over all who came 
 into contact with him. Similarly, although he 
 neither founded a system of philosophy, nor wrote 
 any epoch-making bo3k, his conversation and his 
 occasional writings filled men like Jacobi and 
 Goethe with the highest admiration of his acuteness 
 and depth and force of intellect. The name by 
 which he was known among them, was Der Magus 
 aus dem Norden, the Wise Man of the North.* 
 His career. There was something of romance in the changes 
 and struggles of his life. He was born in 1730 at 
 Konigsberg, in East Prussia, the country of Coper- 
 nicus and Kant and Herder. The son of religious 
 parents in humble life, he was driven from place to 
 place till he reached London. There he fell into 
 sin and dissipation, had to seek support by playing 
 on the lute, and was at last struck down by disease. 
 His distress led him to study the Bible as he had 
 never done before, and he persevered in reading it 
 till he became a new man. Having found in it a 
 cure for his own sin, he learned that it supplied 
 a test of all human knowledge and philosophy. 
 * Oetinger was known as the Wise Man of the South. 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 271 
 
 Returning to Germany, he set himself with wonder- 
 ful energy to complete and extend the education 
 he had begun in youth, and erelong he proved him- 
 self equal to the first thinkers of his time, and 
 superior in depth to its greatest theologians. He 
 could not rest in the cold deism of Mendelssohn ; 
 he needed a stronger positive basis than the sub- 
 jective faith of Jacobi ; the Stoicism of Kant had 
 in it neither enough of humanity nor enough of 
 divinity for him ; and he regarded the pretentious 
 and shallow Illuminism of the day with a dislike 
 that bordered on hatred and contempt. He had a 
 strong originality that made room for him wher- 
 ever he went, and when he appeared in the circle 
 of the Princess Galitzin he was its presiding power. 
 He died suddenly, when on a visit there, at the age 
 of fifty-eight, and was buried in her garden with 
 the inscription on his tomb : " We preach Christ 
 crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the 
 Greeks foolishness." He was perhaps the first to 
 strike an effectual blow at that form of the 
 Illuminism which is known generally as "the flat 
 rationalism of Germany." 
 
 A few extracts from his writings will show his His attitude 
 attitude and style :— ^'^^ style. 
 
 "Our bodies could more easily live without 
 
272 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 heart and head than can our souls without Christ 
 He is the head of our nature and all our powers, 
 and He is the spring of a movement which can no 
 more stand still in a Christian than the pulse can 
 stop in a living body. The Christian alone is 
 spiritually living, because he lives with God and in 
 God, and this implies that he lives also for God." 
 
 " Of all the religious parties which profess to 
 show the way to heaven, and to communion with 
 the Being of beings, we Christians should be the 
 most miserable if the foundations of our faith 
 stood on the shifting sand of the fashionable 
 critical learning. No ; the theory of the true religion 
 is so fitted to every child of man, so capable of 
 being woven into the essence of his soul's life, 
 that it is too high for the most daring heaven- 
 storming giant to reach it, and too deep for the 
 most subtle word-critic to undermine it." 
 
 " All the miracles of Holy Scripture take place 
 again in our souls. The Holy Scripture should be 
 our grammar, our dictionary, out of which all the 
 modes of Christian speech should grow. Every 
 mode of thinking that visits the world of fashion, 
 every slight change of feeling, colours ordinary 
 language. Surely the way of Christians (call them 
 a sect if you will) must give them a new tongue 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN 7 HE ILLUMINISM. 273 
 
 and speech. The language used in the holy city 
 should betray the genealogy and fatherland of its 
 citizens, and show that they, Trapa <f)v<Tiv, contrary 
 to nature, have been grafted on the heavenly oliv^e 
 tree. If a preacher would be edifying, his Galilean 
 dialect must strike the ear. Though the Ishmael- 
 ites of our times make sport of it, our discourse 
 should sparkle with that dew of the morning in 
 which the Sun of Righteousness was first reflected. 
 The speech as well as the doctrine of the pulpit 
 should furnish the treasures of the East, where lies 
 the cradle of our race and our religion." 
 
 " Bengel has a happy expression, Te totum 
 applica ad textum : rem totain applica ad te, apply 
 thyself wholly to the text : apply the matter of it 
 wholly to thyself But this is hysteron proteron, 
 the first should be the last. The more the 
 Christian realises that, in this book, the matter 
 concerns himself, the more will his care be be- 
 stowed on the letter of it The criticism of the 
 letter may be the pedagogue to Christ, but Christ 
 takes the place of the pedagogue. The spiritual 
 man receives a power of judgment which is surer 
 than all the introductorj^ rules of grammar or logic." 
 
 "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of pro- 
 phecy ; and the first miracle in which the majesty 
 
874 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of His incarnation shows itself is that in which He 
 changes the books of the first covenant into good 
 old wine, a miracle which passes the skill of the 
 critical master of the feast, but is known to lesser 
 men who draw the wine. Read, says the African 
 Father, the prophetical books without Christ, what 
 wilt thou find more insipid and empty? Put Him 
 into them, not only will they be pleasant to the 
 taste, they will fill thee to the full." 
 
 "The history of the Jewish people has always 
 been for me the only universal history, and that 
 nation the image, not only of Christendom but of 
 the whole human race. Every Jew I look on is to 
 me the greatest of all the wonders of God's provi- 
 dence, greater than Noah's ark or Lot's wife or 
 Moses' burning bush." 
 
 "Nature is a book, an epistle, a parable, that 
 tells its meaning by signs. Granted we know all 
 the letters and can put them into syllables and 
 words, we must know the language ; physical 
 science gives only the ABC. I trust the visible, 
 the material, in nature, as I trust the dial-plate 
 and hands of a watch ; but the secret wisdom lies 
 behind the dial-plate, in springs and wheels and 
 artist's skill." 
 
 " Do you know, dear friend, why Job received 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 275 
 
 sheep and camels, oxen and asses, in double 
 number, but not his children ? This I have read 
 in an old book is a proof that his lost children 
 were alive, and that the dead are still counted 
 before God; and this before it occurred to the 
 Phaedos to give us metaphysical proof for what 
 is embedded in the majestic promises of the 
 Scripture."* 
 
 "I love strong thinking, gentle dealing." "The 
 door to the highest university is death." " Sorrow 
 in the world is the one proof that we are not at 
 home in it. If wc wanted nothing, we should be 
 no better than the heathen, or than the philosophers 
 who have fallen in love with dead matter. This 
 holy home-sickness is the salt with which the 
 sacrifice is kept from the corruption of the present 
 time. Thus the prince of this world, dark as he 
 looks, is the diaconus, the servant of the blessed 
 God; over the church-yards, as over the flood, there 
 hovers the raven, but after it the dove." " True 
 knowledge and love of one's self is the measure of 
 one's knowledge and love of neighbours." " So 
 long as we believe on Him who thus loves men, 
 we shall be in no danger of hating them." 
 
 * This is also found in Matthew Henry in loco; whether 
 he borrowed it or not, it is hard to say. 
 
276 LECTURES ON PREACHING, 
 
 We pass now to another school of believing 
 Hamburg, "^^"j which had its centre at Hamburg. The chief 
 represented by figure in it was Matthias Claudius, a man whose 
 
 M. Claudius, ... 1111 r t 1 • 
 
 1740-1815. attitude m some respects resembled that of Jacobi. 
 They differed, however, in this, that while Jacobi 
 found the voice of God in the receptive feeling of 
 the soul which drew material from outer know- 
 ledge and assimilated it, making every man his 
 own Bible, Claudius rested on God's revealed Word, 
 which verifies itself to the soul as a divine revela- 
 tion; and proves its own truth, both as a whole and 
 in its parts, the more it is studied. He differed 
 from Stilling and Lavater in that he had less of 
 the mystic, and from Hamann in that he did not 
 approach Christian truth so much on the philo- 
 sophical side as on that of the old Pietist and 
 Puritan, while he possessed modern culture. He 
 had a curious mixture of clear common-sense and 
 deep pathetic feeling, of true humour edged at 
 times with sarcasm, and of a strong faith that 
 infused itself with genial warmth into his life, and 
 carried him safe and unhurt through the cold scorn 
 of rationalism. 
 His life. He was born in Holstein in 1740, and studied 
 
 at Jena. He was afterwards engaged in business 
 at Hamburg, but he kept up acquaintance with art, 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 277 
 
 with literature, and, above all, with religious ques- 
 tions throughout his long life. He died in cheerful 
 acquiescence with the will of God, in the house of 
 Perthes, the famous bookseller, who was his son-in- 
 law. In the Life of Perthes, which gives a most 
 interesting picture of the state of Germany during 
 that half century, there are many references to 
 Claudius, including a beautiful description of his 
 quiet home, where, with his family, he read classi- 
 cal and English literature, cultivated music and 
 poetry, being himself a poet, and blended the 
 earthly with the heavenly, without an effort and in 
 perfect harmony. Perthes says : " I found him full 
 of happy humour, as did Ewald, the zealous 
 adherent of the Illuminism, who expected to find 
 him a dark and bitter fanatic. But his faith of 
 reconciliation with God was not a mere doctrine, 
 but a condition of the soul that filled his inner 
 nature and shone through his life and his home. 
 He could laugh at many troubles and attacks 
 which would have half vexed to death the humanity 
 and toleration of the preachers of our day." At 
 that time, and in that district of Germany, there 
 were a number of like-minded men — Count 
 Reventlow, the Counts Stolberg, the elder Cramer, 
 the Niebuhr family, from which came the famous 
 
278 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 historian, and Perthes himself, who was at first an 
 Illuminist, but advanced to full sympathy with 
 evangelical truth. The home of Claudius was at 
 Wandsbeck, two miles from Hamburg, a pretty 
 little village — one broad street of quaint houses 
 with little gardens in front and behind, a pleasant 
 "beck" or brook, and a remnant of the original 
 oak-forest that once covered all North Germany. 
 The favourite seat of Claudius in his meditative 
 moods is still pointed out beneath one of the 
 gigantic oaks, and on his monument, hard by, is 
 his name, "Matthias Claudius, 1815," carved deep 
 on a great boulder that must have been brought in 
 ages long past from the Norwegian hills, a twin 
 brother to that which bears the name of Gustavus 
 Adolphus on the field of his death at Lutzen. 
 His writings. His works consist of fugitive papers on various 
 subjects, chiefly religious, in the form of short 
 treatises, letters, dialogues, and poems. They 
 appeared in a journal called the Wandsbeck 
 Messenger^ corresponding somewhat to Addison's 
 Spectator^ and have been collected into four small 
 volumes. They form a book well worth reading 
 for those who can feel an interest in strong faith 
 held fearlessly in the face of unbelief, supported by 
 a shrewd and powerful intellect of the philosophic 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 279 
 
 type, and suffused by a mixture of imagination 
 and feeling that turns from humour to pathos, from 
 pathos to bold but never bitter irony — a peculiar 
 book in which the Christian and the human, the 
 glad and the sad, are never far from each other. 
 
 This is the way in which he criticises the 
 Paraphrasis Evangelii Johannis^ a pretentious 
 commentary made up in the style of the day — all 
 surface, no depth ; all words, no insight. 
 
 " I have, from my youth up, read the Bible with His spirit 
 delight. There are such beautiful things in it, 
 dark and deep though they be, which make one's 
 heart fresh and gladsome ; but most of all I like 
 to read in John, there is something so wonderful 
 in him, the dusk and night, and through it the 
 quick darting lightning — a soft evening cloud, and 
 behind the cloud the great full-bodied moon. 
 There is something so full of pathos and loftiness 
 and foreboding of far-off things, that one is never 
 weary of it. Always, when I read, I seem to see 
 him at the Last Supper lying on his Master's 
 breast, and his angel holds the light to me, and, 
 at some passages, falls on my neck and whispers 
 his sayings in my ear. I am far from understand- 
 ing all he says, but frequently it seems as if what 
 he meant were floating before me, and even when 
 
28o LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 I look into a passage that is quite obscure, I have 
 the presentiment of a great and glorious meaning 
 which I shall one day understand. Therefore it 
 is that I grasp so eagerly at every new interpreta- 
 tion of John, but most of these only curl the edges 
 of the evening cloud, and the full moon behind 
 enjoys undisturbed repose. I think this reverend 
 author's commentary must be very learned, and 
 it would take him studying words twenty years 
 before he could write it." 
 His treatment We may give an instance of the way in which he 
 of philosophy deals with philosophy and the Bible in questions 
 
 and the Bible. v i- j n 
 
 of faith. His cousin writes him a letter, saying 
 that his head is turning round with the disputes 
 about the relations of the orthodox to the philo- 
 sophical theologians. It seemed to him that to 
 set religion right by philosophy was like setting 
 the sun right by his own wooden clock. Yet he 
 had been told that philosophy was the broom to 
 sweep all the rubbish out of the temple, and that 
 he ought to take his hat off much further to a new 
 philosophical teacher than to an old orthodox, one. 
 Here is part of Claudius' answer : — 
 
 " Philosophy is good, and people are wrong who 
 try to laugh at it, but in matters of faith philosophy 
 stands to revelation, not as little to much but as 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILI.UMINISM. 2S1 
 
 earth to heaven. I cannot explain it better than 
 by the chart which we made, when boys, of the 
 pond behind the garden. We used to sail on the 
 pond, and had made a chart of all the deeps and 
 shallows, and thereby we got round it safe and 
 sure ; but if a whirlwind, or the queen of Otaheite, 
 or some great power or potentate were to take thee 
 up with thy canoe and thy chart and set thee 
 down on the ocean, cousin, and thou wert to try 
 sailing there by thy chart, that would not do. The 
 fault is not in the chart ; for the pond it was good, 
 but the pond, seest thou, is not the ocean. Here 
 thou must have another chart. From this thou 
 mayest so far judge whether philosophy be a 
 broom to sweep the rubbish out of the temple. It 
 may in a certain sense be such a broom ; thou 
 mayest call it a hare's-foot brush to touch the dust 
 of the holy statues, but he who should set .there- 
 with to cut and hew at the statues would do a very 
 foolish thing. Paul, who had tried all ways of it, 
 and knew the Sadducees or philosophers of his day 
 very well, and could reason with the best of them, 
 tells us that the peace of God passes all under- 
 standing. 
 
 " Since, then, the holy statues of the temple are 
 above men's understanding, it is rational in the 
 
282 LECTURES ON rREACHING. 
 
 true sense of the word to let the old shapes remain : 
 if he be an orthodox pastor who says that, you 
 cannot take off your hat to him too far, yet you 
 must ask what kind of orthodoxy." 
 
 Here is another letter, the first of a series to 
 Andres: — 
 
 " Thou mightest gladly hear of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, Andres ; who would not ? But perhaps 
 thou comest to the wrong quarter, for I am no 
 friend of the new views, but hold fast to the Word 
 I hate to break my head clearing up all religious 
 mysteries, for I think they are mysteries, and were 
 meant to be so till the time comes. 
 
 " If we cannot see Him, Andres, we must believe 
 those who have seen Him ; for me there is no other 
 way. The facts recorded in the Bible, all His 
 glorious sayings and doings, are indeed not Him- 
 self, but only witnesses of Him, the little bells 
 of His vesture. Yet they are the best thing we 
 have on earth, and they are such that it makes one 
 comforted and joyful when one hears and sees that 
 man can become something else and something 
 better than we now see him to be, ... I know ot 
 nothing dearer and more delightful than to speak 
 cf help and deliverance, and he who does not feel 
 this has never himself been in need, nor seen others 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 283 
 
 in need. Does not the woman who has found her 
 lost penny call her friends and neighbours, and 
 say, 'Rejoice with me?' But what a loss was 
 that from which gold and silver could not have 
 saved us ! 
 
 " Dost thou remember our first voyage, when we 
 tried the new canoe, and I fell into the deep water? 
 I had given up all for lost, and was thinking how 
 death would taste, and what my poor mother 
 would say, and then I saw thine outstretched arm 
 and held on. And I see it still, Andres, if I only 
 stumble on thy name, or even light on a capital A. 
 
 " But here a Deliverer from all loss, from every 
 evil, a Redeemer from sin, a Saviour who went 
 about doing good, and had not where to lay His 
 head ! Through Him the lame walked, the lepers 
 were cleansed, the deaf heard, the dead arose, and 
 to the poor the Gospel was preached ; whom winds 
 and waves obeyed, and who took little children to 
 Him and embraced and blessed them. He was 
 with God, and was God, and might have kept His 
 divine blessedness, but He thought of the wretched 
 in the prison-house, and came to them concealed 
 in the uniform of misery, that he might make them 
 free with His blood. He thought not of toil nor of 
 shame, and was steadfast till death that He might 
 
284 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 finish His work. He came into the world to save 
 the world, and left it with a crown of thorns. 
 
 " Hast thou ever heard the like ? Do not thine 
 hands fall down in helpless wonder? It is indeed 
 a mystery, and we cannot comprehend it, but 
 it comes from God and out of heaven, bearing 
 heaven's seal, and dropping with God's tender 
 mercy. One might well be tortured and crucified 
 for the conception of it, and he who can bring him- 
 self to laugh and mock must needs be mad. But 
 the man who has his heart in its place will lie in 
 the dust, and pray and give praise." 
 Power of the There can be no doubt that the utterances that 
 came from men like Lavater and Hamann and 
 Claudius kept alive the faith of many who were 
 trembling for the ark of God. They were as 
 watchmen answering the call, " Bless ye the Lord, 
 all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in 
 the house of the Lord ; " they help us to believe in 
 the perpetuity of God's truth, and remind us of the 
 words of Luther : " I have seen two wonders. The 
 first was that I looked out of the window and saw 
 the stars of heaven and the whole beautiful firma- 
 ment of God before me, and yet, though there was 
 nowhere any pillar on which the Maker had fixed 
 the arch, the heaven did not fall in, but stood on 
 
 Hidden Life. 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 285 
 
 that arch quite strong. And then I wondered that 
 though the stars are quite safe, they seemed to 
 tingle and tremble as if the heaven certainly 
 would fall in, for they cannot grasp the pillars 
 nor see them ; if they could do this they would not 
 tremble." 
 
286 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note L, see page 264. 
 The Prevalence of the Illuminism. 
 
 The following extract, which is somewhat abbreviated, 
 from Reinhard's Gestdndnisse, illustrates the attitude of the 
 Illuminists — 
 
 " I became a preacher at the time when our lUuminist 
 theologians had succeeded in making the Christian doctrine 
 so clear and intelligible that nothing remained but pure 
 rationalism. Any man who wished to get a name for 
 learning or praise from the journals must declare some 
 book of the Bible not genuine, or call some doctrine tradi- 
 tional, and therefore false. He who ventured before the 
 public without paying homage to the spirit of the time, 
 might reckon on being met with contempt as behind the 
 age. How little I have escaped this fate, how sarcastically 
 and bitterly the editors have dealt with me, you well know. 
 
 " Let me tell you, then, how I have never been able to 
 reconcile myself to this new rational theology. I came to 
 the conviction that one can be truly consistent by following 
 either reason alone, or Scripture alone. The one constitutes 
 a naturalist, the other a supernaturalist. The rationalist 
 holds the Bible to be no more than any human book. He 
 agrees with it where it agrees with him, but no further. 
 With the supernaturalist, the Bible is the rule by which 
 reason judges and rectifies itself. Reason examines its 
 claims, interprets its meaning, and then it listens with 
 reverence. 
 
 " If a man tries a middle road between these, he can never 
 be consistent. It is mere caprice if he takes a little from 
 reason and a little from the Bible, and those who try this 
 plan can never agree with one another, for one will give 
 reason more, another less. Most of the theologians I have 
 
HIDDEN LIFE IN THE ILLUMINISM. 287 
 
 met, of the rationalistic kind, have tried this wavering, cap- 
 ricious, half-way plan. I say most^ for there were some who 
 knew quite well where they were going, who were out-and- 
 out rationalists, believing nothing positive in religion, yet not 
 caring to say this, and keeping quiet. Most of the Illuminist 
 theologians, however, did not know what they wanted, nor 
 whither their road was leading. They thought only that they 
 were much above the common crowd in rejecting first one 
 and then another part of the old system, but they did not see 
 that to be consistent they would have to reject much more, 
 and perhaps all. So everything was at sea. Very few 
 knew where they were. Sometimes reason, sometimes the 
 Bible prevailed, and every truth was ready for surrender. 
 They were very angry with Lessing when he laughed at this 
 wretched patchwork of the rationalist theology, and said 
 that it disgusted him, and that he preferred the old consist- 
 ent orthodoxy with all its rigidity. For myself, I felt I must 
 be either an out-and-out rationalist or a supernaturalist. 
 Now, I could not be a rationalist. It seemed to me that 
 Revelation had too much to say for itself to be set down as 
 a fancy or deception. The more I considered the discords 
 and errors of mere reason in religious things, the mora 
 I felt that Revelation was not only a desirable benefit, 
 but an indispensable need. The Gospel, moreover, had 
 been so helpful to my own nature from my earliest youth, 
 I had so many experiences of its power, that I would have 
 gone against conscience and all sense of duty if I had 
 renounced it. And so I had no further choice. If there 
 was no consistent middle path, and if I had to choose 
 between rationalism and supernaturalism, I was obliged to 
 hold by the Bible, and to accept what could be proved from 
 it. I honour all conscientious inquiry, I am open to all 
 light, but my rule of judgment, my guide in perplexity, is the 
 Gospel of Christ." 
 
