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HOMILETICS
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BY JAMES M. HOPPIN
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PROFESSOR IN YALE COLLEGE
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1
· · καὶ ἱκάνωσεν ἡμᾶς διακόνους καινῆς διαθήκης, οὐ γράμματος, ἀλλὰ
τὸ γὰρ γράμμα αποκτέινει, τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα ζωοποιεῖ.
TARMATOS
,
2 CORINTHIANS 3:6,
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
ས།,
***
COPYRIGHT, 1881
BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY.
¿
1
TO
THE ILLUSTRIOUS MEMORY
OF
DR. AUGUST NEANDER
WHO
BY HIS PROFOUND GENIUS AND VAST LEARNING
MADE TO SPEAK AGAIN
THE ANCIENT PREACHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN
CHURCH
THIS VOLUME IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED
BY
A FORMER PUPIL
•
51
My
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
TRUTH, born of God, does not change; but the forms
in which it is apprehended, and its modes of influencing
the mind, are continually undergoing development. The
old gospel contains many new systems of theology,
and it is capable of producing many new methods of
preaching.
The human method of presenting divine truth so that
it may be received to the welfare of the soul, must be
adapted to the soul, and to the soul of an age. Preach-
ing is a progressive art, and in this aspect it is worthy of
profound study. Preaching has not lost its power (as
some assert) over the human mind, any more than the
gospel has lost its power, for truth always demands an
interpreter, and the soul always yearns for a teacher in
divine things; but there are times, when, from inexplica-
ble causes, preaching passes through new phases and
modifications, and in that process of transition its power
is obscured. The present is such a period. This is con-
fessedly an unsettled age: theories of society, education,
and science are evolved and tested with astonishing rap-
idity; and it would be indeed strange if preaching did
not feel the influence of the breath that has come over
the intellectual world. Much that is merely extrinsic
and conventional must disappear; but the free thought
and philosophic culture of the day will, in the end, pass
224690
iv
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
into, instead of diminishing, the power of preaching, and
Christianity will work in and through them for its own
higher ends.
The preacher cannot hope to lead and guide minds if
he does in no manner comprehend the wants of an ad-
vancing age, like the present, which is one of real inter-
est, though of fearless inquiry, in theological questions,
and of the bold reconstruction of religious philosophies.
The preacher can no longer successfully deal in dull
learning and trite ideas, without fresh thought, original
and conscientious exegesis, noble and true literary form,
and, above all, practical earnestness and spiritual life.
Not that the want of these has characterized the past
age, but that the time has come when their absence is a
marked deficiency.
A
Still, too much ought not to be made of the intellec-
tual aspects of the subject, important as they are; for,
of the two classes into which Pascal divided preachers,
into those who belong to the order of intellect, and those
who belong to the order of love, the greatest preachers,
as Pascal thought (among whom he counted Augustine),
have ever been of the latter class; for to love God is the
only way to know Him and to teach Him. Truly, for
one to be a great preacher, he must have a deep and per-
vading enthusiasm ; he must have an inward harmony
with the object which interested the heart of Christ, and
in which every selfish feeling is absorbed and lost. The
main impulse of the preacher must be from within, from
sanctified affections, from the real sympathy of his soul
with God. Thought and expression-the profoundest
thought and the most fit expression-are of little mo-
ment, if there is not the true, glowing heart behind them.
Men, indeed, for the service of the Christian ministry,
may be dwarfed by becoming accomplished scholars and
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
V
polished orators, if they are not also rendered large-
hearted, courageous, spiritual, consecrated men.
While I believe that divine truth should be presented
to men's minds in fresh, powerful, and beautiful forms,
no less so than should scientific and literary truth, there
are, nevertheless, certain principles of preaching which do
not vary, and which are always true, for "the church
must light its candle at the old lamp ;" and an endeavor
has been made in the following pages to set forth some
of those true and essential principles.
*
This work is chiefly designed as a text-book in Homi-
letics and Pastoral Theology, for those who are in a reg-
ular course of training for the Christian ministry. While
I hope that pastors may find in it something of value to
themselves, it is mainly intended to be used by theologi-
cal students in the class-room, for the purpose of recita-
tion; and that will account for the broken-up and analyt-
ical style of the work, being necessitated by the treat-
ment in condensed, rather than expanded forms of dis-
cussion of so many and varied themes.
*
*
*
*
*
I have had another aim in publishing this book; and
that is, to free myself in some measure from the routine
of lecturing, and to secure time for that direct, familiar,
and informal method of instruction which is peculiarly
needed in treating the subject of preaching with begin-
ners; and, indeed, I have meditated upon some new
methods of teaching homiletics, which promise at least
(though the result may not prove it) to be of a more
quickening and truly philosophical nature than those
sometimes pursued; but, at the same time, I fully recog-
nize the necessity of a systematic course of training in
this important department. "And so in art and relig-
vi
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
ion. First in point of time, submit to rules; but first in
point of importance—the grand aim, indeed, of all rules
-rise through them to the spirit and meaning of them.
Write that upon the heart and be free; then you can use
a maxim, not like a pedant, but like an artist, not like a
Pharisee, but like a Christian."
Though happily, the true tendency of the times is to
the real unity of all Christians and Christian churches, yet
not because of this popular current (which is as apt to be
false as true), but from deeply cherished convictions on
this subject, I grow ever more inclined to honor the
name of Christian above that of every other earthly
name; and to hold the one "holy catholic church"
above any particular portion of it, however loved and
deserving of love; and I hope, therefore, that nothing
of a narrow spirit will be found in these pages. May the
time be hastened when each section of the Church shall
impart to every other freely of whatever gift or portion
of truth may be committed to its keeping, and when the
Holy Spirit may "gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on
earth."
In the second part, which treats of Pastoral Theology,
I have not intended to dictate what a pastor should be,
but only to offer friendly suggestion and advice to young
men; thinking that, though this subject is to a great ex-
tent a matter of personal experience, much may be done
to prepare candidates for the ministry for their pastoral
work. That kind of preparation has been, perhaps, too
much neglected heretofore in our seminaries, which have
laid themselves open to the charge of rearing scholars (or
attempting to do so) rather than pastors; but it is the
pastoral work which is the true test of ministerial charac-
I have endeavored to set forth a high ideal of this
ter.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
vii
character-that though no aureole surround the head of
the true Christian pastor and preacher, as in old pictures,
yet that sanctity and truth should crown his life with a
heavenly light; and that to the work of saving souls
from the power of sin, through the preaching of the
Word, the rarest faculties of mind, heart, and spirit may
be devoted. If the counsels herein contained shall in
the slightest degree tend to produce those strong, hardy,
cross-bearing, cheerful, hopeful, wise, loving, and single-
minded pastors, who are willing to labor among the poor
as well as among the rich and the educated, who are will-
ing to go anywhere, and to do anything which is required
for the highest good of men, such pastors, in fine, as
Christ would bless as the spiritual guides of His people
into a nobler life in Him, that result would be the great-
est reward I could ask.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., May, 1869.
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
THIS work, which has been kindly received by the
public and honored by being adopted as a text-book in
several theological schools, has run through two ordinary
editions, and a third smaller edition; but in its present
form it is greatly enlarged, and, in some parts, wholly re-
written. There is much of it which is entirely new. In
the course of nearly twenty years of instruction upon
these themes, there has been wrought, naturally, con-
siderable modification of views. Certain aspects of truth,
especially as regards the theory of preaching, tending to
a more thoroughly biblical and at the same time freer
spiritual expression, have presented themselves. There
has seemed to be opened a profounder philosophy in the
interpretation of the divine mind through preaching, that
has led me to ponder deeply a remark made to me by the
late Dr. Horace Bushnell, that "of all the branches of
instruction in a theological seminary he should prefer that
of Homiletics as being one which dealt most directly with
what God would say to men❞—as if he had said that this
department is one of vital importance, that it is the con-
summation and test of the other departments, that it
goes to the root of things and nearest the spirit and work
of Christ; and which, therefore, should not be conducted
drily, nor technically, nor incidentally by being left to
irregular methods, but scientifically in the best sense of
X
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
the word, and with the whole energies of a mind studious
of God's teachings, and inspired by the sagacity of a
higher Christian wisdom and faith. It is indeed the crown
of ministerial education-the preparation of men for the
prophetic office.
The original title of the book was "The Office and
Work of the Christian Ministry;" but in the present
edition I have thought best, for many reasons, to treat
the whole subject in two separate volumes, each of them
complete in itself, so that this first volume upon “Homi-
letics" will, it is intended, be followed by another upon
'Pastoral Theology," thus comprehending the two prin-
cipal themes of Practical Theology.
I then send forth this book once more with the earnest
hope that it may be of aid to young men who honestly
give their strength to the service of Christ in his min-
istry.
"
NEW HAVEN, CONN., October 1st, 1881.
5
CONTENTS.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
GREATNESS OF THE WORK …….
PART FIRST.
HOMILETICS PROPER.
INTRODUCTION.
SEC. 1. Literature of Homiletics and Rhetoric.
SEC. 2. Definition of Homiletical Terms...
1. Homily
2. Homiletics
3. Preaching..
4. Sermon...
·
FIRST DIVISION.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
SEC. 3. Introduction .
SEC. 4. Pre-Apostolic Preaching……….
PAGE
XV
I
6
6
9
9
ΤΙ
13
19
xii
CONTENTS.
SEC. 5. Preaching of Christ and of the Apostles
48
SEC. 6. Preaching in the first two Centuries after Christ..
SEC. 7. Preaching in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Centuries......
SEC. 8. Preaching from the Sixth Century to the Reformation....
SEC. 9. Preaching in the Reformation Period……...
58
114
140
SEC. 10. Preaching in different Lands since the Reformation...... 153
SECOND DIVISION.
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
SEC. 11. Object and Design of Preaching...
I. Instruction....
2. Persuasion
3. Edification...
•
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
THIRD DIVISION.
1. Difficulties of Preaching
2. Faults of Preaching.....
3. Process of Composing a Sermon..
•
•
SEC. 12. Considerations preparatory to the Work of Preaching.... 261
261
266
276
SEC. 13. The Text...
SEC. 14. The Introduction.
SEC. 15. The Explanation...
SEC. 16. The Proposition
SEC. 17. The Division
SEC. 18. The Development
SEC. 19. The Conclusion
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
FOURTH DIVISION.
..
• •
• •
•
PAGE
27
•
•
243
245
252
257
287
334
353
368
380
398
427
CONTENTS.
xiii
FIFTH DIVISION.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
Delivery..
1. Written Sermons..
2. Memoriter Preaching.
3. Extempore Preaching
SEC. 20. Classification of Sermons according to their Treatment
and Form.....
444
SEC. 21. Classification of Sermons according to their Method of
•
•
PART SECOND.
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
FIRST DIVISION.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
SEC. 22. Definition of Rhetoric..
SEC. 23. Uses and Sources of Rhetoric
SEC. 24. Use of Reasoning to the Preacher
SEC. 25. Study of Language
SEC. 26. Taste in Preaching.
SEC. 27. Rhetorical Criticism
SEC. 28. Elocution
· •
SECOND DIVISION.
INVENTION.
SEC. 29. Definition and Sources of Invention..
SEC. 30. Qualities of the true Subject
1. Unity of Subject and Object....
❤
•
PAGE
479
481
491
497
526
546
561
583
612
635
652
673
677
677
xiv
CONTENTS.
2. Originality..
3. Christian Truth..
(1.) Christian Doctrine.
(2.) Christian Morality.
(3.) Christian Experience.
THIRD DIVISION.
SEC. 31. Definition of Style...
SEC. 32. Absolute Properties of Style .
1
•
720
724
725
730
733
1. Subjective: as depending upon the speaker himself. 734
(1.) Appropriate Thought.....
(2.) Consecutive Thought..
(3.) Individuality
1. Oral Properties of Language……….
2. Grammatical Properties of Language.
SEC. 35. Conclusion....
·
STYLE.
SEC. 33. Relative Properties of Style.....
(1.) Purity...,.
(2.) Propriety.
(3.) Precision
•
(4.) Perspicuity.
(5.) Energy....
(6.) Elegance
SEC. 34. Objective: as depending upon the speaker more particu-
larly in his relation to the audience.
..
•
•
•
PAGE
679
684
687
691
718
734
736
737
739
740
749
750
756
773
793
797
}
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
Greatness of the Work.
YOUNG men who have been scientifically educated, and
who are accustomed to look at questions in a purely
scientific way, on coming to the preparatory studies for
the Christian ministry are sometimes at a loss to know
what is the nature of their duties, and how to classify
themselves and their work. Their work cannot, in truth,
be classified. It does not come directly under any of the
sciences; for it does not primarily concern knowledge,
to which true science absolutely belongs, but has to do,
first of all, with those things that belong to revelation
and form the object of faith. These are, in some sense,
indefinable. The sphere of the preacher, to express it in
general terms, is man in his moral and spiritual relations
to God; and the task of the preacher is to know the real
grandeur and vast extent of his work, and yet not to be
discouraged by it.
1. The greatness of the preacher's work is seen in that
he is an ambassador of God to man.
If the New Testament contains a rule of faith and con-
duct for men, essential for their salvation, we should
expect to find in the same record that contains the faith,
the appointed means of its ministration.
We could not conceive of God's giving a revelation of
such import to men without at the same time distinctly
xvi
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
4
ordaining the best method of making it known to them.
He would not leave this to loose, uncertain methods. If
no regular divine agency had been appointed to publish
the message of reconciliation between God and man, we
should be apt to think that God is not in earnest in this;
or, that it is no true revelation. If there be a word of
peace from the higher government to our souls, there
would be also, we should suppose, a permanent embassy
of peace established in the foreign government of an
alienated world. God could have converted the world
by the preaching of Christ; he could have regenerated it
by a pure act of power; but why is it that twenty cen-
turies have passed, and but a fraction of the earth is
Christian? Is it not because God sees fit to commit this
work to men-to involve human effort, trial, sympathy,
responsibility, in this circle of human redemption?
We clearly recognize the fact that all Christians are in-
volved in this circle of responsibility to win souls to the
subjection of the kingdom of God, and we claim for the
ministry no exclusive right to teach or to work. We do
not forget for a moment that there is no essential dis-
tinction between the people and the preacher in point of
responsibility. The preacher is but one of the people,
as a captain is but one of an army, whom the army has
chosen out of its own body to perform a certain duty.
All who love Christ are called to the work of making him
known; and this universal duty of all Christians is now
better understood; or, rather, the Church is returning to
this primitive idea of Christianity. God speed the prog-
ress of this idea, until all the energy and working talent
of the Church, of whatever kind, shall be developed.
We are no sticklers for ministerial prerogative in doing
good. The minister has no monopoly in preaching, or
praying, or working. The church of God is the people
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xvii
of God, and not the ministry. Still, there is a ministry
of the gospel, and it has a great work to do, which other
men in their worldly occupations and business cannot do
so well.
It is the entire consecration of some to the
highest good of others and of all.
Augustine says that this ministry was not given to
angels, because then "human nature would have been
degraded. It would have been degraded had it seemed
as if God would not communicate his word by man to
man. The love which binds mankind in the bond of
unity would have no means of fusing dispositions, so to
speak, together, and placing them in communion with
each other, if men were not to be taught by men."
Yet Augustine himself had so profound a conception of
the greatness and responsibility of this work that when
the eyes of the Christian world were fastened on him, he
would go to no assembly or council which could ordain
him a minister; and at last, when almost by accident he
was chosen to a small spiritual charge, he received it with
expressions of great affliction, so that his opposers said
he was troubled because so small a place had been given
him.' In like manner Chrysostom, at the age of twenty-
six, could not possibly be persuaded to take up the pub-
lic service of the ministry, because he felt his unfitness
for it.'
God, in other things also, works by secondary agencies
-himself the originating power of all things, and yet the
only invisible One. He loves to hide himself in his in-
strumentalities and to manifest himself through them.
He who made the light before he collected it into the
sun, and hung that in the heavens to be the steady reser-
14
Aug. Confessions," B. XI. See also Epist. XXI., ad Valerium.
2 " Neander's Chrysostom," Eng. ed. p. 22.
xviii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
voir and distributer of the light, seems to prefer, for his
own wise ends, this instrumental method of working;
and we should therefore expect, in the revelation of a
new Faith from the skies, the simultaneous ordaining of
special agencies to make known this new message of truth
and life.
We actually do find in the Scriptures of God's revealed
will, this work of making known his word committed to
the human instrument. As Christ gave the bread to his
disciples to be distributed to the famishing multitudes,
so God distributes the bread of life to men through the
hands of his believing children and ministers; they are
not priests, but ministers; they are not mediators, but
simply servants.
<<
Acts 20: 28. "Take heed therefore unto yourselves,
and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath
made you overseers, to feed the church of God." 2 Cor.
5 18. “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled
us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the
ministry of reconciliation." Col. 4:17.
And say to
Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which thou hast
received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it."
Tit. I: 3.
"But hath in due times manifested his word through
preaching which is committed unto me, according to the
commandment of God our Saviour." The Gospel is a
word, even as Christ is the Word. He was the perfect
expression of God's nature. In his preaching, character,
life, and death, he spoke the word of God; and he com-
missions his preachers to continue to speak this word.
One of the most extraordinary passages in the Bible,
fitted to fill every Christian preacher's mind with awe, is
that contained in 2 Cor. 5: 20, Now then we are am-
bassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by
us we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to
(
<
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xix
God." True preachers (and of these we speak) are here
made to stand in loco Christi; they not only testify of
Christ, but they represent him; they continue his work
in his spirit and power; they are clothed in his repre-
sentative authority. As ministers of Christ they exhibit
both the love of God and the love of man. In the gospel
which they announce, setting forth the way of union by
faith, and bringing God into sinful humanity, they sustain
and carry on the blessed "ministry of reconciliation."
And so long as they truly love God and man, God speaks
purely and powerfully through them to men; they per-
suade men to love God, even as they love him; they
give God's invitations from hearts stirred by his love;
they hold forth the means of a divine life; they stand
half in the light of heaven and half of earth; they are,
not physically nor officially, but morally, instruments of
converting men to God; they do not effect conver-
sion, but they are the means of its production; they use
the truth to produce it, taking the Bible out of the dead
letter, and making it a living word.
While they thus speak his word, and manifest his spirit
and his love, they are the living ambassadors of God as
truly as were Elijah and Elisha, Paul and John; and no
man may despise them, for they speak with a divine
authority-they speak the word of God to man. "If
any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God."
God said to an ancient preacher, "Be not afraid of their
faces; for I am with thee, to deliver thee, saith the
Lord. Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins, and arise, and
speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dis-
mayed at their faces." This sense of his divine commis-
sion is indeed the preacher's strength. He centres him-
self in God. He speaks out of the consciousness of
God's choice of him, and of God's will expressed through
سے کیر
XX
general intRODUCTION.
him; and here is the source of his eloquence. The
moment he loses this divine presence, and is conscious
that he is delivering his own message, that he is speaking
a human word, he becomes an ordinary man, an “ earthen
vessel" indeed.
This whole subject of the divine appointment of the
ministry will be treated more thoroughly when we come
to speak of the Pastoral Office; but it is a good oppor-
tunity here, though not rightly belonging to the intro-
duction, to say a single word on this mooted point of the
preacher's authority, as one who speaks the word of God.
As a practical matter, young preachers find this trouble
-that they have the feeling often that many in their
audience do not receive the Bible with the reverent faith
that they do themselves; and they think, therefore, that
they cannot, like the lawyer at the bar, point them to
the word of God as final authority, saying, "This is the
law on the subject, this is the statute, this settles the
question." In answer to this we would say that the
preacher has a right, or, to put it stronger, is compelled
to take for granted two things. First, that the Bible is
the word of God, and therefore is final in its authority.
This he must do to have a right to preach at all; here is
his own commission. Christianity is, above all, a word,
the word of God. He should preach as if he believed
this; and here he finds his authority for what he says,
and here is his standing-point to heave the minds of men
from their deep-rooted sinfulness and sensuality. And
he has to assume, secondly, that the audience before him
do also believe that the Bible is the word of God, and
that they may be spoken and appealed to as those who
believe this. If the audience is composed of professed
believers, as at the communion-table, the difficulty van-
ishes. If the audience is a common mixed one, com-
general inTRODUCTION.
XXI
posed of believers and unbelievers, still the unbelieving
portion put themselves in the position of believers by
coming to the house of God to hear the gospel preached.
They know that it is the house of God, where the Bible
is preached as the word of God. There are, in any case,
few in our congregations on the Lord's day who do not
yield an outward respect to the Bible as the revealed
word of God. Even a sceptical writer like Strauss con-
cedes the historical value of a great portion of the Bible,
and the value also of the religion which Christ, who he
believed actually did live, taught. At all events there
will not, probably, be one in the audience who does not
believe in a God; and if one does believe in a God, he
must also believe that God has created him and cares for
him, and that he has somewhere or somehow expressed
this care and love for him. The preacher then has a
right to assume that the Bible is that good word and
message of God to man; for if it is not, where can such
a word be found?
The apostles, when they preached to pure heathens
and infidels, planted themselves on the simple word of
God, and they appealed to the primary laws of God
written in the conscience to confirm what they spoke. It
was "by manifestation of the truth to every man's c
con-
science in the sight of God," that they preached. The
authority of the word of God was final with the apostles,
while at the same time they cast themselves upon men's
reason and consciousness to confirm the word preached.
The apostles' preaching was thus both authoritative and
persuasive. "Knowing the terror of the Lord, we per-
suade men." Abstain from fleshly lusts which war
against the soul :" here, while a command is uttered, a
reason is also given; and a preacher may develop this
reason to any extent, and show how inordinate appe-
44
xxii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
tites injure the spiritual nature. Times, it is true, have
changed, and the authority of the preacher has appar-
ently diminished; other influences have now come in to
compete with the pulpit; and the preacher's faith and
patience are tried more than formerly to sustain his
heaven-delegated authority;. but he should plant himself
the more firmly on the word of God. He should awaken
a deeper faith in his people in that word which "en-
dureth forever," though the human preacher soon van-
ishes away. In the struggle between the authority of
divine revelation and that of human consciousness, while
Christianity admits both, and brings both to utter the
same thing, it founds its final authority on the will of
God; and here the preacher should stand, where Luther
stood, and where the apostles stood.
2. The greatness of the preacher's work is seen from
the nature of the truths with which he deals. These
truths may be generally summed up under the one name
of divinity. And what is divinity," says Robert
South, "but a doctrine treating of the nature, attri-
butes, and works of the great God, as he stands related
to rational creatures, and the way how rational creatures
may serve, worship, and enjoy him? And if so, is not
the subject of it the greatest, and the design and busi-
ness of it the noblest, in the world, as being no less than
to direct an immortal soul to its endless and eternal
felicity? It has been disputed to which of the intel-
lectual habits mentioned by Aristotle it most properly
belongs; some referring it to wisdom, some to science,
some to prudence, and some compounding it of several
of them together; but those seem to speak most to the
purpose who will not have it formally, any one of them,
but virtually, and in an eminent, transcendent manner,
all. And now, can we think that a doctrine of that
66
M
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xxiii
depth, that height, and that vast compass, grasping
within it all the perfections and dimensions of human
science, does not worthily claim all the preparations
whereby the wit and industry of man can fit him for it?
All other sciences are but handmaids to divinity; and
shall the handmaid be richer adorned and better clothed
and set off than her mistress? In other things the art
usually excels the matter, and the ornament we bestow is
better than the subject we bestow it upon; but here we
are sure that we have such a subject before us as not only
calls for, but commands, and not only commands, but
deserves our application to it; a subject of that native,
that inherent worth, that it is not capable of any addition
to it from us, but shines both through and above all the
artificial lustre we can put upon it. The study of divinity
is indeed difficult, and we are to labor hard and dig deep
for it. But then we dig in a golden mine, which equally
invites and rewards our labor." 1 South says again,
“For I reckon upon this as a great truth, that there can
be no endowment in the soul of a man which God him-
self is the cause and giver of, but may, even in its highest
and choicest operations, be sanctified and employed in
the work of the ministry. But let us consider this
more particularly. The high and difficult nature of the
truths with which the preacher deals appears in the fact
that they are (a) metaphysical truths. The preacher's
work is necessarily intellectual; he deals with men's
minds and rational nature; he must adapt the divine
word to the human mind; he must know how to inter-
pret it according to men's intellectual nature. True
preaching is addressed first to the intellect, for men must
know the truth before they can be expected to obey or
>> 2
1" South's Sermons," Phil. ed., vol. ii. p. 79.
* Id. p. 70.
xxiv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
love it. The intellect, conscience, affections, and will
are so blended that they form one spiritual nature, and
we cannot tell where are the lines of separation. The
importance to the preacher of understanding the human
mind is thus spoken of by Sir William Hamilton:
Theology is not independent of philosophy. For as
God only exists for us as we have faculties capable of
apprehending his existence, and of fulfilling his behests,
nay, as the phenomena from which we are warranted to
infer his being are wholly mental, the examination of
these faculties and of these phenomena is consequently
the primary condition of every sound theology."'¹ This
must be so. How can the preacher approach the mind
God has made with the truth of which God is the author,
if he has no clear conception of those mental laws which
affect the reception of truth, which turn it to sweetness
or bitterness, to life or death? How can he reach the
conscience, the real man of the heart, if he does not com-
prehend the relations of conscience to the faculties of
knowledge? How can he influence the judgment or
sway the reason, if he is totally untaught, by either edu-
cation or observation, in the great principles of causality?
Or how can he move the affections, if he knows nothing
of their proper place in the mind, and what and where
are the true springs to touch? Besides, we cannot know
God's mind if we do not understand our own.
We rea-
son from our own nature to God's nature. All reasoning
upon strictly natural theology depends upon the clear
apprehension of metaphysical axioms, and upon a sound
philosophy. Everything, in fact, in the world of mind.
is subservient to the preacher's work. He works through
ideas, reasons, motives, penetrating the depths of the
4.
1 44 Metaphysics," p. 44.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
XXV
<<
mind. The first preachers, if they were illiterate men at
the beginning, became learned in the Scriptures, in the
human heart, in the gift of tongues, and in the incom-
parable instructions and impartations of Christ and his
spirit. Robert South has a characteristic passage which
may apply here, in which he vents his scorn against un-
learned persons who crept into the ministry during the
commonwealth, some of them, without doubt, better
men than himself. Many rushed into the ministry as
being the only calling they could profess without serving
an apprenticeship. Had, indeed, the old Levitical
hierarchy still continued, in which it was part of the
ministerial office to flay the sacrifices, to cleanse the ves-
sels, to scour the flesh-forks, to sweep the temple, and to
carry the filth and rubbish to the brook Kidron, no persons
living had been better fitted for the ministry, and to serve
in this nature at the altar. But since it is made a labor
of the mind, as to inform men's judgments and move
their affections, to resolve difficult places of Scripture, to
decide and clear off controversies, I cannot see how to
be a butcher, scavenger, or any such trade, does at all
qualify and prepare men for this work. We have had
almost all sermons full of gibes and scoffs at human learn-
ing. Hereupon the ignorant have taken heart to venture
upon this great calling, and instead of cutting their way
to it according to the usual course, through the knowl-
edge of the tongues, the study of philosophy, school
divinity, the fathers and councils, they have taken
another and shorter cut, and having read perhaps a
treatise or two upon the Heart, the Bruised Reed,
the Crumbs of Comfort, Wollebius in English, and some
other little authors, they have set forth as accomplished
divines, and forthwith they present themselves to the
service; and there have not been wanting Jeroboams as
xxvi
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
• 6
willing to consecrate and receive them as they to offer
themselves." South was not a believer in lay-preaching.
Indeed, in view of the greatness of the work, much is to
be said on both sides of that question, and there may be
extreme views taken on either side which are injurious to
the cause of truth and religion. While all Christians
should preach the gospel," and many an unordained
preacher, like the great lay-preacher who suffered for his
boldness twelve years in Bedford jail, may be a hundred
fold more effective than one who is regularly appointed,
yet even the lay-preacher should be fitted for the work
both by human and divine preparation; he should not
be a "novice
novice;" he should be "apt to teach." The
fitness for this work, in fact, lies more in quality than in
quantity. But there are also (b.) moral truths with which
the preacher has to deal. As our moral nature is deeper
than our intellectual, so the preacher's work, which has
to do chiefly with moral truth, is superior to all merely
intellectual professions. The preacher is called upon to
study those laws of God's government which underlie the
whole system of truth; and his field is that vast moral
system which God has opened to the human mind-that
law which is "exceeding broad;" which is eternal be-
cause it is the manifestation of God's nature; which is
perfect because it is the expression of his will; which is
the law of the intelligent universe, one and simple in
essence, but infinitely manifold in its applications.
To harmonize moral truth into a living whole is the
preacher's work; for every man who deserves to be called
""
a preacher of righteousness" should, like Bunyan and
Luther, have his own system of theology; that which he
has himself drawn from the word, and which he preaches
and lives. It is a want of reverence for moral truth not
to strive, by one's own thought, in communion with the
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xxvii
divine mind, to discover the laws of order, arrangement,
and beauty stamped upon it; and one cannot preach
with the highest clearness and power who does not pos-
sess some well-ordered system of moral truth for his
groundwork of reasoning and appeal. Moral truth has
also an intimate and special relation to man's nature and
duty. It enters the complex sphere of human life, and
whatever bears directly or indirectly upon the common
good of humanity belongs to the preacher's domain. He
deals with the wonderful world of the human heart, its
mixed good and evil, its affections that are so tender, its
hate, passion, and crime, its joy and despair, its hopes
and fears, its desires that are never satisfied but in God.
Nothing is shut out from the preacher in mind, nature,
morals, letters, art, science, government, the endless rela-
tions of society and human life, which influence moral
character, and enter into the schooling of this lower life
for a perfect life in God in a word, that human.
theology concerning which Neander loved to quote the
words, "Pectus est quod facit theologum." But there is a
still higher sphere of truth to which the preacher must
ascend. He deals (c.) with spiritual truths. He must
rise from the seen to the unseen, from the natural to the
spiritual. In 1 Cor. 4:1 it is written, "Let a man so
account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards
of the mysteries of God." In Eph. 6:19 it is also
written, "That I may open my mouth boldly, to make
known the mystery of the gospel." In these passages,
τò μvoτýpιov means literally a secret, a thing not obvi-
τὸ
ous, not explained, or not explained to all, and perhaps
impossible to be known by human reason; for there is a
true as well as a false mysticism. Vinet says," Le bon
mysticisme est la manne cachée des véritées évangéliques; il
xxviii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
1
fait sentir ce que ne peut pas se dire, ce que l'analyse est
impuissant à expliquer.
,, 1
In divine truth there is that which is obvious and that
which is more spiritual and hidden, but of which much
may be known by the spiritual mind. A telescope ap-
plied to the heavens brings to view objects which for
thousands of years were not known to the simple, unaid-
ed human mind; and Christian faith is, as it were, the
application of a telescope to the spiritual firmament; it
reveals things "hidden from the foundation of the
world." Christian faith is not a mere continuation or
extension of natural religion, nor is it a system of re-
ligious truth which may be reached by, or is on a level
with, our natural reason. It is above the level of natural
religion. It is revealed by the Spirit. We could, of
ourselves, never have arrived at the truth of Christ's re-
demptive work, although there is a profound preparation
for it in man's history, and in the intimations and wants
of his nature. Now, into this higher sphere of revealed
truth, of those spiritual verities which comprehend the
love and perfections of God and the truths of eternal life
-the whole unseen world of faith--the preacher of Christ
has to rise by the steps of faith, meditation, and prayer,
so that he may become the interpreter of the hidden
things of God; for it is no easy or common thing to
rightly divide the word of truth;" it shows that one
has himself entered into it and apprehended it. It pre-
supposes something more than scholarship, viz., spiritual
insight, or the habit of communion with God and holy
things. To be the guide of others in these regions of
the higher truth, one must have had some true inward
experience of the renewing power of truth; as Tholuck
1 "Histoire de la Prédication des Réformés," etc., p. 624.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xxix
says,
"Truth must have been revealed to him through
the divine light of the cross shining upon his heart."
Such preaching entering into hearts by "the power of
the spirit of Christ," comes from a true knowledge of
the saving and purifying power of the grace of Christ in
the heart.
3. The greatness of the preacher's work appears from
its results. These would be seen negatively were the
pulpit stricken out of existence; or by the comparison of
Christian lands with heathen lands, or even with coun-
tries where the pulpit is chiefly an engine of hierarchical
and political power. A superior condition of morality,
education, and civilization is never found in lands where
the Christian pulpit is not found; and wherever, even,
the pulpit has been shorn of its power, there is to be seen
a corresponding moral deterioration among the people.
Chalmers complained of the "dormancy of the Scottish
popular mind,” and we know the degraded character of
the Scotch pulpit when he first entered public life; and
this same dulness and moral stupor were seen across the
Tweed in the popular mind, when the English pulpit had
in a great measure lost the power it possessed in the days
of Howe, Owen, Baxter, Leighton. The quickening in-
fluence of the pulpit upon the American mind is too
obvious to be denied. Daniel Webster said that he first
learned how to reason from the preaching which he heard
in his native village. Dr. Wood, the minister of Bos-
cawen, fitted him for college; and his tribute to the
American ministry, in his argument on the Girard Col-
lege case, is a proof of his intense convictions on this
subject. The preacher goes deeper than the book in
moulding the intellectual habits and tastes of his people ;
for he begins earlier than the author, and exercises a
more vital sway upon mind. Almost the only true elo-
XXX
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
quence that now reaches the popular mind in Germany
is the eloquence of the pulpit; and where are the men in
any other profession who may be compared with those.
spiritual sovereigns in our own land, who, from their
thrones, send forth a life-giving, shaping influence far
around them? Some of the views of such a theologian
as Dr. Horace Bushnell may be considered to be open to
attack; but his stimulating power upon American
thought will not soon pass away. All the colleges in the
land, with one or two exceptions, owe their life prin-
cipally to ministers; and how many a young man, edu-
cated at college, and afterward distinguished for great
intellectual attainments and wide influence among men,
was sent from some obscure village through the agency
of his minister, who had awaked in him the thirst for
knowledge! Many of our cities and towns were founded
by ministers in the wilderness: New Haven by John
Davenport; Hartford by Thomas Hooker and Samuel
Stone; Providence by Roger Williams; Salem by Fran-
cis Higginson; Cambridge and Dorchester by John
Warham; and we need not repeat the well-proved fact,
that our democratic institutions and republican form of
government were modelled upon the practical working
systems of that primitive New England church polity
which was the fruit of the thought and wisdom of
these minds. The intellectual, social, and moral influ-
ence of the preacher is too broad a theme to be entered.
upon in these introductory remarks; and as Oberlin, in
the barren Ban de la Roche, among the Vosges Moun-
tains, elevated his parish in a physical and moral scale
of being, and taught them how to make roads and raise
crops, as well as to seek the kingdom of heaven, so
every true minister raises the scale of being about
him. He forms a central power in the moral world.
Kyl
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xxxi
Sitting in his study, or standing in his pulpit, he wields
a formative influence upon public opinion. He is the
guardian of public virtue. He is the elect champion of
the law of righteousness, as well as of the law of love.
Wrong cannot withstand a free and faithful Christian pul-
pit. Every form of vice-intemperance, licentiousness,
slander, covetousness, dishonesty, law-breaking-feels its
restraining hand. The importance of the Christian pul-
pit is comprehensively shown in the fact that it so effectu-
ally resists the power of the kingdom of evil in the
world; that it sets itself in opposition to this great cur-
rent; that it so holds the passions of men in check;
that it speaks to men as with the voice of God, and bids
them do what is right, and not do what is wrong. It not
only resists but attacks evil. A true preacher is aggres-
sive. He has taken up the battle for truth. He assails
the power of evil wherever it shows itself, and seeks it
out in its deepest hiding-places. In the reproof of sin he
is terrible as Elijah and stern as Amos; though he trusts
more to the gentleness of Christ, and to "the still small
voice" that finds its way to the heart.
Yet these results which have been glanced at are but
the incidental and almost accidental side-issues and over-
flowings of the preacher's work; the direct fruits of his
labors, under God, are inner and permanent, being
wrought upon the soul itself. His work tells on char-
acter; and, viewed in this relation, it is not to be esti-
mated by gross standards; we cannot weigh spiritual
results; faith, hope, joy, holiness, everlasting life, are
incommensurable in quantity. To be a spiritual counsel-
lor and consoler, one to whom men turn instinctively in
their sorrow for strength, for Christian consolation-
what office so blessed! To speak the word of sympathy
to the soul, to be its guide through the darkness and
Ma
xxxii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
doubt of life, and to conduct it to the gates of everlasting
life-what work is so great? He who can say of a single
being, "whom I have begotten in the gospel," has
"saved a soul from death," and has hid an innumerable
and ever-increasing "multitude of sins." One soul, that
of a child, brought to the knowledge of the Saviour, and
shielded from the evil of the world, is a result which
would infinitely more than outweigh the toils and suffer-
ings of a whole ministerial life. It is difficult to make a
statement like this look natural and true, although so
easy to make it; but if the apostle believed what he de-
clared, that it is through the foolishness of preaching
that men are saved, then such a statement is true.
What words, truly, were those spoken by Christ to Paul
at his conversion! "Rise and stand upon thy feet for
I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee
a minister and a witness both of these things which thou
hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear
unto thee; delivering thee from the people and from the
Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their
eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from
the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which
are sanctified by faith that is in me."
Does not Christ say these words to every true preacher
now? and if not only the enlightening of one soul, but
of hundreds of souls, may follow his labors, how can he
sufficiently magnify the greatness of his work? While
Luther was still a monk, he was urged to accept the
office of "Preacher and Doctor of the Holy Scriptures;"
he drew back with terror. “Seek one more worthy of
it," he said; but when the vicar-general pressed it,
Luther, trembling, declared that "the Holy Spirit could
alone make a Doctor of the Holy Scriptures ;" and when
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
xxxiii
at last constrained to accept the charge, he took this
simple oath: “I swear to defend manfully the truth of
the gospel;" as if this were all he could do, or dared to
undertake, and that God must do the rest. The earnest,
homely words of Philip Henry, on the day of his ordina-
tion, cannot be too often quoted to those entering the
ministry: "I did this day receive so much honor and
work as ever I shall know what to do with. Lord Jesus,
proportion supplies accordingly."
4. The greatness and dignity of the preacher's work
are seen from the fact that Jesus was a preacher. It
seems strange that we do not, as a general thing, seem
to think of the Saviour as a preacher, nor set his preach-
ing before us as a model for our own; for while there
may be, it cannot be doubted, a profound truth in this
negative sentiment of all reverent minds, arising from the
fact that our Lord is above all human comparison, and
also in the blended fact that our Lord furnished the
material and was "the truth" that we, as preachers, are
to use and proclaim, as in another's words: "Thus he
spoke to them of the kingdom of heaven; and when he
wielded the powers of his kingdom, they felt more and
more that he governed the secret heart of nature and of
man ; yet, notwithstanding all this, if we take the
Saviour's own testimony upon this point, he claimed to
be a preacher, and made this a main part of his earthly
work. We have but to recall the scene in the synagogue
at Nazareth, where he applied to himself Isaiah's words,
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath
anointed me, to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath
sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliver-
ance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,
1
¹ F. D. Maurice, Theol. Essays.
•
xxxiv
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
:
to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the ac-
ceptable year of the Lord." And it is said in Matt.
II: I, “And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an
end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed
thence, to teach and preach in their cities." And in
Mark 1: 38, 39, " And he said unto them, Let us go into
the next towns, that I may preach there also for there-
fore came I forth. And he preached in their synagogues
throughout all Galilee." The power of Jesus' preaching
may be estimated by its effects. Great multitudes fol-
lowed him. He drew them after him in a triumphal
train wherever he went. The Pharisees said, “If we let
him alone, all the people will believe on him ;" and it
was from his deadly enemies that the remarkable confes-
sion came, “O, sirs, never man spake as this man. The
fears, hope, love, hate, of the multitudes who thronged
him were touched. If eloquence consists in moving the
soul, this was eloquence. He made men look into their
hearts, and they rushed upon him to destroy him, or cast
themselves at his feet to adore him. He swayed men at
his will. He made men look to him for help. They
brought their real wants, doubts, and sorrows to him.
They asked him questions with that popular instinct
which, in some sense, is the voice of God, because it is
the voice of nature, perceiving in him a divine truth, see-
ing that he was a true teacher. And how many cases are
mentioned in the Gospels of immediate conversion follow-
ing his words! The more remote results of Christ's
preaching is a theme beyond the power of imagination to
conceive; for the few recorded discourses and words of
Christ have formed the staple of divine truth and of all
true preaching, ever since. It may be that the Occi-
dental mind demands a treatment of truth different from
what the Oriental requires, and that the ages differ; but
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
XXXV
truth is the same, and man's mind is the same now as
then; and the intrinsic qualities of our Lord's preaching
may be studied, even if his preaching was that of Om-
niscience. The dignity and greatness of the preacher's
work is, at all events, confirmed and crowned by the fact
that Jesus was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor.
PART FIRST.
HOMILETICS PROPER.
INTRODUCTION.
SEC. 1. Literature of Homiletics and Rhetoric.
The object of this section is not to give to the student
a comprehensive view of the extensive literature of
Homiletics, but only to present, in the briefest possible.
form for practical uses, the names of some valuable
books which are most available to the theological stu-
dent, and to the ordinary preacher and pastor while
actively engaged in his work, by the faithful study of
which he may be introduced and led on to a more
thorough knowledge of the rich field of homiletical
literature.
Among ancient classical authors upon rhetoric, there
are four works that may be regarded as forming the
head-sources of knowledge in this art,
viewed simply as an art, unconnected with
its specific use by preachers and other pro-
fessional speakers and writers; these are
Aristotle's "Treatise on Rhetoric" (Tɛxvns 'Pntopɩuns),
Cicero's "De Oratore, Quintilian's Institutes' (Insti-
tutiones), Horace's "De Arte Poetica."
"1 "
Ancient
Works on
Rhetoric.
2
HOMILETICS PROPER.
The principles of eloquence, or the art of influencing
men through public discourse, drawn from nature and
illustrated by the best examples of oratory in the most
intellectual nations of antiquity, are reduced by these
writers for the first time, and one might say for all time,
to something like a science. In them we find exempli-
fied what a German writer calls, "die wahre Norm der
Attischen Beredsamkeit," or that true law of eloquent and
persuasive speech, which is similar in all ages and lands,
since humanity everywhere is subject to the same in-
tellectual laws, and swayed by the same moral forces.
Aristotle, highly condensed and obscurely elementary,
plants the seeds which, in Quintilian, bear ripe and
noble fruits. Quintilian has not been surpassed in
ancient or modern times as a guide in oratory. In a
word, it may be said that almost all that has been
taught on the subject of public discourse since their day
is but a reproduction or a development of what these old
masters enunciated.
The eloquence of the Christian pulpit, however, pre-
sents a new field, which, though it draws from the com-
mon principles of logic and rhetoric, has laws of its own
that are derived from higher sources than any human art.
Among the numerous works in the English language.
upon rhetoric and homiletics may be mentioned (for
their practical qualities and uses) Campbell's
Philosophy of Rhetoric" and Campbell's
Lectures on Pulpit Eloquence;" Whate-
ly's "Elements of Rhetoric;"' De Quincey's
Essay on Style ;
Style;" Herbert Spencer's
Essay on Style;" Porter's "Lectures on Homiletics
and Preaching;" Ripley's "Sacred Rhetoric" (containing
Henry Ware's "Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching");
Zincke's "Duty and Discipline of Extemporary Preach-
English
Works on
Rhetoric and
Homiletics.
(4
""
INTRODUCTION.
3
در
(4
"
ing;" J. W. Alexander's Thoughts on Preaching;"
Moore's "Thoughts on Preaching;" Kidder's "Treatise
on Homiletics;" Shedd's "Homiletics and Pastoral
Theology;" Day's "Rhetoric" and Day's "Art of Dis-
course;" Christian Rhetoric," by G. W. Hervey ;'
Principles of Rhetoric," by A. S. Hill.
An additional fruitful source of homiletical instruction
is found in English sermon literature, especially the
sermons of Wyclif, Hugh Latimer, John Howe, Robert
South, Isaac Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, Archbishop Leigh-
ton, Archbishop Tillotson, John Bunyan, Richard Bax-
ter, Bishop Butler, Philip Doddridge, Robert Hall,
Thomas Chalmers, John Wesley, Henry Melville, J. H.
Newman, F. W. Robertson, Thomas Binney, Canon
Mozley, Canon Liddon, Jonathan Edwards, Dr. Dwight,
Dr. Emmons, Dr. Channing, John M. Mason, Horace
Bushnell, and Phillips Brooks.
Among French works are Vinet's "Homiletics, or the
Theory of Preaching;" Fénélon's "Dialogues on Elo-
quence;" Claude's "Essay on the Com-
position of a Sermon;" Abbé Maury's
"Essai sur l'éloquence de la chaire;"
Athanase Coquerel's “ Observations pratiques sur la Pré-
dication;" Monod "On the Delivery of a Sermon;"
46
#4
French
Works.
* 1
'This author's design deserves special notice as following the lead of
Rudolf Stier in his Keryktik," and Sikel in his Halieutik," to build
up a system of sacred rhetoric entirely on the biblical side, disregarding to
a great extent the rules of rhetoric, and seeking for power to work upon
the souls of men exclusively in the divine oracles, and by studying the
methods of the prophetic and apostolic preachers. It is an interesting
work, perhaps too elaborate for practical use, but worthy of study. Its
idea of "
inspirational rhetoric" was a favorite one of Origen, and other
great preachers of past ages, who did not, however, call it (as this author
does) by the name of sub-inspiration," but claimed for it an essentially
prophetic character.
4
HOMILETICS PROper.
Bautain's "Art of Extempore Speaking.' Of the host
of illustrious French pulpit orators we would mention
only the names of Bossuet, Massillon, Fénélon, Bour-
daloue, Claude, Saurin, Alexandre Vinet, Lacordaire,
Athanase Coquerel, the brothers Monod, and De Pres-
sensé.
Among the more common and well-known German
works, are Ammon's "Handbuch der Einleitung zur
Kanzelberedsamkeit ;" Palmer's "Evange-
lische Homiletik;" Reinhard's "Briefe ;"'
Schott's "Theorie der Beredsamkeit ;" Mar-
heinecke's "Grundlage der Homiletik;" Henke's "Nach-
gelassenen Vorlesungen über Liturgik und Homiletik;
Hagenbach's Liturgik und Homiletik;" Rudolf Stier's
"Grundriss einer Biblischen Keryktik;" Klein's "Die
Beredsamkeit des Geistlichen ; Theremin's "Die
Beredsamkeit eine Tugend.
German
Works.
Historical
Works.
Of German sermons, among those specially valuable to
the student and preacher may be named the sermons of
Tauler, Luther, Zwingli, Mosheim, Zollikoffer, Reinhard,
Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Jul. Müller, and Tholuck.
To the above brief list might be added such works as
Vinet's "Histoire de la Prédication de l'Eglise Reformée
de France, pendant la siècle dix-septième ;"
Paniel's Pragmatische Geschichte der
Christlichen Beredsamkeit;" Ludwig Stie-
betz' “Zur Geschichte der Predigt in der Evangelischen
Kirche von Mosheim bis auf die Gegenwart;" Lentz'
"Geschichte der Christlichen Homiletik;" Neander's
"Life of Chrysostom;" Moule's "Christian Oratory
during the First Five Centuries;" Neale's "Mediæval
Preachers and Preaching.'
Works like these, giving a penetrative and empirical
view of preaching, enable us to compare the great
"
""
INTRODUCTION.
10
5
Patristic
Literature.
preachers of the different historic periods of the Chris-
tian Church, and to note the similarity in diversity, or
the common qualities which belonged to them all, and
which constitute their main sources of power and suc-
cess.
The judicious study, also, of the preachers of the ancient
Greek and Latin churches is to be com-
mended, as forming a,most valuable and,
in our country, a comparatively fresh field
of sacred eloquence, as well as of theological learning.
Augustine, in his treatise "De Doctrinâ Christianâ,"
devotes a chapter to sacred rhetoric which is of priceless
worth. The discourses of Augustine and Chrysostom
are, incomparably, the most important, homiletically con-
sidered, of all patristic sermons and writings`; and when
it is considered that some five hundred and ninety ser-
mons of Augustine are extant, and that through their
ancient Latin garb the fire and living soul of the true
preacher of Christ glow, this department of sermon litera-
ture is by no means to be overlooked. It is a garden
rank indeed with luxuriant vegetation and useless weeds,
but this fact shows the depth of the original soil and its
proximity to the primitive springs of spiritual life and
growth.
To this list the best modern works upon the study of
the English language, such as those of Trench, Alford,
Max Müller, Marsh, Craik, and Whitney,
might be added; and, in fact, all English
literature of a genuine kind, which em-
bodies the moral power and vital qualities
of the English tongue, is an indirect but important
auxiliary to homiletical studies.
In the most comprehensive treatises upon Pas-
toral Theology, from Chrysostom's "Treatise on the
Works on
the English
Language.
6
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Priesthood" down to the latest modern works like.
Van Oosterzee's Practical Theology" and
Otto's "Evangelische Practische Theolo-
Works on gie," there are elaborate discussions upon
Preaching
treated in
Pastoral
the subject of preaching, because this sub-
Theology.
ject is identical with a minister's entire
work and influence.
It need hardly be suggested that the study of the
Scriptures of the prophetical writings, which were
originally bold popular addresses; above all
The of our Lord's own discourses; of the apostle
Scriptures.
Paul's orations and his epistles, which are
evidently in the style and manner of his accustomed
earnest speech to the people-that this study is funda-
mental in a homiletic point of view. Throughout the
Pauline epistles there are scattered special instructions to
preachers which, taken together, form a complete system
of Pauline homiletics, being in fact the first work, and
that an inspired one, upon this great theme.
SEC. 2. Definition of Homiletical Terms.
Before treating the practical subject of Homiletics, it
will be necessary to define some of the more familiar
terms that are in constant use in this science.
A
1. Homily. This word has a clearly scriptural origin.
It is true that "homily" was not at first, in the New
Testament or in immediately post-scriptu-
Homily.
ral times, identical with our modern term
sermon." It was more nearly assimilated to the primi-
tive meaning of " discourse," or "conversation." It
implied literally "question and answer," and thus the
familiar address or discussion of truth in an informal con-
versational way. It is derived from ouilos, meaning a
crowd, whence oμileo, "to be in company with,
", 44
'to
INTRODUCTION.
7
have intercourse or communion with," as in Luke 24: 14,
15, and Acts 20: 11, and in 1 Cor. 15: 33, signifying
,, 44
converse, asking and answering questions," whence
the interlocutory address, or the conversational style of
address upon the facts of Christ's life and religion among
Gentiles and Jews, and especially in the primitive Chris-
tian assemblies.
44
Originally it was doubtless a literal answer to a literal
question. The "homily" which afterward came to be
the Greek term in the Eastern Church for public address,
or preaching upon religious themes, and which long con-
tinued to be the form of preaching both in the Eastern
and Western Churches, was, subsequent to the apostolic
age, a simple exposition or continuous explanation of
the passage of Scripture read in the sacred assembly. It
consisted almost entirely of explanation, and had little of
the character of a formal oration. Thus we see that
'homily," having a scriptural origin, grew to be the
term, and more than that, with some considerable modi-
fication, the idea of the "sermon," as we use it. But
still it is well to bear in mind (and this is an important
fact which looks toward the biblical intention, simplifica-
tion, and rectification of preaching) that the "homily,"
as originally found and employed in the early times of
the Church, differs in some marked respects from the
modern sermon." Vinet says :
C
"If the homily is not as greatly different from the
ordinary sermon as we commonly suppose, it has yet a
character of its own. This character belongs to it not
only from its having to do most frequently with recitals,
or from any familiarity peculiar to this kind of discourse,
but rather from this, that its chief business, its principal
object, is to set in relief the successive parts of an ex-
tended text, subordinating them to its contour, its acci-
46
8
HOMILETICS PROPER.
dents, its chances, if we may so speak, more than can be
done in the sermon, properly so called.
"
Nothing distinguishes, essentially, the homily from
the sermon, except the comparative predominance of
analysis, in other terms, the prevalence of explanation
over system.
1
In fact, the "homily" is the simpler, older, and more
scriptural method of preaching, or of the continuous ex-
position of the truths and facts of the gospel, springing
up at first in a most natural way in the congregations of
Christian believers, and then developing into something
of a systematic nature.
In order to make this description of the "homily"
complete, it would be necessary to add that, ecclesiasti-
cally, the "homily" came to be regarded as a peculiar
form of "sermon," chiefly expository, being an explana-
tion of shorter or longer passages of Scripture prepared
to be read in the public assemblies for worship.
The earliest "homilies" known are those of Origen,
and the "Clementine Homilies," the last being of later
date. The homilies" of Clement of Alexandria, Chry-
sostom, Augustine, Athanasius, Gregory the Great, and
other fathers, are strictly expositions of Scripture, and
sometimes are of great value.
""
In medieval ages, "Homilaria," or books of homilies,
were widely circulated among the clergy. The "Homi-
laria" of Paulus Diaconus is well known. The "Festi-
vale" or "Liber Festivalis," was also such a collection,
and was printed by Caxton in 1482. The "Homilies"
issued in the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth,
and afterward those published from time to time by the
authority of the Established Church of England, are
1 "Homiletics' (Am. ed., Skinner's trans.), p. 148.
INTRODUCTION.
9
familiar examples. But it is to be observed that even
in this strictly ecclesastical and technical use of the word,
the idea is chiefly that of exposition, the homily being,
in fact, a brief expository sermon.
2. Homiletics.-This word, derived from "homily,"
but taking a broader meaning, as comprehending in one
term the whole subject and science of
preaching, or of formal public address in the
pulpit of an organized Christian Church, may be thus de-
fined Homiletics is the science that teaches the funda-
mental principles of public discourse as applied to the
proclamation and teaching of divine truth in regular
assemblies gathered for the purpose of Christian worship.
It does not concern private, but it does apply to public
discourse, for the purpose of instruction, renewal, and
edification in divine truth. It does not have reference
to a discourse of an informal and accidental character, but
it is that which is connected with the regular worship of
God in the stated assemblies of the Christian Church.
...
Homiletics.
3. Preaching. This also is a scriptural term, and its
true meaning must therefore be sought for chiefly in the
Bible. Although κηρύσσω, or κήρυγμα, is
Preaching.
the word commonly employed for “preach-
ing" in the New Testament, there are other words which
are used for the same general purpose, such as ɛvay-
γελίζω, καταγγέλλω, διαλέγομαι, λαλέω,
The uses and meanings of these different terms, so
nearly identical, and which, in comparatively few cases,
together and severally, might be made to signify what
we now generally mean by the term "preaching," have
been thus comprehensively summed up:
Aalto probably meant no more than colloquial or
household instruction, as in Mark 2: 2.
Araλéyoμai, as the word imports, may have been open
10
HOMILETICS PROPER.
discussions with opponents, or a kind of dialectic dis-
course after the Socratic manner; though in Acts 20: 7
we have the word applied to what would seem to have
been an approximation to our modern sermon.
The two words rendered "to preach," which are
found most frequently, are εὐαγγελίζω and κηρύσσω.
"Each of these, in various forms, occurs upward of fifty
times, and must be allowed to describe a teaching which
should be both public in its character and duly author-
ized (unpv) in the manner of proclaiming it."'
While this last remark is true, that the puй was
commonly an authorized, or well-recognized “herald,”
yet the term "preaching" is evidently used in the New
Testament in the most general sense, as signifying a her-
alding in every manner and mode of the word of God to
man, to one man as well as to the people.
Preaching thus is not necessarily a popular address, or
a regular discourse in a regular assembly, but may be ap-
plied to all kinds of "proclaiming" or "publishing" of
Christian truth in whatever way, in private conversation,
in the interviews of missionaries with the heathen, in the
addresses of evangelists, in the common intercourse of
men, in the daily life and example of believers—in fact, it
is making known in any and every effectual way, by
one's conduct, precept, or personality, the message of
God to men.
Thus our Saviour preached not only in the synagogue
but by the wayside, in the conversation by the well, on
the mountain and in the household, at the table, upon
the walk through the fields, by word, look, action, and
life. Preaching" is thus a more comprehensive term
than "homily" or "sermon.'
66
'Moore's "Thoughts on Preaching," p. 6.
INTRODUCTION.
II
f
4. Sermon.--The Latin word "sermo,” signifying “dis-
course," "discoursing or talking" with one, and which also
originally implied question and answer, and
the fact of an audience whose questions are
Sermon.
<<
real or implied, is, indeed, as near an equivalent to the
biblical Greek word omλía, or "homily," as could well
be found; but, as has been seen, it somewhat differs from
it. It does, in fact, by common usage, mean a more fin-
ished address, a more formal treatment of a passage of
Scripture, or theme suggested by such a passage, than
does “homily," and certainly than does "preaching."
It implies not only analysis but synthesis; and it presup-
poses a set discourse, or sacred oration, complete in its
parts, delivered to an assembly of Christian people
brought together for the purpose of public worship. It
is a deliberate address to a religious assembly. It is the
familiar "homily" become or grown up into a regular
discourse with plan and method; and it may be consid-
ered to be in some measure, in these later days, falsely
formalized and stratified into the rigid shape of an ora-
tion artistically viewed.
But this stratifying process was early begun. One of
the Latin fathers writes:
"Thcologi Christiani, et nominative ex veteribus Chrysos-
tomus, Basilius, Macarius, et alii, õpilías vocant sermones
ad coctum habitos. Atque ita õµiλía et λoyos differunt.'
W
The sermon," however, whether it be scriptural or
unscriptural, true or false, in its form, combines the sim-
ple idea of “preaching," or publishing the word of God,
or the more familiar idea of explanatory address, with
the idea of a thoughtful, even philosophical and method-
ized style of discourse adapted to instruct the people in
divine truth.
Vinet's definition of the "sermon" is excellent; and
m
12
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
{
<<
we could adopt it as, on the whole, the best we have seen :
The sermon is a discourse incorporated with public
worship, and designed, concurrently or alternately, to
conduct to Christian truth one who has not yet believed
it, or to explain and apply it to those who admit it."
1 "Homiletics," p. 28.
1
FIRST DIVISION.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
!
SEC. 3. Introduction.
an age.
Inasmuch as the spiritual nature of man is the highest
measure of his moral and intellectual, and, we might even
say, his physical being, there can be imag-
ined no standard which marks so delicately Preaching an
and truly as preaching does the character of expression of
a period, since preaching, in all cases where the spirit of
it is genuine, is one of the most appreciable
expressions of the purely spiritual in man.
Study the sermons of a period and you will reach,
as nearly as can be done, the height and depth of the
spirit of that period. The preacher can rarely go far
in advance of or remain far behind the intellectual
and moral appreciation of the people to whom he
preaches; and while therefore the fundamental truths
or principles of preaching remain the same, the style
of preaching, both in its spirit and form, becomes a
sure though ever-changing index of the varied phases
of the religious life of great Christian epochs. Have
we not, then, in this a kind of guiding law, or princi-
ple, in the investigation of the history of preaching;
and have we not also some reason to believe that
preaching in all its varying styles and methods has been
providentially guided by the Spirit of God, so that it
14
HOMILETICS PROPER.
shall be a powerful influence in the world, and a fit in-
strument of divine wisdom for the highest welfare and
advancement of every age of the Church?
Permanent
and variable
In the history of preaching there are thus, as in relig-
ion itself, the permanent and variable ele-
ments. While the underlying subject of
elements. preaching is the same, the forms in which
truth is appreciated, and its modes of in-
fluencing the popular mind, are constantly undergoing de-
velopment; and he surely is the preacher best fitted to in-
fluence the age in which he lives, who, while sincerely loyal
to the truth, is still intelligently alive to the influences of
the time of which he forms a part; and as a necessary cor-
ollary to this, the preacher's own responsibility to his age
is great. He should not only be one keenly
A preacher's susceptible to the outward influences of his
responsibility
times, but a higher responsibility still is laid
to his own
upon him to exert his best powers to go be-
age.
neath the surface of things, to study the
hidden tendencies of thought and opinion, to discover
those deeper causes that are ever at work in the spiritual
world. He should strive to come at the elemental forces
which originate and control the philosophy as well as his-
tory of his age. This present age, whose questions go
under the form to the substance of truth, is an age in
which the laity are well educated and have independent
opinions, and are not disposed to take their creeds sec-
ond hand. This shows that the time is one transitional
to something higher and better. It is difficult but still
it is good to live, and be a preacher of Christ, in such a
time. Robert Hall said, "As the Christian ministry is
established for the instruction of men, throughout every
age, in truth and holiness, it must adapt itself to the
ever-shifting scenes of the moral world, and stand ready
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
15
to repel the attacks of error, under whatever form it may
appear." We are not called upon as preachers to fight
bodiless ghosts that have been long laid to rest, but liv-
ing forms and powers of unbelief. We should under-
stand fairly what these are. There are problems that
trouble this age. There are questions in regard to the
adjustment of philosophy and inspiration, science and
religion. There is a strong and unreconciled strife be-
tween the facts of human consciousness and those of
supernaturally revealed religion. In this thinking age,
can the preacher, on any reasonable grounds, hope to
maintain his influence, who rests back on antedated or
really unlearned and superficial systems of interpretation,
who does not appreciate the deeper spirit of critical
research that prevails, who is unsympathetic with the
scientific thought of his times, or who, intellectually,
lags behind?
,,
The gospel must be applied to the mental condition
and actual wants of men. So far as the mere form of
preaching is concerned, he who would now preach to the
people in the childishly allegorical style of the Middle
Ages, or the superlatively theological method of the later
scholastic period, or even the quaintly rigid manner of
our Puritan fathers, with their innumerable topics and
endless elaboration of method, would be regarded as an
obsolete anomaly; and although it is easy to pass be-
yond the truth here, and to lay down a wrong principle
from over-statement, yet we might apply the remark to
the age of the reformers, so full of rude polemic theology
as well as of the energy of faith; we might even extend it
to the apostolical age, for Christ may be preached under
varying forms, and with new styles of argumentation and
new clothing of words and illustration, and it would be
Jesus Christ, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."
16
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Personality.
The preaching also of every man differs, or should do
so, from that of every other man. He speaks out of his
personal knowledge of Christ, or he will not
greatly influence men and his times. God
tells a man to preach the gospel according to the concep-
tion of his own soul-as Christ is to him and has been to
him in the truest experiences of life, and through the
channels of his own nature and power of expression.
One man will address with more force the intellectual
side, the other the emotional. John did not preach like
James, nor Chrysostom like Augustine, nor Luther like
Melancthon. Each knew something of the love of
Christ, and each had obtained some partial though true
view of the whole system of truth. The personality of
the preacher, if he is a genuine man, is transfused by the
divine spirit of the word which he preaches, but not
destroyed. Every true man speaks as he is taught, not
of men, but of Christ.
element
the most
While this truth of the importance of the principle of
adaptation is to be duly considered, it should not be
Invariable pressed beyond its real value. The preacher
may easily overestimate it, and become sub-
servient to the phenomenal and regardless
important. of the essential.
of the essential. He thus tends to the sen-
sational and superficial. He may seek only to interest
rather than rectify and save. The permanent element in
preaching which is founded upon the absolute laws of be-
ing and the moral constitution of the universe, is, after all,
its great power.
This is not to be lost sight of, like the
everlasting stars to the mariner. The relations of the
moral being of man to the government of God and the
intimate revelation of the divine nature in the work and
spirit of Christ, the principles of righteousness and love
which come from these, form the groundwork of all true
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
17
preaching in every age. They lend strength, authority,
and assured success to the message of God to humanity
through the voice of the living preacher. They speak to
the nature of every man, whatever his position or educa-
tion. As a being who has a conscience, and who is made.
for better things than the pursuit of selfish happiness,
who is capable of sin and at the same time capable of
holiness, who is created for all that is implied in the
name of God-he will and must respond to the laws of
moral being in whose environment he is irresistibly estab-
lished. The preacher should partake in some measure of
the unchangeable character of those divine principles
upon which the kingdom of God itself is founded. Then
he becomes a truly apostolic preacher.
When we thus study the permanent and the change-
able elements in preaching, its philosophy, and its practi-
cal adaptation to the wants of humanity, we find that
the history of preaching, becomes a most valuable study in
its living lessons to the preacher in his own great art;
revealing to him, if he reads it aright, the secret of divine
influence upon mind, and of the application of human
thought and skill directed by the Spirit of God.
But we see also that to carry out the perfect plan of a
history of preaching would require an immense sweep of
philosophical investigation. It would de-
mand an
examination of the religious
thought and life of different periods of the
Church; of the progress and development of
religious opinion, and the genesis of creeds;
of the history of popular morals and man-
ners; of the systems of philosophy that have been domi-
nant or current in various epochs; of the contemporary
secular events that have had their influence upon preach-
ing, such as the changes of government, the characteris-
What
required
for a
history of
preaching.
18
HOMILETICS PROPER.
tic phenomena of national mind, popular education, law,
and civilization; and, above all, of the homiletical works
and the particular training, under the providence of God,
of great representative preachers, since every man has
been shaped for his work by that Spirit who chooses his
instruments with consummate skill.'
The history of preaching forms, in fact, an essential part
of the history of the Christian Church-for preaching be-
gan with the earliest beginnings of Christianity, and was
one of the main instrumentalities of its growth; and it
has never ceased to exert a shaping influence upon Chris-
tian life. We have but to think each for himself of his
own religious experience, in order to recognize the vast
power over his own spiritual life, which has been exercised
by the minds of preachers with whom he has come in
contact. They have from our infancy moulded our inner
nature as by powerful hands into the forms they wear, so
that it is difficult for us ever to get away from the influ-
ence of these teachers.
Viewing church history in a homiletical light, of the
earliest ages after the apostolic age, the fourth and fifth
centuries form the richest epoch in the works
and lives of great preachers of the Christian
Church; while the first three centuries suc-
The richest
and the
most barren ceeding the times of the apostles are more
barren in the materials of illustration. The
mediæval period, when sacerdotalism almost
killed out the life of preaching, though ex-
ages in
history of
preaching.
tremely interesting in some respects, is
greatly wanting in the substance and spirit of evangeli-
cal preaching. It has been said that for a thousand years,
from Augustine to Wyclif, the eloquence of the pulpit
1 Paniel's "Prag. Gesch.," p. 4.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
19
waned. Though this is too sweeping a statement, yet
with some modifications and notable exceptions it is
lamentably true; and not until the period of the Refor-
mation, and immediately succeeding it, did there appear
again great, original, apostolic preachers. With the aids.
of ecclesiastical history, of references to the writings and
sermons of eminent preachers, and of the works of ap-
proved writers upon Christian eloquence, we shall
endeavor to give a rapid survey of the history of preach-
ing from the earliest beginnings to the present time,
sketching some of the principal preachers in the light of
models more or less to be imitated, and endeavoring to
arrive at their sources of power as instruments in the
hand of God of interpreting his truth, and of guiding
souls into the kingdom of his Son.¹
SEC. 4. Pre-apostolic Preaching.
From the beginning of the race, notwithstanding its de-
cadence from perfect holiness, there has ever been a com-
munication maintained between the Creator and his crea-
tures. His Spirit has always spoken to men and striven
with them. He has never left himself without a witness
of his truth. There has been a revelation of the divine
will both to the consciousness and the reason of men, that
has been interpreted, conveyed, and enforced principally
through an intelligent and independent though super-
naturally guided human agency. The interpreters of
1 The author would acknowledge his obligations especially to Paniel's
Geschichte der Christlichen Beredsamkeit for assistance derived in the
history of the five first centuries of Christian preaching. He has not
only followed the general order of this author in discussing topics, but
also sometimes quoted his words. This, whenever done, has been
noted.
20
HOMILETICS PROPER.
the will and word of God, sometimes interpreting more
darkly and sometimes more clearly, we may freely call
preachers," for they heralded God's truth to men.
Righteous Noah, early in the life of humanity, but
after the world had lapsed from the knowledge of
God, is thus called (2 Peter 2 : 5) δικαιοσύνης κήρυκα,
"a preacher of righteousness." He proclaimed the
righteous will of God to an evil generation. Moses,
who could lead an exodus, and free men from the yoke
of political servitude, who was essentially a statesman
and organizer, felt himself, on the other hand, un-
equal to the task of teaching divine truth by public ad-
dress, being slow of speech and slow of tongue," and
transferred that office to Aaron.
""
In Jehoshaphat's time we read (2 Chron. 17:9) of
those who taught in Judah, and had the book of the
law with them, and went throughout the cities of Judah
and taught the people.”
The "prophets" of the Old Testament are, above all,
noticeable in this regard; who resembled, far more than
the "priests" of that dispensation, the
preachers of the Christian Church; they
Old Testa- were the real teachers of the people in the
ways of God.
ment.
Schools of the prophets' were established very
early in the history of the Jewish nation. In these were
gathered young men, who were instructed for
the office which they were afterward to fill,
so that from the time of the prophet Sam-
<<
Prophets
of the
""
**
Schools
of the
prophets.
uel to the closing of the canon of the Old
Testament there seems never to have been wanting men
for the prophetic office. Their chief study was the divine
law and its interpretation, the oral as distinct from the
ceremonial law.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
21
•
The functions of the prophet, as thus trained in these
schools, were more specifically:
1. Moral instruction, especially that of messengers sent
directly from God to men with messages of righteousness.
2. The recording of inspiration, or of what God taught
them for the benefit of the people; and we are chiefly in-
debted to them for the word of God comprised in the
Old Testament Scriptures.
3. Sacred music and poetry, which were made the vehi-
cle of inspiration for the instruction of the people.'
These schools were at Gibeah and Ramah; at Gilgal,
under Elisha; and at Bethel, Jericho, and Mount
Ephraim. The number of students in these institutions
are spoken of in 2 Kings 4:43 and 2 Kings 2: 16.
Their method of support, poverty, and self-denial are
described in 2 Kings 6: 1–7; 2 Kings 4: 38-44.
These institutions had no invested funds, nor perma-
nent sources of supply, but the scholars depended on
temporary aid and even upon miracles for their main-
tenance. Their instruction in music and the spirit of
prophecy, and the relations of music to prophesying, are
delineated in 1 Sam. 10:5, 6; 19: 18-24; 1 Chron.
25: 1, 3, 6; 13:8; 2 Sam. 6: 5.
•
Their culture, to enable them to become the annalists
of the religious history of the nation, and the recorders
of revelation, was an inportant though subsidiary quali-
fication to the prophetic gift.
The most ancient meaning of the Hebrew word
prophet," in its earliest use in the Bible,
is not so much" foreteller" as "spokesman, Meaning of
or "interpreter.' The Hebrew verb,
"prophet."
"to prophecy," means literally "to bubble up like a
spring.
¹ See Cowles's "Hebrew History," p. III, seq.
,,
}}
22
HOMILETICS PROPER.
The prophet was a God-filled man, pouring irrepressi-
bly forth the declarations of God.
Προφήτης
IIpophτns in classical Greek is "one who speaks for
another," especially one who speaks under supernatural
influence, and so interprets the will of his God.
In the true prophet God speaks directly, disregarding
regular forms and channels. In him the moral, the spir-
itual, the divine, prevailed over the ritual element. He
interpreted the divine law. Being filled by its potency,
he was forced to utter its commands. He is called, in so
many words, a preacher; thus the denunciation of
Jonah against Nineveh is spoken of in Matt. 12:41 as
τὸ κήρυγμα Ιωνα—the preaching of Jonah.
When the priesthood degenerated, the prophet ap-
peared in order to teach men; and the prophetic order
of teachers was as truly recognized and established as the
priestly order.
The prophets sprang, as a common rule, from the
people, but they belonged to no class or caste, and
princes and nobles as well as shepherds and tillers of
the ground sometimes appeared in the line of the
prophets.
The prophet represented the universal soul of human-
ity that responded to the law of God written in the con-
science, not regarding the political, social, and ecclesias-
tical differences that separate men. They told the peo-
ple their sins without fear or favor-as God's spokesmen,
responsible to him alone. They sternly rebuked wicked
men. They taught the truth, or the true faith, though
morally and spiritually rather than dogmatically, and
often with mighty eloquence, as with lips touched by a
coal of fire from off God's altar. Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel,
have never been surpassed in boldness, sublimity, and
force, by uninspired men. They taught commonly by
-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
23
the method of direct oral address, and were looked upon
as authorized by God to speak to the people.
Thus, at the very end of the old dispensation, John the
Baptist was recognized as a prophetic teacher sent from
God.
Jesus himself, as "the Anointed," or the One "sent"
from God, came in the regular line of the prophets, and
was so accepted by minds susceptible to righteousness;
and, in like manner, all true Christian preachers, through
Christ, are, in some sense, in the line of the "prophets,"
or are “prophets ;" and if they be genuinely holy men,
God speaks through them as proclaimers of his law and
preachers of righteousness, interpreting, like the older
prophets, the letter by the spirit. But Christian preach-
ers should take heed also to the warning in the New Tes-
tament, that if they prophesy, let them prophesy ac-
cording to the proportion of faith." This is a most in-
teresting point of resemblance, and later on
we shall
speak more fully of this relation.
After the Captivity there was renewed enthusiasm for
the teaching of the law, and schools were established to
raise up skilful interpreters of the Hebrew moral code,
who were afterward the "lawyers" mentioned in the New
Testament.
Synagogues also were founded, in which were regular
expositions of the "law and the prophets' on the Sab-
bath; and in the time of the introduction of Christianity,
according to Philo, the services of the large and splen-
didly adorned Jewish synagogues consisted chiefly of oral
instruction and free, extended speaking.
Notwithstanding, however, all that has been affirmed
concerning the prophetic office in the Old Testament, it
must be said that "preaching," in the New Testament
sense of the term, was not the main or even prominent
24
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Preaching
not the
of Old
Dispensation.
instrumentality of spreading divine truth and building
up the kingdom of God in the former dispensation; yet
we ought not to consider preaching to be so
peculiar to the Christian economy that there
main instru- are to be found no suggestions or even true
mentality examples of it in the older church; for it
belongs rather to the needs of our common
human nature, to the divine method of rea-
son and love, to the character of a reasonable religion,
and to the most efficient mode of communicating spirit-
ual truth to men. That preaching is not wholly confined
to the biblical dispensation and appointment, whether of
the Old or New Dispensation, but is a natural method of
communicating truth, is illustrated, for instance, by the
example of the Greek philosophers.
Like the older philosophers, Thales, Pythagoras, and
Anaxagoras, who preceded him, Socrates
might be mentioned as an eminent example
of the power of oral instruction. His teaching, which has
had so wonderful and indestructible an influence upon
human thought, was wholly oral. .He seems to have written
nothing. When asked why he did not write out his instruc-
tions, he is said to have replied, "I would rather write
upon the hearts of living men than upon the skins of dead
sheep." There is, in fact, a vital power in the immediate
contact of the living teacher with living minds, an im-
pression made upon the sensibilities and dispositions of
men, which leaves an influence that written words and
books cannot do, and that propagates itself and does not
die. The great fact that our Lord, above all, did not leave
one written sentence, but trusted his words of everlasting
import and saving power to oral communication, shows
that preaching is the natural as well as the divine method
of imparting truth.
Socrates.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
25
**
<
Easy as the talk of children, fleeting as the passing
breath, oral preaching is yet the strongest and most en-
during instrumentality in the world, because the Spirit
of God and the spirit of man are in it and wield it.
A peculiarly interesting illustration of the fact that
preaching is the natural method of propagating truth
and moral life is to be found in the exam-
ple of the Stoic philosophers, and especially
of the sect of Roman Cynics.
"Education fell in a great degree into their hands.
Many great families kept a philosopher among them, in
what in modern language might be termed the capacity
of a domestic chaplain, while a system of popular preach-
ing was created and widely diffused.'
Of these preachers there were two classes, who differed
greatly in their characters and methods. The first, who
have been happily named 'the monks of Stoicism,' were
the Cynics, who appear to have assumed among the
moralists of the pagan empire a position somewhat re-
sembling that of the mendicant orders in Catholicism.
In a singularly curious dissertation of Epictetus, we have
a picture of the ideal at which a Cynic should arrive, and
it is impossible in reading it not to be struck with the re-
semblance it bears to the missionary friar."
"The Cynic should be a man devoting his entire life to
the instruction of mankind. He must be unmarried, for
he must have no family affections to divert or dilute his
energies. He must wear the meanest dress, sleep upon
the bare ground, feed upon the simplest food, abstain
from all earthly pleasures, and yet exhibit to the world
the example of uniform cheerfulness and content. No
one, under pain of provoking the divine anger, should
embrace such a career unless he believes himself to be
called and assisted by Jupiter. It is his mission to go
The Stoic
philosophers.
26
among men as the ambassador of God, rebuking, in season
and out of season, their frivolity, their cowardice, and
their vice. He must stop the rich man in the market-
place. He must preach to the people in the highway.
He must know no respect and no fear. He must look
upon all men as his sons, and upon all women as his
daughters. In the midst of a jeering crowd he must ex-
hibit such a placid calm that men may imagine him to be
of stone. Ill-treatment and exile and death must have
no terror in his eyes, for the discipline of his life should
emancipate him from every earthly tie, and when he is
beaten he should love those who beat him, for he is at
once the father and brother of all men.
Even the use of texts by these philosophers is notice-
able.
HOMILETICS PROPER.
40
They acquired the habit of never enforcing the sim-
plest lesson without illustrating it by a profusion of
ancient examples, and by detached sentences from some
philosopher, which they employed much in the same way
as texts of Scripture are often employed in the writings
of the Puritans."
its relation
to Christian
preaching.
2
Judaism in its relation to Christian preaching is a theme
upon which we cannot now dwell; but although Juda-
ism had infinitely higher ideas of God and
Judaism in of man than heathenism ever did, yet it
could not teach man the way of redemption
and the saving knowledge of God, since it
was, to the sinful soul, rather the letter that
kills than the spirit that makes alive. Yet it was a sys-
tem preparatory to the gospel. It formed historically,
through its synagogue teachings, the prelude to the model
of both Christian worship and Christian preaching. It
1 Lecky's "Hist. of European Morals," v. i. p. 328.
' Id.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
27
set forth, above all, the primary truth of the righteous-
ness of the law. It awaked yearnings after God, and the
profound sense of sin as well as the sense of God's dis-
pleasure against sin. But the Pharisees quenched the
true life of the Mosaic faith in externalism, and a dog-
matic self-righteousness; the Sadducees, pretending to
restore Judaism to its original life and spirit, and to re-
lieve it from the bondage of forms, brought in a chilling
rationalism; the Essenes, the ascetics and mystics of
Hebraism, sought to find religion in the subjective feel-
ing which disregarded the outward life and the act of
duty.' Could these, in their exclusive, minute, and
arbitrary system, preach the spiritual message of God to
men? Could they, who shut out all but themselves from
Jerusalem, establish the universal city and kingdom of
God? Yet they were, in their narrowness and perversity,
the precursors of this kingdom, and of the preachers of
this kingdom, as seen in an eminent degree in John the
Baptist, who was a preacher of repentance. They showed
men their need of God, and they proved to men their
own inability to lead them to God and eternal life. If
they could not do it, who could? The pagan world had
lost the torch of natural religion, and had sunk into the
darkness of atheism. The full time for the preaching of
the gospel of life and salvation through Jesus Christ had
come.
SEC. 5. Preaching of Christ and of the Apostles.
There had then truly come to be an absolute necessity
for the pure word of truth in the world, in order that men
might be instructed in a spiritual religion. Human
means of making men better and of bringing them to
¹ Paniel's "Prag. Gesch.," pp. 25, 26.
28
God through the administration of ordinances had failed,
and would continue to fail, and the only way left to win
Preaching and save men was by the manifestation of
the peculiar the truth in pureness and love. The means
Christian appointed to do this, viz., preaching, was so
instrumen- simple that it might be called spiritual.
tality. Its method of operation was by reason,
sympathy, and love. It was psychological, and not phy-
sical. It was the instrumentality of the word speaking
to the soul. The preaching of the word, addressed ob-
jectively to the understanding and reason of men, and
enforced subjectively in the heart by the Holy Spirit, who
is called the Spirit of God," the "Spirit of Christ,
was the divinely appointed means of converting the
world.
(6
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Preaching
of Christ
historically
considered.
The preaching of Christ, historically considered, must
be regarded as the initiative, and the model of Christian
preaching. Peter said to Cornelius (Acts
10: 37), "That word ye know, which was
published throughout all Judea, and began
from Galilee," with doubtless heartfelt rev-
erent allusion to the preaching of Christ.
Our Lord himself relied upon and practised this simple
means of establishing and diffusing the kingdom of God.
As has been already set forth, Christ was not ashamed to
be, and to prepare himself to be, a preacher.
In his preparation for the work of preaching, Christ did
not, it is true, frequent the Jewish theological schools,
and he opposed the teachings of the recog-
nized Hebrew instructors of the day; but
he built himself upon the Scriptures of the
Old Testament, coming not to destroy the law, but to
fulfil it. He dwelt also upon the divine thoughts of
his own heart, meditating upon the needs and sorrows
His
preparation.
??
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
29
of a world that had departed from God. May we not
also suppose that he studied the revelation of God in
nature? In the vale of Nazareth, as in a quiet mountain
chapel or sanctuary,
"His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills."
The deeper consciousness of a higher nature once awaked
and constantly growing within him constituted him the
interpreter of God's word and its infallible teacher.
After thirty years of silent preparation he came forth
as a preacher; and in his preaching he proceeded upon a
certain method. He grafted the new truth
upon the old letter, thus bringing forth His method,
things new and old," accommodating him- of preaching.
and form
self to the point of view of his hearers.
Christ preached from the Old Testament as his text,
bringing Christian truth into true relations to the ancient
revelation. He based his teachings upon the moral law,
both revealed and natural.
The form of his preaching was varied, and was in ac-
cordance with the character and culture of his hearers.
In the first place it was, as we have seen, oral address or
preaching. He wrote not but upon men's hearts. He
trusted to the spoken word. "The words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit and they are life." He sent
forth his word and healed them." Then it is noticeable
that the principle of adaptation was exquisitely mani-
fested in all that he said. "He knew all men" (John
2:24). He put himself upon their level. He never
made a mistake as to the character of his audience.
Before the learned Pharisees he spoke of the law and the
way of righteousness; with the common people he de-
scended to familiar illustrations. To the soldier he spoke
5
C
{"
30
HOMILETICS PROPER.
of duty; to the rich man of benevolence; to the corrupt
Samaritan woman, of nationality and of infidelity of liv-
ing; to those who were to suffer persecution, of the
glories of the kingdom of heaven.
Again, his divine skill as a preacher was shown in that
he set forth the spiritual truth in a concrete form, having
life in itself, and as a seed-truth to be fructified by the
thought and experience of the hearer. To sum up the
great characteristic of Christ's preaching, it might rever-
ently be thus expressed that essential truth-truth which
is necessary for the soul's life-was conveyed by him in
such a way, or with such clearness, naturalness, and
vivid illustrative force, that this truth came to be appre-
hended, not only by the minds or understandings, but in
the hearts of those who heard him. In his words they
looked upon the very countenance of truth. His preach-
ing mirrored the thoughts of their minds and the disposi-
tion of their hearts-the man of the heart.
It was
spiritual preaching. They saw the truth, and loved it or
hated it. He penetrated to the true character or real
love of those whom he addressed. He possessed in its
full power the efficiency of sympathy. He reached every
one, because he loved every one; and no preacher can
do much with hearts unless he is in vital union with
Christ—with his spirit of love. This will teach him.
how to reach the hearts of different men. When Christ
preached to his disciples, it was one thing; when to the
unbelieving Jews, it was another; but there was ever a
fundamental truth, a fact concerning God and man's rela-
tion to him, a principle of divine life which was already
acknowledged by the conscience, or revealed in the Scrip-
tures; and this fact, principle, or truth, be it terrible or
joyful, was set before the people in a way that showed a
mastery of the human heart. He not only had, in a per-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
31
fect degree, that gentleness which belonged, for exam-
ple, in some lower sense, to the character and preaching
of Fénélon, and which causes men to love the truth, and
mildly insinuates itself into the soul and awakens the
most tender thoughts and affections, creating the con-
sciousness of reconciliation and peace, but he had also
in a perfect degree the virile force of John Knox and of
the old prophets-the terrible majesty of justice, the
wrath of the purest Being in the universe against sin or
whatever is opposed to goodness. But this quality of
terribleness was in some sense accidental, though neces-
sarily so. Love was the underlying power of all his
preaching, its essential nature, as it was also the attract-
ive power of his life and of his death, "drawing all men
unto him." Neither his hearers, nor any men after
them, will ever forget or really disbelieve the truth of
the forgiving mercy and love of the Heavenly Father, as
set forth in the parable of the "Prodigal Son." There-
fore the teachings of Christ, in a higher sense than the
words were originally used, are a кτñµα έs άε.
will not drop out of the world's heart.
They
May we not, as preachers, profit from Christ's preach-
ing? Should we not earnestly study him as a preacher?
Should we not strive after his sympathy, popularity, life,
truth, naturalness, adaptation, and variety?
He indeed is our exemplar in preaching that word of
God which is able to make wise unto life eternal.
But Christ's personal instruction was brief. It was of
the utmost importance that instrumentalities should be
reared up whereby to transmit Christ's teaching, and
publish abroad this "word of healing. One of the
objects, therefore, of Christ's thought and care was to
prepare preachers who should come after him—who were
to learn to teach the same word of God that he taught,
32
HOMILETICS PROPER.
(
teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you."
As to the form of their preaching he did not particu-
larly prescribe, leaving it to the promptings
Christ
did not
prescribe
form of
of the Spirit and of their own minds, and
of the circumstances and wants of the age.
But the material of their preaching, the sub-
εὐαγγέλιον).
preaching. stance of the faith they taught, was to be the
'gospel" (rò εvayyέliov). They were to
preach this gospel of the kingdom to all men, to all the
world until Christ came.
<<
The "gos-
pel" the
subject of
Christian
"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to
every creature” (κηρύξατε τὸ εὐαγγέλιον).
Let us now ask, What is the "gospel" which the first
disciples of Christ were to herald to all men, and which
we also are to preach?
The "gospel" is usually interpreted to mean "glad
tidings." This is correct, but does not quite express the
full force of εvayyélzov. This word is com-
posed of two words, eu, which is strictly the
neuter of aus, good, and ἄγγελος, ἀγγελία, a
<<
messenger," a message," which latter,
preaching. in the compound, takes the termination ov;
,,
so that the full meaning of the word is "a good mes-
sage, or a message that must be delivered to men for
their highest good-something implicitly needful to be
delivered, something that has an element of responsibil-
ity, necessity, impulsion in it, but for which, if the mes-
senger delivers it aright, he is to be crowned.
(4
What, then, is this "good" or cheering" "message"
from God this Gode-spell" (gospel), as the old
Saxon phrase is this message that is of such a nature
that it must be heard by men, and if heard aright will
bring them everlasting joy and peace?
<<
"C
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
33
Originally it was a message of unmixed delight, uniting
heaven and earth in the joy. It was a gospel of “large
toleration, of tender sympathy, of cheerful hope, of joy-
ous thanksgiving," of divine love; and let it never be
made a narrow gospel, a discouraging gospel, a merely
human gospel! It was sent to all men, for their good
and eternal hope. Behold I bring you good tidings of
great joy. Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ
the Lord. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace, good will toward men.” It is the announcement
of the wondrously inspiring truth that "the Word was
made flesh and dwelt among us;" that "in the fulness
of time God had sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the
law, that they might receive the adoption of sons." It
was the announcement of the Son of God, who, uniting
the divine and human elements in his nature, was made
fit to be the Redeemer. The gospel," then, or the
glad message," is the annunciation of Christ, the Son
of God, come in the flesh, comprehending in its scope his
transcendent birth, his teaching, acts, miracles, death for
men's sins by transferring the burden of them to himself
as a suffering sin-bearer, resurrection and ascension, and
the establishment in men's lives by his immanent Spirit
of a kingdom of righteousness, truth, and peace, and all
this as immediately connected with and forming the
means of our salvation. The gospel" is thus both a
message and a means of salvation. By it a new race is to
be created out of the seed of fallen man. Such texts as
John 3: 16, "For God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him.
should not perish, but have everlasting life"; 1 Tim.
I: 15, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all ac-
ceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
"C
""
""
34
HOMILETICS PROPER.
sinners, of whom I am chief"; and that inexhaustible
passage, 1 Tim. 3: 16, "And without controversy, great
is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the
flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto
the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into.
glory"-such texts set forth the nature of the gospel in
comprehensive words, epitomizing the freeing of man
from the power of evil, solving questions concerning his
spiritual estate, satisfying his soul's needs, and implying
the moral perfection of the race. This gospel" does
not grow old, and is the gospel of "eternal life," because
it springs from divine love, and is fitted to meet the con-
stantly recurring wants of men; for while it is one in the
unity of Christ, it is of varied application to all minds,
and to all spiritual conditions.
This, evidently, was what the New Testament writers
and apostles called the gospel," as referred to 1 Cor.
15:1, 2: “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the
gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye received,
and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved,
if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless
ye believed in vain"-the apostle then going on to state
definitely what he had received, and declared as the chief
things, viz. Christ's death for our sins, according to the
Scriptures, and his resurrection and ascension for our
justification and eternal life. Let it be remembered
that the gospel is Christ. It is wholly and entirely
Christ.
:
"C
With this cheering message of the redemptive work of
the Son of God-this gospel of salvation to men-the
apostles were put in trust. They very soon began to
preach, as is proved by Peter's words to Cornelius the
centurion, already quoted: "That word ye know, which
was published throughout all Judea, and began from
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
35
Galilee, after the baptism which John preached. It
was a preaching under the new baptism of the Holy
Ghost. The apostles preached the "word"
with that earnestness and faith which is ac-
companied by the converting power of the
Spirit. They trusted "to the power of
Christ, not to human wisdom and elo-
quence.
1
(διδασκαλία)
The apostles' preaching differed from that of preachers
who came after them, and from the preaching of the pres-
ent day, in this that their preaching was principally
designed to give men the truth, to proclaim to men the
original gospel," which when given other preachers
were to take up, interpret, and enforce, in the sense of
teaching (Sidαonalía); but theirs especially was the
office of "heralding" the gospel (unpvuɛía). They went
everywhere as “messengers" and "evangelists" to pro-
claim the coming of the kingdom of God. They were
named (punes nai àñóóтolo) (1 Tim. 2: 7). Paul
declares himself to be a teacher, not of "believers” and
of saints," but of the "Gentiles."
Gentiles." The missionary
spirit pervades the whole "Acts of the Apostles "; it is
aggressive, like the sunrise, and it insists on perpetual
advance.2
*
(6
Apostles'
preaching
of the
1 De Pressensé.
2 Dean Howson's "Acts of the Apostles," p. 161.
gospel,
in what
peculiar.
Whenever these "heralds" had gathered a congrega-
tion, or church, of believers together, they left them and
went on to new fields. Nevertheless the apostles, and
above all Paul, were true preachers, even in the com-
monly accepted sense. They ministered for years to-
gether to particular churches, as did Paul to the Ephe-
sians, and James to the church at Jerusalem. We must
36
HOMILETICS PROPER.
gather from their recorded instructions what was the
general style and spirit of their apostolic preaching.
Peter's preaching on the day of Pentecost has been
called "the first Christian sermon"; but we prefer to
date, as we have done, Christian preaching
Preaching from a higher source—from the preaching
of Peter.
of Christ.
Peter's address was forcible, while at the same time it
was artless and spiritual. The characteristics of it are
fully seen in his letters, so rugged in form, but so full of
passionate fire and sublimity; although the gravity and
sobered zeal of the apostle who sinned and repented and
was made “a pillar in the house of God," are also ap-
parent.
James had a more calm, careful, measured, and author-
itative utterance, moving on the even plane of Christian
life with the moral element in predomi-
Preaching nance-the ethos rather than the pathos of
of James.
Christianity.
John's preaching, we sometimes think, was all love, and
so it was; but we mistake him if we suppose that it was a
superficial excitation of the emotional nature
Preaching
-one not drawn from the deepest sources,
of John.
where sleeps also the thunder of power. It
was certainly characterized by what we would now call
subjectiveness; but the subject lay not only in the
depths of his own mind, but rather of the divine mind.
He searched the mind of the Spirit, who reveals the deep
things of God. He realized the truth of his own pro-
found saying, that "He that loveth is born of God."
He seemed to care little for the form or language, and
more for the essential spirit of truth.
Paul's preaching, which is worthy of special study as a
model, and of which we have undoubtedly literal exam-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
37
"
ples in his epistles—the ipsissima verba of his ordinary
addresses-was assuredly no rude or rambling speech ;
if his discourses were not framed upon the
rules of classic eloquence (though there may
be some question here), they had method,
and they exhibit often in their fragmentary forms (as in
the address on Mars Hill) the graces of the introduction,
the vehement logic of the argument, the pathos and
direct appeal of the close. His language has a marked
rhetorical as well as spiritual element. It takes hold of
the imagination, the sensibilities, and the conscience.
Luther said of Paul's preaching :
His words are not dead words; they are living creat-
ures with hands and feet."
Preaching
of Paul.
His style (if we may thus speak of it) is highly peri-
phrastic, and at times so involved as to be loose in con-
struction, and it cannot be called formally logical, though
there is a train of strong reasoning running through it,
with what may be termed a natural or rational connec-
tion of parts, that appeals both to the head and the heart.
It is argumentative, but at the same time not abstruse.
Though brought up "at the feet of Gamaliel," he does
not seem to have caught the endless dialectics of the
Jewish doctors. The orator never loses sight of the main
end, however tangled and obscure through frequent
digressions his way may be. Though carried by a vehe-
ment energy of expression hither and thither, he never
fails of his one purpose.
In this the noble individuality
of the man is seen-his singleness of mind that scorns
rules, though few perhaps of his day were better ac-
quainted with them, and his resistless feeling, that bursts
through the bounds of calm discussion, which is addressed
purely to the judgment.
Although Paul as an orator had probably but few
38
HOMILETICS PROPER.
physical advantages, and was small of stature, and with-
out a winning or commanding presence, yet he had
amazing tact and knowledge of human nature. Like his
Master, he did not mistake his audience. He was a Jew
to the Jews, and a Greek to the Greeks. But his chief
power as a preacher lay in his through-and-through con-
viction of the truth of the gospel, with which he believed
himself to be intrusted.
The gospel was for every man, and was to be preached
to all, without respect of persons. He sought to impart
a knowledge of Christ to all men, and to convert the
world. To do this his instrumentality was preaching;
but in preaching he placed no supreme reliance upon skill
of reasoning or those forces which are purely human and
partake of human art, but upon the gospel's inherent
power, the power of the Spirit of God accompanying the
truth preached. He was eloquent because he did not
aim to be so. Although he understood the laws of
thought, yet he wielded the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God, so that his preaching was apodictic or
divinely self-evidencing. He knew that wisdom and
learning could not save men, but Christ could. He knew
nothing among men comparatively but the Cross. The
Cross comprehended all that Christ had done for men.
From that centre radiated all the life-giving truths of
Christianity. The Cross was his theme, presented essen-
tially in a hundred ways. That was the message which
was to be given. All was sacrificed to that. The love
of God in Christ comprehended all truth. He gave up
everything else, counting all things but loss that he
might preach Christ and him crucified. There is much
indeed in the natural gifts, or the personality, of this
preacher which is to be studied-his tireless will, his
sagacity, his adaptation, his magnanimity, his mental
HISTORY 39
7
OF PREACHING.
fertility and wondrous resource, his tenderness, pathos,
tact, and robust common-sense, as well as his acquire-
ments and peculiar modes of thought-his psychology;
but these all seem as nothing when compared with his
faith in the power of the gospel his grasp upon divine
sources of power.
His dependence was upon the Spirit of Christ. Some
sects of Christians, who languish to know why they do
not make progress while they feel that rationally they
are superior to their neighbors, have not yet grasped the
secret of the apostle's faith which brings the heart of
God in vital contact with the heart of man in this divine
humanity and self-sacrifice of the Son of God. His
power was in this "mystery of godliness.
His preaching was in the demonstration of the Spirit
and of power." His faith was literally boundless, even
as his message was an unlimited one of the grace of God
—that Christ came into the world to save sinners, him-
self the chief. The gospel was an unwearying theme to
him, because it was the manifestation of the divine love.
He fed upon this heavenly bread as the nourishment of
his own soul-it was Christ for him to live-and he
would give these riches of the knowledge of the Son of
God to other men, with the hope that all would receive
Christ as offered in his fulness, and that there should be
built up in the world an ennobled and redeemed human-
ity.
,,
Was the gospel, to Paul, a lifeless dogma compre-
hended in theological formulas and received by the mere
cold assent of the reason as an orthodox creed? No.
It was a word of life to the world. It was a direct mes-
sage of the power and love of God to his human chil-
dren, which it was worth losing life to proclaim. Such
was Paul as a preacher. He was pre-eminently the
-
40
HOMILETICS PROPER.
preacher among the apostles. He was, it is true, an edu-
cated man, and had experienced the influence of both the
Greek and Roman cultures, as well as that of the Hebrew
and Rabbinical schools; and in this respect he was dis-
tinguished from the other disciples, who were, most of
them, illiterate men; but he was distinguished more than
they all by the evangelic fervor of his faith, considering
himself to be charged personally of Christ with the gos-
pel, and desiring above all things to preach the gospel
to every man to whom he was debtor in love. There-
fore he is, of all human examples, perhaps, the best for
preachers; and in saying this let us not be understood as
disparaging the preaching of the other disciples. Though
not learned men, they were men who, like Paul, sacrificed
all for their Master; and they were specially gifted to
persuade men to be reconciled to God; they were men
originally of sound minds; they were versed in the He-
brew Scriptures; they had a popular magnetic power,
and knew how to talk to the common people—that is, the
common heart of humanity. Above all, they were in-
structed by Christ himself, and inspired for their work by
his Holy Spirit. Their preaching was the foundation on
which the faith of the Church rested and was built, even
as the apostle Paul declared, "Whether it were I or they,
so we preached, and so ye believed."
C
Rise of
The nature of the apostolic preaching might be gath-
ered also from the peculiar circumstances and history of
the primitive church; and we shall now
institution proceed under this general head of apostolic
of preaching preaching to discuss more in detail the his-
in Apostolic torical origin and rise of the regular institu-
Church. tion of preaching in the primitive apostolic
church, or as far as the New Testament narrative and
testimony enable us to do so. This, it will be admitted,
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
41
is an important inquiry, bearing immediately upon the
work of preachers.
After the Pentecost, the Christians, though still Jews,
worshipping in the temple, naturally separated them-
selves more and more from the Jews in re-
ligion, and assembled daily in their own
houses, in the "upper chamber of prayer'
(Tо vлεршov), for Christian worship, "break-
ing of bread," and prayer. It lay in the
nature of these assemblies that much should be said
in the way of admonition, encouragement, and instruc-
tion in the things of Christ. Christian brethren could
not come together without speaking much of him in
whose name they were assembled. They gathered up
their precious memories of his words and life, and re-
hearsed them often to one another. They talked about
this theme, holding familiar intercommunications (õμz-
Aíaz) and conversations upon this absorbing topic. The
apostles, however, could not always be present on these
occasions, although when present they doubtless led in
the speaking and instruction, going about from assembly
to assembly, in the temple, in the synagogues, and in
private houses, teaching and preaching Jesus Christ
(Acts 5:42). But in the apostles' absence those best
fitted to answer questions and make addresses were
called upon; and when by degrees the suspicion of the
priests and leaders of the synagogues drove out the Jew-
Christians from the Jewish assemblies, then, as has been
said, in their own exclusive assemblies the gospel (ro
evayyèlɩor) began to be preached by the apostles, and
by the more competent private members, though in a free,
informal way, not at regular services of public worship
only, but at all meetings for prayer and brotherly social
intercourse, and at the "agapæ,
agapæ," or "feasts of love."
First
meetings
for
worship.
42
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Let us now endeavor to trace historically the earliest.
springs of this institution of preaching as we find it
recorded in the New Testament writings.
Historical
head-springs
of Christian
preaching.
Speaking
with
tongues.
The three actual head-springs of Chris-
tian preaching were:
1. Speaking with tongues.
2. Prophesying.
3. Teaching.
(1.) Speaking with tongues (yλw66ais lalɛïr). This
sprang from devotional enthusiasm, sometimes amounting
to ecstasy, or something that was wholly
aken up with itself and with God (1 Cor.
14:2). It was often pure praise and thanks-
giving. The form of this ecstatic and ex-
alted spiritual praise was so far removed from the com-
mon modes of expression that it was not always under-
stood; it was in strange forms of expression-"groanings
that could not be uttered," and even sometimes in
foreign, unknown, and unspeakable words' (Rom. 8:26;
I Cor. 14:27, 28).
(2.) Prophesying (πpopηtεúεiv). This was speaking
as freely moved by the Holy Spirit, for the exhortation,
comfort, and encouragement of the brethren
Prophesying.
(1 Cor. 14: 30, 31).
The New Testament "prophet" spoke of God's power
and goodness, Christ's love and atoning death, man's
perishing estate through sin (Acts 10:46; 19:6). As
the "evangelists" spoke of the simple facts of Christ-
the essential gospel-the "prophets' spoke in inspiring
terms of the triumphs and glories of the gospel, its con-
quest of heathenism, and the future reign of Christ.
Prophesying was more or less uniform, and was a more
1 Paniel's " Gesch.," p. 40, seq.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
43
calm and comprehensive method than " speaking with
tongues." It had less of exaltation, and was governed
by that divine spirit which is the spirit of order and not
of confusion.
I Cor. 14: 1-5 (literally translated): "I beseech you
to follow earnestly after love; yet I would have you de-
light in the spiritual gifts, but especially in the gift of
prophecy. But he who speaks in tongues, speaks not to
men, but to God; for no man understands him, but with
his spirit he utters mysteries. But he who prophesies
speaks to men, and builds them up, with exhortation and
with comfort. He who speaks in a tongue builds up
himself alone; but he who prophesies builds up the
church. I wish that you had all the gift of tongues, but
rather that you had the gift of prophecy; for he who
prophesies is above him who speaks in tongues, unless he
interpret the sounds he utters, that the churches may be
built up thereby."
But although better fitted for edification than speaking
with tongues, and wonderful in their awakening power,
yet these prophesyings had nevertheless an extraordinary
and irregular character. They were like, and were, im-
mediate inspirations of the Spirit. They inwardly
strengthened the faith of believers by the very words.
given by the Holy Spirit.
(3.) Teaching (διδασκαλία).
To meet, however, a
deeper want than feeling or imagination could supply,
there was need of a more calm consideration
Teaching.
of and careful instruction in divine truth.'
The unlearned asked of the wise about Christian faith,
and the interpretation of the Scriptures. The gift of
teaching, or, as it was sometimes called, of "knowl-
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 47.
44
HOMILETICS PROPER.
edge," and of "interpretation," became at length a
recognized charisma in the Church. The first Christians
were Jews built upon the Old Testament, and their new
Christian consciousness worked through the medium of
the Old Testament revelation. Thus there sprang up,
as in the Jewish synagogues themselves, questions and
answers, explanations and interpretations, and here lay
the germs of the first "homilies.'
""
There was thus a great variety in the manner of teach-
ing and speaking in the primitive Christian assemblies,
the ecstatic speaker of tongues, the awakening prophet,
the calm teacher and interpreter. There was the emo-
tional expression and the thoughtful exposition.
Correction
of irregulari-
But gradually the varieties and irregularities of speak-
ing in the early Christian assemblies were
done away by the apostles, as they felt not
ties by the only the need of encouraging, but also of
Apostles. instructing or building up believers in the
faith, and of presenting to the educated
classes among the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles the
reasonable aspects of Christian faith.
Undoubtedly, too, the "gift of tongues' had been
abused; and then" interpretation" (Epµnveía) was intro-
duced, and the "proving of spirits" (Stanрiors пvεv-
(διακρίσις πνευ-
μάτov), and more clear, discriminating and comprehensi-
ble teaching took the place of the uncertain and irregular
utterance of those who had gifts of tongues, and the
prophets, until the apostles at length seem to have con-
cluded that nothing which was not clearly understood,
which was not rational, and appealed to the sound under-
standing and healthy Christian consciousness, which could
not be interpreted and applied to immediate instruction,
was admissible.'
! Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 53.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
45
I Cor. 14: 18, 19 (freely translated): "I offer thanks-
givings to God, speaking in tongues to him; more than
any of you. Yet in the congregation I would rather
speak five words with my understanding, so as to in-
struct others, than ten thousand words in a tongue.'
"Let all be so done as to build up the church."
This calm preaching capacity, which involved a more
careful interpretation of the Scriptures and a more pro-
found insight into the plan and theory of the
Christian faith, was comprehended under the
name, as we have already seen, of "teach-
ing” (διδασκαλία).
This teaching charisma was a common good for the
benefit and instruction of the Christian assembly (I Cor.
14:26). But even this must finally have its limits.
Although all had a right to teach, yet in each assembly
there were but a few who possessed (at first the apostles
alone) this gift or power of teaching. The uncultivated,
it is true, sometimes spoke as they were moved by the
Spirit, but few were capable of regularly instructing
the assembly in Christian truth.
1
Reduced by
Apostles to
διδασκαλία.
1 Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 58.
**
In this way there naturally arose the regular teaching
or preaching office in the Church, exercised by those who
had the gifts and the character that fitted
them to teach.
What the
office in the
The preaching office was still free, yet the preaching
assembly naturally listened to the most fit
and gifted teacher. The best approved represented.
teacher, who knew most about the facts of
Church
Christ's life, and who had studied most deeply the
theory of his religion-he was the one who was expected
to speak.
46
HOMILETICS PROPER.
While the primitive Christian assembly and Church
were democratic, yet, without anything like the monarch-
ic or aristocratic idea in their worst sense, the represen-
tative teaching ability in the Church gradually assumed
prominent place and rule.
Clement of Rome cites the following rule as one which
had been handed down from the apostles relative to the
appointment of Church offices: "That they should be
filled according to the judgment of approved men, with
the consent of the whole community."
It may have been the general practice of the presbyters
themselves, in case of vacancy, to propose another of the
community in place of the person deceased, and leave it
to the whole body either to approve or decline their se-
lection for reasons assigned. Where this asking for the
assent of the community had not yet become a mere
formality, this mode of filling church offices had the
salutary effect of causing the votes of the majority to be
guided by those capable of judging, and of suppressing
divisions; while, at the same time, no one was obtruded
on the community who would not be welcome to their
hearts.'
+
It was, in fact, the rule of the selection of the fittest;
and this was probably the first historic step toward the
establishment of a permanent teaching, or preaching
office, which, though it thus grew up naturally, was still,
with the sanction of the apostles, under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, and is to be regarded as a divinely in-
stituted office.
The influence of preaching (both by the apostles and
other accredited teachers) upon the early Christian.
Church was, as there is every evidence, extraordinarily
¹ See Neander's "Ch. Hist.," Torrey's ed, 1852, v. 1, p. 189.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
47
great. The Divine Word never had more marked power
than in those days of the struggles and triumphs of primi-
tive Christianity, although this was but the
promise of things to come. An ardent sen-
timent of personal love toward Christ was
maintained in the Church by the prophet,
the exhorter, and the speaker of tongues.
Christ as a person rather than Christ as a
simple creed, was cherished. A mighty influence of the
Spirit frequently accompanied the speech of these early
witnesses for Christ, and an absorbing conviction of the
The
truth as an inspiration of heaven seized upon men.
regular teacher, or preacher (d1dάonalos), however, even
more than these, founded the people in a deep-ground-
ed and intelligent faith; in the "sound doctrine" spo-
ken of by Paul in first chapter of 1 Timothy; and, above
all, in charity and holy living-as in (Acts 2: 42-47;
Acts 4 8-13; Acts 4: 32-35; Acts 6:1-4; 1 Tim.
I : 5).
This was not only true of the Church in Jerusalem, but
of the Gentile churches, and of the mixed Jewish and
heathen churches of Asia and Europe. Such noble fruits
of preaching were not, it is true, without admixtures of
evil fruit springing from corrupt teaching, from the
ostentation and pride of speakers of tongues, and from
false prophets and teachers. Many of these were totally
illiterate persons (idiótai). Notwithstanding, however,
these drawbacks, the great influence of the preaching of
the gospel, in the earliest times of Christianity, every-
where wrought its wonderful results in the conversion of
souls, and in the bringing of men and of nations in three
continents under the sway of Christian faith.'
Influence of
preaching
on the early
Christian
Church.
¹ See De Pressensé, “ Early Years of Christianity,” p. 216.
78
HOMILETICS PROPER.
"
SEC. 6. Preaching in the first two Centuries.
The business of the "preacher" or "teacher" in the
Church having now become a recognized fact, and cer-
tain persons being regarded as better fitted
Preaching than others for this work of public instruc-
tion, all this went to confirm and establish
the regular preaching office, which came to
have its distinct and important place in pub-
lic worship.
had a
regular place
in public
worship.
Speaking of the period somewhat later than this imme-
diately post-apostolic period, one author says: "The
reading of the Scriptures, and, above all, the administra-
tion of the sacraments, had a more important place (than
preaching) in the hearts of those earnest worshippers.
It was desirable that every Christian should be familiar
with the sacred writings; and when manuscripts were
costly, and the bulk of every congregation consisted of
poor persons, hearing the word was a necessary substitute
for private reading, and was therefore one of the most
important parts of public worship. And, on the other
hand, baptism, the sign of the first admission into com-
munion with the Redeemer and his Church, and the
Lord's Supper, the sign of a constant growth" these
also had a prominent place.
"
1
Notwithstanding the truth of these remarks, preaching
obtained and held an acknowledged place in all Christian
public worship. It was early introduced in about the
same place and order that it now occupies; for example,
there were the same elements of worship then as now--
viz., psalmody; reading the Scriptures (the law and the
prophets, and the Gospels and Epistles when these came
into vogue); teaching or preaching, which was chiefly
1 Moule's Christian Oratory during the first five Centuries,” p. 51.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
49
expository and drawn directly from the scriptural lessons
of the day; prayer, both liturgical and spontaneous; and
the partaking of the Lord's Supper; the last was an
invariable incident, in the earliest times, of public wor-
ship.
Preaching, it is true, had not as yet a very definite
form beyond the general fact or name of διδασκαλία,
although, as we have already hinted, we find the word
óµiλɛo used casually in the Scriptures, as in Luke 24: 14,
15; Acts 20:11 (öµiλhoas äxpis avyñ³); and in the first
two centuries preaching addresses were sometimes called
"homilies," and even "sermons,
sermons," as those of Valentinus
and Clemens Romanus. We learn the style and matter
of these earliest "homilies" from the remains of the writ-
ings and of the sacred orations of the apostolic fathers.
and the earliest preachers.
Some of these names of the first two centuries, which
are familiar as those also of theologians, are
Clemens Romanus, Ignatius of Antioch,
Polycarp and Barnabas, the philosopher Jus-
tin Martyr, Tatian, Athanagoras, Theoph-
ilus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Irenæus, and
the fiery-minded Tertullian.
The addresses of the preachers of this period were
chiefly of three kinds :
Great
preachers
of the
first two
centuries.
Three
1. Simple and artless relations concerning
the crucified and risen Saviour, without
much of a deeper spiritual or even rhetorical
comprehension of the truth, perhaps in run-
ning comment upon the Gospels and Epistles preaching.
read, or in answers to questions.
kinds of
early
Christian
2. Philosophical treatment of divine truth by men who
had imbibed the influence of the Oriental philosophies,
50
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
oftentimes mingling the greatest absurdities with what-
ever of truth they possessed.
3. The instructions of some really educated men among
the members, who were yet truly pious minds, and taught
the pure gospel in a more systematic and comprehensive
way, and often with real eloquence.'
But the condition of Christians and Christian assem-
blies in these first centuries was, as a general rule, ex-
ceedingly humble.
Humble
The first disciples were commonly people
from the more obscure walks of life, and, as
in the apostolic times, "not many mighty,
preachers. not many noble were called."
character
of the
first
Celsus derides the early Christians, call-
ing them "wool-dressers, shoemakers, the most illiterate
and rude men, zealots who proclaimed the gospel, first
of all, among women and children "; and yet there were
never wanting people of higher culture among the Chris-
tians, who were amply able to instruct and preach. Yet
even these often openly scorned the aids of human learn-
ing, and declared the gospel to be wholly in the power
and Spirit of God.
Some Christian assemblies refused to receive men of
rank as their instructors, and in preference chose poor
and pious men, as in the third century one Firmus, a
tradesman, was elected "presbyter;" also Severus, a
clothier, and Alexander, a charcoal-burner, whose black-
ened face excited laughter among the young, were ap-
pointed preachers.'
Still, those illustrious preachers whom we have pre-
viously named, and many others, were chosen on account
of their fitness for the work of instruction. Teachers,
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 87.
? Id., p. 89.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
5I
too, began to undergo "proving" in regard to their
capacities. The apostles themselves, we have reason to
believe, instructed some men especially to Eminent
exceptions.
be teachers: thus Clement of Rome was
probably taught by the apostle Peter; Ig-
natius by Peter, Paul, and John; and Polycarp by John.
About the year 170 A.D. the system of catechumenical
instruction was introduced, and toward the end of the
second century the distinction between
κλῆρο; and λαός was begun to be made.
Nevertheless, it must be said that in these
first centuries the διδάσκαλοι and προεσ-
TÔTƐs were generally like from like--men
freely chosen out of the whole body ecclesiastically their
equals in rank.
But later it came about that skill in preaching was
esteemed to be a requisite of the presbyteral office. It
lay indeed in the very nature of things that as the Church
increased and its wants were developed, the necessity of
having trained and skilful teachers should be felt.
Public Christian worship after the Church had come out
from Judaism was at first held, as we have seen, in pri-
vate houses, without temples, altars, or stat-
ues.' The Jewish and Gentile Christians
must have felt a certain loss in these out-
ward things connected with worship, which
was, however, more than made up to them
in the truth that every Christian was himself a spiritual
temple to the Lord, and that where two or three were
gathered together there was Christ, the Lord of souls, in
the midst of them. But from the increased size of the
assemblies, and probably in imitation of the Jewish syna-
¹ Paniel's "
Gesch.," p.
Distinction
between
κλῆρος
and λαός.
Public
worship
and
Church
edifices.
52
HOMILETICS PROPER.
gogue, or more probably the Jewish "houses of prayer,
Christians at the end of the second century began to
have their own houses of worship. In the year 202, for
example, a beautiful church edifice is known to have
been reared in Odessa.
The smaller places of worship, or "houses of prayer,"
εὐτήρια, προσευτήρια, and κυρίακα, were furnished in a
simple and unostentatious manner-a wooden table for
the feast of bread and wine, and a higher seat or stand
for the reading of the Scriptures and preaching. Those
who gathered in these assemblies were called, from a
classic Greek word for public assemblage, ¿uuλnõiai,
and hence the buildings themselves took the name of
churches."
""
""
There is no doubt that in these early assemblies for
worship, at first held daily, then on stated days for the
celebration of the Lord's Supper, and then regularly on
Sunday, preaching, though of that artless and spontane-
ous sort which has been mentioned, formed a regular
part, but not yet so uniform and established as in the
fourth and fifth centuries. It occupied a prominent
place on fast and feast days, such as Pentecost, Epiph-
any, Advent, Good Friday, and the days appointed for
the commemoration of the deaths of saints and mar-
tyrs. On these occasions preaching assumed a more for-
mal and oratorical character.
Few
sermons
of this
period
extant.
It may seem to be a somewhat extraordinary fact that
few or hardly none of the actual sermons of this first
period of the Church have come down to us.
This probably was due to the fact that
preaching was so spontaneous, so purely a
moving of the Spirit, that it did not take
on a literary form that could be handed
And it must also be said that the first preachers
down.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
53
trusted little to human art; but, as Greek culture pre-
vailed, the necessity of more attention to form is ap-
parent.
We will notice, and that in a very brief manner, but
three examples of the more noted preachers of this
period-viz., Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria,
and Tertullian. Yet let us not forget the first artless,
spontaneous, free and varied forms of Christian preach-
ing, nor consider that our formal sermons or regular ora-
tions from the pulpit on the Lord's day are the only, or
even the most primitive and apostolic way, of preaching
the gospel of the kingdom of God to men; and this fact
steadily borne in mind may keep us from becoming
stereotyped, formal, and scholastic preachers of the living
word of God. We should strive to be free men in
Christ Jesus, though all the rules of all the schools be
broken.
Clement, Bishop of Rome, has been supposed to be
the same Clement who is spoken of in Philippians 4 : 3,
and to have lived in close intimacy with the
apostles, or at least with two of them. He
was probably the third bishop of Rome.
Within these last years his very house is said to have been
discovered, under whose roof the apostle Paul may have
met the little church that was planted in Rome; and in
much that he says we catch a glimpse of the earlier times
of the Christian Church, and its trials, persecutions, and
customs. He was a teacher in whose discourses and let-
ters (we do not refer to the so-called Clementine Epistles,
which were undoubtedly written by some Ebionitish
Christian) there is a pure evangelic spirit. He is eth-
ical rather than doctrinal. His epistle to the church of
Corinth is evidently more of a “homily” or “sermon"
than an epistle, and is perhaps the oldest form of a Chris-
Clement
of Rome.
54
HOMILETICS PROPER.
tian homily extant after the time of the apostles. That
which is named the Second Epistle of Clement is mani-
festly nothing but the fragment of a homily.' These dis-
courses, as well as the discourses of the earliest Christian
preachers after the apostles, are remarkable for their pop-
ular setting forth of the virtue or holiness or divine char-
ity of the Christian life—of the very spirit and essence of
the Gospels. Some of his sentences in praise of Christ's
divinity are of considerable power and eloquence.' He
deprecates strife over the bishop's office which had
already arisen, and is strenuous with almost an apostle's
strength in regard to the purity of the ministerial func-
tion. He is at times full of burning vigor of language.
He says: "Let him that hath love in Christ fulfil the
commandments of Christ. Who can declare the bond of
the love of God? Who is sufficient to tell the majesty
of its beauty? The height whereunto love exalteth is
unspeakable. Love joineth us unto God; love covereth
a multitude of sins; love endureth all things, is long-
suffering in all things. There is nothing coarse, nothing
arrogant in love. Love hath no divisions; love maketh
no sedition; love doeth all things in concord. In love
were all the elect of God made perfect; without love
nothing is well-pleasing to God; in love the Master took
us unto himself; for the love which he had toward us
Jesus Christ our Lord hath given his blood for us by the
will of God, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for
our lives. Ye see, dearly beloved, how great and mar-
vellous a thing is love, and there is no declaring its per-
fection. Who is sufficient to be found therein, savc
those to whom God shall vouchsafe it? Let us there-
1 Neander's "Ch. Hist., V. I, p. 659.
2 Paniel's
Gesch.," p. 106.
看着
​"}
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
55
fore entreat and ask of his mercy that we may be found
blameless, standing apart from the factiousness of men.
All the generations from Adam unto this day have
passed away, but they that by God's grace were perfect-
ed in love dwell in the abode of the pious; and they
shall be made manifest in the visitation of the kingdom
of God."
:
Clement of Alexandria was born about 150 A.D., and
lived during the reigns of Severus and Caracalla. His
works, as now existing, are very fragment-
ary, and are chiefly of an apologetic charac-
ter. His style is discursive and wants
method, but there are passages-probably first delivered
as sermons-of extraordinary vigor. The literary and
philosophic elements are kept in subordination to the
Christian and spiritual. But the philosophical element
is marked thus he dwells with some force of reasoning
upon the influence of the "Logos," or " Divine Word,"
as the image of God in man, as God's essential wisdom,
as the light leading to a higher knowledge of divine
things, or the true yvwo15. He was engaged mind and
soul in fighting gnosticism. He is occasionally declama-
tory and repetitious, as if his addresses were originally
extemporaneous. Origen was his disciple, and he is
thought to have given the stimulus to Origen's mind,
even as Tertullian did to Cyprian's mind, showing the
sway exerted by one great preacher over another down
the ages, as was also marked in the influence of Augus-
tine upon Luther.
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, who belongs
to the later half of the second century, exerted an im-
mense moulding power upon the discipline
Tertullian.
and moral culture of the Western Church,
which afterward developed into the asceticism of the mo-
Clement of
Alexandria.
56
HOMILETICS PROPER.
nastic systems. He was the son of a proconsul stationed
at Carthage, and was bred a rhetorician, or advocate.
He did not embrace Christianity until the full age of
manhood, and then he confessed it with the whole energy
of his being. Tertullian was well acquainted with philos-
ophy, but at the same time he despised it as an endless
source of error and heresy; and (until his own partial
defection from the faith) he sought his inspiration from
the word of God and the best Christian writings. "What
must render this man a phenomenon presenting special
claims to attention is the fact that his Christianity is the
inspiring soul of his life and thoughts; that out of Chris-
tianity an entirely new and rich inner world developed
itself to his mind; but the leaven of Christianity had
first to penetrate through and completely refine that
fiery, bold, and withal rugged nature. We find the new
wine in an old bottle, and the tang which it contracted
there may easily embarrass the inexperienced judge.
His dogmatic or doctrinal teaching was free, and perhaps
of no great theological weight, but his ethical teaching
was of the most earnest character, and into that he threw
his whole energy.
He outdid in severeness the moral
standard of the gospel itself. He carried his ideas of
the supreme virtue of chastity to such a pitch that he
regarded marriage as a degradation of the soul. It is
worth noticing that those of his writings which bear the
false stamp of Montanism may be easily distinguished
from his purer Christian writings and discourses. As a
preacher or orator he had a sharp penetration and a fiery
phantasy, which gave him vivid and original conceptions
of spiritual truth. He had wit, irony, sarcasm, and a
2
¹ Neander's "Ch. Hist.," v. i. p. 683.
3 Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 124.
},
2 Id., p. 684.
1
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
57
rough positive assertion that carried all before it—in fine,
great qualities and great faults.
His style was mixed, obscure, profound, full of dark-
ness as well as light, of glowing depth as well as celestial
height. His Latin is pervaded with Punic corruptions,
but through all shines his great genius resplendent. He
was a tower of strength to his friends, and a terrible
adversary to his enemies. His most eloquent sermons
were those De Spectaculis, in which his soul was moved
against the licentiousness of the heathens, and especially
against the gladiatorial shows of the ferocious Roman
civilization. As a brief illustration of the vivid and fervid
character of his pulpit eloquence we give the close of one
of his sermons on Repentance," in which he employs
(4
the tremendous illustration of the recent destruction of
Pompeii and Herculaneum by an eruption of Mount
Vesuvius; and he applies this in way of warning to
catechumens, and says to them :
"Think much on hell-fire, which this repentance alone
can quench. Set before you the greatness of the punish-
ment of hell, so that you shall not delay to lay hold of
the salvation which Heaven stretches out to you. What
a prison-house of eternal fire that must be, if even by one
of its flues such flames burst forth that cities are totally
destroyed, or lie in constant peril of destruction! The
highest mountains, pregnant with fire, are rent asunder,
and who can fail to see in these heaving and devouring
mountains the symbols of everlasting hell? Who can
fail to regard such sparks as messengers of an endlessly
great multitude, and as threatening foretokens of the
' wrath to come.
,,, 1
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 133; see also Moule, Chr. Or.," pp. 83,
84, 86, 87.
(4
58
HOMILETICS PRoper.
Singularly enough (or perhaps not singularly), in Tertul
lian and other preachers of the first and second centuries
there is a mingling of pagan ideas and pagan elements
of culture with the pure Christian doctrine and morality.
Christian faith does not yet seem to have asserted its ex-
clusive and authoritative place in preaching; but what-
ever is drawn from the Scriptures is pure doctrine, yet not
so much in the shape of theological as ethical doctrine,
the Spirit of Christ being irresistibly infused into the
teaching and into the manners and life of disciples.
SEC. 7. Preaching of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Cen-
turies.
Founded
upon the
While among the earliest preachers the influence of
the education and philosophy in which they had been
trained (as was remarked at the close of the last section)
is plainly perceptible, yet one of the most important
facts in the history of the first Christian preaching is
that it was directly drawn from the Scrip-
tures. There never seemed to be a doubt
Scriptures. but that the interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures, the word of God, was the main source of
preaching. Though there was much of the irregular
style of address, yet the speaker even more and more
began to confine himself to the explanation of the por-
tion of Scripture which was read as the lesson of the day
in the public service, either from the Old Testament or
the New. But it was not until Origen's time that preach-
ing began to be founded upon any definite hermeneutical
basis-viz., that a passage of Scripture should be taken
and consecutively explained. Preaching was more
diffuse, varied, and accidental, and although expository
in style was not so methodically.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
59
The expository method of Origen characterized the
preaching of the third and succeeding centuries. In-
stead, however, at first of there being much
unity in the treatment of the text, Origen
and his school followed the habit of parcel-
ling out and dismembering the original text,
in this way making many distinct homilies upon every
member or separate clause. There was no formal unity
in the discourse, no grouping together of the whole
chapter or book.
Influence
of Origen's
method.
The expository method of Origen was also combined
with an allegorical mode of treating the Scriptures. The
allegory was indeed used by Christ himself
and by his apostles; it was a favorite
method of the Old Testament prophets, nor
was it opposed to the usage of classical
teaching, as may be seen pre-eminently in the writings of
Plato; but never was this method carried to such an ex-
tent as by Origen and his school, who seized especially
upon the fruitful field of the Old Testament, from a New
Testament point of view. This allegorizing interpreta-
tion ran into the greatest extravagances, often going
through whole books of Scripture. It must be said,
however, of Origen himself (of whom we shall speak
more circumstantially) that he was a true Christian
preacher, striving earnestly to come at the original truth
of Scripture, and making the word of God the ground-
work of a certain prophetical and spiritual analogy, or
allegory, not being content with the literal truth.
The riches of Christian philosophy began also to be
opened, and the rationale of the system of divine re-
demption to be discussed. The theory of Christianity
was viewed in the light of a new philosophy. Conflicts
with heathen systems and schools, and also attempts to
The
allegorical
method.
60
HOMILETICS PRoper.
harmonize Christianity with Greek philosophy, increased
this tendency; and we see, especially in the sermons of
the Alexandrian school, as well as in the
discourses of Hippolytus, this marked ten-
dency to philosophical preaching. Christian
thought met pagan thought, and annihilated
it when false, or assimilated and sanctified it when true.
In the hands of less serious teachers, preaching already
began to admit of the admixture of corrupt speculation;
there sprang up the custom of public and private teach-
ing of exoteric and esoteric truth, until at length the
pure character of early evangelical preaching was much
obscured.
The
philosophical
element.
Although the laity retained for a long time their right
to preach, they were at length circumscribed in many
ways, and were not permitted to preach in
the church itself, but in the baptistery or
laity.
some building connected with the church,"
and only in the presence of the bishop. But preaching
gradually began to be confined to the "presbyters,"
and in many cases the bishops themselves strove, often
with success, to monopolize altogether the preaching
office.
Preaching
of the
66
Church
edifices-
times of
preaching
posture of
audience.
Already in the reigns of the emperors Philip, Alex-
ander Severus, and Galerius, Christians were permitted
to build and occupy church edifices of con-
siderable size and beauty, as the one built in
280 in Nicomedia, and in 320 at Tyre.' They
did not, singularly enough, take possession
of the pagan temples when permitted after-
ward to do so, which indeed were unfitted,
by their closeness and narrowness, for Christian popular
¹ Moule, p. 53.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
61
worship, but rather of the basilicas, which afforded large
spaces for the gathering of great assemblies, and which,
it is a familiar fact, became the architectural type of the
Christian church edifice down to the present day.
As to the times and seasons in which preaching was
held, when Christianity acquired more power and free-
dom, the number of festival days was greatly multiplied.
At the beginning of the third century and in the earlier
times, preaching in many assemblies, as we have already
said, was held every day; but as the societies of Chris-
tians became more scattered the number of days on
which service was held grew less.
In addition to the Sunday services and the regular
feast and fast days, baptismal services, commemoration
occasions, saints' and martyrs' days, all were accompanied
by preaching.' The preacher was the central personage,
and the preaching service began to be of considerable
length, as was the case with Origen's sermons. Several
consecutive sermons were often delivered by different
preachers to the same assembly, the sermons being brief.
The people during the preaching, as was the case in the
ancient Jewish synagogue, stood-or if occasionally they
were seated they all rose at the reading of the Gospels-
while the preacher sat.
During the third and fourth centuries there were great
changes wrought in the method of preaching-in fact, in
its very theory. From its being of an art-
less character, preaching began to be built
upon an oratorical form. It took more and
more the shape of the intellectual produc-
tions of the highest classical civilization of the day. It
began to vie with the performances of the Greek rheto-
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 161.
Vin
Changes
wrought in
preaching.
62
HOMILETICS PROPER.
rician and orator, bringing in all the helps to be derived
from learning and eloquence.
Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Origen's school, deliberately
constructed many of his sermons upon approved Greek
models of eloquence, in which not only the rhetorical but
the philosophical element was introduced; and yet the
original idea of the spiritual character of preaching, and
of dependence upon the Spirit, was not yet altogether
lost sight of.¹
says,
↑
Origen speaks even of a true "prophesying" being
still to be found or hoped for in preaching, but not as
taking the place entirely of human gifts and studies. He
Sed in his quæritur, si potest csse aliquid in nobis
vel ex nobis prophetiæ specics, quæ non totum habeat ex
Deo sed aliquantulum etiam ex humanis studiis capiat."
Paul, he thought, spoke of this kind of prophesying
(1 Cor. 12:31): But covet earnestly the best gifts";
which, according to 14: 1, meant prophesying: “Follow
after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye
may prophesy." This is not the prophecy spoken of
in Luke 16 16: "The law and the prophets even until
John," but in 1 Cor. 14:3: "But he that prophesieth
speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and
comfort."
:
This ability of
prophesying" could be won, accord-
ing to Origen's belief, through study, on the condition
that the study be earnestly and believingly pursued to
the end of preaching God's truth, and to its human re-
sults God would add what comes directly from him-the
prophetic gift, or literally in his words (Commentar. ad
Rom.): "Et ideo adhibere studium ad hujuscemodi pro-
phetiam possibile nobis cst, et est in nostra potestate, ut
"C
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 166.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
63
nobis in hæc operam dantibus, se secundum rationem vel
mesuram fidei facimus, addatur et illa, qua ex Deo est,
prophetia.
1
Thus Origen laid the groundwork of Christian elo-
quence of the inspired eloquence of the pulpit-on the
theory that unto the most earnest, the most skillful, and
the most conscientious use of the human powers in the
interpretation of God's word and the preaching of his
truth to men, the spiritual gift from God-the prophetic
gift--would be added; and every true preacher, even the
humblest, might thus obtain this gift of prophecy. This
is a pregnant thought, and might be applied to modern
times and to all time.
In regard more particularly to the Western Church
during the third and fourth centuries, although preach-
ing was kept up, yet it was more irregular
and rare than in the Eastern Church. But
that it was maintained we have many proofs.
Thus Cyprian admonishes bishops not only
to instruct others, but to learn themselves, in order that
they may the better instruct others. He speaks of the
preaching (tractare) of the bishops, and he
complains that the presbyters and deacons
neglected to expound the Scriptures, and to
exhort, which duty belonged to their office.
And so toward the end of this period Lactantius speaks
indirectly of Christian preachers, although he says they
are seldom cultivated and eloquent men; and immedi-
ately after this epoch (350), Hilarius in his homiletical
writings gives us a long list of preachers. During this
period there was a great strife between the "bishops"
and the "presbyters," on this very question of the right
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 167.
Preaching of
the Western
Church.
Its irregu
larity and
variety.
64
HOMILETICS PROPER.
to preach, which ended in the presbyters yielding up
the right to preach without the consent of the bishops,
to the great detriment of preaching and of
Christianity. In such circumstances pulpit.
bishops and eloquence could not thrive. While parties.
presbyters. and the clergy strove for the very right to
preach, it was not likely that preaching itself would be
much cultivated and ennobled. And when at last the
presbyters had succumbed to the bishops on this point,
the bishops had drawn upon themselves so much of other
ecclesiastical power and business that they had no time
to study and improve their preaching ability. The ordi-
nary membership of the Church became more and more
used to receive from their clergy the offices of outward
ceremonials, of prayers and forms, and thus they them-
selves gradually lost the desire to hear preaching. The
feast and fast seasons began also to be so multiplied
that the physical effort to sustain these ceremonials
made the preaching service very short, and sometimes
altogether prohibited it, as says Sozomenus somewhat
later in regard to the Western Church.
The most important feature in the preaching of the
Western Church was doubtless the moral element.
What was in Origen and the Oriental
preachers a kind of mystical or ideal virtue,
was in the Western Church a more outward
and practical quality, having relation to
church life and discipline, and running at
length into asceticism, or the idea of sancti-
fying the soul through bodily mortification.
The fourth and fifth centuries present a field for Chris-
tian eloquence opened through the previous influence of
Strife
between
Moral
element
in the
Western
Church.
"
¹ Paniel's Gesch.," p. 219.
1
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
65
Origen upon the style and method of preaching, which,
with all its marked faults, was rarely if ever surpassed;
and this was the epoch of the great patris-
form of the
sermon.
Yet the
tic preachers; but it was, after all, a tran- A transition
sition period, in which the former simpler period in the
and more biblical system of preaching
culminated (perhaps in some respects we
might say fossilized) into the regular sermon.
sermon was long in reaching the idea (rhetorically) of a
perfect discourse pervaded by a law of unity, and spring-
ing from a deeper insight of the theme. It continued to
be for a long time in the form of a running exposition, in
which thought was awakened and the heart was warmed,
and an oratorical element was gradually introduced.
But as the Church emerged into more freedom and open-
ness of belief, and persecution was lifted, the style of
preaching became naturally more and more in harmony
with the current forms of persuasive address, and in ac-
cordance with rhetorical rules and Greek culture.
When, in the time of Constantine, Christianity became
the religion of the state, a new era was inaugurated
for the eloquence of the pulpit, in some
respects marking an advance, in others a
decadence. Christianity, in Constantine's
reign, got rest for itself, and spoke out more
calmly and boldly from the pulpit; but
heathen and philosophical opposition was still active,
and preaching was more and more forced into a dialectic
and polemic current. Especially in the reign of Julian
at the end of the fourth century, the ideas of heathen
philosophy received a new impulse, and the Christian
preacher, while he preached now without fear, yet felt
himself called upon to meet every objection, to harmo-
nize faith and reason, and to develop a higher philoso-
Influence
of
outward
events.
66
HOMILETICS PROPER.
phy. This had its evil and its good effects upon preach-
ing, while a speculative spirit was thus engendered, yet
at the same time there began to be a more
systematic teaching of the doctrines of
Christianity, and the theological or dog-
matic element was developed. Gregory
Nazianzen and Gregory of Nyssa, Athanasius, and Cyril
of Jerusalem, and other illustrious preachers of this
period, were eminently theological preachers. The con-
troversies upon the Trinity and the Person of Christ,
engaged the minds both of preachers and people. It
was, in fact, distinctively the theological age. The ethi-
cal, or perhaps in many instances the higher spiritual
element did not flourish as in the earlier ages, when men,
suffering persecution, went for courage and hope to the
pure fountains of biblical truth; and even in the greatest
preachers Christian spirituality seemed to be over-
borne by the dogmatic element. In the practical Chry-
sostom, who came after, and who recognized the freedom
of the will as the foundation of morality, the ethical ele-
ment predominated; and in all true preachers since his
time the dogmatic and moral elements have been more
or less bound together, and have not suffered such an un-
natural divorce.
Theological
type of
preaching.
The theme.
Few sermons as yet had one definite theme, and the
preacher was only careful to explain the connection of
the verses; or, if he discoursed upon a
theme, he did not always draw it from a
particular text. Gregory Nazianzen commences a ser-
mon on peace in this way. He addresses to his hearers
the apostolic form of benediction then in use-"Peace be
unto you!" and they respond, "And with thy spirit.'
He then proceeds at once to discourse on his theme,
upon this peace which had just been pronounced: "Be-
W
>
P
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
67
loved Peace, thou sweet word that I have just spoken to
the people and heard in return from them. I know not,
it is true, if it has been spoken with an honest and wor-
thy heart, and if the open bond of peace now formed has
not been broken in the secret sight of God; but, dear
Peace, thou that art my daily thought and my ornament,
that art inly bound up with the being of God-since we
read in the Scriptures of the peace of God' and 'the
God of peace,' and 'he is our peace '—and yet which we
so little honor; thou beloved Peace, praised by all and
possessed by few, how long thou hast left us when wilt
thou return !"'¹
This bold and winning freedom, this artless speak-
ing from the heart, this extempore and spiritual manner
of address, is something worthy of notice in the earliest
preachers, before everything had become formal and sys-
tematized in the style of sermonizing.
In many instances, however, the theme of the dis-
course was distinctly announced. Thus Basil says, at the
beginning of one of his discourses: "On account of all
the incidents which I have witnessed in the foregoing
days, I will speak against the vice of drunkenness, and
let your ears be astonished.
›› 2
He says again, in preaching upon the twenty-third
Psalm: "If thou wilt hear what holy fear is, attend now
to me." Chrysostom, in his homily upon John, 15: 26,
27, commences thus: "Since it is not unknown to any
of you that prayer is the first of all good things, so I was
greatly pressed with inward desire to speak to you who
are accustomed to worship here, upon that theme, in
order that I might make you still more zealous in
prayer.'
>>
¹ Paniel's
64
Gesch.," p. 271.
2 Id., p. 272.
68
HOMILETICS PROPER.
In the panegyrical discourses the theme was often an-
nounced, and in a highly rhetorical manner. Thus Chry-
sostom begins a panegyrical sermon upon the martyr
Stephen with these words: " Let us crown Stephen with
the flowers of eulogy, and let us bestrew him with the
roses of praise. For he has long before received the
real crown of righteousness which belongs to those who
are victors in the good fight of faith."'
of Art-
unity of
form-
oratorical
diction.
We have already more than once suggested that the
evidences of rhetorical culture had begun to appear even
in these early times in preaching, and, in fact,
Evidences during the latter part of the fourth and fifth
centuries it reached its height. Of course in
the earliest Christian preaching, certainly
until the period of the fourth and fifth centu-
ries, we cannot look for much of art, although
there was eloquence without the conscious-
ness of it. The preachers were generally earnest men,
confessing their faith at the peril and often the cost of
their lives, impelled by a lofty purpose which made the
mere idea of art seem insignificant. The moral element
in preaching was then, as it always will be, of infinitely
more importance than the artistic. Preaching was per-
suading men to secure their eternal interests by accept-
ing the grace and salvation which Christ the incarnate.
Son of God brought them. With these early preachers
the end absorbed the means. They were too much taken
up with the real claims and the transcendent truths of
Christianity to be attentive to the mere art of discourse,
or oratory; yet there was then, and is now, such a thing
as eloquence in the pulpit, because all the skill of man,
all his powers of thought and art, were made for the
1 Paniel's "Gesch.,'' p. 273.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
69
glory of God, and should be freely consecrated to his
service. Both in form and diction, sermons began to
assume the appearance of art. The oratorical period of
the preaching art, with all its merits and all its faults, is
to be found in the fourth and fifth centuries, from the
time of the establishment of national Christianity, in
about the year 324, to the fall of the Western Empire.
There were, however, then as in all ages of the Church,
different kinds of preachers--some who were especially
theological preachers, such as Athanasius
and the two Gregories, and also in many
respects Chrysostom. There were also the
practical and ethical class of preachers, such
as was eminently Chrysostom. There were likewise mys-
tical preachers like Macarius, and ascetic preachers, as
Tertullian.
But all these were more or less affected by the Greek
culture; some of them, who were rhetoricians before they
became preachers, carrying their rhetorical style to an
extravagant pitch, as did Gregory Nazianzen.
As to the topics of preaching during the middle and
latter parts of these centuries, one author thus sums
them up:
The nature and destiny of the
soul, future rewards and punishments, the
perfections and mercies of God, repent-
ance, baptism, forgiveness of sins, the creation, the
nature of man, angels, the desperate condition of evil
spirits, the true faith, the triumphs of the Church, and
damnable heresies."
"
"
Variety in
style of
preaching.
Topics of
preaching.
A comprehensive passage from Neander's "Church
History" gives us a graphic picture of the preaching of
this brilliant period of the fourth and fifth centuries.
As to the relation of the sermon to the whole office of
worship, this is a point on which we meet with the most
70
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Neander's
opposite errors of judgment. Some, who looked upon
the clergy only as officiating priests, and who considered
the main parts of Christian worship to con-
view of the sist in the magical effects of the priestly
preaching of services, were hence greatly inclined to
this period. overvalue the liturgical element of worship.
“The gift of teaching, they regarded, as something for-
eign from the spiritual office, as they supposed the Holy
Ghost, imparted to the priestly ordination, could be
transmitted to others only by his sensible mediation.
Others, however, and on account of the rhetorical style
of culture which prevailed among the higher classes in
the large cities of the East-this was especially the case
of the Greek Church-gave undue importance to the
didactic and rhetorical part of worship, and did not at-
tach importance enough to the essentials of Christian
fellowship and of common edification and devotion.
Hence the church would be thronged when some famous
speaker was to be heard, but only a few remained be-
hind when the sermon was ended, and the church
prayers followed.
'The sermon,' said they, we can
hear nowhere but at church; but we can pray just as
well at home.' Against this abuse Chrysostom had
frequent occasion to speak in his discourses preached at
Antioch and Constantinople. Hence, too, without re-
gard to the essential character of the Church, a style
borrowed from the theatre or lecture-rooms of declaimers
was introduced into the church assemblies, as these
were frequented for the purpose of hearing some orator
celebrated for his eloquent language, or his power of
producing a momentary effect on the imagination or the
feelings. Hence the custom of interrupting such speak-
ers, at their more striking or impassioned passages, with
noisy testimonials of approbation (xpóros). Vain eccle-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
71
siastics, men whose hearts were not full of the holy cause
they professed, made it the chief or only aim of their
discourses to secure the applause of such hearers, and
hence labored solely to display their brilliant eloquence
or wit, to say something with point and effect. But
many of the better class, too--such men as Gregory
Nazianzen-could not wholly overcome the vanity which
this custom tended to foster, and thus fell into the mis-
take of being too rhetorical in their sermons. Men of
holy seriousness, like Chrysostom, strongly rebuked this
declamatory and theatrical style, and said that through
such vanity the whole Christian cause would come to be
suspected by the heathens.
""
Many short-hand writers largely employed themselves
in taking down, on the spot, the discourses of famous
speakers in order to give them a wider circulation. The
sermons were sometimes, though rarely, read off entirely
from notes, or committed to memory; sometimes they
were freely delivered after a plan prepared beforehand;
and sometimes they were altogether extemporary. The
last we learn incidentally, from being informed that
Augustine was occasionally directed to the choice of a
subject by the passage which the 'prælector' had se-
lected for reading; when, as he tells us, he was some-
times urged by some impression of the moment to give
his sermon a different turn from what he had originally
proposed. We are also informed by Chrysostom that his
subject was frequently suggested to him by something
which he met with on his way to church, or which sud-
denly occurred during divine service.
1
We will now mention the names of some of the great
preachers of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, and
¹ Neander's "Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 316.
72
HOMILETICS PROPER.
comment on the style and method of a few of them, par-
ticularly of Chrysostom and Augustine.
Belonging to the third century are Origen, Hip-
polytus, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius of Alexan-
dria, Methodius of Tyre, and Cyprian. Of
the fourth and fifth centuries, in the order
of their lives, are Eusebius of Cæsarea, Atha-
nasius of Alexandria, Meletius of Antioch, Macarius,
called "the Great," and also "the Ascetic;" Cyril,
Bishop of Jerusalem; Ephraem the Syrian, Basil, called
the Great," Bishop of Cæsarea; Gregory Nazianzen,
Gregory of Nyssa, Amphilochius of Iconium, Epiphanius
of Salamis, Severianus of Gabala, Theodosius of Mop-
suestia, John, surnamed Chrysostom, Archbishop of
Constantinople; Ambrose of Milan, Liberius of Rome,
Hilary of Tours, Zeno of Verona, Jerome, Aurelius
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
Origen deserves the first notice, and comes also first.
in time, and one might say in dignity and worth-a
representative preacher, and, as to method
and style, the father of an innumerable
multitude of preachers to this day. Origen,
some authorities state, was born A.D. 185. His earnest and
resolute character as a champion of the faith made him
many bitter enemies, who strove to annihi-
late him and his works, so that some of his
most important writings have either been.
destroyed or come down to us in a garbled shape.
Coleridge lamented the loss of his complete "Hexapla"
as being greater than any other loss which biblical litera-
ture ever sustained. He calls Origen the only scholar.
and genius combined, among the fathers-a somewhat
prejudiced opinion. His "Answer to Celsus" was one
of the ablest early apologies of the Christian religion.'
¹ Moule, pp. 78, 79.
Eminent
preachers.
Origen, as a
preacher.
A lay-
preacher.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
73
lecturer
Until his sixtieth year he laid his prohibition upon his
clerks not to take down his discourses, but then relent-
ing, above a thousand of his homilies were taken down.
While a great and eloquent preacher, he was in fact
only a lay preacher; although it is said by Ruffin that
Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, authorized Origen to
teach as a catechist in the Church, which, however, cannot
be understood as one teaching publicly, or preaching in
our sense of the term. "As a lecturer to young men
his ability must have been of first-rate order,
inasmuch as he succeeded Clemens (Alex- Theological
andrinus) in the management of the Cate-
chetical school at the early age of eighteen,
recalling to our minds the early eminence of
Melancthon in another age of the Church; and also
after his removal to Palestine a circle of youths was
always about him, being trained under his influence to
fill the posts of theologians and preachers to the
Church." Origen, in fact, must be looked upon as a
theological teacher rather than a preacher; but he was
nevertheless a preacher both eloquent and vastly influ-
ential upon the preaching of his time and of succeeding
ages.
1
rather than
preacher.
His homilies are imbedded in his voluminous writings
and commentaries, numbering some thousands, which,
though they have come down to us in the form of
commentaries, have still a homiletical char-
Form of his
homilies
and their
acter, and were most of them undoubtedly
delivered as sermons, so that we have in
them true transcripts of his preaching. His preparation.
preparation for the work of teaching and
preaching was of the widest and most generous kind.
“The collation of manuscripts," he said of himself,
¹ Moule's "Oratory," p. 80.
74
HOMILETICS PROPER.
"leaves me hardly time to eat, and after meals I can
neither go out nor enjoy a season of rest; but even at
these times I am compelled to continue my philological
investigations and the correction of manuscripts. Even
the night is not granted me for repose, but a great part
of it is claimed for these philological inquiries. I will
not mention the time from early in the morning till the
ninth and sometimes the tenth hour of the day; for all
who take pleasure in such labors employ these hours in
the study of the divine word and in reading."" Above
all, the heart of a true Christian, which proved itself in
firmly enduring persecution and in innumerable trials,
was in Origen. The groundwork of all his preaching was
the interpretation of the word, and this,
even in his widest and wildest allegorizing,
saved him as a Christian preacher. He was
Groundwork
of his
preaching.
perhaps in style and manner not equal as a
pulpit orator to Basil, the Gregories, and Chrysostom, of
the next century. His illustrations, for instance, show
little invention, and are drawn almost exclu-
sively from the figures and pictures found in
the Scriptures; perhaps this was a matter of
principle with him. But his style is not,
rhetorically, a rich or eloquent one, but sim-
ple and classic. Though his tendency was
to philosophical speculation, yet his reverence for the
Scriptures and his passion for interpretation made him
the founder of expository preaching, which had also a
strong moral aim, and which exerted a vast though ir-
As an
regular and in some instances not altogether
interpreter. beneficial influence. 'Ubi bene nemo melius
ubi male nemo pejus." But the Bible, to Origen, was an
His style
simple
rather
than
ornate.
'Moule's "Oratory," p. 80.
-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
75
#
1 for wat senses wa
¹ Paniel's
1
inexhaustible treasury of moral and spiritual instruc-
tion, though drawn, it must be said, sometimes arbitrarily
from the word. The Bible had, he conceived, a three-
fold meaning-the literal, the moral, and the
spiritual―corresponding to the body, soul,
and spirit, and having an analogy to the
threefold distinction of the divine nature.'
He held not only to the privilege of the most unlimited
freedom of interpretation, but thought this freedom to
be the vital point of true preaching. From heavenly
revelation as well as from earthly events-from the his-
tories, laws, and biographies of the Old Testament and
the facts and utterances of the New-he gathers spiritual
signification and teaching. According to his main axiom,
that “in every tittle of Holy Scripture there must be a
higher sense," he makes every part of the word a theme
for developing a higher knowledge of God, The higher
or spiritual "gnosis." Wherever he could sense.
surmise the likeness of spiritual things he did this, not
only gladly and fearlessly, but as a true principle of her-
meneutics. For example, in a sermon on the history of
Lot fleeing from Sodom, he interprets the narrative as
signifying the escape of the soul out of its natural and
unregenerate state to the appointed salvation in Christ.
Lot's wife is the soul looking back, or its yearning.
toward worldly pleasure-in fact, as meaning the fleshly
or carnal mind which is left behind. Carno est enim
quæ respicit semper ad vitia, quæ cum animus tendit ad
salutem illa retrorsum respicit, et voluptates requirit.”
The pillar of salt in which Lot's wife is enveloped is the
barren folly, the bitter unsatisfactoriness of worldly.
pleasures and pursuits. The story of Lot and his
<<
..
Gesch.," p. 181.
Threefold
meaning in
interpretation.
76
HOMILETICS PROPER.
HÜRINGEN. HANG O`s * *
daughters signifies the dangers that follow the Christian
whose face is turned Zion-ward, from carelessness, the
intemperate use of wine, or any inordinate indulgence,
whether of the body or mind, which, while he thus sleeps
overcome him; and whatever is produced in such a con-
dition is as vain and accursed as the race of Moab. The
close of this homily is characteristic, and is a good speci-
men of the conclusion" of a sermon, in
the mode of Origen and his times. "Do
not fail to remember, my hearers," he says,
what I have said to you in respect to the moral sense
of this history. Remember that thou too flee from the
earthly fire and consuming heat of wicked lusts, and
that thou seek the height of true knowledge (ad scicntiæ
altitudinem), like the height of a mountain summit! Be-
ware lest thou be accompanied by those two sisters,
Ambition and her greater sister Pride, who will go even
up the mountain with you in order to lure you to destruc-
tion! Beware lest these daughters of your own sinful heart
make you drunken and destroy you with their embraces!
They are indeed our own daughters, because nothing
outside of us can do us evil, but only what proceeds from
our inmost heart and thought. But wouldst thou beget
aright, beget in spiritual things, for whosoever sows to
the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
Wouldst thou embrace, then embrace Wisdom, and name
Wisdom thy sister, so that Wisdom may say to you (Matt.
12:50), For whosoever shall do the will of my Father
which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister,
and mother.' This Wisdom is Christ our Lord, to whom
be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Passing over Hippolytus, who was a pupil of Origen,
Specimen of
his preaching.
¹ Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 198.
<<
"? 1
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
77
Hippolytus.
and took him for his model, and who possessed distin-
guished learning and great warmth and
liveliness of imagination, and also Gregory
Thaumaturgus, a wonder-working preacher, we will speak
a few words of Cyprian, chiefly as a preacher. Thascius
Cäcilius Cyprianus, Bishop of Carthage, was Cyprian as a
born at the beginning of the third century, preacher.
of illustrious parentage. He had a careful education,
and chose the profession of rhetorician, and was em-
ployed occasionally as an advocate in pro-
His
biography.
cesses of law.
After a long time spent in heathenism he became.
deeply impressed with the virtuous and elevated life of
many Christians in his neighborhood, and through the
special instructions of the presbyter Cäcilius (whose
name he took), he became a Christian in the year 246.
His experience of sin, and the worthlessness of a trust in
human righteousness, were strong. He put great faith in
his Christian baptism, and the earnestness and devotion
of his after life showed that the change in him was a real
one. To make the contrast between his former luxuri-
ous style of living and his Christian life more marked, he
parted with his property, distributing it among the poor.
His zeal and education led him to desire the office of a
preacher. In 247 he was made presbyter, and in 248
Bishop of Carthage. He was beheaded as a martyr in
the persecution under Valerian, about the year 258.
Cyprian was a good man, but too fond of power; and he
stirred up the envy and enmity of his presbyteral col-
leagues, which brought upon him many woes.
He com-
menced, in fact, a life-long war with the college of pres-
byters, and was one means of building up the hierarchical
power of the episcopate, which was originally only that
of primus inter pares, and of bringing down the standard
78
HOMILETICS PROPER.
of presbyters" or simple pastors." He adopted in
its entireness the Levitical idea of the priesthood as
being superior to all other classes, and as
standing next to God himself. In his most
reasonable moods he himself contended for
the rights of the people as a co-ordinate governing power
in the Church, but his whole life strengthened the pre-
rogative and power of the bishops. He also contended for
the outward unity of the Church, and the salvability of
those alone who were in the pale of the visible Catholic
Church. In spite of these views, which foreshadowed the
rise of the papacy, he accomplished a great work as a
preacher. He had extraordinary natural gifts as an
orator. He united to a strong practical in-
His gifts tellect, rich in original ideas, an Oriental
imagination and great warinth and depth of
as an
orator.
feeling. He was of a fervid temperament,
which sometimes carried him beyond the sway of reason,
so that he considered some of his own utterances to be
by the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Without a
tendency to profound doctrinal speculation, he was yet
highly intelligent in this respect, and was edifying as a
teacher of truth (didaonaλos). He had clear conceptions,
and was able to make the truth stand forth vividly.
While he had something of the fiery temperament and
fancy of Tertullian, yet, on the whole, he was more mild,
pleasing, and tranquil than Tertullian. Gregory Nazian-
zen, in his eulogy of him, said, "Cyprian's style is natural,
varied, and pleasing, and, what is of more importance,
the predominant qualities of his thought are plainness
and correctness-the fundamental qualities of an orator.
