LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. Presented by Herbe^rt Ac^Ovms Gcibb onfe. BV 4211 .P45 1882 Phelps, Austin, 1820-1890, The theory of preaching THE OCT I 19^0 ] ^^sjgal ve- THEOEY OF PREACHING LECTURES ON HOMILETICS AUSTIN I'HELPS, D.D. LATE BARTLET PROrESSOB OP SACRED RHETORIC IN ANDOTEB THEOLOGICAL SEMINABT NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 743 AND 745 Broadway 1882 Copyright, 1881, By CHARLES BCRIBNER'S SONS. FRANKLIN PRESS- BTBBEOTYPED AND PRINTED BY BAND, AVERY, AND CO., BOSTON. PREFACE. Two methods of discussion are practicable to an in- structor in homiletics. They are called, not very accu- rately, the practical and the scientific methods. These terms are open to the objection, that, on a theme like this, a scien- tific treatise must be infirm, if it is not also practical ; and a practical treatise must be equally infirm, if it is not also scientific. Yet these terms do convey a hint of the elements which preponderate in the two modes of discussion. By the one, homiletics is treated chiefly as a science, and is developed chiefly by scientific analysis, and in its relation to kindi-ed sciences. The resulting treatise is valuable to a student mainly as a means of mental discipline. It would be formed, ultunately, on the model of Aristotle's system of rhetoric. By the other method, homiletics is treated, not unscientifically indeed, yet with regard chiefly to its practical uses. The German theologians, with greater accuracy of terms than that of our American nomenclature, consider it a branch of "practical theology." Such it undoubtedly is. Thus defined and developed, it would form a treatise valua- ble to a student chiefly as a practical guide and help to the IV PREFACE. work of the pulpit. The one of these methods of treat- ment is the more apt to the study of the science for the pur- pose of liberal cultui-e only : the other is the more necessary to the study of the art in a professional seminary. For reasons quite obvious, I have chosen the second of the two methods here indicated, in the construction of the pres- ent volume. Very soon after I began to lecture in the department, I formed the habit of preserving manuscript notes of the inquiries of students in the lecture-room and in private conversations. Those notes s^on grew upon my hands immensely. Answers to those inquiries constitute nine-tenths of this volume. Whatever value my work may possess is due largely to the fact that it is a growth from such practical resources, suggested by practical minds, eager in their youthful outlook upon the most practical of the liberal professions, approaching it with intensely practical aims, and prompt to put the instructions they might receive to immediate practical uses. It would have been difficult to engage such hearers with any enthusiasm in listening to a purely scientific treatise, orally delivered, on such a theme. Of all subjects for the lecture-room, literary criticism pure and simple is the most inert. It must fall flat, even from the lips of genius. I have carried the subordination of scientific to practical inquiry so far, that I have often used the analysis of a ser- mon as a line of suggestion to which to attach matter of practical moment related to the theory of preaching, yet not strictly a part of it. From this liberty of discussion has arisen the feature of excursus^ which will be observed in the structure of these lectures. In this, also, I have followed the lead of the actual inquiries of my pupils. PREFACE. V By retaining the foiTos of oral delivery in the publication of this work, I have aimed to make it (though necessarily with large onaissions and condensations, especially of illus- trative material) as nearly as possible an exact transcript of the work of my lecture-room. As such it is offered, with very kindly recollections, to those who are still living of the more than twelve hundred students, who, in the course of thirty-one years, have given me their patient and attentive hearing ; of whom I gratefully record the fact, that not a solitary exception has ever given me occasion for rebulie or admonition. "While thus constructed primarily for professional readers, this volume will be found to contain much, I hope, which will be of interest to thoughtful laymen. My hearers in the lecture-room will bear me witness that I have never lost sight of that large and increasing portion of our laity who have very pronounced ideas of their own of the true theory of preaching, however little they may know or care for its scientific forms. I have recognized the fact that to their experienced judgment my own work must be ultimately sub- mitted in the life's work of my students ; and that no theory of a sermon can be worth discussion, which does not succeed in adjusting preaching, as a practical business, to the large common