LECTURE XVI. 
 
 TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 
 
 Schleicr- 
 macher, 
 1 768-1834. 
 
 His general 
 position. 
 
 'T^HE life of Schleiermacher forms an epoch in 
 
 -*■ the religion of Germany ; it stands between 
 
 the period of rationalism in its superficial form, 
 
 and the period of a higher faith. Schleiermacher 
 
 himself is the bridge between these. He has the 
 
 elements of two different men in him, the man of 
 
 doubt, and the man of faith. It is not at all 
 
 uncommon to find these two in the same person, 
 
 but the peculiarity of Schleiermacher is that in him 
 
 the elements co-existed till the end of his life, 
 
 and were even blended in a system. Pascal had 
 
 doubt as well as faith ; probably his doubts at 
 
 one period of his life went deeper than Schleier- 
 
 macher's, but he ended by overcoming them, and 
 
 his Thoughts form a clear consistent book which 
 
 another thinker can make his own throughout. 
 
 But there is probably no man who has made the 
 288 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 289 
 
 system of Schleiermacher his own so as to be 
 able to rest in it. This may serve to illustrate 
 the distinction of the German mind from the 
 French, and we may also say from the Scottish, 
 for in this the Scottish has more sympathy with 
 the French than with the German. 
 
 Personally, Schleiermacher was a very remark- 
 able man. He was so distinguished in different 
 departments of knowledge, that he made them for 
 the time his own, and he has left his mark deep on 
 most of them. He was a philosopher, and his 
 commentary on Plato would itself have made 
 him celebrated. He was a philologist of the first 
 rank. He was at home in every branch of theology 
 — in the criticism of the Canon, in exegesis, in 
 church history, in apologetics and dogmatics, in 
 ethics and practical theology. On all these his 
 writings created movement by the freshness, if not 
 always by the soundness of his thinking ; and he 
 has gained for himself one of the first places in the 
 roll of German preachers. It is in this last charac- 
 ter that we shall chiefly consider him. He began 
 with preaching, and he continued to preach to the 
 last. It was his favourite task, even when he had 
 work of all kinds in hand. Our estimate of the 
 
 importance of preaching in modern times will 
 
 U 
 
290 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 surely rise when we think that a man of such gifts 
 found in it the most fitting field for the exercise 
 of his great qualities of mind and heart. To- 
 day we shall first give a brief sketch of his life 
 then a short view of his peculiar theological 
 position, and finally we shall look at his relation 
 to preaching. 
 His training. He was born in Breslau in 1768, and died in 
 Berlin in 1834. His father was a military chap- 
 lain in the Reformed church, of the old faith and 
 manners. He sent his son for education to a 
 Moravian school, where he was for several years 
 under the training of the good simple-hearted 
 Brethren. This period of his life formed the link 
 between him and Spener to which we have 
 referred, for though in many things he afterwards 
 left the faith of the Brethren, he never lost the early 
 religious feeling that was then unfolded, and in his 
 later life he seemed to return to sympathy with 
 them. From the Moravian school he went to Halle, 
 in opposition to his father's wish, and there studied 
 under Semler and other teachers of the school of 
 the Illuminism, of which Halle was then the centre. 
 Their influence was ingrafted on his early Pietism, 
 and his future partook of these two — his heart 
 was with Pietism, his mind with the Illuminism, 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD : SCHLEIERMACHER. 291 
 
 although ever fighting with it and rising above its 
 shallow forms. 
 
 He was ordained in 1794 to a country charge at His career. 
 Landsberg, but removed in two years to the chap- 
 laincy of the Charite at Berlin, where he attained 
 great celebrity both in the pulpit ?ind in literary 
 intercourse. He was appointed Court-preacher in 
 1803, and became a professor and University- 
 preacher at Halle in 1804. But when, after the 
 unfortunate battle of Jena, Halle was torn from 
 Prussia, he removed to Berlin and resumed his 
 work there. He was an ardent patriot, and while, 
 during the French dominion, Goethe occupied him- 
 self in studying Chinese, Schleiermacher and the 
 philosopher Fichte entered the ranks of the volun- 
 teers in the War of Liberation. He continued in 
 Berlin till the close of his life, revered and beloved. 
 He had a weakly constitution, but, by careful 
 attention to regimen and to hours of work, he went 
 through Herculean labours, and his biographer 
 says that while he was subject to moods of deep 
 depression he did not trouble others with them. 
 His death was one of simple faith. In the midst 
 of bodily weakness, he preserved his clear intellect 
 and sustained himself by profound speculative 
 thoughts, which, he said, were to him identical 
 
292 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 with the deepest religious feelings. On the last 
 morning he observed the Communion with some 
 Christian friends, breaking the bread with his own 
 hand, as is the custom in the Reformed, as distinct 
 from the Lutheran church. In partaking of the 
 cup, he said with regard to the words of dedica- 
 tion : " On these words of the Scripture I rely ; 
 they are the foundation of my faith ; in this love 
 and communion we are and ever will remain 
 united." He then sank back on his pillow, and 
 passed away after a few minutes of troubled 
 breathing.* 
 His theology. Schleiermacher's theological system, if we may 
 use a term which he himself might have rejected, 
 is of a peculiar and mixed character. It is indeed 
 rather what the Germans call a stand-point than 
 a system — a central position from which a great 
 many things shade away into dimness and uncer- 
 tainty in the distance ; and the central position itself 
 seems at times to shift. The whole of it belongs 
 to a period of transition. The religious authority 
 is not placed in Scripture, as by orthodox theo- 
 logians ; nor is it placed in the bare reason, as by 
 the rationalists, but in the religious feeling, which 
 
 ♦ Stefifens' description of Schleiermacher will be found in 
 Note M, on page 304. 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 293 
 
 Schleiermacher holds to be inherent in man, and to 
 have been especially quickened and unfolded in 
 Christianity. This idea is the centre of all his think- 
 ing. Proceeding from this along the line of secular 
 and church history, he reaches the origin of Christ- 
 ianity. He holds that its main features cannot fairly 
 be doubted, and that the beginning of its develop- 
 ment is manifestly due to certain documents 
 termed by us the New Testament — documents 
 vvhich are still the source of quickening in the indi- 
 vidual soul. He handles the New Testament very 
 freely, after the manner of Semler and the other 
 critics ; although the authority of parts of it is 
 shaken, he is not distressed, finding that enough is 
 left to support his spiritual life. To the Old Testa- 
 ment he gives a secondary place, and of it he 
 makes very little use either for proof or for illustra- 
 tion. 
 
 Now observe what he discovers from the New 
 Testament, or rather from the religious feeling 
 when brought into contact with the New Testa- 
 ment. He does not appeal to proof-texts or 
 express statements, but to the general spiritual 
 bearing of its teaching, and the way in which that 
 is verified by our own spiritual life. 
 
 Man is a sinful being — every individual sharing 
 
294 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 in the sinfulness of the race ; no one is able to 
 deliver himself from sin ; the deliverance comes 
 from God, and from God in Christ. Who Christ is, 
 Schleiermacher never clearly says. He will not 
 call Him the true God ; He is the first-born Son, 
 the type and original of humanity, the only sinless 
 Being that has ever appeared in our world, not 
 merely the blossom but the root of the race, from 
 whose perfect nature Adam fell away. We are 
 redeemed through Him, not by an atonement and 
 justification as the beginning of a new life, nor 
 merely by His doctrine and example, as the 
 rationalists say, but by His life and power enter- 
 ing into us and renewing us, so that holiness is the 
 beginning of forgiveness. As to the supernatural 
 elements in Christ's life on earth — His miracles, 
 His resurrection, His ascension — Schleiermacher 
 seems to admit them, but he rarely gives them 
 prominence, for the religious feeling does not 
 attest them as it does His saving power. He 
 believes in immortality, in a final judgment, in 
 eternal blessedness, and even in the doctrine of 
 election, connecting it, however, with the hope of 
 the subjugation of evil in some form in the future 
 life. 
 Its tendency. This is, in brief, Schleiermacher's theology, 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 295 
 
 suggesting at some points that of Ecce Homo. 
 Some of his positions are the same as those of 
 F. D. Maurice, though Maurice differed from him 
 in holding distinctly the divinity of Christ, and 
 also in giving higher authority to the Bible, includ- 
 ing the Old Testament. There can be no ques- 
 tion as to the deep sincerity, earnestness, and lofty 
 character of Schleiermacher, nor as to the fact that 
 he struck a deadly blow at the old rationalism by 
 his deeper views of sin and redemption, and his 
 more exalted conception of the work of Christ ; 
 but his was a position that could not be main- 
 tained. He himself was wounded in the heel by 
 the arrow of doubt. The shifting sands of restless 
 criticism that were blowing about him prevented 
 him from seeing clearly the real and the positive. 
 Yet, after all, his face was not towards rational- 
 ism, but away from it. It is this that marks the 
 difference between men, not so much where they 
 stand as whither they are looking and going, and 
 teaching others to go ; and Schleiermacher was 
 the man who bade the Church turn from the 
 theology of the surface understanding to the 
 deeper theology of religious feeling and faith. His 
 followers, Ullmann, Nitzsch, Tholuck, and Miiller 
 moved forwards. 
 
296 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Views on We come now to what Schleiermacher has to 
 
 preac ng. ^^^ about preaching. His views must be chiefly 
 ascertained from his practical theology, but we 
 may take these in connection with his own example, 
 although we shall afterwards have to say a few 
 
 Its basis, words Specially about the latter. As to the basis 
 of preaching, he appeals not so much to the Word 
 of God in the Bible as to the religious feeling of 
 the preacher. This is quickened and unfolded by 
 the Bible as by no other book, but the inward 
 experience of each preacher can alone verify the 
 teaching of the Bible and give it power. The 
 
 Its subject, subject of preaching must always be distinctly 
 Christian. Upon this point Schleiermacher is very 
 decided and explicit, and in his own sermons he 
 adheres to the principle most thoroughly. One 
 cannot but admire the way in which he brings the 
 person and influence of Christ to bear on all things 
 in human life — the heart, the personal conduct, the 
 family, the nation, the Church. Yet there is a 
 vagueness about the presentation of Christ. He 
 does not answer the question, Who is He, that I 
 may believe on Him? We have the fragrance of 
 Christ but no clear view of Him — Christ exciting 
 religiosity, not Christ the object of intelligent 
 religion. Even when the historical Jesus is 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 297 
 
 presented, He is seen through a haze, and we can- 
 not tell distinctly who He is, or what He has 
 done. This defect arises naturally from the sub- 
 jectivity of Schleiermacher's conception. 
 
 He holds that the primary object of preaching is Its object 
 neither to instruct nor to incite to action, but to 
 awaken feeling — religious. Christian feeling. The 
 hearers are to be considered as already Christians, 
 not in tlie Sacramentarian sense (for in this he 
 does not believe), but in virtue of the religious feel- 
 ing which is latent in all men, and of living in a 
 Christian country where they cannot but have 
 come under Christian influence. With this idea, 
 he addresses all his hearers as " Christians," and 
 dissuades preachers from using any other manner 
 of address. It will thus be seen that his concep- 
 tion of the object of preaching is tinged with the 
 same subjectivity as marks his idea of the basis 
 and the subject, showing the same want of outline 
 and point and distinct aim. There is an elevation, 
 a beauty, a fulness, but it is like the evening cloud 
 that melts away and leaves a sense of pleasure, 
 not a tree with firm trunk and branches rooted 
 in the solid ground, covered with fruits that can 
 be plucked and carried home. I do not mean 
 that his sermons fail to serve a purpose; but, as 
 
298 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 he himself says, the purpose is not instruction nor 
 action, but influence. 
 The structure With this general idea of preaching his special 
 
 of the sermon. . i_ ^ . i , , r • • i 
 
 Views about the structure ot a sermon comcide. 
 
 He holds that each sermon should have a text, 
 
 and that the text should not be used as a motto. 
 
 In order to have unity, the sermon should deal with 
 
 something contained in the text, but not necessarily 
 
 with the whole of it nor even with the chief 
 
 thought in it ; it may be but a fragment of it, or a 
 
 secondary thought. His own preaching is topical, 
 
 not textual, and so distinctly topical that all his 
 
 sermons which I have seen have titles prefixed. 
 
 The introduction is generally the disengagement 
 
 of the topic from the text — breaking the shell 
 
 as it were, and taking out the kernel, or so much 
 
 of it as is needed. When the kernel is extracted, 
 
 the shell is thrown aside. As for the plan or 
 
 arrangement of the sermon, he does not attach 
 
 much importance to logical proportion. The end 
 
 should be kept in view and the road to it, while 
 
 way-marks should be set up and announced ; but 
 
 what is wanted is such unity of feeling or free 
 
 flow of feeling as will produce an impression on 
 
 the hearers, and the subordinate topics should be 
 
 arranged with a view to this, rather than to logic. 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 299 
 
 The great thing in a sermon is the right tone, and 
 
 this is to be gained in two ways : first, by drawing 
 
 the feehng proper to the subject from the Word 
 
 of God, or rather from Christ in the Word ; and 
 
 secondly, by coming into sympathy with the 
 
 hearers so as to penetrate them with the tone. In 
 
 keeping with this, the close of the sermon should 
 
 gather what has been said into a unity, so that the 
 
 discourse may terminate, not with its last thought 
 
 alone, but with the weight of the whole, bearing 
 
 upon the heart and life. For the manner of the 
 
 sermon, he would have it to be of the nature of a 
 
 two-fold dialogue — a questioning of the Scriptures 
 
 as to what they teach about the topic, and a 
 
 questioning of the hearers as to how it is to profit 
 
 them. Not that questions are to be put in so many 
 
 words, but this is to be the mental attitude of the 
 
 preacher, in order that he may learn the truth and 
 
 apply it ; and he may sometimes put his points in 
 
 the form of literal questions. 
 
 With regard to style, we should remember that The style of 
 , . , T , , , the sermon. 
 
 the sermon is not poetry but prose. It should 
 
 be prose, with life and colour, yet not too highly 
 
 idealistic. If the poetic enter, or if poetry be 
 
 quoted, it should be at the close of some period 
 
 which is shaped as a climax. The choice of words 
 
300 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 should be chastened and modest, not sensuous, not 
 heaping up epithets or making appeals to angels 
 and spirits and the powers of nature, but simple 
 and natural. The gesture of the preacher should 
 correspond to the matter. There are two extremes 
 to be avoided — indifference, and affected force ; and 
 this will be secured by unconscious sympathy of 
 look and action. If there is a study of manner, it 
 should be that general study which is not percep- 
 tible in any particular case. 
 His own In the main, Schleiermacher himself conformed 
 
 pieac mg. ^^ these rules ; indeed, they were given from his 
 own experience ; but we may add some few facts 
 about his preaching. His sermons were not in 
 general written before they were delivered — i.e., he 
 neither read them nor delivered them memoriter, but 
 gave them after very full and careful meditation.* 
 The unbroken flow and the correctness which he 
 attained by this method are remarkable, and were 
 the result of long practice and of close concentra- 
 tion on his subject. The sermon grew in his mind 
 
 * Of the ten volumes which remain to us, some were 
 reproduced without alteration from the shorthand notes of 
 his friends and admirers; but those which he himself revised 
 were changed considerably, for he held that a spoken and a 
 printed sermon must differ, in order to produce the same 
 effect. A sketch of one sermon is given on pages 305-7. 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCIILEIERMACHER. 301 
 
 throughout tlic week, until it gradually took shape; 
 then, having marked down the course of each part 
 and the transitions on a piece of paper, which he 
 called his " bill-of-fare," he was ready. It is certain 
 that this method would suit very {^m^ preachers, 
 and even these few would have to pursue it with 
 great care and thought. For ordinary men it 
 would be ruin, yet ordinary men might cultivate it 
 at shorter services and devotional meetings with 
 good results. The way to do so is to fill yourself 
 with the subject, and to begin by leaving short 
 parts here and there open for expression at the 
 time, gradually extending these till they form the 
 greater part of the address. 
 
 There are defects both in the substance and the The defects of 
 style of Schleiermacher's preaching. In the sub- 
 stance, his defect, as wc have seen, lies in the want 
 of objectivity, especially in regard to the person and 
 work of Christ. There is a dimness in the view 
 which he presents of the Lord Jesus, warmly and 
 sincerely as he loved Him, and the dimness is 
 caused by his undervaluing teaching, and by his 
 looking within to his own feeling more than 
 without to the Word of God. His style, too, has 
 its defects. There is an absence of Bible language, 
 and one cannot but see how his style has suffered 
 
302 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 from his neglect of the Old Testament. He would 
 have gained in picturesqueness and force, besides 
 presenting another side of truth, had he dealt more 
 with the history and the prophets of the Old 
 Covenant — had he followed the example of 
 Bossuet and the advice of Hamann.* His style 
 shows also a want of concreteness. He seldom 
 introduces figures from nature or touches from the 
 beautiful hymns of Germany, though he was a 
 lover of both. The structure of his sentences, 
 too, tends to monotony. The periods are so long, 
 involved, smooth, and harmonious, that short 
 sentences, even if abrupt, would give relief; they 
 are like the large rolling waves of mid-ocean that 
 fold out but do not break with shocks of thunder 
 and spray. But with all this, his style has great 
 beauty and soothing power — of a Ciceronian not 
 of a Demosthenic kind ; and while his teaching 
 may not always be Biblical, there is the felt 
 presence of the Spirit of the Bible visiting a wide 
 and varied extent of human experience. 
 
 His preaching differed from all that went before 
 
 it. It wanted the passion and direct purpose of 
 
 Luther, and, as we have seen, it wanted the, central 
 
 truth in which lay so much of Luther's power. It 
 
 * See above, pages 272-3. 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 303 
 
 wanted also the fervour of the Pietists, and their 
 searching discrimination of the spiritual life. It 
 had not even the clear, logical outlines of Reinhard. 
 Yet it had qualities of its own which went deep 
 down through the dry, barren surface of rationalism 
 like an Artesian well, and touched the great springs 
 of feeling, and taught men that there is some- 
 thing more in religion and the Bible and Christ 
 than the easily understood commonplaces which 
 lUuminism declared to be the whole. So Schleier- 
 macher led the way to a new and better time. 
 
304 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note M, see page 292. 
 
 Heinrich Steffens on Schleiermacher's 
 Appearance. 
 
 " I must here introduce a man who made a new epoch in 
 my life. It was Schleiermacher, who at the same time with 
 myself was called to be * professor extraordinarius ' at Halle. 
 He was small of stature, full of life in all his movements, 
 with expressive features. There was a kind of sharpness in 
 his glance which repelled some men. In fact, he seemed to 
 look through people. His face was rather long and finely 
 cut, the lips firmly closed, the chin projecting, the eye lively 
 and fiery, with an earnest, concentrated, and steady gaze. I 
 have seen him in all the changing relationships of life — deeply 
 thoughtful and sportive, mild and indignant, moved by joy 
 and sorrow. But the prevailing expression was a deep calm 
 that pervaded and governed his disposition. Yet there was 
 nothing monotonous in the calm, for an inner sympathy 
 broke out through it with a sort of childlike kindliness. He 
 was so quick that while he was engaged in the closest con- 
 versation nothing escaped him. He saw all, heard all that 
 was passing around him, even to a whisper. Art has made 
 his features immortal. The bust of him by the sculptor 
 Rauch is a master-piece ; and one who has known him so 
 intimately as I have is almost frightened to look at it. Ii 
 seems to me at this very moment as if he were before me 
 and as if he were about to open the firm, closed lips fo 
 some telling word." — {Was ich erlebie, V. 141.) 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD : SCHLEIERMACHER. 305 
 
 Note N, see page 300, 
 
 A Sketch of one of Schleiermacher's Sermons. 
 
 Romans vi. 4-8. 
 
 Christ's resurrection, the image of our new life. 
 
 The sermon begins : " Glory and honour be to God, and 
 peace be with all those who with joyful heart call to each 
 other, ' The Lord is risen indeed.' Amen." 
 