And you would find it difficult to decide to which of his
qualities you would assign the palm, his ornamental
diction, his happy exegesis, or his art of powerful persua-
(6
His hierarchi-
cal views.
""
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
79
sion.”
His style.
Lactantius bears witness that the heathen them-
selves, though they despised the Christian teaching, were
in wonder at the eloquence of Cyprian. Jerome is un-
qualified in his praise, and says, “ Cyprian's
works are radiant as the sun." They are
not, however, free from faults. He employed Scripture
in too loose and fanciful a manner, making unimportant
particulars bear the most precise and weighty meanings.
No meaning seems to be too strained. He makes, for
example, the deluge a type of baptism; Melchizedek's
bringing of bread and wine to Abraham is a symbol of
the Lord's Supper; the four streams of paradise are the
four gospels, etc. While, as a general rule, he speaks in
noble language, yet he is often florid and fantastic. The
ethical and ecclesiastical mostly predominate over the
spiritual. Obedience to the priesthood, the praise of mar-
tyrdom, the supreme virtue of virginity, are his favorite
themes. One of his most eloquent discourses was upon
death (de mortalitate), preached in the period.
(C
of a great pestilence. It abounds in vigor-
ous language. He who fights under God
(qui Deo militat), and as a soldier in the heavenly camp,
already has conceived a godlike hope, and must be pre-
pared to meet the tempest of this worldly life fearlessly.
For with provident voice (provide vocis) has the Saviour
foretold whatever shall come to pass. For the instruc-
tion of his people he has plainly taught them that they
must endure war, hunger, earthquake, and pestilence.
And that these vanishing things may not too greatly dis-
turb us he has predicted that these afflictions should
more and more increase in the last days. Behold how
the Lord has foretold what has even now come to pass.
And he has said (Luke 21), 'But when ye see these
things, know that the kingdom of God is near at hand.'
Specimen
of his style.
མརཔས
80
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Beloved, the kingdom of God is near at hand. Already
the passing away of this world, the recompense and the
joy of everlasting life, and the possession of the early-lost
paradise, are nigh; already heavenly things succeed
earthly, great things small, eternal temporal. Where is
there reason for anguish and fear? Who that does not
fail in all hope and all faith can be sorrowful and trem-
bling under such circumstances? He alone should fear
death who will not come to Christ; for he who comes to
Christ hopes also to reign with him.
1
Athanasius.
Eusebius of Cæsarea strove after elegance and splendor
of diction, and lacked plainness and practical directness.
Athanasius was "the practical informing
mind of the first half of the fourth century."
He was a man of most commanding personality, indomi-
table will, and remarkable power over other minds. We
think of him rather as a church leader, a
rather than
preacher.
Theologian dialectician and a theologian than as a
preacher. Though a terrible fighter, he
showed Christian generosity at the death of
his arch-foe Arius, and feared lest he might seem to
triumph over the death of his adversary. "Death," he
said, 'fis the common lot of all men. We should never
exult over the death of any man, even though he be our
bitter enemy, since no one can know but that before the
day is done the same fate may be his own." He was an
acute reasoner, and combined a keen logical power with
a fiery zeal, not unmixed with earthly passion. As a
preacher he was didactic rather than expository. His
life, however, was too stormy and broken to admit of
his sustaining the work of a steady instructor or preacher
of God's word.
"
1 Paniel's Gesch., p. 234.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
81
His rich poetic
Ephraem the Syrian was one of the greatest though
most peculiar preachers of his times.
nature was highly cultivated by all the
rhetorical methods of the age, and his more
than Oriental imagination was brought by
monastic discipline into a state of the keenest sharpness,
so that he had an almost prophetic penetration into
spiritual things, and the power of bodying them forth
with vividness, which won for him the names of the
<
,, 66
Syrian prophet, harp of the Holy Ghost."
He
He
We will now dwell a little longer on three or four other
preachers, more profitable for our consideration in a homi-
letical view. Basil, Bishop and Archbishop
of Cæsarea, called the Great, was born be-
tween 329 and 331, and died in 379, hardly
fifty years old. He was of illustrious parentage. Gregory
of Nyssa and Peter, Bishop of Sebaste, were his brothers.
He was also an intimate friend of Gregory Nazianzen,
with whom he studied in Cæsarea in Cappadocia.
early became distinguished for learning and piety.
studied philosophy and rhetoric at Antioch with the
heathen teacher Libanius, and finished his classical
education at Athens. "In the Greek Church it was
the practice, as we may see in the examples of Basil
and of Gregory Nazianzen, for such young men as were
destined, by the wish of their families, to consecrate
themselves to the service of the Church, to visit the
schools of general education, then flourishing at Athens,
Alexandria, Constantinople, Cæsarea in Cappadocia,
and Cæsarea in Palestine. Next they passed some time
in pursuing the study of ancient literature, either with
particular reference to their own improvement or as
rhetorical teachers in their native towns, until, by the
course of their own meditations or by some impression
Ephraem
the Syrian.
Basil
the Great.
82
HOMILETICS PROPER.
from without, a new direction of more decided Chris-
tian seriousness was given to their life. In this case
it now became their settled plan to consecrate their
entire life to the service of the faith and of the Church;
whether it was that they entered immediately into
some one of the subordinate grades of the spiritual
order, or that they preferred, in the first place, in silent
retirement, by sober collection of thought, by the study
of the Holy Scriptures, and of the older church fathers,
either in solitude or in some society of monks, to pre-
pare themselves for the spiritual office. That previous
discipline in general literature had, in one respect, a
beneficial influence, inasmuch as it gave a scientific
direction to their minds in theology, and thus fitted them
also for more eminent usefulness as church-teachers;
as becomes evident when we compare the bishops thus
educated with others. But, on the other hand, the
habits of style thus contracted, the vanity and fondness
for display which were nourished in these rhetorical
schools, had on many an influence unfavorable to the sim-
plicity of the gospel, as may be seen, for example, after a
manner not to be mistaken, in the case of Gregory of
Nazianzus."'1
In a journey through the East Basil became dis-
gusted with the Christless lives of the monks, and he
himself was led to found a Coenobite order of monks.
At the death of Eusebius, in 370, he was chosen Bishop
of Cæsarea. He labored for the orthodox faith with
the zeal of an Athanasius. His character was stead-
fast and strong, as is seen in his intrepid resistance of the
persecution of Valens; and he was also earnest in
Christian discipline and morality. He had at the same
1 Neander's "Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 150.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
83
time great moderation, and by his mingled firmness and
tact successfully resisted the persecution of Valens and
the Arians. He was a hard worker in a hard field.
As a preacher he had received every aid from the high-
est culture of the time, and was, above all, inspired by
an uncommon zeal for the truth, which he
derived from his mother. His contempora-
ries speak of his eloquence in unmeasured terms of praise,
and the homilies he left behind partially bear this out.
His nine homilies on the "Six Days of Creation” (Hex-
ameron) are the most renowned. There are also thirteen
discourses on the Psalms, twenty-four sermons on moral
subjects, and four martyr eulogies. The homilies are
practical, animated, and searching. He
Style.
studied human nature, and was a sagacious
master of the human heart. He almost always preached
from a text, either one independently chosen or one that
formed the scriptural lesson that was read in the public
service, which last was Origen's method, and that of
nearly all the preachers of those centuries. In regard to
this interesting point of reading the Bible in the churches,
Neander remarks: "As to those kept from studying the
Scriptures themselves (chiefly by poverty, which pre-
vented the purchase of MSS.), the reading of the Scrip-
tures in the church was to serve as a remedy for the
want; for on those occasions not single passages merely,
but entire sections and whole books of the Bible were
read in connection. Hence many who could not even
read were able, by a constant attendance upon church,
and by carefully listening to the portions read each year,
to treasure up in their memories a familiar knowledge of
the Sacred Scriptures.""
"
1 Neander's Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 282.
His culture.
84
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Neander also says:
Chrysostom frequently, both in
private conversation and his public discourses, exhort-
ed his hearers not to rest satisfied with that which they
heard read from the Scriptures within church, but to read
them also with their families at home; for what food
was for the body, such the Holy Scriptures were for the
soul-the source whence it derived substantial strength.
To induce his hearers to study the Scriptures, he was often
accustomed, when there was yet no set lesson of the
sacred word prescribed for every Sunday, to give out
for some time beforehand the text which he designed to
make a subject of discourse on some particular occasion,
and to exhort them, in order that they might be the bet-
ter prepared for his remarks, in the mean time to reflect
upon it themselves.”·
<<
Basil spoke also on definite themes, among which
sermons are those upon Anger and Drunkenness. The
last are powerful temperance sermons for any time. The
length of those homilies is moderate. He evidently was
an extempore preacher, as is proved by many
internal evidences, although the general
preacher. style of his discourses shows considerable
An
extempore
method and careful finish. But he often
breaks his train of thought as a new impulse comes upon
him. He says in one place that he did not finish the
sermon the day before, and will begin where he left off.
He is not so spiritual and lofty in style as Ephraem the
Syrian, but more solid and practical. He speaks like a
thoroughly educated, observing, and thoughtful man, on
human life, its dangers, temptations, sorrows, sins, and
spiritual redemption. His style is excellent, without
affectation, simple, clear, and in good taste. He had a
¹ Neander's "Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p 282.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
85
quick intuition, and spoke with directness to the con-
science. Basil, with the two Gregories, present us per-
haps the first instances of polished and thoroughly trained
classical orators in the pulpit. They have
the merits and faults of such. They are too
ornamental and elaborate, Basil, however,
the least so of the three. They all give the
impression that, though good and earnest
men, they sought to be orators, which am-
bition the former preachers, even such men as Origen
and Hippolytus, did not seem to have, and which the
greater preachers who came after them, Chrysostom and
Augustine, did not apparently have, or to such a marked
extent. Basil was the most solid sermonizer of the
three; but even in his discourses the glitter of false
ornament and sentimentality are seen. In the sermons
of Basil there is to be found much of the science of his
day, especially in the sermons upon Creation. They are
in fact scientific treatises on "Nature" and "Provi-
dence," comprehending essentially many of the ques-
tions now discussed in regard to the relation of science
and religion, and are composed in a grave and stately
style. His ethical discourses, however, are pungent and
faithful, and, supported as they were by a life of stern.
piety, they had powerful influence in their day. '
Gregory Nazianzen, was commonly called "the Theo-
logian"- 9ɛoloyos, because 9ɛoloyta, in the stricter
sense, was the term applied to the doctrine
of Christ's divinity as contradistinguished
from oxovoμía, the doctrine of his incarna-
tion. In fact, with this father and with others of his
1 Paniel's
* Neander's "Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 415.
"C
Basil
and the
Gregories,
classical
orators.
Gregory
Nazianzen.
Gesch.," p. 164; see also Moule's "Chr. Or.," p. 118.
86
HOMILETICS PROPER.
day, dogmatic truth is carefully distinguished from the
province of morals. They were strictly theologians.
This highly-praised champion of the Nicene confession,
the intimate friend of Basil the renowned preacher,
was born about the year 330, in an obscure town of Cap-
padocia, though of wealthy and influential parentage, his
father being a bishop. He studied first in Cæsarea with
His his friend Basil, under the rhetorician Thes-
philosophical picius. His philosophical tendency, his
tendency. love of Plato, his admiration for Origen,
and above all his intense reverence for Athanasius, led
him to Alexandria. After remaining there for a while he
travelled to Athens, where he completed his classical
studies, and seemed, while in Athens, to have no higher
ambition than to be considered an accomplished rhetori-
cian and sophist. Afterward he pursued exegetical and
theological studies more diligently, and was made bishop
of the small city of Sosima by Basil, who had been pre-
viously elevated to the see of Cæsarea. This call to so
insignificant a place caused him great discontent. Though
a good man and a great man, he had weak points.
While gifted with extraordinary oratorical powers, his
style as a preacher was built upon the
elaborate and false rhetorical system of the
Greek sophists. Five theological discourses, in which he
defended the doctrine of the Trinity, and which exhibit
considerable dialectical acuteness, gained for him the title
(to which reference has been made) of Theologian; and
there is no doubt that Gregory's preaching contributed
largely to the victory of the orthodox faith over Arian-
ism, while his method of viewing doctrine had a marked
influence upon the creed of the whole Catholic Church.
One of his noblest pulpit efforts was his "Farewell Ser-
mon," preached in the Church of St. Sophia, which re-
Style.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
87
sulted in the triumph of the orthodox faith in Constanti-
nople. His oratory, though more brilliant, had not the
solidity and grasp upon the conscience that Basil's preach-
ing had. It was philosophical and dialectical, and these
qualities were strongly pronounced, and did not entirely
harmonize with the higher qualities of preaching. He
was also, as has been said, greatly inclined to ornament.
He was captivated by the style of the Greek
orators, and, unfortunately, of Isocrates,
and the later and more florid school of the
Greek panegyrists. His sermons, as a gen-
eral rule, have no definite text, and have long oratorical
exordiums. They abound in repetitions, exclamations,
interrogations, antitheses, and artificially constructed
sentences. But among these flowery sacred orations there
was much that was practical, vigorous, truly eloquent, and
even at times profound. His sermon on "Love to the
Poor," is one of his best and simplest homilies. He in-
dulged often in unwarrantable sarcasm, and indeed his
spirit had much of mundane bitterness and unsatisfied
ambition; but mingled with these were loftier and nobler
qualities. He had rare intelligence in doctrinal truth-
the fine theologic sense (Theologische Geist). Neander
says: "It is also the merit of Gregory that he did
not, like other church-teachers of this period, who had
been drawn into the field of controversy, forget, in his
zeal for those views of doctrine which he found to be cor-
rect, that the essence of Christianity does not consist in
speculative notions, but in the life; that he did not suffer
himself to be misled by an exclusive zeal for orthodoxy
of conceptions to neglect practical Christianity. Much
rather did he make it a matter of special concern to com-
bat that exclusively prevailing tendency to speculation
in religion which leads to the injury of a living, active
Followed the
florid Greek
orators.
88
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Christianity—a tendency which was so very agreeable to
the mass of worldly men, because it made it easy for
them to put on the appearance of zeal for piety and
orthodoxy, and to deceive the judgment of others, and in
part also their own conscience, while they spared them-
selves from the contest with sin in their own hearts and
in the world without them. He often declared strongly
against the delusive notion that all manner of frivolity
might be united with zeal for sound doctrine, and often
presented before his hearers, with pointed earnestness, the
truth that without a holy sense of divine things men could
have no understanding of them; that sacred matters
must be treated in a sacred manner. He often preached
against the perverse manner of those who looked upon
discussions upon divine things as any other conversation
(ωσπερ τα ΐππικα καὶ θέατρα, οὕτω καὶ τὰ θεία πάιζειν)
on topics of ordinary discourse, and often declared that
the full and perfect knowledge of divine things was not
the end of the present earthly life, but that its end was
"by becoming holy, to become capable of the full intui-
Ꮚ
?? 1
tion of the life eternal.
These noble thoughts and apprehensions were, however,
mingled with much of the vanity of learning and the love
of oratorical display. His panegyrical sermons, or rather
orations, are full of the most unqualified and extravagant
adulation, especially the oration upon Athanasius. Thus
he says: “In praising Athanasius I praise virtue itself.
He is the whole of virtue incarnate, for he combined in
himself all possible virtues." While he often shone as a
midday sun in the brilliancy of his eloquence, his preach-
ing was never without spots and faults. His language
often degenerated into the emptiest declamation.'
1 Neander's "Eccl. Hist.," v. ii. p. 415.
2 Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 493.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
89
<<
Gregory of Nyssa, the younger brother of Basil of
Cæsarea, was born between 330 and 340, and died about
369. He was made Bishop of Nyssa by his
brother Basil. In his youth he showed fire Gregory of
Nyssa.
as a theological athlete, as a champion of
the orthodox faith, but his disposition was naturally
mild. Under the Arian Valens he was driven from his
bishopric, but returned under Jovian. He was greatly
honored as a ready preacher, drawing often large multi-
tudes to hear him. He was also highly cultivated in
the learning of the time, and, like Gregory
Nazianzen, was built too much upon Greek
ideas of rhetoric and philosophy. He car-
ried his Greek training into his homiletical studies. He
was in fact a teacher of rhetoric for a time, as were many
of the most distinguished Christian fathers. Although
inclined to speculative thinking, he spoke with direct-
ness and power on the theme of Christian
morals and Christian life. Here he was
calm, simple, orderly, and clear. He had
great influence in the ecclesiastical councils
of the time of Theodosius. As an interpreter of the
Scriptures, he considered with Origen the allegorical in-
terpretation to be not only right but essential, and car-
ried it to a fine-spun extreme; yet he held firmly to the
principle that "one must go to the Scriptures for every-
thing that is really profitable."
really profitable." His sermons upon
"Solomon's Song," "The Book of Ecclesiastes,” “The
Psalms," "The Lord's Prayer, The Sermon on the
Mount," The Paschal Feast," "The Woman taken in
Adultery," and the funeral orations upon the Princess
Paulina, Ephraem the Syrian, and his own brother Basil,
are among his most renowned discourses.'
<<
¹ Paniel's
Gesch.," p. 520.
Rhetorical
culture.
A prac-
tical
preacher.
90
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Theodorus.
Not to dwell upon many illustrious preachers whom it
would be profitable to notice, such as Amphilochius,
Amphilo- Bishop of Iconium; Epiphanius, Bishop of
chius-Epi- Salamis; Theodorus, Bishop of Mopsuestia,
phanius- we will finish this account of the preachers
of the early patristic period by a notice of
two of the greatest of them-Chrysostom and Augustine.
John, surnamed Chrysostom the Golden-mouthed—a
name applied to him some time after his death, and, as
it is supposed, by the sixth Ecumenical
Chrysostom.
Council in 680-was born at Antioch, as most
authorities state, in 354, although Neander and Milman
say in 347, and was baptized by Bishop Meletius. He
grew up a serious, lovable youth, under the care of his
widowed mother Anthusa, and, as Neander remarks,
passing through none of those wild, dark struggles with
temptation which left an ineffaceable impression on the
soul of Augustine and gave a gloomy coloring to his the-
ology. He lived during his early manhood near Antioch,
and led an ascetic life, in which period he is said to have
learned the Bible by heart-probably an exaggeration,
but founded on his intense study of the Scriptures. He
was appointed deacon, and commenced preaching. He
was ordained priest by Flavian, Meletius's successor. In
the outbreak at Antioch in which the imperial statues
were thrown down, Chrysostom preached with great
boldness and effect. His pulpit eloquence caused him to
be transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Constantinople
in 397. He restricted the episcopal expenditure in
which his predecessors had indulged, and by his bene-
factions acquired the name of "John the Almoner.
He deposed thirteen bishops of Lydia and Syria for
abuse of office, and went to Antioch to reform the
church there. During his absence the faction opposed
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
91
to him gained ground. He refused to submit to the
"Council of the Oak" at Chalcedon, and was exiled to
Nicæa in 403.
An insurrection forced his recall two days
afterward. He continued to preach with increasing plain-
ness till, through the influence of the Empress Eudoxia,
he was banished to Cucusus in Mount Taurus, and after-
ward, for greater security, to Pityus on the Euxine. On
the road to that place, about nine miles from Comana,
in Pontus, he died, through weariness and ill-treatment,
September 14th, 407. In his wanderings and residence
among the savage mountaineers of the Taurus he dis-
covered the zeal of the true missionary, endeavoring to
convert the Persians and the Goths with whom he came
in contact. In his celebrated letters to Olympias from
his place of banishment occurs the sentence,
None can
hurt the man who will not hurt himself." He died ex-
claiming, “Glory be to God in all things! Amen!" He
is said to have been, like the apostle Paul, small of
stature, with a large, bald head, hollow cheeks, and deep-
sunken eyes. The best life of him is that by Neander,
one volume only of which has been translated into English.
""
Though one of the greatest of commentators and theo-
logians, he was eminently and distinctively a preacher.
That was his enthusiasm and his life. He
was as much like the apostle Paul in this
respect as one man of a different age and
culture could resemble another. His homi-
lies that have been preserved are numerous (said to be
over 600), though many extant are of doubtful authen-
ticity. They are in many respects more valuable than
the sermons of any of the fathers, Augustine not except-
ed. All patristical literature, as we have before re-
marked, with the exception of the works of Chrysostom
and Augustine, might be destroyed, and, we might
Number
and range
of his
homilies.
92
HOMILETICS PROPER.
46
almost say, all would be saved. It is quite difficult to
determine the exact date of Chrysostom's sermons. The
number, variety, and range of these discourses may be
seen by mentioning the topics of some of them. Twelve
homilies are upon the Incomprehensible Nature of God;
eight against the Jews and heathen, to prove that Christ
is God;" seven upon Lazarus; twenty-one upon Idol
Statues, addressed to the people of Antioch; nine upon
Repentance; seven in eulogy of the apostle Paul; and
twenty-five upon the saints and martyrs; thirty-four
principally upon certain passages in the New Testament
(most of these homilies on the New Testament have
been translated and published in the "Library of the
Fathers'); sixty-seven upon Genesis; sixty upon the
Psalms; six upon Isaiah; ninety-one upon Matthew, of
which Thomas Aquinas said "that he would not give
them in exchange for the whole city of Paris;" eighty-
seven upon John; twenty-five upon the Acts; thirty-
two upon Romans; forty-four upon the First Epistle to
the Corinthians; thirty upon the Second; twenty-four
upon the Epistle to the Ephesians; fifteen upon Philip-
pians; twelve upon Colossians; eleven upon the First
and five upon the Second Book of Thessalonians;
eighteen upon the First, and ten upon the Second Epistle
to Timothy; six upon the Epistle to Titus, and three
upon that to Philemon; thirty-four upon the Epistle to
the Hebrews;' a great number upon special texts and
occasions, the most interesting of which, historically, are
those that belong to the time of the first and second
exiles. His most eloquent sermons, or those esteemed
¹ A beautiful edition of the Homilies of the Pauline Epistles in Greek
(but without the Latin version), has been published in connection with
the Oxford Library of the Fathers.
2 Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 609.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
93
and
so, are upon Lazarus, upon Images, or "The Statues,
upon Repentance, upon the History of Saul and David,
upon the Gospel of Matthew, upon the Parable of the
Debtor, upon the Forgiveness of Enemies, upon Almsgiv-
ing, and upon Future Blessedness. It may be seen that
most of these discourses were exegetical and
Mostly
expository, being running commentaries up- exegetical
on the Scriptures; and, in fact, Chrysostom
aimed to explain the entire word of God to expository.
the people, following it book by book, text by text. It is
said that he actually did this in the course of his ministry,
although the greater part of his exegetical homilies are
now lost.
We would call attention to this fact, that he
was, above all, a biblical preacher, and in him we would
find one of the noblest illustrations of this method of
preaching. Neander says:
Neander says: "The tendency of the An-
tiochan school is seen in its more moderate form, and
deeply pervaded by the Christianity of the heart, in the
case of two individuals, both of whom present models of
biblical interpretation for the period in which they lived,
while one of them furnished the best pattern of a fruitful
homiletical application of the Sacred Scriptures; these
were Theodoret and Chrysostom. The example of the
latter shows particularly the great advantage of this
exegetical tendency, when accompanied by a deep and
hearty feeling, and a life enriched by inward Christian
experience, to any one who would cultivate a talent for
homiletical exposition, and indeed for the whole office of
the preacher."'
¹ Neander's "Ch. Hist.,"
Chrysostom early adopted the intelligent Christian
mode of interpretation pursued in the school of Antioch ;
being, in opposition to the allegorical method of Origen
Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 353.
";
番
​94
HOMILETICS PROPER.
and the Alexandrian school and its bold rationalizing
spirit, an investigation of the simple exegesis of words as
they stand in the Scriptures, an examination of the his-
toric circumstances of the original writers and speakers,
and a more careful distinguishing of the divine element
from the human. Whatever of philosophy was intro-
duced was Aristotelean.¹
Neander says again: "Through a rich inward experience
he lived into the understanding of the Holy Scriptures;
and a prudent method of interpretation, on logical and
grammatical principles, kept him in the right track in
deriving the spirit from the letter of the sacred volume.
His profound and simple, yet fruitful, homiletical method
of treating the Scriptures shows to what extent he was
indebted to both, and how, in his case, both co-operated
together."'"
Chrysostom, as has been said, was eminently an exe-
getical preacher, making, as did Origen and all the great
preachers of his time, the interpretation of the word-
the severe and yet prayerful exposition of the Scriptures
-the basis of all his argument and exhortation, thus ele-
vating the gospel above philosophy, above theology, and
having the evangelic spirit running through his preaching
-the spirit that comes from Christ through his word.
At the same time, though so markedly a biblical preacher,
Chrysostom was not a bibliolater. He recognized the
human element in errors and contradictions, and did not
attempt to explain these in a forced way. He did not
make salvation depend on the letter of Scripture, and he
thought that it would be better to have no Bible at all if
the grace of God were written upon the heart in all the
fulness of an inward spiritual revelation.
¹ See Hase's "Ch. Hist.," p. 177.
? Neander's "Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 693.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
95
2
One might spend years and even a lifetime in studying
these expository discourses, which contain every quality
of style and eloquence.
His culture.
As to his native qualities as an orator, Chrysostom was
gifted with splendid talents, and with an ardent vitality,
a bold, incisive intellect, a pungent wit, a
graphic power of the imagination, a fiery
temper, which, though controlled, is, after
all, a source of power with the people, and
a profound original genius. He had, too, the training of
the most distinguished rhetorician of his day, Libanius
of Antioch, who was also the teacher of Basil
and Gregory Nazianzen. "By the study
of the ancients he secured to himself the advantages of a
harmonious mental and rhetorical culture, which in his case
was ennobled by the divine principle of life drawn from the
gospel. A heart full of the love which flows from faith
gave to his native eloquence, cultivated by the study of
the ancients, its animating charm. As far as he could
imitate any one, he built himself as a preacher upon the
apostle Paul; and he had the same ministerial zeal, the
same love of souls, burning in him. He said: "It is the
firm resolve of my soul, as long as I breathe, and as long
as it pleaseth God to continue me in this present life, to
perform this service, whether I am listened to or not, to
do that which the Lord hath commanded me." "He
complemented the sober clearness of the Antiochan exe-
gesis and the rhetorical arts of Libanius with the depth
of his warm Christian heart, and he carried out in
his own life, as far as mortal man can do it, the ideal of
the priesthood which, in youthful enthusiasm, he once
described." The moral element of Christianity entered
>> I
¹ Neander, v. ii. p. 693.
' Hase's Ch. Hist.,'' p. 121.
His
native
oratorical
gifts.
96
HOMILETICS PROPER.
The
moral
element
in his
also largely into his preaching, and he sought, above all,
to impress the practical truths of religion, and to gain
influence over men for their spiritual wel-
fare. He preached a vital Christianity,
not a formal orthodoxy. His whole life
and ministry indeed were a protest against
preaching. unbelief. He contended, with a boldness.
and vigor unsurpassed, against the gigantic
corruptions of the waning Roman empire. He preached
on works as well as on faith, dwelling constantly upon
the Christian life, pouring out the treasures of his heart
upon the loveliness of the image of Christ in the be-
liever's character, and striving to build up this inward
Christlike life in the hearts of his hearers.
In him we
find a most complete mutual interpenetration of theo-
retical and practical theology, as well as of the dogmatical
and ethical elements, exhibited mainly in the fusion of
the exegetical and homiletical. Hence his exegesis was
guarded against barren philology and dogma, and his
pulpit discourse was free from doctrinal abstraction and
empty rhetoric. The introduction of the knowledge of
Christianity from the sources into the practical life of the
people left him little time for the development of special
dogmas, Yet he was not wanting in the
dogmatic element. He discoursed much on
the nature and being of God, on special
providence, on sin, on the Church as God's
spiritual temple, on the resurrection, and on future pun-
ishments; and, as a general rule, with remarkable liber-
ality of sentiment for his age. On the subject of ever-
lasting punishments, his lofty moral code, and the exces-
1
The
dogmatic
element.
1 Niedner's <<
Berlin, 1861.
<<
Lehrbuch der Christlichen Kirchen Geschichte," p. 303.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
97
sively corrupt state of the times and of the Church, led
him to a more marked sternness and positiveness of view
than even that of Augustine, and certainly of Origen. He
was, on this side of his preaching, overpowering in his ear-
nestness. “It was the conscience of man, not his opinions,
that he addressed;" but the technicalities of theology
he eschewed, and gave only the rich fruit of noble doc-
trine. He had deep insight into the human heart, and
understood men of all classes and characters.
He was a
fearless and terrible rebuker of sin in high places, and
when it was a perilous thing to attack vice clothed with
imperial arbitrary power, he shunned not to declare the
whole counsel of God, speaking often with great severity
of personal and popular sins, and of God's righteous judg-
ments upon them. There was no mealy-mouthed popu-
larity in his preaching. With cheerful courage he held
up the light of a pure faith in the midst of the darkness
of an impure age. Although more ornate in style than
would suit occidental taste, yet from contemporary testi-
mony, and from the testimony of the sermons.
His style.
that we have, his preaching, which made the
dome of St. Sophia ring with its rhythmical periods,
was characterized by an eloquence as vigorous, direct,
and vehement as, but far more copious than, that of
Demosthenes, so rich was it in the play of the imagina-
tion, and at times so tender, moving, and pathetic. He
had the feeling of the true Christian preacher of the Paul-
ine stamp, without which feeling no one can be a great and
apostolic preacher. His discourses, like those of Augus-
tine, rise sometimes into high devotional flights, into "that
ampler ether and diviner air "where the incomprehensi-
ble nature of God occupies all his thoughts, and the
human audience is for a time lost sight of; but, as a
general rule, the practical, the pastoral, the missionary
Ja
98
HOMILETICS PROPER.
element prevails in them—that of the shepherd of souls,
of the leader and guardian of the Church of God. His
preaching, as might be said of Luther's, was his life-
it was an epitome of his character, of his soul-struggles,
of his spiritual history. He glories in the work of
preaching the gospel to the poor. He seems to revel in
the richness of its divine scope and range. He varied his
style of preaching-now using homely and familiar lan-
guage; at another time stirring, splendid, and energetic
language; and at another time metaphysical and ab-
struse; for, he said, the table of the gospel feast should
be covered with various dishes, and the banquet should
be like the divine generosity of the Giver.
One might
say of him and his style of preaching that, while he em-
ployed all the varied sources of power to be derived from
human training, he was, above all, trained in the school
of the Holy Ghost, and was made a wonderfully skillful
instrument in the hands of the divine Master.
free-will.
While he elevated the gospel above philosophy, hav-
ing the true evangelic spirit running like a clear stream
His philoso- through his preaching, still there is philoso-
phy, and
phy in his preaching; he appeals to general
recognition of principles, and wields the whole truth with
doctrine of power in its particular applications. While,
perhaps, to be classed with the school of An-
tioch in his careful and conscientious interpretation, he
yet had much of the free spirit of the Alexandrian school
of theologians, whose works he deeply studied. He be-
longed to the polemic and apologetic age of the Church,
and was thus led, in his life of mental and spiritual strife, in
opposition to the false philosophies of the age, to medi-
tate upon and to bring out the profounder harmonies of
truth; but he was such a loyal, practical, pointed scrip-
tural preacher, of the true apostolic stamp, that he awoke
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
99
a deadly opposition in the corrupt circle of the demoral-
ized Greek Church, which finally destroyed him. The
style of his sermonizing, undoubtedly, was oratorical or
rhetorical, but his preaching was rhetoric in its best
sense, being the persuasive communication of truth. As
has been more than once remarked, he followed out with
bold earnestness the problem of the freedom of the will
and its moral self-determination, which is the foundation
or condition of virtue. "He was so zealous for morality
that he must have considered it a point of special impor-
tance to deprive men of every ground of excuse for the
neglect of moral efforts. His practical sphere of labor in
the cities of Antioch and Constantinople gave a still
greater impulse to this tendency. For in these large
capitals he met with many who sought to attribute their
want of Christian activity to the defects of human nature,
and the power of Satan or of fate. But it must be
said that he urged quite as strongly on the other side the
existence and power of depravity in opposition to a false
moral and intellectual pride. But there is wrought into
his sermons a vast amount of practical teaching upon
virtue and moral subjects, some of which was derived
from his study of the Stoical philosophy, of which he
was fond, but chiefly from the word, example, and spirit
of Christ.
99 1
¹ Neander's " Ch. Hist.," v. ii. p. 658.
His sermons at Antioch were more elaborate than
those preached at Constantinople. He composed his
sermons with care, preparing himself by
thorough study, as well as by meditation Composition
and prayer.
As an exegete he did not
possess a good knowledge of Hebrew, and
he drew from the faulty Greek translations. From his
and form of
sermons.
Uor M
100
HOMILETICS PROPER.
habit of expository preaching, all his discourses do not
have an elaborate method or plan, and they are often
desultory and diffuse; but they are pervaded by an
earnest aim, by the desire to build up the Church of
Christ, to reform its corruptions, to vindicate the gospel
against heathen philosophy, and to pluck souls from the
depths of sin and unbelief in which they were sunk.
Sometimes he preaches on a definite subject or proposi-
tion, as we shall notice in a moment, dwelling upon it
pertinaciously, and with something of the strict order of
a classical discourse; but as a general rule he is more
free, and speaks the thought to which the Scriptures or
the occasion gives rise. He was an extemporaneous
preacher in the best sense of the term, having his facul-
ties in command, and being able to speak solidly and
thoroughly upon the subject presented at the moment.
His sermons, like most of those previously to his time,
were rather simply λóyoz (addresses, spoken words, upon
the scriptural lesson) than oµıλíaι, or set discourses.
Some sixty-two of his sermons are, however, regularly
constructed discourses upon isolated texts of Scripture.
-
He was probably a preacher of short sermons, for he
says of himself, that the art of limiting himself to a
small compass in his sermons, and of exhausting a sub-
ject, was one of his principal endowments. His plan
seems to have been, although he introduced a great deal
of extraneous matter with frequent divergences into differ-
ent themes, to preach briefly, pointedly, and frequently
on the same subject till he had made an impression, and
driven that particular lesson firmly into the minds of his
hearers. He says: "For this seems to me the best mode
of instruction, to insist on a particular subject till we see
our counsel taking effect. For he who discourses to-day
onansgiving, to-morrow on prayer, the next day on
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
101
kindness, and the following day on humility, will really
be able to set his hearers right in no one of these things,
passing so rapidly from this subject to that, and from
that to another; but he who would really reform his
hearers in any particular should not cease his admonitions.
and exhortations respecting it, nor pass to another sub-
ject till he discover his former admonitions well rooted
in them."
He was, in the best sense of the term, a popular
preacher, gaining this distinction by his plainness,
clearness, directness, and, more than all, by
his abundant, lively, often homely, method
of illustration. His illustrations may be
studied at this day for their freshness, vivacity, and
illuminating quality. He knew how to come down to
the level of the popular mind. The people were often
completely carried away by his eloquence, and acted
like drunken persons; they pressed up to the pulpit
where he spoke, so as not to lose a single word; they
said, when he was about to be banished, "Better that
the sun should cease to shine than that our Chrysos-
tom's mouth should be stopped;" even the cold Gibbon
praises his golden eloquence, and another has said,
"his tongue flowed like the stream of the Nile."
On the whole, to conclude this sketch, we would
characterize this great preacher as one in all respects the
best model for our imitation-one to be the most care-
fully studied, and as far as practicable followed-since
the days of the inspired preachers; for he was built
morally and spiritually, by nature, culture, and grace,
upon an apostolic and divine plan. While a man of vast
mind, he was, according to Pascal's classification of
1" Bib. Sacra," v. iv. p. 625.
A popular
preacher.
102
HOMILETICS PROPER.
preachers, a preacher who belonged to the order of love
rather than to the order of intellect. Eloquent beyond
his age, and almost every age, the apostolic earnest-
ness of his character as a preacher makes even the genius
of the man seem secondary; and compared with Gregory
Nazianzen and most of the great preachers of his period,
in whom the philosophic and rhetorical elements pre-
dominated, he was Pauline in his bare, towering, sub-
lime spirituality. He, like Paul, could boast of his gifts,
but he counted all as nothing, less than nothing, that
he might win Christ, and win the world to Christ.
In addition to his homiletical and exegetical works,
Chrysostom wrote a most valuable treatise on the priest-
hood, Περὶ ἱεροσύνης, which contains valuable hints on
the preaching and pastoral office. "He requires of the
priest, or minister, to be better than the monk and
better than other men, as he has greater difficulties to
contend with, and a greater fight to wage. He sets up
as the highest object of the preacher the great principle
stated by Paul, that in all his discourses he should seek
to please God alone, not men. He must not, indeed,
despise the approving demonstrations of men; but as
little must he count them, nor trouble himself when his
hearers withhold them. Imperturbable comfort in his
labors he finds only in the consciousness of having his
discourse framed and wrought out to the approval of
God." 1
<l
Without spending time upon the great preachers of
the fourth and fifth centuries of the Western Church, such
as Hilarius, Bishop of Pictavium, "the Athanasius of the
¹ Schaff, v. ii. p. 253: see also Neander's "Life of Chrysostom;"
Paniel's "Gesch.," p. 590 seq.; and Moule's "Oratory," pp. 140, 141,
145, 146, 152, 156, 157.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
103
West;"' Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who was great in
character, but who as an orator was more
of
successful by simplifying imitations
Greek models than by original eloquence ;"1
and Jerome, who, though more of a writer
and theologian than preacher, yet exerted a vast influ-
ence on the preaching and interpretation of his day, in-
troducing Greek learning and Greek methods into the
Western Church, we will conclude our account of this
period by saying a few words upon Augustine as a
preacher.
¹ Hase,
Aurelius Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, was born at
Tagaste, in Numidia, November 13th, 354. Like Chry-
sostom, he possessed the inestimable ad-
<<
Augustine.
vantage of having a thoroughly Christian
mother. Of Monica Neander says: Whatever treas-
ures of virtue and worth a life of faith, even of a soul
not trained by scientific culture, can bestow, was set
before him in the example of his pious mother." Of a
passionate nature, and full of the consciousness of
power,
he plunged not only into the brilliant though false intel-
lectual life, but also the vicious excesses of the luxurious
city of Carthage. The reading of Cicero's Hortensius,
revealing the dignity of philosophical pursuits, is said
to have been the first good influence upon his mind,
turning him from an openly immoral career.
To quote
Neander, "The conflict now began in his soul which
lasted through eleven years of his life. As the sim-
plicity of the Holy Scriptures possessed no attraction to
his taste a taste formed by rhetorical studies and the
artificial discipline of the declamatory schools-especial-
ly as his mind was now in the same tone and direction
"Hist. of Chr. Ch.," p. IIS.
Hilarius, Am--
brose,
Jerome.
Q
104
HOMILETICS PROPER.
with that of the Emperor Julian, when the latter was
conducted to the Platonic theosophy; as, moreover, he
found so many things in the doctrines of the Church
which, from want of inward experience, could not be
otherwise than unintelligible to him, while he attempted
to grasp, by the understanding from without, what could
be understood only by the inner life, from the feeling of
inward want, and one's own inward experience; so,
under these circumstances, the delusive pretensions of
the Manichæan sect, which, instead of a blind belief
on authority, held out the promise of clear knowledge
and a satisfactory solution of all questions relating
to things human and divine, presented the stronger
attractions to his inexperienced youth." While then
an instructor in rhetoric at Carthage, he threw him-
self with his accustomed impetuosity into the Manichæan
heresy. He wrote about that time a book on æsthetics
(De Apto et Pulchro), which has been lost. After wast-
ing some ten years in the barren Manichæan philoso-
phy he went to Rome, and then to Milan. Through
the preaching of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, and,
above all, the prayers and tears of his mother, he be-
came a Christian in 386. He returned to Africa,
was ordained presbyter, then bishop-coadjutor, then
Bishop of Hippo (Hippo-Regius), on the Numidian coast
of North Africa, in 396. He carried on his great contest
with Pelagius, with which the world rang; but his suc-
ceeding history, as a church father and theologian, is a
familiar one, and we merely add the date of his death-
August 28th, 430, at the age of 76.
We will not speak of him as a theologian, though com-
ing, as Milman says, just at the right time, and repre-
senting the thought of the age, as going through
Manichæism and Platonism into pure Christianity; but
q
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
105
it is only as a preacher that we now have to do with
him. Great as he was as a theologian, whose theology
Luther moulded into Protestantism, and Jansenius into
Roman Catholicism, yet next after Origen and Chrysos-
tom he had the deepest influence upon homiletical
studies and preaching of almost any man.
He himself produced a great number of homiletical
works, both as a writer and sermonizer. A large number
of his homilies, probably by means of short-
hand reporters, have come down to us
fresh, sharp-cut, full of life and vigor, as if
preached yesterday.
As the moral element was prominent in Chrysostom's
preaching, so in Augustine's the doctrinal or dogmatic
element predominated, and from his exam-
Dogmatic
ple it has entered and ruled in the Christian
element
pulpit to this day. His mind was of a predominant.
speculative and organizing, rather than prac-
tical order; but notwithstanding this tendency to phi-
losophy, he did, like Chrysostom, preach to the popular
heart, and was above oratorical vanity, or the ambition
to be considered eloquent, though his sermons still show
the effect of his rhetorical and philosophical training.
His own experience gave him a profound knowledge of
sin and of the corrupt heart, and even his doctrinal dis-
cussions were followed by a close application to his
hearers' consciences. His main aim in preaching seemed
to be to do good, and to draw men, by the agency of
the preached word, to God.
Influence
on
preaching.
Augustine was not, however, a faultless preacher.
Many of his sermons, especially his doc-
trinal discourses, are jejune and barren;
and one may sometimes search in them
in vain for the barest scriptural or even moral truth.
Not
faultless.
ག
106
·
HOMILETICS PROPER.
There is much also that is fanciful and excessively
puerile : plays upon words, startling antitheses, odd con-
ceits. There is often not the least systematic arrange-
ment, and one wonders that a man of such extraordinary
genius could have spoken such useless things. But these
faults belonged to the age; and he was too earnest a
preacher, too strongly bent on winning men to Christ and
doing God's work, to err greatly in this direction or any
other.
Augustine spent most of his life in studying and teach-
ing the art of oratory, and when he became a Christian
he made a special application of his rhetor-
As a writer ical studies to preaching. He wrote a treatise
on sacred rhetoric, which is contained in the
fourth book of his great work entitled "De
Doctrinâ Christianâ."
on
Homiletics.
In briefly and freely analyzing this treatise, its chief
principles might be set forth under some twelve distinct
heads:
Main
homiletical
precepts.
(1.) The knowledge of rhetoric is a genuine science,
highly useful to be pursued by the Christian preacher,
and its principles should be acquired by him
when young, or at the beginnings of his
ministerial life; and chiefly through the
study and hearing of good models.
(2.) As the preacher is a champion of the true faith
and an opponent of error, he should use his first efforts to
teach good and to unteach evil; he may for this purpose
employ every legitimate method of influencing men, and
use different means and styles of persuasion-viz., con-
versation, historical illustration, argument, motives, open
rebuke, animated exhortation.
(3.) It is better for the preacher to speak with true
knowledge (sapienter) than with mere art (eloquenter);
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
107
and a man speaks with more or less of true knowledge as
he makes greater or less advancement in the study of the
Scriptures. This Scriptural knowledge may go a great
way as a substitute for artistic eloquence; but a union
of biblical knowledge and artistic eloquence he considered
highly desirable.
(4.) Plainness or perspicuity is the first great merit of
the preacher; and he thought that the obscure parts of
even inspired Scripture were not to be imitated by the
human teacher. Clearness rather than elaborateness
should be aimed after; and he says, in so many words,
that the best preacher is he who provides that his hearer
hear the truth, and that what he hears he understands.
He held that the thought is to be preferred above the
word, and that the true is better than the artistic.
(5.) Everything in preaching should be held subservient
to bending the hearer to action. Didactic preaching should
not waste itself in vain learning and argumentation, but
should aim to bring to light what is hidden, and set it
vividly before the minds and hearts of the hearers, how-
ever this be done; for what is the use of a golden key, if
it will not open, and what advantage has it to the wooden
key that will open?
(6.) Attractiveness or persuasiveness in preaching must,
however, always be tempered,
(a) By sound doctrine;
(b) By gravity.
He gives examples of the violation of the first rule in the
false prophets, whose seductive, persuasive eloquence in
falsehood brought dreadful ruin upon Israel; and of the
second rule in Cyprian, where even so great a father erred
in speaking foolishly, and lost more than he gained by
his mistimed liveliness.
(7.) It is by the Christian feeling of his sermons, more
108
HOMILETICS PROPER.
J
than by any endowments of intellect, that the preacher
must hope to inform the understandings, and catch the
affections and bend the will of his hearers. If thus
earnest, the Holy Spirit will come to his assistance. The
Spirit is promised (Matt. 10: 19) to those who for Christ.
were delivered over to persecution, and he will not with-
hold his aid from those who are heartily engaged in de-
livering Christ into the hands of learners. But nothing,
he thought, was more unwise in itself, or more alien from
the spirit and letter of the divine economy, than to sup-
pose that the gifts of the Spirit justify us in relaxing our
Own efforts of preparation, whether intellectual or
spiritual.
(8.) As to style in preaching, while the thought should
be preferred above the word, precisely as the mind is
preferred above the body, and while thus bearing in
mind the prime importance of his subject-matter itself,
he laid down the following distinctions of style to be
observed by the preacher according to the several exigen-
cies of application. Is he conveying instruction? he
should use the simple and low style (submissa dictio).
Is he bestowing praise or blame? the even and regulated
style (temperata dictio). Is he rousing the sluggish or
diseased will to a performance of duty? the lofty and
impressive (grande dicendi genus).
Examples of all these styles are extracted from the
writings of St. Paul. The low and quiet (submissa
dictio) is illustrated from Gal. 4:21 ff., and 3:15 ff., in
the first of which the Judaizing Galatians are met by an
allegory; and in the second the redemption of the
world through Christ is vindicated against the exclusive
claims of the special covenant.
Several passages are brought forward in explanation of
the even and regulated mode of speech (temperata dictio),
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
109
the chief of them being Rom. 12:1; 12:6; 13:6;
13: 12.
The lofty and impressive style (grande dicendi genus)
is nobly represented by 2 Cor. 6:2; Rom. 8: 28 ff., and
the chapter is brought to a close by an extract from Gal.
4: 10 ff., which is characterized by Augustine as the one
"lofty" passage in a production the general tone of
which is "low and quiet," dismissed by the "even and
regular'' style at the beginning and end.
(9.) A variety in style should be employed," or, he
says, one style being made to relieve another. But,
above all, care must be taken not to prolong the "lofty
and impressive" style beyond judicious limits.
The very
strain upon the mind which eloquence involves, and upon
which its effect depends, cannot be kept up.
C
•
The legitimate effect of the impressive style is not to
draw down men's approbation, but to move their feel-
ings. It is the tear and not the shout that forms its
proper result. Augustine brings forward an instance of
the effect of his own words in quelling a tumult in
Mauritanian Cæsarea. The "low" is best in all cases of
instruction, as of proof distinguished from active influ-
ence. But, at best, these styles are only imperfect means
to an end; and the end, or right persuasion, is all in all.
(10.) All styles of address are mutually interdependent.
We should not separate them, nor think that one should
be regarded as the sole instrument of mastering the un-
derstanding, another the affections, another the will.
(11.) More important than anything is the life of the
preacher; and no rules of art will ever have the least
chance of supplying the void which must result from an
unsoundness in that. He adds in another place that
ministers should avoid faults of conduct more than
faults of oratory.'
>>
-
เ
!
IIO
HOMILETICS PROPER.
(12.) In conclusion, let not prayer be forgotten. Did
Esther pray for an εὔρυθμον λόγον, when pleading for
the temporal safety of her people? And shall we neglect
to do the same when the eternal welfare of mankind is at
stake?
Though profound as a theologian, and brilliant as a
rhetorician and dialectician, Augustine as a preacher was
uncommonly simple and direct. Niebuhr
His style. calls him eloquent, but it was the eloquence
of simple, unaffected truth. Although so highly rhetor-
ical in his other works, most of his sermons are so plain in
their style and biblical and spiritual in their themes, that
they could be preached with effect at this day; they have
that freshness which springs from the central light and
spirit of Christian truth. They are, however, full of the
expression of devotional feeling; and the intense passion
of his nature, turned after his conversion into devotional
channels, bursts out and overflows in his discourses, which
sometimes rise to the highest pitch of eloquence. There
is in his discourses no rigidly logical plan-for he followed
the rhetorical rather than logical order-his reasoning in
this respect resembling that of Paul rather than that of
Aristotle; but there is evident unity of aim, even if not
strictly logical unity. While always drawn from some
portion of the word of God, his sermons are not often
built upon particular texts, and yet one text is usually
prominently brought forward near the beginning of the
homily, and this appears to be the main text around
which other passages of Scripture are grouped, and about
which the sermon itself revolves.
His favorite precept, that the general style of the
preacher should be a low and plain one (submissa dictio),
was strikingly exemplified in his own preaching.
Although his sermons, as has been said, rise to eloquent
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
III
flights, gaining for him the name of "the Christian
Cicero," yet he was really too earnest to indulge in much
rhetorical freedom. He had at times a kind of direct im-
passioned energy that was full of power.'
raneous
M
Augustine preached mostly in an extemporaneous
manner, and with but slight immediate preparation;
for his sermons appear to have been al- Extempo-
ways freely delivered, and he was occasion-
ally directed to the choice of a subject by preacher.
thoughts that sprang up during the course of sacred wor-
ship. He followed the ancient method of commenting
upon the lesson of Scripture which had been read by the
prælector in the public service. His manner of preach-
ing is chiefly expository, going upon the principle of ex-
plaining from the pulpit as much of the Bible as possible.
He deeply pondered the word of God, and drew his in-
spiration, his thought, his style, from this divine fountain.
As an exegete, however, his discourses do not always.
show profound learning; for though well versed in the
Latin language and literature, he has always had the
reputation of being a poor Greek scholar, and he knew
little or nothing of Hebrew. Apparently he was in
the habit of using translations of Plato (Confess. 8, 2);
but, on the other hand, Greek words frequently occur in
his writings, correctly rendered and discriminated; and
he speaks, in one of his epistles to Marcellinus, of refer-
ring to the Greek psalter, and finding, in reference to cer-
tain difficulties, that it agreed with the Vulgate. Clausen,
who has particularly investigated this point, sums up the
evidence to this effect, that Augustine was "fairly in-
structed in Greek grammar, and a subtle distinguisher of
words;" but that beyond this his knowledge was insuffi-
Judge
44
¹ See Merivale's Conversion of the Roman Empire," p. 78.
"
II2
HOMILETICS PROPER.
cient for a thorough comprehension of Greek books, and
especially for those in the Hellenistic dialect.'"'
The introduction of his sermon is commonly simple and
artlessly attractive. He often goes on without developing
any specific proposition or theme, and then as suddenly
comes to an end, closing generally with the doxology, or
with a short prayer. Indeed, as to that, the early preach-
ers were in the habit of introducing short prayers in all
stages of their sermons, as the Spirit moved them.
Augustine was an inexhaustibly fruitful preacher. "He
often preached five times a day in succession, sometimes
twice a day, and set it as the object of his
preaching that all might live with him, and
he with all, in Christ. Whenever he went
into Africa he was begged to preach the word of salva-
tion. His sermons and ecclesiastical orations that still
remain to us number some five hundred and ninety; of
these, one hundred and eighty-three are upon passages in
the Old and New Testaments, eighty upon church fes-
tivals, sixty-nine upon saints and martyrs. They are,
indeed, upon all subjects fitted for pulpit instruction, and
exhibit immense range and variety of topics.
As a general thing, Augustine's sermons are short,
some of them probably not more than a quarter of an
hour in length. In comparison with the endlessly
long and ornate discourses of the Greek preachers,
his brevity and simplicity are worthy of imitation.
Although he frequently enlivened his discourses with
historical illustrations, yet in metaphors.
and figures of speech he does not abound,
or, when they do occur, they are not, while
sometimes elegant and powerful, as a general rule, par-
Number
of
sermons.
192
Use of
illustrations.
144
Encyclopædia Britannica."
2 Schaff's" Ecc. Hist.," v. iii. p. 194.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
113
ticularly felicitous. It seems as if his earnestness caused
him to rise above rhetorical style, of which he was never-
theless a trained master. He trusted to the Spirit of
God, and to the inbreathing of his heart-melting elo-
quence.' He preached to the many, not to the few. He
preached in an animated and pungent manner, with an
affectionate ardor, abounding in pointed interrogation
and appeal. He emphasized the side of truth in which
his deepest personal experience lay-viz., the extreme
corruption of the human heart, and the absoluteness of
divine grace. No one could be unmoved under his lively
and incisive harangues. He stood face to face with the
soul, and had a tone of intense reality. The African fire
of his native temperament pervaded his discourses, only
purified and attempered by the Spirit of God.
We would close this sketch of the preaching of the
fourth and fifth centuries, and in fact of the first five cen-
turies, by saying that although the preaching
Patristic
of homiletical
study.
of the patristic period has been by some
enthusiastic students overpraised, and its period a field
eloquence falsely compared to the best
periods of Greek and Roman eloquence, yet,
with all its faults, it is a rich field of study. It affords a
still fresh region of homiletical research and suggestion.
Luther called Augustine "the best and purest of the
fathers," and from the reading of his sermons and writ-
ings he caught the true spirit, the deep meaning, and the
renewing life of the word of God. In the earlier patristic
preachers there was much that still lingered of the sim-
ple, artless evangelic spirit, which was mixed with and
corrupted by the coming in of Greek philosophy, while
at the same time it was deepened and adapted to the
intellectual wants of men.
¹ See Moule's "Oratory," pp. 177, 178 ; Aug. “Confess.," Ox. ed. p. 389.
A
114
HOMILETICS PROPER.
We have thus traced the historic beginnings of the
preaching office from the time of the apostles, and fol-
lowed down the varied and changing current of preach-
ing through the first five centuries, from the simple col-
loquial style of address to the dawning inception of art
and the influence of Greek philosophy; through the
theological period, strictly so called, to the broader de-
velopment of the pulpit discourse, in what might be prop-
erly called "the oratorical period," uniting the expo-
sitory with the didactic, analysis with synthesis, exe-
getical interpretation of the Bible with the rhetorical,
methodized, and philosophic habit of thought, as exem-
plified especially in such great preachers as Chrysostom
and Augustine. But during all this period, with all its
faults and corruptions, we have discovered the grand
truth that the Scriptures themselves continued to be re-
garded as the true and only basis of preaching, and that
interpretation lay at the bottom of all address which
aimed at bringing the kingdom of God in its spiritual
power and supernatural claims to bear upon the minds
of men.
If we derived but this one lesson from the study of the
history of early and patristic preaching, it would be an
ample reward.
SEC. 8. Preaching from the Sixth Century to the Ref
ormation.
A longer time has been spent on the preceding five
centuries of Christian preaching, from the fact that in
them we were treating of the beginnings of things, of the
influence of the apostolic institutions, and were tracing
the origin and early development of the office of preach-
ing in the Christian Church; but we must now move on
more rapidly.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
115
During the sixth century, while there were thoroughly
educated and skilful orators as well as earnest preachers,
who united culture with Christian faith and zeal, yet
more and more the preaching tended to
rhetorical skill and self-display.
Tendency
to rhetorical
display and
luxurious liv
ing in the
clergy-
rebuke of
Athanasius.
The re-
buke of Athanasius to the preachers of his
day would apply still more to those who
came after them. He said: "If the church
were an audience for the hearing of orators,
then eloquent words would be in place; but
since it was a place of contention for the
highest achievements of piety, words were not so
much needed there as good conduct." The clergy of
the Roman empire, east and west, grew luxurious in
their habits, loved fine clothing and rich living; and the
bishops especially, who had by this time monopolized
the preaching office, or at all events had monopolized
the entire control of it, lost their zeal for preaching;
and yet, in spite of this, and notwithstanding the gross
corruptions and superstitions that began to make their
appearance in the Church, there still continued to be
in the Church an earnest desire to interpret the word
of God to men; and this was undoubtedly the main pur-
pose of all the great preachers of the age.
But when we come down as late as the seventh cen-
tury, we find that preaching was beginning to sink to
those depths of degradation, which con-
tinued to grow more and more profound,
even to the time preceding the Reforma-
tion. The idea of bringing the word of
God to bear directly on the mind and
heart of the people, as in previous ages, was more and
more lost sight of, though it was not as yet entirely lost.
In the middle of the eighth century, at the Council of
Downward
tendency
in seventh
century.
116
efforts.
Cloveshire, for example, constituted for the refor-
mation of abuses in the English Church,
Attempts to
revive the preaching was declared by the bishops to be
custom of a duty whenever they visited the different
preaching. churches; this implied that in the interval
of these pastoral visitations the people had no public re-
ligious instruction. Afterward Charlemagne, in his
time, exhorted his clergy to preach on cer-
Charlemagne's tain occasions; and Alcuin, his adviser,
especially strove to renew this duty, which
had almost fallen into complete disuse in the German
and Gallic churches; but where preaching was renewed,
those who preached-the bishops themselves-were rude,
unlearned men, and public worship had become a round
of senseless forms and ceremonials. True preaching had
lost its important place in worship; its light was put out
in the temple. Certain "postils" (postilla), originally
signifying brief comments upon a text of
Scripture, and which were short discourses
commonplaces that were manufactured by the
bishops, to be recited by the preacher, were read. A
collection of these homilies was first made by Alcuin,
and a fuller one by two of his pupils, Rabanus Maurus
and Haimo. They had for their principal
themes the authority of the Roman Church,
the glory of the Virgin, the flames of pur-
gatory, and similar topics. An ancient English preacher
of the better sort, Dan Jon Gaytrigg by name, mentions
the "six things" which formed the theology and the
subject-matter of preaching of his day. 'The fourteen
points of the creed, the ten commandments, the seven
sacraments, the seven works of mercy, the seven virtues,
the seven deadly sins." There can be no doubt that
Christian truth was conveyed in such preaching; but the
**
or
Postils.
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Themes of
preaching.
411
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
117
monastic system corrupted the Christianity of the Middle
Ages (or those ages lying between the period of the
destruction of the Roman empire and the Reformation),
by promulgating the idea that there could be no true
religious life outside of the monastery walls-in fact,
as Dean Milman said, "Manichæism poisoned the life-
blood of mediæval Christianity." Some of the names of
the great preachers of the Middle Ages, com-
mencing from the time of Venerable Bede,
in the last half of the seventh century
first half of the eighth, are Bede himself,
who worthily modelled his preaching on the
admirable homiletical precepts of Pope Gregory the
Great; St. Boniface in the eighth century; Rabanus
Maurus in the ninth century; St. Peter Damiani (re-
former of the papacy in his day); Anselm and Peter
Abelard in the eleventh century; St. Bernard of Clair-
vaux, Guaric, Abbot of Igniac, Peter, Bishop of Chartres,
and Hugo St. Victor in the twelfth century; St. Anthony
of Padua, St. Francis of Assisi, Albertus Magnus and
Thomas Aquinas of the thirteenth century; Berthold,
the Franciscan, in the fourteenth century, and Thomas à
Kempis in the fifteenth. Most of these were monks of
the Franciscan and Dominican preaching
Names of great
preachers of
the Middle
Ages.
orders. At first there was very little of The preach-
regular preaching in the vernacular; but in ing orders-
the ninth century, at the councils of May- the vernacular.
preaching in
ence and Langres, some earnest effort seems
to have been made to renew the office of regular preach-
ing in the Church; and it was also decreed that the
Christian faith should be taught to the people, and the
Scriptures expounded to them in their vernacular. These,
however, were but transient efforts, gleams athwart
the darkness, that did not influence the deep prevailing
118
want of religious instruction from the pulpit; and all
that related to public worship grew more and more sensu-
ous and puerile. From the twelfth to the fourteenth cen-
turies there was much preaching in the common tongue
by itinerant friars, of a highly fanatical
kind. They dealt with the fears and super-
stitions of the people, who were indeed chil-
dren in their hands. One of the chief aims
of this preaching was to induce the people to enter upon
the Church's pilgrimages and crusades. Still there were
noble exceptions, throughout the so-called
Exceptions of Dark Ages, of preachers, powerful both in
earnest and
human eloquence and true spirituality, like
Berthold in the thirteenth century, John
Wyclif, and that remarkable company of
preachers of the fourteenth century who were called the
"Friends of God," such as Erckhardt, Nicholas of Basle,
Tauler, and Henry Suso.
Preaching of
itinerant
friars.
spiritual
preachers.
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Tauler.
Master Erckhardt, as he was termed, the Dominican, was
a bold thinker, and with a pantheistic tendency, anticipat-
ing, it is said, the German transcendental phi-
losophy; but he was still a true believer, keep-
ing in company with Augustine, and holding the great
facts of the divine personality and human responsibility.
Tauler was a profound preacher, of the mys-
tical type, contending against externalism
in religion, and the meritoriousness of good works, and
he was one of the originators of the old German theology,
so fascinating to Luther and to all spiritually-minded men.
Luther frequently referred to him and his sermons. He
said (Epistol. xxiii. ad Spalatin): "Si te delectat puram
solidiam antiquæ simillimam Theologiam legere in Ger-
manica lingua effusam sermones Joh. Tauleri Prædicatioria
professiones comparare tibi potes. Neque enim ego vel in
Erckhardt.
TRAN
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
119
¹ Dr. Pfeiffer's
Latina vel in nostra lingua Theologiam vidi salubriorem, et
cum Evangelio consonantiorem.” Tauler's preaching was
without art, and his sermons were simple developments,
through meditation, of the word of God, like pure flow-
ers springing up, under the sun and rain of heaven. from
their hidden roots. They dwell chiefly upon Christ and
divine love. They were brief "postils" in plain, com-
prehensible speech, showing the way to blessedness and
the soul's perfection through Christ. They are, however,
often profound in their spiritual meaning. The main
principle of these old preachers was that "No work or
service is good and perfect unless it is the simple, unselfish
outflow of a divine principle of love and life in the heart ;
but if a man works for himself, for a reward, for a where-
fore, he is a hireling, and not a true friend or servant of
God." These mystics as preachers are not to be de-
spised, since they represent, like the apostle John him-
self, a faith deeper than that of their antagonists. They
have seized upon a living principle, true in all ages,
and the renewing principle of the Church, that pre-
serves it from sinking into dead forms on the one hand,
and dead philosophy on the other. Still, their doctrine
of longing for union with God and of annihilation of
self, was, to say the least, liable to run into errors.
1
We would say a word concerning another light of
the Dark Ages, the greatest of the English early
reformers and preachers, John Wyclif. John Wyclif
was born in 1324 and died 1384. About
1363 he took his degree at Oxford and
began his lectures on divinity, in which
his first anti-papal opinions were put forth. These
1845.
LA
John
Wyclif.
-
Deutsche Mystiker der Vierzehnten Yahrhundert.''
120
HOMILETICS PROPER.
A
lectures made Oxford the centre of theological il-
lumination, eclipsing the great fame of the University
of Paris and the French schools. Wyclif owed some-
thing of his progressive tendency to the English Doctor
Ockham, but far surpassed him in acuteness and bold-
ness of views. Concerning this period, a recent English
historian says: "The spare, emaciated frame of Wyclif,
weakened by study and by asceticism, hardly promised a
reformer who would carry on the stormy work of Ock-
ham; but within this frail form lay a temper quick and
restless, an immense energy, an immovable conviction,
an unconquerable pride. The personal charm which ever
accompanies real greatness had only deepened the influ-
ence he derived from the spotless purity of his life. As
yet, indeed, even Wyclif himself can hardly have sus-
pected the immense range of his intellectual power. It
was only the struggle that lay before him which revealed
in the dry and subtle school-man the founder of our later
English prose, a master of popular invective, of irony,
of persuasion, a dexterous politician, an audacious par-
tisan, the organizer of a religious order, the unsparing
assailant of abuses, the boldest and most indefatigable of
controversialists, the first reformer who dared, when de-
serted and alone, to question and deny the creed of the
Christendom around him, to break through the tradition
of the past, and with his last breath to assert the freedom
of religious thought against the dogmas of the papacy."
As a lecturer on divinity, Wyclif showed the greatest
daring in theological speculation, with, however, a strong
leaning to Augustine's doctrine of predestination. In
1374 he was presented to the parish of Lutterworth, re-
¹ J. R. Green's "
ed. p. 251.
-
? 1
A Short History of the English People," Harper's
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
121
,,
99 66
maining through all his stormy career its priest and
preacher; laboring with great zeal, and preaching not
only on Sundays but on the festival days; showing him-
self, in another's language, "a most exemplary and
unwearied pastor." Here he began his indomitable
efforts at church reform, and his attacks upon the papacy:
styling the pope "antichrist, the proud, worldly priest
of Rome, 'the most cursed of clippers and purse-
kervers" (cut-purses). He was the upholder of the rights
of the Church of England against papal aggressions, and
grew bolder in his assaults upon the doctrine of transub-
stantiation. He was soon summoned to appear before
the Convocation, but was saved from condemnation
through the influence of his powerful friend, John of
Gaunt. His fundamental idea of the kingdom of God
having reference immediately to the individual conscience
swept away the whole tissue of the papal system of a
mediating priesthood. Pope Gregory VI. issued several
bulls having direct reference to him and his opinions;
on which he was summoned before the bishops' council
at Lambeth, but again, through a happy turn of circum-
stances, escaped. He now commenced his great work of
translating the Scriptures, and giving them to the people
in their vernacular, and also of defending the Scriptures.
by constant preaching and writing, sagaciously addressed
to the common mind of the English people. Here we
see him as the founder of biblical preaching in England,
which was addressed in plain, popular language to the
minds and hearts of the common people. The historian
before quoted thus remarks of this popular work of
Wyclif—and with this quotation, which graphically char-
acterizes the great English preacher of reform, we would
end the sketch: "But Wyclif no longer looked for sup-
port to the learned or wealthier classes on whom he had
I 22
HOMILETICS PROPER.
19
hitherto relied. He appealed, and the appeal is memora-
ble as the first of such a kind in our history, to England
at large. With an amazing industry he issued tract after
tract in the tongue of the people itself. The dry, syllo-
gistic Latin, the abstruse and involved argument which
the great doctor had addressed to his academic hearers,
were suddenly flung aside, and by a transition which
marks the wonderful genius of the man, the school-man
was transformed into the pamphleteer. If Chaucer is
the father of our later English poetry, Wyclif is the
father of our later English prose. The
rough, clear, homely English of his tracts,
the speech of the plowman and the trades
of the day, though colored with the pictu-
resque phraseology of the Bible, is in its literary use as dis-
tinctly a creation of his own as the style in which he em-
bodied it-the terse, vehement sentences, the stinging
sarcasms, the hard antitheses which roused the dullest
mind like a whip. Once fairly freed from the trammels
of unquestioning belief, Wyclif's mind worked fast in its
career of scepticism. Pardons, indulgences, absolutions,
pilgrimages to the shrines of the saints, worship of their
images, worship of the saints themselves, were succes-
sively denied. A formal appeal to the Bible as the one
ground of faith, coupled with an assertion of the right of
every instructed man to examine the Bible for himself,
threatened the very groundwork of the old dogmatism
with ruin. Nor were these daring denials confined to
the small circle of the scholars who still clung to him:
with the practical ability which is so marked a feature of
his character, Wyclif had organized, some few years be-
fore, an order of poor preachers, 'The Simple Priests,'
whose coarse sermons and long russet dress moved the
laughter of the clergy, but who now formed a priceless
Father of
English
prose.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
123
organization for the diffusion of their master's doctrines.
How rapid their progress must have been we may see
from the panic-struck exaggerations of their opponents.
A few years later every second man you met, they com-
plain, was a Lollard; the followers of Wyclif abounded
everywhere, and in all classes, among the baronage in
the cities, among the peasantry of the country-side, even
in the monastic cell itself."
" 1
Savonarola.
Mention was made of the exceptionally noble preach-
ers of the Middle Ages, and especially those of the four-
teenth century, of whom Wyclif was the greatest. Of this
same class, in the fifteenth century, John Huss, Gerson
(Doctor Christianissimus), who was the founder of Galli-
canism, and Savonarola, might be particular-
ly noticed. We will dwell only upon the last
of these, because as a preacher, he was the greatest.
Jerome Savonarola was more truly a preacher than even
Wyclif. His prophet's throne was the pulpit. His
preaching not only moved the city of Florence, but all
Italy and the papal church; and its profound effects
were seen in the Reformation of the next century. He
was the Wesley and Whitefield of his age, combined with
a higher order of genius than either. He took complete
possession of his hearers-of their imagination, feeling,
and will. He played upon every string, now appealing
to the heart, and now assailing with tremendous force
the conscience. He understood the power of this great
instrumentality of preaching, ceaselessly laboring in his
pulpit till he was cut off by a violent death.
He was
born at Ferrara in 1452, and was burned at the stake in
Florence in 1498, his life thus nearly covering the last half
of the fifteenth century. The history of his life, like that
' Green's "History of the English People," p. 206.
124
IIOMILETICS PROPER.
""
of Luther's, in its great events and steps, is so familiar a
one that we need not give it circumstantially, since it is
especially as a preacher that our attention is now directed
to him. The year after his birth, in 1453, Constantinople
was taken by the Turks, so that he felt during his whole
life, and especially as a citizen of Florence, the influence
of the dispersion of the Greeks, and the rise of the
'New Learning'' during the early part of that marvel-
lous period of the Renaissance. His intellectual and
spiritual life was greatly influenced by this. The com-
ing of large numbers of the most learned Greek scholars
to Italy, and their reception and patronage by the Medici
family, opened the treasures of ancient literature, and gave
birth not only to new ideas in art and philosophy, but
also in political science and religious civilization. The
effete political and religious systems of the Middle Ages
began to be assailed by bold thinkers, and among these
none thundered so terribly against the towers of bigotry
and tyranny as did the Dominican monk-preacher of San
Marco at Florence, Jerome Savonarola.
-
No complete collated edition of his sermons has yet
been printed. There are said to be two large MS.
volumes of his sermons, written in very small hand,
that have never been published; but there has been re-
newed interest of late in the history and works of this
wonderful man, both in Germany and Italy. Perhaps
the best and fairest life of him is from a Roman Catholic
source, that of Pasquale Villari, which has been recently
translated into English.
Savonarola is another eminent instance of an expository
or biblical preacher, and of the superior ad-
Expository
preaching. vantages of such a style of preaching. In his
period of training for the pulpit he devoted
himself almost exclusively to the study of the Scriptures.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
125
His Bible, which was until recently exhibited at St.
Mark's Convent in Florence, bears every mark of being
well thumbed, and is filled with marginal notes written
in an exceedingly minute hand. One author says of
him: "He was early led to begin a series of expository
sermons, and it was in such expositions that he exhibited
that wonderful power in the pulpit which marked his
after years.
At Breccia, in 1486, he gave a series of ex-
pository sermons on the book of Revelation. Such was
the effect of these that his reputation soon began to
spread far and wide. Among his extant works are to be
found sermons on the books of Exodus, Ruth, Esther,
Job, the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, Ezekiel, Micah,
Zechariah, and the First Epistle of John.”
There was another cause of his great power in the pul-
pit his voice and attractive delivery. When he made
his first attempt to preach in Florence it
was a decided failure a great audience
dwindling down to twenty-five. His voice
was harsh, his gestures uncouth; his whole manner
showed total want of tact and adaptation to the preach-
ing office.
Voice and
delivery.
A recent writer says of him :
"It was not until the year 1485 that he rose superior to
the physical disadvantages which had marred his earlier
efforts in the pulpit. We have no record of the various
means to which he had recourse, in order to overcome
the natural defects of which his first auditors complained.
But he was one who would be unlikely to rest contented
until he had discovered the cause of his failure; and he
had so learned the lesson of self-control and self-abnega-
tion as to be able to receive with meekness, if not with
thankfulness, the suggestions of those who could point
out his defects and show him how to remedy them.
126
HOMILETICS PROPer.
Humbert de Romanis, the general of the Order of Do-
minicans, many years before, had urged those in whom
there was a talent for preaching-that most excellent
gift-to cultivate it assiduously. No doubt his work was
familiar to Savonarola, and its precepts were obeyed.
There must have been long and patient training of his
vocal powers; for we find him no longer speaking with
weak, harsh tones, but filling the vast, crowded area of
the Duomo at Florence with his clear, loud, ringing
voice. Nothing but well-directed, honest, and long-
continued culture in all that pertained to the art of
oratory could have wrought the change which soon
became manifest to all."
ww
He attacked the immorality of the times and of the
papal church with such boldness and even fierceness that
his career as preacher was soon cut short by martyrdom.
He, as well as Chrysostom and Luther, are to be espe-
cially remembered as illustrating the aggressive power of
those who as preachers take their stand on the word of
God, and trust more to it than to philosophy or theology.
Savonarola was in the habit of commending those preach-
ers of olden time who, in his own words, "using the
Holy Scriptures with a simple and familiar language,
marvellously spread light and love among the people;
and he had learned by his own experience as a preacher,
that by putting aside tiresome questions, and explaining
in their stead the holy Scriptures, the faithful have at all
times been enlightened and charmed." Let us remem-
ber these words of men who shook the world from their
pulpit thrones, in days when the pulpit is, comparatively
speaking, so weak.
"Savonarola was certainly born with that kind of elo-
quence which may be called combative. Fully persuaded
that he had a divine mission, no sooner did he come into
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
127
the presence of the people than he felt himself in a
state of exaltation, and he gave free course to his
thoughts; then his fancy was lighted up, his power re-
vived, his energy was redoubled. If, in obedience to
duty, he felt that he ought to restrain himself, the bright
color of his imagination would most assuredly have all
vanished, the whole vigor of his eloquence would have
been subdued.
)) 1
The first series of his sermons on the First Epistle of
John belongs to the year 1491. "He always begins with a
quotation from the Bible, around which he gathers all his
theological ideas in conformity with his system of inter-
pretation, bringing in their support some new passage
taken from the Bible. We have thus a heterogeneous
mass of ill-assorted materials, amid which the hearer be-
comes lost. Suddenly, however, Savonarola sets him-
self entirely free; his discourse has turned upon some
subject of the time, deeply interesting to himself and his
audience; his fancy is kindled, gigantic images rise up
before him, his voice becomes more sonorous, his ges-
tures more animated, his eyes seem to flash fire, and
from that moment he becomes original, a great and pow-
erful orator. But soon he falls back again into that
artificial world of ideas, ill-connected and ill-digested, to
rise again from them and again to fall back; never being
able to succeed in freeing himself entirely from them,
nor ever allowing them to be entirely dominant over him.
In this way whoever reads and diligently examines those
sermons will be obliged to confess that Savonarola was
born an orator, but that he was wholly wanting in the art
of oratory. Hence, when the subject was so deeply in-
teresting to him as to have complete mastery over him,
1 ** Hist. of Savonarola and his Times," Pas. Villari, v. i. p. 124.
啵
​128
HOMILETICS PROPER.
nature took the place of art, and then only was he
eloquent.
? 1
The same author goes on to remark (and what he
says is the more worthy of notice since, as has been said,
he writes from a Roman Catholic standpoint): "The
somewhat too simple and ingenuous eloquence that
we find in the sermons of the thirteenth century had
disappeared, such as those of Bernardo of Siena and
his followers. The preachers, if not of the grammarian
class (who were pedantic), were more like vulgar play-
ers, and spoke in a kind of scholastic jargon, which
was no longer understood. Hence
Hence the secret of Sa-
vonarola's great success is to be traced to the affec-
tionate warmth he himself felt, and with which he in-
spired the people. His voice alone had a familiar and
domestic tone. His eloquence had a natural and master-
ful character. He spoke in a language that touched the
hearts of the multitude; he discoursed on the matters
that nearly concerned them; he alone fought sincerely
for truth, and had a fervent love for all virtue, and felt
deeply the misfortunes of those he was addressing; and
therefore in that century he alone was eloquent. Since
the cessation of the holy eloquence of the Christian
fathers, no other voice but his has been found worthy to
be transmitted to posterity. To him it is due that ser-
mons were again held in honor, and received a new life,
and hence he may be termed the first of modern orators.
The following is an extract from his sermon on love or
charity, preached at Advent, 1493: "The gospel, my
Christian brethren, must be your constant companion. I
speak not of the book, but of its spirit. If you have not
the spirit of grace, although you carry the whole volume
1 ¹ Villari; see v. i. pp. 129, 130-135.
2 Id., pp. 135, 136.
2
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
129
And how much
about with you, it will be of no avail.
more foolish are those who go about loaded with briefs
and tracts, and look as if they kept a stall at a fair.
The true
Charity does not consist of sheets of paper.
books of Christ are the apostles and saints; the true
reading of them is to imitate their lives. But now men
have become the books of the devil."
The sermon on the "City of the Foolish" is an instance
of his boldness in attacking the sins of the age, and the
city where he lived. "He dealt with the evil habits of
the day, with religion and with the Church, condemning
princes and priests; and he came to the conclusion that
punishment was near at hand, and that the good ought
to wish for it. Having expounded his whole doctrine,
Savonarola throws down a gauntlet of defiance to all
potentates on earth; to all princes, whether temporal
or ecclesiastical; to the wealthy, to the dignitaries among
the clergy and the governments-all became the objects
of his charges. I am, he said, like hail, which bruises
every one who has no shelter."
In regard to his so-called prophetic gift, Villari says:
66
'It was one of those moments of which he used to say,
An inward fire consumes my bones and forces me to
speak out.' He was then carried away by a kind of
ecstasy, in which the future seemed to open up before
him. When this followed him into the solitude of his
cell, he remained a long, time the victim of visions, and
was kept awake whole nights, until sleep, getting the bet-
ter of him, brought refreshment to his wearied body.
But, on the other hand, when this state of ecstasy took
possession of him in the pulpit, in the presence of the
whole people, there were no bounds to his exaltation; it
exceeded all that words can describe; he became as
it were the master of all his hearers, and carried them
:
130
HOMILETICS PROPER.
along with him in the same degree of excitement. Men
and women of all ages and conditions-artisans, poets,
philosophers-sobbed aloud, so that the walls of the
church echoed their wailings. The individual who was
taking down the words of the preacher, having had to
stop, wrote, 'At this place I was so overcome by weeping
that I could not go on.' Savonarola himself had to sit
down from exhaustion; sometimes he was so much affected
as to cause an illness that confined him to his bed for
several days. His written sermons cannot convey any
adequate idea of the eloquence of those moments; many
of the words must have been missed in a report, and
what remained can have none of the ardor with which
they were uttered. We can the more readily believe in
the high state of exaltation of the orator, in his extraor-
dinary vehemence, and in what may be called the elo-
quence of his person and gestures, because the little that
remains of the words which fell from his lips in those
solemn moments hardly accounts for the great effect his
discourses produced on the Florentine public, at that time
the most cultivated in Europe." " He foretold his own
violent death in words of eloquent pathos. Savonarola's
testimony in regard to his prophetic gift is thus quoted:
"I am not," he said, "either a prophet or the son of a
prophet. I do not dare to assume that awful name; but
I am certain that the things I announce will come to
pass, because they spring from Christian doctrine, from
the spirit of evangelical charity. In truth the sins of
Italy are your sins, by force of which I am a prophet,
and which ought to make every one of you a prophet.
Heaven and earth prophesy against you, but ye neither
see nor hear them. You are struck by mental blind-
*
1 Villari, v. i. pp. 300, 301.
2 Id., p. 298.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
131
ness; you shut your ears to the voice of the Lord, who
calls you.
If you had the spirit of charity you would all
see it as I see it, that the scourge is approaching.
,, 1
To sum up this sketch: his main style of preaching
was expository, dwelling chiefly on the prophetic books of
the Old Testament, such as Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and the
Psalms. He was reared in the Platonic philosophy, and
much influenced by the scholastic philosophical writings.
He was a political preacher, and may be considered as
the founder of the Florentine republic. In his own life-
time he ruled Florence from his pulpit. He was a poet
and man of literature and the arts, a friend of Fra
Bartolommeo and other painters. He was a many-sided
and truly great man. His chief sources of power were
his consecrated, holy character, his intense study of the
Scriptures, and his great nature, that was alive to all the
wants and sympathies of man's heart. He may be said,
in some sense, to have failed as a reformer, perhaps from
the fact that he was not only a political preacher in the
true sense, but he dealt with the actual weapons and fire-
brands of political strife, and of course fell an early victim
to them.
To retrace our steps, and to speak of the Middle Ages
as a whole, the greatest Catholic or purely ecclesiastic
mediæval preacher, in point of eloquence and wide influ-
ence, was Bernard of Clairvaux. He was born
in 1091, and died in 1153. He is sometimes
called "the last of the fathers," and his
contemporaries gave him the title of “the thirteenth
apostle." Dean Milman says of him that "when he ap-
peared, the pope ceased to be the centre around whom
gather the great events of Christian history, and St. Ber-
1 Villari, v. i. ch. vi.
Bernard of
Clairvaux.
132
HOMILETICS PROPER.
nard is the leading and governing head of Christendom.
As an orator, judging by the immediate effects of his
eloquence, he would have been remarkable in any age.
His impelling power of speech roused all Europe until
The cross the cross!" became the universal cry.
With mingled motives of faithfulness to God and zeal
for the triumph of the Church, he confronted and bore
down the greatest opposition. As an interpreter of the
Scriptures he was fanciful and discursive, but always
glowing with earnestness. Though inclined to mysticism,
yet there was much of the true doctrine of Christ in his
writing, which contrasts favorably with the jejune scho-
lasticism of the times; and here it may be remarked that,
whether in the Greek or the Latin, in the Roman Catho-
lic or the Protestant preacher, where there is genuine.
spiritual power, it springs not so much from the genius of
the man, or the system under which he is reared, as
from the hold his mind has upon the word of God.
It is the divine unction, or anointing of the Spirit, which
breathes something of the divine into the utterances of
a human soul, and makes him the mouthpiece of God;
and instead of utterly condemning Roman Catholicism
or any other form of the Christian Church, however cor-
rupt, it were more in accordance with the spirit of Christ.
to try to look for the evidences of true doctrine and of
Christian life and power in these forms; seeing that the
Spirit is not bound, and can make use of imperfect men
in every age and every mode of the Christian faith. Ber-
nard's writings were numerous, and of his sermons there
are said to be some 340 extant. Though naturally impe-
rious, and though he could be terrible and fierce, gain-
ing for himself the title of the "Dog of the Church,'
yet a vein of pathetic tenderness runs through his
preaching, especially in the exegetical discourses de-
>
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
133
livered after the death of a dearly loved younger
brother. He not only professed with his monastic vows
a lofty and world-abnegating holiness, but he seems
to have lived up to it. Luther said of him: "If there
ever lived on this earth a God-fearing and holy monk, it
was St. Bernard of Clairvaux." Bernard says, in one of
his homilies, "What is ours but an insect life? Well
may we ask, with the wise man, 'What profit hath a man,
for all his labor under the sun?' Let us then rise
higher than the sun; let us mount up to heaven, and
have our thoughts and affections there before our bodies
are transported thither. Earth is nothing but a battle-
field. We must fight here for Him who liveth in the
heaven of heavens; there with Him shall we rest from
our labors, and receive our crown.”
Before the time of St. Bernard, St. Peter Damiani was
one of the most prominent mediæval preach-
ers, though his sermons were of a strictly
conventual order; but in his stern monastic
asceticism there runs also a vein of remarkable mildness.
St. Peter
Damiani.
Anselm, too, was a great preacher as well as theologian
and statesman, though we have but sixteen of his ser-
mons upon which to found our judgment.
These are formed upon one model, taking
the gospel of the day, and expounding it verse by verse.
The discourses are somewhat long and abstract, and
were probably preached to monks. Thomas
Aquinas, the scholastic theologian, was a
priest of the Dominican preaching order,
and his sermons in the Latin and also Italian
language, though highly polemical, like his writings,
have the same character of acuteness, clearness, and
metaphysical vigor. Guaric, Abbot of Igniac, who mod-
elled himself upon St. Bernard, was in his day a remark-
Anselm.
Thomas
Aquinas-
Guaric.
134
HOMILETICS PROPER.
able preacher, of a mystical but highly devotional style.
Peter, Bishop of Chartres, was a more in-
structive preacher, perhaps, than any of
these, though not so eloquent. Peter of
Blois was called, in reference to his sermons,
divinissimus.” St. Anthony of Padua (not
Anthony the founder of monasticism) is re-
nowned for his pithy, odd, and story-telling
preaching. Albertus Magnus had much that
is ingenious and not much that is practical
and weighty in his preaching. Thomas à
Kempis, though he possibly may not have written the
"De Imitatione," yet was a preacher entirely in the
vein of that incomparable work.
We have mentioned the names of these preachers, as
well as the names of the mystical preachers of the four-
teenth century, and of a few of the more distinctive re-
formers through these ages, with some particularity, to
show that we cannot condemn mediæval
Peter of
Chartres-
Peter of
Blois-
Anthony of
Padua-
Albertus
Magnus-
Thomas á
Kempis.
66
General preaching in a wholesale way, nor despise
summing up
With its monstrous
of medieval altogether its study.
preaching. faults, that seemed
at times to extin-
guish the pure light of the gospel; with
its system of belief that regarded certain requirements
connected with the Church in the light of an opus
operatum; with its total failure of preaching through
long periods; with its Latin homilies, and, in the
later scholastic ages, its endless hair-splitting specu-
lations; with its ascetic piety; with its childish and
often totally irreverent mode of illustration-with all
these faults it still had some marked merits, which
Protestant preachers at this day would do well to note.
(1.) Its popular quality. Many of these mediaval
preachers had a highly popular talent, and were wonder-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
135
fully successful in adapting themselves to a rustic audi-
tory, as was said to be the case with the
Venerable Bede. They spoke coarsely but
strongly to rude minds. They introduced
anecdotes and stories, which, if not always
in good taste, were fitted to interest the
people, and were sometimes very beautiful and touch-
ing, like the story of Elizabeth of Thuringia, and also
the one of St. Christopher. German and English preach-
ers were more accustomed to this kind of free and lively
illustration than the French and Italian. They some-
times introduced the most ludicrous and burlesque stories,
and even vulgar and blasphemous ones. Robert of
Abrissel was especially famous for this buffoonery, at-
tracting crowds as to a low comedy. Oliver Maillard,
preacher of Louis XI., and Michael Menot, of a later
age, were also examples of humoristic preachers. Doubt-
less many things were said by them in simplicity and
from pure ignorance; thus Abraham and Isaac are rep-
resented by one of these preachers as going up Mount
Moriah reciting aves" and paternosters," not in
French or Latin, but in Hebrew. One preacher calls
Christ l'Abbé Jesus. Nicholas de Lyra says that Jesus
was of the order of Friars Minorites. Cornelius Musso,
a bishop who affected classical learning, speaks of our
Lord as "dying like Hercules, rising like Apollo or Escu-
lapius, ascending to heaven as a true Bellerophon, a
second Perseus who had slain the Medusa that changed
men into stones."
查看
​Popular
talent of
mediæval
preachers.
(2.) Its dramatic element. This quality of the preach-
ing of the Middle Ages, which takes truth
out of the abstract, and is ever "doing"
or "acting" as in life, is not to be over-
looked and contemned, as it grew to be afterward in the
Dramatic
element.
136
HOMILETICS PROPER.
****
rationalizing view of Christian truth that prevailed after
the Reformation; for thereby power is lost. The preach-
er shrewdly appealed to examples and to facts. There
was a freshness and homely force in the manner of put-
ting things which was admirable. We see this in the
best of preachers, like Wyclif and Hugh Latimer.
(3.) Its symbolical or spiritual use of Scripture. Another
characteristic of mediæval preaching which is not to be too
hastily spoken against, is its finding of spirit-
ual instruction in all kinds and portions of
holy writ, using it in the way of type and alle-
gory. The past was made to teach the pres-
ent. Present wars were found in the old wars
of the Jews. The troubles and tribulations of the heart
were hidden under some Old Testament story, or some
prophetic figure. This at first sight is a fault, and happily
is one which will not be reintroduced, to a great extent,
into preaching; but there is something to be said in its.
favor in this respect, that it served to give a sacred
flavor, a mellow biblical tone to the sermons of some of
these preachers. It led them to regard the whole Bible,
the Old Testament as well as the New, as a spiritual
granary, in every nook and corner of which food might
be obtained for the nourishment of piety. But what is
called technically “allegorical preaching" is certainly not
to be recommended.
Symbolical
and allegori-
cal use of
Scripture.
use of
(4.) Its abundant use of Scripture citation. Their very
use of Scripture for the purposes just named compelled
Abundant preachers to this. It would indeed be surpris
ing to most of us, who are in the habit of
Scripture thinking that Luther and the reformers re-
stored the Bible to the pulpit, to find how sat-
urated are those sermons of the Middle Ages with the
sacred writings-turned often wholly out of their right
citation.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
137
meanings, and absurdly applied-but nevertheless giving
an indescribably devotional tone to sermons. These
quotations do not seem to be made for the purpose
of propping up dogmas, but they appear to be the
natural expressions of religious sentiments-the only
forms in which the minds of these rather childish and
untaught preachers ran in expressing their feelings on
divine themes.¹
(5.) Its fruits of meditative piety. One might also
say something favorable of the rare fruits of meditation
and of contemplative wisdom to be found in
the Middle Ages-of even a profound self-
abnegating love and faith-shining like gems
in dark caverns. In addition to this list of
what may be said in favor of medieval preaching, it
might also be said that in the earlier part of this period
some of the preaching was of a noble aggressive charac-
This was the age of the great missionary preachers
of the Romish Church, to whose heroic efforts we our-
selves owe the Bible and Christianity.
ter.
Crudities
and
mediæval
We will not enter into the more familiar and prolific
theme of the crudities and absolute falsities of monk-
ish and mediæval preaching-its obscur-
ing of the vital truths of the word.
Some of these have already been suggest- falsities of
ed; and, with such noble exceptions as
have been mentioned, preaching was, it preaching.
must be confessed, generally but as the blind lead-
ing the blind. Brawling and ignorant priests used their
spiritual authority, and their office as leaders of the
people, to foment discords in the state, to fasten the
chains of ecclesiastical tyranny more firmly, and to carry
¹ See Neale's" Medieval Preaching."
Fruits of
meditative
piety.
138
HOMILETICS PROPER.
out their own crafty and evil purposes. The period
even immediately preceding the Reformation witnessed
a most profound depth of degradation in the manner
and matter of preaching. The harangues of the pul-
pit were addressed to the lowest passions, and, above all,
to the sentiment of the marvellous; and they sometimes
consisted wholly in the detailing of absurd legends
hatched in the brains of half-cunning, half-fanatical
monks, in the cells of monasteries. Mummeries were
enacted in the pulpit. Anything like a
pious sentiment, at one period, in the pulpits
of prominent cathedral churches was con-
sidered almost insupportable; and at the
Easter season especially, preachers taxed their ingenuity
to invent all kinds of folly and vulgar witticisms, to
amuse the audience and to excite roars of laughter;
and, generally speaking, though there were ever excep-
tions to this, preaching had come to such a pass that,
when Luther arose, in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, he saw the necessity of reforming not only the
Church, but the pulpit itself, and the Church through the
pulpit. Reuchlin and Erasmus, it must be said, had
somewhat prepared the way for and preceded him in
this idea. Erasmus's book, written in 1535, a year
before his death, entitled "Ecclesiastes, sive concionator
evangelicus," sets forth in a clear and impressive manner
the needs and qualities of true evangelical preaching: I.
Qualifications; II. Examples and illustrations of clo-
quence; III. The use or handling of Holy Scripture.
Before, however, leaving this theme of mediæval
preaching, we would gather up a few small
items of a nobler kind, chiefly from Nean-
der's Church History, in order that we may
see that the Spirit of God had not forsaken the Church
Mummeries
and
absurdities.
Mediæval
gems.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
139
or its ministers in these ages. For example, St. Ber-
nard preached, with a liberality beyond his age, that
"infidels should not be put to death or suffer loss, but
only prevented from oppressing Christians." St. Francis
of Assisi said that "a heart fixed in God is all that
gives actions their real importance. Otto, Bishop of
Pomerania, when presented by some of his people with
a rare and delicate dish for his table, said, “Give this
costly dish to Christ"-that is, to the poor.
As a
fruit of similar teaching, it is related in the twelfth cen-
tury of the wealthy father of a family who, whenever
he went to the church, was accustomed to take provisions
with him to feed one poor family, proving his faith by
his works. Ambrose of Siena set forth very distinctly
the social duties and influence of the Christian man.
Richard à Sancte Victore calls the changing light and
darkness in the life of the soul "a needful darkness, a
necessary vicissitude of this present earthly life, where it
cannot always be clear day as it is in heaven; but there
must be, as in the sphere of the natural world, day and
night," Abbot Bernard of Tiron says:
All virtues be-
sides love are perishable; but this consists of the essence
of all God's commandments; by this alone the disciples
of Christ are distinguished from the children of anti-
christ." Ægidius of Assisi declared that “only through
humility can man attain to the knowledge of God;
the path upward begins downward." Guibert of Novi-
gentum, in the twelfth century, who wrote on homi-
letics, insisted upon the preacher's preaching Christian
morality, and treating of the motives of actions. He
said: "No sermon was more useful than that which showed
men to themselves, and led back those who, by the dis-
traction of outward things, had become estranged from
themselves in the secret recesses of their hearts; present-
A
140
HOMILETICS PROPER.
ing them as if reflected from a mirror to their own eyes.'
He also advised brevity in preaching, because otherwise
hearers could not retain it in their memories. Another
father, Alanus ab Insulis, of the thirteenth century, who
was a writer on homiletics, or "Summa de arte prædica-
toria," defines preaching to be, Predicatio est manifesta et
publica instructio morum et fidci, informatione hominum
deserviens et rationum semita et auctoritatem fonte pro-
veniens." He held to the theory (not so defensible) that
preaching must be addressed to believers, as other men
held it in contempt, and therefore they could not be bene-
fited. "Indignis et obstinatis subtrahenda cst prædicatio."
Humbert de Romanis sets the preaching of Christ.
even above prayer. Thomas Aquinas, learned theologian
as he was, took the greatest pains to preach plainly to the
common people. Abelard said that
Abelard said that "The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But the perfection of
it is pure love to God for his own sake." Said Anselm,
""
The highest truth is that which manifests itself to the
spirit." And Alexander of Hales declared that “The-
ology itself is more a matter of wisdom and temper than
of systematic knowledge. It is rather divine wisdom than
human science."
SEC. 9. Preaching of the Reformation Period.
Arnold
The iron unity of the Church of the Middle Ages, both
outward and inward, pressing all minds into one mould
and repressing thought on religious sub-
of Brescia- jects, could only be broken up by a strong
Savonarola- instrument. Arnold of Brescia, Savonarola
Wyclif-Huss in Italy, Wyclif in England (called the true
founder of the English pulpit), Huss and
Jerome in Bohemia, Waldo in France, had done their
-Waldo.
M
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
141
preparatory work; but there needed to be a man sent
from God to do the work for all the groaning nations.
Luther was that man.
There is no need of relating the thrice-familiar story of
Martin Luther's life. By nature he was endowed with
great human sympathies and passions, with Luther.
lively imagination, with manly earnestness
and singleness of aim, and with a heroic love of truth.
It was this last quality, by the grace of God, which led him
from being, as he called himself, "the most insane of
papists," to be a reformer of the Church of God. An Eng-
lish historian says of him: "Men of Luther's stature are
like the violent forces of nature herself-terrible when
roused, and in repose majestic and beautiful. Of vanity
he had not a trace. 'Do not call yourselves Lutherans,'
he said; 'call yourselves Christians. Who and what is
Luther? Has Luther been crucified for the world?' I
mentioned his love of music. His songs and hymns were.
the expression of the very inmost heart of the German
peoples. Music he called 'the grandest and sweetest
gift of God to man.' 'Satan hates music,' he said;
'he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.' He
was extremely interested in all natural things. Be-
fore the science of botany was dreamed of, Luther had
divined the principle of vegetable life. 'The principle
of marriage runs through all creation,' he said;
; and
flowers as well as animals are male and female.' A
garden called out bursts of eloquence from him, beautiful
sometimes as a finished piece of poetry.
Eras-
mus considered that sometimes a lie might be as good as
truth; but a lie, ascertained to be a lie, to Luther was
poison-poison to him, and poison to all who meddled
with it. In his own genuine greatness he was too hum-
ble to draw insolent distinctions in his own favor, or to
142
HOMILETICS proper.
·
believe that any one class on earth is of more importance
than another in the eyes of the Great Maker of them
all.'' 1
Upon the vivid and dramatic power of eloquence like
Luther's, Dr. Bushnell remarks: "It is a fact to be
carefully noted that all the best saints and most impress-
ive teachers of Christ are those who have found how to
1
present him best in the dramatic forms of his personal
history. Such were Chrysostom, Augustine, Luther,
Tauler, Wesley. Those great souls could not be shut up
under the opinional way of doctrine, or even under their
own opinions. Their gospel was not dry, and thin, and
· small in quantity as being in man's quantity, and there-
føre soon exhausted; it was no part of their idea to be
always hammering in or hammering on some formulated
article, but they had a wonderful outspreading of life and
volume, because they breathed so freely the supernatural
inspirations of Christ, and let their inspirations forth in
such grand liberties of utterance. They were men
thoroughly Christed by their inspirations and deep be-
holdings in the gospel facts. They had gotten such
insight into the ways and times and occasions of their
Master's life that subjects enough and truths always
fresh were springing into form in all points of the story.
And they were not mere surface subjects; but they were
cogent, massive, piercing, pricking in conviction, melting
ice-bound states away, battering down every citadel of
prejudice, and flowing out in senses of God that make a
wonderfully divine atmosphere about the circles they live
in, and the audiences before which they appear.” '
We will speak more definitely of Luther's oratorical
1 Froude's "Short Studies on Great Subjects."
2 "Sermons on Living Subjects," p. 86.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
143
and
acquirements.
training; but would now only say that by art and study
he was the possessor of great erudition for
his time; at the same time metaphysician Learning
and poet, musician and linguist, the master
of a forcible, popular eloquence; and to all
these advantages were added a deep religious nature, a
power of intuition in spiritual things, an invincible faith
in the word of God and in the divine instrumentality of
preaching. Luther plucked up preaching
Rescued
from its
neglect.
from the mire in which it had fallen, and
reinstated it as the central light in the house preaching
of God. From its fanciful and allegorical
character, its scholastic and dry and dead
forms of Aristotelian logic, he restored the true idea of
preaching-viz., the scriptural homily, or the bringing of
pure biblical truth to bear directly on the reason, con-
science, and sympathy of men. He was eminently practical
in his view of truth, holding that truth was of no value
unless it bore upon the reality of things, upon the king-
doms of good and evil in the world; and thus in his use
of truth he was eminently the preacher instead of the
philosopher, employing preaching as an instrumentality
in the vernacular tongue. Michelet says:" He treated
religion in his mother tongue; by that he moved the
world." The great work which he did, though aided
and confirmed by his writings, was chiefly
carried forward by his preaching; he said
himself, "It is the word which has consumed
the papacy, and no emperor or prince could
have done this." There was wonderful
spiritual vitality in his preaching, which affected the
lives of men before he broke with the papacy, or even
supposed himself to be a reformer of the Church. His
preaching thus led others on, and he was himself led on
Reformation
carried forward
chiefly by his
preaching.
t
3.
144
HOMILETICS PROPER.
S
by his preaching. Truly, his words were "half battles."
Luther said of his work and his preach-
ing, "I was born
I was born to fight with devils
and factions. This is the reason that my
writings are so boisterous and stormy. It is
my business to remove obstructions, to cut down thorns,
to fill up quagmires, and to open and make straight the
paths; but if I must necessarily have some failing, let
me rather speak the truth with too great severity than
once to act the hypocrite, and conceal the truth." He
was dogmatic, overbearing, and coarse, as in his contro-
versies with Erasmus and Zwingli; he was bitter, sarcas-
tic, and brought every kind of force in him to bear upon
his adversaries, even his poetic and musical talent.
As to Luther's oratorical education, he devoted him-
self at Erfurth with the greatest diligence to humanistic
studies. Melanchthon says: "As his mind,
full of zeal for learning, aspired to greater
and better attainments, he read most of the
works of the old Latin authors-Cicero, Virgil, Livy, and
others. These he also read, not in the manner of boys,
who seize only upon the words, but as true lessons and
portraitures of human life. Therefore he clearly per-
ceived the intent and meaning of these authors, and as
he possessed a true and tenacious memory, that which
was best in what he had read and heard was ever present
before his eyes." Luther in his writings spoke strongly
of the value of such studies, and he often expressed his
wonder at the wisdom of pagan writings. He saw in them
sometimes the teachings of God's good Spirit. He culti-
vated, above all, those authors of antiquity who could aid
him in speaking, and he agreed with Erasmus in thinking
that Quintilian was the greatest teacher of the oratorical
art. He also pursued studies in philosophy, in natural
Character
and quality of
preaching.
Oratorical
education.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
145
science, in history, having a broad conception of the cul-
ture which a preacher and teacher of the people required.
But above all he gave himself to the study of the Scrip-
tures, thinking that there was the preacher's whole treas-
ury of truth. And in the first place he strove to make
himself a master of the original languages of the Scrip-
tures. He said it was a shame that Christians did not
understand their own book, the word which God had
given them, and the very words in which God had given
it to them; and there is no doubt but that his study of the
Scriptures, to translate them so as to give them to the
people in their own tongue, gave him his wondrous
power as a preacher to reach the religious nature. He
spoke freely and directly out of the word. He was filled
with it. He recognized its unity as the testimony and
the testament of Christ. He rose above its letter into its
spirit. He thus became mighty in the Scriptures, and used
the word of God as an irresistible sword to conquer all op-
position, error, and unbelief. He was another, and per-
haps still greater instance of the preacher who draws
his strength immediately from the word-who is its true
interpreter and witness. And it is to be remembered,
as Michelet says, that while other preachers of the Mid-
dle Ages and of his times spoke mostly in Latin, he
preached in German to Germans as a German, and with
what vigor and what freshness! Next to his fidelity to
biblical truth, or the evangelic spirit in his preaching, he
mastered audiences by his emotional power, his passion,
his immense vitality. His nature, full of great affections
and great feelings, was itself a mighty power.
Melancthon said that "Luther's words were born,
not on his lips but in his soul." They thus moved
men profoundly, in spite of their occasional violence and
immoderateness.
146
HOMILETICS PROPER.
"We take the precise man for a religious man. We
are content to see him stiff in his black coat, choked in
a white cravat, with a prayer-book in his hand. We
confound piety with decency, propriety, permanent and
perfect regularity. We proscribe to a man of faith all
candid speech, all bold gesture, all fire and dash in word
and act; we are shocked by Luther's rude words, the
bursts of laughter which shook his mighty frame, his
work-a-day rages, his plain and free speaking, the auda-
cious familiarity with which he treats Christ and the
Deity. We do not remember that these freedoms and
this recklessness are simply signs of entire belief; that
warm and immoderate conviction is too sure of itself to
be tied down to an irreproachable style; that primitive
religion consists not of formalities but of emotions.'
As an illustration of Luther's naïveté and realness there
is the following passage from his table-talk: “When
Jesus Christ," he said, "was born, he doubtless cried
and wept like other children, and his mother tended him
as other mothers tend their children. As he grew up he
was submissive to his parents, and waited on them, and
carried his supposed father's dinner to him; but when
he came back, Mary no doubt often said, ' My dear little
Jesus, where hast thou been?'"
Form of his
sermons-
Luther's best sermons are adjudged to be his church-
postils (kirchenpostille) on from 1522, which
were prepared to be read in the churches.
His house-postils (haus-postille), while town
and house- preacher at Wittenburg, were perhaps al-
postils. most as good, and were extemporaneously
delivered. There are many other famous
sermons which have been collected and published.
church-postils
'Taine's "English Literature," v. i. p. 384.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
147
His sermons remind one, in some respects, of those
of Augustine, upon whom he modelled himself. They
are plain and practical, oftentimes exhibiting an easy
elegance of style, and they usually spring from the
running exposition of passages of Scripture (Perikopen),
sometimes without any special text; but still, as a gen-
eral rule, all the principal parts of the sermon—the text,
the theme, the exposition, the argument, and the appli-
cation--are found in his discourses. A large portion of
them are upon doctrinal subjects-upon the
being of God, and the creation; upon sin,
justification by faith, and the nature, char-
acter, and work of Christ; upon the Church and its
sacraments-but all with a strong controversial drift,
contending against the pope and the Roman hierarchy;
mingling the contests that were then going on with the
older conflict of light and darkness, of God and his
Subjects of
sermons.
enemy.
as a
preacher.
Christ
To sum up this description, it might be said, in a word,
that Luther's preaching, as well as his writing, sprang
from his profound conception of the gospel; Summary
of the length and breadth, the height and of qualities
depth of the work and the law of Jesus Christ.
He came more and more to see the spiritual
aspects and inner substance of Christian faith.
was his unceasing theme. He said: "All the wisdom
of the world is childish foolishness compared with the
acknowledgment of Christ." He said again: "Jesus
Christ is the only beginning and end of all my divine
cogitations, day and night; yet I find and freely confess
that I have attained but only to a small and weak begin-
ning of this deep and precious profundity." Merely
rhetorically speaking, Luther, as was said, despised no
learning, or art, or any other lawful weapon, such as
148
HOMILETICS PROPEr.
;
figurative illustration, allegory, story, irony, and wit
yet he did not trust to any such weapon. He reproves
preachers "who," he said, "aim at sublimity, difficulty,
eloquence, who, neglecting the souls of the poor, sought
their own praise and honor, and to please one or two
persons of consequence.'
Speaking of his own preaching, Luther said: "When
a man comes into the pulpit for the first time, he is much
perplexed by the number of heads before him. When I
ascend the pulpit I see no heads, but imagine those that
are before me to be all blocks. When I preach I sink
myself deeply down; I regard neither doctors nor mas-
ters, of which there are in the church above forty. But
I have an eye to the multitude of young people, chil-
dren, and servants, of which there are more than two
thousand. I preach to them. I direct my discourse to
those that have need of it. A preacher should be a
logician and a rhetorician-that is, he must be able to
teach and admonish. When he preaches on any article,
he must first distinguish it, then define, describe, and
show what it is; thirdly, he must produce sentences from
the Scripture to prove and to strengthen it; fourthly,
he must explain it by examples; fifthly, he must adorn
it with similitudes; and, lastly, he must admonish and
arouse the indolent, correct the disobedient, and reprove
the authors of false doctrine."
S
*
Luther introduced freshness and nature into the pulpit,
as well as knowledge, earnestness, and faith. He was
more progressive and bolder in his preaching than even in
his writing, for in the pulpit he was himself. There was a
free speaking out from himself, as if he had broken from
precedents and rules. We see the man ever in his words.
There was strong personality, a fearless expression of indi-
vidual experience, thought, and feeling of the truth. This
1
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
149
boldness, freshness, and naturalness, united with knowl-
edge, and knowledge above all of God's word, made him
a preacher whom the common people heard gladly. He
was their prophet. He spoke to them directly, as from
"the living oracles." He spoke political as well as religious
truth. He preached from the abundance of a heart filled
with the divine message, and, as by a kind of prophetic
inspiration, making him the creator of a new time, illus-
trating the words of Neander: "A certain faculty of
prophecy seems implanted in humanity; the longing
heart goes forth to meet beforehand great and new crea-
tions; undefined presentiments hasten to anticipate the
mighty future." "
1
Calvin, in some respects, was the exact opposite of
Luther, both as a theologian and a preacher. More of a
dialectician than orator, his work seemed to
Calvin.
1 "Ch. Hist.," v. iv. p. 216.
be the systemizing and co-ordinating of
doctrine, rather than the preaching of living truth freshly
to men. He had some of the best characteristics of the
French mind-clearness, precision, logical ability. He
was a great reasoner. He did not address the senti-
ments and passions, as did Luther, and draw men by their
hearts; but he bound them fast in the serried links of
his iron logic. Even in his early academic days, such
was the trenchant positiveness of his character that his
companions surnamed him the "Accusative." His style
was neat, polished, and concise. Bossuet said of Calvin,
“Son style est triste;" but Calvin, stern theologian as he
was, had some of the qualities of a great preacher. He
ruled the turbulent city of Geneva from his pulpit. He
had a style, it is true, totally bare of ornament, and with
no ray of imagination, or of anything that gave evidence.
150
HOMILETICS PROPER.
of the influence of Nature, though he lived in the
shadow of Mont Blanc; but his preaching was weighty
with biblical truth, clear in its reasoning, and burning
with an intense purpose. There is no doubt, however,
that, in all the qualities of genuine pulpit eloquence,
Luther was much the greater preacher.
Calvin was passionless in his life; he did not go through
those mighty struggles with doubt and evil that Luther
went through, and therefore he was not so truly a repre-
sentative man as Luther was; men and whole peoples
did not see in him a type of themselves; they did not go
to him for aid and sympathy; he was not, in fact, so
genuinely a people's preacher. But he was the intel-
lectual complement of Luther. He made up Luther's
marked defects. He supplied the calm will, the regula-
tive and reflective principle to the Reformation, which it
needed; and he is therefore to be looked upon as the
legislator rather than the mouthpiece or prophet, or
preacher, of that great movement. The Calvinistic sys-
tem of theology, in many respects a reproduction of the
Augustinian, has indirectly exerted an immense influence
upon preaching, in some respects good, in others bad.
So positively defined, so iron-bound in its logic, it power-
fully moulds everything that comes into the grasp of its
influence; and it has in this way shaped the preaching
of the Puritan churches in England and
Scotland, and also in America, and served
to give it its rigidly theological type.
Zwingli,
Farel, Haller,
Bucer,
Barnes, Knox,
Cranmer,
Zwingli, with his simple, manly, and heart-
felt style of preaching; Farel, Haller, Bucer,
and the other Barnes, and Bullinger; Knox, Cranmer,
Latimer, Jewel, Hooper, and the other Ger-
man and English reformers-these aided to restore the
dignity, earnestness, and biblical authority of the pulpit.
Reformers.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
151
The preaching of the Reformation period had in it the
missionary element; it was again the true unpvuɛía, the
voice of the herald to awaken the slumbering nations; nor
did it entirely lack what is to be seen also in Luther's
preaching, the power of edification, the power to build
up the spiritual life of the Church of Christ. The preach-
ing of the Reformation, wherever its seeds were carried,
was characterized by its scriptural directness, its freedom
from ecclesiastical forms, and robust energy.
Latimer's preaching is particularly noteworthy for its
strength, boldness, and quaint humor. He who could
quote against Henry VIII. the passage,
whoremongers and adulterers God will
judge," and who comforted Ridley at the stake with such
powerful and sublime words, could preach to the com-
mon people also with great familiarity. He too was a
story-telling preacher, and his stories had all the vivid-
ness and point of Luther's. As one instance of his odd
and plain speaking, I will quote what he said upon
feminine apparel. "I think Mary had not much fine
gear. She was not trimmed up as our women are now-
adays. I think, indeed, Mary had never a fardingale;
for she used no such superfluities as our fine damsels
do, for in the old time women were content with honest
and single garments. Now they have found out these
roundaboutes; the devil was not so cunning to make
such gear-he found it out afterward.' Latimer called
the priests and bishops who failed to instruct their peo-
ple in divine truth "bells without clappers"; and he
speaks of "strawberry-preachers whose season was but
once a year." He says of himself,
He says of himself, "I have a manner of
teaching which is very tedious to them that be learned.
I am wont even to repeat those things which I have said
before, which repetitions are nothing pleasant to the
Latimer.
W
152
HOMILETICS PROPER.
learned; but it is no matter-I care not for them: I
seek more the profit of those which be ignorant than to
please learned men. Therefore I often repeat such
things which be needful for them to know, for I would
so speak that they might be edified withal." His
famous illustration of the Goodwin sands and Tenterden
steeple is an instance of his method of illustrating truth.
He is often like Luther, coarse as well as strong, and had
something of the monkish trait of saying ludicrous things
and telling droll stories. It was Latimer who preached
the sermon on "The Devil Driving and Drowning his
Hogs." (1.) The devil will play at small game rather
than none at all. (2.) They run fast whom the devil
drives. (3.) The devil brings his hogs to a fine market.
But this should not give a false impression. He was a
great, eloquent, earnest, faithful preacher of God's word,
and a holy confessor and martyr.
The later preaching of the Reformation, both in Ger-
many and England, did not deal so much in subjective.
views of truth as in its plain objective
aspects; but the mind, freed from its fet-
Later
Reformed
preaching. ters, stood erect again, and transmitted
the message of God with apostolic power
and boldness. This, also, was the period, or the later
portion of the period, of the revival of letters; and
though feebly at first, yet with increasing strength, the
influence of the renewed study of the classic
models was felt upon Christian eloquence,
and entered more and more into the struc-
The age of
French and
German
in the
illuminism, ture and style of preaching. The sermon
soon began to lose somewhat of its biblical
17th and 18th life and evangelic element, until, much later,
centuries.
in the age of German and French illuminism,
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it had become
HISTORY OF PREACHING
153
nothing better than polished puerility, when preachers
preached upon agriculture, the raising of tobacco, and
the Copernican system. The French in particular fos-
tered this classic barrenness and varnished impiety. The
English pulpit was saved from this curse, in a great
measure, by the early infusion into it of the Puritan
element, when such profound and earnest preachers as
Howe, Baxter, Flavel, and Owen arose.
SEC. 10. Preaching in different lands since the Reforma-
tion.
countries
of the
Owing to the liberalizing influence of the Reformation,
there came to be a more spontaneous view of divine
truth among the people; and there was Character
also a development of the original genius of preaching
of each nation in religious things and in different
thought; so that each reformed nation
became, at length, intellectually and spir- Reformation,
itually represented by its own peculiar style how
of preaching. In Germany, France, Eng- influenced.
land, Scotland, and afterward in America, the bent of
the national mind or genius acted powerfully on the form.
of preaching in these several countries, and this also re-
acted on the political, intellectual, and social character
of the type of civilization of these several countries.
We close this sketch of the history of preaching with
a notice of the preaching of some of the leading Chris-
tian nations since the Reformation; and Preaching of
without speaking of the pulpits of Holland, Holland,
Italy, Spain, and Russia, of which much Italy, Spain,
might be profitably said-when we have such
names as Carlo Borromeo of Italy, Constant de la Fuerte
of Spain, Simeon Polotrki of the Greek Church, Van der
Russia.
154
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Palm of Holland, and many others-we will say a few
words of the more distinctively reformed countries, Ger-
many, England, and America; and also of France, which
was but partially reformed at last, and sank back into
the power of the Roman Church.
The German pulpit has always retained something of
the freedom, fire, and naturalness of the Reformation
period, and it might be said of the style of
The German Luther, who stamped his influence upon
pulpit.
German preaching, being characterized
by its lively exposition of the Scriptures and ethical
quality, accompanied with hortatory earnestness and
emotional glow. More attention, indeed, has been
paid in Germany than in any other country to pure-
ly homiletical studies. There are more
works in this language on "Homiletics"
than there are found in any other. From
all of Luther's works Conrad Porta, in 1586,
gathered together what the great reformer had more
especially said upon the subject of preaching and of
ministerial duties, in a work entitled "Pastorale Lu-
theri." Melanchthon also wrote a work which had great
reputation among the reformed churches, styled “De
Officiis Concionatoris," of which one part is especially
devoted to the Formula de arte concionandi, in which
he sets forth the principles of classic eloquence in the
form and composition of the sacred oration, with, how-
ever, some particular reference to the more practical
needs of ecclesiastical and religious instruction. There
are many other German works upon homiletics, dating
back to the sixteenth century; among which, perhaps,
Erasmus' "Ecclesiastes" (of which mention has been
already made) might be reckoned. After the falling
away from the faith in the first half of the seventeenth
German
works on
Homiletics.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
155
century and the dying out of the evangelic spirit of the
pulpit, Spener (1635-1705) and the pietistic preachers,
so-called, although they were somewhat narrow in their
views respecting sound learning in the pul-
pit, revived its life and power for a while.
Spener labored to abolish the formal Peri-
kopen system of sermonizing and to introduce "free
texts." He was distinguished for his plain, strong,
and clear exposition of the Scriptures, and his warm
devotional spirit. Following Spener in the simplicity
of the gospel and in spirituality were Francke, an ani-
mated and almost vehement preacher; Anastasius Frey-
linghauser, more thoughtful and logical; Joachim Lange,
and others, in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
After the period of these pietistic divines came the chill-
ing reign of the philosophical school, influenced greatly
by the Wolffian rationalistic exegesis. In fact the Bible
was little explained or referred to, though there were ex-
ceptionally scriptural preachers, even at this period.
But a dry morality, professing to free the mind from its
bondage by philosophy, prevailed. In the middle of the
eighteenth century Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1694-
1755) furnished the most eminent example of classic, able,
well-methodized preaching that was still inspired by the
truth and spirit of the gospel. He also wrote the His-
tory of Christian Homiletics." Then appeared such dis-
tinguished pulpit orators as Cramer, Herder, Zollikoffer,
Bretschneider, and Reinhard, the court preacher at Dres-
den, who wrote much and ably upon the art of preach-
ing; until we draw nearer the present day, and we have
the illustrious names of Krummacher, Dräseke (whom
Hagenbach reckoned among the first pulpit orators of
Germany), Claus Harms (warm and pathetic, and some-
what humoristic), Schleiermacher, Nitzsch, Heubner,
6.
Eminent
preachers.
156
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Hagenbach, Julius Müller, Hofacker, Rudolph Stier,
Beck, Theremin, Schweitzer, and Tholuck.
Character-
istics of
German
The German mind, from the earlier times until now,
with all its intellectual ponderousness and thoroughness, is
distinguished by its power of sympathy, by
a rich play of the sensibilities; and this is
shown in a marked manner in German preach-
preaching. ing, in which the morally genial and thor-
oughly humanistic element is prominent.
Herder, for example, though the peer of the great liter-
ary men of his times, and the theological father of such
men as Hase, Bunsen, Rothe, manifested this. If he had
had more of the strictly evangelic element he would have
been still more effective. The German pulpit is not so
polished, oratorically, as the French pulpit, but its style
is more homely and hearty, and has more of fresh, robust
thought. The German sermon, as a general rule, is freely
expository rather than severely didactic, although there
are exceptions, as in the case of Reinhard; indeed, some
writers have accused it of wanting body or theological
substance. It gives free play to æsthetic and poetic sen-
timent, sometimes causing the stern old Protestant ca-
thedral fairly to blossom as with spring flowers. In its
plan it is simpler than the Puritan discourse, making, in
fact, but two grand elements to the sermon-the text
and the disposition. But in the pulpit discourses of a
preacher like Julius Müller there is a predominance of
the theological and dialectic element; and in Schleier-
macher there is more of the German subjectivity than is
usual; but even in his most philosophical preaching
Schleiermacher sought by his own spiritual sympathy to
develop the Christian consciousness in his hearers, and
to bring them into inner accord with Christ. He sought
for the spirit of things, and cared not so much, perhaps
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
157
not enough, for dogmatic expression. As the greatest
modern preacher of Germany we would endeavor rapidly
to delineate him, and also, as a complement of him and
existing because of him-though intellectually inferior—
the late Dr. Tholuck. In regard to the outward facts
and circumstances of these lives we draw them directly
from German sources.
Friedrich Ernst Daniel Schleiermacher, born at Bres-
lau in 1768, was the son of a clergyman of the Reformed
Church, a man of stern piety, who reared him in the
precepts of the straitest orthodox sect.
He was early sent to the Moravian institu-
tion at Niesky. Here by the narrowness of
the religious tenets inculcated he was driven into doubt,
and into a most harrowing controversy with his father
upon the subject of his Christian faith, although the
affectionate and earnest type of religion exhibited by the
Moravian brotherhood made a healthful and lasting im-
pression upon his mind. In 1787 he went as a student
to Halle, and at the end of his academic course acted for
a while as lecturer in that university. Having recovered
in a measure his faith, he became assistant preacher at
Langsberg-on-the-Warthe, and after two years removed
to Berlin. Here he formed the friendship of Friedrich
Schlegel, Scharnhorst, Alexander Dohna, Wilhelm von
Humboldt, and other leading minds. He now preached
constantly, and his discourses upon religion (Reden über
die Religion), and Monologues (Monologen), by their ex-
traordinary philosophic and spiritual depth brought him
into notice. Appointed regular preacher in Berlin he
published other discourses of a profound character, and
also his translation of Plato's works with a commentary,
so that from his Platonic studies and the idealistic cast
of his philosophy, he has been called “the Plato of Ger-
Schleier-
macher.
f
158
HOMILETICS PROPER.
many. In 1804 he was named University Preacher and
Professor of Theology and Philosophy at Halle. During
the period of the "War of the Liberation," being broken
up at Halle, he returned to Berlin and became the centre
of patriotic influence in those troubled times when all
seemed failing and falling; so that a German writer says
of him, “That small, insignificant-looking man became
the soul of the warlike activity of Berlin." His eloquent
"Christmas Festival discourse" (Die Weihnachtsfeier),
breathing the soul of a thorough German patriotism
which sprang from a deep-grounded Protestant faith,
roused Germany like Luther's discourses to the German
people of old. It was the speech of a man who, suffering
intensely with all the woes of his fatherland, could be-
come her counsellor and mouthpiece. In 1809 he was
appointed pastor of Trinity Church, Berlin; and, soon
after, in harmony with his own efforts and views, the
University of Berlin was re-instituted, of which he be-
came the most renowned light. His last great work was
"The Christian Faith systematically presented according
to the Fundamental Propositions of the Evangelical
Church" (Der Christliche Glaube nach den Grundsaetzen
der Evan. Kirche in Zusammenhange dargestellt).
Six series of his sermons (Predigten) have been pub-
lished, the first in 1801, and the last in 1833. He died
at Berlin, February, 1834.
Schleiermacher's style as a preacher was without much
ornament, but, at the same time, it had a classic finish,
an onward movement, and an original and
Style and
characteris- vigorous thought that held his hearers spell-
tics as a bound. He was a man who brought into
preacher.
his preaching the results of great erudition
and profound thinking, and yet he strove to distinguish
the true elements of Christian faith from the dogmatic
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
159
forms which had grown up around it and obscured its life.
He sought for the springs of Christian faith in the real
union of the soul with God. In this God-conscious-
ness (Gott-Bewusstsein) he placed the source of religion.
Christ revealed the true God-consciousness. He knew
of no Christianity that was without Christ; and even as
his own pure life welled forth from that fountain of in-
nermost personal union with the personal Christ, so he
thought that the life of all believers, and of the Chris-
tian Church, should and could only spring from the same
source.
Schleiermacher has wrought a profoundly shaping in-
fluence upon the new and more truly evangelical views
which have sprung up in Germany regarding the imme-
diate relation of Christian faith to Christian life. Such
writers and preachers as, first of all, Neander, after him,
Twesten, Nitzsch, Jul. Müller, Dorner, Martensen, Lücke,
Tholuck; and those of other lands, like Vinet, Archdeacon
Hare, Maurice, F. W. Robertson, and Horace Bushnell,
have drunk deeply, if sometimes unconsciously, into the
thinking and theology of Schleiermacher. His was a
large and hospitable theology that brought into it all
there was revealed of God in the human mind, in nature,
in science, in art, in literature, in the State and the
household. Schleiermacher fairly turned the tide of
rationalism in Germany. He discovered in his own con-
sciousness of humanity the need of the soul to be perfect,
and that this want could not possibly be met in the
human soul itself by reason of its moral imperfection,
and this was the death-blow of rationalism. He also
discovered the truth that in Jesus there was a perfect and
holy humanity upon which to rest this mediatorship be-
tween the sinful soul and a holy God. He was firm amid
the confusing voices of his doubting age in his faith of
160
HOMILETICS PROPER.
#BEER
the unassailable holiness of the human nature of Christ.
If temptation had but one slightest point of contact
whereby to assail the character of the Saviour, he would
have been no longer the Saviour of humanity. Yet it
must be admitted that Schleiermacher built his theology
too exclusively upon consciousness, upon this purely sub-
jective basis, and that there was not enough in it of the
positive element of revealed truth to make it a firmly
reliable system for other men ; yet he probably did more
than any other man to reconcile philosophy and faith,
and to show that the objective truth of Christianity har-
monized with the absolute needs of the soul. His the-
ology went far to meet the deepest questions of man's
own nature.
It is here, as a preacher, that he is worthy of profound
study. Preaching is not only a means whereby to illu-
mine the mind by divine truth, but to vitalize the soul
by the touch of the divine spirit. It must penetrate
deeper than the reasoning faculty to the springs of motive
and life. It may be great as a didactic performance, and
may leave the mind thrilling like a harp over which a
master-hand has swept, but the vibrations die away in
silence and apathy. The soul still sleeps the sleep of
death. The preacher must come nearer than by the hand
of power, and must open the fountains of long sealed-up
affections. This constitutes pulpit genius. There are
hundreds of intellectual discourses to one that is truly
spiritual. One hears sermons that reverberate like thun-
der-peals through the vestibule of the mind, but do not
speak to the inner man of the heart with the renewing
voice of Christ. They do not speak with the sweet pene-
trative power of the Gospels. It is not given to all
Not all are successors of
preachers to touch the heart.
the apostles in spiritual gifts. Hence they are almost
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
161
powerless for good. Though they have other gifts of
power, the vital thing is wanting. It would be hard to
say of such men (what often might be said of the best of
us) that they do not feel what they say, or that they
have no feeling, but somehow that gift has been denied
them, and the golden key to hearts is not theirs. They
are rhetoricians and logicians. The subtle instinct of
love which the most hardened soul instantly perceives,
and which inspires what is said with the pathos of sym-
pathy, and enters the secret parts of the soul with a com-
pelling force like a message of heaven, and raises the
dead to life, is a precious gift in a preacher; and theo-
logical seminaries have a responsibility in this, that while
they train men as exegetes, theologians, and writers, they
do not destroy in the preachers they send forth the
power of feeling the truth they utter, the power of lov-
ing men, the power of simple unconscious sympathy, and
"freeze the genial currents of the soul." (Churches, too,
have a responsibility not to select men to fill their pul-
pits solely for their disciplined powers of intellect (none
could rate the importance of these higher than we do),
but also and perhaps mainly for their power with human
hearts, their genius of sympathy, of Christlike persua-
siveness, of true spirituality. If an individual preacher
}
do not possess these qualities, it should be with him a
matter of the most earnest striving—a matter of life and
death-by prayer, by charitable activity among men, by
humiliation and imitation of Christ, by pressing into
closer and closer union with the spirit of the loving and
crucified Lord, to win this divine sympathy, this love,
or charity, which the apostle declares is the great end as
well as means of Christian working, struggling, preach-
ing, and living. Christianity, as Coleridge says, consists
not only of ideas but of facts; and as ideas are the cor-
162
HOMILETICS PROPer.
relatives of doctrines, so facts are the correspondents of
feelings. If God first loved me I should love him first.
of all. If Christ, from love, died for me, this should
awaken in me a lively sympathy for every sinful human
heart upon which the gracious power of Christ can work.
The unity of man, not only from nature, but from Christ's
human nature, was a prime principle in Schleiermacher's
creed. All the nature, too-the intellect, will, and affec-
tions-were comprehended in his conception of theology
and preaching. The whole man was to be rcgenerated,
but the spiritual man-the man of the heart—was the
man whom, above all, he addressed; for therein consisted
the reality of the gospel as addressing itself to that part
of the nature in which was contained its essential unity.
The gospel which he preached was a spiritual gospel
which penetrated to the secret faith, or real love, of the
heart, and purified the inner sources of action and char-
acter. He laid special stress upon the spirit of the Chris-
tian believer, the new regenerate affection which goes
underneath acts, and is the product of a genuine union
with Christ, and which is seen in the warm, pure, inner
life of the soul that makes it one with Christ's life, and
with that of all other believers. While a great intellect,
while purely rationalistic in some of his views, he placed
the hidden source of religion in the spiritual affection
more than in the scientific apprehension.
Another striking feature of Schleiermacher's preaching
was the spirit of union, of true brotherhood in Christ
which he cherished. He sought ever to find and develop
in the congregation this sense of brotherhood, of union in
Christ through faith in him as the Head. The Church
was the sphere where the Holy Ghost, or the Spirit of
Christ, enabled this consciousness of God, and life in
him, to be manifested freely. He had a most earnest
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
163
longing toward union and common love among believers;
that there might be even no marked distinction made, as
in the past, between preacher and people, but that they
all might be brought into the communion of the same
spirit and life. He called the true preacher "the mouth
of the congregation." He would have the teaching and
authoritative idea of the preacher to be lost sight of in
the higher idea of his being the instrument to express
the will, the thought, the spirit, and the love of the whole
body of the people and Church of Christ.
π
Schleiermacher was a philosopher; and the influence of
his philosophical studies, as well as of his comprehensive
philological and classical culture, was seen in
his sermons; but he warned his pupils and
hearers of the difference between knowledge
and faith, and that the mathematical could.
not be mixed with the religious reason.
His faith did not dwell in the dry region of human sci-
ence (yvois), but it sought something more vital and
profound in the inward teachings of the Word and Spirit
of Christ (716715). He opened his heart freely to these.
He abode in the love of Christ as well as in the love of
human Christian friends. All the impulses of his being
sought for sympathy, and his religious life would soon
have perished in the exclusive pursuit of the technical
science of speculative theology; it strove after a more
permanent nourishment in the moral and spiritual affec-
tions brought in union with Christ, the Lord of life. He
was indeed almost the first Christian theologian who de-
veloped the ethical side of Christianity in its harmonious
breadth and freeness; and, after all, amid the scientific,
materialistic, and pessimistic doubts through which the
struggling Christianity of the present day is called to
pass, and in which the faith of many grows faint and is
Difference
between
faith and
dogma.
164
HOMILETICS PROPER.
almost ready to vanish away, is there not an immovable
standing-ground in the ethical and spiritual position upon
which Schleiermacher's theology based itself?
His sermons thus, though intensely subjective in their
currents, were not mere expressions of thought, and as-
suredly not mere bookish and literary dis-
courses, but were full of the warm life of
the soul. They were poured forth from the
depths of a great, loving, religious nature.
They were rarely written out beforehand,
but though carefully thought through and methodized,
being synthetic and thematic in form, they were extem-
poraneously delivered. Schleiermacher was an extem-
poraneous preacher. His thoughts did not freeze into
ice-cakes as if to be weighed and delivered from a vehicle,
like those of many preachers who adopt the written
method, but they had the direct and spontaneous flow of
fresh currents of thought and feeling. We would not
lose the opportunity to enforce by the example of a great
preacher, this needed reform in our modern pulpit,
whereby it may be made equal in popular power to the
bar and the platform. Never will it attain its highest
influence with the great masses of the people until it is
emancipated from the tyranny of the written method,
and men who have a living message from God can deliver
it like God's prophets freshly and freely to the hearts of
living men. But Schleiermacher did not trust to the
moment for his real thinking, or even his ordering of the
discourse, but he said in his counsels on this point :
Before going into the pulpit, the sermon as a whole--
that is, the separate thoughts in their relations to all the
members and the whole-should be clearly in the mind.'''
Form of
sermons-
Eextempore
preacher.
"C
1 Hagenbach's "Hom. and Lit.," p. 137.
ܕ
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
165
Hence his discourses united in a wonderful degree the
clearest thinking with the freest and most vital form of
expression. Having seized the idea in its fullest concep-
tion, nothing of its luminous beauty and completeness
was lost in giving it outward shape and language. He
illustrated in a striking manner Quintilian's conception of
extemporaneous oratory: "Extemporalis oratio nec alio
mihi videtur mentis vigore constare.
"? ""
While Schleiermacher lived in the pure ideas of beauty
and truth, and possessed to an exquisite degree the feel-
ing of whatever was true, good, and beauti-
ful, he had a most comprehensive and virile
intellect that sought for the moral elevation
of his hearers, for the greatest good of men and the
State, and for the eternal interests of the human race. It
cannot be denied that he leaned strongly to the philoso-
phy of Spinoza, or, more correctly, of Schelling-the
philosophy of the absolute; though to call Schleier-
macher a pantheist is as false as to say that such expres-
sions as For me to live is Christ, Yet not I but
Christ who liveth in me," would prove that the apostle
Paul was a pantheist; but it is patent that on the doc-
trines of the Trinity and the Atonement, he has given
speculative explanations which differ widely from current
orthodoxy. One writer states his position in a few dis-
criminating words: "Schleiermacher knew the experi-
ences of the religious life of the Christian, and he felt a
powerful reality in them. In many of his speculations he
coincided with Fichte, but feeling with him was a stronger
reality than speculation. He believed that philosophy
is yet far from attaining its true end; and he drew him-
self back from it, and retired into the province of Chris-
tian experience. This experience he vindicated in his
systematic theology with the aid of a fine-drawn and
?
As a
theologian.
166
HOMILETICS PROPER.
eloquent system of dialectics. On the other hand, the
rationalistic tendencies of the day in which Schleier-
macher commenced his labors, the style of criticism
that then prevailed, his own philosophical studies also,
particularly his study of Spinoza, undermined his faith in
many points of the orthodoxy that has ever been preva-
lent in the Church. Hence it is that he defended the
great doctrines of Christianity, and at the same time
abandoned many portions of truth, many parts especially
of the historical revelation." For these reasons doubt-
less he is to be studied with caution. He was a great
freethinker in the best sense of the term. But he is not
to be judged rashly. In some respects he was more
evangelical than many in his time, and many now, who
claim to be orthodox; for he preserved the essential
thing--the life and spirit of Christianity. The centre of
his system is Christ; is the gospel; is the redemption
wrought by the life, death, and Spirit of the Son of God;
and he, probably more than any other one mind, has
brought back modern theology from the rationalistic to
the Christian standpoint, and held it there firmly, and
more and more will continue to hold it there. He, like
our own Bushnell-though they could not otherwise be
compared-had great penetrating thoughts of God, which
still are influencing men and all Christian thought and
life. He cannot, any more than Bushnell, be put into a
theological school-closet. He not only regarded himself
as being in God, but as God being in him, working in
him, loving him, being joined to him in Christ, and
moulding him spiritually into the perfection of Christ,
who was human as well as divine. The amazing and all-
comprehending truth of the Incarnation-of divine life
brought into humanity, and, above all, into the purified
soul of the believer through the Son of man-was the
main truth with him.
+
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
167
We are just beginning to feel the strong tides of his
influence in this country, and our Puritan theology is
destined to be modified by him much more than it has
yet been. He was, in his day, as he said in noble con-
sciousness of himself, "the organ, the mouthpiece of
many loving and profound Christian natures, the turning-
point of the thoughts and feelings, the joys and sorrows,
the doubts and hopes of many noble and pure souls ;"'
and this office he still in some sense fulfils, and in an
ever-widening power. Thus he moved men, his country,
and his age.
It has been said of him, that as the Ger-
man poet Arndt sought to awaken the German sentiment
of nationality in a depressed and downtrodden land, and
as Fichte sought to erect again the German reason, so
Schleiermacher spoke to the German religious life-to
the deepest soul of the German people-to their concep-
tion of and hold upon God and divine things. As he was
a prophet to the people in the time of their greatest sor-
row, need, and fear, so should every true preacher of
Christ be, and may be, because the love wherewith Christ
loves him is in him, because he has that divine sympathy
which is ever ready to console and to suffer with men.
We have dwelt so long upon Schleiermacher that we
have but few words for Tholuck, who was, nevertheless,
as a preacher, in some respects, a better or more prac-
ticable model than Schleiermacher.
Tholuck.
Friedrich August Gottreu Tholuck was born March
30th, 1799, in Breslau, the birthplace of Schleiermacher.
He was the son of a goldsmith, and was
destined to be himself a goldsmith, but his
brightness and love of knowledge caused him to be sent
from the gymnasium of his native place to Berlin to study
the Oriental languages, and through his enthusiasm for
these studies he is said at that time to have been as much
168
HOMILETICS PROPER.
a Mohammedan as a Christian. He made great profi-
ciency in linguistic pursuits, and became also at this time
an ardent believer; so that from his promise as a scholar
and his earnestness as a Christian he began to be regard-
ed by the leaders of the evangelical party at Berlin, such
as Neander and Hengstenberg, as an important ally to
their cause; and he was appointed Extraordinary Pro-
fessor of Theology at Berlin University. He wrote a
reply to DeWette on a subject connected with the
dominant scepticism then in Germany, and was trans-
ferred to Halle, where, in 1826, he was named Ordinary
Professor of Theology, for the avowed purpose of com-
bating the Leibnitz-Wolffian form of rationalism then
and there prevailing, whose leaders were Wegscheider
and Gesenius. For fifty years he sustained an active
conflict in support of evangelical views, and lived to see
a great change wrought in the religious opinion both of
his own university and of all Germany. He was a fer-
tile writer on theological subjects, though not taking the
first rank as a scholar. One critic says of him: "His
biblical, historical, and practical writings found a consid-
erable circle of readers, for they are distinguished for
richness of thought, learning, and sensibility. In spite of
the numerous quotations from Christian and heathen
authors, both old and new, they indeed lack true thor-
oughness; in spite of their orthodox coloring they lack
consistency; in spite of their keenness they lack clear-
One seldom loses the feeling that the author fails
to comprehend clearly what he means to express. And
could this be well otherwise? Theologian of compromise
through and through, at the same time belonging to the
Romantic and sceptical schools, Tholuck had in fact won-
derful receptivity for everything, but no clear, consistent
standpoint. As a preacher in the philosophical mantle
ness.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
169
of Schleiermacher he still could be claimed by the vari-
ous schools of theology, while he belonged in substance
to none of them wholly." Tholuck died at Halle in the
summer of 1877.
As a preacher, Tholuck perhaps wrought his greatest
influence. There was a free and almost torrent-flow of
emotional thought in his sermons-of thought inspired
by an evangelic spirit. He often exhibited an impas-
sioned eloquence which bore the minds and hearts of his
hearers along with it. "While," says Professor Park,
“he would be called a memoriter preacher, yet he bor-
rowed so much aid from the extemporaneous method
that it is not always easy to classify him. He would dic-
tate to his amanuensis a sermon on one Sabbath morn-
ing between five and seven o'clock; review the sermon at
the same hours on the next Sabbath morning, and deliver
it at nine o'clock on that very morning. His tenacious
memory grasped and held a large part of what he had
written, but his sentences as they were uttered received
a new wealth of beauty from his rich imagination.""
Although a man of varied learning, Tholuck's sermons,
like other German sermons, are simple without show of
erudition, and though not without interesting thought,
are mainly addressed to the heart rather than the head.
As most of his sermons were preached to university stu-
dents, they are stamped with that free, fresh style adapt-
ed to impress young men. There is nothing drily
scholastic in their method or substance. They are living
forms of thought. They are shot through with feeling
as if caught from the light of that cross which he loved
to hold up before the eyes of men, and especially of
those who were accounted wise.
1 " Bib. Sac.," vol. xxix. p. 377.
170
HOMILETICS PROPER.
He also exhibited a sagaciousness, a hard, shrewd
knowledge of human nature, which is wonderful in a man
devoted so exclusively to scholarly pursuits. The main
traits of his preaching, we should say, were individuality,
boldness mixed with kindness, dramatic power of the
imagination, a pointed and homely style of thought, and
a truly evangelic feeling that interfused all, and entered
into the core and inmost meaning of the gospel. There
are now and then sentences in his sermons which take us
into the heart of spiritual truth, and we find ourselves
making a stand upon them, revolving them and incor-
porating them into our own thinking, and almost uncon-
sciously adopting them as principles to regulate our modes
of belief. Were it not indeed well for us to infuse some-
thing of the spiritual life, and of the heart-glow of Schleier-
macher, Tholuck, and the best German preachers from
Tauler and Luther down to Palmer of Tübingen, Dorner
of Berlin, Kahnis and Luthardt of Leipsic, and a hundred
others, where, at the same time, there is no want of
vigorous thinking-into our more cold, formal, and
rationalistic methods of preaching? Yet we are of the
opinion that we should not wholly adopt the German
style of sermonizing, and lose sight of the best distinctive
traits of the New England pulpit-its nobly thoughtful
method and its profound grasp of principles.
The French pulpit is classic and brilliant. Its most
eloquent Protestant representative was Jacques Saurin.
Saurin was born 1677, and died 1730. His
professional life was mostly spent in Holland,
at the Hague. Although he adorned the
Protestant pulpit with more of grace than it
had before, he sincerely aimed at the great end of preach-
ing-the spiritual welfare of men. He therefore stands
higher as an evangelical preacher, though not as an ora-
The French
pulpit-
Saurin.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
171
tor, than most of the great Catholic French preachers.
He was one of the first Protestant preachers who intro-
duced into the plain didactic method of the Reformed
pulpit the ornaments of eloquence. His chief produc-
tions are his sermons. These sermons have an elaborate
method, and are built on the plan of a classic oration ;
indeed, he rarely puts off his oratorical robes. His "in-
troductions'' are often highly wrought, and he follows the
strictly logical or forensic method in the development.
He concentrates all the elements of the text in a common
subject or proposition, and preaches topically. His style
is clear, shining, energetic, at times almost harsh, and
deficient in pathos and unction. He introduces his ideas
in a formal way by the law of progression rather than of
natural development. Sometimes his whole plan con-
sists merely of a number of remarks arranged numeri-
cally, without much regard to the logical evolution of
thought. His sermons are full of eloquent thoughts.
There are animated dialogues introduced-dialogues be-
tween the preacher and God, and between the preacher
and his flock, so that his pulpit address attracted crowds
by its liveliness; and his reputation was at one time so
great that a number of imitators arose, who carried his
impassioned style to an extreme. He addressed the pas-
sions rather than the will and the affections. He delivered
almost an entire system of theology, or body of divinity,
in the course of his preaching; and, while undoubtedly
orthodox, was still more liberal than his contemporaries
in his theological views. Though he employed meta-
physics, he did not do so profoundly, and he did not
always get at the root of things divine. Although he
felt strongly what he said, he was essentially a “book-
man" in his style, and he painted, by a sort of intellectual
insight, man rather than men. He did not so well know
172
HOMILETICS PROPER.
men. There is, however, considerable variety in his
preaching, and he entered the field of Christian ethics
more boldly than his predecessor; but he was, more than
all, and in spite of all, a true preacher of the gospel.
Abbadie, another French preacher of celebrity, on one
occasion said of him: "It is an angel and not a man who
speaks. Nevertheless Saurin is perhaps a little too
much of an eloquent declaimer built on the plan of a
classic orator, with too abstract and polished a style to
be the highest model of a Christian preacher, who speaks
the language of common life, the language of the Bible,
and of that spiritual truth that reaches both the under-
standing and the hearts of plain men. He dealt too
much in the general, and not enough in the concrete.
He could speak of the avarice of Judas till he thrilled the
souls of his hearers, but it was the effect of the oratcr
rather than the preacher. Still, as a faithful preacher of
evangelical truth, he was, as has been said, superior to
the French Roman Catholic orators.
,,
We usually think of the French pulpit in connection
with the brilliant and world-famous names of the great
Roman Catholic preachers; but there was also a class of
noble French contemporaneous Protestant preachers who
are too often overlooked.
As this is rather a neglected period of French homi-
letical history, we will speak more fully
Reformed
of these Reformed French preachers of
preachers
of the the seventeenth century, selecting one of
Seventeenth the greatest of them (not the most elo-
Century. quent, since Saurin was probably that) as
an illustration.¹
' What follows upon this particular period is in the main derived from
Vinet's "Histoire de la Prédication de l'Église Reformée de France."
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
173
The greatness of Protestantism is one of the principal
features of the greatness of the seventeenth century.
This is true even in France, where Protestantism was
proscribed.
At a later day this could be forgotten; but the con-
temporary Roman Catholic orators, like Bossuet and
Bourdaloue, did not speak but with respect, even if hos-
tilely, of the French Protestant Church and its ministers.
There was at this time in the Protestant Church a num-
ber of great theologians, great controversialists, and above
all great Christians. A part of the strength
Moral and
historical
characteristics
of Catholicism itself in this age must be
imputed to Protestantism. Catholicism had
arrived at that point when all Europe was of this period.
falling into the abyss of impiety; and the
Romish priesthood, so far from restraining was pre-
cipitating it. The Romish Church, by holding to its
traditions instead of preserving anything, only hastened
its own destruction; the progress of light and learning
widened the breach; and had there been no Luther and
Calvin, the papacy would have succumbed under the
thrusts of such merciless foes as Rabelais and Montaigne.
The Reformation was the saving of Christianity, whether
Protestant or Catholic.
The most conspicuous preaching talents, it is true,
were found among the Catholics; but in the main the
Protestant Church was weightier than its rival. The
superiority of one age is not in the marked pre-eminence
of isolated individuals, any more than the prosperity of a
country consists in the wealth of certain men. Catholi-
cism, notwithstanding its great names, had really fewer
able preachers than Protestantism. On the whole, the
reformed preaching of the seventeenth century in France
is remarkable.
174
HOMILETICS PROPER.
But the literary inferiority of the Protestant ministers.
is very evident.
Even before they went into exile they
had the style of exiles; and the reformed
preachers who wrote and spoke in France
were wanting in a fine appreciation of their
own language. One reason of this is that they were
not in such propitious circumstances as their rivals to
form their taste; they were not, as it were, in the focus
of good language, in the light of the court. The Protest-
ant Church was a republic by itself, with its own habits,
tradition, and even language—a language grave and sim-
ple, as was befitting a persecuted church. Its preachers
followed the counsel of D'Aubigné: "Let us make our
style of writing respected." This is better than beauty;
but it must be confessed that beauty was wanting. Bos-
suet said of Calvin, as has already been quoted, Son
style est triste." He could have said the same of most
of the reformed preachers of France. But Calvin is some-
times eloquent, and they are not so always. Their
gravity is bare, stripped of all the flowers of the imagina-
tion; nothing in their situation, nothing in their past or
their future was calculated to enliven their style.
Literary
inferiority.
(C
Another cause of their inferiority is that they were un-
able to avoid controversy and the consequent abuse of
the dogmatic element. Men of combat, they carried into
the pulpit the dust of the arena. Theology, in their ser-
monizing, bore hard on religion, and the practical applica-
tion of their discourses is often slurred over. Doubtless
dogma is the foundation of moral truth; but for all that,
too much of the dogmatic can hardly be reconciled with
much spirituality. It must be also added that the
abounding of the moral element in the whole substance
of preaching is an essential condition of eloquence. In
this respect the Catholics were, perhaps, in a more favor-
1
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
175
able position: they did not have to establish the dogma
anew for their own Church, and as it was for their inter-
est to cause Protestants and their doctrines to be for-
gotten, they avoided theological controversy as much as
possible; having to dogmatize less, they moralized more,
and their whole preaching gained by it.
That which redeems the fault which we have noticed
in Protestant preaching is the purity and solidity of the
doctrinal teaching; it is identical in the
main with that which we call Puritan the-
ology, though differing from it in some re-
spects. The French reformed preachers of the seven-
teenth century laid their foundations solidly; the Eng-
lish Puritans aimed vigorously for immediate results;
the first had more regard to the life and foundations of
the Church; the last aimed more at the salvation of
the individual. One feature which characterized the re-
formed preachers of the seventeenth century, not only
those who remained in the Roman Catholic Church, but
their successors in the Reformation, is their biblical char-
Their sermons are often nothing more than an
extended exegesis of the text; they spell it out, syllable
by syllable, word by word; they press it; they almost
wring it; this is ordinarily all their plan. There is little
invention, but there is a judicious and exact analysis,
though carried to an extreme.
acter.
Doctrinal
teaching.
Their preaching is, however, superior to that of their
successors in regard to its texture, its solidity, its cor-
rectness, and its knowledge. It addressed auditories
difficult to satisfy-auditories of theologians, sometimes
of martyrs. It was "the church in the desert," as it
was aptly called. What force there was needed in the
flocks themselves to support such a style of preaching!
But they doubtless more than supported it; they loved it.
176
HOMILETICS PROPER.
*
For to this height a whole church was elevated. Those
merchants, those artisans, studied their religion with the
greatest care.
In these reformed preachers, notwithstanding their
literary inferiority, a genuine respect for learning is also
apparent, which has been sometimes errone-
ously thought to be incompatible with high
pastoral fidelity. They recognized in learning
a means, a power, and also a fitness. One of them was
deposed solely on account of his culpable ignorance of
good letters. Some of them even carried their cultiva-
tion in this respect farther than would be imagined; thus
Le Faucheur, the most vehement of all, composed "A
Treatise on the Action of the Orator," which is evidently
the fruit of thorough classical studies. These ministers
were, in other respects, among the most intelligent men
of their day; they wished at least to be equal to the best
educated of their congregations.
Respect for
learning.
Through all the differences which separate them from
the Roman Catholics and distinguish them among them-
sclves, a common character is everywhere seen-it is the
French genius, the French style; the direct march, the
method, the clearness. It is not that which makes them
great, but without that they could not be so great.
They all have, also, more or less of what the French call
“l'esprit."
The study of these old preachers not only affords us
an historical interest, but they furnish us also good
models. One may read many of them even
now for
edification, and, excepting their archaic language, he will
find them little touched by age. In the purity and
solidity of their doctrine they have something fresh,
while the preachers who come an age later present in
their sermons a faded foliage and a worn-out doctrine.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
177
The first really appear to us to be younger, and in reality
they were so; they are less antiquated even than the
If they
great models of the Roman Catholic pulpit.
have not, like them, the advantages of form, they have
not the disadvantages; for the form is something tem-
porary, while the substance of truth is eternal.
formed preachers were not fashionable in their day, and
that is partly the reason why they are not superannuated
The oldest of them all, Du Moulin, is he who
appears the youngest.
The re-
now.
What has thus far been said applies essentially to the
preachers of the first half of the seventeenth century.
The literary influence and culture of the succeeding last
half of the century made itself more felt upon their suc-
cessors. The preachers of the first period, which extends
from Du Moulin to Claude, exclusively, is distinguished,
according to Vinet, by three characteristics: 1. The
analytical system of their sermons; 2. The brief place
occupied by the moral element; 3. The almost total
absence of the literary and even oratorical element.
When we come to the second period of the reformed
preaching of the seventeenth century the transition is so
gradual that we could quite as well say
that its greatest preachers, like Claude, for
example, terminate the first period. Yet
one perceives in Claude's sermons the first symptoms of
the homiletical revolution that then took place. Analy-
sis becomes synthesis. It was very much like the history
of preaching in the early centuries. Until that time the
expository method had prevailed-an exposition easy,
and followed ordinarily by a simple expansion of the text.
There was an effort, doubtless, to unite different parts,
and to give them a final direction, but this effort was
not very strenuous. From this to the sermon, ordinarily
The second
period.
178
HOMILETICS PROPER.
so called, which grasps an idea in the text, there is a
great distance filled by intermediate examples. Claude
does not separate himself from the ancient method, he
only modifies it. In this conciliation which was then at-
tempted there was a desire above all to give a faithful,
solid, and detailed explication of the text, but at the
same time to develop an idea which should become the
subject of the discourse. The attempt was difficult, and
was hardly to be accomplished without doing some injury
to that simplicity of attraction which should belong to
the Christian pulpit. The Protestant preachers have not
always avoided the danger of the method that they have
chosen; and they have often been led to wrest either
their mind or their text. This, however, is better than
the method of the Catholic orators, who scorn the text
and do not make use of it.
Another character of the sermons of this second period
is, that controversy occupies a less and less prominent
place. We will now speak more particularly of one great
man as being, perhaps, the best exponent of this period.
Jean Claude was the most eminent French-
man of the Reformed Church of his time;
the Roman Catholics called him "the famous
minister Claude." He was born in 1619 at Sauvetat, in
the Rouergue, where his father was minister. It was
under his father's direction, who was a man of great
knowledge, that he carried on his studies, even those of
theology, although he desired to go to Saumur, where
he was attracted by the polish of manners and language
prevailing there. After his consecration he became pas-
tor of the little church of Sainte Afrique," in the
South, where he could devote a great part of his time to
study. Called to be pastor at Nîsmes in 1654, he also
taught theology there with success.
Jean
Claude.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
179
He presided at the provincial synod of Nismes in 1661,
and there opposed the projects of reunion with the State
Church, which concealed views of direct oppression of
religious freedom. It was desired by the originators of
this plan of union, on the one hand to divide and on the
other to diminish the moral power of a body whose only
Claude declared that the reformers
power was moral.
could not consent to unite light with darkness, Christ
with Belial; and, in spite of the opposition of the royal
committee, he caused this declaration to be. inserted in
the protocol. In consequence of this bold opposition,
He betook
his ministry in Languedoc was interdicted.
himself to Paris to protest, but could not succeed in re-
moving the interdiction.
Then opened to Claude the career of controversy, in
which he rendered such great service to his Church.
Madame de Turenne besought him to refute a manu-
script treatise which had been written for the view of
converting the Maréchal. His reply was widely circulated
before it was printed. His fame dates from that time.
He then refuted the book upon “La Perpetuité de la
foi sur l'Eucharistic," in which Arnauld and Nicolo main-
tained that the dogma of the “real presence” had always
been admitted by Christendom. The Jesuits themselves
labored to spread the reply of Claude, as a weapon
against the Jansenists.
Claude was named minister at Paris in 1666. From
that time his influence was great in the councils of the
reformers. He was the leader and soul of his party. He
was placed in the front rank on all important occasions.
The most celebrated is the conference or controversy that
he held with Bossuet, at the invitation of a relative of
Turenne, Mademoiselle de Duras. It is not easy to dis-
cover who really prevailed; but Bossuet himself said, in
get aff
180
HOMILETICS PROPER.
speaking of Claude, in the preface of his own relation of
the dispute, "He made me tremble for those who heard
him."
At the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685) he was
distinguished in the general proscription. While it al-
lowed to other ministers a delay of fifteen days to leave
the kingdom, Claude was compelled to leave in twenty-
four hours. He was everywhere on his journey over-
whelmed with marks of respect, even on the part of
Catholics. He retired to La Haye, where he continued
to preach, though wholly occupied with other labors.
He died at the end of eighteen months of exile.
Claude, in his style, belonged to that literary epoch
which is called the age of Louis XIV. He has the pure
taste of the great writers of that age, a classic
language, and a horror of false brilliancy.