sense of Christian hearers. It is due to Professor M. Stuart Phelps that I should acknowledge his vigilant and scholarly aid in the revision of my manuscript, especially in making the necessary elimina- tions of material, and in otherwise editing the present work. Andoter Theological Seminary, March, 1881. TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE I. THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. PAGE. Homiletics defined; its Relation to Rhetoric. — A Sermon ia an Oral Address; To the Popular Mind; On Religious Truth; As contained in the Scriptures 1 LECTURE n. THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. A Sermon is on Truth elaborated ; How to account for the Power of Spontaneous Preaching. — A Sermon is constructed with a View to Persuasion; Distinct from Poetry; From Discourse merely Intellectual or Emotive. —The Pulpit and the Stage distinct 14 LECTURE m. THE SERMON : CLASSIFICATION, ANALYSIS. Homiletic Classification founded on Mode of Delivery; On Occa- Bions; On Subjects; On the Character of the Audience; On Faculties of Mind; On the Use of the Text; On the Mode of treating the Subject. — Sermons Explanatory; Illustrative; Argumentative; Persuasive.— Analysis of a Sermon: The Text; Explanation; Introduction; Proposition; Division; Develop- ment; Conclusion 28 vii Vm TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE IV. THE TEXT : HISTORY, USES. PAGE. History of the Custom: Jewish Origin; Christian Usage; Romish Corruption; Modern Theory. — Objections. — Positive Uses: To give Inspired Authority; To promote Pojiular Knowledge of the Scriptures ; To cherish Attachment to the Language of the Bible; To facilitate Remembrance of Truth 44 LECTURE V. THE TEXT : USES, SOURCES. Uses: To aid Introduction; To promote Variety; To assist Unity. — Sources: May we select an Interpolation or Mistranslation? The Affirmative Argument; The Negative Argument. — May we select Uninspired Sentiments? The Affirmative defended. — Cautions 60 LECTURE VI. THE TEXT: FORMS, PERSPICUITY. Must a Text be a Grammatical Sentence ? Decision of Good Taste. — Can any Principle regulate the Length of Texts? Advan- tages of Long Texts; Advantages of Short Texts; General Prin- ciple.— May we choose for oue Sermon more than one Text? — Should Choice be restricted to Perspicuous Texts ? Such Texts have Advantages. — Obscure Texts have Advantages. — Cautious 77 LECTURE VII. THE TEXT : EMOTION, DIGNITY, NOVELTY, PERSONALITY. Should we choose Texts of Lofty Emotional Character ? — Difficul- ties of Such Texts; Answer Affirmative. — What is Essential to the Dignity of a Text ? — The Principles involved. — What Prin- ciples should govern the Choice of Novel Texts ? Hackneyed Texts sometimes necessary; Novel Texts preferable. — May we choose a Personal Text ? — How to avoid Personality . . 02 TABLE OF CONTENTS. ix LECTURE VIII. THE TEXT : PERTINENCY, COMPLETENESS, ACCOMMODATION. PAGE. On what Principles shall we judge of the Pertinency of a Text ? — Congruity of Sentiment; Of Ehetorical Structure; Of Associa- tion. — What Principles should regulate Completeness and Redundancy in Texts? — The General Kule; How to treat a Redundant Text. — May we use Accommodated Texts? — What is Accommodation? — Three Principles: which approved, and which condemned, by Good Taste. — Accommodation defended 107 LECTURE IX. THE TEXT : ACCOMMODATION, MOTTOES, MISCELLANIES. Cautions in the Use of Accommodated Texts. — May we use Motto- Texts?— What is a Motto-Test?— Defense of Motto-Texts; Cautions. — Miscellanies: Where should be the Place of the Text ? — Should a Test be repeated in Announcement ? — What the Order of Announcement ? — What the Preface in Announce- ment? 123 LECTURE X. THE EXPLANATION: DEFINITION, OBJECTS, MATERIALS. Explanation distinct from an Explanatory Sermon: From the Pro- cess of Investigation; From Exegesis in a Commentary; From Exposition in an Expository Sermon. — The Objects of an Ex- planation: Verbal Criticism; Logical Adjustment; Ehetorical Amplification. — Sources of Expository Material: The Words of the Text; The Immediate Context; The Scope of the Argu- ment; Historical and Biographical Literature of Texts; Com- parison of Texts with Parallel Passages. — The Application of Common Sense to Exegesis 138 LECTURE XL THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS, QUALITIES. Sources of Exposition: The Facts of Natural Science; Wbat should be Homiletic Policy whei-e Science conflicts with Scripture? — The Qualities of Exposition: It should give the True Meaning of the Text 153 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE Xn. THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. PAGE. An Exposition should give Full Force to the Meaning of the Text; It should not exaggerate a Text. — It should be Clear. — It should, if possible, express Positive Opinions .... 