 The introduction, which is brief, gathers together the sense 
 of the paragraph, so as to justify the theme announced. 
 
 I. Our new life is like Christ's resurrection when we con- 
 sider the manner of its rise. 
 
 His resurrection was from death and through it, not an 
 easy death, but sore and with struggle. (This is described.) 
 So in us the former life must die, and die by a crucifixion. 
 Our sins, our evil desires must be nailed to a cross and 
 buried in the grave. But then comes life, and it comes from 
 God, from heaven. (Here is a favourable specimen of his 
 style.) "When the hour comes which the Father has kept 
 for His own power, then to such a soul under some form 
 appears His life-giving angel. Yet how little do we know 
 of the work of the angel at the resurrection of Christ ! 
 We do not know whether he appeared to the Redeemer 
 or not ; we cannot fix the moment when he rolled the 
 stone away from the grave and the Redeemer stepped 
 forth in new life ; no one was there as witness, and 
 those who might have seen it with their human eyes were 
 dark with blindness. So we do not know how or in what 
 form the angel of the Lord touches the soul that sinks into 
 the grave of self-annihilation, to call forth in it the divine life. 
 It rises concealed in this deep grave-like stillness, and not 
 till it is in life can it be perceived. Its proper beginning 
 
 X 
 
3o6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 hides itself, as every beginning does, even from him on whom 
 it is bestowed. But this is certain, as the apostle says, that 
 the Lord was raised through the glory of the Father (and 
 so, in the words of the Redeemer, no one cometh unto the 
 Son except the Father draw him), that glory of the Father 
 which called forth the Redeemer from the grave, and which 
 always awakens in the soul that has died to sin the new life 
 which is like the resurrection of the Lord. Yes, amidst all 
 that heaven and earth show us, there is no greater glory of 
 the Father than that He has no pleasure in the death-like 
 state of the sinner, but that in some way the almighty 
 mysterious quickening call sounds forth to him, Arise, and 
 live." 
 
 IL Our new life is like the resurrection of our Lord in its 
 constitution and manner of acting. 
 
 It is the life of the same person and it is in close con- 
 nection with the previous life. As Christ's resurrection was 
 the opening of a powerful and energetic life, so is ours. 
 His journey to Emmaus, His conversation with the disciples 
 about the Kingdom, are illustrations of this. Such should 
 be our new life. But, with all this power and action, the 
 life of the risen Redeemer in another sense is retired and 
 hidden. It is not before the world. The eyes of men were 
 holden, and He appeared only to those who belonged to 
 Him in love. So Christians have a peculiar life which they 
 do not obtrude on the world, an experience known and com- 
 municated among themselves. (Here he draws some fine 
 distinctions as to how Christians should be seen by the 
 world and should act on it, while they yet have their own 
 Christian fellowship). 
 
 III. Our new life is like the resurrection of our Lord, 
 because we cannot combine it meanwhile into one connected 
 whole. 
 
 Christ's resurrection was realised in some moments and 
 hours, conversations and acts ; then He disappears from 
 
TRANSITION PERIOD: SCHLEIERMACHER. 307 
 
 sight and we have to wait for Him again. So with our 
 new life ; not that it is confined to times of fellowship with 
 others, or to special moments of higher vision, else we may 
 fear that it is visionary ; but we lose sight of it often in 
 trial and in the busy acts of life. Yet when we lose it in 
 ourselves we may find it always in Him. The sermon con- 
 cludes with a prayer addressed to the Redeemer. 
 
 This is a very favourable specimen of Schleiermacher's 
 style, ingenious and yet just in the conception and carried out 
 with much delicate thinking, while the language folds round 
 the thought closely and gracefully. What one desiderates 
 is to learn how the life of the Christian has its origin in con- 
 nection with Christ. We are, as the apostle says, baptised 
 into His death. How comes His death to be a seed of life, 
 so that our union to Him in His death makes His life also 
 ours? 
 
LECTURE XVIL 
 
 MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 
 
 'T^HE "flat rationalism" of Germany, which 
 * rested on the common understanding, and 
 denied what it could not explain, died away in 
 the first quarter of this century. As it decayed, 
 two other tendencies arose. The one originated 
 with Schleiermacher, to whom we have already 
 referred, the other with Hegel, who was a con- 
 temporary of Schleiermacher. Hegel's sphere was 
 philosophy, but he included religion in his system, 
 and sought to reconcile Christianity with his 
 philosophy. DifTerent schools of religious thought 
 arose upon the Hegelian basis, some positive and 
 some negative ; but, as the tendency of Hegelian- 
 ism was pantheistic, the negative schoorprevailed, 
 and ended in the absolute rejection not only of 
 Christianity but of religion by such men as D. F. 
 
 Strauss. Hegelianism as a philosophy is extinct 
 308 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCII AND TIIOLUCK. 309 
 
 in Germany, and survives only in various forms of 
 communism and naturalism. As its theological 
 side produced no remarkable preacher, we leave it 
 for the present, and turn to the other movement 
 v\^hich sprang from Schleiermacher. 
 
 The general name given to this movement is the TheMediating 
 Mediating School, because its object has been to 
 reconcile religion and science, faith and reason. 
 It corresponds to the movement of Lamennais and 
 Montalembert in France, which was defeated by 
 the power of Ultramontanism or Jesuitism, and 
 finally crushed by the Vatican Council of 1870, 
 and the Decree of Papal Infallibility. We may 
 hope better things for the Mediating School in 
 Germany. Its principle is to find so deep a root 
 for religion in man's nature, and such a correspond- 
 ence to this in the Bible and in Christianity, that 
 it can look upon the inquiries of science in every 
 form without any fear. The most noted German 
 theologians of recent times belong to this school — 
 men like Neander and Julius Miiller, Ullmann and 
 Olshausen, Sack and Dorner, and also Nitzsch 
 and Tholuck. We shall select Nitzsch and 
 Tholuck, as each of them has his own distinctive 
 character. 
 
 Karl Immanuel Nitzsch was born in North Ger- Nitzsch, 
 
 1787-1868. 
 
3IO LECTURES ON PkEACHING. 
 
 many in 1787, and died in Berlin in 1868. He 
 was descended from a family of eminent theo- 
 logians, and his father, who was superintendent of 
 the Church and Preachers' Seminary at Witten- 
 Hislife. berg, gave him the name Immanuel from his 
 admiration of Kant. Young Nitzsch received his 
 first education at Wittenberg, before that university 
 was united to Halle. He became preacher there, 
 and continued at his work through the siege of 
 the town when it was held by the French against 
 the Germans. During every sermon there was a 
 French officer stationed behind the pulpit, pencil in 
 hand, to note down any suspicious word. When 
 in 181 5 the university was united with Halle, he 
 remained at Wittenberg in charge of the Seminary 
 and of his other duties, till his health broke down 
 under manifold labour. Then he retired to a 
 quiet country charge, and when he recovered, he 
 was appointed in 1822 professor of Dogmatic and 
 Practical Theology at Bonn. Here his chief work 
 was done. His success as a professor soon placed 
 him at the head of German doctrinal theology. 
 He continued to preach regularly, first in the 
 university and then in the town church. He also 
 took the guiding part in church affairs, especially 
 in seeking to consolidate the United church 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 31 1 
 
 (Lutheran and Reformed), to which his heart was 
 devoted. He was called to Berlin in 1847, ^"^ 
 lived there till his death. 
 
 Two events troubled his public life ; the first 
 was the outbreak of 1848, which let loose a flood 
 of atheistic communism in Berlin and other parts 
 of Germany ; the second was the conservative 
 reaction against this, which, in the form of rigid 
 Old-Lutheranism, attacked his beloved Union, and 
 sought to break it up. Still he held on bravely, 
 with faith in God and devotion to the principles 
 of Christian truth and Christian charity. When 
 he had passed his eightieth year, he had repeated 
 paralytic shocks, which all but separated him from 
 the outer world, without, however, injuring the 
 intellect that had been one of the strongest of his 
 day. Among his last words to his old friend, 
 Twesten, were these, " I can no longer hear or see 
 or work ; I can only love." 
 
 To understand what Nitzsch was as a preacher, Nitzsch as a 
 we must know what he was as a theologian. On ^°°2'a"* 
 the objective side he was in advance of Schleier- 
 macher — i.e., while he held by feeling as the centre 
 of religion in the soul, he advanced to more posi- 
 tive views of the Bible, of the person and work of 
 Christ, and of doctrine and duty as connected with 
 
312 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Him. It was as when a soft hazy mist, through 
 which objects are dimly discerned, gives way to 
 clear outlines of landscape under a fresh breeze of 
 air. We refer here to the matter of his teaching, 
 for the manner of it is unfortunate. He has his 
 peculiar phraseology and structure of sentences — • 
 cumbrous and involved, thought within thought, 
 but strong, deep, and solid. His theology is like 
 that of Vinet, a fine balance of the objective 
 and subjective,, of the Bible and the heart ; but 
 while in Vinet it is in clear-shaped forms like 
 vases of precious ore, in Nitzsch you find it in the 
 nugget, and can even trace the laborious smelting 
 of it from the granite into the ore. But those 
 ' who use patience find that Nitzsch always has 
 
 gold. 
 His views of He has given his views of preaching in his 
 preac mg. Practical Theology. According to him, preaching 
 is the exposition of the divine Word, specially the 
 word about Christ in its bearing on man's nature 
 and the changing occasions of his life. It aims at 
 the enlightenment of his mind and the change of 
 his will, laying hold of that sense of need which 
 is at the root of faith ; the beginning of this is 
 renewal or conversion, and the continuance of it is 
 edification. While he thus adopts Schleiermacher's 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 313 
 
 conception of feeling, he lays more stress upon the 
 need both of doctrine and of action. 
 
 In every sermon, he says, the preacher should 
 consider : (i) The aim ; an aim which can be 
 briefly stated, and which must be kept in view 
 throughout ; (2) the collection of material bearing 
 on this, which is to be found principally in the 
 P>ible and in the heart; (3) the arrangement or 
 division of the material, which should be simple 
 and yet comprehensive ; (4) the carrying out of the 
 plan under each division, and in this the main 
 aim should always be kept in view ; (5) the lan- 
 guage ; and (6) the action. Instead of going over 
 these in detail, we shall specify some of the most 
 important of his views, and some of his own char- 
 acteristics. 
 
 With Luther, he is of opinion that every preacher Two-fold aim 
 should be both a reasoner and a rhetorician, ^^.^ of Pleaching, 
 should deal both with instruction and with exhor- 
 tation. Instruction without exhortation becomes 
 dry and pointless ; exhortation without instruction 
 loses itself in empty harangue. Another considera- 
 tion by which he seeks to check mere speculation 
 or emptiness is that the preacher should keep 
 before him some moral or spiritual aim, and ask 
 himself : " Am I seeking in this for the edification 
 
314 LEC TURES ON PRE A CUING. 
 
 of the hearers ? " The moral purpose, in his view, 
 should always predominate ; by which he does not 
 mean to favour " moral preaching," but rather to 
 indicate that all the parts of the sermon should seek 
 a definite end in man's moral nature, that truth 
 should lead to righteousness and grace to love. 
 
 Language. As to the language of preaching, he commends, 
 above all, that of the Bible. Faith he says, is our 
 wisdom, and the Bible speech is its classical 
 tongue. He cannot bear the words deity, virtue, 
 obligation, &c. ; they are not only unscriptural, but 
 cold and powerless ; and he has equal objections to 
 the talk of the modern school " categorical," " tran- 
 scendental," &c., which may befit the Chair, but is 
 out of place in the pulpit. 
 
 Delivery. The delivery of the sermon should be free — ?>., 
 without use of manuscript, as is almost universally 
 demanded in Germany and on the rest of the 
 Continent ; and while there should be thorough 
 preparation, there should also be an endeavour to 
 gradually escape from the use of verbal memory 
 to the giving of the thoughts from a resting upon 
 the thoughts themselves. The advantage of this 
 acquirement is so great that no one should be satis- 
 fied till he has made a strenuous effort to reach it 
 and in most cases it can be gained. 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NltZSCII AND THOLUCK. 315 
 
 When we consider Nitzsch himself as a preacher, His own 
 
 111- preaching. 
 we must confess that he has not reached his 
 
 own standard. His style wants clearness and sim- 
 plicity. He has not the skill to construct balanced 
 and proportioned sentences, or to carry the intelli- 
 gence of the hearers readily along the line of his 
 thought. Thoughts come in the midst of thoughts 
 as parentheses and qualifications, till the attention 
 flag.s, and men must have listened to him more for 
 profit than for pleasure. He was conscious of this 
 defect, and laments it. He attributes it to his 
 having read more of philosophy than of history in 
 his early life, and to a tendency to follow thoughts 
 down to their tangled roots rather than up into the 
 clear open daylight It is instructive to compare 
 his style with that of men who, holding the same 
 religious views, are pre-eminently clear — with that 
 of Vinet, whose clearness comes from the admirable 
 arrangement of his periods, which fall into their 
 proper places like soldiers on drill ; or of Andrew 
 Fuller, where it comes from the perfect naturalness 
 of saying much but only one thing at a time ; or 
 of Dr, Chalmers, whose sentences are built up para- 
 graph after paragraph, while the attention is yet 
 kept awake, and the understanding vivified through 
 the fire which pervades every part of the discourse. 
 
3l6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Its merits. gj^jjj jsjjtxsch aroused the increasing interest of 
 those who continued to hear him. He had two 
 striking qualities ; he penetrated into the deep 
 things of the Bible, and into the deep things of 
 the human soul. He was not an exegete, but, 
 approaching the Bible with his own heart, psycho- 
 logically rather than philologically, and thus carry- 
 ing with him the hearts of men, he brought forth 
 out of his treasure things new and old. All the 
 grammars and lexicons a man can use will do 
 nothing without this. He believed, as an old 
 writer has said, that " the heart and the Bible were 
 made for one another." If there are unknown 
 places in our hearts, it is because we do not know 
 the Bible, and if there are unknown places in the 
 Bible, it is because we do not know our hearts. 
 The preaching of Nitzsch had neither beauty nor 
 elegance nor fire, but his sermons were a mine for 
 thoughtful hearers and are still of high value for 
 students and ministers. 
 Tholuck, Friedrich August Tholuck belonged to the same 
 
 1799-1S77. school of belief as Nitzsch, but he was very differ- 
 ent in many ways. His strength did not lie in 
 doctrinal theology nor in penetrating argument, 
 but he was an exegete and critic furnished with all 
 the materials of learning. He was an apologist 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCII AND THOLUCK. 317 
 
 with deep power of feeling and a vision of the ideal ; 
 he was a church historian ; he had an interest in 
 all branches of human knowledge, and an acquaint- 
 ance with them that was encyclopaedic. He had a 
 memory of prodigious power, and his knowledge of 
 the languages of the dead and the living made him 
 at home in the original literature of every impor- 
 tant tongue of the East and of the West. With all 
 this he was one of the humblest, simplest, and most 
 lovable of men. We have to speak of him specially 
 as a preacher, but first a few things about his life. 
 
 He was born at Brcslau in Silesia in 1799, and His life, 
 died at Halle in 1877. His father, who was a 
 goldsmith and jeweller, intended him for his own 
 business, but he showed so little aptitude for it, and 
 so much taste and ability for learning, that his 
 course was determined for study. He turned 
 specially to the languages of the East, and became 
 familiar not only with the Semitic, but with the 
 early Aryan — the old Persian and Sanskrit. So 
 intent was he on study that he sat up whole nights, 
 dipping his feet in cold water and drinking tea to 
 keep himself awake. He thus laid the foundation 
 of a weakness of sight and constitution that 
 attended him through life, though it did not 
 diminish his energy. During all this period, how- 
 
3i8 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 ever, he was not merely indifferent to Christianity, 
 but viewed it with prejudice and dislike. 
 
 When he had exhausted Breslau, he went to 
 Berlin, and came in contact with some of its most 
 noted professors, Diez, Hegel, and others, who were 
 struck by his eagerness for knowledge. Attraction 
 to Neander first turned his thoughts to religion, 
 but intercourse with a Christian man. Baron von 
 Kottwitz * of Silesia, determined him. He was 
 led through him to study the epistles of Paul, 
 which he had not previously read, and he says 
 himself that, through the great mercy of God, he 
 thus found wisdom and life in Christ crucified. 
 He now devoted himself with the greatest zeal to 
 the study of theology with a view to the Christian 
 ministry. Such was his reputation that he was 
 called to Halle in 1826 as a regular professor of 
 theology in room of Knapp, the surviving repre- 
 sentative of the old Halle Pietism. His com- 
 mentary on the Romans, his works on Eastern 
 Mysticism, and above all his little book on Sin 
 and the Redeemer, Guido and Julius, had made 
 his position known.f The whole Faculty of Halle 
 
 * Kottwitz is the " Patriarch " in Guido and Julius. 
 t Extracts from Guido and Julius will be found on page 
 326. 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 319 
 
 rose like one man against him, and urged the 
 Government to rescind the appointment. The 
 Government stood firm, and the Faculty were 
 reconciled only through the broken health of 
 Tholuck, which seemed to indicate that he would 
 not trouble them long. But his case was like 
 Calvin's and Baxter's, who did their work along 
 the brink of the valley of death. For fifty years he 
 was professor and preacher, and he went through 
 his labours not only resolutely but joyfully, 
 like Mercury, the celestial messenger, who has 
 wings to his feet. At first he had scarcely a friend 
 in Halle, but he soon began to strike his roots. 
 Session after session the number of his students 
 grew, till he became the light of the university ; his 
 class-room was crowded, and the largest town 
 church was filled to overflowing when he preached. 
 The old reign of rationalism passed away with its 
 last chief, Gesenius ; and Tholuck, with Julius 
 Muller and Guericke and Ulrici, restored some- 
 thing like the feeling that prevailed one hundred 
 years before in the days of Herrmann Francke. 
 While he lived he was probably the best preacher 
 in Germany, and when he died it was felt that one 
 of the finest-moulded Christian natures had left 
 the world 
 
320 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Contrast 
 between 
 Nitzsch and 
 Tholuck.- 
 
 Tholuck's 
 writings. 
 
 We have said that he differed from Nitzsch, 
 and we may express the difference by saying that 
 Nitzsch instructs, Thokick stirs. Nitzsch pursues 
 the truth into details and appHcations, and works 
 it curiously in the lower parts of the earth, whereas 
 Tholuck presents it in masses of ideas and visions 
 like broad landscapes or sunlit clouds. Nitzsch 
 labours with his subject as a strong man with a 
 load, Tholuck pours it forth like a full clear river 
 reflecting all things in earth and sky. The preach- 
 ing of Nitzsch is composed of the solid material 
 of Christian doctrine and duty ; Tholuck's sermons, 
 while filled through and through with Christian 
 truth, teem with illustrations from all the stores of 
 his learning — literature, poetry, art, treasures of 
 the East, " barbaric pearls and gold." In a word, 
 while Nitzsch's preaching is to the Christian under- 
 standing, Tholuck's is to the Christian heart and 
 imagination. In this respect it resembles the 
 preaching of Vinet and of Adolph Monod. 
 
 His Sei'vwn on the Mount shows him at his best 
 as a commentator ; his simple style may be learned 
 from his popular Commentary on the Psalms and 
 his Hours of Devotion, both of which have been 
 translated into English ; and his change of heart 
 is seen in that beautiful little book, Guido and 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL : NITZSCH AND TIIOLVCK. 321 
 
 Julius, to which I have already referred. He 
 has not written any special work on homiletics, 
 but his views can be gathered from his sermons, 
 and from his prefaces to them. 
 
 He has three discourses on the second chapter nis viovs 
 of 1st Corinthians. The first deals with the con- !^'^°"' l^'^-^'^*^ 
 
 mg. 
 
 tents and tone of the sermon : the contents are 
 found in Scripture with the centre in Jesus Christ, 
 the alpha and omega ; the tone is distrust of self 
 and confidence in God. The second discourse 
 deals with the origin and aim of the sermon : its 
 origin is the teaching of God's Spirit in the 
 preacher's own heart, for he must speak as a living 
 witness ; and its aim is not intellectual demon- 
 stration, but a manifestation of the truth to the 
 heart and conscience. The third discourse is on 
 the efficacy of the sermon : it is from faith to 
 faith, the Holy Spirit working in the heart of the 
 hearers. 
 