In a passage from his first discourse on the
"Parable of the Marriage Feast," he ex-
presses his strong aversion to elaborate minuteness in
sermonizing.
Style and
character as
a preacher.
"I will not stop here," he says, "to draw an imperti-
nent parallelism composed of all the points of correspond-
ence that might be discovered between a marriage feast
and the gospel of the Saviour of the world, and much less
will I weary myself to push to excess this figure of the
'marriage feast.' These allegorical and parallelistic
methods, if I dared say so, are generally only bad efforts
or evil, which do not please any one, and more than this,
do not edify any one's conscience."
Claude, while attached as a matter of principle to the
analytic or expository method, still inclines to the syn-
thetic treatment; while he is faithful to the text, and
spells it out, word by word, as did his predecessors, yet
he is not satisfied with following it thus closely; he
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
181
seeks to bind it up in one or two ideas, and to recast it in
the form of a subject; in a word, he has a plan. This
he announces ordinarily at the beginning of his sermon.
Thus, in the second sermon of a series upon the parable
of the wedding (Matt. 22: 1-7), he begins in this wise:
"You have come here, Christians, to learn two important
truths one, the corruption of man deprived of the aid of
grace, and the other, what divine justice does when man
abandons his duty. These are the two points to be
treated. We have to see, first, what the guests did when
the king sent his servants to call them; secondly, we
have to consider what happened to these guests."
says:
Nothing like this is to be observed in any of his prede-
cessors. And in the fifth sermon, more particularly upon
the words, "Many are called, but few are chosen," he
This is, in truth, the conclusion our Lord draws
from the whole of the parable, and this is the reason he
gives why the Jews rejected his gospel, and why among
the Gentiles who received it outwardly, there are found
some who did not bring to his divine banquet the right
dispositions of heart. To treat more distinctly so great
a matter, we divide it into two parts. The first will be
upon the calling and election considered in themselves
what they are; the second will have regard to their ex-
tent according to the limits given them by our text."
In other respects we do not find anything remarkable in
Claude in his analysis of texts and subjects. He has not
much invention, but is judicious and penetrating. What
strikes us in him is his invariable good sense and eleva-
tion and firmness of spirit.
His style is terse, neat, and rapid; each phrase, each
word goes straight to the point, ad eventum festinat.
He is distinguished also generally by an irreproachable
correctness.
182
HOMILETICS PROPER.
"He did not view the public," says the author of his
posthumous works, "with that proud security that we see
in some authors, and he did not think himself so infallible
as to be contented with his first thoughts. His principle
was that he could not reflect enough on what he wrote,
and when it was a question to come before all eyes, he
could not present himself with too much honesty or wis-
dom. This obliged him to revise his works often, and to
retouch them with severity."
As to the quality of imagination, whether it be that
which invents ideas or creates images, he has little of it
but he has vigor and authority. He was naturally stern ;
Benoit rightly calls him "the inflexible Claude," and he
found too many occasions to show his stern inflexibility.
At the epoch of the edict of Nantes the condition of the
Reformed Church was desperate; the Protestant char-
acter was weakened; the whole Church was gradually
sinking into a lethargy; there were many apostasies of
distinguished persons and of the rich.
Such a condition of things inspired Claude to utter
words of terrible severity. These are not commonplaces
either his character, moderate and rather cold than pas-
sionate, as a guaranty that they were not also exaggera-
tions, but a faithful portraiture of the moral condition of
his auditors. In his reproofs he shows an apostolic bold-
ness, without personal asperity, and sometimes rising to
eloquence.
Thus, having spoken of the ruin of the people of Israel
after the death of Jesus Christ, Claude addresses his audi-
ence in these terms: "Let us learn, my brethren, from
this great and terrible example, to know and fear divine
justice; and you, ye profane, be astonished. There is
now no more any question of shifting and cavilling about
the Christian religion; the time has come to tremble at
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
183
the sight of the most fearful object that ever presented
itself to human eye.
When a disbeliever is alone in the
quiet of his chamber, he can philosophize at his ease,
and search out arguments to call in question the plainest
things; but when he is in the open field and sees the tem-
pest burst around him, and the lightning strike tall trees
and burn houses; when he sees the earthquake-fire de-
scend from heaven and leap up from the abyss beneath,
and whole cities swallowed or consumed, then he has
something else to do than to weave subtleties; he is ter-
rified, and feels, in spite of what he has said, the effect
of what he does not wish to believe. And so it is with
us now. If it were only a question of dogmas and mys-
teries, our courageous spirits could raise troubles and
difficulties; but if it is a question of a thunderbolt hurled
from the mightiest hand in the universe; if it is a ques-
tion of an incurable wound, which bleeds and has bled
for seventeen centuries; if it is a question of a fire which
smokes before our eyes and will smoke to the end of the
world, who would not be afraid? I avow that God has
never displayed his judgments in so impressive a manner;
that he has never presented such occasions; that the Son
of God descends once more on earth to be personally
crucified. The ruin of the Jews was a strange event, and
hence Scripture presents it to us as an image of the last
judgment and of the end of the world. But, while
guarding the proportion of things, I say that God does
not leave men's crimes unpunished, and, above all, those
which outrage or bring into contempt his gospel; and if
we would open our eyes to see the ways of his providence,
all the ages and even our own age will furnish us with
remarkable examples. Learn then to fear, and knowing
what is the terror of the Lord, suffer it at least to lead
you to faith.
While God keeps himself hid in the cloud.
184
HOMILETICS PROPER.
of his pity and of his long-suffering, and has, so to speak,
his arms tied, you have no conception of his power, his
anger, or his justice; but know if you overcome his
patience by your obduracy, the victory will cost you
dear. Remember what God said to the wicked in the
fiftieth Psalm, for after having set forth his sins, he adds:
These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; thou
thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself;
but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine
eyes.' It is true that God has placed our evil and our
good, our punishment and our reward, as ideas of the
future; but what St. Paul has said for the consolation of
the just, 'Yet a little while, and he that shall come will
come, and will not tarry,' we can say with stronger rea-
son in order to impress the wicked with terror; if divine
justice lingers, it will come, and will not tarry. In my
opinion, one can say this with more emphasis in regard to
the effects of his justice than of his goodness; for there
is nothing in the wicked but what hastens his justice,
while God's goodness finds in the most just persons a
thousand reasons for delay.
But, one will say, why do you speak thus? We, by
the grace of God, are not wicked, nor profane, nor unbe-
lieving persons; we believe in Jesus Christ, and we have
made profession of his gospel! My brethren, I know
that you profess to be Christians, and if the question
were on condemning the act of the Jews, not one of you
would undertake its defence. I am even persuaded that
if there may be among us many profane and worldly men
who make no account of religion, there are still many
good souls who desire to win salvation; and if this were
not so God would not preserve to us as he has the min-
istry of his word. But do we not make ourselves every
day unworthy of his grace by the great number of sins
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
1S5
that we commit, and by the small account that we make
of his gospel? We are selfish and avaricious, hard and
obstinate, unjust and violent, proud and arrogant, sensual
and given to pleasure, envious, slanderous, malicious,
implacable like all the rest of men; and how can we
boast of our Christianity? It is for this reason that God
has made us for a long time to hear his voice; he exhorts
us, he admonishes us, he presses us, he solicits us, he
chastises us, he bears with us, and still how few are the
fruits that he has yet gathered from so great care? We
have, then, just cause to fear that he will at length be
angry at our negligence and ingratitude, and we have the
more cause to fear in that, notwithstanding some threat-
enings which he has made against us, and which have
already begun to be accomplished, there has been no
amendment seen in our people." It should be remem-
bered that this was spoken in the period of the persecu-
tion of the Huguenots, the revocation of the edict of
Nantes, and the dragonnades of Louis XIV. It was a
painful, perilous, and most solemn period for all who
loved the truth in France.
We have spent upon this preacher and this epoch more
time than was justifiable, and the only excuse is that it
is new and noble ground for study. But there were also
other preachers of marked power in that age, who be-
longed to the Protestant Church, such as Pierre du
Moulin (already mentioned), Mos. Amyraud,
Jean Daillé, Michel le Faucheur, Jean Mes- Protestant
trezat, and Pierre du Bosc. Associated with
Other
French
these in lineal descent were those great preachers.
French preachers of the eighteenth century who were
driven to Holland by the edict of Nantes, of whom
Jacques Saurin, whom we have before noticed, was
one of the most eminent, such as Jean Basnage, Henri
186
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Chatelain, Jacques Abbadie, Pierre Roques, called "Pas-
teur Evangelique." The first mentioned preachers who
remained in France were pastors of the French Protestant
Church in times of its distress and persecution, when it
was "the church in the wilderness." They were, as has
been said, apostolic men, true leaders and counsellors of
the people.
Eminent
French
Roman
Catholic
Bossuet.
The more widely known and celebrated French Roman
Catholic divines are headed by Bossuet, "the eagle of
Meaux." He was born in 1627 and died
1704, being almost the exact contemporary
of Claude. He has not been unjustly com-
pared to Demosthenes, though it must be
preachers said the comparison is one exclusively of
French writers. His sermons abound in
passages of grandeur and force. He caught something of
the sublime style of the Hebrew prophets, who were his
favorite study in youth. Indeed, however falsely he
may have interpreted it, the Bible was the grand source
of his inspiration as a preacher. His six oraisons funè-
bres are full of majesty of tone, and have a breadth and
freedom of style beyond that of other French preach-
He despised the minute and fine-spun styles; but
his faults also were great, having a tendency to stage
effect, or to the false sublime, and to an imperious harsh-
ness and virulence of language. He was jealously at-
tached to the orthodox doctrine, as held by the Catholic
Church, attacking vindictively both the heresies of Lu-
ther and of Fénélon, the latter in the disgraceful contro-
versy on "Quietism." He was devoted to his church
rather than to the simplest and highest objects of preach-
ing; but he was not wanting in faithfulness in boldly
attacking the vices of the corrupt court of Louis XIV.,
resembling Dr. South, who was placed in somewhat
ers.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
187
similar circumstances, in this particular, though the com-
parison cannot be carried farther. He was a learned and
brilliant orator of a brilliant age, but his fame in the
future will never be so great as it was in the past.
Although he was a defender of the rights of Gallicanism,
he was, above all, the indomitable and untiring servant
of the papacy, or, as he called himself, Bos suctus
aratro." He was great from his own point of view.
Whatever else he was or was not, he was the determined
foe of Protestantism, and, with Massillon, Flechier, and
other court chaplains, he hounded on Louis XIV. in his
persecutions of the Huguenots and the reformed churches.
66
Massillon.
Massillon, probably a greater pulpit orator than Bos-
suet, though of a less brilliant style, was moderate and
self-contained, even in his most fervid
utterances; and this noticeable vis tem-
perata" of Massillon is one chief source of his elo-
quence it marks reserved force--a great quality in
preaching. At times Massillon was vehemently im-
petuous. No recorded uninspired sermon ever probably
made a greater immediate impression upon an audience.
than his sermon on "The small Number of the Elect."
It reminds one of the scenes that occurred at the
:
preaching of Jonathan Edwards. When he came to
these words: Withdraw now these four classes of sin-
ners from this congregation, for they will be withdrawn
from it at the great day. Stand forth now, ye righteous!
Where are ye? Remnant of Israel, pass to the right!
Wheat of Jesus Christ, separate yourselves from the chaff
destined for the everlasting burning! Oh, God, where
are thine elect!" hundreds rose up with agitation and
despair painted on their countenances, and the preacher
himself was obliged to stop, overcome with emotion.
Bourdaloue, by some considered the greatest of the
<<
•
188
HOMILETICS PROPER.
I
French preachers, had a dignified and serious style, de-
void of florid ornament, plain, masculine,
and direct. He drew largely from the
fathers of the Church. He was called "Le prédicateur
des rois et le roi des prédicateurs." As one who set his
face against the false taste of the Jesuit pulpit in his
times, and was a reformer of pulpit style, bringing it back
to something of its pristine soberness, reasonableness,
and vigor, Bourdaloue is perhaps our best model among
the great Roman Catholic preachers of his day. He has
indeed been called the founder of modern pulpit elo-
quence among the French.
Bourdaloue.
Fénélon, whose name cannot be mentioned but with
admiration and affection by all who love Christ, united a
polished but easy and natural style with
profound spirituality and unction. The
best mystical theology, that of self-abnegation and
quietism-the theology of Thomas-à-Kempis-was ex-
emplified in the writings and life of Fénélon.
The great modern French preachers, such as the broth-
ers Monod, Coquerel father and son, Lacor-
daire, De Ravignan, Père Hyacinthe, Grand-
pierre, Bersier, De Pressensé, and, above all,
Alexander Vinet, who may be reckoned a
French preacher, though he lived at Lausanne in Switzer-
land, are more familiar to us by name, though their sermons
perhaps may be as unfamiliar to us as those of the older
classic French preachers. The French are almost uni-
versally memoriter preachers, taking great pains to com-
mit their sermons, and to speak them with grace, fluency,
and fervor. Though often characterized by great spiritual
fervor and dévouement, they confessedly aim at pulpit
eloquence. They are, in a word, more complete classic
orators than the German or English preachers, but with-
Fénélon.
Modern
French
preachers.
-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
129
out the powerful individuality and depth of the preach-
ers of the Teutonic race.
The English or British pulpit is excelled by none in
great names. It is robust, practical, sober, direct;
though not without its highly speculative
and mystical side, as seen in the group of
English Platonic divines of the Puritan pe-
riod like Nathaniel Culverwell, Ralph Cudworth, Henry
More, ending, or perhaps degenerating into English
Böhmenism and Quakerism, but comprehending some of
the most lofty and spiritual minds of the age. English
preaching really began with Wyclif, who sowed the fire-
seed of earnest evangelical preaching which sprang up
two centuries after him, though its greatest representa-
tives lived in the seventeenth century, which was the
golden age of the English pulpit, when the
Puritan strength and fervor, caught from
communion with the Holy Spirit, were still
unadulterated. Even in the latter portion of the pre-
vious century, during the fires of the Reformation in
Elizabeth's reign, the emancipation of the English mind
showed itself in the new vigor and spiritual freedom of
the pulpit; and many devoted preachers of the pure gos-
pel, like John Rogers, Henry Smith, Bernard Gilpin,
were precursors of the more learned and eloquent of the
Puritan divines of the next reigns, whose preaching was
massive in philosophic thought, with a hard rind of contro-
versial theology, but informed and instinct in every part
with spiritual light and living energy-the age of John
Howe, Baxter, Flavel, Calamy, Owen, Bates, Charnock,
and their powerful compeers of the Church party, Hook-
er, Donne, Bishop Hall, South, Barrow, Jeremy Taylor,
Leighton. Hooker and Donne, it is true, belong also to
a somewhat earlier period, and they possess much of the
British
pulpit.
Its Golden
Age.
190
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Hooker.
richness and power of the wonderful Elizabethan age of
intellectual development. Old Fuller says of Hooker:
'Mr. Hooker, his voice was low, stature
little, gesture none at all, standing stone
still in the pulpit as if the posture of his body were the
emblem of his mind, immovable in his opinions. Where
his eye was left fixed at the beginning it was found
fixed at the end of his sermon; in a word, the doc-
trine he delivered had nothing but itself to garnish it.
His style was long and pithy, driving on a whole flock
of several clauses before he came to the close of a
sentence. So that, when the copiousness of his style
met not with a proportionable capacity in his auditors,
it was unjustly censured for perplext, tedious, and ob-
His sermons followed the inclination of his
studies, and were for the most part on controversies and
deep points of school divinity.
scure.
In the other great preachers of this period there was a
rich play of the imagination, and often true eloquence;
perhaps there are no passages of more rare and wonderful
eloquence to be found in the sermons of any
preacher than in those of Dr. Donne; but
they are "purple patches" interwoven with a vast deal
that is rhapsodical and feeble. Charnock is especially
vigorous and masculine; he is also perspicuous and often
profound.
Donne.
<<
South.
Of English sermonizers, whether of the older or the
more modern school, Robert South is to be particularly
noticed. He was born in 1633, and in 1651
became a student of Christchurch, Oxford,
obtaining the honor of University orator. After the
Restoration he was made Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles
II., and continued to be a staunch loyalist and unflinch-
ing and bigoted supporter of the English prelacy in
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
191
opposition to the Presbyterians and Puritans. He died
in 1716. He belonged to the last half of the seventeenth
century-to the stormy period of the English revolution,
and of the conflict between the kingly and popular
powers. It was the age of great men-of Cromwell,
Milton, Bacon, Locke, Fuller, Cudworth, Stillingfleet.
Owen, Howe, Baxter, Bunyan, Barrow, Taylor. South
did not at all like the stricter Puritan school of preachers,
and there is little of real spirituality in his sermons; but
he is nevertheless a great ethical writer, not a dry dialec-
tician, but ever keeping his feet on the facts of nature and
experience. He lashes vice and the vice of his age with all
the power of his unsparing wit and sarcasm. In the loose
age of Charles II., Rochester, and Dryden, he stood
boldly upon the rock of good morals. In thought he is
powerful but irregular, being influenced in this respect
by his passions, and resembling a volcano rather than a
fruit-bearing mountain. He was a thoroughbred po-
lemic, giving and taking blows without mercy.
As a
preacher few have excelled him in vigor of language, and
as the master of a trenchant and forcible English style.
Though rarely sublime, he is often eloquent. He is an
excellent model of a sermonizer. His sermons always
possess a distinct and indeed strongly marked logical
plan, and his treatment of subjects is of the most thorough
as well as copious kind. (See sermon on "Image of God
in Man.") There is always a body of substantial and
solid reasoning in his discourses. But he is greater as a
sermon-maker than as a genuine preacher of the gospel.
He had more grit than grace. He had a serviceable and
business-like, strong and picturesque style. There is
often a homely force about it which is better than all the
graces of rhetoric. He speaks of the gospel's "setting
fallen man on his legs again." Discoursing of sceptics.
192
HOMILETICS PROPER.
<<
he says,
Or can they imagine that the law of God will
be baffled with a lie clothed in a scoff?" He exclaims,
Creation bends and cracks under the wrath of God.
One cannot open South without finding some strong
meat. He is not one of those who is the servant of his
language, but language is his servant. He understood
the power of the English language as well, perhaps, as
any prose writer of English. He was quick at resem-
blances and objects of fresh illustration. His wit was pun-
gent. He speaks of the peril of the modern infidel's be-
coming like the ancient idolater, in these words:" That
he should at length come to fawn upon his own dog;
bow himself before a cat; adore leeks and garlic, and
shed penitential tears at the smell of a deified onion."
He preached out of his intense convictions, whether
right or wrong, but he was strongly biassed by his preju-
dices, and is a noticeable example of a partisan or political
preacher in the bad sense of the term. Nothing was so
black as his opposers, nothing so white as his own party.
He is more than usually virulent in his assaults upon
Puritan worship and extemporaneous prayer; and he
says of the Established Church of England that it is
"the purest and most apostolically reformed church in
the Christian world." He preached absolute subjec-
tion to princes and the divine right of kings; he calls
Charles I. "a blessed saint, the justness of whose govern-
ment left his subjects at a loss for an occasion to rebel; a
father to his country, if but for this only that he was the
father of such a son. He says there is but one prayer
which is omitted in the English prayer-book, and that
is that "the Book of Common Prayer should be the
book of worship used in the whole world from that time
and forever !"
But as the writer of an every-day nervous English style,
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
193
without false sentiment and false ornament, virile,
direct, clear, incisive, and practical, we know no better
model for the orator, whether at the bar or in the pulpit.
If his fervor at times is earthly, and his eloquence
Demosthenean rather than Pauline, this is the fault of
the man more than of the style, for that has genu-
ine individuality. It is hard for us to regard him with
entire approbation or patience because he is so bigoted a
foe of free government and a free church; but take him
aside from his political prejudices, and we will find him
to be a great moral reasoner and also a powerful apologist
for the main doctrinal truths of Christianity in a highly
infidelic and scoffing age.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review says of South: "His
sermons are well worthy of frequent perusal by every
young preacher." He is not so wordy and epithetic as
Barrow, is more pointed than Howe, and is more prac-
tical and has better command of the imagination than
Jeremy Taylor. He is also clearer in arrangement and
freer from classicisms of style than are his eminent con-
temporaries. While there is a great mass of valuable
matter, ethical and theological, in his sermons, he is
chiefly to be studied for his incomparable English. His
chief fault of style, perhaps, is his too frequent use of
antithesis, which comes from his keen and uncontrollable
wit. He is ever more interested in state religion than in
the religion of the New Testament, and his works form
a treasury of prelatical arguments; but, as has been
said, when not pursued by this ecclesiastical demon he is
an earnest preacher on moral and religious subjects.
Isaac Barrow was also a distinguished master of the
moral-descriptive style of preaching, but Barrow.
his language does not compare with South's
for condensed vigor, and it is overloaded with adjec-
194
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Barrow
tives and qualificatives even to verboseness.
is also lengthy in his treatment of a subject. He has
"the gift of continuousness." His sermons are in fact
treatises on Christian themes and the Christian virtues,
some of them being continuations of the same subject
through five or six discourses, as his sermons on "Obedi-
ence to Spiritual Guides." They are better fitted in their
present shape for reading in the study than for delivery
from the pulpit, and they were felt to be so sometimes
by the audiences of his day. Yet they have some marked
qualities of power.
Jeremy Taylor.
Jeremy Taylor cannot be judged of superficially; for
he is like a mountain or a whole terrestrial region bearing
all manner of fruits. He affords illustrations
of all kinds of style, of the best and the
worst. There is sometimes a lack of the pure gospel in
them; but his sermons and writings, as examples of what
Taine calls" the period of the Christian Renaissance in
literature, are vast treasures of religious thought and
even theology, though his works are better adapted for
private meditation than for imitation in the pulpit. As
one writer has said of him, "He is a preacher who comes.
in state to the soul"-not the best kind of preacher for all
souls. To read him is like looking into a gorgeous sun-
set; there is often a vagueness in the ideas, but it is a
glorious illumination of the earth and heavens, an in-
describable magnificence of imagery, through which his
imagination shines like the sun ere it sinks into the
ocean. He might have been born in the Orient and.
reared in a “garden of spices;" nor would David and
David's royal son have despised his companionship, nor
failed to acknowledge the kinship of his genius.
1000
But let us speak of him more circumstantially. Jeremy
Taylor, son of a Cambridge barber, was born in 1613.
Gaby
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
195
,,
>> <<
He entered Cambridge University when but a boy of
thirteen, went through a brilliant seven years' course as
a student, and at the age of twenty-one was admitted to
holy orders. His precocious genius attracted the atten-
tion of Archbishop Laud, and obtained for him early
preferment in the Church. His first publication was a
defence of the Church under the title "Episcopacy As-
serted." During the reign of Parliament he retired from
public life and taught school, and also wrote many of his
greatest works, such as "The Liberty of Prophesying,'
the "Life of Christ," "The Rule and Exercises of Holy
Living, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying," and
his famous " Doctor Dubitantium; or, The Rule of Con-
science in all her General Measures." He was made
Bishop of Down and Connor in 1660, and died in 1667.
His character is hard to analyze, and combines the rarest
excellences with some marked defects. He uttered the
profoundest as well as the most baseless things. He has
risen to the sublimest heights of the imagination, and
has given specimens also of decided bombast. As a rea-
soner he is at times remarkably clear, close, and cogent ;
but at other times his imagination swayed his reason,
and his figurative language led him into ambiguities of
expression which seemed almost to amount to moral
ambiguities. He often admits weak arguments, and
mixes sound and unsound arguments, and thus impairs
the strength of his reasoning; but take him for all in all
he was the most learned and brilliant, if not the most
evangelical divine of his times, and almost of any time.
He had both compass and subtlety of mind; his theology
was practical; and as a moral reasoner he was, as a gen-
eral rule, sound and strong, because, without question, he
heartily loved truth and was a thoroughly good man, with
a Christian spirit. He painted virtue and vice in their
195
HOMILETICS PROPER.
beauty and deformity. But his regal imagination is his
great glory as a writer, and in this he stands unsur-
passed. There is no subject, not even the driest point
of casuistry, that he does not adorn with grace and
luxuriant imagery. His learning that ransacked antiq-
uity did not seem for a moment to dampen the fire and
splendor of his imagination. He loves ornament abso-
lutely for ornament's sake, or because he is a poet in love
with beauty. He plays with his fancies as if they were
his children. His tropes run into metaphors, his meta-
phors into similes, his similes into apologues and allego-
ries. His writing is like one broad "field of the cloth
of gold." While thus his imagination is not oratorical
but poetical, and to the utmost diffuse, his sermons, of
which there are sixty-four, are notwithstanding the finest
of his works-most full of thought and eloquence, of sound
theology and beautiful Christian spirit. Yet he was too
gentle, calm, and meditative for the greatest style of
preacher, and lacked energy, earnestness, and directness.
He is also somewhat vague in his devotional writings, and
he does not bring forward with sufficient clearness the
distinctive doctrines of the gospel. He is more practical,
however, than metaphysical in his theology, and his
views on religious toleration (which were not always car-
ried out in his acts) were broad, and suited to any times.
He was inclined to Pelagian and latitudinarian views;
and there is, perhaps, although his sermons are pervaded
by a Christian spirit, too little of the element of Christ
as Intercessor, as the atoning Redeemer of men. He
rests much on natural theology, and on arguments such
as Cicero or Plato might have used. Indeed he is some-
times ranked with the school of the Cambridge Platonists,
or mystics, of the seventeenth century.
In his use of language he is inclined to employ words
-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
197
C
derived from the Greek and Latin, and also in their
original senses, as contortion" for bruise, "excellent''
for exceeding, as "excellent pain." His style, beyond
even the custom of his day, is studded with classical allu-
sions and quotations. In the structure of his sentences,
though they are long and complex, they are generally
clear, the clauses being joined together by a simple con-
junctive. He makes use of language with a masterly
power, owning no rule but the exigency of his own fertile
thought and brilliant imagination. He should be studied
mainly as one of the great masters of English literature,
and in this regard should be approached not in a flippant
and critical but reverent spirit. His study is particularly
useful to the preacher and student of theology on account
of the unstinted richness of his thought and copiousness
of his language upon religious themes; and also for his
liturgical or devotional thought, in which, as on an eagle's
wings, he soars past common bounds into the highest
empyrean of praise and adoration.
Let no common preacher attempt to imitate Jeremy
Taylor in his imagination, for too much ornament, de-
spite its richness, makes a cold style. But a preacher's
imagination, if he have any, may be touched and set on
fire by the exceeding brilliancy of this poet-preacher of
old England's greatest period of great divines.
Of the Presbyterian and Puritan divines of this same
epoch the most celebrated are John Bunyan, Richard
Baxter, John Owen, and John Howe. We
will say a few words of Howe, Baxter, and
Bunyan, the three decidedly the superior in
original genius; for Owen, though learned and weighty
as a writer, was, as a preacher, prolix and ponderous.
He lacked the ethereal fire.
John Howe was born in 1630, and died in 1706. He
Puritan di-
vines.
198
HOMILETICS PROPER.
studied both at Cambridge and Oxford, and in 1656 he
was appointed domestic chaplain to Crom-
John Howe.
well. Under the "Act of Uniformity" he
was ejected from his parish at Torrington, and wandered
about preaching here and there until he found a home in
Ireland, where he wrote his greatest work, "The Good
Man the Living Temple of God." He afterward became
the pastor of a dissenting church in London. He trav-
elled on the continent, and resided for a time at Utrecht
in Holland. At the "Declaration of the Liberty of Con-
science" in England, he headed the deputation of dis-
senting ministers in their address to the throne.
He was perhaps greater as a theologian than as a
preacher; but as his theology was originally, for the
most part, presented in the form of sermons, and those
gathered up into treatises, he takes his rank as one of
the great theological preachers of his age. English the-
ology at this day, it might be said with little qualifica-
tion, owes more to John Howe than to any other Eng-
lishman. When very young he drew up a book of divinity
for his own use. His writings as well as his sermons are
characterized by a lofty eminence of thought, broad views
of the divine nature, and great spirituality. He disliked
exclusiveness in religion, and could not be, even in the
controversial times in which he lived, a sectarian. He
strove for union among Protestants of all names. His ser-
mons are long, scholastic in form, dwelling with prolixity
on the explanation of terms before coming to the subject,
and abounding in learned and Latin phrases; but still
for his times they were full of life, freedom, and power;
and as has been said, "The better times of the Church
will be marked by an increasing appreciation of John
Howe's writings.
His sermons are sometimes more like contemplations of
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
199
divine truth than homilies; in which there are thoughts
marked by intellectual force and majesty, and a certain
ravishing sublimity. He delighted in dwelling on the
being, nature, and attributes of God, and the image of
God in man, so that from his profound ideality and
spirituality of conception he has sometimes been termed
the "Platonic Puritan." His sermons form in themselves
a “body of divinity ;" and the preacher, especially if he
be one who desires to be grounded in the deepest ideas
of a theological science which is at the same time imbued
with the purest influence of the word and spirit of God,
cannot afford to be unacquainted with the writings of
John Howe. Howe must not, however, be thought
of wholly as a theologian or theological preacher; he
was also plain in the rebuke of sin, and practical in
his views of Christian morality. He says, in one of
his discourses, "A miracle may strike a little wonder
at first, but good morality (i.e. a holy conversation) it
sinks, it soaks to the heart." One of his finest and most
moving discourses is that entitled "The Redeemer's
Tears."
Richard Baxter was born in 1615 and died in 1692, his
life embracing a controversial period of history. He was
ordained at the age of twenty-three, and be-
came in 1640 the parish clergyman of Kid-
derminster, where he not only won a high
position as a preacher, but was the instrument of relig-
ious reformation. On the breaking out of the civil war,
though a strong monarchist he was also a strong Puritan,
and he exerted a conservative influence during all that
troublous time on both parties. He was, however, out-
spoken in his opinions, and at length, by the "Act of
Uniformity," was driven from the English Church, so
that the latter part of his life was chiefly spent in the
Richard
Baxter.
200
HOMILETICS PROPER.
writing of those works which have made his name famous.
He was a voluminous author, the total number of his
publications exceeding one hundred and sixty; and of
them Isaac Barrow said that "his practical writings were
never mended, and his controversial seldom refuted."
Of all these works none are more profitable in a homi-
letical point of view than his "Reformed Pastor;" and
in a spiritual point of view than his "Saint's Ever-
lasting Rest." His published sermons are now mostly
in the form of tractates or treatises, as
As a preacher.
those of John Howe. Of preaching Bax-
ter himself said: "It must be serious preaching which
will make men serious in hearing and obeying it ;" and
the spirit of this remark characterized his preaching
throughout. He was a solemn and searching preacher,
addressing the conscience in a way that might be justly
termed "blood-earnestness." Sentences like the follow-
ing frequently occur in his sermons: "O thou carcass,
when thou hast lain, rotted, and mouldered to dust till the
resurrection, God will then call thee to account for thy
sin, and cast thee into everlasting fire before you can be
made to feel." But it is said of him that while in his
youth he preached of repentance, of sin, and of everlasting
wrath, in his old age he preached of the love of God and
of Christian charity, and his sermons became almost like
hymns of the praise of God.
But he is especially powerful in appeal, using the great-
est plainness of speech, and calling men sottish, senseless,
stupid, carnal; yet as he was animated by the love
of men, and as his accents breathed of the pure influ-
ence of the Holy Spirit, and often were touched by a
celestial fire, he was able to be plain even to severity.
He labored for the meanest and poorest as well as the
greatest of his flock. He studied the temper of men's
M
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
201
minds, and as a pastor and preacher he tried men's
spirits with rare penetration and faithfulness.
He had a certain noble negligence of style, and much
copiousness of expression, though with no affected elo-
quence or rhetoric.
His preaching was, indeed, without ornament, though
Baxter had a vein of poetry in his nature. In his younger
days his sermons were of a highly argumentative and
theological cast; afterward he relied more on simple fact,
Scripture, and experience. In truth his sermons form a
rare union of reasons and motives. His style was plain,
natural, and clear; and, as he said, "My intellect
abhorreth confusion.” He also abhorred all affectations
of style, and sought to preach simply, by manifestation
of the truth commending himself to men's consciences.
He labored to save souls. All his powers he threw into
that object, and his language often reached the extreme
of earnestness and passion. He cried out, "O that
heaven and hell should work no more on men! O that
everlastingness should work no more!" Baxter showed
the martyr-spirit, even where he may have erred some-
times in his opinions. He steadfastly upheld his princi-
ples, both in the presence of Charles II. and of Cromwell,
suffering persecution for conscience' sake; and he was in
advance of his times in principles of Christian toleration
and communion. Baxter spoke once of his own style of
preaching and writing in this wise: "Though I have
had my part of all these means (that is, of books and
learning), yet being parted five years from my books and
three years from my preaching, the effects may be seen.
You must expect neither quotations or oratorical testi-
mony, or ornaments of style; but not yet having wholly
ceased from writing, I may own so much of the exactness
(of good style) as will allow me to entreat the readers not
202
HOMILETICS PROPER.
to use me as many have done, who by overlooking some
one word have made the sense another thing, and have
made it a crime to be exact in writing, because they can-
not or will not be exact in reading, or charitable or
humane in interpreting.' His sermons, like those of his
times, are long, and elaborately planned, with many divi-
sions and subdivisions.
<
,,
It would not do to leave this mention of the great Puri-
tan divines without a passing allusion at least to perhaps
a greater than them all-viewed as a man of genius-
simple John Bunyan, who once upon a time had a
dream that opened deeper into things.
John Bunyan.
divine than many a prophet's vision. John
Bunyan is commonly looked upon as the author of "Pil-
grim's Progress," and that is all that is known of him.
It were indeed enough to have been the author of a
book which Longfellow calls “the English Divina Com-
media," and of which it has been said, "It is supposed
that no other book, except the Bible, has gone through
so many editions and attained to so wide a popularity in
all languages, as the Pilgrim's Progress. But Bunyan
was also a preacher endowed with special gifts and power.
He was born in 1628, the son of a tinker, and was
brought up to that humble occupation. The opinion
which has commonly prevailed, that he was a profligate
youth, and which rests mainly upon some of his passion-
ate self-accusations, is not now believed to be true in the
sense of an outwardly licentious life. He had temptations
and profane thoughts, and fightings with Satan as did Lu-
ther; but that his conversion awaked his whole higher na-
ture, intellectual as well as spiritual, to a remarkable de-
gree of activity, and made a new man of him, there is little
doubt. He served in the Parliamentary army for a while,
and then became a preacher in a Baptist church at Bed-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
203
ford. He was silenced, and then imprisoned in Bedford
Jail under the act passed against conventicles. During
the twelve years of his imprisonment he wrote " Pilgrim's
Progress. On his release he again became a preacher,
itinerating until settled again in Bedford, and continuing
in that calling until his death in 1688.
In his preparation for preaching his only teacher
seemed to have been the Holy Ghost through the instru-
mentality of the Scriptures, so that his preaching was
both scriptural and spiritual. His very imagination,
which was that of a man of the highest creative genius,
worked through the imagery and the language of the
sacred writings. His preaching was what might be
termed, almost more than that of any other modern
preacher, inspirational preaching, or prophesying, in the
New Testament sense of the word. He did not care
to meddle much with things controverted, or with specu-
lative theology, but spoke directly to the spiritual na-
ture. His preaching seems to have been characterized
by four things in especial: 1. Faithfulness to the con-
science. His sermons had an awakening power to
the sinfully dead conscience, like that of the prophets,
as is especially seen in his famous "Jerusalem ser-
mon." His Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sin-
ners" is much in the style of his ordinary preaching.
He said of his own preaching : “I did labor to preach the
word so that thereby, if it were possible, the sin and the
guilty person might be particularized by it." He roused
the impenitent man to a lively sense of personal respon-
sibility. 2. Intense solicitude to win souls. "I thank
God," he said, “that my heart hath often, all the time of
this exercise, cried to God with great earnestness, that he
would make the word effectual to the salvation of souls."
Bunyan, like Baxter, is one of those not common in
204
HOMILETICS PROPER.
the long bead-roll of great preachers, whose whole aim
seemed to be to save the souls of men from the grasp and
curse of sin by the power of the gospel. He had no other
object set before him than this. 3. Strong faith in the
power of the gospel. "I have been in my preaching,"
he writes, "especially when I have been engaged in the
doctrine and life of Christ, in that work, as if an angel of
God had stood at my back to encourage me; oh, it hath
been with such power and heavenly evidence upon my
own soul, while I have been laboring to unfold it, to
demonstrate it, to fasten it upon the consciences of others
--that I could not be contented with saying 'I believe
and am sure'-methought I was more than sure that
these things which I then asserted were true."
4. His
preaching was accompanied with earnest heart strivings
and prayer. He says: "I have observed that when I had a
work to do for good, I have had first, as it were, a going
to God upon my spirit, to desire I might preach there. I
have also observed that such and such souls, in particu-
lar, have been strongly set upon my heart, so I was stirred
up to work for their salvation; and that these very souls
have, after this, been given as the fruits of my ministry.'
Again: "I have observed that a word cast in by the bye
hath done more execution in a sermon than all that was
spoken besides.
Bunyan's view of preaching had a charm for the poor.
There was often something of the same limpid quality of
style that is to be seen in his "Pilgrim's Progress;" but
it was no longer a vision, a dream, but it had the power,
and sometimes the terrible power, of a living word, cast
like a thunderbolt upon the sleeping conscience.
In the following, or eighteenth century, although
preaching in England was characterized by less of
richness, originality, and spontaneity than in the for-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
205
mer century of great divines, there were, notwithstand-
ing their deficiencies in scholarly breadth
English
century.
of view, some effective and faithful preach-
ers, who preserved the spiritual tone of preachers of
the eighteenth
the English pulpit; such men as John New-
ton, Thomas Scott, Drs. Watts and Dod-
dridge, Cecil, Charles Simeon, John Wesley, and George
Whitefield. These last two (of whom we shall speak
more particularly soon) stirred the stagnant atmosphere
far beyond any power of mere human eloquence, and
their influence is felt to this day in England, America,
and the world. Whitefield was an accomplished rhetori-
cian and finished pulpit orator, but it was his intense
earnestness, his desire to save men, his power of emotion
and sympathy, his plain, pointed, rousing appeals to the
heart and conscience, rather than his intellectual force or
weight of thought, which constituted his real power.
There was also, in this age, a school of sound, intel-
lectual, and philosophic though somewhat cold preachers,
represented by such men as Cudworth (be-
longing to a little earlier period), Til-
lotson, Stillingfleet, Lloyd, Secker, Bishop
Butler (the last the prince of reasoners); and these were
followed by another school (their lineal successors) of
still more polished but less earnest preachers, represented
by Clarke, Sherlock, Atterbury, Blair, Paley, and men
of that class, who might be characterized
as the "moral-essay" period of English
preaching-correct, elegant, and (spiritually
speaking) shallow. These eighteenth-century divines
represented, on the whole, a period of dulness, or rather
superficiality in the pulpit.
Dr. Samuel Clarke was the exponent of a theology
that, while it embodied some of the better thinking and
-
Philosophical
preachers.
Moral-essay
preachers.
206
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Dr. Clarke.
Atterbury.
Blair.
even higher philosophy of the time, and was serviceable
as an antidote to infidelity, was nevertheless
a frigid system of reasoning, pretty much
on a plane with the Cartesian philosophy that then pre-
vailed, and seemed to have little conception of the pro-
founder spiritual character of Christian faith. Dean
Sherlock was the best of this class of preach-
ers, and he sometimes rose to something like
eloquence. Sherlock's sermons are worthy
of study for their clear method and their finished style, but
they lack the Pauline elements of preaching. Atterbury,
too, Bishop of Rochester, attracted the at-
tention of Pope and Swift by the controver-
sial liveliness of his pulpit style, yet there is not much in
his sermons that shows that he really understood what
the gospel is. It was a time of the winter of
faith, and Blair, barren and utterly common-
place as his sermons were, attracted more attention than
he deserved, from the fact that there seemed to be the
faintest reflection of evangelical truth playing about the
surface of his smooth and graceful pulpit-essays. Indeed,
at the time of the rise of the Methodist Reformation
there were but few earnest and evangelical preachers in
all England. It was a time not only when “dulness was
sacred in a sound divine," but when sound divines were
rare. It is related of the celebrated Blackstone, in the
early part of the reign of George III., that he went dili-
gently through the churches of London, and declared
that "he did not hear a single discourse which had more
Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero, and that it
would have been impossible for him to discover, from
what he heard, whether the preacher was a follower of
Confucius, of Mohammed, or of Christ."
We spoke of the rise of the great Methodist move-
Dean
Sherlock.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
207
ment; and this remark should not go by without our
dwelling, more particularly than has been done, upon the
two prime leaders, under God, of that wonderful move-
ment, who were themselves remarkable preachers, and
who illustrate some important, perhaps the most im-
portant, qualities of preaching-Wesley and White-
field.
John Wesley was born in 1703 and died in 1791, hav-
ing reached the age of eighty-eight years.
This magnifi-
cent patriarchal life was rounded out and
filled with great activities and great im- John Wesley.
pulses, that made him a kind of "father of
the faithful” of a multitudinous family of disciples, who
have spread over English-speaking lands, and, in fact,
over the world. The Oxford student life of Wesley
formed the beginning of his religious career, which is said
to have received its first impulse, instrumentally, from
his intercourse with John Law, the author of the
"Serious Call." He also early felt the influence of the
principles of the Moravian brotherhood, especially in
their evangelizing or missionary zeal. But he was him-
self a spiritual reformer who sprang out of the depths of
religious declension in England and the English Church.
He did not, certainly at first, perhaps never, intend to
be the founder of a sect which should separate itself from
the English Established Church; but as he was not re-
ceived and recognized by that church he of necessity came
out of it—that is, essentially if not formally, as did the Pu-
ritans in the previous century. In 1740 the breach be-
tween Wesley and Whitefield occurred which divided the
Methodist Church into two parties, the Arminian and
Calvinistic; but Wesley continued to be the head and
soul of the body, above all in England, so that one writer
has said of him: "Probably no man ever exerted so great
208
HOMILETICS PROPER.
J
an influence on the general religious condition of the
people of England as John Wesley."
Wesley was absolute monarch in his own realm, and.
out of his organizing mind he moulded almost every feat-
ure, form, and principle of the great militant body that
recognizes him as its earthly spiritual chief. He had an
energy that was both indefatigable and systematic. He
had the governing element joined at the same time with
an unceasing diligence and attention to detail—the organ-
izing principle which went to the minutest particulars.
It is Wesley's "discipline" which has stamped the
peculiar name and spirit upon what is termed Method-
ism, or the Methodist Church. With his genius for
order he built up a system of religious rules, and a sys-
tem or society of religious discipleship that equals, and
surpasses in its merely outward features and organization,
Loyola's famous "Society of Jesus," while it has in-
finitely more of the spirit of the gospel of Jesus. But his
great secret of success was his desire to save the souls of
men, and the doctrine of individual accountability which
he revived in its primitive force in the minds of men
deadened by form and worldliness. It was, in the words
of Isaac Taylor, the awakening sense of an immortal
and guilty spirit coming into the presence of eternal jus-
tice." He spoke in plain, pungent, rousing language to
the sleeping conscience. He addressed it without cir-
cumlocution or apology—as he said on one occasion:
"We are poor and suffering because you impiously refuse
to help. Ye are the men, some of the chief men, who
continually grieve the Holy Spirit, and in a great measure
stop his gracious influences from descending upon our
assemblies."
(
Wesley had not, strictly speaking, a philosophical
mind, or a mind of the most profoundly comprehensive
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
209
grasp; but he had a powerful instinct of divine truth, an
energy of intuitive reason in religious things, and a wonder-
fully practical style of didactic address. He was intended,
in every fibre of his being, for a reformer, more perhaps.
than for the founder of a broad apostolic church; indeed,
no man is equal to this, and in this we have no Master
and Teacher other than Christ. But while Wesley had
his acknowledged faults of over-regulating, of over-organ-
izing, of dogmatism, yet he led the Church of Christ out of
the captivity and the barren desert into a new region of
spiritual life and action. He too was a spiritual preacher
who sought for the conversion of men to Christ, and
his kingdom of faith. He preached, with the earnest-
ness of intense conviction, the full, free, and sovereign
grace of God in the salvation of every soul that would
trust itself to it for eternal life. He blew again the gos-
pel trumpet and rallied the hosts of God to hope and
faith and a new life. His style of preaching was clear and
flowing, and more calm and orderly than that of White-
field. He was a man of logical and literary culture, and
did not despise learning. His agreeable manners, unas-
suming dignity and authority, and his saintly simplicity
of life aided his power as a preacher. He had also apos-
tolic courage which defied the shouts, threats, and blows
of infuriated mobs; and before he called men to lead a
life of sacrifice he had himself given his own life to
Jesus Christ by an entire self-surrender.
Wesley's sermons are short, pithy, clearly-arranged,
pointed, and very plain in style. Among his best ser-
mons, though by no means the best, are "The Great
Assize," Rom. 14: 10: "We shall all stand before the
judgment-seat of Christ"; The Marks of the New
Birth," John 3:8:"So is every one that is born of the
Spirit"; "Free Grace," Rom. 8: 32: "He that spared
""
210
HOMILETICS PROPer.
"(
not his own son," etc.; "A Call to Backsliders," Ps.
77:7, 8: Will the Lord cast off forever? and will he
be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever?
Doth his promise fail forevermore ?" The character of his
sermons could not be better given than in his own words
in the introduction to his published discourses. You there
read the man and his philosophy of preaching the gospel.
George Whitefield was eleven years younger than Wes-
ley, and was born in 1714, and died in Newburyport,
Mass., in 1770, twenty years before the
death of Wesley. He was attracted, while
a student at Oxford, by the peculiar re-
ligious system which afterward developed itself into
Methodism, and that had been originated by the Wes-
leys a few years before. He became a preacher and was
admitted to holy orders at the age of twenty-one, led to
it both by his elocutionary gifts and his earnest religious
convictions, delivering his first sermon with great effect
in Gloucester cathedral. It is even said that "persons
were driven mad with fear under his impassioned
oratory." He soon commenced that career of revival
preaching which swept over England and America like
the sword of a destroying angel-destroying to heal.
George
Whitefield.
64
A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name
Blown about on the wings of fame ;
Now as an angel of blessing classed,
And now as a mad enthusiast.
Called in his youth to sound and gauge
The moral lapse of his race and age,
And, sharp as truth, the contrast draw
Of human frailty and perfect law;
Possessed by the one dread thought that lent
Its goad to his fiery temperament,
Up and down the world he went,
1
A John the Baptist crying-Repent!'' '
1 Whittier's Poems. Fields & Osgood's ed., 1869, v. ii. p. 390.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
211
All kinds of men were moved by him; the distinc-
tions of class were forgotten; and though intellectual
men like Bolingbroke and Franklin saw his inferiority
in some of the rarer qualities of the intellect, yet
they all acknowledged him to be a true ambassador
of God. Whitefield is generally held to have been
a preacher who spoke to the feelings almost exclu-
sively, and whose great power consisted in his emo-
tional style of address. This is partly true, but it does
not go deep enough, and may do injustice to White-
field as a preacher. His power consisted of something
more than ephemeral feeling-it was the earnestness of
a heart-conviction that sinners were perishing, and that
the gospel alone could help them. It was a burning
passion for souls that consumed him, and gave him as
a preacher that spirituality, that solemnity, vehemence,
and pathos, that awakening and convicting force, that
made him even greater than Wesley or most other preach-
ers in his immediate influence over the souls of men. If
he now and then gave way to his emotions and wept in
the pulpit, this was a true emotion, and it was as true to
the laws of mind as was Wesley's logic. He himself felt
with overwhelming consciousness the truth of what he
spoke, which is a familiar canon of eloquence. This con-
ceptual faculty as related to the objects of spiritual life,
this power of bodying forth in vivid form the eternal
world, this spiritual and creative attribute of the imagi-
nation-gave Whitefield a freshness and vigor of style
which never lost its hold upon men's minds.
He was
an indefatigable laborer. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean
seven times, the last in his fifty-fifth year, and he always
found great audiences, whole cities and towns thronging
to hear him with unabated enthusiasm and interest.
Crowds wept under his oratory, each man for himself,
-
212
HOMILETICS PROPER.
and for his own sins. He laid his hand boldly upon the
moral consciousness. He applied the gospel to the
hearts and wants of men. He wrought upon the moral
nature with the higher forces of the gospel, and awakened
new belief in the Christian faith by the simplicity and
amplitude of his perceptions of divine truth of the
abounding grace of God in Christ.
Whitefield did not possess the ratiocinative faculty,
nor perhaps even the imaginative faculty in the highest
sense. His sermons were not distinguished for logical or
profound thought. They were inartificial, conversational,
and dramatic, somewhat diffuse and stereotyped in their
language, with a spirit of vivacious exaggeration; but
nevertheless they were powerful. He was a master of
elocution, and was both graceful and solemn in delivery.
He was meek and patient under rebuke and persecution,
endured revilings, bringing the world's bitter hatred
upon him, but forgiving injuries with the spirit of a
Christian. He had the hero in him, and wherever he
was wanted or felt that he and truth would be most op-
posed, there he went, manifesting a Pauline grandeur of
moral courage with a Pauline modesty and absence of
self-display. The gospel, in a word, had renewed and
potentialized a simple-hearted man, who gave all he had
of mind, feeling, and energy, whether of greater or less
compass, to the Saviour whom he served.
There was
therefore in him a power extraneous to natural gifts, a
power from God.
His popularity never waned, for it was
fed from a higher spring.
Nearer to our own day, toward the beginning of the
Modern present century, arose in England a class of
English preachers of more true depth, both philo-
preachers. sophical and religious, than had preceded
them, such as Robert Hall, Andrew Fuller, John Foster,
C
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
213
and their great Scotch contemporaries, Edward Irving
and Thomas Chalmers. We will say a few words concern-
ing Robert Hall and Thomas Chalmers.
Robert Hall was born in 1764. In his childhood and
youth he was feeble in body, but exhibited, like Pascal,
remarkable intellectual precociousness. He Robert Hall.
was a classmate and friend of Mackintosh,
46
the historian in Aberdeen College. When these two
walked together the collegians would say: "There go
Plato and Herodotus." He commenced preaching in
a Baptist church at Bristol, exhibiting decided ora-
torical power; but his fame as a preacher culminated
when he went, in 1790, to Cambridge. He finished,
also, his ministerial life in Bristol, where the little
old chapel at Broadmead, in which he preached, and
his pulpit bound together with iron clamps to pre-
serve it, are still to be seen, quite unchanged. His
occasional writings, such as "The Apology for the Free-
dom of the Press;" his controversial tracts on political
and moral questions; his sermon on The Death of
the Princess Charlotte," and his discourse on "Modern
Infidelity," gave him a more than local fame, and made
him known as one of the eloquent men of his times.
After enduring intense sufferings all his life from an
acute disease, which was heightened by the exercise of
preaching, and compelled him often at the conclusion of
the service to retire to his room in the church and fairly
writhe in agony, he died in 1831. Notwithstanding his
physical weakness and suffering, he was full of wit, sar-
casm, and playful good-humor. He was brilliant in con-
versation. He had genuine nobleness and magnanimity
of character, meeting sectarian attacks with equanimity,
and showing much humility of spirit whenever his natu-
rally fiery nature got the better of him. He had immense
<
214
HOMILETICS PROPER.
power of moral indignation against untruth, meanness,
and mean expediency. He lived in contact with public
questions, and was fully awake to the influence of public
opinion upon morality and religion. His sermons and
writings, like Robert South's, are worthy of our study as
a treasury of theological and moral reasoning, and also
for their eloquent rhetoric. His "Christianity Consis-
tent with a Love of Freedom" is, in some respects, a very
fine piece of writing. His discourse on "Modern Infi-
delity Considered with Reference to its Influence on
Society" was for its day a most effective treatise, abound-
ing with thought and splendor of imagery, though it
would not meet the sceptical wants of this day, as an
apology for Christianity. But his more ordinary sermons,
""
such as God in Concealing, The Lamb of God,"
Spirituality of the Divine Nature, "The Joy of
Angels over a Repenting Sinner," "Of Evil Communi-
cations," are noble sermons for study.
(
"(
""
As a preacher his characteristics were
1. The force and weight of his mind. His very appear-
ance in the pulpit was formidable, from his personal and
mental traits. He looked the great man. He was really
one of the great minds of his age—a mind at once of capa-
cious philosophic grasp and of penetrative analytic force.
He has indeed been compared to his contemporary,
Edmund Burke, in the volume of his intellectual power.
2. The splendor as well as precision of his language.
His brilliance of imagination was a marked quality, and
shone through the forms into which his thought was cast.
Some of his illustrations are as magnificent as anything
in Burke's writings, though his imagination was more
chastened than Burke's. There was a tendency to the
oratorical climax, his thought expanding as it grew, yet
never becoming vague or confused.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
215
3. Power of abstract thought and reasoning. He had
much of the essence and effect of reasoning without its
technical logical forms." He became absorbed in the
subject, in the idea, and was borne along by it rather
than by mere methods of discussion and division. In
fact his sermons, while clear, are inartificial in respect of
division. He was a great extemporaneous preacher, his
discourses that are left to us having been either taken
down short-hand or written out afterward with im-
mense trouble, for writing was to him a physical martyr-
dom. In preaching, so great was the absorption in the
theme that the preacher was not only forgotten, but
sometimes the audience; and this leads me to speak of
one or two faults of Robert Hall's preaching :
"
1. His undue tendency to abstraction and generaliza-
tion. He sometimes worked, as the expression is, “in
fire as well as frost," but as a general rule in frost. He
dwelt in this cold, abstract atmosphere, and did not
treat the truth so much as a message to men as a subject
of reasoning; he did not bring down his thought to the
minds and wants of his hearers. It was like watching
the soarings and circlings of an eagle. He did not indi-
vidualize and particularize. He was interested in the
theme apparently more than in the audience.
2. With some magnificent exceptions, his style was
lacking in vividness, point, and personal interest. He
was inclined to the use of Latin and Johnsonian rather
than short Saxon words; but his style was harmonious,
while at the same time strong. It has been said of his
more labored discourses: "His language in (ordinary)
preaching, as in conversation, was better than in his well-
known and elaborately composed sermons, in being more
natural and flexible. When he set in reluctantly upon
that employment (writing), his style was apt to assume
216
HOMILETICS PROPER.
}
a certain processional stateliness of march, a rhetorical
rounding of periods, a too frequent inversion of the
natural order of the sentence, with a morbid dread of
degrading it to end in a particle or other small-looking
word; a structure in which it is to be doubted whether
the augmented appearance of strength and dignity be a
compensation for the sacrifice of a natural, living, and
variable freedom of composition."
3. His preaching was too purely intellectual. He
was almost too exclusively the metaphysician and the
rhetorician, and not the simple preacher trusting in
Christ and the Scriptures of divine truth for the conver-
sion of sinful souls. He generalized rather than indi-
vidualized truth. His prayers, though devotional, were
exceedingly vague, abstract, and pointless. His the-
ology might be called that of moderate Calvinism, with
some tendency to a stricter Calvinism. He addressed
men as rational beings, appealing freely to every motive
which might influence their minds, though with utter
avoidance of the doctrine of free-will in the Arminian
sense, which was opposed to his theology.
Thomas Chalmers was born in 1780, in Anstruther,
Fifeshire, Scotland; was educated at the University of
St. Andrews, and after having been licensed
to preach at the age of nineteen, his first
settlement was at Kilmany, where, it is
said, his attention was mostly directed to scientific pur-
suits and mathematics; and here, it is related, occurred
that change in his religious character which had such a
powerful effect upon his whole life and preaching. Be-
fore this, to use his own language, "he walked among
the elements of inconstancy and distrust." His sermons,
before this period, were written hastily, and as a perfunc-
tory duty, but after that they became "the spontaneous
Thomas
Chalmers.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
217
His
productions of the new spirit of love and zeal."
study of the Bible became intense. A friend remarked
to him about that time: "I never came in before but I
found you busy, yet never at your studies for the Sab-
bath. You said, 'Oh, an hour or two Saturday evening
is quite enough for that; but now I never come in but
you are at your Bible.' In 1815, at the age of thirty-
five, he was transferred to Tron Church, Glasgow, where
his fame as a pulpit orator was soon established, and the
immense influence he gained over the people was em-
ployed by him in the furtherance of works of beneficence
truly grand and original in their conception. He united
the preacher and the pastor in a wonderful combination.
His labors produced a reformation in the care and edu-
cation of the poor in that great city worthy of the study
of every pastor, reformer, and political economist. His
own parish consisted of 11,000 souls, who were divided
into twenty-five parochial districts, and over the whole of
this complex system of religious, benevolent, and educa-
tional training of the people he watched and presided
with the utmost vigilance, visiting, it is said, all the two
thousand families of his parish.
In 1823 he was made Professor of Moral Philosophy at
St. Andrews, and the following year, of Theology, at
Edinburgh. He is generally reckoned to have made some
original contributions to ethical science. The leading
part that he took in the great Free Church movement,
when four hundred and seventy ministers withdrew from
the Established Church of Scotland, is a familiar history.
He died in 1847.
,,
We can only notice him, and that in a brief way, as a
preacher. After the profound change in his religious
character his preaching became of a most practical na-
ture. He aimed at the immediate spiritual renewal of his
ן
218
HOMILETICS PROPER.
hearers. Nothing else satisfied him. He labored for
this object with such earnestness and such a concentra-
tion of his powers "as to idle spectators looked like
insanity." This, however, made him a power with the
people; not only his Sunday services, but his Thursday
evening lectures at Glasgow were thronged with eager
listeners. In his preaching there were the broad intel-
ligible qualities of thought, reason, and what the Scotch
call "wicht"-perhaps in the end preferable to mere
magnetism. He had great energy as well as scope of
illustration, the fruit of a powerful imagination and wide
scientific knowledge. His exuberant fancy ranged
through nature and space for its objects of comparison.
His features, like his native hills, were rugged, his ges-
tures were ungraceful, and his tone and accentuation
broadly Scotch; but the individuality, richness, and
sweep of his thought, together with his simple earnest-
ness, made up for all, and led the polished Canning to
say, after hearing him in London, "The tartan beats us
all."
His plan of sermon was almost without plan. He had
few divisions, and the peculiarity of this mode of thought
was this, that a sermon contained, as a general rule, but
one theme or thought, and the development consisted of
the amplification of this thought as from one common
centre, of an unfolding from a point in a circle to the
circumference, rather than a progression in one straight
line, so that Robert Hall said that Chalmers' mind
moved round like a wheel, turning upon a fixed point
instead of like a wheel that rolled on.
There was, in
fact, a development, an expansion, instead of a mechani-
cal progression. He piled up sentences and illustrations
about a central thought or proposition till it stood in
pyramidal proportions. His style had violent faults as
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
219
well as vivid beauties. This very tendency to amplifica-
tion led to turgidity of style, to verboseness in the em-
ployment of words, and to enormously long sentences.
One of his sentences, covering two or three pages, has
four hundred words; and frequently he has sentences
containing two hundred and three hundred words, mak-
ing what one has called the unique and ponderous
"Chalmerian period."
,, 64
He also uses hugely pedantic and uncouth words-a
cumbrous theological and scientific phraseology-like
"vesicular properties, afferent and efferent vessels,"
"unbridled appetency," "the alone Saviour of man-
kind," "to effectuate an object of desire," etc.; and he
might almost be thought to describe himself in a sentence
like this: "He just put forth the evolutions of his own
nature as one of the component individuals in a vast and
independent system." But all this was nothing: it even
added, like his peculiar gesture and voice, to his indi-
viduality. His disciplined and abounding thought, his
large and quick sympathy, his spontaneity that allowed
no unreal or artificial utterance, his genuine manhood,
his simple piety pleading, as he said, for "the crown
rights of King Immanuel," his glowing eloquence, like
Ezekiel's vision of wheels within wheels of living crea-
tures, mastered audiences and swept before him all obsta-
cles. With this eloquence that belonged to the man
there was added the sanctified power of the true preacher
of the gospel-ever setting forth Christ as the one
object of faith, as "the propitiation, the sanctifier, the
hope of glory, the all in all" of believing souls. Thus
his ministry, having in it the evangelic element, was suc-
cessful in the conversion of souls. Here he was superior
to Robert Hall. He loved to pile up a great argument,
as in his "astronomical discourses," but even to these
<
220
HOMILETICS PROPER.
argumentative discourses he managed to give a practical
and conscience-searching turn; and in his ethical ser-
mons, in which his preaching abounded, and in which he
brought to bear his tremendous power of invective and
plain-speaking upon the covetousness of the business
world in the large cities, he never lost sight of the prin-
ciple that "to preach Christ is the only effective way of
preaching morality in all its branches; and not until
Christ had been pressed upon the acceptance of his hear-
ers did he urge subordinate reformation of conduct and
character." The crowds at his commercial lectures in
Glasgow, it is said, would sometimes go away uttering
curses both loud and deep against the preacher, but
would be sure to be again present at the succeeding
lecture.
Dr. Chalmers made a brave effort to become an extem-
poraneous preacher, seeing with his usual sagacity the
superiority of that method, but he never succeeded in
this attempt. His biographer, Dr. Hanna, says: "He
could not on the instant light on words and phrases which
would give adequate conveyance to convictions so intense.
His thoughts ran in too great a volume for words.
Dr. Chalmers put genuine labor into his sermons, and
thought that the more labor a sermon had the more
effect it would have.
>>
But after we have said all this there is one quality of
Dr. Chalmers of which we have neglected to speak, and
without which there would be indeed a fatal omission and
blank in any true characterization of his genius as a
speaker and that is his great heart, his power of feeling
and of sanctified affection. One writer who knew him
thoroughly has said of Dr. Chalmers that "he owed his
power to the activity and quantity of his affections.'
He had indeed, like Luther, a great nature, ample in all
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
221
its proportions of reason, passion, sensibility, and will;
there was a vast vital force in him; and when this was
fully aroused by the truths which he had preached, he
carried all before him as a river that inundates and sweeps
its banks.
The British pulpit of our own day has exhibited many
men of very decided power, some of them still in the
field, such as, in the Established Church,
Dr. Arnold, Dr. Pusey, Archdeacon Hare,
Whately, Trench, Samuel Wilberforce,
Henry Melville, John Henry Newman,
Maurice, Kingsley, Mozley, Dean Stanley, H. P. Lid-
don, and that matchless sermonizer F. W. Robertson;
among dissenters, John Angell James, Dr. Raffles,
Baptist Noel, Edward Irving, McCheyne, Caird, Guthrie,
Candlish, and Norman McLeod; Thomas Binney, Alex-
ander Raleigh, and Charles Spurgeon.
Before leaving the British pulpit we would speak a
few words concerning F. W. Robertson. Hugh Miller,
the Scotch geologist, had exceedingly high ideas of
the Christian ministry, commonly saying that "true
ministers cannot be made out of ordinary
men-men ordinary in talent and charac-
ter." F. W. Robertson suits this concep-
tion of the eloquent stone-mason; and there was some-
thing too of Miller's stalwart manhood in the preach-
er, the primitive granite underneath his culture. They
were both leaders of men.
British
pulpit in our
day.
F. W. Rob-
ertson.
As wonderful as Robertson's sermons are, his character
is chiefly to be studied, since his sermons are but the
outgrowth of his interesting personality. His sermons
could not have been different from what they were-in-
tellectual, thorough, philosophic, expressive of the har-
monious strength and beauty of his soul. Let us then
Į
222
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
look, in the briefest possible manner, at the character of
the man, and that will be the analysis of the character of
his sermons.
1. Love of nature. The æsthetic principle that ran
through the mind of Robertson like a vein of gold, ran
also through his discourses. His delight in natural
beauty imparted fresh nature to whatever he wrote and
spoke. It was this that took his words out of the plane
of ordinary discourse and made them full of fresh beauty
and power.
His illustrations are those of a keen-sighted
traveller who lets no beautiful object pass unnoted, and
he sees, too, the object with his own eyes, and not with
the eyes of another man. This is ever a characteristic
of genius.
2. Culture. His rich and varied culture, both clas-
sical and philosophical, as well in language as in logic,
gave him the mastery of a finished style, condensed yet
delicate, combining elegance and force. The thought
moulds the style, and he speaks like a man who has
ideas forcing themselves into expression-not mere words,
whether ideas be behind them or not; for while he
has the rarest and most finished power of expression,
his language resembling the sharply cut bas-reliefs.
around a Greek vase or entablature, it is the thought of a
deeply musing soul which is prominent. An affectation
of style, therefore, rarely if ever occurs. We do not
make beautiful extracts from Robertson's writings, but
we quote him for his strong thoughts put into their most
condensed forms-and this is the highest type of artistic
as well as moral beauty.
3. Intense love and realization of truth. He was no
flippant utterer of truth or truisms. What he said about
Christ was a real thing with him, and it had come out of
the white heat of his mental conflicts. This made com-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
223
mon truth, passing through the fiery alembic of his own
mind, new truth, gleaming with new lustre. A part of
his personality was in it. It addressed itself to other
earnest and struggling minds with an unwonted power.
4. Love of humanity. While, as has been often said
of him, he kept himself sternly from saying anything that
was popular, he was the idol of the common people, be-
cause they saw the truc man and the true lover of men in
him-a helper, guide, and champion.
His high culture did not hurt him with the laboring
classes, because even more than with Charles Kingsley
or Norman McLeod, they discerned the real manhood
under the scholar's silken robes-the manhood that
yearned to die on some high moral battle-field for the
people. His spirit of self-abnegation was like that of the
soldiers and martyrs of the primitive Church.
5. Indignant opposition against wrong. He had not
only the moral sentiment to feel wrong, but the courage
to attack wrong. He said "to love intensely good is to
hate intensely evil." The sword of his spirit was a two-
edged sword, cutting both ways. As no man ever laid
open his own soul more bare to the gaze of the world,
the throbbings of his heart against meanness and tyranny,
whether without or within the Church, were painfully
exposed. He could not hide his feelings, and while this
candor caused him to be idolatrously loved and gave him
power with poor, suffering men, it also brought upon him
the hatred of the powerful classes in society whose actions
and characters he assailed with such open fearlessness.
6. Method. This rhetorical quality of his sermons
flowed from his trained intellect, which could not but be
orderly in all its products. There is usually the thought-
ful skill of extreme simplicity in the plan of his sermons.
He rarely has more than three main divisions, and gen-
224
HOMILETICS PROPER.
erally but two. He extracts a definition of the text, then
draws from it a definite theme-a deep theme going to
its roots and not lying upon its surface. He seems to
come at the vital source of the passage through patient.
thought and fresh original exegesis.
7. Biblicalness. While Robertson is doubtless liberal
in his theology, and belongs to what is called the
"Broad Church," still he finds his theology in the Bible.
It is in the best sense of the word biblical theology, which
is the only true theology. He may err-doubtless he does
in many things-but his Christianity is not a Christianity
of the schools, but a Christianity which comes from the
study of the New Testament, and which has Christ in it.
He makes Christ our hope, our life, our model, our sal-
vation. It is no Hamlet with Hamlet left out. When
he takes a text he sticks to it. He does not philosophize
out of sight of the text. The text forms the material,
the impulse, the inspiration of his sermon.
His power
of homiletical impression is biblical rather than theo-
logical. He is even superior to Dr. Bushnell in that re-
spect, though they resemble each other in this as in many
other features.
8. Practicalness.
What Robertson has to say has
point to it. It does not expend itself in glittering gen-
eralities. His sermons abound in sentences of con-
densed wisdom and of practical personal application.
9. Reasonableness. Robertson is an eminently rational
preacher; but he is not a rationalist. His preaching is
based on reason, and is a reaction from an age of rigid
submission to creeds. It is reason baptized with a Chris-
tian spirit. Puseyism was his first intellectual idolatry,
but he shattered his idol at the bidding of reason, and
above all, of the Word of God.
10. Extempore ability. He was an extempore preach-
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
225
er, basing his sermons in the thought rather than in the
words. He rarely used more written notes than could
be pencilled upon a visiting card, or scrap of paper.
Robertson was not without faults which should deter
us from making him our absolute model as a preacher.
Among these may be mentioned three in especial:
I. Unsettled theology. Perhaps this very trait en-
deared him to thoughtful doubters, and gave him claims
to their sympathy, seeing he was a sincere striver after
the truth. Though an independent thinker and sincere
learner, his theological opinions shift about with much
uncertainty, yet, it must also be said, they ever grew
nearer to a noble consistency of Christian faith. But his
theology is suggestive rather than systematic. It is right
as to the spirit, yet perhaps not always so as to the
letter.
2. Fragmentary style. From his extemporaneous
method, or from poor reporting, many of his sermons.
come to us in an unfinished state as regards composition.
Perhaps this is only an error of transmission, for his style
in most respects is about perfect.
3. Morbidness of spirit. This arose partly from an
ascetic tendency which he took early from Tractarianism
and partly from ill-health, or an extremely sensitive and
overcharged nervous organization. This, however, he
was overcoming grandly, and growing healthier in spirit
even to the end, when death gave him the perfect life.
Yet Robertson's biography is a sad book to read, though
highly ennobling, as tracing the history of a soul beating
its way upward into the clearer light with slow and
wounded wing. Notwithstanding these imperfections, if
they be such, Robertson is worthy of our thorough study.
As a mere sermonizer, in the arrangement and presenta-
tion of his matter he shows the rarest rhetorical skill, and
226
HOMILETICS PROPER.
while his style is simple his thought is profound. His
poetic sense and his spiritual earnestness led him to ad-
dress the heart as well as the head, both in illustrations and
appeals. As an interpreter he goes beneath the letter and
values the spirit more than the form. His sermons are
thrown into life-forms and are not mere dry intellectual
processes. He is a manly thinker. He is an earnest re-
ligious teacher. His religious system might be condensed.
into this that the life of God in us, as manifested in
Christ, leads to the sacrifice of self for God and man.
:
English preaching, it must be said, has, generally speak-
ing, fallen into a somewhat narrower range of ideas, and
does not appear to have the ample freedom, profound
depth, solid thought, or literary splendor of its earlier
days, being too often intensely devoted to an ecclesias-
tical idea; and if it has aught remaining of the Puritan
energy and assertion of the free principle, it does not
always possess the corresponding spirituality of tone.
There are, however, in all the various bodies of the Eng-
lish religious world, many preachers of great learning and
originality, as well as of high earnestness of aim, who rep-
resent the advanced state of religious thought in England.
Coming to America and New England, we find that,
while the first ministers were educated and
The American able men, the true leaders (youμevo) of the
people and men of heroic martyr-spirit, their
style of preaching was exceedingly scholas-
tic, owing, perhaps, to the fact that all the
learning in the community was confined to the minis-
terial class; but, notwithstanding this, such men as the
Christ-like Eliot, called "the apostle to the
Its early
Indians," John Cotton, Thomas Hooker,
preachers.
Nathaniel Ward, Thomas Shepard, John
Davenport, Roger Williams, Francis Higginson, the
and New
England pul-
pit.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
227
Mayhews, and the Mathers, were preachers of great
ability and influence, in most instances of eminent piety,
and highly accomplished for their day, when the people
considered a learned ministry to be a first necessity of
life-as necessary as "fire to a smith."
fire to a smith." To Roger Wil-
liams belongs the high praise of having founded a State
upon freedom of conscience, thus applying the great prin-
ciple of Christian liberty to civil things.
Immediately before the period of the American Revo-
lution there were some strong political preachers in New
England, dealing with the fundamentals of
government and Christian civilization, one of
whom, Jonathan Mayhew, born 1720, died
1766, in his famous election sermon preached in Boston
in 1750, laid down the ground-principles of human gov-
ernment and constitutional liberty, which, bearing fruit in
the Adamses and Otises of the day, led to the Revolution-
ary War and the freedom of the United States. Other
names of political preachers and leaders of opinion were
those of Charles Chauncey, Samuel Langdon, Samuel
West, Samuel Phillips Payson, and Ezra Stiles, Presi-
dent of Yale College.
About the beginning of the second century after the
settlement of New England, there sprang up a style of
preaching far superior to that of the earliest ministers;
which, for metaphysical depth as well as spiritual earnest-
ness, has rarely ever been surpassed. Its unequalled
master and originator was Jonathan Edwards, who was
followed by a race of lesser giants, Hopkins, Bellamy,
Edwards the younger, Dwight, Emmons, and many
other noted preachers and theologians, who showed the
controlling influence of Edwards's mind, which has, in
fact, moulded the American pulpit in its essential quali-
ties and characteristics down to the present.
Political
preachers.
228
HOMILETICS PROPER.
*
While Edwards will always be looked upon as a master
in metaphysics and dogmatics, as one of the main pil-
lars of Calvinistic theology, yet the power
of Jonathan Edwards also as a preacher is
represented to have been tremendous. The
great revival of 1740, of which he has written a narrative,
in all probability sprang, under God, instrumentally from
his preaching. In his sermon on " The Last Judgment,
one of his hearers said that "he expected, when Mr.
Edwards stopped, that the heavens would open and the
Judge descend, and the separation of the righteous and
the wicked immediately take place." His style, regard-
ed in a literary point of view, was not a finished one,
and was often, on the contrary, hard and rugged; but
his clear mind shone through it, and by the force of his
mental vision he made spiritual truths plain. This
graphic power of exhibiting truth showed not only his
force of thought, but the idealizing faculty of his imagi-
nation. He felt the want of early culture in the art of
writing, and set himself in middle life to the work of im-
proving his style; but thought was the important ele-
ment of his preaching; he addressed chiefly the under-
standing and conscience. His sermons were carefully
written upon the scholastic model, and with an elabo-
rately methodical plan. He dwelt on the explanation of
Scripture, which he presented as a fact the most moment-
ous to the soul; and his idea seemed to be that the truth
-the doctrinal truth-made clear to the mind and there
left, was sufficient to do its own work. He preached
down as from a divine point of view, wielding the attri-
butes of God, especially those of justice and holiness,
with mighty power and with a kind of celestial inexorable
logic; but he did not bring out so clearly the love of
God and the grace of the gospel as they meet man's wants.
Jonathan
Edwards.
,
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
229
His own meekness and holy purity of character added
weight to what he said, and in the immediate results of
He
his preaching few apparently have excelled him.
was not a great orator, in the common acceptance of the
word, for his delivery was monotonous; but his pro-
phetic earnestness made him powerful. He seemed to
dwell in the counsels of Almighty wisdom. His sermons.
were adapted to awaken the dead conscience of the New
England Church, then fallen, through the influence of
the "half-way Covenant" and other causes, into an
apathetic and immoral state. They startled the auditors
like the judgment-trump of God.
The sermonizing of Edwards and his immediate suc-
cessors was characterized, as we have said, by a faith-
ful exposition of the Scriptures, and by
a careful drawing out of the doctrine which Characteris-
they fortified with all manner of illus-
tics of the
Edwardean
School of
trative reasoning, both moral and meta-
physical; and after that came the ap- preachers.
plication, which included often more than
half the sermon, and was very solemn and pungent.
It was dealing with eternal interests, and was intended.
to be God's argument with men to convince them of
sin and reconcile them to God. The present life and
its interests were nothing-the life to come every-
thing. This application saved the preaching from being
altogether too abstract. This method of preaching, while
it was solemn and powerful, had doubtless faults, which
have since been more or less corrected, and which will
be still more successfully guarded against as a clearer
knowledge of the true life and universal power of the gos-
pel prevails; but the American style of preaching, ac-
cording to the principle we started with, is also the direct
product of the intellectual character and history of
230
HOMÍLETICS PROPER.
the American people.
For instance, the element of
faith, which so peculiarly characterized the
Product of history of our fathers, leading them, like
the character Abraham, to leave their ancient homes
and to seek a country that God should
give them this element of the Refor-
mation-predominates in American preaching, hiding
even the essential doctrine of good works; thinking too
little of it, or not giving it the actual place assigned
to it and to the great Christian virtues of hope and
charity in the New Testament. The principle also of
liberty of conscience, which was so marked in the char-
acter of the founders, impelling them to separate them-
selves from popery, ritualism, and church authority, is
seen in American sermonizing in its simple and
earnest appeal to the Scriptures, resting proof upon the
Word of God and not upon human authority, urging to
personal search, and setting forth individual responsi-
bility. Indeed, this element of conscience-this bringing
of truth to bear upon the man of the heart"-is
strongly, one might say, terribly, distinctive in American
preaching, leaving often no tender thing living in its fiery
blaze. The one thought of sin against God seemed
sometimes to consume all other thoughts and to destroy
all the gentler feeling and the more passive affections of the
mind; but this preaching to the conscience was a purify-
ing fire that searched the recesses of the soul as with
'the candle of the Lord." Early American preaching
had also the element of sound learning. While litera-
ture, for its own sake, was not cultivated by them, and
amid the stern realities of American life there was little
of the aesthetic sense (though poetry did show a wan
flower now and then), yet learning flourished. John Cot-
ton had been the Dean of Emmanuel College, in Cam-
""
and history
of the people.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
231
bridge. Increase Mather could converse fluently in
Latin, and could compose in Hebrew and Greek. His
son, Cotton Mather, prodigious pedant as he was, was
more learned still. The proportion of learned men
among the early Puritans was extraordinary. It is proba-
ble that between the years 1630 and 1690 there were in
New England as many graduates of Cambridge and Ox-
ford as could be found in any population of similar size
in the mother country. At one time, the first part of
that period, there was in Massachusetts and Connec-
ticut a Cambridge graduate for every two hundred and
fifty inhabitants, besides sons of Oxford not a few.”
While the preaching that came forth from this learning
was abstruse, technical, and highly theological, it had all
the substantial characteristics of intellectual preaching.
It spoke to the thoughtful nature of man. Jonathan
Edwards would have been profound in any field of human
knowledge which he had entered. The prominent quali-
ties of rational knowledge, or knowledge through which
the reason had powerfully cleared its way, as through the
tangled forests of the original wilderness, were in the
preaching. The audiences themselves were composed
of strong-minded, thinking men, and the pulpit was
their one fountain of instruction. But in its intellectual
aspects American preaching unites the argument-loving
or logical element with the more practical quality of the
American mind. It is highly doctrinal, as suiting an in-
tellectual race, and one inclined to subtle speculation;
but it is both doctrinal and experimental; it aims to
reach the conscience through the understanding, and to
bring men to an immediate decision in the matters of
the soul. It deals with these doctrines as if they were
¹ A History of American Literature, by Moses Coit Tyler, v. i. p. 93.
232
HOMILETICS PROPER.
K
indeed the greatest truths, the substance of things, the
only things worthy of a rational being's attention. It is
therefore characterized by an intense earnestness. The
early preachers, like Hooker and Edwards, seemed to
preach with a spiritual intensity, with the lightening of
divine truth as out from the very bosom of the cloudy
presence of God's power and wisdom. There was an
utter loss of self-consciousness in these utterances. The
question of authority in the preacher was in the early
days unheard of. It is said of Thomas Hooker that
"when he was doing his Master's work, he would put
a king in his pocket." These ambassadors of God spoke
with the majesty of their Sovereign's message to men's
consciences, whether they would hear or forbear. And
why has not the Holy Spirit, the actual guide of the
Church in all ages, guided also in the preaching of
American preachers of the Word, adapting it to the
character, circumstances, mind, and wants of the Ameri-
can people, as being the voice of God to us in our passage
through the wilderness; as truly as in the preaching of
Moses and Isaiah, or of those apostolic ambassadors who
delivered the message of God to the Jews, Greeks and
Romans?
The American sermon, as we have already described
it, is usually built upon a logical plan cast into the form
of an argument, with direct practical lessons.
drawn from the demonstrated truth; it is
synthetic in form, and although generally
biblical in tone and aim, yet it is not simply
biblical as confining itself to the interpreta-
tion of Scripture and the setting forth of the word of
God; it is not satisfied with this, but it
sophical systemization of divine truth.
said, there has been a want of the truly evangelic ele-
aims at a philo-
Indeed, as was
Characteris-
tics of the
American
sermon.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
233
ment—a want, one might say, of Christ in his fulness, in
his pre-eminently human nature and relation, in his per-
fect sympathy, in his love to man, and in the multifarious
and intimate applications of his incarnation, and of the
new reanimating life of God that has come into the
human soul through Christ's entering into humanity.
One feels this want in reading the otherwise admirable
sermons of such a preacher as Dr. Emmons. There is a
lack of Christ-like sympathy, of the soul-melting element,
of something that wins, subdues, and converts the most
obdurate heart through the imperceptible and resistless
ways of divine love. They address the head rather than
the heart. They are not too intellectual, but too exclu-
sively so; and such preaching has thus a rigidity of form
which has not suffered it to come down freely enough
to the actual feelings, needs, and comprehension of all
men, so that it might be indeed and in every sense to
them "the glad tidings."
There is recently more of this free human element
coming into our preaching; and the great
fear is, that it will come in such an impet-
uous and untempered way as to endanger
the substantial and divine groundwork of American
doctrinal preaching. This new style of sermon applies
the truth to the life in an exceedingly interesting man-
ner, interpreting truth into natural language, language
that is spoken by men every day. Such preaching seeks
to introduce the Christian element into every part and
faculty of the nature, and freely expresses the broader
sympathies of the gospel for all men, and for all condi-
tions of humanity. Its faults of secularity and irrever-
ence, and of a certain carrying of the human element to
an extent that oftentimes seems to overlie and obstruct
the divine-these exaggerations, we think, will become
New element
coming in.
234
HOMILETICS PROPER.
چرا
hereafter toned down, and will leave the soil enriched, like
a great and apparently destructive overflow of the Nile.
The moral element markedly predominates over the doc-
trinal in this style of preaching; and there can be no pul-
pit eloquence, says Vinet, without the moral element;
but it should be remembered that the moral, the ethical,
is formed upon the dogmatic; and although exclusive
dogma without the moral element extinguishes both elo-
quence and spirituality, yet the moral without the dog-
matic also loses its deepest spring and power; a whole-
some mingling and interfusing of the two will make the
future true eloquence and power of the American pulpit.
We would notice with some particularity, though briefly,
but two of our American preachers, Dr. Emmons and Dr.
Lyman Beecher. Of Dr. Bushnell, what is said of him
in this book in various ways, must be taken as an in-
adequate offering to his powerful, original, and most
inspiring genius. His sermons on the "New Life"
formed an epoch in homiletical literature, and in our
higher religious thought and conception of divine things.
Nathaniel Emmons, another great American thinker
and preacher, but as different from Bush-
Nathaniel nell as a glass prism from the sunlight it sep-
Emmons.
arates into its constituent rays, was a recog-
nized preacher of the gospel seventy-one years, and a
settled pastor over one parish in one town fifty-four
years. Preaching, or, one might say, writing sermons,
was the business of his life. By long practice he became
an uncommonly skillful artificer in this line-a kind of
cabinet-maker of sermons. Writing generally rather
than specifically," and upon a uniform plan, his discourses
are finished productions, almost perfect of their kind.
They are doctrinal and argumentative sermons; and
while following out his train of reasoning with an inflexi-
"
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
235
ble logic, he sometimes landed in false doctrine, or false
statements of doctrinal truth; for he shunned no result
where his analysis pressed him or his reasoning fairly
led him on, though the character of God might seem
to suffer. Dr. Emmons arranged his ideas in lumi-
nous order, easy to follow and remember. He digested
his subject thoroughly before he formed his plan. He
sought the substance of truth, filling his mind with
great principles of theology, and from the revolving in
his mind of this system of metaphysical truth, his ser-
mons were evolved. He thought and conversed continu-
ally on theological themes, and stimulated his thinking
not only by the study of metaphysics but of the best
writers in other departments, and of Shakespeare's trage-
dies. He did, however, his own thinking, living, as it were,
in an abstract realm. He was one of the eminent theolo-
gians of New England, in the lineal line of succession
from Edwards and Hopkins; and perhaps the clear-
ness of his style has made him the best or best read
exponent of that remarkable theology. His style of
writing is a model for neatness, precision, and plain un-
modified assertion of principles.
It has a calm and
evenly sustained power, rarely rising to eloquence, never
sinking to feebleness. It is excellent for its didactic
quality. He was a sagacious student of the human
heart, but rather by thinking than by intuition. He
taught displeasing truth by way of inference, and
was the incarnation of ministerial prudence. He had,
however, his faults. He was too exclusively topical,
and did not rest enough upon exegesis, so that his
sermons proceed, or seem to proceed, from a human
standpoint, and are run in the same mould of thought.
He was also too exclusively intellectual, and thus
his sermons become sometimes hard, and more inge-
236
HOMILETICS PROPER.
nious and subtle than persuasive and edifying. The
constant argumentation must have tended to produce a
questioning turn of mind on the part of his hearers. There
is not enough, also, of the divine gospel in his preach-
ing, or not enough of simple dependence upon the higher
supernatural element. His style, though exceedingly
lucid, lies too much in the broad light; it has not enough
of light and shade. It is more like Euclid than Paul.
Yet he has left us both admirable sermons—a vast
treasury of them—and admirable homiletical suggestions
scattered throughout his writings and his table-talk, which
have been gathered up into a valuable volume by the
labors of his favorite pupil, Professor Park. They are
such as these :
"The preacher must be established in great principles.
of truth."
•
Leave the subject of your discourse in the minds of
your hearers rather than a few sentiments and expres-
sions."
"Preach better sermons every Sabbath.
"The thing-the thing-is what you are after."
"When you write a sermon say, 1. What do I know
about this that my people do not know? 2. How can I
make my people know what I know ?"
Lyman
Beecher.
99
He made a great deal of the plan, and he had a
supreme respect for the application. He spoke both to
saints and sinners in the same sermon.
He was to a large extent an extemporaneous preacher;
but his sermons were ever thoroughly composed, men-
tally, before speaking.
We would now speak of Dr. Lyman.
Beecher, both as a man and as a preacher.
L. As a man. His religious character was,
above all, distinguished by a positive and hopeful
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
237
faith. He believed almost without a doubt, and with
great energy and earnestness. Religious things were
to him the most real things. All was referred to God;
and this supreme reference of everything to God's
government was seen especially in the great turns and
changes of his life; when he went from East Hampton
to Litchfield, and from Litchfield to Boston, and in
going to Lane Seminary. The depth and earnestness
of his religious principles are also shown in his anxiety
and his unceasing efforts for the conversion of his chil-
dren. He was their father twice over. His letters to
his children give proof that his mind travailed for their
eternal welfare. He is plain almost to severity with
them. He was, however, an affectionate man toward his
family. Very touching are his allusions to the death of
his wife. He said to his son, "These are the sermons I
wrote the year after your mother died, and there is not
one of them good for anything." Yet this affection did
not prevent him from training his children's minds by
merciless encounters with them in argument. He taught
them to think and reason, as a mastiff teaches its young
to fight. There was immense intellectual activity in that
household, springing from Dr. Beecher's own interest
in mind. His mind was eminently practical, and sym-
pathized with everything that had in it the promise of
good. Nothing was good to him that could not be
reduced to immediate practical use. This trait rendered
him nobly effective; but at the same time it may have
had an influence to give him a somewhat one-sided view
of things. As a man and a pastor he achieved a vast
amount of good work by setting other people to work,
evincing in this great tact and magnanimity. He em-
ployed and interested young men to carry out his plans
of benevolence or of revival work. "The Hanover
¿
238
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Association of Young Men," which was so efficient, was
a creation of his. His knowledge of men was consider-
able, though he may have sometimes made mistakes, as
he probably did in regard to Dr. Finney. The moral-
reform movements of the present time owe much to his
original genius and boldness in grappling, as he did
almost single-handed, with intemperance, duelling, poli-
tical atheism, and the spirit of absolutism in Church and
State. He had a ready and pungent wit, not the quality
of humor which quietly touches and plays about a sub-
ject, but which showed itself in unexpected striking il-
lustrations and pithy, homely sentences, that stuck fast
in people's memories. It was often the solidest wisdom
packed in the oddest forms. He had a considerable
amount of innocent vanity which sprang from his entire
self-reliance. He seems to have had a healthy though not
particularly fine or æsthetical love of nature. He loved
fishing, as much perhaps for its opportunity for open air
and exercise, and knack required for success, as for the
beauties of nature that it led one into.
2. As a preacher. He was, above all, an orator, a
preacher. His powers were eminently adapted to apply
truth to the human mind with force and effectiveness,
rather than to discover, weigh, and analyze truth. His
mind was not eminently philosophical.
We doubt
whether he did or could make a thoroughly philosophical
system of theology. But he was a great preacher.
There was his place. He had both logic and passion, the
material and the fire of oratory. He was one of nature's
own orators. There were bursts of spontaneous eloquence
in his preaching that, in his prime, are reported to have
been of extraordinary power and even sublimity. The
imagination of the true orator was marked in him, as some
vivid passages in his Temperance Discourses still bear
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
239
were,
witness. His ideas of writing and speaking had nothing
of clap-trap and the false sensational about them, but they
were sound and classical. As a minister he thought the
pastoral work was necessary to make the good preacher,
and that the two must be united. His sermons ever swept
on to some pastoral and practical result on heart or life.
No one could have a higher idea of the preacher's work
in which he continued till near the end of his life, and it
was a touching scene when he gave up his sermon-making
and preaching. He was then ready to depart. But Dr.
Beecher was, more specifically, a revival preacher. Here
was his life and life-work, his glory and crown. He lived
in the atmosphere of revivals; and to have a revival was
his idea of supreme felicity. The last words he said
not theology, not controversy, but to save souls."
He said of the period when he entered upon the minis-
try, "Dwight was, however, a revival preacher, and a
new era of revivals was commencing. There had been a
general suspension of revivals after the Edwardean era
during the revolution; but a new day was dawning as
I came on the stage, and I was baptized into the re-
vival spirit.” His ministry was blessed with many and
powerful revivals at East Hampton, Litchfield, Boston,
and also afterward when he preached as a revivalist
at Terre Haute and other places at the West, and at
Andover. To rally the Church for revivals was his inces-
sant and absorbing work. His method of promoting re-
vivals is as specially worthy of study by all those who are
entering the ministerial field, as it would be for a young
military officer to study the strategical principles and
the campaigns of a Wellington or a Napoleon. He relied
greatly upon the influence of a perfect concert of action,
on church prayer-meetings, and on household visitation,
bringing up the whole working capacity of the Church into
240
HOMILETICS PROper.
united and vigorous co-operation. His means of "deal-
ing with sinners," as he termed it, were something quite
original, as was the character of his preaching, at such
times, to the impenitent and the inquiring. He watched
with intense anxiety the condition of his own heart and
the leadings of the Spirit of God. The end of a revival
was the end with him. He did not run after it, as he
said, any more than he would after a spent cannon-ball.
His peculiar system of theology, or truth, as applied to
preaching, was not probably so great a source of power
as was the earnestness of soul and the faith and the faith-
fulness which he put into the work.
It would be interesting in this connection to speak
here of Dr. Finney, who in some sense was a contemporary
of Dr. Beecher, and whose method as a revival-preacher
had strong and most interesting peculiarities of great
practical utility for the young preacher to study; but we
must bring these remarks upon the history of preaching
to a close.
We will not stop to discuss the effect of what is some-
times called Liberal Religion upon American preaching;
it has exerted a marked power in a literary
and intellectual point of view, in bringing
in a purer style of writing and a more fin-
ished culture; and it has not been with-
out its good in theological directions as a modification
of extreme views, and as an influence to enlarge
thought where it had become hide-bound by the force
of a traditional dogmatism; but it has had, on the
whole (it is not uncharitable to say), a depressing
influence in taking the fire out of pulpit eloquence
and introducing an essay-like style of sermonizing..
There can be no genuinely apostolic preaching without
the earnestness of positive evangelic truth concerning sin
Influence of
Liberal
Religion.
HISTORY OF PREACHING.
241
and redemption. The sermons of such men as Dr.
Channing, President Walker, and that giant, Theodore
Parker, are worthy of our study for many most noble
and admirable qualities, as are also those of such Euro-
pean Unitarians as James Martineau, Stopford Brooke,
and the Coquerels, father and son. These preachers
and writers, men of force and genius, have worked one
golden vein which has been too little wrought by us—
the ethical—and here we may learn much from them,
and may go deeper than they, even in this their peculiar
province.
Besides those already mentioned, the names of other
American preachers, of Samuel Davies, John H. Living-
stone, John Leland, Griffin, Payson, the
Alexanders, Nathaniel Taylor, Erskine Ma-
son, Gardiner Spring, Olin, Summerfield,
Bedell, Bishop White, Bethune, Barnes,
McClintock, without mentioning eminent preachers now
living-these are familiar names, and, taken together,
there probably never has been such a body of preachers,
comprising so much of intellectual power, sanctified.
earnestness, and living faith, since the days of the
apostles.
The main practical lessons to be drawn from this brief
survey of the history of preaching are (1) that the preacher,
especially the young preacher, should study Practical
to comprehend and to combine the various
excellences of the different kinds of preach-
ing to be found in all times and ages, and
to enrich, strengthen, and elevate his own
preaching by endeavoring to appropriate whatever is
good in them all. He should be led to read the ser-
mons of all ages in their original forms. It is true that
sermon literature will not particularly help the preacher-
Names of
American
preachers.
lessons from
study of
history of
preaching.
http
242
HOMILETICS PROper.
his real inspiration should be from the study of the Scrip-
tures, and his own heart and life; but he may have his en-
thusiasm aroused by the study of the great models of his art
-by placing before himself great ideals. He may strive to
come at their sources of power. But let him remember that
great men cannot be imitated, and he who is really great
is built upon no other man's foundation; his greatness is
unconscious and inimitable; still the deepest sources of
power in preaching which are without the man, and which
are divine, and can therefore be drawn upon by all men,
these can be sought for with profit; though, as a matter
of fact, the divine and the human are invisibly wrought
together in the interior parts of the mind, and both, ap-
parently, belong peculiarly to the man himself. (2)
That he should, above all, earnestly strive to catch the
spirit and calling of his own age, feeling that the Spirit
sweeps on like the wind and never recedes; that it always
hastens to a higher and fuller expression of the love of
God; and he should, therefore, adapt his preaching to
the evident leadings and manifestations of the Spirit in
his day, and to the living men about him, without at
the same time yielding up the essential qualities and
characteristics of the true preacher of the Gospel of Christ
which belong to all time, and to eternal truth.
SECOND DIVISION.
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
SEC. 11. Object and Design of Preaching.
By reason of mistakes sometimes made upon the funda-
mental topic of the object of preaching, and of the
related subject, the true sphere of the preacher, and the
great evils that result from these errors, it becomes nec-
essary for the young preacher to have some well-defined
understanding of this whole matter. It is vital. The
work and sphere of the preacher is vast, almost requiring
an angel's powers, yet at the same time it is something
positive, and is not precisely the sphere and work of
another man; and it is good to know this, lest one waste
his powers in vain efforts, and in fields of labor which
are really not his own. In regard to the grand object of
preaching it might be said, negatively, that Christian
preachers are not set in the community to teach meta-
physics and theology, to cultivate eloquence and litera-
ture, to conduct a splendid ritual, to build up, financially,
strong and paying churches; but the preacher has a higher
sphere and work which, whatever it is, is separable from
every other.
While it is a work mainly in the realm of
conscience and spirit, while it takes hold of everlasting
interests, it is still a definite work. It is not exactly the
work of the scholar, or the philosopher, or the historian,
or the scientist, or the advocate, or the soldier, or the
244
HOMILETICS PROPER.
business man, or the man of affairs in the State, though
it partakes of all these, as might be witnessed, for exam-
ple, in some of the preachers of the Reformed Church of
France in the seventeenth century, who were genuine
statesmen of the first order. But while it has no place
properly among the common occupations of men
(though classified as one of the three learned professions),
yet it is, and men still recognize it to be, the "divine
office." The gospel, or God's message of peace and
life, being a gift divinely suited to its object, which com-
prehends the whole being, and is fitted to secure the com-
plete restoration of humanity, is addressed to man in
relations strikingly corresponding to the three great
divisions of his rational, moral, and spiritual nature; in
other words, as a doctrine, as a motive, and as a life,
and these relations in turn correspond to the three essen-
tial properties of Christian preaching, which threefold
design we proceed to unfold. All indeed might be ex-
pressed in the familiar phrase to save souls." The
end of preaching is to secure men's salvation; and there
can be no truer and more comprehensive answer to the
question "What is the object of preaching?" because
salvation includes everything that is good in character
and life. The object of Christ the Saviour is the object
of his preachers. But such a phrase, “to save souls," is
easily spoken, and may become stereotyped and meaning-
less.
<<
The preacher's responsibility is great; but let us
endeavor to see just what it is. He is not to do things
beyond his power. He is one in a series of agencies
prepared by divine wisdom for the accomplishment of
an infinite end, and he should know his work. He is
not the head-spring of salvation, he is but a means to
an end. Christ is the life; he is to proclaim this
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
245
life. Christ is the light of men; he is to diffuse this
light.
We would answer, then, that the first great object of
preaching, which goes also to determine its scope, is,
I. Instruction. This signifies instruction
in divine truth, and includes interpretation as
a means to instruction.
M
Instruction.
Preaching has primary reference to truth, which makes
its first appeal to the intellect or the knowing faculty;
and, above all, it concerns that absolute truth which com-
prises the knowledge of God, and which forms the basis
of all other truth and being. This knowledge of God has
relation to the manifestation of himself in revelation and
in nature. It lies in its elemental relations in nature
and the whole moral universe, but in its more perfect
manifestation it is to be searched for in the Scriptures.
The apostle Paul says (Eph. 5: 13): "For whatsoever
doth make manifest is light;" referring, as in the next
verse, especially to Christ, as he who is the light “which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world," and
this light penetrating the world of corrupt mind awakens
everywhere new moral life. It is the duty of the Church
on earth to diffuse this light of the knowledge of God
and of Christ. The Church is endowed not only with.
the "charisma" of faith, to receive the truth, but with
the "charisma" of preaching, to give the truth to others.
It is to light up a blaze of truth in this dark world. Its
messengers are to make known the truth to all living
men, and all the successive generations of men, in its
length, breadth, and fulness; in the fulness of the love
of God in Christ, of that last and most perfect manifesta-
tion of God as a Saviour, sending his Son into the world
to redeem the world-so that there can be no possible
misapprehension about it.
}
246
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Preach the gospel to every creature;" let all men
see, in clear light, what are the facts and contents of
God's revealed truth, in order that they may understand
and believe. This, historically, was the first object of
the early preachers; they were "heralds" to announce
the things belonging to the kingdom of God, whether
men would hear or forbear. The apostles were sent
everywhere to manifest "the truth as it is in Jesus," to
indoctrinate men in the knowledge of God as made
known in his Son. In the apostolic logic, this preach-
ing, or making known the truth to men, was essential to
their faith and salvation (Rom. 10: 17), "So then faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God;"
(John 17:3), " And this is life eternal, that they might
know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent;" (2 Pet. I : 2, 3) "Grace and peace be
multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God, and
of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given
unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness,
through the knowledge of him that hath called us to
glory and virtue.'
""
Now this same element of knowledge, of instruc-
tion, still remains in preaching. Christ said, "To this
end was I born, and for this cause
for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth ;" and
as Christ was the light," as he was a teacher sent
from God," so that deserves not to be called preaching
which does not shine within and without with the light
of the knowledge of God, which does not contain the
prime quality of instruction; for the gospel is a "word"
even before it is a message." It is a word which is to
be sent, or published. The "word" is addressed to
men's reason. In classic literature, as well as in the
original Scriptures, it is well known that the term Logos,
"C
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
247
""
'word," was used in a twofold sense, one as signify-
ing reason" or the "immanent word" (lóyos έvdia-
Oεros); the other as "expression," or the "enuncia-
tive word” (λόγος προφορικὸς). In the Christian
economy it might be said that the "immanent word”
or reason" was a preparation in the human soul for the
announcement of Christ, or a divinely given capacity in
the higher rational nature of man when appealed to by
the divine reason to receive Christ; while the "enuncia-
tive word" was the actual gospel. Here we have the
subjective and the objective views, if we wish to look at it
philosophically; though this is a secondary matter.
The gospel is the true enunciation of God in Christ. It
is the manifestation of the nature, will, and grace of God,
as represented in the new revelation of the Son of God,
the "Word" that was in the beginning, and that was
with God, and that was God.
>
That Word of God" is ever to be announced to men.
That is the principal thing. It is itself the supreme rea-
son, and speaks to the highest reason in man. It is the
voice of God speaking to man's higher nature and con-
science, as it spoke to him in the garden of Eden.
The preacher must be thus a voice to give utterance
to this will and grace of God in his gospel. He is "the
voice of one crying in the wilderness" of sinful and deso-
late souls. He is especially a
He is especially a "servant of the Word."
The preacher, therefore, is not responsible for originat-
ing new truth; but his business is to announce and in-
terpret truth already originated, and that was from the
beginning. He is to treat it mainly objectively-its
great truths or doctrines as they stand revealed in the
Word of God corresponding to the great wants of the
human heart. He is also to rise above the mere eccle-
siastical conception of the preacher; as, for example,
1
248
HOMILETICS PROPER.
A
("
the Roman Catholic orator, who speaks what is given him
by the Church, so much so that in earlier times, as we
have seen, set "homilies," prepared beforehand by the
bishops, were publicly read by the priests. In the Epis-
copal Church the clergyman could hardly presume to go
beyond, or aside from, the authoritative prescriptions of
the Church creeds and agenda;" the Baptist preacher
must maintain the Baptist view, and the Presbyterian
the Presbyterian; the Congregational minister must
preach so as to please the people, or some of the people
-we refer now to the extreme tendencies of the denomi-
national idea in its practical influence upon the preacher
—but he is, nevertheless, the interpreter of a higher gos-
pel. His duty is plain. He is to speak the Word that
God gives him. The truth is given him, and he is to
make it clear to the minds of men. He is always to
make advance in the knowledge of God. He publishes
to men, not new truth, but new discoveries of truth, as
the star-sown spaces of the sky were the same in the time
of Adam as they were in the time of Kepler, and as they
are now; but the eye of the true interpreter sees ever
deeper and clearer into their abysses.
We have said that interpretation is necessarily in-
cluded in this idea of instruction. Let us look for a
moment at this subject of interpretation
Instruction which is really the chief form or instru-
through
mentality of the instruction which the
interpretation.
preacher is to give. In its ordinary mean-
ing, as applied to uninspired writings, interpretation
refers to the philological and historical, perhaps ra-
tional sense, of any given passage or book; but in the
interpretation of the Bible there is a new factor that
enters into the problem, viz., Inspiration (O¿ónvεv-
(θεόπνευ
στia), which brings in a supernatural element; and the
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
249
interpretation of this underlying spiritual sense of Scrip-
ture makes the office of the preacher one of such great
and high responsibility. Spiritual things are discerned
through the teachings of the Spirit to faith, love, and
obedience. "If any man will do (or is willing to do, loves
to do) his will, he shall know of the doctrine;" so that he
who “loveth is born of God and knoweth God." While
it is true that the inner door of interpretation is unlocked
by this key, it is also true that the outer door opens to
patient scholarship. We are to come at the precise
meaning of the words of Scripture just as we come at the
meaning of any other book, written in a foreign language,
by the help of grammar, dictionary, and commentary,
and of that cultured literary sense, of which Matthew
Arnold, in his "Literature and Dogma," speaks so well,
if he did not overstate it.
Let the tendency of public opinion be what it may, the
preacher should hold to sound learning, that he may be
able to form his own judgment, since no commentator is
infallible.
The jealousies and bickerings of scholars in the mat-
ter of interpretation should be a lesson to us.
A wrong
theory to start with, a mental twist, a temporary fail-
ure of critical acumen, or even of common sense, upon
a given text, among hundreds and thousands of passages,
sometimes invalidates the authority of the most acute
scholar, be he English or German. The conflict of the
age is now waging about the oldest portions of the Old
Testament concerning the creation of matter and the
origin of man, and a scholarly acquaintance with Hebrew
would seem to be indispensable, if one would stand on
the primitive rock of the original text. There should be
a renewed enthusiasm in the study of this grand old lan-
guage. A recent writer says: "A knowledge of Greek
250
HOMILETICS PROPER.
is considered absolutely necessary for the clergy; but in
the present state of theological controversy, a thorough
knowledge of Hebrew is even more necessary. On almost
every disputed point of biblical criticism, the man who is
not a Hebrew scholar is entirely at the mercy of the man
who is."
But while he should be able to know the Scriptures in
their original tongues, and for this purpose must and
should freely call to his assistance all scholarly helps;
while as a scholar, an historian, and a poet, he should
enter into the deepest soul of these old languages; he
must at the same time be himself in inner harmony with
the truth, and be brought by the Spirit of God in sym-
pathy with that Word which he interprets, as well as
with those hearts to whom he interprets it. So he stands
between the two.
""
How deep you were within the books of God?
To us, the speaker in his parliament;
To us, the imagined voice of God himself :
The very opener and intelligencer
Between the grace, the sanctities of heaven,
And our dull workings. 1
,,
The preacher, if he desires to be a true interpreter, is not
to use the Bible merely as a treasury of texts for ser-
mons, but as the nourishment of his thought, the con-
stant source of that divine knowledge which he imparts
to his people; for he is not a mere brazen trumpet for
the breath of God to blow through, but his own mind is
to work upon the revealed truth-to translate, to judge,
to unify, to combine, to bring to bear upon it his best
critical and philosophical powers. He is boldly to em-
ploy the tests of his most searching analysis and his widest
generalization, since a narrow and rigid theory of inter-
Shakespeare's "Henry IV.," iv. 2.
1
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
251
C
pretation is ofttimes more destructive than the broadest.'
He is, above all, prayerfully to draw forth the riches of
the Word as it speaks to him in a religious point of view,
as a sinful man needing Christ, being willing to be him-
self taught of God, and having the passive as well as the
active, the receptive as well as the seeking, mind. In
this way the humble interpreter becomes the wise teacher
(vidά¤×аλos), and imbibes a portion of that divine wis-
dom which he dispenses to others. He catches the pro-
phetic spirit of inspiration, and is imperceptibly clothed
with its authority, so that he speaks as from out the
lively oracles." He is a genuine voice of God for in-
struction, consolation, reproof, above the voice of the
sky, or sea, or mountains, or thunder. He speaks to
what is more profound and enduring than nature.
Thus the young preacher may look forward to no
feeble and superficial, but to a wide and deep ministry of
the infinite Word. He should settle it in his mind that
by severe as well as generous scholarship, by a life-long
systematic study of the Bible, by the consecration of his
powers to this holy work, by humble waiting on God for
light, he is to make himself a true interpreter. This is
his prime business-to understand the Scriptures—to give
his days and nights, his strength and life, to this work.
His prayer-ofttimes agonizing prayer like that of Ajax—
is for light. He is the prophet of God, as the poet is the
prophet of nature. He is not a preacher, if this is not
his first work. He is a false prophet. He is a disloyal
messenger. He speaks his own word, not God's. He
does not seek to know and think over again the thoughts
of the Eternal mind. His little ministry soon runs out. Do
we not, indeed, discover here the secret of the ofttimes
¹ See Dr. Arnold's Sermons on "Interpretation of Scripture.'"
252
HOMILETICS PROPER.
evan-
superficial character and results of the ministry—of the
small fruit of preaching and pastoral labor, of the almost
total absence of the primitive quickening element in
preaching, of the ambitious, low, and secular view of the
divine office-of short settlements in the ministry-of the
work of lay preachers to fill out (as some genuine
gelists" of this day, though not theologically and artisti-
cally models of preachers, nobly and wonderfully are
doing), the glaring deficiencies of formal, unsympathetic,
unpopular, and unbiblical preaching. The primary sphere
of the preacher is, therefore, we conclude, to instruct in
divine truth, to interpret purely God's Word. He may in-
deed find God's truth in nature, as well as in revelation, for
there is, as Lord Bacon says, "a voice of God revealed
in things." But his principal work is to instruct in the
things of the Gospel of God. He is God's mouth-piece.
He is to let God speak through him. That is his office,
and to this work of instruction the best powers of mind,
the finest culture, the most profound spiritual insight im-
parted by the anointing of the Holy Ghost, may be em-
ployed. But great as this office is, this does not set forth
the whole object of preaching, nor, though in point of
time it necessarily comes first, does it, perhaps, in point
of fact, express the highest aim of preaching; and for the
discovery of this we will have to consider the true results
of preaching especially in those to whom it is addressed.
Persuasion.
(4
The second great object of preaching, without which
it is of little use, we would say again is,
2. Persuasion.-This is, through the powerful appeal
to motives, to bring men themselves into harmony with
the truth which is preached, so that it shall
be to them the word of life. It is to make
the truth true to men. It is more than instruction. It
is beyond knowledge; it is the producing of repentance,
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
253
faith, conversion. It actually leads the religious aspira-
tions to their divine object, bringing souls into vital union
with Him who is the soul's Lord, Judge, and Redeemer.
It is "speaking the truth in love." It is the truth per-
suasively and effectively uttered. It is swaying the will,
and turning the moral affections, so that men shall not
only hear and understand, but yield and obey. Augus-
tine's great precept in the fourth chapter of his "De
Doctrinâ Christianâ" is that the preacher should seek
"to bend men to action." He is to use the truth of
God with the whole momentum of his strength, to move
men off their bases of sinful repose and save them. He
is to regard sin as an evil to be mortally feared and es-
caped from as soon as possible, through repentance and
the forgiveness of the gospel. Nothing short of this can
satisfy the preacher of Christ; therefore it has been said
by Vinet, that the pastoral work is a finer test of the
Christian ministry than preaching, because it is the un-
ambitious and unselfish seeking for wandering souls and
bearing them back to the fold of Christ.
Here the preacher's own personality comes in. The
Word of God forms the divine circle in which preaching,
or the human element, freely moves and operates. Men
themselves come to have power. "Filled with the Holy
Ghost," they speak with the Spirit's potency. They be-
come charged with a life-giving influence, though of an
instrumental nature and degree. Through their preach-
ing souls are begotten unto eternal life. The apostle
says (1 Tim. 1: 12), “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord,
who hath enabled (energized, empowered) me, for that
he counted me faithful, putting me in the ministry."
The Scotch preacher McCheyne said, "I had rather
beg my bread than preach without success;" and he
meant by success winning men to Christ.
254
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Christ himself draws through the preacher, and truth
thus becomes a persuasive power. Preaching is truly a
personal application of divine truth to the personal needs,
sorrows, and doubts of sinful souls, so that they shall be
led to the source of all life-it is a real, Christ-like sym-
pathy with men.
(4
Some preachers have only sympathy with ideas, with
organized thought, with religious system-making, and
philosophy, so that men have felt the strength of their
preaching, but have not been moved by it."
What even is that which we call eloquence, if it does
not move men with the movement of the orator's own
mind; if it does not persuade men by the force of the
orator's own will?
1
"Quid aliud est eloquentia nisi motus animæ continuus ?"
The French Roman Catholic preacher of Notre Dame,
De Ravignan, said to his theological students, “What is
pulpit eloquence? It is the power of spoken words to
draw souls to their Creator. This is the highest of minis-
tries, the most difficult and full of danger. We must then
highly value it, and bring to it a pious union with God,
joined with deep humility. He that would speak merely
as a man, wastes his strength on human passion; but to
speak as an apostle we must go to those holy passions
which I will call supernatural-love of God, determina-
tion to save souls, the strong, all-pervading zeal which
springs from love of poor sinners; in one word God, God
alone, sought and gained through courageous and endur-
ing labor, through ardent and painful prayer.
see the whole secret of an apostolic man. There are many
who will preach from what they carry in their heads;
few, very few, speak from their heart, from their bowels
Here you
1" Cicero De Oratore."
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
255
of charity.
The truth soon becomes known; even the
people of the world are not mistaken about it. In sub-
ordination to this interior principle, the source of sacred
eloquence is always the Holy Scriptures. You know
them well; what you mean to preach is the word of
God. To produce emotion is to feel it. This true
emotion is gained first in prayer, then in the perusal of
some favorite author, then in a strong will to attain
a proposed end. Do not hesitate to give yourselves
full scope; speak directly to the passions in every tone by
turn; by unlooked for strokes move the depths of your
hearers' hearts. True eloquence is a drama. Look at
Bourdaloue himself, how his logic carries us away; how
earnest he is, while he seems so calm. Look above all
at the matchless Paul; he throws himself into the scene,
he interrupts himself, he apostrophizes his audience, he
prays, he weeps, he loves.
The radical difficulty with men is not so much a per-
version of the reason as of the will. Men are more wil-
ful than they are irrational. Here the preacher is to
direct his main assault; to pour in his mightiest forces of
persuasion and carry the citadel by the violence of a
divine love. He is to aim too at immediate results.
Life is not long enough to preach proprieties and
semblances. He is to persuade men to be reconciled
to God, not next year, nor to-morrow, but to-day. A
living successful preacher says: "Preaching is the art
of producing religious convictions and emotions in an
audience. Its effect must be immediate, or it fails in
preaching. It must be understood at once. Every
thought must be clear before another is presented.
Thus repetitions are often necessary, the expression of
1 De Pontlevoy's
"
1
Life of De Ravignan," p. 261.
(
256
HOMILETICS PROPER.
the same idea in various forms, and occasionally the
repetition of the very same words. Whatever inter-
feres with earnestness of manner should be disregarded.
The whole mind should be bent on the special work to
be done, and that work is immediate impression. Just
so far as the preacher's mind is diverted from this object
by his anxiety in respect to the grammatical accuracy of
his words, and the perfect taste of every expression, just
so far will the sermon fail in impressiveness."
John Foster, it is said, grieved in spirit because he had
never, to his knowledge, been the means of the conversion
of one soul; but who can doubt, who knew aught of his
life, that John Foster had the spirit of a true preacher;
and any theory of preaching which leaves out of view this
self-forgetting earnestness of the orator for God, this
deathless resolve to pluck men from the destruction of
sin, to break the chains of death and bring them at once
into the liberty of Christ, is a false theory. Dr. Finney
was as sure of his success in regard to hundreds of souls,
as John Foster was doubtful about one; but whichever
was right, without this devoted aim, preaching is en-
feebled. It becomes a weak thing, far below the man-
lier purpose of the reformer, the earnest author and
journalist, the poet even, if he be such a consecrated
nature's priest as was William Wordsworth. The
scholarly culture and attainments of such a brilliant
young man as John Coleridge Patteson, missionary bishop
of the Melanesian Islands, were nothing compared with
his Christian manhood, his single-eyed zeal, which taught
him to be as simple as a child in his instruction of those
brutified savages, afar off in the lonely isles of the
Pacific, which led him to homely, self-denying labors for
their salvation and at last to death from their hands.
This one thing" a minister of Christ must do.
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
257
The preaching, then, that does not actually convert men
from the love of sin to the love of God, nor aims to do so, is
a religious play-acting, and an ecclesiastical sham. Surely
the most respectable preaching in our churches which has
dropped out of it the element of persuasion, has lost that
which gives edge to the sword of the Spirit," making
it powerful to search the thoughts and intents of the
heart that sin shall be disclosed, that the love of Christ
shall be borne in to its secret depths, that the way of
eternal life shall be opened. But as the word of God is
addressed to the whole of the man, and not to one
aspect of his nature exclusively, so we have not attained
to the most comprehensive and apostolic idea of preach-
ing in that which ends simply in conversion; since it
must go on into something higher still, in the establishing
and perfecting of a holy life in the soul; and how broad
is the scope of preaching in this regard! The cross is the
sun of righteousness, the central orb that fills time and
space with its beams, that searches human nature through
and through, and casts light on all the varied interests of
human life and all the aspects of human character; on
everything, in fact, where there can be a right and a
wrong, and where responsibility is incurred by the moral
choices of rational beings. The final object of preaching,
then, is
3. Edification.--This is to build up the soul (a slower
process) in righteousness and true holiness. It is the
work of soul-culture. It is the formation
and completion of Christian character. It is
rooting out the spirit of selfishness, malice, and impurity,
and the training up of just, upright, merciful, honorable,
chaste, loving, self-denying, heroic and Christ-like men.
The work of pastors and teachers of the gospel is laid
down comprehensively in Ephesians 4: 12, 13, “For the
Edification.
+
258
HOMILETICS PROPER.
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature
of the fulness of Christ." It is the work of educating
men into the benevolent will of God until they shall
come in the fulness of their faith unto the perfection of
Christ. This is real salvation. What, indeed, is a sal-
vation that does not save from the power of sin-of all
sin—and that does not bring into the perfection of moral
purity? The immediate aim of preaching is soul-enlighten-
ment and soul-conversion; but the final object of all true
preaching is soul-edification-the formation of a true
manhood in Christ Jesus. It looks, therefore, to the
transforming of the whole man--the reason, will, and
affections-into the spirit of that divine charity which
is the bond of perfectness. Thus the meaning and end of
preaching is really Christ. Christ the ideal, as well as Christ
the source of spiritual life. The perfect manifestation
of Christ to men, to trust, love, and obey, is the fulness
of the gospel. This Christ-like ideal of something spiritu-
ally apprehended though yet practically unattained, is the
inspiring object of all true Christian preaching, which,
since Christianity is a life in contrast to a system of phi-
losophy, does not end in the enunciation of doctrine, im-
portant as sound doctrine is, but in the real implantation
and nourishing of a higher life; and it is to be remarked in
this connection, that the influence of motives which spring
from Christ's own life, is the chief means of the spiritual
edification of which we speak. The secret of power and of
hope lies in a faith inwrought by the Holy Spirit, not so
much in a creed as in a person; and the union of the divine
with the human in the person of Christ has made all things
possible for us in the realm of moral and spiritual life.
C
OBJECT OF PREACHING.
259
In this love incarnate, this love given to us, there is
power to purify and redeem the human race.
While we
despair, at least in this life, of searching to the bottom of
this mystery, of defining or explaining it by any theory,
yet the mystery of love working out the salvation of
men by its own utmost sacrifice is there, and in this
divine love must not the preacher be baptized by the
Holy Ghost, who is the "Spirit of Christ," before he
can preach "Christ, and him crucified"? How else, in-
deed, can he have the hope of redeeming the world or
a single soul? But with it he can hope for the realiza-
tion of a full salvation in preaching the gospel to men;
of a redemption of their whole nature from the power of
sin, and can labor for that end so that these souls shall
grow up into Christ, who is the head, and bring forth all
the beautiful fruits of holy living; and thus gathering
together regenerated minds into the unity of Christ, he
may labor successfully to build up also a Christian church,
and a Christian state, and a Christian civilization, com-
prehending all that is true, pure, great, and divine in the
world, and which shall be a synonym for the kingdom of
God on earth. In order to bring about the great con-
summation which we have mentioned, of restoring the
kingdom of God on earth through preaching, mere
knowledge, skill, learning, philosophy, and eloquence
are, we at once perceive, not sufficient. There must be
on the part of the preacher the holy mind, consecrated
to Christ, filled by his spirit, inspiring others with his
life and love, in order thus to impart this new life, and to
"beget men in Christ Jesus;" and on the part of the
hearer, faith, love, and obedience to fit him to receive the
truth, and to be built up in it. The preacher is only a
medium; but he is a true medium between the soul and
Christ. He must himself be in soul-fellowship with
260
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Christ, and in him the spiritual must predominate over the
intellectual. If, indeed, we speak of intellect in the
pulpit, there is not enough of it, and it is dull com-
pared with what it should be when God calls for the best,
and compared with the force, fertility, and genius often
exhibited in the other sciences and professions. But the
great defect is the want of fire. It is the want of
apostolic earnestness. The Christian Church fails to lay
its grasp on the passing generations and upon some of the
most brilliant and powerful minds. It is sometimes
affirmed that Christ need not be in every sermon; but as
Christ is the life and centre of divine truth, and thus
must be the end of all preaching, how can he be really
absent from any true sermon? To exhibit the truth of
Christ in its beauty and completeness requires the spirit
of Christ in the preacher, his spirit of love; otherwise the
unction, the renewing and edifying element, is lacking.
Thus all preaching should be "a word of the Lord," and
should have this characteristic of the apostolic preaching,
that it leads the entire being into the eternal life of
Christ. Now to bring these scattered elements of preach-
ing together into one comprehensive whole, we would
say that the true object and design of Christian preach-
ing, in the largest and most stimulating view of it,
is So to set forth divine truth, the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ, with such clearness, simplicity, sympathy,
power, fulness, love, and utter dependence upon and
union with the "Spirit of Christ," as to persuade men
to receive it truly to the conversion of their souls,
and to the upbuilding of their whole life and character
in the faith of Christ; or, in other words, to enlighten,
renew, and sanctify them unto eternal life in the king-
:
dom of God's dear Son.
THIRD DIVISION.
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
SEC. 12. Considerations preparatory to the work of preach-
ing.
As a preliminary step it is well to gain some idea of the
real difficulties in the way of the work of preaching, and
of the best methods of going about to accomplish it.
Let us then notice briefly some of the
1. Difficulties of preaching.—The prevalent ideas in
regard to the easiness of the preacher's work have been
increased by the now common and com-
mendable habit of lay-preaching, by which Difficulties of
preaching.
those who feel prompted to instruct others
become religious teachers and exhorters of the people;
and by the universal custom of address in prayer-meet-
ings and on Sunday-school and moral-reform platforms.
We do not say that many admirable sermons are not
preached in this way, and great good done; but from
this or other causes the regular work of the preacher has
been depreciated in value, and a style of preaching which
is easy rather than thoughtful, sensational rather than
searching, pointed rather than penetrating or profound,
has been the result; and this also has served to diffuse
the false impression that preaching is not very difficult,
and can be done by any one.
Now to make a good sermon requires many things
262
HOMILETICS PROPER.
which a merely literary composition does not demand.
It requires especially four things: 1. Scholarly knowledge
of the Scriptures. 2. Insight and judgment as to choice
of subject, so that it shall fit the wants of the congrega-
tion. 3. Power to set forth moral truth appropriately,
implying a certain just knowledge of human nature and
the human mind. 4. Spiritual apprehension of the truth,
or a heart-deep religious experience.
One should thus possess some real, scholarly knowledge
of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, so that he can
elucidate a passage of the Bible clearly from the original.
Otherwise he is at the mercy of every gainsayer.
Then out of a vast mass of subjects, like an endless
armory of weapons, he should know how to choose hist
theme so as to adapt it to men's hearts, consciences,
and present wants; this requires sagacity and trained
perception, or some maturity of mind and character;
the truth must be reasonably and clearly treated, so
that it shall not be perfunctorily, but edifyingly set forth,
in a way fitted to teach and make a lasting impression;
and then spiritual truths, the most difficult of all to com-
prehend and teach, should be so truly comprehended by
the preacher as to be made plain to the spiritual natures.
of others. There must be that religious experience, that
condition of heart, that love of Christ and of men which
is essential for the production of effective preaching,
which qualities are not always possessed by scholars and
eloquent men.
He who begins this work, therefore, should expect hard
work; it will draw upon all his energies. There was a
proverb among those who presided at the Grecian mys-
teries that "the wand-bearers are many, but few are in-
spired."
To be inspired one must go to the sources of
inspiration. He must give himself to God and his work.
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
263
The young preacher should know that his profession,
intellectually and morally, is a difficult profession; its
work is never interrupted, never finished, and requires
the whole energies of his being, up to the last day of his
ministerial life. One is not only to write sermons, but
he is to write better sermons, to make continual improve-
ment in preaching. He is never to think that he has
done his best, or done what he could. He is never to sup-
pose that he has exhausted revelation. He is always to be
a student and a seeker. He is always to be learning new
methods of communicating truth. He is never to give
himself to an indolent repose. He has entered on a war-
fare from which there is no dismissal. He has conse-
crated himself, body and soul, to this work. If he does
not study his mind loses its invention, and its resources
are exhausted. Sermon-writing is an all-absorbing labor.
One cannot preach and do anything else. If we wish to
succeed as preachers we cannot fall back on old sermons.
New exigencies, new applications of truth are continually
arising, and he who does not make preaching his one life-
work will fall behind others who give themselves wholly
to it, and he cannot also hope to reap the reward of the
faithful laborer. Although it is an ungracious thing to
say it, there are ministers who are not, and who do not
seek to be, successful. They do not study Hebrew and
Greek. They do not think severely. They will not
labor to preach well; they will not learn even the ex-
ternal and collateral means and accomplishments of their
profession; they will not learn how to write; they will
not trouble themselves about the simplest rhetorical
culture; they will not even mend awkward habits
of delivery; they will not correct a false tone or a harsh
pronunciation; they will not take pains to acquire the
art of public speaking, so that they can address an
264
HOMILETICS PROPER.
༄་
assembly upon any subject with effect; but, above all,
they will not grapple with the real difficulties of setting
forth divine truth effectively to men, which requires
thought, clear arrangement of ideas, spiritual meditation,
and prayer. They are doing, perhaps, all other things
except giving their undivided energies to preaching.
They say, perhaps, that there is no need of taking so much
trouble about these things, for they will be helped at the
time of speaking; but they who say this are those who,
above all others, need a thorough training; for in God's
work, as well as in man's, those who do not work are not
helped; and do such preachers deserve to be successful?
Let us, then, come to the conclusion that it is a great
thing to preach the gospel; and yet we do not mean, by
that, preaching great sermons.
Indeed too much is said, it may be, in theological semi-
naries about the need of taking so long a time to write a
sermon-a fortnight, or a month, or two months. We
sometimes hear such remarks from those who desire to say
a strong thing in order to impress upon the minds of
young men the necessity of steady thought and care
in preaching. No one can think more of this than we
do; but even this may be exaggerated. While there is
truth in this language, it also may greatly mislead.
Sermonizing is a difficult thing; but let us remember
that the real difficulty, the hard labor in sermonizing, is
in the preparation of the mind for the work. It is in the
previous training. If the mind itself is philosophically
trained, if it knows how to think, if it is thoroughly
accomplished in hermeneutics, and in the art of com-
position, then sermons, especially if they are short ser-
mons, may be composed rapidly; and, as a general
thing, two good and useful sermons may be prepared
weekly. Of course an elaborate occasional sermon may
J
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON. 265
take weeks and even months to prepare. It is well to
have such a studied discourse-the results of one's best
thinking and most careful scholarship-always on the
stocks. It is well, while a student is in the seminary, for
him to write some such sermons, embodying the results
of his theological and philological studies as well as life-
long religious experience. They form a good capital.
They lie like investments in the bank that may be drawn
from now and then, and that always yield good interest.
But a man should be so constant a student of the Bible,
and, we might add, so thoroughly versed in theological
studies, as to be able, on an emergency, to draw out quite
rapidly a clear and instructive sermon on almost any prac-
tical topic. The main difficulty is in making himself intel-
lectually and spiritually a preacher; then the individual
sermon comes readily and as a matter of course.
But one
should learn his trade. He should know how to compose
sermons. He should be always thinking upon his sermon-
work. Life is so short, and man's powers so limited,
that he can do but one thing well, and the preacher should
therefore not expect to do aught else but preach. This
continual labor bestowed upon the composition of ser-
mons is very taxing at first, but it will grow easier (though
perhaps never easy) as one grows to have power in the
pulpit, and the way opens to freedom, light, and success.
As one gets nearer to souls, he is repaid for his anxious
thought. Young preachers, in fact all preachers who
have not learned the best methods, are apt to be dream-
ers in their studies. They think that musing on a text,
or a doctrine, as a subject of thought, is thinking upon
it, is investigating it, is developing it into clear forms of
instruction and edifying lessons of duty and salvation.
Something more is needed than musing.
We will only add, in regard to the difficulties of preach-
266
5
HOMILETICS PROPER.
ing, and the hard labor which it involves, that an enthu-
siasm for our work will, with God's help, carry us through
it; and the work will be found to be sweet, the sweetest
of all works, the fullest of reward and true satisfaction.
•
In this connection it is well also to look at some of the
prevalent faults of preaching, so that one may avoid them
in his preparation for the pulpit.
2. Faults of preaching.-Among the most prominent of
these may be mentioned (1) preaching without a strong im-
pelling purpose. To preach merely to serve.
Faults of
a professional necessity, or to provide a dis-
preaching.
course for the Sunday service, is surely an
unworthy object; for there should be in every sermon
some definite purpose to convert men and to build them
up in the faith of the gospel. There should be a solemn
feeling of responsibility to God, who has set us in the
ministry to be fishers of men and not fishers for our selfish
interests. In his preaching the true preacher grasps men's
spirits and draws them unto Christ, that they may be
warmed into new life; and there should be this spiritual
grasp in every sermon, this laying hold of the souls of men
to bring them to Jesus Christ that they may truly live.
"
'The Judge standeth at the door.”
(2.) Preaching abstruse and learnedly expressed ser-
mons. A sermon should be intensive rather than exten-
sive or pretensive; there should be in it more pith and
point than elaborate argumentation. While a sermon
should always have that in it which appeals to the reason,
for religious truth, as well as natural truth, is a matter of
thought, and is cognizable in so far as it is rational and ap-
peals to the laws of the mind, yet a sermon is not a mere
argument. It is a thoughtful and earnest presentation of
truth, drawn with care and faithfulness from the Scrip-
tures, in forms of the most effective speech, and in-
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
267
·
tended, in its language and illustrations, to reach the
popular mind, and to persuade men-men of all classes
and divers characters- to a certain course of action for
their highest good; since their understandings often
may be convinced-are perhaps so already—while their
wills are to be turned, and their affections attracted by
and fastened on higher objects. The sermon is a relig-
ious address designed for a definite end, and not a relig-
ious treatise, saying all that can be said in the way of
discussion upon a given theme. A common audience
does not come together to follow out the painfully ex-
tended and intricate processes of a subtle and analytic
mind; and so also a too discursive style, which sweeps
over a vast deal of ground, which deals with truth philo-
sophically and abstractly, merely as a theme of learned
research or even of interesting thought, and not plainly
and pointedly, wastes the precious time allotted in the
on-rush of this world's life to the preacher of truth.
There may be learning and the results of critical schol-
arship in the discourse; but the sermon should not
have the tone of learning, for learning deals with the
past, and "knowledge should be turned into life." The
divinely practical element in a sermon should sweep
everything along with it. One should not stop to ex-
hibit his learning; and of what great importance is it,
after all, to one who has a higher end in view; who has
to gain his hearer and persuade him to serve the
Lord? We would make a difference between learn-
ing and scholarship, as they are manifested in ser-
mon-writing. We need the last; but we should not
exhibit the first; or, to quote from Mr. Ruskin upon
a different theme, "The artist need not be a learned
man; in all probability it will be a disadvantage to
him to become so; but he ought, if possible, to be
wate
268
HOMILETICS PROPER.
an educated man; that is, one who has understand-
ing of his own uses and duties in the world, and
therefore of the general nature of the things done and
existing in the world, and who has so trained himself or
been trained, as to turn to the best account whatever
faculties or knowledge he has. The mind of an educated
man is greater than the knowledge it possesses; it is like
the vault of heaven, encompassing the earth which lives
and flourishes beneath it; but the mind of an uneducated
and learned man is like an India-rubber band, with an
everlasting spirit of contraction in it, fastening together
papers which it cannot open and keeps from being
opened."
(3.) Preaching sermons addressed to the fancy and the
nervous sensibilities. This is what Shakespeare would call
"taffeta-writing." It is not dealing with plain thought,
from which true ideas are evolved, and true principles
brought out; but it is striving to rival brilliant and
popular lecturers, who, by continually working upon
their lectures, have made them like polished gems,
and have taken everything out of them which is not brill-
iant and immediately effective. It is also what is com-
monly called “sensational preaching;" since it is deter-
mining to produce a sensation on the nerves by words,
rather than on the conscience and heart by thought and
feeling. It is writing from the motive of exciting men
for the moment, and of catching their attention by novel-
ties, rather than of doing them good for eternity. And
it is also appealing to a lower class of motives, leaving
men's higher nature untouched. It is true that the mass
of men will be attracted by this style, and perhaps en-
courage it; and yet, sooner or later, even they will tire
of it; for it is turning the sanctuary into a lecture-hall
or theatre; and the results of this kind of preaching are
2
C
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
269
indeed as superficial as those of the popular lecturer and
player; for if there are conversions, they are of a doubt-
ful sort, it being poor seed sown in bad soil. In the
words of another writer, "This whole business of preach-
ing and hearing for entertainment may be told in these
two words, 'deceiving and being deceived.' We do
not say that a preacher should not attract his audience,
nor, if he has anything original in thought, or powerful
in imagination, or moving in truth, that he should repress
it; on the contrary, let him be himself; let him use
every power that he possesses; let his thought be fresh,
and let him make a sensation if he can; but let him not
preach for the special purpose of making a sensation, of
captivating, entertaining, exciting, drawing. How waste-
ful the efforts of such a preacher! How terrible the
responsibility he incurs! If the objection be urged that
the sermon of an opposite character fails to interest an
audience, it springs probably from other reasons: the
preacher has, perhaps, failed to inspire a true and manly
taste in his congregation; he does not put genuine
thought, feeling, or spiritual earnestness into his preach-
ing; there is nothing to attract in it; there is no unction;
he copies his ideas and feigns his emotions, and how can
he create a legitimate interest in this way? The
preacher should therefore resist the temptation (which is
one of the first to assail him) to make a fine, attractive
sermon; but let him rather strive to make a plain one,
and if there is aught of literary or awakening power in
him, it will shine out in due time. In saying this we
would not be understood as saying anything against pul-
pit eloquence; but it is sometimes difficult to draw the
line between the true and the false-the true sensational
and the false sensational. We find no fault with him
who strives, for the sake of truth, to say a thing elo-
270
HOMILETICS PROPER.
V
quently; but if he says anything in order to be eloquent,
to make himself attractive, to build up his reputation, to
produce an excitement for his or its own sake, to gain
the name of an eloquent preacher, to make preaching a
vehicle for personal and popular influence-here we de-
tect the false style; it is thoroughly and in the lowest
sense human and not divine.
Preaching to
the emotions.
In regard to preaching to the emotions-this is an im-
portant question by itself. There is certainly a true and
legitimate preaching addressed to the emo-
tional nature, and all true preaching aims
more or less directly to reach the feelings,
which in one sense lie at the root of religion, since relig-
ion is a want, a desire, a yearning of the heart before it
secures a thought or an intellectual conception. Preach-
ing is not merely a calm, unimpassioned, intellectual pres-
entation of truth, arousing no sensibility and producing
no mental excitation. On the contrary, it ought to
awaken feeling of the right kind. Feeling is not what we
should fear, but feeling of a false kind, springing from
superficial sensibilities and wrong motives, or from a
wrong way of appealing to the religious sensibilities.
The true principle in regard to preaching to the emotions
seems to be this, that the mere aim to arouse feeling
through preaching-making that the object is not
enough; but the aim of the preacher should be to
awaken that genuine and profound feeling which leads
the mind to act-the feeling itself being of little value
which does not end in a determination or action. We
must make men feel to make them act. So sodden are
they in sin, so hardened in worldliness, prejudice, and
error, that they must be made to fear, yearn, desire, per-
haps agonize with desire, before they will be moved to
seek God and truly repent. The fires must be kindled in
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON. 271
the depth of the soul before its silent machinery will
begin to operate, and before it will make any true advance
toward God and a better life. But feeling that does not
tend to action, that ends only in itself, that has no real
influence on the soul's choices, that does not lead to re-
pentance, faith, and holiness, that is but a temporary
thing, that is a fire blazing up and then going out-
that is not a worthy end of preaching-it is sensational
preaching of the false kind; and it may be the occasion
of incalculable mischief, even as a burned district in the
woods lies barren and waste for years.
In order to produce this true emotion, of which we
speak, the preacher (as the familiar Horatian rule is) must
himself feel. The French preacher De Ravignan, in a
passage before quoted, says: "To produce emotion we
must feel it. Do not hesitate to give yourselves full
scope; speak directly to the passions, to every tone by
turn; by unlooked-for strokes move the depths of your
hearers' hearts."
(4.) Preaching unstudied and loose-jointed sermons.
Antiquity and the authority of the Scriptures have made
preaching on the Lord's day a matter of great and
eternal moment, a reasoning of God with man, the
savor of life unto life, or the savor of death unto death.”
True preaching must, therefore, still continue to be
thoughtful, profound, authoritative; it doubtless may
and should have more of popular application, naturalness,
and life than it sometimes has; it may and should come
down to the sympathies and comprehensions of all men;
but the preparation for the pulpit should be a severe exer-
cise, and the sermon should deal seriously with great
thoughts, principles, and themes; it should not play
with them.
De Ravignan, again, says to young preachers in regard
1
£4
272
HOMILETICS PROper.
to writing sermons, Draw up a plan, lay down the course
of the ideas, their advance from one to another, their
final effect. This is what is most important, it is almost
all. The writing is nothing when the work is performed.
We must not fear trouble. Be laborious, patient, endur-
ing; at this price you will gain that fulness of force which
convinces and persuades. The labor of composition
should be a martyrdom, and ought to be felt to be such,
for without this an apostolic life is worth little or noth-
ing. Trouble must be taken if we hope to do any good.
What fatigue and dejection ! Often sluggishness and
inability will fill the mind; there will be no results. It
is well; it makes us humble and devout. In these times
we have recourse to God. We must, of course, employ,
spend all that we have. We could scarcely wish to have
genius save for the purpose of glorifying God by saving
souls, for without this, genius is nothing. Talent, at
least, of whatever sort, we must employ, but trample it
beneath our feet. We ought to wish to succeed, to do
well, very well. Listen to the fertile maxim addressed
to us by St. Ignatius: We must do everything as if we
were doing it alone, and look to God for all success, as if
we had done nothing.' He says again: For the pulpit
toil is everything; while sloth, on the contrary, hinders
all success.
""
Let us, then, ever strive to avoid this fault of com-
posing too easy and off-hand sermons, that cost us little
or no hard thinking. Let us shun this fatal habit of
facility. The age demands thought. Let us resolve to
give the best labor of our minds to this work, even if we
do not and cannot always make great sermons.
But, is it objected, how can a minister, with all his
other duties, prepare two such thoughtful and faithful
sermons a week? This is a chronic question, and we can
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
273
answer it only by asking another, How have the best
preachers done this?" In some way or another they
have contrived to preach solidly, attractively, effectively,
twice on Sunday, and every time they preach. White-
field preached, on an average, ten times a week, for the
space of thirty-four years, and John Wesley nearly the
same number for a much longer time; and Wesley's
sermons, if not Whitefield's, were carefully composed.
A young minister doubtless has a difficult task at first ;
but by the habitual and systematic study of the Scrip-
tures, by severe labor, by occasional exchanges, by some-
times repeating his sermons, and by not preaching more
than twice on Sunday, he can accomplish this, as others
have done. And, as a general rule, let him preach reason-
ably short sermons, if at the same time they are good ser-
mons. After all that has been said about putting honest
work into our sermons, this will not be misunderstood.
But there is a prevalent fallacy that the longer a sermon
the more thought it has. On the contrary, it may be
very long and very dull. It may be vox et præterea nihil-
nothing but words. Surely, if a dull sermon, the longer it
is the worse it is. A short sermon, too, may be vapid-
may amount to nothing-but if full of force and thought,
a short sermon is better than a long one. Where both are
good, a short one is the better. Attention is not wearied
and impression is not effaced. Macaulay says that at
the famous trial of the seven bishops, Lord Somers,
then a young man, arose and spoke a little over five
minutes, and his reputation as one of the most eloquent
orators of England was established. Put thirty for five
and the preacher need not err greatly. One thought,
one duty, fully handled, fully illustrated, fully brought
home to the conscience and heart, is enough for one
sermon; and would that young ministers, as well as
""
274
HOMILETICS PROPER.
older ones, could have the sagacity, humility, and in-
dependence to see and follow this rule!
sermons.
As to the length of sermons, we would add a word.
The history of this subject is somewhat suggestive
as well as amusing. The sermons of the
Length of first five centuries varied in length accord-
ing to preacher, place, and circumstances,
as they do now; but Moule remarks (p. 56) that "as
a general rule the discourses of the Greek fathers are
the longer, and of the Latin fathers very considerably
the shorter of the two. The delivery of the latter could
rarely have occupied more than half an hour, often not
more than ten minutes." Anselm is said to have given
this advice, “semi horae tempus communiter non excedat.”
In Blackwood's Magazine of February, 1869, there are
some curious observations on the length of sermons.
The writer says, "Sermons in early times seem to have
been comparatively short. Some of these extant by the
Latin fathers would not occupy, as they stand, more than
ten minutes, or quarter of an hour; many of Bede's
consist only of a very few lines. Therefore we are not
safe in resting upon such data-as these are evidently
short-hand notes. Long sermons were the product of
the post-reformation, especially of Puritan times. Yet
some of the earlier divines were lengthy. Bishop Alcock
preached at St. Mary's, Cambridge, "a good and pleasant
sermon," which lasted from one o'clock to half past three.
Sometimes the audiences in olden times, in England,
scraped their feet and thus compelled the preacher to de-
sist. The time was measured by the hour-glass standing on
the pulpit, and when the hour was finished, the preacher
turning it over would "invite his hearers to another glass."
Bishop Alderson, however, was strongly opposed to long
sermons; when once asked his opinion as to the proper
<
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON. 275
<
length of a discourse, he answered, twenty minutes,
with a leaning to the side of mercy." Isaac Barrow's
Spital sermon was three hours and a half long. Edward
Irving, in later days, also preached a sermon of three
hours and a half in length for the London Missionary
Society, in Tottenham Court Road Chapel. He
paused thrice, and the devout and patient congregation
sang hymns in the interval, but they never forgave him
that sermon." Perhaps the principle of Christian for-
giveness could not apply in such a case. Notwithstand-
ing, however, such exceptional cases, the testimony of
history in all ages of the Christian Church is decidedly in
favor of reasonably short sermons. There is, in fact, no
rigid rule to be laid down; subjects make their own time
in treating them; some subjects imperatively demand
lengthy treatment; but whatever our theory of preaching
may be, whether we view preaching as a constituent part
of worship, or simply as a didactic exercise, religious feel-
ing and good sense point generally to a forcible brevity
in preaching, though some topics will not suffer them-
selves to be handled in a short time. Mullois, in his
"Pastor and People," says sensibly "Believe me, and
I speak from experience, the more you say the less will
the hearers retain; the less you say the more they will
profit. By dint of burdening their memory, you will
overwhelm it ; just as a lamp is extinguished by feeding
it with too much oil, and plants are choked by immoder-
ate irrigation.” When a sermon is too long, the end erases
the middle from the memory, and the middle the begin-
ning. Even mediocre preachers are acceptable, provided
their discourses are short; whereas even the best preach-
ers are a burden when they speak too long. A Japanese
proverb is to the effect that "few orators are sufficiently
talented to speak a short discourse." Let us strive to be
276
HOMILETICS PROPER.
weighty if we preach short sermons. Let us strive to
pack more thought and fewer words into them, not for-
getting the motto, "si gravis brevis."
Luther's advice in homely German to a young preacher
was, Tritt frisch auf-thus maul auf-hoor bald auf"
(Stand up cheerily speak out manfully-leave off
speedily).
3. Process of composing a sermon.-We have no in-
tention of attempting to lay down an invariable method
of composing sermons. One man will have
one method and another another, the
greatest variety and individuality in the
treatment of divine truth is to be encour-
aged; it is a blessed thing that we now and then have
a Bushnell or a Phillips Brooks in the pulpit, as well as
a Kirk or a Spurgeon. Earnestness and brains will
make their own methods; but we would simply now offer
a hint or two that may possibly be useful to beginners.
We will, in the first place, quote two or three passages
from Dr. Alexander's "Thoughts on Preaching :'
"I wish I could make sermons as if I had never heard
or read how they are made by other people. The forma-
tion of regular divisions and applications is deadly."
"In writing or speaking, throw off all restraint. Writ-
ing from a pre-composed skeleton is eminently restrain-
ing. It forces one to parcel out his matter in a forced,
Procrustean way. The current is often thus stopped at
the very moment when it begins to gush. The ideal of a
discourse is that of a flow from first to last."
""
Process of
composing a
sermon.
(C
Ma
The true way is to have an object, and to be full of
it. I never could understand what is meant by mak-
ing a sermon on a prescribed text. The right text is one
which comes of itself during reading and meditation ;
which accompanies you in walks, goes to bed with you,
-
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
277
and rises with you. On such a text thoughts swarm and
cluster like bees upon a branch. The sermon ferments
for hours and days, and at length, after patient waiting
and almost spontaneous working, the subject clarifies
itself, and the true method of treatment presents itself in
a shape which cannot be rejected."
,
In these remarks there is much truth, and they are
eminently suggestive; but we might be allowed to differ
from them in some particulars, especially in regard to the
use of a plan. We agree entirely with the advice that the
plan should not be made to restrain or confine the thought;
it should not be the rigid application of the rule and
square to every sermon; but it is nevertheless useful as a
means of arranging thought, and of employing our mate-
rial to the best advantage.
The ability to methodize thought is a great power. If
the preacher wishes to produce a permanent impression
he must cultivate the methodizing and organizing power,
the skill to group his ideas to the best advantage. He
must train himself in planning for an end, and in care-
fully following the right processes necessary to the attain-
ing of that end. This, to be sure, belongs more especially
to the art of preaching-to its artistic side; but it is not
without its moral benefits; and when one has trained.
himself to think with method; when he has cultivated
himself in his own art so that he is at home in it, so that
he is skillful in laying qut his materials for sermons, as an
engineer is in making surveys, or a general in mapping
out the plan of a battle, then he thinks less about the
mere art; and his spiritual emotions run freely in these
prescribed channels. Professor Shedd justly commends
the forming of what he calls "a homiletical habit ;" and
his words are so valuable-we think none more so in his
book-that we would quote them in full.
278
HOMILETICS PROPER.
("
The preacher ought to acquire and cultivate a homi-
letical habitude. Preaching is his business. For this
he has educated himself, and to this he has consecrated
his whole life. It should, therefore, obtain undisputed
possession of his mind and his culture. He ought not
(save in peculiar cases) to pursue any other intellect-
ual calling than that of sermonizing. He may, there-
fore, properly allow this species of authorship to monop-
olize all his discipline and acquisitions. It is as fitting
that the preacher should be characterized by a hom-
iletical tendency, as that the poet should be charac-
terized by a poetical tendency. If it is proper that the
poet should transmute everything that he touches into
poetry, it is not less proper that the preacher should
transmute everything that he touches into sermon.
"This homiletical habit will appear in a disposition to
construct plans, to examine and criticise discourses with
respect to their logical structure. The preacher's mind
becomes habitually organific. It is inclined to build.
Whenever leading thoughts are brought into the mind,
they are straightway disposed and arranged into the unity
of a plan, instead of being allowed to lie here and there,
like scattered boulders on a field of drift. This homiletic
habit will appear, again, in a disposition to render all the
argumentative and illustrative materials which pour in
upon the educated man, from the various fields of science,
literature, and art, subservient to the purpose of preach-
ing. The sermonizer is, or should be, a student, and an
He
industrious one, a reader, and a thoughtful one.
will consequently, in the course of his studies, meet with
a great variety of information that may be advantageously
employed in sermonizing, either as proof or illustration,
provided he possesses the proper power to elaborate it,
and work it up. Now, if he has acquired this homiletical
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
279
mental habit, this tendency to sermonize, all this material,
which would pass through another mind without assimila-
tion, will be instantaneously and constantly taken up and
wrought into the substance and form of sermons; and
will make themselves manifest in plans, metaphors, illus-
trations, etc., in the preacher's commonplace book.""
Before giving any suggestions as to the process of ser-
mon-making (which will be indeed but brief hints, for, in
discussing the structure and composition of a sermon we
shall soon enter more particularly into this whole subject),
we would call attention to a note by Dr. Gregory, the
biographer of Robert Hall, on Robert Hall's method of
composing his sermons. That course was, very briefly
to sketch, commonly upon a sheet of letter-paper (in
some cases rather more fully), the plan of the proposed
discourse, marking the divisions, specifying a few texts
and sometimes writing a few sentences; especially on
those points where an argument could not be adequately
stated without great technical correctness of language.
This he regarded as 'digging a channel for his thoughts
to flow in.' Then, calling into exercise the power of
abstraction, which he possessed in a degree I never saw
equalled, he would, whether alone or not, pursue his
trains of thought, retrace and extend them until the
whole were engraven on his mind; and, when once so
fixed in their entire connection, they were never after
obliterated. The result was on all occasions the same:
so that, without recurring to the ordinary expedients, or
loading his memory with words and phrases, he uniformly
brought his mind, with an unburdened vigor and clas-
ticity, to bear upon its immediate purpose, recalling his
selected train of thought, and communicating it to others,
1 Shedd's
"
Homiletics," p. 105.
285
HOMILETICS PROPER.
in diction the most felicitous, appropriate, and expressive.
This was uniformly the case with regard to the tenor and
substance of his discourses; but the most striking and
impressive passages were often, strictly speaking, extem-
poraneous.
Hints as to
method of
Let us suppose that in studying or reading the Scrip-
tures, a text has suggested itself as an appropriate theme
of discourse, although we know that there is
no rule in the manner and mode of these
composition. suggestions; for the subject of a sermon may
come to one in travelling, or upon a walk,
of in pastoral visitation, or upon his bed, or at the bed-
side of the sick, almost as readily as in the study; yet
texts and subjects of preaching that are suggested to one
in his regular daily study and meditation of the Word of
God, are certainly the truest, richest, and most profitable
subjects for preaching; for they seem thus to come to us
by the direct inspiration of the Word and Spirit of God.
Having thus fixed upon a text, we would make every-
thing-first, last, and middle-of the study of the text.
We have spoken already of interpretation as a matter
of primary importance. Interpretation is the main pillar
in any true homiletical system. The inspiration of the
It is
preacher is to be derived from the word of God.
not to be derived from other books. Not only a study of
the text, but, as has been said, a systematic study of the
Scriptures-daily, weekly, yearly, pursuing some plan of
biblical study-is needed to make the best and most
useful kind of sermons. The exact meaning of the
original text, then, should first of all be obtained.
The mind should be filled with its teaching, and after-
ward there may be its application made to human hearts,
,, 1
"Life and Works of Robert Hall," Eng. ed., v. i. p. 9.
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
281
with fresh illustrations drawn from the study and knowl-
edge of men, addressing them in ways and forms that
common men understand-making the old truth to burn
anew in their minds, and to meet them in their every-
day thoughts and avocations; doing this with a supreme
reliance on the Spirit of God-this, we think, is the right
way to preach.
But a positive portion of divine truth, a definite sub-
ject, drawn from the patient study of the text, has thus,
it is supposed, been presented to the mind, which must
have something to work upon; for thought depends
upon knowledge, and reasoning is simply a deduction
from previous facts of which the knowing faculties have
taken cognizance. Now, although the subject is thus be-
fore the mind, the simple theme is not itself sufficient to
keep the mind working; for to begin at once to write
upon this subject is preposterous; to catch up an idea,
or half idea, and compose an edifying discourse upon it,
without more study and reflection, is to heap up words
without wisdom.
After obtaining the theme, the first thing to do is to
learn something about it; to read, to investigate, to
think upon it; to draw out from the best sources, and
all sources, the real knowledge of the subject; to recall,
revolve, and develop it by patient thought. The idea
which is contained within the text may be taken out of its
immediate connection with the text, and conceived of in
its wider revelations with other truth; and not only the
reasons for, but the objections that may be brought against
it, may be contemplated. The subject should be looked
at in its whole length and depth; all the possible side-
light should be let in; and thus the mind works in and
through it till the whole is leavened, till the simple
thought is fully developed.
282
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
All this, perhaps, may be done (if one is preparing a
written sermon) without putting pen to paper; for the
great thing is to get the mind thoroughly aroused, every
faculty of it, and all directed to one particular object.
This is the momentum which is required to carry one
through. And this should not be a mere intellectual ex-
citement; it should be the stirring of the depths of the
nature and of the soul.
"
A purely intellectual force may arrest and interest an
audience, but taken by itself it cannot persuade their
wills or melt their hearts. The best sermons of a preacher
are generally those composed under the impulse of a lively
state of religious feeling."
We would also add that the thought of the audience
should be always present-the great object for which the
sermon is composed-the particular persons it may be
that it is designed to reach, so that this human element
should run like a warm, vitalizing current through all the
processes of writing, and preparing to write, and the
preacher in this way will not fall into scholastic methods.
He will not be taken up with the development of the
thought merely, but with its application to men, and to
the great ends of preaching,
When one is ready to compose his sermon, the books
he has read, the commentaries he has consulted, the notes
he has made, might be laid aside for a little while, in
order to give the mind time to recover its independent
tone and action, and to think for itself. At this stage we
would suggest that one should rapidly write down his
ideas, and the thoughts he has collected together or
originated upon the subject, however diverse from each
other, and without any particular regard to connection,
or arrangement. Say to one's self "what definite
thoughts, after all this study and investigation, have I
PREPARATION FOR COMPOSING SERMON.
283
really gathered on this subject?" If there is anything
so gained, no matter what it is, let him put it down; and
these more or less disconnected thoughts will form the
nucleus of the sermon, out of which order will finally
spring; this is the first step out of confusion toward
order; and in this process the inner connections of ideas
will begin to manifest themselves more clearly.
By this time (and this may not be a long time) one is
ready to form something like a plan, because now he has
the materials to do it with. No true sermon
Place of a
plan.
springs out of a plan, but a plan springs out
of study and thought, and it is merely a help
in the orderly development of a sermon. The difficulty
concerning a plan has generally arisen from supposing
that inspiration comes from the plan. Not at all; a plan
is but an aid to guide and regulate thought, and not an
original source of thought; and we would, therefore, not
entirely dispense with a plan; for both nature and reason
teach us that it is indispensable. Is not creation-God's
discourse-carried out on a plan? So every true work
should have a plan, an inner unity, some one idea to be
developed, some one aim to be attained; and that should
guide and shape every subordinate detail to the furthest
and minutest ramification of the theme. As to the ser-
mon Bourdaloue said: "I can forgive a bad sermon
sooner than I can forgive a bad outline." And how
often a sermon that contains excellent thoughts, the
fruit of laborious study, yet falls absolutely without
effect upon the audience; and the reason of this is
that the thoughts are not well arranged, that they are
mixed up, or are put in some unnatural and illogical
order. A little labor spent in reconstructing the plan,
would make all the difference between an effective and an
ineffective discourse.