165 LECTURE XIII. THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. An Exposition should preserve Unity of Interpretation; "Ways in which its Unity may be sacrificed. — An Explanation should be Concise: Value of Conciseness in Exposition; Ways in which it is sacrificed. — An Exposition should preserve the Dignity of Inspired Thought. — Unnecessary Exposition. — Fanciful Ex- position 178 LECTURE XIV. THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES, LOCALITY. An Exposition must be made Interesting; It should be Free from Certain Scholastic "Weaknesses; It should, if possible, be in - Keeping with the Rhetorical Structure of the Text. —It should be so constructed as not to excite Frivolity. — It should be such as to suggest a Definite Theory of Inspiration. — It should sug- gest the Proposition. — In a Topical Sermon it should, if possi- ble, bring the Text to bear upon the Conclusion. — It should be varied on Different Occasions. — The Locality of the Explana- tion 190 LECTURE XV. EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. Does Biblical Instruction require a Change in the Present Services of the Sabbath? — The Ancient Routine; The Early Preaching of New England. — A Silent Revolution in the New England Pulpit. — Decline of the Double Service. — Pastoral Leadership in Biblical Instruction should be restored. — Change in One of the Two Preaching Services desirable. — The " Bible Service." — A Pastor's Experiment; A Pastor's Advice .... 205 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI . LECTURE XYI. THE INTRODUCTION : THEORY, SPECIFIC OBJECTS. PAGE. The Theory of the Introduction: Relation to Other Preliminaries; To the Mental State of the Audience ; Of the Speaker. — Spe- cific Objects of an Introduction; To secure the Good Will of an Audience towards the Preacher; The Power of Person in Popu- lar Speech: To stimulate the Attention of Hearers; Disadvan- tages of the Pulpit. — The Interest of Curiosity; Directed to the Subject in Hand; In a Natural "Way. — To dispose Hearers to receive favorably the Sentiments of a Sermon; Disadvantages of Preaching; Methods by which the Popular Mind may be pre- 220 LECTURE XYH. THE introduction: SIMPLICITY, UNITY, DIRECTNESS, CONGRUITY. Simplicity: "Ways in which it is sacrificed. Unity: Defined; Does not exclude Diversity ; Aid of the Oratorical Instinct; Double Introductions. — Directness: Rapidity of Progress; Directness not Abruptness; Exceptions. — Congruity with the Character of the Sermon; Ways in which Congruity may be sacrificed . 237 LECTURE XVin. THE introduction: MODESTY, SUGGESTIVENESS. Modesty in the Introduction and (by Excursus) in all Oral Discourse. — Ways in which Modesty is violated in the Pulpit; Ways in which it may be preserved. — Suggestiveness : How it may be promoted; How overwrought. — Excursus: Is it expedient to preface a Sermon by Remarks upon Topics of Current Interest ? 253 LECTURE XIX. THE introduction: VARIETIES, COMPOSITION. The Approach without an Introduction; The Introduction applica- tory of the Text; Intensive of the Text by Comparison with Other Scriptures; Explanatory of Principles involved in the Discussion ; Narrative of Facts Necessary to an Appreciation of the Subject; Connective with the Preceding Discourse; Con- densed Review of Another Subject related to that of the Ser- mon; Request for the Attention of the Audience. — Hints on the Work of composing the Introduction 266 Xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE XX. THE PROPOSITION : DEFINITIOK, NECESSITY. PAOB. The Proposition defined. — Is the Statement of a Proposition Neces- sary? Demanded by the Oratorical Instinct: By the Instinct of Good Hearing; By the Nature of Spoken Address; By Unity of Impression; By the Nature of the Subjects of the Pulpit. — The Popular Tendency to Confusion of Religious Thought ; Mission of the Pulpit. — Preaching must use freely the Expe- dients of Logic; Their Necessity to the Theological Faith of the People; The Best Analytic Methods sometimes fail. — The Proposition in Other Departments of Oratory .... 282 LECTURE XXI. TCTE PROPOSITION : NECESSITT, SUBSTANCE. Does the Necessity of a Proposition admit of Exceptions ? Politic Concealment. — What Principles should regulate the Substance of a Proposition? — Unity: Varieties of Unity; Excellence of Unity. — Congruity of Proposition with the Text . . . 295 LECTURE XXn. THE proposition: substance. The Proposition in Substance Identical with the Body of the Ser- mon; Should not contain Excess of Material; Importance of Restriction of Theme; Comprehensive Themes; The Proposi- tion should not contain too Little Material for Impressive Dis- cussion; Diminutive Themes ........ 