 It will be seen that he views the preacher as 
 a witness-bearer, who should seek to stand as a 
 conducting rod between the Holy Spirit in the 
 Word and the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the 
 listeners. His own sermons all move in this 
 atmosphere — "I believed, therefore I spake " — 
 
 and it was doubtless this which made him the 
 
 Y 
 
322 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 instrument of such extensive spiritual quickening 
 to his generation. 
 Dislike of He has a strong dislike of conventional rules for 
 alism preaching, and wishes that the sermon could be 
 
 brought back to the old homily of Chrysostom's 
 time, leaving the preacher free to open his heart in 
 a gush on any subject, though but indirectly con- 
 nected with his text. He is probably right in 
 objecting to such complicated rules as were laid 
 down by Claude and the German schematists of 
 the seventeenth century. They prescribed so much 
 scaffolding that there was no room for the builder 
 — no fresh individuality. On the other hand, if 
 preachers were left to their own will without being 
 bound particularly to their text, it would lead in 
 many cases to intolerable diffuseness, and the 
 disjointed nature of the discourse would put it out 
 of the power of the people to follow and recollect 
 His own it. Tholuck himself has always a plan, and some- 
 times a very striking one. He does not despise 
 the use of alliteration, and even of rhyme, to fix 
 the thoughts in the memory.* He is specially 
 rich in illustration, almost too rich, glancing from 
 heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, in figures 
 both of the fancy and imagination. 
 
 * Plans of two of his sermons are given on page 326. 
 
 method. 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL : NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 323 
 
 But that which always gives interest to his Secret of hU 
 sermons is the heart that is in them. He is never 
 dry, never cold, being always in contact with 
 his audience, hearing them, as it were, and asking 
 them questions. He is an admirer of Luther and 
 Hamann and Matthias Claudius and Bunyan, and 
 is one of those who mingle the divine with the 
 human, and the ideal with the real, who make 
 the Word flesh that men may see it to be full of 
 grace and truth. " A true sermon," he says, " has 
 the heaven for its father and the earth for its 
 mother. Why is it that so much of our preaching 
 goes coldly over the head and heart? Because 
 earthly affairs are treated only in the light of 
 this world. They have the earth for their mother, 
 but not the heaven for their father. And why 
 do other sermons go over the head and heart 
 altogether ? Because, though heavenly things are 
 dealt with, they are not carried into the streets, 
 the homes, the workshops of the earth. They 
 have the heaven for their father, but not the earth 
 for their mother." 
 
 Tholuck's feeling and earnestness pervade the 
 whole of his sermons, but he reserves them specially 
 for the close. Here is an example from a sermon 
 on the dying thief: — 
 
324 LECTURES ON PRE ACHING. 
 
 An example. " Sinner, while thou standest on this side of the 
 grave, it is never too late for thy repentance. But 
 beware of presuming on this. There is a ' too 
 late.' Oh, word of terror, how hast thou fallen like 
 God's thunderbolt on many a human heart ! See 
 the father who hastens from the burning house and 
 thinks the lives of all his dear ones are safe beside 
 him. He counts ; there is one wanting ; he hastens 
 back. Amid the rushing streams of fire the roof 
 crashes in, and he sinks helpless to the ground. 
 He is TOO LATE ! Who hastens through the dark- 
 ness of the night on his flying horse ? It is the 
 son who has wandered in the path of sin, and who 
 would hear from the lips of his dying father the 
 words, * I forgive thee.' He is on the spot — at the 
 very door. It is TOO LATE ! The voice of his 
 mother says, ' Thy father's spirit is gone,' and he 
 falls into her arms and breaks into a bitter cry. 
 See the criminal on the scaffold, and the execu- 
 tioner with uplifted sword. The crowd stands 
 awed and shuddering. Who is visible on the 
 distant height with eager gestures ? It is the 
 King's messenger. He brings pardon. ' Pardon * 
 is first whispered softly on the verge of the throng, 
 and then gathers into a cry. But the blow has 
 fallen, it is TOO LATE ! Yes, frightful is that word, 
 
MEDIATING SCHOOL: NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 325 
 
 rung in many a human ear since the earth began. 
 But who shall describe the anguish when, on the 
 boundary where eternity meets time, the voice of 
 the righteous Judge shall declare that it is TOO 
 LATE? Long has the door stood open, the wide 
 door of heaven, and His messengers have called, 
 ' To-day, to-day, if ye will hear His voice.' Man, 
 man, what wilt thou do when the door shall be shut 
 and the word heard from within, * It is TOO LATE ? * 
 Strive, strive now to enter in at the gate ! As fright- 
 ful as is the truth that eternity speaks that word, so 
 joyful is the voice from the Cross of Christ — while 
 thou art on this side of the grave, IT IS NEVER TOO 
 LATE. Therefore, to-day, if ye will hear His voice, 
 harden not your hearts." 
 
326 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note O, see page 322. 
 
 Plans of two of Tholuck's Sermons. 
 
 Gal. iii. 19 — "Wherefore, then, is the use of the law?" 
 
 1. It is a standard to measure our defects. 
 
 2. It is a sword to pierce our conscience. 
 
 3. It is a seal to certify that we are in the way of grace. 
 
 Rom. viii. 18 — "If children, then heirs." 
 
 1. Wherein the witness of sonship is seen. 
 
 2. How it is a pledge of eternal life. 
 
 A strict criticism would reject the first head as not properly 
 in the text, but it is really needful for the exposition of the 
 second. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM Giiido and Julius. 
 
 In the circuit of their Seminary there was no Emmaus ; 
 no spring flowers flourished there, nor groves of Academus. 
 The new temple of reason was built on the mouldering ruins 
 of the old porch of the Stoics and the deserted walks of the 
 gardens of Epicurus. The Director of the Gymnasium, an 
 aged man, revered the pineal gland as the seat of the spirit, 
 and had often indulged the speculation, whether the Creator 
 might not have furnished man at creation with a third hand 
 or a third foot, instead of a heart. It was his office to 
 teach religion. Most assiduously he dragged a skeleton, 
 his own workmanship, day after day into his lecture-room, 
 and shook the thing of bones till a shudder ran through the 
 school. Nor were the other masters of a better kind — 
 philologers, who in all their vocabularies had not one word 
 
MEDIATING SCHOQL : NITZSCH AND THOLUCK. 327 
 
 of life-giving power. The preachers of the town were part 
 orthodox, part neological, but all lukewarm and devoid of 
 energy. What they had of religion was picked up at foreign 
 volcanoes. No wonder that the flame in the souls of these 
 youths shone more faintly, as it vainly turned to the right 
 and left, eager for fuel, but finding none. . . . 
 
 With secret tremor the young men looked in on the floods 
 of boiling passion, on the cataracts of unbridled desires in 
 their souls, and they heard no voice that could control them. 
 Their principles were stationary clouds, their resolutions 
 mists flying across them. . . . 
 
 There is a bold, mocking spirit in man, to which nothing 
 is holy, not even his virtue when it is merely his own 
 creation. 
 
LECTURE XVIII. 
 
 THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY: HOFACKER 
 AND HARMS. 
 
 Variety of 
 religious life 
 in Germany. 
 
 Tl /"E have been looking at the changes in German 
 •'' theology and preaching in the decline of 
 Pietism, in the rise of " the flat rationalism," and 
 in its decline before the Mediating school of 
 Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, and Tholuck. What 
 has been said applies to a great part of Protestant 
 Germany, but not to the whole of it. 
 
 Germany is a country with forty-five millions of 
 inhabitants, not including the Austrian dominion ; 
 and of these fully two-thirds are Protestants. If 
 we were to hear one speaking of the history and 
 characteristics of " British preaching," we should 
 naturally ask if his remarks applied to England, 
 and if so, to what part of England, if they applied 
 to Scotland, to Ireland, and to Wales, and further 
 if they applied to all religious denominations. We 
 
 should probably find that no general remark was 
 
 .^28 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 329 
 
 equally true of all the districts and of all the 
 churches of Great Britain, So it is in regard to 
 Germany. The state of religion is different in 
 different parts of it ; and though there are not so 
 many denominations as with us, there are as many, 
 if not more, shades of religious life. Some pro- 
 vinces and districts have been comparatively free 
 from rationalism, and have carried down the 
 doctrine of Luther and Spener to our time. We 
 wish to speak to-day of this " unbroken testi- 
 mony;" and we shall select two instances, one 
 from the south and one from the north — Ludwig 
 Hofacker and Claus Harms. 
 
 The ancient Swabia, now the kingdom of Wiir- 
 tcmberg, has always been noted for its depth of 
 feeling, Richter and Uhland, who belonged to this 
 region, show its characteristics ; it was the country 
 of Bengel and Oetinger and many of the early 
 Pietists. 
 
 Ludwig Hofacker was born in Wiirtemberg in Hofacker, 
 1798, and died in 1828. His father was a minister ^798-1828. 
 of the old orthodox school, but earnest and full of 
 life ; his mother was quiet and deep and spiritual. 
 Besides Ludwig, there was another son, Wilhelm, 
 five years younger, who also became a minister, 
 and when he died, in 1848, left a name scarcely 
 
330 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 inferior to that of his elder brother. Their biogra- 
 pher, Albrecht Knapp, says : " How well would it 
 be for Germany if more mothers were to give their 
 native land such heralds of eternal life ! " Some of 
 Ludwig's sermons were printed while he lived, but 
 most of them after his death. Above 100,000 
 copies were sold in Germany. My own copy is 
 from the ninth stereotype issue, so soon did the 
 plates wear out. His books have been trans- 
 lated into French, Dutch, Danish, Russian, and 
 English ; and in old German families in America the 
 books you find most frequently are Arndt's and 
 Hofacker's sermons. There must have been some- 
 thing remarkable about a man who left such an 
 impression after a life of only thirty years. Short 
 notes of his life, taken from his journal, are prefixed 
 to most editions of his sermons, with a portrait of 
 him — a fine Roman face, youthful almost to boy- 
 ishness, a broad brow surmounted by the little 
 clerical cap worn in those country districts, and 
 great full eyes that seem to be looking out into 
 eternity. 
 His life. He was intended at first for business, but his 
 heart did not lie to it. He would be a minister, 
 and yet it could scarcely be so, for he had no par- 
 ticular seriousness or love of study. After prepara- 
 
THE UNPROKEN TESTIMONY. 331 
 
 tory education at the Padagogium or chief school 
 of the little town of EssHngen, and the Cloister- 
 school of Schonthal, he proceeded in 18 16 to the 
 university of Tubingen, which afterwards acquired 
 an evil reputation through Strauss and Baur. Here 
 he showed a jovial, restless temperament, being 
 more frequently in the beer-house than among his 
 books, with a strange power of influence over those 
 with whom he came into contact. But he was 
 free from vice, and he had a conscience, for he re- 
 solved that before he became a minister he would 
 seek for a change of heart. 
 
 The change came before the time he fixed. A His conver- 
 restlessness took hold of him. He felt that he had 
 no footing for mind or heart. Putting to himself 
 Pilate's question. What is truth ? he could not find 
 an answer. He resolved to write down what he 
 was sure of, but each thought vanished as he tried 
 to find expression for it. He happened to read at 
 this time an account of the death of Jung Stilling, 
 and he saw that Stilling had something which he 
 firmly believed, and on which he could base his 
 happiness. Jakob Bohme fell into his hands, but 
 confused him with the mystic idea of a holiness 
 that was to become his justification. At last, from 
 the Bible itself, he obtained a view of reconciliation 
 
332 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 without the works of the law, which he never lost. 
 This was just as he was finishing his student course, 
 and before he left Tubingen he received a blow 
 which left a mark upon the rest of his short life. 
 Crossing the street on an intensely warm day, in 
 August 1820, he had a sunstroke, fell unconscious, 
 and was seized by a nervous fever which returned 
 again and again, and made his work but a series 
 of intermittent efforts. Like the touch of Jacob 
 at Peniel, it weakened him physically but made 
 him a spiritual hero. 
 His work. He began his work by preaching for three months 
 at a small country village called Pleiningen, and 
 the people so felt the power and earnestness that 
 were in him, that they came from all the neigh- 
 bouring villages and crowded the church. Then he 
 broke down, and for two years he was laid aside. 
 He grew spiritually during those years, and rose 
 with a more simple and penetrating faith, that made 
 him speak as if he saw the invisible. He preached 
 in Stuttgart, the chief town of Wiirtemberg, every 
 Sabbath for two years. The effect was wonderful. 
 People flocked from distances of twelve and sixteen 
 miles eager to listen ; some even making journeys 
 of two days. To find room it was necessary to be 
 in church an hour beforehand. An eye-witness 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 333 
 
 describes the immense area — seats, passages, every 
 space crowded with a mass so dense that an apple 
 could not have fallen to the ground, silent and 
 waiting. And when Hofacker spoke of the love 
 of the crucified Saviour, and seemed to draw them 
 to His feet, the heads of the listeners bent invol- 
 untarily under his spiritual power. " I remem- 
 ber," he says, " comparing them unconsciously to 
 a cornfield with the heads of grain bowing under 
 the sweep of the wind. Though he disliked 
 appeals to mere feeling, sometimes a universal 
 weeping was perceived as the words of the Cross 
 came home to the hearts of the hearers. In those 
 days I could see crowds of travellers, staff in hand, 
 hastening to the town to find some spot where they 
 could hear a {q.\n words of the sermon. There was 
 a rare outpouring of the Spirit of God, and the 
 name of Christ was praised by thousands who 
 before had little concern for their souls' salvation."* 
 Hofacker's health broke down again and forced 
 him to leave Stuttgart, but he returned, only half 
 recovered, to his work of preaching. The flame 
 
 * This reminds us of the account given of the effect of a 
 sermon in which Richard Cameron appealed to the hills 
 around him : " Look to these hill-tops there, over the Shaw- 
 head. Take them in your view ; they are all witnesses. 
 Look to them ; they shall all be witnesses when you are 
 
334 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 had gone with his bodily vigour, but there was a 
 white heat, a deep concentrated fire, that was as 
 powerful and, if possible, increased his popularity 
 throughout the whole of Wurtemberg. But it was 
 not for long. In the spring of 1828 he preached 
 his last sermon on "Jesus, the conqueror of death;" 
 and, after much suffering, he fell asleep. The last 
 whispered words heard by his friends were "Saviour, 
 Saviour ! " 
 Character- When we read Hofacker's life and look into his 
 istics of his j5(,j.jy^Qrjs ^e see that the marvellous effect of his 
 
 preaching. 
 
 preaching was not produced by what is commonly 
 called eloquence. There is no appearance of the 
 arts of oratory, about which indeed he seems never 
 to have thought. There is no depth of thinking 
 or loftiness of imagination. There is little beauty 
 or freshnesij of illustration, little even of appeal to 
 the emotions. Still less is there any novelty of 
 doctrine or strangeness of speculation. If we read 
 his sermons merely for what they bring to the 
 intellect, we should say " we have heard all this 
 again and again, with far more of art and orna- 
 
 dying that you were invited and obtested to take Christ ; " 
 " and thereupon," says the narrator, " he fell in such a rapture 
 of calm weeping, and the greater part of the multitude, that 
 there was scarce a dry cheek to be seen among them, which 
 obliged him to halt and pray." 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 335 
 
 ment and scientific treatment." I do not mean 
 that his sermons are marked by any degree of 
 ignorance or carelessness. Far from it. He had 
 studied the Christian system, and he had studied 
 the Bible. His sermons were evidently thought 
 over and planned. They are not rhapsodies nor 
 disjointed remarks. They have all an aim, and 
 the divisions and treatment are often happy and 
 striking. But it is not in these that their power lies. 
 
 Apart from the power of the Holy Ghost, of Source of its 
 which we do not here speak, it had three sources : 
 — (i) the strong impassioned conviction with 
 which he pressed home the great central truth of 
 the love of God in Christ, with its two poles, sin 
 and righteousness ; (2) the deep earnestness and 
 sympathy with which he spoke — a solemn insist- 
 ance on the danger, a kindly yearning love for the 
 souls of men ; (3) the directness and intense force 
 with which he went to his aim. His object was to 
 come to close quarters ; or, as one of his hearers 
 said, he "shot with rifle balls." So he used the 
 simplest, clearest, most telling language, and put 
 his sentences in the directest forms. His brief 
 ministry was one strong, piercing cry, " We 
 beseech you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled 
 to God." 
 
336 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Its limited Yet his sermons were not repetitions. In the 
 °^^' beginning he was afraid they would be so. After 
 
 his first sermon he thought he had said all he 
 could say — that he had shot his one arrow and had 
 no more. But in his distress he seemed to hear a 
 voice saying, " Poor man, that does not lie on thy 
 head. Look to Me ; if I do not help thee, thou 
 art soon done." And, though his sermons have 
 always the one aim, they are very varied, and reach 
 it by different roads. Thus he says, " I have but 
 one sermon : come, sinners, and look on Christ. 
 I preach the Lamb that was slain ; that draws 
 hearts — oh, brothers, that draws hearts. It is a 
 pity that we have so many words in the pulpit that 
 do not go to Him. But I have found that he who 
 preaches Christ never runs done. We get done 
 with our wisdom, for it is a vessel, and a vessel 
 has a bottom ; but the love of Christ is an abyss, 
 and out of his fulness we receive grace for grace." 
 " We should preach," he says again, " more like 
 missionaries, as if we were going to the people for 
 the first time ; we make too many words and 
 forms of speech, far too many ; and they jmiss the 
 message. We should speak more simply and tell 
 them they have a Saviour, and who the Saviour is, 
 and what He has done, and what love He has to 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 337 
 
 men, and what blessings He has in store. We can- 
 not be plain enough, I might say common enough," 
 He gives his reason for preaching in one strain : 
 "The trumpet that wakens men is more powerful 
 and piercing when it docs not follow the range of 
 the scale, but keeps at one penetrating note," 
 
 With all this, he is aware that there are differ- 
 ent kinds of preaching. He says : " I do not know 
 that mine would tell for more than two years in 
 one place. People become accustomed to the 
 sharp searching tone, and it ceases to affect them." 
 He compares himself to a driver who presses the 
 sheep to enter the fold, while others must look 
 after their nurture there. 
 
 This is true ; and it suggests to us that Christian Lessoiu. 
 ministers whose gift is rather for edification, should 
 have no jealousy of evangelists, but rather welcome 
 them ; and also that the Christian Church, when 
 it finds a man with the evangelistic gift, should 
 appoint him to a special office. Still, we may all 
 learn from men like Hofacker to be evangelists as 
 well as pastors, and to seek often to present the 
 first truths of the Gospel in the simplest and 
 directest way. It is only at revivals that men are 
 raised up who have this power in the highest 
 degree — men who stand like Stephen in the very 
 
338 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 presence of God, and declare what they see. They 
 are placed along the Church's line of march, to be 
 witnesses to an invisible world and to rouse both 
 people and ministers. If we cannot reach their 
 power, we may learn from them that men are most 
 moved when we bring them to three places — Sinai, 
 Calvary, and the Great White Throne ; sin, right- 
 eousness, and judgment — these are the powers of 
 the world to come, and we must learn to use 
 them with God's help in some way, if we are to 
 speak in demonstration of the Spirit and with 
 power.* 
 
 C. Harms, Claus Harms was born in 1778, and died in 
 1778-1855. 
 
 1855, His life, which thus began earlier and 
 
 ended later than that of Hofacker, was different 
 
 in many ways, more coloured and combative, 
 
 and more connected with ordinary secular interests. 
 
 Yet he was the instrument of a revival of faith 
 
 in the north, as Hofacker was in the south of 
 
 Germany. 
 
 His youth. His father was a miller, a well-to-do man as we 
 
 should say, of good character, who lived at Dith- 
 
 marsch, in the province of Holstein, which was 
 
 then connected politically with Denmark. The 
 
 way in which young Harms repeated hymns and 
 
 * For a sketch of one of Hofacker's sermons, see page 346. 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 339 
 
 went through his school work, made the parents 
 
 think of making him a minister. But the father 
 
 changed his mind, partly from fear of the stirring, 
 
 restless character of the boy, and partly from 
 
 having lost the means of educating him. Claus, 
 
 however, was resolute, and with great difficulty 
 
 made his way to the university of Kiel. 
 
 The faith of his youth had by this time been Influence of 
 
 shaken, and he was at sea on almost every rehVi- ' , 
 
 ' ^ ^ macher. 
 
 ous question. A friend lent him Schleiermacher's 
 Reden. He sat down to read them on a Sat- 
 urday afternoon, read and re-read them through 
 the night and the next day, with scarcely any 
 sleep ; and when he finished, he was done with 
 rationalism. It took him, however, a good while 
 to find his way to a new life ; he needed, as 
 he said, to "bury dead rationalism in its grave." 
 Ever afterwards he looked on Schleiermacher as 
 his spiritual father, though he went on to more 
 positive standing-ground, or rather he went back 
 from all the schools that sprang from Schleier- 
 macher, to the position of Luther and the Augs- 
 burg Confession pure and simple. 
 