284
HOMILETICS PROPER.
A word still further as to plans. Are we to have one
plan and no other, dividing a subject up into regular divi-
sions, two or three, or four or thirty, as some old sermons
were divided-with formal phrases to connect, and the
gaunt ribs of the skeleton sticking out-with the introduc-
tion just so long, and the proposition in just such a place,
and every transition regularly parcelled out and numbered,
and the application in a stereotyped form of words, first
to sinners then to saints, or vice versâ? Heaven forbid !
We would go so far as to say that no two sermons should
or could have precisely the same plan. This, I know, is
contrary to the regular line of homiletical suggestion, but
be it so.
We would have every variety of plan-indeed
the text or the theme makes the plan; all we contend for
is, that there should be some clear and thoughtful method
of setting forth truth to the mind. A sermon cannot be
written confusedly, without method or purpose. It must
be a work of thorough, sometimes painful preparation.
We would make here one main suggestion in regard to
the plan of a sermon, and that is that the plan should.
never be one of entirely artificial construction, or one
superimposed upon the subject; but a natural plan,
or one growing out of the subject itself. It cannot
thus be the first thing made. The plan should be
simply the natural and logical order of thought which
every subject, when rightly treated, contains within
itself. It is the true development of the thought. We
would therefore abjure the whole race of skeletons. We
would throw contempt upon plans made to order. If a
preacher is forced to take some other man's plan, and
cannot make one for himself, the best plan he can adopt
is to give up preaching and find out another way of doing
good. But to return from this digression.
In the mean time, while the mind is busy in moulding
PREPARATION for composing sermon. 285
and fusing what has been thus rudely thrown together
into some degree of just quantity and proportion; truly
it were well if the ordering, guiding, and illumining
Spirit were invoked to one's aid. The religious energies
should have ample opportunity to warm and act upon
the subject-matter of thought, and the mind should be
kindled with the love of Christ, and filled with the truth;
for no sermon should be written without prayer, since no
true sermon, even if it is not divinely originated and in-
spired, should fail to be guided by the Spirit of divine
wisdom, truth, and grace. It is, moreover, a product of
all the energies and affections of the mind, and not of
the intellect only.
Then, taking hold of it with interest and with absorbed
attention, one should compose as rapidly as possible,
with a glow of mind, without the least constraint or care
for rhetorical rules, not stopping for a moment to correct
or improve. Write a sermon sometimes at one sitting.
Movement is a great element in preaching as well as in
everything else that has life and purpose in it. This
rapidity is important for the unity and life of a discourse;
for, let the gold simmer ever so long, at last it should run
out in a continuous stream.
The finishing of a sermon is a matter requiring more
care, time, and deliberation. Lord Brougham wrote the
peroration of his argument on the trial of Queen Caroline
twenty times; and even a genius like Goethe said that
"nothing came to him in his sleep."
Now, it is said, would you set this forth as the invaria-
ble method of making a sermon, or of preparing to
preach? By no means. This is but one method, and it
has a more particular and distinct reference to the written
and topical discourse. Different men have different ways
of preparation for preaching; let each one follow his own
286
HOMILETICS PROPER.
*
method. We throw this out only as a hint toward some
practical way of proceeding to make a sermon, since the
question is frequently asked by the theological student,
How shall I go to work to write a sermon?" But
when the sermon is finished by the exercise of one's best
powers, let it be finished, and let not the mind continually
worry itself because it has not reached its ideal.
Apelles, the ancient Greek painter, said, "he knew
when to leave off-an art that Protogenes did not know.
One's aim may be high; but when he has made an
honest effort to reach it he should be satisfied; for the
mind may become absolutely morbid upon this point,
and may maunder over its imperfect productions, when
the manlier way is to say nothing and to write better
64
sermons.
FOURTH DIVISION.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
SEC. 13. The Text.
The partitioning of the sermon proper into so many
separate parts, such as text, introduction, argument, etc.,
has reference, not so much to the voluntary
as to the involuntary plan of the discourse,
or to those constituent elements of a dis-
course which absolutely demand attention in constructing
a sermon. These, however, need not be distinctly and
formally expressed in every sermon; but they belong to
the essential structure, the osseous framework as well as
the complete development of every intelligible discourse,
which must be made conformable to the laws of the
human mind. In any formal address we cannot dispense
with such grand divisions as the introduction, the argu-
ment, and the conclusion; for every true discourse must
have at least a beginning, a middle, and an end; and the
beginning and end are naturally of less dimensions than
the middle. In like manner every human frame has a head,
body, and extremities; every rock has a foot, middle,
and summit; every tree has a root, trunk, and crown.
Vinet's analysis of a sermon, in his homiletics, is some-
what technical, and comprises the following parts: 1. The
Subject or the Text; 2. The Homily or Paraphrase;
3. The Matter; 4. The Explication; 5. The Proof.
A less formal and technical, but more familiar and ex-
tended analysis, would be the following, which we shall
Introductory
remarks.
288
HOMILETICS PROPER.
adopt 1. The Text; 2. The Introduction; 3. The Ex-
planation; 4. The Proposition; 5. The Division; 6.
The Development; 7. The Conclusion.
This general method of partitioning a sermon varies,
of course, in different sermons. It depends, in fact,
upon the nature of the discourse itself, which develops its
outward form according to its internal law, and has, or
should have, an individual organic unity.
It is our intention to exhibit, not the invariable form
of every individual sermon, but rather the parts that
legitimately enter into, and that generally should and do
enter into, the composition of a well-constructed sermon.
We shall try to present the ideal sermon in all its parts;
and although the logical method of partition is regarded,
it is chiefly the rhetorical, or the practical, or, more truly
still, the natural order that will guide us; for, to use
Vinet's words, "the dynamical is preferable to the
mechanical style of sermon."
We therefore now come first to speak of that funda-
mental portion of the sermon from which it is originated,
and on which it is based-the Text. Strictly speaking,
the text is not the sermon, but rather forms the subject
or material, out of which the sermon is drawn ; but, as
it is connected with every portion of the sermon, and
has so vital a part to play, we prefer, for convenience'
sake at least, to look at it as one of the great component
parts of the sermon.
66
66
The Text, from texo, to weave," or textus, a web,"
is that which forms the web" or tissue, or "main
thread" of the discourse. The "text" of a
sermon is, of course, some genuine word of
Scripture; although the Bible itself, as a
whole, is eminently "the Text.”
As to the origin of and authority for the use of texts in
Definition
of text.
"
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
289
preaching, we certainly find some reason for the general
principle of employing a portion of Scrip-
ture as the ground-work of discourse, in the
Old Testament, as in Nehemiah 8: 8, "So
they read in the book of the law of God dis-
tinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them
to understand the reading ;" and also in the New Testa-
ment, in our Lord's example in Luke 4: 16-27, and in
the example of the apostles in Acts 13: 15-44, and Acts
15 30, and in other places. The basis of the apostles'
preaching was usually some lesson read from the law or
the prophets; and as has been said, even if Christ and
his apostles did not strictly conform themselves to the use
of texts, it may be answered that they, in their preach-
ing, furnished the texts for us.
"
Origin of and
authority
for use of
texts.
While the general historical use of texts, or the found-
ing of the sermon directly upon the word of God, is to
be traced back to the earliest ages, the use of the single.
brief text in the more confined manner of our times, as
standing for the particular theme of the discourse, is
ascribed to the Presbyter Musaeus of Marseilles, in the
fifth century. It was, however, by no means the uni-
form custom of preachers in the first centuries, nor even
down to the time of the Reformation, to employ specific
texts in preaching, although about the time of Luther
the custom was quite generally adopted.
“In the Christian Church, the use of a passage of Scrip-
ture as the ground of a discourse, an 'auctoritee,' as
Chaucer tells us it was called in his time, is, probably
coeval with the set discourse itself; though, in the ser
mons of the great preachers, both of the Eastern and
Western churches, we find sometimes two texts prefixed,
and sometimes none at all.
'Moore's "Thoughts on Preaching," p, 78.
1
290
HOMILETICS PROPer.
*
ܐܨ
The fact is, that the use of a text or of a definite por-
tion or lesson of Scripture, as the theme of Christian
preaching, has come down to us from the earliest times,
and it has not been seriously opposed, because it seems so
in harmony with the great design of preaching, which is
the interpretation and the publication of the divine word
to men. The text in ancient times consisted of a longer
passage than is now used, since expository preaching
was the prevailing style; but, in the seventeenth century,
in England, the practice of brief texts was common.
Thus some preachers would write a dozen or twenty
sermons on a very short passage of Scripture; but now
a reaction is going on toward the use of longer texts
again; which is a healthy reaction.
66
As to the objections to the use of texts, Vinet himself
says that
what gives a Christian character to a sermon
is not the use of a text, but the spirit of the
preacher.
1
He says also, "the use of isolated texts,
joined to the necessity of never preaching
without a text, has certainly in its rigor and absoluteness
something false, something servile, which narrows the
field, confuses the thought, puts restraint upon the indi-
viduality of the preacher. "For a perfect defence of the
use of texts, he thinks that every text should contain a
complete subject, and every subject should find a com-
plete text. As every sermon, he argues, rests upon a
thesis, which is an abstract truth complete in itself; then
a text, to be what it should be, should contain a perfect
theme; and few texts do this. Vinet, however, on the
whole, argues for the use of texts, as a custom sanctified
by the practice of the Church, and as affording more
1 "Homiletics," p. 96.
? Vinet, "Homiletics," p. 81.
Objections
to the use
of texts.
<)
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
291
advantages than disadvantages. But to bring these ob-
jections into more specific statements:
I. The use of a text prevents the unity of the dis-
course. One must follow and explain his text, however
he may violate the rules of rhetorical art. Here the
objection rests upon the fact that the sermon is to be
necessarily built upon the rules of classical eloquence, is
to be a perfect discourse, preserving the unities of ancient
But this idea of a sermon, even if admissible, was,
as we have seen in the lectures upon the history of preach-
ing, one of later introduction, and did not belong to it
originally, and is not essential to it; its essence being
simply an address aiming to bring the message of God
to bear effectively upon the minds and hearts of the
people.
art.
But even if the sermon be a true oration, it may be said
that the orators of antiquity had no infallible truth to
speak from as a basis; if they had possessed this, they
would doubtless have reasoned from it. All writings to
them were of no higher authority than their own
thoughts; they had no inspired word of wisdom to draw
from. Yet, as a matter of fact, the practice of speaking
from some text, or definite proposition, was frequently
the custom of Greek and Roman orators. Demosthenes
almost always spoke upon some special summons, or in-
dictment, or carefully-worded motion, introduced into a
deliberative assembly, which served him for a text. And
this has continued to be the custom in forensic and parlia-
mentary address formed upon classic models; men speak
to a point of law, a special motion or resolution, or else
their speaking lacks definiteness and unity.
But we argue further that the true use of the text posi-
tively does promote the unity of a sermon. The main truth
of the text, however complex the passage may be, should
292
HOMILETICS PROPER.
form the directive and unifying law of the sermon. It is
not a true sermon which simply presents the exegesis of the
text—which merely explains it; but that is a true sermon
which develops the text, and which is moulded in all its
parts by one organic principle of life that springs from
the inspired word.
2. That the use of a text confines the discourse. The
idea is, that a short text cannot afford enough matter
for a long discourse; and thus the mind of the speaker
must be continually fettered by the narrow requirements.
of his text; it cannot act with perfect freedom.
One answer to this is, that it is a good thing to compel
the speaker to concentrate his thoughts and to restrain
himself from rambling discourse. This is not an en-
feebling but an enriching process. One goes over less
surface, but he sinks deeper. We answer again that
there are few texts which do not contain the substance
of more truth and of larger discourse than most men are
capable of drawing from them. This objection is found-
ed on the idea that the Scriptures are a book, like a
human book, capable of exhaustion. Besides this, the
literal and servile following out of a passage is not re-
quired. This following out of a text, word by word, and
step by step, without an inner grasp of its meaning, is,
after all, but a superficial treatment of it; it is what
Hagenbach calls "mosaic-preaching,
mosaic-preaching," or making small
bits of sermons on every member of the text-arranging
these along together, sticking them side by side-and
not one sermon, embracing the truth of the whole of it.
The text need exert no tyranny over the free thought of
him who has comprehended its spirit, and seized upon
its true meaning and scope. His mind is inspired and
freed, rather than hampered.
Palmer, the German writer on homiletics, remarks on
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 293
this point, that a true text cannot be compared to a ves-
sel, or cask, which the preacher is to draw from until he
exhausts it; it is rather a spring of limitless resource,
because it is a thought of God. If this were not so, then
but one sermon, by an able preacher, could be preached
upon it. It would thus be closed to another preacher's
attempting to use it; but, on the contrary, the same
preacher at different times and in different moods may
preach entirely different discourses from the same text.
He looks at the truth from various sides and aspects.
One can, in fact, always find something new in the same
passage.
3. Texts cannot be found which form perfect theses
for all subjects important to be discussed in the pulpit.
This is really the main stress of Vinet's objection. We
answer that the Bible contains the seeds of all religious
truth, or else it is not a sufficient revelation. It may
be that the truth is sometimes contained in a concrete
form in the Scriptures; but this is better than an abstract
form for the preacher, because it is vital and suggestive.
It may stand thus as a generic truth that can be analyzed
and applied; or as a specific truth, presenting at least
one aspect of the subject, which has a root in the gen-
eral principle, and which thus legitimately opens to the
discussion of the whole theme.
All these and other objections will vanish when we re-
gard the minister in his true light, as an interpreter of
the word of God to men. Whether conformed to classical
or unclassical rules, the minister's responsibility is to
make known to men the will of God, and this will is con-
tained most perfectly in the Scriptures; and although
he may preach the word of God sometimes without tak
ing a text from the Bible, yet so long as he is a minister
of the word, he will not find a subject proper to be
294
HOMILETICS PROPER.
preached upon for which he cannot find a legitimate text
in the Scriptures.
the use of
texts.
Let us, on the other hand, look at the true design and
advantages of the use of texts. They are chiefly fourfold.
I. The use of the text has the sanction of
Design and an ancient and consecrated custom. It is
advantages of
the way in which the Christian Church has
been taught the word of God, and the way
in which the truth has been preached to
men from the earliest times, and it has therefore accu-
mulated power and solemnity. What possible gain, then,
would there be in cutting loose from this ancient custom
of founding the instruction of the pulpit upon a definite
portion of the word of God, and of delivering a religious
essay or address from an independent and human point
of view?
2. The use of the text serves to interpret and explain.
the Scriptures. This is nearly all the Bible truth that
some hearers get in the course of their lives; and this is
the way that they learn what is contained in the Bible.
A clearer understanding of the Scriptures is thus pro-
moted; and this we look upon as the great advantage
of having a definite passage of the word of God to
preach upon. The use of the text seems to remind the
preacher of his chief responsibility as a minister of the
word. Every text he chooses says to him, “Preach the
preaching that I bid thee. Preach not yourself, but
Christ Jesus the Lord." And one text often compre-
hends a whole system of truth, the whole of Christianity
-as the entire arch of heaven is said to be reflected in a
drop of dew.
3. The use of the text lends a divine sanction to the
sermon. It recognizes the authority of the word of God
as the basis of all true preaching, and the truth itself
ANALYSIS AND Composition of SERMON. 295
has a converting power. "The law of the Lord is
perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the
Lord is sure, making wise the simple." "Now ye are
clean through the word I have spoken unto you."
Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.'
"For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ; for it
is the power of God unto salvation to every one that be-
lieveth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. "So
then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word
of God."
""
>>
,,
The use of the text as the foundation of the sermon
leads us to see and feel that it is the authoritative message
of God, not the doubtful word of man, which is set forth.
This gives the preacher a more than personal authority,
and it has also a reactive influence upon the hearer,
awakening in him a renewed reverence for God and his
word, which perhaps had become dulled. He is put in
mind that there is a sure word of prophecy given from
heaven to men, an infallible standard of faith and prac-
tice by which at last he shall be judged.
4. The use of the text serves to introduce and limit
the subject of discourse. It obliges the preacher, or
should do so, to have a definite subject of remark, and
it affords, too, a better subject than the preacher, even
if left to himself, would probably choose for the spir-
itual instruction of his hearers. And with the whole
Bible to select from, so rich and copious in every kind
of theme for instruction and spiritual nourishment, the
preacher need never be at a loss for subjects; the
great trouble is to choose among the multitude of sub-
jects that the word of God presents. The proper use of
texts is thus promotive of variety in preaching; for
where the mind naturally runs into one track of thinking,
the very responsibility laid upon the preacher to give
PORTRENTINO 8,570.4 LENCÉ M
296
HOMILETICS PROPER.
something like a comprehensive view of the word of
God, compels him to choose a great variety of themes.
The use of a text gives a definite point of view from
which to survey the vast riches of divine truth; and not
only a point of view, but, as one has said, of wonder and
admiration. In fine, the advantages of the use of texts
so greatly exceed the objections, that the custom doubt-
less will and should continue, although without any rigidly
prescribed rule in the case. Claus Harms, who was theo-
retically opposed to the use of texts, fairly tried the ex-
periment of doing without them; and his expressed con-
fession is that he would preach without a text only as an
exceptional thing; because without a text the congrega-
tion has no pledge that it is the word of God which is
preached. He also said truly that a sermon could be very
unbiblical which had a biblical text, and could be very
biblical without a text; but still, if one preaches from a
biblical text unbiblically, then his text itself condemns
him, and the unscripturalness of his sermon is made ap-
parent by its unfaithfulness to the text.
The congregation, too, though little edified, will be
less injured, because they can readily compare the text
with the sermon, and see how far the preacher has erred.
Preaching, according to Palmer, represents the free
personal element, while the text is the more limited or
defined sphere, of divine truth in which this free person-
ality exercises itself. This personality should never be so
free or lawless as to go altogether outside of the truth,
or to destroy the idea of a divine authority.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the
Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."
When a Christian worshipper goes into a Christian
church on Sunday he wishes to go with the assurance that
he is not to hear a merely human word preached, but a
1
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermon.
297
word of the Lord authoritatively addressed to his soul,
and powerful for its salvation and edification. This
strengthens the Church's unity.
Athanase Coquerel says that it is too prevalent a cus-
tom, and also a very grave error, to attach so little impor-
tance as some do to the text in a sermon.
With many
of our modern preachers the text is only an epigraph, to
be mentioned now and then, to be brought into the intro-
duction and the conclusion, to be cited, perhaps, but not
studied. But it is quite useless to put a text scrupulously
at the head of a sermon in order to prove our respect for
the Scriptures, if we do not also regard it as a word of
revelation upon which the faith of Christians and of the
Christian Church is founded, if the text is not regarded
as an authority in our instruction, and if it is not care-
fully investigated and faithfully interpreted.
We would now consider the main principles to guide in
the choice of texts. The selection of appropriate texts
is a matter of great responsibility for the Main
preacher; and he cannot do this perfectly principles to
well without some comprehensive knowl-
edge of the Scriptures, not merely an intel-
lectual but a spiritual knowledge of their
truths; nor without some wise, thoughtful, and con-
scientious principle of adaptation to the audience and the
occasion.
guide in
choice of
texts.
GAL
I. The text should be the word or a word of God.
"If any man speak, let him speak according to the
oracles of God."
The text
should be a
word of God.
All preaching should have a biblical truth,
a word of the Lord" in it; it should be
a real рóqɛreza, springing from a divine,
not human root. To illustrate this principle more care-
fully,
298
HOMILETICS proper.
(a.) It should not be drawn from any apocryphal writ-
ing.
(b.) It should not be of doubtful authenticity.
How far texts should be chosen from books of whose
canonical authorship, or even authenticity, there is more
controversy than of others as the books of Daniel,
Ecclesiastes, Second of Peter, Hebrews, and Reve-
lation-all we can say is, that English and American criti-
cism has not yet reached the sublimations of German.
criticism; for the critical faculty, rather than the faculty
of faith-the faculty of believing as little as possible-has
been developed in Germany during the last half century.
The passion for scientific investigation should be subor-
dinated in the preacher to the practical faculty. He
should look for the word of God from every source, and
in all its multiform modes of communication, rather than
be continually striving to diminish and narrow down the
field of inspired truth. Every book of the Bible, at least,
stands upon its own evidences. The preacher should
certainly examine those evidences with care; but no
book of Scripture has been left unassailed; even the Gos-
pel of John has been the theme of peculiar hostility.
Shall we discontinue to take texts from John's Gospel,
because, forsooth, this or that German critic has doubted
its canonicity? And so of the book of Hebrews, and of
Revelation. Christianity does not fall even with these
great books.
Paul may not, indeed, have written the
Epistle to the Hebrews, nor John, the apostle, the
Apocalypse; but does this controversy as to their author-
ship diminish their essential value? and will the contro-
versy be settled in our lives, and while the world stands?
Everything that has been assailed is not, for that reason,
less true or divine. The proof of the inspiration of these
books, both outward and inward, is overwhelmingly great,
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 299
far greater, we believe, than the arguments for their non-
inspiration; and they remain in the canon, and continue
to nourish the faith and piety of the Church, as they
have done for ages.
The truth is, the received text of Scripture, as far as
its authenticity is concerned, and as compared with con-
temporaneous classical writings, is singularly free from
errors, doubtful passages, and lacunæ. It has been won-
derfully preserved. Twenty thousand various readings
have been noticed in the brief six comedies of Terence
alone. Let us, then, continue freely to use these precious
portions of the word of God, though there may be
peculiar difficulties that remain to be cleared up respect-
ing their human authorship; or, perhaps we should say,
instead of "peculiar," more difficulties than attend the
other books of the Bible.
There are, of course, a few individual passages about
which there is so much doubt, and one or two that are so
evidently spurious, that it would not be right to preach
upon them, certainly not without giving their true char-
acter.
(c.) It should not disregard the analogy of faith. We
mean by this the right dividing of the word of God, in
relation both to the essential and the relative impor-
tance of every portion of Scripture. Thus one should
not preach Judaism instead of Christianity, or dwell
upon the Old Testament with such continuous inten-
sity as to draw his inspiration from the spirit of the
Old, rather than of the New, whose ministers we are.
When we preach from the Old Testament, we should
surely seek to find the New Testament in it-the testi-
mony of Christ, the analogy of faith. Some one quaintly
says that "He who understands the art of distinguishing
between Moses and Christ may indeed be called a doc-
300
HOMILETICS PROPER.
tor."
The Old Testament is the New Testament in its
germ, and therefore cannot be neglected by the preachers
of Christ; but we should choose our texts, and treat
them in such a way as that they may all bear upon the
"truth as it is in Jesus ;" and we think, indeed, that a
minister of the New Testament should preach most of
the time from the New Testament, as being the fuller
revelation, the perfect truth; since the Old Testament is
more especially the law, and therefore preparative, but
the New is more truly the Gospel of the grace of God, of
his perfect manifestation in his Son; and even in the
New Testament itself there are some portions more par-
ticularly to be chosen and dwelt upon, as containing more
of the truth and the riches of Christ.
(d.) It should not be an incorrect translation. The text
should be taken in its real, not its paraphrased and often
perverted sense.
The correct rendering of a text as well as the correct
reading of a text should certainly always be given, even
though our English translation of the passage be not
entirely literal; for a preacher should establish his people
on the rock of the original text, and educate them to this
idea.
This counsel in regard to establishing a people on the
original Greek or Hebrew text puts an end to the war of
versions, old and new. The preacher should employ all
lights, aids, commentaries, translations, versions (and
certainly the new revised version of 1881 is of signal
assistance here), but above all his own most earnest in-
vestigation and thought, in order to arrive at the correct
meaning of the text.
The exact rendering of a passage gives it often un-
expected beauty and force; even the right punctuation
of a text adds vastly to its homiletical value.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF sermon.
301
How immeasurably different is the Roman Catholic
reading, "I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with
me in Paradise," from the true rendering, "I say unto
thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.'
In 2 Pet. 3:12, σяɛúdovтas might very well be ren-
dered in the active and more stimulating sense of "has-
tening the day of God." In Gal. 3 : 24, παιδαγωγὸς
refers to the slave or tutor who leads the child to the
house of the schoolmaster; so the law leads us to our
teacher, Christ, that we may be taught and justified by
faith. I Cor. 4:4, Οὐδὲν ἐμαυτῶ σύνοιδα, instead of
meaning, “I know nothing by myself," is really, "I am
not conscious to myself of any guilt," and yet I am not
thereby justified; showing that even the unconsciousness
of his sins cannot justify the sinner-an important homi-
letical and practical sense. It might indeed be said of
this passage that the "by" may have had the old mean-
ing of
against," and yet, as the translation stands, it
leads to a wrong sense. In a passage which we have
before referred to-viz., John 7: 17-the words of
our Lord, “If any man will do his will he shall know
of the doctrine," might be more happily rendered,
"If any man is willing to do his will," or desires
to do his will," thus emphasizing the desire, and
bringing out more clearly the profound truth that our
real knowledge of divine things depends upon the
obedient and right disposition of the heart. It is, in
fact, almost parallel with the beautiful passage, “He that
loveth is born of God and knoweth God." Numerous
other passages might be mentioned which are familiar
yet how pertinaciously some absolutely faulty translations
have been preached upon! not, perhaps, to the inculca-
tion of error, but certainly without a nice regard to exact
truth. The text in Acts 26: 28, "Almost thou persuad-
99
302
HOMILETICS PROPER.
$
est me to be a Christian," has been used to serve as the
basis of discourse on "being almost
on "being almost a Christian ;”
whereas it would seem to have been a scornful jest of
Agrippa's, to the effect that Paul should be foolish enough
to expect that in so short a time, so lightly, or by so lit-
tle effort, Agrippa could be made a Christian.
The beautiful passage in 1 Cor. 13: 12, “For now we
see through a glass darkly," would be stronger still if
rendered literally, "For now we see in a mirror obscurely
(enigmatically).” The idea is not that of looking through
a glass; but it is the imperfect reflection of an object in
a steel mirror of the apostle's time, compared with the
actual sight of the object itself. This is likened to the
reflection of divine truth in these lower works of God, as
compared with the future clear beholding of that truth in
God himself. The translation of
The translation of "my temptation," in
Gal. 4: 14, exposes the passage to the false and pernicious
idea sometimes brought out in preaching upon it, that
the apostle was in the power or continual temptation of
some sinful habit-a totally incorrect meaning, for the
temptation" here is, in all probability, the trial occa-
sioned by a physical disease or weakness.
Biblical hermeneutics is the preacher's life-long study.
He should have the principles of interpretation clearly
established in his mind, so that they may be constantly
applied in practice; for his material for preaching lies in
the Bible. The word of God is his field. Mere fragment-
ary studies of the Scriptures, therefore, for the purpose
of selecting and elucidating individual texts for the
material of preaching, are not enough; his noble and
difficult office is to be an interpreter of the whole
word of God to men. He should explore it thor-
oughly, its heights and depths, leaving no unknown
land. He should make a systematic study of the Bible
""
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
303
following its books connectedly, according to the law
of harmonious development, and not being content
with the investigation of isolated texts upon particu-
lar themes. Thus Whately says,
Thus Whately says, "Beware of classing
texts together in regard to their subjects alone, without
any regard to the periods in which successive steps were.
made in the Christian revelation-jumbling confusedly
Evangelists, Acts, Epistles. This, among other things,
makes Socinians, who are right up to a certain point, but
stop short in the middle of the gradual revelation; they
have the blossom without the fruit. Jesus Christ was
first made known as a man sent from God, whom God
anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power; then as
the promised Christ; then as He in whom dwelt all the
fulness of the Godhead bodily,' in whom God was mani-
fest in the flesh,' in whom God was manifesting himself
unto the world.
?? 1
mada
If the preacher studies the Bible as a whole, then,
when he comes to the interpretation of a single text, or
passage of Scripture, he sees its proper relations, limita-
tions, scope, and bearing; and the philological exegesis
of an individual text, though the first is therefore some-
times the least part of the matter. Its real, spiritual in-
terpretation as an harmonious portion of God's word is
of higher import; for the Spirit, who inspires the whole,
who gives unity to the whole, must breathe new life into
the word, and bring back its original power, its divine
meaning. It was said of Edward Irving, who, with all
his errors, had some grand traits as a preacher, that “the
Bible was to him, not the foundation from which his
theology was to be substantiated or proved, but a
divine word, instinct with meaning and life, never to
1
¹ E. Jane Whately's "Life of Archbishop Whately' v. i. p. 207.
304
HOMILETICS PROPER.
be exhausted, and from which light and guidance-
not vague, but particular-could be brought for every
need." These remarks lead us to add, as coming under
this general head, another principle in the choice of a
1
text :
(e.) It should be suggested by the regular study of the
Scriptures, rather than by chance or accident. This we
have before remarked upon. The text should thus
rather choose than be chosen; it should spring out of
the habitual meditation of the word of God. There
should be a certain divine order in the selection of
texts, and the mind should, in some true sense, be
guided by the Holy Spirit in the selection of proper
texts. The text should be the text to be preached
upon, because the Spirit has brought the mind of the
preacher to it-has led his thoughts, studies, and desires
up to the open door of the house of God, where food
may be received for the nourishment of the souls of
pastor and people.
(f.) It should not be a merely human utterance, used
as if it were the word of God. All that lies between
the covers of the Bible is not divine." It is not all a
word or a speech of God himself, since a large portion
of the Bible is the record of human sayings and do-
ings. The record may indeed be divinely guided and
preserved, while the text itself is but the expression
of human imperfection and sin. The particular pas-
sage may be used as a text in its true connections,
as an important fact of human history, as something
essentially related to God's government and the re-
demption of men, but not as a direct expression of the
mind of God. There are texts spoken by angels, men, and
¹ Mrs. Oliphant's "Life of Edward Irving."
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 305
devils, by ignorant men, by wicked men and opposers,
by the prince of evil himself. These may be usefully
employed to illustrate the workings of the wicked
heart, and also as forcible indirect arguments; thus if
even demoniacs, for example, acknowledge the truth
and divine nature of Jesus, how much more should
we!
We surely should never employ a text expressing a
wrong sentiment, as if it were authoritative, simply be-
cause it stands in the Bible. The book of Ecclesiastes
is, on this account, peculiarly difficult to be handled;
and a right or wrong theory of this book makes all im-
aginable difference in the authority of many of its pas-
sages—whether they are considered to be truly inspired
by the Spirit of God, or are the utterances of the disap-
pointed and corrupt human heart of Solomon, or of some
writer of the splendid but morally fallen Solomonic
epoch. Many a false doctrinal argument, or perverse
opinion, has been bolstered up by texts which, if studied
in all their bearings, would lead to precisely opposite con-
clusions. There are, it is true, texts which are the spon-
taneous words of men, and which are, nevertheless,
inspired by the Holy Spirit; they flow from the teach-
ings of God's law and Spirit. Such is the passage in Gen.
32: 10, where Jacob says, "I am not worthy of the least
of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast
showed unto thy servant." Most of the words of Job
and of Daniel (though not all) are of the same character;
they are the reflection of the word and will of God in
the spirit of man." These, of course, constitute legiti-
mate texts, as do also those words where the Spirit of
God forces the truth, as it were, from irreligious or
wicked men, as in the case of Balaam, and of Pilate, and
of the Roman centurion at the sepulchre; and the utter-
306
HOMILETICS PROPER.
ances of Job's friends, although condemned by God in
the gross, are, in the detail, good.
2. The text should be fitted for edification.
The text
It should be capable both of being built upon and also
of building up in the truth. To do this it
should have in it the elements of substance
and increase-a text which contains a truth
edification. capable of application to the growing needs.
of practical life, a text, in a word, fitted for
advancement in the knowledge of God and righteous-
should
be fitted for
ness.
In its adaptation to the wants of the audience, to the
time, and to the occasion, it should be suited to the high
purposes of sacred instruction.
-
(a.) It should be plain. If easily understood, and
naturally suggestive of the subject, this helps the com
mon mind to comprehend and remember it; and it also
removes the temptation from the preacher to be pe-
dantic; he is led by it to a solid and earnest style of
discourse. But there are marked exceptions to this choice
of plain texts. A more difficult text may sometimes be
very advantageous. Its treatment assists in the inter-
pretation of the Bible to the common mind; and it
leads to an expository style of discourse. The very an-
nouncement of such a text in itself awakens attention ;
for men like to see a hard knot untied. It is a great
mental refreshment and excitement to the pious mind
to obtain a new idea from God's word; and all men
love to have mysteries unfolded. But very dark and
difficult passages, such, for example, as the Saviour's
words in Mark 9: 49, or Paul's meaning in Rom. 7:9-25 ;
or Christ's preaching to the spirits in prison, 1 Pet.
3: 19, 20; or the passage in 2 Pet. 1: 20, 21; or the
allegory of the "bond woman" and the free woman"
""
1
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 307
in Gal. 4:21-31; such recondite portions of Holy Writ
should not be too frequently taken, nor as a general
rule; otherwise a curious, rather than trustful spirit will
be nourished in the congregation.
And as another caution, it is not best to take a diffi-
cult passage unless we are sure we can go some way
toward clearing up its difficulties, instead of increasing
them; thus we should not take such a text when pressed
for time, or when we wish to talk in a direct, practical
manner. In a word, he who is in earnest to convert the
souls of his people will be most apt to take for texts
those plain, important passages which contain saving
truth expressed in the most simple and solid form; com-
prehending in clear propositions the great truths of the
gospel-the incarnation, the atonement, faith, love, re-
pentance, the Christian life, the judgment, and eternal
life.
(b.) It should be dignified, as opposed to what is odd.
In so vast and various a book as the Bible-a world in
itself—there are passages treating simply and freely of
human life, which are to be taken in their right histori-
cal connections, and with proper mental preparation; but
which, suddenly announced from so solemn a place as
the pulpit, would have a startling effect, tending to pro-
duce irreverence. The dignity of the text may be vio-
lated, (1) By a text which expresses no moral or relig-
ious idea; as if one should take the passage concerning
the apostle Paul, “ Having shorn his head in Cenchrea ;"
or the words of the Saviour, "Loose the colt, and bring
him here." (2) By a text which suggests ludicrous
associations. These words have been actually preached
upon, Cant. 53; "I have put off my coat; how shall I
put it on?""Ephraim is a cake unturned." (3) By a text
not adapted to modern ideas of modesty. There may be
308
HOMILETICS PROPER.
too great a fear on the part of the preacher of offending
a sickly fastidiousness, which by and by may grow so
extravagant that it cannot even bear the truth that our
Lord was conceived and born of a woman; or that could
not repeat many of his own words drawn from common
things. To the pure all things are pure; but, notwith-
standing this, it is still true that the ideas of different
ages differ, and a due regard should be had to that
fact. The soberness of the text should be observed, in
order, if nothing else, to maintain respect and reverence
for the word of God. (4) By a merely ingenious and
wittily-applied text. An old divine of the time of
James I. of England and VI. of Scotland, preached be-
fore that unstable monarch upon the words in James
1:6— Waver not.” This text was surely apt enough
and bold enough to be admissible; and so, perhaps, was
the text which was used on the following occasion:
William Pitt, when made Premier of England at the age
of twenty-four, was very slim and youthful in appearance.
He was publicly fêted at Cambridge University, his own
university, and was exceedingly pressed upon by the
crowds of applicants for office. In the religious services
which followed, the preacher took for his text John
6:9,
There is a lad here which hath five barley
loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so
many ?"
<<
"
But the following use of a passage in Gen. 48 13, 14
was much too ingenious. Jacob, in his blessing of
Manasseh, laid his right hand upon him crossed over his
left; and the theme drawn from this was, "We derive
our blessings under the cross. Sometimes, however,
there is a piquancy and pertinency in the text which is
simply felicitous, and yet not undignified; thus Edward
Irving's first sermon in London was upon the text,
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
309
"6
Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon
as I was sent for. I ask you, therefore, for what intent
you have sent for me."
(c.) It should be fresh, That is to say, as a general
rule, it is well not to take too familiar a text; for
a fresh text creates interest in the writer's own mind,
and in the minds of his hearers; it is turning over a
fresh leaf in the Bible; it promotes a broader knowl-
edge of the Scriptures; it is bringing out of the
divine treasures things new and old." Some preach-
ers seem to think that they must in no case depart
from the use of immemorial texts upon immemorial sub-
jects; whereas other texts, a little out of the common,
would throw new light upon the subject.
New circumstances and needs may require new texts
in which we should study peculiar fitness of application,
thus giving point to our instructions. We should study
variety.
#6
This, however, should not deter one from employing
those old and well-worn texts which have the merit of
greater appropriateness, and which seem to be peculiarly
consecrated to particular themes; such, for example, as
some of the words of Christ, which have a peculiar weight
and sanction as coming directly from his mouth. Ye
must be born again" is and will ever be the great standard
text upon the subject of regeneration; and yet there are
many other fruitful texts upon this fundamental theme.
There are, indeed, a few standard texts which a min-
ister should most certainly preach upon, and repeat-
edly preach upon; for, though so familiar, when treated
with earnestness they never fail of having a powerful
effect; and, like the green earth, or the sun, or the stars,
that we see every day, because they are so great, so good,
so deep, so divine, they are ever fresh.
CC
310
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Searching out novel texts is not what is meant by em-
ploying fresh texts; for fresh texts are those which, as
soon as uttered, suggest original reading and study of
the Bible, as if the preacher had gone further and deeper
into the mysteries of the word, and found new and rare
words of divine truth.
Freshness in preaching consists not only in the text
and subject, but in the way the preacher handles his
text; there should be freshness in his own thought or in
his own appreciation of the eternal newness of the word.
The stereotyped use of texts in preaching-setting
aside those few familiar texts that stand out like moun-
tains that cannot be hid-may be explained by the
fact, that great preachers who have gone before have
inade certain texts familiar and popular by preaching
great sermons upon them, by dwelling upon these pas-
sages as their favorites, as their theological proof-texts;
and less original minds of their own denominations and
theological opinions have concluded that there were no
texts in the Bible other than these. How different was a
mind like that of Leighton, that found food in every part
of the word of God!
K
(d.) It should, as a general rule, be didactic. That is,
it should have in it the quality of instruction; it should
be a text capable of analysis, of expansion, of thoughtful
treatment, in opposition to a highly imaginative, poetical,
or impassioned text.
Such an impassioned text might be sometimes effec-
tive; but it demands a peculiar state of feeling in
preacher and audience, and requires an equally fervid
introduction and continuously impassioned treatment.
It also excites undue expectation in the audience, and
strings up a sermon to too high a pitch. A text, there-
fore, which contains truth in a suggestive form, is better
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF sermon.
311
than one which gives full expression to the feeling of the
truth suggested; for there is something undeveloped in
the first, something that requires an act of reflection to
awaken feeling, and it does not start from too high a
point, thus aiding in the gradual development of the ser-
mon. It is better to have feeling flow naturally from the
actual treatment of a text, than to require it to flow at
once on the mere pronouncing of the text. The preacher
should not, therefore, acquire the habit of depending
upon sensational, or what may be called ambitious texts.
Yet, in a time when spiritual indifference broods like a
death-pall over his congregation, it might be impressive
for a minister to pour out his feelings in a vehement,
ejaculatory text, which was uttered originally at a similar
time of religious apathy and death: "Thine altars, O
Lord of hosts, my King and my God!"
Sometimes, also, a brilliant text gives power and glory
to a sermon, when it is carried out, as are some of Mel-
ville's sermons, in the same striking and exalted strain.
Such a text at once raises the audience into a higher
sphere, and bears their thoughts beyond this world;
but it requires deep feeling, powerful imagination, and
bold thought inspired by bold faith, to treat such texts
successfully.
3. It should have true relations to the
sermon.
The text should be vitally one
and the same with the discourse that fol-
lows, and should have its legitimate influ-
ence upon the sermon.
(a.) It should have pertinency. This means that there
should be an organic and not merely mechanical connec-
tion between the text and the sermon. Pertinence im-
plies,
(1.) An appropriateness in the choice of the text to the
The text
should have
true relations
to the
sermon.
-
312
HOMILETICS PROPER.
outward object of the sermon. Texts should be chosen
in reference to real and present wants, to events, circum-
stances, and exigencies springing up in the circle of a
preacher's own pastoral work, and for which he should
seek divine guidance in order to instruct, aid, and comfort
others. That particular man or that particular com-
munity in affliction needs a special word of God which is
addressed to actually existing needs and is fitted to reach
and console them. Then there are texts which specially
and exactly apply to the Lord's Supper, to Baptism, to
Ordination, to Death, to the Seasons, to religious Re-
vival, to War and Peace, to Thanksgiving and Fasting.
These should be carefully sought out and employed.
There is beauty in appropriateness, even if it be not the
highest quality of art.
(2.) The quality of pertinency implies an appropriate-
ness in the choice of the text to the inner subject of the
sermon. This refers to its real meaning.
<<
""
There should be no painful divorce of the text from
the subject. The rule of pertinency in this regard may
be violated, first, when the text does not contain the true
subject of the sermon. Thus the text in fact may refer
to an entirely different truth or class of truths from that
treated of in the sermon; as if, for a broad case, one should
take I Cor, II: 34 to preach upon Home and home
piety;" or if one were preaching upon the ordination of
a minister he should select Acts 20: 36-38, referring to a
pastor's leave-taking of his people; or, to narrow it down
still closer, if the preacher should take a text which, though
it may refer to the general subject treated of, yet does
not set forth the particular subject treated of; as if one
should take a text which treats definitely of the example
of some Christian grace, and should use it as a theme for
discussing the foundations of that virtue.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITIOn of sermon. 313
It is the habit of some preachers to touch the text so
lightly, to avoid it so scrupulously, to display one's inde-
pendence in talking of everything but the text, and to
look upon this fastidious avoidance of the text as a mat-
ter of good taste (as, indeed, it is in essay-writing, where
one strives to convey an idea indirectly, to insinuate as it
were, and where philosophy, instead of the gospel, is
often preached), that Cowper's words are brought to
mind:
"How oft, when Paul has served us with a text,
Has Epictetus, Plato, Tully preached !"'
Yet, as a modification to what has been said in regard to
the pertinency of the text in its relation to the subject,
some modification must be made, owing to the great rich-
ness of the divine word; for it belongs to the breadth
and depth of inspiration that we can often use a text in
various applications.
Thus texts which originally have a general application.
may be made to fit specific cases; and texts which, on
the other hand, have originally a definite historical or
local reference, may be used for more general instruc-
tion.
Take such a text as the words of Christ contained in
Matt. 22:21,"Render therefore unto Cæsar the things
that are Cæsar's; unto God the things that are God's ;"
how multiform are the applications of such a passage,
to baptism, to funeral occasions, to thanksgiving and
political sermons, to charitable sermons, to young con-
verts, and to many other subjects!
This rule may be violated, secondly, when the text has
not the spirit of the sermon. Thus the sermon may be
imaginative and poetical when the text is didactic; or it
may be logical and argumentative when the text is emo-
314
HOMILETICS PROPER.
tional and pathetic; whereas the text should give the
key-note to the sermon.
(b.) It should have directness. By this is meant that
the text should be one that can be directly and honestly
used for the purposes of the sermon and not be ingeniously
wrested to apply to something else which the preacher
desires to discuss, or to present to his audience. A direct
treatment and application of texts evidently secure more
of divine authority, and tend more certainly to edifi-
cation.
The question arises here, May we employ an accom-
modated text? An accommodated text, being chosen,
not on the principle of absolute identity, but
only of similarity, though allowable and
sometimes even necessary, should be spar-
ingly used, and never from mere fanciful
resemblance, but from a substantial similarity of ideas
or truths. 'Speak unto the children of Israel that they
go forward," may be justly applied to Christian sanctifi-
cation amid difficulties, or to Christian activity in dis-
couraging circumstances.
An
accommodated
text.
،
1 Chron. 21:24,"And King David said to Ornan,
Nay; but I will verily buy it for the full price; for I will
not take that which is thine for the Lord, nor offer burnt
offerings without cost." Here the great principle of
self-sacrifice, of doing something for the Lord which
really costs effort, self-denial, the giving up of property,
or what is cherished, for his sake, is taught; and it may
have a genuine application in many other ways, and at
the present day.
Such an accommodated text, when it suggests a natural
and sensible resemblance of ideas, without anything
strained or frivolous, and is itself at the same time
founded upon some deep principle of truth, applied
t
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
315
only to different circumstances, is perfectly justifiable.
"Christ stilling the storm" is well applied to his peace-
giving power in spiritual things, in stilling the tempest of
the wicked and passionate heart; for outer things may
typify inward feelings.
"Simon bearing the cross" is a proper type of the
Christian bearing the cross after Christ; in fact, the
principle of humble obedience is the same in both ac-
tions.
..
The use of this principle of symbolical interpretation by
the medieval preachers has already been noticed. They
were sometimes quite felicitous in the employment of
the accommodated text, although they were more often
given to extravagant allegorizing.
Thus Neale says,
Consider the admirable wisdom with which the follow-
ing texts are selected, under the head that we ought to
be solicitous to help forward each other's salvation:
Genesis 49,' Where is Abel thy brother?'; Ex. 26: 3,
The fine curtains shall be coupled together, one to
another; Is. 2:3, 'Come ye and let us go up to the
house of the Lord;' Jer. 16: 16, Behold I will send
for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish
them;' John 1:45, Philip findeth Nathaniel;" John
4:28, The woman then left her waterpot, and went her
way into the city;' Rev. 22:17, And let him that
heareth say, Come.
There is a curious passage in Daille's "Traites de
l'Eglise de l'Empire des saincts pères" (liv. ii., chap. 3),
on the abuse of allegorical interpretation, which is worthy
of study by those who are tempted to fall into this vein.
The Welsh preachers have resuscitated this style of
999 1
1 Neale's "Mediaval Preachers,” p. 38.
316
HOMILETICS PROPER.
preaching; but it were better left with the preachers of
the Middle Ages, and not be largely revived; for this
strained use of texts may easily be carried too far; thus
Hagenbach mentions that a German preacher drew from
the Saviour's words on the cross, "I thirst," the theme
that Christ thirsted for the salvation of men."
It is one thing to take an outward type as obviously
suggesting an inward truth, and another thing deliber-
ately to turn the text to a sense entirely different from
what it will plainly bear.
The allegorical use of texts in the past, especially by
the older Puritan divines, among them peerless John
Bunyan himself, is an illustration of this. To what
absurdities has it not sometimes led? The four streams
of Paradise have been metamorphosed into the four evan-
gelists; and the two pennies given by the Good Samari-
tan have been turned into the two sacraments of baptism
and the Lord's Supper. A preacher who deals in such
a fanciful torturing of the plain meaning of texts, not
only shows weakness, but is apt to lead himself and others
into error, mysticism, and obscurity, as did Origen, with
all his profound intellect and piety.
This typical method of preaching has not entirely
died out in these modern times or in sober, unimagi-
native, straightforward New England. How often do
we hear preachers of a poetical turn of mind (poetry
is good in a sermon in its right place) make use of this
method. Such preachers would really prefer to take the
narrative of Christ in the storm and turn it all into a
spiritual sense, thereby giving scope for picture-drawing,
and for the display of the fancy, than to take a text
plainly teaching the same truths of spiritual peril through
sin, and redemption through Christ. But false doctrine is
sometimes taught in this way, and all the doctrine in
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermon.
317
such a sermon exists solely in the preacher's imagination,
and not a word of it is contained in the narrative.
Everything in the way of fact or plain history in the Bible
may be typified by a preacher who cultivates a poetical
style of sermonizing; and this habit of mind should be
strenuously guarded against. In a modern Protestant
sermon noticed by Coquerel (perhaps its counterpart may
have been heard by every one of us) the narrative of the
healing of blind Bartimeus has thus been employed.
Two kinds of blindness are designated in this history,
that of the body and that of the soul. Christ has cured
one, he can cure the other; Bartimeus hears a great
noise of the multitude, which signifies the advancing
triumph of the Christian faith in the world; his cry to
Christ to heal him is the first cry of the sinner convicted
of sin; the multitude repressing this cry means the op-
position of the world to spiritual things; the answer of
Christ, "What wouldst thou that I should do unto thee,
is the voice of divine grace; the recovery of sight is re-
generation. This, though strained, is not so far out of
the way as are many such ingenious discourses. But such
sermons are not preaching, they are rather the parody of
the gospel. There is only the shadow of the truth in
them. Let us, then, resist this seductive temptation as
much as possible, and not be carried away by the oppor-
tunity which hundreds of like passages in sacred writ
affords us of this kind of artificial and spiritualizing dis-
,,
course.
Yet the use of the legitimate principle of accommoda-
tion in texts cannot be given up; for if we give it up we
should lose much that is interesting to the mind in the
inward and outward resemblances of truth, and in the
matter of actual inspiration. Language, for example,
which is addressed to the apostles, may, in most in-
Ch
318
HOMILETICS PROPER.
stances, be rightly accommodated to apply to all Chris-
tians. But in using accommodated texts, let this be ever
remembered, that the original significance of the text
should not be lost sight of; it should be fairly applied,
and it should always be clearly stated in some way that
it is an accommodated use of the text.
Motto texts.
But while freely yielding this principle, we are decidedly
opposed to the employment of what are called "motto
texts." Motto texts are those that are not
made the real foundation of the sermon.
They are used merely as a matter of form, in order
that there may be a text to stand at the head of the
sermon; for they exert no further shaping influence
on the subject, or on the mode of treating it. This is
using the word of God unworthily, and the "text"
becomes a "pretext.
pretext." Thus, to take a passage like
Rom. 6:5-11, so full of rich and particular instruc-
tions upon the central doctrine of the gospel, and,
merely because it refers to the subject of the atonement,
or has perhaps that word in it, to preach a sermon in the
usual abstract way, drawn from theological class-notes,
or systematic treatises on the doctrine of the atonement,
without further reference to the text itself, would be an
unwarranted abuse of the Scriptures.
(c.) It should have correctness. That is, the text
should be employed in the sermon according to the truth,
according to the true intention of the author, be he God
or man; and it should be applied to a subject which is
the true one taught by it, and not to any other subject.
This may seem to repeat what was said before, but we
do not refer now altogether to the correctness of the
verbal interpretation of the text, to which reference has
been already made; but more to the substance of the
text itself, since truth is better than falsehood, and even
OMPOSE
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermon.
319
truth cannot be helped by untrue arguments; and if cer-
tain texts have been used from time immemorial as proof-
texts of any particular subject, which are not so in fact,
it is, on a broader view of truth, right to disuse them for
such a purpose, and to give them their true meaning;
for it is not the number of proof-texts that establishes a
truth, but the clearness and authority of one text; and
if many texts may be used by way of illustration, they
should not be employed as proof, and much less as con-
taining the true substance of a particular doctrine or sub-
ject. This opens an interesting field of discussion in
regard to the external and internal sense of Scripture and
the just limitations of biblical truth; which questions,
however, we cannot here discuss.
The simple principle now before us is, that the text
should be correctly employed in its relation to the sub-
ject; that the real contents of the subject should be
found in it, though it may be in the simplest synthetical
form; it should not be wrested from its true meaning,
force, and relations.
Preachers will hereafter be called to a stricter account
in their use of texts; they will be required to be more
candid and true, and their preaching will gain propor-
tionally in point and power.
(d.) It should have fruitfulness. Texts should be
taken which are fitted to produce rich and fruitful ser-
mons.
The Bible is full of germinal texts capable of almost
infinite development; and yet every word and even
sentence in the Bible which seems to convey such fruitful
ideas, does not always do so.
Preachers are sometimes apt to be caught by the ap-
pearance of a passage rather than by the substance of truth
which it contains; for a text often appears very sugges-
320
HOMILETICS PRoper.
tive; it seems to open a most fruitful subject of thought;
whereas it may be but an incidental or accidental ex-
pression, and by no means the best and fullest manifesta-
tion of the truth. Vinet (Homiletics, p. 137) thus de-
scribes a fruitful text: "I call a text fruitful which, with-
out foreign additions, without the aid of minute details,
without discussion, furnishes, when reduced to its just
meaning, matter for a development interesting in all its
parts, and which leaves with us an important result."
The subject of the text lies so directly at the founda-
tion of Christian preaching, and so comprehends within
itself the whole matter both of the sources
of power and the inherent difficulties of ser-
monizing, that we cannot forbear, in closing
handling and this subject, even at the risk of some repe-
interpretation tition, to give a few brief practical sug-
gestions upon the matter of the proper hand-
ling and interpretation of texts.
Practical
suggestions
on the
of texts.
a primary
1. Interpretation as the primary sphere of the preacher.
This truth has been, perhaps, already sufficiently dwelt
upon. Interpretation forms the primitive
Interpretation sphere of the preacher's appointed work;
sphere of the he is, for the purposes of instruction, not to
preacher. invent new truth, but to explain and to make
clear truth already revealed; he is not to
preach primarily from a philosophy of divine truth, or
even from the "analogy of faith,
analogy of faith," or from previously
conceived theological systems and theories, whether his
own or others (and which are very good in their place),
but from the basis of a sound interpretation of the word
of God, and of that particular portion or text of Scripture
with which he is dealing.
2. Classification of texts for the purpose of preaching.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 321
There is no book so multiform in its aspects as the Bible,
being made in different stages of religious
development, and much of it being of pecu-
liar and supernatural import, where inspira-
tion struggles to express itself through an imperfect me-
dium of human language. How large a part of the Bible is
poetical, in which the deeper truth finds expression in type,
figure, and symbol-in a word, in purely emotional lan-
guage. How much of the Bible also is prophetical, wherein
addition to the vagueness of poetic symbolism, the uncer-
tain element of futurity comes in! Another portion of
the Bible is pure narrative, or the historic record of actual
events; and, after all, but a small part of the Scriptures,
in form at least, is directly doctrinal and didactic.
handling the sacred text for the purposes of instruction,
great discrimination and wisdom are required; the spirit
of the ancient Antiochean exegesis, applying sober and
common-sense interpretation, and taking things as they
are obviously meant, instead of the wilder speculative
method of the Alexandrian school.
Classification
of texts.
46
In
As to the actual classification of texts, no scientific
method can be laid down; every one is at liberty to
make his own classification; but one can see at a glance
that there are at least half a score of broad classes or
types of texts, which it would be foolish to treat in a
precisely similar way; as, for example :
(1.) Narrative and historical; (2.) Poetical, symbolic,
and parabolic; (3.) Prophetic; (4.) Meditative, æsthetic,
and subjective; (5.) Doctrinal; (6.) Ethical and practi-
cal; (7.) Spiritual, or purely spiritual. The particular
treatment of these different classes we will not here
dwell upon, although in various ways, and especially
under the head of the development" of a sermon,
more of a specific nature will be said.
322,
HOMILETICS proper.
5
3. Consulting the text in the original.
That one
should, in every instance, consult the original Hebrew or
Greek in selecting a text to preach upon, is
an obligation which both common sense and
honest conscience dictate. But how often
is this duty lost sight of by even the best
men. The pressure of official work, the over-confidence
in our own English version, the familiarity which breeds,
if not contempt yet carelessness, combine to make
preachers neglectful in this respect. But there are three
very simple and very familiar suggestions, which might
be termed axioms, which it were well for the preacher to
fix in his mind.
(1.) The precise translation of the original passage
should first of all be obtained. There should be no in-
definiteness here. Not what I would make the passage
to mean, nor what Augustine, or Calvin, or Meyer, or
Alford, or any other man, however influential as a teacher
and commentator, would make it to mean; but what the
words themselves truly and obviously teach, this should
be the rule.
Consulting
the original
text.
(2.) The meaning of Scripture is to be obtained in
the same way that we get at the meaning of any
other book written in a foreign tongue. We are to use
our best intelligence, judgment, and scholarship for this
end.. Proper reverence for the word of God does not
forbid this. The Bible does not take itself out of the
category of books that are addressed to the understand-
ing. It was meant for men, was meant for their compre
hension, instruction, and highest welfare. Although the
supernatural truth revealed in the Bible brings in a new
element which requires the opening of the spiritual sense
to comprehend it spiritually, yet as far as the meaning of
the words themselves is concerned, the same appliances
1
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of serMON. 323
and methods the use of grammars, dictionaries, and
commentaries which would be required in translating a
classical Greek or Latin author, and the same philosophy
of language, and the application of the same critical skill
and judgment--these are equally needed in the study of
the Scriptures. They are both lawful and essential.
There is no illusion about this. One must understand
Hebrew and Greek to interpret the Bible, or he must
take a second-hand interpretation.
(3.) There is but one true meaning to a passage, and
not many meanings. The meaning may be profound and
obscure, but is one. The Bible is not double-voiced. It
has an honest meaning, a single voice, a clear teaching.
We have only to discover this. Two widely-different
meanings cannot both be right. We may be in doubt
which of them is true, but one only is true.
Scholarly
familiarity
with the
idioms of
4. Scholarly familiarity with the peculiar usages and
idioms of scriptural language. The preacher needs a
special preparation beyond that of the classi-
cal scholar for the study and interpretation
of the Scriptures. While he should be intel-
ligent in regard to those historical, geo-
graphical, chronological, and archæological Scripture.
studies which fit him to understand so
ancient a book, he should especially have that philo-
logical knowledge which would enable him to have
some genuine confidence in his own comprehension of
the text. He should be able to enter into the very
spirit of the original; to comprehend the force of char-
acteristic biblical forms of expression; to feel the sig-
nificance of the use of certain words instead of others,
and even of particles, accents, and emphases. The lan-
guage of Scripture, archaic and Oriental, cannot be
judged by the principles that govern classic Greek or
324
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Latin, or our modern English tongue; therefore one is
compelled to make a comprehensive study of the Bible in
order to enter into these-we will not call them niceties,
for they are vital expressions of truth-but rather nice
and delicate forms of varied expression, belonging to the
original languages of the Bible, upon which often great
truths hang. Thus, for example, the language of Scrip-
ture delights in strong contrasts-strong lights and shades
-by which the truth expressed is exaggerated, as well
as its opposite, in order to produce a vivid impression.
Scriptural exaggeration is not erroneous statement, but
statement addressed to the imagination or the feelings
rather than to the calm didactic reason.
•
When the apostle James says that the man who sins
not in word, the same is a perfect man; when our Lord
says that he who hateth not his father and mother cannot
be his disciple, he who is penetrated with the spirit of
scriptural language knows how to take the sense of such
passages. He neither gives too much nor too little stress
to them. The literal intellect cannot be applied to such
texts, but there must be the higher critical and sympa-
thetic appreciation.
The Scriptures also often boldly set forth a specific case
in such a way as to convey to the less thoughtful or the
fanatically disposed mind, the impression that an invaria-
ble principle or rule is created in regard to every such
specific case; whereas it has a wider and more general im-
port. When, for instance, the young man was told that
he must sell all that he had and give to the poor be-
fore he could follow Christ, and the narrative is left
in this abrupt manner, if it were argued from this that
the holding of property in any shape by every person
who was, or desired to become a Christian, was sinful,
this would be erroneous; but there was, nevertheless, a
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION Of sermon.
325
great principle of Christian self-denial taught here. To
see just where a principle applies, in what it is gen-
eral and what specific, in what it is absolute and in
what relative, requires intelligent and cultivated dis-
crimination, especially in the interpreter and teacher
of truth. A preacher is thus called upon in the study
of texts constantly to use his finest powers of under-
standing, disciplined by a comprehensive philological
skill. He could hardly make himself perfect. He could
not, for instance, do better than to spend a definite
period in studying the language of the apostle Paul, his
style, his mode of argumentation, and his psychology.
The interpreter should be able to note and understand
the marked Hebraisms and Hellenisms of New Testa-
ment Greek. "In especial it is to be noticed that the
Hebrew of the Old Testament forms the basis of the lan-
guage and idioms of the Revealed Word; so that one
cannot fully understand the language of the New Testa-
ment without understanding that of the Old. Thus one
of the first duties of the preacher is to ascertain the mean-
ing of the words of the text in their common usage at
the time, while noting their idiomatic and familiar appli-
cations.'
This leads me to say a few words more particularly
upon the interpretation of the Old Testament.
5. The interpretation of the Old Testament. The Old
Testament should be interpreted in accordance with the
law of historic and essential truth. We
mean by this the recognizing of a principle
of historic development in the Scriptures
that the germ and not the full fruitage of
divine truth is to be found in the Old Testament.
Dr. Arnold notices the error continually made by Christian
preachers in regarding the holiness of the Old Testament
Thus
??
Interpretation
of the Old
Testament.
326
HOMILETICS PROPER.
patriarchs as absolute instead of relative; that men like
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who had personal communi-
cation with God, had such a knowledge of holy and divine
things as the apostles John and Paul had, and giving to
them all the excellences of perfectly holy characters; and
as if they had a nearer communion with God than even
Christians had; whereas they were in some things very
imperfect. This arose out of the fact, he said, that
Christians forget the privileges in their communion with
the Holy Spirit. Knowledge and holiness are infinitely
clearer under the reign of the Spirit than in the time of
the patriarchs, when it was, as it were, a relative or re-
flected light; but now it is one direct from God and
Christ through the Spirit. In the Old Testament men
are not addressed as having faith in Christ, or as looking
to eternal life with any large and settled hope such as
Christian believers possess. Knowing the New, we find a
great deal in the Old Testament to nourish our faith and
Christian character; but the light after all was not per-
fect, and a man who now lives entirely in the Old Testa-
ment is in fact a Jew, or a Judaic Christian.
We hear the principle sometimes laid down in respect
of sermonizing that it is right to take an Old Testament
text and put into it all the meaning of the New Testa-
ment. This is a wrong principle. It is making the
Scriptures a sort of divination book, and it is destructive
of intelligent interpretation. The Bible should be looked
upon as containing the greatest and most sacred truths,
and as setting forth especially God's manifestation of
himself and his dealing with men; but in its interpreta-
tion, the best human qualities of reason, sagacity, tact,
learning, and common sense should be called upon.
This is seen in the power of discriminating between
the divine and the human elements of Scripture, the
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
327
infallibility of the divine and the fallibility of the
human.
This recognizes in the writings of Scripture the use of
the human instrument, the reproducing of the milicu or
immediate surroundings of the text, such as the age, the
habit of thought, the character and philosophy of the
language.
Let us not start, as Arnold did not, with a precon-
ceived theory of inspiration; but let us reverently and
humbly study the record as sent from God, and apply to
it our best reason. Undoubtedly the nature of God's
principles in his own word can be best vindicated by his
own acts; or those portions of the Old Testament, for
example, which seem very obscure and difficult, such as
the slaughter of the Canaanites, the sacrifice of Isaac, the
language of the imprecatory psalms-these are best
explained by him who can best unravel the thread of
God's religious education of the race from its earliest in-
fancy.
/
In interpreting the Old Testament, one should have
regard also to the principles of a true redaction or reduc;
tion to order of the different parts and books of the Old
Testament. The very beginnings of Genesis introduce
us to two distinct accounts of the creation. The books
of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, are sometimes parallel
rather than continuous history. The twenty-fourth and
the twenty-sixth chapters of the first book of Samuel con-
tain different accounts of the same event. How many
more such illustrations might be given!!
6. Consulting the context. In the context we may
find circumstances, definitions, limitations,
parallelisms, illustrations and various ideas,
examples and facts, which throw great light
upon the true meaning of the text. To give the con-
Consulting
the context.
328
HOMILETICS PROPER.
text due consideration is a well-settled rule of homi-
letics; and yet how often is it violated in the stereo-
typed method of treating texts. The old motto of the
mystics and the allegorists, "Verba Scriptura tantum
ubique significare, quantum significare possunt," or the
idea still asserted by some that we may take a detached
text and make it to mean all that the words in themselves
can possibly be pressed to mean, without regard to its
probable and true meaning, is a dangerous rule of interpre-
tation. The text may, for example, be originally used to
apply to temporal things, and we should be careful in
applying it to spiritual things. It may be employed,
originally, simply as a figure of speech, and not literally.
Now a figure means one thing in one place, and another
thing in another. A phrase in the mouth of one person
may teach a very different lesson from what it does in
the mouth of another. The Bible is not a "lively
oracle" in the sense of enunciating a truth without regard
to order, time, or circumstance; but it is addressed to
the reason, and is amenable to historic conditions. A
good Reference Bible is of assistance in enlarging the
scriptural basis of a sermon, and in comparing the truth
of the text with parallel passages teaching the same truth
in different aspects. The context may be looked upon
in its historical or logical connections, either in regard
to its relations of thought, or its relations of time, place,
and circumstance. The order of thought, for instance,
in a Pauline epistle, though it may be often recondite,
because connected with a controversial drift, is still of
the greatest importance to comprehend, in arriving at the
general tenor and significance of its instruction. We
must, in fact, study the whole scope of the passage in all
its relations in order to be honest, and in order to draw
from the text its true teaching capacities.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
329
7. Employing a text containing a perfect idea, and that
the complete idea of the author.
This should be done as far as possible, especially
when we preach topical sermons.
Claude's
64
rule is,
The text must contain the com-
plete idea of the writer from whom it is
borrowed; for it is his language, they are
his sentiments, which we are to explain to our hearers.'
In a word, we are not to mangle the Bible. We are to
get at the full and rounded meaning of the Sacred Word,
and to discuss the true subjects and truths which it enun-
ciates. We should not be hasty to draw our subjects from
texts. Vinet says:
We must not confound texts with
phrases and periods, nor logical unity with grammatical
unity, neither must we think that the text ends where the
grammatical sense ends, or even where logical unity closes.
Many logical unities may together form a greater unity;
and it is impossible to see beforehand, and in an absolute
manner, what are the limits of a true text.
The same
text may furnish ten; ten texts may make one. The
art of cutting up a text, the art of grouping many texts
into one, deserves examination.
1
,,
1 Vinet's
In order to retain this completeness of idea in the text
it is not well, as a general rule, to employ two texts, or
to employ two or more texts from different parts of the
Bible; it is better to have but one text, one passage of
Scripture, and that, whether long or short, should con-
tain one subject, and be complete in itself.
The advice is commonly given that the text should be
short, for a short text is better remembered. Brief, con-
densed, penetrating texts stick in the memory like nails
fastened by the masters of assemblies. And yet texts
"
Text
containing a
perfect theme.
Homiletics," p. 141.
,,
330
HOMILETICS PROPER:
may be too brief; they may not contain a whole subject;
they may be mere fragments of a truth or of a sentence.
The better rule is, that the text should contain one com-
plete truth or idea, and then it may be long or brief. What
a world of meaning is in that shortest text of the Bible,
"Jesus wept!”
It is wholly unjustifiable to take a mere portion or
clause of a verse, even if it contains good sense in itself,
but which, by thus dismembering it from the rest, does
not give the real or full sense intended to be conveyed
by the whole verse; such a text, for instance, as Heb.
42, "But the word preached did not profit them;"
without adding the very important clause, “not being
mixed with faith in them that heard it." The longer
the passage, however, that we may conveniently employ
for a text, which at the same time contains a perfect
theme, and does not violate the law of unity, the more
of the actual body of Scripture we bring before the peo-
ple, and the nearer do we come, undoubtedly, to the
primitive style of preaching.
The following texts might be cited as having unity of
theme, or as containing one main thought without excess
or deficiency, though composed, it may be, of elaborate
parts I Pet. 1: 24, 25, the imperishable character of
the Word of God as contrasted with the changing char-
acter of visible things; John 3:16, the sending of
Christ a convincing and triumphant proof of the love of
God; 1 John 4: 19, the grand apology of Christians for
loving God; Galatians 3: 15-22, the sureness of the
promises in Christ. Even in so elaborate a passage as that
last cited there is really but one idea running through
it; as also in James 1: 22-27, the hearing and the doing
of the word in their relations.
8. Parabolic texts. In employing these we should
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 331
strive to come at the germinant idea of the figure, or the
idea with which the picture is compared,
or to which it is parallel. We should Figurative
and parabolic
texts.
get at the foundation truth of a figure or a
parable; and such texts are good and rich
texts if rightly treated. Indeed, everything to the spir.
itual mind becomes an image of the spiritual, and yet, as
we have before said, care should be taken not to “spirit-
ualize” texts unduly.
In regard to the homiletical treatment of the parables.
of Scripture there are two theories; one is, that there is
but one main spiritual meaning or lesson taught, and that
the circumstantials of the parable are wholly secondary,
or only intended to make the story natural and coherent ;
the other is, that all parts of the parable, that every cir-
cumstance, and every turn of the allegory and every word
is important and full of didactic significance. While the
first of these is, in our opinion, the nearest to the truth,
and comes under the principle that a metaphor should
not be made to run upon four feet, yet for the preacher's
purposes the parables of our Saviour are so wonderfully
full of meaning that he cannot afford to neglect any part,
or circumstance, or feature of them; each serving to
color, modify, and enrich the whole lesson.
There is, at least, whatever theory of homiletical treat-
ment we may adopt, one broad generalization which will
comprehend the whole lesson and beauty of the parable.
But for one to dwell too precisely upon the poetic and
symbolical portions of the Bible, to go into the minutia
of the fringes on the priests' garments; this leads to arti-
ficiality and barrenness.
We should avoid unfruitful figures or figures that do
not contain real truths. We should shun strained paral-
lelisms that the Scriptures themselves never intended..
332
HOMILETICS PRoper.
But such passages as John 4: 10 and I Cor. 12:25-27
are of the number of inspired figures where one cannot
easily make a mistake in the thing signified; but which,
when rightly understood, convey living truths, reasons,
proofs, vividly expressed. Often the parable forms a
true subject in itself, without the need of drawing out a
propositional form, or a more distinct theme, as Matt.
13: 1-9. It is simply enough to comment upon this
parable of the sower, especially as the Lord has been his
own interpreter in it, textually, part by part. In treating
such a parable, the sermon should not lose its simple ex-
planatory form. Some parables are difficult to explain,
to group the ideas boldly and successfully, to grasp the
inner sense of the truth amid their contrariety and subtle
changes. Such are the parables of the "unjust stew-
ard," and of the "laborers in the vineyard.'
9. The use of historical texts. In treating such texts
one may either lay the stress upon the main event con-
tained in the narrative, or upon some side
event, or side-issue, growing out of it. He
may take the whole of a history, or only a
part, a single salient circumstance, a single person, or a
single act or remark of a single person; but if he does
this last he must do it regardful of the connections, and
of the whole texture of the historic web out of which he
draws this thread. We shall speak further of historic
sermons, under the head of "development.
10. Time of choosing the text. The preacher, as a
general rule, should select the text before he selects the
subject. Sometimes this may not be feasi-
ble, as in occasional sermons, but it is the
right habit for an interpreter or preacher of
the Scriptures to form. This seems to honor the Word
of God that the subject should spring from it rather
Historic
texts.
Time of
choosing text.
,,
-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 333
than that it should be fitted to the subject. This rule is
continually violated by those who preach altogether topi-
cally.
Dr. Emmons recommended the choosing of a subject
before a text; and there may be exceptional cases where
this is good or justifiable, as, for instance, when a subject
which has possessed the mind has sprung up without con-
nection with any particular text; yet, when an appropri-
ate text is found for such a subject, it will often receive
new light and richness from the discussion of the text
itself. Paul said to Timothy (2 Tim. 4: 2), "Preach the
word."
Ka
II. Announcing the text. As a practical hint in the
mere matter of delivery, the text should be announced
first of all. It is the European custom to
preface the text with some remarks, some-
times with a little sermon, on the general
subject of praise, or on the necessity of God's blessing
the word; our own custom of announcing the text first,
with some simple introductory phrase, is, however, we
think, the best.
Announcing
the text.
12. Pronouncing the text. As a second hint in the de-
livery, the text should be pronounced clearly, so that no
one in the audience should fail to hear it. All
the text.
things should be in readiness, so that there Pronouncing
may be no haste, or bustling, business-like air
at the commencement of the discourse. Even as the pulpit
itself should be entered with manly dignity and serious-
ness, so the opening services should be simple, modest,
serious, yet without dulness or gloomy gravity. There
should be no act or gesture that draws the attention of the
audience particularly to the speaker; but the thought of
God and the word of God should be the first impression.
It is well to mention distinctly the chapter and verse before
334
HOMILETICS PROPER.
mentioning the words of the text; for the habit of con-
sulting the Bible and following the preacher in the Bible
upon the part of the congregation, is certainly to be en-
couraged. If the text is a brief one it is well to read it
twice; if a longer one, it may be repeated in some way
in the introduction; at all events, the audience should
hear and understand distinctly what the text is, or the
effect of the discourse is greatly impaired, perhaps lost.
The text should be read in a slow and clear voice, but
not loud, and perhaps a little more emphatically the
second time than the first.
SEC. 14. The Introduction.
Napoleon is reported to have said that the first five
minutes of a battle are the decisive ones ;" and this re-
mark might sometimes also be applied to a sermon; for
although the preacher, like a military general, by good
fortune and skill may be able to recover lost ground, he
may also, like a general, not be able to restore the lost
chances of a blundering and unfortunate initiative move-
ment, and may be forced to a humiliating defeat.
The introduction to a discourse is naturally compared
to the door, or vestibule, of a house it opens to what
the house contains. The comparison might be carried
still further; for since the door of the house should ac-
cord with the style and character of the house itself,
and one would not put a Grecian portico on a Gothic
house, so the introduction should harmonize with the
subject of the discourse, and not strike the mind with
incongruity; and as the door ought not to be too big
for the house, neither should the introduction be so for
the sermon. Neither should the doorway be mean and
narrow, nor the introduction fail of an air of freedom and
((
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF sermon.
335
simple elegance; and as the door is generally placed in
the centre of the building, in like manner the introduc-
tion strikes the central thought and purpose of the ser-
mon.
In the matter of the introduction, it is well to study
the best models, not only of the introductions of orations
and sermons, but of all true literary works;
for every work addressed to the human
mind must have an intelligent and fit begin-
ning, which suggests its object and denotes its leading
idea. The brief but impressive introductions of the
books of the Bible show that their authors, writing under
the impulse of inspiration, did not disdain this rational
method of making their objects known, of interesting
those whom they addressed. The short introductions of
the "Iliad," the "Eneid," the "Paradise Lost," the
"Divina Commedia," the "Faerie Queene," and the
"Jerusalem Delivered," short as they are, may have cost
their authors more labor than any other part of their
poems, and may have been the last finished; for they
gathered up all the rays of light into one beam, they
smote the human mind with a new thought and theme.
Although it is well for a preacher to study good models
of introductions in the works of great writers, and espe-
cially in the orations and discourses of the best orators, it
is better to take the best preachers for our models.
Dr. South's introductions are characteristic, and may
be described by the word commanding; for they imme
diately arrest attention, and strike the key-note of the
sermon with a ringing blow, as much as to say, "Listen,
ye people, to what I have to say on this subject, for I
have that to say which is important." There is no frip-
pery, or fancy, or fine writing, but a plain common sense,
which appeals at once to the masculine understanding,
་
Study of
models.
336
HOMILETICS PROPER.
and leads the hearer to say, “At all events, here is a man
who has begun to speak; he is worth listening to, even if
I cannot agree with him." South's introductions are not
so long as to lead the mind away from the object set
before him, or from the work laid out in the text itself—
which he explains and develops with great care.
Dr. Emmons's introductions are also, in some respects,
models of excellence, and possess the same characteris-
tics of common sense, and the union of strong thought
with simple expression. They are judicious introduc-
tions; they seem perfectly pertinent to the subject, while
at the same time they are sagacious, and they awaken
curiosity. They are like a Doric porch-very plain and
unornamented, but with a certain pleasing, attractive
majesty.
Saurin's introductions are particularly happy, and
sometimes they are exceedingly bold and striking. They
make it difficult to carry on and out the first impressions
produced, and which it would not be well for any less
brilliant and vigorous preacher to imitate.
Of contemporaneous and younger preachers, the ser-
mons of F. W. Robertson deserve to be studied for their
artistic excellence. Some of his introductions consist of
but six or seven lines; others seem to lead on imper-
ceptibly, without indicating where they leave off, into
the heart of the sermon; but in all of them, while there
is no display, there is, at the outset, a fresh turn given
to the subject, a new and awakening train of thought
started. Robertson's introductions give the idea of a
steel forceps seizing upon an object with tenacious.
grasp, and holding it up with perfect ease and power,
turning it round, and then thrusting it into the glow-
ing fire of thought, and welding it with the hammer
of an earnest purpose: his introduction seems to say,
L
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 337
"I have thought this subject through; I have gone
to the heart of it; I intend to treat it in my own
way, and out of my own head ;" and then the preacher
proceeds to lay the subject open, with the same free and
confident power.
There is no parading of theological or
philological pedantry; he is evidently not talking to
scholars or philosophers, but he is talking to men-to
thinking and feeling men. Perhaps the epithet which
would best characterize his introductions is, manly; just
like the greeting of one genuine man to another, with no
servility and no concealment, and yet with a certain
thoughtfulness and art. The introduction to the sermon
on "Caiaphas' View of a Vicarious Atonement" (First
Series, p. 164) is a masterpiece of elaborate and subtile
thought, as preparing the way for a remarkable and
original view of the atonement; but generally he begins.
with a simple, strong, and interesting train of thought,
without a shadow of learned affectation, or even of mock
rhetoric; as, for instance, in the sermon on Worldli-
ness" (Second Series, p. 173), from the text I John
2:15-17. This introduction, while it is simple and
easy to comprehend, yet contains an extremely interest-
ing and profound question, to the solution of which the
mind of the hearer is excited and pushed on.
The some-
what extended introduction to the sermon on
Realizing
the Second Advent" (First Series, p. 180) is a fine exam-
ple of the plain, strong, unpedantic, and yet fresh and
original way in which this preacher takes up a theme; it
is the highest art of a cultured and philosophic mind,
determined to be simple, determined to be true and
practical, and to be understood by all.
"
<<
Robertson's introductions are, in fact, unconscious ex-
hibitions of the man himself, of his earnest, penetrating,
and, as it were, military mind, that surveys the field at a
338
HOMILETICS PROPer.
glance, and at once seizes upon the most advantageous
positions to bring his forces into action. He stands be-
fore us at the instant he begins to speak, an able and
sincere teacher, who must be attended to; he wins, in
his very introduction, our respect for himself, if not our
convictions of the truth of what he says; and the hearer
wishes to hear such a man through, which is an important
point gained. That is, perhaps, the great end of the in-
troduction, which should excite a strong and healthy feel-
ing of expectation for what is to follow.
64
The introductions of J. H. Newman's sermons are
generally very happy, easy, and at the same time cal-
culated to interest and attract. They contain some
fresh thought, but clothed in simple language, e.g., in a
sermon upon “hypocrisy," he begins thus : Hypocrisy
is a serious word. We are accustomed to consider the
hypocrite as a hateful, despicable character, and an un-
common one. How is it, then, that our blessed Lord,
when surrounded by an innumerable multitude, began,
first of all, to warn his disciples against hypocrisy, as
though they were in special danger of becoming like
those base deceivers, the Pharisees? Thus an instructive
subject is open to our consideration, which we will now
pursue.
What is an introduction? (Lat. exordium, Gr. proem.)
To speak in general terms, it is something which conducts
to the real subject, but which is not itself the real subject.
It is not, strictly speaking, the beginning of the discourse,
but it leads to the beginning. It does not even include all
that is preliminary to the proposition in the way of actual
explanation or clearing up of difficulties; but it has regard
rather to the state of mind of the audience and of the
1
1 "Parochial and Plain Sermons," Ser. 10th.
K
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
339
speaker, putting the speaker in correspondence with the
audience.
We would, therefore, more fully define a true intro-
duction to be, all that precedes the real discussion of the
subject, and which is fitted to secure the
favorable attention of the hearer to the Definition of
speaker and to his theme.
introduction.
Quintilian says, "An exordium is designed to make
the hearer think favorably of what the speaker is about
to say." Schott's definition is, "All that part of a
sermon which is intended to prepare the hearers for the
body of the sermon, by bringing them into the same cir-
cle of ideas and sympathy of feeling of the speaker.
Vinet says, "The exordium should be drawn from an
idea in immediate contact with the subject, without form-
ing a part of it. It should be an idea between which
and that of the discourse there is no place for another
idea, so that the first step we take out of that idea, trans-
ports us into our subject."'
As to the necessity of an introduction, although there
may be cases where an introduction is not necessary—
where the subject, for instance, is a very
familiar one, or where the audience is en-
tirely prepared to hear it discussed—yet the
necessity of some introduction to an impor-
tant discourse is founded in nature, and in the very laws
of the mind.
14
>>
Nature has few sudden movements; the ocean shelves
off gradually, and one season imperceptibly introduces.
another; a thunder-storm which rends the heavens is
preceded by a period of impressive silence and warning;
a battle is usually begun by skirmishing and tentative
Homiletics," p. 300.
Necessity
of an
introduction.
340
HOMILETICS PROPER.
operations; a legislative assembly does not enter upon
important business at the first moment of its session, but
the way is gradually cleared for more serious questions.
The human mind, which, in its healthy state, has a sense
of dignity and self-respect, does not like to be hurried,
or compelled to move by another's impulse rather than
by its own voluntary act; it will not be pushed, but may
be drawn. Some preparation of the mind is needed on
the part of the audience for the full influence of the ora-
tor to be felt, or for the permanent influence and adoption
of new ideas.
An introduction is generally necessary when a pecu-
liar theme is to be treated of, or to be drawn from the
text. When the theme is an ordinary or very familiar
one, there is no necessity of a special exordium. The
reasons for an exordium in political and forensic address,
and which are absolutely required to meet opposing opin-
ions and party views, do not seem equally to apply to the
preacher and his audience, who are, it is to be supposed,
well disposed toward him and ready to hear what he has to
say. Even the principle sometimes set forth that the in-
troduction must be drawn from the circle of ideas in which
the discourse is to move, is only partially true; for the text
itself has already introduced this circle of ideas, the intro-
duction is made by naming the text- the path is opened.
The text and the theme stand over against each other, the
one being the comprehensive statement of the contents
of the other; now the aim of the introduc-
tion, rhetorically, or as it regards the treat-
ment of the subject, is to mediate between
the text and the theme. It is the way of
arriving at the one from the other. It is not precisely
the way in which the preacher himself arrives at the
theme from the text; it may be a shorter or it may be a
Rhetorical
aim of
introduction.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 341
longer way.
But the introduction is the genesis of the
theme-the process of the text's crystallization into the
theme. As the theme is the expression of the contents
of the text, the introduction is the transporting of the
hearer to where, so to speak, he will see and find for him-
self the true meaning or contents of the text. It is
gathering the different threads together where they may
be seized and grasped. In occasional sermons, the intro-
duction mediates between the text and the occasion, set-
ting forth the relation of the subject to the time and cir-
cumstances, and showing why it was chosen and its fit-
ness.'
But what, let us ask definitely, are some of the objects
to be gained by a good introduction?
I.
gained by
1. To remove actual prejudices against Objects to be
the speaker. The preacher may have cre- introduction.
ated an unfavorable impression by his course
of action in some particular; he may have aroused
the jealousy or antagonism of a certain class in his au-
dience the fashionable class, or the conservative class,
or the radical class, or whatever it may be.
He may
possibly have traits of character, which, he is conscious,
place him in an unfavorable light with his hearers,
especially in regard to his introduction of particular
subjects; he may have excited suspicions of his or-
thodoxy, or, at least, of his sincere belief in some por-
tions of the Christian faith; and yet, although he is
weak, imperfect, and inconsistent, the truth must be
preached, the instruction must be given to the people :
in the introduction, then, he is to feel his way through
these popular prejudices, and dispel them, if they are
unjust, without, perhaps, seeming to do So. It is
'See Palmer's "Homiletics," p. 532.
}
342
HOMILETICS PROPER.
not often by direct allusions to himself that he can do
this, but rather by indirect suggestions of the intrinsic
importance of the theme, of the imperfection of preachers
and of men, and of the perfection of truth.
2. To create a favorable regard for the speaker. He
may be a young man, a comparative stranger; he may
have an abstruse, or what may be called even an am-
bitious, theme; he should begin modestly; the old Jew-
ish rabbis used to say that "the creation was made
from night to morning, not from morning to night;" he
should avoid making too great promises of what he in-
tends to do; he should show an honest interest in the
good of his hearers, without saying too much about it-
above all things, avoiding flattery, which was the fault of
some of the old French court preachers; he should en-
deavor, in a simple, manly way, to bring himself into
sympathy with his audience, and to gain their good will
and willing hearing; and to be modest and in earnest, is
the best way to effect this.
1
But while one should thus be modest it is not well to
apologize in the introduction; this weakens impressions
and diminishes the sense of authority in the preacher.
3. To create a favorable regard for the subject. The
preacher is to turn the current of religious feeling, already
set flowing, perhaps, by the previous devotional exercises,
into the contemplation of some definite religious truth
or duty, into some positive and special direction. In
order to secure this end of a favorable regard toward his
subject, (a.) he may state the intellectual advantages
to be derived from discussing such a theme. The
subject may be the doctrine of moral evil, or that of
divine sovereignty; it may be said at the beginning,
1 See Baring Gould's "Post-Mediæval Preachers," pp. 45, 46, 47.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 343
that these are the greatest problems of the human
mind, meeting the philosopher as well as the theo-
logian; that they have called forth the strength of the
best intellects; that no problems are more difficult,
and therefore none more deserving of the attention of
thoughtful minds. (b.) He may state the connec-
tions of the subject with other more practical spiritual
truths. He may remove the prejudice that the doctrine
has no immediate practical bearing or utility, even as
depravity, for instance, or the doctrine of sin, lies, in one
sense, at the base of the whole Christian system of the
atonement, regeneration, holiness, and the Christian life.
(c.) He may make some historical allusions naturally
connected with the theme, which always forms an attrac-
tive introduction. (d.) He may make it appear, at the
very beginning, that the subject bears upon the welfare
of all his hearers; but one should be careful not to use
hackneyed phrases about the greatness and importance
of the subject in hand, and should shun stereotyped intro-
ductions like the constat inter omnes" of the old scho-
lastic preachers. The classic orators, it is true, had intro-
ductions prepared beforehand, which they could fit to any
subject; Cicero recommends this; but times have
changed, and the duty of the preacher, above all, re-
quires simple earnestness and truth in all parts of the dis-
course. He should so treat his subject from the start,
that his hearers will be impressed with the importance
of it, without any formal asseveration of its importance.
(e.) He may make general and modifying suggestions
in the introduction; for this is just the place for
these incidental remarks, which cannot have a proper
place anywhere else. The preacher, looking forward,
wishes to give a certain turn to the discourse, or to draw
forth a new idea or lesson from the text. In the in-
"
344
HOMILETICS PROPER.
$
troduction he may skillfully prepare the way for this; he
may make the groove, which he will widen and deepen.
for the sermon to run in. In the introduction, also, he
may set aside, in a few words, any false impressions
which a certain text, or the foreshadowing of a certain
subject, may awaken; here, in a word, he is still free ;
he has not yet bound himself to any particular line of
thought, and he has the advantage of the fresh state of
mind of his audience, and of the natural curiosity which
is awaked at the first words of a discourse, to see what it
may be, and what may be the metal of the speaker.
The qualities of a good introduction may be resolved.
chiefly into four-simplicity, modesty, fit-
ness, and suggestiveness.
Qualities of a
good
introduction.
1. Simplicity. The first moments of a
discourse, as has been said, are often the
critical moments, and success or failure is sometimes con-
tained in them; for, one may see, that to begin a sermon
in a stilted or highly artificial manner, is to insure its
condemnation; but as an ocean steamer puts to sea,
when she is fully ready, with a steady motion, so a ser-
mon should begin without display, but with a full and
firm consciousness of power to reach the end in view.
This simplicity in the introduction may be violated,
(a.) By too great abstruseness. There may be an in-
teresting thought in the introduction, but it should not
be so difficult and deep as at once to discourage atten-
tion; it should be natural rather than abstruse. (b.) By
too earnest argument. One should not plunge at once
into argument, but should enter more cautiously upon
the open, agitated sea of discussion. (c.) By too im-
passioned and imaginative language. An introduction
should generally be calm. Coquerel says the occasion
is extremely rare in the eloquence of the pulpit, for an
wy
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
345
exordium to enter ex abrupto upon a theme. If the
first words are uttered with vehemence the orator falls
under the blow of Horace's question: Quid dignum
tanto feret hic promissor hiatu ?”
And if the speaker succeed in thus commanding atten-
tion, it is very difficult to keep it up to the end. The
process will generally be the reverse of what it ought to
be, namely, from heat to cold, from an artificial earnest-
ness and excitement to apathy.
It is better to rise from a calm beginning addressed
principally to the good sense and understanding of men
to the height of true feeling and conviction, than to sink
from the height to the depth. The exordium of Mas-
sillon's funeral discourse on Louis XIV., "My brethren,
God only is great," is celebrated and is remembered
with admiration, while the discourse is forgotten. There
may be a supposable occasion for a very striking, yes,
startling introduction, yet these occasions are rare. The
Bible is our teacher here; there is a quiet majesty in
its utterances, a voice of simple nature, unadorned truth
and calm authority, which it were wise to imitate.
It is not well, then, to be brilliant immediately, and
prose is better than poetry to start with.
One may sometimes use a strong and homely figure to
begin with, but generally anything like figurative lan-
guage is in bad taste, until the mind is warmed up to it,
and it glances off "like sparks from a working engine."
Appeals to feeling are, as a general rule, altogether out of
place in the introduction; for what begins in excited feel-
ing may end either in frenzy or in the depths of bathos.
Bold flights of fancy and sensational language at first
produce dulness at last. Cicero recommends an ornate
introduction, in order to raise and embellish the character
of what succeeds; but that is doubtful advice for the
64
346
HOMILETICS PROPER.
preacher and for the present age. The simplicity of the
introduction, however, should be rather in the expression
than in the thought; for it is a great blunder to begin a
sermon with a trite truism, as, The young may die, and
the old must,” and a very commonplace beginning gener-
ally kills the sermon, and is not simplicity. (d.) By in-
directness of thought or style. One should be nat-
ural and easy in his introduction. All elaborate and
circuitous language in the introduction, ingenious sen-
tences and painfully wrought antitheses, are out of place;
for, generally, a direct marching up to a subject is
best; and to begin too far off may lead the hearer's
mind to such a distance from the subject, that it cannot
be brought back again; but a simple directness, on the
other hand, wins the confidence of the hearer. To con-
ceal the subject of the sermon, and to spring it by surprise
on the audience, appeals, after all, to an inferior motive,
and seems to have something of clap-trap in it. The in-
terest should come from the subject, and from one's
power and earnestness in treating it: this is the beauty
of Robertson's introductions, upon which we have com-
mented; they combine originality and clearness of
thought. (e.) By being too long. It was quaintly said
by one of John Howe's hearers that "he was so long lay-
ing the cloth that his hearers despaired of the dinner.'
There is no rule as to the length of an introduction, but
only that it should be as short as possible without injur-
ing the clearness of the statement, or the thought.
Young preachers sometimes use up their best thoughts in
the introduction, so that there is little more to say.
The introduction should not be a small homily in itself.
Palmer says that an introduction should never at longest
occupy more than an eighth of a sermon. In a word, an
introduction, almost without exception, should be brief.
64
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
347
Cut down introductions mercilessly. Hearers like to have
a preacher get right at the heart of his subject as soon as
possible, and are wearied with tediously long prefatory re-
marks; nor does divine truth lie in such unfortunate and
obscure circumstances that it needs protracted effort to
bring it to light, or to introduce it to the human mind.
Biblical truth does indeed differ from scientific truth in
this respect, that it is familiar and open to all, and that
it is outwardly received as authority.
Augustine's introductions are brief, simple, and beau-
tiful. Theremin is particularly opposed to long intro-
ductions; he says, "time spent in merely paving the
way for the idea (of the discourse) might better be em-
He
ployed in the development of the idea itself."
recommends the immediate connection of the idea with
some one of those plain moral or religious ideas which all
understand and approve, namely, truth, happiness, or
duty, and which can be done without circumlocution.
No introduction is better than one which is long and weari-
some. In fact, no introduction is best of all, if none is
needed. Interest in the main subject is wasted, and can-
not be easily revived. It is the experience of preachers,
which is itself suggestive, that as one grows older he is
inclined to cut off several pages of the introductions
of his earlier written sermons.
2. Modesty. Self-conceit in the introduction is fatal;
and true modesty is ever the most effectual way of gain-
ing the good will of an audience.
Allusions to one's self should be rare, and, if made,
should be made with genuine delicacy; for any want of
respect in the speaker's manner toward the audience is
revenged, often, by their indignation and contempt.
A lofty style, to begin with, offends modesty as well as
simplicity; any exhibition of a sense of superior learn-
348
HOMILETICS PROPER.
ing, wisdom, or thought is unfortunate; and no modest.
man, even though he assume the office of teacher, will
have such a feeling.
In Hobbes's "Brief to the Art of Rhetoric," he says,
That the hearer may be favorable to the speaker, two
things are required: that he love him or he pity him.
Now no one can love or pity a conceited man; and yet
modesty is not to sink into feebleness or self-humiliation,
though the ancient orators recommend even timidity in
the introduction, in order to win sympathy; but this, of
course, could not be recommended to a Christian preach-
er; "for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of
power, of love, and of a sound mind.” Still, one who •
rises to speak on the great themes of the gospel, with a
due sense of the responsibility of souls committed to his
charge and guidance, may have a reasonable fear of not
being equal to the greatness of the occasion.
3. Fitness.
By this is meant that the introduction
should be in keeping and harmony with the sermon; it
should spring from a thorough knowledge of the definite
aim one has in view in the sermon. It implies adapta-
tion, pertinence, and good judgment.
The introduction should have a proportionate and sym-
metrical relation, also, to the theme; it should not be
invested with independent proportions, as if it were a sub-
ject of its own, nor should it have the infelicity to fore-
stall the argument or the important thoughts of the ser-
mon, so that the interest should be all taken up in the
introduction; it should be confined to its own place and
work.
4. Suggestiveness. The fruitful, suggestive, and
original character of Robertson's introductions has been
dwelt upon; in them the attention of the audience.
is immediately fastened upon a fresh train of thought,
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
349
though simply expressed; the door is thrown open to
something new and powerfully attractive; the mind is
delighted with the prospect of obtaining new ideas on
familiar but eternal truth, and of being led into a fresh
field of instruction; in a word, he succeeds in arousing
interest, which is the great thing to be secured in an in-
troduction.
Of course the temptation here is to false originality,
to the saying of striking things; and some preachers
have a quaint and pungent way of beginning a sermon,
which fastens attention, and yet borders somewhat too
closely on wit; and it is very easy for a witty minister to
be too witty. He should try to make his wit a dif-
fused element of life in the discourse, rather than to con-
dense it into a sentence which strikes too smartly upon
the sense of the ridiculous; and even that which is pro-
foundly original may be simply and naturally expressed.
One may, indeed, notice in some of our best New Eng-
land preachers, past and present, that the first sentence
of their discourse is often a very weighty one-a sentence
of true philosophical profundity-though it is so well
thought through that it is expressed in a plain and simple
way. The first sentence is thus often the germ of the
sermon; and it is often recommended that the first
sentence of a sermon should be one that sets people to
thinking; but this profoundness of thought at starting is
a hazardous thing, and unless well done, it is a signal
failure; unless the thought is truly profound, and at the
same time put in a plain and practical form, it either con-
fuses or disgusts an audience, so that simple good sense
in the first sentence is, generally speaking, the safer
course.
The following may be given as one example of a beau-
tiful and suggestive introduction, from the old French
350
HOMILETICS PROPER.
w
preacher, Michel le Faucheur, on the text in Rom. 8:27,
Nous savons que toutes choses aident ensemble en bien à
ceux qui aiment Dieu."
"Notre texte contient fort peu de paroles, mais dont le
sens est merveilleusement fécond.
Tout ainsi que
quand Dieu, à la prière d'Elie, voulut ouvrir le ciel, comme
à sa prière il l'avait fermé, la nuće que ce prophète vit mon-
trer de la mer, en exécution de cette volonté favorable de
Dieu, n'était pas plus grande que la paume de la main d'un
homme, mais cependant en moins de rien elle couvrit le ciel
de nuécs et toute la terre de pluic, de même cette sentence,
quoique fort briève, si vous la médites attentivement, en
moins d'une heure vous fera voir, par manière, tout le ciel
rempli des merveilles de la providence de Dieu en la direc-
tion et en la conservation de tous ceux qui l'aiment, et vos
âmes seront arrosées de toutes parts des consolations de sa
grace.
>> 1
"
introductions.
The sources of introductions are varied. To speak in a
general way, introductions may be drawn from the con-
text, or from the circumstances of the time.
Sources of or period in which the text was written, or
spoken. In fact the introduction, if not
drawn immediately from these, should at all events not be
inharmonious in its spirit with the text itself. If after
reading for our text an affecting narrative we begin to
preach in a coldly moralizing way, we do in this way
"rudely cut the nerve of harmony that connects the scrip-
tural narrative with the hearts of our hearers."
But to speak more definitely, the sources of introduc-
tions, although greatly varied, may yet all be classified or
brought under four different heads :
1. The circumstances of the text. The time, place, and
1 Vinet's "Histoire de la Prédication," etc., p. 107.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
351
occasion of the text may be given and described; as the
scenic surroundings of Paul preaching on the Areopagus,
or the description of Athens, of Corinth, of Ephesus, of
Rome, as forming attractive prefaces to many a text of
the Acts and the Epistles. The historical period and
the exact historical circumstances of the text, and also its
local and philological relations, are always admissible :
indeed, Theremin lays down the rule that the introduc-
tion, in some way or shape, should invariably be drawn
from the context-certainly too rigid a requisition.
2. The relations and circumstances of the subject.
These are explanatory observations, prefatory and gen-
eral remarks; or, it may be, a single word in the text
taken and discussed for a moment; and thus the way
is prepared for the real subject, c.g., "Holiness, with-
out which no man shall see the Lord." Here one
may begin to remark upon the main word "holiness,'
upon its real meaning, its true evangelical import, and
this will lead on gradually to the subject which shall
comprehend the whole text of which "holiness" forms
the essence.
""
3. General truth, or truths preparatory to the subject.
This method of generalizing to begin with may, indeed,
be carried to excess, and may lead the mind away from
the definite subject in hand; and it is therefore better to
begin as nearly as possible to the thing itself, and not to
indulge in introductory platitudes, as is often done in the
introductions of Blair. It is well to take some specific
truth or fact leading up to the subject, some fit compari-
son or similitude, some historical fact or proverb, or some
striking quotation; and sometimes an imaginary case
may be supposed as Massillon's commencing one of
his sermons with the idea of a trial or court-scene
going on.
352
HOMILETICS PROPER.
4. Circumstances of speaker and audience. This re-
quires great tact, of which Cicero's "Pro Milone" and
"In Catilinam" are fine examples.
Topics of introductions should be taken generally from
things rather than persons, though historical examples,
even if they are taken from secular history, are sometimes
fitted to arouse attention, and they form happy introduc-
tions.'
Introductions are sometimes called "the crosses of
preachers," because beginnings are difficult; but no
introduction is better than a bad one; and sometimes
it is best to plunge at once into deep waters. In fact, an
informal introduction, which is simply commencing at
once, is better than a formal one.
As to the time of writing the introduction, every one
is his own best judge: perhaps it should not be the first
or the last thing written; but it should be done when the
mind is fully possessed of the subject, and when one can-
not help saying just what he does, in order to lay the
theme fitly before the audience. As the introduction
is only a subsidiary and a preparatory part of a discourse,
the topics which it must embrace, and the form in which
it should appear, cannot be fully known until the nature
and form of the proposition and of the discussion are
well ascertained by the speaker. Hence the proper time
for the invention and composition of the introduction is
after the subject has been thoroughly studied, and the
general form of the discussion well settled in the mind."'*
This is also Quintilian's advice, who is especially full and
excellent on the subject of the "exordium," proving
that little can be added to what the ancients have said
46
¹ See Day's Rhetoric," p. 48. A series of hints as to the sources
of exordiums, or introductions, is given in Vinet's "Homiletics," p. 302.
"
오
​2 Day's "Rhetoric," p. 48.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
353
upon oratory.' Vinet says, "There is always an exor-
dium which is better than any other, and it is that on
which the true orator ordinarily falls;' therefore it is
well for the preacher to have before his mind, or to set
before his mind, precisely what end he has in view, and
what he is conscious he is able to do to attain that end;
and this will guide him to say the right thing to begin
with, for the introduction should ever have an eye to the
end.
SEC. 15. The Explanation.
The explanation (Die Erklärung) of a sermon embraces
all that is required for the purpose of elucidating the exact
meaning and force of the text, and of thus
obtaining from it the true subject of the dis-
course. It refers exclusively to the text.
}
What is the
explanation.
Vinet says that "the explanation is purely defi-
nition, and not judgment." It is the defining of the
actual terms and contents of the text, so that its true
theme may be distinctly presented to the mind. It not
only embraces the etymological definition of the text, or
that of its verbal terms, but, above all, its rational defi-
nition, or that of its complete object of thought; it is,
in fact, bringing out in its wholeness the full and entire
meaning which the text is intended to convey.
An "expository" sermon may be said to be wholly
taken up with the explanation; but in every ordinary
sermon, with few exceptions, the explanation has its dis-
tinct place, and is applied to the precise matter of defin-
ing the text, so that its true subject may be presented.
It does nothing more than this; it may suggest, but it
does not formally state the subject; it leads the way to
"Instit." B. iii., c. 9. s. S.
354
HOMILETICS PROPER.
the proposition and argument, but it is clearly distin-
guished from them.
A sermon, according to Vinet, really consists of but
two parts-the explanation and the proof; but we prefer
to limit the use of the explanation to the simple object
of defining what the text means.
As to the extent of the explanation. The explanation,
to speak in more general terms, comprehends narrative,
description, or picturing historical discussion.
Extent of the of the outer circumstances of the text, com-
explanation.
bined with a drawing out of the inner sense
of the passage, its real life, contents, and aim; not so
much for the purpose of one's own instruction and satis-
faction as for the instruction and building up of the peo-
ple (the Church of Christ) in the faith. The people have
knowledge and understanding in respect of divine truth;
but preaching is to increase, perfect, rectify, and direct
that knowledge. The preacher is to give a productive
and practical aim to his explanations and instructions, so
that the people may see how the truth applies to them.
The explanation, therefore, should not be scientific
wholly, but practical and edifying. The preacher's
conscience and responsibility are often greatly tried in
endeavoring to give the real explanation of a passage, in
opposition perhaps to traditional renderings, and to his
own preconceived ideas. Hs is never to set an erroneous
rendering in the place of a true one for the sake of
effect or impression, for this is a pious fraud. Still, a
young preacher especially should not be too forward, or
rash, in this rectifying process. The explanation instead
of being a dry ought to be a quickening influence. Ex-
planation deals in words, it is true, but chiefly in things
(sach erklärungen). It goes to the true teaching of the
word, the substantial or spiritual truth, the real thought
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
355
of God, the divine fact involved, that which is nutri-
tive, edifying, sanctifying.
I
But to look more particularly at the extent of the ex-
planation, we would say that it includes both the fact and
the sentiment of the text, in other words it has to do
principally with the narrative and the exposition.
I. The narrative. This is the investigation and set-
ting forth of the more purely objective truth of the pas-
sage in its relations to time, place, and cir-
cumstance. It is viewing the text in the
concrete. It is the consideration of the
why, how, and what of the passage, especially in relation
to the time in which it originated. Great skill may be
used here in accurately developing, in their order of time,
all the important and perhaps hidden facts involved in
the text; in taking it apart, and showing the true order
and harmonious relations of the parts to one another and
to the whole. Where the text is a very easy and familiar
one, all the explanation that is needed may be included
in a few words of the introduction; but, generally speak-
ing, some discussion is required to set forth the facts of
the text clearly and distinctly, even without developing
any new truth from it, or proving anything in particular
by it. A lawyer usually makes the explanatory narrative
the most important and telling part of his address or
plea; he shows his consummate skill in collating facts, in
explaining circumstances and events, so as to bear upon
any particular point or principle that he desires to estab-
lish; thus Cicero's oration for Milo has its chief strength
in the exquisite skill of the narrative.
This is also the place for description, especially histori-
cal description, although that refers, strictly, to place
¹ See Otto's" Praktische Theologie," v. i., p. 318.
The
narrative.
356
HOMILETICS PROPER.
rather than to time. Geographical, historical, and pic-
torial descriptions in a sermon should be brief, truthful,
and vivid, and not highly wrought or poetical. The im-
agination may be indulged, but it should be remembered
that a sermon is prose, not poetry. When the materials
for description are ample, they should not be so largely
drawn upon as to make it apparent that the sermon was
written in order to give the preacher an opportunity to
discuss the topography of Jerusalem or Athens, or to
paint a glowing picture of a sacred scene, in order to dis-
play his fancy and learning; but, at the same time, every-
thing which tends to vivify divine truth, and draw atten-
tion to it, and make it fresh and forcible, is perfectly
justifiable. Whately says, "Let not your sermons be
avowedly hortatory, nor begin with exhortation; let your
apparent object be explanation. Ignorance is not the
greatest, but it is the first evil to be removed; it is also
the one most in your power to remove, and it is one which
people will not be, in the outset, so much disgusted to be
told of. And do not think anything irrelevant, however
remote it may seem from Christian practice, that tends to
interest them in Scripture studies and religious topics.'
? 1
2. The exposition. This is, by all means, the princi-
pal part of the explanation. It regards the text in the
abstract rather than in the concrete; and it
is more strictly the definition of the precise
terms and contents of the text. It does not
concern itself about the text, so much as it does with the
very words and substance of the text. It comprehends,
first of all, a correct verbal definition of the passage, a
literal explanation of the terms of the text-simple, it
may be, in its results, yet one that demands thorough
The
exposition.
1 "Life of Richard Whately," v. i. p. 210.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON,
357
study and scholarship; and, in addition to this, and
above all, it includes an honest effort to arrive at the in-
ternal meaning of the passage. It is viewing the text
more subjectively. It is looking at it, or rather into it,
as taken out of its relations to time, place, and circum-
stance. It is endeavoring to come at the absolute truth,
or the general principle involved in the text. This is the
most important idea of the text, because the outward
facts and circumstances of the text are comprehended in
this inner meaning. This definition of the idea contained
in an important passage of divine truth is often the most
difficult and taxing part of the whole sermon; for noth-
ing is more difficult than definition, especially the defini-
tion of ideas. It is the complete separation of the idea
from all other ideas and objects of thought. It is look-
ing at it as a whole, so that the proposition follows this
mastery of the true idea, or the essential meaning of the
text, as a matter of course.
There may exist doubt as to the true meaning of a
text, and several meanings may be claimed by the best
scholars and thinkers; here patient and honest thought
is required. There may be, also, wholly different ideas,
and classes of ideas, drawn from the same passage; and
there may be, further still, various shades of ideas com-
prehended in it in the explanation, therefore, it is
necessary not only to get at the best exposition of the
true principle contained in the text, but to have a clear
and independent idea of our own concerning it; to come
ourselves to a distinct and original conception of the
truth taught in the text. This view should be clearly
defined, and should be the result of accurate investigation
with all the helps of scholarship; and then what follows
in the other portions of the sermon will have good
foundations to rest upon.
358
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
There are some classes of texts which particularly de-
mand explanation. Almost every text, being in a dead
language, requires some brief explanation;
Texts that but those which absolutely demand it may
especially
be chiefly divided into three classes:
demand
explanation.
1. Typical and figurative texts.
(6
These all
contain some true meaning, and that true
meaning, or literal truth, conveyed by them, is to be
set forth, e.g., Ps. 84: II, For the Lord is a sun
and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory;
no good thing will he withhold from them that walk
uprightly." Here are two distinct ideas of the na-
ture of God metaphorically inwoven (it would seem)
through the whole verse. God is not only a sun-the
source of light and truth-but a shield-the source of
strength, protection, daily providential oversight; he is
the giver both of glory and grace; he is so as regards the
whole of our life, external and internal.
Take even such a familiar text as the words of our
Lord in John 4: 10, its very profoundness lies in its sim-
plicity. It requires thought to explain clearly what is
meant by Christ's giving living water and to bring out
the points of resemblance between living truth and living
water; or how they both equally may be called life-giv-
ing. There are many passages which contain events that
are figurative, as well as texts whose words are simply
figurative, such as the symbolic acts of the Old Testa-
ment prophets, and our Saviour's washing the feet of his
disciples, and his driving out the money-changers from
the temple, some of which actions are capable of wrong
constructions. Then there are the parables that require
study and thought to explain in an edifying way.
2. Texts whose meaning is complicated and open to
controversy.
C
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 359
3. Texts of deep and pregnant meaning, not at once
obvious, but connected, it may be, with some previous
truth, argument, or fact. Especially under this head
are to be classed texts of profound spiritual meaning.
The materials or sources of the explanation are mani-
fold.
Materials
or sources of
explanation.
the
1. Philological analysis. The first thing
to be sought in explanation, is a defini-
tion of the very terms of the text, the
coming at its literal meaning. This embraces a close
and accurate verbal exegesis of the passage, and the
different modes of stating and explaining the text,
or the different views which may be and have been
taken of it, as well as the refutation of false modes
of interpreting the text, those, perchance, which are
in common use. One may thus judiciously present
more correct translation of a text: e.g., Rom.
12: 1, "That ye present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable ser-
vice” (τὴν λογιχὴν λατρείαν); the closer meaning of
λoyix here, as is the sense in other passages, in John
4:23, Rom. 7:25, is "spiritual," pertaining to the
spiritual, or to the soul's life; or the passage in Phil.
3:20, "Our conversation is in heaven," where the word
лоλìτενμα, rendered "conversation," is, more strictly
and nobly, “citizenship." The drawing out and binding
together of a complicated parable, like that of the unjust
steward, which requires the strict defining of terms and
their connections, as well as the elucidation of the mean-
ing of the whole, and the explanation of such a weighty,
profound passage as 1 Tim. 3: 16, are familiar examples
of the absolute need of accurate scholarly analysis. Most
of the passages which we may take from the Pauline
epistles need something of this scientific criticism ex-
:
360
HOMILETICS PROPER.
pended upon them. But, as Coquerel says, the preacher
should come out of the atmosphere of the school into a
higher atmosphere of sacred criticism, where there is a
simple and earnest desire to arrive at divine truth. In
fine, the critical scholarship and pure learning required
in the sermon thus generally come in the explanation;
there they find a true place, though even there they
should not be obtruded, and should manifest results
rather than processes.
2. Examination of the relative position of the text, or
the study of what is called the " context." This, in
another connection, we have before remarked upon;
we refer to it now as having relation to the true ren-
dering of the passage. The detaching of texts from
their context has been a source of mischief in preaching
as great as, at the beginning of the recent war, the too
great separation of our smaller military divisions from
the main body was to the success of our arms. The
words of our Lord, as they are of special weight, should
not be isolated, but should be carefully interpreted as
they stand in connection with all their circumstances of
time, place, and occasion.
d
3. Comparison with parallel passages and with the
main scope of Scripture. This fills up cavities, enriches
the meaning, clears obscurities, and modifies and defines
the limits of the truth taught by the particular passage.
4. Development of historical facts. The preacher
ought not to presume too much on the intelligence of his
congregation in this respect-that they are all well in-
formed even on the most familiar historical points; but
he should bring to bear the animating influence of a rich
and wide historical knowledge. This is a great source
of interest. The most minute historical allusion often
throws sudden light upon the text. John 7: 37, "In the
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
361
last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and
cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me
and drink." This was uttered upon the very day on
which the priests employed the symbol of water in the
temple, and in many ways made this water-symbolism
strikingly prominent. As another instance, Matthew,
who relates to us Christ's gracious words addressed to
publicans and sinners, was himself a publican. In the
parable of the wedding garment, there is some reason to
think that the key of the story lies in the Eastern custom
of the guests accepting as a free gift the wedding robe
from the host and not himself bringing the robe to the
feast. Such an historical fact as the military Roman law
which required the use of any man or beast along the
road illustrates the sentence, "If any man compel thee
to go a mile, go with him twain." The closing of the
gate in Oriental cities, even to this day, at an early
hour in the evening, gives force to the Saviour's words,
"Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say
unto you, shall seek to enter in, but shall not be able."
5. Scientific illustration. The preacher should lay his
hand on this boldly; and he may thus, in an eminently
scientific age like the present, win new interest for religious
truth, which is unscientific and undefined. What is called
the modern science of "Egyptology," and it might also
be now added the science of “ Assyriology," founded upon
the inductive process, has totally demolished the triumph
of false science-in regard to a large portion of biblical
antiquities-so destructive of the authenticity of the
Scriptures.
In like manner geological science is a splendid con-
tribution to theology, as to the main truth of the unity
of the cosmical plan of creation.
Astronomy, the star-eyed science, seems peculiarly
362
HOMILETICS PROPER.
allied to celestial truth, not only in a figurative sense,
but analogically, as setting forth the unchangeable and
orderly character of God's physical laws.
Chemistry, too, opens fine illustrations of revealed
truths; and of the correlation of forces, not brought
about by mere laws of matter but by an intelligent cause
beyond the phenomenal, and absolutely controlling
changes.
Scientific investigations upon the subject of the origin
of man and the law of evolution in creation may also,
stated in their just limitations, throw light on spiritual
truth, and lay bare another of the grand and simple laws
of God's working.
Science, as well as art, and all the arts, will become
more and more the auxiliary to the interpretation of
divine truth. Chrysostom, Luther, Chalmers, Arnold, and
even John Wesley, were not afraid of learning and sci-
ence, considering that the principles of the natural and
spiritual worlds emanate from the same mind, although
revelation will never be squared to science; and we may
look in vain for this, for the Bible is not, and never can
be made, a scientific book. But there is one field where
a little scientific knowledge is all-important to the preach-
cr; and that is, in the geography of biblical lands: he
should know the difference between Antioch in Syria and
Antioch in Pisidia, and what was meant by the Asia'
of the New Testament, and the history and derivation of
the "Galatians" of Asia Minor, and such geographical
and historical facts as clear up difficulties in biblical inter-
pretation.
C
6. Application of the laws of common sense. Every-
thing must be brought to that. Great scholars some-
times lose their common sense; and the use of the
homely and independent principle of common sense will
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
363
do away with many perverse and fanciful interpretations
of Scripture which have been sustained by learning falsely
applied.
(C
7. The setting forth of the animus of the writer. This
would influence the meaning of much that was written by
John and James, and Peter and Paul; and while the marked
differences of the Pauline, Petrine, and Johannean
manifestations of divine truth are presented to us in a for-
cible manner in such a work, for example, as Neander's
Planting and Training," and in other good works on bib-
lical theology, the careful study of the inspired writings
themselves is better still. Inspiration admits the human
element, and takes form from the peculiarities of individual
mind and character; and, indeed, we have reason to sup-
pose that human idiosyncrasies were taken advantage of
by the Spirit for the development of particular truths.
Paul's mind, experience, and culture wonderfully fitted
him for the expression and inculcation of the liberal doc-
trines of Christianity, which embrace the human race,
and the universal application of the moral principles of
redemption.
The peculiar condition of the author's mind at the time
of writing or speaking is also important as affecting his
meaning. Our Lord himself, when he was in the hum-
blest and obscurest circumstances, spoke the words, "I
am the light of the world." When Paul was in the
gloomy depths of the Mamertine prison he exhorted
men to glory in the cross of Christ.
One expression, also, of a scriptural writer may be set
over against another expression of the same writer,
uttered in entirely different circumstances and states of
mind; thus the character and history of David abound
in striking contrasts; cross lights are strong lights.
Above all, as the Scriptures are an inspired book, the
364
HOMILETICS PROPER.
great aim of the expositor should be to come at the
mind of the Spirit," of the real author of revelation.
8. By setting forth the animus and spirit of the age in
which the text was written. The celestial utterances of
the "Sermon on the Mount," and the broad precepts of
Christianity in the Epistles, may be contrasted with the
narrow Jewish theology, the clashing Greek philosophies,
and the imperious and ferocious ideas of the best Roman
civilization of the time.
(
9. By showing the character and condition of the per-
sons addressed. "Feed my sheep" would not, in all
probability, have been addressed to the loving apostle
John, but rather to the ambitious, impetuous, forth-put-
ting Peter. In like manner the Epistle to the Philippians
was written to a kind of people very different from that to
which the Epistle to the Corinthians was written.
10. By showing the particular object for which the pas-
sage was spoken or written. "Sell all that thou hast"
was not spoken to a poor man, but was addressed to the pe-
culiar form of selfishness in which a wealthy young man's
impenitence was garnered up. Our Lord's parables were
intended to arouse thought, and to sow truth in the
hearts of a people where the direct word of truth would
have been treated with contempt, would have been tram-
pled under foot. The Oriental indirectness of Scripture,
not the less powerful because not at once perceived, is
often a beautiful feature, which should be studied in some-
thing of the spirit of wisdom and love in which it was
originally uttered or written.
II. By bringing forth the hidden tone and qualities of
the text. That is, by listening to it not so much with
the ear of the mind as with the ear of the heart, and
catching its true spirit. Even its rhetorical qualities of
naturalness, beauty, and force are not to be neglected;
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 365
but by long meditation, and, above all, by prayer, one
should strive to penetrate into the inmost soul of a
passage, till its full original tone comes out. One should
look into his own soul, and see how a text responds to
his own spirit, since the study of the laws of the soul
now will give one a key to unlock spiritual truth spoken
ages ago, for the human heart is the same, and God is
the same.
The study of the laws of the divine mind will
alone enable one to penetrate into the hidden meaning of
the divine word; the spirit only comprehends the mind
of the Spirit. "The natural man discerneth not the
things of the Spirit of God, for they are spiritually dis-
cerned."
As to the qualities of the explanation, it should be—
1. True. It should develop the true meaning of the
text, neither more nor less-not the meaning which this
one or that one would give it, or which we
ourselves, perhaps, would desire to give it.
Honesty in the explanation strengthens all
other parts of the discourse. One may
strive for the greatest vividness of impression in bring-
ing out the full idea of the passage; but when he
goes beyond the truth taught, then it is an unworthy
means of impression, which will react disastrously. It
is even better to understate than to overstate the
truth.
Qualities
of the
explanation.
In regard to exegetical explanations generally, K. R.
Hagenbach says : "Practical exegesis must be the result
of scientific exegesis, and a conscientious preacher will
offer to the people no exposition which cannot be scien-
tifically justified.'
2. Perspicuous. The explanation is not the place for
discursiveness; there all should be exact and concise,
clear and convincing. That is laying foundations. Defi-
Th
·366
HOMILETICS PROPER.
nition should be neat, proper, and finished work.' One
should avoid learned terms, and should produce the
results rather than the terms of philological exegesis. In
the evolution of long passages it is particularly essential
to avoid obscurity; and it is well to seize upon the main
idea of the passage, and make that stand out clearly,
while the subordinate parts are grouped around it.
3. Brief. Jonathan Edwards is said, by good judges
of his sermonizing, to have spent too much time in
exposition, thus sometimes even confusing the true sense
of the passage. Modern learning should expedite ex-
planation. But sometimes it is not possible to make
the explanation brief, for the whole sermon may de-
pend upon, and, in fact, consist of, the evolving of
a particular and perhaps recondite meaning of the text.
Brevity is violated, (a.) By explaining things which need
no explanation; a sermon is often rendered insuf-
ferably tedious in this way; (b.) By seeking to explain
simple ideas, or absolute truths, which cannot be ana-
lyzed, such as "God," "love," "life," " spirit;" (c.)
By making side issues, or going out of the way to explain
difficulties which the text might suggest, but which it
does not suggest to any in the congregation, and which
do not fall within the scope of the sermon to clear up.
The common mind is wearied with such excursions to ex-
plain difficulties that do not originate in itself, and which
it cares nothing about. Solid difficulties it can appreci-
ate, and it will patiently bear with their explanation.
Those difficulties are chiefly practical-those hard things
in truth, doctrine, and life, especially in the beginning of
the spiritual life, of which all men have some experience.
While the explanation is thus concise, it need not be
1
I
""
Quintilian's Institutes," B. vii, c. 3, s. I.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
367
dry. It should not be a mere analysis of words and sen-
tences, but a search after the living truth, conducted with
animation and zest. Definition," Vinet says, a's
much as possible, should excite and stimulate the free
and vital forces of the soul. Perfect definition is that
which at the same time gives knowledge, comprehension;
feeling, and faith." "
1
4. Modest. There may be all the scholarship that is
needed in it, but it should be modestly expressed. Any
pretentious display of commentators and names of learned
authors, especially foreign authors, if harmless, is foolish.
1
44
5. It should suggest the proposition or subject of the
sermon. It should build up the discourse to this point,
where the proposition stands forth from all these prepara-
tory scaffoldings of definition, firm and clear. There
should be a natural and logical step from the explanation
up to the proposition. The proposition-the explanation
seems to say-is thus the great lesson of the text.
"Whatever," says Abbé Maury, "in this part of the
discourse, doth not lead to the principal parts of a ser-
mon, is useless.'
6. It should bear upon every part, even upon the con-
clusion, of a sermon. The explanation should skillfully
prepare for each after step and thought; it should lay its
train for every future blow. While there is development
after the explanation, there should yet be the introduc-
tion of no absolutely new or foreign truth in the progress
of the sermon, the idea of which, or the ground of the
introduction of which, is not in some way brought out or
suggested in the explanation.
As to the time and place of the explanation, its natural
place is immediately after the introduction; but it is
Homiletics," p. 169.
C
368
HOMILETICS PROPER.
sometimes intermingled with the introduction, and some-
times takes the place of it. The more important of the
two should precede. Nevertheless, although we have
assigned to the explanation a formal place immediately
after the introduction, and though the best authorities,
ancient and modern, would give it this place, yet even
this rule is not a rigid one; for however or wherever, in
the course of a sermon, we define the text, and bring out
its true sense more clearly, there is the explanation. It
may be direct or indirect; it may precede or follow the
theme; it may be in the nature of elaborate analysis, or
of more brief, condensed synthesis; but the explanation,
in all cases, is the use of the critical faculty employed
upon the interpretation of the text, rather than the exer-
cise of the logical or more strictly reasoning faculty,
which arrives at general truths, and develops the ultimate
relations of the truth which is thus distinctly evolved.
SEC. 16. The Proposition.
"A proposition," says Whately, "signifies a sentence
in which something is said, affirmed, or denied, of
another."
"That which is spoken of is called the 'subject' of the
proposition; and that which is said of it is called the
'predicate;' and these two are called the 'terms' of the
proposition, from their being in natural order the extremes
or boundaries of it."
A proposition is either logical or rhetorical. A logical
proposition is a judgment expressed in words; as, “The
character of sin is progressive." A logical proposition
demands proof.
A rhetorical or general proposition is the simple an-
nouncement of any fact or truth; as "The immuta-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
369
bility of the law;" or, put into a more formal state-
ment, "My subject of discourse is the immutability of the
law." A rhetorical proposition admits of general discus-
sion without strictly demanding proof.
But what, definitely, is the proposition of a sermon?
The proposition of a sermon (Der Hauptsatz) is that por-
tion in which the subject or the theme of the
sermon is more distinctly and more formally What is the
proposition of
announced.
a sermon.
The place of such a proposition may be at
the beginning or at the end of a discourse, according to
the method which we pursue-whether we take a given
truth and analyze it, or from its various scat-
tered elements we build it up gradually into
the enunciation of some general synthetic
truth.
Place of
proposition.
The place, time, and method of announcing the propo-
sition may be thus varied.
It may, however, be laid down as an almost invariable
principle, that it increases the facility of apprehension
and the degree of interest on the part of the audience, to
announce, as near the beginning of the discourse as pos-
sible, what is the subject under discussion.
There should be at all events a definite subject in the
speaker's mind, a main idea about which all other ideas
cluster, and toward which all other thoughts tend; and it
aids the hearer also to know as soon as may be practica-
ble what this main thought is. The transition, indeed,
may be somewhat gradual from the subject lying in the
preacher's mind to the formal proposition in which it
becomes embodied; but the process should be toward
that formal expression or proposition, thus transferring
the subject from the mind of the speaker to that of the
hearer.
370
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Therefore, as a general rule, the proposition, in some
more or less distinct shape, should, as soon as possible,
follow the explanation. At all events, the preacher should
have a definite proposition or subject to speak to,
whether he announces it sooner or later, or whether he
announces it formally or not.
But the subject may be a complex one, involving
many particular subjects, or propositions, under some
more general theme; different parts of the same subject,
or different views of the same subject. In such cases the
proposition must be brought forward in parts, in the form
of a more gradual development of the subject, at various
stages of the discourse.
Perhaps, also, in some cases, it would not do to an-
nounce the subject at once; the audience are not pre-
pared for it, or they may be prejudiced against it, or they
may be entirely ignorant of it. At all events, some pro-
cess of preparation is needed to clear the way for the
definite statement of the subject.
The word of God is to be placed in a special light, to
be adapted to the special need of the soul, of the time,
of the congregation. Of course the transition from the
exordium to the proposition should not be harsh and
abrupt. It should be free and natural. The principle
of transition is one especially to be studied in the com-
position of sermons.
There are, however, few subjects that a minister is
called to preach upon which, having drawn them freely
from the text, he may not clearly and boldly announce
at the outset, or, at least, in the initial portion of his
discourse.
Mullois, the Catholic writer, says, "Let it be perceived
at once what the subject is, and what you intend to say.
Sketch out your truth in a few sententious words, clearly
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
371
and emphatically enunciated. Let there be none of
those vague and halting considerations which give the
speaker the air of a man who is blindfolded, and strikes
at random; none of those perplexing exordiums wherein
every conceivable fancy is brought to bear upon a single
idea, and which frequently elicit the remark, 'What is
he driving at? What topic is he going to discuss?' Let
the subject-matter be vigorously stated at the outset, so
that it may rivet the minds and engage the attention of
the audience.
,, 1
It is true that in the meditative discourse, especially
recommended by Fénélon, in which the thought develops
itself from within, and flows along in the more hidden
currents of a contemplative mind, the discourse would
cease altogether to flow where it was confined in the
strict bounds of a proposition. In such a discourse the
proposition is not formally announced, but rather is sug-
gested through the whole course of the sermon. It
dawns upon the hearer out of the apparent obscurity of
the discussion like the gradual light of day. Such a
style of sermon requires a peculiar theme and a peculiar
genius; and in unskilful hands, or from a mind not in
the highest degree spiritual, if it were very commonly
adopted, it would be disastrous to profitable and impres-
sive teaching in the pulpit.
The significance and importance of the proposition to
the strength and beauty of the discourse cannot be bet-
ter illustrated than in the familiar exam-
The
of the
ple of a tree. If the argument forms the significance
branches, the proposition forms the trunk, and importance
and the text the root. How
can there
proposition.
be a tree without a trunk, or a discourse
without a proposition? The trunk, before it disparts
1 "The Clergy and the Pulpit," p. 118.
372
HOMILETICS PROPER.
*
}
itself into divisions, is narrow, rigid, fixed; it is not
the graceful part of the tree; it is not, apparently, the
living part of the tree; but how could there be any life
or grace without it? The proposition is just this defi-
nite, unyielding, all-comprehending part of the sermon;
the strength of the discourse is bound up in it; all the
life of the sermon runs through it to the minutest ex-
tremity, while it draws its life immediately from the text,
or the divine word. As one tree has generally one trunk
and one character, and bears one kind of fruit and leaf,
and is distinguished from all other trees, so one sermon
should have one subject and one aim. Dr. Emmons was
of this opinion. He says of himself, "For this reason I
seldom preached textually, but chose my subject in the
first place, and then chose a text adapted to the subject.
This enabled me to make my sermons more simple,
homogeneous, and pointed, while, at the same time, it
served to confine the hearers' attention to one important
leading sentiment. Those who preach textually are
obliged to follow the text in all its branches, which often
lead to different and unconnected subjects. Hence, by
the time the preacher has gone through all the branches
of the text, his sermon will become so complicated that
no hearer can carry away any more of it than a few strik-
ing, unconnected expressions; whereas, by the opposite
mode of preaching, the hearer may be master of the whole
discourse, which hangs together like a fleece of wool."
1
Although we cannot agree with Dr. Emmons's view of
textual preaching, and of selecting a subject before a
text, it is well to have his positive views upon the matter
of a proposition.
The rigidity of a previously selected human theme may
1 Park's "Life of Emmons," p. 294.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
373
1
sometimes act disastrously upon a sermon and destroy
the life which runs in freer and at the same time deeper
currents in a passage of the word of God, whose unity
should be sought for in itself, and not out of itself in a
preconceived proposition.
But whatever may be true of a composition to be read,
a spoken address needs some distinct subject to speak
upon; the speaker needs it to give him concentration,
and the majority of hearers, also, who do not or cannot
make accurate discriminations, need to have something
definite before them.
As to the substance or matter of the proposition, there
are some rules to be observed.
I. There should be a unity of the parts of Substance
and matter
the proposition with the whole. The unity
of the
of the sermon depends upon the unity of the
proposition.
subject, and the subject is one which can be
stated in a single proposition. There may be differ-
ent parts, and widely distinct parts, of the subject dis-
cussed, but still they should all be comprehended, or be
capable of being stated, in one more general subject; as,
(1.) Where the proposition has several subordinate parts;
c.g., "The means of spiritual growth"-(a.) communion
with God, (b.) cultivation of the affections, (c.) active ser-
vice, etc. (2.) Where there is a general predicate of the co-
ordinate parts of one whole; c.g., "The nature, design,
and importance of prayer." It is evident here that the last
is the main idea, or the general predicate of all, and the
discussion of the others should tend to the confirmation
of the last. (3.) Where there are other topics of inquiry,
to which the proposition fairly leads. Thus, having
established the proposition that there is such a thing as a
visible church, we may go on to show our relations to it,
and its relations to us and other men.
374
IIOMILETICS PROPER.
+
2. The proposition should be plainly involved or im-
plied in the text. Its great beauty is to correspond with
the meaning and spirit of the text. No theme other than
that which finds its ground in the text should be em-
ployed.
Sometimes the theme is apparent, but generally reflec-
tion is required, a patient circumspection that takes in the
connection of the text with all that precedes and follows,
and that enters deeply into the thought and spirit of the
writer. It is necessary to understand thoroughly the whole
environment of the passage, so as to get at its main idea ;
or, at least, at some legitimate issue, with which the main
thought is connected; and, if the text is complex, to
come at the higher thought which binds all its parts
together, even if this be not contained in the text itself.
We may thus take for our proposition a comprehensive
or a special theme, if it be legitimately drawn from
the text-let it be, for example, that contained in 1 Pet.
2 II-20. We may inquire here what is the higher or
comprehensive thought that connects these verses—viz.,
"The elevated mind which the Christian should main-
tain in relation to earthly things.
Often the text is the theme pure, as in 2 Cor. 3: 17;
and it would be pedantical in such a case to use any
terms other than those of the text; but it is generally
necessary to bring what lies in the text into one particu-
lar point of view. A sermon has been called an ellipse
with two points, text and theme. This ellipse should be
as perfect as possible. Sometimes the proposition is too
wide for the text; as John 14: 13, "And whatsoever ye
shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may
be glorified in the Son"-it would hardly be proper to
"C
' Otto's Prak. Theol."
1
4
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON,
375
""
derive from this the subject of the general use of prayer;
the more limited subject is, " Prayer in the name of Jesus.
Subjects drawn from whatever text, or not drawn from
any text at all, may sometimes be too big, or comprehen-
sive, as “religion,
religion,” “sin," evil," Christianity," and
God." Sometimes, on the other hand, the proposition
is too small or too simple; thus from the text in Ephe-
sians 4: 25, "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every
man truth with his neighbor; for we are members one
of another," to make the proposition simply “The put-
ting away of lying," whereas it is a more positive and at
the same time more complex subject, viz., "The duty of
truthfulness as made obligatory by the membership of
Christ." Subjects may be too curious and insignificant ;
like "The nature of white lies;" "The necessity of
attending to one's health;""The use of tobacco;
"The number of times prayer should be made daily;
newspaper slanders ;" and
and “extravagance in dress
things of considerable practical importance, it may be,
and which may be noticed incidentally, but which are
not worthy of forming in themselves the sole theme of
a sacred discourse, not being the simple expression of
comprehensive principles, whether good or bad, but
rather the outcomes of actual life.
44
(6
""
Preachers should strike the parent vice on the head,
and not run around after the thousand little wriggling
snaky brood.
The same text may have different sides to it, and may
suggest quite different themes; how many sides, for in-
stance, a text like Matthew 6: 13 has! All that we should
be careful for is, that the theme be truly grounded in the
text. Sometimes we cannot find a text which corre-
sponds precisely to our subject; the proposition should
then be made as identical as possible, and we may be
376
HOMILETICS PROPER.
}
obliged to use a general text in preaching on a particular
theme, and so vice versa.
3. The proposition should include, essentially, all that
is to be discussed in the sermon; no less and no more.
The proposition is comprehended in the text, and the
sermon in the proposition; one should therefore endeavor
to make every word in the proposition suggestive of the
sermon. The sermon or discussion is contained in the
proposition as parts in a whole. The proposition is a
handle of the sermon, to take it all up together, and a
rudder of the sermon, to guide it in its definite course of
thought. In a doctrinal sermon, especially, the proposi-
tion should be restricted to exactly what is discussed, ex-
cept when a special advantage is to be gained by a con-
nected view of the relations of doctrines; therefore we
should strive to make the proposition as wide and com-
prehensive as we wish to make the discussion itself.
As to the structure and qualities of the proposition, the
general idea of a good proposition is, that it
should be,
Structure
and qualities
of the
proposition.
I. Plain and simple. It should be plain
and simple without being commonplace.
This simplicity of form may be violated, (a.)
By too scientific and philosophical a statement of the
theme. It should, on the contrary, be as concrete and
popular as possible. Abstract and singular themes char-
acterized the preaching of the eighteenth century; thus
one of Reinhard's themes for a sermon was, "Upon
the habit of the human mind to be indifferent toward a
long and earnestly desired good, when the moment of
possession came." Another instance of a strained prop-
osition is also from the German, "That it is not diffi-
cult for the Christian to make himself friends in entirely
unexpected and disagreeable situations."
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION Of sermon.
377
"
as
46
(b.) By the typical and metaphysical statement, a form
not to be used when the text itself is a figure. Figure
in a proposition, it is true, is sometimes beautiful: such
Christ the good shepherd," "Christ the rock of
ages." But this last form of typifying the Saviour has
been carried to an extravagant pitch; and German
preachers have preached upon "Christ a carpenter,"
a hat-maker," "a tailor," and "a clucking hen.
Anything fanciful in the proposition is peculiarly out of
place; for if plain, strong common sense should appear
anywhere, it is in the proposition; there may be carving
and ornament in other parts of the vessel, but we want
the rudder to be made of oak and iron. These are some
illustrations of propositions from the German preacher
Harms: "Unbelief is ingratitude," or shorter still,
"Unglaube ist Undank.” “The happiness of the un-
happy."
??
"Where your treasure is there your heart is.
(1.) As thou lovest so thou livest.
(2.) As thou livest so thou diest.
(3.) As thou diest so thou continuest.
These are from Schleiermacher :
"
,,
"Love is the fulfilling of the law."
(1.) It teaches all.
(2.) It does all.
(3.) It possesses all.
((
What we should fear and what we should not fear."
64
"}
(1.) What not.
(2.) What.
This is from Tholuck :
How God draws near to man and how man draws
near to God.”
This is from Palmer :
What we are; what we shall be; what we should be.
""
378
HOMILETICS PROPER.
,, (C
,, (6
2. Neat and condensed. This is for its easier use and
remembrance. All unnecessary synonyms and weakening
qualifications are to be avoided in the proposition. Com-
pactness is an especial good quality. Any superfluous dis-
junctives, such as “or, notwithstanding, 'neverthe-
less," "
so far forth," etc., should be dispensed with, and
neat strength should be sought for. The proposition
may sometimes comprehend in itself the divisions of the
sermon, and announce them, thus making all the merely
mechanical parts of the sermon as compact as possible ;
and this, perhaps, is the best way, generally, to construct
a proposition. The proposition may also consist of the
grand divisions themselves. There may be several propo-
sitions; these form parts of one subject: coming one after
another, they thus gradually develop the entire thought,
subject, or comprehensive proposition.
3. Specific. Even the unity of the proposition must
be sometimes sacrificed to attain this particularity of
theme. The discussion of specific subjects--of the
species under the genus, of the particular under the
general-is indicative of an acute mind. The more
restricted a proposition is, the smaller portion of a truth
discussed, if ably discussed, the more intensity of inter-
est will be aroused, and the more impression for good.
will be made. Where different kinds of propositions
offer themselves, then the more specific one is to be
preferred; and every proposition should express a definite
and complete idea.
4. It should not be stated in the language of the text.
There should be a fresh form given to it; and although
drawn immediately from the text, it should, if possible,
present some new form or aspect of the old truth. An
exception to this rule is, where the text is itself propo-
sitional in form, and makes a complete theme, as in that
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
379
}
noblest and profoundest text in the Bible, “For God is
love."
And sometimes, also, the title of a sermon which is
drawn directly from the terms of the text may form its
theme. Thus a parable may form both the text and the
proposition, or theme, of a sermon, without drawing out a
definite subject in a propositional form, e.g., "The Un-
just Judge,' The Ten Virgins,' "The Lost Son."'
,, <<
In like manner in treating a scriptural narrative, the
subject oftentimes may be simply the gathering up of the
whole passage into a rhetorical proposition, or a titular
form, as Mark 14: 1-9, “ Christ in the house of Bethany ;"'
John 13: 18-30, "The going out of Judas ;' Matt.
22:15-22, "History of the Tribute Money ;" Mark
16:1-18, "The Resurrection of Jesus.'
5. It should be prudently expressed. It should not lay
out too large a subject, or present it in too ambitious a
way, e.g., “I shall prove in this sermon the doctrine of
total depravity." "I shall explain in this discourse the
apparent contradiction between the absolute sovereignty
of God and the absolute freedom of man."
,,
,,
Neither should it be in a paradoxical form, which al-
ways carries with it something of a vain and egotistic air.
6. It should be varied. Let there be no stereotyped
way of stating the subject. Sometimes it is well to keep
the main proposition in the background, and at other
times to let it be the first word uttered, the first thing
announced. As a rare exception, there may be through
the whole sermon no definite statement of the subject,
but it may be left to be gathered by the hearer. As a
rule, however, rarely to be departed from, there should
be a clear and specific statement made of what one is
intending to discuss.
In concluding this subject, the distinct warning should
380
HOMILETICS PROPER.
be repeated, that the propositional form belongs almost
exclusively to the didactic discourse, and should not,
therefore, be invariably followed. It presupposes the
synthetic method of treatment. It requires that a dis-
tinct topic should be drawn from the text, gathering up
and combining all the ideas of the text in a definite form,
and then that the sermon should be built, not upon the
text, but upon the proposition. This has been our usual
New England method of preaching, which has come
down, in fact, from the earliest Protestant preachers;
and it is not to be rashly or entirely given up, for it is
admirably adapted to popular instruction; but, as has
been often urged, a return to a simpler and more direct
method of preaching from the Word of God, and not
from a human proposition which is drawn from it, would
be healthful. This would be also, historically speaking,
the ancient method. We have already seen, in tracing
the growth of the sermon, how long it was before a distinct
theme (Thema) began to be developed from the text, and
to form the immediate subject of address, and to tie it
down to narrowly prescribed metes and bounds. The
necessities of a later philosophic culture and of a more
logical habit of thought, especially in Occidental lands,
demanded and produced the propositional form of treat-
ing divine truth. Let us be careful, only, and not suffer
this to become a yoke of bondage confining the free ex-
pression of truth.
SEC. 17. The Division.
The principle of division (Latin, Distributio; German,
Die Theile) is a necessary and even beautiful one as ap-
plied to a discourse when, in the first place, it is not car-
ried to an artificial extreme, and, in the second place,
when there is matter worth dividing. It does not invent
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITIOn of serMON,
381
1!
the material for a sermon. It is not the original sub-
stance of thought, but if there be already rich thoughts
it arranges and disposes them to the best advantage. It
is sometimes, following the Latin term, called "The
Disposition," especially by French and German writers
on homiletics; but the term "Division" is a common
one with us, though conveying a somewhat narrow con-
ception of this not unimportant nor altogether unvital
principle in sermonizing.
The fact of having formal divisions in a sermon, and
the character of these divisions, is influenced, of course,
by the kind of discussion which a subject
may require or assume; since a certain prin- The division
ciple of division is applicable to the peculiar influenced by
character of the individual sermon. Thus,
for example, the sermon may assume the
logical form of discussion, which proceeds
in a regular method of reasoning, by a series of connected
propositions or divisions, each of which is true because
the one that precedes it is true; and all of these tend to
some general proposition or result. This form of dis-
cussion, it is evident, absolutely requires divisions. It
needs a clear statement of the proofs, or, at least, of
each successive part of the argument, and of the connec-
tions of these parts. It should resemble, in lucidness of
division and statement, a problem of Euclid.
the character
of the
sermon.
Where also the sermon is more natural and rhetorical,
consisting mainly of a simple discussion of the text, and
then of a series of inferences, or observations, drawn from
the subject, expanding the theme into its various rela-
tions and applications, good divisions are necessary.
Divisions here are the clear marking of each new observa-
tion, or thought, which, if not so marked might lead to
tedious confusion.
382
HOMILETICS PROPER.
This kind of discussion demands, perhaps, the more
care in its divisional arrangement from its very facility
and tendency to commonplace remark. F. W. Robert-
son's sermons abound in inferences; but they generally
come in after an argumentative discussion, when he intro-
duces a number of distinct and interesting observations.
He thus mingles the logical and inferential form of ser-
mon, which is a good method. Having thoughtfully set
forth a particular idea, he draws remarks from it, and
then proceeds to another part of the subject. This is
illustrated in his sermon on The Star in the East,"
<"
Second Series.
The contemplative sermon almost defies divisions, and
scorns regular methods. It wanders "at its own sweet
will." It is more liable to run into the essay style, and
lose the form of direct address, than the logical or infer-
ential modes; and yet even a meditative discourse
should be somewhat amenable to the laws of method.
The textual sermon, following closely the terms of the
text, has and can have no very formal divisions. But
still, each distinct point or idea of the text should be
properly marked, else even a textual sermon becomes a
tangled skein.
We thus see that regular divisions belong to the logical
or argumentative style of sermon more fitly than to any
other; and yet, that all kinds of sermons demand some-
thing like "divisions," which clearly mark or set forth
the different steps of the discourse.
How may the divisions of a sermon be defined? They
are simply the different parts in which the
What are the main subject is formally separated and dis-
cussed. They do not refer to the free and
actual development of a subject so much as
to the special points of view in which the theme is to be
divisions
of a sermon ?
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermon.
383
held up and regarded. To make them requires a purely
intellectual process, clearly discriminating, analyzing, and
classifying thought. They give a rapid and condensed
aspect of the whole subject in its constituent parts, and
thus the better enable the hearer to follow the thread of
the discourse, which the preacher is to hold in his hand.
More than any other part they mark the plan of the ser-
mon; they are more important to the plan than is any
other portion.
The utility of divisions. An ancient father of the
Church said, "Shall the adversaries of the faith be able
to state what is untrue with brevity, clear-
ness, and plausibility; while we give so poor
an account of the truth that it makes people
weary to listen to it, prevents them from gaining any
insight into its real meaning, and leaves them disin-
clined to believe it?"
The utility of
divisions.
The utility of divisions is seen in the fact that-
1. They promote variety in unity. They do not pro-
mote mere variety, for while they seem to separate, they
really bind together, in a flexible but strong chain, the
whole discourse. The articulations and joints of the hu-
man body do not destroy its unity, but belong to one sys-
tem, one organized life. Thus all the groups of ideas im-
plied in divisions and subdivisions are referred to some
common centre of life; and they are not merely artificial
divisions; they have some good reason for them, bearing
upon the true power of the sermon. A just classification
of the various ideas or aspects of a subject implies some
general law of unity which binds them vitally together.
2. They promote clearness. Fénélon has made an ob-
jection to the use of divisions, because, he says, they were
derived originally from the schoolmen; but even if they
were thus derived, if, withal, they are valuable, there is no
384.
HOMILETICS PRoper.
reason why they should not be used. Natural divi-
sions of a discourse are older than the schoolmen ;
they spring from the nature of things. Good divisions
are nothing more than the clear analysis of any given
theme of thought. They break it up into its component
parts or specific ideas; and this analytic process, when
not carried into hair-splitting, aids the clear understand-
ing of the subject. It assists the hearer to follow the
road which the discussion takes; and he cannot entirely
lose his way, even if he should be for a time thrown out.
It also prevents the sermon from becoming a mass of in-
coherent and confused matter.
3. They promote the progress of the discussion. Good
divisions enable the writer to step easily from a lower
to a higher level of the subject. They mark the logi-
cal as well as the natural advancement of thought, and
prevent it from becoming retrogressive or rotary. They
thus keep the sermon, or rather the preacher, from
wasting his power; they enable every thought to have
its due weight; they prevent repetition. Good divisions
are, in fact, the result of clear thinking. They them-
selves often constitute intrinsically much of the beauty
and power of the discourse. Aptness to seize the prin-
ciple of division, and to effect the division correctly and
fully under it, perhaps more than any other specific capa-
bility, marks the degree of ability in the construction of
a discourse.'
""
,,
1
4. They refresh the mind and memory both of the
speaker and hearer. They introduce breaks; they
enable the mind to repose a moment, and take a view of
the field, to recall what has gone before, to note the prog-
ress which has been made, and to look forward to what
1 Day's "Art of Discourse," p. 86.
C
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF sermon.
385
is to come.
The mind rests in the trench in which it is
working its way up to the stronghold, looking both back-
ward and forward. Divisions also tend to keep up the
attention and interest in the hearer's mind, to prevent its
weariness, and to assist in guiding its thought.
As to the number of divisions, the principle should be
strongly laid down that there should be as few divisions
as possible. Divisions tend to make a dis-
course stiff; for the sermon should be a liv-
ing growth from the text, a life rather than
a work. All mechanical and artificial divi-
sions should therefore be avoided, nay, more, contemned.
The number of divisions, however, is governed, as we
have seen, very much by the nature of the subject itself.
A very simple subject requires but few divisions. The
more a subject will bear analyzing, of course the more of
division, separation, and classification of ideas is needed.
A difficult theological theme may sometimes require
many divisions, and even subdivisions.
There should be no arbitrary number of divisions ;
and, indeed, it is puerile to multiply divisions merely for
the sake of doing so, and of giving a logical air to a ser-
mon. This is not the way wise men talk. Different
forms of stating the same thing do not demand different
divisions. One should certainly never introduce a new
division unless it is absolutely required in order to make
the sense plainer, and to mark the progress of thought.
Claude says: "Division, in general, ought to be re-
strained to a small number of parts; they should never
exceed four or five at the most; the most admired ser-
mons have only two or three parts." He commends on
the whole a twofold division; in which this old writer on
homiletics singularly agrees with the practice of one of the
most accomplished of modern preachers, F. W. Robertson.
Number
of
divisions.
386
HOMILETICS PROPER.
42
ལ
Dr. Eleazer Fitch thinks that, as a general rule, three
principal divisions are enough for a sermon. He takes as
a model for the sacred oration, the oration of Cicero,“ Pro
Lege Manilia," in which the orator has one design in a
threefold division: "You must choose a general; you
must choose an able general; you must choose Cneius
Pompeius."
Divisions indeed should be rational and natural, and
they are the best divisions which are clearest, briefest,
and most easily retained. It is generally well to have
the first main division theoretical and the second prac-
tical. Yet if the theme be fertile enough, there may
be three, but rarely, almost never, more than three, e.g.
(John 12:46-50), “The truth of Jesus a new revelation
of God to the human mind.'
>>
(a.) Jesus, through his teaching, has given clearer light
to the human mind than it had before.
(b.) Through his life and death he has made known
the will of God more perfectly.
(c.) He therefore demands an implicit faith in him as
the condition of the soul's salvation.
As to the pure philosophy of divisions, every logical
subject may be said to be in its nature dichtonic, or two-
fold-the thing and its opposite; every
Philosophy metaphysical theme to be trichtonic, con-
taining the condition, that which it is condi-
of
divisions.
tioned upon, and the conception or idea
which is developed from the union of the condition and
its postulate. Tetrachotony, or pentachotony, or poly-
chotony, are therefore opposed to a strictly philosophical
method, both in relation to the substance of the proposi-
tion and the reason and design of the division.
As to the sources and qualities of divisions, there can be,
in fact, no very definite, or rather rigid rules laid down, be-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 387
qualities
of divisions.
cause these divisional qualities depend so entirely upon the
nature and fruitfulness of the subject. Before,
however, entering upon this topic, we would Sources and
call attention (this being a good place to do
so) to the interesting view of a German writer
respecting the distinction to be made between the sub-
jective idea of a theme and its objective and practical
preaching sense; and the divisional principle should base
itself (he thinks) upon the latter rather than upon the
former, although the former should be grasped. Thus,
take the subject of "Prayer;" here the subjective idea is
the nature or philosophy of prayer, but the preaching
idea is the power or the blessedness of prayer. This
may be spoken of:
(1.) As to the blessedness of the prayer of praise.
(2.) The blessedness of the prayer of actual petition for
what is needed.
(3.) The blessedness of the prayer of thanksgiving.
The following would be an instance of a subjective.
treatment of a text:
Matt. 6: 34,
Take no care for the morrow.'
Subject: "Limitation of our care for the future." This
forbidden care concerns itself :
""
(1.) With incidental events of life.
(2.) With unavoidable necessities of the future.
(3.) With new duties which the future may bring
with it.
This plan, an interesting one, dwells upon the nature
of this care, or the care which is forbidden; upon the
instances where it is forbidden; whereas the more prac-
tical and preaching-idea of the text would be, The
reasons for avoiding anxious care for the future;" not the
care itself so much as the avoiding of the care, and thus
following out the Saviour's positive direction.
388
HOMILETICS PROPER.
We would say of this fine and thoroughly German
distinction, that, while there is force in it, and while
preachers should, as a general rule, preach objectively,
yet preaching sometimes gains in depth and richness by
employing the subjective method. Where, especially, the
subjectiveness is in the divine idea, and not in the human
idea, or consciousness, which is usually a weakening
method of preaching, then the sermon is really deepened.
It loses something of the apparent element of practicality,
but gains in the actual knowledge and teaching of divine
things.
<<
1. Divisions should correspond to the nature and de-
sign of the subject. These determine the character of
divisions, and therefore to make them uniform and rigid
would be to destroy the free development of thought.
This rule forbids all stereotyped character of divi-
sions. The best practical rule for a preacher would
seem to be, not to tie himself to any uniform method
at all. Many men have many minds, and many sub-
jects require different modes of discussion. As a rule,
we strongly incline to some form of announced division.
It may be set forth either in a continuous sentence, or
by the more strongly marked numerical breaks, according
as the nature of the subject may require; but it should
always be with sufficient distinctness for the hearer to un-
derstand the general drift of the argument, what is the
lesson to be enforced, or what is the truth which is to be
proved. In the case of the extemporaneous speaker,
especially, a well staked-out course of thought, with
definite halting-places, seems almost indispensable. Un-
premeditated forms of illustration may suggest them-
selves, in the course of preaching, which it were a bond-
age not to yield to. Yet he must not suffer them to
carry him too far away; and the taking up of one of these
-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
389
announced heads both facilitates and indicates his coming
back.
The preacher should guard against two extremes, of a
pedantic mannerism, running all sermons into one plan,
and of a too vaguely announced plan, or what may be
called "the flowing or faintly indicated announcement.
In the last, which is the modern tendency, the preacher
may get half through his sermon before the quorsum
tendit is discovered.
1
2. Divisions should be made to comprehend or exhaust
the contents of the main proposition. This has regard
to the relations of the division with the theme. This
is the law of completeness in divisions; and as to the
main divisions of the discourse, it is absolutely essential.
Divisions are to the proposition what the proposition
is to the text. As the proposition aims to exhaust the
text, divisions aim to take up into them the whole mean-
ing and contents of the proposition, and to unfold the
whole substance of the thought comprehended in it.
Limit the proposition itself, rather than have it overrun
the divisions. Divisions may, indeed, sometimes com-
prise the proposition itself, presenting it in different frag-
ments or parts, which together form the general theme.
Thus one of Nettleton's sermons-subject, 1. The de-
parting prodigal; 2. The returning prodigal; without
any other general proposition.
3. Divisions should be governed by a law of unity
which requires that each division suggest or bear vital
relation to the proposition. This also has regard to the
relations of the division with the theme.
There can be no true theme which does not com-
prise one generic truth, or one class of truths, so that
1 Moore's "C
Thoughts on Preaching," p. 108.
•
D
390
畜
​HOMILETICS PROPER.
*
<<
all its subordinate parts are but specific divisions
of ore general truth, and bear common relations to
it. The theme in division is ever a class; and its
parts are denoted by the terms species, varieties, in-
dividuals.' This subject, or theme, is, of course, made
up of its own various attributes, bound together by a
common law of identity; and in division, this common
principle of the relation of the specific parts to the gen-
eric whole should be strictly observed. No other prin-
ciple of division should be introduced, thus causing con-
fusion of ideas; and only those divisions which belong
to this single class of ideas set forth in the theme should
be introduced. No new classification of ideas should
arise under a proposition which suggests one specific class
of ideas, or one peculiar kind of attributes. To speak
more generally, the one comprehensive and characteristic
thought of the proposition should be reproduced in all
the divisions, and every division should bear a necessary
and living relation to this one thought, although the par-
ticular points treated of in each division may be quite dis-
similar as regards each other. And the division may
not always distinctly express the matter of the proposi-
tion, but may only suggest it; yet it should promote the
general result, and the great moral truth or idea of the
proposition should run through every division. It should
be seen that there is but one bearing to all parts. The
subordinate parts should not efface the principal part, but
all the divisions should be such as will conduce to the
carrying out of the principal idea.
4. One division should not anticipate or include the
succeeding one. This, and the remaining qualities of
divisions which we shall notice, have regard to the re-
' Day's
<<
1
Art of Discourse," p. 89.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermON.
391
lations of divisions among themselves. The distinction
which separates into subdivisions should be real; and
that which enters into one idea, or forms part of it,
should not be made the theme of a separate division.