309 LECTURE XXin. THE proposition : SUBSTANCE, FORMS. Indecisive Reasons for Restriction of Subject. — A Proposition should not comprise Different Material from that which la discussed in the Sermon. — Varieties of Defect in this Respect. — Varieties of Form in Propositions; Logical and Rhetorical; Affirmative and Negative ; Declarative and Interrogative ; Sim- ple, Complex, and Plural. — The Interchangeableness of these Forms . . . . , 324 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIU LECTURE XXIV. THE PROPOSITION : SIMPLICITY. PAQE. The Form should be Simple; Unintelligible or Doubtful "Words; Scientific Terms; Technicalities of Philosophy and Theology; Figurative Statements ; The Forms of Popular Proverbs; Fan- tastic Forms; Extreme Paradox 336 LECTURE XXV. THE PROPOSITION : BREVITY, SPECIFICNESS, ELEGANCE, ITS PREFACE. Brevity of Proposition; Needless Synonyms; Needless Epithets; Circuitous or Indolent Grammatical Construction; Repetition in Varied Language; Relation of Proposition to Conclusion; Propositions consisting of the Divisions of the Sermon. — A Proposition should be Specific; Choice between the Forms; A Proposition should be a Complete Idea in itself; Not stated in the Exact Language of the Text; Not si^ecifying any thing not discussed in the Sermon. — A Proposition should be framed with Elegance; Vocabulary, Classic English; Construction, Pure and Fluent English, — The Preface to the Proposition: Its Qualities 349 LECTURE XXVI. THE DIVISION : NECESSITY, EXPRESSION. Are Divisions Necessary in a Sermon ? Should they be stated ? Objections; Advantages. — They promote Perspicuity, Com- prehensiveness, Unity, Progress, Conciseness, Elegance, Brevi- ty, Interest, Permanence of Impression. — How far should Di- visions be Visible ? Regulated by the Nature of the Subject; By the Character of the Discussion; By the Character of the Audience ; By the Time at Command 365 LECTURE XXVII. THE DIVISION : EXPRESSION, MATERIALS. A-bnses of Divisions; Arbitrary Number; Lawless Multiplication; Uniformity; Needless Subdivision; Fitness to Speaker alone; Excess above Need of Elaboration; Excess beyond Rhetorical Force. — The Materials of Divisions: A Division should be Necessary to the Development of the Proposition; It should fully develop the Proposition; Divisions should consist of the most Powerful Thoughts discovered by Mastery of Subject . 382 XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE XXVIII. THE DIVISION : MATERIALS, FORMS. PAGE. Divisions should be classified, if possible, upon One Principle; Should be susceptible of Unity of Development; Those of the Body of the Sermon should not anticipate Those of the Conclu- sion; Those of the Conclasion should not return upon Those preceding; Should be as Suggestive as possible of the Proposi- tion. — Forms of Propositions and of Divisions Subject to the Same Principles; Divisions should be adjusted to Proposition; Suggestive of Each Other; Not easily confounded with Each Other; Truthful in their Connections 396 LECTURE XXIX. THE DIVISION : FORMS, ORDER, ANNOUNCEMENT. Divisions should foster Expectation; Should be varied in Form. — Varieties of Order: Order of Logical Necessity; Of Cause and Effect; Of Genus and Species; Of Intrinsic Dignity; Of Psycho- logical Analysis; Of Time; Of "Weight of Argument; Of Pro- gressive Intensity. — The Mode of announcing Divisions . . 411 LECTURE XXX. THE DEVELOPMENT : DEFINITION, PREREQUISITES, CHAR- ACTERISTICS. The Development defined. — The Prerequisites of a Good Devel- opment: Possession of Right Quantity and Quality of Materials; Judicious Choice of Method of Discussion; How to judge of this ; A Mental Dexterity acquired only by Practice. — The Characteristics of a Good Development: Unity; Unconscious Discussion of Different Things 426 LECTURE XXXL THE DEVELOPMENT : CHARACTERISTICS. Unity concluded ; Intentional Digressions. — Pertinency: Ways in which it is sacrificed. — Completeness; "Ways in which it is sacrificed. — Conciseness: Methods of promoting it. — Order. — Proportion ; Relation of Divisions to Each Other ; Reserved Force 439 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XV LECTURE XXXn. THE CONCLUSION : DEFINITION, CAUSES OF "WEAKNESS. PAGE. The Conclusion; Its Characteristic Idea. — Causes of "Weakness in Applications; Want of Consecration in the Preacher; The Li- turgic Element in Preaching; Want of Faith in the Doctrine of Ketrihution; Belief without Faith; Consecration not Imitable . 454 LECTURE XXXni. THE CONCLUSION : CAUSES OF WEAKNESS. Inordinate Intellectuality; Effeminate Tastes; Fear of Fanaticism; Conservatism of Educated Preachers ; Their Opposition to Revivals; A Theology which can not be preached; Objections answered 469 LECTURE XXXIV. THE conclusion: CAUSES OF WEAKNESS. Success of Preachers who hold an Impracticable Theology; The Evangelical Theory of Application; Intensity of the Evangel- ical Theology; Preaching Superior to Secular Eloquence . . . 