 When near the end of his student course, he His preaching 
 began to preach for his minister at Kiel, and the 
 people liked him so much that they repeatedly 
 
340 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 asked when they would hear him again. He 
 preached in the country for a while with the same 
 result, and then returned to Kiel. He spoke from 
 deep conviction, and had a fresh, striking way of 
 putting things ; and men flocked from all sides to 
 His struggles hear him. He had his difficulties. The university 
 at Kiel. g^j. jr jgj ^gg against him ; he was " an obscurantist, 
 
 a darkener of the light of reason, a retailer of old 
 worn-out ideas ; he and his Bible and Luther ! " 
 The middle-classes of Kiel were given to money- 
 making, and had grown vulgar ; they thought to 
 show that they were men of culture and progress 
 by chiming in with the university. Besides, they 
 liked to dine well, and it had been arranged that 
 Harms should preach in the afternoon just in the 
 middle of the dining-hour. Yet he held on with- 
 out complaining. People who dined sparingly 
 came to hear him ; the students, who found that 
 rationalism was getting old and that Harms was 
 new, also came. Then followed the professors ; 
 old Eckermann, the father of Kiel rationalism, 
 never missed an afternoon ; and the hotels and 
 restaurants had to arrange their hour for dinner so 
 His victory, that the gucsts might hear Harms. The victory 
 was now complete, as when Shimei, who had 
 thrown stones at David, came back to welcome 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 341 
 
 him in his triumph. But it took a number of 
 years. 
 
 Meanwhile Harms' name and views had been Growth of his 
 taking possession of Ilolstein and Schleswig, and 
 were known far beyond. He republished the 
 Theses of Luther, with others of his own bearing 
 on rationalism, and a fierce contest ensued. 
 About two hundred pamphlets were written by the 
 angry rationalists, but Harms had the best of it. 
 His style was so clear, so bold, so full of trench- 
 ant wit and humour, that everybody read what he 
 said, and the current flowed strong on his side. 
 People were weary of the dry moral harangues of 
 the friends of reason, and wanted something for 
 their heart and spirit. He was now the hero of 
 the time. The university that had laughed at 
 him made him a Doctor of Divinity. The King of 
 Denmark invited him to the Lutheran church in 
 Copenhagen ; the Emperor of Russia asked him 
 to settle in St. Petersburg ; and the King of 
 Prussia offered him the place of Court-preacher in 
 Berlin, vacant by the death of Schleiermacher. 
 But Harms declined these offers and remained at 
 Kiel, busy as ever. 
 
 Besides preaching, he occupied himself with the His varied 
 ordering of church affairs ; with the school-system, ^"^'^^'^y* 
 
342 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 seeking to make it Christian ; with the hymn- 
 book, restoring it to evangelical strength — it had 
 been watered down by the rationalists ; with 
 popular literature, trying to purify it ; till his 
 sight gradually failed, first one eye then the other, 
 leaving him at last in total blindness. But he 
 visited families, he dictated books, he preached 
 occasionally, and at length died quietly, after a life 
 of long and varied labour, at the age of seventy- 
 seven. 
 His strength. It will be seen from this brief sketch that 
 Harms was a remarkable man and preacher, and 
 it may also be seen in part wherein his power lay. 
 First of all, he planted himself on the central truths 
 of the Bible — sin, salvation, justification, and faith, 
 as these had been set forth by Luther, whom he 
 recognised as his master in theology. Next, he 
 had a deep conviction of their truth, and spoke 
 with all his heart. Lastly, he spoke simply and 
 directly according to his own nature, as Hofacker 
 did, though his nature was different from Hofacker's. 
 He was not so searching, arresting, subduing in 
 spiritual power, but more broadly human and fresh, 
 having a quaint fancy and a love for old confes- 
 sional forms — an eloquent Matthew Henry.* 
 * For a sketch of one of his sermons, see page 346. 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 343 
 
 Among many volumes which he gave to the His views of 
 press, there is one in three parts on The Preacher, ^'^^^'^ '"^' 
 The Pastor, and TJie Priest, and a tractate Mit 
 Zungen, With Tongues, from which we may 
 gather his views of preaching. The first thing 
 he requires of the preacher is a right spirit — that a The spirit of 
 deep holy earnestness should fill him ; and he refers ^ ^^^^^ '^^' 
 to the tongues that descended at Pentecost, as 
 emblems of a permanent qualification for which 
 preachers should always seek. This may be 
 strengthened by occasional retirement for hours, 
 and even days, of meditation and prayer. He 
 holds the necessity for spiritual " retreats," quoting 
 Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, and Paul ; and he 
 thinks that a man will always come forth from 
 such privacy with increased power. 
 
 Next, he says that the Bible is to furnish the Material for 
 material for preaching. Without this, the spirit ^"^^^^ ^'"^' 
 would want guidance. But he does not approve 
 of the " homily," nor of adherence to the exposi- 
 tion of parts of the Bible, nor of the textual 
 method. Indeed, he makes light of instruction, 
 and would have appeal made, not to the under- 
 standing but to the heart and conscience. In this 
 we think Harms to have been decidedly wrong ; 
 for the awakened heart cannot crrow without 
 
344 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 teaching, and the field of teaching must be the 
 truths of the Bible. His objection to textual 
 preaching, with his exclusive use of the synthetic 
 or topical method, is also, we think, a mistake. 
 Indeed, Harms did not, and could not, adhere 
 strictly to his own rule. 
 
 Language. As to the language of the sermon, he would 
 have it usually Biblical, and, when not so, then 
 of the simplest and most natural kind. He 
 denounces the use of book-language as suited 
 only for reading. Conversational language, the 
 language of the people, is the proper dialect of the 
 preacher — short, strong, kernel-like expressions, 
 without circumlocution or phrase-making. But 
 Bible language is always the best. We get our 
 religion from the Bible, and it should be our 
 mother tongue. " The nearer the Scripture," he 
 says, using a phrase of Hamann's, " the nearer the 
 skies." 
 
 Delivery. With regard to delivery, the idea that the ser- 
 
 mon may be read does not even enter his con- 
 ception of the work of preaching. The question 
 with him is whether it should be pondered thor- 
 oughly and spoken from the thought, in Schleier- 
 macher's later manner, or written and committed 
 to memory. He thinks that for most preachers the 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 345 
 
 latter is the better plan, and that, with some labour 
 at first, almost every one will in this way reach a 
 natural and easy delivery. 
 
 As to speaking, he enjoins three Z's. The three The three L%. 
 L's are — loud, longsome, loving ; to which I would 
 add — loud without bawling, longsome without 
 drawling, loving without whining. P'or tone and 
 emphasis and gesture, he would leave the preacher 
 chiefly to nature, though care should be taken to 
 correct defects and awkwardness. 
 
 From this it will be seen that, while Hofackcr llofackcr and 
 and Harms were different, they had the essentials 
 in common. They held the same Gospel and 
 maintained it in a time of coldness and defection. 
 They brought to it the same deep conviction, 
 drawn from personal experience. They had a true 
 love for their work and for men's souls, and they 
 addressed themselves to their task in the most 
 direct way, using all plainness of speech. There 
 were diversities of operations, but the same Spirit. 
 Without that which was common to both of these 
 men, our preaching will be to some extent marred ; 
 with even a portion of it, we shall, with God's help, 
 have abundant success. 
 
346 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note P, see page 338. 
 
 Skeleton of one of Hofacker's Sermons. 
 
 Matt. XV. 21-28— The Faith of the Woman of Canaan. 
 
 I. The nature and the form of her faith. It was great — 
 
 1. Because she followed its impulse without regard 
 
 to the judgment of men. 
 
 2. Because it broke through all obstacles. 
 
 3. Because a deep, unconquerable trust in Christ 
 
 lay at the bottom of it. 
 
 4. Because it was accompanied with deep humility. 
 II. How this faith was born in her. 
 
 1. She heard of Jesus and took the word to heart. 
 
 2. A terrible affliction was pressing on her. 
 
 3. She saw and knew of no other helper. 
 
 This division is a fair specimen of Hofacker's method. It 
 is quite simple and artless, while a rigid logic might pick 
 faults in it ; e.i;., the first and second sub-divisions of the 
 first part do not exclude one another. The power of his 
 sermons, however, does not lie in their arrangement, but 
 in their spirit and their fragrance. It is not from his head 
 but from his heart that we may learn. 
 
 Note O, see page 342. 
 
 Skeleton of one of Harms' Sermons. 
 
 John xvi. 16-23 — He selects from the verses the idea "a 
 little while," and speaks of its value to the Christian, 
 
 I. It chastises the sorrowful. 
 
 It checks the joyful. 
 
 It spurs the loiterer. 
 
 It pierces the careless and self-confident 
 
 It strengthens the struggling. 
 
 It upholds the dying. 
 
THE UNBROKEN TESTIMONY. 347 
 
 His divisions are clcaiiy cut, briefly expressed, and mem- 
 orable, and much may be learned from them. Sometimes 
 they are too numerous, there being in some cases as many 
 as twelve. But the illustrations are never long, and the 
 style is terse and picturesque. E.g., in enforcing the fourth 
 head of the above sermon, he says : " Who are the careless ? 
 We cannot seek them out or count them ; but let each man 
 step forward to this word with his heart. Who is the care- 
 less ? The man who has behind him a youth full of sins, 
 his riper years guilty without repentance, and who, because 
 in old age he has been forced to give up some sins, is confi- 
 dent that all is right. Man ! thou hast built thine house 
 upon a fire-vomiting hill, and thou dost not know it. Before 
 thou art aware, in ' a little while,' it will burst out and hurl 
 thee into an abyss where thou shalt no longer stand erect. 
 Thou dost not fear this? Even that is thy carelessnes* — 
 thy sinful carelessness." 
 
I800-I862. 
 
 B 
 
 LECTURE XIX. 
 
 BIBLICAL PREACHERS — STIER AND 
 KRUMMACHER. 
 
 I Y this title we do not mean that those of whom 
 we have been speaking are not in accord with 
 the Bible, but that the two men whom we here 
 name made use of the Bible in a way that brought 
 them closer to it, not only in its reality but in its 
 shape and formation. 
 R. Stier, Rudolf Sticr is well-known in this country by his 
 
 commentaries, especially The Words of the Lord 
 Jesus. It is a question whether they have not 
 sometimes been used to the weakening of self- 
 reliance and self-development ; there is always 
 this danger, when a commentary passes beyond 
 exposition into exhortation or into minute indica- 
 tion of lines of treatment. Yet there is perhaps 
 no one of the German writers, with the exception 
 of Lange, who has been of so much direct use to 
 ministers in the preparation of their sermons. 
 348 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 349 
 
 Though born in the Duchy of Poscn, which His education, 
 is mostly Polish, he was of German parent- 
 age. His father, who was in the Government 
 service, intended his son for the law. The educa- 
 tion of young Stier was not carried forward very 
 systematically, owing to the want of "higher" 
 schools in the neighbourhood ; but he made great 
 efforts in after life to compensate for this. At 
 the university of Berlin he entered the law classes ; 
 but he found the study uncongenial and dry ; and 
 after some trouble with his father, he gained 
 permission to change to theology and to enrol him- 
 self under Neander, who was then enthusiastically 
 followed in the Berlin university. It was not 
 decided religious conviction that led him to this 
 decision. He was of a poetic and idealistic nature ; 
 and the poetry of the Bible, with its dreams of a 
 nobler humanity, had great charms for him. He 
 lived in a constant ferment of excitement about 
 some great poet or some new movement. In 1818, 
 he removed to the university of Halle, and became 
 a leader there in the Burschenschafts or debating 
 and patriotic clubs. 
 
 Presently a great bereavement — the loss of His conyer. 
 his betrothed — shook his whole nature and turned 
 the stream of his enthusiasm into the channel 
 
350 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of religion. It was a period in Germany when 
 many heard the words of Christ as if for the first 
 time, and when sudden conversions were more fre- 
 quent than in calmer seasons. He speaks thus of 
 the change in a letter to Tholuck, who was one of 
 his friends. " As truly as I live, and live now truly 
 for the first time, I know that One lives outside us, 
 who can enter our hearts in a way above reason ; 
 and I now know that the natural man, with all his 
 poetry and fashions, is like a blind man without 
 light. He, He alone, is the light of the world." He 
 now threw himself with immense energy into the 
 study of the Bible as the source of all true know- 
 ledge, and published in 1824 his first book, Hints 
 on the believing Interpretation of the Scriptures. It 
 is brief but very suggestive, and contains the prin- 
 ciples of the numerous works that followed.* 
 His career. In the same year he was offered the office of 
 Lecturer and Teacher in the Mission-Institute of 
 Basel, a great school of evangelical missionaries, 
 and he gladly accepted it. There he remained 
 for four years, laying the foundation of his works, 
 
 * He himself drew the spirit of it from a remarkable man, 
 J. F. Meyer (not the commentator), who is little known in 
 this country ; a sketch of Meyer will be found in Note R, 
 on page 366. 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 35 « 
 
 and drawing out a plan for life, which he nearly 
 accomplished. His health, however, broke down 
 under his great labours, and, in 1829, he undertook 
 a pastoral charge near Merseburg. He afterwards 
 laboured in Barmen, a stronghold of the evan- 
 gelicals ; at Schkeuditz, near Magdeburg ; and at 
 Eisleben. In some of those places he was not very 
 successful, owing to his retired student habits, and 
 to the want in his preaching of that concreteness 
 which he recommends in his homiletical writings. 
 For ordinary hearers he was too minute, analytical, 
 subtle ; indeed he exemplifies the truth that it is 
 easier to tell what right preaching should be than 
 to practise it. Yet in other places, where Bible 
 instruction was valued, he was followed by crowds. 
 Tholuck gives this anecdote of him. In Magde- 
 burg, where he was very popular, one of the 
 country people was asked what kind of man he 
 was, and answered, " He is a religious mystic." 
 " But what do you mean by a mystic ? " "I mean 
 a man who does what he preaches." His last 
 charge was at Eisleben where Luther was born 
 and died, and there, after a life of constant study, 
 he was cut off by a stroke of apoplexy at the age 
 of sixty-two. 
 
 1 le was a man of strong faith, of piercing, power- His character. 
 
352 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 ful intellect, and of decided originality, who left 
 his mark on everything he handled. Withal, he 
 had a certain rockiness of nature that brought him 
 into collision with those about him — a flintrness 
 that gave out sparks when he was struck or when 
 those truths were struck that were dear to him. 
 His distinctive His views of preaching were different from most 
 of those which we have considered. Schleier- 
 macher spoke from the deep religious feelings of 
 one who was in Tertullian's phrase natiiraliter 
 CJiristiamis ; and, while he found the reflex and 
 completion of his feelings in the Bible, he took 
 from it only what melted into them. Nitzsch 
 went to the Bible with his heart, but not less with 
 a clear deep understanding, and thus became a 
 preacher of doctrine. Tholuck went with his heart 
 and with a rich imagination, and became a Christian 
 orator. Hofacker went with intense spiritual con- 
 viction, and became an apostle of repentance and 
 reconciliation. Harms went with the Confession 
 of his church, iand preached, as an evangelical or 
 orthodox churchman, the circle of things to be 
 believed and to be done. But Stier went to the 
 Bible alone, and to all the Bible, and in approach- 
 ing it he sought to strip himself of everything 
 that would prevent him from receiving its full 
 
BIBLICAL PKEACIIERS. 353 
 
 impression and from reflecting it in its rounded 
 completeness on his fellow-men. This is why we 
 have called him a Biblical preacher ; and to under- 
 stand his position we must define his views of 
 the Bible, which are themselves very important 
 and instructive. 
 
 He approaches the Bible with the persuasion Ilisviewofthe 
 that, beyond and above the particular writer, 
 aiictor primariiis est Spiritus SancUis. He does 
 not overlook the fact that the human medium 
 gives its own shade and colour, but he is chiefly 
 concerned with the divine light that shines through. 
 There is always a deeper sense and a wider 
 reference than the outside critic finds in the im- 
 mediate occasion. The Bible is one book, with a 
 pervading plan — the history of salvation — and with 
 the living breath of the Holy Ghost through it all. 
 No part, therefore, can be interpreted by itself; 
 each part must be taken in the light of the whole, 
 and has always some reference to the whole. He 
 thus comes upon the doctrine of inspiration from 
 what we may call the "inside." He finds the 
 Bible to be a living word wherever he goes, a word 
 that as far as he studies it has life in every part, 
 aiid witnesses in a thousand ways, to his mind and 
 
 heart and will, that it is not only above himself 
 
 2 A 
 
354 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 but above all the natural powers of man. He thus 
 supplies a wholesome counteractive to those numer- 
 ous critiques which regard only the human side 
 and mince the Bible into little dead fragments. His 
 commentaries are peculiarly stimulating from their 
 lively style of argument, and their edifying char- 
 acter makes them very suggestive to the preacher. 
 His ideas on In a tractate entitled the Keryktik, which is 
 preac ing. addressed specially to preachers, Stier declares 
 that the Bible is the living fountain of all Christian 
 teaching, and that wide, deep acquaintance with 
 it is the first qualification for preaching. The 
 preacher's work is to make the Scriptures living 
 and efficacious ; so he becomes a follower of the 
 apostles and prophets, and speaks with their 
 authority — i.e., with the authority of God. "If," 
 he says, " the cultivated pagans of the day wish to 
 hear something else, it is because they wish to hear, 
 not God's Word that they may learn and obey, but 
 the preacher's oratory that they may weigh and 
 criticise. Speak as wisely as thou wilt out of thine 
 own store, there will always be among them men 
 wiser than thou, or men who think that they are 
 wiser, and their pride will prevent thee from con- 
 vincing them ; they can be convinced only by the 
 wisdom of God." 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 355 
 
 With regard to the form of the sermon, he objects Form of the 
 vehemently to " the heathen rhetoric of the schools, ^°'^™°°* 
 with all its rules and methods." He would sub- 
 stitute for it a Christian Laletik — he is fond 
 of coining words. By this protest, however, he 
 means no more than that truth and reality should 
 underlie the forms of oratory. Quintilian had said 
 as much; and Stier's fellow-countryman, Theremin, 
 had enforced the same obligation.* Still, Stier 
 gives some special hints of his own. Each sermon, 
 he says, should have an exordium, which should 
 generally be a view of the connection of the text, 
 or a justification of the use that is to be made of it. 
 In the sermon itself the first point is to make clear 
 what is in the text, not merely in its original refer- 
 ence but in its principle, for every text contains 
 some principle of permanent application. The 
 preacher should be very clear in this, for he will be 
 surprised, when he comes into contact with people, 
 how confused and misty they are in their know- 
 ledge of Bible principles. But, after reaching the 
 understanding, he must bring home the principle to 
 the heart, the conscience, and the life ; without this 
 there can be no edification. Every sermon should 
 have these two qualities — should be both Scriptural 
 * For a fuller notice of Theremin, see page yj-i,. 
 
3S6 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 and personal, taken from the Bible and coming 
 
 home to the hearers. He prefers, as might be 
 
 expected, textual divisions, but he is not rigid, and 
 
 is quite willing that the different parts of the text 
 
 should be taken together, or that one leading topic 
 
 should be selected, if unity cannot otherwise be 
 
 gained. The close of the sermon should be a brief 
 
 summary for the final stroke, in which we must 
 
 take care that we do not draw back from the truth 
 
 stated in the sermon with the view of making it 
 
 milder and more pleasing. 
 
 Pulpit Ian. The speech of the pulpit should have for its 
 guage. 
 
 basis the language of the Bible. This is the best 
 
 mould for the truth, and it is the language which 
 
 the mass of the people comprehend and feel. A 
 
 man should not try to say things new and beautiful 
 
 and deep. If these come to him naturally, good 
 
 and well ; but the truth itself, if properly stated, 
 
 is deep and beautiful, and will be always new if 
 
 drawn from the variety of God's Word. Upon this 
 
 he again and again insists, that whether preaching 
 
 be topical or textual, it should keep close to the 
 
 thought and to the language of the Bible.* 
 
 * In this, as in many other points, Stier resembles our ven- 
 erated professor of exegesis, the late Dr. John Brown. We 
 do not append any sketches of his sermons, as they chiefly 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 357 
 
 The principles of Stier may be sometimes one- His faults, 
 sided and extreme, but they certainly deal with the 
 most important side of preaching. If he himself 
 was not always successful, it was from neglect of 
 his own maxims about bringing home the truth in 
 concrete shapes. He also shows a tendency to 
 undue repetition and prolixity, and to bringing too 
 much of the apparatus of the exegete into the 
 sermon. Yet, where these errors are avoided, such 
 preaching will be not only the most profitable but 
 the most interesting. We turn now to one who 
 succeeded where Stier failed. 
 