Ideas which have a very near relation to each other should
not form distinct divisions. There should be no blend-
ing or confounding of subordinate parts. If a new part,
division, or thought is introduced, it should be something
really new and distinct; for nothing weakens a discourse
so much as confusion and repetition of ideas.
The error may be sometimes the other way, and ideas
may be produced in divisions which are absolutely novel,
strikingly incongruous, and entirely trivial, as in a “Long
Vacation" sermon preached by an Oxford University
preacher on the character of Abraham :
(1.) As a patriarch.
(2.) As the father of the faithful.
(3.) As a country gentleman.'
5. Divisions should prepare the way for something to
come. There should be progress in them. Yet, while
they look forward to something more to come, they
should not anticipate results, which are reserved for the
development of the sermon, and especially for the conclu-
sion. They should not hinder or break the continuous and
free movement of the discourse; they should rather aid it.
6. Divisions belonging to the same class should be
similar to each other in form. This gives a neat finish
to the sermon, and promotes unity.
In regard to the composition of divisions, which is
simply the art of bringing into one view
the several elements of a given subject, Composition
or separating it into its component parts,
we may, in order to obtain just divisions of our theme- -
¹ Cox's "Recollections of Oxford," p. 225.
of divisions.
392
HOMILETICS PROPER.
I. Divide the whole general subject or proposition into
two or several particular propositions. These may be
distinct, but true parts of one theme.
2. Separate the genus into its different species. The
truths of Scripture are usually given in a generic form,
and they are thus capable of almost endless specification
and illustration.
3. View the truth in its various appropriate relations
or bearings to other truths. One may be obliged to do
this in order to eliminate the particular truth in hand,
and make it stand out clear in its own proper place in
the field of relative truth.
4. Marshal and discuss the principal proofs or argu-
ments of the theme in hand. A truth of Scripture stands
on its own ground of inspired authority; but even this
may be strengthened and confirmed by reasoning.
5. Exhibit the grand motives of any given duty, or
proposition including such duty.
6. Illustrate the fact or duty involved in the subject
in various practical ways and observations; or, in brief,
divisions may proceed by Classification, Analysis, Rela-
tions, Proofs, Motives, and Illustration.'
A word might be said here before leaving this point
of the composition of divisions, upon the artificial sys-
tem of Topics" which comes down from the school-
men, and which, though so artificial, is still worth re-
garding for a moment. This system might indeed, like
an old-fashioned fire-arm, still prove valuable if nothing
better were at hand; but it is artificial, mechanical, and
1 The sources of divisions, according to rhetoricians, are manifold.
One writer, for example, states sixteen of them. We would refer the
reader, for different kinds of divisions which may be employed, especially
in the textual sermon, and which are useful for reference in composing a
sermon, to Kidder's Homiletics," p. 201.
64
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
393
4
not to be depended upon.
A few of these stereotyped
topics," or topical divisions, are the following, which
may give some idea of their nature.
Thus, subjects may be treated according,
(1.) To their origin;
(2.) Their nature;
(3.) Their effects.
They may also be looked at,
(1.) As to qualities;
(2.) As to obligations.
We may again view,
(1.) The doctrine, or what is to be believed;
(2.) The practice to be derived from it.
We may still again treat,
(1.) The theory;
(2.) The life;
or,
(1.) The possibility;
(2.) The reality;
(3.) The necessity;
or,
(1.) The past;
(2.) The present;
(3.) The future;
or,
or,
(1.) The beginning;
(2.) The progress;
(3.) The end.
We may consider the relations of a subject,
(1.) To God;
(2.) To ourselves;
(3.) To other men ;
(1.) As a thought;
394
HOMILETICS PROPER.
(2.) As a word;
(3.) As a work;
or,
(1.) The general;
(2.) The particular ;
or,
(1.) The State;
(2.) The Church;
(3.) The household;
or,
(1.) Man in his nature;
(2.) Man as a member of society ;
(3.) Man as a member of the Christian Church.
of
divisions.
Let us now consider the order and arrangement of
divisions. The general principle which should
Order and guide in this is, that divisions should pro-
arrangement ceed according to the necessity of the sub-
ject, or the law of arrangement which a par-
ticular subject contains within itself when
evolved by thought; or, more specifically, (1.) By an
order of logical necessity, as the discussion of the nature
of the subject, and then of its circumstances and proofs,
or of its what, how, and why. (2.) By an order of inher-
ent dignity or value of ideas. This may be called the
natural order. (3.) By an order of time; e.g., reason,
Scripture, experience, would be generally the best order,
because Scripture includes reason, and experience, reason
and Scripture. The order of cause and effect would
come under this principle. (4.) Order of progressive
strength of argument. We should advance from the
weaker to the stronger argument; or, one may begin with
the strong and end with the strong, putting the weaker
arguments in the middle. (5.) Order of progress from
the abstract to the concrete-from a priori to a posteriori
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 395
-from arbitrary ideas to the realized consciousness of
these in fact and experience. (6.) Order of personal in-
terest. Those thoughts and facts which most nearly con-
cern our hearers themselves come with more force last―
God, the Church, yourselves. One should so arrange his
divisions as to secure progressive interest and moral im-
pression; he should bear down on the individual con-
science and heart.
As was said of the proposition, each division should be
plain and perspicuous; should be clearly cut; should
give complete sense by itself; should not be too com-
monplace or easy; and it should be so announced as best
to promote the clear progress of the discussion, and its
remembrance by the audience.
•
As to the utility of numbering divisions, and of an-
nouncing numerical divisions, the tendency is certainly,
at the present time, not to announce divi-
sions numerically. But if it were not a
paradox to say so, we think a numerical
division is useful when it is needed; that is, when it
makes more plain the discussion of a truth. If a sermon
is to hide thought, or to amuse an audience, then, by all
means, omit the formality of numbers; yet if divisions.
are useful at all, it may be sometimes useful to number
them, and the subject itself may demand it. But the
numbering impairs freedom, and imparts a formal char-
acter to a discourse; therefore we think it best never to
number divisions, or, what is the same thing, actually to
announce the number of divisions, unless numbers are
absolutely needed to make the discourse more memora-
ble and useful; for, as says Quintilian, "division. dimin-
ishes the appearance of strength."'¹ Erasmus speaks of
1
14
Institutes," B. ii. c. 12, s. 3.
Numbering
divisions.
396
HOMILETICS PROPER.
too many divisions as an unmanageable crowd, vitanda
est semper partium turba. Fénélon also is greatly op-
posed to many, and to previously announced divisions.
He says they break the continuity of thought. A ser-
mon hampered by these restrictions, he declares, is not a
beautifully well-veined marble, but a stiff mosaic. Let
us therefore look upon formal numerical divisions as a
disagreeable necessity, to be avoided as often as possible,
not looking upon them as the old Puritan preachers did,
as an essential beauty. "One Mr. Lye, a minister of
the seventeenth century, in a sermon on I Cor. 6:17,
first explains the text in thirteen divisions for fixing it on
the right basis; and then subjoins fifty-six additional
topics. Another writer of the same period, a Mr. Drake,
published a sermon of one hundred and seventy-six divi-
sions, to which are appended sundry queries and solu-
tions; the preacher telling us at the end that many im-
portant particulars are passed over because he wished to
limit himself to the marrow and substance !"'
Those times are passed. Men have less patience than
formerly for such minute elaboration of truth, such scho-
lastic dissecting and logic-chopping. Sermons, without
losing their thoughtful method, must become like other
natural rapid addresses, in fact like earnest conversation.
The more intelligent the audience the less necessity of
formal numerical announcement of divisions at all; but
where divisions are absolutely essential for the solid
mechanism or clear plan of a discourse, they should be
distinctly made, yet in a workman-like way, and the join-
tures should be concealed as neatly as possible, as nature
conceals them. The law of easy transition should be
observed.
"
¹ Moore's Thoughts on Preaching," p. 105.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 397
As to the place, or time, of announcing divisions, this
may be either before the discussion, during its progress,
or at its close. The last was frequently Lu-
ther's mode. Generally speaking, it is best
to announce divisions at the beginning,
especially if the sermon is of a topical char-
acter. While a cultivated taste would pre-
fer never formally to announce divisions, utility is to be
placed before taste in sermonizing.
To sum up this whole matter we would say that Di-
vision" is simply breaking up a subject into its constitu-
ent parts. It is exactly the opposite of "generaliza-
tion." It shows what belongs to a subject by bringing
into distinct view its several elements.
It resolves the general into the individual. Divisions
from a common centre trace differences outward.
Place
or time of
announcing
divisions.
To do this happily one should be familiar with logic,
though in a sermon the oratorical method is often pref-
erable to the logical; but logic is at the basis of
oratory.
By neglecting the study of divisional arrangement one
is apt to produce what Paley calls "a bewildered rhap-
sody without aim or effect, order or conclusion.” Good
divisional arrangement gives to a sermon what painters
call "tone.” The sermon which usually makes the most
impression is that which makes its points clear.
In extemporaneous preaching it is chiefly order which
aids the memory, and lends force to the discourse.
Announcing divisions is simply a question of rhetorical
propriety, but we should not hesitate to do this if it will
aid impressiveness and clearness. If we err it is better
to do so on the side of plainness than of confusion.
398
HOMILETICS PROPER.
SEC. 18. The Development.
The development (Die Entwickelung) of a sermon is the
whole body of it as related severally to the text, the sub-
ject, the proposition, and the divisions which serve the
purpose of originating, marking, and limiting the devel-
opment.
The development, in other words, is the carrying out
and the filling up of the whole plan, even as the divisions
are the carrying out of the proposition, and the proposi-
tion of the text. It is the actual treatment of the theme
in hand, the free and living current of thought, senti-
ment, and remark, after the definite subject and the gen-
eral outline of treatment have been designated. The
word "body,” having in it the vital organism and all
that goes to make up the living whole of the discourse,
expresses what is meant by the development better than
any other word.
The general character of the development of a dis-
course is decided chiefly by the character of the subject,
although the object, or the main purpose we
What decides have in view, has also great influence.
One
author indeed says, "The object far more
than the subject determines the natural
order of our discourse. If our object is to
convince, we must naturally seek the most
regular way of advancing proof; if to impress, we must
follow the course of human feelings. Should we wish to
make comparisons, we must enumerate all the parts of
argument. Would we narrate, our clue then is the suc-
cession of events. Thus then, each has its peculiarity,
and the only art is to get at the true nature of the mat-
ter in hand.' There may also be different modes of
1
1 Manse of Mastland."
the
development
of the
discourse.
1
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of serMON. 399
development of the same text according to our object;
we may treat it in a logical or a popular way, a textual
or a topical method. But the subject, nevertheless, as
we should naturally suppose, determines its own method
of treatment and exerts, therefore, the chief influence
upon the development of the theme in hand.
There are many methods of development laid down by
different authors; thus Moore treats of the development
of a sermon by amplification, or the expan-
sion of the leading thought of the text; by
implication; by observation; by confirma-
tion; by argumentation; and by investiga-
tion.'
Various
methods of
development.
In order not to enter into unnecessary and confusing
detail here, we will confine ourselves to the more common
nomenclature, and will say a few words on five principal
modes of discussion or development: the Expository;
the Illustrative; the Argumentative; the Persuasive;
and the Meditative.
1. Expository development. If indeed one of the
great aims of preaching is to instruct or edify the people
in scriptural truth, then expository preach-
ing, in bringing before the people a large
Expository
development.
amount of truth and a wide scope of scrip-
tural knowledge, and in compelling the preacher himself
to study the Scriptures comprehensively, is one of the
most valuable kinds of sermonizing, if not the most valu-
able. Expository preaching ends in making a passage of
Scripture plain to the hearer's mind and heart, i.e., not
only in making the ancient truth clear, but in bringing it
into the living present, in drawing out its varied lessons.
to the soul. It is not simple exposition, but it is the ex-
1 Thoughts on Preaching," pp. 96-99.
400
HOMILETICS PROPER.
pository sermon, or the real use and adaptation of the
truth that has formed the subject of exegesis.
Expository sermons may be of two kinds :
(a.) A simple exposition of the several clauses of a
passage of Scripture in their order. This is
useful when the portion of Scripture is frag-
of two kinds, mentary, and affords no
Expository
sermons
very continuous
thread of argument, and also when there are
difficulties and ambiguities in the text to be critically ex-
plained. Such sermons may embrace the exposition of a
single passage of Scripture, or of a whole book of Scrip-
ture in the exact order of passages. In such a sermon
the lesson or the application generally follows the exe-
gesis of each passage, in the order in which it occurs.
This kind of discourse is more truly a simple exegetical
lecture or running commentary than a finished sermon ;
yet it was the method of Chrysostom and Augustine, and
of the early preachers.
(b.) The setting forth, after the exposition, of the
whole, of the definite truth or truths which the passage
thus explained conveys, especially in the way of practical
observations and lessons. This comes nearer than the
other mode to the topical form of discourse, but it re-
quires a lengthened exposition, which really forms the
body of the sermon. Chalmers's lectures on the Epistle
to the Romans are fine examples of this kind of exposi-
tory preaching; he shows the connections of thought be-
tween many detached passages, and develops their truth
in more general practical propositions. This mingling
of the textual and topical styles is perhaps the most
profitable and instructive method of preaching, as well
as the most popular and interesting. Were it more gen-
erally adopted, it would infuse a new life into our ser-
mons.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 401
-
Some preachers fail to make expository preaching in-
teresting by their extremely dry and barren manner of
treating the Scriptures. They bring their
exegetical process, instead of its results, Reasons of
into the pulpit.
failure in
expository
preaching.
In this kind of preaching you should
take up your subjects, and treat them in a
free, popular manner, and never exegetically, as in the
schools. In your private study, and for your own bene-
fit, cut and trim an exegesis as much as you will; but
never think of carrying your pruning knife and grafting
tools into the desk with you; or, if you do, keep them
out of sight. Common minds love to see good work
when it is done, but they dislike the labor of doing it
themselves, and the tedium of standing by to see how
others do it.
? 1
44
Other preachers fail in expository preaching because
they have no skill in grasping and grouping ideas, and
the sermon has no unity as a work of art, and more than
all, it leaves no definite impression. It is but a stringing
together of short explanations, without recognizing the
deeper connections of parts, the law of combination, the
hidden root of doctrine.
But the reason why preachers most commonly fail in
expository preaching is, that they do not put study
enough into it; they do not give close thought to the
exegesis of the passage, to make it full and rich. They
think they can get up" an expository sermon in a short
time; whereas that method, above all, requires original
investigation, and, perhaps, more close and searching
study than any other, for in it there is less left to inven-
tion.
True expository preaching is, as we have said, profit-
"New Englander," Jan. 1866.
402
HOMILETICS PROPER.
K
able to the preacher himself, because it enriches his scrip-
tural knowledge, and leads him deep into the word of
God. It gives him broad views of revealed truth, it teaches
him to read the sacred writings in a connected way, and
it follows out an inspired train of thought or argument
sometimes through a whole book. It prevents him, also,
from misapplying and misusing individual texts, by tak-
ing them out of their right relations. It lends variety to
preaching, and does not shut it up to a few doctrinal sub-
jects; it ranges through the broad fields of the word,
and goes from theme to theme, as the stream of revela-
tion flows on through the varied regions of divine truth.
Expository preaching may lose its interest by being made
too formal, by becoming too orderly and topical, by
drawing out the truths of a passage into propositions too
distinct and rigid; whereas the mind of the preacher
should hover around the passage, should recur to it again
and again, should (as has been said) suck the sweetness
from it like a bee; should, in ever nearer and more pene-
trating ways, draw out its life and exhaust its deep and
precious meaning. Exhaust, did we say? That would
be impossible; for, after all the preaching, how much
there is still in the divine word which is fresh, unex-
plored, and almost entirely unknown! Expository
preaching also suggests numberless subjects for sermons.
It gives an opportunity to remark upon a great many
themes on which one would not desire to preach a whole
sermon, and it also gives an opportunity sometimes to
administer salutary reproof in an indirect way. It is, in
fact, the most free and practical method of preaching; it
comes home to the heart the quickest. It is, above all,
feeding the people with the "bread of life," with real
biblical nutriment, with that spiritual food which all souls
need, and which this age and every age requires. There
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 403
is also in it less of the exclusively human element than in
topical preaching; the Holy Spirit seems to suggest and
to provide the materials for the sermon. It is, therefore,
a good change from the logical method, where the form
often tyrannizes over the substance; and a mingling of
the two methods of topical and expository preaching will
serve to correct the false tendencies of both. Dr. John
M. Mason's remarks may be quoted on this point, though
they should be received with some reservation. He says,
"Do not choose a man who always preaches upon insu-
lated texts. I care not how powerful or eloquent he may
be in handling them. The effect of his power and elo-
quence will be, to banish a taste for the Word of God,
and to substitute the preacher in its place. You have
been accustomed to hear that word preached to you in
its connection. Never permit that practice to drop.
Foreign churches call it lecturing; and when done with
discretion, I can assure you that, while it is of all exer-
cises the most difficult for the preacher, it is, in the same
proportion, the most profitable for you. It has this
peculiar advantage, that in going through a book of
Scripture, it spreads out before you all sorts of character,
and all forms of opinion, and gives the preacher an oppor-
tunity of striking every kind of evil and of error, without
subjecting himself to the invidious suspicion of aiming
his discourses at individuals."'
2. Illustrative development. Under this form come,
(1.) The historical sermon; (2.) The bio-
graphical; (3.) The descriptive; (4.) Those
discourses which are mainly formed upon
natural, scientific, or even symbolical and figurative illus-
tration; (5.) Allegorical.
Illustrative
development.
1 See Stanley's "Life of Dr. Arnold," on his method of
Preaching" (Scribner's edition), v. i. p. 194, seq.
<<
Exegetical
404
HOMILETICS PROper.
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The historical sermon has reference to the illustration
of truth by the proof and evolution of facts, rather than
of words or ideas.
The
historical
sermon.
As the Bible is pre-eminently a book of
facts, and has a noble historical develop-
ment in itself, this may form a legitimate
and interesting mode of preaching, as it was, indeed, the
method of the apostles. As all men love to see truth in
living forms, they will listen with interest to lessons
drawn from sacred history and biography, which is, in-
deed, the rich residuum of the deepest experience of the
race. The great features and facts of Paul's life, in con-
nection with the old religions and civilizations of the age
in which he lived, cannot fail to arrest attention, and lead
to nobler and higher thought. We are not to become.
simply historians in the pulpit, but to set forth and im-
press the higher truth through the living lessons of his-
tory, of all history, not only that of the Bible times
and personages, but of man, and of the Church in all ages
—of the great facts and events of modern days bearing
upon the spiritual welfare of man and the interests of
Christ's kingdom in the earth. Protestant preaching has
doubtless lost something here; and, in this respect, we
may learn a lesson from the Roman Catholics; they
choose, as themes for illustrative preaching, the times
and examples of eminent Christians, both ancient and
modern.
This kind of preaching has its own mode of developing
a subject, and allows of a more discursive and generaliz-
ing method. It permits a freer use of the imagination,
where it does not transcend the bounds of truth. It per-
mits the drawing of various, and sometimes unaccus-
tomed, remarks and lessons from the facts evolved---les-
sons often of a homely, personal, and direct kind. It
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 405
<<
has been said that Demosthenes' arguments were
Demosthenes' facts ;" and so the argument of every ser-
mon should rest solidly on facts.
This species of sermon has already been spoken of
under the topic of the interpretation and handling of
texts.
Biographical sermons, applying the scriptural axiom
that as face answereth to face, so the heart of man to
man," are, if well composed, of great didac-
sermons.
tic value, and give opportunity for dramatic Biographical
impression bearing forcibly upon the con-
science. It is truth run into living forms. The "Edipus
Tyrannus" and the Antigone" have had more of
moulding influence upon the moral character of men and
nations than have Aristotle's "Ethics."
(6
Descriptive preaching should not be too frequently
used, but if a man have power in word-painting he can
find good use for it in the pulpit.
But illustrative preaching is, naturally, chiefly preach-
ing by illustrations; and we would speak
a word more especially of the use of illus-
trations in preaching. The judicious use
of illustrations is to be highly commended.
When Christ pointed to the lilies of the field by way of
interpreting moral and spiritual truth, he opened the
volume of the visible world to the preacher, as a reve-
lation of God full of spiritual types. In like manner
the Psalms, and especially the book of Job, are drawn
from the evidences of the divine working in and through
living things. They teach from the known to the un-
known, from the visible to the invisible.
The true preacher is shown in his ability to body forth
spiritual ideas in forms that may, as it were, be seen and
handled. This is to take truth out of its hidden rela-
Use of
illustrations
in preaching.
456
HOMILETICS PROPER.
:
1
tions and make it distinctly seen by the most simple
mind. This is putting the abstract into the concrete,
which is the form of life. If the illustrations are fresh
and vivid they light up a sermon, and aid both its inter-
est and comprehension. Illustrations should be—
(a.) Real, i.e., true to fact, and true to things that do
exist or might exist. They should not relate to things
that are unreal and fanciful.
(b.) Common, or suggested by objects that lie, as it
were, in one's pathway, at home with him, or about him ;
picked up when he walks through the streets and over the
fields, or as he mingles in the common business and occu-
pations of life. While there may and should be true
poetry in preaching, yet illustrations should not be
merely poetical or beautiful, drawn simply from the
imagination, or even from the imagined history of the
past, but rather from actual things in life, so that they
form in themselves analogues and arguments. An illus-
tration from the last war in America is better than one
from the Punic wars. An illustration from a black-
smith's shop, or a carpenter's bench, is better than one
from Vulcan's smithy or the realms of cloud-land. All
life and fact, and the thousand forms and events of real
being and action, are open to the preacher of truth.
Everything real should become a winged vehicle of
truth. The old preachers and prophets possessed this
faculty of perceiving the spiritual sense in the homeliest
and most natural things. From Isaiah to John Bunyan
this has been the special prophetic or preaching gift.
(c.) Drawn from Nature itself. Nature becomes an
organ for the preacher of truth to play upon; and he
who penetrates into this symbolism of Nature has a
deeper insight into spiritual things than the merely pro-
saic reasoner.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
407
Illustrations thus true, fresh, homely, natural, forcible,
form an element of preaching that may be called its
vital expression, and which is, after all, nothing more nor
less than stating truth itself in such real forms that it
comes home to the mind with living power, and delights
and fastens it as with a nail. Old truths are brought out
in new lights. Abstruse subjects become picturesque.
The most metaphysical discussion beats with the life-
blood of the present. There is to be found divine in-
struction in everything. The elements of common sense,
truth, reasonableness, shrewdness, wit, and sagacity, skill,
sympathy, and humanity, are in such preaching. It is no
longer dry and technical but is full of nature and the human
element. We should assuredly cultivate this "nature-
preaching," as the Germans call it, this power of homely
illustration that causes the present actual to throw light
on the past actual, that interests men and makes the
people a part with yourself, that strikes the real current
of their thinking, that speaks as if speaking out of their
own thought. Mr. Spurgeon has this popular illustra-
tive power. Dr. Bushnell had it in a more lofty and
ideal use of Nature. Savonarola, Wyclif, Latimer, Lu-
ther, Chrysostom had it; the apostle Paul made use of
it; and above all, our Lord himself.
Allegorical preaching is hardly fitted to the Occidental
taste, though much practised in Europe during the Middle
Ages, and later still in England. It has in the
past, as we have seen, led to great abuses and Allegorical
preaching.
puerilities; but of our Saviour it is said, that
"without a parable spake he not unto them." Truth
was indeed too precious a jewel to be presented pure and
simple to an unbelieving age. So it may sometimes be
now. This was the method of John George Hamann,
the German apologist for Christian faith in the times of
408
HOMILETICS PROPER.
In a
the height of German neological scepticism.
grotesque view of this fact the author of "Sartor Re-
sartus" wrote his obscure enigmas and taught righteous-
ness in ironical allegory.
Argumenta-
tive
3. Argumentative development. This is to con-
vince the judgment by bringing out and establishing the
truth through proof and evidence. Thus in
the text "By grace ye are saved," the
development. argumentative development would reason
upon and show the truth of this; while the
expository development would simply set forth the scrip-
tural account of the method of salvation by grace, and
the illustrative development would exemplify it. All
subjects are not fitted for the argumentative develop-
ment, although, perhaps, reasoning may be applied to
any subject which admits of being true or false; but doc-
trinal subjects-those which contain scriptural teaching,
that may be confirmed by reasons and proofs-are the
chief subjects for argumentative development.
This method also has its advantages; indeed many
writers, among them Dr. Fitch, prescribe it as the best
and invariable method of sermonizing. Argument im-
presses truth already believed, and convinces of truth not
before believed. An enlightened faith rests on proper
grounds of evidence, either external or internal, and the
more fully these grounds are set forth, the more firmly
established will be the faith.
Argument is also often useful in arousing the feelings.
The mind becomes interested in a truth which is capable
of clear proof, and it is overcome by the spiritual weap-
ons of reason and truth. The most successful preachers,
as instruments of producing immediate conversion, the
most successful revival preachers, are often at first
severely argumentative, thereby gaining power to bear
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermon.
409
down forcibly upon the conscience and heart. The argu-
mentative style of sermon is so common with us in New
England that we usually speak of the “body” or “de-
velopment" of the discourse as "the argument.
:
The argumentative development of a sermon is of two
kinds the indirect and the direct. 1. The indirect.
Under this comes, (a.) The refutation of The indirect
objections. This should generally be in the argument.
first part of the body of a discourse, because the last
words should be the strongest, and should leave a posi-
tive impression. When the objections are trivial, they
need not be noticed; but when they are real, and pre-
sent truly intellectual difficulties, it is best to discuss them
one by one. Refutation removes the obstacles and clears
away the rubbish, before we begin to build the argu-
ment. And there is nothing like grappling with an
antagonist to excite interest, for man naturally loves
fighting, and almost every one is more forcible in refuting
than in proving. But the preaching should not stop at
the refutation; for Christianity is not a negative system
-it is full of reasons.
>>
Ka
In refutation, good sense dictates that we should be care-
ful to be candid, since in this way we gain the confidence
of our hearers when we proceed to the proof. We may gain
an advantage, sometimes, in turning an objection into a
proof; we thus carry the war into Africa. But no trifling
objections should be stated. No time should be spent
in demolishing men of straw. And above all things,
acrimony in refuting opposing arguments should be
avoided. (b.) The hypothetical form of argument. This
is another form of indirect argument. It consists in
bringing up several different forms of suppositions, begin-
ning with the least plausible; and, by discussing and dis-
proving these in succession, you lay the way for the one
410
HOMILETICS PROPER.
鸞
​which you wish to establish. Thus the doctrine of
human sinfulness may be proved by gradually annihi-
lating the various hypotheses of human goodness which
men adduce for their own escape from this humbling and
consuming truth, and by leaving it as the only possible
truth. (c.) The serial or gradual argument. This form
of indirect argument begins with some distinct and com-
mon truth, that is readily conceded by your hearer, and
then comes up by making the predicate of one proved
truth the subject of another, until what you wish spe-
cially to prove presents itself in an irresistible form, as a
The direct foregone conclusion. 2. The direct method
argument. of argument. This consists in the adducing
of direct and positive proof. The subjects of pulpit dis-
course are commonly those which come under the general
department of moral evidence. This permits, and even
requires, proof. Proof is that mental act or process by
which we arrive at certainty or something like certainty,
in our judgments respecting truth; and when the argu-
ment relates strictly to truth, or to fact, the proofs are
called reasons; when it is concerning right, or duty,
they are called motives. Argument deals chiefly with
the first, or with reasons.
As to the sources of proof, they are commonly divided
into two classes, mediate and immediate. 1. The imme-
diate are those which spring from, (a.) Con-
sciousness, or that which appeals to the
internal sense of right in the mere statement
of a truth. (b.) Perception, or that which is the object
of our own observation as regards cause and effect-as,
poison kills. (c.) Testimony, or the related perceptions
of others-in fact, a common and universal perception.
(d.) Intuition, which pertains to the apprehension of
abstract truths-as purely mathematical and rational
Sources of
proof.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
4II
truths that are the objects of spontaneous belief, because
the reasons for them exist in the mind itself.
Dr. Fitch would add to these Common Sense, which is
a kind of induction from general grounds of human thought
and observation. 2. The mediate sources of proof are
those which are founded upon the principle that all truth
is one, and that its various parts have essential relations
to each other. This admits of reasoning from what is
known to what is unknown-from what is established to
what is to be established; in a word, if such and such.
things are true, other things must be true: it is the usual
method of deductive reasoning.
We would make two or three suggestions in relation to
the strictly argumentative development of a discourse :
(1.) In taking an argumentative position
one should be sure that it is a strong one. Suggestions
The premise taken in the beginning should in relation to
be thoughtfully taken; and the truth you development.
seek to establish should be fairly reasoned
argumentative
out, or be capable of being reasoned out, and not be a
mere assumption.
(2.) In the arrangement of an argument one should
exercise great judiciousness and care. One should ob-
serve the two great principles of attending to the force of
probability that unites the proof to the conclusion, and
to the right connection among the arguments themselves.
Without entering into all the rules upon the method
and order of argumentative preaching, we would just
notice the common argument from the Scriptures. As a
general rule, when the direct testimony of Scripture
forms a part in a series of arguments, it should occupy
the first place. If the series relates to God, it should
always be first—e.g., "the veracity of God ;" the natural
and true order would be, 1. His own word as to his
412
HOMILETICS PROPER.
A
veracity. 2. His conduct as showing this. But in speak-
ing of man we should sometimes take this testimony of
God last, since he is omniscient and infallible. If we
speak to unbelievers, we may adduce Scripture first, and
then the proofs from reason, which are stronger in their
minds; but when we speak directly to Christians, the
Scripture proof should be used last. They may distrust
your reasoning, but they will bow to the Scriptures while
still the reasoning may be useful in confirming the truth.
(3.) The discourse should rarely or never be exclusively
argumentative. Thought should not lose its life by
going through a strictly dialectic process. The sermon
is not, after all, a proposition of Euclid. No part of it
should be entirely disconnected from the will, the feel-
ings, and the experience of men. It should not become
a matter of pure intellect. The preacher may in this way
conquer, but he will not convince nor convert.
To this suggestion that the sermon itself should rarely
be wholly or exclusively argumentative, might be added,
that the general style of preaching should not be wholly
argumentative.
A
We want, often, simpler practical sermons-sermons
that do not discuss, but only earnestly express, religious
truth and feeling; sermons that spring from the heart more
than the head; sermons, too, that have a more attractive
literary form where the imagination plays freely; ser-
mons that cast aside the stiff robes of argumentation, and
are unbound, spontaneous, spiritual. The preacher of
an argumentative cast of mind should especially guard
against the temptation of this tendency, and should cul-
tivate freer forms of discourse; and so, on the other hand,
the illogical and sensational preacher should cultivate a
severer, solider style, just as we give mathematics to a
dreamer to make him think. As the argumentative
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
413
method implies the predominance of the human over the
divine element in preaching, a more cautious use of it,
and a return to a simpler, less ambitious, and more
spiritual manner of preaching are to be commended.
(4.) The argument should not be too high or abstruse
for the audience. It may be very close and powerful,
but it should ground itself in human nature, or in the
common laws, truths, and motives of the human mind,
which all men appreciate and understand. It has been
said that "the foundations of argument in the pulpit
must, to a great extent, be commonplace. ."
4. Persuasive development. This, too, is a kind of
argumentative discussion for the purpose of conviction,
but it deals chiefly with motives, rather than
proofs or reasons. It does not end with
mere conviction, but rather with persuasion.
It addresses the will with motives of good, urging it
to the performance of immediate duty. If the will of
the hearer is opposed to the truth, the aim is to
remove the will from its present object of choice, and to
fix it upon another and true object; if the will is
apathetic or indifferent, the aim is to awaken it to action
and choice; if the will is favorable, the aim is to encour-
age and strengthen this good purpose. This method of
development partakes somewhat of the hortatory style of
sermon, being addressed to the feelings as well as the
reason. It requires something more than proof, since a
man may be convinced by proof; but he must be per-
suaded to act and choose by motives. Few preachers can
afford to leave out the persuasive element. One great
end of preaching, as we have said, if not the great end, is
persuasion; it is not mere instruction, but persuasion; it
is to persuade men to love and obey God.
Not only the confessedly hortatory sermon, but every
Persuasive
development.
414
HOMILETICS PROPER.
(4
sermon should have in it the element of persuasion,
should tend to this end. 'Now, then, we are ambassa-
dors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we
pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God." Cold,
intellectual, argumentative, passionless preaching, without
a thought steeped in the heart, or an appeal warmed in
the emotions, has no precedent in apostolic preaching.
Knowing the terrors of the Lord, the apostle persuaded
men. Above all, the love of Christ constrained him in
preaching the gospel to others. We must move men to
act, we must persuade them to obey the word of the
Lord. We must bring them to a choice.
But there must be some ultimate ground of choice, or
there could be no object or ground of persuasion. Choice
implies the existence of an alternative. Now, it is the
object of persuasive reasoning to show others the true
reasons and motives of choice, that, these being fully set
before the mind, and deliberately weighed, the mind may
be led to make the good choice. The end of all persua-
sion is to show that the greatest good lies on the side of
duty, and thus to lead men to do what is right. The ob-
vious means to this are, presenting inducements, consid-
erations, motives; for that which moves a man to do any-
thing is a motive. Of course the preacher of righteous-
ness can deal only with good and true motives. What,
then, are the sources of persuasion?
Vinet reduces all motives which the preacher can employ
to two-goodness and happiness-in fact to happiness.
As all human action aims at some good, in presenting
the motive of happiness, one should be care-
ful to present the supreme aim or the high
of persuasion. and true idea of happiness, ending in the
blessedness of the Christian; he should show that good-
ness and happiness are necessarily and finally united, are
The sources
܀
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
415.
really one, and that the old stoic axiom, "To be con-
scious of virtue is happiness," is realized in an infinitely
higher sense in the Christian life. There is even a true
self-love which may be justly appealed to. In fact, the
tastes, desires, sympathies, and affections of our nature-
all that powerful side of our nature—are not to be lost
sight of, since it is not mere reason that moves men to
act; it is also feeling, desire, affection.
Nothing is more wonderfully adapted to move our
deepest feelings than the motives presented in the gospel.
Christ, being lifted up, does draw all men unto him.
The attractions of the cross are even greater than the
terrors of the law. There is, however, the motive of fear
as well as the motive of love; and how
and where to appeal to the passion of
fear in preaching is an interesting theme.
Preachers may fatally err both in leaving it out of ac-
count and in employing it unwisely and unscripturally.
One thing is certain, that scriptural preachers did appeal
to the motive of fear; they preached strongly the peril
and the condemnation of the obdurately unrighteous;
and who did this in more tremendous words than Christ.
Motive of
fear.
We must preach the law as well as the gospel.
But the law should be preached in the right way, not
merely as a system of fear, punishment, and condem-
nation, but in its just relations to the constitution
of the mind and the principle of conscience, in order
to show how the law may be disobeyed, and thus
how there may be sin. In this way the law becomes a
means of conviction. The law should be preached,
therefore, however severely and terribly, yet with dis-
crimination, and should make its appeals to the reason
and the moral nature of men; and in this way the
penalties of the law have their proper effect.
416
HOMILETICS PROPER.
**
>,
The apostles preached the condemnation of the law in
the spirit of compassion. They spoke this truth of
Christ in love. "Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we
persuade men. They preached it persuasively as a mo-
tive. As Christ spoke of the wrath to come, and yearned
to gather those who rejected the mercy of God into the
kingdom; as the apostle Paul, in the spirit of Christ, pro-
claimed with unfaltering lips the curse of those who were
guilty of unbelief, and yet wept when he talked of "the
enemies of the cross of Christ," so preachers should not
preach to the fears of men without true love to men in
their hearts; they should not brandish the thunderbolts
of the law in one hand, without offering the grace of the
gospel in the other. If they fail to do this, the persua-
sive quality vanishes from their preaching.
We would now treat more specifically of those motives
of persuasion which a preacher of the gospel may legiti-
mately employ. Looking at them as moral
motives, and to such only can the preacher
of persuasion appeal, they would come under the three
employed. general heads of Happiness, Duty, and Chris-
Motives
to be
tian Virtue or Love.
Happiness.
1. Happiness. (a.) Temporal happiness, the lowest view
of happiness, is greater on the side of righteousness than
of unrighteousness. The man who has real
uprightness of heart is the most apt to se-
cure human friendship, honor, and worldly prosperity,
and to be successful in whatever he undertakes to do
with his fellow-men. Religion has the promise of this
life as well as of that to come. All the sources of
heavenly happiness itself are with us as rational and
moral beings even now, for these depend upon the right
disposition of the heart. Wherever God is, there must
be happiness. But for every earthly or material enjoy-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITIOn of serMON. 417
ment of a lawful and not injurious nature, the good man,
as a general rule, has a better prospect than the bad man.
A long and happy life is promised to the obedient (Ps.
91 16; Deut. II: 21). Religion fosters a state of mind
91:16;
conducive to soundness of body and mind, for it leads to
an observance of those laws by which health is main-
tained. It is living and doing well. It is the highest
reason in all things. Yet one should be guarded here in
not dwelling exclusively, as is sometimes done, on this
merely prudential range of motives; for often God blows
them all away and afflicts the righteous, like Job, with
great and crushing sorrows. Even the old Greek said
that a man could not rightly be called happy until after
death. Yet, on the other hand, one should not be de-
terred from employing this motive of temporal happiness.
God uses it. He has made our natures for happiness,
and if we fulfil the true ends of our being, if we live in
accordance with the principles of our normal nature, we
are happy. Sorrow as well as sin is an incident to our
nature, not its original property. God, the source of
joy, would pour joy through the hearts of all his creat-
ures, and human demerit alone diminishes and destroys
this happiness. A legitimate happiness, which may
thus be experienced even in time, also springs from self-
approbation in well-doing. He who does a good act is
rewarded in his own mind. This happiness, from the exer-
cise of holy affections to ourselves and others following
from virtuous actions (ai nar apeτiv èvέpyɛiα), is some-
thing not liable to change, but is lasting and inalienable.
If happiness is thus a true motive to persuade to good
action, then the misery which accrues from the opposite
course, since it is a dissuasive from evil, operates as a
persuasive to good. The condemnation and misery of
wicked men form an indirect persuasive to goodness.
418
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Just fear as well as true happiness is a strong motive to
right action. Both the light and the shadow, the joy
and the terror, impel the soul toward God.
(b.) Eternal happiness resulting from righteous action.
He who does the will of God shall share the blessedness
of God, not only in time but in eternity.
2. Duty. This deals essentially with the moral part
of our nature, and appeals to motives that have their
seat in the conscience. Duty is a higher
motive than happiness. Call conscience
Duty.
what we may, account for its origin as we may, it is that
part or faculty of our being which responds instinctively
to the law of right. We call it, and call it justly, the
voice of God within us, because it is that in us which
answers to the voice of our moral ruler. It thus rises
above the idea of expediency and of happiness. It is an
unselfish and divine faculty. It interprets and reiterates
the righteous law. That law would be powerless did it
not appeal to the nature of the mind itself, which is
made harmonious with and confirmatory of the law. We
cannot help acknowledging the rightness of right, the
wrongness of wrong. We are so formed that we must
feel that we ought to do right, and here is the ground of
the law of duty. Here is its great motive of persuasion.
The doing of right because it is right, for its own sake,
is the grand motive of duty to which as preachers of
righteousness we can and should ever appeal. We must
tell men that they should do right because it is right, and
they will at least feel the tremendous power of this
motive, and either yield to it and be saved or resist it
and be condemned. In this appeal we have a still more
potential and awful helper-God himself; for God is in
the conscience more intimately than in the outer intel-
lection, and he speaks there mysteriously as from an in-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
419
ward throne, so that what the moral nature itself dictates.
to be right is reinforced by all the sanction of the divine
will.'
""
3. Christian virtue or love. The love of God is the
root-principle of Christian virtue. The moving power of
the loving will of God, made known in his
Son Jesus Christ, is the central motive to be
set forth by the Christian preacher. “I, if
I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.
The love of God in Christ to sinners is, in fact, the
gospel itself.
This is the gospel preachers are to preach.
Gratitude, faith, love, are appealed to in the strongest
terms. God "first loved us'-a motive which, when
once realized, creates a soul under the ribs of death.
As a natural and irresistible sequence of this divine
love toward us, human love, or the Christ-like love of
man for man-the Christian preacher's love for the souls
of his hearers—forms a strong motive to be brought to
bear upon them, and through this channel as it were of
human love and sympathy the divine love flows. This is
the secret of truly moving and persuasive preaching.
One of his boy-hearers says of Dr. Arnold's preaching:
It was not the cold, clear voice of one giving his advice
and warning from serene heights to those who were sin-
ning and struggling below, but the warm, loving voice of
one who, fighting for us and by our side, and calling on us
to help him and ourselves and one another.
Let us
cultivate more than we do these holy affections and pas-
sions of the soul, this capacity of love and this power of
sympathy. He who feels that he himself is a sinner
saved, if saved, by the love of God, and who is thus
brought in true love and sympathy with other sinners like
1 See art. Theism," Brit. Quar., July, 1871.
""
Christian
virtue
or love.
420
HOMILETICS PROPER.
101
Yo
himself, will, like Paul, speak to them with a power of
persuasion which is resistless.
Another form, perhaps, of this love of God to us, and
our love to him, as a motive, is the appeal to men to live
to the glory of God, in the true sense of God's glory.
This is seeking the love of God in an unselfish spirit, and
without reference to ourselves at all. This shuts out
heaven and quenches hell. To the true and perfect mind
this is the highest motive, and, in one sense, the only
motive.
In these motives which have been mentioned, we ap-
peal both to the lower and to the higher elements of our
nature—to our self-interest, and to the pure, unselfish
principle of the good of others and the glory of God.
As to the legitimate methods of persuasion, whether
indirect or direct, there may be mentioned
as some of them :
Methods
of persuasion.
I. The indirect method of the use of dis-
suasives to wrong action springing from the evil which
will certainly accrue. As has been said, the dissuading
from evil is, in fact, one method to persuade to good.
The evils and final miseries of sin are the persuasives of
holiness.
2. The indirect method of the presentation of the
alternative choice-i. e., if one is not moved by the good
consideration which is offered, he must take the alterna-
tive.
3. The use of mixed proofs and motives, blending the
argumentative and persuasive forms of development.
4. The use of direct motives, without any abstract rea-
soning or circumlocution, addressed to the simple end
to move the will and heart. This is comprehended in
what is usually termed the hortatory discourse.
Of course our method of persuasion should be adapted
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
421
to the class of hearers we address; and we should pro-
ceed in a natural way, by first interesting the intellect,
bringing out intelligently the motives of persuasion,
showing their importance, and their personal importance,
and pressing them home upon the heart.
Vivid description, moral painting, is a powerful method
of persuasion, in which one is led to see his own heart in
the masterly delineation of character.
In striving to overcome prejudices, before the true
motives can be presented, there are two methods: first,
to endeavor to do away entirely with the
false impression, by showing how unjust and
absurd it is; and, secondly, to admit the
feeling, or prejudice, or passion, as having,
perhaps, some ground for its existence, but to give
it a truer direction. One says, for instance, "If I were
only a Christian, I would be a better man than some
Christians whom I know." Then press him to be such a
Christian as he boasts that he would be. Another says,
"I am too ambitious to be a follower of Christ.
freely confess that I am too aspiring to be thus lowly and
humble." Then tell him that Christianity does not ex-
tinguish the natural motive of ambition, but leads to a
purer ambition for things truly great and honorable.
I
Paul's reasoning with the Athenians in respect to the
unknown God" is one illustration of the skillful employ-
ment of this kind of persuasive argument, yielding as it
does to the feeling or opinion of others for the moment,
so far as it is not harmful to do so, in order to use it with
power for the conviction and persuasion of those very
persons, for one does not often persuade a man to do
right by proving to him that he is wrong; but if, by
kindly and skillfully showing him that he is condemned
by himself, by his own truer impulses and nobler reason,
Το
overcome
prejudices.
422
HOMILETICS PROPER.
you may convict him of wrong without injuring his self-
respect and arousing his antagonism, and you not only
convince but persuade.
What may be termed the motive of probability-some-
times used by preachers—should be employed very cau-
tiously, if employed at all—e.g., probably this may be all
true; probably there may be eternal peril to the totally
irreligious. Such reasoning is of doubtful character
and is apt to cause injurious reaction. It is better to
preach the things that are, or the things that we believe
-whatever they are rather than those that may be.
J
5. Meditative development. We will not dwell long
upon this. It is of two kinds. It may either signify a
sermon in which the preacher follows out in a free, in-
formal method his own course of quiet thinking upon
some more purely spiritual theme, thinking aloud, as it
were, and pursuing a monologue rather than making an
address to others, revealing his experience, opening to
view the secret recesses of his own mind and heart,
rather than reasoning from objective views and relations
of truth; or, it may mean a sermon founded upon a text
which was originally a strictly meditative utterance from
the depths of the writer's religious experience, as many
of the Psalms, or portions of the Psalms of David, and
which, from its contemplative and subjective character,
naturally induces religious contemplation and self-exami-
nation in others. This meditative preaching is not mere
vague musing, but it is rather sinking down by pure
thinking, of a prayerful and devotional kind, to the in-
most depth and meaning of a subject. It arrives at
principles by contemplation rather than by logical
methods, and is a great art, too rarely possessed by
preachers of divine truth. If we should hear the apostles
preach in these days, we should doubtless say that the
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 423
apostle John was a meditative preacher and perhaps
the profoundest preacher of them all. Yet this style
is not greatly to be encouraged in ordinary preachers.
Where it is literally subjective, in the sense of turning
the thoughts inward into the preacher's own mind, it
tends to weakness. Objective preaching, for the great
mass of preachers, is the boldest, the safest, and decided-
ly the most effective. It does not deal in subtle refine-
ments of thought. It takes the revealed word of God,
sees its beauty, draws forth its power, uses its mighty
forces of persuasion, is content with its simple teachings.
All these different modes of development which have
been mentioned will, of course, vary wide-
ly in their form, style, and spirit; but still
there are some simple principles or qualities
which should be found in the development
of all kinds of sermons; these are, the qualities of unity,
perfectness, progress, and proportion.
Unity.
course.
1. Unity. This has been and will be often mentioned
in various relations; but it cannot be too much urged.
One general aim, one main impression,
should, if possible, be given to one dis-
course; and this is all we ought to expect for one dis-
This unity should run through its whole sub-
stance, and animate every fibre. This unity may be
destroyed by yielding to the temptation of dwelling too
long upon an interesting but isolated thought; by treat-
ing entirely diverse topics in one discourse, with no gen-
eral principle uniting them; by mixing up two or more
similar thoughts; by following out metaphorical language
wearisomely or trivially. Any discussion, on any of the
parts of the sermon, however profitable and forcible in
itself, which is not pertinent to the main subject, impairs
unity. Any discussion of a purely dialectical or theo-
Qualities
of true
development.
1
424
HOMILETICS PROPER.
logical character should not be carried out wearisomely
or form the exclusive substance of the sermon. It is
good for foundations, but there should be reared upon
it a more beautiful superstructure. "The foundations,'
as another has said, should be covered in." The whole
development should have regard to every part.
2. Perfectness. This regards the parts as well as the
whole. There should be freedom in carrying out every
part of a discourse to its legitimate end of
interest, employing all the stores of thought
and illustration. This is the portion of the discourse for
its life to flow out in fullest currents, and not to be ham-
pered by plans and rules. Each thought should be as
thoroughly developed as if there were no other thought
in the discourse. The idea of the main development
should not override or destroy the complete finish, both
intellectual and literary, of each of its parts. It is inter-
esting where the preacher seems to give unlimited play
to every faculty and every emotion, carrying out a
thought to its furthest ramifications, drawing from all the
richness of nature and life, and yet not without a method
or a sagacious purpose which points each illustration,
guides each flight of fancy, and, while seemingly most
unrestrained, brings all to bear with power upon some
one practical truth or lesson.
Perfectness.
,,
This free development of each of the parts, combined
with the workmanlike welding together of all in one
whole, so that there is no imperfect, meagre, flat, and un-
satisfying portion of the sermon, constitutes completeness.
C
3. Progress. This has reference to the right ordering
of thoughts, so that one thought should prepare for and
be succeeded by another which forms an
Progress.
advance; this secures an increasing mo-
mentum of impression. The sermon should not repeat
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
425
itself, or retrace its steps, but go on with accelerated
power to the end.
4. Proportion. This has relation to the proportionate
space each part or thought should occupy in regard to the
main development, and to each other part
Proportion.
of the discourse. This gives balance and
symmetry to a discourse. Vigorous brevity is thus se-
cured where it is needed, and careful elaborateness where
it is essential. Of course the object we have in view, and
the peculiar character of the sermon, must decide this.
In an expository sermon the explanation, which is com-
monly brief, becomes the elaborate part of the discourse.
It is a great beauty when a preacher knows in what part,
the real pith of his sermon lies, and where to lay out his
strength. This gives consistency to the sermon. The gen-
eral idea of proportion is, that there should be a well-made
and powerful body to the sermon. The strength should
be, as it were, in the loins of the discourse. The serinon
should be thoroughly compacted, and able to carry itself
nobly; not a dwarf with a giant's head and a feeble body.
That which is wanted in the body of a sermon is so-
lidity of thought, rapidity of discussion, and a spiritual
earnestness of purpose rising above every merely intel-
lectual aim, and pressing the truth with every reason and
motive drawn from time and eternity upon the individual
heart. There should be an expanding fulness here, an un-
bound, rich, and living thought, a development which is
a real growth from the germ of scriptural truth taken
into the fructifying soil of the soul's meditation, ample
and beautiful, and filled with nourishing fruit.
We are to regard also not only what we speak, but to
whom we speak. What are the audience in the church
there for? In what condition of heart and life are they?
"Men, as a general rule feel, though feebly, the need of
Ving
426
HOMILETICS PROPER.
religion; and this common feeling or consciousness of
the need of religion should be wrought upon and
awakened still more. Men do not receive all that is
proved, but that which agrees with their own modes of
thinking. The mind is not closed against the preacher,
but only barricaded. There are two accessible ways to it,
through the conscience and the heart. The heart of no
man is entirely shut up to nobler affections; the criminal
weeps at the thought of his children."
We might conceive of the ideal of a Christian sermon,
not yet attained, or not attained by all, but which is
adapted to the needs of our highest mod-
ern civilization, while it does not lose the
earnestness and practical aim of the gos-
pel. It is unpretentious, devotional, springing from the
profound study of a holy soul of the word of God, with
Christ as the central, burning theme; tender and full of
love, but strong in apostolic faith, like the preaching of
masculine Paul and Luther; courageously hopeful for man
and filled with the true "enthusiasm of humanity;"
thoughtful and substantial in reasoning, rich and interest-
ing in ideas, but not intellectual so truly as spiritual; not
bound in any set forms but free with that liberty wherewith
Christ makes free; with an internal rather than external
method of thought; of the highest literary style because
fresh and simple, almost plain and homely, so that the
ignorant man and the child may understand what feeds
the most highly educated hearer; as well fitted for back-
woodsmen as for philosophers, because it is deep and
penetrating, is drawn from the common wells of truth and
salvation, appeals to the common wants and desires of
the heart, and is fitted to convert men from sin, and to
lead them to and build them up in the life of God.
Nothing could be so simple and yet nothing so high
The ideal
sermon.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
427
and difficult as such a sermon. It could not be learned
in the schools for it is not theological, though it teaches
a true theology. It must be taught by the Spirit of
Christ to the consecrated mind that has conscientiously
and laboriously done its own part in the way of thorough
preparation.
Such preaching is a true "prophesying" in the New
Testament sense of the term, for it speaks through man
to the whole man, intellectual, affectional, and spiritual,
as by the very voice of God.
-
The development of such a sermon will be but the ex-
pansion and filling out of thoughts and words furnished
by the secretly inspiring influences of the Holy Spirit,
and it will therefore be divinely adapted to the salvation
of sinful men, and the edification of the church of Christ.
SEC. 19. The Conclusion.
The conclusion (Schlussrede) of a sermon is the fit
winding up and the practical application of all that has
preceded. In oratory it is called the " per-
relation to the
oration" and holds the same
end of the sermon that the exordium" or
"introduction" does to the beginning. It is not really
the sermon itself, but is the taking leave of the subject
in such a way as to gather up and forcibly impress its
teachings. In the conclusion, the preacher, if he has wan-
dered away from his hearers, is drawn back to them; he
is reminded that it is for them he is preaching, and for
their spiritual welfare; he is to leave the truth in their
hearts.
The
conclusion.
The conclusion is a trying and perilous part of the dis-
course, because it is always difficult to stop gracefully,
to finish effectively. Boileau says:
"Qui ne sut se borner ne sut jamais écrire."
428
HOMILETICS PROPER.
th
It is indeed a great thing to know when to stop. Luther,
speaking of the qualities of a good preacher, says that “he
should know when to make an end." There is a true
conclusion to every discourse. The god Terminus alone,
at the building of Rome, would not yield to Jove him-
self. The conclusions of great literary works, such as
"Paradise Lost," "Jerusalem Delivered," and Gibbon's
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," are memora-
ble for their beautiful simplicity. Many an effective ser-
mon has been greatly weakened by drawing out its con-
clusion to too great length; as some one has quaintly
said, "when a preacher has driven a nail in a sure place,
instead of clinching it, and securing well the advantage,
he hammers away till he breaks the head off, or splits the
board."
""
The importance and advantages of a good conclusion
are seen in the following reasons :
I. It enables the preacher to carry out the true idea
and aim of preaching, i.e., to give a practi-
Importance cal application to what he preaches, directing
and
it to the conscience and heart of his hearers.
advantages
If the preacher has in his own mind no such
of a good
conclusion determinate aim or purpose, he probably will
not effect it by the most approved conclu-
sion; illustrating the lines of the poet :
.، ،
In every work regard the author's end,
Since none can compass more than they intend."
The end of preaching is the actual conversion and
sanctification of souls. There may be, however, excep-
tions to the rule that the application should come in the
conclusion, (a.) When, from the nature of the discussion,
there is necessarily a continuous application in the body
of the sermon. In certain kinds of discourse, as, for
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON.
429
instance, expository, hortatory, and historical discourses,
the application may naturally run along with the develop-
ment of the sermon, or, where the divisions of a topical
sermon are themselves practical, no direct practical appli-
cation is needed at the end. The less elaborate and
argumentative the discourse, the less need of reserving
the application for the end. (b.) When, from the nature
of the audience or the occasion, there is necessarily a
continuous application of the subject. The more gen-
eral, illiterate, or youthful the audience, the more need
of a running application of the theme to the conscience
and heart, in order to keep attention alive, and to pro-
duce a vivid impression.
But, notwithstanding these exceptions, a good conclu-
sion is needed to enforce the moral impression of a whole
sermon; and in the case of a strictly topical and argu-
mentative discourse, it is almost without exception es-
sential.
Some audiences, or some persons in an audience, it is
true, from the fact of their possessing higher intelligence
and conscientiousness than others will make the applica-
tion of a sermon for themselves; but these exceptional au-
diences and individual minds are not to be the invariable
rule for others. The preacher is to leave the application,
or the lesson of the sermon, more or less directly in the
hearts and consciences of his hearers. A conclusion
which is always concluding and never seems to come to
an end, because there is no particular aim or purpose in
the mind of the preacher himself, is a weak and unfor-
tunate conclusion.
2. It combines the scattered impressions of a sermon
into one powerful impression, and thus adds to the effect
of whatever has gone before. The skillful preacher un-
derstands this, and shapes his whole sermon so as to
430
HOMILETICS PROPER.
..
make the conclusion effective, and to leave a deep im-
pression at last.
3. It preserves the sensibilities of preacher and hearer
from being exhausted. It does this by retaining all the
freshness and force of feeling for the final appeal.
4. It avoids a rude abruptness in closing. It gives a
moment's opportunity for the mind to pause and reflect
upon the whole subject gone over; it is the attainment
of a momentary superior elevation, from which the eye of
the speaker and hearer may sweep back over the sermon,
and take in its entire moral impression.
In a word a forcible conclusion may sometimes save a
weak sermon, and a weak conclusion is enough to spoil a
strong sermon.
We will now look at the different parts of the conclu-
sion. The "conclusion" or "peroration" of a discourse
was, in ancient oratory, divided into the re-
capitulation and the appeal to the passions.
In modern times, and especially in the ser-
mon, the conclusion, rhetorically treated, is
commonly divided by writers on homiletics into the re-
capitulation, the inferences, and the appeal to the feelings,
or the personal appeal; and each of these, or all com-
bined, may form the conclusion.
And what the conclusion should be-whether one of
these parts should be chosen, or all of them-is to be
decided by the character of the development, and by
studying how to increase the force of the moral impres-
sion, which should be strongest at the end. There ought
to be no set manner of ending a sermon; and, generally
speaking, a good sermon ends itself. Those are the
best conclusions that make themselves, and that are not
too long in the making. Joseph Hall, in his preface to
his "Virtues and Vices," says, "I desire not to say all
Different
parts
of conclusion.
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 431
that might be said, but enough." The famous Dr.
Barrow, after preaching three mortal hours, was finally
blown down by the organ's setting up to play; and old
Thomas Fuller gives a ludicrous account of an Au-
gustine friar who came to an end more summarily still
relating that the friar "bellowed so loud that he lost
his argument, conscience, and voice, at once and to-
gether."
I. Recapitulation. This can be borne only by a decid-
edly argumentative discussion, and it is borrowed from the
forensic address. That legal and terse kind of
Recapitulation.
recapitulation often increases the power of a
discourse by compressing its substance into a small space.
It likewise strengthens the whole argument, by binding
up weak and strong arguments, thus giving an impres-
sion of finish and strength to the whole. It serves, above
all, to aid the memory, and it is addressed to the intel-
lect more than the feelings. The recapitulation should
be, (a.) rapid and clear. In the closing remarks, or the
winding up of a sermon, nothing is so fatal as tedious-
ness; everything should be condensed, rapid, hastening
ad eventum. There should be nothing stiff, formal, and
statistical in the recapitulation; its design, in addition
to assisting the memory, is to concentrate the force of
the separate heads of argument into one, thus preparing
the way to the application. (b.) It should not repeat
arguments in precisely the same language as that employ-
ed in the body of the sermon, but these should be cast in
a fresh form. (c.) It is sometimes effective to vary the
order of the arguments themselves, generally by arrang-
ing them in a climactic order. (d.) The recapitulation
should have certainty and confidence of tone.
poses that the truths enumerated have been proved and
settled; that they have come out from the vague and
It sup-
432
HOMILETICS PROPER.
contradictory condition of the beginning of the sermon
into distinct and established shapes.
As has been hinted, the recapitulation is not always de-
sirable, particularly if one has nothing especial to reca-
pitulate, if he has not preached a solid sermon, or if
the ideas of the sermon have been ill digested and ill
arranged. The recapitulation, in some instances, may
be made during the progress of the discussion, in order
to give a clearer view of the connection of parts while
passing on, and to impress and gather up all the thoughts,
so that at the close there is no need of any further men-
tioning of these. Above all, a recapitulation is inadmis-
sible when the appeal to the feelings grows naturally out
of the last topic discussed, or the last division introduced.
2. Inferences and remarks. These indicate the use
which is made of the subject after the discussion is con-
cluded. They form a method of making the
direct application of the arguments. Infer-
ences may be made to bring out more clearly the symmetry
of truth. Thus, after discussing the doctrine of moral evil
in a series of inferences, one may show its deep relations to
other and brighter doctrines of the gospel, and may thus
take a broad and rapid sweep from the basis of the dis-
cussion, around the whole circle of related truth. Infer-
ences may also conduce to unexpected, powerful impres-
sions.
Inferences.
(6
People think more of the explanation and application,
not so much of the argument.'
The argument is in fact preparing the way for the
application.
After thoroughly discussing a topic, we may in an in-
ference suddenly open a hidden relation in an entirely
different direction; and this may have been deliberately
prepared for during the whole sermon, or the mine may
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 433
have been silently dug under the citadel of the unbeliev-
ing heart. Inferences should not, however, be suffered
to destroy the unity of the discourse, which is their ten-
dency, and which is to be carefully guarded against.
Rather than do this, they had better be left out altogether.
As to rules for inferences:
1. They should be drawn directly from the develop-
ment of the sermon. Thus in the argumentative sermon,
after we have given the hearers a view of
the proofs, we may in the application bring
home the truth that has been proved, more
particularly to the hearers' own minds; we thus follow
out the same design we have heretofore pursued.
In the expository sermon, we may close with the uses
and lessons we have gained, as applied to the different
conditions of our hearers. In the persuasive sermon,
there should be at the end a more close application
of the motives as directed to the particular action to
which we would persuade men. Thus the subject and
our own particular aim in its discussion should shape
the character of the inferences. They should be parts
of the body of the sermon; they should bear the
stamp of their common origin, and belong to the same
family of thoughts and ideas. There may be sometimes.
an exception to this rule, when the whole discussion of a
theme is intended to be only subsidiary to a different
application of the subject. Thus, in a biographical dis-
course, after one has set forth the virtues and character of
an individual-in the conclusion he may enforce some
one or more moral truths that have been livingly exem-
plified. So, too, the explanation in the body of a ser-
mon, of a certain truth, may be subservient to the set-
ting forth of some other nearly-related truth; or it may
show a personal duty, or may lead to a distinct self-ap-
Rules for
inferences.
434
HOMILETICS PROPER.
plication, or self-examination. An argument upon a
truth may lead to the conviction of a duty; indeed, what-
ever the character of a sermon is, the use of it in the con-
clusion should be persuasive.
Coquerel says: “The peroration should be drawn from
the very heart of the subject, should be something strik-
ing, something felicitous, something by itself apart,
something different from what has gone before, though
derived from it, something more vehement and direct,
which completes and forms the crown of the whole ser-
mon.
2. They should be forcible, i.e., they should not be
feeble or frivolous inferences; and they should not be all
the inferences that could possibly be drawn from a subject.
There should be weight and freshness in them. In the
application, we go beyond the bare general truth of our
subject, and present those forcible conclusions which are
to persuade our hearers in particular. Inferences may be
drawn from other inferences, if they are still in harmony
with the general discussion, and if they grow out of it.
As has been said, there may possibly be cases where
the inference is entirely aside from the definite subject of
the sermon-thus, a lesson to the impenitent may fol-
low a sermon addressed to believers. This kind of side-
issue, or divergent inference, should at least follow a dis-
course which abounds in solid thought, which carries all
before it, and which makes room for itself to send its
messages in every direction. As a general rule, it is
more forcible to make, in the conclusion, a final concen-
tration upon one point which has been more widely dis-
cussed and illustrated in the body of the sermon, rather
than to make a final diffusion of thought, or widening
out of the discussion into general remarks.
Dr. Fitch says that it is best always to make the appli-
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION Of sermon. 435
cation of the whole subject, and not of the particular
thoughts. Build the fortification as nicely and elabo-
rately, piece by piece, as you may, and then fire from it.
Subjects, however, differ. Some lead irresistibly to
broad and universal conclusions, especially those which
relate to the nature of God.
3. They should have regard to the character and state
of mind of the hearers, as well as to the character and
design of the subject; e.g., when the hearer is reasonably
supposed to be persuaded of the truth or necessity of
a certain duty, he should then be told how to perform
that duty, and should be helped to overcome its difficul-
ties. You do not wish so much to add anything more
to convince him, as to aid in doing the thing of which
he is presumed to be already persuaded. Christians and
unbelievers, as they are in different states of mind, are
to be differently addressed in the conclusion. Encourage-
ments, alarms, hopes, fears, choices, affections, are differ-
ent in each.
4. They should increase in force and importance. Re-
marks relating to truth or conviction should precede
those respecting duty or persuasion. And in persuasion
we should address those first who are most favorably dis-
posed, and therefore, ceteris paribus, we should address
the converted before the unconverted.
5. They should be free from stiffness, dulness, and
monotonousness. Never should those qualities appear
in a conclusion, if they do anywhere else, as it is abso-
lutely needful that there should be variety, individuality,
and vivid life in our concluding remarks, for here the per-
suasive element in the discourse is concentred and in-
tensified.
If there be life and warmth in any part of the discourse
it naturally comes in that portion of it where the infer-
436
HOMILETICS PROPER.
ence is drawn, where the lesson is enforced, where the
argument is driven home. Here the weightiest and most
solemn truths should be spoken with earnestness and
power. If, as the rule of the old Greek dramatist was,
that there should be a plain or a dead level somewhere in
the drama where the mind might rest awhile in the more
commonplace statement of thought, or fact, or action—
and the same might be said of a sermon-this certainly
should not be at the end.
Some preachers draw pretty much the same inferences
from all subjects; but we had better make one bold,
impressive, original inference, than a dozen that are com-
monplace. F. W. Robertson, though abounding in in-
ferential remarks, rarely cast his conclusion into a set of
formal inferences, but in closing usually made one strong
remark, one unexpected deduction, driven with tremen-
dous power by all that had gone before. Thus, in a
sermon to men of wealth he says, "To conclude;" and
in a few condensed words he pours out a burning torrent
of rebuke upon the clergy of England for their flattery of
men of wealth, and their cowardly apologizing for the
vices of the rich. Such a sermon was not forgotten. It
left an ineffaceable impression on the conscience of those
persons it was meant to reach.
Doddridge says that the conclusion of a sermon should
be striking. Massillon sometimes closed with a suppli-
cation. Each remark of a conclusion should rise in
power, should be
should be free and untrammelled, and often
abrupt as a thunder-peal, smiting the conscience with
terror.
Dr. Fitch says, that in the application there is more
occasion for vehemence and force than in any other part.
Jonathan Edwards was inclined to be prolix in his conclu-
sions; they were often more full of thought than feeling.
¡
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 437
feelings.
1. Appeal to the feelings. There are usually three
modes of ending a sermon : (a.) In the form of a series
of inferences as just suggested; (b.) In the
form of detached observations following Appeal to the
generally biographical and historical sub-
jects; (c.) In the form of direct address or appeal, which
follows out the aim of the sermon, or is appended
directly to the body of the discourse. In this direct ad-
dress is generally the place for the appeal to the feelings.
This address to the feelings is something above all art,
and the more spontaneous and natural it is the better.
That is often the inspired moment of the discourse; it
is inspired or not; it is real or artificial; it is everything
or nothing. There should be true feeling in it, or the
speaker should not attempt an appeal to the feelings of
others.
He should strike the
(1.) The whole sermon should be more or less arranged
for the moral and emotional appeal of the conclusion.
This should be unconsciously rather than artfully done.
All should hasten to the end. One should begin the
sermon with the end in view.
same chord at the end which he did at the beginning,
though with tenfold force. If one has this aim, to
leave a deep and lasting impression on the heart of
the hearers, pathetic and passionate thoughts will present
themselves while he is composing the sermon, and these
should be remembered and gathered up for the conclu-
sive appeal.
(2.) The appeal should not be for rhetorical, but for true
effect. The conclusions of Demosthenes' and Æschines'
orations "On the Crown" were introduced to cause
in their hearers the feeling which the orators wished
to create. Their banishment or triumph, their poli-
tical life or death, depended on the result. They
438
HOMILETICS proper.
reserved their strong word for the last. They hurled
it with all their force upon the hearts of their hear-
ers. It was a real thing with them to succeed.
It was
no child's play. And has the preacher any smaller
stake? Has he any less enduring crown in view?
Should he himself have less feeling? Baxter says, in his
"Reformed Pastor," "I know not what others think,
but for my own part, I am ashamed of my stupidity, and
wonder at myself that I deal not with my own and
others' souls as one that looks for the great day of the
Lord, and that I can have room for almost any other
thoughts or words, and that such astonishing matters do
not wholly absorb my mind. I marvel how I can preach
of them slightly and coldly, and how I can let men alone
in their sins, and that I do not go to them and beseech
them, for the Lord's sake, to repent, however they take
it, or whatever pains or trouble it should cost me. I sel-
dom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smites me
that I have been no more serious and fervent in such a
cause.
It accuses me not so much for want of human
ornaments and elegancy, but it asketh me, How couldst
thou speak of life and death with such a heart?'
(3.) The appeal should not be overdrawn. Hamlet's
advice is still good; there should be a calmness, a self-
possession, even in the very torrent and flow of the most
pathetic appeal. One must control himself, to control
his audience. He should not go before them in the
manifestation of emotion. Pathos in the conclusion does
not so much consist in a strained, high-pitched voice, or
an agitated manner, or intense and harrowing language,
as in a certain deepening of the tone of feeling, a con-
centration of thought, and a profound earnestness of the
whole man. Sometimes a preacher must weep, and he
would not have a true heart if he did not; but it were
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION OF SERMON. 439
better for him not to weep. Yet if he cannot prevent
tears, let them flow; Christ wept over Jerusalem. It is
no weakness to feel deeply, but restrained emotion is
often more powerful than its expression; and the appeal
should be made not so much to the superficial as to the
spiritual sensibilities.
(4.) All appeals to feeling should be brief. Thus the
most touching, the most direct remark one has to make
comes naturally, and it were better, spontaneously.
It should be said in as simple and few words as possible.
"Tears dry fast." Let nature's short road to the feel-
ings be studied. A particular case, or a personal fact,
is more apt than a general observation to touch the feel-
ings. An allusion to some individual, or to some circum-
stance, is more moving in the conclusion than the best
philosophical generalizations. For the real close itself, so
far as the feelings are concerned, nothing is more impres
sive and moving than a feeling, solemn passage of Scrip-
ture, either the text or some other perhaps still more
pointed word of Scripture. Then the sermon begins and
ends with the word of God. The voice of God first breaks
the silence, and after the voice of man has been heard for
a while, the voice of God comes again at the close; and if
this is the warm expression of the love of the gospel, sim-
ple, genuine, pure, it will be so much the more powerful.
(5.) An indirect appeal is often effective. Men are
jealous of appeals to their feelings and perhaps the
strongest appeal, after all, is so to construct the whole
discourse as that it shall make its own appeal.
66
'Of every noble work the silent part is best,
Of all expression that which cannot be expressed.''
We are more and more inclined to think that the con-
clusion of a sermon should not be highly wrought, but
440
HOMILETICS proper.
→
simple. This is the trial of the conclusion. If there is
an appeal to the feelings, it should flow naturally from
the last remark or thought of the sermon, rather than
arouse a distinct expectation that now an appeal is to be
made to the impenitent, to the young, to church mem-
bers. This tends to deprive the conclusion of its effect.
Sometimes the whole concluding appeal may be in a
single sentence. This was peculiarly char-
acteristic of Luther's" conclusions." A
German writer says, "Luther did not lay
great stress on the conclusion, and many of his sermons
are without any recapitulation. He ends some of his
sermons abruptly, with the words, Enough now has
been said upon this Scripture; let us call upon the grace
of God.' In other discourses he simply, in conclusion,
repeats the main thought of the last division of the dis-
course, and says, 'Have faith and love; abide in them;
so you can have and do all this.' Or he closes with a
wish God grant that we also may comprehend;' or
'God keep us, save us, and grant that we may earnestly
hold to this teaching, so that we may not fall into shame-
ful sin and reproach.
Luther's
conclusions.
The concluding words of mediæval sermons were
usually some brief devotional formula like this: "Per
Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum qui cum Deo Patre et
Spiritu Sancto vivit et regnat omnipotens in secula secu-
lorum. Amen.
The following is the ending of an old English sermon
of 1430:
Now our swete Lord Ihesu Christo gyfte vs grace
swa Godd for to honour, and oure euencristen for to
liefe, and oure selfe for to make, that we may for oure
honourynge be honourede, and for oure liefe be liefede,
and for oure mekeness be lyftede up into heighe blysse
(6
9
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITION of sermon.
441
of heven, that he boghte vs with his swete blude and his
preciouse passion. Amen.
The concluding of a sermon with a text of Scripture,
either the text of the sermon, or one similar to it in
meaning, as has been said, always makes an appropriate
and sometimes impressive ending.
Stereotyped forms of appeal, of direct appeal to the
unconverted, have lost much of their power. There is
sometimes an impressiveness in leaving
them off altogether.
In the homiletical writers of the seven-
teenth century there was much of this
formal character given to the application or conclusion.
A sermon was made to end so as to subserve five uses,
the
(1.) Usus didasculus.
(2.) Usus elenchticus.
(3.) Usus epanorthoticus.
(4.) Usus pædanticus.
(5.) Usus paracleticus.
¹ Henke, p. 530 (note).
Stereotyped
forms
of appeal.
or, for instructing, proving, correcting, disciplining,
consoling.'
But this is evidently asking too much of every sermon,
and of every conclusion of every sermon. These good
results should rather belong to the whole sermon and its
uses, than simply to the conclusion; yet the above
psychological distinctions, which are in themselves true
and valuable, show that, according to the judgment of
these old writers, a sermon should never be without
point, or particular serviceability for some definite end.
This end, however, should be skillfully brought about.
It is vain to spread the net in the sight of any bird.
442
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Even the solemn appeal to the unconverted may be
overdone and fall without effect.
But it may possibly be that-the custom of direct ap-
peal having gone so much into disuse, and sermons having
become so essayish and impersonal, and devoid of direct-
ness and point—a return now and then to the old method
of direct appeal to the impenitent, at the close of the
sermon, might, in some cases, be deeply effective.
Earnestness on the part of the preacher to do good to
the souls of his hearers is something that cannot be con-
fined to rules, that overrides all forms, and that usually
makes its own methods.
The conclusion of Whitefield's sermon on the King-
dom of God" is an example of this intensely earnest kind
of personal appeal.
The great and only question is, How is the deepest
impression to be made by a sermon? It certainly de-
pends very much on the conclusion. The sermon has
been compared to a river; it may be small at its begin-
ning, but at its close, when it pours itself into the ocean,
it should be the fullest in volume, the profoundest in
depth, the most majestic in movement, though, perhaps,
at that very moment, it may be the calmest to all appear-
ance, from the fact that it is pouring along its greatest
volume. So the conclusion of a sermon on divine truth
may be apparently the most tranquil part of the sermon;
but that is, and should be, the tranquillity of the deepest
feeling, of the fullest thought, of the most solemn and
momentous truth; for it has then reached a point where
it is about to mingle with the ocean of eternal life or
death; it is "the savor of life unto life, or of death unto
death;" the word has been spoken, and it returns to
God; the conclusion may be calm, and even joyful, but
it should be the calmness of earnest and solemn feeling.
}
$
*a
ANALYSIS AND COMPOSITIOn of sermon. 443
As a suggestion in closing a sermon, let the preacher
be kind in his words and manner, even to the wickedest
and worst.
In the moment of the most solemn adjuration, or
even burning rebuke and denunciation, let the affec-
tionateness of the gospel glow. This personal appeal
in all cases is difficult, and is often better to be in-
dicated than actually made; but there should be, direct-
ly or indirectly, with boldness, but in love, a personal
application of the sermon; and there may be times
when nothing else is suitable, or nothing will reach the
point, excepting the words of Nathan to David, "Thou
art the man!" Love in the heart will teach us, and it
alone will teach us, how to reach the hearts of our sinful
fellow-men.
The preacher should ever keep in mind that the end of
preaching is not preaching itself, but a lodgment of the
renovating truth in the hearts of those who hear; in the
language of Vinet, "God has purposed that man should
be the channel of truth to man. Not only are words to be
transmitted and repeated; a life is to be communicated.”
FIFTH DIVISION.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
SEC. 20. Classification of Sermons according to their
treatment and form.
Sermons
Sermons may be classified according to two general
methods: first, as having mainly reference to the charac-
ter of the discourse itself, or what might be
called its formal treatment; and second, as
classified having reference mainly to its mode of de-
according livery. We will now notice the first of these,
or sermons classified according to their real
character and form of treatment.
to their
essential
character and
treatment.
In no part of the science of homiletics
(if it be a science) is there more of con-
fusion than in the attempt of authors to classify ser-
mons according to their intrinsic qualities-their essen-
tial form and treatment. Every writer has a system of
his own; therefore we have not thought it worth the
while to enter largely into this matter of the classifica-
tion of sermons according to their nature and form; but
would name only a few of the principal kinds of sermons,
some of which have been already more fully treated of.
As an example of the great fertility of analysis in this
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
445
field we would point to "Gerard and Campbell's" list of
different kinds of sermons, as chiefly adopt-
classification.
ed by Dr. Fitch. 1. Critical expository lec- Fertility of
ture, on a text difficult of exposition. 2.
Practical expository lecture, on a text not so difficult of
exposition. 3. Explanatory sermon; in other words,
“instructive" and "explicatory." 4. Biographical ser-
mon; in other words, “commendatory," "panegyrical.”
5. Particular demonstrative, setting forth some one act
or quality of a good life. 6. General demonstrative,
presenting the sum of virtues of one life. 7. Argumen-
tative; in other words, "convictive" or "probatory."
8. Pathetic, presenting motives without particular refer-
ence to duties. 9. General persuasive; a duty enforced
by fit motives. 10. Particular persuasive; a duty en-
forced by some one motive taken for text, etc., etc.
Dr. Fitch, however, thinks that all sermons, in respect of
their method of treatment, may be comprehended under
the three simple divisions of Explanatory, Argumenta-
tive, and Persuasive. Argumentative discourses Dr. Fitch
considers to be best for young writers, for youth is the
argumentative age, and such discourses are the most easily
susceptible of unity of treatment. But stiff, scholastic
forms of argumentation should be avoided; the logic
should be animated with sentiment and feeling. The
unity of the Persuasive discourse consists not so much
in having one subject or argument, as in having one ten-
dency in the various parts to affect the will and feelings.
Perhaps the simplest classification which could be made,
and which would embrace the most of all ordinary de-
scriptions of sermons, is, 1. The textual The simplest
(analytic); 2. The topical, sometimes called classification.
theme sermons, or subject-sermons (synthetic); 3. The
textual-topical, (analytic-synthetic). If desired, how-
446
HOMILETICS PROPer.
ever, to be more full and explicit, we would offer the fol-
lowing classification of sermons according to their subject-
matter and internal treatment :
1. As depending upon the manner of treating the text :
(a.) textual; (b.) topical; (c.) expository.
2. As depending upon the manner of
treating the subject: (a.) doctrinal; (b.)
ethical; (c.) metaphysical; (d.) historical.
3. As depending upon the general rhetorical treat-
ment: (a.) argumentative; (b.) meditative; (c.) descrip-
tive; (d.) hortatory.
Fuller
classification.
One sermon sometimes, in fact, combines all, or nearly
all, the characteristics which have just been mentioned ;
although generally in cne sermon some one quality, or
some one characteristic of matter or form, decidedly pre-
dominates, which gives it its stamp ; but even the simple
classifications which we have given show the great variety
there may be and should be in the treatment of religious
truth from the pulpit. Let us look at this
quality of variety in the treatment of divine
truth necessary for the pulpit, and, by way
of illustration, at a few of the different kinds of treat-
ment, which it were well to consider, since the preacher,
from his peculiar habit of mind, may and does naturally
fall into one stereotyped style of sermonizing; it may be,
for example, dealing principally with the rational methods
of presenting truth, which demand a style of discussion
more or less philosophical.
Variety
of treatment.
(a.) The metaphysical or philosophical sermon. This
method, dealing almost exclusively with thought, is a
noble method; but great care should be
Metaphysical taken not to suffer this to become a rigidly
uniform mode of sermonizing. The preacher
must consult all kinds and capacities of minds.
sermon.
The
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
447
main part of a miscellaneous congregation is composed of
men, women, and children, of many who are illiterate
and ignorant, are not highly intellectual, are not meta-
physical reasoners, and must be addressed through the
common understanding, sensibility, and imagination, by
facts, illustrations, and a style of discussion that touches
the popular conscience and heart. One should therefore
now and then write simpler sermons, and occasionally a
descriptive sermon.
(b.) The moral-dramatic sermon. This form of preach-
ing has gone too much out of vogue; but in the hands
of a master it is powerful. Two of the
most interesting of Dr. Eleazer Fitch's dis-
courses, which he delivered to the students
of Yale College, are upon "The sacrifice
of Isaac," abounding in eloquent descriptive writing
in which the picture is wrought to the highest degree
of the morally picturesque. The conversation between
Abraham and Isaac, and the thoughts of Abraham, as
the father and child climb Mount Moriah, are im-
agined with great pathos and power, and every minute
circumstance in the narrative was seized upon and en-
larged with the greatest dramatic skill. This is a legiti-
mate use of art. Such sermons cannot be forgotten.
We neglect too much this dramatic element. Power is
lost by shutting up ourselves exclusively to the didactic
style, and not taking advantage of the rich narrative,
poetic, and dramatic portions of the Bible, and of the
vast field of human life.
S
Moral-
dramatic
sermon.
This is happily beginning
pulpit. We
(c.) The expository sermon.
to reassert its place in the
have already dwelt with some particular-
ity upon this kind of sermon. Its advan-
tages are manifold. It was the style of the early ages.
Expository
sermon.
448
HOMILETICS PROPer.
*
It is more like the scriptural and apostolic method
of preaching than any other, confining itself more
exclusively to the Scriptures, and thus drawing forth
their marrow of doctrine. Whether simply the ex-
position of a passage comprising one sermon, or of a
continuous series of passages, or a book comprising a
number of sermons, it drives preachers and hearers to a
study of the Scripture in its connection of parts. The
great reason why it is not more popular is, as has been
suggested, that it is made too easy a matter—something
for rainy days and hot afternoons; and in the form of it it
is not always well-arranged for practical effect, the texts
are not massed, the leading thought is not seized, and
the whole lacks unity of aim; for a genuine expository
sermon is not a shambling commentary or set of running
remarks, but is a practical discourse upon a passage of
inspiration-if the passage be a number of doctrinal texts,
the development of the ground-idea; if it be a narrative,
the aim, sense, and lesson of the whole. In a word, then,
there should be healthful variety in the ministrations of
the pulpit. Preachers should have no cast-iron plan of
making sermons, no bullet-mould form, but should intro-
duce novelty into their methods of presenting truth, not
recurring constantly to the same themes; not going over
and over the same beaten path, but opening the infinite
fields of truth ever fresh and green; and, above all,
preaching with adaptation to men's wants, sorrows,
duties, and faults, and consulting all kinds of minds.
should be remembered by the preacher that the world is
full of ignorance and sorrow as well as sin, and that the
comforts and hopes of the gospel are addressed not only
to the consciences but to the troubled hearts of men
borne down by the astonishing changes and terrible dis-
appointments of a harsh world. If preaching is indeed
It
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
449
rooted in the Word of God, it will tend to have this
varied originality; all the plants of the Lord's garden
will appear by turns in their manifold beauty, wet with
morning dew, and there will be eternal freshness in
preaching. But we now proceed to a form of sermon-
izing which has been and is still held by able men,
and which deserves a respectful consideration, viz.,
the theory that preaching consists pre-eminently and
even exclusively of the argumentative discussion of the-
ology.
(d.) The theological sermon. It has been thought that
the great results of preaching are to be obtained, and
obtained only, by the ratiocinative method
of setting forth doctrinal truth. Dr. Em-
mons, Dr. Eleazer Fitch, and many others
of our eminent New England preachers, both
dead and living, have been and are advocates of this
theory. Dr. Lyman Beecher's quaint prescription for a
sermon was that it should be "heavy and hot." The
style of his preaching has been characterized in the
familiar phrase of “logic on fire." Those preachers who
were mostly of a revival order-or that was their aim-
like Nettleton, and President Finney of Oberlin, a
man of logical mind, and bred a lawyer, had a predomi-
nance of the argumentative element in their sermoniz-
ing; and they introduced the ratiocinative method with
a deliberate purpose to reach the conscience through the
reasoning faculty, and thus to enhance the impression of
divine truth. The sermon was set whirling with the
momentum of a constantly revolving argumentation and
powerfully increasing reasoning, that it might strike an
indelible die on the heart. Dr. Alexander, of Princeton,
in his suggestive work, entitled "Thoughts on Preach-
ing," was in favor of this style of sermonizing, which, in
The
theological
sermon.
450
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
the past, has been the chief method of American, and
especially New England, preaching. Dr. Fitch's funda-
mental conception of good preaching was to make truth
stand in a clear light to the reason, by addressing the
understanding with those irrefutable arguments that are
drawn from a consistent system of doctrinal theology,
appealing to the laws and principles of the mind which
are cognate to the truths of revelation. "The gospel,'
he said, "should be preached as a system of consistent
truth, bearing with one harmonious design on the great
object of repentance and salvation. Now if a preacher
of the gospel would hope to bring its salutary power on
the hearts of men, he should enter into the design of God
in this very respect, and set forth the various doctrines
and precepts of the gospel as one harmonious system,
having in all its parts one salutary and practical bearing
on man. The harmony of which we speak is the agree-
ment of the truths of the Scriptures in their practical
bearing; the harmony not only of the doctrines with one
another, but of the doctrines with the precepts. It is
obvious that a system of doctrinal representation agree-
ing with itself in all its parts might be made out, and yet
the various parts in themselves be erroneous and aside
from the practical intent of the gospel. But we refer
to that system and harmony which exist in doctrines;
their agreeing with each other not merely in abstract
speculation, but, above all, in this respect that they
have all one practical tendency, lending their united
power to the one object of promoting faith and sal-
vation. One will be sustained in its practical bear-
ing with the whole force of all the others. And if
there is any way of making bare the sword of the Spirit
and presenting it to the heart in all its sharpness, if
there is any way of presenting the full power of the
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
451
gospel before the minds of hearers, this is the way.
This mode of argumentative theological preaching he
himself followed almost exclusively, as the art of moral
In
persuasion bearing upon the reason and conscience.
the hands of such a man (and no one has a higher opin-
ion of Dr. Fitch as a preacher than the writer), and
of such men as Nathaniel Taylor, Lyman Beecher, Dr.
Emmons, Samuel Hopkins, Jonathan Edwards, this kind
of preaching was a consistent, powerful, and successful
method; for it had strength in itself and strong, good
men were behind it; but even with such examples we
venture to say that this is not the only method, nor the
oldest method, nor, perhaps, in the main, the best con-
ceivable method of preaching Christ. Although the pres-
entation of theology in its systematic form is one legiti-
mate (as much so as the ethical or the exegetical) depart-
ment of preaching, and although Christian "doctrine,"
in the right view of it, is the staple of preaching, yet
unless we consider theology to be a synonym for Scrip-
tural teaching, or divine truth, which it certainly is not,
since our most orthodox creeds are, as their technical
name is, only "symbols" of the faith-we can but con-
sider theological preaching, scientifically such, though
true and fit in its order, to be partial rather than uni-
versal. It has its proper place. Theology, we would
say, is quite indispensable in the preacher himself, if not
always-or too much of it-in the sermon. A preacher
should be ashamed not to have a thorough knowledge of
the philosophy and literature of his profession—even as
any well-educated lawyer or physician has of his profes-
sion. Scientific theology is a department of learning than
which there is none higher, for it comprehends the history
of the struggles of the best and purest minds the world
has seen to reduce to principles the verities of religion,
M
452
HOMILETICS PROPER.
although theology is not coextensive with religion. The
Bible and the phenomena of spiritual experience given,
men have attempted to bring them to the purely dogmatic
statement, and combine them in a system harmonious in
its parts-a praiseworthy effort and one absolutely in-
evitable, since the reason seeks unity. In one sense a
doctrine which has no idea in it that the reason can
grasp, which is not apprehended by the last analysis of
the judgment, is no proper object of faith, or even of
knowledge, especially if we view reason, not merely as
the faculty of judging, but as the organ of spiritual
truth, "the eye of the mind which perceives the sub-
stantial in the phenomenal." Theology is also a pro-
gressive science, and one may be thus ever perfecting his
own theological system. The theological discussions of
such an independent and vigorous thinker as Mark Hop-
kins himself a humble and spiritual Christian -- are
among the most elevating and educating exercises that the
mind can subject itself to, and the closer they are and
the more concentrated the attention they demand, the
more ennobling is their influence, carrying the mind into
the world of divine ideas and near to God, the supreme
reason. We confess that there is to us an austere charm
in the picture of such a primitive New England theo-
logian as Nathaniel Emmons sitting in his unadorned
study-where he had thought and worked for fifty years
—ever ready to converse with his parishioners and stu-
dents on high subjects: of God, the divine purposes, fore-
knowledge, the human will, sin, faith, and redemption,
as if these things were the only real things, the only
things worth thinking upon or living for. It does not
present to us, it is true, the picture of the nearest resem-
blance to Christ as a teacher and pastor of souls, but it
has its own high import and worth. But we ought not
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
453
to forget that it is the Holy Ghost, not man's thinking,
that makes the strong preacher; that enables him to say
((
He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is
broken by mine arms." This is because the renewing
power is divine, and the mightiest preaching is that
which is "with the demonstration of the Spirit and with
power." Men are gifted with freedom - they are to
choose God freely-that is their noblest prerogative and
highest obligation; but, in the death of sin in which
they lie, the Holy Spirit must awaken the native energy
of soul to love and obey God, "for it is God which work-
eth in you both to will and to do." They are not com-
pelled nor forced to act, having the power to act and to
resist; but as they are acted upon, they act; as they are
moved, they move; as they are called, they obey, and by
a free movement of the human will with the divine, they
are borne on into the kingdom of God. The mighty
impulse of a new life is from above, and without it
preaching is powerless. "It is not of man that willeth
but of God that showeth mercy." Philosophical think-
ing has, however, its important uses on the human side
of the preacher's work. It is seen especially in the
thoughtful method of his sermons.
Without a philos-
ophy of religion, preaching would run the risk of being
of a boneless and molluscous sort. It would fail in the
quality of intellectual substance. It would also lack
depth, which is the power to arrive at principles through
a great number of individual objects and circumstances,
and that presupposes a penetrative force of mind. It
would be a sad day for preaching when the intellectual
element was left out of it. It must not lose its hold
upon thinking minds. There can be little religion that
is worth much which is not the clear act of the intel-
lect, as well as of the conscience, the will, and the
454
HOMILL TICS PROPER.
affections. He who views truth in its broadest philo-
sophical generalization can bring to bear with immense
force his whole system upon one point, like the com-
plicated machinery of a factory that all comes down in
one trip-hammer blow. The decline of interest in a bib-
lical theology in our seminaries and pulpits, if not com-
pensated by something higher and better, is a disastrous
blow to preaching; and it is a disastrous blow in any
event; and the influence of the great modern realistic
and practical preachers on the sermons of young men in
respect of vagueness and obscureness in the expression
of Christian truth, is noticeable. While we thus hold to
theology as the "scientia scientiarum," and to its place
in preaching, yet divine truth is not always to be pre-
sented in a strictly philosophical and doctrinal form-as
is never done in the Bible, since there is not a single
abstraction in the Scriptures,
1 but also in concrete and
(6
vital methods.
-
The following passage is, we think, to the point:
Where religion is regarded exclusively or principally as
a matter of the understanding, there the tyranny of In-
tellectualism is soon felt. It is this tendency which
overrates the value of a correct conception of faith, even
to the detriment of the spiritual life, and confounds the
subjective conception of truth with truth itself. This in-
tellectual bent easily degenerates into an unhealthy
gnostic tendency, which attempts to grasp religious truth
merely by the reasoning and speculating understanding,
and confounds thought with knowledge, while distinction
between religion and theology is gradually lost. Since,
however, this system must not only be formulated, but
also defended, the Intellectualist is very easily drawn into
""
¹ Shedd's Homiletics and Pastoral Theology," p. 78.
CLASSIFICATIon of sermons.
455
the path of Doctrinalism, which discovers the nature of
religion exclusively in dogma as such. Doctrinalism
may exhibit the form of Rationalism, as well as that of
supra-naturalism. The former considers reason not
merely as the organ, but as the very source and supreme
arbiter, of religious truth; the other accepts the exist-
ence and the contents of a supra-natural revelation, but
receives this rather as a doctrine announced by supreme
authority. The adherent of the last-named view easily
becomes a strict orthodoxist with regard to the tradi-
tional confession, valuing soundness of faith even at the
expense of the faith itself. From this standpoint the
intellect works only receptively, whilst with the rational-
ist it has more a critical sway. Where the sovereignty
of this partial tendency is not encountered by any other
forces, it may finally lead the believer to the precipice of
unbelief, the Protestant into the arms of Rome.'
9) 1
Theologians of the most orthodox sect sometimes for-
get that revelation is mainly in the sphere of pure being,
and that it is not so much a revelation of doctrine as of
fact—of the most significant and world-renovating facts
of Christ's life, death, resurrection, ascension, and gift
of his spirit to men; that by a corresponding act of
faith on their part there is a spiritual reception of him
-the revealed word and the personal Christ--in the
heart, and thus the actual realization of an eternal
life. This is a matter of fact and spiritual experience,
sometimes totally inarticulated by the breath of a new-
born life in the soul of the believer. We thus do not
absolutely need a philosophy of religion, but we need
religion. Scientific theology brings unrest, but faith
brings peace. The time will come, doubtless, when faith
1 Van Oosterzee's "Christian Dogmatics," vol. i. p. 94.
456
HOMILETICS PROPER.
and knowledge shall be perfectly correlated, and when
that which is objective shall be one with what is subjec-
tive in religion; but that time is distant. The preacher,
as has been often said in these lectures, is, first of all, an
interpreter-he is a pure medium. He is not to bring.
the human thought, the human philosophy, between the
heart and the divine word. His own mind is to work
upon the original truth, to mould it into teaching forms,
to methodize its matter into abstract principles of thought
it may be, but mainly he is to interpret it simply and
spiritually to men, to render it pure to the people, that
they may feed upon the bread of life, so that to preach
primarily from a system of theology instead of primarily
from the Word and Spirit of God is, we cannot but think,
a partial and one-sided view.
}
In regard to the introduction of the argumentative ele-
ment itself in preaching, none but a man who is totally
ignorant of the philosophy of mind would
Logic in the deny its claims. There can be no forcible
pulpit.
presentation of truth to the reason which
is not itself psychologically rational, or is not based upon
a true philosophy of thought. A sermon should have
logical, in opposition to illogical, thinking, and re-
quires reasoning, or the giving of reasons, otherwise it
would go forth unballasted on the rough and stormy sea
of human opinion. Logic, regarded in its highest sense
as the science of the process of thought, and as the neces-
sary evolution of the reason, cannot and should not be
excluded from the pulpit any more than it should be
from education. The study of the classics in this con-
nection, even of Greek particles, commonly held to be
dry and unpractical, as showing the connection of thought
and how the ancients syllogized, as illustrating the sci-
ence of reasoning, and the art or philosophy of thought-
CLASSIFICATION of sermons.
457
3
this is by no means without its value in training the mind
of the preacher to think and reason; but formal logic,
which treats of the act of thinking totally aside from any
relation to real existence, though it has its uses in philos-
ophy, is out of place in a field of truth where the laws of
the forms of knowledge are of little importance compared
with the substance and contents of knowledge itself, or
the objective reality of divine things; it seems mockery
to bring the barren methods of the schools, the endless
and enfeebling analysis of scientific theology, into the pul-
pit where Christ is preached to sinful men-it is feeding
them with husks. Religion is, primarily, faith, love, and
obedience, not logic. Religion subjectively, is the sense
of dependence upon God, and objectively, the actual re-
binding of man in his affections and purposes to God.
It necessarily comprehends the intellect, or the reason,
and also the will; but we come to the real possession of
the great truths of God, Christ, Eternal Life, not original-
ly through the judgments of the logical understanding,
but vitally through the soul's apprehension of them by
faith and love, through the teaching of the Holy Spirit,
through the intuitions of consciousness and of the higher
reason and spirit in man. "Every one that loveth is
born of God and knoweth God." Even the poetic in-
sight of Schiller enabled him to see this when he wrote :
""
Allen gehört was du denkst; dein eigen ist nur was du fühlest,
Soll er dein Eigenthum sein, fühle den Gott, den du denkst.'
Men are often most illogically saved. Dr. Emmons, who
preached with a purpose, force, and perspicacity that makes
him the model of a sermonizer in these respects, was
often borne on by his untempered reasoning into positions
and statements from which his better intuition, if he had
allowed it to speak, must have revolted. He shunned no
458
HOMILETICS PROPER.
statement that his primary syllogism forced him into.
In seeking the logical he forgot the higher rational and
synthetic relations of truth; so that he ran the risk of
crushing souls whose moral nature was at all sensitive and
just. In this way one may destroy souls logically. In this
way logic is weak and superficial. Logic and philosophy
may become as unchristian as art may become. The higher
truths of faith cannot be philosophically formulated and
then forced upon the soul with the hydrostatic pressure
of argument. The argument or the soul is shattered by
the impact. The postulates of mathematics, so beautiful
in their completeness, do not fit the freely undulating sur-
face of spiritual truth. You could as well screw down
the Atlantic Ocean with a copper cover. But moral and
spiritual truths are nevertheless the proper subject of
night reasoning.
Robert South, a highly intellectual though not spiritual
preacher, shows us how we may reason with interest and
success upon moral subjects, because he did not run into
sheer abstractions, but kept his feet on the facts of human
nature and experience. He did not strive to go beyond
what nature and the Scriptures taught; he was a sound
and robust reasoner; and yet he is a very poor illustra-
tion of what we mean compared with some other greater
preachers, and with Emmons himself, when he forgot to
be the mere dialectician and became the practical rea-
soner of the gospel with sinful men.
In all proper discourse there are two main methods of
development—the logical and the oratorical, the first being
more the method of art and the second of nature; and in
the reasoning of the pulpit the method of art, the formal
logic of the schools, is not so fruitful, nor is it always to
be preferred to the living modes of persuasion that the
higher reason, the imagination and the heart, and above
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
459
The apostle
all, the Spirit of God, teach. The sermon should be
dynamic rather than scientific or artistic. It should be a
living growth rather than a dead work.
Paul's reasoning (which is often held up as
the grand model of argumentative theo-
logical preaching) was natural, spiritual, in-
spirational. It was rhetorical, too, in the
best sense of the word. He was an analogical rather
than strictly logical reasoner. He was forensic rather
than syllogistic. He never uses the syllogistic weapon
that Aristotle had already shaped and sharpened to his
hand, since he was doubtless more or less conversant with
the forms of Greek dialectics. He was too rapid a rea-
soner and too much in earnest to play with a method
which is often but a petitio principii. His mind was emi-
nently synthetic rather than eminently analytic. He
dealt in concrete forms of truth presented in all their
vividness. The cross of Christ," as he commonly used
the phrase, stood to him for all that Christ was, and did,
and suffered for man. The "blood of Christ" was the
life of such universal and representative value which was
poured forth for the sins of the world. There is a train
of most powerful and magnificent reasoning in Paul's
epistles and addresses, appealing to the understanding
as well as to the conscience; but often it is as artless or
inartificial as if he loved the truth-which he did-more
than the argument. He seizes upon an analogy almost
as readily as upon a reason, to bring out his thought.
He seems sometimes to despise rigid reasoning. He
scatters its serried links to the winds. He is readily taken
by the parallelisms of words, by associations of ideas, by
swiftly glancing aspects and resemblances of thought that
come up in succession from a mightily working intellect
and glowing imagination that beheld spiritual truth in all
<<
The Apostle
Paul's
reasoning.
460
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
things. Thus while in 2 Cor. 9 he is discoursing in an
unusually systematic way of the duty of the Church in
the matter of giving to the necessity of saints, he sud-
denly ends the chapter by turning the attention of those
whom he addresses to the free and unspeakable gift of
God to man--Jesus Christ. The connection of thought
in this passage is oratorical rather than logical. In the
second chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians he meets
the objections of false teachers by proving the great fact
of the resurrection of Christ from the dead-his actual
ascension from the tomb-and then he goes on at once to
show by a kind of inspired figure, though full of substance
and living truth, that the purely spiritual resurrection of
Christ from the power of sin and death draws up also his
believing followers along with him into his risen life of
holiness at the right hand of God. There is in this far
more of what old Thomas Fuller calls the oratory of
God which converts souls" than of rigid logic. In this
living way which reached the conscience-the "man of
the heart"-making Felix tremble as he reasoned of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.
Paul's preaching was successful because it had the power
and voice of God to the soul in it; it was apodictic and
did not stand in the wisdom of men. He preached
Christ as a living power and by the "Spirit of Christ."
Chrysostom said "He converted the world not only by
miracles, but by his continual preaching." It was, in a
true sense, doctrinal preaching; and doctrinal preaching
like that of Paul in which is the kernel of the nut, the
marrow of the bone, in which is the essence of the wisdom
of Christ, the life of the Spirit, is true preaching. The
truths of God the Creator, creation, the law, sin, repent-
ance, the incarnation, the atonement, faith, the new
birth, righteousness, love, eternal life, the resurrection,
CC
("
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
461
immortality, the judgment and the awards of eternity—
these, with their mystery and solemn depth, mingling
fear and hope, awe and joy, will always be the themes of
Christian preaching, because these truths satisfy the soul.
They reach the deepest hunger and trouble of sin. They
pacify and cleanse the conscience. They open vistas of
Natural
light and hope to the higher spirit in man.
truths cannot do this; they go no further than nature
goes, with the apology that what is higher is unknow-
able. But Christ makes the supernatural truth both
knowable and known; he brings the hidden things of
God to light. Christ and him crucified" is the sum of
Pauline preaching, which imparts light, heat, and move-
ment to all. God's love is here focalized. There can be
nothing higher, nothing deeper. Faith in the Christ
who died for the life of the world is the way to pardon,
purity, and eternal life; and it is well that this central
truth of the atonement as the way of righteousness is
again becoming the theme of the deepest interest and
most intense study, and that new light is streaming in
upon what might be called the human-divine side of the
nature of Christ, opening fresh and attractive views of
this doctrine.
C
We talk much of "doctrine," and "doctrinal preach-
ing," but what, after all, is "doctrine," but simply that
which is “taught" by God's Word and Spirit? Its specu-
lative sense is an entirely secondary one. Therefore, we
aver that it is better and more natural to find that "doc-
trine," that "teaching," in the Scriptures themselves-
to press out the contents of inspiration, and present
them in their original power and spiritual pungency to
the mind, than to dilute them too much by the artificial
processes of human dialectics.
Yet let us not be understood as arguing against logic.
462
HOMILETICS PROPER.
President Finney says in his autobiography that a cer-
tain district in England, where he was laboring at the
time, needed more logical preaching. We do not doubt
it. The popular religious intellect, it may be, had been
enfeebled by hortatory platitudes or ecclesiastical senti-
mentalisms from the pulpit, that touched no living inter-
est and aroused no profound thought in men's minds.
The logical element in American preaching has imparted
to it a strength and a firm consistency that, however it
may be lacking in other qualities, perhaps still more im-
portant, has, in these respects, made it superior to the
English, French, and German pulpits. The logical fac-
ulty is needed to try, judge, and establish positive truth.
It tests, squares, and lays the stones furnished at its hand.
Every mind upon whom the burden of instructing others.
falls should have the discipline which a severe course of
logic affords. The sermons of preachers, especially of
beginners, are often wofully deficient in this quality.
They could not stand by themselves. They topple over
with an adverse breath. Some subjects also absolutely
demand logical treatment; and every genuine "dis-
course" which is carefully arranged according to the rules
of art and with a view of producing a particular impres-
sion upon the minds of hearers, gains force from a clear
plan. Bourdaloue said he could forgive anything but a
poor method. We argue only against the claim some-
times set up with dogmatic positiveness that the rigidly
logical and theological method is the only productive
method in the search and treatment of spiritual truth,
and that it is the exclusive mode of reasoning, of persua-
sion, of converting men to God. Even in the field of
revival preaching do we not have a logical Finney and an
illogical Moody? We contend for spiritual freedom, for
nature, for God's teachings of individual genius, for rhetor-
CLASSIFICATION of sermons.
463
ical and scriptural variety, for the inspirations and illumi-
nations of the Holy Spirit, for feeling as well as argument,
for that love of men which every great preacher must
have in his heart which stamps him as a true successor of
the apostles, and without which the cold splendors of the
intellect play and shine in vain. There is too little of
this Pauline sensibility, or, as the French say, "onction,"
in our American preaching, and before we shall see
more of it there must be a total revolution wrought in
our whole theory of preaching. It must become more
truly spiritual; Christ must have a thorough control of .
the being, mind, and spirit of the preacher. Christ must
be his inner life, prompting to utterance.
He must draw
from those divine fountains of Christ's heart, those hid-
den inspirational springs that issue from the Holy Spirit
through a living faith in that great union of the divine.
with the human, which was brought about in the incarna-
tion and work of the Son of God, vivifying, deepening,
spiritualizing, making divine the affections and energies,
and all the outflowings and expressions of the human spirit.
The earliest preachers were spiritual, prophetical, and
expository preachers. Chrysostom preached ethical and
expository rather than theological discourses. Augus-
tine, though intensely theological in his other writings,
is extremely simple and practical in his sermons. Ber-
. nard of Clairvaux was almost altogether an exegetical ser-
monizer. Luther, though his pulpit addresses were full
of polemic theology, had also besides this a great human
heart, nature, wit, sarcasm, anecdote, allegory, passion-
ate eloquence, and the widest and most intimate use of
the Scriptures.
We have thus far spoken of the variety of treatment
which subjects of divine truth discussed in the pulpit
should have.
•
464
HOMILETICS PROPER.
We come now, under this general subject of the
classification of sermons according to their treatment
and form, to say a few words upon the
actual form of the sermon. While the clas-
sification of sermons in this respect has
been with all homiletical writers a fruitful one, we have
already suggested that the simplest method of classifica-
tion would be, first, into the textual; secondly, the topi-
cal, sometimes called "subject sermons ;" third, the
textual-topical. A more elaborate classification which
was proposed, would regard the form of the sermon as
depending upon the manner of treating the text, the
manner of treating the subject, and the general rhetorical
treatment, and would bring into view the various kinds
of textual, topical, expository, doctrinal, ethical, his-
torical, argumentative, meditative, and hortatory ser-
mons; but we will not enter into this wide field, or re-
peat what has been said on these points, and will notice
only, for a moment, the two grand divisions of the
textual and the topical forms of sermon.
If we were asked what style of sermonizing should
be mainly recommended, not by any means as the ex-
clusive one, but as the most ordinary method of preach-
ing, year in and year out, for a pastor's regular work of
instruction from the pulpit, we should answer, that
without making it a dry excogitation of the Scriptures,
and without bibliolatry-for the Bible itself is but a
book, which ought not to be worshipped, and only Him
whom it revealed should be adored-the expository
should be employed, or, rather, what might be called
the "textual" as contrasted with the "topical" style of
discourse. We use "textual" here not precisely in its
technical sense.
A "textual sermon," technically, is one that follows in
Form of the
sermon.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
465
66
its treatment closely the words of the text, clause by
clause and word by word. We would em-
ploy "textual'' here, rather in the sense of
text preaching," that is, making the text
the absolute subject of the sermon, and not
an abstract subject evolved from the text; holding firmly
to the text, drawing the real material, the real thought,
and the real inspiration from the word of Scripture. It is, in
fact, "biblical preaching" instead of "theme preaching."
It takes a long time to be emancipated from the tyranny
of the topical or theme sermon, which has dominated
over our pulpits. This, we grant, has done a great work,
and will continue to do so; the most cultivated audiences
are best pleased with it and also profited by it; but its
exclusive use has engendered many errors of preaching,
and has sometimes led astray from the true object of
preaching. It has, above all, spoiled variety and free-
dom. Topical preaching, as has been hinted, draws from
the text a particular theme, or, what is often the case,
takes a topic before taking a text, and makes that topic
the subject of the sermon. Here is its unity. It requires
an artistic handling, like an oration, or a piece of sculp-
ture. It is a perfect discourse formed upon the rules of
art. It is something, after all, outside of the text,
though it should be in strict accordance with it.
quires brief texts containing complete themes, and themes
capable of didactic development. But this style of ser-
monizing is very apt to lead to a neglect of the word of
God. The sermon, in fact, hangs on the proposition or
topic instead of the text; and how many wrong topics,
such as the text never taught, have been drawn out to
serve as themes of this kind of sermon; c.g., by a German
preacher, who made the subject of Acts 26: 24, "Festus
said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself;
It re-
Textual
and topical
sermons.
***
466
HOMILETICS PROPER.
much learning hath made thee mad"-"The doubtful
and perilous character of religious enthusiasm." A ser-
mon should spring up from the word of God studied
within the circle of a minister's pastoral duties, needs,
and requirements; and while sometimes the topic will be
suggested before the text (though we think this is not a
good rule), and there should be all proper freedom here,
since the pastor has two books to study, his Bible and his
people; yet when the text is once chosen, however and
whenever done, then it should be treated with honor and
thoughtful attention, as the utterance of God upon the
specific duty or subject in hand. Topical preaching is
needed for the wants and emergencies of the pulpit, and
will continue in vogue, and all will follow it who aim at a
high standard of scientific excellence in sermonizing, but
uniformly pursued it will present the human side of
preaching predominantly, will hide Christ, and injure
the cause of Christian truth; and a return to nature, to
biblical preaching, to the teachings of the "Spirit of
Christ," will constitute a real reform.
Textual preaching, in the sense in which we have ex-
plained it, where the text forms the actual basis of dis-
course and is immediately and mainly treated of, enables
the preacher to interpret the Word of God more closely ;
which course is in harmony with the main theory already
advanced, that preaching is primarily interpretation-in-
terpretation not of a dead but living sort, adapted to
spiritual awakening and persuasion. It also enables the
preacher to employ texts that comprise longer or shorter
portions of Scripture, and this is the beauty of this method,
that the texts may be longer, and thus embrace a wider
range of truth, like the parables of our Lord, or like the
extended figures in the 15th chapter of Luke, 1 Cor.
9:24-27, Eph. 6:14-17; or narrative and historical
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
467
texts; or texts containing some important subject fully
treated, as I Cor. 13, and Mark 10: 33-50 where humil-
ity is the underlying lesson of the whole passage; or
meditative texts, as many of the Psalms, in which
the inmost religious life of the writer is set forth.
The textual discourse honors the word of God by
It
thus keeping near to it and dwelling ever upon it.
gradually develops the riches of the text, following it
out in its details, not perhaps running into a formal
proposition and argument, but at the same time not dis-
regarding the ground truth of the passage (das inneres
Factum), the essential unity of the thought, the broad
generalization which comprehends the whole. It has a
true subject, which may be usually defined by some gen-
eral title, such as "The Centurion's Faith," "The
Healing of the Blind Man, The Golden Rule, The
New Commandment." Thus the teaching is brought
directly out of the Scriptures in an original way, in all
its spiritual power, with nothing, as it were, of human
invention intervening between the living word and the
living hearts of men. This is apt to be edifying preach-
ing, feeding souls upon the bread of life. This kind of
preaching, mixing in with it the topical, so that the ser-
mon shall partake of the synthetic as well as analytic
character, is a profitable form of sermonizing. This was
F. W. Robertson's usual way of preaching. While we
would thus strongly urge a return to biblical preaching,
as coming back again to the living springs of power, as
being the most spiritual as well as the most ancient form
of pulpit address, continuing until, in the fourth and fifth
centuries, Greek speculation and rhetoric began to destroy
the free exposition of Scripture and the inartificial style.
of interlocutory address or homily, and to mould the
discourse upon the formal principles of Greek art, yet
,, 44
,, C
468
HOMILETICS PROPER.
I
we would not be understood as denying art and philoso-
phy their proper place in the sermon.
Thought implies art. Emerson says, The conscious
utterance of thought by speech or action, to any end, is
art." As Christian truth meets the advance
of civilization and the needs of occidental
Art
and literary thought, it assumes, doubtless, to a certain
power
in sermons.
extent, the forms of cultivated thought. It
may do this if it does not depend upon
this method for success. A mind of severe philosophical
culture, like that of F. W. Robertson, is apt to get at the
heart of a subject and the heart of a hearer more readily
than a half-educated man can do. Perhaps also, as a
matter of secondary moment, there is greatly needed in
our modern sermons the interest of fresh thought. Origi-
nality, says Goethe, is clothing old truths in a new garb.
Beauty is ever new while truth is old. Nature may
sometimes be ugly, but she has infinite variety, and
the desert itself, to a scientific or æsthetic eye, is never
utterly uninteresting and unprofitable. The pulpit of
the present day has more formidable rivals than perhaps
it ever had. The book, the review, the lecture, even
the daily newspaper, constantly dazzle by their bright
discoveries and new ideas. If preachers cannot learn
to write in the same vigorous and idiomatic English
style, teeming with fresh thoughts-the food of the intel-
lectual hunger of this age-that Tyndall and Darwin and
Huxley employ, how can they compete with these men?
Not, assuredly, by repeating and indorsing all their phi-
losophy; but that preachers can compete even with such
brilliant men upon their own ground, considering the
subject solely on this literary plane, our own New Eng-
land prince of preachers, Dr. Bushnell, is a striking ex-
ample. Power despises criticism, and there was certainly
66
CLASSIFICATIon of sermonNS.
469
native as well as spiritual power in this man beyond his
art. His "faith-talent" alone (to use his own phrase)
surpassed his literary and intellectual gifts, brilliant as
they were; and in fact it is a question whether so strong
and original a genius as his could have developed to its
full perfection unless it had burst its way through the
rigid conditions of a particular school of religious thought.
But he took old, biblical, common truth, and made it
luminous in his intense realization of it.
He spoke to earnest, honest minds, whether educated
or illiterate, because he pierced beneath the surface of
the accidental and touched the real man, the common
reason, conscience, and heart. He was great enough to
be popular, and yet, like Robertson, he despised popu-
larity, and restrained himself from saying anything be-
cause it was popular; breasting the tide of public opinion
like a strong swimmer. His childlike delight in God's
works and his susceptivity to the poetry of the natural
world into whose spiritual symbolism his prophetic in-
sight penetrated, took whatever he said out of common-
place and stamped it with fresh beauty. He helped to
unbind the imagination and to give freedom and play to
the æsthetic faculty in the Puritan pulpit. One spark of
God and nature is enough to give the preacher power.
Dr. Bushnell had broad views of his great office as an inter-
preter of the
Word." The whole world was to him a
thought of God, was full of God and of his ideas, so that
he could not close his eyes to anything that was divine in
the world, or in man, or in literature (which is the soul of
man embodied in thought), or in art, which is the study
of the beauty, rhythm and harmony of God's mind.
Should not every man, he held, be a Milton if he could
be one? Should not every man be a Michael Angelo if
he could be one? Should not every man be a Paul, or
C
470
HOMILETICS PROPER.
a John, if he could be one? He had no petty views of
the preacher's work. He set to it no narrow and con-
ventional metes and bounds, but regarded it as the high-
est and most comprehensive calling in the world-the
work of reading the mind and love of the infinite
"Word," and teaching these to men, so that they should
love, obey, and grow themselves Christlike.
His crea-
tive imagination that made all things new; his knowledge
of living facts and of men, his mastery of the hidden.
sources of language wherein it is tropical, emotional,
original, were brought to bear in the pulpit. He dis-
comfited, as by a stroke of lightning, the demon of ser-
monic dulness. How could he be dull with such bold
originality, such scope of illustration, such "sweetness
and light'' springing from his inner spiritual life, such a
hearty and manful sympathy with truth and with the
struggles of other minds in their search after truth? He
confessedly sought truth before orthodoxy, preferring the
unfading crown of God to the withering crown made by
men's hands. Thus while he preached on the most lofty
and supernatural themes he brought to his feet unbe-
lievers, doubters, humanitarians, nothingarians, hard in-
tellects, worldly and wicked men, as well as holy men and
believers. He convinced them that there was something
divine in this gospel that he preached. His large liber-
ality, caught from communion with the spirit of Christ,
took away the arguments of sceptics; and the minds of
men were astonished and overwhelmed and borne, down
with the resistless force, the gracious magnanimity, and
the celestial majesty of the truth he uttered. Who can
say that the pulpit has lost power with thoughtful men,
let them be of what cast of philosophical opinion they
may, when such preachers as Bushnell, and Robertson, and
Schleiermacher, and Lacordaire, have lived and spoken,
Ja
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
471
and the air is still vibrant with their nervous words? Yet
these men did not speak, we believe, merely to be elo-
quent-ad complendas aures. They obeyed the impulse
of a deeper inspiration. Some of the best models of ser-
mons, in a purely literary point of view, that combine this
fresh thinking with a free, strong, natural, and at the
same time exquisitely moulded literary style-satisfying
the highest taste and yet open as the day to the uncul-
tured mind-are those of J. H. Newman before their
true light was confused and obscured by the sombre and
unprogressive ecclesiasticism of the Romish Church.
In this connection, and as having also a great deal to
do with the form of sermonizing, we would remark that
the development of science adds a new ele-
Science
in the pulpit.
ment of power to the enlightened pulpit of
this day, because the knowledge of the
laws and facts of the natural world increases our knowl-
edge of God. In a scientific age preaching takes more
or less of a scientific form. The preacher of light
should gladly welcome every opening of the great volume
of facts which God has written in the physical universe.
"There is no rest possible for man in nescience, in nega-
tion.
He needs a rock and not the pivot of a balance to
sustain him." The relation of the pulpit with science is,
to our mind, a theme promising much of novel interest
and profound value. The preacher should rejoice in this
revival and mighty stir of scientific thought, in whose
troubled waters he can cast his line; since the most vio-
lent disturbance is better than stagnation in regard to
knowledge, whether spiritual or material. He should
prove to the world that the Christian Church pos-
sesses an intellectual vigor equal to all demands made
upon it, and that it is able to cope with living prob-
lems. He, the follower of truth, ought to cultivate a
472
HOMILETICS PRoper.
catholic mind which is hospitable to new ideas, nor
should he look with a narrow jealousy upon the ad-
vance of science, since science is but the formal recogni-
tion of proven knowledge. That is true science which
presents to us facts which are the fruits of induction, and
are capable of proof and logical classification, of exact
statement, in whatever field of knowledge the pursuit
may be. The truth of revelation cannot be imperilled by
the progress of true science; and, moreover, as the two
do not, as a general rule, move in the same plane, it is
lost time spent in trying to reconcile science and the
Bible. At the same time, the spirit of inquiry which de-
velops the laws of the natural universe, while it narrows
the domain of superstition, facilitates the interpretation
of God's moral and spiritual manifestation of himself in
his word and in human consciousness; not willingly
always, for the labors of some modern scientists are like
the strokes of giants guided by a higher intelligence than
their own, so that they build better than they know.
But in spite of the atheistic intent impelling their activity,
and in spite of their stopping in the material world, which
furnishes no explanation of force, mind, and spirit, they
are none the less the authors of spiritual light. They are
men of bright intelligence, essentially of the light. They
should be regarded with gratitude and with patient hope
as co-laborers in the field of truth. Take even the much-
berated Darwinian theory, for example, has it not already
widened our vision of physical knowledge? It is but one
phase of the problem of creation, which has regard mainly
to the mode of divine causation, and is consistent with a
divine theory of the universe. It denies, it is true, the
necessity of a new creative act in the production of new
species, but relegates all to an original power impressed
upon nature, which, through the working of certain
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
473
change-producing laws, is sufficient to account for the
formation of species and the progress of the race without
further intervention of creative power. It thus denies
the action of blind force, and asserts the uniform reign
of law. It has seized upon a certain great truth of cos-
mic development, of the existence of the working influ-
ence of law, of the evolution of higher out of lower forms,
of the principle of orderly progress in creation which
has long ago been observed, but never before so clearly
emphasized and reduced to scientific analysis. It seems
as if heretofore we had simply taken the truth of crea-
tion-that God created the universe-and were satisfied
with that, perhaps wisely so; now the Darwinian scien-
tist searches under this grand truth into the modes of cre-
ation, and is not this legitimate? Through his guidance
we seem to be catching glimpses of one of those simple
laws, like that of gravitation, upon which God invariably
works the law of evolution in the creation of the forms
of organic life. We catch here and there fragments of
this great law, if law it be. At enormous intervals we
seem to see through the mist of past ages the substantial
evidence of a creative plan or law of evolution. But it
is as yet fragmentary. It is unestablished and unproved.
Darwinism, by the confession of its most credible teach-
ers, cannot, upon its admitted principles, account for all
the facts of the universe. It is, therefore, open to doubt.
While there is much in its favor, there is a great deal to
be said upon the other side. There is so much to be
said, that Darwinism, technically speaking, may be en-
tirely untrue. Nevertheless it is deserving of a candid
and patient hearing, especially from the theologian, who
is more deeply interested in it than any man outside of
the pure scientist; and while we believe that the Dar-
winian theory, technically speaking, has as yet failed to
wy
474
HOMILETICS PROPER.
<a
establish its proofs, that the missing links have not been
found, that the fathomless gaps which separate lower from
higher life, which separate life from no life, have not
been bridged over, we think that the arguments against
Darwin's view sometimes exhibit an inexcusable want of
thorough appreciation of what his theory of ontology is;
and many of the replies made to scientific doubt by
theologians and preachers are injudicious, often weak.
They evince timidity as well as ignorance. Scientific in-
fidelity should be met by scientific knowledge, not only
knowledge of the facts of the natural universe but of
archæology and of a true historic criticism. Is not every-
thing aiding the elucidation of truth, from the revelations
of the highest physical science, the remarkable facts of
ethnological research, and the brilliant era in philological
investigation, to the last Egyptian discovery or broken
fragment of cuneiform inscription from new-risen Chaldea
and Assyria? The battle may be hard, but there is no
doubt of the result where the gospel of hope contends
against the gospel of despair. Protestantism and true
science are one.
The pulpit of this age, in order to meet its wants, must
be, as has already been said, to a certain extent scien-
tific; for the scientific statement of truth is the most
exact statement, and the inductive and scientific is
healthfully corrective of the ultra tendencies of the
metaphysic and deductive method. Science and religion
may be of mutual help to each other, for the one
searches the causes of natural phenomena, the other the
cause of causes-" science is nature revealed, while re-
ligion is nature's God revealed." The Christian pulpit
has always claimed the liberty to discuss scientific ques-
tions where they cross lines of revelation, having an ex-
ample in the apostle Paul, who suggests in his discourse.
V
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
475
at Athens the necessity and mode of meeting philosophic
denial, as he met the atomic theory of the Epicureans
which has come around again in our day-by kindness,
wise firmness, and an intelligent presentation of the
truth, so congenial to human reason, of a personal
Creator. The preacher must be willing to come down.
from the region of abstractions to meet error in the con-
crete forms of a materialistic philosophy, which is the
present phase of denial. Pure theism is a proposition
which can be defended scientifically as well as meta-
physically, without dogmatism and unchristian bitter-
ness, and with the very weapons that science herself so
liberally furnishes. Already those who have lived a
quarter of a century in the thinking world have seen great
scientific names even such a name as that of John
Stuart Mill waning with the theories belonging to
them, which theories, though now subsided, we are will-
ing thankfully to confess have left behind them much
good and enrichment, with the devastation they have
occasioned.
M. M
J
The extreme limits of atheistic principles which have
been already attained indicate a reaction to a sounder
philosophy, a more rational and truly scientific theory of
being. This the pulpit, with a divinely nurtured intel-
ligence, should aid, as something correlated to its higher
aim and work; since, in one sense, the kingdom of spirit
is built up from beneath by such means; and we have
been of the opinion that Christian thought has heretofore
ignored too much the importance of those lower physical
and material facts which have their influence upon the
gradual improvement of the race by the harmonious
working of physical and moral laws; but we would in
no sense depend upon scientific culture, any more than
upon philosophic and literary culture for the power of
476
HOMILETICS PROPER.
the pulpit—if we do God sends his prophets in the guise
of herdsmen and coal miners to break the illusion-but
at the same time Luther himself did not despise the
aids of learning, literature, art, and eloquence, and if he
had lived in these days he would joyfully have hailed
science also as a handmaid of Christian persuasion, while
he would have despised it as compared with the power of
a spiritual faith, of a living Christ.
In the forms of the sermon, in the modes of present-
ing divine truth to the people, therefore, we contend for
a generous and wholesome breadth of treatment, taking
in the whole nature of man; for absolute freedom within
the true sphere of the Christian preacher; for a cheerful
hope in humanity; for the use of every genuine method
of persuasion and every form of effective address which
nature, true sympathy, and the Spirit of God teach.
In concluding these remarks upon the general subject
of the classification of sermons according to their treat-
ment and form, and the discussion of the best forms of
preaching, the suggestion would be in place that some reg-
ular course of pulpit instruction is advisable-something
like a plan that embraces a long period, per-
haps a season, or a year; like the method of
orderly reading and expounding the Scrip-
tures in the English, German, and Lutheran
churches; in fact the system of "the Christian year.
A campaign, carefully planned beforehand in all its de-
tails, sometimes shows astonishing results, as seen in the
Prussian part of the German-French war.
The very
lines of operation that were laid down in the silence of
the study months before were strictly followed out, and
the enemy was forced to do just what his more prescient
adversary had marked out for him to do. We do not be-
lieve in quite such a rigid system of operation in the spirit-
A general
plan in
preaching.
>>
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
477
ual field, but certainly a comprehensive intelligence should
preside over it, and on beginning his work, and begin-
ning every new year of his ministry, the preacher would
do well to have some clear idea of what he is intending
to do, and what should be the style, method, and aim
of his preaching, whether it should be doctrinal or prac-
tical, of a revival or didactic character, governed often by
the character and wants of the people, by the changing
seasons of the year, and, above all, by the guidings and
movings of the Holy Spirit.
We would reiterate the recommendation already made,
that, under the condition that the purpose of preaching
is right, that it is unselfishly aimed at the spiritual
good of the hearers, that it is the truth as
preaching.
it is in Jesus, the greater variety that the Variety in
preacher can give to his style and form
of sermonizing the better. As has been hinted, every
sermon should exhibit this variety; it should not be
exclusively doctrinal without the practical element, nor
should it be entirely practical without the doctrinal
and didactic element. Our modern revivals, it is said,
reach the great middle classes of society; but they
do not reach the two extremes the intellectual or
the working classes. But preaching should be such
that all should be reached. For a man to preach
exclusively sermons addressed to the logical under-
standing, is like feeding a child upon only one kind
of food; he must sometimes preach some sermons ad-
dressed more exclusively to the affections-hortatory and
awakening sermons. Historical sermons and sermons es-
pecially upon the life of our Lord, with their multitude of
lessons to the present time and to the universal soul of man
-truly Christian discourses-are very interesting as well
as enriching. There should be this attractive element of
478
HOMILETICS PROPER.
variety in sermonizing; a discourse on the application of
the Christian principle to political economy now and then
interposed among discourses of a more purely religious.
character, might lead some minds to enlarged views of
duty and new apprehensions of the responsibility of
citizenship. But it seems to us extremely unfortunate
when a preacher runs on an iron track of sermon-
izing-let it be a theological style of preaching, where
the sermon is but the reproduction of theological treat-
ises; or a sentimental style of preaching, where ser-
mons are little more than pathetic illustrations and pic-
ture-drawing; or moralizing preaching, where the sermon
never rises into the heights and glories of the supernat-
ural truth. And we would even say that a preacher may
dwell too much and too long in the supernatural re-
gions of thought, so that he himself shall become a
kind of spiritualized essence, dehumanized and bloodless,
sublimated beyond human feelings and passions, and
having no power to come down to the wants, interests,
and sympathies of living men. Such a man ought to be
put in a glass case and enshrined on the top of the
steeple. Let us return to biblical preaching and then
we will get this variety. Let us have a simpler and
more primitive and apostolic style of instruction, drawn
freshly from the Scriptures of God's truth, and from
nature. The preacher is called upon to exercise con-
stantly his best invention, the genius God has given him,
to introduce an interesting and healthful style of sermoniz-
ing addressed to all classes. Let him adapt divine truth
to the real wants of his hearers, studying those wants. Let
him not strike ever the same chord that renders back a ter-
rible and gloomy tone-sin and perdition-solemn truth;
but is this the only string of divine harmonious truth that
the gospel has? Let him not, on the other hand, see noth-
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
479
ing but the hopeful side and dare not draw the dark pic-
ture, so that his preaching lacks shadow, background,
and power. Let him not in like manner deal with the
metaphysic and philosophic dogma till he dries up the
fountains of his hearers' hearts as with the breath of a
desert-wind; neither let him dwell so entirely in the
busy, unreasoning present of fact, that thinking minds
are not helped in their metaphysical and philosophical
difficulties, and do not get to the foundations of truth,
rationally speaking. Here, then, is scope afforded for
the best talent, the most fruitful invention, the boldest
imagination, the keenest study of human nature, and
the most active, growing spiritual knowledge and faith.
SEC. 21. Classification of Sermons according to their
method of delivery.
From the fact that the manner of delivery shapes the
conception and plan of the sermon, and bears directly
upon the whole object and design of preaching, a course
of lectures upon Homiletics would be imperfect which
did not give careful attention to this subject; and so
great is its importance in a practical point of view, that
we have reserved it for the last place, where indeed it
logically belongs.
We sometimes listen to thoughtless flings against
theological seminaries that the art of oratory is not cul-
tivated at the present day by them.
It would be more proper to charge modern civilization
itself with a neglect of the rhetorical art which was once
considered to be, as in the old Greek state, the crown of
a liberal education. Many causes might be adduced for
this; but while the charge against theological seminaries
is not an entirely just one, and while we venture to say
480
HOMILETICS PROPER.
that at this moment more attention is paid in our best
theological schools to oratory, than in the colleges, law
schools, or other educational and professional institutions
of the land, much more should be done. Theological
schools, instead of bending all their aim to make learned
theologians, should, while doing this, make their pre-emi-
nent object the turning out of effective preachers. All
their instruction, of whatever kind, should aim at this.
The Christian orator in the pulpit, as he has the noblest
field, so he should have the loftiest ideal of the orator,
the great orator," who, Quintilian said, “had not yet
appeared, but who would appear hereafter, and who
would be as consummate in goodness as in eloquence.
The age of the Reformation was a period of marked elo-
quence in the pulpit. Concerning the eloquence of Cal-
vin, Farel, and Viret, an epigram of Theodore de Beza is
recorded, to this effect, that "Never one showed more
learning than Calvin; never one thundered with more
force than Farel; never one spake with more honied
sweetness than Viret." Luther and Zwingli laid the
foundations of the Reformation in the eloquence as well
as spiritual fire and faith of their preaching.
The European Protestant Church has always cultivated
the oratorical art, and in France especially it has rivalled
the senate and the bar as well as the academic chair, in
the purity, grace, and finished elegance of its oratory.
Coquerel says that "Religion imposes this upon itself;
even the highest truth is not self-evident to the becloud-
ed and corrupt mind, but needs to be explained, proved,
and established. It must be recommended to men with
all the energies of the soul, all the faculties of the intel-
lect, all the resources of oratory. One can never plead
for religion with too much eloquence, and no preacher
is excused, if he has received from God any good gift,
(4
,,
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
481
any quality that belongs to the orator, such as mem-
ory, voice, facile elocution, presence of mind, easy and
natural gesticulation, an expressive countenance, and a
piercing glance, above all, power of thought and forceful
expression—he is culpable in not training these powers
to the highest perfection in the service of his Master.'
Coquerel regrets that preaching has been excluded
from the domain of literature. He points to Massillon,
who worked over his sermons ten years before publishing
them; and he recommends the establishment of institu-
tions like that at Augsburg, called a " Prediger-Seminar,"
where the sole aim is to fit young men to be preachers.
•
The modes of delivery have greatly influenced the
oratorical power of the pulpit; they have increased or
diminished it in a marked degree, both in respect of
periods and individuals. Let us then look at this point,
and we now proceed to notice the classification of ser-
mons, especially in regard to their methods of delivery.
This classification would divide sermons into three kinds
(though these methods may sometimes be combined in
one), viz. :
Written sermons, or those delivered from written
notes; Memoriter sermons, or those recited from
memory; and Extemporaneous sermons.
1. Written sermons.
This method is not without its great names in the
pulpit.
Who would find fault with the preaching
of such a man as Horace Bushnell in his
prime, when the manuscript before him seemed to vanish,
and he soared above it, and above all art, by the force of
his strong thinking, and the inspiration of a divine and
expanding theme?
1 "Observations Pratiques sur la Prédication,” p. 264.
1
Written
sermons.
482
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Dr. Chalmers, that pulpit-monarch, was also a preacher
of written sermons. Van der Palm, the most eloquent
preacher of Holland in modern times, pursued this plan.
This method, we conclude, must still continue to be
practised by those who, if they should die for it, can
neither speak from memory nor off-hand. The preaching
of written sermons will not be abandoned in haste. But
still, it should be remembered, that this was not the
method of the first preachers.
They were free men in speech, if but children often in
knowledge. "All the examples of Christian antiquity
and of the beginnings of the Reformation are
against the practice of the reading of writ-
ten sermons. Neither Basil nor Chrysos-
tom, neither Augustine, nor Luther, nor
Calvin, nor their contemporaries, read their discourses,
and later down this method never prevailed in French
churches, and is now renounced almost entirely.'
In Germany the use of written sermons has never pre-
vailed. In Holland, about fifty years since, it was the
custom; but it is now given up, and this is true to a great
extent in Scotland. Its introduction into England, where,
together with New England and America it has most pre-
vailed, has been sometimes ascribed to Archbishop Til-
lotson; but Bishop Burnet gives a more reliable account
of the manner in which it came into vogue in England.
He says, in substance, speaking of the Middle Ages, that
preaching had been restricted to Lent, at other seasons
only to festival days, panegyrics of martyrs, etc. The
friars, seeing danger ahead, felt that they must use the
instrumentality of preaching to ward off the influences
of advancing reformed ideas. Thus by passionate and
Not the
ancient
method.
¹ Coquerel's “Observations Pratiques,” p. 175.
1
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
483
affecting discourse" they kindled the devotion of the
people toward shrines and pilgrimages, and in this way
filled their coffers.
The reformers, on the other hand, saw the value of
this instrumentality, but they at first used it indiscreetly.
They indulged in highly controversial and acrimonious
preaching, which, responded to in the same vein, pro-
duced complaints to the king, and after that preaching
was confined to the reading of written discourses.'
But this practice was not adopted by the later re-
formers of the English Church, and was really revived
by the Puritans; so much so that it was considered a
Puritan innovation, and hence the proclamation of
Charles II., October 8th, 1674, to the University of Cam-
bridge, forbidding, on pain of his Majesty's displeasure,
the practice of reading sermons, as one "which took its
beginnings from the disorders of the times," and which
was characterized as "a supine and slothful" method.
But the practice had gained too strong a foothold, and
has maintained its ground ever since in England, where,
at the present time, not one preacher in ten extemporizes,
perhaps not one in twelve; very few memorize; but the
preaching is from pretty full notes or entirely written ser-
mons. Thus this mode did not come in till after the
Reformation, and has led, as we have said, to the decline
of pulpit eloquence.
Sydney Smith's witty gibes were directed especially
against this method of preaching in England. "Pulpit
discourses," he says, "have insensibly dwindled from
speaking to reading; a practice of itself sufficient to
stifle every germ of eloquence. It is only by the fresh
feelings of the heart, that mankind can be profitably
'Burnet's "Hist. of the Reformation of the Ch. of England."
484
HOMILETICS PROPER.
affected. What can be more ludicrous than an orator
delivering stale indignation and fervor of a week old;
turning over whole pages of violent passion written out
in fair text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into
which he is hurried by the ardor of his mind; and so
affected at a preconcerted line and page, that he is un-
able to proceed any further? The great object of modern
sermons is to hazard nothing; their characteristic is
decent debility; which alike guards their authors from
hideous errors, and precludes them from striking beau-
ties."
It cannot at the same time be denied that this method
has some advantages.
(1.) The written sermon admits of and calls for a
thorough treatment of the subject. It does not allow the
loose, inconsequential method of thought
Advantage often found in the false extemporaneous
style, when, as an old preacher said of him-
self, "if he was persecuted in one text he
might flee into another;" but it demands, especially in
pulpits of a highly educated community, careful treat-
ment of the theme and precise and well-considered state-
of written
sermon.
ments.
(2.) It secures a more finished style. There is indeed
great temptation to run into the literary and essay, in-
stead of the direct oratorical, style in the written dis-
course; but he who writes out his thoughts fully is
forced to pay some attention to his style; and he who
never writes out his sermons, if he do not specially guard
against this tendency, will be in danger of losing his
power of accurate writing. Writing makes a clear and
rich style.
"The remedy of sterile reverie is the pen. State down
every attainment in your thinking by a verbal proposi-
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
485
autem est
tion. The thing of emphasis is the propositional form.
We never have the full use of language as an instru-
ment of thought, unless we cause our thoughts to fall in
an assertory shape." The familiar advice of Cicero,
in the First Book of the "De Oratore," is, "Caput
quam plurimum scribere. Stilus optimus
et præstantissimus dicendi effector ac magister.
Ipsa collatio conformatioque verborum perficitur in scriben-
do, non poetico, sed quodam oratorio numero et modo.
Professor Shepard, in his discourse on the " Congrega-
tional Pulpit," preached at the annual meeting of the
American Congregational Union, in 1857, makes these
strong remarks: "We insist, then, that we are not to
cease following the fathers in a fervid use of the pen,
more or less, in connection with preparing for the pulpit.
Some of them, doubtless, placed too much reliance on it.
Some come under a servile bondage to it. But it does
not follow from this that our wisdom consists in throwing
it wholly away. We have said that some of these writers
for the pulpit proved themselves as among the most
effective that ever stood there. They made men see the
truth, believe, it, confess it, and be Christians. They
made them thinkers, reasoners, orators. The sage of
Franklin was the teacher of logic to lawyers. The great-
est mathematician of the age was the product of that
pulpit; at any rate, he sprang out from before it. In
the light of our history we pronounce the clamor raised
in some quarters against all writing for the pulpit a mis-
erably shallow and most senseless clamor. The pulpit
cannot maintain its moulding efficacy, its ruling position,
unless the men thereof are men of the sturdy pen, as well
as of the nimble tongue. People, take them as they rise,
are greatly given to be lazy; hard thinking is hard work,
and lazy men won't do it if they can help it. Let the
486
HOMILETICS PROPER.
mere off-hand be the mode and the law, and we shall
have mere flippant, off-hand, extemporaneous dribble.
It will answer for exhortation, but not for doctrine, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness. There are
discourses which ought to be made, but cannot be made
in this way; crises, wants, demands, which cannot be
wholly met in this (extemporaneous) way."
Certainly funeral and occasional discourses, and medita-
tive sermons, cannot possibly be constructed in this off-
hand way.
(3.) It assists the preacher in many practical ways. The
written method gives him a feeling of confidence. He is
sure of having something to say. He is relieved from
anxiety in this respect; and he can give all his powers to
an effective delivery. Then, too, he accumulates a preach-
ing-capital of sermons for future use. These are like
well-filled barrels in the cellar that the house-master
thinks of with complacency in view of hard times to come.
An American clergyman who died a quarter of a cen-
tury ago left three thousand neatly and perfectly com-
posed sermons; which, it must be said, however, though a
celebrated preacher in his day, have not been disturbed
since that time.
P
As to the actual working of this method of preaching,
it cannot be denied that reading from notes is apt, with-
out great and constant care, to lead into radi-
Disadvantages cal faults.
of the
written
sermon.
(1.) It tends to an indolent and monot-
onous style of preaching.
We have quoted from Sydney Smith,
and we would quote a sentence or two more, premising
that what he says does not pointedly apply to American
preaching :
Preaching has become a by-word for long and dull
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
487
address of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply in
any piece of writing, the absence of anything agreeable
and inviting calls it 'a sermon.' To this cause of the
unpopularity of sermons may be added the extremely
The
ungraceful manner in which they are delivered.
English people, generally remarkable for doing very good
things in a very bad manner, seem to have reserved the
maturity and plenitude of their awkwardness for the pul-
pit. A clergyman clings to his velvet cushion with either
hand, keeps his eye riveted upon his book (notes), speaks
of the ecstasies of joy and fear with a voice and a face
which indicate neither, and pinions his body and soul into
the same attitude of limit and thought, for fear of being
called theatrical and affected."
"Why are we
natural everywhere but in the pulpit? No man expresses
warm and animated feelings anywhere else, with his
mouth alone, but with his whole body; he articulates
with every limb, and talks from head to foot with a thou-
sand voices. Why this holoplexia on sacred occasions
alone? Why call in the aid of paralysis to piety? Is it
a rule of oratory to balance the style against the subject,
and to handle the most sublime truths in the dullest lan-
guage and the driest manner? Is sin to be taken from
man as Eve was from Adam, by casting them into a deep
sleep?"
(2.) Unless guarded against, the use of written sermons
also weakens the native power of thought, as well as of
delivery. One becomes so habituated to the use of the
pen that he cannot think without writing, which is a
real loss of power.
(3.) The loss of time in the mechanical process of writ-
ing and copying, to the detriment of study.
The chief things to be guarded against in this method
are :
488
HOMILETICS PROPER.
(a.) Against mere reading.
Cautions.
The main difficulty in employing this method is to avoid
the idea of writing and delivering the written discourse as
if it were a literary production to be read in-
stead of an address to be spoken. Many con-
tend that writing must be read and not spoken; that it is
a virtual deception to attempt to speak it. Thus Co-
querel says, "If one reads in the pulpit, it is better
read openly and boldly, taking no other pains than to
have the manuscript easily legible and properly smoothed
down on the front of the pulpit; then to turn the leaves
without affecting a disguise which is useless and unbe-
coming. We may be certain that the hearers are not
deceived in this respect; they always know when the
orator is reading."
Dr. Chalmers also warned his pupils against the custom
of mingling reading with free speaking, but recommends
that preaching should be either one or the other. Never-
theless, if there be an earnest man in the pulpit, who is
resolved that his audience shall be affected by the truth,
and whose own mind is possessed by the truth, we believe
there is a possibility, even with a written discourse, of
the preacher's rising above mere reading into something
like genuine address, suffering the manuscript to be before
him rather as a guide than a restraint. This depends upon
the preacher's theory of the sermon, whether he regards it
as a means to an end or a means in itself; whether it is a
living word or a written composition; whether his preach-
ing is to end in pen, ink, and paper, or in the hearts,
souls, and lives of men. But we are assuredly less robust
than our ancestors; and sometimes (by no means always,
for many of the best and stoutest-hearted men in the
world are in the pulpit) the clergyman who goes forth
complacently on Sunday morning, armed and equipped
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
489
with his nicely written discourse, is about as near to
Martin Luther groaning with his message to the people,
or John Knox burning with his prophetic fire, or Hugh
Latimer who charged Henry VIII. to his face with adul-
tery, as is a child playing to be a soldier with a wooden
weapon compared to a long-sworded moss-trooper, hero
of a hundred fights. One cannot strike hard who is
encumbered by this paper armor. Some who are older
and cannot readily learn new ways may find it difficult and
even impossible to free themselves from the bondage to
written sermons, but young men should take heed in time.
(b.) Against a poorly prepared manuscript.
Be careful to have the manuscript in a good condition,
and to be perfectly familiar with it. The preacher, by
skillful management, by gaining a thorough familiarity
with his notes (having them written out in a clear, large,
bold hand), and by becoming in some measure independent
of the manuscript, and rising above it-by filling his mind
with the subject-matter-may perhaps be able, in the
delivery of the written sermon, to do away almost en-
tirely with the impression that it is not, in form at least,
a spontaneous discourse. But the usual awkward and
confused manner of reading written discourses is unen-
durable. He who has good sight and good memory
should deliver his sermon standing erect, and looking at
the people, so that they can look into his eyes, and he
into theirs, and as if he had no shred of manuscript be-
fore him. To see a preacher of the free gospel with his
head continually bent over his sermon, and tied down to
his manuscript, as if there were no living audience before
him, is certainly a most pitiable spectacle.
This familiarity with the manuscript is indeed indis-
pensable to success in using written sermons.
If one's time is occupied in catching at the sense of
-
490
HOMILETICS PROPER,
the written page, what opportunity is left for the de-
livery? The mechanical effort nullifies the spiritual
power. The mind is on the manuscript, not on the con-
gregation. It is taken up with the gun, not fixed on the
mark. How can the speaker powerfully impress his own
feelings and ideas on an audience, when he is laboriously
grappling with the difficulties of rescuing his ideas from
the unfamiliar page of written characters before him?
He is a slave to the letter, bound hand and foot. He
cannot speak freely. To do this he must have obtained
previous mastery of his manuscript. Every heading,
division, word, should be so familiar that a glance recalls
the whole, a word a sentence, a sentence a paragraph,
a paragraph a division.
Then he breaks his chain and rises superior to his
manuscript, and speaks with something of the freedom
and power of an extemporaneous speaker. In no other
way can he do this. For though it be true that the man
behind the manuscript is the great thing and that the
earnest preacher will always be effective, whatever mode
he adopts, yet if any method in itself have positive draw-
backs and essential disadvantages, he is bound to con-
sider these, and either guard effectually against them, or
adopt an entirely different way of preaching.
(c.) Against repeating old sermons.
Do not repeat a written sermon without re-writing or,
at least, re-thinking it. A preacher of old sermons in
Oxford is called an "Oxford hack," and when he
attempts to make an old sermon new by giving it a
new text and a little refurbishing, it is "an Oxford hack
with a new saddle and bridle.
In respect of old sermons the matter of the sermon
,, 1
1 Cox's "Recollections of Oxford," p. 224.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
491
•
may be as good and fresh as ever, but all will agree that
the feeling in which the sermon is produced should be
also fresh. There ought to be something new in every
sermon, because there is some new development of ex-
perience, thought, or feeling in ourselves in regard to the
same old and yet ever new truth that we treat.
In repeating written sermons, it is too much the habit
of preachers to snatch up at the last moment, for an ex-
change, or for a second preaching, a manuscript sermon,
without studying it carefully. Every sermon preached,
whether written or unwritten, whether preached the first
or the fortieth time, should be a fresh discourse. There
should be not only an intellectual, but a spiritual repro-
duction of the sermon; it should be thought out
afresh; it should be re-created; it should be prayed over
and breathed upon by the same intense feeling as that in
which it was composed. It is seldom, indeed, that an old
sermon does not need correction and improvement, and
even re-writing; for one may have gained new thoughts
and experiences on the same subject; and at all events,
none will dispute that every sermon preached should
bear a fresh coinage-if repeated it should be re-minted.
2. Memoriter sermons.
Memoriter speaking has in its favor the example of the
ancient orators, and, in all probability, of Demosthenes,
who did not trust himself without a careful
sermons.
and even verbal preparation. The memory Memoriter
was regarded as almost the greatest of intel-
lectual gifts for the orator, as Quintilian says, "It is
not without reason that the memory has been called the
treasury of eloquence. This style has also in its favor
the example of a few distinguished English preachers, and
of the German and French pulpit as a body.
..
492
HOMILETICS PROPER.
A French writer says: "By memorization one escapes
from the sudden imprudences, the irreparable mistakes
and failures of a juvenile extemporization. As to the
objection that memorization gives to the delivery some-
thing of constraint, of formality, of overstrained empha-
sis, an affected gesture, a redundant accent, and that
extemporization, on the contrary, draws with it a deliv-
ery more natural, fervent, and sympathetic; examples
militate against the justice of these alternatives; if the
memory is only sure of itself the elocution does not incur
these reproaches, while the delivery of an extemporaneous
discourse may be as confused as the discourse itself.”
De Ravignan recommends it as the only proper method,
and he repeats a saying of Massillon, " My best sermon
is the one I know best." He drew from this the conclu-
sion that we ought to know some sermons by heart, and
added:
"I know very well the trouble of learning by heart;
but the more trouble the better-trouble is just what we
ought to have. This wretched fear of taking trouble it is
that does all the harm. Would you like me to tell you
something, of the truth of which I am deeply convinced?
Sloth is what chiefly palsies talent and hinders success.
I remember a very sensible remark made to me by a
speaker of experience; he said that we must let a speech
rot, yes, rot in the memory. Beware of losing the power
of learning by heart; nothing can supply that want."
Such preachers as De Ravignan, Lacordaire, and Père
Hyacinthe, who, whatever their errors, would be called
great orators, and who made the Gothic pulpit of Notre
Dame resplendent in these modern days, were memoriter
preachers; but it must be said that Notre Dame is a
metropolitan show-pulpit, where a display of eloquence
was expected; yet, as a general rule, French and Ger-
•
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
493
64
man preachers, both Catholic and Protestant, among
them Adolphe Monod, Athanase Coquerel, Vinet, and
above all, Reinhard, in the last century, held that any
other kind of preaching than the memoriter was inefficient,
indolent, and unworthy of the occasion and the truth.
By this method, as the example of these eminent
preachers proves, the sermon being written out is apt to
be carefully composed; the written style thus intended
for delivery is better adapted to speaking, and whatever
is stiff is taken out of it; and if one can overcome the
fear of breaking down much is gained in accuracy of lan-
guage and deliberation of thought. The memory, it is
admitted, is capable of immense cultivation.
Dr. Immanuel Christlieb, of Bonn, has stated that in
his own case, while it took him at first four days to commit
a sermon to memory, he soon reduced it to two days;
and that now it is only necessary for him to read it over
twice, once Saturday night, and once on Sunday morn-
ing. He did not state how soon he forgot it!
The testimony also of the late Dr. Thomas Guthrie,
who is commonly supposed to have been an extempo-
raneous speaker, is interesting. Speaking of the man-
ner of preparing for the pulpit he says:
Thus the only time left me for preparation for the
pulpit, composing my sermons, and so thoroughly com-
mitting them that they rose without an effort to my
memory (and therefore appeared as if they were born on
the spur and stimulus of the moment), was to be found
in the morning.""
The example of such a man, and of nearly all the con-
tinental preachers of Europe, cannot be entirely disre-
garded. Have we not possibly erred in America in hold-
1 " Autobiography," v. i. p. 19.
494
HOMILETICS PROPER.
ར་
ing this method in especial disesteem? and may not its
confessed disadvantages of confinement, task-work, and
want of freedom, entirely vanish in particular cases, and
great relief and power be obtained from it when success-
fully mastered?
Robert Hall, it is well known, mingled the extem-
poraneous and memoriter methods; and on most occa-
sions made use of his memory for the delivery of the
most important and finished parts of his sermon. The
following is related of him :
""
Once, in a conversation with a few friends who had
led him to talk of his preaching, and to answer, among
other questions, one respecting the supposed and report-
ed extemporaneous production of the most striking parts.
of his sermons, in the earlier period of his ministry, he
surprised us by saying that most of them, so far from
being extemporaneous, had been so deliberately prepared
that his words were selected, and the construction and
order of the sentences adjusted.” '
1
In this connection it is well to notice what Dr. Samuel
Hopkins says of Jonathan Edwards's preaching.
He was wont to read so considerable a part of what he
delivered, yet he was far from thinking this the best way of
preaching in general, and looked upon using his notes so
much as he did a deficiency and infirmity; and in the lat-
ter part of his life he was inclined to think it would have
been better if he had never been accustomed to use his
notes at all. It appeared to him that preaching wholly
without notes, agreeably to the custom in most Protestant
countries, and in what seems evidently to have been the
manner of the apostles and primitive preachers of the
46
1 Foster's " Essay on Robert Hall."
2 Works of Edwards, London ed., p. ccxxxi.
2
CLASSIFICATION OF sermons.
495
gospel, was by far the most natural way, and had the
greatest tendency, on the whole, to answer the end of
preaching; and supposed that no one who had talents
equal to the work of the ministry was incapable of speaking
memoriter, if he took suitable pains for this attainment
in his youth. He would have the young preacher write
all his sermons, or, at least, most of them, out, at large;
and instead of reading them to his hearers, take pains to
commit them to memory; which, though it would require
a great deal of labor at first, yet would soon become
easier by use, and help him to speak more correctly and
freely, and be of great service to him all his days."
Reinhard, before mentioned, early adopted the memo-
riter style. His reasons for it, strongly urged, may be
found in his " Letters on Preaching."
Dr. Hagenbach, in his "Liturgik und Homiletik,"
recommends the memoriter style first of all, the written
next, and the extempore not at all.
Memoriter preaching, sometimes called "reciting,"
and in Scotland "mandating,
mandating," a process which it is said
may be heard going on with great energy in a Scotch
parsonage every Saturday night, was never so much in
favor in America as in Europe.
It has certainly, as has been said, some advantages.
(1.) The sermon is first written out and is
thus apt to be carefully composed.
(2.) It serves to correct the written style,
for one readily discovers in delivering the
sermon away from the manuscript, whatever
is stiff and essayish in it, whatever is not suited to be
spoken, whatever cannot be delivered easily and natu-
rally.
(3.) In the delivery, also, if one can conquer the ap-
prehension of breaking down, he has gained accuracy
t
Advantages
of
memoriter
preaching.
496
HOMILETICS PROPER.
of language and deliberation of thought, and he can
stand erect and look the audience in the face and be
free and unconstrained in action. This is an immense
gain, and this method, which has heretofore seemed alto-
gether the least fitted for the pulpit, has some serious
claims to our regard; and if it could be united with
the extemporaneous method it would seem to be the
ideal of preaching. No one at least should say that he
cannot adopt this style who has never tried, who has
never laid the tax upon his memory.
It is, at all events, a great acquisition to a minister to
have his memory stored with passages of Scripture, and
even if a preacher adopts a written rather than a memo-
riter style, he should be so thoroughly familiar with his
manuscript that it amounts to a memoriter style.
But this method of preaching has immense disadvan-
tages, which, unless well overcome, make
it the least commendable style of all, and
one to be avoided.
(1.) The loss of time in committing a ser-
mon to memory. Few men can commit a
sermon in less than two days, so as to be perfectly free
for unless one speaks without a conscious effort at re-
membering he is of all speakers the most constrained.
(2.) In the monotonous process of the memory the
power and animation of the mind must receive a check.
It is tying down the memory to a set task, and it be-
comes doubly a rote-work, first of writing, then of re-
membering.
Disadvan-
tages of
memoriter
preaching.
(3.) It has the disadvantages of the written method,
without securing the advantages of the extemporaneous
method. It is the written method, though apparently
unwritten; one is confined, though seemingly free; he
is attempting two processes at once-that of remember-
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
497
ing and delivering; and this real want of freedom will
surely make itself manifest, if in no other way, by the
abstracted expression of the eyes, gazing at vacancy, by
which it will be soon discovered that the preacher is
reading from his memory." There is more honesty
and power in openly delivering the sermon from the
manuscript; for the secret being out that one is speaking
from memory, the virtue has departed from the discourse.