483 LECTURE XXXV, THE CONCLUSION : APPLICATIONS OMITTED, CONTINUOUS AND COMPACT. Ought Applications ever to be omitted ? — Excursus : on the Use of the Benediction. — Continuous and Compact Applications: Reasons for preferring the Compact Application. — Excursus: The Duty of the Pulpit to Those who are repelled from its Message by Some of its Methods 497 LECTURE XXXVL THE CONCLUSION : RADICAL ELEMENTS, RECAPITULATION, INFERENCE AND REMARK. What are the Radical Elements of the Conclusion ? — Defense of the Inference and Remark: On what Principles to select and combine the Elements of tlie Conclusion; How to conduct Re- capitulation; How to conduct the Inference and Remark . . 515 XVi TABLE OF CONTENTS. LECTURE XXXVn. THE conclusion: INFERENCE AND REMARK, APPEALS, EXCURSUS. PAGE. How to conduct tlie Inference and Remark: Ought Inference to be derived from Inference ? — Ouglit Inference to be in Contrast with the Sermon? — Inferences Convergent, or Divergent? — How should Appeals be conducted ? Founded on What ? — Productive not of Conviction only; Aimed at the Will; True to Vital Duties. — Excursus : Danger of Exhorting to Acts which faL short of God's Commands 530 LECTURE XXXVni. THE CONCLUSION : EXCURSUS, APPEALS. Danger of exhorting to Acts which fall short of God's Commands. — Specific Appeals 647 LECTURE XXXIX. THE CONCLUSION : APPEALS. Self-possession in Appeals; Earnestness in Appeals; Expectant Appeals; Natural Elocution in Appeals; Genuineness in Ap- peals; Brevity in Appeals; Versatility in Appeals; Appeals without Forewarning 660 LECTURE XL. CONCLUDING LECTURE : MINISTERIAL CULTURE. The Calvinistic Theory of Preaching: Present Working of that Theory; Drifting of the Pulpit from the Lower Classes; Need of Consecrated Culture. — Preaching a Missionary Work . . 576 APPENDIX. HOMILETIC AND PASTORAL STUDIES. INDEX. THE THEORY OF PREACHING: LECTURES ON HOMLLETICS. THE THEORY OF PBEACHINO LECTURES ON HOMILETICS. LECTURE I. THE SEEMON: its GENERIC IDEA. HoMiLETics is the science which treats of the nature, the classification, tlie analysis, the construction, and the composition of a sermon. More concisely it is the science of that of which preaching is the art, and a sermon is the product. What, then, is the relation of homiletics to rhetoric ? Homiletics is rhetoric, as illus- trated in the theory of preaching. Rhetoric is the genus : homiletics is the species. I. What is the generic idea of a sermon? It may be expressed in cumulative form in the following theses. 1st, A' sermon is an oral address. It is something distinct from an essay or a book. If well constructed, it has peculiarities of structure adapting it to oral delivery, and in some respects unfitting it for private reading. In this respect a sermon illustrates the radi- cal idea of all true eloquence. It must be conceded to the advocates of exclusively extemporaneous preach- ing, that the extemporaneous ideal is the true one of 1 2 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. i perfect public speech. A perfect orator would never write: lie would always speak. The mutual magne- tism between speaker and hearer would bear him on, without the aid of manuscript or memory. The custom of preaching written discourses grows out of mental in- firmities. In any form of speech, be it written or oral, we make but an approximation to perfect oratory ; and the true policy of the pulpit is to combine the weight of material which the pen commands with the ease, the versatility, the flexible expression, and the quickness of transition which belong to good extemporaneous speech. The ideal sermon aims to blend the qualities of the essay with those of the speech. That is like min- gling the properties of a solid and a fluid : but in the paradoxical union, the fluid has always the ascend- ency. The sermon is a speech before it is any thing else. Nothing else should deprive it of the qualities of speech. The oral elements of a sermon usually grow, in a preacher's estimate, with the growth of his experi- ence. Dr. Archibald Alexander of Princeton aban- doned the pen entirely in his later years, when time had given him com^nand of accumulated materials, so that he could always extemporize from a full mind. He once said, that if he were on trial for his life, and his acquittal depended on a single efi^ort of Ids own, he would trust to his lips rather than to his pen. 2d, A sermon is an oral address to the iwpular mind. It is distinct from a scientific lecture, from a judicial oration, from a harangue to a rabble, from a talk to children. The best test of a good sermon is the instinct of a heterogeneous audience. That is not good preach- ing which is limited in its range of adaptation to select audiences: be it select intelligence, or select ignorance, it matters not. The pulpit permits no selection. It LECT. I.] THE SEKMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 