 Friedrich VVilhelm Krummacher was born at Krummacher, 
 Mors, near Cleves, on the Rhine, and died at ^ 
 Potsdam. He was perhaps the most popular 
 German preacher of his day, and resembled the 
 late Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in appearance and in 
 his pulpit manner, as well as in the tone of his 
 mind. 
 
 Both on his father's and on his mother's side he Early 
 belonged to a family of preachers. His father, who '" "^^"^^^ 
 was rector of the town school at Mors, was a man 
 
 follow the lines of his text, dealing largely with exposition, 
 and applying the subject as he proceeds. But his commen- 
 taries give a fair idea of his style. He cannot be reckoned 
 among the popular preachers of Germany. 
 
358 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of faith and poetic nature, the author of a book on 
 the Parables which is still popular in Germany, and 
 has been translated into English. His uncle, 
 Gottfried Daniel Krummacher, was also an author 
 and a noted preacher, and his words on his death- 
 bed made an ineffaceable impression on Friedrich 
 and his brother : " Yes, my young friends, we must 
 all lie here, you and I. We were born to die. See 
 that you learn early to believe on the Lord Jesus, 
 for without Him we are the most miserable of all 
 creatures." 
 
 Krummacher studied first at Halle and then at 
 Jena. Both places were under the influence of cold 
 rationalism and tame orthodoxy, but he kept 
 his spirit alive by reading Schleiermacher's Redcn 
 (the book which quickened Harms), Matthias 
 His ministry. Claudius, and, above all, Luther. His first settle- 
 ment was at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where he 
 became the intimate friend of a young French 
 minister, named Manuel, who died young. The 
 latter was a man of great insight and culture, and 
 Krummacher learned from him how to read and 
 use the Scriptures. But here he first began to 
 find his own manner, and to strike out boldly in 
 it. From Frankfurt he went to Gemarke in the 
 Wiipperthal, and thence to Elberfeld, in the same 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 359 
 
 neighbourhood. That district, which is full of 
 manufacturing towns and villages, has long been 
 one of the chief centres of religious life in Germany. 
 It had a band of faithful and able ministers ; and 
 Krummacher says he does not think that there was 
 a place in Europe where at that time the Gospel 
 showed itself with so much living power. He 
 describes with enthusiasm the imposing Sabbath 
 and week-day assemblies — head behind head, men 
 as well as women ; the mighty waves of song that 
 seemed to lift the preacher above himself; the 
 deep earnestness and sympathy reflected on the 
 faces of the audience ; the solemn Communions ; 
 the praise heard in the houses during the week, 
 living echoes of the Sabbath sermons ; the joyful 
 welcome to the minister on his visits ; and the 
 manifest effect of the Gospel upon the living and 
 the dying. 
 
 It was here that in 1828 he published his first 
 book. Glimpses into the Kingdom of Grace, of 
 which Goethe wrote a somewhat scoffing review 
 — a proof that Krummacher was becoming a man 
 of note. He continued here for a number of years, 
 till he was called to Berlin to take the place of 
 the well-known theologian, Marheineke. The soil 
 there was very different from that of the 
 
36o LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Wuppertnal ; for Berlin had been the centre of 
 the Illuminism, and, for many years, perhaps the 
 most bleak region of Protestantism in the world. 
 The ordinary Berliner recognised religion only by 
 the registration of baptisms and funerals. The 
 great Church of the Trinity, to which Krum- 
 macher went, was nearly empty, but ere long he 
 drew to it from all quarters of Berlin, and from all 
 classes of society, a congregation so large that a 
 seat could be secured only by an early visit. He 
 was also the means of a considerable revival of 
 interest in mission work. In 1853 the King called 
 him to the Court-church at Potsdam, with a view 
 to giving him relief, and from personal liking for 
 his preaching. He died there suddenly at the age 
 of seventy-two. 
 His preaching. His Elijah the Tishbite, translated by Dr. Cairns, 
 who was also his interpreter at the Berlin meet- 
 ing of the Evangelical Alliance, his Elisha the 
 Prophet, and his David King of Israel give a clear 
 idea of his style of lecturing or preaching ; for 
 these were delivered to popular audiences, and all 
 his discourses have their characteristics. Every 
 student should read them as specimens of the 
 picturesque treatment of Bible history, which was 
 his favourite subject. His manner is highly dram- 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 361 
 
 atic ; he has the power of making scenes and 
 persons visible and present. They seem to come 
 nearer and nearer the hearers, as he shows that 
 men of the past were like ourselves, with the same 
 heart under the antique Eastern robe. His 
 language is full of colour and imagery, with a 
 rich varied flow that winds round every subject 
 and suits itself either to the lofty or to the tender. 
 Within these pictures we have constantly the great 
 doctrines of grace, the New Testament being 
 poured back into the bosom of the Old, Jesus 
 Christ walking amid the seven golden candlesticks 
 of the Jewish Temple, the still small voice speak- 
 ing from Horeb of sin and salvation, of death and 
 life eternal. It may be added that in Krum- 
 macher all the externals were those of an orator ; 
 his voice was powerful, rich, and flexible, able to 
 sink to a soft whisper or rise to the roll of 
 thunder. His look and gesture were so expres- 
 sive that deaf people, it is said, followed the 
 course of his preaching with intelligence. His 
 power continued to the end of his life, becoming 
 mellowed and more mature, but not less attractive. 
 As to his opinions about preaching, he refuses Yi\% opinion 
 
 all rules, like Stier, and wishes that every man f^°"* preach- 
 ing. 
 should take his own natural bent. Such a refusal 
 
362 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 will be generally found to proceed from some 
 previous excess of formalism. The logical method 
 of Reinhard had been pressing hard on the freedom 
 of German preachers ; and Krummacher is at the 
 farthest possible recoil from this. In him we see the 
 complete rebellion of heart and fancy against the 
 reign of the rigid understanding. 
 His method. But, notwithstanding this, he has his method 
 and principles. The introduction is generally 
 short and vivid, leading right up to the text ; the 
 divisions are briefly expressed and memorable ; 
 while the close is also brief and telling, the 
 application being given throughout the discourse. 
 But his characteristics do not lie in his methods, 
 but in the carrying of them out. They remind 
 one of the paintings of Rubens, where the lines of 
 the sketch are lost in the strong colours and broad 
 handling of the subject. He was a colourist, and 
 indeed took lessons for his preaching from a cele- 
 brated German painter, Kugelgen, who was married 
 to his sister, and whose autobiography, Erinnerungen 
 ernes alien ManneSy is one of the most delightful 
 books a student of German can read. The same 
 feature belonged to Dr. Guthrie. When he was 
 criticising a picture one day, the artist said, " What 
 do you know of our art, Dr. Guthrie?" "I do 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 363 
 
 know about it," he replied, " you paint on canvas, 
 we with words." So Krummacher's sermons are 
 like a gallery of paintings. Every truth is thrown 
 into a figure. Every historical incident is filled up 
 from his fancy with the greatest minuteness. A 
 touch or two of the Bible is to him like a bone to a 
 comparative anatomist ; he can reconstruct the 
 whole figure from it and clothe it with flesh and 
 fence it with sinews, till we feel that, whether the 
 facts were so or not, the figure is one of human 
 nature. He recommends the preacher to use three 
 books — the Bible, his own heart, and the people, 
 and he himself draws from these in all his sermons.* 
 
 But it must be confessed that he commits faults His fault* 
 in using each of these three books, and that he 
 would have been the better for some of the rules 
 which he despises. In regard to the people, he is 
 apt to cultivate the love for the sensational and to 
 transgress the bounds of good taste ; e.g., in describ- 
 ing the death of John the Baptist, he was so minute 
 and vivid as to the manner of the execution 
 that some of the ladies in the audience shrieked 
 and fainted away. How much better to have 
 imitated the wise reserve of the evangelist ! In 
 
 * Some further notes on Krummacher's preaching will be 
 found in note S, on pages 367-8. 
 
364 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 regard to the heart, he lets it carry him away into 
 digressions that leave the main current of the 
 discourse and deprive it of concentrated power. 
 And in regard to the Bible, he overlooks its 
 historical development, making Elijah and Elisha 
 as fully acquainted with the doctrines of the New 
 Testament as the Apostle Paul. He reminds one 
 of a criticism which Dr. Guthrie used to repeat, 
 passed by a Unitarian writer upon his own Gospel 
 in Ezekiel: "Dr. Guthrie seems to think that Ezekiel 
 signed the Confession of Faith." Now it is quite 
 true that Christ may be found in all the Bible, but 
 not by the same methods nor in the same light. 
 There is the morning-star issuing from the bosom 
 of the night, there is the faint flush, the rosy dawn, 
 the bright noontide. We must not confuse these. 
 We lose the truth, the beauty, the harmony of the 
 Bible, its convincing testimony to its own divinity, 
 its fitness to all the stages of our humanity, if 
 we do not trace the goings of our God and King, 
 like the light that shineth more and more unto the 
 perfect day. 
 
 But notwithstanding such faults, we may even 
 say because of them, Krummacher deserves the 
 attention of every student who wishes to carry life 
 into his exposition of the Bible, to vivify its history, 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 365 
 
 and to make it everlastingly fresh and new ; and if 
 one could combine the Bible exegesis of Stier with 
 the Bible representation of Krummacher, so that 
 the Christ who was so dear to both of them might 
 be felt in the Old Testament and seen in the 
 New, he would be a Biblical preacher indeed. 
 
366 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Note R, see page 350. 
 J. F. Meyer and Schubert. 
 
 Johann F. von Meyer, who was bom at Frankfurt in 1772, 
 and died there in 1849,, influenced many preachers by his 
 study of the Scriptures and his religious philosophy, 
 although he was not a theologian by profession. He was a 
 student of law, and rose to a high position as a judge and 
 diplomatist, but he was also a student of universal learning. 
 He devoted himself to poetry and art and natural philosophy ; 
 to the drama, ancient and modern. Attached strongly to 
 the stage, he made an effort to raise it to the position of a 
 teacher of morality and a purifier of social life. But his 
 endeavour after this ideal failed in the rude conflict with 
 popular taste. The frequenters of the theatre demanded 
 different entertainment from what his conscience would 
 allow him to give. He was a student of the Bible on the 
 poetic and moral side, but trials taught him to read it for 
 comfort and to enter into its depth. " I learned," he says, 
 " that the doctrine of redemption is the distinguishing and 
 immovable centre of Christianity, and that the Cross is the 
 believer's star to guide him into endless discoveries of wis- 
 dom and .glory." He did not give up human learning, but 
 sought to use it for the elucidation of Bible truth. He made 
 himself an eminent Hebrew scholar that he might read the 
 Old Testament, to which he directed a great deal of thought. 
 He made a new translation of the Bible. He also wrote a 
 large work Bibel-Deuttingen., Hints for the Bible, and another, 
 Blatter fur hohere Wahrheit, Leaves for the higher Truth, 
 somewhat in the manner of M. Claudius, but without his 
 peculiar humour. His views, as those of a layman, had a 
 great effect in turning the thoughts of many to religion, 
 and his writings on the Bible, though fanciful in their alle- 
 gorising, have opened up fresh paths to students. 
 
BIBLICAL PREACHERS. 367 
 
 G. H. von Schubert (1780- 1860) occupied a somewhat 
 different position. He was a medical man, with an all- 
 devouring appetite for knowledge, the friend of Herder, of 
 Schelling, of Karl Ritter, and of most of the eminent men 
 of his time. He studied the Bible in Meyer's spirit, and he 
 made a long journey to the East in order to understand it in 
 its birth-place. His book. Old and New out of the Inner 
 Region of the Soul, made a great impression on the young 
 men of his time. 
 
 Note S, see page 363, 
 
 Krummacher's Preaching. 
 
 Here are two specimens of his brief introductions — 
 
 Phil. iii. 20-21 — "Our conversation is in heaven," &c 
 
 "What language is this, dear friends ! And it is not the 
 language of a perfected saint, but of a sinful son of Adam, a 
 pilgrim of earth like ourselves. We may use it when we 
 become Christians as the apostle was. How was he a 
 Christian ? Let us see, first, what light this passage throws 
 upon the answer." 
 
 I Kings viii. 65 — Solomon's Feast. 
 
 " The words we have read place us in one of the happiest 
 times of the histoiy of Israel. They introduce us to a feast. 
 The joyful songs of these fair days have been silenced for 
 thousands of years. But if we listen, they renew themselves 
 in our hearts with loftier tones. Let us try to catch their 
 echoes by thinking, first, of the object of the feast, and, 
 secondly, of the feast itself" 
 
 Here is the close of a sermon on Hosea xiv. 5 — " I will 
 be as the dew unto Israel : he shall grow as the lily." 
 
368 LECTURES QN PREACHING. 
 
 " May the Lord then come unto us hke the dew ! May He 
 •ome to those who are still like a withered branch, fit to be 
 cast into the fire and burned, and may He work a wonder 
 like that on Aaron's withered rod, which in a night, through 
 His power, budded and blossomed and bore its almond 
 fruit ! And as often as He comes down to us to call a soul 
 into the eternal world, may it be said in heaven, — He is 
 gone down into His garden to the beds of spices, to feed in 
 the gardens and to gather lilies ! May His kingdom and 
 His flock blossom like the rose. Amen." 
 
 He has a celebrated sermon on "Judah's Encampment," 
 taken from Numbers ii. 3. It is divided thus : — 
 
 I. The tribe of Judah ; 2. His camp ; 3. Its position ; 
 4. His standard ; 5. His armies ; 6. His captain — each 
 head being taken as emblematical. 
 
 This is not making the Old Testament bear upon the 
 New, but playing with it. His uncle, Gottfried Daniel, was 
 much given to this method of preaching. 
 
LECTURE XX. 
 
 RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING.* 
 
 IN the latter part of our survey we have seen the End of the 
 decline of the older rationalism, principally f'^^"" '^^'''"*^' 
 through the influence of Schleiermacher and the 
 theology of feeling. The end of this form of 
 rationalism, the rationalism of the superficial 
 understanding and of utilitarian morality, was also 
 hastened by the philosophy of Kant. Kant did Kant, 
 not occupy the Christian ground. In his Critique 
 of Pure Reason, he denies that reason as such can 
 give any knowledge beyond the finite, but in 
 his Critique of the Practical Reason, which is his 
 name for conscience, he recognises the categorical 
 
 * [This lecture was written in 1880. Seven years have 
 not only removed some of the preachers mentioned in the 
 lecture, but have changed the attitude of others. Any 
 attempt to bring the lecture up to date would necessarily 
 have expressed the opinions not of Dr. Ker but of the 
 editor.] 
 
 369 2 B 
 
370 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 imperative, the inexorable " thou shalt " of duty ; 
 and from this he deduces three immediate con- 
 sequences — God, moral freedom, and immortality. 
 Kant was, so far, a Stoic in morality, and there- 
 fore he was opposed to the easy self-satisfaction 
 of the old Illuminist school. He held, too, very 
 strongly, the fallen moral condition of human 
 nature, and, thus, though he denied or ignored the 
 doctrines of the Gospel, he took such a high and 
 earnest view of moral law that he may be called 
 a John the Baptist outside the limits of the Bible. 
 We refer not to the purpose, but to the result of 
 his teaching. 
 
 Opposed by such influences as these, the Illum- 
 inism or Naturalism of last century, having no 
 root in itself, withered away. It produced no great 
 preachers after Zollikofer ; and its last theologians 
 were Paulus and Wegscheider, who were all but 
 forgotten before they died. We have noted the 
 revival of Christian teaching through Schleier- 
 macher, Nitzsch and Tholuck, Hofacker and 
 Harms, Stier and Krummacher, who all were 
 men of faith, though they belonged to different 
 schools. 
 
 The vessel did not, however, enter the harbour ; 
 or when the wind had ceased from one quarter, it 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 37 1 
 
 sprang up from another. The chief occasion of 
 this was the popularity of a new system of philo- 
 sophy — the system of Hegel. The Hegelian philo- Hegelianlsm, 
 sophy professed to take a wider view than that of 
 Kant, and to explain the universe and everything 
 in it from the structure and movements of the 
 mind. It was the development of the universe in 
 all its fulness and multiplicity from the indiffer- 
 ence of being or not-being, from the emptiness of 
 nothing or less than nothing. It created wonder- 
 ful excitement throughout Germany, and its force 
 was felt in almost every region of thought and 
 action. After the death of Hegel in 183 1, his 
 school divided into two main branches — the Risfht. 
 or Christian side, which sought to reconcile his 
 teaching with positive revelation, and the Left, 
 which became pantheistic or atheistic. While the 
 attempts of the Right to reconcile Hegelianism 
 with Christianity have only kindled ignes fattii; 
 the Left, although it has died away in Germany as 
 a philosophical system, remains in some of its con- 
 sequences. One of these has been the formation 
 of the so-called Historico-critical school of ration- The Histonco- 
 alism, the chief seat of which has been until lately *'"''**^ "^°°'- 
 the university of Tubingen, from which it is 
 usually named. The early leaders of this school 
 
372 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 were the noted David F. Strauss, and Ferdinand C. 
 Baur. Instead of accepting the Bible documents, 
 and explaining away their revelations, they sought 
 to destroy their authenticity, and so to neutralise 
 their contents. Strauss did this by the Mythical, 
 and Baur by the Tendency theory ; the one of 
 which is that the early Christians were deceived, 
 the other, that they were deceivers. The contro- 
 versies that arose out of those theories, and the 
 varied voluminous literature which they produced, 
 interfered much with the progress of the revival. 
 Controversies There WES another cause of disturbance. From 
 the time of the Reformation, there have been two 
 churches in Germany, the Lutheran and the Calvin- 
 istic or Reformed. King William III., the father 
 of the present Emperor, with that imperious spirit 
 which seems to belong to Prussian rule, ordered 
 the union of those churches, and enforced it under 
 penalty. His example was followed by other Ger- 
 man Governments, but resistance was offered, speci- 
 ally on the side of the Lutherans ; and when more 
 liberty was granted, there came to be three churches 
 instead of two, the Lutheran, the Reformed, and 
 the Union which comprised a portion of both. 
 This question has caused much friction of feeling, 
 and has checked the flow of Christian life. 
 
 about Union. 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 373 
 
 Still there has been progress. A large propor- 
 tion of the theological professors, and of the 
 ministers in all the three churches, maintain posi- 
 tive Christian principles ; and at no period, perhaps, 
 since the time of Spener has there been a greater 
 number of earnest and eloquent preachers of the 
 Gospel. I shall to-day give the names and char- 
 acteristics of some of them, noting some features of 
 the style of preaching which prevails at present. 
 
 Before coming to our own time, however, we Theremin, 
 may mention a name which would have had a ^^ °^ ^ 
 separate place at an earlier period in this course, 
 had time permitted. Franz Theremin, for a long 
 time the most popular preacher in Berlin, was born 
 in Germany, although of Huguenot descent, and 
 was educated at Berlin, Halle, and Geneva. He 
 preached for several years in French, first at 
 Geneva and afterwards at Berlin ; but in 18 14 he 
 accepted a call to the chief German church in 
 Berlin, where he continued till his death in 1846, 
 discharging latterly the additional duties of pro- 
 fessor at the university, besides lecturing on homi- 
 letics. Many of his sermons have been published, 
 and they are considered models of a certain kind 
 of eloquence, which we may call the Classical- 
 Christian. He was a believing man, and the spirit 
 
374 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of his preaching was evangelical and warm. He 
 was a lover of method, and studied diligently the 
 ancient models, while the form of his sermons 
 shows traces of his French origin. He has written 
 a book on preaching, which is well worth reading, 
 Beredsamkeit eine Ttigeyid, " Eloquence a virtue." 
 The object of it is to show that rhetoric is a branch 
 of ethics. The public speaker, especially the minis- 
 ter, should be a good man,* convinced of the truth 
 and righteousness of his cause, and animated by 
 his conviction. His preparation, his choice of 
 materials, his arrangement, and his delivery should 
 all be regulated by the highest principles, and 
 should constantly aim at a pure end. Theremin 
 carries out this line of thought into all the details 
 of preaching, and he himself acted on it. 
 