Then, as to the sermon itself, by repeating it so many
times the preacher is apt to get tired of it; the fire will
be taken out of it; and, after all, it is quite impossible
to conceal the idea that it has been written, and thus the
air of delivering a thoughtful sermon as if it were com-
posed on the spot will have a shade of insincerity.
But, as I have said, all these objections may vanish
in particular cases; and the example of so many great
preachers deserves our earnest consideration.
Let us now proceed to consider the last method of pul-
pit delivery, for we cannot stop until the ideal of preach-
ing is reached, and the preacher stands forth a free man,
the master of all his resources of mind and body, to speak
his message directly to the soul, as if it were indeed a
word of life" (and all preaching should be living, or
life-creating), just as it is given him to speak, with no
painful thought as to the words; but these are truly
winged words," flying forth as on the breath of the
soul.
**
3. Extempore preaching.
It is sometimes imagined that this method is a new
thing, a discovery of these latter days, and
a great and wonderful reformation of the
Extempore
preaching.
pulpit.
If it be a reform of the pulpit (and we hold it to be so)
498
HOMILETICS PROPER.
it will only be travelling back to the earliest times, to
the apostolic age, and to the way that nature, the free
spirit of man, and the Spirit of God dictate.
Among the classic orators a modified species of im-
provisation was doubtless in vogue. The practice of
writing out the discourse beforehand com-
The ancient menced, it is said, among the Greeks in the
time of Pericles, and was in some degree a
sign of the decadence of Greek eloquence, though De-
mosthenes himself, in a former age, was, as has been
said, not wholly an extempore speaker.
method.
From the Gorgias of Plato it is easy to deduce the
proof that the extemporaneous method was frequently
resorted to. Cicero says:
"Is orator erit, hoc tam gravi nomine dignus qui quae-
cumque res inciderit, quæ sit dictione explicanda, prudenter,
et composite, et ornate, et memoriter dicat, cum quadam
etiam actionis dignitate."'
""
This memorization" here spoken of was evidently the
recalling of ideas instead of words, and described doubt-
less, in general terms, the orator's facility of clothing his
remembered ideas in fit language, in fact the power of
accurate and forceful extemporization. This, as we have
said, was the method of the earliest preachers, and can
there be any doubt that it was the apostolic method?
Did the apostle Paul need to have his manuscript ser-
mon before him when he stretched forth his hand and
said "Men and brethren"?
Dr. Neander, speaking of the first centuries, says :
""
The sermons were sometimes, though rarely, read
from notes; sometimes freely delivered; and sometimes.
they were altogether extemporary.
>>
1 "De Oratore," I. 15.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
499
This statement of Neander's, that in the early ages ser-
mons were sometimes read, has been controverted, and
the evidence against this is pretty strong; but doubtless
there was some preparation in thought and composition;
and in set orations, or occasional sermons, like pane-
gyrics, there was actual writing; yet, notwithstanding
all this, that the earlier patristic preachers were in the
common habit of using written notes, there is no proof
that we have seen.
A writer in Blackwood (February, 1869), generalizing
upon this point says: "The ancient mode of preaching
was, of course, extempore, with what amount of previous
preparation would depend on the powers or habits of the
preacher. The sermons of Origen are the first which are
recorded as having been taken down by short-hand writ-
ers; and it was probably not until a date comparatively
recent that any preacher thought of actually writing out
his sermon at any length beforehand, with the view of
delivering it from memory, as has been the habit of some
of the most successful preachers.
"The practice of reading from a manuscript seems only
to have come in after the Reformation, and even then to
have been a long time exceptional and unpopular.'
It is said that Archbishop Tillotson, after a most con-
clusive failure, declared he never would attempt extem-
poraneous speaking again; and his influence was so great
that he has been sometimes called, as was mentioned,
the originator of reading written sermons.
It is also related that Dr. South broke down on one
occasion at the very opening of an essay at extem-
poraneous preaching, and with the exclamation, “Lord
be merciful to our infirmities," descended rapidly from
the pulpit.
Dr. Chalmers might also be mentioned as another in-
500
HOMILETICS PROPER.
|
stance of failure; but many instances might be adduced,
on the other hand, of preachers who, not succeeding
at first, have in the end become powerful off-hand
speakers.
Shakespeare says he has scen "great clerks”
Shiver and look pale;
Make periods in the midst of sentences;
Throttle their practis'd accents in their fear ;
And in conclusion doubly have broke off.”
•
But the preachers who have produced the most impres
sion in ancient and modern times, especially the great
revival preachers, have, as a general rule, been extempore
speakers; for this method comes nearest to the true idea
of preaching, which is bringing to bear a personal influence
upon men, and is a kind of prophesying in which a sanc-
tified personality, cleansed and prepared by the Holy
Ghost, becomes the direct medium of divine imparta-
tions of truth.
The Holy Spirit more readily speaks through the per-
sonality of him who yields himself at the moment, body
and soul, to be played upon, filled and voiced, by this
higher personality and power of God.
This is the testimony of Dr. Finney, who, whatever his
faults may have been, was confessedly a powerful and
successful revival preacher. He claimed even a pro-
phetic gift, and, however he may have erred on the side
of fanaticism in this, we believe he was a sincere and
holy man.
The idea of inspirational rhetoric was, as we have seen,
a favorite one of Origen's, and of other great preachers
of past ages, who claimed for it a direct and essentially
prophetic character. Whether or not this apostolic in-
spiration be still vouchsafed to the true preacher of
CLASSIFICATIon of sermoNS.
501
Christ, and how far it may accompany his earnest studies
and efforts to interpret the word of God to men, are
open questions; but there can be no question that he who
has acquired the ability of speaking freely as God moves
him, of uttering the thoughts and emotions that sway his
mind with ease and power, is more apt to be God's
effective mouthpiece.
Then there is the regeneration of speech. Then
speech is electric. It is like lightning from the skies.
Then there can be eloquence and something higher-
convicting and converting power.
Not that men have not been converted by written ser-
mons, and that great revivals of religion have not been
forwarded by written sermons; but this has been, so to
speak, in spite of them, and over them, as a torrent rolls
over obstructing obstacles and sweeps all before it.
But extemporaneous preaching, with the uninspired
successors of the apostles, rarely can mean unpremedi-
tated preaching, though often, in respect of the immedi-
ate preparation of the discourse in hand, it does amount
to that.
The great preachers of the Reformation, and since
their day such men as Wesley, Robert Hall, Jonathan
Edwards, who lived in the sphere of divine contempla-
tions, and whose meat and drink it was to think upon the
things of the kingdom of God, were ready to preach at
any time, on any occasion, to any length; for it was but
starting a spring whose sources were exhaustless, open-
ing as they do into the infinite thoughts of God.
Calvin in ten years preached four thousand and thirty-
four sermons, and John Wesley a far greater proportion
than this for fifty years. But it is evident that a great
deal has to be done in the case of ordinary men before
extemporaneous address is possible.
502
HOMILETICS PROPER.
Coquerel lays down three inexorable pre-requisites of
successful extemporaneous preaching.
(1.) That the preacher should have an
Coquerel's
requisites abundant supply of ideas, especially of relig-
of an extem- ious and moral ideas, without which all the
poraneous advantages of facile delivery amount to
preacher.
nothing; for a lack of ideas leads to the bare
repetition of thoughts-to words, words, words.
(2.) There is also needed a rich, intimate, and verbal
knowledge of the Scriptures, and especially of the New
Testament (we venture to say that a full knowledge of
the Old Testament also gives a devotional flavor to the
preacher's imagination that hardly anything else can; it
smells as of Carmel and Lebanon and the gardens of
spices). But a familiarity with, and a facility in repeat-
ing, texts, analogues, proofs, allusions, figures, promises,
threatenings, proverbs, precepts, reasonings, from the
Bible, are of inestimable aid. If the Bible be not a per-
fectly well-known book to the preacher his improvisations
are apt to become mere moral declamations and philo-
sophical platitudes.
(3.) A fluent and idiomatic use of his mother tongue.
Otherwise there will be stiffness and mannerism, hiatuses,
strained and inverted sentences, confused parentheses,
and absolute blunders in the construction of sentences,
which will take away one of the great charms and powers of
extemporaneous speech-its easy, natural flow. It is not
so difficult to commence a sentence, but the difficulty is
to end it. Unless with prompt and practised speakers,
the decisive word, the key-word of the sentence, which
binds it together, is wanting, and the sentence is naught
but a jumbled ineffective mass.
We might be allowed to add to these three admirable
pre-requisites—
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
503
(4.) A disciplined power of thought, that is able to look
a subject through to the end.
While extemporization is, in one sense, the easiest, be-
cause inspirational, method of speaking, yet in fact it is
the most difficult; it is the ideal, and therefore hardest
to reach; and to extemporize successfully before one has
anything to say, and knows how to say it, is not to be
thought of. There must be methodized thought before
there can be forcible speech.
Thinking, the trained power to think clearly and
steadily, keeping the main idea in view as the Olympic
racer keeps the goal in sight, this is the golden secret
of extemporaneous address. A philosophically trained
mind is, intellectually considered, the deepest source of
successful extemporization that does not lose itself in a
sea of words. Quintilian, in that very striking passage
already quoted, says:
<<
Extemporalis oratio nec alio mihi videtur mentis vigore
constare.
In regard to the actual amount of preparation needed
for the act of extemporaneous preaching, McIlvaine,
in his able work on elocution (p. 119) re-
marks: "The extent or thoroughness of the
preparation required for extempore speak-
ing is greater or less, according as the mind
of the speaker acts with more or less precision and
rapidity. Too minute preparation resolves extempore
into memoriter preaching, and instead of relieving
the mind from the burden of sub-processes, only ex-
changes one class of them for another. The principle
which will enable each one to decide this point for him-
self, turns upon the question how far he can relieve
himself from the labors of invention and style, without
loading his memory. As a general rule, however, the
Amount
of preparation
needed.
504
HOMILETICS PROPER.
speaker, whenever it is possible, ought to prepare before-
hand, either mentally or with the aid of the pen, a com-
plete analysis of his discourse, including the distinct
statement of the proposition, the arrangement by co-
ordination of the general heads, and by subordination of
the secondary topics, together with a general statement
of the thought contained in each paragraph.
"Such an analysis, which rhetoric teaches us to prepare,
may either be carried in the memory without loading it,
or it may be committed to paper and referred to when
speaking without serious disadvantage. With a fine
memory the former method is to be preferred; with a
poor memory the latter."
The process of learning to extemporize will naturally
differ with different characters of mind. Some men, we
believe most men, will succeed better by writing a great
deal. They must use written and memoriter crutches
perhaps for a long time until they can fling them away.
This is Zincke's famous method. He says:
"Nor will the practice of extempore speaking deprive
a man of the advantage of attaining to that
accuracy which is a result of written composi-
tion. I am addressing myself to those who
have energy enough to persevere for some years, or for
whatever time may be required, in the practice of care-
fully compiling their sermons during the week, and then
preaching them extemporarily on Sunday. The time
will come when full notes, containing only the more im-
portant parts in extenso, will be sufficient, and at last
nothing more in most cases be needed than such a sketch
as may be written on one side of half a sheet of note
paper, the rest of the study being carried on mentally, or
without the aid of writing. I suppose that for several
years more or less of writing will be necessary, because
Zincke's
method.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
505
that alone will demonstrate to the preacher that he has
mastered the subject, and properly arranged his mate-
rials, and so will enable his mind to rest on the fact that
it has already produced what it now has only to produce
in the pulpit.
"And I can imagine persons preferring to the last to
write very full abstracts of what they intend to say, and
doing this from a religious regard for their work. A ser-
mon, such persons will feel, is too important a work, too
much depends upon it, to justify the preacher in leaving
anything to the chances of the moment. This must be
done to some extent in a debate, and it may be done
generally in secular oratory, when the main object is to
please; but it is irreverent and unwise to trust in this
way to the moment for the matter or arrangement of a
sermon. It will, therefore, I think, be better that the
preacher, however practised, should never wholly lay
aside the pen.
Notwithstanding the wisdom of these counsels of
Zincke, we are convinced that some men-perhaps they
are exceptions-do better by bold effort, forcing them-
selves at once to hardy thinking and free expression, and
by daring winning. If they stand shivering on the brink
in their half-resolve and caution, betokened by their con-
tinually keeping up the writing process, they will never
plunge in and succeed as swimmers. These bolder men,
if they succeed, will make the best extempore preachers,
because they trust themselves and lay their power of
speaking in thinking, in the energy of the mind rather
than in rhetoric or the outward expression. But all
would agree, who know anything about the subject, or
have any personal experience in regard to it, that there
1
"The Duty and Discipline of Extemporary Preaching," p. 33.
506
HOMILETICS PROPER.
must be a severe preparation, that there must be in-
tensely hard study, planning, even composition of the
discourse-it may be wholly mental-before coming up
to the act of speaking.
Thought and method, like a strong engine and snow-
plough, should clear the track for the train to go
smoothly and swiftly over.
<<
Dr. Richard S. Storrs, in his lectures on this subject,
gives essentially the same advice.
He says:
It is indispensable, therefore, that the
main plan of the sermon be from the start
so plainly in view that it comes up of itself,
as it is needed, and does not require
to be pulled into sight at any effort. To this end,
it must be simple, obvious, natural, so that it fixes
itself in the mind; it must be clearly articulated in
its parts. If possible, let it be so arranged that one
point naturally leads to another, and, when the treat-
ment of it is finished leaves you in front of that which
comes next. Then take up that and treat it in its order,
until through that treatment you reach the third, and find
it inevitable to proceed to consider that. By such a pro-
gressive arrangement of thought you are yourself carried
forward; your faculties have continual liberty; you are
not forced to pause in the work of addressing yourself
directly to the people. There must be connection as
well as succession, in the thoughts which one would ex-
press without notes; and the more fully and deeply the
plan of the discourse is imbedded in the mind, and made
self-suggestive, the more elastic and buoyant is the tread
of the mind in all the discussion. If needful to this re-
sult, I would write the plan of the sermon over twenty
times before preaching it; not copying, merely, from
one piece of paper upon another, but writing it out, care-
Storrs
on extempore
preaching.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS
507
fully and fully each time independently, till I perfectly
knew it till it was fixed absolutely in the mind."'
;
The late Rev. Henry Ware, of Cambridge, Mass, author
of a most valuable essay upon Extemporaneous Preach-
ing, though a peculiarly retiring and mod-
est man, was really the pioneer of this great
reformation in pulpit delivery in this coun-
try, which reform has been so exceedingly
slow in its progress that it seems even now to halt as if
uncertain of future success.
Henry Ware
on extempore
preaching.
In the biography of Mr. Ware the difficulties he en-
countered in taking this bold step are graphically told.
He was not naturally fluent and was constitutionally diffi-
dent. His first attempts were in his weekly prayer-meet-
ings, and perhaps but one to six or seven of his sermons
followed this method; and he put so much labor into
these efforts that his regular extempore sermons gained
for him very little time or study. But when his eyesight
became impaired he realized the benefit of this method,
and his extempore speaking was distinguished for its
simplicity, gravity, and impressiveness. He says in a
letter to his brother:
"Don't give up the ship for one unfortunate fire.
Why, I have suffered more than Indian torture fifty
times; but then I had Indian perseverance, and it is
only by not flinching that we can gain the end at last.
You must expect, as a matter of course, sometimes to do
ill. The state of the mind, of the health, of the digestive
organs, all these unaccountably affect the intellectual
powers. And then, sometimes, you will make too much
preparation, that is, trying to arrange the words; and
sometimes make too little, that is by arranging no,
1 "Conditions of Success in Preaching without Notes," p. 109.
508
HOMILETICS PROPER.
thoughts; and in either case you will flounder.
after beginning it were wicked to be disheartened."
But before we proceed further in a more practical
direction let us ask, What is extemporaneous preaching?
Extempore preaching, according to Co-
querel's definition, has been described to be
that "in which the speaker knows what he
has to say, but does not know how he is to
say it." ("La véritable improvisation consiste en deux
traits inséparables: l'oratcur sait ce qu'il va dire et ne sait
pas comment il le dira.')
Its chief force and inspiration are in the thought, the
idea, the substance of the matter, not in the words. It
is in fact trusting to the moment of speaking for the
form of words in which the thought is expressed. That
is all, though that is a great thing.
Extempore preaching, as has been said, is not im-
provident or unpremeditated preaching. If extempore
preaching be made to refer to unpremeditated thought
as well as language, we would have none of it.
Thus purely extemporaneous speaking is almost out of
the question except as regards brief expressions of opin-
ion and feeling which occur spontaneously in the excita-
tion of the mind upon a particular theme, and do some-
times in a written as well as an extemporaneous dis-
course.
What is
extempore
preaching?
But
Schleiermacher, although he preached extemporane-
ously, gave this counsel (and these words have been already
quoted) to preachers: "Before going into the pulpit,
the sermon as a whole, that is, the separate thoughts in
their relation to all the members, and to the whole,
should be clearly in the mind.""
¹ Hagenbach's "Homiletics," p. 137.
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
509
The argument sometimes used for not making a faith-
ful preparation for preaching, that God will now, as in
apostolic times, put into the mouth of preachers the
words they shall utter, borders, at least, upon presump-
tion, and may lead to fanaticism. It is also a false view
of Scripture, and is sometimes made an excuse for indo-
lence and hypocrisy.
There is an inspiration which at favored moments
comes upon true preachers, in which they do become the
mouthpieces of God's Spirit; but this is a different thing
from the venturesome assumption that God will inspire
one at the moment of utterance with just what he
should say.
S
Bautain's definition of extempore speaking is this:
Extemporization consists in speaking on the first im-
pulse; that is to say, without preliminary
arrangement of phrases. It is the instan-
taneous manifestation, the expression, of an
actual thought, or the sudden explosion of a feeling or
mental movement. It is very evident that extemporiza-
tion can act only on the form of words.
Now let us set forth briefly, in encouragement of this
method, rightly understood, a few of the advantages be-
longing to this mode of pulpit delivery, some of which, it
is true, are obvious and familiar, though for that reason
none the less important.
(1.) It stimulates the preacher. It wakes him up. It
makes him a quick thinker. It makes him master of his
mental powers. It goads him by the pres- Advantages of
ence and sympathy of an expectant audience. extempora-
It often originates entirely new thoughts,
neous
speaking.
of living power, that could not have come
into the mind in the calm silence of the study
1" Art of Extemporaneous Speaking,” p. 3.
Bautain's
definition.
4
510
HOMILETICS PROPER.
We quote here a few words from a letter of Rev.
Henry Ware, Jr., whose little work on "Extemporane-
ous Preaching" has been commended. He was meditat-
ing the change in his own method of preaching, and
writes to his father concerning a distinguished English
preacher named Spencer. He says:
"Much, too, of his animation and effect must be attrib-
uted to his extempore speaking, which gives a liveli-
ness, an energy, and a glow to eloquence that is not other-
wise attained. I have already begun to consider seri-
ously whether I shall not attempt learning the art. I do
not mean for constant practice; but some subjects may
be better treated by extemporaneous discourse than by
written, and much of the illustration and exhortation of
every sermon might be left for the management of the
moment. It is unquestionable there is a life, a soul,
as it were, transfused into unpremeditated expressions,
which appeals with far greater force to the sympathy of
hearers than anything which can be written. There is a
je ne sais quoi in the countenance, the tone of the voice,
the gesture, which goes directly to the heart, and which
you in vain try to give to a written production.
"Animated declamation, even if it be rather flat sense,
will be more effectual than the most elaborate composi-
tion read in the usual way.
"Dugald Stewart, in his Essays,' intimates, you may
remember, that the art may be acquired by any one;
and, if I could obtain it, what a saving of time there
would be.'''
(2.) It breaks up a stiff, artificial style.
Gossner, quoted by Hagenbach, said: "He who is a
true preacher is not obliged first to meditate and conceive
1 44 Life of Henry Ware Jr.," by his brother, John Ware, M.D., p. 72.
CLASSIFICATION OF sermonS
511
at a writing-desk what he has to say, but with trustful
courage to mount the pulpit and speak, even as, on the
day of Pentecost, fiery tongues, not writing pens, fell
from heaven on the apostles." In extempore speaking,
the preacher learns to go at once to the heart of things,
and to express himself in a direct manner. He thus ac-
quires a manly straightforwardness. The elaborate beau-
ties and fastidious elegances of a highly rhetorical style
are inconsistent with extempore speaking. Extempore
speaking tends also to the concrete rather than the
abstract; to vivid manifestation and illustration of
thought, rather than technical reasoning. It is less
philosophical, but has more of flesh and blood in it; it
makes the hearer thrill with something that is taken from
the hour in which he lives, the thought his heart is busy
with, and the work his hands are glowing with.
(3.) It is adapted to produce immediate effect. It en-
ables the speaker thus to feel the pulse of an audience, to
meet its exact wants, and to judge of its state by those
fine and delicate signs which a skillful extemporaneous
preacher learns to detect. It gives the impression that
one is really talking to the audience before him, and to
no other.
Hence extemporaneous preaching is peculiarly
adapted to times of revival; and it is a strong argument
in its favor, that it does unconsciously take the place of
other methods in times of real urgency.
(4.) It has more of outward and inward freedom.
It enables one to stand erect and look the audience in
the face. The hearer naturally seeks the eye of the
speaker, but if that is upon his notes, and there is no
response, a dulling, deadening effect is produced. The
eye has wonderful influence; and the extempore method
gives play to the eye, the arm, the finger, the whole
body, and also to the subtler motions of the soul; so that
512
HOMILETICS PROPER.
the whole man becomes an instrument for God's Spirit to
speak through.
Thus extemporaneous preaching is really the most
philosophical method, and comes nearest to the ideal of
preaching, which is the bringing to bear a personal in-
fluence upon hearers.
Perhaps the highest conceivable efficiency of the orator
and of the preacher has been brought out in extemporane-
ous speech. Though every speaker is not capable of elo-
quence, every true preacher has probably done his best at
a moment when he was free, when the pressure was on
him, when he must speak or die, and when to his own
apprehension, it may be, he was making the most entire
and conclusive failure. But the people at once see the
difference between what is free and what is artificial-be-
tween sincerity and false confidence. Once let it be
understood that the strait-jacket has been thrown off,
that the soul acts unrestrainedly, and the congregation
feels it and rejoices in it.
""
In this method, the preacher is able to use whatever
thought occurs to him at the moment.
He is not pre-
vented by fears that it will spoil the unity of his sermon.
Locke says,
Thoughts are best which drop into the
mind." With all previous preparation, room, neverthe-
less, should be left in extemporaneous speaking for purely
new thoughts-thoughts which literally occur at the
moment. Sometimes one may change the whole current
of his discourse, and dwell upon a thought as the main
thought, which he intended to make only a side thought,
or, perhaps, not to introduce at all; and this is the ideal
of extemporaneous preaching: not often reached, it is
true, but sometimes reached when the speaker is inspired
with perfect freedom of utterance.
Then too, oftentimes, in speaking new exigencies arise,
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
513
sudden needs present themselves, individual cases sug-
gested by the countenances before him come up to the
preacher, that he should be able to meet at the moment,
and if he is not hampered with a written discourse, he is
better able to do this. The people feel that he is preach-
ing to them, not to an imaginary audience, or as one who
is beating the air.
(5.) It enables one to use a more conversational and
sympathetic style, both of thought and delivery.
This, perhaps, is the greatest advantage of the extem-
poraneous method, that it serves to abolish a strained
style, which supposes certain circumstances, and certain
characters, and certain antagonisms, and certain wants
that do not exist in an audience-in which style one may
write, but cannot talk-and tends to make preaching
more like ordinary conversation, without at the same time
losing its dignity.
(4
Human nature runs to extremes. Some ministers
offend our taste and shock our sensibilities in a mistaken
effort to be all things to all men. A reverent remem-
brance of the Master whom they serve, should save
them from real or affected coarseness, levity, egotism,
and effrontery. A minister may stoop too low as well as
stand too high above the people. The old high pulpits
are taken away, and the low reading-desks are put in
their places, and that is well. But if the preacher does
not stand high enough for the people to look up a little,
and for him to have a clear, broad outlook at them, both
they and he lose something.
It is true that ministers may aim too high, and all
their sermons go over the heads of the people; but there
is one type of sermonizing current to-day that aims too
low. In breaking away from the old professional formali-
ties and pulpit conventionalities, and cultivating a natural,
514
HOMILETICS PROPER.
direct talking to the people, something of the real dignity
and nobility of religious truth is sacrificed. A preacher
should be sure to hit his hearers. The truth should go
straight from his heart into theirs. He should study and
practice all methods of attack, that there be no armor
proof against his weapons. But this can be done by lifting
them up to his level, as well as by stooping down to
theirs. A skillful general decoys the enemy from their
low retreats that he may meet them on good vantage
ground. Truth need not borrow the livery of any strange
master; it need not clothe itself in garments that have
been draggled in the mire. Its own robes will fit any
form of humanity. The best a man has in him, used in
the best way, is never too good for God's work, though
his particular part of that work may seem humble and
insignificant.
'Then let God's ambassadors meet men through the
best there is in them. Let the minister make men feel
that he too is a man with comprehension and sympathy
for whatever enters into humanity, but let him choose
wisely and purely his points of contact, never forgetting
that he is preaching God's truth."
Let a man talk to his audience, and if he do it sensibly
and earnestly, with sufficient care not to be low in lan-
guage, every one will listen; just as everybody will listen
to any one who converses well. The moment a preacher
ceases declaiming, and begins talking, every one wakes.
up. That is the power of many of our greatest living
orators, both clerical and secular. These men do not talk
spasmodic nonsense, but their "forte" lies in uttering
fresh and substantial thought in the natural language of
ordinary and earnest conversation among men ; they talk
to an audience as one clever man talks to another; they
gradually bring an audience into their own way of think-
""
CLASSIFICATION of sermons.
515
ing by thus stooping to conquer. This style, when kept
free from familiarity or lowness, is the perfection of
close, affectionate, reasonable, interesting, and effective
preaching.
We remember an extemporaneous sermon preached by
the French Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec. His dis-
course was, for the most part, in its substance and doc-
trine, sheer Mariolatry; yet the immense assembly hung
entranced on his words, as he stood, simply erect, with-
out gesture, his hands laid passively on the cushion before
him, while he talked in a natural tone, in plain but beau-
tifully-flowing periods, and without hesitation.
It was like listening to a strain of pleasing music, with
nothing highly wrought, but bearing the minds of the
hearers steadily upon its even, calm, and rapid flow. It
was not eloquence, but it was nevertheless potent to hold
a great multitude in wrapt attention, and by its simple
charm of natural, unaffected, fluent speech, to command
and sway men's minds.
If, therefore, extemporaneous speaking of the true kind
has in it more of nature, more of animation, more of liv-
ing appeal to the heart and eye, voice and gesture, than
any other method; if it tends to put preachers en rap-
port with their congregations, we would say, Let every
preacher who can do so begin at once to practise it, even
if it cost him a complete revolution of his mental habits.
Better live in a cave six months until he has become
master of his own faculties of mind and body, than to
be a dead preacher, who cannot, with all Practical
his writing, reasoning, and preaching, reach
hints for ex-
an audience or a soul.
temporaneous
preaching.
Let us now give a few practical hints for
extemporaneous speaking, at the risk again of some
repetition.
}
516
HOMILETICS PROPER.
1
(a.) Train yourself to think without writing. This
power of mental abstraction, or what Dr. Brown calls
"the imperial presence of mind," is the source of ex-
tempore speaking, which has its spring in the thinking
faculty. Mental discipline tells on the power of extem-
poraneous speech. One should have some logical and
theological training before he can speak clearly on divine
themes; for "that which is well conceived is clearly
enunciated," says Bautain. The real ability for extem-
poraneous speaking comes from having clear ideas, not
merely from having the faculty of language. It comes
from thinking. Its rationale is vigor of mind disciplined
by culture. As we have said, it did not probably require
much preparation for Luther, nor, in more modern times,
Robert Hall and John Wesley, to preach on any subject
connected with divine truth; and so it may be with any
man who is a working and growing theologian, and who
has cultivated a homiletical habit of mind. Such a man's
actual preparation for speaking may be brief.
But one,
unless he have extraordinary talent for this method of
speaking, when beginning to preach extemporaneously,
should make careful and particular preparation for it.
(b.) Think through the subject beforehand.
Everything in extemporaneous speaking depends on a
complete mastery of the subject. The great difficulty
with extemporaneous preaching is that it may run into
something superficial. Here is its danger; so long as
that is avoided it is safe. If one does not give as much
study to this method of preaching as to any other, or
even more, he will not succeed in it. The foundations of
the sermon should be laid firm and deep. There should
be no indefiniteness or obscureness here. Never trust to
the inspiration of the moment for the solid parts of the
discourse, the main ideas, the arguments, the proofs, the
CLASSIFICATion of sermONS
517
conclusions.
See
These should be thoroughly settled.
the whole discourse clear through to the end like sunlight
on a road.
It is a fatal mistake to suppose that extempore preach-
ing will succeed without such previous study; here is the
mistake that has lain at the root of failure. Bautain
makes a great deal of what he calls the "main idea ;"
there must be this main idea in every living discourse, and
this should be firmly fixed in the speaker's mind.
How-
ever he may be moved by passionate thoughts, however
freely he may speak, whatever digressions he may make,
whatever new thoughts or illustrations come into his
mind, let him not lose sight of the end he has in view,
and this will remain master of his mind, of his subject,
and of his hearers. This will even form its own plan, and
every detail will group itself naturally about this princi-
pal idea. This sustains all, and must never for a moment
be lost sight of. "Nothing," says Bautain," is so fatal
to extemporization as this wretched facility of the mind
for losing itself in details, and neglecting the main point..
One should also avoid the common error, in extem-
poraneous speaking, of talking a great deal about unes-
sentials; of introducing long and stereotyped phrases of
parliamentary or argumentative persiflage as to what he
intends to prove or say.
(c.) Prepare beforehand, either mentally or on paper,
the actual wording of your main proposition and the
principal divisions, and perhaps of some of the most im-
portant passages.
The actual composition of the discourse, to use this
word in its largest sense, should indeed be complete in
all its parts, before it is preached. It is the height of
foolish audacity for one to go into the pulpit with no
definite preparation of the sermon, with a text unstudied,
>>
518
HOMILETICS PROPER.
with no clear plan, with confused ideas, and with a few
hurried notes, perhaps, trusting to the moment to
clear up difficulties and make all plain and forcible. The
price of good extemporaneous preaching is good prepara-
tion. It may be recommended, indeed, to some beginners
to combine the two methods of the written and extem-
poraneous sermon; i.c., to write a good portion of the
sermon—the body of the sermon-and trust the rest to
the utterance of the moment. The illustrations, for ex-
ample, may be given extemporaneously, and will gain
decidedly in freedom, vividness, and life. But perhaps
it is best at first to write out the sermon altogether, and
then if you choose destroy it. That will have aroused
and clarified the mind; the subject will have become a
familiar road for the mind to travel; by and by one can
diminish or give up altogether the written preparation.
The German preachers pursue this method of previously
writing their sermons, and then preaching them without
the manuscript. The Welsh do it also, and they are re-
markable preachers. This, we have seen, is F. B. Zincke's
famous method of making an extempore preacher.
Into the pulpit itself, Dr. J. W. Alexander advises,
carry not a scrap of paper. But if a little schedule would
give more confidence at first, take it." We should say,
quite decidedly, take into the pulpit a written sermon,
or nothing.
*6
One can learn to swim only in the water. Bautain is
strongly opposed to making use of any notes in extem-
poraneous speaking; he does not even think that the
advice of Cicero should be regarded. Dr. McIlvaine says:
"Use no notes." Confidence in speaking comes from
trust in one's own mental resources. We are well con-
vinced that when one has acquired a tolerable ease in ex-
pressing himself, that to have clear thoughts is of more
W
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
519
1*
1
importance than anything else; and if one have the whole
sermon orderly arranged from beginning to end, leaving
no gap, something more than a mere skeleton, a well-
knit continuous frame-work, if he have the ideas thus well
arranged and woven together, the words will take care of
themselves.
But many have not this power of ready expression, and
it is necessary for such to make some written preparation,
or, at all events, some mental composition of the more
important portions of the discourse. The old motto ap-
plies to it, rise up early, and late take rest, and eat the
bread of carefulness." It ought to be the best kind of
preaching, because its principle is thought, not words.
(d.) Cultivate the faculty of expression.
We have
already spoken of this.
<<
'For you must not," says Bautain, grope for your
words while speaking, under the penalty of braying like
a donkey, which is the death of a discourse.'
<<
??
Not only the power of thinking, but the power of utter-
ing, is to be cultivated; and to have this power-never
to be at a loss for the fit word-this itself is a noble
accomplishment. The faculty of expression is a part of
clerical education that has been too much neglected.
Pitt used to translate aloud, in a running method, from
foreign languages, being critical in the choice of his
words; Cicero's method was to read an author, and then
repeat the author's thoughts in his own words. The
principle of association is a great law of facile expression;
for one may accustom himself to remember what he has
to say even by a word in each proposition or division-
by some word naturally suggested from the text itself;
but it is better to remember by the association of ideas
than of words. This clue, or thread of ideas, the extem-
poraneous speaker should never lose or he is lost. The
520
HOMILETICS PROPER.
tcxt itself, faithfully kept in mind, and frequently re-
curred to, is the best and most natural clue. There is,
perhaps no better way of cultivating the power of expres-
sion, than by cultivating the habit of conversing with
facility, accuracy, and correctness. Let no one allow
himself to converse loosely, vaguely, or incoherently-
avoiding both undue precision and undue laxness. Yet
there is a certain mere facility of expression, or fluency,
which may become a dangerous gift to a speaker. It
serves him in the place of thought, and it will be soon
discovered to his injury. It also tends to destroy his
power, by giving him an appearance of arrogance, or a
dictatorial manner. More of humility, and hesitancy of
speech, is sometimes effective in a young speaker. What
have been called "fluent, complacent, mechanical utter-
ances" are not enough for the pulpit.
(e.) Make a beginning at once.
Stand not shivering
on the brink. Eloquent speaking is gained by always
working and striving for the power of free and forceful
utterance, and by giving one's whole attention to it-by
coming up to it again and again, even if one fails at first.
It is doing it, and not preparing to do it. Robert Hall,
at an earlier day, as well as some distinguished extem-
poraneous preachers of the present day, made, it is said,
miserable failures at first in attempting extemporaneous
addresses.
(f.) Do not choose too easy or familiar subjects. This
is a common error. The mind should be interested in
the development of some new and specific truth, in
which it may be thoroughly roused and tasked.
Yet once more before leaving this subject would we
emphasize the truth that in order to become a good ex-
temporaneous speaker one must put more study and labor
into an extemporaneous discourse, than he would into a
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
521
written one.
When men are willing to do this then they
may talk about extemporaneous speaking. The failure
arises in making this method an excuse for not studying,
in making it too easy, in not making sufficient prepara-
tion. Better far the written sermon than the incoherent
off-hand address, without good work in it.
(g.) Look beyond and above the opinion of men upon
your preaching.
To speak extemporaneously one must have courage,
faith, enthusiasm.
Let one think more of his duty than of his reputation.
If one has this spirit, he will not be disheartened at a
blunder, nor even if he now and then breaks down. A
little incorrectness of language, or halting hesitation, in
extempore speaking, is of small importance, and will not
be censured by the audience so much as the speaker im-
agines-especially if they see he is in earnest. A modern
writer well says of a young speaker, "Sometimes a
momentary pause-a hesitation to collect the thought
and utter the right word-is a becoming act of deference
to an intelligent audience." One who has " a mission to
teach" is apt to forget that "reserve is an element of
strength." It is better not to be always finished and
polished. A rough, ragged, imperfectly expressed re-
mark, boldly thrown out and left, is sometimes more
suggestive to the hearer's mind than the most elaborate
paragraph. One should not go back to improve a sen-
tence in extemporaneous speaking. Let him press on
boldly to the end, no matter how he comes out.
But as the undue fear of man vanishes, so much of the
imaginary difficulty of extempore speaking vanishes. If
a great part of extemporaneous speaking consists in pre-
serving one's presence of mind, what will better enable
one to do this than to look beyond man to God?
522
HOMILETICS PROPER.
(h.) Cultivate oratorical delivery. Here elocution is of
great importance. The written sermon depends much
for its interest upon its carefully condensed thought; but
the extempore speaker must have everything in himself:
he must have the charms of good delivery, the trained
voice, the natural gesture, and the dignified and expres-
sive attitude. He needs all the helps that can be given
by the eye, the hand, the "eloquence of the body;" for
it is with him good delivery or nothing. He should
acquire a clear, distinct articulation, rising and falling
naturally with the thought; varied and yet even; neat
and yet capable of feeling, and of vehement, rending
force; and, above all, free from tones of earthly passion,
and breathing pure, holy, spiritual emotions.
There is a great tendency in extemporaneous speaking
to run into a hurried method of delivery. The speaker
should retain his calmness. He should take a respiration
of the right length to speak the whole sentence with ease
and effect. He should not get into a run, so to speak,
and hurry his throat beyond its powers.
""
Cicero says:
Longissima est complexio verborum, quae
volvi uno spiritu potest." "The longest phrase is that which
one is able to pronounce with one act of respiration.'
>>
It is a great thing to keep cool, to preserve a mastery.
of all one's resources. Therefore it is better to speak
slowly at first, and be careful to frame every sentence
carefully and grammatically, and to finish it neatly in all
its parts. By and by, as the mind gets roused and active,
it can frame sentences more rapidly, without conscious
effort. The preacher may be his own master of delivery
and elocution-teacher. It is thought, chiefly, that does
this. It is said that Macready studied the play of
Hamlet" seven years before he felt himself equal to act
it. Every sentence, every syllable, had received thought,
<<
CLASSIFICATION of sermons.
523
so that he was able to bring out its full meaning in de-
livery, to give it its effective emphasis, to be the vehicle
of the spirit's winged words.
We conclude this special topic of the classification of
sermons according to their delivery, and indeed the whole
theme of Homiletics proper, with three practical sug-
gestions, as summing up the results that we have been
able to arrive at on this important subject of the method
of preaching.
I. Let the preacher who earnestly desires to be effective
in the pulpit, but to whom has been denied the extem-
poraneous gift, make a brave attempt to se-
cure and combine the advantages of the
three methods that have been mentioned,
since, as has been seen, there is good in them all. Let
him write out his sermon carefully and fully. Let him
commit it to memory, or, at least, make himself perfectly
familiar with it; and then let him preach it as a free dis-
course, without a scrap of writing before him, and with-
out great care to adhere strictly to the preconceived or
precomposed language. This, if we mistake not, is
essentially the method of the Rev. Dr. John Hall, the
eminent Presbyterian minister of New York.
Final
suggestions.
If one will only take the pains, the unwearied pains, to
follow out this plan, or something like it, he can secure
the benefits of the written method with its thoughtful
composition and precision of style; of the memoriter
method with its ease and sense of confidence which it
brings; and of the extemporaneous method with its
freshness, naturalness, vivida vis animi, and freedom of
attitude and spirit. This is doing in the way of prepara-
tion all that one, humanly speaking, can do. It is the
employment of all his powers, the very utmost of his
effort and care.
524
HOMILETICS PROPER.
2. Let one who is learning to preach and who finds
himself tempted to facile methods of preparation, for a
time at least, and it may be, to the end of his life, mingle
the two styles, viz., that of preaching from written notes.
and that of preaching extemporaneously. Let him speak
half of the day in one and the other half in the other
method. This is strongly recommended by the Rev.
Dr. Shedd.'
In this way the valuable exercise of the pen will not
be lost. The clear arrangement, the accuracy of style,
the literary and artistic elaboration in the shading of
thought, and the elegant finish and brevity which the
constant use of the pen is fitted to secure, will be main-
tained, while at the same time the extemporaneous
method will be restrained from its extreme and loose ten-
dencies, and will gain also real strength. This is the
method which, we sincerely believe, most preachers could,
with the best success, follow.
3. Let him who is strong enough, and has the apostolic
faith (for preaching is faith) dare to make use of a more
excellent way. We speak especially to young preachers.
The all-absorbing desire to save men's souls, the working,
and thinking, and living for that purpose, being taken for
granted, let the young preacher cut loose entirely from
the trammels of writing. Let him dwell in communion
with the Spirit of truth. Let him train himself and trust
to hardy thinking. Let him forget himself. Let him
purify himself to become the true exponent of God, not
aiming to be eloquent, but to speak only what God gives
him to speak, what is simple, what is the exact fact, what
is the real verity respecting God, nature, the soul, the
law of God, Christ and his cross, repentance, faith, the
1 "Homiletics and Pastoral Theology," p. 242.
1
CLASSIFICATION OF SERMONS.
525
experience of the heart, its real trial, anguish, doubt, sin,
fear, hope, joy, love; in a word, living truth, and the plain,
earnest thought and feeling which correlate this truth,
and which the Holy Ghost teaches, and thus by despis-
ing eloquence, by not meaning to be eloquent, to be elo-
quent.
Let him rise above the fear of man and yield
himself boldly and wholly into the hands of God to guide,
to teach, to inspire, to use. Let him abjure the slavery
of the writing-desk, though not the severe labor of study,
and, having given all his powers to the interpretation of
the word, and having his mind filled with the truth and
his heart with the love of his flock, let the preacher stand
up in his simple manhood on a level with those he ad-
dresses, and speak like a prophet, like a messenger of the
love of God in Jesus Christ to men.
Should this become the method of preaching for the
next hundred years of our American Christianity, as it
was of the apostles and earliest preachers of the faith,
then will a great light spring up, and it will be recorded
in this New World what was written aforetime in old
Judæa: "So mightily grew the Word of God and pre-
vailed.'' '
"We soon learn to speak what we love; the heart supplies us much
better than the memory, and has also a language which the memory
does not know. A holy pastor, moved by God, and by regard for the
salvation of souls which are confided to him, finds, in the liveliness of his
zeal, and the fulness of his heart, expressions having the impress of the
Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love and of light, a thousand times more power-
ful to move, to reclaim sinners, than all those which are furnished by
labor and the vain artifice of human eloquence. The talent of an orator
is not what is required; it is the talent of a father; and what other talent
does a father need in speaking to his children but affection for them,
and a desire for their welfare." Massillon: "Dix-Septieme Discours
Synodal."
PART SECOND.
RHETORIC APPLIED TO
PREACHING.
FIRST DIVISION.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
SEC. 22. Definition of Rhetoric.
Rhetoric was formerly an absorbing study in schools of
learning when they were more truly theological schools
than they are at present, and in ancient times it com-
prised the full half of education; and since knowledge of
rhetoric implies an acquaintance with logic, metaphysics,
and the science of language, Milton assigned to it the
last, and, as it were, crowning place in a system of educa-
tion; but we are now specially to discuss some of the
uses of rhetoric as applied to preaching-its advantages
in enabling the preacher to master and methodize truth,
so as to present it with the most power to the minds of
men, that they may more readily grasp it, and that it
may, by God's blessing, produce immediate and lasting
results.
As it is needful, for this purpose, that the preacher
should make use of his natural powers; as he must call
into exercise his reason and persuasive faculties; as he
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
527
must avail himself of the laws of mental science and the
capacities of human speech, just as he does in conveying
any natural truth to the mind-it thus becomes essential
for him to understand those universal principles of per-
suasion, and those laws of thoughtful discourse, which
form in themselves an important subject of inquiry, and
mark a definite science.
The word "rhetoric" is derived from pntop, a speaker,
or orator (from stem pɛ, to speak, seen in the fut. έpo, I
will speak). This primary meaning of the
word should not be lost sight of in consid-
ering the true scope and functions of the
art of rhetoric; for it shows that the term was origi-
nally exclusively applied to the art of public speaking, or
to a spoken discourse.
Derivation
of the word.
Before endeavoring particularly to define what true
rhetoric is, let us notice some of the leading ideas which
have prevailed concerning it.
(1.) Ancient ideas of rhetoric. These are represented
principally by Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle
confined rhetoric almost entirely to the art
of public speaking. In accordance with the
genius of the free Greek state, where every
citizen was an independent thinking and governing
power, and the state was chiefly composed of the
voting citizens who resided in the city, and could thus
be reached and swayed by the public orator, the popu-
lar deliberative assembly, in which the civil leader or
counsellor could come
come directly in contact with the
popular mind, was the great field for the practice of
the rhetorical art. This art formed one of the chief
means of obtaining mastery over men-of the science of
politics. It therefore became associated with the arts,
managements, and sophistries of political leaders, and
Ancient ideas
of rhetoric.
Aristotle.
528
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
*
began to be looked upon with suspicion, as meaning
something in itself artful, or artificial.
"C
Aristotle, although he gave rhetoric a place in ethical
science, and discusses under this term the nature of the
moral sensibilities and passions, still, in the main, he re-
garded it in the light of purely instrumental art; he
looked upon it as a means of mastery; as a means to an
end. If he regarded virtue and truth as true rhetorical
forces, yet he considered them as secondary or incidental
elements in the dynamics of rhetoric. Rhetoric, with him,
was the art of proving. It was nearly identical with
logic, or reasoning. Whatever would enable one to carry
his point, to gain the victory, came under the faculty of
"Pητopiиń." The end of rhetoric, with Aristotle, was
persuasion. He called it "a faculty of considering all
the possible means of persuasion on every subject. It
was thus, in his idea, a kind of offshoot of dialectics and
politics. It was the wrestling of mind with mind; the
skillful and strenuous assault upon minds, with every
means of argument and persuasion to subdue them. It
was the art of making men believe as we would wish
them to believe, and do as we would wish them to do.
Every one might come, good or bad, and gather weapons
from this art, and make himself a powerful man to carry
his ends with the people. Aristotle's view thus gave the
turn to the ancient idea of rhetoric, and it came to be
looked upon as a species of dialectic skill that might be
taught and acquired, by which the public mind could be
influenced, and ambitious ends attained. By the dexter-
ous use of words, plausible arguments, striking terms of
speech, and tricks of delivery, the orator could lead the
people at will.
Aristotle argues, as has been said, that
¹ Aristotle's "Rhetoric," B. i. c. ii. s. i.
1
GENERAL PRinciples of RHETORIC.
529
truth itself has an inherent rhetorical power, and he has
much to say upon the ethical aspects of the art; but, if
we mistake not, the view which has been given was, in
the main, Aristotle's conception of rhetoric; and, doubt-
less, in the technical sense of the term, he was correct-
that rhetoric is the art of persuasion by public discourse.
Grote says that Aristotle preferred philosophy to rheto-
ric, and therefore he has made his "Organon" on the
logical far more thorough than on the rhetorical side. In
fact, the "Organon" itself is the collection of Aristotle's
logical writings. He also failed in the sensibility which
distinguishes an æsthetic from a logical science; and he
therefore treated style as a merely subordinate depart-
ment of dialectics, instead of being a science by itself.'
His own style was good as far as it went, and he was
greatly opposed to the ambitious and empty style of
Isocrates; but he did not appreciate the very highest
qualities of style. His faults were those of elliptical
brevity and obscurity. But he is chiefly anxious to lay
down the principles of impugning and defending theses.
Rhetoric, he thought, had chiefly to do with words and
discourse, not with thoughts, facts, and things. It was
the power and accomplishment of discourse. It does not
deal with universal or scientific facts, but with opinions,
accredited opinions, and its great aim is to persuade an
audience into a favorable opinion. It does not go deeper
than opinion, and does not concern itself with principles,
or with establishing by induction such principles as may
serve as the basis of proof. Rhetoric was, with Aristotle,
an ingenious setting forth of the general opinions cur-
rent among orators and public men. He prescribes the
dialectic exercise to speakers, familiarity with popular
¹ Grote, Aristotle, v. i. p. 385.
530
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
views, and power of talking to and comprehending the
people-such as now we should almost call the art of the
demagogue, or popular tribune. He does not require the
rhetor to prove but only to persuade. Notwithstanding
all this, Aristotle had a more thoroughly scientific view
of rhetoric than Plato, though morally not so noble.
Plato also thought that rhetoric belonged to the pro-
vince of opinion; but he would address men with argu-
ments drawn from common sense and right
rather than from scientific dialectics. Plato
in heart was opposed to the strictly scientific method of
Aristotle, but he adds much that is noble to the science.
Morally speaking, he held higher views than Aristotle,
and came very near to the best modern conceptions of
rhetoric. Under the name and sanction of Socrates, in
various treatises, above all in the "Gorgias," Plato attacks
the mere art or artifice of rhetoric, showing the unphilo-
sophical and unprincipled character of the sophistic idea
of rhetoric, as a mere art to win by; that if it were solely
the application of means to an end, that end might be the
basest imaginable, and the art of rhetoric might thus be
wholly the art of deceiving and corrupting. This kind of
rhetoric, founded on empirical rules, aiming at immediate
success, and exalting the seeming over the true-Plato
pronounced worthless. He proves, also, that it is no
true art; that it is but a kind of skill or knack, like the
boxer's art. After refuting this low idea of rhetoric, he
gives his own conception of the orator; the true orator
is shown to be the man who, though he strives for mas-
tery (and Plato, in so many words, calls eloquence "the
art of ruling the minds of men'), yet the true orator is
he who does not strive alone, or mainly, for mastery, but
who aims to build up truth and justice in the state,
and to exalt himself by just means, and for the good
Plato.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
531
of the people, and who, even if unsuccessful in carrying
his point or in obtaining rule, is, nevertheless, declared
to be the true orator.
Cicero held the views of Aristotle, from whom he draws
his own.
He speaks of his own art with the enthusiasm
and zeal of an orator, rather than with the
conscientiousness of a philosopher.' He is
even more intense than Aristotle in the idea of the purely
instrumental character of rhetoric, and he applies oratory
chiefly to the business of civil polity, and to the acquiring
of mastery in that. He exults in it as an art of fence,
or as a strong weapon not possessed by every one, and
which is to be skillfully wielded for the purpose of self-
defence, power, and conquest; he says, "What is so
useful as at all times to bear about those weapons by which
you can defend yourself, challenge the infamous, and,
being wounded, revenge?" Cicero was naturally cold
in his disposition, and inclined to ornament for its own
sake; and, though often affirming it, he nevertheless, in
spirit, differed from the high Platonic or Socratic view,
which made so much of the moral idea in rhetoric; and
he conceded almost everything to outward grace, orna-
ment, and attraction. "There may be many good
speakers," he said, "but he alone is eloquent who can in
a more admirable and noble manner amplify and adorn
whatever subjects he chooses, and who embraces in
thought and memory all the principles of everything re-
lating to oratory.
Quintilian's idea of the art of oratory was nearly the
same as that held by Cicero, although he
maintained, with much more emphasis than
Quintilian.
Cicero did, that eloquence was an ethical quality, and
Idem, B. i. c. viii.
3
I De Oratore," B. ii. c. vii.
$ Idem, B. i. c. xxi.
2
Cicero.
532
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
that the orator must be a good man.' His practical idea
of rhetoric, however, was, that it is a means to an end,
and that the end often justifies the means; and his brief
definition of oratory is, "the science of speaking well;'
affirming the great object and the ultimate end of oratory
to be, “to speak well."
(2.) Modern ideas of rhetoric. In considering these,
we should not forget that ages have passed away, bring-
ing great changes of manners and thought
with them; that the enlargement of the
Modern
ideas
of rhetoric. means of popular address, and of the diffu-
sion of ideas, chiefly through the press, has
widened the field of rhetoric; and that the whole moral
revolution which Christianity has wrought in the intel-
lectual and social world has tended to elevate the concep-
tion of the rhetorical art. As one of the forces of the
world, Christianity has claimed rhetoric, and permeated
it with something of its own spirit, so that there is felt
and acknowledged to be such a thing as Christian elo-
quence.
As to the actual field which the modern idea of rhetoric
embraces, it has extended itself beyond the ancient limit,
which was confined almost entirely to public speaking, or
oratory, properly so called, and has taken in the art of prose
composition, and even some kinds of literature, in addi-
tion to the art of public speaking. It has come to signify,
in general terms, the art by which one communicates
thought by means of language, to other minds. But it
must have a limit. It cannot include all kinds of litera-
ture. It cannot include logic, or poetry, or philosophy,
or science strictly so called. It is not itself so truly a
science as an art. It is an art which is or should be
1 Quin. Instit., B. ii. c. xx. s. 4.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
533
founded on a scientific basis—on the science of thinking
or logic; and on the science of intellectual philosophy.
But it must confine itself more especially to that species
of composition which relates to the means of popular
persuasion, to the art of discourse, and which belongs,
directly or indirectly, to the business of the public speaker.
It also legitimately includes all that literary and dialectic
training which fits one to be powerful in speech, whether
he speaks in the popular assembly, the court, or the pul-
pit. The education of the speaker or orator in these days.
comprehends, of course, a wider field than in the ancient
days, especially if he is a preacher of the great truths of
Christianity; yet, after all, the area of the rhetorical art,
though enlarged, is essentially the same as of old. It
continues to be in the main a formal science, having to
do more exclusively with the regulation of the form and
method of public speech than with the materials of
thought or contents of speech. It is now, as then, the
art of public speaking for the purpose of persuasion; and
we would give the following as a definition of rhetoric,
applying to ancient times as well as to the present:
Rhetoric is that art or science, which has
Rhetoric
defined.
chiefly to do with the laws that regulate
public discourse; and it properly compre-
hends all that necessarily goes to make up the education,
training, and true power of the public speaker. The prin-
cipal term in this definition--" discourse"-may be itself
thus defined: "In rhetoric, a discourse, in its widest ac-
ceptation, is a series of sentences and arguments arranged
according to the rules of art, with a view of producing
some impression on the mind or feelings of those to
whom it is addressed. In logic this term is applied to
the third operation of the mind, commonly called reason-
ing."
534
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
in its
relation
Eloquence is a term allied to that of rhetoric, but
differing from it, as a gift, or a power, differs from an art.
Rhetoric is indeed the art of eloquence; but
Eloquence rhetoric is not eloquence. Eloquence comes
nearer to the source of true power or to the
to rhetoric. human speaker himself; while rhetoric has
more to do with the means which that
speaker employs, or with the language and form of dis-
Eloquence is to be regarded as a gift of nature
rather than an art of rhetoric. It belongs to a man's
personality, and to those powers of persuasion with which
God originally endowed him.
course.
But what, more specifically, is eloquence? It is de-
rived from e-loqui" "to speak out," as it were to speak
from the inmost strength, the deepest convictions, the
central personality of the orator. It is the power of the
soul manifesting itself in speech to move and sway other
souls. It is an original power, however cultivated, rather
than an acquired skill.
Many definitions or descriptions of eloquence have been
given, and we will mention some of these, so that from
them it will be more casy to come at a com-
prehensive idea of this great power which
has always exerted, and always will exert, so
mighty an influence in the world.
For a
more general conception Tacitus' description of the
orator might suffice: "Is cst orator qui de omni qucs-
tione pulchre, et ornate, et ad persuadendum apte dicere,
pro dignitate rcrum, ad utilitatem temporum, cum volup-
tate audientium possit. The true orator is one who
is able to speak upon every subject with a diction
pure, elegant, fitted to persuade, according to the im-
(C
Various
definitions
of eloquence.
91
1 44 Dialogue upon Orators," xxx.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
535
portance of the theme, the fitness of the occasion, and
with pleasure to his hearers.
Milton's definition of, or more properly allusion
to, eloquence, in his "Smectymnuus" is this: 'True
eloquence I find to be none but a serious and hearty
love of truth-of a mind fully possessed with the pur-
pose to infuse truth into the minds of others;” and
he adds that "that is most eloquent which turns and
approaches nearest to nature ;" and again he says, “ True
eloquence is the daughter of virtue. Great acts and
great eloquence go commonly hand in hand."
#4
The illustrious French Parliamentary orator, La Bru-
yère, gives this definition of eloquence: "The gift of the
soul which makes one the master of the mind and heart of
others, and enables him to inspire them as he wills, or to
move them to do what he pleases. Dr. Webster's defi-
nition is, "The ability to utter strong emotions in an
elevated and forceful manner." Craig's view of elo-
quence is similar to Webster's, viz., that it "represents
the strong emotion in the speaker adapted to excite cor-
responding emotion in the hearer-that it comprehends
also fluency, grace, good delivery, and animated action.
Rees' definition is, "The art of representing our
thoughts and feelings in precise form and elegance, and
the illuminating of the reason by the colors of the im-
agination.”’ Professor Goodrich simply called eloquence
the power of persuasion." Professor H. N. Day calls
it "the power of fluent and continuous expression.'
Goldwin Smith's definition is, The fusion of reason
in the fire of passion." Ralph Waldo Emerson's de-
scription is, "Eloquence is the appropriate organ of the
highest personal energy;" and again he says,
"C Elo-
quence is to take sovereign possession of an audience."
Vinet defines eloquence to be "the power of sympathy
"
•
,,
W
:
536
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
in speech, or, of communicating thought and feeling by
apprehending the condition of the hearer's mind, and by
so chording in with his thought that a certain magnetic
union of minds is evolved, in which the hearer's mind is
penetrated with new life and power.
Each of the definitions which have been given contains
some truth, and sets forth some essential quality of elo-
quence, such as fluency, imagination, feeling, the highest
or the lowest quality; but of all these definitions Vinet's
is the most comprehensive and therefore the most true;
because it brings into view not only the truth that elo-
quence is exerted through speech, or that language is its
instrument, and that it implies fluency, vividness of the
imaginative faculties, a condensed elegance of style, and
a precise and clear logical method; but it also emphasizes
the still more important truth that in genuine eloquence
sympathy between the speaker and his audience is
awaked. It is the power of soul upon soul, the reciproc-
ity of intellectual and emotional influence, so that the
thoughts and feelings of the speaker are communicated
as by a magnetic power to the hearer, and the two for
the time are made morally and spiritually one, by the
fusing power of the truth uttered in the fire of a strong
purpose. If we add to this the idea of persuasion,
that this sympathetic union evolved is sufficient to
bear the understanding and will before it as by a tor-
rent's force, and to lead to real belief, choice, and action,
then, it seems to us, we have got as near the com-
plete idea of eloquence as we can do. The real force of
eloquence is thus seen to reside in the essential quali-
ties and the inmost affections and energies of the soul,
which are perhaps rarely aroused to their depths, but
1
""
Homiletics," p. 23.
1
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
537
which, when they are aroused, and when they do find
expression in any adequate form of words, produce the
great effects of eloquence.
It may be seen, therefore, that, though cognate terms,
and occurring often in the same relations, Rhetoric differs
from Eloquence as an art differs from a power which is
exerted through that art; and that however we define
eloquence, the definition which we have given of rhetoric
cannot be greatly disparaged. There assuredly must be
and is an art which has to do peculiarly with the power
and success of the public speaker, and which has its bear-
ing upon his eloquence itself; and this art is the art of
rhetoric. Emerson says,
The conscious utterance of
thought, by speech or action to any end, is art.” He
who speaks must have an end in view, and must train
himself for speaking so as to speak effectively, to attain
his object; and whatever tends directly to give effective-
ness to a public speaker, whether it is in the cultivation
of the reasoning faculty, or the study of language and
style, or even elocutionary discipline, is therefore fairly
included in the art of rhetoric.
""
But modern ideas of rhetoric have improved upon the
ancient more in their intrinsic conception of rhetoric than
in the extent of its appropriate field; and yet it is
wonderful how the ideas of Aristotle and Plato, who
represent the two poles of the human intellect, con-
tinue to control the world of philosophy and art.
Some modern writers on rhetoric incline to the lower
Aristotelian view, that it is strictly an art of persua-
sion; that truth is but one of the means or instru-
ments of persuasion, and that rhetoric has little or noth-
ing to do, intrinsically, with virtue or vice, truth or
error most writers, however, incline to the profounder
Platonic view, that rhetoric must have a moral ground-
538
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
work; and Christianity deepens this moral idea of art,
and makes acts of words-acts full of moral significance
and choice.
Whately, in the structure of his mind, was an Aris-
totelian, although his purer morality and Christian cul-
ture served in many ways to modify and elevate his
views; but he looks upon rhetoric, and logic also, as
purely instrumental arts, " though applicable to various
kinds of subject-matter, which do not properly come
under them. The materials of thought, or the moral
groundwork of the oration, he does not consider as
belonging at all to rhetoric; but he confines rhetoric
entirely to the method of employing these materials.
It is the art of handling the tools, whatever the work
may be. Rhetoric is the best way to persuade men
to think as we do. Looking upon it in this light, he
defines rhetoric to be "the art of argumentative com-
position;" 2 and his treatise is mostly taken up with dis-
cussing the mode of constructing an argument so as
effectually to subdue the reason, passion, and will. It
is a good digest of rules upon the composition of argu-
ments.
ܐ
99 1
Theremin, a thorough Platonist, holds that, though
rhetoric is essentially an art, or something instrumental
to the attainment of an end not in itself, and that,
though it has to do with the form rather than the
material about which it is employed, yet that clo-
quence is at least one of the fundamental powers in
man; and that it has its root in his moral nature. He
holds that the subject-matter of eloquence must always
be tò àλnoέs—the truth. He terms eloquence-as did,
indeed, Quintilian and some of the older writers-"a
"Elements of Rhetoric" (Monroe's ed.), p. 20.
2 Idem, p. 21.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
539
virtue;" and he regards it as directly springing from
those moral qualities in the speaker and in the hearer
which underlie the mere form or art of the speech itself.
Every element of rhetoric, considering it to be the "art
of eloquence”—such as the law of adaptation, the law of
progress, the law of vivacity, the law of clearness, etc.-
he develops from some principle in the ethical nature of
man; which view certainly ennobles rhetorical studies,
for it leads the speaker to look into himself for power,
rather than to any acquired skill. We shall, in a moment,
look at this a little more carefully, but that Theremin's
view has some truth in it may be seen from the classic
orators themselves, although they may have been built
upon a shallower idea of their own art. It came out in
their discourse, because as men they were greater than
their theories. The moral power of Demosthenes was
strikingly shown in his superiority to the mere skill, or
artifice (however extraordinary), of his rival, Æschines.
Supposing their intellectual acumen to have been the
same, the arguments of Demosthenes were generally
drawn from universal principles of truth and right as
they existed not only in himself but in his hearers ;
therefore Demosthenes was the greater orator, and tri-
umphed because truth and right were stronger powers
than their opposites. Should rhetoric, or eloquence, even,
be considered as nothing more than an art, that does not
alter the truth of the assertion that it must have an
ethical foundation; for every true art must have this.
Why has the art of sculpture, which is but the skill of a
man to hew an inanimate block of stone into a certain
shape, excrted such a living influence on the world? Why
have its great masters-Phidias, Michael Angelo, and
Canova-been real powers? It is because they were
great men themselves; and in their works they drew from
540
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
the depths of their spiritual nature. Michael Angelo's
colossal statue of Moses is a highly ethical work, repre-
senting the author's ideal conception of the grandeur, un-
changeableness, and majesty of the moral law. Feeling,
intense reverence, deep meditation on the character of
God, are combined in this production; it is unspoken
eloquence. Eloquent speech, far more than such a cold
art as sculpture, is something which must flow from the
depths of the moral nature and character. As far as one
is a true man, and is in agreement with the law of truth
which rules man, and which is perfect in the mind of
God, so far his speech will be the expression of the
truth which is in him; if not, it is false eloquence and
false rhetoric. If there is no depth to a man, no inward
harmony with the truth, he cannot possibly be an elo-
quent man, though he may be a skillful and plausible.
pleader; for truth alone is eloquent, because it finds its
correspondence in every man's conscience and heart, and
because truth can be advocated and defended only by
truth, in the spirit of truth.
While the theory of Theremin, that "eloquence is a
virtue' when stated in this bare and unmodified form,
may be an unscientific statement, which fails
Theremin's to recognize the real distinction between a
theory that
species of art and a principle of ethics, and
eloquence
would be therefore inconvenient for use in
is a virtue.
accurate scientific discussion; yet this theory
aims to express a substantial truth, which might be cor-
rectly and even scientifically expressed somewhat in this
form that true eloquence, or the highest kind of elo-
quence, has necessary relations to ethical principles. The
oldest rhetoricians-Aristotle himself first of all-enunci-
ated the axiom that the orator must be a good man. Aris-
totle spoke of the importance of noiиn яiбтis (moral con-
:
Pl
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
541
viction) in that part of the orator's work which was inartifi-
cial; this weighty saying of antiquity that the "orator
must be a good man" still has weight, and has been de-
veloped into a system by Theremin. It has weight be-
cause eloquence, as we have seen, is mainly personal,
and springs principally from the soul. If the soul's char-
acter be in harmony with truth, the expression of the soul
in speech will carry with it the superadded power of
truth, of virtue, and thus be eloquent. Emerson says,
"The key-note of Demosthenes' orations is this, 'virtue
secures its own success; and he further says, in rela-
tion to all art, including that of eloquence: " Proceeding
from absolute mind, whose nature is goodness as much as
truth, the great workers of art are always attuned to
moral nature ;" and he puts forth this idea in an aphor-
ism which comprehends the whole subject: "If the earth
and sea conspire with virtue more than vice, so do the
masterpieces of art.
??
As the substance of eloquence is truth, or, as eloquence
has to do with the enunciation and manifestation of truth,
so no positively untrue or bad man can be in the highest
sense eloquent. He may be an apt pleader, a debater skill-
ful at making the worse appear the better cause, but he
cannot accomplish the results of the highest rhetorical art,
because he cannot appeal, with entire strength and con-
viction, to the principles of truth in the human breast.
These are necessary principles; and true eloquence, as well
as all true art, rests on the foundation of what is neces-
sary. God in the nature of things has made truth more
powerful than untruth. Thus we see that even bad
men, in order to persuade or to use the eloquence of per-
suasion, have to appear to be good, to "feign a virtue if
1
1 "Society and Solitude."
-
542
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
they have it not." They employ good means to the at-
tainment of bad or selfish ends. In the fervid discus-
sions at the time of the French revolution, in periods of
religious persecution, when in the name of religion men
have been urged to tyrannical measures and acts, and
even in frequent cases of private criminality, the appeal
has invariably been made to arguments based on moral
principles. There is another point, also, to be noticed in
this subject. We have seen that the true sphere of
eloquence is the common thought and sympathy of all,
or that it must be a production of the universal soul;
that it must appeal to the common sentiment, conscience,
and heart; now this common sympathy can only be
realized in the deeper and essential principles of our
nature—in those universal principles of justice, right,
goodness, and truth, upon which our moral nature is
founded. This illustrates the old saying that you can
only make a man believe what he believed before—what,
in fact, God created him to believe.
It is true that many positively controvert this view that
eloquence has ethical foundations. Pascal was of the
opinion that eloquence was purely an instrument, merely
a skill of persuasive speech that might lend itself indiffer-
ently to good or to evil. Now there is undoubtedly a
power of persuasion often given to evil which is great and
vastly injurious, because it weaves itself in with the cor-
rupt tendencies of human nature, but that the greater
power, the genuine and permanent power of persuasion,
remains with good, may be seen especially from three
considerations. 1. Truth has a real witness of con-
viction in a man's own conscience, while evil has not.
Truth, not untruth, produces repentance and remorse.
This powerful and intuitive plea of conscience adds
therefore to the eloquence of truth. It is an ally
GENERAL PRINCIPles of RHETORIC.
543
of tremendous power. 2. The object of eloquence,
or of right speech, logically considered, is truth; or,
more strictly, to free truth from error (a principle
taken advantage of sophistically by bad men), therefore
eloquence is logically on the side of truth.
3. The
greater the confessed persuasive power of evil the greater
is the responsibility laid upon truth, or upon those who
represent and uphold truth, to plead its cause eloquently
and effectively; to bring out its hidden forces; to make
the truth bear on the conscience, purely and persuasively,
so that men shall yield to it and obey it. Therefore there
is an added motive of tremendous power which in itself has
a mighty influence upon the production of true eloquence.
If it then be true that eloquence, or the art of elo-
quence, which is rhetoric, if not strictly an ethical science
or principle, has ethical foundations; if it be true that
it is so closely related in its sources of power to moral
forces; if it be true that the highest eloquence is insep-
arable from character in the speaker, and that "the per-
fection of the orator rests on the perfection of the
man;" then this truth becomes of the greatest impor-
tance to the preacher, and it applies to him with a sig-
nificance that it does to no other public speaker. The
preacher must be what he speaks :
"Thou must be true thyself,
If thou the truth wouldst teach."
He must love that Lord whom he proclaims and he must
love his fellow-men as himself. He must delight in his
inmost mind in the truth; he must be joined with it, he
must be one with it, and he must possess a character of
genuine goodness, truth, and righteousness. His spirit-
uality of mind is a prime source of his power. Out from
his own soul, brought into harmony with the will and
544
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
truth of God, must flow resistless currents of divine per-
suasion. The purity and strength of his moral purpose
is a necessary factor of his success as a preacher.
He, at all events, is not one who speaks to catch the
ear, or to produce a temporary sensation, he speaks to
make the truth which is in him so vividly seen and so
genuinely felt by the hearer, that the hearer shall grasp it
and make it an eternal possession. A thorough convic-
tion of the truth and a deathless love of it, are the real
sources of eloquence in the preacher. These are summed
up in the single word faith, which includes both the
divine gift and the human character. Our
real preaching power is our faith. This was
the eloquence of the apostles and of the
first Christian preachers. 2 Cor. 4: 13,
We believe, and therefore speak." This is what Dr.
Bushnell calls "the faith-talent:" it is the pure speech of
the word speaking in us; it is the utterance of believing
and purified souls; for if the orator, according to Plato,
must be a good man, how much more the preacher, ac-
cording to Christ! Is not, indeed, the Christian preacher
"that great orator" who, Quintilian said, "had not yet
appeared, but who may hereafter appear, and who would
be as consummate in goodness as in eloquence.
Faith the
real preaching
power.
1
2
Chrysostom, however, severely censured the error of
considering the preacher as a mere orator, and he reduced
all the eloquence of preaching to this one object—to
please God. But to speak God's will, "to minister in
the spirit," requires an anointing from the Holy One;
and the New Testament is full of the application of this
(as we think) truly rhetorical principle, that out of his
'Instit., B. xii. c. i. s. 24.
Neander's" Life of Chrysostom," p. 73.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
545
own character, out of his inward union with the Spirit of
truth, springs the preacher's power.
Dr. Bushnell, in his "God in Christ," has an eloquent
passage upon the preacher, which ends thus: "The man
is to be so united to God, so occupied and possessed by
the eternal life, that his acts and words shall be outgoings
of a divine power. And exactly this Paul himself de-
clares, when he says, 'And my speech and my preaching
was not with persuasive words of man's wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power.' And this is
the proper, the truly sublime conception of the minister
of God. He is not a mere preacher occupying some pul-
pit, as a stand of natural eloquence, but he is a man
whose nature is possessed of God in such a manner that
the light of God is seen in him; a man whose life and
words are apodictic-a demonstration of the Spirit."
These words fairly carry out what we conceive to be a
true rhetorical principle, not, indeed, as regards common
speakers, but the Christian preacher, viz., "that the
preacher of Christ should be filled with the truth and spirit
of Christ--should speak "in demonstration of the Spirit
and of power." And as the highest eloquence is that
which affects the will, which is powerful to move and
change the will, and to cause the man to do what he
hears-surely that eloquence which allies itself with and
works with the will-renewing energy of the Holy Spirit
is the true eloquence of the preacher.
We end this discussion upon the idea and definition of
rhetoric by saying that, although rhetoric must still be
considered mainly as an art, or that it has to do with the
form more than with the substance of speech, yet it is
itself in harmony with and founded upon truth, and de-
rives its power from the great laws and impulses of man's
moral nature; it is a free, not a mechanical art. And
546
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
this is especially true in the case of the preacher; every
increase in holiness is an increase in power; and the prin-
ciple in his case may be carried still higher, and the asser-
tion may be made that no man can be a genuine preacher
of God's word who is not in some sense inspired by the
Spirit of God. As to the question some-
times asked, Is not rhetoric, after all, a
merely mental power or skill, which is after-
ward deepened by the judgment of the moral
sense, or the acceptance by the moral sense
of the purely intellectual conclusions of the mind? That
may be true in the technical idea of rhetoric, but in the
deeper view of it which we have endeavored to bring out,
we would answer, no; for unless the whole being enters
into and goes to make up the orator, his moral as well as
intellectual powers, his spirit as well as understanding,
he cannot arrive at genuine convictions of truth; these
convictions would not be truly his own, and thus they
would not carry the weight with them of personal convic-
tions. Eloquence is the breath and force of the man's
personality. It is the whole being of a man speaking.
Cicero said that "one might simulate philosophy, but
not eloquence." Eloquence is something more than
mere art; it lies in the depths of moral character.
L'éloquence est en elle-même un trait du caractère plutót
qu'un don intellectuel.
>> 1
,,
Rhetoric
something
more than
mere skill.
SEC. 23. Uses and Sources of Rhetoric.
Notwithstanding the noble utility of the rhetorical art
rightly understood, there are popular objections to the
preacher's study of rhetoric, which it is worth while to
consider. These objections may be comprised in some
1 Vinet's" Histoire de la Prédication des Réformés," p. 673.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
547
general statement like this: The rules of rhetoric neces-
sarily contain that which is wholly human
and artificial, and they thus render the study
of rhetoric unworthy of the simplicity of the
preacher of divine truth, who depends on
the truth itself, and on the Holy Spirit, for the true re-
sults of preaching.
Even the true orator, it is said, is one who trusts more
to nature than to art, and who has the least of art in his
eloquence; and, à fortiori, how much more should this
be the case with the preacher of divine truth!
In one sense the rules of rhetoric are artificial, because
they concern the art of speaking; but they are not arti-
ficial in the common sense of the term, as meaning what
is false. True rhetoric is drawn from truth and nature.
It is the discovery of the genuine laws of persuasive
speech among living men; and it is simply reducing these
to definite principles. It is the study of the best ways
which nature employs to communicate and impress truth.
Without doubt the study of rhetoric has been conduct-
ed sometimes upon narrow principles and in too critical a
spirit. It has been looked upon simply as an art of speak-
ing and writing, or as a digest of rules. It has been treated
negatively rather than positively, destructively rather than
constructively. It has been dissociated from the springs of
thought, from the science of mind. It has been unintel-
ligently separated from logic, metaphysics, and those sci-
ences that have to do with the laws of thought, as well
as from ethical sciences. If rhetoric is form, it is the
form of the mind; if it is expression, it is the expression
of thought; and we cannot rightly separate the effect
from its cause, the result from its source, without render-
ing the treatment of the whole subject shallow and
mechanical, and without losing sight of the deepest
Objections
to the study
of rhetoric.
548
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
springs of eloquence. Rhetoric is a genuine art, full of
help to the speaker, and of suggestive power, if but looked
upon in its right relations; if viewed in the broader light
of what is a true art, and of what true art, universally
speaking, signifies.
The study of rhetoric should lead to the enriching of
the inventive faculty, which lies at the source of style,
and should not be taken up exclusively in formal detail
and grammatical minutiæ. Rhetoric is useful, it is true,
in merely regulating the form and method of discourse,
but if it does nothing else, if it has no stimulating and
developing influence upon the faculty of discourse itself,
its value is diminished.
But it is sometimes said, Why not leave rhetoric to
nature? This man and that man are self-taught orators,
who never studied a volume on eloquence. The more
rules, the less eloquence. It is true there are men of
native eloquence who have not studied the art in books;
but they have studied it in men, in nature, in them-
selves. This has been the case with many distinguished
Methodist preachers; they have been keen students of
the most effective use of motives and arguments, and
even of gestures and tones, upon the passions. There
is nothing artificial about that. That is nature's way;
that is really seeking the truth and the true power
of eloquent speech. It is true that the art of rhetoric
will not make an ineloquent man eloquent; this is
not the teacher's work, and is beyond his ability. Rhe-
toric will, however, make an effective speaker more
effective, and will enable any man of good abilities to
become a good writer and speaker. "If you suppose
either to be independent of the other, nature will be
able to do much without learning, but learning will be
of no avail without the assistance of nature. But if they
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
549
be united in equal points, I shall be inclined to think
that, when both are but moderate, the influence of nature
is nevertheless the greater; but finished orators, I con-
sider, owe more to learning than to nature.
? 1
Rhetoric, as we have said, ought not to be separated
from thought, from the creative faculty, since it is then
cut off from its highest spring; but supposing it to be
true that rhetoric will not furnish a man with thoughts,
yet it will teach a man how to use his thoughts; and a
mind that will be killed by good rules of speaking and
writing cannot be a strong mind, and such a mind would
be made pedantic by any kind of knowledge.
It is barely possible that rhetorical studies may some-
what repress natural freedom, and there may be a sense
of art or artificiality produced; but this must soon wear
off when the study is rightly conducted, and when a man
is resolved by every means to make himself an effective
speaker. He will go through art into nature, and be all
the stronger.
And what, truly, should there be in this study, rightly
conducted, to injure the simplicity of the preacher?
This term simplicity," as used in the New Testament,
signifies "freedom from guile," and "singleness of heart
and purpose," or, in a wider sense,
or, in a wider sense, "the unpervert-
ed teaching of the gospel," rather than intellectual
simplicity or barrenness. The preacher's rhetorical
study is to aid him to give the truth its true force, to
clear it of what is false, and to present it in its real
simplicity and strength to the mind. The foolishness
of preaching" is not "foolish preaching," but what was
esteemed foolish by the Greeks in opposition to their
"wisdom," viz., "the preaching of the cross." It was
66
1
¹ Quintilian's Institutes," B. ii. c. xix.
""
550
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
not the preaching, but the subject of the preaching, that
was foolish.
But, it may be said, if the preacher uses the aids of
rhetoric, and strives to make himself an eloquent speaker,
does he not put himself on the same level with the plat-
form-speaker? The difference between the pulpit and
platform is deeper than a mere rhetorical difference; for
the preacher may use all the art and skill that the plat-
form-speaker does, and still be a preacher and not a plat-
form-orator. The great difference between the two is,
that the eloquence of the platform-speaker ends in itself:
he has shown his power, or he has gained his point; but
the eloquence of the preacher ends in the good and sal-
vation of his hearers; it is no merely personal or tempo-
rary object. The platform-speaker strives for the present
mastery, amusement, instruction, or conviction of his
hearers, and human powers and eloquence are sufficient
for the production of that effect; but the aim of the
true preacher is something out of himself, something
enduring and eternal, something permanent in its effect
upon the character of the soul. He needs more than his
own powers for this; he needs something more than
human eloquence.
But if the preacher needs more than human eloquence,
he still may not despise anything that will make him
effective as a preacher. Nathan's preaching to David
was a piece of pure rhetoric. It was the polished arrow
that slew the king's sin and saved his soul from its
deadly coil. Paul's use of the illustration of the
Athenian altar was a skillful use of the law of adaptation
in rhetoric; and did it injure the moral simplicity of his
speaking? Apollos was, undoubtedly, well trained in the
rhetorical schools of Alexandria. In some respects
Apollos was distinguished from the other disciples of
(
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
551
John the Baptist. There is much significance in the fact
that is stated that he was born at Alexandria.' He
was not only an Alexandrian Jew by birth, but he had a
high reputation for an eloquent (λóyios 'eloquent'
rather than learned) and forcible power of speaking, and
had probably been well trained in the rhetorical schools
on the banks of the Nile. But though he was endued
with the eloquence of a Greek orator, the subjects of his
study and teaching were the Scriptures of his forefathers.
The character which he had borne in the synagogues
was that of a man mighty in the Scriptures.' In ad-
dition to these advantages of birth and education, he
seems to have had the fullest and most systematic in-
struction in the gospel which a disciple of John could
possibly receive. Whether from the Baptist himself, or
from some of those who travelled into other lands with
his teaching as their possession, Apollos had received full
and accurate instruction in the way of the Lord.' We
are further told that his character was marked by a fer-
vent zeal in spreading the truth. Thus we may conceive
of him as travelling, like a second Baptist, beyond the
frontiers of Judæa, expounding the prophecies of the Old
Testament, announcing that the times of the Messiah
were come, and calling the Jews to repentance in the
spirit of Elias. Hence he was, like his great teacher,
'preparing the way of the Lord.' Though ignorant of
the momentous facts which had succeeded the Resurrec-
tion and Ascension, he was turning the hearts of the
disobedient to the wisdom of the just,' and 'making
ready a people for the Lord,' whom he was soon to
know more perfectly.' Thus, burning with zeal and
confidence by the truth of what he had learned, he spoke
out boldly in the synagogue.
1
1
(C
Conybeare and Howson's Life of St. Paul," v. ii. p. 6.
552
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
·
Was the rhetorical education or the "eloquence" of
Apollos, we ask, of no influence upon the early progress
of the gospel in the earth, or at least in its preparation to
come in power to the nations?
Upham, in his volume on "The Interior Life," has
some interesting remarks upon the proofs that our blessed
Saviour himself valued mental culture, and that in his
human nature he prepared himself for the work of his
ministry by thought and study of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Rhetorical studies, it cannot be denied, are useful to
the preacher in so far as preaching is an art. The art of
oratory has always been cultivated in the Church, as we
have seen that Augustine wrote a treatise on Sacred
Rhetoric." Melanchthon also composed a treatise upon
the oratorical art, as applied to preaching, advocating the
use of learning and the cultivation of eloquence by the
preacher. The age of the Reformation, as has been
already said, was a period of marked eloquence in the
pulpit.
to the
In regard to the most important bearing of the objec-
tion in regard to the converting power of divine truth
accompanied by the Holy Spirit, as being
Objection essential, and as being sometimes lost sight
to rhetoric of when eloquence is too much esteemed—
in regard this certainly does apply in full force to all
Holy Spirit's false ideas of preaching, where the human
influence. element is made prominent, and the divine
element is made subordinate, or is disregard-
ed; and yet the fact of the converting power of divine
truth, or that all renewing power is in God alone, does
not do away with the value of human preaching.
"I
have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the in-
G
1 " Interior Life," p. 243.
66
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
553
crease. The real power-the ultimate power-is in the
divine causation, and yet the human instrumentality is
not excluded. It is true that if God does not aid the
preacher, his best efforts are vain; and if God also does
not animate and fill with his Spirit the organization of
the Church, the Church is a useless body; yet this is not
saying that the preacher and the Church are not needed,
and that these agencies may not, and should not, put
forth all the effort, talent, and power they possess, rely-
ing on divine aid. If one should carry the objection to
an unreasonable extent, then human agency in the con-
version of men would be excluded, and all means em-
ployed for men's salvation-prayer as well as preaching
-would be vain. This has been the theory of some who
have pushed their views to an extravagant pitch. In the
New England theological controversy on "the means of
grace, half a century since, it was asserted on the one
side that the text "Consider thy ways" was addressed to
every man as a rational and moral being, who must think
upon his duty before he did it; on the other side it was
regarded as a thing impossible, or, at least, inadmissible,
for an impenitent sinner to consider his ways, because his
thoughts would be depraved, and only depraved continu-
ally, and no benefit, but only evil, would come of it.
But human effort in the line of truth and duty, and for
the furtherance and proclamation of the truth, is clearly
set forth in the Scriptures. Not only did the apostles
preach, but the seventy, and others who were not en-
dowed with miraculous gifts; and all believers are to
preach, in one sense. If we object to preaching, we might
object to all other kinds of influence exerted to promote
religion, and diffuse truth among man. But if we admit
preaching, it should be the best-the best that our human
powers, aided by culture and divine grace, and intent
>>
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W
554
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
upon the building up of the kingdom of God in the world,
can produce. The simplicity of truth, and its converting
power, are destroyed, not by its running through the
human medium, but by its deliberate falsification for
selfish and earthly ends. As one is not defiled by eating
with unwashen hands, but is defiled by having an unclean
heart, so the truth is not corrupted by being taken into
sinful human hands, and thus dispensed; but it is cor-
rupted by passing through an unbelieving and false mind.
And the simplicity of the truth may be also injured by
the preacher's trusting to his own eloquence to produce
conviction, and not to the Word and Spirit of God. But
no true preacher does this; for he considers the gift of
God to be intrusted to an earthen vessel "that the excel-
lency of the power may be of God, and not of us." He
trusts wholly to the divine Spirit.
What, then, to the preacher of divine truth, are some
of the legitimate uses of rhetoric?
1. It cultivates and develops the power of discourse.
We have already defined what true discourse is; even if
rhetoric be essentially a science of form,
and do not itself produce or have regard to
the materials for public discourse, yet it is
directly connected with the laws of thought,
and if it be but an instrument of discourse, it is at the same
time the instrument of a discoursing mind; for discourse
is the perfect development of an idea of some intuitive
truth, or of some truth of which the mind has possessed it-
self. Now rhetoric-which is the art of embodying ideas in
language for the purpose of persuasion--is the exercise of
that original power of discourse with which man is gifted.
And can it be said that the cultivation of the art of
rhetoric has no influence to cultivate the original power?
It must have a great influence in this respect. It tends
Uses of
rhetoric to
preachers.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
555
to increase the creative power of the mind. There is no
exercise better fitted to develop the productive powers
than public speaking, if of the right sort. It draws from
the deepest sources.
It concentrates the mental powers;
it forces thought; it cultivates the faculty of expression;
it clears and enlarges the spring of thoughtful discourse,
and makes it more abounding.
2. It gives accuracy to logical processes.
Rhetoric aids one to become master of his mind
and of his mental resources; to regulate his processes
of thought; to start them readily from certain fixed
centres, and to follow them along certain defined lines.
The mind is not only invigorated by the study of rhetoric
and logic, but it acquires thereby a finer edge. A
trained rhetorician who is also a logician (for the two
should go together) will not be apt to lay hold of the
wrong end or the tough end of a question first, but he
will advance upon it with an increasing force and impetus
that carry him through its difficulties. A proper arrange-
ment and method in thinking aids one to think.
No ex-
tent of knowledge or brilliancy of imagination can make
up for inaccurate habits of thought. In order to write or
speak well, one must first think well. He must know
how to analyze, to resolve a subject into its parts, to
search its depths. The preacher should have depth as
well as breadth. He should aim first at true thinking,
and then he will come to original thinking; for rhetoric,
while it regulates thought, does not repress originality.
3. It opens the power of language.
The use of language is a fit study for the preacher,
whose duty it is to interpret the meaning and force of the
words chosen by the Holy Spirit to communicate truth.
The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words.
Language is thought's instrument. By it we not only
<<
..
556
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
communicate light, but life, to other minds. Through
language, soul acts on soul. A preacher should under-
stand the hidden powers of language; and here, perhaps,
is one of the failures of the modern pulpit. The old
preachers, especially the old English divines, were men
of vast learning, who knew and felt the force of language;
as also did such preachers as Bunyan and Flavel, who were
not scholars, yet had attained to extraordinary vigor and
purity of idiomatic English. The sermons of Bishop
Andrews, in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
are wonderful for their nervous Saxon English.
Rhetoric comprises the whole field of linguistic and
literary criticism-the rich field of language, of the
mighty power of words as the instrument of thought;
and the most skillful and powerful use of language can
be acquired only through the study of this wide and
varied field.
4. It increases the power of persuasion or the ability
of the speaker to carry conviction to other minds.
Whately makes a just observation when he says that
true rhetoric is not "an art of producing conviction, but
it is the art of doing so." It is finding out, not the best,
but the only way by which conviction must be produced.
It is, in Whately's language, "investigating the causes
of the success of all who do produce conviction in writ-
ing and speaking.""
5. It prevents the waste of mental energy.
Many preachers, though fertile in thought, are troubled
in arranging their materials. They are apt to go over
too much ground. Their ideas are not sufficiently com-
pacted; they are ineffectively marshalled, making a mob
and not an army. Their sermons often are theological
¹ Whately's" Rhetoric," sec. 4.
General PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
557
treatises, small books. They waste their mental store,
and do not get a due return for their outlay. Rhet-
oric teaches us how to husband our resources; how to
methodize and condense; how to make the most of what
we have; how to say enough upon a subject, and to say
it forcibly.
6. It prevents the preacher's usefulness from being
destroyed by little things.
Preachers of genuine zeal and good abilities are often
hindered in their usefulness by some insignificant thing,
of which the simplest rhetorical culture would make them
aware. Inaptness or inversion of style, a grotesque or
awkward delivery, an unfortunate gesture, a nasal twang,
a dryness or dulness in the treatment of vital themes--
some little thing, which could be remedied, will keep a
good and perhaps able man tied like a slave to the wheel
all his life.
Let us now consider some of the sources of rhetoric.
They are threefold: Nature, Good Models, and Books.
(1.) Nature. The preacher may learn from
a child the first principles of the laws of rheto- Sources of
ric, e.g., the essential principle of directness.
rhetoric :
Nature.
A little child, in making his wants known,
and in carrying his point, will use the most direct method.
He will express his wish in the fewest words. He will
employ the strongest argument or motive which he is
capable of employing, and which (how often it happens!)
is strong enough to carry his point. Where there is a
pressure on the mind of the humblest and rudest person,
there is often a vivid force in his way of expressing him-
self, which is eloquent. A poor woman who has five
minutes allowed her at your door will make her case stand
in the strongest light; for she will say nothing unessen-
tial, or will leave nothing essential unsaid; she will
We a
558
arrange her story (her oration) in a way fitted to produce
instant conviction, arouse pity, and gain her end.
Nature is to be studied in common men. The words
and arguments of men engaged in the common business
of life, if they have less abstruse depth, have often more
practical weight and point than those of the most highly
educated men, in whose minds the varied and abstract
relations of a given truth habitually present themselves.
The expressions of such men have a rough, powerful
rhetoric. General Sheridan's famous speech at the fight
of Winchester was a thousand times more effective than
all the fine-turned sentences that were ever elaborated.
President Lincoln's address at Gettysburg is a noble ex-
ample of the eloquent condensation of thought and senti-
ment there may be in brief and simple language. The
man who is always living in books, and upon dead men's
thoughts, should strive to catch something of this homely,
vivid force of living men's every-day words and ideas.
Above all, he should study his own nature, as a source of
rhetorical knowledge and power. He should carefully
watch his own mind, and observe how he is affected
by the arguments of others, and by what kind of argu-
ments; what are the motives which move him most
deeply and reach him most quickly; what forms of ex-
pression are most striking, and what most pathetic; he
should ask himself how, when, and why he is most moved
by the speaking of others, and what kind of speakers
most move him.
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
Good
models.
-
(2.) Good models. Living models are best, because
they come nearest to nature. Some preachers frequent
the courts to study the most direct modes
of persuasive reasoning; yet their best
models are preachers. By a study of true
models we tend imperceptibly to grow like them; as, if
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
559
, 1
one should gaze half an hour.every day upon the Apollo
Belvedere, he would show it in the carriage of his head,
and the new dignity which would be breathed into his
whole mien. But in studying models, it is only the gen-
eral result that should be aimed at, and not the minute,
literal copy.
Turpe ctiam illud est, contentum esse id
consequi quod imiteris. Every one should jealously
guard his individuality, and should diligently strive to
retain his natural style, that good thing, that native force
or facility which belongs to him, only corrected of its
faults, and enriched by good examples. No orator or
preacher, let him be the greatest, is indeed a perfect
model for our imitation, or combines in himself all excel-
lences; neither is any great orator or speaker, as Quin-
tilian has truly said, imitable in those things—his genius,
invention, force, facility-which especially make him
great; for those things are inborn, individual, spiritual,
and escape the power of all imitation.
66
One should not only read the sermons of the best
preachers, but study them, analyze them, sentence by
sentence and word by word; searching patiently, labo-
riously, determinedly, to come at their sources of power.
It is a good plan to take a condensed writer like Bishop
Butler, and, after reading a page two or three times, to
rewrite it in our own language, and carefully note the
differences in the two modes of expressing the same ideas.
Thus we should experiment and experiment, till we catch
something of the condensed energy of one, the perspicuity
of another, the fire of another. And, not confining our-
selves to the study of the best writers and speakers in
our own profession, we may extend our critical reading
to the historian, the poet, the orators of antiquity, and
Quintilian's "Instit.," B. x. c. ii. s. I, "De Imitatione.”
560
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
to all the fields of literature. The study of Shakespeare
is a spring of endlessly fruitful suggestion in the art of
composition. A young preacher might always have on
hand some author, and especially religious author, of the
first excellence, not only as regards matter, but style;
for the formation of a clear, forcible style is a severe pro-
cess; and as no man can learn to paint without a con-
tinual use of the brush, so no man can learn to write and
speak well without a continual use of the
pen.
(3.) Books. We have anticipated this source of rheto-
rical instruction and suggestion under the last head; but
we refer now more particularly to books
upon the special art of rhetoric. No treatise
upon rhetoric, ancient or modern, exceeds in complete-
ness or in value Quintilian's "Institutions." Even now,
as in Martial's line, it may be justly said: Quintiliane
vaga moderator sermone juventa." His great work in
twelve books is built upon a most comprehensive plan,
embracing the preliminary training and education of the
orator; the nature or substance of the rhetorical art; in-
vention and arrangement; composition and delivery;
those philosophical and ethical principles to which oratory
is related; the character of the orator; and the collateral
studies and arts to be pursued for a thorough training of
the perfect orator. All are treated with great fulness,
energy, and elegance of language; and, as has been re-
marked, modern works have added but little to what
Quintilian and other classic writers have given us upon
this art; for though in science we excel the ancients, in
In addi-
art they remain our masters and teachers.
tion to works on homiletics in various languages, there
are especially the sermons of great preachers,
both of modern and ancient times, which
represent the different types and epochs of preaching, in
Sermons.
Books.
•
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
561
various languages, and which form in themselves an ample
field of homiletical literature and study.
-
Whatever there is in philosophy and literature which
has to do with the orator's power may be studied to ad-
vantage; but above all, let the young preacher strive to
gain a thorough homiletical training, not trusting entirely
to books or to the teacher, but availing himself of every
suggestion, from every source, to improve himself in the
art of preaching. And, after all, the greatest source of
rhetorical power and rhetorical training is speaking.
Practice in preaching is the best way to make the good
preacher. He who would hit the mark must shoot at
the mark. He who would move men by preaching
must preach so as to move them. He who would over-
come the difficulties of preaching must meet them in the
presence of living men, in the act of speaking, on the
field where difficulties present themselves. Brains, too,
are as useful now as ever in preaching, and must be
mixed in," as the painter said, with the work; and so
are heart, and love, and faith, essential; and no rhetoric
can take the place of the persuasion of the Holy Spirit,
that "oratory of God," which, as old Fuller says, “alone
convinces souls.
"C
SEC. 24. Uses of Reasoning to the Preacher.
So far as reasoning comes under the department of
Rhetoric (and Whately, we have seen, makes rhetoric to
consist mainly of the art of reasoning, or to be identical
with it); and inasmuch as logic, in the present enlarged con-
ception of the term, is held to be the science of the laws
of thought, and includes in it all the forms and methods
of thinking, the true idea of our mental conceptions and
judgments, and the principles of right reasoning; it be-
comes essential to the preacher to consider this, or at
562
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
least to be stimulated to the careful study of this manly
science. We would aim only to indicate the importance
of this study to the preacher, as a legitimate source of
power.
definition of
Coleridge's definition of reason, derived, doubtless,
from Schelling and the German philosophy, is useful and
ennobling to the preacher, who has to deal
Coleridge's with those truths which are apprehended
through the exercise of the highest facul-
ties of the being. "Reason is the power
by which we are enabled to draw from particular and
contingent appearances universal and necessary conclu-
sions."
reason.
As further explained, reason is the prime source of
necessary and universal ideas-ideas which are above the
changing world of sense; it is, in fine, the faculty that
deals with pure ideas, and it appeals to itself alone, to its
own intuitions and judgments, as the substance and
ground of ideas. It is thus, according to Coleridge, that
faculty in man which rises above the sphere of the mere
intellect judging by sense, or the logical understanding,
and enables him to arrive at absolute truths. Kant and
his school made this distinction between formal logic in
the sense that it exhibits only the laws of analytical knowl-
edge, or which treats of the processes of thinking apart
from real knowledge or being, and the criterion of the
pure reason which inquires into the possibility of a uni-
versally valid synthetic knowledge-thus drawing a dis-
tinction between analytic and synthetic judgments. The
higher reason pierces through phenomena or things as
they seem, and comes to know things as they are. It is
2
¹ Coleridge's Works (Shedd's ed.), v. i. p. 251, et al.
2 Ueberweg's "Logic.”
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
563
able to arrive at the realities of things, and the very
grounds of their existence. It seeks for a uniform and
unchangeable basis of truth.
Taking care not to let this transcendental definition of
reason usurp the place of that higher teaching or inward
communication of the Holy Spirit, by which alone we can
spiritually, and thus truly, comprehend divine truth, we
do indeed perceive that there is in man a higher nature,
that transcends the mere logical intellect. It is a faculty
which judges à priori, which is capable of grasping abso-
lute ideas, and which, to a certain extent, possesses in-
tuitive insight. In the world of faith, and in the discus-
sion of Christian truth, this higher exercise of the reason
is important, for Christianity is a rational religion; that
is, it corresponds to those universal laws and principles
of truth that raise themselves above change, that are
common to rational intelligences, and that are fixed in
the constitution of things. We should not be afraid of
reason—that is, of this higher conception of reason—in
the things of faith. If reason alone cannot arrive at
divine truth, or truly comprehend it, divine truth, never-
theless, speaks to the highest reason in man, and lets
itself down, as far as it can, into its congenial and assim-
ilated sphere. And as "the word," ó λóyos, of which the
preacher is the servant and minister, is, above all, the
divine reason, the preacher should know the place and
functions of reason; for he cannot keep divine truth con-
fined in the arena of the mere understanding; it will
burst from human definitions and propositions; it will
not abide the test of mere word-argument; it cannot be
discovered by the syllogistic method. It may indeed be
methodized and systematized, and thus more easily be
grasped by the logical faculty; but it belongs rather to
the sphere of more purely rational ideas, of “rationalized
564
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
intellect," in which, through the power of holy contem-
plation, in communion with the mind and spirit of God,
the truth is clearly known. And the preacher should
endeavor to evoke this higher faculty of reason in the
hearer. He should strive to show that there is no real
conflict between faith and reason, but that the truths of
faith, which belong to a world above the natural and
sensuous, appeal to that power in man which apprehends
rational and universal truths-truths eternal as God's
nature. Such reasoning, therefore, as this, which calls.
into exercise the highest nature of man, is the prerogative
of the preacher of divine truth. This is his noble prov-
ince, peculiar to him. And in all lower kinds of reason-
ing, as it is commonly understood, in which the formal
or logical understanding may be chiefly employed, the
preacher should never lose sight of the influence and the
exercise of this higher power of the reason.
"The gospel doth not destroy reason and rational pro-
ceedings. It is agreeable to common reason that old prin-
ciples should be exploded, and appear unworthy, base,
unreasonable, weak, before new ones be entertained.
The working of the Spirit is according to the nature of
man, moves not in contradiction to it, but in an elevation
of reason; he explodes principles which were planted in
the mind before, and discovers principles which reason.
cannot disown, though it did not before apprehend; he
doth not extinguish reason, the candle of the Lord, but
snuffs it and adds more light, reduces it to its proper man-
ner of operation, and sets it in its right state toward God;
brings fresh light into the understanding and new motions
into the will. He doth not dethrone reason and judg-
ment, but applies it to its proper work, repairs it, sets it
in its true motion; as mending a watch is not to destroy
it, but rectify that which is out of order, and restore it to
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
565
its true end. Religion is not the destruction but the
restoration of reason. The arguments the Spirit useth
are suited to the reason of men, otherwise conscience
could not be moved, for conscience follows judgment; it
is not one act of judgment, but imagination, that reason
doth not precede., As the service God requires is a
rational service, so the method he uses in conversion is a
rational method.'
We would now say a few words upon some of the uses
of reasoning to the preacher, regarding reasoning here in
the ordinary sense of the term, as the
method of persuasion by proof, or argu-
ment. Of these uses in cultivating the rea-
soning faculties, the first we would mention
is-
1
¹ Charnock.
Uses of
reasoning
to the
preacher.
(1.) To give a knowledge of the powers and neces-
sary laws of the mind in thought. Pure logic shows
the laws both of immediate knowledge and of mediate
knowledge, or thought. It teaches the methods of per-
ception, or the outer order of things repeated to the
mind; and of thought, or the inner order of things as it
exists in the mind by intuition, notion, judgment, in-
ference, and system. Without some training in the art
of thinking, one could hardly presume to be a public
teacher or speaker. The preacher should know how to
think. He should know what thought is, as far as it can
be known, both in its origin in the cognitive faculties of
intuition, perception, imagination, and in its evolution
through the elaborative or discursive faculties. He
should have some clear idea of the formation of distinct
judgments out of the region of consciousness. Then,
having gained the materials of thought, he should know
566
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
how to build upon them, by following out the laws of
logical method, and step by step, through new identifica-
tions and comparisons of relations, he should arrive at
higher and wider results. He should understand the laws
of reasoning, by which, whether through the briefer
method of inference or the more complex one of syllo-
gistic reasoning, certain products are reached. A syllo-
gism is the regular logical form of any argument, con-
sisting of three propositions, of which the first two are
called the premises, and the last the conclusion. The
conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. But
it is a mere form of reasoning, very liable to prove.
sophistical, or to prove nothing, because the terms are
really identical. But if the premises are not true, and
the syllogism is regular, the reasoning itself is valid, and
the conclusion, whether true or false, is regularly de-
rived. This dialectic skill, therefore, may be cultivated.
Thought, while free, yet has its laws, which are as invaria-
ble as the laws of the physical world. It is by walking
in the narrow way that, intellectually speaking, we come
into the kingdom of truth. A man may have transient
perceptions of truth, and brilliant, though vague, intui-
tions; but he can make little sure progress in the inves-
tigation and discovery of truth, unless he is able from one
clear judgment of the mind, or two distinct judgments,
to evolve, by a movement of thought, a new though com-
monly related judgment; and this is the simple process of
deductive reasoning. We will not enter here deeper into
the subject; but, as preachers and reasoners, we should
acquaint ourselves with the names and processes of the
science of reasoning, for its very names and forms are in-
timately connected with its processes. We thus gain a
clearer idea of the great laws of thought, and through
thought we verify and build up truth. Using it as an in-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
567
strument, we go forth into the fields of the physical and
spiritual world, and construct systems out of the materials
they furnish. In this way alone we can intelligently teach
truth; and the preacher is, above all, a teacher. We
would add, under this head, a word as to the two simple
and fundamental principles of all thinking, and into which
all true reasoning resolves itself, namely, analysis and
synthesis. (a.) Analysis. This process is
Analysis.
that of a whole to a part. It reduces a truth
to its elements, proving separately its different terms and
conclusions, and examining its groundwork and founda-
tions. This is always an intensely interesting process to
the human mind, and to the common mind. There will
always be eager listeners to a preacher who takes a truth,
even so repulsive a truth as that of human sinfulness,
and analyzes it with power and skill, and who thus gradu-
ally leads the mind from the outward to the inward truth,
from the abstract statement to the concrete substance,
e.g., from the nature of sin itself to the nature of the
human act of sin and all that it involves and bears along
with it. A preacher who has not disciplined his mind to
this analyzing process is always liable to be tripped up by
some strong-minded reasoner in his congregation. His
proposition is declared to be an apparent, and not true,
conclusion from his premises, or his argument totally fails
to touch this or that objection which reaches down deeper
still. But the analytic method has its dangers; and rea-
soners carried away by their critical enthusiasm, are apt to
make too much of the capabilities of analysis, and to forget
that it is really a process of dissection, in which often the
living unity escapes. Great errors in metaphysics and the-
ology have originated from an extravagant use of the ana-
lytic process. In this way one may soon reason himself
out of the sphere of living truth, and come into the region
w
-
SY
568
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
Synthesis.
of barren speculation and of atheistic materialism, as the
strong tendency is now in some of the physical sciences,
especially in the search after the principle of the origin of
life. Truth in its primitive conditions is a whole or unit,
and the moment you separate them without regard to
this organic unity, you begin to lose the highest concep-
tion of truth. For these reasons we should not neglect
the second great principle. (b.) Synthesis. This has
primary regard to the totality of truth;
and it aims at the combination of parts in
one whole. As a reasoning process it is that from a
part to a whole. It divides off, or draws off, sepa-
rately, that point of agreement in several objects which
we can designate by some common term. Thus, grad-
ually, some general fact, or general principle, which
belongs in common to all these objects, or classes of
objects, may be separated, and higher and higher levels
of truth, more and more nearly approaching the nature
of pure laws, may be arrived at. This is a great power in
a preacher, and lifts him at once above the level of those
men who can never rise out of a circle of conventional
ideas, nor venture upon new and independent views of
truth; whose stock in trade consists entirely of the con-
clusions of other minds. The moving power of reason-
ing depends mainly upon this power of generalization, of
rising from one conclusion to another, and bearing along
the mind of the hearer in a living and commanding pro-
cess of argumentation, in which truth is made to develop
its grander forces and its wider circles of thought and
proof. Nothing is more useful than this power of gen-
eralization to a preacher who derives his themes of in-
struction from the Word of God; who must, for the pur-
poses of instruction, or in order to give unity to his in-
struction, seek to derive out of various members and parts
my
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
569
1
of a passage, one truth, one main lesson, one clear propo-
sition, which he is to illustrate and enforce.
(2.) To develop truth in an orderly manner. Truth is
orderly. Being the child of the supreme reason, truth
must have an essential order, and certain unalterable
proportions, which, if destroyed or disarranged, cease
to have power. The gospel is a system of truth going
out from a living centre, governed by one law of de-
velopment, and wonderful in its adaptation to the human
mind. It is bringing the infinite into the bounds of the
finite. In order, therefore, that it may have its full influ-
ence and transforming power upon the mind, it should be
made to stand before the mind in something of its
original symmetry. The basis of all true preaching, or
sermonizing, is this deeply-meditated and orderly de-
velopment of Christian truth. The subject-matter of
edifying and instructive preaching is the thorough discus-
sion of those great principles of truth in their real har-
mony of proportions, which, taken together, form the
body of Christian doctrine. This kind of thoughtful rea-
soning must constitute what has been called "the spinal
column" of every true sermon. Other things are ad-
juncts; but here is the bone and substance of preach-
ing. Compact, orderly discussion should occupy the
main body of almost every discourse from the pulpit.
It is order," Vinet says, "which constitutes discourse.
The difference between a common orator and an eloquent
man is often nothing but a difference in respect of dis-
position." This "lucidus ordo,
lucidus ordo," this true method in
discourse, is essential to the teacher of truth. Method
aids us to arrive at the end at which we aim, by applying
the principles of the true development of thought to the
investigation and confirmation of truth. The materials.
of truth, derived from the higher intuitions of reason, the
""
570
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
phenomena of consciousness, the observations of the
senses, and the evidence of testimony, especially that of
the Scriptures, are organized, verified, and established,
through the laws of methodical reasoning. Thus we do
not compose vaguely, which is composing without
thought. We do not snatch up slight impressions or
suggestions, and discuss them without grasp or depth;
but by the application of true principles of definition, divi-
sion, and reasoning, we verify our knowledge of the Scrip-
tures, arrange and dispose it in a clear method; and we
are thus able to teach it; for one does not really know
a truth until he can teach it.
44
As highly as the study of logic has been lauded, per-
haps, after all, its greatest value, or its true value, is to
teach method in discourse. To the preacher it is useful
as aiding him in his plan ; when," in the words of
Hooker, "all that goes before prepares the way for all
that follows, and all that follows confirms all that went
before." It promotes movement in a sermon, and keeps
the end in view, eliminating all that is not subservient to
that end.
While divine truth does not depend upon any process
of reasoning but upon direct revelation, and upon the
teaching of God's spirit in the heart, yet by the tests and
criteria of inductive reasoning, hypothesis, analogy, and
the last analyses and relations of truth, its harmonies are
brought out, its groundwork is laid bare, and it is pre-
sented to the mind in such a way that the reason bows
and the conscience is convicted. Great preachers have
been great reasoners; not, perhaps, all of them, in the
scientific methods of strict logic, but in the clear develop-
ment of the foundation principles of doctrine, and in that
method of persuasion which the heart teaches to the true
preacher. Jonathan Edwards reasoned so forcibly that
GENERAL PRINCIPLes of rhETORIC.
571
his hearers thought God was speaking to them through
him, as, indeed, he was; for he grasped fundamental
principles, and so entered into them, that while he him-
self was hidden, he shook the consciences of men by the
pure power of truth. A greater than Edwards, or than
Calvin, among human preachers was the apostle Paul,
who was, above all, a reasoner. "He reasoned (dia-
λɛyoµévov sè àvrou) of righteousness, temperance, and
judgment to come. He was, according to Longinus,
who had himself drunk into the spirit of Demosthenes, a
dialectician of the first order. He convinced the reason
and carried the heart. He was not a dogmatic rcasoner,
or a mere logician and doctrinaire," and his reasoning
was more rhetorical than formal, but he appealed to rc-
ceived principles of reasoning, to arguments that had a
universal applicability, and to eternal truths in the con-
stitution of his hearers' minds. He did not ask them to
believe anything which he did not show them to be right,
and which, therefore, ought to be believed, and which he
himself believed. How fundamental were the great
themes of his preaching, reaching to those questions
which enter into the nature of God and the divine origin
of man-predestination and election, the corruption of
human nature by sin, grace and the atonement, justifica-
tion by faith and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, the
building up of the soul in a holy life, and the spiritual
kingdom of Christ! This kind of doctrinal preaching,
dealing with fundamental truths, ribbed and clamped
with manly argument, and filled with the breathings of
the Spirit, and the warm affections of the heart, is a kind
of preaching which is powerful, and which lasts. Argu-
ment forms the basis of interest with the popular mind,
and it is the staple method of dealing with and influenc-
ing mind. All kinds of highly exciting and mere
""
C
572
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
•
•
sensational preaching," soon wear out; but plain, sen-
sible, and comprehensive reasoning, without the pedantry
of the logician, or the hardness of the metaphysician,
always has power with the great mass of common-sense,
intelligent hearers. A sermon which has nothing of this
element of thoughtful argumentation in it rarely makes
an enduring impression, because it does not reach the
depths of the subject, or the depths of the mind. It
ruffles the top waves; it does not go down into the
springs of thought or motive. A preacher should be
able to treat of the fundamental nature of moral evi-
dence, and to reason in a forcible manner upon the sub-
ject of moral truth as related to human responsibility.
No amount of fine writing, dazzling declamation, or even
pathetic appeal, can atone for the absence of sound rea-
soning in a sermon. It need not, and should not, be
technically theological, nor be continued wearisomely;
but there can be little true eloquence without it. Truth,
which is the converting agency, is not honored if it is not
carefully developed, and if this thoughtful, orderly setting
forth of truth do not form the basis of the sermon. This
forms the positive element in preaching.
(3.) To lodge truth firmly in men's minds. Reasoning
is not mere philosophy, which is the manifestation of the
essential nature of things. But true reasoning is rather
the manifestation or exhibition of truth for the purpose
of immediate persuasion and practical good. A true
preacher's reasoning aims to lodge truth in men's minds.
Even logic, truly defined, is the science of methodizing
and of directing the intellectual powers in the investiga-
tion of truth, and its communication to other minds.
The last is as important as the first; it is the essential
thing in true reasoning. While the preacher, then, may
philosophize in reasoning, he cannot remain in philoso-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
573
phy, but must bring the truth out into the sphere of
human responsibility. He should not be satisfied with
merely demonstrating truth, but he should seek, as far as
human powers can do this, to apply it to the human
mind according to the laws of the mind; for if these laws
be observed in reasoning, the truth must be accepted, at
least intellectually, and this is a great thing gained.
The principles of reasoning are the same in all minds.
The process of producing conviction is the same, though
there are immense differences in reasoning power. There
is but one way by which the mind is convinced of the
truth, and becomes subjected to it. And divine truth
itself is not to be taken out of this category, though influ-
ences of a supernatural nature are superadded, for the
purpose of awakening the dormant or dead energies of
the mind. The Holy Spirit is not given because we have
not all the rational power needed to be convinced by the
truth, but it is added because we will not, and, morally
speaking, cannot, without the renewing influence of the
Holy Spirit, use the power and receive the truth. We
should do our best to convince men of the truth, and
leave it to a higher power to bring their minds into a
condition in which the truth will find firm lodgment in
them, and work its work upon them; and the true rea-
soner will stand the best chance to do this. We may say
that the burden of proof lies with the enemies of truth;
nevertheless, the preacher cannot expect to reach men's
minds, and permanently convince them, unless he sets
truth before them in a clear manner.
(4.) To expose and overcome error. Error is perverted
or wrongly reasoned truth-truth out of its right rela-
tions. It is built on some process of false reasoning, and,
having the appearance of truth, it has more power to de-
ceive. It may arise from a fault in the form of thinking,
•
574
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
and thus be self-deceiving-the most subtly powerful of
all error.
It may arise from carelessness of observation,
or untrue induction and deduction. Thus the statements
from which a conclusion is drawn may even be true, but
the deduction itself may be full of error. This false rea-
soning, however, may be sometimes far too deep for the
ordinary mind to detect. The Christian heart may de-
tect it, but it cannot be thoroughly overthrown until its
fallacy is discovered and exposed. This can be done
only by the disciplined reasoner. Gibbon, Hume,
Strauss, have rarely met their match as acute dialecti-
cians; therefore their reasoning has continued to work
mischief. Zealous but unskillful men have attacked
them, and been foiled, and the public faith has been
weakened. It would seem to be proved that the fierce
discussions upon Hume's famous argument on "miracles"
might have been saved if some contemporary theologian
had been able to point out in a clear way, which admitted
of no gainsaying, the fallacy contained in Hume's argu-
ment-that its middle term refers really to but a part,
whereas his conclusion is made to refer to a whole-an
instance of what is called in logic illicit process. In
other words, Hume falsely makes some testimony, which
is weak and fallible, to stand for all testimony, which is
not thus weak and fallible. The preacher should be
boldly skillful to detect these fallacies of false reasoning.
Many errors of the head, and many errors which arise
from ignorance and prejudice, and many errors which
arise from false popular inductions, might be put aside
forever in a congregation, if the preacher understood the
nature of true and false reasoning. Admit the Romish
premises, and you must come to the Romish conclu-
sion; admit the rationalistic premises, and you can land
yourself in the depths of pantheism, and even atheism.
C
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
575
When an
error arises in a community, men honor a
courageous assault made upon it by fair argument,
rather than an attempt to put it down in a dogmatic, un-
reasoning way; it will thrive under this latter treatment.
A preacher of Christ has, at some time, to buckle on the
armor of controversy, and meet error in manful conflict.
He must sometimes fight it out, as Paul tells Timothy to
do in respect to the false teachers of Ephesus; and by
the clear "manifestation of the truth," he will commend
himself and his cause to all.
(5.) To enable him to employ the fit argument. We
need not say that all arguments should not be used at all
times. Before some audiences it would be better to em-
ploy the indirect argument than an argument where the
conclusion is apparent. Dr. Emmons was famous for his
“ratio obliqua," which oftentimes was brought to bear
with sudden and irresistible power. He is, however,
not to be followed too closely in that, for that art, if
commonly used, would seem to imply something like
craft. In proving a certain proposition, or
The á priori
form of truth, the à priori argument, or the
argument.
method of deductive reasoning from gen-
erals to particulars, where certain generic truths are
taken for the premises, and then we reason to individuals
or particulars contained under them, may be the most
forcible method. Reasoning upon the nature of God
admits of the highest and most constant use of this kind
of argument. Indeed, the preacher is called upon to use
this argument almost continually, from the fact that he
preaches to interpret and enforce divine revelation,
instead of being called upon, as the scientific man is, to
arrive at new truth by the system of inductive reason-
ing.
Sometimes it is best to reason from an announced con-
576
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
clusion, where demonstrative truth is impossible. This
tentative process, when conducted on true
principles, and not carried into the extremes
of theoretical reasoning, is often interesting
and awakening; it leads to original investigations and
fresh views of divine truth. Oftentimes, on the other
hand, without naming our proposition, it is the most
effective plan to reason downward toward an unan-
nounced conclusion, arriving at it as if led by the very
force of truth, and not from any prearranged and control-
ling proposition.
Unannounced
conclusion.
Expansion.
A strong argument is made by reasoning from the prin-
ciple of expansion or extension; as, for example, that of
Young, in his "Christ in History." He
argues from the admitted facts of our Lord's
life on earth, taking the most natural and lowest view of
them-facts which present to men the simple manhood
of Jesus; from these his argument rises and leads on to
the irresistible conclusion that such words, such works,
such facts, such a character, can be predicated only of a
divine being, of one who in the constitution of his nature
was one with God. The argument from con-
traries is sometimes the only efficient argu-
ment; for the truth of some propositions can be estab-
lished only by proving their opposites to be untrue; for
of two opposites, both cannot be true, and if one be false,
the other must be true. The argument from analogy is
particularly useful to the preacher, but is,
nevertheless, extremely difficult to handle
with effect; and one may easily overdo it, and injure his
cause.
A false analogy is very seductive and very injuri-
Because, it is sometimes said, a cultivated garden.
always brings forth good fruits, therefore a cultivated
mind always produces good fruits and education is thus
Analogy.
ous.
Contraries.
A
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
577
the universal panacea of all evils-certainly a false con-
clusion. Analogy is often a strong argument, but it is
not, and cannot be, a wholly demonstrative argument;
even Bishop Butler's argument is not claimed to be con-
clusive. It may be as strong in its moral impression as a
demonstrative argument, and even stronger; but it is,
after all, greater in its negative than in its positive force.
It is said to have raised more doubts in the mind of Will-
iam Pitt than it solved. Employed in the more common
methods of comparison, and of illustrative reasoning, the
argument of analogy is of exceeding value to the preacher
in imparting a living force to his preaching; and that
kind of reasoning makes the natural world an organ to
play upon, and from it may be drawn harmonies and ac-
cords the most unexpected, powerful, and delightful.
44
The argument from analogy may be sound, but it
is not to all minds the most conclusive.”
It should be remembered that the argument from
analogy, unless it is supported by a true process of in-
duction, or unless there is some real and substantial rea-
son for the similarity of relations supposed in the an-
alogy, becomes a mere illustration, having a rhetorical,
but no logical value. To some kinds of mind nothing is
more tempting and nothing often more deluding than the
analogical style of reasoning. It is what Sir William
Hamilton calls the principle of "Philosophical Presump-
tion," by which we extend our inferences beyond the
limits of experience; and though a process dictated by
the noblest intelligence yet it has its great temptations.
to error. By induction we reason on the principle of re-
garding the one in the many-the one thing in common
in the many; by analogy we reason on the principle of re-
garding the many in the one-or the many things in com-
mon in the one; so "analogy rests upon the principle
S
578
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
>
that things which have many observed attributes in
common have other not observed attributes in common
likewise." It is, after all, a pure presumption, though
there may be very good grounds for it.
"To judge
analogically is to judge things by the similarity of their
relations." For example, the theologian whose views we
may be discussing, agrees in many points of doctrine
with the Calvinistic system of theology, therefore,
though we do not know the fact, it is right, we say, to
presume that he is a thorough Calvinist. This, you see,
though perfectly legitimate and highly interesting, is still
not absolutely conclusive or demonstrative reasoning.
Sir William Hamilton, however, ascribes to it a measure
of certainty under some conditions, but he says, never-
theless, “Analogy can only pretend, at best, to a high
degree of probability; it may have a high degree of cer-
tainty, but it never reaches to necessity." And as to
that the same may be said of the inductive method.
Relation,
The arguments, too, from relation, omission, experi-
ence, testimony, probability, may be wielded with effect,
if they are employed at the right time and
omission, in the right place. What is required in an
experience, argument is simply to present the truth in
testimony, as strong and clear a light as one can, so as
probability. to give all possible satisfaction to every
mind in the audience. We are required, therefore, to
study the particular case before us, the nature of the
truth to be established, the end to be gained, the quality
of the audience, and to adapt the reasoning to the cir-
cumstances of the theme and occasion, so that we may
be workmen that need not to be ashamed."
C
(6.) To produce persuasion. We mean by this some-
thing over and above what has been said of developing
truth and lodging it in the mind. We mean effecting
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
579
a change in the mind and act of the hearer. We mean
not merely to convince, not merely to move, but to move
to act. Paul and the early preachers did not leave
men quaking under the law, but led them to Christ; the
law itself was made to conduct men to Christ. This
was old Latimer's way of preaching. He was earnest,
as he said in his own quaint words, "in casting down the
people with the law, and with the threatenings of God
for sin; not forgetting to ridge them up again with the
gospel and the promises of God's favor."
Persuasion, according to Whately, depends on the con-
viction of the understanding, the influencing of the will,
and the moving of the feelings. Now, it is evident that
no exhortation, nor brilliant writing, can do this, with-
out, first of all, some clear exhibition of truth, which ap-
peals to the reason, presents a motive to the will, and
acts as an impulse to the feelings. Feeling does not
move at the mere voice of command. It is jealous of
authority-it refuses to be tampered with. The road to
it is indirect, and often exceedingly circuitous. The per-
suasion which finally seizes upon and moves the whole
being is no immediate result. When the Athenians
started up and cried, "To arms!" it was after one of
Demosthenes' most exhaustive and labored efforts of rea-
soning. The depths of the nature must be slowly aroused
and heated, before the whole soul-so to speak-flows
forth under persuasion. The understanding must hand
its verdict to the will, and the will must communicate its
impulse to the affections, and then the whole awakened
mind yields itself freely to the truth, and says, "I believe,
and I will do." As has been said in regard to divine
truth, the substantial and peculiar nature of divine truth
should not be lost sight of-that it is in itself pure and
simple, the converting instrumentality; or rather that it
580
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
<<
is accompanied by the special demonstrating and renew-
ing power of the Holy Spirit. We can add nothing to
the truth. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting
the soul." All is dry light without God's living energy
-that inner persuasion of truth which imparts new life
to the nature.
We add two cautions to the preacher in the use of rea-
soning. (a.) He should not rely wholly upon it for suc-
cess. Let one carefully study the apostolic
theory of preaching, as laid down in 1 Cor.
I: 17, to the 2: 5, where the futility of hu-
man wisdom in turning the sinful heart to
God is demonstrated. We see ourselves how absolute
errors, fatal errors, in regard to life and doctrine, some-
times spring from false reasoning, perverted judgment,
imperfect and partial induction, the fallacious but at-
tractive syllogism, the ambiguous method, the inverted
proof, the passionate or dogmatic conclusion, the rare-
ness of clear definition, the innumerable causes and
influences that go to disturb and destroy the honest
processes of the mind even of the man of best inten-
tions; and these things forbid us to trust too much
to reasoning. The nature of the corrupted human heart
and the nature of divine truth-in a word, the pres-
ence of sin and the need of a higher power-forbid a
supreme reliance on hunan reason. The preacher of
Christ is indeed the agent of producing not only persua-
sion, but life; he is not only, by means of the truth, to
bring men into a new opinion, but into a new disposi-
tion; but he must have God's help for this. Yet the
truth is, nevertheless, the instrument of this great work.
A popular American preacher has said that "ministers
should not always be talking about the truth-the truth.
They should preach and think more of the life." We
Cautions in
the use of
reasoning.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
581
agree with the sentiment that was probably meant to be
conveyed by that remark, yet there is a latent fallacy in
it; for divine truth differs from common truth, inasmuch
as it is itself potential with life: "My words, they are
spirit and they are life." They are not the mere food of
the intellect, they nourish the soul into everlasting life.
We know of no way of producing new spiritual life
excepting through the bringing home of divine truth to
men's minds and hearts, and, through their honest recep-
tion of it into the currents of life. This further inward
assimilating and life-giving process of the truth is hidden
and mysterious to us; yes, more so than the processes
of our natural life; but our duty as preachers is plain :
we should present and enforce the truth in the clearest,
most powerful and most persuasive manner that we are
capable of. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free."
That is invariably the divine method; and it is beauti-
fully consonant to the laws of the mind. We come to
the conclusion that reasoning, while it has a real value
to the preacher, is insufficient for the highest practical
results; these depend upon other factors. God, and the
things of God, in their deepest and truest meanings, do
not lie in the domain of reasoning; they are to be
reached, if at all, through faith, feeling, obedience, love
—often by not seeking to prove or define them. The
preacher should, therefore, beware of dogmatizing upon
themes of a higher sphere, and should keep himself to
the simple language of faith; he should choose to be
vaguc, rather than to attempt to confine infinite things in
logical formulas. These logical forms are useful but they
are not creative or productive. It has been said of the
syllogism itself that it is, even the best, but a petitio
principii. One may, indeed, sin as much through argu-
582
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
mentative preaching, as through sensational preaching.
The preacher should speak on heavenly themes even as
a child rather than as a geometrician. His reasoning,
should it ever assume an entirely abstract form, separates
himself and his theme from the living sympathies of his
hearers. Preaching must reach the people, or it is vain,
dead, worse than dead. (b.) He should not be a mere
reasoner. Reasoning is by no means all that a ser-
mon needs. It should have literary attractiveness, spirit-
ual insight, and, above all, heart, love, life, faith, unction.
Some kinds of sermons do not even admit of much close
reasoning. And reasoning in sermons should not end in
demonstration, but should be aimed at the conscience,
will, and heart. If the gospel is not preached in obedi-
ence to the rule of right, in reference to the moral sense
of men, it will have no permanent effect. It must not
coerce nor wheedle men; but it must address their rea-
sons in all honesty and fairness, otherwise the pulpit lays
itself open to the charge of being called "coward's cas-
tle." And the method of reasoning should not be too
circuitous or technical. Dr. Wayland, for example, had
a logical mind, and used the logical method in preach-
ing; but his hearers thought little of the logic, because
his sermons were practical, and were pointed directly to
the heart and life. It is not always practicable, nor
always best, to make the direct appeal; but no sermon
should be left to stand merely as an argument, exciting
respect or applause, and carrying conviction to the head;
but the hearers should perceive that the preacher cares
nothing about the argument, as an argument, and that
he is preaching to bring them to God and eternal life.
The preacher should not leave himself, or the merit of
his work, in the mind of the hearer, but Christ and his
work, Christ and his love. His hearers will get accus-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
583
tomed to the most terrifying doctrines, if they see that
the preacher, in his treatment of them, means nothing
more than the display of his dialectic skill and partisan
orthodoxy. This kind of preaching has been sometimes
carried so far, that it has emptied churches and driven
away the Spirit of God. Paul warned Timothy against
this very thing, and bade him not dwell upon subjects
which minister questions, rather than godly edifying,
which is in faith;" and to preach, "not himself, but
Christ Jesus the Lord." The preacher and his sermon
are of comparatively little importance. They have ac-
complished their task, if, by God's grace, they bring men
to the feet of Jesus. Has a sermon an amazingly rend-
ing power? Like a shell that has done its work, the most
powerful sermon, the most faithful argument, after it has
sped to its mark, is but worthless iron.
We would desire, in closing this theme, to repeat the
warning against too high expectations concerning the
productive power of the logical method in the investiga-
tion and communication of divine truth. Insight and
simple consciousness, the exercise of the higher reason,
above all, faith and obedience, are the chief productive
elements in the discovery and inculcation of divine truth.
In religious things the intuitions of the heart are better
than the conclusions of the intellect. No man is con-
verted by reasoning, but he is by love-the love of God
as manifested in Christ.
"
1
SEC. 25. Study of Language.
Whatever may be our theory in regard to the origin of
language, whether it be natural or divine, it is assuredly
the divinely ordained and inevitable expression of that
spirit in man which allies him to God. Man was created
with the capacity and instinct of language; i.e., with the
584
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
organs of speech and the ability to use these organs
to express his thoughts; and the effort to
do this, or the process of doing it, was the
origin of language. What the actual pro-
cess of forming language was, must remain
an unexplained problem; but the two elements in the
production of language were undoubtedly the power of
thought and the power of articulate expression. Why
certain sounds were applied to certain things, or objects,
or ideas, we know not; but we know that there must have
been, before sound, the power of perception, of obser-
vation, of classification; and thus thought was, humanly
speaking, the originating cause of language. Language
is thought embodied in speech. Words are the signs
and instruments of thought. And what is thought but
the operation or action of the mind itself, in its endeavor
to communicate its ideas or to define and express its con-
ceptions? Thus language, as the expression of thought,
which is the essential result and accompaniment of
mind, is really the true manifestation of the human
mind. Language is the great distinction of humanity,
as being the way in which the mind, or the spirit, in
man, makes itself known. "To speak is a necessity of
man's rational and emotional nature; he speaks because
he thinks and feels." As the word without the spirit is
dead, so, perhaps, it may be said that the spirit without
the word is dead also. Let us come at the root of lan-
guage, and we find that it is spiritual; and this truth in-
creases inexpressibly its value and power to us as preachers.
It is true that language is not a perfect expression of the
spirit-how could it be?" For any definition we can
frame for the eye as the organ of sight, the statement
that God sees,' is untrue, and we are only enabled to
decide this by the grasp we possess of the idea enveloped
Origin and
definition of
language.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
585
in the words, He that made the eye shall he not see?'
Thus language, with all its power of abstraction, is but
concrete when compared with thought; and it is, per-
haps, the privilege of advancing holiness, to be able to
divest its thoughts more and more of the accretions,
which are not wholly separable from them when clothed
in human language. Although language is thus, after
all, an imperfect exhibition of the soul, or thought of the
soul, yet it is the most perfect of all modes of spiritual ex-
pression. It is more perfect than music, painting, sculp-
ture, or any of the expressive arts. These are, in some
sort, language, and very expressive language; but the
language which is contained in words fits the soul more
closely, and is more subtle and vital than they. The
"winged words" fly forth as on the breath of the soul.
Other modes of expression are more material, indefinite,
and obscure. Speech is thus, more than anything else, the
soul made visible. Ben Jonson says, Language must
show a man; speak, that I may see thee! It springs
out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the
image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a
man's form and likeness so true as his speech." Walter
Savage Landor says, Language is a part of a man's
character." In fact, no two persons speak the same lan-
guage, nor give precisely the same meaning to words.
Every man's speech is, to a certain degree, peculiar and
individual, being the image of his own soul, and of no
one's else. He may try, perhaps, to hide his spirit in
his language, but it will, if he speaks much, show itself.
If language has this spiritual source and power, it de-
serves the greatest attention, for profound forces are
wrapped up in it, deep influences for evil or for good.
1
44
46
1 "Christian Remembrancer," April, 1860, p. 310.
586
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
We may see at a glance that if there is this profound
spiritual source of language, the spring should be kept
pure for the sake of the language, which is its true result.
and manifestation. Professor Whitney, in opposition to
Max Müller and some of the German writers, regards lan-
guage as a moral instead of a physical science; and he
looks upon it as connected more with the spiritual will
than with the physical life. Without doubt, because it
is thus so deeply associated with moral responsibility,
and so nearly allied to the soul itself, the Saviour said,
"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy
words thou shalt be condemned." Also the apostle
James said, “If any man offend not in word, the same is
a perfect man.'
The following is a characteristic and eloquent passage
on the "Power of the Tongue," by Isaac Barrow:
C
From hence, that the use of speech is itself a great in-
gredient into our practice, and hath a very general influ-
ence upon whatever we do, may be inferred that whoso-
ever governeth it well cannot also but well order his
whole life. The extent of speech must needs be vast,
since it is nearly commensurate to thought itself, which
it ever closely traceth, widely ranging through all the
immense variety of objects; so that men almost as often
speak incogitantly, as they think silently. Speech is in-
deed the rudder that steereth human affairs; the spring
that setteth the wheels of action on-going; the hands
work, the feet walk, all the members and all the senses
act by its direction and impulse; yea, most thoughts are
begotten, and most affections stirred up thereby; it is
itself most of our employment, and what we do beside it
is, however, guided and moved by it. It is the profession
and trade of many, it is the practice of all men, to be in
a manner continually talking. The chief and most con-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
587
siderable sort of men manage all their concernments
merely by words; by them princes rule their subjects,
generals command their armies, senators deliberate and
debate about great matters of state; by them advocates
plead causes, and judges decide them; divines perform
their offices, and minister their instructions; merchants
stock up their bargains, and drive on all their traffic.
Whatever, almost, great or small, is done in the court or
in the hall, in the church or at the exchange, in the school
'tis
or in the shop, it is the tongue alone that doth it;
the force of this little machine that turneth all the human
world about. It is indeed the use of this strange organ
which rendereth human life beyond the simple life of
other creatures, so exceedingly various and compounded;
which creates such a multiplicity of business and which
transacts it; while by it we communicate our secret con-
ceptions, transfusing them into others; while therewith
we instruct and advise one another; while we consult
about what is to be done, contest about right, dispute
about truth; while the whole business of conversation, of
commerce, of government, and administration of justice,
of learning, and of religion, is managed thereby; yea,
while it stoppeth the gaps of time, and filleth up the
wide intervals of business, our recreations and divertise-
ments (the which do constitute a great portion of our life)
mainly consisting therein; so that, in comparison thereof,
the execution of what we determine and all other actions
do take up small room; and even all that usually depend-
eth upon foregoing speech, which persuadeth or counsel-
eth, or commandeth it. Whence the province of speech
being so very large, it being so universally concerned,
either immediately as the matter, or by consequence as
the source of our actions, he that constantly governeth it
well, may justly be esteemed to live very excellently."
588
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
We would, therefore, lay down the simple proposition,
that for every conceivable reason, whether spiritual or
practical, the study of language is essential
The study to the preacher-
of language
essential
to the
preacher.
(1.) That language may become the per-
fect instrument of thought. If language is
thus vitally related to spirit, and, therefore,
to thought, it becomes the preacher-whose
duty it is to communicate the highest and most spiritual
thought to others—to study the powers and adaptations
of language. These are hidden and evasive. There is a
law of life in language, which is exceedingly subtle,
and which cannot be grasped by the unstudious or me-
chanical mind. This is the acquisition of a profoundly
disciplined perception. While the philological uses of a
preacher's special study of language, for the independent
interpretation of the Scriptures, and for all scholarly pur-
poses, are apparent, it is not of this aspect of language
that we would now particularly speak. The preacher
should study language-language itself, not languages-
in order that it may become this spiritual manifestation
or power; or, in other words, that it may become a facile
and perfect instrument of thought. Such is the divine
use of language. The Word of God is the perfect instru-
ment of the Spirit of God--"the sword of the Spirit,
which is the Word of God." And this higher truth re-
specting the word, or speech of God, extends even to
him who is the preacher of that word; for he who
preaches the word of God purely, wields "the sword of
the Spirit." There is a spiritual influence, a pure power,
that moves the soul and accompanies the language which
springs from a mind striving to express divine truth in a
way that shall honor it and worthily present it. And if
the human preacher, proclaiming the truth purely, is thus
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
589
permitted to wield the sword of the Spirit, how much
more should his language become the sword of his own
spirit! The word should be born with the thought.
Language should be the perfect instrument of the
preacher's own mind, doing with equal facility the mighti-
est and most delicate acts of his will. Even as his
thought is, even as his inmost soul is, so should his lan-
guage be.
The spiritual force of the man should go forth
without apparent effort, or incongruity of his words.
Men should not think of his language, how beautiful or
how strong it is, but should see himself in his language,
should see his spirit. To designate a modern writer and
preacher, the language of Dr. Bushnell is, we think, in a
marked degree, the manifestation of his thought; he
brought his language to a wonderful accord with his
inward self. His style might not be considered perfect,
but it expressed himself, and it expressed what he willed.
His mind wielded speech as a strong, swift gymnast
moves his limbs. Thought and word were
one and
indivisible-one act. He made language a study.
appreciated its power, and sought for its living law.
Everything he said, therefore, had a meaning, and
was instinct with life. His use of words is at the same
time exact and carelessly copious. It is not confined to
what is called neatness of style, but it has those higher
qualities of power which require a wider and bolder sway
over the realm of language. When he needs a strong
word or phrase for his purpose, he digs it up like a rock
out of the earth, and hurls it with all its ponderous
weight. When, however, he wishes to express an
abstract and philosophical idea, instead of simplifying it,
and bringing it down to the level of the unphilosophical
mind, he avails himself freely of learning and of accurate
scientific terminology, knowing that there is an instinct
He
590
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
in the appreciation of language even among common
men, which is better than education. In a word, he laid
hold of anything in the kingdom of language which scrved
his thought, which manifested most perfectly the force and
sagacity of his spirit. Another instance among modern
preachers of this plastic and vital use of language, though
not with the peculiar power of Dr. Bushnell in this one
particular, is F. W. Robertson. It was said of a more
ancient preacher still-Apollos-that he was "an elo-
quent man," referring, doubtless, to this power of expres-
sion in language. The preacher's use of language should
have all the naturalness of a common man's speech, and,
at the same time, all the scholar's command of the higher
and more hidden resources of language; its exquisite
adaptations to human thought.
(2.) That he may have a mastery of words. The
preacher's use of language, we have said, should have all
the naturalness of a common man's speech, and, at
the same time, all the scholar's command of the wide
resources of language. "A well-educated person in Eng-
land seldom uses more than about three thousand or four
thousand words in actual conversation. Accurate think-
ers and close reasoners, who avoid vague and general
expressions, and wait till they find the word that exactly
fits their meaning, employ a larger stock; and eloquent
speakers may rise to a command of ten thousand.
Shakespeare, who displayed a greater variety of expres-
sion than probably any other writer in any language, pro-
duced all his plays with about fifteen thousand words.
Milton's prose works are built up with eight thousand;
and the Old Testament says all that it has to say with
five thousand six hundred and forty-two words.' How
9, 1
¹ Max Müller's "Science of Language," p. 266.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
591
shall the preacher obtain this sway over the wide field of
language-how shall he acquire this copious vocabulary
-unless he makes language a special study-language
itself the powers, resources, and wealth of words? This
is a broad realm; one must conquer it to use its reve-
nues. He may have thought and learning, he may have
a vivid conception of truth; but unless he can express
his thoughts, unless he can wield this instrument of the
soul with freedom, he is a dumb prophet, he is an inar-
ticulate soul, the word of God languishes imprisoned
within him. One may deal too exclusively with the sub-
stance, and neglect too much the form of truth, or the
harmonious development of the substance and the form.
The language, therefore, of some preachers, when they
begin to attempt to communicate thought to other minds,
is stiff, mechanical, unyielding. They are not masters of
expression. The living power of words is not theirs.
Their ideas freeze while they speak. The inward con-
ception finds a totally inadequate medium of representa-
tion. There is no vital union between the thought and
the word; so that the style has either the appearance of
not being one's own, or of being that of an uncultivated
mind; which impression, in either case, may be entirely
false. The young preacher should be warned of his de-
ficiency in time, and he should set himself about correct-
ing or supplying this great want in his education, or, it
may be, this want in his original powers of expression, for
language is a special gift; and unless he does this, he
can hardly become a natural or original speaker; for if a
man wishes to have freshness and originality of style, he
must master language, he must make words subservient
to his will; else he will express them in a formal style
which he has caught from others, he knows not how.
He cannot be original unless he has a style of his own, as
K
T
592
RHETORIC APPLIED TO preaching.
well as thoughts of his own. A man's style of writing or
speaking may not be a good one, though it be his own ;
but it certainly is not a good one unless it is his own;
unless he has broken loose from the leading-strings of
imitation, and has acquired a genuine, unconscious style
of his own. He who has a style that is expressive of his
own mind has a style which .his own mind will look and
work freely in, and he does not fight in Saul's armor.
(3.) That he may, above all, be a master of his mother
tongue. How can one become possessor of a natural,
copious, and flexible style, which is the genuine in-
vestiture of his thought, until he thoroughly under-
stands the genius and structure of the language in
which he thinks? As it is now satisfactorily proved
that there can be no mixed language, though one lan-
guage may contribute to another, how important that
one should understand his own! Yet it is a singular fact
that most educated men study, all their lives, the dead
languages, and neglect that language which is the only
living one to them, and which must be learned in its own
grammar, history, and literature. "The general and
obvious distinction between the grammar of the English.
and the Continental tongues is, that whereas in the latter
the relations of words are determined by their form, or
by a traditional structure of period handed down from a
more strictly inflectional phase of those languages, in
English, on the other hand, those relations do not indi-
cate, but are deduced from, the logical categories of the
words which compose the period, and hence they must be
demonstrated by a very different process from that which
is appropriate for syntaxes depending on other principles.
A truly philosophical system of English syntax cannot,
then, be built up by means of the Latin scaffolding which
has served for the construction of all the continental
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
593
theories of grammar, and with which alone the literary
public is familiar, but must be conceived and executed on
a wholly new and original plan.
Some of the purest and most idiomatic English writers
in point of style have been men of one speech. Shake-
speare's "small Latin and less Greek" is a familiar fact ;
and in the same category may be reckoned Izaak Walton,
Dean Swift (who neglected his regular academic studies,
and applied himself mostly to the reading of poetry),
John Bunyan, Goldsmith to a certain extent, and De
Foe; and, in modern times, Dr. Franklin, Cobbett,
Erskine, Daniel Webster, Hugh Miller.
These men,
with one or two exceptions, knew little of the classics, or
of any language other than their own; and yet with what
power they used their own! What vigorous English
some of our American editors employ who have had but
a brief common-school education! The strength that
these men have, as writers and speakers, comes purely
from the English tongue; and this shows that there is
an original power in our language which does not depend
upon foreign learning.
To apply this to preaching, how often do we observe
in the preacher, and especially in the young preacher
fresh from the schools, a diction which is inverted and
scholastic. It is not the language of the people, the lan-
guage of intelligent merchants, farmers, mothers, and sen-
sible ordinary people. It is not also pure English, but it
is in some sense a foreign tongue. Take the language of
most of the earlier New England preachers, not except-
ing a great deal of the writing of Jonathan Edwards
(though it appeared less in him, and that is one of his
many claims to greatness), and what a barbarous and un-
,, 1
'Marsh's "Eng. Lang, and Early Literature," Lec. i. p. 22.
C
594
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
,, ""
99 66
couth dialect it was, made up of strained, contorted sen-
tences, and of Latin and theological terms which never
were nor could be good English, such as "effectuate,"
eventuate, exprobation," "vilipend, gripulous"!
Cotton Mather's works are a curious study (the fruits of
the study of which are to be seen in the inimitable “Big-
elow Papers'') as an exhibition of the distance to which the
English tongue could be conveyed bodily away from its
own forms, and still remain nominally an English tongue
-though we are not saying that there does not remain a
great deal that is valuable and eloquent in the writings
of the New England fathers, aside even from Jonathan
Edwards, whose works have peculiar claims of their own.
But this pedantic barbarism of dialect is not confined to
New England or to ancient times, but we find it in the
English, and especially the Scotch preachers of modern
days-above ail, in the greatest of them, in Dr. Chalmers,
who deliberately coined Latin-English in such grotesque
and monstrous words as "insatisfaction, transcorpo-
rated,' ataxic," and in a sentence like this, which, how-
ever good metaphysical language, is too scholastic for a
sermon "Prayer is the afferent fibre, and sacrament the
efferent fibre of the religious system.
,, ""
:
The rapid progress of science, and the coining of new
scientific terms into the language, which are generally
taken from the Latin, increases this barbarizing tendency
in modern English speech, and for which the pulpit has a
fatal proclivity.
"
,, (C
-
In order to acquire the thorough mastery of the Eng-
lish vocabulary and of pure English idioms, two sources
of study are particularly valuable, viz., English literature
and English philology.
(a.) English literature. Nothing helps to make us
facile and ready writers more than a rich course of read-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
595
In this way we gain a copious
ing in English literature.
style, and a quick perception of the marvel-
lous powers of words. Preachers are often
exceedingly deficient in this kind of literary
culture, and that is one of the causes of their stiff and bar-
ren style. Their English reading has been confined exclu-
sively to professional authors, to theological works whose
style, perhaps, is in the highest degree rigid, and devoid
of vital beauty. They do not enter the broad fields of
English poetry, drama, history, humor, and fiction.
A
knowledge of English literature implies a universal range
of authors, and excludes anything strictly technical or pro-
fessional. It has relations to humanity generally, rather
than to any particular department of it. And what lan-
guage may compare with the English in this vital ele-
ment, in this multiform character, in this wide scope of
subjects that appeal to our common nature? It is not
merely for the acquisition of new knowledge, but of
mental self-culture, of spiritual enriching and invigora-
tion, that ministers should make themselves widely ac-
quainted with the treasures of English literature. “Mere
philological or etymological learning cannot make up
for this want of general literary cultivation and read-
ing. Dictionary definitions, considered as a means of
philological instruction, are as inferior to miscellaneous
reading as a hortus siccus to a botanic garden. Words
exert their living powers, and give utterance to sentiment
and meaning, only in the organic combinations for which
nature has adapted them, and not in the alphabetic sin-
gle-file in which lexicographers post and drill them."'
De Quincey says, "There is, first, the literature of knowl-
edge, and, secondly, the literature of power. The func-
¹ Marsh's "Eng. Lang. and Early Literature,” p. 442.
English
literature.
596
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
tion of the first is to teach; the function of the second is
to move." Apply this remark to English literature, and
what names of living power start up! They show us that
if we are to go to Greek and Latin, German and French,
for our learning, we need not step out of the charmed
circle of English literature for works that communicate
power, that reach the springs of motive and action, that
educate character; for there is a spiritual depth and
penetration of the heart in English literature that is not
to be found elsewhere. In Carlyle's words, “It is plant-
ed in man's heart."
We should endeavor to read English literature upon
some plan; we should divide it into its great epochs,
make ourselves acquainted with the representative authors
of each epoch, and study the growth and changes of the
language from its origin to the present time.
A language which is the living speech of 80,000,000 of
the earth's inhabitants, and which promises to be more
widely spread than any other tongue, deserves our spe-
cial study. Every new age, it has been said, has some-
thing new in it-it takes up a new position. English
literature really began with Chaucer, for we speak now,
essentially, the language of Gower, Wyclif, and Chau-
cer; but the English language became a universal lan-
guage, a classical tongue, one for all men, with Shake-
speare. At the Restoration and through the eighteenth
century, though gaining in variety, ease, and pure
idiomatic style, it lost the vigor of the great Elizabethan
period; but this last century, commencing with Cowper
and Burns, has witnessed a reformation in English litera-
ture, and a return to nature and original sources of power.
The latter half of the reign of Elizabeth, and the whole of
the reign of James I.—from 1580 to 1625—a half century
or so, up to the beginning of the civil war, witnessed the
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
597
flowering of English literature and of the English lan-
guage, and here should the student find his choicest read-
ing. Of this period Lord Jeffrey said: "In point of real
force and originality of genius, neither the age of Pericles
nor the age of Augustus, nor the times of Leo, or of
Louis XIV. can come at all into comparison." Of prose
writers, Lord Bacon is prince, and for the theologian,
moralist, and preacher he is one of the richest of authors
both in style and matter. It is well to take one such
author as the representative of an age, and try to read
him with thoroughness, with all the helps that contem-
poraneous history, biography, painting, architecture, mili-
tary and civil records, science, philosophy and poetry can
afford us, and from him as a centre to work our way slow-
ly around, taking in the works of his contemporaries, and
thus mastering or completing the literature of an epoch
from some advantageous centre-a better plan this than
to read in a regular course, which is wearisome to the
most persevering. The best division of English literature
which we have seen is that of Professor Masson, into
three great epochs: I. From Chaucer to Dryden. II.
From Dryden inclusive to the close of the eighteenth
century. III. From the close of the eighteenth century
to the present time. But it does not lie in our province
to discuss at length English literature. While prose rep-
resents, as it were, the masculine element in literature,
and is lord and keeper of the house, receiving poetry with-
in it as a graceful guest or ornament of the house, yet the
preacher should not neglect the great poets of his language
-that part of literature which Shelley calls "the record of
the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest
minds." Poetry is more essentially vital and spiritual
than prose. Emerson says,
Emerson says, "Poetry is the perpetual
endeavor to express the spirit of the thing, to pass the
M
598
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
brute body and search the life and reason which causes it
to exist—to see that the object is always flowing away,
whilst the spirit or necessity which causes it subsists.
Religion allies itself with poetry as being the expression
of what is purest and most ideal in mind, and he who has
no appreciation of poetry loses much of the finer appre-
ciation of Christ's character, words, and works. There is
a true as well as false sentiment, or sentimentalism.
Wordsworth and Tennyson are next akin in high thought
to the best divines in the language. The preacher, too,
needs to cultivate his sympathetic nature, for he who has
no power of sympathy is a theological cuttle-fish who
darkens all about him with ink and nothing else. Poetry
also aids the preacher to develop his imagination and
his invention, both of which lie in the domain of repre-
sentative literature. The reading of poetry, or good
poetry, tends to supple the mind, to make it quick to see
resemblances, and to express mental objects in vivid
representations; to combine, fashion, and create fresh
forms of truth.
en-
In regard to English reading for the purpose of liter-
ary culture, putting aside strictly theological literature,
and also metaphysical and scientific works, which will
be read of course there are certain books, partly
religious and partly literary, that are peculiarly
riching, such as the works of some of the old Eng-
lish divines, especially Richard Hooker, Jeremy Tay-
lor, Archbishop Leighton, Ralph Cudworth, adding,
perhaps, Chillingworth and Stillingfleet. The writings of
Lord Bacon have just that mingling of the philosophic
and literary qualities which make their reading most nour-
ishing intellectually. Bacon's Essays, if nothing else,
should be much in our hands. Coleridge's prose writings,
especially his "Aids to Reflection," also combine rarely
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
599
the literary and philosophic characteristics. Of historical
works Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Em-
pire" is a rich continent of learning transfused by the
more personal literary element, sometimes, it is true, of
the cynical and virulent sort, but perhaps on that account
the more interesting in a psychological point of view.
Such books as Grote's "History of Greece," Hallam's
"Middle Ages," Robertson's "Charles the Fifth," Bur-
net's "History of His Own Time;" Clarendon's, Hume's,
Macaulay's, Lingard's, Froude's, and Green's Histories
of England, Freeman's, Motley's, Prescott's, and Ban-
croft's historical writings, there is hardly need to men-
tion.
Of biographies Boswell's "Life of Dr. Johnson," Car-
lyle's "Frederick the Great," Lockhart's "Life of Wal-
ter Scott," Campbell's "Lives of the Lord Chancellors,"
Stanley's "Life of Dr. Arnold," "Macaulay's Life and
Letters," and a score of others that might be noticed
could not be omitted,
Of poetry, fiction, drama, and art-those works which
form especially "the literature of power"-we cannot
here enter into the vastly rich fields. We are not in favor
of spending much time upon works which do not task the
mind, and of unduly feeding the imagination; but he
who neglects Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Words-
worth, turns aside from that which feeds the divinest
part of his nature. Walter Scott and Charles Kingsley,
George Eliot and Thackeray, have also their claim. The
modern novel has in some sense taken the place of the
moral essay in the Queen Anne epoch, and even of the
older English drama. It not only paints life and society,
but analyzes action and character. There is little fear
now that Carlyle will be copied in his style-indeed no
one could imitate it successfully—but the reaction against
600
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
his aristocratic intellectualism and arrogant spleen will go
by, and what is immortal in his scorn, and true in his
sophism, and stimulating in his truth, will remain.
It would be an invaluable study, leaving a profound
influence on the mind as a process of culture, deepening
the power of thought and expression, for one to read
Taine's "History of English Literature" (a remarkable
book in spite of its materialistic philosophy and glaring
faults, considering that it was the work of a foreigner
and a Frenchman), and to take up the various English
authors as he mentions them in their order of time, read-
ing, under his direction and guidance, ample selections.
from their best works. This of course would be a pro-
cess of years, but it would mingle pleasure and culture in
a wonderful degree. Shakespeare alone would afford
ceaseless study. The man pursuing this course would be
a richer man, and the preacher a richer preacher. The
humane and genial side of his nature would be developed ;
yet, as serious professional men, with a great object of
life before us, our chief reading should be of a solid sort.
There is a period of life which may be called the omnivo-
rous period, when one should read pretty much everything;
but after that, his reading must necessarily be more select
and scientific. F. W. Robertson said, "I read hard or
not at all-never skimming, never turning aside to many
inviting books; and Plato, Aristotle, Butler, Thucydides,
Jonathan Edwards, have passed like the iron atoms of
the blood into my mental constitution." Yet our present
point, be it remembered, is not theological and profes-
sional reading-but purely literary reading.
But in order to obtain a thorough knowl-
edge and real mastery of the English lan-
guage, it is necessary to give some serious
attention (b.) to English philology. This is the study
English
philology.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
601
1
of the structural character of the language, its historical
changes, and its practical analysis. To do this one must
go to the very roots of the language, to the Anglo-Saxon,
and observe the influence of the changes of form upon
thought, and the introduction of new foreign elements
that were grafted upon the old Germanic stock.
Perhaps no language is entirely pure, and the English
language (comprehending, it is said, twenty-three idioms,
ancient and modern) is the least so of all; yet, notwith-
standing its composite character, it has sturdily maintained
the essential character of its Gotho-Germanic parent stem.
There we should go to study it, not merely in its distinct-
ive Anglo-Saxon, but in its more continental Low German
(Platt-Deutsch) sounds. "The English language is sim-
ply Low-Dutch, with a very small Welsh, and a very large
Romance, infusion into its vocabulary. The Low-Dutch
of the continent, so closely cognate with our own tongue,
is the natural speech of the whole region from Flanders
to Holstein, and it has been carried by conquest over a
large region, original Sclavonic, to the further east. But
hemmed in by Romance, High-Dutch, and Danish, it is
giving way at all points, and it is only in Holland that it
survives as a literary language. It should always be
borne in mind that our affinity in blood and language is
in the first degree with the Low-Dutch, in the second
degree with the Danish. With the High-Dutch, the
German of modern literature, we have no direct connec-
tion at all. Other foreign elements come in later, and
especially the Latin or French element.
The French usurped the place of the English language
for nearly three hundred years after the Norman con-
quest. There were great changes in the English language
? 1
Freeman's Norman Conquest," v. i. p. 14.