3 exists not for the few, not for the many as distinct from the few, but for all. No other variety of public speech is so cosmopolitan in its freedom from provincial limitations as that of the pulpit. To a good preacher his field is literally the world : it is the world of real life, not the world of books alone, not the world of the streets alone, but the world as it is in its completeness and range of character and station. He finds his audi- ence wherever he finds men and women and children. No order of mind is above him, none beneath him. This popular element in the ideal of a sermon is so fundamental, that it should be incorporated into every definition of the thing. But is not this a degrading idea of a sermon? Do we not let down the intellectual level of the pulpit by insisting upon its cosmopolitan mission ? Is it not, at the best, a condescension of intellect to usefulness, when a preacher addresses his whole life's work to the necessities of promiscuous assemblies? Is it not a nobler thing to do to preach to select hearers, Avhose culture shall give scope to a preacher's loftiest intellec- tual aspirations ? These queries are fundamental to the usefulness of the pulpit. A false theory respecting it is secretly embarrassing and depressing many a preacher in his life's work. It is a sad thing for a man to labor all his life long under the weight of a conflict between professional usefulness and personal culture. Yet such, if I mistake not, is the secret consciousness of many pastors. In some it amounts to a sense of intellectual degradation. Daniel Webster, in the closing years of his life, expressed a profound sense of personal humilia- tion in having been, through his whole career, so largely engaged in the delivery of electioneering speeches. If he had followed the bent of his tastes, he would never 4 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. i. have spoken in public outside of the United States Senate or the Supreme Court Room. Sometliing akin to this feeling weighs upon the spirits, and depresses the self-respect, of not a few most useful pastors. Let us see, then, how this matter stands. Is the popu- lar character of the pulpit, in the Christian ideal of it, degrading to it as a representative of intellect and as a stimulus to intellectual culture ? (1) It must be conceded that the affirmative is sustained by the notions current among many literary men. Multitudes of literary men deny to the pulpit the dignity of literature. In their view, it stands below the level of Kterary criticism. Nothing else fares so severely at the hands of popular critics, nothing else is criticised so flippantly, nothing else is doomed so often by foregone conclusions, or so surely "damned with faint praise," as a volume of sermons from a living and useful pulpit. "We are all infected with this disease of critical judgment in the conceptions which we often mean to express by the phrase "popular preaching." " He is a foimlar preacher," we say, with an inflection which means that this is the least respecta- ble thing about him. " Is he a man of talents ? " — " Oh, yes ! of pojmlar talents. He takes well with the multi- tude ; he draws an audience; women weep, and chil- dren listen, when he speaks; he can always be sure of a hearing; but" — and so on. A reverent reader of the Scriptures, it is true, will be reminded of Him whom the common people heard gladly ; yet the tone of literary disparagement will linger a long time in our ears, notwithstanding. A positive stiffening of self- respect is often needful, that a pastor may hold his head erect against the flings of criticism. Such criticism is literary cant. LECT. I.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 5 (2) This leads me to observe, that the great excellence of a sermon, considered as a specimen of literature alone, is that it sways mind without distinction of class. So far as this aim is reached, it is, in kind, the grandest thing in literature. To make the deep thoughts of the- ology intelligible to all orders of mind, and impressive to them all, so that the same truth which instructs the ignorant, and quickens the torpid, shall also move the wisest, and command the most alert, is a masterly work of mind. Not a tithe of the standard literature of the world achieves any thing so profound or so brilliant. Plato could not have done it, but St. Paul did it. The profoundest discoveries of ethical science were made intelligible, and, what is vastly more important, were made regenerating forces of thought in the minds of fishermen, by the Sermon on the Mount. Yet all the philosophy which the world reveres bows before the originality of that sermon to-day. Was there intellec- tual degradation in that ? As much as in the humblest labor of a successful pulpit. Much to the purpose here is an opinion which Guizot