 The other German preachers to whom I shall 
 refer are either now alive, or have died recently. 
 Instead of taking them in chronological order, we 
 shall glance at them according to the schools which 
 they represent. 
 Modern We may mention, first, Karl Schwarz, of the 
 
 1 na IS s— j^Q^gj-j^ rationalistic school, who stands at its 
 Schwarz. ' 
 
 head as a preacher ; if we do not name others, 
 
 it is not because rationalists are not abundant, but 
 
 * Decet oratorem bontmi virtnn esse. — OUINTILIAN. 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 375 
 
 because this school does not produce many eminent 
 preachers. Schwarz is the exponent of The Neiv- 
 est Theology, a kind of manifesto of his party, and 
 his sermons have aheady passed through several 
 editions. He is a man of sharp intellect, ready 
 and eloquent of utterance, while a breeze of imagi- 
 nation fills the sails of his speech, and makes up 
 for the want of real warmth and light. His prin- 
 ciple is that a preacher must translate the spirit of 
 Christ into the wants and feelings of his time, by 
 which he means the adaptation, not of language, 
 but of the substance of Christian doctrines. He 
 would take the ideas of sin and atonement, the 
 death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and, 
 having stripped them of what he calls their my- 
 thical dress, he would apply them to the human 
 nature of our day. Thus for the Holy Spirit, he 
 substitutes " the higher reason of Christianity; " for 
 the sinful heart, " the laxity of modern life ; " for 
 regeneration, "the beginning of nobler impulses;" 
 instead of Christ's ascension, we have "the elevation 
 of humanity ; " instead of personal immortality, we 
 have " corporate immortality." The old words are 
 very often so skilfully used that the superficial 
 hearer thinks he is getting the Bible, and it is only 
 the hungry heart which feels the want of living 
 
576 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Modern 
 Lutherans — 
 
 L. Harms, 
 1808-1865. 
 
 bread. There is at the same time a constant 
 repetition of scorn for traditionalism and Pharisa- 
 ism, with a claim to superior enlightenment and 
 culture. But it is simply the old rationalism 
 aerated — Hegel in the pulpit instead of Wolf — and 
 when it stands a while, or comes from an unskilful 
 imitator, it is as dead as such teaching was in the 
 middle of last century. 
 
 The modern Lutheran school stands at the 
 opposite extreme. It is to be found both in the 
 separate community which has tried to base itself 
 on the old Confession of the church, and in the 
 United church, which has more or less adopted its 
 views. It includes a number of distinguished 
 names ; Kahnis and Delitzsch of Leipzig are its 
 men of learning ; Ludwig Harms and Kliefoth 
 are its popular preachers ; while Kogel is more, 
 being one of the most eloquent Christian orators 
 in Germany. We cannot characterise them all, 
 but we may refer briefly to Harms and Kogel. 
 
 Ludwig Harms, though not related to Claus 
 Harms, had much of the same character. He 
 assisted and succeeded his father, who was minister 
 at Hermannsburg in the Luneburg. The popula- 
 tion of that district is of the Low-German type, the 
 same race as the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons, who 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 377 
 
 peopled our shores 1400 years ago, strong, perse- 
 vering, and realistic, but ready to sink into the 
 animal. It has been qualified in Scotland by the 
 Celtic admixture, which brought in elements of the 
 ideal, and also by religion ; else we had been more 
 of the earth earthy than we are. Harms found a 
 low and sensuous moral tone, resembling that 
 of our own country where the abominable bothy 
 system prevails. By his persevering labours and 
 ardent preaching, he made a green spot in the 
 desert, formed schools, prayer- meetings, home 
 missions, and even sent out several missionaries to 
 the shores of Africa. He himself was a genuine 
 Nether-Saxon, hard, rugged, and practical, with a 
 deep vein of tenderness beneath. He says of 
 himself, " I belong by nature and training to the 
 rough kind. I was taught by my father not to cry 
 though my head should be knocked to pieces, but 
 when I first saw my sins against God I wept like 
 a child." The grace of God softened his heart, but 
 left the same strong bold nature. He threw him- 
 self with all his force against the indifference and 
 vice by which he was surrounded, preached in 
 plain straightforward language, and wrought a real 
 reformation in the district. His ideas of preaching 
 and his own style will be best understood by 
 
378 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 his advice, which is as follows : " I have only one 
 theory, that of the Holy Ghost. With the power 
 of the Holy Ghost fresh from the Bible, driven 
 by the love of Christ, let us speak right on to 
 the people as our tongue is made, and because we 
 cannot help it. To see in every soul a soul bought 
 by the blood of Christ, which should belong to 
 Him, and which we must strive to win back for 
 Him— that, I take it, is the fresh road of life. Do 
 you preach without scruple God's Word? Have 
 no fear of consequences, chastise the sins and god- 
 lessness of the lairds and farmers, whether they 
 are present or not, and the sins and godlessness oi 
 the labourers, whether they are present or not, and 
 whether both alike take it ill or not ; God's Word 
 never comes back empty. Picture to them Jesus 
 Christ — this before all things ; set Him before 
 their eyes in the full form of His Cross and of His 
 glory, and pray among the people with all your 
 heart for the Holy Spirit. Do not manufacture 
 your sermons, but pray them out on your knees.* 
 When the people are sleeping, wrestle with the 
 Lord for the souls of men ; sacrifice time, strength, 
 and comfort, everything, everything, to the Lord 
 and to the salvation of souls. Again, I say, preach 
 * ^^ Bene precasse est bene studmsseJ' 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 379 
 
 the Word of God, whether it be justification by 
 faith or the sanctification of the Sabbath, the 
 Gospel or the law, preach it so that there be no 
 back-door left for mistake or escape. Everything 
 must bend to God's Word, and nothing can reUeve 
 you from the duty of plain dealing with it. Call 
 everything by its right name, that men may get 
 hold of your meaning with their hands, and that 
 nothing may fly over their heads. With all this 
 I entreat you walk holily, and avoid everything 
 that tastes or smells of the world ; preach nothing 
 that you do not practise." 
 
 Harms carried out this fully, so much so that, in 
 the meetings he held after the regular service, he 
 spoke to the people in the Low-German dialect, 
 which corresponds to our Lowland Scottish.* 
 
 R. Kogel is as different as well may be from Kogel 
 Harms. He has fancy and feeling of the highest 
 order, and is perhaps the most brilliant preacher 
 in Germany at the present time. He is a man of 
 learning and cultivation, with wide knowledge of 
 history and literature ; a man of the world, also, in 
 his acquaintance with human nature. He resembles 
 Harms in this, that he is fearless in rebuking sin^ 
 
 * This reminds us how Dr. Chalmers explained to an old 
 woman the meaning of faith by the word " lippen." 
 
38o 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 whether it be in the court or in the cottage, and 
 that he aims at plain intelligible speech. But he 
 is, besides, a poet in the pulpit, with command over 
 the whole range of feeling. Many of his sermons 
 have been published, and they are widely read, 
 especially the series named, From the Fore-court to 
 the Most Holy Place. He preaches very often from 
 the Old Testament ; but his power lies not so much 
 in going into the depths of the Bible, as in reaching 
 the depths of the human heart. He is well aware 
 that, with all the talk in our day of intellectual 
 difficulties, the real obstacle with most men is the 
 aversion of the heart to the humble, self-denying 
 character of the Gospel, and therefore he aims at 
 the heart. He is incisive and aggressive in his 
 preaching ; borrowing the words of the old orator, 
 he says that every sermon must be a battle. 
 Scriptural— The next group of preachers may be called the 
 Scriptural. Among these we may rank Julius 
 Miiller, and Beck of Tubingen, lately dead, Luthardt, 
 Stein meyer, Gerok, and Uhlhorn, who are still 
 alive. 
 
 Julius Miiller was one of the greatest theologians 
 of modern Germany, and is in this respect to be 
 placed beside Nitzsch. His chief book, The Christ- 
 ian Doctrine of Sin, in spite of one or two excres- 
 
 J. Muller, 
 1801-1878. 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 381 
 
 cences, makes a true appeal, on the one hand to 
 Scripture, and on the other to conscience. As a 
 liber classicus it will not soon give place to any 
 other, and is indeed one of those books which 
 make an epoch by fresh criticism and masterly 
 analysis of the deepest spiritual facts. His preach- 
 ing, however, is quite different. It is so plain and 
 natural, that one would fail to find the great 
 theologian in it, were it not for his clearness and 
 simplicity. He lays down two principles for his 
 own guidance. First, the preacher is above all 
 things an expositor of the Word of God, not a 
 philosopher with a system of human wisdom, 
 nor an imaginative painter of ideal creations. 
 He has charge of the divine oracles, and must 
 stand aside and let them speak, or rather they 
 must speak through him, warmed by his heart 
 and verified by his experience. His second 
 principle is that the preacher's language should 
 be such as to reach all his hearers, or at least that 
 it should not be his fault if it does not. If there 
 are those who come to the house of God to have 
 their vanity flattered or their ears tickled, the 
 preacher cannot on their account neglect the 
 great work of speaking to the hearts of the sinful 
 and suffering. The house of God is a place where 
 
382 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 the rich and poor should meet together on the 
 same level, with the words, " Behold, we are here 
 present before God, to hear the things that are 
 commanded us of God ; " and the preacher must 
 address himself to this state of mind, or he must 
 seek to bring the hearers to it. Muller's own 
 sermons are constructed on this principle ; while a 
 profound and philosophical theologian, he preaches 
 to the capacity of plain people. The use of his 
 learning seems, in the language of Usher, to be 
 ** the making of things plain." 
 
 Two notable preachers of this school are to be 
 found in Wurtemberg. 
 Gerok. Karl von Gerok is the most popular preacher in 
 the south of Germany, holding a place like that of 
 Kogel in Berlin, He deals, however, more with 
 the meaning of Scripture than Kogel. He has 
 published four volumes of sermons, and in the pre- 
 face to the second he defines his developed idea 
 of preaching. The first volume, he says, may 
 seem to have more youthful fire and fancy, but his 
 endeavour is more and more to apply the text 
 of the Bible to the heart and life, in the spirit of 
 the teaching of the Evangelical Confession, with 
 language suited to the various necessities of the 
 community. His wish is to make the narrow way 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 383 
 
 no broader than God has made it, and yet not to 
 exclude art or science or any other aspect of life, 
 nor to keep back those who are still astray, or in 
 search of the truth. Gerok holds a high position 
 in the superintendence of the Wurtemberg church, 
 and he is the author of some of the best modern 
 hymns, breathing a deep and fine Christian feeling. 
 
 We must say something of Johann Tobias Beck, J. T. Beck, 
 whose influence is still powerful in Wurtemberg ' °^'^ "'^ 
 and indeed throughout Germany, In 1842 he was 
 appointed professor at Tubingen, where Strauss 
 and Baur had assailed the Bible with the most 
 persevering ingenuity and with the keenest weapons 
 of learned criticism. When Baur spoke, it was con- 
 sidered the last word of the destructive school. In 
 the New Testament he left standing as unassailable 
 the epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Gala- 
 tians ; all the rest he attacked. Beck was one of 
 the most decided believers in the inspiration of the 
 Bible, and, when he was appointed to succeed Baur, 
 the change which he wrought at Tubingen was 
 wonderful. His class-room was soon crowded by 
 students from all parts of Germany and from 
 foreign lands. He did not exercise influence so 
 much by the apparatus of learning — though he was 
 a distinguished scholar ; he carried home conviction 
 
384 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 by the way in which he dealt with the Bible morally 
 and spiritually. He had laid not only his under- 
 standing but his heart, his conscience, his spirit, 
 close to the Bible, having made it the unbroken 
 study of his life. He knew it as a man knows the 
 home in which he has lived for years, and was " a 
 man of the Word " as few have been since the days 
 of the apostles. His own studies had begun with 
 Bengel's Gnomon, and along with this he had 
 caught from Oetinger a flavour of mysticism, which 
 was congenial to the German students with their 
 love of the uncommon. But it was a mere stray 
 twig of his doctrine ; the stem and the root were 
 deep in the Word of God as the book given for 
 man. This was his teaching in the professor's 
 chair, and he preached as he taught ; indeed it was 
 often said of him that he preached from the chair 
 and taught from the pulpit. He tells us that he 
 learned his academical theology in ten years of an 
 active pastorate, that he found then the difference 
 between broken cisterns and the living fountain, 
 and became convinced that the great error of the 
 time was to place idece academics instead of idea 
 Scripturarice. The academy and science are good, 
 but when the life of the Bible leaves them they 
 yield only pieces of dead scholasticism, Strauss, 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 385 
 
 Baur, and Renan, he says, are mere anatomists. 
 The Bible is not only light but life ; it is a seed 
 that sends forth fresh buds and blossoms for every 
 man' who comes to it, and for every generation. 
 In this spirit he taught and preached to the end, 
 and left a class of scholars who may do something 
 to repair the evil wrought by the destructive 
 historical critics. 
 
 Luthardt, the well-known professor at Leipzig, Luthardt. 
 is also a distinguished preacher who never fails to 
 find an audience. His aim is to reach the heart 
 and conscience, but his sermons are marked by a 
 union of simplicity with elevation, and by thought- 
 fulness compressed often into short sententious 
 sayings. 
 
 Steinmeyer, professor in Berlin, was, in his earlier Steinmcycr. 
 
 years, spoken of as " the young Schleiermacher." 
 
 He resembles Schleiermacher in the way in which 
 
 he builds up his materials, and in the steady step 
 
 with which he advances to his purpose ; but he 
 
 differs from him in this, that he occupies himself 
 
 much more with his text and with the meaning of 
 
 Scripture. His views are always fresh and original, 
 
 and few men are better fitted for penetrating below 
 
 the surface of the text, and opening up new and at 
 
 the same time true lines of thought. 
 
 2 C 
 
386 
 
 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Uhlhora. 
 
 The Bremen 
 School. 
 
 Uhlhorn is a man who has been rising of late in 
 reputation. His sphere of labour is Gottingen and 
 Hanover. He is a man of deep and extensive 
 theological learning, and belongs to the school of 
 Nitzsch, with more of clearness and oratorical 
 power in his mode of representation. 
 
 There are parts of Germany where evangelical 
 preaching has a long established hold. We have 
 spoken of Wurtemberg, and have also referred to 
 Elberfeld and the Wupperthal ; we may mention 
 here the city of Bremen, which is a centre of 
 missionary effort. The Christian life of Bremen 
 has owed much to Menken, a preacher of marked 
 individuality, who died in 1831 ; to Friedrich 
 Mallet, whose published sermons have met with 
 a very favourable reception ; and more recently 
 to Funcke who, besides being a telling preacher, 
 is the author of a number of books, somewhat in 
 the style of Claudius, which are widely read. This 
 part of Germany has a type of mind closely 
 resembling the Dutch, strong in mother wit and 
 practical sagacity, with a vein of realistic poetry. 
 It is shown fully in the Dutch and Flemish 
 schools of painting, and in the noted animal epic 
 of Reineke Fucks, Reynard the Fox, which had a 
 Nether-Saxon origin. When carried into preach- 
 
RECENT AND PRESENT GERMAN PREACHING. 387 
 
 ing by such men as Claudius, Harms, and Funcke, 
 it produces sermons of a singularly clear, impres- 
 sive, and sagacious character, to which, perhaps, 
 the nearest English resemblance is in Spurgeon's 
 preaching ; there were elements of it in the late 
 William Arnot and William Anderson. 
 
 Before closing this lecture, we may briefly in- Features of 
 dicate some general features of present German ^° ^^" 
 
 preaching. preaching. 
 
 It has lately been striving after more simplicity 
 and clearness, without becoming less instructive. 
 Almost all the recent writers on homiletics dwell 
 on the necessity of studying the language of the 
 people, and speaking to them in it, rather than in 
 the language of the schools. 
 
 In form, it varies between the textual and the 
 topical methods, according to the mental structure 
 of the preacher ; but, on the whole, the tendency 
 has been to leave Schleiermacher's manner for a 
 closer use of the text — i.e.y the preaching has 
 become more Scriptural. 
 
 The substance is largely evangelical. We would 
 not have you to infer that the amount of rational- 
 istic preaching is to be measured by the names 
 which we have given. Far from it. But the most 
 distinguished preachers are those of the evangeli- 
 
388 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 cal school. Their sermons attract the largest 
 audiences and are the most widely read, and it is 
 quite natural that it should be so. Their themes 
 are not only most divine, but most human, reach- 
 ing into the deepest affections of the heart, and 
 rising with the highest aspirations of the spirit. If 
 this preaching is at any time superseded by 
 superficial views of Christianity, it is only when 
 preachers deal unworthily with the truths which 
 are committed to their trust. There is no theme 
 which so attracts men, or so moves them in their 
 whole nature, as the glorious Gospel of the blessed 
 
LECTURE XXI. 
 
 LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING. 
 
 "ITfE propose to-day to gather together some 
 *^ * counsels for guidance in preaching, drawn Guidance (oc 
 chiefly from our survey of German preaching be- °"'^^'^^^*^ 
 tween the Reformation and our own time. There 
 are two aspects of preaching : the form of the ser- 
 mon, and its matter or contents. Taking these in 
 order, observe, first, what we may learn as to the i. As to form, 
 form. 
 
 I. At an early stage in this course of lectures we Textual and 
 saw that the first form of Christian preaching was methods, 
 the homily, in which a portion of Scripture was 
 explained and applied, and that this method, when 
 used in the exposition of a single verse, devel- 
 oped into what is technically called the Textual 
 method ; for a Textual sermon is a homily on a 
 single verse. We also saw that very early in the 
 history of the pulpit there came to be discourses 
 
 389 
 
390 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 upon saints or martyrs, delivered either at the time 
 of their death or on the anniversaries of their death. 
 These took the form of the oration of the Greeks 
 and Romans, and, when Christianity had gained 
 power among the more educated classes, this be- 
 came a favourite method of preaching, and 
 developed into what we term the Topical method. 
 Preaching has constantly varied between these two 
 — the Textual or analytic, in which the preacher 
 follows his text faithfully, dealing with its several 
 parts ; and the Topical or synthetic, in which he 
 selects the chief points, and expands or impresses 
 it by reasons, suggestions, and illustrations not con- 
 tained in the text. 
 
 Luther, as a rule, preferred the Textual method, 
 though he did not adhere to it strictly ; Melanc- 
 thon, the Topical ; Spener, the Textual ; the 
 rationalists and men like Reinhard, the Topical. 
 Their gradual In later times the two methods have drawn 
 Uo^***^"^" closer to each other, leading thus to forms of 
 preaching which we cannot accurately describe by 
 either of those names. The Textual treatment has 
 approached the Topical by seeking to use the lead- 
 ing thought of the text as the centre of the sermon, 
 and to group the other parts round it ; while the 
 Topical has approached the Textual by seeking 
 
LESSONS FOR OUR r REACHING. 391 
 
 for a text which really contains the topic, and by 
 adhering to the original meaning of the text 
 throughout the sermon. There have thus come to 
 be methods termed Textual-topical and Topical- 
 textual. It may seem as if these were the same, 
 but there is a real difference between them. If you 
 look for a text, or are attracted by one, and make 
 the chief topic in it the centre of your sermon, you 
 take the Textual-topical. On the other hand if 
 you select a topic — say, Missions, or the New Year, 
 or the Teaching of Christ — and go to the Bible for 
 a text to strike the note of your discourse, your 
 method is Topical-textual. 
 
 Now, so far as there has been progress in Ger- 
 man preaching, it has been in the direction of these 
 two mixed methods. Latterly, the most impres- 
 sive and successful preachers have avoided both 
 extremes, both the slavish adherence to verbal 
 exposition of the Bible, and the unchartered liberty 
 which disregards the need of a Scriptural basis. 
 Whatever your special bent may be, you will be Lesson from 
 cautioned against error by observing that this has "* 
 been a line of real progress, and has guided recent 
 preachers to produce better sermons than men who 
 were probably their superiors in power and in 
 resources. If you are drawn towards the Topical 
 
392 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 method, then seek for a true Scriptural ground 
 attach your topic to a real text, that so your ser 
 men may be Scriptural. If you are drawn towards 
 the Textual method, which is upon the whole the 
 more useful and the more suitable for most men, 
 then seek for concentration, and do not let the 
 parts straggle. This rule applies in part even to 
 the lecture upon a continuous passage, which can 
 rarely be subjected to Topical treatment. Even 
 there, wherever it is possible, try to find the order 
 of the thoughts in the passage, so as to sustain the 
 interest of your hearers and to leave a single 
 impression. Indeed it is usually desirable to select 
 one verse, either from the passage itself or from 
 some other part of Scripture, which contains the 
 kernel of the lecture, or will at least serve your 
 hearers as an index-finger. 
 2. As to sub- II. When we turn from the form to the substance 
 
 StfttlCC 
 
 of the sermon, we find that almost all preachers 
 and homiietes admit that it should be drawn from 
 the Scriptures. But we may draw from the Scrip- 
 tures in many different ways, and the special way 
 we take gives our preaching its distinctive character. 
 Reformers. The early Reformers went to the Bible on the 
 
 principle that the great thing is to preach faith — 
 faith in Christ, faith in Christ as the ground of the 
 
LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING. 393 
 
 sinner's justification in the sight of God. The 
 doctrine of justification by works — by ceremonial, 
 by penance, or at the best by moral conduct — was 
 so prevalent that they set over against it such texts 
 as, " Being justified freely by His grace ; " " Being 
 justified by faith we have peace with God ; " " In 
 whom we have redemption through His blood." 
 They offered free and full salvation to all sinners 
 who would believe in Christ, and the effect of such 
 preaching, coming as it did from their hearts and 
 from strong conviction, was very great, as it will 
 always be. 
 