看着
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602
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
between the middle of the twelfth century and the mid-
dle of the fourteenth. French became the court lan-
guage, the language of law, the language of devotion
and literature. There was a jargon of French and Eng-
lish spoken, corrupting the native tongue. In the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries this evil was at its
height, but the tide began slowly to turn in favor of the
original speech. "It was a sign that the English tongue
was again looking up, when, early in the thirteenth cen-
tury, a bishop wrote a devotional work in English for the
use of a sisterhood of nuns. But, in so doing, he brought
into his work a crowd of foreign words which had not
shown themselves in English before, but which have
stayed in our tongue ever since. The greater learning of
the clergy, their greater intercourse with other parts of
the world was, from one point of view, one of the better
results of the conquest. But there can be no doubt that
it led to a vast inroad of foreign words into our religious
and devotional speech. Even the Lord's prayer and the
Belief have not escaped; and that venerable relic of our
ancient tongue, that old-world form-that lex horrendi
carminis—in which English men and English women have
been joined in wedlock for a thousand years, has not
escaped the presence of a single stranger in the foreign
word endow. Throughout the thirteenth century new
foreign words were dropping in; in the fourteenth
they came in with a rush. By the end of that century
English had won its final victory; but the Parthian
shafts of the defeated enemy had done the conqueror the
deadliest of harm in the very moment of his conquest.
It has been said that our language has gained in variety
and flexibility by the introduction of French and foreign
1 Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest," vol. v. p. 545.
"
1
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
603
"4
words into it, but this, according to Mr. Freeman, is very
doubtful. 'The foreign words which have poured, and
are still pouring, into our language, are poor substitutes
for the treasures of ancient speech which we have cast
away." The power of the English tongue also, which it
possessed so amply in the eleventh century, to make and
combine new words, has been forever lost.
There are three great sources or treasuries of the Eng-
lish language in a philological as well as a literary point
of view; and especially of its idiomatic Anglo-Saxon ele-
ment, which every one who wishes to have a pure and
vigorous English style should endeavor to make himself
familiar with the works of Chaucer, of Shakespeare, and
of the English Bible. We mention them together chiefly
in respect of their language.
1. Chaucer. The study of Chaucer forms, perhaps,
our best introduction to the study of the Saxon element
in our language; for, although great changes
had already taken place in his day, yet Chau-
cer is in one sense the creator of the English tongue; he
first moulded it into the forms of literature. Whatever
remained of the Saxon after the Norman-French had
been ingrafted upon it, and in some respects had fatally
supplanted or outgrown it, he used with freedom and
vigor. It forms still the staple of his language, and as
his genius fixed the language in its forms of grammar and
literature, the Saxon element did not, after him, yield to
any extraneous influences. We may, indeed, set it down
as an axiom capable of the fullest proof, that Chaucer's
grammatical use of the language did not materially differ
from its present use. Most of the essential grammnatical
changes from the ancient Saxon had already taken place';
although Dr. Johnson pronounced it impossible to ascer-
tain precisely when our speech ceased to be Saxon, and
Chaucer.
604
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
>> 1
when it began to be genuine English. But the language
of Chaucer is substantially our language; and the true
conservative influence, or the radically assimilating and
unifying principle, in our tongue, now, as it was in his
day, is its Saxon element: that is the substratum which
it is impossible to disintegrate, and which has never given
way to the influences of conquest; it is therefore well
worth our study. Philosophy and science, and the arts
of high civilization, find their utterance in the Latin
words, or, if not in the Latin, in the Greek. One part
of the language is not to be cultivated at the expense of
the other; the Saxon at the cost of the Latin, as little as
the Latin at the cost of the Saxon. But when a Latin
and a Saxon word offered themselves for choice, Trench
would have us take the Saxon. But when we come to
the words which indicate different states, emotions, pas-
sions, mental processes-all, in short, that expresses the
moral or intellectual man-the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary
is eminently affluent.''' De Quincey says, "Pathos, in
situations which are homely, or at all connected with
domestic affections, naturally moves in Saxon words.
And why? Because the Saxon is the aboriginal element
—the basis, not the superstructure; consequently it com-
prehends all the ideas which are natural to the heart of
man, and to the elementary situations of life." What-
ever, then, we, as preachers, may draw from the Anglo-
Saxon element of the language, we thereby gain in the
vocabulary of the heart. One cannot move men to tears
in the Johnsonian style; and the preacher needs to learn
this simple language of feeling.
2. Shakespeare. We cannot enter into the wide sub-
ject of the uses of the study of "the myriad-minded
""
<<
'Trench's "English Past and Present," p. 34.
2 Marsh's "Eng. Lang. and Lit.," p. 94.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
605
Shakespeare.
T
bard" to the preacher, as an aid in the knowledge of
human nature, and as a guide to the depths
of our moral being. Dr. Emmons, the in-
carnation of the logical intellect, read Shakespeare, he
himself says, as a help in his preaching, and in the study
of the human heart. The moral element lies at the basis
of Shakespeare's greatness; and it is this ethical and
heart-searching quality, at the same time penetrating
and genial, wonderfully discerning, yet healing and lov-
ing all, that makes him the poet of universal humanity.
Even Goethe describes German, or in his classical works
a sort of copied Greek nature, and Homer himself
describes Greek-the Greek type of human nature, war-
like, fierce, sensuous, eloquent, dissimulating, loving
beauty, song, and art; but Shakespeare's personages are
men and women with the universal instincts of humanity,
not English humanity merely, but that which might have
lived, and loved, and suffered, and sinned, in any age or
in any clime in which the race has existed, or shall exist.
There was in the poet himself a mental completeness
—of “imagination all compact;" of intellectual depth
and subtlety, as seen in the philosophic grasp of Hamlet;
of moral scope and apprehension, understanding intuitive-
ly the different states of human life, the masculine and the
feminine natures, and the finest relations of the human
will to the events and laws of the universe, so that "all
humanity was mirrored in the individual." Shakespeare
paints man and develops character, not as other artists,
by working upon philosophical principles, upon theory
merely, so that this person or that person is the embodi-
ment of special character; but he views man as a whole,
with blendings of good and evil, wisdom and folly,
strength and weakness; swayed now by this motive and
now by that; capable of vast effort, but perishing before
606
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
the moth; a creature of heaven and earth; a being of
passions, impulses, sympathies, attractions, as well as of
rational judgments, and as diversified and unaccount-
able as the universe he lives in; not exhausting any
character, but letting him act fragmentarily, as he does
in actual life, and as he does in the Bible, which book
there is no doubt Shakespeare studied, and which is
the only perfect transcript of man, because man's spirit
is a great deep, and is supernatural and immortal.
Ulrici, the German critic of Shakespeare, says that it is
wonderful that a man who possessed such depths of
passion and knowledge of sin, could have so controlled
his life as to have been always, as he seems to have
been, at least after his youthful period, respected and
beloved. He says that his spirit, and his spiritual idea
of God and man, was decidedly Protestant, contrary to
the narrower judgment of Carlyle. Goethe says, “You
would think, while reading his plays, that you stood be-
fore the enclosed awful books of fate, while the whirlwind
of most impassioned life was howling through the leaves,
and tossing them fiercely to and fro."
But the study of Shakespeare in his use of language, of
the English tongue, in what has been called "his match-
less use of words," is what we would now specially
notice. We find that the Saxon was also the substratum
of his style. He is said to have sixty per cent of native.
Saxon words, and the English Bible has about the samc.
Milton has less than thirty-three per cent. Shakespeare
had, as before remarked, a comparatively restricted
vocabulary, not exceeding, it is said, fifteen thousand
words. His affluence of language, according to Marsh,
arises from his variety of combination, rather than his
numerical abundance of words; he stood at the culmina-
tion of the strength and richness of the English tongue,
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
607
after Spenser and many skillful writers since Chaucer's
day had moulded and refined it; and yet it had not lost
its simple English character. The naturalness, sweet-
ness, expression, and force of Shakespeare's language
sprang from this source. But he also understood how to
use the resources of the classical words of the language,
in order to give variety, elegance, and a lofty majesty
to his thought. Shakespeare proved that the English
language is the finest instrument of thought man ever
had--capable of the most varied expression, whether it
takes the form of precise thinking, or of the highest
soarings of the imagination. There is a spiritual quality
in the English which no other language possesses in an
equal degree; and this has always been its characteristic,
for a language expresses the history and spirit of a race;
and in the English race, with all its grossness and earthli-
ness, the moral and spiritual element has predominated.
"It is in this inherited quality of moral revelation, which
has been perpetuated and handed down from the tongue
of the Gothic conquerors to its English first-born, that
lies, in good part, the secret of Shakespeare's power of
bodying forth so much of man's internal being, and cloth-
ing so many of his mysterious sympathies in living
words. We doubt whether so great a genius as
Shakespeare, or even a greater, if we could conceive of
such, could have written his dramas in the French lan-
guage. And Shakespeare must have fully appreciated
the moral richness and power of his mother tongue, to
use it as he did; for the opinion that prevailed so long,
that he was simply a poet of nature, without art-
born, not made-while in one sense true, in another is
not true. He was a transcendent genius, but he shows.
', }
¹ Marsh's "English Language,” p. 94.
Na
608
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING,
everywhere the artist; though perhaps there never was
an artist who wrought less on established rules. In fact
he illustrates his own subtle words:
"This is an art
Which doth mend nature-change it, rather, but
The art itself is nature.
What is the secret of the wonderful freshness of
Shakespeare's language, so that it is always new, always
wet with the morning dew, when the works of other great
authors grow obsolete? This is a question worthy of our
special study. The language of the poet is so com-
pletely the expression of his mind that we think of the
beauty of the thought, and are moved by the pathos and
power of what is said, but we never think of the language
itself, unless, indeed, we study it. This is the perfection
of language; this is to have the language one with the
thought, the true expression of the spirit. In his lan-
guage we look upon the real mind or spirit of Shake-
speare, unconfused by the medium through which it is
expressed. That, surely, is one of the great sources of
his power.
While thus a limpid expression of his
thought, it by no means follows that all of Shakespeare's
language has this achromatic character. It is sometimes
obscure, dark, difficult to be understood; but that springs
from the depth of the thought, and not from the
obscurity of the language. Here the language suits the
thought, and is born with it.
Shakespeare's style, contrary to the prevailing canon
of literary taste at the present day, is highly metaphorical.
Oftentimes his most profound and exquisite thinking
utters itself in this way; and although it may be called
1 "Winter's Tale," iv. 3.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
609
the language of poetry, yet it is a question whether the
total disregard of the metaphorical style of thought—a
style which springs from the closest relations of nature to
the mind-is not a loss of vital power in style.
3. The English Bible. It is wonderful how the Eng-
lish translators of the Bible struck the golden mean be-
tween the Latin and the original Saxon.
"There was, indeed, something still deeper
than love of sound and genuine English at
work in our translators, whether they were conscious of
it or not, which hindered them from sending the Scrip-
tures to their fellow-countrymen dressed out in a semi-
Latin garb. The Reformation, which they were in this
translation so mightily strengthening and confirming,
was just a throwing off, on the part of the Teutonic
nations, of that everlasting pupilage in which Rome
would have held them; an assertion, at length, that they
were come to full age, and that not through her, but
directly through Christ, they would address themselves
unto God. The use of the Latin language as the lan-
guage of worship, as the language in which the Scriptures
might alone be read, had been the great badge of servi-
tude, even as the Latin habits of thought and feeling
which it promoted had been the great helps to the continu-
ance of this servitude through long ages. It lay deep in
the very nature of their course that the reformers should
develop the Saxon, or essentially national, element in the
language.
?? 1
The King James version was completed and published
in 1611. In the great religious controversies at and after
that period, this version became the quoted authority,
the standard of appeal; and thus it planted itself deep
1 4
English, Past and Present," p. 39.
The English
Bible.
610
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
in the mind and heart of the people, so that not only in
a spiritual, but linguistic point of view, it has exerted a
more shaping influence on our language than any other
volume. If Chaucer was the harbinger, the English Bible
was the finisher or perfecter, of the English language. It
is not merely the colloquial language, nor merely the
book language; it is rather the popular religious lan-
guage, or the choice phraseology of the best Christian
minds of the nation. England had been Protestant for
nearly a century when our English version was made, and
Wyclif's, Tyndale's, Matthews', Coverdale's, and Cran-
mer's translations had been in the hands of the people,
the first of them from the fourteenth century. Our ver-
sion was not a new one, but was founded upon those pre-
vious translations, with but slight changes of expression,
so that it marks the growth and perfection of the lan-
guage during its whole formative period. It looks far
back, as well as far forward; it stretches over the entire
history of the English language; it embodies essentially
the best speech of the English people during at least five
centuries; it is the most genuine English since the time.
when the English language became the real expression of
English thought; and it is a remarkable fact that the
best usage of words at this moment is more nearly assim-
ilated to the style of the English version of the Bible than
it was a century or two centuries ago, showing that the
English Bible exerts a constant attraction and conservative
influence upon the language. In many points of correct
scholarship and interpretation it is confessedly faulty, and
it has undergone thorough and careful emendation in the
C
Revised version" of 1881, but we cannot get far away
from it and still be English. No version of the Bible
which has since been made can compare with it in
nobility, sweetness, and spiritual force; for a translation
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
611
should have something more than correctness in order
to be true, since the very spirit escapes in a literal
and inelegant version. It is, we think, not one of the
least advantages of our profession, even in a rhetorical
point of view, that we are driven to the constant reading
and study of the English Bible. It should exert a strong
influence upon our style; ought we not to study it con-
tinually, even for that purpose? Coleridge said, “In-
tense study of the Bible will keep any writer from being
vulgar in point of style." It will also enrich and invigo-
rate, for there is just that mingling of prose and poetry in
the Bible which marks the highest and richest character
in style. "We should take this silent warning from the
pages of revelation, and combine in our literary culture
the same elements of the actual and the imaginative.
***
In addition to what has been said of the literary and
philological study of our language, we would remark that
it should be studied as it is used among liv-
ing men, we might add of living women also.
This we have before urged. As preachers,
we are called upon to leave the language of
books, and to take up that of living men, purified of its
debasements. We are to study the speech of intelligent
men and women as we hear it every day by the hearth,
in the streets, and by the way. Grammaticasters seek
the history of language in written, and especially in ele-
gant, literature; but, except in the fleeting dialect of
pedants, linguistic change and progress begin in oral
speech; and it is long before the pen takes up and re-
cords the forms and words which have become established
in the living tongue. If you would know the present
tendency of English, go, as Luther did, to the market
¹ Reed's "Eng. Lit.,'' p. 75.
<<
The language
of living
men.
612
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
and the workshop; you will there hear new words and
combinations which orators and poets will adopt in a
future generation." " We are, if possible, to get hold of
the spoken language. We should possess a medium of
communication with the common heart. Augustine went
so far, when preaching to the colonial inhabitants of
Africa, as to speak their broken Latin to them. We
should rid ourselves, as far as possible, of the language of
scholars, while at the same time we retain the purifying
and elevating influences of true scholarship. Old Roger
Ascham's rule was to speak like a common man, and
think like a wise man. A preacher who cannot talk to
the people so that they can understand him is stopped at
the threshold of his ministry.
,,
In conclusion, let the preacher first have the truth, and
then know how to express it. Let him not neglect the
last, while acquiring the first. Let him fill his soul with
the truth and then seek to make it known to men. This
can be done alone through language. Language makes
the word the preached word," the living word, which
is able to save men's souls.
"
SEC. 26. Taste in Preaching.
Taste has been defined as “that faculty of the mind
which enables it to perceive, with the aid of reason to
judge of, and with the help of imagination
to enjoy, whatever is beautiful or sublime in
the works of nature and art. It aims to
establish correct principles of knowledge and criticism in
relation to the production of the beautiful in art. Car-
lyle says in his strong way: "Taste, if it mean anything
but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general sus-
Definition
of taste.
..
¹ Marsh's Eng. Lang, and Lit.," p. 452.
១ Quackenbos's "Rhetoric," p. 170.
2
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
613
ceptibility to truth and nobleness; a sense to discern,
and a heart to love and reverence, all beauty, order,
goodness, wheresoever and in whatsoever forms and ac-
complishments they are to be seen. This surely implies,
as its chief condition, not any given external rank or
situation, but a finely gifted mind, purified into harmony
with itself, into keenness and justice of vision, above all,
kindled into love and generous admiration.”
Preaching would be debased by calling it an æsthetical
art; yet æsthetical principles must more or less enter
into it, so far as it may come under rhetorical rules; and
there is the more need of attending to these principles.
of good taste in preaching because of late years there has
been a growing tendency to loose speech, and even vul-
garity, in the pulpit.
Quatremère De Quincy, in his work on the Fine Arts,
places poetry at the head of the aesthetic arts, as being
the purest product of the mental idea of beauty, and the
farthest removed from the material object: then comes
music; then painting; then sculpture; then architec-
ture; then come the mechanical and illustrative arts.
We would, however, be disposed to give to oratory the
first place so far as it is an aesthetic art, because it acts
more immediately upon the soul; because it is more free
and spiritual than any other art; and because it deals
almost exclusively with pure ideas. Certainly, this is
true of preaching. That oratory is an art there can be
no doubt, for it is a system of means to an end, and of
the most exquisite and intellectual kind; but it is not
wholly an art, for the useful and practical predominate
in it far more than the beautiful; and the beautiful
itself, in oratory, is but relative, or what is fitted to
increase the power and usefulness of oratory. It is,
in fact, by the assistance which it renders, by the
614
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
<<
power which it lends to the efficiency of the oratorical
art in its great ends, that the idea of the beautiful can
enter at all into oratory. Mr. Emerson says:
The con-
scious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any
end, is art. Architecture and eloquence are mixed arts,
whose end is sometimes beauty and sometimes use.
Eloquence, as far as it is a fine art, is modified by the
material organization of the orator, the tone of the
voice, the physical strength, the play of the eyes and the
countenance. All this is so much deducted from the
purely spiritual pleasure, and from the merit of art, as
being rather the attribute of nature.
1
The preacher surely should not aim at the beautiful, so
far as to make it his end; but the principles of good
taste, of true harmony and fitness, should be in his mind,
so that all its productions should unconsciously take the
highest form of beauty. "Whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of
good report"—these noble and beautiful forms of things
-he is called to think upon, and he dwells perpetually in
their high communion and meditation. They are chiefly
forms of mental and moral beauty with him.
"All high
ideas of beauty," says Ruskin, "depend probably on
delicate perceptions of fitness, propriety, relation, which
are purely intellectual." They are taken out of their
sensible relations with the visible world, and become
ideal forms or types of beauty in the mind, associated
with sacred and eternal things, and with God himself.
While, then, the preacher does not, and should not.
aim at the beautiful in art, he still may come through the
beautiful into the good; and he more and more will find,
} < Society and Solitude."
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
615
as he enters into the higher things of God, that the ro
καλὸν and the τὸ ἀγαθὸν are one, that truth is beauty,
and that a mighty power in preaching the gospel lies in
its appeal to the universal æsthetic principle in the human
heart. We would be willing to found this assertion upon
no less an authority, though probably, to some, an unex-
pected one, than Jonathan Edwards, in the third chapter
of his treatise on The Nature of True Virtue."
Esthetics, looked upon as an art, or as a department
of mental science, chiefly applies, according to the Kan-
tian use of the term, to the form of thought which any
beautiful object of nature or art must necessarily, or as
it exists in the mind, assume; it does not refer primarily
to the actual or material condition or form of the object
to which it is applied. But real beauty resides ultimately
in the idea; first of all in the absolute idea of beauty
itself, which has its type in the divine creative mind;
thence it enters into the conception of the human mind;
and from that conception a product of beauty is born,
which is the outward expression of this formal idea.
The question is, May this æsthetic idea of
formal beauty enter into so solemn and prac- Why may
tical a work as a sermon, or preaching? We
think it may, because-
the æsthetic
idea enter
into preach-
ing.
(1.) Our affection for God is increased by
the setting forth of his perfections and true
loveliness. The philosophical object of love, even of the
highest love, is beauty. A sermon about God has, for
one of its aims, to bring out the beauty of the divine
nature--the essential beauty of God-not in its relations
to us, but as it is in itself, in its own ineffable loveli-
ness, for our love and praise. But this may be considered
a transcendental reason; and, more practically, the idea
of beauty may enter into a sermon, because—
:
616
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
(2.) Beauty renders truth more attractive. We cannot
do better here than to quote a passage from one of
Schiller's essays on the "Limits of Taste." "Certainly,
beauty of investiture can promote intellectual convictions
just as little as the elegant arrangement of a repast serves to
satiate the guest, or the exterior polish of a man to decide
his internal worth. But just as the fine disposition of a
table entices the appetite, and a recommendatory exterior
generally awakens and excites attention to the man, so
by an attractive exhibition of truth we are favorably in-
clined to open our soul to it; and the hinderances in our
disposition which otherwise would have opposed the
difficult prosecution of a long and rigorous chain of
thought, are removed. The subject never gains by
beauty of form, nor is the understanding assisted in its
cognition by taste. The subject must recommend itself
directly to the understanding through itself, while beauty
of form addresses the imagination, and flatters it with a
show of freedom.”
The last expression of Schiller's shows one true use of
the æsthetic principle as applied to oratory, and even
to sacred oratory; it appeals agreeably and powerfully
to the imagination, and thus makes way for the more
favorable hearing of the truth; and even this advantage
is not to be carelessly neglected by the preacher. The
greatest truths," says Channing, are wronged if not
linked with beauty, and they win their way most surely
and deeply into the soul, when arranged in their natural
and fit attire."
44
(3.) The aesthetical clement has a place in the sermon
because the Scriptures themselves admit of it. The Bible
is full of the æsthetic element; the preaching of the
prophets was a lively address to the imagination, by
the presentation of the boldest and most beautiful sym-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
617
bolism; the preaching of the apostle Paul abounds in ap-
peals to this principle. What is finer than his figure of
the Roman armor, carried out with such wonderful
beauty and completeness of detail, and which at this day
is exquisitely illustrated by the bas-reliefs of Trajan's
Column at Rome? The introduction to his discourse on
the Areopagus is a splendid instance of the principle of
adaptation, which is one of the qualities of beauty. Paul
had a fine perception of the æsthetic quality of "pro-
priety"—one that borders closely on "adaptation;" he
addressed the fit word to every audience; he made use
of Greek literature at Athens; he reasoned from the He-
brew Scriptures and theology at Jerusalem, and in the
Jewish synagogue; he appealed to Roman law and opin-
ions in addressing a Roman assembly.
But to come to an infinitely higher example--there is
in the words and discourses of our Lord that sense of
moral beauty, which, though it is not to be named with
mere intellectual beauty, and least of all with beauty
which is the object of perception by the senses, neverthe-
less comprehends the truest ideas of beauty of every kind.
Victor Cousin says:
La beauté morale est le fond de
toute vraic beauté. Ce fond est un peu couvert et voilé
dans la nature. L'art le dégage, et lui donne des formes
plus transparentes. C'est par cet endroit, que l'art, quand
il connait bien sa puissance et ses ressources, instituc avec la
nature unc lutte où il peut avoir l'avantage." The Ser-
mon on the Mount has a unity which is a foundation-
quality of the beautiful. As the deep current of a great
river bears everything along with it, so there runs through
this discourse one formative idea of the "kingdom of
God," as that kingdom descends from heaven into this
world and shapes its new results in human nature, so-
ciety, responsibility, and life; and the development of
C
17
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
618
this idea gives to the sermon the highest beauty of form,
as well as the most profound depth of meaning—an objec-
tive and subjective beauty. Everything, indeed, that
the Saviour said had a beauty which makes it attractive
and immortal, and which gives it a divine significance,
regarded simply as truth.
There is also to be observed in the New Testament,
and in the sayings and discourses of our Lord, a frequent
use of the words καλὸς or τὸ καλόν--the same word used
by Plato and the Greek writers to signify "the beauti-
ful," as distinguished from "the true" and "the good.
On the most beautiful specimens of Greek vases, of un-
known antiquity, the word Kalov is sometimes written, as
if this expressed the perfection of the beautiful in art. We
know that xalos bears the secondary moral meaning of
"good, true, excellent," "worthy," as it is every-
where translated in the New Testament; but, as a mod-
ern poet has said that the beautiful is only the other side
of the true, does this word in the Scriptures always en-
tirely lose its original and proper idea of "beautiful"?
In Matt. 26: 10, where the woman anoints the Saviour's
;; <<
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1
"(
feet, he says, Why trouble ye the woman? for she
hath wrought a good work upon me” (ἔργον γὰρ καλόν).
Was not this a beautiful as well as good work? Matt.
516, "Let your light so shine before men that they
may see your good works" (τà naλà εpyα)—" your
beautiful works," in which the lustrous light of divine
truth shines, and attracts men's eyes by its shining. The
Lord called himself & πov nalos-“the good shep-
ὁπο
herd;" but why not. the beautiful shepherd"—one in
whose character, nature, and work there is a beautiful
fitness, propriety, worthiness, to be our spiritual shep-
herd? A Nestorian convert is reported to have said to
another Nestorian, "My brother, have you yet found
<"
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
619
Christ to be beautiful?"—as if he had said, "Does the
beauty of the holiness and truth that are in Jesus appear
to you so clear that it draws out your affections, that it
gives you sincere delight to contemplate it, and make it
your own?" Christ is the harmonizer of the world of
mind and matter; he is mediator in the realms of truth
and reason, as well as of faith; and by removing the de-
formity of sin from the world he makes all things beau-
tiful. Among the primitive Christians it must be con-
fessed that the idea of the beautiful, or the idea of art,
was not cultivated, and, we might say, was shunned.
The early Christians had a horror of what they saw uni-
versally employed and even deified, by heathen religions;
but when art was once freed from its associations with
heathenism and false religion, then it offered itself to
the use of religion as a true thing, as a source of influ-
ence and happiness, as a true expression of the human
mind. But though not much of art, there is much of
true poetry in the very earliest Christian times-as we
see, for example, in the worship of the apostolic church,
which oftentimes left the earth and mounted to God
on the wings of song, "in psalms and hymns, and
spiritual songs. This was intense feeling expressing
itself in modes and forms of art, however simple. In
fact, artistic symbolism began very soon to develop itself
in the history of Christianity. The newness and great-
ness of Christian truth inspired pure and exalted poetic
feeling. It gave birth to great thoughts, great ideas,
and great ideals, never more beautiful in their simple ex-
pression than when seen in that morning light of Chris-
tianity. Christianity not only touches the conscience,
but fires the heart and imagination, and leads them to
those heights and depths of which Milton and Dante,
after all, are inadequate representatives-the words of
620
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.'
D
Scripture being the only fit embodiment of the perfect.
beauty and the supernatural sublimity of revealed truth.
Victor Cousin well says, "L'art ne tient à la religion, ni
à la morale; mais comme elles il nous approche de l'infini,
dont il nous manifeste une des formes. Dieu est la source
de toute beauté, comme de toute verité, de toute religion, de
toute morale. Le but le plus élevé de l'art est donc de
réveiller à sa manière le sentiment de l'infini."
""
(4.) The principle of beauty may come into the sermon
because there is an absolute idea of beauty in the human
mind. This rests at the bottom of all ideas and conceptions
of taste, and is a divinely implanted principle of our na-
ture. Emerson says, The universal soul is the alone crea-
tor of the useful and the beautiful; therefore to make any-
thing useful or beautiful, the individual must be submitted
to the universal mind." In the very soul of humanity this
principle of beauty has been created for good ends— there
is an ideal existing in this universal soul, of which every
individual soul represents a part, and thus may have some
true, even if partial, conception of that perfect ideal which
is no arbitrary or accidental thing, but which is fixed in
the constitution of the mind and rests upon necessary
and absolute laws. Plato was the first to enunciate this
truth, that the idea of beauty was in the mind, and that
its perception in other objects was but the reflection of
the mind's ideas-there being no real beauty in matter
considered by itself. This theory Plato develops fully
in "The Greater Hippias ;" and all aesthetic theories
which are worthy of being named since his day are but
the applications and varieties of this Platonic assertion.
Thus Diderot's theory was, that beauty is the application
of the principle of relation in the mind; that where the
mind perceives certain true relations in objects, the senti-
ment of beauty is awakened.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
621
Sir Joshua Reynolds' theory also reduces beauty to
the principle of just proportion, or moderation, which
exists in the mind. Alison refers all the principles of
beauty to the mental law of association; it is the waking
up of agreeable trains of association by the beautiful
object; for example, a quiet landscape leads the mind
to pleasing thoughts of comfort, of the blessings
of
peace, and of innocent, uncorrupted human enjoyment.
We do not mean to say, by this absolute idea of beauty
existing in the mind, that there is a distinct æsthetic
faculty or power in the mind (though we are not prepared
to deny it), else it would seem as if there could not be
such innumerable varieties of taste among different peo-
ple; but what we mean is, that there is in every mind,
even the most uncultivated (and, of course, incompara-
bly more in the cultivated), a certain perception of
beauty, which, when it is realized, produces pleasure.
The rudest sailor takes pleasure in the beautiful propor-
tions of a fine vessel. Now, if the intuitive perception
of beauty had not first existed in the mind, how could it
have been cultivated even in this one respect? This sen-
sibility to beauty must first exist, must be a common
intuition of the human mind, but perfection in taste
comes of course by culture, by a process of induction, of
the disciplining of the critical judgment, of arriving by
repeated processes at truer and truer analyses, just as the
old Greeks arrived at what may be called the highest pos-
sible perfection, or the ideal in the art of sculpture, so that
they gave us the masterpieces of art from which we draw
our rules and standards; and none of us can arrive at
anything like perfection in taste without a diligent culti-
vation of the taste, like that of any other faculty; but
the source of the beautiful, whether it is simple or com-
plex, whether made up of a single, or of many, elements,
622
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
༣
exists in the mind itself; real beauty is the reflection of
inward ideas and sensations called forth by outward
objects. As there is no essential sacredness in a temple,
but it is the mind that invests it with the sacred charac-
ter, so there is no beauty to a landscape if the mind that
regards it is not attuned to beauty; this belongs to the
relativity of human knowledge. Of course this sense of
beauty sprang from the mind's Original, and who is Him-
self the τὸ καλόν, as he is the τὸ ἀγαθόν ; for, as a mod.
ern writer says, The summit of the beautiful is the
true." All the works of God would appear beautiful,
were we placed in the position of God, and could clearly
see those principles of order, harmony, proportion, fit-
ness, unity—that beautiful plan--upon which all is made.
These hidden principles of beauty which God has im-
pressed upon nature objectively, and subjectively upon
the human mind, are for us to study, as far as they can
be discovered. It is thought that a true advance has.
been made, especially by German writers on æsthetics,
upon the Platonic idea, in this respect-that the objective
should be joined to the subjective, the real to the ideal,
for the production of beauty; that though beauty does
not reside primarily in the object itself, but rather in the
idea of the mind that perceives it, yet that this idea
would not be sufficient to produce beauty, unless it
formed itself upon, or discovered itself in, or expressed
itself through, some real form. It must come out of its
subjectivity to produce real beauty, as God himself did
in Christ, in order to produce a beautiful life; it must
take a form that corresponds to this idea in the mind,
and, above all, in the divine mind. Beauty, therefore,
to be perfect, requires form as well as conception; and
there is the beautiful form in which every idea, or every
pure truth, manifests itself. It does not manifest itself
"
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
623
with the highest degree of perfection, unless it takes
that particular form, just as the Greeks seem to have
come nearer the true or the ideal representation of
the highest beauty of the human form, than any other
nation. There is, then, the fit, the beautiful form, await-
ing every true idea; and it is the business of the artist,
or creator, to discover this. So far, then, as the orator
or the preacher is an artist, this is his business-to dis-
cover the fit and beautiful form of his conception of
truth, or of any given truth; and this is right, because it
is God's own way of working. Some rhetorical writers
have expressed themselves clearly on this point. “Ora-
tory must therefore, of necessity, express beauty, in order
to its perfection. This cannot be said of the product of
any mechanical art." Taste is nothing but the selec-
tion of the befitting and the adapted, guided by ethical
ideas. Its proper home, therefore, is within the sphere of
eloquence. But eloquence, in respect of taste, must always
differ from poetry, in that, in the case of eloquence, the
selection of the befitting and adapted is accompanied
with the design of exciting affection; while taste in the
poet, on the contrary, is a quality that works without any
design in view, except the mere production of beauty.'
12
If, therefore, the principle of beauty enters into the
highest affection toward God, if it serves to render truth
more attractive, if it is found in the Christian Scriptures,
and belongs essentially to Christianity itself, and if it
exists absolutely in the human mind, and, therefore, of
course, primarily in the divine mind, it is a proper object
(in its place) of attention and study to the preacher of
divine truth.
We have said that it is probably true, though we are
1 Day's "Rhetoric,” p. 21.
"C
? Theremin's Essay, p. 132.
624
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
by no means assured on this point, that the principle of
beauty could not be considered as forming by itself a
separate faculty or department of the mind, but that
rather it seems to depend upon, or to be the combined
result of, certain intuitive tastes, perceptions, laws, or
principles of the mind, which are fitted to be called into
exercise by whatever corresponds to them in outer ob-
jects, by whatever is calculated to draw them out, or
give them expression; and we would not be understood
as saying that there is no such thing as beauty existing
inherently in an object, as in a strong and beautiful man,
or a beautiful woman, or a beautiful landscape, or a beau-
tiful work of art, independently of the mental perception
of beauty which it calls forth; but what we mean is that
the beautiful object is the secondary thing; it is the pro-
duct of a higher first cause, namely, the idea, or faculty,
of beauty in the divine or the human mind. It is the
result of this original power, or it is simply the occasion
that calls it into exercise. But there is still one faculty
of the mind which does peculiarly preside over the whole
field of the æsthetical, and that is, the imagination, or
the representative faculty of the mind, whose use and
place in preaching no one will deny.
The imagination, according to Coleridge, is "that
power of the finite mind which (as far as possible) corre-
sponds to the creative power in the infinite
The mind, and which struggles to idealize and
imagination unify all objects of perception.
in oratory
and
This noble faculty, which idealizes and
preaching. perfects, which combines many perceptions
into one new and living whole, enters
largely into all the æsthetic arts, and cannot be dis-
regarded by the preacher, any more than by the poet
or painter. This is par eminence the faculty of inven-
,,
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
625
tion-the greatest faculty of the true artist. While
common sense looks at things or visible nature as real
and final facts, poetry, or the imagination which dictates
it, is a second sight, looking through these and using
them as types or words for thoughts which they signify.
This is what gives one preacher's sermon a freshness,
originality, and beauty of form, which another preacher's
sermon, of equal force of thought, entirely lacks. It is
this that, more than anything else (rhetorically speak-
ing), takes a sermon out of the commonplace, and
makes it individual. It makes a new mental creation,
though it may add nothing to the actual stock of knowl-
edge which existed before. But it casts ideas into new
forms more beautiful and powerful forms. Mr. Emer-
son says, “Nothing so marks as imaginative expression,
a figurative expression wrests attention, and is remarked
and repeated. How often has a phrase of this kind made
a reputation. Pythagoras' 'Golden Sayings' were such,
and Socrates' and Bonaparte's. The aged Michael An-
gelo indicates his perpetual study as in boyhood by the
remark, 'I carry my satchel still.' Machiavel described
the papacy as a 'stone inserted in the body of Italy to
keep the wound open.'
The preacher's imagination should be manifested in
this renewing power which is infused into his thought,
rather than in any peculiar use of startling metaphors, or
of meteoric flights of fancy. There is what may be called
the shaping spirit of the imagination. "The poet does not
create out of nothing, but his mind so acts on the things
of the universe, material and immaterial, that each com-
position is in effect a new creation; and so it might be said
of the orator. The higher moral uses of the imagination,
the prophetic gift of the true seer and preacher of truth,
should not be lost sight of. When their imagination was
*C
"I
626
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
purified and intensified by inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
the prophets, as Isaiah and Ezekiel, were enabled to pene-
trate into the secret iniquity of their age, as into a picture-
chamber of imagery; and they saw also into the myste-
riously hidden workings of the wicked heart. By this
moral insight, purified if not directly inspired by the Spirit
of God, the preacher now is able, with more or less clear-
ness, to perceive truth and error, and the moral uni-
verse, and hell, and heaven, and God." The following
passage from Blackwood (January, 1870) sets forth this
specific moral quality or power of the imagination:
"The office of the imagination as an intellectual agent
has been much discussed and much exalted, but what we
may call its moral influence has been but little taken into
consideration. Invention is but one of its gifts, and, we
believe, not the greatest. Its highest mission in this
world is that of comprehension. Half the wickedness,
half the cruelties and harsh judgments of life, spring
from a deficiency of this all-important quality. The
mind which cannot put itself in another's place, nor iden-
tify another's point of view, is, however just and scrupu-
lous, continually in danger of making false decisions.
There is such a thing to be sure as a redundancy of im-
agination and sympathy, which goes far to obliterate the
limits of right and wrong altogether, and to account for
every action, however base; but deficiency is much more
general than redundancy. And how great a quality
this moral imagination in a preacher-to be able to put
himself in the point of view of another-of the speaker
or actor in the passage of Scripture he is treating, but,
above all, of the hearer to whom he is speaking-how
this single great quality would tend to increase his skill,
his adaptation, his comprehensiveness, his whole power
in reading and reaching the hearts of men.
>>
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
627
46
We would not be understood as saying that the simple
cultivation of the preacher's imagination is in itself a culti-
vation of good taste in preaching; but only this, that the
imagination is that faculty of the mind which has espe-
cially to do with the creation and the cultivation of what is
true, fit, and beautiful in art; with the art of writing and
oratory; yet the imagination may be cultivated in the
wrong direction: it may be totally devoid of taste; it
may be vivid but coarse, grotesque, and horrible; it may
be strong, like that of Ignatius Loyola or St. Dominic,
but with the fierce fanaticism and lurid light that charac-
terized those minds. Goethe says,
Goethe says, "Nothing is more
fearful in art than an imagination unregulated by good
taste." The use of the imagination as bodying forth in
concrete forms moral ideas, is its highest use, and this
power is grandly illustrated in a preacher like Dr. Bush-
nell. He himself is an example of what he calls the
faith-power of the imagination," that power which
brings the unseen and the supernatural into view.
The greatest preachers since the apostle Paul's day
have been distinguished for the presence of the imagina-
tive faculty in a marked degree. Chrysostom's imagi-
nation led him into the living fields of illustration, and
his illustrations are as homely and vivid as when they
were first spoken to the great congregations in Antioch
and Byzantium. Augustine's imagination was an inward
fire, that lighted up spiritual realms with a glow like that
of his own African landscape. Luther's imagination
made unseen things real--more real than the things of
sight. Jeremy Taylor's imagination was truly imperial;
and one cannot open his pages without coming into the
presence of new and resplendent forms of a fresh, opulent
creation; of a superabundance, indeed, of imagery, but
so genuine, and the healthy product of such sound and
628
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
substantial thought, that it resembles beautiful clusters
of grapes, which we feed upon while we enjoy the beauty
that is so varied and rich a growth of generous nature.
John Howe's imagination entered into his most abstruse
speculations, and now and then, as in his "Living Tem-
ple," led him into noble and extended imagery. Robert
Hall's imagination sustained him through the most ele-
vated reasoning upon moral themes. Edward Irving,
who, with all his errors, was a great preacher, had an
imagination at times Miltonic, and it was so regarded by
his friend Coleridge. Whitefield's imagination was ex-
tremely vivid, inflaming his whole language, and making
it blaze with a meaning and fire which now seem dull,
compared to the moment of delivery. Among our own
great preachers, Jonathan Edwards manifested this fac-
ulty in a more undemonstrative and hidden way, not so
much in his forms of language as in the power of pure
speculation, of projecting or creating for himself an ideal
world of theory. John Mason, too, was not wanting in
this power which animated his reasoning faculties.
Lyman Beecher had a vigorous imagination, which made
his method of speaking and argument quite original, and
his preaching "logic on fire."
Essential
principles of
taste in
There has been, heretofore, it may be, a too great
curbing of the imagination in our New England style of
preaching, and thus a loss of power; for the
imagination is the main-spring of invention
in the orator or writer; and when the im-
preaching. agination is once fired, all the other faculties
of the mind are set in motion.
But we
would speak of the imagination in this connection partic-
ularly, because it enables the preacher to produce the
first and perhaps greatest result of the working of the
æsthetic principle in a sermon, viz., unity of form. We
GENERAL PRINCIPLES of rhÈTORIC.
629
would mention this, then, as the first essential principle
of taste, viewed in relation to a discourse.
(1.) Unity of form. It is thought that Augustine, in
his "Treatise on Beauty," which has been lost, made
"the beauty of all objects to depend on
their unity, or on the perception of the
principle or design which fixed the relations
of the various parts, and presented them to the intellect
or imagination as one harmonious whole."'' Although
this is a partial theory, yet it recognizes the chief prop-
erty of every beautiful object of nature and true work of
art. A range of mountains, an oak tree, the group of
the Laocoön, the Transfiguration by Raphael, the interior
of the Milan Cathedral, though each composed of many,
even myriad, parts, yet make but one impression; they
give the idea of one creative mind by which they were
formed. In the greatest poems, also, how extremely
simple is the creative fiat which runs through them, and
organizes their numberless details into one grand whole,
as in the Iliad," the "Prometheus Vinctus," and the
Paradise Lost"! A child could tell the story of each
almost in a breath.
""
<<
1 44
This unifying power in these great works, and in all
true works of art, is doubtless that of the imagination, as
Coleridge defines it.
Unity of
form.
In works of thought and reflection, as in a sermon, the
imagination seeks after complete representations of truth;
even as Schiller defines the object of true literary com-
position to be "to exhibit the universal in the particu-
lar." The orator or preacher should strive, through the
force of his own mind, to give wholeness of form to the
subject, causing it to stand out like a finished statue,
Encyclopædia Britannica," art. Beauty.
630
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
1
(
apart from all others, with nothing to be added, and
nothing to be taken away. Emerson says, In a work of
art the parts must be subordinated to the ideal, and every-
thing individual abstracted, so that it shall be a produc-
tion of the universal soul. The orator surrenders himself
to what the occasion should say, not to his individual will,
but to the principle which he advocates. Whatever is beau-
tiful rests on the foundation of the necessary. Nothing is
arbitrary, nothing is insulated in beauty. Every genuine
work of art has as much reason for being as the earth and
the sun.” In every age and under all conditions there
are evidences and manifestations of this universal beauty;
this permanent as contradistinguished from contingent
beauty, removed from the narrow bounds of the local and
partial, of that which changes with the changes of history,
custom, and taste, and standing in its own divine and
acknowledged perfection. But it is only when the crea-
tive imagination has brooded over a subject, has vitalized
it with its own free spirit, and has wrought it together in
the heat of its thought, that this universal and beautiful
result-this bringing of all into one whole-is produced.
This was the power of Dr. Chalmers. His imagination,
which was his prime intellectual faculty as a preacher,
was usually employed in developing, enhancing, and am-
plifying one idea, one truth of the divine word, so that it
stood out at last in its majestic proportions to attract by
its beauty or to overpower by its magnitude. His ser-
mons are deep practical contemplations of truth flowing
out from one central thought that opens into the divine
word itself; they spread out and spread out, till each
becomes as it were a lake or a sea on which the hearers'
minds are lifted up and borne onward.
This vital unity of form and fresh original complete-
ness are particularly seen in the sermons of the late F. W.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
631
C
Robertson. They attract by their inherent nobleness.
In Dr. Bushnell's sermons (to which we have before
alluded) there is an exhibition of this same clear, bold
bodying forth of thought, this plastic power of the im-
agination, which the dry scientific intellect cannot reach.
Will not an audience be impressed by the shortest living
sermon of this kind more than by the most elaborate and
dull scientific treatise that was ever preached? There
must be thought, but it must be thought in a living form.
No one wishes to see truth dissected but truth alive. No
one cares to see the disjecta membra of Osiris, but the
living divinity. Another principal characteristic of the
æsthetic element in preaching is-
(2.) Grace of movement. "Grace" is from gratus,
free, or that which agrees with willingly, which is con-
gruous, which moves in harmony. It con-
sists of an harmonious arrangement of parts,
so that all move easily. It is what Schiller
calls the play movement," as contrasted with the
movement by rule. This unconstrained movement of the
mind should run through the sermon. All traces of work
and painful labor should be taken out of it. All stiff and
unnatural juxtapositions of ideas or sentiments should
be removed. The thought should flow freely, even if
not rapidly. The audience, though aroused to active
thought, should not be called upon to think the subject
out de origine, laboriously, with the speaker. He should
give them the results rather than the processes of his
thought. There may be a world of hard labor bestowed
upon the sermon-the more the better; but this should
not be displayed. The sweat of toil should be wiped
from it. A free, animated, and even joyous movement
should appear through it all. It may be solemn, but
should not be heavy. All men love to be lured into this
Grace of
movement.
632
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
sense of perfect freedom in a discourse-to believe that
all is natural and unforced. Even if they must perceive
that a sermon is the fruit of great previous study, yet for
the moment they would believe that it is the spontaneous
outpouring of the speaker's own soul. The preacher
should strive to be an unbound man, not one forced to
think and speak what another man thinks and speaks;
but all men should see that he is himself, that his thoughts
are free, and spoken because they are his own. Then he
will be graceful. Freedom is necessary to grace. The
intellect creates method; the imagination, unity; but
the heart, grace. Grace comes from inward sympathy.
Grace, looked at in this sense, is not a weak quality in a
speaker; it is nothing less than power moving freely.
Grace springs from that aroused and joyful energy of the
mind which is one of its deepest sources of power.
When a speaker moves with this free and graceful
energy, he carries his audience with him. We will men-
tion but one other quality of good taste in preaching:
(3.) Propriety of thought and expression. We mean
here a proper form, rather than substance, of thought.
Propriety has been defined to be "a fine
Propriety of and true conformity to all relations which
thought and
expression. may surround an object." These may be
relations of truth, time, place, circumstance,
or whatsoever is befitting the right treatment of the par-
ticular theme in hand. This quality of beauty would lead
the preacher to fall into no error, (a.) in the choice of
his subject; (b.) in the fitness of his arguments; (c.) in
the perception of the true character of the occasion;
(d.) in the adaptations of thought and illustration to the
All
intellectual and spiritual state of his audience.
truth is good, but one truth is fitter than another at a
certain time. In the treatment of certain subjects there
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
633
are sets of ideas congruous and totally incongruous to
those subjects. In the treatment of texts, this principle
of "propriety" is peculiarly needed; a text which
breathes the hope and joy of the gospel should not be
made a sledge-hammer to crush the mind with the terrors
of the law. The fine cultivation of this æsthetic princi-
ple of "propriety" is to be particularly seen in a preach-
er's illustrations, and in the moderation and control of
the wayward and violent imagination. (e.) In the fitness.
and dignity of his language. While language should be
plain, it never should be low in the pulpit. Neither cant
nor slang should be allowed. The sermon is a portion of
divine worship, and its ground-tone should be reverential
without losing its humanness, its nature, its freedom.
Occasional homely strength and great plainness of lan-
guage is not at all what we mean, but grossness of im-
agination, vulgar smartness, flippancy of thought and
phrase, absolute ill-taste in word, image, and expres-
sion.
We might speak of many other important æsthetic
principles which enter into oratory, and even sacred ora-
tory, such as proportion, disposition, neatness, correct-
ness, color, tone, light and shade, novelty, simplicity,
variety, sublimity, expression, and, above all, truth; but
we cannot here go further into this subject. Many of
the principles of good taste in writing and speaking will
necessarily be noticed when we treat more particularly of
Style.
The best way to cultivate the æsthetic sense, or good
taste, is by a constant study of nature.
Art is not nature, nor the servile copying
of nature-as if, in Coleridge's words, the
artist should pick nature's pockets-but it
has its beginnings in nature, and nature is also its best
How to
cultivate the
taste.
634
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
guide and teacher. Goethe says that all any artist has
to do is to study nature; and though this remark may
be too sweeping—for nature itself is, in some sense, im-
perfect, and matter could not manifest to us the perfect
idea of God-yet from nature we draw those elementary
principles of art which the human mind, made by God,
is capable of improving upon, from the higher ideal
within. Dr. Chalmers was a genuine lover of natural
scenery; and the influence of the Scottish mountains and
lakes, which were familiar to him, and revisited by him
on every possible occasion, is perceptible in the noble-
ness, and, sometimes, sublimity, of his style. Calvin, on
the contrary, seems to have caught little or nothing from
the influence of the grander scenery about his home.
The careful study of one or more of the fine arts, such as
painting, or architecture, especially the last, which is an
accurate and scientific art, is also highly improving to the
æsthetic sense. “Etenim omnes artes, quæ ad humani-
tatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et
quasi cognitione quadam inter se continentur."
A study
of the best poets develops and cultivates the true love of
the beautiful. Above all, let the heart be pure and joy-
ful and it will see beauty in all things. Ruskin says,
“The sensation of beauty (that is, the highest beauty) is
dependent on a pure, right, and open state of the heart."
There is everlasting beauty in the works of God. In the
meditation of his word and works we best reach the
source of the beautiful. Do we not feel that in the per-
fect life of God, to which, if we are good, we tend, all
that is incongruous and earthly, all that is not truly
beautiful, will vanish away?
1
¹ Cicero, Pro Archia, 1., 2.
1
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
635
J
SEC. 27. Rhetorical Criticism.
Criticism (from xpivo, to judge) relates to the art of
judging according to those principles which belong to an
object with reference to its particular nature
and design; it is the application of right
principles to any special object or work; for
though there are common principles that may have rela-
tion to all things that are proper subjects of criticism, yet
there are specific principles that apply to individual
objects and individual classes of objects, having reference
to their peculiar nature and intent. The principles of
criticism are involved in the nature of the subject. Thus
the canons of criticism that would guide us in judging of
an historical work would differ in some essential respects
from those which would govern us in judging of a pro-
duction of literature, or of the rhetorical art, since the
main intention which predominates in a particular work
must necessarily exert a controlling influence upon the
elements of criticism comprehended in that work. If,
for example, the end be the production of beauty, as in a
work of pure art, then the office of criticism is, in the
first place, to lay down clearly those principles by which
beauty is to be attained, and those ideas, or ideals, which
set forth true conceptions of the beautiful, and then to
judge of the merits or faults of particular works of art by
the standard which has been thus established. The end
of history, on the other hand, is not beauty but truth;
and historical criticism would have for its more special
object the discrimination between the true and the false,
the sifting of evidence, the analysis of character and
motive, the search for the true in its more special lim-
itations and conditions, the bringing to bear of the
nicest tests upon every fact and event; for the great
Criticism
defined.
636
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
use of history is to stimulate us by the influence of good
examples followed out to their results, so that truth is the
main or absolute necessity in the study of history; and
again, how different is the field of logical criticism from
that of either literary or historical criticism, logical criti-
cism being the analysis of the process of the mind in pure
thought, or in the creation of a genuine thought-product.
When we come to rhetorical criticism, with which we
have now specially to do, we find ourselves shut up to the
department of oratorical production, whose
end is a mixed one, combining beauty with
reason and utility. The orator does not aim
simply to be eloquent but to be true; and
not simply to be true but to be useful, or to effect some
great practical end; and if he be eloquent or forcible in
style, it is not for the sake of being eloquent, but for the
sake of securing some worthy and important object.
The chief field of rhetorical criticism is style, using
that word, however, in its largest and best sense. It
judges, or should do so, of the merits and faults of style
from a standard of invariable principles which form a
higher code, derived from nature and from the best
models of writing and speaking—and, in the homiletical
department of rhetoric, from the best standards of preach-
ing.
What is
rhetorical
criticism.
The critical faculty which is called into play in rheto-
rical criticism, though not in itself a productive quality
of the mind, or one that aids especially in the development
of rhetorical power-for criticism is essentially analytic
and destructive rather than synthetic and creative-yet
comes in its right place after the productive faculties have
done their work; and it has no office without them, being
itself the purely judicial function of the mind.
But this judicial faculty of the mind has as true a place
GENERAL PRINCIPles of RHETORIC.
637
and object as the productive faculty; neither does it re-
quire the possession of the productive or creative faculty
in any eminent degree that one may be a good critic.
One who is not a painter may still be a good critic of
painting; one who is not a poet may be a good critic of
poetry; one who is not even an orator or preacher may
be a good critic of preaching. Critics may, it is true,
make mistakes in regard to a work of art, or a product of
the human mind, as contemporaneous critics did in rela-
tion to Milton's "Paradise Lost," and to Wordsworth's
poems; but it is the critical faculty after all which judges
of these works and assigns them their proper place; for
even these great authors must make their final appeal to
those psychological and artistic standards of judgment
that are invariable and universal. This critical faculty
comes as a corrective and regulative one, measuring the
work performed by some perfect measure, or by the ap-
plication of some right knowledge of the subject in its
truest and most comprehensive principles. And, above
all, one should have the measure in himself, so as to be able
to test and compare for himself, constantly increasing his
knowledge, and thus approximating more and more to the
true standard; never falling into the fatal error of self-
conceit, and of thinking himself to be faultless, but, in
another's words, "laboring on and cherishing the holy
fire of discontent with all his attainments."'
#
The first quality, then, of a good critic we would say, is
Knowledge. He should possess some true knowledge of
the field in which he exercises criticism. He
should be able, to some extent at least, to
comprehend the individual in the universal,
or the underlying principles of all art which
are, when properly viewed, seen to be bound together by
a common bond. Yet knowledge alone is not sufficient
Qualities
of the
critic.
638
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
to make the good critic, for the critical faculty is, in some
sense, an innate faculty of the mind, and although it is
developed by exercise and education, it has its origin in
certain subtle and profound qualities of the intellect
which belong to the mental constitution, so that some
possess intuitively the critical faculty to a much greater
degree than others.
Next, then, to the element of knowledge is the element
of Taste, or that literary sensibility which is partly a gift
of nature, and partly the fruit of culture. It is mainly
instinctive or intuitive, being a sense of proportion and
fitness, quantity and quality, order and relation, which
exists in the mind itself, and which, though more vague
and unscientific in its origin, as belonging to the mental
sensibilities, yet by its education and disciplined use be-
comes almost certain in its operation, like a pure intel-
lectual judgment.
The third quality of the critic which may be mentioned
is Truth, or the love of truth. Matthew Arnold says that
it is the business of the critical power “in all branches of
knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science,
to see the object as in itself it really is." The critic
must be able to enter into the real nature of the subject,
and must live in the true and best ideas of the art, or
the department of truth in which he exercises his critical
skill. He must cherish high ideals of it. He must at
least have some well-settled order of ideas, some compre-
hensive philosophy of criticism, some actual foundation
in principles, or his criticism will be at best but a snap-
judgment. And at the same time he should be conver-
sant with the real working of those principles, or the influ-
ence and tendencies of certain ideas or systems of ideas,
so that he has a practical appreciation of their truth.
Upon the uses of rhetorical criticism Richard Grant
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
639
White thus remarks: "Criticism, however, is needed to
keep our language from deterioration, to
defend it against the assaults of presuming
half-knowledge, always bolder than wisdom,
always more perniciously intrusive than con-
scious ignorance. Language must always be made by
the mass of those who use it; but when that mass is
misled by a little learning-a dangerous thing only as
edge tools are dangerous to those who will handle them
without understanding their use-and undertakes to
make language according to knowledge rather than by
instinct, confusion and disaster can be warded off only
by criticism. Criticism is the child and handmaid of
reflection. It works by censure, and censure implies a
standard." We have made this quotation chiefly for
the sake of the last sentence, "It works by censure,
and censure implies a standard.'
The chief practical use and direction of criticism un-
doubtedly is to discover and point out faults, and thus to
lead to their correction.
1
Uses of
rhetorical
criticism.
By the application of some right rule or principle
the exact deviation from right in the particular case is
to be brought out, and here the exercise of the judg-
ment in criticism is of the utmost importance. This
critical judgment is the power of separating the true
from the false, the power of clear discrimination, the
power of deciding between opposites, in which the unim-
passioned judicial reason predominates while the literary
sense is not wanting. It implies the ability also to state
good grounds for the judgment pronounced, and thus
there should be in the critic himself some foundations of
truth, of right principles, and of good taste, some accu-
1 "Words and their Uses," p. 26.
640
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
rate standard of judgment, for his criticism to be of
authority. But while the deviation from right, while the
censure of error, while the pointing out of faults is, it
cannot be questioned, the main practical use and idea of
criticism, yet there is no doubt but that, looking at criti-
cism purely as a matter relating to art, it is also a true
and noble use of criticism (and in this idea Mr. Ruskin
concurs) to be able to point out the excellences and beau-
ties of a given work, to appreciate and make known its
merits and its conformity to the universal standard of
beauty and truth. Perhaps this is the highest end of
criticism, to settle the merits of human productions. The
highest criticism is that which points out great ideals
and is able to discover every approximation, however
slight, to those ideals.
This is a noble and pleasing side of criticism which is
sometimes perhaps overlooked, but it is not strange that
it should be overlooked, since the work-a-day function of
criticism is not to praise but rather to correct, and the
actual profitableness of criticism depends upon its ability
to mark defects more than to mark beauties. The last,
as it were, mark themselves. Beauty needs no praise.
It were almost absurd for us to praise the Portland vase,
or a statue of Phidias, or an oration of Demosthenes.
In regard to rhetorical criticism as a practical exercise
among students and homiletically adapted, its advan-
tages are by no means confined to the subject of it,
though its benefits doubtless mainly accrue to the sub-
ject of it; but the critic himself is to a certain degree
profited by this exercise, when rightly conducted.
He is thrown back upon his knowledge of principles,
and is forced to assume a high, just, and comprehen-
sive view of the theme. Every mental faculty is appealed
to; rapid generalization and comparison are demanded ;
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
641
the powers of analysis and of positive judgment are de-
veloped. To take even an ordinary written sentence
apart, to analyze it and show wherein it violates truth,
taste, and good grammar and good sense; or, above
all, positively to build up a new plan of discourse upon
right principles-this tends to give the mind alertness,
concentration, and self-confidence.
Nevertheless he who is the most benefited is the sub-
ject of criticism; for so invariably self-confident is human
nature that he who is never told his faults is rarely apt
to discover them. We criticise others but not ourselves.
We commit the same faults that we criticise in others;
so that he who is not tried can rarely be perfect; for
few men have become good writers who have not at
some time in their lives undergone severe criticism.
Shakespeare himself endured it at the hands of his con-
temporaries, though it was of a jealous and envenomed
sort; but he who availed himself of everything and
passed over nothing, probably profited even by that. If
the poet Keats was killed by criticism, Byron was thor-
oughly aroused by it; and what was singular, the criti-
cism in the case of the first was in the main unjust, and
in the case of the second was deserved.
Among distinguished public orators, the younger Pitt,
Charles James Fox in his early days, Sheridan, and
D'Israeli are said to have been greatly improved and
developed as speakers by the excessively harsh ordeal of
criticism which they underwent; for they had the
sagacity and nerve to profit by it. By their power of
will they turned their disadvantages into advantages;
they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and they
made even their enemies teach them success. Burke
says: "Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict with
difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with qur
642
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations.
It will not suffer us to be superficial.
Criticism for the moment humbles, but he who would.
build high must build low. Nothing touches a man's
pride more sensitively than the criticism of his style of
writing and speaking, since "the style is the man.
But no honest criticism is to be totally disregarded or
despised. In the biography of Dr. Griffin it is related
that that divine used often to read his sermon to his black
servant Horace before preaching it, and he did not
despise suggestions from such a quarter. The criticism,
in the particular form in which it comes, may be wrong or
unjust and sometimes malicious; but it may nevertheless
have been called forth by some real defect which lies
deep in the thought or the style-something perhaps in-
definable to the critic himself, but which he perceives
instinctively even if he is not able fairly to set it forth.
my
At all events, a preacher may not expect to escape criti-
cism at some time of his public career. He will be criti-
cised severely and unmercifully by somebody, and per-
haps by those who are opposed or inimical to him. He
cannot avoid this. Is it not then better to be criticised
openly by one's friends, from the motive of friendship,
and thus to be fortified and prepared against the criti-
cism of opposers and of the world? In this way one may
be saved from future mortification, disappointment, and
even worse injury and shame.
In the criticism of sermons before the theological class,
we consider the friendly criticisms of classmates to be of
more practical use than that of the instructor himself, and
the instructor, if he be wise, should, we think, expect and
request his students to do the principal share of it, to
throw themselves into it with all their heart and strength
as a most improving exercise. Young men know each
GENERAL PRINCIPles of RHETORIC.
643
other, and each other's merits and faults better than
their instructor knows them, and they should feel the
burden of responsibility laid upon them to help each
other in this really high and unselfish way.
In regard to the subject-matter of rhetorical criticism
or the criticism of a discourse, this is comprehended
chiefly in two particulars, Ist. Form, or the
expression into which the thought is cast as
the grand instrument of persuasion, or what
is commonly called style; and, 2d. Matter,
or the substance of the thought itself, both in its essence
and its arrangement, or plan; and especially in this last
essential in the criticism of a sermon. We would add
that the criticism of style extends even to purely gram-
matical criticism. This would include verbal criticism or
the criticism of words in regard to their usage, according
to the best standards, and the composition of sentences,
or the syntactical structure of sentences, so as to avoid
all equivocal expressions, ambiguous constructions, and
wrong arrangements of phrases, and so as to give the
greatest force and effectiveness to style.
The higher
idea of the criticism of style itself is, however, rational
and spiritual, rather than merely verbal. In the subject
of preaching of course the matter or the thought is more
important than the style as the great theme of criticism.
As to the spirit in which this exercise of
rhetorical criticism should be made, it should
ever be conducted in the spirit of perfect
candor and love; and when criticism is thus
guarded by the spirit of love, and aims sole-
ly at truth and the good of the subject, it
is more apt to attain its true object and to do good than
if it proceed from a spirit of satire or a bitter spirit. All
criticism should thus be "benefica, non venefica."
Subject-
matter of
criticism.
Spirit in
which criti-
cism should be
made and
received.
644
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
Co
But very much of the true benefits of rhetorical criti-
cism depends upon its right reception by the subject of
it. If the subject of it gives way to a weak chagrin, or
suffers himself to be discouraged and overwhelmed, it will
do him but little good. Or if he refuses to acknowledge
the justice of the criticism, even if true, and fights against
it, he only confirms himself in his habitual error. He
should not, it is true, yield his independence of mind to
any man, for he may be right after all, and his critic
may be wrong. A man must have confidence in himself
and in his own thinking or he is lost as a speaker.
This is the first requisite of good speaking, as another
says, For when the speaker fully believes that his
thought is good, and ought to have weight with the audi-
ence, this conviction releases him from the anxiety and
torment of fear lest he should fail, or make a fool of him-
self, and thus tends to purify his elocution from the
vices with which the expression of these feelings must
otherwise load and enfeeble it." Yet he is bound, at the
same time, to give every criticism the just consideration
which it deserves. Above all, he should set himself man-
fully to work to overcome the fault or faults which criti-
cism has developed. Instead of despising it he should
conquer it. Thus rhetorical criticism may, in this man-
ner, benefit the character as much as it does the style or
preaching of a man; for he who has the good sense and
manliness to recognize and overcome a fault of style in
speaking, will probably have the power of will to over-
come a fault of character, and thus, in the main, the
whole man will be improved by friendly and judicious
criticism.
As a general remark, more especially upon the criticism
of preachers and of sermons, we would say that to a
great extent sermons take themselves out of the common
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
645
sphere of rhetorical criticism, on account of their more
elevated and serious aim which rises above
the idea of mere art, of literary taste, and
of rhetorical standards and measures, into
the region of moral and spiritual truth.
Where there is in the preacher and in his sermon sin-
cerity, faithfulness to divine truth, earnestness of aim.
directed to the salvation of souls, we do not feel like
applying to him or to it the fine chemical tests of rhetori-
cal criticism.
Criticism
of preaching
and sermons.
Power of any sort is above criticism.
The poison that kills or the medicine that cures is be-
yond human praise or blame. Therefore in the criti-
cism of sermons, we should always have the feeling that
in some sense a good sermon, inspired by the Word
and Spirit of God, is a divine work, and is thus beyond
human praise and blame; it comes from higher sources
than either, and follows higher laws than either; it asks
not your or my approbation; it cares not for your or my
censure; it looks to the judgment and approval of God.
But, on the other hand, in so far as a sermon is a
human production, is a work of art, is a discourse formed
upon rhetorical and ethical principles, we have a right to
judge its style, its reasoning, its theology, its conclusions,
in a word both its matter and its manner; and this is
especially needful in the time of preparation, when, it
must be confessed, sermons are generally more or less
works of art, more or less artificial, smack more or less
of the schools both of theology and rhetoric, and are not
yet entirely filled with the spirit of a divine earnestness,
simplicity, and practicality.
We cannot do better in closing this brief lecture on
rhetorical criticism than to quote an extended passage
applying chiefly to the manner or delivery of sermons,
646
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
which we have freely translated from Athanase Coquerel's
"Observations pratiques sur la Prédication," in a chap-
ter entitled "The Benefit of Good Counsels," while we
must regard with some allowance the French point of
view in which some of the remarks are made. He goes
on to say:
"
from
Coquerel
on the
benefits of
Since no preacher knows how he preaches, some one
must tell him how he preaches. If sins of ignorance are
rare in morals they are common in elo-
Quotation quence, and when one tries of himself to
correct them he knows not really whether
they are corrected or not. The errors which
the orator unconsciously contracts are ordi-
narily what are called, and very justly, natural
errors, so that one acquires a deplorable
facility of falling into them every moment,
and a long and painful watchfulness is necessary, a sort
of struggle with one's self, to extirpate them.
We can
apply these remarks especially to two departments of de-
livery, the difficulty and importance of which are extreme,
viz., gesture and the inflections of the voice. Without
having recourse to an intelligent, attentive, and severe
criticism, one may not be certain that his gesture and ac-
centuation have not considerable defects; and how many
preachers injure themselves seriously, and compromise
their success by continual indulgence in some odd move-
ment of the arms or hands which has become a habit,
or by tones, cadences, and tremblings of voice, repeated
to weariness though without intention.
"How many others fall into the serious fault of ges-
ticulating, not by sentences, but by words; which pro-
duces a jerking gesture of the most melancholy effect,
and leads to clipping each period into as many parts as
one makes motions! The constant recurrence of these
friendly
criticism.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC
647
faults of delivery is a manifest proof of the lack of good
criticism.
“One can go further still and maintain that neither the
exactness and elegance of gesture, nor the happy use of
the voice are things one learns but things which one cor-
rects. Every one practises that kind of gesticulation
which comes to him naturally; every one has an accent
of voice with which he speaks naturally, and an habitual
direction of the movements of the body, of the head, of
the chest, of the arms, and even of the fingers. The
natural intonations of the voice grow with us, are formed
through infancy, youth, and manhood, and engraft them-
selves, so to speak, upon our person long before age, or
study, or the exercise of the oratorical art, commences.
Thus every one reaches his first essays in eloquence, hav-
ing a trick of gesticulating in a certain manner, of utter-
ing the sound of his voice by impressing upon it a certain
tone. This natural gesture he may strive to regulate ;
this voice already formed he may strive to modulate;
but success seems impossible if one attempts to teach
one's self these portions of the art. One learns them
only by practical directions and counsels.
"Above all, upon the subject of intonation one can
take advice with confidence; for it is easier to criticise
with justice tones than gestures, and orators ought to be
happy that it is so, for the use of the voice in oratorical
art is more important than gesticulation. Varied, happy,
and rapid inflections are the only resource against the
monotony of elocution-monotony-the scourge of ora-
tors. A monotonous preacher will never be eloquent; and
this fault is, of all, the most troublesome, because noth-
ing counterbalances it, nothing makes up for it, it distils
dulness from the heights of the pulpit, it invites sleep
and breaks the attention of those who succeed in keeping
S
648
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
awake; its words fall, one by one, in regular innumerable
succession.
“The saintly Bénédict Prévost, professor at Montauban,
says of monotonous preachers, When I hear their dis-
courses it seems to me that it snows.' I remember after
my return to Paris (retiring from the faculty of Mon-
tauban), John Monod, the venerable pastor, with whom
my family has had most intimate relations even before
baptismal fonts, and whose preaching was at once liberal
and full of unction, asked me to come to see him.
Hardly was I seated in his study when he rose, took a
volume of Saurin, opened it at the peroration of the ser-
mon upon the eternity of punishment,' and said to me,
'Read me that.' He listened to me with attention
without interrupting me, and afterwards addressing to
me encouragements full of kindness he gave me much ad-
visory criticism upon the inflections and their superfluity
in this reading exercise which I profited by, and which
are still after many years fresh in my memory. One can.
not then urge too strongly upon students of our acade-
mies, candidates for the holy ministry, young pastors, and
above all those who have to preach often and who have
no colleagues, to choose among their accustomed audi-
ence a friend to criticise, and to question after the ser-
mon upon the impressions he has received, upon the
progress or the relapses which have struck him. It is
useless to add that two advisers are better than one, and
their observations could be compared with benefit; and it
is very rare for one of our churches to be so reduced as
not to number in its bosom some faithful ones to render
this kind of service. At least it matters not that we ob-
tain a literary critic, for common sense will suffice.
Sometimes those will not be found in a winter audience
who will be present in a summer one. In many rural
""
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
649
districts during the cold season the inhabitants of the vil-
lage and the farms in the vicinity alone are present—when
spring returns, the mansions, the country seats of the
neighborhood, receive their guests, and these annual re-
turns of a more cultivated population offer a precious
resource. If a critic, or an adviser has been found in one
of these families, it will be very useful to seek to know
from him what the community has gained or lost in the
course of a season.
66
As for the rest, I come back upon the situation of an
isolated preacher in rural churches. [There will always
be strong-minded hearers fully able to criticise in these
rural congregations if we transfer the scene from France
to our own country almost anywhere.]
"The considerations presented thus far suffice perhaps
to demonstrate the uselessness of systems and treatises
of oratorical art, purely theoretical. If there be an art
which is learned only by practice it is this art, and if this
art is the most personal of all, that in which all imitation
conducts only to the saddest mistakes, that of which the
two principal parts, gesture and accent, are only amended
and are not acquired, and that before study they are
already well or ill acquired, the weakness of mere theory
is evident. Of what service are lessons of this kind to a
pupil incapacitated from knowing himself, and who finds
himself under the necessity of asking from a third person
how the criticisms are to be applied.
My persuasion of the justness of these views is so
heartfelt that I am led to consider it a duty to write these
pages. The most salutary advice is that which experi-
ence suggests, and who can better advise preachers than a
preacher like themselves?
64
"Should one accuse me of digression, here is the place
to make some observations upon the course of sacred
650
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
**
eloquence in our faculties. We are allowed to doubt
whether their instruction receives the necessary develop-
ment and yields all the fruits which one has a right to
expect. We may inquire, especially, if the regular and
frequent exercises of recitation and declamation of pieces
taken from our loftiest literature are put in practice and
followed up assiduously by the pupils. I once assisted
at lessons of this kind, directed at Geneva, by one of the
most eminent men of his academy, my excellent friend
Professor Munier. I came out exceedingly struck with
the method in use, and with the immense benefit which
students might derive from it. This method is very sim-
ple—one of the young men recites a series of verses, or
a fragment of prose-his fellow-students are called upon
to make fraternal criticisms upon his delivery, and the
professor sums up in discussing in his turn the qualities
or the defects of the declamation listened to and the re-
marks which it has excited. Perhaps it would be best to
give the preference to pieces of poetry, because the
rhythm forces the memory to greater attention and assists.
it at the same time, prose not permitting the substitution
of one word for another. This method of teaching elo-
quence is the only one which teaches it really, and if
these exercises are not in frequent use in our faculties
they ought to be introduced or multiplied. This method,
it is seen, is essentially practical, avoids all peril of imita-
tion or of copying, and resolves itself into furnishing the
propitious occasion for useful advice. For a single
amendment, or to better express myself, a single addition
to be made to this system, I would advise the study,
phrase by phrase, before memorizing it, of the sense of the
poetical extract or the selected prose, not of the grammati-
cal but of that which may be called the oratorical sense.
This tends to emphasize the sentiments with which the
5
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
651
poet or orator was animated and the effect which he de-
signed to produce upon those who listen. All the true
shades of elocution are thus indicated, and it may be
affirmed that the true merit of delivery, the most vehe-
ment as well as the most tranquil, consists in speak-
ing truthfully. In the excitement of delivery if you
utter a cry of fury with the same tone as one of despair;
in the calmness of delivery if you speak a word of human
praise with the same tone as a supplication to the
Almighty, you are at fault.
"Here is an example which is very simple and will ex-
plain my thought. Orestes, charged by the Greeks with
obtaining from Pyrrhus the death of Astyanax, whose
resentment might one day prove fatal to Greece and to
Pyrrhus himself, said to the King of Epirus :
"At last let the desire of all the Greeks be satisfied,
Gratify their revenge and secure your own life.'
It would be wrong in an oratorical sense to pronounce
the last line in the same tone as the first; the first line is
a demand, a request; the second a counsel, a warning;
you do not make a request with the same accent that you
give advice. Often this study, well conducted, will dis-
cover the words in which to give the true force of the
idea, and which should in consequence receive the em-
phasis and coloring of the intonation.
<<
Sometimes, even among the best authors, the orator-
ical sense of a phrase may be the subject of doubt, and
it is an exercise at once interesting and instructive to
arouse among beginners a discussion upon the subject.
"In one word, delivery is to be governed by the sense.
Theory in the study of speaking well does not go far-
ther than this, and seeks only to define the sense. The
65-
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
remainder of the study will be entered upon by the
pupil himself with advice from his instructors and his
friends."
SEC. 28. Elocution.
a constituent
We would treat this theme more as a matter of deliv-
ery than as a special method of preaching, which comes
under Homiletics proper, and which has
Is elocution already been considered. Some writers ob-
ject to considering "elocution," or the de-
livery of a discourse, as a legitimate part of
rhetoric, inasmuch as the mode of com-
municating thought or truth is not the essential thing
in rhetoric, but rather the actual communicating of
thought itself. It is also held that elocution is not a
constituent part of rhetoric, because there are ways of
communicating thought other than by the voice; because
we have a complete product of art when the thought is
embodied in language; and because, as a practical mat-
ter, in teaching the two, it is better to keep them apart.'
But we think, nevertheless, that anything which enables
us to communicate truth, and to communicate it effect-
ively, comes legitimately under the art of rhetoric. The
difference is, at least, practically, slight. For aught we
can see, elocution has just as much right to be considered
a part of rhetoric as has style of composition; for both
contribute to the effective communication of truth. At
all events, if elocution is not in the strictest sense an es-
sential part of rhetoric, yet it has a close relation to it;
and if rhetoric be confined, as we have limited it in our
definition, to the art of spoken public discourse, it has a
vital relation to it.
part of
rhetoric ?
1 Day's "Art of Discourse," pp. 14, 15.
-
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
653
To preach forcibly calls out not only what Cicero
designates as "the eloquence of the body," but the in-
tellectual energies, the eloquence of the
sources of
good delivery
intellectual
and moral.
mind. And it is by no means a small thing, The deepest
or a hastily-won accomplishment, to acquire
the art of a good delivery. It requires great
pains and study; for it is not a mechanical
art, but it calls in play the taste, the judg-
ment, the moral and emotional nature, and the reasoning
powers. Talma, the tragedian, used to say that thinking
was the great part of his art.
Since speech comes from the inmost parts of the in-
tellectual and moral nature, and is the distinguishing
property of a rational creature, the true source of elo-
quent speaking may be considered to be eloquent
thought. One half of delivery, and not the least impor-
tant half, is almost a purely intellectual exercise. For a
good and full treatment of this part of the subject, laying
open what are the deepest sources of power in delivering
that are to be found in thought and feeling, in the nature
and states of the soul, and which it is impossible to treat
in the short space devoted to this subject, we would
refer our readers to the excellent work on Elocution,
by Professor J. H. McIlvaine, who has developed this
idea in a skillful manner.
The best delivery is that which comes from the best
thought and the most earnest feeling, and one cannot
disconnect these from delivery without making elocution
an artificial thing, hardly worth cultivating; an outside
accomplishment of the play-actor, though even the best
actor cannot be made in this way. The close connection
between thought and language, between meaning and
emphasis, between earnest belief and effective delivery,
between emotion and its true yet varied modes of expres-
654
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
sion, the wonderful symbolism of feeling and passion, all
these prove how profound and subjective are the sources.
of power in delivery.
The author just referred to above quotes an interest-
ing remark by Ole Bull, the violinist, as going to il-
lustrate by an analogy in another art the relations of
the speaker to his audience and how, through his voice
as an instrument, he seizes the audience with his mind,
When the artist by his performance had melted a great
audience to tears, he said, speaking of this, "Do you
know that I do not produce these effects by the mere
sounds of my violin? I produce them by the direct
action of my mind upon the minds of the audience. I
employ the tones of the instrument simply for the pur-
pose of opening the channels through which I myself act
upon their hearts." We can hardly make too much of
this realization of direct address to the audience, of a
conscious determination to grasp their minds with his
mind, as having relation to the orator's power of de-
livery. The preacher should not deliver a monologue,
but should always feel that he is speaking to others
-that he has an audience-that he is to move and
affect it. Nor can
we overestimate the influence in
speaking of the qualities of the will, of the imagina-
tion, and of the sympathies; and it might be added
that if "eloquence is the joint product of the mental
action of the speaker and the audience," the quali-
ties just mentioned have a far freer and more forcible
play in extemporaneous speaking than in any other kind.
But that the mental powers come largely into delivery,
if indeed it be not mere sound and fury signifying noth-
ing, cannot be denied. Who, indeed, can doubt but
that, while very intellectual men are not always good
speakers, yet that mind has a vast deal to do with good
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
655
delivery; and that the highest results of good speaking,
of true eloquence, cannot be reached without the pres-
ence and action of corresponding qualities of mind.
Next to the intellectual and moral sources of power
in delivery are those which are more purely physical.
These comprise the proper vital and bodily
conditions of the speaker, the state of the
healthful activity of all his powers of sensi-
bility, passion, physical energy, and the
maintaining and training of these, so that the orator, or
preacher, always, or as a general rule, may speak at his
best, in his best mood, to the best advantage, and with
the highest and most vigorous use of all his faculties.
The orator is the highest idea of the man, physical and
intellectual. It is the good working order of these vital
forces that inspires the brain with activity and gives ani-
mation and power to all that is spoken. This is the fire
under the machinery. This is the earthly or animal base,
so to speak, of the higher operations of the soul—and a
very important foundation it is; for a speaker of feeble
vitality may have good thoughts, but he will most likely
fail to impress them upon others. A man may have all
the truth in the world, but he must learn, in addition, to
give an effective utterance to the truth which he has.
Vital and
physical
qualities.
Then there is a still deeper idea than all this that we
have heretofore noticed, in the delivery of a sermon, or
in true preaching, as distinguished from
every other form of discourse, in its connec-
tion with spiritual instrumentalities, and
viewed as a medium of communicating divine truth.
What was Whitefield's preaching, looked at as an instru-
ment of the conversion of men, without his peculiar power
of delivery? In such a delivery the Holy Spirit has the
chief controlling influence; the highest activities of the
Spiritual
qualities.
656
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
spiritual as well as intellectual life are engaged in it; and
the whole man is raised and transformed into an instru-
ment of God's truth.
view of
elocution.
Whately is inclined to the view that the study of elo-
cution renders the speaker artificial; but preachers do
not usually err from carrying the art of elo-
Whately's cution to an undue extent, but err rather
from a careless and unimpressive manner.
Of course, exclusive attention should not be
given to the delivery, and in the act of speaking, elocu-
tion should be forgotten; but this is not saying that
much may not be done in private to produce an uncon-
sciously noble delivery. The soldier forgets his drill in
action, but his drill makes him a better soldier.
The study of elocution has its good effects upon style.
One will be more careful to adapt his style to the purposes
of speech-to make it easy, strong, and
flowing. What, in many respects, could be
a better spoken style for popular influence
than Daniel Webster's? and that was gained
by speaking-by speaking to courts, to
senates, to great audiences of human beings, for immedi-
ate effect and conviction. It was the fruit of his contact
and contest with other minds on public occasions. His
style became fitted to his delivery. The actual delivery
of his thoughts improved and vitalized his style. And
the benefits of a good delivery upon an audience are
great; by his look, tone, gesture, a speaker infuses him-
self into his hearers' minds, and makes them for the time
think and feel as he does. Robert Hall, it is said, had
the art, not only of communicating what he said, but
of communicating himself, to his audience. It was the
whole man speaking. That is true eloquence. How
many preachers have been intellectual men and weighty
Good effect
of the study
of elocution
on style.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
657
thinkers, who never could thus communicate themselves
or their thoughts to other minds!
The delivery of a public discourse implies especially
four things: Enunciation, Pronunciation, Emphasis, and
Action.
1. Enunciation. This has regard to the fulness and
perfectness of vocal sound in speaking, and it includes
the whole matter of the management and
training of the voice-a subject of no little
importance to the preacher. There are few
voices-particularly if they belong to men whom God has
called to be the heralds of his truth-so faulty and so
weak by nature that they may not be made, by a per-
severing and intelligent training, effective, and, it may be,
powerful. One must set to work and make a voice if he
have it not. It is well, therefore, to acquaint one's
self thoroughly with the physiology of the organs of
the voice, which are so delicate, complicated, and won-
derful. If a musician should perfectly know his instru-
ment, and should exercise care in preserving the vigor
and purity of its tone, so that it may be ready to give
forth the mightiest and the most delicate tones, how
much more should the speaker understand and guard
his more exquisite instrument! The first simple, com-
mon-sense axiom in regard to the voice is, that it de-
pends for its strength and clearness upon a general
sound state of health. A man in bad health will show
it in his voice, in its feebleness or harshness; for in ill
health, the muscular system, upon which the voice de-
pends, is relaxed; and a man with a cracked voice is lit-
tle better than a cracked bell or a cracked musical instru-
ment. The preacher should strive to maintain a good,
vigorous tone of health, for the purpose of maintaining a
good vocal tone. He should regard his body as an in-
Enunciation
and the voice.
658
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
strument in God's hands to proclaim his word; it should
be kept strong and pure, as the medium of divine inspira-
tion and instruction. The "Baptist's" living in the free
solitudes of nature and feeding upon locusts and wild
honey may have had something to do in making that
strong "voice" of one crying in the wilderness "Prepare
ye the way of the Lord."
Cicero said, "For the effectiveness and glory of de-
livery, the voice, doubtless, holds the first place." He
had great trouble with his own voice, and took unwearied
pains with it. "At the age of seven and twenty, he
had, owing to the vehemence of his oratory and great
constitutional weakness, so injured his voice that he was
strongly advised by his physicians and nearest friends, to
abandon his profession. He refused. He determined
to see whether, by bringing his voice down to a lower
and more moderate key, he might not retain his health,
and lose none of his effectiveness as a speaker. For this
purpose he went to Greece, placed himself under the
care, first of Atticus, then of Demetrius the Syrian; and
after making a circuit round all Asia, in company with
the most celebrated orators and rhetoricians, he returned
at the end of two years, quite another man. His way of
speaking seemed to have grown cool, and his voice was
rendered much easier to himself and much sweeter to the
audience,'
? 1
McIlvaine, in his work on "Elocution," gives some
practical advice to preachers in the use of the voice
as regards health. "A full and healthy action of the
vital forces will commonly, with due attention to regimen,
enable the speaker to command the favorable mood for
each occasion of speaking. A full vitality imparts to the
¹ Moore's " Thoughts on Preaching," p. 183.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
659
voice its most effective qualities and powers, and a cer-
tain fulness and vivacity to the speaking; the want of it
enfeebles the delivery in a corresponding manner. For
the reason that clergymen are compelled to speak twice
or three times on Sunday, they ought never to leave the
study later than at noon on Saturday. The remainder
of the day should be devoted to rest, and exercise in the
open air, and the night to sound and refreshing sleep
In like manner, the intervals between the Sunday ser-
vices should be devoted to rest. By such adequate re-
freshment and renovation of the vital forces, the preacher
may make the latter services as animated and interesting
as the former; which is the more desirable in order to over-
come the increasing temptation of church-goers to stay
at home in the afternoon. For whatsoever is worthy of
the name of preaching requires the exercise of the whole
vital force of a sound and healthy man. To preach the
gospel takes all there is or can ever be in any man.
A second plain axiom in regard to the voice is, that
one should speak upon a full inhalation of air. The
chest or the lungs is the seat of vocal power. One
should be careful, in speaking, that the reservoir of air
in the chest is never exhausted; he should take air
in, as well as force it out; and a clear, full, and, at the
same time, delicate, enunciation comes from having air
enough, and using all the air inhaled, “speaking with the
whole of ourselves, and not merely with the throat and
lips." Upon this full column of air in the chest the
voice should ring freely in the head, as in the top of a
dome, not, however, confining it to the chest, but using
the chest-voice only as a basis; for it is a false rule not
to employ the head (vocally) in speaking. It is the con-
cavity of the mouth and head which gives the resonant
and sonorous quality to the voice-a quality lamentably
}
660
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
wanting in some of our American speakers. Cicero says
that one should be careful to take a respiration long
enough, that he may not fail to have sufficient breath to
finish what he has to say; and a sentence should not be
so long that it cannot be easily and naturally spoken.
The sound given by the instrument should not exceed
its capacities. One should not, says Coquerel, enter
into a contest with his throat, he will surely be worsted.
Talma used to say of his actors, "They know how to
declaim, but they do not know how to respire."
Still another suggestion in regard to the voice and the
enunciation is, that one should strive for a natural tone.
"The voice is first to be formed. It is to be strength-
ened by an increased capacity of the lungs, and an ac-
quired, strong, respiratory action. Its thorough discipline
must be mastered, from the lightest whisper to the loudest
shouting; not with a view to actual use, but for securing
a command over every degree of force and pliancy.
Even in a few weeks a stentorian power can be imparted
to a comparatively weak voice." But, notwithstanding
all that may be done to discipline and train the voice, it
should still be a natural voice; for an artificial voice, let
it be never so good, is less effective than a natural one;
it unpleasantly suggests something artificial in the man
or in his thoughts. Every person has his own natural
pitch of voice, one that is nicely adapted to his mind and
temperament. Let him not strive to change this divine
arrangement, and take up another man's instrument. Let
him speak with his own voice, and not with that of some
other preacher or speaker, whom he has selected as a
model. Above all, let him not speak like an old man
while he is still a young man; we wish to hear the fresh,
1
1 Frobisher's "Voice and Action," p. 19.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
661
2
1 Gould's Good English," p. 181.
<<
high, varied tones of youth in the voice of a young man.
Therefore, as we have before suggested, let not even
head-tones be avoided-the highest radical tones-if one
is only mindful to have a chest-tone as a basis. Let the
voice play freely and naturally up and down, like a
musical instrument. This is agreeable to hear, and it
relieves the speaker. It is well to speak in the pitch that
one would use in common conversation, only clearer and
fuller; and yet some speakers assume a tone which is en-
tirely unnatural-a declamatory tone, or a solemn tone,
or a "holy tone;" as if preaching was anything else than
talking loud enough for a large audience to hear dis-
tinctly. Placing himself, then, in the position of an
authorized teacher, and theoretically speaking his own
words, he must adopt a tone and manner corresponding
to his position. His tone must be his conversational
tone, and his manner (reverential as to the Deity, col-
loquial as to the congregation) his natural manner, varied,
indeed, according to the subject, but still so really his
own that any listening friend would recognize him to be
the speaker by his tone and manner alone.
We may
learn something from Roman Catholic methods. "A
novice among the Jesuits, no matter what he may have
been previously-canon, vicar, or bishop-must attend a
reading-class three or four times a week. There he is
made to read like a child, is taught to articulate and to
accentuate, and every now and then is stopped,, when
those present are called upon to point out the merits and
defects of his reading. Nor is this all. Every Monday
during his noviciate, often extending over several years,
he has to recite the formula of the tones, as it is called-a
short discourse, comprising all the tones ordinarily used
1
662
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
in oratorical composition; such as the tone of persua-
sion, of menace, of kindness, of anger, of mercy, of
prayer, etc.; the preacher being obliged to remain in the
pulpit after such exercise to hear such criticisms as an
invited audience may choose to pass upon his per-
formance.'
1
Every public speaker should, as the least he can do,
endeavor to remedy or improve the imperfections of his
own voice. If he has a feeble voice, let him strive to
give it more fulness; if he has a thick and guttural voice,
let him aim at greater clearness and refinement of tone;
if he has a rasping, harsh voice, let him endeavor to soften
and sweeten it, to take off its wire-edge; but with all
this, let him accept the voice God has given him, and
use it, and not another man's; and, strange as it may
sound, so many are the faults which one is apt to fall
into by education, that it requires great study and labor
to speak naturally.
As a last suggestion, one should strive for a pure tone;
for this, more than anything else, indicates the cultivated
speaker. A pure tone is that which is free from all false
tones. A false tone, as distinguished from a pure tone,
arises from some imperfect respiration, or false carriage
of the voice, as, for instance, a pectoral tone, which
comes from an imperfect use of the lungs. Those who
have the misfortune to be consumptive, or those who
have weak lungs, are apt to have the pectoral tone.
Fuller and more vigorous respiration is needed for them.
The voice, if possible, should be lifted out of, or, at least,
not be suffered to lie buried in, the sepulchre of the chest,
where it rumbles in hollow tones. A preacher should
stand erect, so that all the organs of speech can have free
1 “The Clergy and the Pulpit," by M. l'Abbé Mullois, Ĉ. x. p. 243.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
663
play. He should not be a lecturer, but a preacher; and
it is here that the extempore speaker has an immense ad-
vantage. The whole apparatus of the vocal organs is to
be employed in producing a clear, pure tone; and a
speaker should find out by practice, and by the criticism
of friends, where his defect lies, or in what one imper-
fectly used organ; and thus he may effectually cure a
natural faultiness of voice, and, by persistent effort, bring
up even a weak voice to great power and efficiency.
We would add that clearness, rather than extreme
loudness, is best suited for the pulpit-voice-that full,
audible, manly, even, flowing enunciation on which one
can easily weave all characters and varieties of tone,
from the most delicate to the most vehement. Quin-
tilian finely remarks, "That delivery is elegant which is
supported by a voice that is easy, powerful, sweet, well
sustained, clear, pure, that cuts the air and penetrates the
ear; for there is a kind of voice naturally qualified to
make itself heard, not by its strength, but by a peculiar
excellence of tone-a voice which is obedient to the will
of the speaker, susceptible of every variety of sound and
inflection that can be required, and possessed of all the
notes of a musical instrument; and to maintain it there
should be strength of lungs, and breath that can be
steadily prolonged, and is not likely to sink under labor.
Neither the lowest musical tone, nor the highest, is
proper for oratory; for the lowest, which is far from
being clear, and is too full, can make no impression on
the minds of an audience; and the highest, which is very
sharp, rising above the natural pitch, is not susceptible
of inflection from pronunciation, nor can it endure to be
kept long on the stretch; for the voice is like the string
of an instrument: the more relaxed it is, the graver and
fuller its tone; the more it is stretched, the more thin
664
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
and sharp is its sound. Thus a voice in the lowest key
wants force; in the highest, is in danger of being
cracked. We must therefore cultivate the middle tones,
which may be raised when we speak with vehemence,
and lowered when we deliver ourselves with gentleness.
Reading
the
In reading the Scriptures, the voice should, as a gen-
eral rule, move upon a monotone, but without becoming
monotonous; it should rise and fall easily,
according to the sense. There should be
Scriptures. something of the same easy variety in the
tone that there is in common conversation.
The Bible does not require to be emphasized and aided
by so great a variety of tones as other books, because
it is not only, as a general rule, simple and plain, but it
has the dignity and authority of a divine teaching. Prac-
tice is required in the proper use of cadence, and there
are sublime passages of the New Testament which
should be read with something of a swell in the voice;
so also should many of the poetical and grand passages
of the Old Testament. The prayer and the reading of
the hymns require the preacher to vary his tone, in
order to mark the elevation of thought and feeling ;
though this may be easily overdone, as in the case of
the poet's divine, who
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"gives to prayer
The adagio and andante it demands."
> }
The words "Give attention to reading" might be ad-
dressed in their most literal sense to the preacher; for
reading the Scriptures has been rightly called “a continu-
ous commentary of the text.
There is no instrument more capable of cultivation
than the human voice; no instrument that equals it in
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GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
665
beauty, richness, scope, and power; its thunder tones
rouse and roll through the inmost depths of the con-
science; its flute-like notes fill the mind with harmonious.
visions of happiness and peace; its pathos touches the
springs of the heart, and makes wicked men feel like
children, and weep like children over their wrong-doings.
The second element of delivery, Pronunciation, is sim-
tion.
ply to utter articulately, or to give, with Pronuncia-
clear precision, to every vocal element,
whether vowel or consonant, its proper arti-
culate sound. This distinguishes an educated and refined
from a slovenly and uncultivated pronunciation.
"
When a word is properly articulated and properly
accented, it is rightly pronounced. Articulation (which
is the formation and jointing together into syllables
of the elementary sounds of speech) is, however, the
more fundamental and controlling element. The forma-
tion of the elementary sounds, and of syllables, is obvi-
ously the most essential element in the formation of
words. Pronunciation ought not to be conformed to the
symbolization, or to the spelling of words, as such at-
tempts reverse the original method by which language
was reduced to writing. Speech is always in a process
of change. The life of a language always follows the
sound, not the symbol. A correct and elegant pronun-
ciation is an element of power in delivery which can
hardly be overestimated."
Emphasis, when rightly given, is also a great beauty
in speaking. It does not consist in mere loudness, but
rather in an indescribable variety of tones
and modulations. It is thought, for exam-
ple, by some preachers, that it is absolutely necessary to
Emphasis.
1 McIlvaine's " Elocution," p. 239.
Ja
666
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
pronounce terrible words in a terrible manner, in loud and
startling tones of voice; but it is generally more emphatic
and solemnly impressive when the feeling of awe which
such words should inspire leads us to sink the voice,
though without softening or weakening it.
""
Emphasis (from Euparvo to show, to express in a
vivid, forcible manner) depends upon force and quality of
voice, time, pitch, and inflection. It is relative, that is
to say, the degree of prominence which is given to words
or phrases is to be determined by the connection in
which they stand, and by the occasion or circumstances
of the delivery. Emphasis is a substantive element of
language itself, since by varying it the meaning of any
combination of words may be wholly changed. Great
care should be taken to guard against too frequent em-
phasis, and loading the delivery with emphasis.'
Good emphasis is a great beauty in delivery; it atones.
for many faults.
"Correct accent is indispensable to spirited, tasteful,
and intelligent reading and speaking; every accented
word becomes the seat of life in utterance. A feeble and
inexpressive utterance kills the thoughts of the speaker.
The severest argument may be lighted up by a dis-
criminating emphasis, just as a painter, when he has
almost finished his picture, puts in, here and there, what
he calls the "lights ;" and so nature, if one observes a
landscape, always distributes her lights- not in masses,
but in points.
1
Whately decries the artificial study of emphasis. He
says, "Fill your mind with the matter; be inspired by it;
be sincerely desirous of imparting it to your hearers;
and then your emphasis will take care of itself." That
1 Vandenhoff's "Clerical Assistant."
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
667
A
is good advice as far as it goes. But how many good and
zealous ministers are very ineffective preachers! It
would seem to be better to fill one's mind with his ser-
mon, and with the desire to impart the truth it contains,
and then study it to know how this may best be done.
There should be a study of emphasis if for no other rea-
son than to avoid having too much emphasis, as is the
case with some preachers, which makes a ranting style,
that wearies both hearer and speaker; for violence in
elocution is not force.
Action is natural to man in speaking. The child ges-
tures when he talks, and it is well to observe the gestures
of children, and to note their freedom,
Action.
grace, and effectiveness; for well-timed and
natural gesture adds greatly to the power of speech.
There is, however, a difference of opinion in regard to
the propriety of much or little action, and of little or no
action, in the pulpit. Audiences themselves differ here.
Some speakers who enchain their audiences while stand-
ing stiff as poles-enchain them by their thoughts-
would be considered dull preachers by other audiences,
who like to see the dust fly from the cushion. There is
an oaken desk shown at Eisenach, in Germany, which
Luther broke with his fist in preaching.
Notwithstanding this difference of opinion, and not-
withstanding Dr. Johnson's dictum that "action can
have no effect on reasonable minds, sir," there can be
no doubt that some gesture, some timely and animated
action, is good for the preacher. "Whitefield's vehemence
was excessive. A poor man said he preached like a lion.
Sometimes he stamped, sometimes he wept, sometimes
he stopped exhausted by emotion, and appeared as if he
were about to expire. He usually vomited after the ex-
ertion of the day, and often brought up blood. Yet this
668
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
was the man whom the cold and sceptical Franklin
would travel twenty miles to hear. European and
Oriental nations gesture constantly, both in conversation
and public speaking; and we have no doubt that Demos-
thenes and the great orators of antiquity used much, and
at times vehement, gesture.
The simple rule in gesture would seem to be, that
while it should be free and natural, like a child's, it
should not be carried to an excess; that is worse than
no action at all; none at all is at least safe, if not elo-
quent. There should be, in fact, a certain thoughtful
restraint in gesture, and just enough of art to avoid awk-
ward, improper, and misplaced action.
"Emotion rather than thought is the immediate cause.
of gesture; and gesture corresponds to the nature of the
emotion, rather than of the thought. Too much ges-
ture, though significant and appropriate, enfeebles its
power of expression; otherwise, too much is better than
too little. The countenance should correspond to the
sentiments embodied in the words, though the speaker
should be put on his guard against indiscriminate smiling
and frowning. The eye is the chief feature in expression,
and thus the audience should see the speaker's eye.
4
In ore sunt omnia.' The expression of the hands is
only inferior to that of the countenance. The hand must
show that the speaker is all alive, even to his finger-
nails.
,, 2
The action of the hand was regarded by the ancients
as so significant that the whole art of delivery was named
by the Greeks Chironomia, meaning the law of physical
expression beyond thought itself "the power of utter-
"British Quarterly," April, 1857.
2 McIlvaine's "Elocution," p. 393.
general principles of rhetoric.
669
ance through all the organs of language in the body, the
power of speaking what we think not only by vocal
sounds, but also by expressive motions of grace and
strength." The numberless false motions of the hand in
speaking, from sawing the air like the sails of a windmill
to punching it like poking a grate, could not readily be
described, while a little thoughtful training would reduce
these wild and meaningless gesticulations to a noble and
expressive action, giving indescribable effect to speech.
Some men incline by temperament to a great deal of
action in speaking; let them not wholly restrain it, for
then they would be unnatural; but let them be careful
that the action be fit, and subordinate to the thought.
Other men incline to little or no gesture: let them be
careful not to become excessive in their stiff monotony.
It is best, perhaps, for a young preacher to gesture as lit-
tle as possible, until he gets used to preaching, and feels
free to be himself in the pulpit. Audiences are involun-
tarily on the watch to discover the evidences of art in the
sermon, and in the style of delivery, of a young preacher.
When they see the rhetorical education in him, he ceases
to impress them with what he is saying. Audiences
ought to be disappointed here. There should be no
mannerism of action to divert attention from the plain
message of God which the young preacher is delivering.
All gestures should be free and flowing, not cramped.
and confined. There should be nothing small, fastidious,
and mincing in gesture, since the idea of man's greatness
should be before us in the orator. Cicero commends, in
oratory, "a bold and manly action of body, not learned
from the theatre and the player, but from the camp, or
even from the palæstra." There is, indeed, much in
1 " De Oratore," B. iii. s. 59.
1
670
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
the ancient idea of the "free elbow." Page, the artist,
sagaciously remarks, that the superiority of ancient sculp-
ture over modern consists chiefly in its bold angles; and
he gives as an illustration the attitude of one of the sons
of Niobe, stretching his widely-extended arms to heaven.
Pulpits should be made to admit of this large and free
action. They should be so made that nearly the whole
of the preacher's form can be seen; for true gesture is
the speaking of the whole man, of all his limbs, and even
of his feet; and perhaps the good time will come when
the pulpit, with a desk for notes, will be abolished alto-
gether, and the preacher will stand up in his simple man-
hood, with nothing adventitious about him, and speak
the word with naturalness, spontaneity, and freedom fresh
from the heart. How great are the advantages of a good
delivery! "I do not fear to affirm," says Quintilian, "that
a mediocre discourse, sustained by the prestige of a good
delivery, shall have more weight than the most beautiful
discourse without such aid, Equidem vel mediocrem
orationem commendatam viribus actioncs, affirmaverim
plus habituram esse mementi, quam optimam cadem illa
destitutam.
1
""
Minima auxilia ne spernamus. Nothing is too small,
nothing too trifling, which helps us to become better
preachers. In the delivery of a discourse on so solemn a
theme as that of divine truth, we should at least strive to
avoid anything which will mar the effect of the sacred
message any inexcusable carelessness of speaking, awk
wardness of manner, harshness of voice, flippancy of
tone, or wearisomeness of monotony. The delivery
should be natural, affectionate, and free. Nothing can
make up for want of life, of animation. The manuscript
1 Instit.," B. xi. c. iii. s. 2.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.
671
is a curse if it deadens and dulls delivery. There
should be the vividus vultus, vividi oculi, vivida manus,
denique omnia vivida that are portrayed as characteristic
of Luther's preaching." The delivery should have not
only manly dignity and simplicity, but cheerful variety,
and, above all, noble action, which may be the medium
of the divine energy. To quote from an admirable essay
of Dr. Skinner (Am. Pres. and Theol. Rev., January,
1865), “Action, which is more than knowledge, needs
aids for itself. In elocutionary action, as well as in
thinking and writing, the preacher, however qualified by
self-culture, can attain to no degree of spirituality by
merely natural effort. If the activity of a preacher in
speaking the eloquence of the body-be indeed spiritual,
it is doubtless a higher exercise of the spiritual life than
either of its other exercises in the business of preaching.
It must needs be so, if it be answerable in all respects to
the unique and mysterious exigencies of such a work as
delivering appropriately the inspired word of God, as a
vehicle and representative of the Holy Spirit. Apart
from a very special operation of the Spirit himself, who
is sufficient for the just performance of this work? Spir-
itual things, expressing themselves fitly in spiritual
modulations of the voice, spiritual looks, spiritual atti-
tudes, the supernatural exerting itself in and through
these bodily signs of thought and feeling-think of one's
having in himself a sufficiency for this! The apostles,
with all their gifts for other uses, had it not; nay, even
our Lord's spirituality of mind and knowledge, added to
the perfectly natural use of the human powers, did not
qualify him adequately for the business of dispensing the
word, independently of the continued co-agency of the
Spirit in this specific business; even he delivered his dis-
"
1
672
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
courses under the anointing and in the power of the
Spirit of God" (Luke 4: 18; 21: 14).
As a result of this reasoning, the conclusion is drawn
that "in all preliminary work in reference to actual de-
livery, the preacher must abide in communion with the
Holy Spirit."
SECOND DIVISION.
INVENTION.
SEC. 29. Definition and Sources of Invention.
Rhetoric, strictly considered, is divided into two prin-
cipal parts, Invention and Style, or the matter and man-
ner of a discourse; and we shall now proceed to treat of
these topics, which form the concluding and more specific
portion of the discussion of rhetoric applied to preaching.
Invention may be defined to be the art of supplying
and of methodizing the subject-matter of a discourse.
Its primary idea is, to discover, bring
together, or supply the requisite material of
thought, from whatever source; its subor-
dinate idea, and one legitimately connected with it as
far as the proper uses of rhetoric are concerned, is the
right methodizing or arrangement of this material.
We will consider, briefly, the sources of invention, and
the qualities of the true subject.
I. The sources of invention.
(a.) Original power of thought. This belongs to the
mind, as mind; but it may be indefinitely increased
through discipline and culture, since the
Definition of
invention.
Sources of
invention.
more this original faculty of thought is
trained, the stronger and richer it grows in
invention, the greater its command of the sources and
materials of thought. There are, it is true, vast dif-
674
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
ferences in native mental power and fertility, in the
primitive depth of the mental soil; but where there is
native power of thought a thorough and philosophical
education serves to develop it, that it may bear more
fruit of invention. Vinet says ("Homiletics," p. 53),
"But the most certain means of invention, as to the
subject of discourse, is a truly philosophical culture.
In sermon-writing the well-disciplined mind, the mind
trained to think, has a confident vigor in discovering
and handling a subject which the untrained mind cannot
have. A thoughtful mind, well disciplined, will be con-
tinually quarrying out for itself new subject-matter, since
thought itself is, after all, the main principle and source
of good writing.
(b.) Acquired knowledge. Out of nothing, nothing
can be invented. There must first be the material for
thought to work upon, and from which to draw forth
the subject-matter of discourse before the writer or
orator has any function. That material is truth as it
lies in its elemental conditions in nature and the moral
universe, rewarding the sincere seeker but eluding the
final analysis. No one but God can create simple or
original truth; yet man may lay hold of truth and use
the truth, while he cannot circumscribe or exhaust it.
The broader the dominion of truth which the orator
thus commands, the more of it he has actually made
his own, the richer his sources of invention, and the
wider his power and influence.
We do not like to see barrenness in any writer, but in
writing a sermon especially one should draw upon a full
mind; he should be able to look down upon a subject in
all its parts and relations, and should feel that his great
¹ See also Quintilian's "Instit.," B. i. c. xix.
1
INVENTION.
675
embarrassment consists in coming at the specific theme
of discourse, in defining, selecting, and arranging his
material, rather than in being obliged to gather together
matter enough to eke out a discourse. It is better not
to attempt to write upon a subject than to write with a
small and imperfect knowledge of it, which sometimes
one may be forced to do, although this is not the way to
nourish a rich invention. And this acquired knowledge,
that is to be employed in invention, is not the gathering
together of a crude, undigested mass of knowledge; but
it requires an act of the mind to possess itself of this
knowledge, to assimilate truth to the nourishment of the
thinking power, to make it fit for use. This requires
reflection--that profound meditation upon divine truth,
without which there can be no rich, original preaching.
It is not merely the preaching of truth, but our own per-
sonal perception or apprehension of truth, the ripe fruit-
age of our own patient thinking upon truth, that is
needed.
The great source of the preacher's acquired knowledge
१
is the word of God; and he who studies this word daily,
who digs in this field, who is constantly pursuing original
investigations in this still fresh and fruitful soil, will
never be at a loss for subjects of sermons. The word
of God is, and will always be, the main subject-matter
of preaching. It should be preached in its unity-that
is, as one product of one divine author through many
minds; in its variety, not merely for example in its doc-
trinal, but also its ethical aspects, and not merely as
the law, but also, and above all, as the gospel; in its
integrity, without intentionally slurring over any por-
tion; and in its right order or proportion of parts.'
1
See "Moore on Preaching."
676
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
The preacher's invention is shown in bringing into use,
and in arranging judiciously, his rich scriptural materials.
It is well that there is beginning to be a call for biblical
preaching; this will immensely increase the variety of
the material of preaching and the supply of the inventive
faculty. The last review, the last new work on theology,
the last published volume of essays or sermons, while
suggestive, cannot afford preachers their source of sup-
ply; for all such materials are adventitious; they are not
the spring, but only a reservoir whose waters soon dry
up. The older Puritan preachers dwelt continually in the
word and spirit of God, and thus they were fresh and
original, sometimes startlingly bold, but profound in a
spiritual sense, even if labored and incorrect in form.
They preached, it is true, scholastically; but in substance
and spirit they drew their main material from the Scrip-
tures. There is an evangelic life in what they say,
which must have seemed, at the time, like a direct pro-
phecy, or a speaking of God's spirit through their minds
to men.
(c.) The process of reasoning. As meditation upon
truth arouses the inventive faculty, the more logical
power of definition, analysis, and comparison, gradually
leads invention to settle down upon some definite result
of thought, some distinct and comprehensive subject;
it conducts to the apprehension of those elements or
principles of truth which lie behind all knowledge.
What do we mean by depth as opposed to superficiality
of mind, or of invention? Let us answer in the words
of another," Depth consists in tracing any number of
particular effects to a general principle, or in distin-
guishing an unknown cause from the individual and
varying circumstances with which it is implicated, and
under which it lurks unsuspected. It is in fact resolving
INVENTION.
677
the concrete into the abstract. Now this is a task of diffi-
culty, not only because the abstract naturally merges in
the concrete, and we do not well know how to set about
separating what is cemented together in a single object,
and presented under a common aspect; but being scat-
tered over a larger surface, and collected from a number
of undefined sources, there must be a strong feeling of
its weight and pressure in order to detach it from the ob-
ject and bind it into a principle. Many preachers'
minds are sufficiently fertile in subjects for sermons, but,
lacking this habit of philosophic thinking, the cultivated
analytic power, they fail to look the subject through, or to
come at the real subject at all. They are thus led also
to superficiality in the treatment of subjects, and are rich
only in the mere discovery of novel themes.
1
SEC. 30. Qualities of the True Subject.
I. It should possess unity of subject and object. We
have spoken already of unity of form in an æsthetic point
of view; but the very matter and essence of
a discourse should be one. This forms its
life; and a discourse can have, like a man,
but one life, not two or more. We naturally
say, "the subject of this discourse is so and so.”
If we
should say, "The subjects of this discourse are so and
so," would our hearers expect to be persuaded or im-
pelled to any particular duty? A sermon, above all,
should have but one foundation theme, though capable,
it may be, of many different aspects and divisions; for
a sermon is not a mere work of art; it is infinitely more :
it is a practical work directed to a moral end, calculated
to act impressively upon the will and affections of the
¹ Hazlitt's "Plain Speaker."
Unity
of subject
and object.
678
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
hearer; it should have, therefore, but one subject, and
should aim at one impression, or it loses its moral power.
The sermon may sometimes treat of complex truths;
but these should be comprehended in some broader truth,
and all the thoughts should be bound together into one
synthetic whole. The discourse delivered by the preach-
er has something to accomplish; it is directed to a cer-
tain end; it is to carry a certain point; it has an earnest
mission; it does not talk about truth, but it preaches the
truth which is fitted to convert men's souls; therefore
there should be not only unity of subject-unity in the
very substance of the thought-but unity of object, unity
of aim. There may be a wide subject, but there should
be a narrower object toward which it is directed and is
made to converge. According to Vinet, in order to have
unity in a sermon, it must be reducible to a doctrinal
proposition, which is readily transformed into a practical
proposition; and every sermon, even an expository one,
should partake more or less of this unity of subject and
object, this oneness of substance and aim. It is true
that the sermons of Augustine, and of the early fathers
of the Church, seem to go upon the principle of impart-
ing as much truth as possible at the time, without any
marked attempt at unity, and this was better suited to
an earlier and less exactly thoughtful age; but, as a gen-
eral principle, at all times and under all circumstances,
the laws of the mind teach us that we cannot, in speaking
for the purpose of persuasion, attain to any object, or
accomplish any definite end, unless we keep that object
in view and steadily pursue it. We should not only,
therefore, have a theme, but we should clearly apprehend
it in all its bearings, so that while following it out, while
discussing subordinate and related subjects, while pur-
suing definite and individual methods of treatment, we
INVENTION.
679
should not forget either the one main subject or the one
main object of our discourse; and these two, in a certain
sense, should be one.
I
2. It should have originality. The term "invention"
presupposes this: for to invent, one must, in some true
sense, originate. Whatever one produces
Originality.
should be the genuine product of his own
thinking-not that he may not receive help from other
sources, but his intellectual products should be the honest
fruit of his own brain. This is the happiness and reward
of literary labor, and it loses its stimulus and pleasura-
ble excitement where there is not this consciousness of
independent, and, in a true sense, original invention;
and if this is true of any species of literary composition
or public discourse, it is true of the sermon. Let us ask
in what way true originality is violated. We would say
negatively—not in using old truths; for no one can make
a new truth. Even the discovery of a new truth seems
to be reserved for the few minds on which epochs turn,
though, indeed, there is no monopoly here. The truths
of the Bible, above all other truths, are common prop-
erty to all preachers and men. Goethe says that origi-
nality does not consist in saying new things, but in
treating old things in a new way. Again, not in using
old arguments or proofs. The old arguments are gen-
erally the best; they are the results of the best thinking
of the best minds; they have become the property of
all. The interests of truth itself demand that it should
not lose the support of the best arguments, the old and
well-tried proofs, and lean upon weaker proofs merely be-
cause they are new. Yet again, not in taking subjects
that have been preached upon by others. One should not
be fastidious in this. The most important subjects will be
those most preached upon. And there are certain sub-
680
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
""
jects, which not to preach upon would be a clear failure
of duty; and, obviously, no one has an exclusive right
of property in the truths and subjects of the Bible.
There are some peculiarly original forms in which even
homiletical subjects have been stated, which it would be
absurd and wrong for a preacher to repeat, inasmuch as
they are not his own. Thus Dr. Bushnell's sermon
upon Every man's life a plan of God," upon the text in
Isaiah 45: 5, "I have girded thee, though thou hast not
known me," is stamped, in the very subject of it, with
an original ownership. It is perilous to originality to
read a vigorous sermon like this beforehand, if we intend
to preach upon the same text. We should at least wait
until we escape as it were from the mastering force of
such a sermon, and until our own minds can work freely
and independently upon the theme.
True originality of invention may be violated, posi-
tively, by employing the thoughts, words, and method
of another, without, in some way, giving due credit
for it. The violation consists not in using another's
thoughts, or those which bear the unmistakable stamp
of ownership, but in not candidly acknowledging their
source. One must use the result of others' thinking to
a certain extent, for he cannot think all things de origine,
and he is the heir of ages of thought; he may some-
times even unconsciously employ ideas and trains of
thought which belong peculiarly to another mind, whose
source he has forgotten, and which he uses unwittingly
as his own; there may be striking coincidences in his
own thinking and that of another man's; and does
it not sometimes happen to every thinking man that
when he has earnestly thought out an idea, or an illus-
tration, or an argument, when he is morally certain
that it is his own, that in the next book he reads per-
INVENTION.
681
haps, with an astonishment that brings the blood to
his face, he sees the same thought, or almost the same
collocation of words and phrases which he had wrought
out by his independent thinking. In an age like this,
so full of intellectual activity, when the culture of the
world is becoming broadly equalized, and when even
great scientific truths, like the telegraph, or the existence
of a planet of the first magnitude, are simultaneous dis-
coveries in different parts of the globe, this fact is not so
wonderful after all, and no one is to blame, and each
honest worker in the field of thought is to be encouraged
and confirmed by it in the truth; but, consciously to set
forth as one's own the thoughts, words, and inventions
of another, which have not confessedly become common
property, and which belong of right to one man, and to
give that impression to others-this is a clear violation of
original invention, and of the first principles of honesty.
There is a curious instance of seeming plagiarism, though
probably it was only an unconscious coincidence, or, it
may be, recollection, in a passage that occurs in one of
Jeremy Taylor's sermons on "Death," with a passage in
a previously published poem of Francis Beaumont. The
passage referred to begins with these words: Where
our kings are crowned their ancestors lie buried, and
they must walk over their grandsires' heads to take their
crown."
In what, then, may originality of invention be said to
consist? It consists, in the first place, in enunciating
truth which is the subject of our own mental perception
and conviction. It is not preaching truth because it is
held and believed by others. Old truth must be made
new, or must receive a renewed form, by passing through
the heat and pressure of our own minds. It must be
assimilated into the very body and essence of our own
682
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
K
thought. It must be ours, just as much ours as it was
the apostle Paul's or Pascal's. We must ourselves preach
that we do know, and testify that we have seen and be-
lieved. If we speak of thoughts, or ideas, in contra-
distinction from truths, we see at once that there are
many ideas that have sprung up in original minds, that
are peculiar to these minds, and that bear the linea-
ments of their origin. These cannot be run through
Our own minds, and come out with a new stamp
of our own upon them; they must be left as they are;
and if used by us, their authorship should be acknowl-
edged. Individual thoughts and ideas about a truth, and
new aspects of it discovered by different minds, are
different from the truth itself, which belongs to all minds.
Even here, in regard to the original proprietorship of
thoughts and ideas, there is still some doubt and latitude
to be left. "Nearly all the thoughts which can be
reached by mere strength of original faculties, have long
since been arrived at; and originality, in any high sense
of the word, is now scarcely ever attained but by minds
which have undergone elaborate discipline, and are
deeply versed in the results of previous thinking. It
is Mr. Maurice, I think, who has remarked on the pres-
ent age, that its most original thinkers are those who
have known most thoroughly what has been thought by
their predecessors; and this will always henceforth be
the case.
Again, it consists in treating a subject independently,
or in using arguments, proofs, and methods which are
the result of our own thinking and investigation. We
may sometimes take old arguments, but we do not take
an argument because it is old, or because another has
¹ John Stuart Mill.
INVENTION,
683
used it; but because we think it is sound, and because
we have come upon it in our own thinking, and know its
value. We occupy no other man's precise point of view.
We use an argument because our own judgment approves
of it; because, even if we have not invented it, we have
at least felt its power and our need of it. This principle
applies particularly to the plans of sermons.
The plan
of a sermon is so connected with our whole process of
thought upon a subject, it is in fact so truly the repro-
duction of that process of thought, and is in every way
so individual and vital, that for one preacher to use
bodily the plan of another man as his own, without mak-
ing it known, is inexcusable. Therefore, all books which
purport to be aids in forming plans of sermons, are moral
nuisances, and should be thoroughly condemned. They
are the excuses of indolence. This is not saying that a
preacher may not legitimately and honestly derive sug-
gestions and helps from others in forming his plan of a
sermon, even from those, perhaps, who have written upon
the same theme, although that is always a hazardous
thing, and one should avoid reading another sermon upon
the same subject before writing his own.
Still again, originality consists in inventing subjects
that are really new. Truth is so large, and, indeed, limit-
less in its range, that one may still be an inventor. He
can discover new forms of truth, and make new combi-
nations of forms that have never before existed; and that
is a wonderful gain in preaching. There is such a plod-
ding on in familiar ruts of thought, that something really
new has all the effect of suddenly turning into a by-road
in the woods, that refreshes and awakes the mind; for
nothing so delights the mind, even the mind of the un-
cultivated, as a new view of truth. Freshness of thought
is not a mere weak or dazzling novelty. Vinet has some
684
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
pregnant remarks upon this point. "There is, then,
he says, “legitimate novelty--a novelty even of subjects
-not of doctrines, but of themes. By this means, art,
which is an affair of humanity, renovates itself; the gos-
pel is unchangeable, but it is divine. In order to attain
the novelty of which we speak, genius is not necessary,
and the preacher has only to open his eyes and observe.
Let him not confine himself to a general and abstract
idea of man, but let him study the men who are before
him, and to whom he speaks. If he will but take this
pains, he will be new. The study is a difficult one, re-
quiring constant attention-one in which zeal will sustain
and direct him, but from which he is not to be excused."
Lastly, originality of invention consists in employing
one's own language and style. Who can be in any sense
original who does not give the impress and superscription
of his individual style to his production? Who can
doubt the originality of the writing of Chalmers, or of
Robert South? Good or bad, true or false, it was their
own.
In concluding this point, we would say, that two great
and legitimate sources of originality to the preacher are
original exegesis of the Scriptures, and the bringing of
one's own experience and observation of life to bear in
the treatment of spiritual truth.
3. It should consist of Christian truth. This is re-
quired, if for no other reason, for the sake of those whom
he addresses. They are to be won to God
by means of Christian truth, and they can
be won in no other way. Christ, as the way
of eternal life, must be in the truth that really converts the
soul. As far as the hearers are concerned, there is no
room for violating this rule. Whatever does not partake
essentially of the nature of Christian truth is not the true
Christian
truth.
INVENTION.
685
subject of the preacher's instructions. The preacher,
besides this, is also positively commissioned and com-
manded to preach Christian truth, summed up in the
brief sentence, "Christ and him crucified." This, it is
true, comprehends a vast sweep of truth, as may be illus-
trated in the preaching of Paul, in which Christ formed
the subject-matter-all beginning and ending in Christ.
Yet how broad, doctrinally and ethically, was the range
of Paul's preaching! It goes to the ordering of our
entire human life below, and rises into the sublime mys-
teries of the life which is to come. What, then, let us
ask more particularly, is meant by Christian truth?
(a.) It is that truth which may be assimilated into
Christianity. In one sense, all truth may become part of
Christianity; but whatever of truth can be
just as well treated of and discussed if Truth which
Christianity were not, or were out of the
may be
assimilated
into
way, could not properly be called Christian
truth. Christianity could hardly, for exam- Christianity.
ple, assimilate to itself such a truth as the
science of botany, so as to make it an exclusive subject
for the pulpit, although botany may be used most hap-
pily in the way of illustration, and even of direct teach-
ing, whenever the natural works of God are treated of;
but the principles of botany, as far as the science is con-
cerned, could be just as well treated of by a heathen as a
Christian, and by a natural philosopher as a Christian
preacher; therefore it is more proper for the scientific
lecture than for the pulpit.
Truth which
(b.) It is that truth which tends to edify the soul.
Whatever is addressed exclusively to the in-
tellect, or the feelings, or the imagination, tends to edify.
or the prudential nature, and does not afford
nutriment to the spiritual nature, cannot form the true
686
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
subject-matter of preaching. There must be the bread
of life for the soul to feed upon-a fragment of that eter-
nal truth revealed by God's Spirit to the soul. It must
be the genuine word of God. Truths, therefore, which
end in this earthly sphere of things, which are purely in-
tellectual, scientific, or social truths, should be but inci-
dentally treated of in the pulpit. It is good to apply
Christian truth to worldly affairs, and to inculcate wise
maxims in regard to the daily business and pursuits of
life; but to preach an entire sermon upon "business.
thrift," without a higher aim or a deeper moral intent,
would be an inexcusable secularization of the pulpit. In
like manner scientific subjects which do not nourish the
moral or spiritual nature, even if they have a true rela-
tion to the general good and enlightenment of men, were
better discussed in their own proper places and methods.
"In interpreting the soul, and in revealing God, Jesus
aimed at more than simply communicating new and
ennobling knowledge to the world. What humanity
needed was, not merely to understand God; it needed
still more to learn how the soul might be restored to
God, and how God might dwell in the soul."
The pul-
pit may be, at times, scientific in its treatment of the
higher truth, but it should not sell itself to scientific
form; and even theological scientific discussion may be-
come barren and wholly out of place in the pulpit.
While it is true that subjects which treat of the means of
true social progress may very properly be introduced into
the Christian pulpit, yet subjects which end altogether in
questions relating to the principles, arts, and laws of gen-
eral civilization, in which man in general is discussed and
not man in particular-these should not, ordinarily, form
1 Young's "Christ in History," p. 144.
91
INVENTION.
687
}
its exclusive themes; such themes are better reserved for
the lecture than the sermon. A subject, in fine, which
has not, or cannot possibly be made to have, a decidedly
spiritual and Christian bearing, which does not radically
influence character, which does not prepare the way for
Christ to come in the soul, and which does not concern
the interests of his eternal kingdom, should not be made
a complete and separate subject for the pulpit. Every
sermon need not enunciate Christian dogma, but every
sermon should breathe the spirit of the gospel, and bear
its message of peace to the soul. It should come under
that new system of truth, that higher manifestation of
the divine in the human, which has Christ for its spiritual
centre. It should not be preaching purely to the reason,
or to the logical faculty, or to the æsthetical faculty;
but Christ should speak in it to man's spirit, impelling to
duty, repentance, and a holy life.
Christian truth, which should be thus the subject of
our preaching, may be viewed more specifically still, as
consisting of three parts: Christian doctrine, Christian
morality, and Christian experience.
(1.) Christian doctrine. Here we find the main sub-
ject-matter, or the real staple of preaching. This doc-
trine is simply the teaching or truth of God
which is necessary for the nourishing of the
doctrine
soul. But even this Christian doctrine, as
the staple
we have said, when treated in a scientific of preaching.
manner, may become the mere nutriment of
Christian
the intellect, and not of the soul. While, therefore,
there should be enough of theological discussion in a ser-
mon to present the subject clearly, to remove its difficul-
ties, to develop it in an orderly manner; yet, after all,
the discussion of truth is not the end of the sermon,
which is to awake, edify, renew the soul. As a general
688
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
rule, broad, synthetical views of truth are the best. Paul,
though a born dialectician, will be found, when thor-
oughly studied, to present doctrinal truth in an almost
totally unscientific, and oftentimes even illogical form;
for while he preached doctrine, it was rather in the living
forms and teachings of the Spirit of God, than in those
systematic methods which we commonly associate with
the idea of "doctrine"-good for the treatise, but not
good for the pulpit.
Dr. Alexander thus remarks on this point: "I am im-
pressed with the importance of choosing great subjects
for sermons, such as creation, the deluge, the atonement,
the last things. A man should begin early to grapple
with great subjects. An athlete (2 Tim. 2:5) gains
might only by great exertions. So that a man does not
overstrain his powers, the more he wrestles the better;
but he must wrestle, not merely take a great subject, and
dream over it, and play with it."
We should agree generally with this suggestion; but
still we would find the great subject in the text itself, or
in some portion of the divine word, rather than to find a
text for the subject, even if it be of a doctrinal character.
We would have even "doctrinal" preaching to be scrip-
tural rather than exclusively theological. The "great
subjects" that Dr. Alexander speaks of will come more
readily through concentrated thought upon some definite
passage of God's word than through the choice of a great
subject, commonly so called. It is better, for example,
to find the doctrine of the atonement as it lies originally
and naturally in the Epistle to the Romans, and be filled
and inspired by the study of this whole Epistle, than
deliberately to write a sermon on the abstract and theo-
logical doctrine of the "atonement," and preach upon it
in the ordinary formal mode of discussion.
"In our
INVENTION.
689
anxiety to set forth a sound code of truth, we have been
directing men, for example, to the naked formula of jus-
tification, rather than to Him by whom we are saved, and
who all the day long stretches out his arms to receive the
returning sinner. We have been teaching men, perhaps,
to trust to a system, instead of reposing on a personal
Saviour. The most profitable form of preaching is
that which, drawn fresh from scriptural sources, unites
the doctrinal and the practical, and recognizes the fact
that the end of Christian doctrine is to teach men how to
live a good and holy life. Doctrinal preaching should
not always be in a topical form, but in the form also
of expository and exegetical preaching, upon which we
have had already much to say. The true teaching of the
Scriptures may, perhaps, be better drawn out in this way
than in any other. It is quarrying directly from the
mine.
1
Controversial preaching of Christian doctrine is rarely
profitable. It may be sometimes needful; but, generally
speaking, the setting forth of the true doc-
trine is the best way to refute doctrinal
error; for a minister of the gospel is not
called to be a heresy-hunter; but he should, by God's
aid, make such a blaze of light about him that falsehood
cannot live in it.
Preaching upon Christian evidences is generally consid-
ered to be useful; yet, after all, is not the best evidence
of Christianity the manifestation of the
truth in the love of it? The defensive side
Controversial
preaching.
<<
' Oxenden's Treatise," p. 109.
of truth should certainly not be dwelt upon
too long in a pulpit which should speak with assurance
and authority. Why should there be a timidly apolo-
Christian
evidences.
690
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
getic tone forever going forth from our Christian pulpits,
as if the Bible were an unknown book that needs to be
always proving its divine authority? or as if it had not
been attested by ages of light? or as if the books and
words of men, of the great thinkers of past and present
times, brought together, could equal in creative power
and brightness one ray of the sun of God's word? or as
if Christ were an obscure personage still traversing the
hills of Judæa in peasant guise, and not having where to
lay his head? If Christianity has not proved itself by
this time to be true, it will never prove itself to be so ;
and therefore we would have preachers take higher
ground, and prove the truth of Christianity by setting
it forth more vividly, faithfully, and comprehensively.
They may be assured that this is their one duty, and that
Christianity is able to take care of its own evidences.
We do not say by this that the preacher should not
study the Christian evidences, and that it is not good for
him to establish these in his mind, and to bring them
into his preaching and pastoral instruction, for confirma-
tion in the truth; but we do say that to preach too much
on the evidences will make people finally begin to doubt
and to question. It is better to preach Christ, and trust
to the gospel to prove itself. In pretty much the same
category we would place preaching upon
Natural Theology.
Vinet considers that,
under the Christian system, there is no such
thing, properly speaking, as natural religion. He thinks
that Christianity takes up, completes, and transforms
natural truths, so that they become Christian truths.
Undoubtedly, no Christian preacher should treat of
natural religion excepting from a Christian point of view;
he should not descend to the former level of uninspired
truth; he should show, rather, that Christianity is the
Natural
theology.
INVENTION.
691
natural religion, or that it has in perfection all that nature
may have in its elements, and something infinitely more.
Christianity can reason down upon natural religion better
than natural religion can reason up to Christianity; for
while nature, as the creation of God, and thus, in one
sense, the manifestation of God, may not be neglected,
yet the Christian minister should not lose sight of his
higher Christian vantage ground, and preach natural re-
ligion or natural theology. In fine, the great permanent
theme of Christian doctrinal preaching is, that fact of
human redemption, in all its wide-spread ramifications
and relations, which was wrought out through the incar-
nation, life, atoning death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. How many congregations languish under the
preaching of eloquent divines, because they are not sim-
ply and earnestly taught the first principles of the doc-
trine of Christ, wherein are the beginnings of all spiritual
life; for Christ alone is the life, whatever else there is of
knowledge, eloquence, or philosophy.
(2.) Christian morality. This is the setting forth in
preaching of the principles of Christian ethics as applied
to life. It is (1) telling men what true
morality is, in its relation to God as the
original source or giver of the moral law
to man as a subject of law. It is (2) the application
of the moral law to all human actions, both to man
individually, and to man as related to other men and
society. It is (3) the setting forth of the new influ-
ences and obligations which Christianity has brought into
morality, or the introduction into ethics of the higher law
of Christian love, of the personal teachings, example, and
Spirit of Christ, of the new virtues and fruits of the Holy
Spirit's creation. It would treat of man's moral rela-
tions under the Christian law of love to the family, the
Christian
morality.
692
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
*
to
Church, the State, the race-it regards comprehensively
the whole practical conduct of life, as governed by the
Christian moral law, negatively as regards vice, positively
as regards virtue. What a wide sweep this kind of
preaching may take in the fields of man's almost infinite
moral relations, need but be hinted; and, as yet it is a
fresh field, because preaching has been heretofore so
greatly confined to the dogmatic aspects of truth. Christ
himself made one chief element of his preaching to
consist in the right interpretation of the moral law-the
law of duty and life; and here is to be one of the reforms
of the pulpit-that it should be more practical, leading
charity out of a pure heart ;" that it should deal
with the whole of life in a Christian point of view-with
man's personal relations as son, husband, father, friend,
neighbor, citizen, business man, and member of the
human brotherhood. We want a Christianity that is
Christian across counters, over dinner-tables, behind the
neighbor's back as in his face. We want a Christianity
that we can find in the temperance of the meal, in mod-
eration of dress, in respect for authority, in amiability at
home, in veracity and simplicity in mixed society. We
want fewer gossiping, slandering, gluttonous, peevish,
conceited, bigoted Christians. To make them effectual,
all our public religious measures, institutions, benevolent
agencies, missions, need to be managed on a high-toned,
scrupulous, and unquestionable scale of honor, without
evasion or partisanship, or overmuch of the serpent's
cunning. The hand that gives away the Bible must be
unspotted from the world. The money that sends the
missionary to the heathen must be honestly earned. In
short, both the arms of the Church—justice and mercy-
must be stretched out, working for man, strengthening
the brethren, or else your faith is vain, and ye are yet in
INVENTION.
693
your sins.
The morals of trade is a subject by itself,
and a painfully fruitful one under the light of the Chris-
tian civilization of the age. When it is said that in Eng-
land and America a strictly conscientious business man,
who will condescend in no particular to the hundred
illicit practices of his particular line of business, is apt to
be driven out of it or to be unsuccessful in it, then it is
time for God's ministers and prophets to thunder the law
of God to the consciences of business men who are pro-
fessed or nominal Christians. The minister of God's gos-
pel should never for one instant become the flatterer or
encourager of wealth wrongfully obtained. He should
preach integrity to young business men, and tell them
to be and remain poor rather than trade on borrowed
capital, speculate in gambling stock operations, or make
haste to be rich before the time. If a Christian is not an
honest man, there is no use in saying anything more about
Christianity.
1
Dr. Chalmers was eminently a preacher of practical
morality. He set his face against every form of evil,
both in the pulpit and out of it. He particularly pressed
upon country people thorough honesty and uprightness,
and the practice of the law of love by abstaining from all
malice and evil speaking. The ostentation of flaming
orthodoxy, or talk of religious experience which was not
borne out by the life, was the object of his thorough
abhorrence." When he preached his commercial ser-
mons in Glasgow, business men would leave the church
with expressions of violent hostility, but they would be
present when he preached the succeeding discourse. To
tell these men of influence and high social standing that
their city was given up to the idolatry of money, and
""
' Dr. F. D. Huntington.
694
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
that where the love of money is, the love of God could
not be to show them how even business integrity might
coexist with a corrupt heart, and that this fair show of
virtue might spring from pure selfishness-required no
common courage.
theological pupils:
Often recur to the
Professor Shepard said to his
"Young men! preach the duties.
tables of the law, and dwell upon Thou shalt' and
'Thou shalt not,' lest you fill the Church with converted
scoundrels."
Fontaine, a Huguenot preacher at Taunton, England,
expounded the text "Thou shalt not steal" so effectively
as to make a bitter personal enemy of an influential mem-
ber of his congregation, who, unknown to him, had been
engaged in a doubtful business transaction; and it re-
sulted in his being driven from the pastoral charge of the
church. It is good to read of such faithfulness in a
preacher; for the flattery of the rich, and sometimes the
total lack of reproof of the unrighteously rich-in other
words, the ignoring and thus the supporting of absolute
dishonesty is the besetting sin of ministers.
Christian
morality not
to be con-
In our methods of ethical preaching we should be care-
ful not to confound Christian morality with mere natural
virtue, for morality may be treated in a false
way in the pulpit, by disconnecting it from
the life-springs of Christian faith. "Morals
founded with can seldom gain living energy without the
natural virtue, impulsive force derived from spirituals. Plato
and Cicero may indeed talk of the surpass-
ing beauty of virtue; nor do we doubt that a man's
own self-respect may make him choose to die, rather
than live degraded in his own eyes by deviating from his
ideal of right conduct. Let old stoicism be confessed to
be noble and honorable; yet it makes the mind too ex-
INVENTION.
695
dence.
clusively reflexive, and engenders pride and self-confi-
Virtue is an abstraction, a set of wise rules-
not a person-and cannot call out affection, as an exterior
to the soul does. On the contrary, God is a person;
and the love of him is of all affections far the most ener-
getic in exciting us to realize our highest idea of moral
excellence, and in clearing the moral sight. Other things
being equal (a condition not to be forgotten), a spiritual
man will hold a higher and purer morality than a mere
moralist. Not only does duty manifest itself to him as
an ever-expanding principle, but, since a larger part of
duty becomes pleasant and easy when performed under
the stimulus of love, the will is enabled to concentrate
itself more in that which remains difficult, and greater
power of performance is attained. Hence, what the
law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh,'
is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but
after the spirit.
?? 1
Moral duty may be treated by the preacher philo-
sophically, or rationally, or prudentially, and yet not
vitally, as touched by the Christian principle, which con-
cerns itself with the inner rule of right, and the mind's
free choice to do right. The virtue of temperance may be
made a purely stoical, or political, or hygienic virtue, and
be violently torn out of the circle of Christian virtues and
of that Christian character which is moulded freely by the
great law of righteousness and love.
The disinterested character of virtue, as opposed to the
utilitarian school, and as coming nearer to Disinterested
the Christian principle of virtue, should be
upheld, lest virtue be made to be a mere
happiness-bringing expedient. The Hobbes theory of
character of
virtue.
1 F. W. Newman, "The Soul," p. 124.
696
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
virtue, to which that of Paley is closely allied, that vir-
tue is simply what is best for man and for society, and
that it should be supported because virtue best pro-
motes the sum of human happiness-that "virtue is
only a judicious, and vice an injudicious, pursuit of
happiness"-this, we believe, is a totally inadequate view
of the matter.' Virtue, as a principle of self-love directed
to gain heaven and shun hell, though a true motive, be-
longs to the prudential class of motives, and is not, when
taken strictly by and in itself, a moral or religious motive,
it is an expedient and not a principle. Virtue is some-
thing more profound. It belongs to the absolute and un-
changeable constitution of things. Since man possesses
a nature made in the moral image of God, on which God
has written the immutable law of right, so man should do
right because it is right, because it is the highest law of
his nature, and of God, and not from selfish motives. He
should love virtue in all its forms of justice, holiness,
goodness, and truth, for virtue's sake. The preacher
should appeal mainly to this higher nature in man, to the
true dignity of his original nature made in God's moral
image, to the abstract sense of right and morality. This
gives him an immense advantage. While doing this he
may appeal also to the more concrete idea of virtue, or
to the principle of right in its actual relation to men's
circumstances where the idea of human imperfection,
and, to a certain sense, of expediency comes in. The
Scriptures recognize this to a certain extent. They warn
us to seek salvation. But what is this salvation, and what
is it worth if it is not salvation from sin, salvation from
moral evil, salvation from what is wrong? Differ as we
may from Herbert Spencer in other things, his position is
¹ See Lecky's "History of European Morals.”
INVENTION.
697
a true one where he says, Granted that we are chiefly
interested in ascertaining what is relatively right; it still
follows that we must first consider what is absolutely
right; since the one conception presupposes the other.
That is to say, though we must ever aim to do what is
best for the present times, yet we must ever bear in
mind what is abstractedly best; so that the changes may
be toward it, and not away from it. Unattainable as
pure rectitude is, and may long continue to be, we must
keep an eye on the compass which tells us whereabout it
lies, or we shall otherwise be liable to wander in some
quite opposite direction; and how immense would be the
evils avoided and the benefits gained if a posteriori mo-
rality were enlightened by a priori morality.
>> 1
Christianity comes in here and supplies the grand per-
sonal motive to virtue-the law and love of God-devo-
tion to the personal Christ-the loving imitation of his
life and character; but still the moral foundations of vir-
tue are the same in the Christian and in the heathen and
in all moral creatures; it is the law of right which the
Creator has impressed upon the human spirit, and by
which God himself, the Best Spirit, guides his own acts.
But the Christian preacher has immense advantages
over the mere moralist in preaching morality, from what
should be his greater love to men, and from
the Christian standpoint of Christ's work for
sinful men, delivering them from sin, and
righting them, so to speak, in their moral
characters. He may preach the law of mo-
rality with infinitely more of tolerance and
tender application to the individual heart than the natural
or Stoical moralist. He preaches morality from the side
""
1 Essays," American edition, p. 24.
How
Christian
preachers
should preach
morality.
698
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
of love. Yet he should ever keep the moral ideal high
and pure; he should rise above the utilitarian view of
virtue; he should seek his ideals in heavenly things, in
the perfect law and nature of God, and in the disinterest-
ed and self-sacrificing love of Christ.
He should preach honesty, benevolence, justice, for-
giveness, temperance, chastity, and all the Christian vir-
tues, from this true principle of accord with immutable
right; aided, impelled, and purified by the Christian mo-
tives of love and of duty to a personal God and Father,
through which motives sinful beings can alone perfectly
obey the moral law. This is that love which is better.
than knowledge, and which is the fulfilling of the law.
It is indeed one of the great ends of preaching, if not
the great end, according to St. Paul, in his Epistle to
Timothy, to bring men into that charity out of a pure
heart which makes men truly righteous, which builds
them up in a true holiness, which moulds them by the
truth and spirit of God into good men.
A modern writer well remarks here: Christianity
founds morality upon theology, and besides theological
doctrines it offers other influences-the human example
of Christ, the lives of prophets, apostles, and saints—in
order to accomplish that which it regards as the essential
and difficult preparation for morality; namely, the gen-
eral disposing of the will toward right and orderly action.
It is in laying this theological basis and in bringing to
bear these preparatory influences that Christian teachers.
occupy themselves almost exclusively. I do not find
fault with what they do, but it seems to me none the less
lamentable that they should leave the direct teaching of
morality almost entirely undone."
1
"Roman Imperialism etc.," p. 261.
""
INVENTION.
699
This author further counsels that preachers should use
the examples of good men of our own day, "of the virtue
that is near us in time and space," as well as the lives
and examples of biblical saints and holy characters; and
that moral preaching should take a wider range in this
respect; but this suggestion, though worthy of being car-
ried into practice, may be overdone, and sermons may
degenerate into biographical lectures and eulogies, and
lose out of them the divinely teaching element of in-
spiration.
There is also the interesting field of the application of
Christian morality to questions of government, citizen-
ship, and politics. Tocqueville says, "It
appears to me that morality is divisible into
two portions, both equally important in the
eyes of God, but which his ministers do not teach with
equal energy. One respects private life-the duties of
mankind, a father, children, husbands and wives; the
other respects public life-the duties of every citizen to
his country and to the portion of the human race to
which he specially belongs. Am I mistaken in thinking
that our clergy care much about the first branch of mo-
rality, and little about the second?" As to the question
of preaching upon politics, it is true that human politics,
in the ordinary sense of the term, should not form the
theme of the preacher of eternal truth; but a higher idea
of the subject of politics, viewed as the application of
Christian ethics to human affairs and government, and
even in the old Greek sense of n πоλiтiиn as the life-prin-
77
ciple of the State-this is a different thing; and here it
comes fairly under Tocqueville's second division of pub-
lic morality. Upon this subject the preacher is con-
scientiously bound, under proper limitations, and accord-
ing to the proportions of truth, to bestow his thought
Political
preaching.
H
700
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
so.
and give his instructions. And he is the more bound to
do so when those instructions are peculiarly needed,
when public opinion has gone wrong, when there is a de-
cided and dangerous perversion of right principles in rela-
tion to civil matters, when men and the State have
become oppressive and unjust, and when liberty is im-
perilled. Then the preacher should stand up boldly, and
proclaim the right, even as did John the Baptist, Peter,
and Paul. This is not only the preacher's privilege, but
his duty; he would be basely derelict in duty not to do
As an American, he would be false to the history
and example of a Puritan pulpit, which, in the Old World
and the New, has ever upheld the cause of freedom.
And yet that is not advocating political preaching, of
which, it may be, there has been too much in the past.
Dr. South was what we would call a "political preach-
er," even as, doubtless, many who opposed him were
political preachers;" for men like South fought for
their party in the pulpit, and with all kinds of weapons;
and their minds were evidently more ardently engaged in
these partisan conflicts than in the great ends of preach-
ing the gospel. In the legitimate application of preach-
ing to politics—to quote from another-four principles are
to be observed or aimed after, (1.) A recognition of God
as the moral governor of nations and source of national
authority. (2.) A recognition of the universal brother-
hood and equality of man in civil rights; requiring rulers
to enact such laws as bear equally on the whole popula-
tion. (3.) The inculcation of the moral law of God as the
supreme guide in all legislative, judicial, and executive
business of our public officers, and in all political action
of private citizens. (4.) The historic proof of absolute
certainty of the retribution for national crimes. Politics,
then, should be a part, and a principal part, of the studies
04
K
INVENTION.
701
14
of the clergy. "To discover and popularize the lessons
that may be drawn from our history, to idealize the
nation and familiarize it in its unity to the minds of its
members, is a most vital part of the moral teaching of the
community. The phrase, political religion, may have
very different meanings; there are two senses in which it
signifies a hateful thing, but there is a third sense, in
which it is an admirable and necessary thing. It is a
hateful thing when it means religion made the tool of a
political party, or governing class; as when the Church
consecrated the absolutism of the Stuarts, or, on a
smaller scale, when the parson preaches submission to
the squire. It is a hateful thing when it means the
Church interfering with public affairs merely with a view
of strengthening its own position, of preserving its own
influence, or privileges, or endowments. But when a
Church is independent of political parties, and sure of
the respect of the people, when it can speak with impar-
tiality and with authority, then political religion means
only the purifying of politics by connecting them with
duty, honor, and piety; it means only the discourage-
ment of faction, the assertion of general principles, the
keeping before the eyes of the people a political ideal.
And as in the former sense political religion is only
another name for corrupt religion, in the latter sense it
is another name for worthy and noble politics. This
passage has a good sound and contains much truth; but
whether the hard-worked minister of the gospel can, be-
yond general principles, do much in the way of profound
study and elucidation of the difficult science of political
economy, is a question. He should intelligently study
and comprehend the constitution and laws of his coun-
Roman Imperialism," p. 292.
1
702
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
try, and should be established in the principles of right
legislation and of sound government. He is called upon
to set forth the moral foundations of the State and
of society, as related to the law and government of God,
not to turn lecturer on political science, or social sci-
ence, or the relation of labor to capital, or such topics.
Preaching on
moral reform.
To speak more particularly of questions of moral re-
form, while these should enter into, yet even these should
not form the main substance and material
of true preaching; for the preacher should
be seen to have the deeper mind to delight
to make Christ all in all; and he should speak on these
subjects of moral reform as Christ's messenger, as ex-
pressing his pure and loving will; for Christian morality.
is, after all, nothing but the carrying out and the uni-
versal application of the law of love. Dr. Arnold always
maintained the idea that the true end and work of the
Church was "the putting down of moral evil." But
it must be put down by moral and spiritual weapons,
by reason, and love, and the gospel, not by force and vio-
lence. There is a noticeable difference between being a
Christian reformer and a Christian preacher, and the Chris-
tian preacher should be both; but he should be a preacher
distinctively and primarily. Let a minister be, first of
all, a preacher of Christian truth, and then he will, of
necessity, be a reformer; let him look well to the posi-
tive side of truth-to the establishment of truth-and
from this position let him attack the institutions of sin.
In this way he will preserve his balance, and not become
denunciatory, or lose the blessed charity of the gospel
for human sins. With the conditions and limitations
thus laid down, the gospel is to be applied freely, boldly,
searchingly, to all relations of human life and society.
Few American preachers have done this with more
INVENTION.
703
power than Dr. Channing, though in doctrinal views we
differ with him; but to him belongs the credit of nobly
and freely applying in his preaching the principles of
Christian ethics to matters of social, governmental, and
public reform; and his sermons, in this respect, are still
models, not only in their eloquent thought, but in the
large sympathy which they manifest for the moral condi-
tion and prospects of the whole human family.
While thus advocating strongly the preaching of moral
reform under the conditions that have been laid down,
we would guard against any encouragement of that kind
of minute police system of moral-reform preaching which
pries into other men's business, which hectors and dra-
goons them into duty, and which labors to mend every
little social abuse, error, and evil in the community, in
this public way; but on the contrary, we would advocate
the idea that the truth itself should be faithfully, pa-
tiently, lovingly, fearlessly preached, and it will, in due
time, correct those lesser faults and abuses.
Before leaving this point of ethical preaching, which is
a comparatively new field, we would treat as a separate
question involving most important principles, the topic
of the relations of the law to the gospel. In this argu-
ment things may be repeated which have been already
enunciated, but it may be useful to the student to have
this vital subject put into the form of a separate dis-
<<
cussion.
There is no error more subtle and dangerous than the
idea that the law of God does not form a perfect stand-
ard of action, but adapts itself to man's
wishes and imperfect moral condition. The Relations of
conception that the law is thus a shifting the gospel.
rule is destructive of all true righteousness.
Obedience to a right moral standard is as imperative
the law to
704
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
under the gospel as under the law. The justification of
the gospel does not touch those who are disobedient to
the law of God in their hearts. Christianity is no para-
dise of the lawless or dreamland of lotus-eaters. The
grand old principle of duty is as truly a watchword of the
religion of Christ as it was of the religion of Moses.
Often the believer, hard pressed by the temptations and
trials of life, can say nothing but this: "I will just try
to do the will of God, and press on.
The law of God in its most comprehensive sense is sim-
ply the manifestation of the will of God. It is the pure
expression of his spirit and nature. It is that desire, or
command, which goes forth from God as the stream
from the fountain; and as there is but one divine law-
giver, so there can be but one divine law, the undivided
and perfect expression of the mind of the lawgiver, un-
changeable and eternal. No new events or facts in the
moral universe can change the law-not even the great
facts of sin and redemption. These modify only the rela-
tions of the subject to the law.
Here, then, we have a perfect standard-" the law is
holy, and just, and good." To suggest the possibility
of God's putting forth any expression of an imperfect
moral standard, or aught but a perfectly righteous one,
were less respectful than to impugn the glory of the lower
heavens and cast contempt on the law that leads in har-
mony the movements of the natural universe. It were
far less destructive to deny the perfection of a physical
than of a moral law.
100
If the law is thus perfect and immutable, if it is not
lowered to meet the changing conditions of an imperfect
and sinful creature, how comes it about that Christianity
seems to build upon another principle of perfection?
How is it that the apostle to the Gentiles in so many
INVENTION.
705
words declares concerning believers that they are not
under the law ;" and that "by the works of the law no
flesh can be justified;" and, above all, that the law is
done away by Christ?
Has the law, indeed, abdicated the throne since the
coming of Christ? Has the law of God changed itself
into some poor, inferior thing by which its absolute claims
upon the spirit of man are nullified?
These questions are difficult; we would attempt in the
briefest manner to offer some humble suggestions toward
their explanation.
**
In discussing the relations of the law to the gospel, it is
necessary to understand the meaning which the apostle
Paul commonly gives to the word "law."
In those places where the word is used without the
article [voμos], as in Romans 3:12; 3:31; 4: 13, 14,
15; 5: 13, 20; 7: 1; 10:4; 13:8; 1 Cor. 9: 20; Gal.
2:21;
; 3: 11, 18, 21; 4:5; Phil. 3:6; and also where
the principal noun has no article, as ἔργα νόμου--in those
places it is laid down by Winer and other scholars that
the reference is invariably to the Mosaic law.
Undoubtedly this is true; but if there were no other
idea attached to the "law" than simply that of the law
of Moses, and especially of its prescriptive and cere-
monial part, the question of the doing away of the law
by the dispensation of Christ would not be so difficult.
If, when Paul speaks of his own righteousness which is
of the law, and in which he was blameless, he referred
simply to the Mosaic dispensation and to no other prin-
ciple, then we can see the justness of his self-condemna-
tion, that his righteousness was no true righteousness;
and if the "works of the law" were merely "ritual pre-
scriptions," we can readily believe that by them no man.
is justified.
706
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
Being by birth and education a Jew, the apostle, when
he speaks of the "law," refers without question to the
Mosaic law; but, speaking also as a Christian, he does
this in a somewhat secondary sense; that is, it was the
Jaw of God expressed through the mouth and the institu-
tions of Moses. The principle of divine law was deeper
than the Mosaic law. Those to whom he wrote, as Jews,
regarded the law of God as embodied in the institutions
of Moses. That was to them the sole expression of the
moral and prescriptive law of God. That was the law.
They were right in this, because God's law was given
through Moses; and, in so far as the Mosaic institutions
expressed the eternal principles of righteousness revealed
to Moses, it was the law of God. What was merely tem-
porary and ceremonial in it is done away. What belonged
to a special outward theocracy suited to the religious
condition of the age and of the race, is abolished. But
underneath all was the eternal law of righteousness,
which belongs to no particular age or people, and which
appeals to the universal moral consciousness. To this,
above all, Paul undoubtedly referred when he spoke of
the law--to this larger and deeper idea of law, embracing
the Mosaic law wherein it comprehended the eternal
principles of righteousness, but going beyond and be-
neath the outward institution and precept.
This law, which speaks to the conscience of every man,
both Jew and Gentile, which is perfect, which is one and
unchangeable, is, nevertheless, according to the apostle,
insufficient as a principle of salvation. It is not lowered
an iota as a moral standard by Christianity, but yet it is
powerless to save. It contains no principle of new
spiritual life. While it remains as a perfect standard to
the righteous, it is a death-principle to the sinner. He
who lives under it as a principle of justification and salva-
INVENTION.
707
tion is spiritually dead. Why is this? The answer is all-
important in its practical bearings.
Real obedience is something of the heart; it supposes
a right disposition of mind. The outward obedience pro-
ceeds from the inward disposition. God can see this, if
man cannot. He can also perceive the absence of this
right disposition of heart; and if it be absent, then the
righteousness which is by the law," is only, after all, a
seeming righteousness, and by its best works, now as in
Paul's time, no man is justified.
This right disposition of heart-how shall it be
obtained? Here the law is powerless, "for if there had
been a law given which could have given life, verily
righteousness should have been by the law." But the
law is only the imperative expression of an externally
prescribed rule of action, and it is totally unable to pro-
duce an internal change of disposition.' It indeed com-
mands obedience, but it gives no ability to obey. It re-
quires a spiritual righteousness, but it is utterly impotent
to impart that new life from which such righteousness
flows.
C
This new life must first be created within the sinful
soul, and then the obedience, springing up from within,
meets the law and flows on in the currents of the law's
righteous requirements. All its acts done in this spirit
have the beautiful character of "good works." Then
the law has no restraining or coercive element, and it is
even as if there were no law at all.
Thus it is said that the believer in Christ is no longer
under the law." When, through the power of faith in
Christ, a new divine life comes into the soul, the man is
delivered from the law of sin and death. The law is for
**
¹ See Neander's " Planting and Training," p. 236.
708
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
the sinner who disobeys it, and not for the righteous
man who loves it. The sinner feels the weight of the
yoke, but with the believer the bondage is over because
the spirit is free. He lives and works out his religious
life under a new principle, not of law but of grace.
Having been made a partaker of the "divine nature,"
he delights inwardly in the law of God, and this becomes
the law of his own nature which he unconsciously obeys
from a free impulse of love. This love is the fulfilling of
the law.
Thus we have revealed to us the new dispensation of
faith in Jesus Christ, whose central principle is love; and
they who linger under the old system of law and works,
may be strong men-may do many wonderful works-
may, even to the eye of God, possess the hidden root of
righteousness in them, but they are not distinctively
Christians; they are not free men in the liberty where-
with Christ makes free. They are not believers after the
pattern of Paul and John. They do not know the spring
of a divine life and power which makes new men" in
Christ. The religion of law may restrain sin for a while,
but it cannot cure it. It may coerce and hold down the
power of evil and punish it for a thousand years or for-
ever, but it cannot destroy it. But the religion of love
can alone regenerate this sinful world and bring in the
"new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteous-
ness."
C
K
This truth of the right relations of the law to the gos-
pel which has been briefly discussed, has its important
practical bearings upon the subject of Christian preaching
and living. We sometimes hear it said, that in order
effectually to check the sin there is in the world we must
preach the law. The gospel may do for calm weather,
but the law is for times of outbreaking sin, of storm,
INVENTION.