 But in time, faith, instead of being a means Dogmatisu 
 leading to Christ, became an end in itself, and 
 instead of Christ there were certain doctrines 
 about Christ — logical propositions contained in the 
 creed and founded on proof-texts. The great 
 thing then for a Christian man was orthodoxy, 
 and salvation was to be found by being sound in 
 the faith — ?>., in the creed. Religion ran into a 
 surface-shell and became hard and crustaceous. 
 It was not so with all ; there were many excep- 
 tions, many quiet, earnest preachers, and hearers 
 also, whose names have not come down to us ; but 
 as a whole, the seventeenth century was one of 
 hard, dry dogmatism. 
 
394 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Pietists. There came then the desire on the part of good 
 
 men for life. They said, " Reh'gion does not con- 
 sist in holding doctrines, however true and Scrip- 
 tural they may be ; it consists in living a life of 
 faith in the Son of God, and in order to live we 
 must be born." These men drew from the Bible 
 the great doctrines of regeneration and the work 
 of the Holy Ghost. Their texts were, "Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, ye must be born again ; " 
 " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
 dead, and Christ shall give thee light ; " " If we 
 live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." 
 These were the Pietists — men like Spener and 
 Francke, as holy and devoted men as ever lived ; 
 and they produced a great effect. Under their 
 preaching there was a revival of religion through- 
 out Germany. The Bible was read and studied, 
 fellowship-meetings prevailed, books of devotion 
 were written, warm, fervid hymns were composed 
 and sung, and Christians rejoiced in the dawning 
 of a new day. 
 
 Later Pietists, This lasted for more than two generations ; but 
 by-and-by the Pietists came to set too much value 
 upon feeling ; they made it everything ; they 
 studied their hearts, felt their pulses, cultivated 
 temperaments and emotions, and were in despair 
 
LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING. 395 
 
 when they could not find what they sought. Their 
 hearts did not look out to see the great living 
 Christ of the Bible ; they tried to trace His image 
 in the troubled watery reflection of their own 
 emotion. Religion became subjective and senti- 
 mental — sometimes too sweet when they were 
 pleased with themselves, and sometimes very sour 
 when they compared themselves with the common 
 world. Now, pride of any kind brings punishment, 
 and spiritual pride is never more offensive to God 
 than in the spirit which says, " Stand by ; I am 
 holier than thou." So there arose a wide-spread 
 cry : " Let us be done with words and phrases 
 and moods and mysticism, let us have reality and 
 plainness ; come out of this sultry, misty region 
 into the light of common day, the light which we 
 call reason. If there be anything in the Bible, it 
 ought to explain itself distinctly, and to prove 
 itself to our natural understanding. Man is 
 the measure of the universe; he is to measure 
 it by his reason, and his reason is the growth 
 of his senses, the outcome of what he sees and 
 handles and feels." 
 
 Taking this principle to the Bible, the Rational- Rationalists, 
 ists sought by it to uproot all the supernatural, that 
 the Church might have a simple, easy book which 
 
396 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 would perplex and trouble nobody. The preaching 
 of their generation took this character. It dis- 
 regarded the divine nature of Christ, and spoke 
 of His humanity ; it denied or overlooked His 
 atonement, and dwelt upon His example. It 
 rejected doctrine and insisted on morality ; it 
 smiled at regeneration and sanctification as anti- 
 quated and mystical notions, and maintained 
 the sole need for moral improvement. It was 
 all for charity or toleration (except of Pietists), 
 and lukewarm about- truth. Some of its preachers 
 attracted large audiences by their rhetorical 
 power, and showed much ingenuity in the use 
 of their scanty materials ; but the majority, 
 not being great orators, tried to keep up the 
 interest of the people by taking secular and social 
 subjects, and preaching upon the trivial events of 
 domestic or municipal affairs. Soon the people 
 wearied of such nine days' wonders, and missed the 
 things that made them thrill and weep and tremble 
 and rejoice. Not the Bible only, but the whole 
 world of human life seemed so stale and flat and 
 unprofitable. The soul was ready to die of 
 inanition, and the church became a more tiresome 
 place than it had been in the old orthodox time. 
 This was the hour of midnight, a Greenland mid- 
 
LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING. 397 
 
 night, and the German church took a chill, from 
 which she has not yet recovered. 
 
 Then came men who said, " But after all there is Ratio-pietisu 
 more in man than the bare understanding, there is 
 a soul, and the soul has wants and desires which 
 the understanding can neither explain nor satisfy. 
 The soul is conscious of weakness, and must have 
 something or some one to lean on. It is conscious 
 of sin, and it needs pardon and purity, or the power 
 that will give it hope of purity ; it can conceive of 
 an infinity and an eternity, and it must turn to 
 these. What can meet its wants but Christ ? That 
 which you give us for Him is not merely beneath 
 the Bible view, it is beneath the cry of the soul in 
 man's nature. Whatever you make of the Bible, 
 we feel there must be a Christ." 
 
 The first of these men was Schleiermacher. His Schleier. 
 was the religion of feeling, feeling in a different 
 sense from the Pietistic, not the feeling that follows 
 conversion, but the feeling in man's nature that 
 seeks for a God and finds Him in Christ. It arose 
 from the necessity of going deeper than the bare 
 understanding and senses — to the soul, that religion 
 might have a basis there ; and it expressed the 
 important truth that we should commend ourselves 
 to every man's conscience (a-vvelBrjai^) in the sight 
 
398 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 of God, try to get at the deepest things in human 
 nature, and bring them up into the light of the 
 divine. 
 Mediating This was a starting-point of a new style of 
 preaching in Germany — the study of man's inmost 
 nature, and the bringing of the Gospel to bear on 
 it. But Schleiermacher only gave the starting- 
 point ; he was too subjective and shadowy, and 
 those who followed him have dealt more with the 
 personal Christ. Such is the preaching of Nitzsch, 
 Tholuck, Julius Miiller, and others, who have in the 
 main returned to the preaching of the Reformation, 
 and of Spener and Francke. They preach justifi- 
 cation by faith as Luther did, and they preach 
 regeneration with Spener and Francke ; i.e., they 
 hold by doctrine, and they hold also by the religion 
 of the heart, while their aim is to present these 
 to the soul of man with self-evidencing power, the 
 power that makes a man say, Come and see. 
 This is really the ground taken long before by men 
 like John Howe and Pascal, and in recent days 
 by such French preachers as Vinet and Adolph 
 Monod ; but in Germany it has been reached after 
 a long struggle, which was forced on by rational- 
 ism, and the need of finding a deep foundation on 
 which to meet it. 
 
LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING. 399 
 
 What then are the conclusions which we should Lessons from 
 draw from these things, in regard to the subject- ! ^^^^^ 
 matter of preaching ? 
 
 1. First, we should preach justification by faith. Of the 
 This was the doctrine that made the early ^^fo™**"*- 
 Reformers strong, and it is the only form in which 
 
 you can offer a free Gospel, and give men a 
 foundation on which they can stand to begin the 
 great work of building up a new life. 
 
 Yet we must beware of letting this preaching run 
 into the mere rehearsal of a creed. We must keep 
 it living ; and the way to keep it living is to con- 
 nect it always with a personal Christ. Carry all 
 the doctrines up to Him — the rays of light to the 
 Sun of Righteousness — in whom we have redemp- 
 tion through His blood. 
 
 2. Secondly, we should preach conversion and re- Of the 
 generation — the need of a great change, and of the 
 work of God's Holy Spirit. Religion is nothing 
 unless it is a life, an inward life given from above. 
 
 But we must not allow our preaching, or the 
 lives of Christian people, to drift into mere emo- 
 tion, which will surely become unhealthy and mor- 
 bid. We must turn the heart out upon the life, 
 and show that the evidence of Christianity is to be 
 given by reflecting the image and the character of 
 
400 LECTURES ON PREACHING. 
 
 Christ. If we live by the Spirit, we shall walk in 
 
 the Spirit, and a straight, steadfast walk is the way 
 
 to gain deeper spiritual peace and to prove our 
 
 religion to the world. 
 
 Of the Media- 3. We may learn from the present Mediating 
 ting schooL 
 
 school that we require to study, not merely the 
 
 Bible but human nature, and to bring these two 
 
 together. We must make our hearers feel that 
 
 Christ still knows what is in man, and that, when 
 
 He comes in His Gospel, He discloses truths which 
 
 they could not indeed have found without Him, 
 
 but which they now know to be real, not on 
 
 His authority alone but by inward testimony, 
 
 as a patient's symptoms confirm a wise doctor's 
 
 diagnosis of his case ; and not only this, but that 
 
 He can cure their nature and lift it up to a height 
 
 they knew not of before. 
 
 Of the Ilium- 4. But "have we nothing to learn from the Illum- 
 
 inists ? Yes ; we may learn from them the duty of 
 
 using plain, direct speech, and a language which 
 
 men can understand. The truths of the Gospel 
 
 reach away into the infinite and eternal, else they 
 
 would not be suited to an immortal nature ; but 
 
 the first elements of them can be made so plain 
 
 that he who runs may read. I may see a pathway 
 
 up a mountain-side that ascends and winds under 
 
 imsts. 
 
LESSONS FOR OUR PREACHING. 401 
 
 deep rock shadows and through thick forests, till 
 it disappears in the far heights on which the sun- 
 shine gleams, and earth and heaven meet. I should 
 be a rationalist if I said, " The path leads no fur- 
 ther than the little terminus you see ; " but I should 
 be an obscurantist, if I did not set the traveller on 
 the road, saying, " This is the way, walk ye in it." 
 
 And we have this, further, to learn from the 
 lUuminists, that the preacher has to deal with all 
 man's nature and all man's life. As Tholuck says, 
 " Every sermon should have heaven for its father, 
 and earth for its mother." It is not needful that 
 we should tell men about ploughing and bee- 
 keeping and gardening and weaving ; but we can 
 bring home to them the great rule, " Whatsoever 
 ye do, do all to the glory of God." 
 
 Let us, then, preach salvation by faith, and regen- 
 eration through the Holy Spirit ; let us seek to 
 search the depths of the soul with the Gospel of 
 Christ ; let us bring all God's truth to bear on the 
 life of men in plain, practical speech ; and we shall 
 be workmen that need not be ashamed. 
 
 3D 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Alexandria, the school of, 6a 
 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, loi. 
 Andrea, Jakob, of Esslingen, 173. 
 
 „ Valentin, of Stuttgart, 177. 
 Antioch, the school of, 64, foil. 
 Apostles, the preaching of the, 38-43. 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 124. 
 Arndt, J., 178, 186. 
 Athanasius, 75. 
 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, 50, 103- 109. 
 
 n » his opinion of 
 
 Cyprian, 99. 
 
 II }i his opinion of 
 
 Ambrose, 102. 
 
 w apostle of the Anglo-Saxons, 
 III. 
 
 Basil the Great, 75. 
 
 Baur, F. C, 372, 383. 
 
 Beck, J. T., 383. 
 
 Bede, the Venerable, IJ3. 
 
 Bengel, J. A., 225-229, 237, 239, 273. 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, 125. 
 
 Berthold of Regensburg, 127. 
 
 Bible, the Church, and the individual, 
 
 the, 221. 
 Biblical Preachers, 348-368. 
 Bohler, Peter, 237. 
 Bourignon, Madame, 200. 
 Bremen school, the, 386. 
 Brown, Dr. John, compared with Stier, 
 
 356. 
 Bugenhagen, 153. 
 Buxtorf, 186. 
 
 Calixtus of Helmstadt, 171. 
 Calovius of Konigsberg, 171. 
 Cameron, Richard, extract from ser- 
 mon by, 333. 
 Captivity, prophetic work in the, 25. 
 Carpzov, J. B., 196, 218. 
 Chalons, battle of, 95. 
 Charlemagne, 115-118. 
 Christ as a preacher, 33-38. 
 
404 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Chrysostom, 50, 65-69, 76. 
 
 Claude of Turin, 120. 
 
 Claudius, Matthias, 276-285, 358, 
 
 366. 
 Clover-leaf of Cappadocia, the, 75. 
 Codex Buranus, 131. 
 Constantine, 56, 59. 
 Cramer, 277> 
 Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 98-100. 
 
 Dannhauer, 186. 
 
 David, Christian, 230, 231. 
 
 Delitzsch, 376, 
 
 Deutschniann, 218. 
 
 Dogmatists, the, 393, 
 
 Dominicans and Franciscans, the, 139. 
 
 Dorner, 309. 
 
 Eastern Church, preaching in the, 
 
 54-90. 
 Ebionitism, 64. 
 Eckermann, 340. 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 8, 212. 
 Elijah and Elisha as preachers, 22-24. 
 Ephrem Syrus, 69-72. 
 Erasmus, his treatise on preaching, 
 
 141, 153, 174. 
 Ernesti, 249. 
 Ewald, 277. 
 
 Fenelon, 200, 269. 
 
 Francke, A. H., 201-207, 214, 219, 232. 
 
 „ the younger, 223. 
 Funcke, 386. 
 
 Galitzin, Princess, 269. 
 Gerhardt, John and Paul, 179 
 German Preaching, recent and present, 
 
 369-388. 
 Gerok, Karl von, 382. 
 Gerson, John, 130. 
 Gesta Romanorum, 142. 
 Gnomon, Bengel's, 225, 237. 
 Gregory the Great, 111-113. 
 
 „ Nazianzen, 75. 
 
 „ of Nyssa, 75. 
 Guthrie, Dr., compared with Krum- 
 
 macher, 357, 362. 
 Guyon, Madame de, 20a 
 
 liamann, J. G., 269-275. 
 
 Havet's theory, 129. 
 
 Harms, Glaus, 338-345. 347. 35* 
 
 „ Ludwig, 376-379. 
 Hegel, 308, 371. 
 Herrnhut, 231. 
 Hincmar, 112, 1 1 8. 
 
 Hofacker, Ludwig, 329-338, 346, 352. 
 Homiliarium, the, 117. 
 Huss, John, 130. 
 Hyperius, Andreas, 174. 
 
 Illuminism, the preaching of the, 241- 
 263. 
 n hidden life in the, 264-287. 
 „ lessons to be drawn from 
 400. 
 Instructiones Sancti Columbani, 53. 
 Isaiah, 25. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Israel, prophetic schools in, 22-24. 
 
 Jansenism, 200, 208. 
 
 John of Damascus, 77. 
 
 Judah, prophetic schools in, 24. 
 
 Kahnis, 376. 
 
 Kant, 369. 
 
 Kliefoth, 376. 
 
 Knapp, George, 224, 318. 
 
 „ Albert, 330. 
 Knox, John, compared with Luther, 
 
 149. 
 Kogel, 379. 
 Koran, the, 15. 
 Kottwitz, Baron von, 318. 
 Krummacher, Friedrich W., 357-36S> 
 
 367. 
 „ Gottfried D., 358, 368. 
 
 Labadie, 187, 199. 
 
 Lactantius, his opinion of Cyprian, 99. 
 Lange, Joachim, 223. 
 Lateran Museum in Rome, 48. 
 Lavater, 267. 
 Leo the Great, 1 10. 
 Loscher, Ernst, of Dresden, 218. 
 Luthardt, 385. 
 
 Luther, 149-165, 183, 302, 358. 
 Lyndsay, Sir David, his opinion of the 
 secular clergy, 138. 
 
 Mahometanism, 15, 86-88. 
 Mallet, Friedrich, 386. 
 Marheineke, 359. 
 
 Mariolatry, origin of, 77, 78. 
 
 Martyr, Justin, his account of preach- 
 ing, 44. 
 
 Materialism, 30. 
 
 Maurice, F. D., compared with Schl«i«r« 
 macher, 295. 
 
 Mayer of Hamburg, 218. 
 
 Mediating school, 308-327, 400. 
 
 Melancthon, his Loci Communes, 174. 
 
 Menken, 386. 
 
 Meyer, J. F., 350, 366. 
 
 Michaelis, J. D., 197. 
 
 Moravian Brethren, the, 229. 
 
 Moses, 18-20. 
 
 Mosheim, 241-244. 
 
 Muller, Julius, 295, 309, 319, 380, 
 398. 
 
 Mystics, the, 125, 224, 
 
 Neander, 309, 318, 349. 
 
 New Testament, preaching in the, 
 
 32-43- 
 Niebuhr Family, the, 277. 
 NiUsch, K. L, 295, 309-316, 398. 
 
 „ compared with Tholuck, 
 
 320. 
 H compared with Stier, 
 
 352. 
 
 Oetinger, 229, 266, 384. 
 
 Old Testament, preaching in the, 15-31. 
 
 Olshausen, 309. 
 
 Orders, the preaching, 139. 
 
 Origen, 8, 47, 51, 60-67, 69, 73-75. 
 
4o6 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 Orthodox and Pietists, controversy 
 between the, 218. 
 
 Fancratius, Andreas, 175. 
 
 Patriarchs as preachers, the, 17. 
 
 Paulus, 370. 
 
 Peasants' War, the, 168. 
 
 Pericopic system, the, 117, 159. 
 
 Perthes, 277. 
 
 Pietism, 200-222, 394, 399, 
 
 „ the offshoots of, 223-240. 
 Plitt, 234, 236. 
 Popular School of Preaching, middle 
 
 ages, 127. 
 Post-apostolic Church, preaching of 
 
 the, 44. 
 Postils, origin of the name, 1 18. 
 
 „ Luther's, 158. 
 Prophetic schools, the, 21. 
 Prophets, the Jewish, 16-31. 
 
 Rationalists, the, 374, 395, 
 Reformation, the, 97, 133, 
 
 M preaching immediately 
 
 before the, 133-146. 
 „ preaching of the, 149, foil. 
 
 Reformed church in Germany, position 
 
 of the, 170, 372. 
 Reformers, lessons to be drawn from 
 
 the, 399. 
 Regular clergy, rise of the, 1 39. 
 Reimarus, 208. 
 
 Reinhard, F. V., 232-259, 262, 286, 
 303. 
 
 Reuchlin, his treatise on preaching, 153. 
 Reventlow, 277. 
 Ritualism, 28. 
 
 Sack, 309. 
 Samuel, 20-22. 
 Savonarola, 130. 
 Schelwig of Dantzic, 2lS. 
 Schleiermacher, F. E., 288-307, 339, 
 
 352, 358, 397- 
 Scholastic preaching, 124. 
 Schubert, G. H. von, 367. 
 Schwarz, Karl, 374. 
 Scriver, Christian, 178. 
 Secular clergy, the, 137. 
 Semler, 208, 224, 226, 237, 29a 
 Spalding, J. J., 248-250, 260. 
 Spangenberg, 176. 
 Spener, Philip J., 185-199, 213. 
 
 „ M contrasted with Rein- 
 
 hard, 258. 
 Steffens, Heinrich, on Schleiermacher, 
 
 304- 
 Steinmeyer, 385. 
 Stier, Rudolph, 349-357i S^I. 
 Stilling, Jung, 267, 33 1. 
 Stolberg, the Counts, 277. 
 Strauss, 208, 372. 
 Syncretism, 171. 
 
 Tauler, Johann, 125, 179, 
 Tersteegen, 199. 
 
 Textual and topical methods of preach' 
 ing. 389-392. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 Theodoret, 77. 
 
 Theremin, Franz, 355, 373, 374. 
 Thirty Years' War, the, 169, 185. 
 Tholuck, A., 238, 295, 316-327, 350- 
 
 352, 398. 
 Tillotson, 8, 191, 245. 
 Tours, battle of, 96. 
 
 Uhlhorn, 386. 
 Ullmann, 295, 309. 
 United Brethren, the, 234. 
 Univeisities in the I3tb century, 131. 
 
 Vinet compared with Nitrsch, 312, 315. 
 
 Wegscheider, 37a 
 
 Wesley, John, 237. 
 
 Western Church preaching, 91, foIL 
 
 Wittenberg, university of, 151. 
 
 Wizenraann, 266, 
 
 Wolf, 245. 
 
 Wycliffe, John, 130. 
 
 Zinzendorf, Count, 199, 229, 23i-236k 
 Zollikofer, G. J., 250-252, 26a 
 Zwingle, 170. 
 
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