709
<
violence, unrighteousness, and wrong. In a period when
evil comes in like a flood, when good men grow faint,
when corruption and iniquity abound, when business in-
tegrity and political honor in signal instances fail, and
even the Church of God seems to be sunk in unrighteous-
ness and materialism, then we must lay aside the mild
weapons of the gospel and take up the flaming thunder-
bolts of the law. Then Christ must retire weeping out
of sight, and Moses must come down from Mount Sinai
with the tables of the law in his hands, his countenance
very terrible to behold, and utter once more the awful
retributions of the decalogue. Then we must preach the
strong doctrines, and, above all, the doctrines and sanc-
tions of the law. The law is the mighty helper and the
only sure rock of defence when iniquity prevails. This,
too, is said by good men who are preachers of the gos-
pel, but whose gospel thus seems to break down just at
the test-point, and they are seen, after all, in this view
at least, to be preachers of Moses rather than ministers
of Christ. Their philosophy of the gospel, it is to be
feared, does not grasp its deepest life, its divinest con-
ception of power as related to the human soul.
If the gospel be not found to be equal to all the possi-
ble emergencies of the soul, of society, and of the world,
if it be only a smooth-weather gospel, then it is not the
power to save the world from sin and to make it holy,
which it has been announced to be, and we must substi-
tute in its place some stronger force, moral or physical.
The law, as that perfect standard of moral obligation
which comes down from the will of God, is, as we have
said, just as imperative under the gospel as under the
law itself. The standard of right is not lowered one
iota by the gospel; for the seat of this principle is in
that intuitive sense of right which belongs to the nature
710
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
of the soul, and which we call conscience; and the gos-
pel is as truly addressed to man's conscience as to man's
heart; it interprets the law of God to the conscience in its
most spiritual meaning; but Christ does more than Moses
even for the conscience.
The work of Moses for the conscience, though glorious,
was mainly negative. It was minatory and convictive.
The law sets forth the prohibition and the sanction. It
says,
"Thou shalt not." It convinces of unrighteous-
ness. It punishes the guilty. But Christ's relations to
the conscience are of a positive, productive, and infinitely
more glorious kind. He renews the conscience unto good
works and a genuine righteousness. He implants a new
holy life.
He does not leave the conscience consuming
under the fiery thunderbolts of the law that kill, kill, kill.
He does not simply proclaim its punishment for sin. He
does not merely condemn its unrighteousness, but he
gives it true righteousness. 'The soul that sinneth it
shall die"-" the wages of sin is death," are solemn
truths of the gospel as well as of the law, but the divine
and life-giving power of the gospel is not in them. They
are not that essential gospel which brings life and
righteousness.
64
He who preaches the law then as the grand and last
resource when wickedness is rampant, when integrity
fails, when the very throne of righteousness and the king-
dom of God in the world-the Church-is corrupted,
shows that he knows not what the gospel is and where
its power lies; since his is the ministry of condemnation
and death, just when it should be one of renovation and
life.
If we accept the principle of love-the love of God in
Christ as the great principle of salvation from sin, we
will not give it up when sin shows its most concentrated
INVENTION.
711
and terrible might. If love, as manifest in Christ, is not
sufficient to restore the wrongest conscience to right
action, as well as to renew the affections and enlighten
the intellect, then we would look somewhere else for a
system which can save the whole man and make him per-
fect in every part. We would build upon another system
of righteousness than that whose working principle is
Faith, and whose central power is Love.
It is now confessed to be the case that a lamentable
divorce is apparent between the doctrine and the life of
the Church, or, in other words, between its religion and
its morality. Even a man so commonly right in his judg-
ments as Mr. Gladstone, is quoted as saying that their
belief has very little practical influence over men's lives;
and that religious doctrine itself is more a matter of opin-
ion, education, and imagination, than of real character.
Certainly it would seem to be so in many instances at the
present day. It is so not because the Church is worse
than it was in the primitive ages, but because the power
of the world and of material things has gained a virulence
betokening, it may be, its waning strength as opposed to
the kingdom of God, or to things unseen and spiritual.
The very cases of business dishonesty and defalcation in
the Church which startle communities like the fall of a
tower of a beleaguered city in the night, show that these
things are deeper felt, that the conflict is more earnest,
that sin is recognized as a more fearful enemy, that
righteousness, even if harder pressed, is acknowledged to
be more precious and divine-the very city and dwelling
of God. But however this may be, the phase of evil now
to be seen in the Church is that of the alarming lowering
of its moral tone, as shown, above all, in its relation to the
conduct of those business affairs which belong especially
to this life, and which it shares in common with the
712
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
world.
President Woolsey has said that this manifesta-
tion of evil was only an outcropping of that same spirit
of covetousness against which Christ's disciples of old
were warned by their Master as the deadly leaven of the
Pharisees. But how is this spirit of unrighteousness to
be met and overcome, and how did Christ meet it when
he was on earth? He did not meet it by saying that
the law was done away by his coming, and that the gates
were thrown open to all unrighteousness; on the contrary
he came to confirm and fulfill the law. He was born
under the law and he died to sustain it in its wholeness.
He met unrighteousness not by yielding to it, nor even
by condemning it, but by creating a new holy life. He
brought pardon and hope to the soul condemned and
crushed by the law. He wrought truth in the inward
parts. He broke the chain of covetousness by offering
to the worldly mind a higher object of love than worldly
gain. He implanted a higher faith, that not only justified
but made just, and that led the soul out from its slavery
to ungodly things. He destroyed the power of the
sensual in man's heart by infusing into it a new spirit.
He changed the hearts of those-whether worldly men
or professed moralists-who truly believed in him, and
who admitted him into their hearts as Lord, as the ruling
principle of their lives by faith.
Take but one instance. The "publicans" of the New
Testament were men whose business it was to collect the
Roman revenues from a subjugated people. They were
the most
the financial agents of what has been called
detestable of all modes of managing a revenue." They
were the custom-house officers of that day, endowed with
almost arbitrary power and immunity, and thus were
tempted constantly by their position to exaction and dis-
honesty in money dealings. They were familiar with all
"C
INVENTION.
713
the tricks of trade, with the double-dealings and ins and
outs of governmental employees whose business it was to
fleece the people in order to make themselves rich; and
the popular estimate was not, perhaps, far from wrong
which invariably linked together "publicans and sinners.
But when once, passing by the receipt of custom, the
Lord simply said to one of those detested publicans,
"Follow me!" he to whom the Lord thus spoke was
the evangelist who recorded the Lord's story of the
Pharisee and the publican, and the publican's prayer,
"God be merciful to me a sinner." Following Jesus he
gave up his worldly gain, and became one of the number
of the twelve apostles, and of the founders of the Chris-
tian Church. This was the secret of his higher life,
emerging as it did from a low and it may be selfish and
unrighteous business career. This was the beginning
in him of a new life of self-abnegation and true righteous-
The love of a personal Redeemer and Lord took
the place of the love of self and of selfish gain. Is there
any better way to break up the power of covetousness,
of a deep-seated business immorality in men's hearts,
than for them simply to obey Christ's words, "Follow
me"? Is there not a charm in Christ which lures men
away from all unrighteousness and all unrighteous lusts
and lifts them above the world into a heavenly realm
of holiness, purity, and love?
ness.
The way, then, to righteousness is not by law but by
love. The whole secret is to follow Christ, and to hold
cheap what the world desires." It is to detach the soul
from its old worldly selfishness and to build it on a new
foundation of righteousness, which is in Christ. This is
the old and the new way. It is the way of a change in
the supreme affection of the being. It is the way of love
and not of law.
"
714
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
£
Should we not, then, it may be asked, ever preach the
holy law in order to make men righteous? We should
preach the law, and we should preach the law as a prepa-
ration for and a part of the gospel. We should preach it
as Christ teaches us to preach it, not as "it was said
by them of old time," but as "I say unto you." He
who does this is honored of Christ. Whosoever shall
do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the
kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, that except
your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the
kingdom of heaven.” We should preach the law in
the light of the New Testament, intelligently, posi-
tively, as a means to a higher end, not exclusively as
a system of condemnation, of terror, of warning even,
but in its true relations to the mind and to Christ's
work in and for the mind; in order to show men how
the law may be disobeyed and how sin may arise, or
what sin really is, thus making the law a schoolmaster
to lead men to Christ. In this way the apostle Paul
preached the law. If it do not lead to Christ and to a
better righteousness in him, he seemed almost to scorn
the law and its works. The righteousness of Christians
must exceed the righteousness of the legalists. It must
have in it a living element of divine love and obedience
which the law never could impart.
Here, then, is the place of the law under the gospel, that
by it men may see clearly what their duty is and how far
they have departed from the perfect standard, or from
that sense of innate righteousness, that eternal law of
God, which is written on the conscience. Thus the law
brings the knowledge of sin. Thus appealing to men's
own reasons and consciences, the terrible sanctions of the
law have their effect, Men see that these sanctions are
INVENTION.
715
right. In this way the law condemns them. In this way
we may hope, as preachers, to convict of sin and to
awaken repentance which springs from a clear view of the
righteousness of the law. Otherwise you may tell men
Other-
they are sinners and they will assent and sin on.
wise you may appeal to the fears and passions of men in
vain. Otherwise you may preach hell-fire till doom
sounds and it will not persuade men to repent. And in
no case will the simple preaching of the law, without
Christ, produce righteousness. The death-dealing ter-
rors of the Lord are, under the gospel, to be proclaim-
ed in order to "persuade men" to look to something.
higher, better, and really life-giving, to Him who is "the
life."
But there are Christians, you say, who are clearly con-
victed of acts of deliberate dishonesty, who for the sake
of filthy lucre" have defrauded their neighbors, and
have swindled the whole community right and left with
their eyes open. It can only be answered that whenever
such cases of cool and deliberate business dishonesty
have occurred in the membership of the Christian Church,
they have been cases, in all probability, of those who
have not as yet really felt the renewing power of the gos-
pel upon their hearts and lives. They have been men
who, like Judas Iscariot, may at the first, perhaps, have
experienced some superficial feeling of sympathy drawing
them toward Christ, but they have never really loved
him; they have never yielded themselves wholly to him,
and the root of selfishness has never been cut up in their
hearts. They, therefore, do not prove the powerlessness
of the gospel to prevent men from being knaves, since
they have never themselves felt its true power. For as
sinful men in all ages have been rescued from the power
of all forms of sin by the gospel, so the gospel is power-
716
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
ful to rescue men from dishonesty, and to sow in their
hearts true righteousness.
We would say, therefore, emphatically, let the old
gospel be preached in its pristine simplicity, purity, and
power. Yes, the old gospel of Love. Let us have
no more slighting remarks about the religion of Love as
weaker than the religion of Law. The religion of Love
is stronger for genuine righteousness than the religion of
Law. The religion of Law was that of the First Dispen-
sation, which, though glorious, was one of condemnation
and death. The religion of Love is that of the New Dis-
pensation, which is one of eternal life in Jesus Christ the
Righteous. It is surely time that the foolish talk about
Love (such Christian love as is presented to us by Paul
and John in the New Testament) being "sentimental-
ism," or something that is too weak to make right-
eous men, should cease. Those who talk and write in
this manner (especially if they be ministers of the New
Testament) show conclusively that they do not thoroughly
comprehend the gospel as the strongest power in the
universe, as the manifestation of the love of God in Christ
to save men from sin, from all sin, from all kinds of sin,
and from one of the deepest kinds of sin-covetousness
-which is especially the sin of church-members as it was
of the Pharisees of old time: because it is a system which
denies the power of things supernatural and invisible, and
yields perhaps without the seeming transgression of a
single outward command of the law, to the power of the
selfish and sensual in the world. Covetousness is really
one of the profoundest forms of unbelief.
The religion of love, then, as was said at the beginning,
can alone bring in "the new heaven and new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness." Faith that works by
love and purifies the soul, is the life of a righteous man
INVENTION.
717
and of a righteous church. Faith and good works go
ever together. They should be preached as one and in-
separable under any true system of Christianity. Good
works are linked to faith as the body to the soul.
As
the soul shapes the very form and features, so faith shapes
the character. Loving Christ men become like Christ.
Loving what is pure men grow pure. Loving what is
above the world men grow unworldly and unselfish. Of
course this should not be a blind and ignorant love.
There should be definite instruction in godliness; and
here is seen another positive use of the law
Positive
under the gospel, that it may become a
instruction
positively educational instrumentality, fur-
in godliness
nishing the standard of right, correcting and morality.
and rectifying the life. The apostles and
primitive preachers of the gospel were careful to give such
discriminating instruction in righteousness and all holy
living. The conscience even of believers needs to be
thoroughly enlightened, disciplined, and educated. The
gospel has a moral as well as a spiritual side, though under
its system "morals are never separated from spirituals."
We think indeed that there should be far more of ethical
preaching than there is, more of the principle of Chris-
tian love as law applied to life, and to all good works,
varying in its application to different ages, circumstances,
peoples, temptations, wants, emergencies, but ever one
spirit. Building up character in the most holy faith, is
one of the duties of the Christian Church and of the
Christian preacher. But for ourselves we are entirely
satisfied with the old gospel of John, and of James, and
of Matthew, and of Peter, and of Paul--the gospel of love
—to make men righteous. We see in it the power of
God to uproot and destroy all unrighteousness and to
build up true honor, and integrity, and holiness, in men's
718
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
hearts, whether they be money-changers, bank-directors,
rich men, poor men, farmers, soldiers, sailors, scholars,
or whatever they may be. We do not desire to substi-
tute in the place of the gospel, which is divine love re-
deeming and perfecting the soul into the image of Christ,
either the legal system of the ancient Jewish Church,
grand as it was in its day, or the casuistical system of
the modern Roman Catholic Church, astute and saintly
as have been many of its teachers. He who follows the
"light that lighteth every man" will not go astray. He
who loves righteousness as impersonated in Christ need
not be taught in all the ways that are dark" in order to
shun the path of the sinner.
>
Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk."
We need not dwell upon
(3.) Christian experience.
this. Here is an opportunity for meditative and richly
subjective preaching. One may follow here
the windings of the water of the river of life,
that hidden life of God in an individual ex-
perience of divine truth, which, taken out of the revealed
word, forms the present, working, transforming power
of the life of Christ in the soul of each believer.
Christian
experience.
Need there be any lack of subject-matter in such a
wide field as that which has been glanced over? Need
invention pause for a moment in discovering new, inspir-
ing, and exhaustless themes for the pulpit?
In what has been said of invention, we have en-
deavored to show that while the vagaries, unlicensed
luxuriance, and unbounded secularization of pulpit
themes and of preaching should be much restricted, yet
that the field of preaching might really be greatly en-
INVENTION.
719
larged, and rendered at the same time more profound and
effective. It would be both more human and more
divine. It would be more truly Christian preaching-
springing from the divine word, and saturated with the
new spirit of Christ-not merely moral, scientific, philo-
sophical, or sentimental. All life, all nature, all human
relations, would be thrown open to the transforming
power of Christ; the pulpit would be unbound, and re-
sponsible for its utterances to God alone; yet it would
be devoted simply to the divine will, and to the glory of
God in the saving of souls.
Rhetorically speaking, invention, more than anything
else, shows the true artist; thus, rhetorically viewed,
invention shows the true orator. Cicero
Cicero's
makes much of invention in his De Oratore,
and, highly as he regards the importance of
style, he thinks that what an orator has to in rhetoric.
say, or the methodized subject-matter of dis-
view of
invention
course, is of far more importance. He divides oratory
into five parts: "To invent what you have to say, to
arrange what you have invented, to clothe it in proper
language, then to commit it to memory, and at last to
deliver it with due action and elocution.” If Cicero
placed invention first, in regard to the mere orator, how
much more important is it to the preacher of divine truth.
1" De Oratore," B. ii. c. xix.
1
66
THIRD DIVISION.
SEC. 31. Definition of Style.
Style" is a complex term, and, therefore, definitions
of style differ, and some of them are quite incomplete;
for example, Webster's definition, that style
is "the manner of writing with regard to
language, or the choice and arrangement of words."
This, however, it must be said, coincides with the ancient
idea of style, which had main reference to "the proper
selection and arrangement of words." Webster's defini-
tion, founded upon this ancient one, comprehends sim-
ply what we mean by "diction."
Rhetoric comprehends the subject of style, as being
itself the more generic of the two terms; since rhetoric
furnishes the scientific standard of criticism that regulates
all the facts and phenomena of style. As invention re-
gards the material, so style regards the expression of
that spoken or written language, of which, combined in
the form of a continuous discourse, rhetoric takes cog-
nizance.
Definition.
STYLE.
(*
Professor H. N. Day's definition of style is That
part of rhetoric which treats of the expression of thought
in language. Style is thought formulated in expression.
Expression, in fine, has no meaning or significance unless
it be the expression of thought, or for the definite pur-
-
STYLE.
721
pose of propagating thought." Here the important ele-
ment of "thought" is added to that of "language" or
"diction."
But thought is the very essence and spirit of the man
who originates and utters it. It is shaped and colored
by the characters of its source-the personality from
which it flows. Therefore Vinet goes further still, he
says Diction is not the whole man, while the whole
man is the style;" or, in the familiar phrase of Buffon,
"The style is the man."
46
Evidently, then, style is not merely the language, nor
is it merely the verbal expression of thought, but it is the
expression of the thinking man through language. We
would therefore prefer the following, as, perhaps, a more
general and at the same time correct definition: Style is
the expression in language of the thought, qualities, and
spirit of the man who is discoursing.
From this it would follow that a man who does not
express himself-his individual thought and character-
in his language, has no "style," properly speaking; for
it is not every piece of composition that has a "style,"
any more than every building; and owing to this fact,
style, logically viewed, is sometimes defined as "the
differential in expression;" that is to say the recurrence
of certain forms of thought and expression springing from
the psychological characteristics of the individual, and
forming a more or less marked totality of expression, is
what we mean by a man's style. It is his own, while at
the same time as a writer and speaker he has much in
common with all other writers and speakers; and here is
laid the possibility of a science of style, that while it has
rhetorical unity as an art it nevertheless deserves to be
called style because of these differentia that express per-
sonal force, sensibility, and character.
722
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
It may be seen from this that style is a personal thing
belonging very much to character. If a man would im-
prove his style he should improve himself. If he would
ennoble his manner of writing and speaking, he must
beautify and deepen his own mind so that its expression
will be inevitably noble.
""
Style is sometimes disparaged, and all effort to improve
it is scouted. It is true that style (from the very defini-
tion we have given) cannot be wholly acquired, but the
best part of it is something unconscious and innate. Yet
rhetorical training may serve to repress faults and to de-
velop and improve style. It is a common remark that
few persons can be found who speak and write equally
well, yet the two are not incompatible, and the one ought
to aid the other. It certainly is true that to write clearly
assists one to think clearly, since the effort to express
one's self in the best way is itself a noble mental discipline.
Cicero says that writing is the most excellent modeller
and teacher of oratory." Hugh Miller made his own
style by hard labor and by constant writing after the
model of the best English authors, and his style was
one of uncommon beauty. This was also the case to
some limited extent with Daniel Webster's style; and it
was in some sense the same with the historian William
Prescott, from whom we will quote a passage on this very
point: "The best, undoubtedly, for every writer, is the
form of expression best suited to his peculiar turn of
thinking, even at some hazard of violating the conven-
tional tone of the most chaste and careful writers. It is
this alone which can give full force to his thoughts.
Franklin's style would have borne more ornament-Wash-
ington Irving could have done with less-Johnson and
Gibbon might have had much less formality, and Hume
and Goldsmith could have occasionally pointed their sen-
c
STYLE.
723
tences with more effect. But, if they had abandoned
the natural suggestions of their genius, and aimed at the
contrary, would they not, in mending a hole, as Scott
says, have very likely made two? There are certain
faults which no writer must commit; false metaphors;
solecisms of grammar; unmeaning and tautological ex-
pressions; for these contravene the fundamental laws of
all writing, the object of which must be to express one's
ideas clearly and correctly. But, notwithstanding these
limits, the widest latitude should be allowed to taste and
to the power of unfolding the thoughts of the writer in
all their vividness and originality. Originality the
originality of nature-compensates for a thousand minor
blemishes. Of one thing a writer may be sure, if he
adopts a manner foreign to his mind he will never please.
Johnson says, 'Whoever would write a good style must
devote his days and nights to the study of Addison."
Had he done so, or had Addison formed his style on
Johnson's, what a ridiculous figure each would have cut!
One man's style will no more fit another than one man's
coat, or hat, or shoes, will fit another. They will be sure
to be too big, or too small, or too something, that will
make the wearer of them ill at ease, and probably ridicu-
lous.''¹
d
1 Ticknor's "Life of Prescott."
-
We see by this how much Prescott thought of that
style which was individual, or the expression of the man
himself; he held the great essential of a good style to be
that it should be natural, or one's own; and yet, not-
withstanding all this, we know what careful study, what
unwearied pains, he himself took to obtain a good style.
He devoted himself to this one thing for a considerable
period of time, and did nothing else. After he had once
724
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
obtained it then he wrote with a free hand. He said: I
will write calamo currentc, and not weigh out my words
like gold dust ;" and again: "Be not fastidious, espe-
cially about phraseology. Do not work for too much
euphony. It is lost in the mass. Do not elaborate and
potter over the style. Think more of general effect;"
and still again he says, "One more conclusion is, that I
will not hereafter vex myself with anxious thoughts about
my style, having done what I could to arrive at a good
style." But he had made the necessary effort to arrive at
a good style.
of two
elements.
Style, according to the definition given, is composed
of two elements: first, of something independent of
the man himself, and common to all men,
Composed viz., language; and, secondly, of something
which depends upon the man himself, and
his relations to those things which influence
his style; in other words, there are certain properties of
style which are essential, and which chiefly relate to lan-
guage; and there are other properties which are origi-
nated, or, at least, colored, by the individual thought and
mind of the writer, and by all his relations to other minds
whom he addresses. These have been called the absolute
and the relative properties of style.
SEC. 32. Absolute propertics of Style.
These are properties which enter, and must enter, into
all good writing and speaking-into all true style; and
surely here one may profitably spend as much study as
he can find time and opportunity to spend. He can
always be perfecting himself in this respect. This part
of style is an art to be acquired, like any other art; for
it relates more to the external and mechanical dexterity
of the writer or speaker than to his inward thought and
STYLE.
725
genius, which is created rather than acquired; and yet
even this more external character of style also depends
largely upon the natural capacities and fitness of the
mind. This part of style may all be comprised under the
single idea of language.
Let us, then, consider language in relation to a dis-
course, or, according to our original definition of rhetoric,
in relation to the spoken address.
We have already remarked upon the general theme of
the Study of Language; we would now look at language
more especially in its relations to the best style of public
discourse—in a word, of preaching.
This theme can be divided into the oral and the gram-
matical properties of language.
1. Oral properties of language.
All language is originally intended to be spoken; it is,
properly, speech. Even if written, and not
spoken, the right principles of articulate Oral proper-
sound must be preserved, and must still con-
ties of
language.
tinue to govern it; for speech is the ulti-
mate test of language, and it cannot possibly be the
best language unless the judgment of the ear is satis-
fied. A sentence which is not fitted to be read or
spoken aloud is not really good language.
The oral properties of language are commonly divided
into euphony and harmony.
(1.) Euphony. Euphony, in its relation to style, has
regard solely to the effect of sound upon the ear, or,
more definitely, of the sound of words upon
the ear.
Euphony.
It applies chiefly, though not alto-
gether, to single words. Euphony, according to Vinet,
is "the combination of agreeable, and the exclusion of
disagreeable, sounds in language."
Euphony may be preserved-
726
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
1
(a.) By avoiding words and sentences which cause harsh
sounds. These are generally learned and compound
words hard to be pronounced, and mostly of
Euphony, Latin, Greek, German, and foreign origin.
Dr. Chalmers' writings contain many such
how
preserved.
words. His phrases and sentences are often
difficult to be read aloud, and harsh to the ear, because
they bring so many consonants closely together; these
are all striving for utterance at once; the organs of
speech labor to do their part, and this labor destroys
the smoothness and pleasantness of the sounds they
produce. One should seek, as a general rule of eu-
phony, for short, radical, easily-spoken words, although
many longer Latin words, and those derived from the
Italian and French, are exceedingly euphonious. A
familiar example of difficult combinations in a sentence
from Scripture is the following: "After the most strait-
est sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee."
(b.) By avoiding words and sentences which contain a
succession of unaccented syllables; such words, for ex-
ample, as ´´meteorological,” “desultoriness." Our lan-
guage somewhat lacks in euphony by throwing the accent
of some words on the first syllable instead of on the pe-
nultimate—in such words as "miserable," "interest-
ing."
(c.) By avoiding long sentences in which many new
and varied ideas are introduced. The sound will be dis-
agreeably affected by this; for while the mind is em-
ployed in taking in the whole meaning of every part of
the sentence, the voice strains and struggles along after
it, and thus necessarily grows harsh. One should always
give himself time to breathe; the country and the world
may be perishing, but the orator, in order to continue
to speak with effect, must take breath. Periods, there-
-
STYLE.
727
fore, should not be too far apart. We would not con-
demn long sentences. If well balanced and well com-
posed, they add greatly to the solidity of a composition;
but in relation to euphony of style, of which we now
especially speak, if the sentence is long, it should be care-
fully adapted for speaking, clearly divided and skillfully
arranged, so as not to embarrass articulation in the de-
livery.
Harmony.
(2.) Harmony. Harmony goes farther than euphony,
and has regard to sound in its relation to thought. It
is not merely phonetic; it is not merely
the production of a sound agreeable to the
ear, or the avoidance of a harsh and disagreeable sound;
but it has to do with the rhythmic flow of thought,
and is something more deeply emotional and mental.
Original thought usually creates harmony. It does so
because it seeks for unity of expression. It arouses
that feeling which makes the soul and its powers chord.
together in one note, and is the true source of harmony.
Perhaps we should have said, instead of original thought,
a true feeling of the soul, one that is deeper even than
thought, or that is the spring of thought this pro-
duces harmony of language. The words of Ruth to
Naomi are an harmonious expression of the profoundest
feeling: "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee,
or to return from following after thee; for whither thou
goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge;
thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.
Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but
death part thee and me.'
Now, what is harmony but a real concord or agreement
of parts? And here is a bringing of the soul of Ruth, by
a deep purpose of feeling, into agreement with the soul
728
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
of Naomi; there is true harmony between them. It is
noticeable how, through the whole passage, the "thee"
and "me" are continually brought into one. It was a
perfect surrender of the soul, having nothing left in it of
unsubdued, incongruous, or rebellious feeling; and this
inward action of the soul uttered itself in harmonious
language, like an accord of music. Harmony of soul
thus makes harmony of style, as the expression of devo-
tional feeling, which is the chording of the human with
the divine soul, and with the soul of all that is divine in
the universe. Harmony of style aids the expression of
thought. It flows forth with a rhythmical flow. It is a
subtile but deep grace of style, of which the Scriptures
are full; as, for example, the one hundred and third, and
one hundred and seventh Psalms, our Lord's invitation to
the weary, and the last chapter of the book of Revela-
tion, and many other passages of profound and majestic
harmony.
Prose, it is true, cannot be sung, like poetry, in num-
bers, but it may, equally with poetry, have something of
this rhythmic character, this harmonious flow, which does
not arise so much from single words as from a succession
of words, or from a sufficient number to express the
thought.
We quote upon this subject a few sentences from
Cicero: "Nor is there a single quality, out of many,
that more distinguishes a true orator from an unskillful
and ignorant speaker than that he who is unpractised
pours forth all he can, without discrimination, and meas-
ures out the periods of his speech, not with art, but by
the power of his breath; but the orator clothes his
thoughts in such a manner as to comprise them in a flow
of numbers, at once confined to measure, yet free from
restraint; for, after restricting it to proper modulation
STYLE.
729
and structure, he gives it an ease and freedom by a
variety in the flow, so that the words are neither bound
by strict laws, as those of verse, nor yet have such a de-
gree of liberty as to wander without control. There is
nothing so pliant, nothing so flexible, nothing which will
so easily follow whithersoever you incline to lead it, as
language; according, therefore, as we ourselves are grave,
or subtile, or hold a middle course between both, so the
form of our language follows the nature of our thoughts,
and is changed and varied to suit every method by which
we delight the ear or move the passions of mankind.”''
These words of Cicero show the close study and atten-
tion which the ancients gave to this department of ora-
tory; they thought that there was in prose a harmony of
numbers almost like that in poetry; that "the musical
management of the voice and the harmonious structure
of words should be transferred, as far as the strictness of
prose would admit, from poetry to oratory."
It must be confessed that the ancients were far more
exquisite observers than the moderns of the finer powers
and application of art, which is, in fact, but a deeper
nature.
This idea of harmony of style should not, however, be
suffered to degenerate into an attempt at making music,
or musical sentences. Cicero evidently aimed at this,
sacrificing even strength to attain it. Too much atten-
tion to harmony undoubtedly tends to enervate style,
and this is a serious temptation to those who have a great
native perception of harmony. Such persons should even
avoid, in some cases, rather than cultivate this quality.
Especially the direct aim at rhythmical writing or speak-
ing in a sermon would be intolerable.
1" De Oratore," B. iii. s. xliv.
TA
730
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
5
Yet harmony of style may coexist with strength and
energy. Perhaps there is no writer in whose prose style
will be found more varied and majestic harmonies which
flow from the thought even more than from the words,
than Milton; and certainly there is no stronger, more
masculine writer. This too may be also said of Lord
Bacon's style, of Edmund Burke's, and that of Robert
Hall.
In regard to preaching, there is often a rhythmical
movement in the sermon, springing chiefly from the
thought, which is both pleasing and powerful, and carries
on the mind of the hearer by a strong, resistless flow.
Care in little things, choice of words, arrangement of sen-
tences, smoothing of transitions, attention to accents,
lengthening or abbreviating phrases, may, indeed, aid in
harmony; but still, true harmony in style comes usually,
as we have said, from deeper sources.
2. Grammatical properties of language.
This is what De Quincey calls the "mechanology of
style." If one great end of education-cer-
Grammatical tainly of classical education-is to speak and
write well, to speak and write our own lan-
guage with purity, we should make ourselves
accurately acquainted with the grammar of our own lan-
guage; for many of the worst faults of style arise from
grammatical incorrectness. Quintilian declares that the
orator should by no means look down on the elements of
grammar as a small matter, for unless a good founda-
tion in oratory is laid in grammar, the superstructure will
surely fall.'"Was Cicero," he says, "the less of an orator
because, as appears from his letters, he was a rigid ex-
acter, on all occasions, of correct language?"
properties of
language.
1.44 Institut.," B. i. c. 4.
STYLE.
731
In the "Life of Prescott," the historian, we read, that
when he was a young man, he made, once for all, the
English grammar his particular study, and gave his whole
time and energy to it; and this may, in part, account for
the purity of his style, which Hallam declared to be.
perfect. For the preacher, idiomatic English (by this is
meant a mode of speaking or writing "foreign from the
usages of universal grammar and the general laws of lan-
guage" and restricted to the genius of the English
tongue, or expressing its genius, honesty, and character),
is a greater conquest than the knowledge of Greek or
German. This may be seen in so powerful a preacher as
John Bunyan. Richard Grant White, indeed, with some
show of reason, calls the English "the grammarless
tongue," as being a language almost without etymology
and syntax, which are the two great component elements
of grammar, and as therefore "untrammelled by gram-
matical rules and subject only to the laws of reason;
but still, though much less the subject of rigid structural
form than are other more highly inflected languages like
the Greek and Latin, it is absurd to say that the English
language has no grammar. Its grammar is not indeed the
Latin grammar. There are no such inflexible laws of
government or agreement in the English language as pre-
vail in the Latin; but there is nevertheless a positive
grammatical standard to the English language, though it
is more free, varied, and subtle. The English language
has all the parts and all the elements of a perfect lan-
guage, and these parts are more or less absolutely related
to each other; and thus they carry along with them the
necessity of certain forms of grammatical construction,
certain definite principles of grammar. At all events, a
good English writer should be able to analyze every sen-
tence he writes, word by word. He should be able,
732
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
more particularly, to tell the character and derivation of
every substantive word, of what it is the subject or the
object, its opposition with another, or its independence
by address, exclamation, pleonasm, ellipsis; to tell the
quality and name of each adjective, and whether it is
used as belonging to something else, or substantively; to
describe every pronoun, and what it refers to and is con-
nected with; to characterize and inflect every verb, and
show clearly, if a finite verb, what it agrees with, or, if
an infinitive, what it has for its subject, or, if a participial,
what it belongs to; and in the whole sentence what its
use is, and what it depends upon; to show what every
adverb modifies; what every preposition governs and
marks the relation of, and what every conjunction and
connective co-ordinates or subordinates; in fact, to parse
the whole sentence, whether simple or complex, and to
be able to give both its etymology and syntax. This is
really no easy task; but how else can a man know for
himself if he writes correctly? One should therefore
attend to-
(1.) Grammatical analysis, so far as to be able to de-
tect common errors in construction. Many of these
might profitably be mentioned; but we
will not enter into these, which form so
portentous an array; we will refer the
student to any good English grammar. These gram-
matical errors relate chiefly to the improper use of
verbal cases and tenses; the use or omission of the arti-
cle; the use or omission of the negative; the employ-
ment of useless intensives, to which American writers.
greatly tend; the mixing of the numbers and cases of
pronouns ("the management of pronouns," says Mr.
Moon, "is the test of a scholar's mastery over lan-
guage'); the improper or superfluous use of preposi-
Grammatical
analysis.
-
STYLE.
733
tions; the awkward use of conjunctives; the false use of
and the use of false adverbs; the wrong agreement of
words in sentences; the improper collocation of words;
the making of weak and loose sentences through the too
great separation of their connected parts, or what Dr.
Campbell calls "a constructive ambiguity;" the use of
sentences whose members are imperfect. There may be,
it is true, an over-precision of style, which is almost as
bad as carelessness; but the present tendency is not in
that direction; and what we, as preachers, should aim
at, is correct, plain, idiomatic English. One should also
attend to-
(2.) Particular words and phrases which are common
violations of grammatical correctness, or, at least, of ele-
gant usage. It is well for a preacher to keep
a list of these, to which he is continually
adding; and that will serve him as a re-
minder, as well as an aid, in his endeavor
Words and
phrases
which are
violations of
after grammatical correctness of
of style. grammatical
Literature, if it is to flourish, must have a correctness.
standard of taste to build up, which shall
expand to meet new forms of excellence, but which shall
preserve that which is excellent in old forms, and shaЛ!
serve as a guide to the rejection of whatever is bad, pre-
tentious, and artificial; and it is the business of critics to
see that this standard is built up and maintained."
•
SEC. 33. Relative properties of Style.
The related properties of style are something more
than language in the abstract, and comprehend all those
relations to the mind and condition, both of the speaker
and hearer, which affect style. They refer to style in the
concrete, to the style of the individual who is speaking,
734
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING
T
and also of his speaking upon a certain subject, for a
certain object, and to a certain class of hearers. The
speaker's individuality and personality are now infused
into the style, and color it.
1. Subjective qualities; as depending upon
Subjective the speaker himself, or having relation chiefly
to his own thought.
qualities.
These are appropriate thought, consecutive thought,
and individuality of style or thought.
(1.) Appropriate thought. There should be in every
true discourse not only thought, but thought appropriate.
to the subject and the occasion. One who
Appropriate
attempts to write or speak for the public
thought.
should not write or speak merely for the
sake of doing so, without an express aim or purpose.
The beauty of the style of the ancient classic writers.
is, according to John Stuart Mill, that it is so highly sig-
nificant; that there are no words or phrases which are
meaningless; that there is little writing, apparently, for
the mere sake of writing; but all has some genuine mean-
ing, some definite, if not always true, sense. This real-
ness of style makes the chief strength and beauty of
classical writings. Whately, on the contrary, seems to
give something like this advice—that one should learn
facility in mere word-making, without (as far as rhetoric
is concerned) caring so much for the thought. But such
advice should be received with caution, for it indicates,
we think, an inadequate conception of the theory of
rhetoric. Substantial and appropriate thought is the
foundation of every true discourse. Demosthenes never
dared to appeal to the feelings of his audience, or to urge
them to any policy or action, without first presenting a
solid argument for his views. The body of his orations
is composed of substantial reasoning; the laying down of
STYLE.
735
C4
principles and facts; appealing to sound sense, and ap-
propriate to the subject and occasion.
Such a process
has not only a value in developing the subject itself, but
it also develops the man; it shows the treasures of his
mind and thought. This serves to create confidence in
the correctness of his conclusions. And when the con-
clusion is urged upon the heart and conscience of the
audience, they are prepared for it. The force of the
speaker's thought has moulded their thought into an
image of his own. No man can begin to be eloquent
till he has been sensible, till he has, so to speak, built his
fort of solid masonry to fire from. High nonsense,
as some one calls it, cannot be eloquent. No facility of
speech, no word-making, can ever supply the place of
substantial and appropriate thought. Eloquence, in its
widest sense, is, first, subjectively, the native power of
thought, and, objectively, the art of using this so that it
shall attain a certain worthy and definite end. Appro-
priate thought is, above all, reasonable thought. A
speaker should have some real truth to communicate,
and should do it in words that convey some real thought
to the mind. This is sometimes called "significance" in
style. It is hardly needful to dwell upon the point
that in a sermon there should be nothing contrary to
good sense. Reasonable thinking is an essential quality
of a sermon. This does not admit of anything pue-
rile, frivolous, merely marvellous, or vainly pedantic.
It does not admit of spending the precious hour of
preaching in trifles or insignificant discussions.
As a
speaker of the word," Carlyle says, "he will speak real
words; no idle jargon or hollow triviality will come from
him.'
**
""
There may be much that is plain and commonplace in
a sermon; much that has been said before; much that
736
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
C
does not demand a great amount of thought to invent or
to assent to; much, even, that is "goodish" rather than
good; and yet the reasonable quality of the sermon need
not be destroyed or compromised; the bread, if not the
finest of the wheat, is still nourishing food to many
minds; but this is not saying, that, under any circum-
stances, what is absolutely unsound or nonsensical can
be allowed. All things must come to the test of common
sense, which is the sense that everywhere prevails, and is
established among sound-minded men.
(2.) Consecutive thought. There should not only be
thought, and appropriate thought, but orderly thought—
a rational succession of ideas-the avoidance
thought.
Consecutive of scattering, fragmentary, and disconnected
thoughts. Whatever has any pretence to a
regular discourse demands, at least, that quality; and
this is not denying that there may be, at times, bold and
apparently unconnected thoughts, left standing by them-
selves, like big boulders in a landscape, not nicely fitted
into the frame of the discourse, and giving energy and
picturesqueness to style, breaking up a dull monotony.
But there should be, nevertheless, either a natural or a
logical progress of ideas-one sentence making addition
to another, one paragraph being developed from the
thought or statement contained in the preceding para-
graph, one division forming an advance to the next.
There should be a movement in the discourse, or it
should be thought in motion, increasing in volume like a
river, every word, sentence, paragraph, division, prepar-
ing for what follows, and all forming a united, living cur-
rent of thought. Short, broken sentences; long and cir-
cuitous parentheses, where the idea, or another than the
main idea, is carried off into numberless ramifications;
practical thoughts interspersed too freely in pure argu-
-
"
STYLE.
737
mentation; inconsequential and casual remarks—these
break the onward current, which should not for a moment
stagnate, and which should move,, even if it moves
slowly. A spoken discourse is not like a scientific dis-
quisition, which may be a deep pool of contemplation,
rather than a fluent stream of thought; but a sermon
should introduce thoughts in their natural sequence, and
should move on to some definite end. Care should be
taken in a sermon to bind it together, not only by con-
secutiveness of thought, but by every mechanical help
afforded by the connections of the language and the
structure of sentences. It is not well to employ very
short sentences, or a highly sententious style; they are
more fitted to the neat moral essay than the sacred dis-
course that lays before us the inexhaustible riches of
divine truth.
(3.) Individuality of thought and style. We have
spoken of this in another connection. It is that quality
in which the man appears in a style that is
perfectly natural to him. It is a noble
quality. It is refreshing to hear a man's own
ideas spoken in his own way. The effect pro-
duced is always greater when there is a sense of personal
address, springing from the speaker's own mind and feel-
ings, rather than from the thought and impulse of
another mind. We do not wish to hear Chalmers from
any but Chalmers. We wish to feel that we are taken
into the confidence of the speaker, and that we are listen-
ing to the actual utterances of his heart. We
e may be
dazzled by the artificial speaker, but he cannot move us
as that man can, who, with a higher earnestness of pur-
pose, shows us himself, opens to us his confidence, utters
thoughts which he has wrought by the toil of his own
mind. One may increase his individuality of style,
Individuality
of thought
and style.
738
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
1. By aiming at independent thought. He may not aim
at originality, but he should aim at saying what he truly
thinks. We call Thomas Fuller an original writer, but
his originality does not consist in his saying things in an
odd way, but in his strong, independent thinking. The
very subject of the thought is his own, as well as the lan-
guage in which it is expressed. There is no mistaking
the characteristic individuality of his style. A fresh
thought of one's own, even if he is not what is called a
man of genius, is worth ten of another's, to give him
power as a speaker. One may increase his individuality
of style, 2. By employing the more direct personal ad-
dress-by not talking to the world, or men in general,
but to men before him. It is one man talking to
another, and not discoursing about indifferent things.
Let there be never so profound a course of thought in a
sermon, yet the audience should be made to feel that it
is addressed to them--to each of them.
-
44
""
Small things sometimes aid this. Luther liked thees
and thous” in a sermon. The use of the pronoun “you”
may give the sermon all the point needed. The indi-
vidualizing, sometimes, of a member of the audience as
my brother' does this. A sudden grasp laid upon some
particular conscience, an allusion to some recent and
real event, some common affliction or bereavement, some-
thing which brings the thought into the present-this
helps individuality of style. Of course this directness of
address should not be overdone, for personalities in the
pulpit are outrageous. But one need not be too much
afraid of hurting people's feelings by a friendly and manly
directness of address; for the habit of applying unpleas-
ant truth to our neighbors, instead of to ourselves, is of
familiar occurrence.
A preacher becomes more individual in style who has
STYLE.
739
an individual in view; for this necessarily narrows and
shapes his thought, and gives it a personal directness.
The eye, the finger, the whole manner, should aid in
lending life and point to speech. Modern sermons lack
point, and hence individuality of style. The essay style
scrupulously avoids directness; and in the essay style
this is a great beauty. One may increase his individu-
ality of style, 3. By preaching specific truth. Generali-
ties may arouse the mind, but particulars search the
heart. A single apt fact is more forcible than the most
eloquent deduction. Where thus specifically preached,
the truth acquires an edge; it becomes indeed like
two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a
discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
any
SEC. 34. Objective qualities; as depending upon the
speaker, but having more particular reference to their
effect on the hearer or the audience addressed.
This second department of the relative properties of
style, which, though it has also much to do with the
speaker himself and with his character, has peculiar ref-
erence to its effect upon the mind addressed, and which
is mainly objective in its nature, has been differently
classified by different writers upon rhetoric. Thus Quin-
tilian says that all language has three kinds of excel-
lence-to be correct, perspicuous, elegant.' Whately
sums up these objective qualities of style under the
heads of perspicuity, energy, and elegance; Dr. Shedd
into plainness, force, and beauty; Professor H. N. Day
considers them to be comprised in the properties of
1 44
Institut.," B. i. ch. v., I.
740
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
clearness, energy, and beauty; Vinet has a wider classi-
fication into the qualities of perspicuity, purity, pro-
priety, precision, rapidity, proportion, order, popularity,
familiarity, nobleness, gravity, etc. Evidently, some of
these last-mentioned kinds mean the same thing in a
greater or less degree of development; and all of them,
perhaps, might be combined in the two simple qualities
of strength and beauty.
We would make a somewhat wider classification than
that of Whately, though less extended than that of
Vinet; and we would treat especially of the
qualities of Purity, Propriety, Precision,
Perspicuity, Energy, Elegance.
Classification.
(1.) Purity. Purity of style is that quality which does
not violate any of the true principles of language,
in respect of form, construction, or mean-
ing.
Purity.
Purity, and the other qualities of style which we shall
mention, belong, it is true, in some sense, to those funda-
mental and invariable qualities which relate to language;
but they have also intimate relations to the audience ad-
dressed, and the effect upon them. An Athenian audi-
ence, we are told, could detect, and would hiss a wrong
accent, a mispronunciation, or a barbarism. A preacher
who violates purity of style may, in like manner, in these
modern days, lose power with intelligent and educated
hearers, and, more or less, with all. The preacher of the
pure truth of Christianity should aim at a pure style; and
this remark might even be extended to the general truth
or purity of the subject-matter discussed-that the great
laws of true thinking and of truth should not be vio-
lated. It is true that language is a growth, and that it
cannot be constrained rigidly by laws which necessity and
usage are sure to disregard. But there are certain sound
STYLE.
741
principles of language, and there should be some stand-
ard of good language to which even usage should pay
reasonable deference, else there could be no improvement
in language, and bad usage as well as good usage would
prevail. Words and phrases springing from disrepu-
table quarters, from vulgar sources, from loose collo-
quial intercourse, from a careless literature, and even
from private pedantry and assumption, these should be
steadily resisted. The laws of right reason and sound
philosophy in language should be firmly maintained,
while at the same time the true genius and spirit of the
language should have free play given to it; the writer or
preacher should aim at the most vigorous use of idiom-
atic English without fear of the carpings of the critic
before his eyes. But more precisely viewed, purity
of style forbids, (a.) The needless intro-
duction of new words into the language.
Augustus Cæsar declared himself unable to
introduce a new word into the Latin lan-
guage. It is an immense assumption to coin a word;
but few can do this. A discoverer may invent a new
word for his discovery; a master in any science may coin
a word when the progress of science demands it; writers
of established eminence may sometimes modestly pro-
pose new words, merely by way of suggestion. New
words made by compounding old ones form also a vio-
lation of this principle. Our language has not the fatal
facility of the German in creating compound words.
(b.) Introduction of foreign words. There is a great
danger in introducing German words and idioms into
our preaching and theological literature. The careful
use of English words and English idioms is one of the
first qualities of purity. Americans, as a nation, are
peculiarly imitative and assimilative; we take all ele-
VİRİN
Purity
of style, how
violated.
-
742
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
44
ments of nationality into our wide civilization (colluvio
omnium gentium); there should be, therefore, while we
are an English-speaking nation, a stricter watch kept
against the corruption of the language from these for-
eign sources. The habit of introducing French words
and phrases by half-educated and perhaps travelled peo-
ple is a weakness that should be resisted. There is a
pithy passage which we will quote from the writings of a
very old English author of the time of Edward VI. (Sir
John Cheke), which is interesting from the fact that this
author himself in his day exerted considerable influence
in preventing the inroad of foreign words into the lan-
guage, when the current was strong that way; and it also
shows how early a jealousy was awakened for the preser-
vation of the purity of our tongue. He says, Among
other lessons, this should first be learned, that we never
affect any strange inkhorn terms, but to speak as is com-
monly received; neither seeking to be overfine, nor yet
living over careless; using our speech as most men do,
and ordering our wits as the fewest have done. Some
seek so far for outlandish English that they forget alto-
gether their mother language. And I dare swear this if
some of their mothers were alive, they were not able to
tell what they say; and yet these fine English clerks will
say they speak their mother tongue, if a man should
charge them with counterfeiting the king's English.
Some far journeyed gentlemen, at their return home, like
as they love to go in foreign apparel, so they will ponder
their talk with over-sea language. He that cometh lately
out of France will talk French-English, and never blush
at the matter. Another chops in with English Italian-
ated, and applieth the Italian phrase to our English speak-
ing. The unlearned, or foolish-fantastical that smells but
of learning (such fellows as have seen learned men in
:
STYLE.
743
their day), will so Latin their tongues that the simple
cannot but wonder at their talk, and think surely they
speak by some revelation. I know them that think
rhetoric to stand wholly upon dark words; and he that
can catch an inkhorn term by the tail, him they account
to be a fine Englishman and a good rhetorician." (c.)
Introduction of obsolete words. Such words as “hap,'
"haply," "meeten'," aweary," "methinks," "be-
hoove," and many words that may be used in poetry are
not fitted for prose. The constant use of the Bible by
ministers may sometimes lead imperceptibly to the use of
archaisms. (d.) Introduction of cant and slang words.
A homely, strong, common word, or phrase, is often
effective-in some audiences the occasional introduction
of such is almost imperative-but a decidedly cant ex-
pression-religious cant the worst of all—is not to be de-
fended. Cant is a phraseology composed of genuine
words soberly used by some sect, profession, or sort of
men, in one legitimate sense, which they adopt to the
exclusion of others, as having peculiar virtue, and which
thereby becomes peculiar to themselves. Cant is more
or less enduring, its use continuing, with no variation of
meaning, through generations. Slang is a vocabulary of
genuine words or unmeaning jargon, used always with an
arbitrary and conventional signification, and generally
with humorous intent. It is mostly coarse, low, and
foolish, although in some cases, owing to circumstances
of the time, it is racy, pungent, and pregnant of mean-
ing. Slang, as distinguished from cant, is very evan-
escent. It generally passes out of use and out of mind in
the course of a few years, and often in a few months.
It might be added to this description, that though every
麵
​<<
"C
¹ Richard Grant White's" Words and their Uses,'' p. 85.
1
744
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
,, (4
"} ((
profession has its cant phrases, as the legal, which talks
of the "said" and the aforesaid " of the medical,
which characterizes diseases as "affections ;" the clerical
profession, and the whole sphere of ecclesiastical and
religious life particularly abound in cant phraseology,
in such words and phrases as, for example, “love of
souls," "to be serious" for "to be thoughtful" in
religious things, "to be stupid" for "to be indiffer-
ent, professor” for “member of the church, worms
of the dust,' wilderness-world,' "vale of tears,
"solemnize our minds," etc. The frequent use of
'heart," and our hearts," in a peculiar sense, and
the constant repetition of the Lord's name in prayer,
“O Lord," or "O God"-such expressions should as
much as possible be avoided, and, above all, those pious
expressions in which there is no moral or religious sin-
cerity, which is the worst of all cant, which not only vio-
lates good taste but good morals. There may be indeed
technical words belonging to every business and art, but
words that are not good English in other relations, and
that convey to those outside of the particular circle of
the persons who use them no definite or right idea, these
are violations of purity. Pericles, it is said, never as-
cended the bema without the prayer that no unfit word
might fall from his lips; and should the preacher of
divine truth be less careful? Both cant and slang attract
only a low class of minds, since impurities of style are
allied to impurities of thought; and we prefer to see
coarseness anywhere rather than in the minister of Christ.
The use of profane words, though employed only as illus-
trations, or quotations, is to be shunned; and there may
be too much made even of the excellent idea that the lan-
guage of the pulpit should be common language; it cer
tainly should be plain, but not too familiar, not too low,
'
>>
46
""
STYLE.
745
certainly never vulgar. People go to church expecting
something a little higher, in point of carefulness and dig-
nity of expression, than slipshod and every-day speech.
Sacred themes demand, to a certain degree, elevated lan-
guage. What little life or power is momentarily secured
by the use of low words or phrases soon passes away;
while of other things more is lost than gained. (c.) In-
troduction of solecisms. Solecisms usually apply more to
phrases than words; and they are words and phrases
used in unwonted and unjustifiable senses. Jonathan
Edwards' peculiar philosophical use of the word "neces-
sity'' has occasioned perplexity in theological science.
(f.) Introduction of barbarisms. There are words and
terms that are really not English, and are totally con-
trary to English usage and idiom. (g.) Introduction of
words or thoughts which violate manly simplicity and
good taste. The giving way to loose images, or to a
luxuriant fancy, or to an overwrought and unnatural in-
tensity of expression, or to fantastic efforts to write
more finely and impressively than good sense dictates,
destroys purity of style. This fault may be indicated,
rather than fully described.
We should strive for purity of style, because a pure
language associates us with our English ancestors, and
with Chatham, Milton, Hampden, Spenser, Bacon,
Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wyclif, and, above all, with the
English Bible; and it associates us, also, with the great
statesmen, poets, writers, and preachers who speak the
English language now. It contributes, likewise, to the
permanence of a man's usefulness, especially of a minis-
ter's, who would speak through his pen. If a man has
not a pure style of writing, his thoughts, however excel-
lent, will not float his style; for purity of style is the
beginning and indispensable accompaniment of every
746
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
other literary excellence; it is essential to precision, ele-
gance, vigor. And the care to preserve purity of style is
the great safeguard to the constant tendency to debase-
ment in language. In our country, where there is no
acknowledged standard of language, where there is great
difference of custom, variety of races, and an unrestrain-
ed freedom of expression, it should be particularly borne
in mind by ministers that they, as educated men, are the
guardians of the purity of our tongue, and that there is a
moral responsibility connected with their being so.
<
Purity of style may be preserved—
(a.) By care to avoid at all times the use of ungram-
matical, superfluous, and idle expressions. Above all,
this should be observed in common con-
How purity versation. Conversation is a fine art. One
of style may
should study it. It is a great means of
be preserved.
influence to a minister. To be free and
spontaneous in conversation, and at the same time to
speak pure English, and to retain the best form of
expression, is a noble accomplishment. Some ministers
wield a greater influence by their conversation than
by their preaching; for they are some other persons
in preaching, but in conversation they are themselves.
While, then, avoiding pedantry and stiff precision, let
one strive to use the purest and most select English in
all that he says.
Let him make sparing use of contrac-
tions. Let him not allow a low or slang word to slip out ;
for the expressions one is accustomed to use in conversa-
tion will surely show themselves in the pulpit, especially
in extemporaneous discourse.
"
""
>> (4
He who is in the habit of strewing along his conver-
sation such words as orate," donate, posted,
"booked up,
""dead-headed," "enthused;" or "bal-
ance" for "remainder;" or
remainder;" or "a party" for
a party" for "a person;
..
STYLE.
747
"
"
((
or "calculate" for "expect ;' or guess" for sup-
pose;" or
inaugurate” for something very small in-
deed, as "to inaugurate a debating society or an eat-
ing club ;" or "deputize" for depute," or "fix" for
arrange" and "manage,
manage," or
or "lit" for
lit" for "lighted," or
unbeknown," or "hadn't ought," or
or "hadn't ought," or "first-rate," and
a hundred such words and phrases, the most of which
are American products, and not good ones at that-a
man who uses such loose words and phrases habitually in
his talk, cannot deliver an off-hand address without be-
traying by his language, either his want of education or
his want of refinement; for a refined man is shown in his
conversation more quickly than in any other way.
Bur-
net, in the "History of His Own Time," says of Leighton,
In a free and frequent conversation with him for
twenty-two years I never heard him utter an idle word,
or a word that had not a direct tendency to edification."
4 C
(b.) By close familiarity with a few of the purest Eng-
lish authors. Let one study the style of Herbert's
prose, of Goldsmith, Addison, De Foe, Izaak Walton,
Thomas Hooker, Robert Southey, Wordsworth, Jeffrey,
Hallam, Washington Irving, and William Prescott; and
the reverse is also true, viz., a cautious reading (so far as
regards their style) of authors of doubtful purity, such as
Carlyle and Coleridge's prose.
CC
(c.) By the study of English lexicography. Of a good
dictionary one might say, Turn it day and night." In
the use of dictionaries, however, it should be remem-
bered that our most popular modern dictionaries are not
only dictionaries of the English language, but encyclo-
pædias, compendiums of myriads of words that are not
pure English; in fact, of all words that have been used by
English writers.
(d.) By the use of rhetorical criticism, not only of
((
"(
748
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
others, but of one's own. One should never use a doubt-
ful word without examination; let him try himself more
unsparingly than any one else. If one would not wish
to wear a dirty, ragged, and unbecoming coat in the
public street, why should he not take pains to make his
words fit his thoughts neatly, and set them off fairly, so
that his mind may make its best appearance in public?
(e.) By the critical study of ancient classic models.
We must go to the Greek for form, as we do to the Latin
for dignity of style. Were there room, we would quote
on this point the whole of a remarkable letter of Lord
Brougham to Zachary Macaulay, giving him advice in
regard to the rhetorical training of his son, Thomas
Babington, bearing date, "Newcastle, March 10th,
1823;" but we must content ourselves with a few of the
closing paragraphs: "If he would be a great orator, he
must go at once to the fountain-head, and be familiar
with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes. I
take for granted that he knows those of Cicero by heart;
they are very beautiful, but not very useful, except, per-
haps, the Pro Milone, Pro Ligario, and one or two more;
but the Greek must positively be the model; and merely
reading it, as boys do, to know the language, won't do at
all; he must enter into the spirit of each speech, thor-
oughly know the positions of the parties, follow each
turn of the argument, and make the absolutely perfect
and most chaste and severe composition familiar to his
mind. His taste will improve every time he reads and
repeats to himself (for he should have the fine passages
by heart), and he will learn how much may be done by a
skillful use of a few words, and a rigorous rejection of all
superfluities. In this view, I hold a familiar knowledge
of Dante to be next to Demosthenes.
It is in vain to say
that imitations of these models won't
do for our times.
STYLE.
749
First, I do not counsel any imitation, but only an imbib-
ing of the same spirit. Secondly, I know from experi-
ence that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad
though they be) as what has been formed on the Greek
models. I use a very poor instance in giving my own
experience; but I do assure you that, both in courts of
law and Parliament, and even to mobs, I have never
made so much play (to use a very modern phrase) as
when I was almost translating from the Greek.
I com-
posed the peroration of my speech for the queen, in the
Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three
or four weeks; and I composed it twenty times over at
least; and it certainly succeeded, in a very extraordinary
degree, and far above any merits of its own. This leads
me to remark that though speaking, with writing before-
hand, is very well until the habit of easy speech is
acquired, yet after that he can never write too much;
this is quite clear. It is laborious, no doubt, and it is
more difficult, beyond comparison, than speaking off-
hand; but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and, at any
rate, it is necessary to acquire the habit of correct dic-
tion. But I go further, and say, even to the end of a
man's life he must prepare, word for word, most of his
finer passages. Now, would he be a great orator, or no?
In other words, would he have almost absolute power of
doing good to mankind, in a free country, or no?
he wills this, he must follow these rules."
So
(2.) Propriety. This is so nearly related to purity on
the one hand, and to precision on the other, that we need
not dwell upon it. Propriety is the employ-
Propriety.
ment of words according to the best usage,
in a becoming way, and not in some false, unusual, and
improper manner. Dean Swift's definition of style is one
chiefly of this quality of propriety, viz., "the right words.
750
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
44
in the right places." Bruyère, quoted by Vinet, says,
Among all the different expressions which may render
one and the same thought, only one is good; we do not
always fall in with it in speaking or in writing. It never-
theless exists, and every other except that is feeble; and
a man of mind, who wishes to be understood, can be
satisfied only with that." The just expression is the
forcible one; it is the expression that exactly fits the
idea, whereas no other expression does exactly suit the
idea. Southey says, "The readiest and plainest style is
the most forcible, and in all ordinary cases, the word
which first presents itself is the best ;" and Swift in the
same strain remarks, "When a man's thoughts are clear,
the properest words will generally offer themselves first,
and his own judgment will direct him in what order to
place them, so that they may be best understood." An
impropriety of style is committed, not only when good
English words, or words proper enough in themselves,
do not make good sense, because they are employed out
of place, or in some unusual manner; but even when
they are used loosely, carelessly, confusedly, and, as has
been said, so as to leave some gap between the expres-
sion and the thought. The best writers are distin-
guished for their thoughtful yet easy propriety of lan-
guage, their aptness of expression. Their thought and
language are identical. Our great military leader, Gen-
eral Sherman, does not probably pride himself on his
literary accomplishments, but he nevertheless uses words
with wonderful fitness and he writes as if with the point
of his sword.
(3.) Precision. Precision in style, as applied to the
language of a discourse, is that quality by
which the writer's idea is exactly expressed
no more and no less: as applied to the subject of a
Precision.
STYLE.
751
discourse, it is that quality which prevents one from say-
ing anything superfluous, or not saying enough to convey
the perfect idea. Propriety is fitness of language; pre-
cision is exactness of language. Precision requires that
the thought be accurately expressed; that it be com-
pletely brought out, but without unnecessary words,
without slovenliness of expression. It is an important
quality in giving strength and rapid movement to style.
Accuracy is, indeed, one of the fundamental qualities
of style, and it is the result of accurate and well-trained
habits of mind. Precision may be violated-
(a.) By want of a nice perception of the essential differ-
ences of words. As there are a great many words nearly
similar, but not the same, the precise writer
is shown by his clearly marking those shades
of difference. There are, in point of fact, but few if
any absolute synonyms in the language. Words may
be similar and they may be used to explain similar
things, but they are not precisely the same; and an
accurate writer, in contrast with a loose writer, is
shown in his fine perception of such differentiating qual-
ities. He will not use as precisely the same terms
such similar words as "sentence" and
sentence" and "condemna-
tion," egotism" and "egoism,” decided" and "de-
cisive, continual" and "continuous, atonement”
and redemption, ""regeneration" and "conversion,"
mercy" and " grace, charity" and " benevolence,"
"soul" and "spirit," "immortality" and eternal
life." "Custom" is not exactly "habit;' distin-
guish" is different from "separate ;""only" is not just
the same as "alone," though so often used as converti-
ble terms. The word
The word "answer" is more colloquial than
reply;" "begin" is more familiar than commence ;'
commence" requires a verbal noun after it, where-
•
44
46
,,
44
,, 44
CC
,, **
(4
How violated.
(
"
752
RHETORIC APPLIED TO preaching.
"The man
as "begin" can take the infinitive instead.
began to sing" and "the man commenced singing"
are right uses. A precise writer would say "the day has
ended," not "the day has finished."
He would say,
however, "I have finished my book," not "I have
ended my book. Finish" refers to the result pro-
duced by personal effort, but "end" is better applied to
impersonal subjects.
""
(b.) By a deficiency of words. We may use too few as
well as too many words for precision; and this is an
especial source of obscurity in writers who habitually use
a condensed style. We must sometimes repeat words,
to be accurate. The omission of words needed to coin-
plete a sentence is a common fault, the writers thinking
that their meaning is sufficiently clear; but often the
longer the circuit made, and the more words employed,
the more time is saved, and the clearer the thought is
brought out.
"Precision" is "cutting before"-" making accu-
rate limits;" and while it tends to conciseness, it is
still not precisely conciseness, which is rather " cutting
short,” or “cutting off." "Conciseness," says Vinet,
"is distinguished by an economy of words greater than
the object of precision requires; for precision only sup-
presses what is decidedly superfluous, and would spare
the mind a fatigue, that which springs from the necessity
which an author puts upon us of condensing the thought,
or reducing it to a few elements. Conciseness, stopping
short of what is necessary to complete expression, is not
designed, doubtless, to fatigue the mind, but it gives it
labor, and thus it enters into the category of those pro-
cedures or figures of which we have before spoken. It is
an ellipsis, not of words, but of thoughts. Taking it as
a figure, or, at least, as a particular force of style, it can
(4
S
.
STYLE.
753
hardly constitute the form of an entire composition,
especially that of a sermon. It is too apt to produce.
obscurity; it approaches to affectation and the epigram-
matic style. It is often but the false semblance of pre-
cision, and nothing is easier than to have at the same
time much conciseness and very little precision; for
it is possible to be at the same time parsimonious and
prodigal, and, with all this affectation of strictness, to
leave only vague ideas in the mind of the reader or
hearer.
?? 1
1 "Homiletics," p. 382.
(c.) By a verbal diffuseness. Precision is also sometimes
lost in too great expansion, as well as condensation of style.
When too many words are used, when the texture of the
style wants fibre, when it is loose and diffuse, the language
is no longer an instrument of expressing accurate thought.
Writers who have an easy command of words, a native
facility of expression, are greatly tempted to accumulate
words about the thought, so as to hide or overload it.
Even so brilliant a writer as De Quincey errs in this way.
Such a style is especially faulty in a sermon.
What may
be called a learned diffuseness, entering wearisomely into
the exposition of what may be, after all, secondary mat-
ters-is particularly out of place in a discourse that is to
operate directly on the conscience and the will. Precision
of style is especially opposed to needless repetitions,
pleonasms, and expressions that add nothing to the
thought. There may be, at times, a certain rhetorical
redundancy which is the genuine expression of eloquent
feeling, a heaping up of epithets in the warmth of onward
discourse, which looks like careless profusion; but there
should not be prolixity. An idea should not lose itself
in a vague sea of words. There cannot be much expan-
754
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
1
sion in earnest oratory; it must sweep on to the end.
Perhaps there is no one thing in which young writers, and
we may say preachers, so often fail as in condensation.
(d.) By disregarding the distinction between the literal
and the figurative use of words. The accurate use of re-
ligious and theological terms which are founded upon
figures of speech, and of the metaphorical etymology of
important words, such as “righteousness, depravity,"
“virtue," "holiness," etc., would be desirable; and gen-
erally the figurative language of Scripture should be used
with accuracy. This language has a meaning, and often a
more intense meaning than literal language can express;
and it may be so profoundly true that common language
breaks down with the weight of the thought or the truth
to be conveyed, and it seeks the figurative form, the
wings of the imagination, to bear it up. Nevertheless,
figurative language, even if it occur in Scripture, should
not be used as if it were the language of prosaic literal-
ness, or cold, logical statement.
(e.) By want of precision of thought. This is, doubt-
less, the chief source of want of precision of style.
Vague expression often gets the credit of profound
thought; but more often it is vague because the thinking
is not accurate or profound. There is a great tempta-
tion for a writer or speaker to express a half idea before he
has thought it through, or detached it cleanly from all other
ideas. Loose thinking and loose writing go together.
It is almost unnecessary to point out the great benefits
of precision of style. It conduces to the vigor of the
mental habits; it promotes clearness and
cleanness of thought; every idea is care-
fully separated from every other idea; noth-
ing extraneous is left clinging to it; the
style acquires almost the force and condensation of
Benefits
of
precision.
"" "6
STYLE.
755
proverbs. We see this sometimes in Coleridge, notwith-
standing his marked faults of style in other respects.
"Men should be weighed, not counted. The most
deceitful are the most suspectful." Such precise, weighty
phrases now and then occur between his long and obscure
sentences, like lumps of shining gold.
There is nothing that the popular mind so delights in
as in this quality of precision, for it sees in the speaker a
power which it does not itself possess. Precision, too,
marks the difference between a true and a spurious style.
A true style has genuine ideas, and expresses them so
that they cannot be misunderstood; whereas a mock
style has no true ideas, and makes up the deficiency in
vague and grandiloquent phrases. In religious discourse
this stilted and false style is particularly hurtful.
Better
have the simplest and most common thoughts, clearly
expressed, than what Carlyle calls " phosphorescent punk
and nothingness." Precision is peculiarly the style of
science, but it need not for that reason be a learned, nor,
above all, a pedantic, style.
The means of acquiring precision of style are, briefly,
(a.) Think precisely. Bishop Butler, in the preface to
his "Sermons," says, "Confusion and per-
plexity are, in writing, indeed without ex-
cuse, because any one may, if he pleases,
know whether he understands or sees through
what he is about; and it is unpardonable in a man to lay
his thoughts before others when he is conscious that he
himself does not know whereabouts he is, or how the
matter before him stands. It is coming abroad in dis-
order, which he ought to be dissatisfied to find himself in
at home." (b.) Think on abstruse subjects. Now and
then the mettle of the mind should be tried on the most
difficult themes; and one should not always choose easy
<<
Means
of acquiring
precision.
756
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
themes, or treat any theme easily. (c.) Make use of pre-
cise language in ordinary conversation and writing. Se-
lect the best synonym or equivalent word. We may ex-
perience a sense of great poverty of language at first;
but language is a special study, and the constant use of
a good book of synonyms may aid us. (d.) Study the
style of Bishop Hall, Lord Jeffrey, Archbishop Whately,
and, in many respects, Robert South, who used language
accurately, and made close discriminations, except when
in a passion. The language, also, of some of the best
scientific writers of the day, such as Huxley, Darwin,
Tyndall, and Faraday, is worthy of study, in respect of
its exact and luminous qualities.
Precision of style should not degenerate into stiffness
or pedantry, and thus spoil the ease and flow of nature.
Harms, quoted by Tholuck, says, "Let the preacher
speak negligently and incorrectly." It is better to do
even that than to lose all life and freedom in an over-
fastidious attention to precise correctness of language;
so that, perhaps, what Cicero calls "a diligent negli-
gence" one which unites correctness with freedom--will
best describe the true style. It has been said of John
Henry Newman's style, which is almost a perfect model
in some respects of a strong and yet flexible pulpit style:
The free, unconstrained movement of Dr. Newman's
style tells any one who knows what writing is, of a very
keen and exact knowledge of the subtle and refined secrets
of language. With that uncared-for play and simplicity
there was a fulness, richness, a curious delicate music,
quite instinctive and unsought for, withal precision and
sureness of expression." He thus united the two seem-
ingly opposing elements of precision and freedom, and
moves with the grace and strength of both combined.
<<
(4.) Perspicuity. This is "something which can be
Ka
STYLE.
757
looked through" like glass; it is that quality which
enables the hearer to comprehend at once,
to see through, the idea intended to be con-
Perspicuity.
veyed. It strives to make the thought perfectly intelli-
gible to the hearer's mind, to make him as conscious of it
as is the speaker himself, so that he may see it with vivid
distinctness. This, it will be allowed by all, is an essen-
tial property in a sermon, since no one is apt to be influ-
enced by a truth which he does not understand. Its op-
posite is obscureness and ambiguity. It is considered by
Vinet to be the first quality of style-an opinion founded
on reason, and with which agree the words of Quintilian,
"Nobis prima sit virtus perspicuitas." It is not the only
quality of style, but it certainly is the foundation of all.
Perspicuity may be violated-
in relation
(a.) In relation to the idea itself. It may not be a
true, a rational idea, although at first sight seeming to
be one; or it may be a true idea obscurely
expressed; or it may be a truly profound How violated
idea, difficult to be expressed and compre- to the idea.
hended from its real depth. It has been
pronounced the greatest effort of genius to make abstract
ideas plain. The preacher should not strive to be so
plain as to become insipid; and there is often obscurity
in the truth itself, for mystery is a source of power. A
stream may be very clear and very shallow. Thus it is
that the preacher of the infinite truths of the gospel can-
not always make himself understood by every one in his
congregation, though that certainly should be his aim.
He should study his congregation in that respect, and
should strive to put himself in the place of his hearer.
His style should be “just high enough to raise his audi-
ence, and just low enough to reach them."
(b.) In relation to the language in which the idea is
758
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
conveyed. This may refer to other things, as to the
grammatical confusion in the construction of
sentences, or to the use of words which do
not express the exact sense; but generally it
refers to the distinction between figurative
and literal language, the neglect of which, as has been
suggested in another relation, is one of the most fruitful
sources of obscurity. True imagery, discreetly em-
ployed, may be made the means of clearness of style, for
the imagination is an illumining power, and the ability to
use appropriate imagery in the pulpit is often the ability
to flash light into the obscurest depths of a theme. It is
the imagination playing in upon the argument, or the
imagination coming with her torch to help the reason in
the search for truth; but the imagination may, through
a confusion of images, destroy perspicuity. It breaks, as
it were, the mirror at which we look into many frag-
ments, giving back only confusing reflections.
The means of attaining perspicuity of style are-
of attaining
(a.) A careful attention to the use of single words.
Connectives, or the words which form the mechanical
structure of a sentence, should be short, plain
Means words. The proper use of adverbs and pro-
perspicuity. nouns, in relation to the words they agree
with, is to be carefully attended to; for the
little words contribute more to perspicuity than the
larger; they are, as it were, the pins and joints which
bind a sentence together, or on which it turns and moves.
Here care should be bestowed. Words also with a
plurality of meanings should be used only in such con-
nections as to exclude all but the meaning intended.
Words which have two or more senses should be so care-
fully used as to avoid ambiguous meanings. In like man-
ner the same word should not be used, at a short interval
In relation
to the
language.
STYLE.
759
of separation, in different significations. And, as coming
under the same general principle, words should be used
in their most common and best-understood senses. Here
the principle of propriety or fitness in the use of language
aids perspicuity.
(b.) Attention to the relations of qualifying phrases to
each other. When carelessly collocated, or too widely
separated, the most absurd meanings are oftentimes
produced.
(c.) The avoiding, as much as possible, of the extremes
of ellipsis and parenthesis. All involved sentences,
though not all long sentences, are to be avoided, if we
would seek perspicuity.
(d.) Care not to change the construction of the sen-
tence too abruptly, so as to lose sight of the subject
or the object. This is a frequent cause of ambiguity.
Especially in making comparisons and antitheses, one
should avoid the use of dissimilar constructions in set-
ting forth agreements and differences. A well-balanced
comparison conduces to perspicuity of style.
"
(e.) Attention to the harmonious construction of sen-
tences. (See remarks of Bulwer Lytton, in his Cax-
tonia," Essay VIII., on "Rhythm in Prose, as con-
ducive to Precision and Clearness."
(f.) The avoiding of too learned and scientific phrase-
ology. Were every sermon a concio ad clerum, this might
be a merit of style, because it would be addressed to an
audience that could understand it; it would be to them
perspicuous; but the preacher who talks too much
of "moral necessity," "cognitive faculties, VO-
lition,
objective" and "subjective," and the like, does
not preach like Him, who, even in his parables, wherein he
purposely hid the truth from the unspiritual mind, used
simple language. We should indeed be thought destitute
1966
"
**
760
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
of common sense, should we preach like the opening sen-
tence of Dr. Thomas Browne's "Essay on Christian
Morals": Tread softly and circumspectly in this
funambulatory track and narrow path of goodness; pur-
sue virtue virtuously; leaven not good actions, nor ren-
der virtues disputable. Stain not fair acts with foul in-
tentions; maim not uprightness by halting concomit-
ances, nor circumstantially deprave substantial goodness.
(g.) The avoidance of too subjective a style. The
thought may be too subtle, inner, and transcendental for
the common mind. But however deep it may be, it should
be brought out of the subjective and conceptional state of
one's own mind into the full birth and light of objective
reality, where it can be seen and felt, so to speak, by
others. There should be this simplicity, this outward-
ness, this distinctive form, this sensible reality in style,
which makes it comprehensible and impressive to other
minds; which makes it strike other minds with force.
""
The writings of Hume, Locke, Hobbes, Dr. Emmons,
Daniel Webster, and Archbishop Whately are good
models of perspicuity; and of a certain
beautiful lucidness of style, of what the
French call clarté, which the imagination
makes by bodying forth its ideas in forms that shine as in
noonday light. Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" is an
eminent illustration.
Models of
perspicuity.
We cannot find a better place than just here to say a
word on the best style for the pulpit; because, in our esti-
Best style mation, it is founded especially upon this
quality of perspicuity, or, in the commoner
the pulpit. and broader term, plainness. The style of
the pulpit should, above all, be a plain style. This is the
basis of everything good in writing and speaking.
for
STYLE.
761
Let us, however, preface these remarks with a bit of
homiletical history from Bishop Burnet, who himself is
worthy of study for his clear, idiomatic English. He says:
"This set of men (Tillotson, Lloyd, and others) contrib-
uted more than can be well imagined to reform the way of
preaching; which among the divines of England before
them was overrun with pedantry, a great mixture of
quotations from fathers and ancient writers, a long opening
of a text with the concordance of every word in it, and a
giving all the different expositions with the grounds of
them; and the entering into some parts of controversy,
and all concluding in some, but very short, practical ap-
plications, according to the subject or the occasion. This
was both long and heavy, when all was pye-balled, full
of many sayings of different languages. The common
style of sermons was either very flat and low, or swelled
up with rhetoric to a false pitch of a wrong sublime.
The King had little or no literature, but true and good
sense; and had got a right notion of style; for he was
in France at a time when they were much set on reform-
ing their language. It soon appeared that he had a true
taste. So this help'd to raise the value of these men,
when the King approved of the style their discourses
generally ran in; which was clear, plain, and short.
They gave a short paraphrase of their text, unless where
great difficulties required a more copious enlargement:
But even then they cut off unnecessary shows of learn-
ing, and applied themselves to the matter, in which they
opened the nature and reasons of things: so fully, and
with that simplicity, that their hearers felt an instruc-
tion of another sort than had commonly been observed
before. So they became very much followed: And
a set of these men brought off the city in a great
762
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
L
measure from the prejudices they had formerly to the
Church." 1
We see even by this brief narrative what is the power
of a plain, comprehensible style to interest the people,
and to turn the tide of public sentiment in whatever
direction the speaker may choose.
As the power of the pulpit consists first of all in the
presentation of truth to the mind, and impels and moves
to the obedience of God through the influence of truth,
the truth should meet the mind in the most direct
manner. The edge of truth should not be taken off. It
should smite upon the mind with all its own unmitigated
force and sharpness. Nothing should come between the
truth and the human heart to prevent the full power of
its application. So then it is the first responsibility of
the preacher to make truth plain to the understanding.
This he should strive to do, to the sacrifice, if it must be,
of everything else. But he really does not in this way
sacrifice anything that is good, since honest plainness
is the foundation of all other excellencies. Truth in
art, and truth in nature, hold up everything. In the
works of the greatest artists, whether of the plastic arts
or of literature, there will be found a certain absolute
simplicity and trueness to nature.
Nature, however plain, is never ugly, is never, even in
a Dutch landscape, absolutely dull. Truth does not pall
upon the taste or grow insipid. The essential element
of all that is good and forcible in language, then, is un-
adulterated, unartificial truth, the plainness of nature and
of fact. Carlyle says: "The ultimate rule is, Learn, so far
as possible, to be intelligent and transparent-no notice
taken of your style, but solely of what you express by it."
Dean Swift-— says:
An older writer of English
'Burnet's "History of His Own Time." London ed. 1724, v. i. p. 191.
STYLE.
763
When a man's thoughts are clear, the properest words
will generally offer themselves first, and his own judg-
ment will direct him in what order to place them, so that
they may be best understood." Southey remarks, much
in the same vein, that "The readiest and plainest style is
the most forcible (if the head be but properly stored) and
in all ordinary cases the word which first presents itself
is the best." In regard to style, we have come to think
that absolutely the first thing to care for is the reality
of things entirely regardless of the Greek ideal of beauty.
That comes as the indefinable result of knowledge and
culture; but as in religion, theories and theological ideals
are of less importance than elemental truths-the spirit
and the feeling and the fact that lie beneath them—so in
style, the main substance of style should be real not
ideal, should be the groundwork of solid truth.
This idea of style is opposed to what is commonly
called fine writing, though not to forcible, fresh, and even
brilliant writing; whose brilliancy, however, should be
more in the thought, in the imagination even it may be,
than in the words. That kind of style which sacrifices the
simple, the clear, the true, for what is artificial and
rhetorical, in the bad sense of the term; which strives
continually to be effective, or what is called eloquent, by
appealing to the outward sensibilities and fancy, rather
than to the reason and the sincere feelings of the heart
and the nobler imagination; which is vulgarly startling
and lacks all repose; which allows of no pathos; which has
no trust in the simple power of the plainest statement ;
which, above all, is confused and unintelligible because
so constantly on the strain for smart or showy things;
this certainly is a false pulpit style.
In the sensational style, the condition of using this mode
of discourse is that you can strike but once. The sec-
"
764
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
ond stroke is but a repetition or imitation."
This style
should appear anywhere but in the pulpit. The power
and impressiveness of the great realities of religion are
lost in such a highly-wrought and artificially-stimulated.
preaching which prevents the natural action of the hear-
er's own mind, and destroys its power of thought and
of thoughtful receptivity.
We have lost much of our former confidence in what is
called the eloquence of the pulpit. Such eloquence has
ceased to have power and is not eloquent, while what is
true, what is simple, what is the exact fact, what is the
bare verity respecting God and the soul, the law of God,
repentance, Christ and his cross, faith, the experience of
the heart, its real trial, and doubt, and fear, and sin, and
hope, living truth in fine, and the plain earnest thought
or feeling which correlates this, is eloquent. By not seek-
ing to be eloquent or meaning to be eloquent, a man be-
comes eloquent. It is the thing and not its semblance.
Let us recall what Augustine said of the style of the
pulpit :
(
When the preacher has to set forth great subjects he
should not always speak of them in a lofty style, but
modestly (submisse); when he praises or blames any-
thing, with moderation.
Ought he who speaks
of the Unity of the Trinity to speak in any other way
than in a modest method of discussion (submissa disputa-
tione), that a matter difficult to comprehend may be
understood as well as possible? Are ornaments to be
sought here and not teaching?" Again Augustine says:
"It is better that the learned should find fault than that
the people should not understand.”
(4
Another preacher, Antonio Vieyra, of Portugal, who is
called the last of the medieval preachers," and who was
one of the most effective though quaint preachers of any
STYLE.
765
age, having a remarkably direct, interesting, and popular
style, thus discourses on the necessity of a preacher's
making himself intelligible, as the first quality of good
preaching; and what he says holds good at the present
day; “Let us hear from the heavens the way in which
we are to arrange our matter and our words. How ought
our words to be? Like the stars. The stars are very dis-
tinct and very clear. So should be the style of sermons,
very clear and very distinct, and have no fear lest on this
account it should appear low and vulgar; the stars, clear
and distinct as they are, are most lofty. Style may be
very clear and very lofty; so clear that those who are
ignorant may understand it; and so lofty that those who
are wise may have much to find out in it. The country-
man finds in the stars rules for his husbandry, and the
mathematician for his observations and judgments. So
that the countryman and the sailor who can neither read
nor write, understand the stars; and the mathematician
who has read every book that was ever written, does not
obtain to the complete understanding of the constella-
tions. So a sermon might be; stars that all can see, and
very few measure.
Yes, father; but this way of preaching is not the
cultivated style.' I wish it were. This unfortunate
style which is nowadays the fashion, is called cultivated
by those who wish to honor it, and obscure by those who
condemn it. But even the latter do it too much honor.
Is it possible that we are Portuguese, and can-
not understand what he means? As there is a lexicon
for Greek, and a Calepenas for Latin, so we want a
vocabulary for the pulpit. I could wish one, at least, for
proper names; for our cultivated preachers have un-
baptized the saints, and every author whom they quote
is an enigma. Thus they speak of the Penitent Sceptre ;
""
-
766
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
1
thus of the Evangelistic Apelles; thus of the Eagle of
Africa, of the Honeycomb of Clairvaux, of the Purple of
Bethlehem, of the Mouth of Gold. And this they call
quoting! They say that the Penitent Sceptre means
David; as if no other sceptre ever felt penitence; that
the Evangelistic Apelles is St. Luke; the Honey-comb
of Clairvaux, St. Bernard; the Eagle of Africa, St. Au-
gustine; the Purple of Bethlehem, St. Jerome; the
Mouth of Gold, St. Chrysostom. But a man might take
it another way, and think that the Purple of Bethlehem
was Herod; the Eagle of Africa, Scipio; the Mouth of
Gold, Midas. If there were an advocate who thus quoted
Bartholus or Baldus, would you trust your cause in his
hands? If there were a man who thus spoke in conversa-
tion, would you not consider him a fool? That, then,
which is folly in conversation, why should it be wisdom
in the pulpit?"
We repeat this last question of the witty and yet de-
voted Vieyra, who, while a missionary, preached the
famous "Sermon to the Fishes" in imitation of St.
Anthony, and who had the rare art of "getting hold of
the people," without ever descending to vulgarity; why
indeed should we use words in the pulpit essentially differ-
ent from those we use in conversation, granting only the
differences between a common and private and a more
formal and public occasion. We say "essentially," for
some difference there must be between the teaching and
the talking styles, so far as precision and purity of lan-
guage go; and we should say that a man was a very pre-
cise and oracular person, who talked just as he would
speak, with the same care in the selection of his words,
the arrangement of his sentences, and the logical order of
his thoughts. But the comparison holds good, neverthe-
less; as a general rule the same plain, sensible, natural
STYLE.
767
language in the one is suited to the other. Learned
words are to be avoided as much as possible in both
cases. It shows really more skill to use simple language
than bookish language, and it takes sometimes a great
effort and a long discipline to be natural.
"Words in daily use but not vulgar," is the rule;
otherwise preaching may become to the greater part of
the audience what Addison was wont to call “high non-
sense." We should use idiomatic English, not altogether
Saxon, but rich and composite English, instead of the
glittering Ciceronian style, which is a cumbrous armor to
nimble thought. This plain style, this real style, com-
bined with naturalness and directness, with a glow and
earnestness of thought, is the true one for the preacher
who wishes to be understood and to do good. This is
the style of the best speaking in and out of the pulpit.
Let the preacher's thought be clear and weighty, that is
the principal thing; but then what a real beauty it is
when he is able to express such solid thought simply and
naturally, so that even the ignorant person can have the
benefit of it. Sometimes this cannot be done, we grant,
where the subject is abstruse, but what a triumph of
mind it is, when it is done!
We do not mean to say that everything in a sermon
should be upon a level of everybody's comprehension;
it was Baxter's plan to say something in every sermon
which should be a little above the ideas and thoughts of
his audience, or, as his expression was, to overtop them,
in order to arouse their attention and inquiry, and to lift
them out of their stereotyped way of thinking. In this
way he would teach them something that they did not
know before. This may be done, and at the same time
a preacher's style of speaking and writing may be plain
and comprehensible.
768
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
It is almost always the case that when one begins to
write or to speak, he thinks that he must assume a
peculiar style, that he must say a thing in a different way
from what he would say the same thing were he simply
talking. When he talks he is himself, when he writes or
speaks he becomes an entirely different man-he is
Macaulay, or Carlyle, or Wendell Phillips, or Phillips
Brooks, or Dr. Hall, or Dr. Storrs, or perhaps some
clergyman of note whom he is accustomed to hear, or to
regard as a model. Thus reflex action must go on in his
mind in order to bring him to a natural style. He must
become conscious of his not being himself in his style,
and then by a strong exertion of will he must come to
the use of a style in which he is conscious that he is him-
self, and no other man; thus study, art, effort are re-
quired to enable a man to write and speak well, to acquire
a good, clear, and effective style.
There are some fine points of pulpit style worthy of
study in J. H. Newman's (now Cardinal New-
man's) earlier preaching, as, for example, his
Plain and Parochial Sermons," to which
we have before more than once referred.
To adapt to our purpose and to add somewhat to
the remarks of an English review concerning Newman's
pulpit style, we would say of it, that there is a free
and unconstrained movement in his sermons showing a
very keen and exact knowledge of the subtle and refined
secrets of language. With that uncared-for play and sim-
plicity there is also a fulness, a richness, and a curious
delicate music, quite instinctive and unsought for. There
is also precision and sureness of expression. It is grace-
ful with the grace of nerve and strength.
The form and the matter are connected in the sermons,
as in all works of a high order, and the matter makes and
J. H.
Newman's
style.
((
STYLE.
769
shapes the form. There is a shrinking from personal dis-
play and ornament, and the power of the great realities
of religion absorbs and overcomes the human personality.
He is deeply influenced by the tremendous and impene-
trable vastness of that by which we are surrounded, the
greatness of human life, the individuality of the soul, the
mysteries of our present being. This keeps his style sub
dued and impersonal. He does not preach dogmatically,
but calls forth what is really meant by the truths and
doctrines of religion, and puts beside them the human
character and its trials, as a piercing and sympathizing
eye sees them. He thus preaches, though often pro-
foundly yet so as to be understood and felt. He does
not contemplate the heart in stiff and formal ways. He
touches, pierces, and gets hold of the mind. There is a
thorough-going reality of meaning and fulfillment in his
style. There is intense conviction and directness of
purpose combined with clearness, originality, and perfec-
tion on the purely literary side of preaching. He is not
an orator, a declaimer, like the French preachers, but he
is direct, straightforward, unconventional. There is noth-
ing forced. It is pure thought and pure fact. There are
no pomp, nor artificial solemnity, nor making-believe
difficulties, no needless preliminaries, nor exaggerated
statements, nor conventional pictures. His sermons do
not seem to be intended to convince only, or to be simply
addressed to the reason and intelligence, but to the heart
and soul, with their burdens. Here he was superior to
Whately and all merely intellectual and argumentative
preachers. While there is much of refined and scholarly
writing, there is plain counsel, clear setting forth of high
principle, and manly encouragement to duty. There is
the calm, clear, and lucid expression, strong in grasp,
measured in statement, too serious to be considered in
770
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
the light of rhetorical beauty or criticism, but possessing
at the same time every merit of style. It is an uncon-
scious rather than self-conscious style.
A word in conclusion might be said here upon a prose
style for the pulpit in contradistinction from a poetic style.
A prose style is more exact, direct, pointed,
Prose style.
and simple than a poetic style. It is also
logical. There is more that is real and less that is
vague in it. The poetic genius shows itself often in prose
to enrich it, but the poetic diction should be banished
from prose writing, though even Milton erroneously
thought that it added to the force of prose writing. It
should be banished excepting in highly picturesque de-
scription, or in the impassioned passages of an argument.
In the best novel writing, and in descriptive essays like
those of Ruskin and Taine on subjects of art, and perhaps
very rarely in oratory, the feeling, the rhythm, and the
picturesque vividness of poetic expression may be al-
lowed, but there is generally no surer evidence of a
weak or vicious prose style than a tendency to indulge
in poetic diction which runs almost at times into poetic
metre, which seeks the flowing period, which abounds in
florid metaphor, which loves exaggeration and intense
expression, which indulges in alliteration and such artifi-
cial tricks, and which, to sum up all, makes use of ambi-
tious and stilted language.
C
Sometimes a young writer thinks it to be the perfection
of good writing to use these uncommon words, and fears
lest people may put him down as commonplace, or as no
deep thinker, or scholar, if he uses words such as are com-
monly employed among well-speaking men and women.
He supposes that those unusual forms of speech are proofs
of elegant literary culture, when precisely the opposite is
true, and they are generally the sign of crudeness and of
STYLE.
771
an unformed taste. The beauty of style is to have good
thoughts, it may be uncommon and powerful thoughts,
and to express them in a clear and natural way, though,
as we have said before, there may be exceptions to this
rule. Genius, it is said, has no rules. But, above all, let
us have the genuine article, let us not have the sem-
blance, the counterfeit. Be real, even if you express
yourselves in a rude and awkward manner. A man in
homespun is better than a manikin in broadcloth with a
fortune of jeweller's rings and gold chains suspended from
his insignificant person. In these remarks we would not
lose sight of the capabilities of our language to express
fine shades of meaning, warm colorings of sentiment and
more nice and unusual elaborations of thought, springing
from deeper and more hidden qualities of mind than the
plain logical understanding. Still, the language which is
expressive even of poetical and imaginative thought
should remain the language of prose. Some writers like
Jeremy Taylor and De Quincey have given us prose
poems.
But in the sermon the imagination should show itself
in a general vitalizing, or idealizing, graphic power, rather
than in a florid, over-wrought and highly metaphorical
style.
Hear what an old English writer says: "It would
be fit that some time be spent in learning rhetoric or
oratory, to the intent that upon all occasions you
may express yourself with eloquence and grace; for,
as it is not enough for a man to have a diamond unless it
is polished and cut into its due angles, whereby it may
the better transmit and vibrate its native lustre and
rays, so it will not be sufficient for a man to have
a great understanding in all matters unless the under-
standing be not only polished and clear, but under-
772
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
set and holpen a little with those figures, tropes, and
colors which rhetoric affords, where there is use of per-
suasion. I can by no means yet commend an affected
eloquence, there being nothing so pedantic, or indeed
that would give more suspicion that the truth is not in-
tended, than to use overmuch the forms prescribed in
schools.
"It is well said by them that there are two parts of elo-
quence necessary and recommendable; one is, to speak
hard things plainly, so that when a knotty or intricate
business, having no method or coherence in its parts, shall
be presented, it will be a singular part of oratory to take
those parts asunder, set them together aptly, and so ex-
hibit them to the understanding.
"And this part of rhetoric I much commend to every-
body, there being no true use of speech but to make
things clear, perspicuous, and manifest, which otherwise
would be perplexed, doubtful, and obscure.
Dr. Johnson, himself a conspicuous violator of plain
simplicity (though unnecessarily so, for he could write
clear, terse English when he chose), has also spoken
of a style which meets the common demands of every-
day life in its business and professions, very much to
the same point. He says: There is in every nation
a style which never becomes obsolete, a certain mode.
of phraseology so consonant to the analogy and prin-
ciples of its respective language, as to remain settled
and unaltered. This style is to be sought in the com-
mon intercourse of life among those who speak only
to be understood, without ambition or elegance. The
polite are always catching modish innovations, and the
learned forsake the vulgar, when the vulgar is right; but
¹ Edward Lord Herbert,
""
""
Autobiography."
I
STYLE.
773
?
there is a conversation above grossness and below refine-
ment, where propriety resides."
νε
(5.) Energy. This is sometimes called "strength,
sometimes "effect," sometimes "nerve,"
Energy.
and sometimes "vividness" of style; but
the old Aristotelian word 'Evέpyiɛa expresses it best.
It is, without doubt, the most important quality of
style, without which all the others are of little account.
It springs from profounder spiritual sources within the
man than even perspicuity, and belongs to that force
of nature, thought, and character, that are peculiarly
personal. If the preacher of God's salvation shows no
energy in his speech, he had better hold the plough or
stand behind the counter all his life.
<<
Energy is that quality which gives a sense of power in
the speaker and in the truth which he speaks, and thus
forces attention to the subject in hand, and
stamps it upon the mind of the hearer. The
great source of energy of style is energy of
feeling and energy of thought. Strong thought makes a
strong style. Energy is, above all, a subjective quality,
but it is ultimately, in the preacher, the power of feeling
and expressing divine truth, so that the energy of the
preacher of divine truth may be said in a true sense to
come from God himself.
Definition of
energy.
He who can speak well," Luther said, “is a man."
Energy in style is the product of a vigorous and well-
trained mind. And the state of the mind at the time of
writing is an important consideration-the interest felt in
the subject, the vivid conception of the theme, and the
strength of purpose and of aim. As we have said, strong
thought will make a strong style. A trumpet blast cannot
come out of a reed, even though, as Pascal says, it is
reed that thinks." There must be the energy of soul
66
a
774
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
before energy of expression. Yet, although there must
be this original force of mind for great energy of style,
there are certain legitimate rhetorical helps to the pro-
duction of that great and noble quality. The speech of
the pulpit should be, above all, energetic.
The means of attaining energy of style may be divided
into two: The fit use of words, and the fig-
urative use of words.
Means of
attaining
energy of
style-fit use
of words.
I. The fit use of words. Generally speak-
ing, this is an observance of all the other
properties of language and style which have
been mentioned, fusing them together by the
heat and power of a strong purpose; but, more definite-
ly, it consists of three particulars-the kind, number,
and arrangement of words in sentences.
(1) Kind or choice of words.
(a.) The use of short Saxon words. The energy of
Carlyle's style arises chiefly from his use of
rugged Saxon words, some of them so old as
to be new. Macaulay also often exemplifies
this: "You must dig deep if you would
build high." Herbert Spencer, in his "Essay on Style,"
has some interesting remarks on the use of Saxon words,
as economizing strength and time, thus adding force, or,
as his expression is, economizing the recipient's atten-
tion." In fact, the great source of power in style, ac-
cording to Spencer, is economy of words.'
(b.) The use of specific instead of generic words. The
latter may be often necessary, but the former give vivid-
Dr. Campbell says, "The more general the terms
are, the picture is fainter; the more special they are, the
brighter.' Rome fell," is more forcible than The
ness.
"
"
Kind
or choice of
words.
144 Essays," pp. 12-15.
STYLE.
775
3
Roman empire came to an end." "The beauty that
was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome,” might
be generalized and weakened. The use of specific
instead of abstract words saves the hearer the delay of
thinking what the abstract term signifies, and thus con-
duces to rapidity and energy of impression. As a general
maxim of style, therefore, concrete words are better than
abstract.
(c.) The use of words whose sound corresponds to their
sense, thus giving a more vivid force, and helping the
hearer to catch the thought through the sense as well as
through the reason.
(d.) The use of common and natural, instead of tech-
nical, words. The theological style contains stereo-
typed words and phrases which diminish energy and pro-
mote dulness, because they sound too familiar to some
persons and too abstruse to others. Religious ideas,
ideas clothed in fresh, simple, and natural words, seem
like new truth, and have great power and attraction
for the popular mind. Any suggestion of the artificial
indicates weakness. Thus too much antithesis tends
to produce a cold style. You hear the first statement,
which is put into an antithetic form, and you wait in
a critical state of mind to hear the corresponding sen-
tence. It is a purely intellectual process. Macaulay's
style may dazzle the mind, but it does not often touch
the heart; for men are jealous of the appearance of
art.
(2) Number of words.
It is a general principle that brevity gives strength.
"Si gravis, brevis." The utmost conciseness
consistent with clearness promotes energy.
Too many connectives, expletives, and qual-
ificatives weaken style; those are better fitted for a
Number
of words.
776
}
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
descriptive than an oratorical style.
Quintilian,"cannot use goldsmith's scales."
To have, or to seem to have, a fine command of lan-
guage—“ a flow of words'-is the temptation of young
writers; but after a thought is once sufficiently ex-
pressed, everything added weakens the sentence, though
there may be a little more of diffuseness allowed in oral
than in written language. Conciseness is violated by all
tautological and circumlocutory phrases. Sentences
should be recast until those enfeebling redundancies dis-
appear. And the same may be said in regard to
thoughts. "In the choice of competent ideas, or in the
choice of expressions, the aim must be to convey the
greatest amount of thoughts with the smallest quantity
of words.
1
We would here quote a suggestive passage from a
modern English author on the proper style for the orator,
in contradistinction from that of the writer or essayist :
""
'The orator," says
The genius of oratory is more irregular and abrupt;
it is akin to that of the drama, inasmuch as it does not
address men one by one, each in his quiet study, but as
a miscellaneous audience, which requires to be kept
always verging toward that point at which attention re-
lieves its pressure by the vent of involuntary applause.
To move numbers simultaneously collected the passions
appealed to must be those which all men have most in
common; the arguments addressed to reason must be
those which, however new or embellished, can be as
quickly comprehended by men of plain sense as by re-
fined casuists and meditative scholars. Elaborate though
Cicero's orations are, they are markedly distinct in style
from his philosophical prelections. The essayist quietly
¹ Herbert Spencer's "Essays," p. 35.
STYLE.
777
-
affirms a proposition; the orator vehemently asks a
question. 'You say so and so,' observes the essayist
about to refute an opponent. Do you mean to tell us
so and so?' demands the impassioned orator. The
writer asserts that 'the excesses of Catiline became at
last insupportable even to the patience of the senate.'
'How long will you abuse our patience, Catiline?' ex-
claims the orator. And an orator who could venture to
commence an exordium with a burst so audaciously
abrupt, needs no other proof to convince a practical pub-
lic speaker how absolute must have been his command
over his audience. What sympathy in them, and what
discipline of voice, manner, countenance in himself, were
essential for the successful license of so fiery a burst into
the solemnity of formal impeachment !
" (
Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like
the drama, it must keep doing. It avoids as frigid, pro-
longed metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if
they delay or distract the effect which is the great end of
oratory, should be disregarded." "
(3) Arrangement of words.
This is an important point in respect of energy of
style. The Greek and Latin languages,
through the variety of their inflections, are Arrangement
remarkable for the energy attained by the
simple arrangement of words in sentences. That is often
a key to their significance.
of words.
The forcible arrangement of a sentence is promoted-
(a.) By a regard to the preservation of its unity. How-
ever manifold the form of the parts, there should be no
doubt, from the clear arrangement of the sentence, what
is the main idea, what is the unifying thought. That is
¹ Sir E. Bulwer Lytton's "Caxtonia," p. 94.
778
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
not to be broken up; for "nothing broken," it has been
can be projected with the force of a whole
well said,
body."
(b.) By the periodic structure of the sentence. A pe-
riodic structure is one in which the important thought
or word of the sentence is reserved for its close. It is
opposed to a loose construction, in which the sentence
ends in a straggling way, or with one or more dependent
clauses. Whately's definition of a periodic sentence is, "A
period is a complex sentence in which the meaning remains
suspended till the whole is finished." The idea is, that the
sentence should end with a blow which clinches the whole,
and binds it forcibly together. That is conducive, also,
to the clear and forcible delivery of a sentence, leaving
nothing fragmentary, nothing to be gathered up by the
voice; it is, in homely phrase, pulling up short with little
or no decrease of momentum. Sometimes a sentence
may be made to have a periodic structure by simply re-
versing the order of its clauses. As a general rule, the
weakest words and clauses should come in the middle,
the strongest at the beginning, but, above all, at the
close. The general statement should precede the par-
ticular, the less striking that which is more so, the less
concentrated and intense that which is more so. On this
subject of the arrangement of words in a sentence, and
of thoughts in style, we would refer the student to Her-
bert Spencer's "Essay on Style.
??
(c.) By the use of a direct mode of expression. In a
direct style, the adjective comes before the substantive,
the predicate before the subject, the qualificative before
the qualified part of the sentence. Oratory should go
straight to the point. It demands the avoidance of a form
of sentence where the mind is held long in suspense. It
is better to break up the thought into short sentences,
<<
S
STYLE.
779
and to approach the meaning by a series of approxima-
tions. Where there is, however, in one sentence, a great
number of preliminaries to be attended to before the
main subject or idea is arrived at, or when the sentence
is quite complex, one should judiciously mingle the two,
bringing in the main idea before the close of the sen-
tence, but yet after the mention of several preliminaries.
This is mingling the direct and indirect styles. In ora-
tory, one should not fatigue attention, or strain the mind
of the hearer to too great an effort to catch the meaning
of the speaker. The thought and the expression should
be as near together and as direct as possible; for oratory
does not allow tediously circuitous phrases, but is bold,
direct, impetuous, massive, brief.
(d.) By a judicious use of antithesis. Tacitus among
the ancients, and Macaulay among modern writers, are
masters of antithesis. The antithetical arrangement of a
sentence gives a more vivid view of the subjects contrasted.
It shows different sides, and they reflect light on one
another. The relaxed attention in regard to one side of
the antithesis gives the mind renewed power to view and
appreciate the other side.' There may be an affected
antithesis, which, with all its brilliancy, soon palls, as in
most of the modern French writers. In fact, variety in
writing, alternations of light and shade, new combinations
of words, contrasted ideas, the picturesque and bold
breaking up of sentences, and all means of averting dul-
ness and monotony, increase the force of style. Surprise
is an element of strength as well as beauty.
(e.) By the use of the climax. Sentences should not
decrease in strength, although sometimes a long paragraph
may have a softening or a letting down toward the close;
་
¹ Vinet's " Homiletics, p. 390.
780
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
but in a categorical succession, the strongest word and the
strongest thought should come last. Yet sometimes a
primitive force is added to an old word that has lost its
original value, by using it climactically. Nature itself
dictates the climax; the storm gradually rises to its full
strength. Cicero among the ancients, Robert Hall
among the moderns, make a fine use of the climax. By
too frequent and uniform a use of the climax, however,
the style loses power; and it is only at considerable in-
tervals that the fullest effect of the climax can be realized.
-
2. The imaginative or uncommon use of words. We
have discussed the fit use of words; we will now glance at
the imaginative use of words, for the pro-
Imaginative motion of strength of style. The use of
figurative language, we have seen, may often
use of
words.
increase perspicuity; its judicious use may
even in a greater degree promote energy of style, by taking
words and thoughts out of their common, plain, and logical
forms, and holding them up in the living aspects which
the imagination imparts to them. The imagination is
awaked by feeling. Its presence, therefore, when natural
and free, implies a certain living energy; it fills words.
with a new sense. Not to speak of the moral uses of the
imagination which lend vividness to preaching, imagina-
tive energy of language, rhetorically considered, may ex-
press itself-
(a.) In the trope. A trope is when there is some un-
mistakable resemblance between the thing and what it
significs; as "sword" for "war." There
The trope. is no mistaking the essential identity of the
two. Resemblance is, indeed, the general principle which
runs through and governs all figurative language. The
trope is the simplest kind of figure. Many single words,
thus used tropically at first, have lost their figurative sense,
STYLE.
781
(4
and thereby their first energy; but such tropical words as
'firmament," "imagination, melancholy," "express,
"detect," "bridle" (as a verb), "fine-spun, rivet"
(as a verb), “insult" (to leap on a fallen foe), were very
forcible at first. Words may be also used figuratively in
a less direct and simple sense, as in synecdoche and
metonymy, by which, often, great effectiveness is pro-
duced. They help to give a rapid, picturesque, distinct
impression, bringing in the eye, the sense, to aid the
understanding, and thus economizing time. The author
of "Sartor Resartus" says in his oddly humoristic but
suggestive way, “Language is called the Garment of
Thought; however, it should rather be, Language is the
Flesh-garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that imagi-
nation wove this Flesh-garment; and does not she? Meta-
phors are her stuff; examine Language; what if you ex-
cept some few primitive elements of natural sounds, what
is it all but Metaphors recognized as such, or no longer
recognized, still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and
colorless? If those same primitive elements are the osse-
ous fixtures in the Flesh-Garment, Language-then are
Metaphors its muscles and tissues and living integuments.
An unmetaphorical style you shall in vain seek for; is
not your very Attention a Stretching to? The difference
lies here some styles are lean, adust, even the muscle
itself seems osseous; some are even quite pallid, hunger-
bitten, and dead-looking; while others, again, glow in the
flush of health and vigorous self-growth."
(b.) In the metaphor. A metaphor is where there is a
resemblance or similarity in some relation rather than
property, which presents to the mind some-
thing analogous between the object signified
metaphor.
and that which is expressed; as in the com-
mon phrase, "a mountain wave." Whately prefers, as
The
99 (6
,, "4
,
782
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
44
a general rule, the use of the metaphor to that of the
simile" in oratory, because it has greater brevity,
and, moreover, it permits the hearer to make out the
resemblance for himself, which is pleasing, and, at the
same time, it aids rapidity. His words are, “All men
are more gratified at catching the resemblance for them-
selves than in having it pointed out to them." If this be
true, the metaphor should not be too dark or obscure,
and it should be something naturally and immediately.
suggested.
(c.) In the simile, allegory, personification, etc.
simile, unlike the metaphor, makes the object represented
the principal thing for the time being; it
The simile, makes it stand out in its full proportions;
allegory,
it draws the resemblance out into all its
personification,
'minute details of analogy or identity.
etc.
Although sometimes difficult to distinguish
from the metaphor, it is generally a more elaborate
figure, a more complete analogy, than the metaphor, and
it is needed when the comparison is one that necessarily
has many parts, and cannot, therefore, be immediately
suggested to the mind. A mingling of the metaphor
and the simile may be often used with effect, where the
brevity of the metaphor may be joined with the picture-
like elaborateness of the simile.' As to the order in which
the language of metaphor and simile should be introduced
for the highest effect, these figures should generally pre-
cede the thing illustrated by them. The figure should
come before the introduction of the idea which is set
forth by it. By its light first kindled, the object is thus
brought out more vividly, which is the almost invariable
order in the Scriptures, in the figurative language of
¹ See Spencer's" Essays,” p. 32.
The
دا
STYLE.
783
Proverbs, the elaborate types and illustrations of the
prophecies, and, above all, in the parables of our Lord.
“As the cold of snow in the time of harvest, so is a faith-
ful messenger to them that send him, for he refresheth
the soul of his master." How much this would lose, if
the order were reversed to read, "A faithful messenger
refresheth the soul of his master, as the cold of snow in
the time of harvest"! In the order of the last sentence,
the attention becomes partly interested in the thought
itself of the refreshment of a faithful messenger to the
soul; but it is a duller attention or interest than if the
thought should come after the striking simile or meta-
phor that has just awakened an interest in it.
But we cannot dwell upon these familiar rhetorical dis-
tinctions, or upon the novel uses which imagination makes
of language; suffice it that the imagination throws new
life into language; it brings distant objects face to face;
it searches out hidden resemblances; it makes the past
and the future stand before the mind as a present reality.
Dr. Chalmers' imagination was shown not so much in the
use of figures as in this general vivification of his style.
In his illustrations he made use of the simile rather than
the metaphor, and his illustrations were generally drawn
from nature, or the natural sciences. There is a noble
and extended simile given in Hanna's "Life of Chal-
mers," vol. iii., p. 299. The simile, also, at the close
of the sermon, "On the Expulsive Power of a New Af-
fection," is very beautiful. There is a fine simile in
Huxley's "Lay Sermons" (App. ed., p. 31), drawn from
the chess-player. This is a strong and natural figure of Pao-
lo Sequese, a preacher of the seventeenth century, "When
a tree is cut down, on what side does it fall? It falls on
the side to which it leans. Leaning to the right, it then
falls to the right; leaning to the left, it then falls to the
784
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
left. These evil livers always incline to the left; and yet
when they are to be cut down, they put in a claim to fall
to the right as good men fall. No measure of grace
would suffice to accomplish this for them, excepting one
which, like a violent hurricane, should, with miraculous
force, shove them to the opposite side."
The entire absence of all figurative energy of style is a
marked defect. The imagination clothes the dry bones
of thought with flesh and blood and lends to style a
strong and realistic quality. It is one great source of
invention, and of that freshness which is so great a beauty,
and which generally makes the difference between the dry
and the interesting speaker. "The Protestant pulpit has
too much neglected imagery in diction; it has been
iconoclastic in this, as in everything. It has not attempt-
ed a flowery style, the most contemptible of all; it has
tried to set forth thought, which is not superfluous for
any, but is, above all, useful to the least instructed. But
images of speech fasten the idea in the memory by a
golden nail. These must not be confounded with the
loose and fallacious analogies of certain preachers who
make a reason of a comparison."'' The imagination should
supply an inward refining, purifying, organizing, spiritual-
izing light and heat, rather than be suffered to break out
into too many startling figures of speech. "Van der Palm's
eloquence was grafted on the decapitated trunk of poetry.
From this art (poetry-making) he quickly withdrew, with
the conviction that its cultivation would be prejudicial to
eloquence. To this he consecrated all his powers, with
the sacrifice of poetry, in which he had already gained
some distinction. Still it was doubtless of importance to
his prose that he had passed through this poetic school.
' Vinet's "Histoire de la Prédication."
STYLE.
785
As regards euphony it was valuable, and on the interpre-
tation of the Bible he said, 'Had I never felt the fire
kindled within me, had I been an entire stranger to the
language of ecstacy (poetry), I should never have ven-
tured on the translation of such a book as Isaiah.' The
style of Demosthenes had little of the figurative, but
much of this idealizing power of the imagination. Above
all, in speaking, the figurative use of language should not
degenerate into the poetical style of writing. Robert
Hall said, “I am tormented with the desire of preaching
better than I can. I like to see a pretty child or pretty
flower, but in a sermon prettiness is out of place. To
my ear it would be anything but commendation should
it be said to me, 'You have given a pretty sermon.' If
I were upon trial for my life, and my advocate should
amuse the jury with his tropes and figures, burying his
argument beneath a profusion of the flowers of rhetoric,
I would say to him, 'Tut, man, you care more for your
vanity than for my hanging. Put yourself in my place;
speak in view of the gallows, and you will tell your story
plainly and earnestly.' I have no objection to a lady's
winding a sword with ribbons and studding it with roses
when she presents it to her lover; but in the day of bat-
tle he will tear away the ornaments, and use the naked
edge to the enemy."
If one use figures, let them be, 1. One's own, and fresh.
2. Not far-fetched. 3. Common, but not trite or vulgar.
4. Strong, chaste, manly, natural, not fine
and elaborate; they should not be drawn
from anything artificial, like dress or up-
holstery. 5. Suited to the nature of the subject. 6.
2
•
"L
1. Life of Van der Palm," p. 27.
Quintilian's Institut.," B. viii. c. iii. sec. 6.
1
Qualities of
figures.
786
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
One figure to one subject, and not the mixture of two or
more figures in the same sentence, or very near together.
Nature and the natural sciences afford the richest field
for illustrations. It would be indeed desirable to have
more of the fresh influences of nature in our arid sermons,
more of the breath of blossoming clover fields, more of
the rustling of autumn corn, more of cheery, blessed sun-
shine, of the singing of birds, even of the dash of the
stormy sea lifting up its hoarse anthem. This would be,
we believe, true praise to Christ, by and through whom
all these beautiful and glorious things were made, and who,
when he walked the earth, communed with God in nature
as well as in spirit. As a general rule, young writers and
preachers need not be urged to the use of figurative lan-
guage, but rather, perhaps, restrained from it; yet it is
better to be in exuberance in a young writer than to be
absent altogether; for it may be trained into an element
of strength.
A word might be said upon pathos, which is a true
though mild form of energy of style, and which is partly
the product of the imagination, and partly
of the feelings, and without which a sermon
is often powerless. Modern preaching-highly intel-
lectual and brilliant-too often lacks tenderness; few
preachers have the element or power of pathos; and per-
haps it is true that "a high civilization supersedes the
more primitive emotions."' But after all the ridicule
and contempt cast upon feeling (richly deserved when the
feeling is false) it is better to have a spring where the
heart is, a spring capable of gushing at the time of
freshet, than to have a cannon-ball or a brickbat. Christ
had a human heart, and so should his preachers have.
Strong and tender have been words fitly applied to the
most heroic men and sternest fighters the world has ever
Pathos.
•
STYLE.
787
seen.
Pathos is like water from the smitten rock. It is
not pathos if it come from a weak source. It would
have no moving and affecting quality in it. Pathos
springs from tender feeling, or from a suggestion that
awakes tender feeling. It is produced by bringing up
objects that excite our compassion, pity, love—that touch
the deep springs of feeling.
The theory of a modern essayist is an interesting one
-that some touch of the past which imagination brings
up is always needed for pathos; some comparison be-
tween former happiness and present pain. The office of
pathos is certainly to overpower the degrading sense of
petty personal cares and of present momentary annoy-
ances, with the blending of thoughts of greater power
and depth. Something of the irrevocable-of loss
which cannot be restored-enters into all pathos, and sets
the sorrows and vexations of the hour at their right
level; and even a slight severance, if it be forever-when
it is said of a rivulet,
<4
'No more by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever,
that is enough for pathos. The smallest act performed
for the last time awakes the pathetic sense.' Pathos,
whether treating of the past or the present, is a sudden
and timely utterance, which gives vent to the feelings,
and a relief to sad thoughts; and tears, if they spring
from an inner fountain, sometimes refresh and do good
to a hardened heart. This power can be cultivated in the
preacher only by keeping his own heart open, his sym-
pathies warm and free; by not suffering the emotional
part of his nature to be frozen up by the keen, cold breath
of the intellect, or by the hard realities of life. Scotch
preachers, rugged as their style often is, are sometimes
} 4 Essays on Social Subjects."
788
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREaching.
pathetic preachers, because their hearts are warm. Pathos
always speaks in simple language—the language of nature
and of children; a natural metaphor, a homely illustra-
tion, a story related in the plainest way, is enough, often,
to touch the deep spring of feeling in the heart. The
greatest natures have generally the most power of pathos.
Luther's illustration of faith by the little bird singing on
the spray, under the great arch of heaven, without care,
because his heavenly Father feedeth him, is but a repro-
duction of the affecting beauty of our Saviour's own
words. How touching are the simple words in Gen-
esis, And there I buried Leah!" The pathetic may
not be often drawn upon, certainly not in one sermon, or
there is thus a waste of feeling, and a greater difficulty
in its reproduction; and it hardly need be added, the at-
tempt at pathos, where it is not genuine, is ever a failure,
and deserves to be. Augustine, who had bursts of
mighty feeling and passion, but not so often of pathos,
speaking in one place of his mother in a most affecting
manner, says of her: She was the mother of a god-
less son. She bewailed me as one dead-carrying me
forth upon the bier of her thoughts, that thou mightest
say to the son of the widow, Young man, I say unto
thee arise; and he should arise, and begin to speak, and
thou shouldst deliver him to his mother.'
""
Energy the
result of the
In concluding these comments upon energy of style,
we would say that after the best rules have been given,
there is something deeper still in the man
himself; and energy is no factitious acquire-
ment, but is the result of the action of all
the powers of the nature set in motion by
fired by a what Dr. Brown would call that Tì Oɛpµóv—
great purpose. that" fiery particle"-that original energy
of soul which is beyond and beneath all. Pericles, chiefly
action of all
the powers
STYLE.
789
(C
from this quality, was called "the Olympian." His gen-
eral style is described by critics as harsh and abrupt,
seeming like one who dealt thunderbolts from the
clouds." Thucydides says of him, "He controlled the
multitude with an independent spirit, and was not led by
them so much as himself led them; for he did not say
anything to humor them, but was able, by the strength
of his character, to contradict them, even at the risk of
their displeasure. Whenever, for instance, he perceived
them unreasonable, or insolently confident, by his lan-
guage he would dash them down to alarm; and, on the
other hand, when they were unreasonably alarmed he
would raise them again to confidence." Thus his force
was in himself, rather than in what he said. His style, as
Thucydides again said, was not made so much to be ad-
mired as to endure. There is marvellous condensation
in his language-no fine-spun thoughts, but great thoughts
plainly and briefly expressed.
His celebrated funeral oration" is, however, from
the nature of the theme, more free from this abrupt-
ness than his other addresses to the people, and has
more of elegant finish, order, and unity. It is full of
noble sentiment "of the unwritten laws of noble con-
duct." He says in one portion of it," He who confers
a favor is the stronger friend, since by kindness he seeks
to keep alive a feeling of obligation in the receiver, while
the receiver knows that he returns the favor not in the
way of a free gift, but in the way of discharging a debt.''
In this oration occurs the lofty and familiar apostrophe,
"For of illustrious men the whole earth is the sepulchre,
signalized not alone by the inscription of the column in
their native land, but in lands not their own, by the un-
written memory which dwells in every man, of the spirit
more than the deed."
""
<a
790
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
Energy in a speaker comes from a strong will, acting
on a strong intellect, when both of them are moved by
a strong emotion. No man can be a great preacher
All comes at last to this:
without great feeling.
Gefühl ist alles." 1
46
It is said of John Wesley, a man of iron self-control;
of calm, even cold, temperament; that sometimes, in
preaching, his heart was mightily stirred, and then the
myriads before him felt a power that bowed them. He
says of himself, on one occasion, "In the midst of a
mob I called for a chair; the sounds were hushed and all
was calm and still; my heart was filled with love, my
eyes with tears and my mouth with arguments. They
were amazed, they were ashamed, they were melted
down, they devoured every word." It is no superficial
feeling of which we speak, but one which springs from
the moral and religious affections-from the higher na-
ture going out in its passionate yearning and desires
toward the infinite and the immortal, and going out
toward the good of men in their immortal interests. It
is that feeling which grasps divine things and God him-
self better than pure knowledge does.
But how is this profound spiritual emotion excited?
We answer, by some real belief, some strong and all-
absorbing realization of the object under discussion and
which makes it a living truth to the mind. Therefore,
for one to be an energetic preacher, he must be a man of
strong faith-of faith which fills him and moves him more
than any present object of mind or sense. Confidence in
the truth awakens energy, passion, imagination, all the
great forces of the soul. The love of Christ, the intense
realization of the truth of this love, of the work of re-
1 "Faust."
STYLE.
791
demption which Christ wrought by his sufferings and
death for the world, and the need which every man has
of this salvation, gave Paul his energy. That constrain-
ed him to speak and to act. Zeal for the righteous-
ness of God, and wrath against those who pervert the
truth, inspired Luther with energy. "Luther used to
assign a very characteristic and unique cause for the
effectiveness of his sermons and writing. I have no
better work, he said, than anger (sorn) and zeal; for if I
wish to compose, or write, or pray, or preach well, I
must be angry (sornig). Then all the blood in my veins
is stirred, my understanding is sharpened, and all dismal
thoughts and temptations are dissipated. No doubt a
noble moral indignation this against all meanness and
evil. But even what we usually call temper often gives.
great energy. Swift's rage was malignant; Luther's
noble. Something personal-even literary egotism, as
in Gibbon, or some individuality, as in Hawthorne—
promotes energy of style."'
Baxter said he preached as "a dying man to dying
men;" but there was probably no sign of dying or failing
strength in such preaching. It was full of life and power. He
was possessed by the truth, and that made him powerful.
What a preacher South would have been if he had had
the spirituality and Christ-like earnestness of Baxter!
Saurin was a preacher of great energy of style. He
abounds in interrogations, in passionate address, in bold
and fiery passages that seem to flame out of his heart.
Dr. Beecher's style was a noble example of energy; this
is illustrated in his famous temperance sermons.
"Soft words, smooth prophecies, are doubtless well;
But to rebuke the age's popular crimes,
We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old time."
¹ London Spectator.
792
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
After all that has been said, let it not be supposed that
any mere rhetorical art can produce real energy of style
--above all, in the preacher. To hold the truth, as the
truth holds us, in entire and all-absorbing mastery-this
alone will make us strong preachers. Earnestness is the
soul of eloquence. He who feels makes others feel.
The man who so loves freedom that he is willing to give
his life for it, is the man to speak for the cause of free-
dom with power. He casts rhetoricians behind his back.
The preacher who is filled with the sense of the eternal
truths which he preaches, so that they are as real to him
as his life, and infinitely more important-he is the man
to reason of righteousness and judgment to come. He
who, though not seeing, yet believes in the unseen
Christ, who loves him more than any other
The chief object-he is the one to speak of the love of
source of
energy in the
preacher.
Christ so that the rocky heart shall melt.
Faith which worketh by love is really the chief
source of energy in the Christian preacher.
He who speaks because he believes, will not deal in weak
arguments or flowers of rhetoric. He has something
more earnest in his speech than that.
John Bunyan said, “It pleased me nothing to see peo-
ple drink in opinions, if they seemed ignorant of Jesus.
Christ and the worth of their own salvation."' That
feeling fired his preaching, and gave it its intense indi-
vidualizing and awakening power.
For the promotion of energy of style, we would recom-
mend, first of all, the study of the Bible. It does not play
with words. In its realness, directness, and power, it has
an earnestness like nature. In breadth, boldness, and
sublimity of imagery and thought, it is, indeed, like the
¹ Philip's
"
Life of Bunyan," p. 257.
STYLE.
793
(C
vast and tameless sea and has in it a
sound as of many
waters.
One also may invigorate his style by the study
of the "Iliad," of the "Divina Commedia" of Dante,
and of Shakespeare among the poets; of Milton's
prose, Dr. South, Junius' Letters, Carlyle, Motley-the
last chiefly, however, in the picturesque and dramatic
character of his writing; but in all these, and in many
more that might be named, there is the vivida vis animi
which makes a strong style.
(6.) Elegance. Elegance of style is that quality by
which thought is expressed in a way that appeals to good
taste. We have spoken of it incidentally
under the head of the principle of "Taste
in Preaching." It seeks to realize the ideal
of beauty, and its chief elements are propriety, right sen-
timent, and grace.
It does not altogether lie in the language, but in the
thought; for it is the expression of a refined mind.
Elegance is not inconsistent with energy of style, since
the beauty of the works of nature often adds to, instead
of taking from, their power. It is a common observa-
tion that there is almost as much beauty as grandeur in
Niagara. True elegance is doing without whatever weak-
ens style, all false ornament, and everything contrary
to good taste. Demosthenes' style was at once strong
and elegant.
Definition
of elegance.
The sources of elegance of style, and the means of its
attainment, are-
(a.) Fineness of perception. This, of course, is, for the
most part, a native gift, but may be greatly
developed and improved by cultivation. Such
a true perception unconsciously avoids all
thoughts and expressions that offend good taste. The
highest degree of elegance comes from the severest men-
tal culture.
Sources
of elegance.
794
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
(b.) A careful avoiding of false ornament.
It is an
altogether erroneous idea that elegance consists in orna-
ment; it may sometimes consist in avoiding it. It is,
more truly speaking, ornament of the right kind and in
the right place the assemblage or union of things that
harmonize. A Corinthian capital would look misplaced
on a Doric column. "Whatever is improper cannot
embellish.''1
Ornament which is inexpressive and over-
loaded, which does not help, but encumbers, the thought,
takes from elegance; for no ornament is good which is
not in some way useful. The ornamental drapery of
nature, even to the smallest leaf, serves some genuine
purpose. We meet in nature with no senseless or useless
things. Everything contributes to some vital object.
So, in style, ornament is not an end, but a means: it
imparts force to this truth; it brings that subject more
into the light; it softens the severity of that line of
argumentation; it clothes the nakedness of that bare fact.
It is itself intended to suggest thought and to aid
thought, not merely to attract and amuse, and by no
means to take the place of more solid qualities of style.
The elaborate work and ornament on a cannon may be
admitted to relieve the stern character of the instrument;
but in war, the best ornament is to have the piece well
polished and in good condition to send the ball. In any
ornament we may employ, let us ask ourselves, Does this
increase the effect of my sermon? Does it aid the
thought? If not, reject it. As we have before hinted,
there is no such curse to a writer as the desire of fine
writing. It clings to one worse than the robe of Nessus,
and it must be given up at any sacrifice. And, lastly, in
relation to ornament, let it always be remembered that
1 Quintilian's "Institut.," B. viii. c. iii. s. 15.
STYLE.
795
there must be strength in order to sustain ornament;
there must be the brazen column to bear the carved work
and adornment upon it. The old Greeks, in their criti-
cism of art, clearly distinguished between what was mere-
ly ornamental and what was really beautiful.
(c.) A careful choice of fit words.
(d.) Precise thinking. Precision is a great help to ele-
gance of style, which delights in sharply-cut and clearly-
defined lines. There may be a certain sublimity in vague
thought, but elegance requires clear and distinct thought.
(e.) Methodical arrangement. Of this faculty of method
a modern writer thus speaks: "The more we examine
the higher orders of intellect, whether devoted to sci-
ence, to art, or even to action, the more clearly we shall
observe the presence of a faculty common to all such
orders of intellect, because essential to completion in each
-a faculty which seems so far intuitive or innate (in-
genium), that, though study and practice perfect it, they
do not suffice to bestow the faculty of grouping into
order and symmetrical form ideas in themselves scattered
and dissimilar. This is the faculty of method; and
though every one who possesses it is not necessarily a
great man, yet every great man must possess it in a very
superior degree, whether he be a poet, a philosopher, a
statesman, a general; for every great man exhibits the
talent for organization or construction, whether it be
manifested in a poem, a philosophical system, a policy,
or a strategy. And without method there is no organiza-
tion or construction. But in art, method is less percepti-
ble than in science, and, in familiar language, usually
receives some other name. Nevertheless, we include the
meaning when we speak of the composition of a picture,
the arrangement of an oration, the plan of a poem. Art
employs method for the symmetrical formation of beauty,
796
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
as science employs it for logical exposition of truth; but
the mechanical process is, in the last, ever kept visibly
distinct, while in the first it escapes from sight amid the
shows of color and the curves of grace."
(f) Harmonious arrangement. The sentences should
be such as flow easily from the tongue-such as are eu-
phonious. The ear must aid the style.
(g.) The study of beauty in nature and art.
There is a caution to be observed in striving after ele-
gance of style. Vinet remarks in his "Homiletics"
(p. 470), The preacher, in order to be elegant, must have
recourse to practice; and another and much greater effort
will be necessary not to appear so. Elegance which an-
nounces itself, elegance which shows itself, is unskillful
and unhappy; but chaste elegance is appropriate to the
pulpit." Whately also has an admirable remark on this
point (Rhetoric, Style, chap. iii., part iii.): "The safest
rule is, never, during the act of composition, to study
elegance, or think about it at all. Let an author study
the best models, mark their beauties of style, and dwell
upon them, that he may insensibly catch the habit of ex-
pressing himself with elegance; and when he has com-
pleted any composition, he may revise it, and cautiously
alter any passage that is awkward and harsh, as well as
those that are feeble and obscure; but let him never,
while writing, think of any beauties of style, but content
himself with such as may occur spontaneously. He
should carefully study perspicuity as he goes along; he
may also, though more cautiously, aim in like manner at
energy; but if he is endeavoring after elegance, he will
hardly fail to betray the endeavor; and in proportion as
he does this, he will be so far from giving pleasure to
good judges that he will offend more than by the rudest
simplicity."
""
STYLE.
797
SEC. 35. Conclusion.
In the numerous classifications of style which have been
under discussion, we have spoken of each at the time as
valuable; but, after all, they are features of
one style, variations of one chord; for all the
good qualities of style should appear in a
man's speaking-all varieties of the thought-
ful, the euphonious, the pure, the precise, every sermon.
the perspicuous, the energetic, the elegant,
appear in
the plain, the direct, the profound-even as his needs
and his feelings are. It is just this noble variety,
this mastery of all the chords, which shows the true
orator. The orator should indeed know all things; but
the preacher should have something more than knowl-
edge, even a wisdom that comes from above.
Let us call to mind what was said at the beginning of
these lectures upon Sacred Rhetoric, that rhetoric, ora-
tory, and style should ever be studied psychologically,
and with reference to the nature of the mind and the
powers and requirements of the soul; that we should
never separate rhetoric from man, or from the speaker
himself, and those whom he addresses. It should not be
disconnected from the great end of preaching-which is
personal-the salvation and instruction of souls in Christ.
If it be thus abstractly treated, it becomes a pedantic
study, dry as the dust of the summer threshing-floor.
But in rhetorical studies we, as ministers of Christ, should
be ever approximating to a fit and perfect expression of
Him who is the truth, who is the true Word of God; and
only when the inspiration of His eternal Spirit fills our
minds is there a vital element in speech, an energy, a
beauty, and a converting power, which transcend all
All good
qualities of
style should
798
RHETORIC APPLIED TO PREACHING.
1
human eloquence. Have confidence in your work.
Preach the word courageously, hopefully, manfully. But
even if you preach it in human weakness, humility, and
tears, yet with a loving and believing heart, you shall
reap in joy.
+
INDEX.
A
Action, in the orator, 667.
Esthetics, its principles to be re-
garded in preaching, 615, et
seq.
Alexander, Dr. J. W., 276, 688.
Alexander of Hales, 140.
Allegorical preaching, 59.
Ambrose, Bp. of Milan, 103.
American pulpit, 226, et seq.
early preachers of the, 226.
product of the character and
history of the people, 230.
possessed sound learning, 230.
characteristics of the, 232.
Ammon, “Handbuch der Einleitung
zur Kanzelberedsamkeit," 4.
Amyraud, Mos., 185.
Analogy, the argument from, 576.
Analysis, the method of, 567.
grammatical, 732.
Anselm, 117, 133, 140.
Anthony, St., of Padua, 117, 134.
Apollos, 550, et seq.
Apostles, preaching of the, 35, et
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 221.
on "Interpretation,” 251, 325.
character of his preaching, 419.
Arnold, Matthew, on the critical
power, 638.
Art, its early manifestation in Chris-
tian preaching, 68.
in the composition of sermons,
468.
why disregarded in the primi-
tive church, 619.
Ascham, Roger, his rule of lan-
guage, 612.
Athanasius, as a preacher, 80.
his rebuke of preachers of his
time, 115.
Atterbury, Bp., 206.
Augustine, his view of the ministry,
xvii.
sermons of, 5.
as a preacher, 105, et seq.
his main homiletical precepts,
106, et seq.
his style, 110.
an extempore preacher, III.
number of his sermons, 112.
his introductions, 347.
his treatise, "De Apto et Pul-
chro," 629.
seq.
Aquinas, Thomas, 133, 140.
Argumentative development of the
sermon, 408, et seq.
Aristotle, "Treatise on Rheto-
ric," I.
B
Bacon, Lord, 597, 745.
his conception of rhetoric, 527, Barrow, Isaac, the sermons of, 3.
et seq.
as a preacher, 193.
800
INDEX.
on the "Power of the Tongue,"
586.
Basil, as a preacher, 81.
Bautain, on extempore speaking, 4,
516, 517, 519.
Baxter, Richard, sermons of, 3.
as a preacher, 199.
quoted, 438, 767.
Bede, Venerable, 117.
Beecher, Dr. Lyman, as a preacher,
236.
Boileau, quoted, 427.
Borromeo, Carlo, 153.
Bossuet, sermons of, 4.
as a preacher, 186.
Bourdaloue, sermons of, 4.
as a preacher, 188.
upon a plan, 283.
British pulpit, 189, et seq.
its golden age, 189.
Brooks, Phillips, 3.
Brougham, Lord, 285.
Bernard, St., of Clairvaux, as
preacher, 131, 139.
Bersier, 188.
Bible, the English, its influence Candlish, Dr., 221.
upon the English language," Cant" and Slang," 743, 744.
609.
Carlyle, Thomas, 596, 599, 612, 735,
781.
Chalmers, Dr., sermons of, 3.
as a preacher, 216, et seq.
on delivery of sermons, 488.
failure as extempore preacher,
499.
to be studied for the invigora-
tion of style, 792.
Binney, Thomas, 3, 221.
Biographical sermon, 405-
Blair, Dr. Hugh, as a preacher,
206.
use of barbarous words, 594.
his imagination, 630.
as a preacher of practical mo-
rality, 693.
his letter to Zachary Macaulay,
748.
as a preacher, 202, et seq.
quoted, 792.
с
Caird, Dr. John, 221.
a Calvin, as a preacher, 149.
Campbell, Dr. George, "Philosophy
of Rhetoric," 2.
Bruyère, 750.
Bunyan, John, a lay-preacher, xxvi.
sermons of, 3.
upon pulpit power, 545.
his use of language, 589.
his beauty of thought, 631.
his originality, 680.
Butler, Bp., sermons of, 3.
his argument from analogy,
577.
quoted, 755.
Burke, Edmund, 641.
Burnet, Bp., quoted, 482, 747, 761.
Bushnell, Horace, sermons of, 3.
his power as a preacher, 468.
his use of written sermons, 481.
44
Channing, Dr., sermons of, 3.
as an ethical preacher, 241.
Charnock, on reason, 565.
Chaucer, the study of, 603.
Christ, regarded as a preacher,
xxxiii.
the preaching of Christ histor-
ically considered, 27, et seq.
he did not prescribe the form
of preaching, 32.
the theme and end of preach-
ing, 258.
the moral beauty of Christ's
preaching, 617.
Christlieb, Dr. Immanuel, on mem-
orizing a sermon, 493.
Chrysostom, his idea of the minis-
try, xvii.
sermons of, 5.
INDEX.
801
as a preacher, 90, et seq.
number and range of homilies,
91.
oratorical gifts, 95.
moral element in his preaching,
96.
style, 97.
composition and form of his
sermons, 99.
a popular preacher, 101.
considered that preaching was
to please God," 544.
his imagination and use of il-
lustrations, 627.
CC
Church edifices, 60.
Cicero, "De Oratore,” 1.
his description of eloquence,
254, 546.
on writing as an aid to speak-
ing, 485.
his conception of rhetoric, 531.
on the community of the arts,
634.
his cultivation of the voice,
658.
on action in the orator, 669.
on the style of the orator, 728.
Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 205.
Classification of sermons, according
to their treatment and form,
444, et seq.
according to their method of
delivery, 479, et seq.
Claude, Jean, "Essay on the com-
position of a sermon," 3.
sermons of, 4.
as a preacher, 178, et seq.
Clement of Alexandria, 55.
Clement of Rome, 46, 49, 53.
Coleridge, his definition of reason,
562.
on the English Bible, 611.
his definition of imagination,
624.
Conclusion of a sermon, 427, et seq.
advantages of a good, 428.
different parts of the, 430.
stereotyped forms of appeal in
the, 441.
Controversy, sometimes inevitable,
575, 689.
Coquerel, Athanase, "Observations
pratiques sur la Prédication,"3.
on the peroration, 434.
on pulpit oratory, 480.
his requisites of an extempore
preacher, 502.
on the benefits of friendly crit-
icism, 646, et seq.
Cotton, John, 230.
Cousin, Victor, 617, 620.
Cowles, "Hebrew History," 21.
Critic, qualities of the true, 637.
Criticism, rhetorical, 635, et seq.
of sermons, 645.
Cyprian, 77.
D
Daillé, Jean, 185.
"Traites de l'Eglise de l'Empire
des saincts pères," 315.
Damiani, St. Peter, 133.
Darwinism, 472.
Davies, Samuel, 241.
Day, Prof. H. N., " Rhetoric," 3.
quoted, 352, 623, 652, 720.
Delivery of a sermon, the deepest
sources of a good, 653.
spiritual qualities of, 655.
Demosthenes, his moral power as
an orator, 539.
probably a memoriter speaker,
491.
De Pressensé, 4, 35, 47, 188.
De Quincey, Thomas, 2, 753.
De Quincy, Quatremère, 613.
De Ravignan, 188, 254, 271.
Development of a sermon, 398, et
seq.
what decides the, 398.
expository, 399.
illustrative, 403.
802
INDEX.
argumentative, 408.
persuasive, 422.
the qualities of a truc, 423.
Difficulties of preaching, 261, et seq.
Distinction between κλῆρος and λαός,
51.
Division of a sermon, 380, et seq.
influenced by character of ser-
mon, 381.
Du Bosc, Pierre, 185.
Du Moulin, 177.
Dwight, Dr., 3, 227.
E
the utility of, 383.
upon the, 689.
number of divisions, 385.
sources and qualities of divis-Experience, Christian, as a subject
of preaching, 718.
ions, 387.
order and arrangement of di- Explanation of a sermon, 353, et
visions, 394.
seq.
Doctrine, Christian, 687.
Doddridge, Philip, 3, 205.
Donne, Dr., 190.
the materials and sources of,
359.
Edwards, Jonathan, sermons of, 3.
as a preacher, 228, 494, 570.
"The Nature of True Virtue,"
615.
Elegance of style, the sources of,
793.
Eliot, John, the" Apostle to the In-
dians," 226.
Elocution, 652, et seq.
Eloquence, its relation to rhetoric,
534.
definition of, 534, et seq.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 614, 625.
Emmons, Dr., sermons of, 3.
as a preacher, 234, 452.
his introductions, 336.
Emotions, preaching to the, 270, et
seq.
Emphasis, 665.
Energy of style, 773, et seq.
what the chief source of energy
in the preacher, 792.
English literature, the preacher's
familiarity with, 594.
its great epochs, 597.
English philology, 600, et seq.
Erasmus, 154, 395.
Erckhardt, 118.
Euphony, 725.
Evidences, the Christian, preaching
means of attaining, 774.
the result of the action of all
the powers, 788.
the qualities of, 365.
Exposition of a sermon, 356.
Expository preaching, 399.
two kinds of expository ser-
mons, 399.
reasons of ill success in, 448.
Extempore preaching, 497, et seq.
the ancient method, 498.
the definition of, 508.
the advantages of, 509.
practical suggestions in regard
to, 515.
F
Faith, the true preaching power,
544.
Faucheur, Michel, introduction of
a sermon by, 350.
Faults of preaching, 266, et seq.
Fénélon, Dialogues
Elo-
quence," 3.
sermons of, 4.
on
as a preacher, 188.
Figures of speech, rules for, 785.
Fine writing, criticised, 763.
Finney, Dr., 500.
Fitch, Dr. Eleazer T., his concep-
tion of a sermon, 450.
Form of the sermon, 464.
(4
INDEX.
803
Foster, John, 212, 256.
Francis, St., of Assisi, 139.
Norman Conquest," 601.
Francke, 155.
Freeman, E. A., "History of the Hilarius, 103.
Hill, A. S., 3.
Hippolytus, 76.
French pulpit, 170, et seq.
preachers of the Reformed, 172, Historical sermon, 404.
et seq.
Frobisher,
"Voice and Action,"
Hagenbach, Dr.,
Homiletik," 4.
quoted, 155, 508.
Hall, Dr. John, 523.
Hall, Robert, sermons of, 3.
on the ministry, 14.
as a preacher, 213, et seq.
his method of making a ser-
“Liturgik und
772.
Hermeneutics, Biblical, 302.
Hervey, G. W., "Christian Rheto-
ric," 3.
660.
Froude, 142.
Fuller, Andrew, 212.
Fuller, Thomas, 460.
Homilies, the earliest, 8.
Homiletics, its literature, I.
defined, 9.
G
German pulpit, 154, et seq.
Homily, defined, 6.
the characteristics of the, 156. Hooker, Richard, as a preacher, 190.
Goethe, 606, 627, 634, 790.
Gospel, as the subject of Christian
preaching, 32.
Hopkins, Dr. Samuel, 494.
Horace, "De Arte Poetica,” 1.
Howe, John, sermons of, 3.
Gould, Edward, "Good English,"
661.
as a preacher, 198, 628.
Howson, Dean, 35.
Hyacinthe, Père, 188.
Gregory of Nyssa, 89.
Gregory Nazianzen, 85.
Guthrie, Dr. Thomas, 221, 493
H
I
Ideal sermon, 426.
Illustrative development of sermon,
403.
Illustrations, their use in preaching,
405.
mon, 279.
Hamilton, Sir William, xxiv, 577,
578.
History of preaching, 13, et seq.
the richest and the most barren
ages in the, 18.
lessons to be drawn from the,
241.
Imagery, Protestant pulpit deficient
in, 784.
Imagination, the use of by preach-
ers, 624.
moral uses of the, 625.
Intellectual element, not to be lost
from preaching, 453.
Interpretation, the groundwork of
Hare, Archdeacon, 221.
true preaching, 114, 248, 320.
Harmony of style, 727.
of the Old Testament, 325.
Harms, Claus, testimony in regard Introduction of a sermon, 334, et seq.
to use of texts, 296.
Hase, on Chrysostom, 95.
defined, 338.
Henke, 4, 441.
Herbert, Edward, Lord, on style,
the necessity of, 339.
the objects to be gained by,
341.
the qualities of a good, 344.
804
INDEX.
the sources of introductions, Luther, on being ordained a preach-
350.
er, xxxii.
the sermons of, 4.
Irving, Edward, 221, 275, 628.
Itinerant preaching friars, 117.
Jerome, 103.
Johnson, Dr., on action, 667.
on style, 772.
Judaism, its relations to Christian
preaching, 26.
K
upon Paul's preaching, 37.
his learning and acquisitions,
his homiletics, 154.
his advice to young preachers,
276.
on bringing a sermon to an
end, 428.
his conclusions, 440.
his vehement action, 667.
his praise of good speaking, 773.
unique source of his energy,791.
M
Macaulay, his antithetic style, 779.
Marheinecke, "Grundlage der Hom-
iletik," 4.
Lacordaire, 4.
"
Language, the study of by the Marsh, English Language and
preacher, 583, et seq.
Early Literature," 593, 595,
origin and definition of, 584.
607.
grammatical properties of, 730.
Latimer, Hugh, sermons of, 3.
Mason, Dr., his remarks on exposi-
tory preaching, 403.
Massillon, sermons of, 4.
as a preacher, 151, 579.
Law, the relations of the Law to the
Gospel, 703, et seq.
as a preacher, 187.
quoted, 525.
the preaching of the, 714.
Masson, Prof., his classification of
English literature, 597.
Kidder, "Treatise on Homiletics,"
3, 392.
Kingsley, Charles, 221.
Klein, "Die Beredsamkeit des Geist-
lichen," 4.
Krummacher, 155.
L
143.
the Reformation
carried on
chiefly by his preaching, 144.
form of his sermons, 146.
Lay-preaching, xxvi.
Lecky, "History of European Mor- Mather, Cotton, 231.
als," 26, 696,
Le Faucheur, Michel, 185, 350.
Leighton, Abp., sermons of, 3.
referred to, 747.
Lentz, "Geschichte der Christlichen McCheyne, 221, 253.
Homiletik," 4.
Liberal religion, its influence upon
preaching, 240.
Liddon, Canon, sermons of, 3, 221.
Literary power in sermons, 468.
Logic, in the pulpit, 456, et seq., 570,|
581.
Maurice, F. D., xxxiii.; 221, 682.
Maury, l'Abbé, "Essai sur l'elo-
quence de la chaire," 3, 367.
Mayhew, Jonathan, 227.
McIlvaine, on elocution, 503, 653,
658, 665, 668.
McLeod, Norman, 221.
Mediæval preaching, the character-
istics of, 134, et seq.
Melanchthon, 144, 154.
Melville, Henry, 3, 221.
INDEX.
805
Memoriter sermons, 491, et seq.
Merivale, on Augustine, III.
Mestrezat, Jean, 185.
Metaphor, the use of, 781.
Metaphysical sermon, 446.
Metaphysics, xxiii., 454-
Michelet, 143, 145.
Mill, John Stuart, 475, 682, 734.
Ministry, the Christian not given
to angels, xvii.
Monod, Jean, 3, 648.
Moore, "Thoughts on Preaching,"
3, 10, 289, 658.
Morality, Christian, 691, et seq.
Moral reform, the preaching on, 702,
et seq.
Moral truth, the preacher's relations
to, xxvi.
Mosheim, 3, 155.
Moule, "Christian Oratory," 4, 113.
Mozley, Canon, 3, 221.
Müller, Jul., 4, 156.
Müller, Max, 5, 590.
Mullois, l'Abbé, 662.
N
137.
Neander, quoted, xvii, xxvii.
on the choice of presbyters, 46.
on Tertullian, 56.
on the preaching of the third,
fourth, and fifth centuries, 70.
on reading the Scriptures, 83.
on Gregory Nazianzen, 85.
his remarks upon Chrysostom,
94, 95, 544.
Niedner, "Lehrbuch der Christlichen
Kirchen Gesch.," 96.
Newman, J. H., sermons of, 3, 221.
his introductions, 338.
his style, 768.
Newton, John, 205.
Nitzsch, 4, 155.
O
Oberlin, xxx.
Object of preaching, 243, et seq.
Oratory, demands the direct style,
778.
Origen, his influence on preaching,
59.
as a preacher, 72.
his threefold method of inter-
pretation, 75.
Originality, in what it consists, 679,
et seq.
Ornament in writing, should be of
a vital or organic kind, 794.
Otto, "Ev. Prak. Theologie," 6, 355-
P
"(
letical study, 113.
Natural theology, 690.
Patteson, John Coleridge, 256.
Neale, Mediæval Preaching," 4, Paul the apostle, the preaching of,
37.
Palmer, "Ev. Homiletik," 4, 292.
Paniel, Geschichte der Christlichen
Beredsamkeit," v. i., 19, 27, 44,
56, 61, 64, 75, 80, 92.
Parables, the treatment of, 331.
Park, Prof. Edwards A., 169, 236.
Parker, Theodore, 241.
Pathos, 786.
Patristic period, as a field of homi-
emphatically the preacher
among the apostles, 40.
his reasoning, 459, 571.
his recognition of the aesthetic
principle of " propriety," 617.
Pericles, referred to, 744.
his style as an orator, 788.
Persuasion, the element of in preach-
ing, 252, 578.
the motives of, 416, et seq.
Persuasive development of a ser-
mon, 413.
Perspicuity of style, 756, et seq.
how violated, 757.
means of attaining, 758.
models of, 760.
806
INDEX.
Peter, the apostle, the preaching of,
36.
Plan of a sermon, its true place
and object, 283.
a general plan in preaching,
476.
Plato, his conception of rhetoric,
530.
mental idea of beauty, 620.
Political preaching, 699.
Postils, 116.
Preacher, an ambassador of God,
XV.
his authority, xx.
the results of his work, xxix.
his distinction from the plat-
form-speaker, 550.
Preaching, the greatness of the work
the Old Dispensation, 24.
of Christ and of the apostles,
27, et seq.
rise of the institution of preach-
ing in the apostolic church,
40.
the historic head-springs of, 42.
the office of in the early church,
45.
of the later Reformed churches,
152.
ethical preaching, 691, 697.
political, 699.
of the law, 703.
the true preaching of the gos-
pel, 716.
Precision of style; how violated,
its influence on the first period
of Christianity, 47.
the three kinds of preaching in
the early church, 49.
of the third, fourth, and fifth
centuries, 58, et seq.
of the Reformation, 150.
751.
Prescott, William, 722, 747.
Prophesying, 42.
Origen's idea of its continuing
in the church, 62.
of, xv.
defined, 9.
the different scriptural terms
for, 9.
an expression of the spirit of
an age, 13.
Propriety of style, 749.
the permanent and the variable Pulpit, the best style for the, 760,
elements of, 14.
et seq.
what would be required in the Purity of style, 740.
history of, 17.
pre-apostolic, 19.
how violated, 741.
how preserved, 746.
not the main instrumentality of
Prophet, of Old Testament, 20.
schools of the prophets, 20.
meaning of, 22.
Proposition of a sermon, 368, et seq.
place of the, 369.
significance of the, 371.
substance and matter of the,
373.
the structure and qualities of
the, 376.
Quackenbos, "Rhetoric," 612.
Quintilian, “Institutes," I.
upon the coming orator, 480.
on oratorical memory, 491.
his conception of rhetoric, 531.
the relative influence of learn-
ing and nature in the orator,
549.
on imitation, 559.
the character of Quintilian's
work on rhetoric, 560.
on the voice, 663.
on the use of artificial figures,
785.
his classification of style, 794.
INDEX.
807
R
Reasoning, its uses to the preacher,
561, et seq.
cautions in the use of, 580.
Reed, Henry, 611.
Reinhard, 4, 155.
his preference of memoriter
preaching, 493.
44
mere
Ripley, Sacred Rhetoric," 2.
Robertson, F. W., his characteris-
tics as a preacher, 221.
his introductions, 336.
his conclusions, 436.
Ruskin, 614, 634.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 621.
Rhetoric, defined, 526.
Shedd, Dr., 3, 277.
Shepard, Prof., on written sermons,
485.
ancient ideas of, 527.
modern ideas of, 532.
something more than
skill, 546.
Sherlock, Dean, 206.
Simile, employment of the, 783.
Simplicity," this term how used
in the scriptures, 549.
the uses and sources of, 546.
objections to the study of an- Skinner, Dr. Thomas, upon a spirit-
swered, 547.
ual delivery, 671.
II.
Sermon, defined, 11.
length of, 274.
129.
Schaff, Dr., 112.
Schiller, 457, 616, 629.
Schleiermacher, sermons of, 4, 155.
as a preacher, 157.
an ethical preacher, 163.
hints for composing, 280.
against repeating old sermons,
490.
Shakespeare, his uses to the preach-
er, 604.
quoted, 250, 500, 608.
his language, 608.
an extempore preacher, 164.
his plans of sermons, 377.
Schott, "Theorie der Beredsamkeit,”
'Slang," 743.
Smith, Sydney, 483, 486.
Socrates, an oral teacher, 24.
South, Robert, sermons of, 3.
quoted, xxii., xxiii., xxv.
as a preacher, 190.
his introductions, 335.
as a moral reasoner, 458.
Speaking with tongues, 42.
Spener, 155.
Saurin, sermons of, 4.
as a preacher, 170.
Savonarola, as a preacher, 124, et Spencer, Herbert, 2, 696, 776, 782.
Spurgeon, Charles, 221, 276.
46
seq.
his so-called prophetic gift, Stanley, Dean, 221.
4.
Science, an aid to the preacher,
362.
in the pulpit, 471.
Scriptures, reading of the, 664.
Sensational preaching, 269, 572.
<<
Stiebitz, "Gesch. der Predigt," 4.
Stier, Rudolph, "Grundriss einer
Bib. Keryktik,” 4.
sermons of, 156.
Stiles, Ezra, 227.
Storrs, R. S., upon extempore
preaching, 506.
Style, defined, 720.
absolute properties of, 724, et
seq.
relative properties of, 733, et
seq.
subjective qualities of, 734.
the significance of, 734.
individuality of, 737.
808
INDEX.
prose in contradistinction
from a poetic, 770.
as a preacher, 167, et seq.
plan of a sermon, 377.
Tillotson, Abp., 3, 482.
Tongues, the gift of, 42.
Subject, qualities of the true, 677. Trench, Dean, 5.
Suso, Henry, 118.
Sympathy, the element of in preach-
ing, 161.
objective qualities of, 739, et|
seq.
a
T
Taine, Henri, 600.
Taste, in preaching, 612.
the principles of, 628.
how to cultivate the, 633.
Tauler, the preaching of, 118.
Taylor, Jeremy, sermons of, 3.
as a preacher, 194.
his imagination, 627.
Taylor, Dr. Nathaniel, 241, 451.
Tertullian, as a preacher, 55.
Text, defined, 288.
Truth, to be clearly presented, 581.
Christian truth the subject of
preaching, 684, et seq.
U
xxiv.
the study of, indispensable to
the preacher, 451.
Theological sermon, 449.
Theremin, his conception of rhet-
oric, 538.
his theory that eloquence is a
virtue, 540.
upon eloquence in its relation
to taste, 623.
Tholuck, sermons of, 4.
Ueberweg, the distinction between
analytic and synthetic judg-
ments, 562.
"Interior Life," 552.
Upham,
V
Van der Palm, 153.
Van Oosterzee, 6, 455.
Variety in preaching, 477.
Vieyra, Antonio, upon style in
preaching, 764.
Vinet, Alexandre, on the true mys-
ticism, xxvii.
definition of sermon," II.
on the use of texts, 290.
on the unity of the text, 329.
quoted, 443, 784, 796.
Voice, the cultivation of the, 657.
W
objections to the use of, 290.
design and advantages of the
use of, 294.
principles to guide in the choice
of, 297, et seq.
an accommodated, 314.
practical suggestions for the
handling and interpretation
of texts, 320, et seq.
the classification of texts, 321.
Textual sermon, defined, 464.
Textual and topical sermons com-
pared, 465.
Theology dependent on philosophy, Wayland, Dr., 582.
C
Ware, Henry, "Hints on extempo-
raneous speaking,” 2.
quoted, 507, 510.
Wesley, John, sermons of, 3,
as a preacher, 207, et seq., 790.
Whately, Abp., " Elements of Rhet-
oric," 2.
his caution as to classing texts
together, 303.
his conception of rhetoric, 538,
556.
his views of elocution, 656.
his definition of a periodic sen-
tence, 778.
INDEX.
809
his counsel in regard to style, | Wyclif, John, sermons of, 3.
as a preacher, 119.
796.
White, Richard Grant, 638, 731,
743.
Whitefield, as a preacher, 210.
Whitney, W. D., 586.
Whittier, 210.
Williams, Roger, 227.
Woolsey, T. D., 712.
Worship, the first assemblies for
Christian worship, 41.
Written sermons, 481, et seq.
Y
Young, "Christ in history," 686.
Z
Zincke, his method of extempore
preaching, 2, 504.
Zollikoffer, 4, 155.
Zwingli, 4, 150.

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