has recorded of the nature of genius. In his criticism of the English drama, he expresses his idea of genius in words which are true, without abatement, of the Christian pulpit. He says, " Genius is bound. to follow human nature in all its developments. Its strength consists in finding within itself the means of satisfying the whole of the public. [It] should exist for all, and should sufQce at once for the wants of the masses and for the requirements of the most exalted minds." What is this, but preaching the gospel to every creature, be- coming all things to all men, doing in the simplicity of faith that which every successful preacher does in the result of his life's work? This, then, we pronounce 6 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. i. the intellectual dignity of the pulpit. Why not, as well as of the drama? Considered as the subject of philo- sophical criticism, the genius of the pulpit corresponds to the genius of that poetry which is world-wide and immortal. A good sermon is a popular production in the same sense in which a good drama is a popular pro- duction. A good preacher is a man of the people in the same sense in which Racine and Shakespeare were men of the people. Any thing which grows out of scholastic culture alone, valuable as it may be, is still below the genius which sways the people from the pulpit, in the same sense in which Aristotle was below Homer, and Locke below Milton. (3) From this view it follows that the sense of self- denial which preachers sometimes express in adapting their sermons to all classes, instead of ministering to a select intelligence, has no virtue in it. Says one" of twenty pastors of like mind, in a private letter, " I am throwing myself away in this shoe-town." Very well ; he probably could not make a better throw. If he saves a "shoe-town" morally, he lifts it up intellec- tually to an immense altitude. In the process of doing ,that, he lifts his own mind to a level of culture and of power which no conservatism of refinement ever rises high enough to overlook. Do not the first ten inches of an oak from the ground measure as much in height as the last ten of its topmost branch? When will the ministry learn that the place where has very little con- cern with the intellectual worth of the work done? The uplifting anywhere is essentially the same, but with the chances of success all in favor of lifting low down. To the mind of Christ the whole world is a "shoe-town" intellectually. To give it a lift every- where is the intellectual glory of the pulpit. Deliver- LECT. I.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 7 ance from tlie pettiness of a select ambition is essential to the power to lift it anywhere. If a man is swaying a promiscuous assembly every week, albeit they have waxed and grimy hands ; if he is really moving them, educating them, raising them by the eternal thoughts of God up to the level of those thoughts, — he is doing a grander literary work, with more power at both ends of it, than if he were penned in and held down by the Slite of a city, or the clique of a university. He is plowing a deeper furrow, and subsoiling the field of all culture. The reflex influence of his work upon his own development is more masculine. He is a nobler man for it in intellectual being. There is more of him in the end. He has more to show for his life's work, and more of himself to carry into eternity. Doddridge speaks with dolorous magnanimity of the effort which it cost him to discard from his style certain words, metaphors, constructions, which his lit- erary taste tempted him to use, but which his con- science rejected as unsuited to the capacities of his hearers. This was mourning the loss of useless tools. Such condescension is in the direct line of scholarly elevation. A man grows in literary dignity with every conquest of that kind which he achieves over himself. It ought not to be suffered to put on the dignity of a self-conquest : it should be the intuition and the joy of a cultivated taste. (4) An appreciation by the ministry of the dignity of popular success in preaching tends to elevate the intel- lectual culture of the people. The popular mind grows under any ministry which respects it. Mental strength grows under ministrations which are addressed to men- tal strength. Treated as if worthy of respect, the com- mon people become the more worthy. Such preaching 8 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. i. always creates a wakeful, thinking commonalty. No matter how low it begins in the social scale, it always buUds upward. Historians of the American Revolu- tion express astonishment at the extent to which the most profound principles of government were familiar to the reasonings of the common people of New Eng- land at that period. Otis and Adams and Ames never could have argued as they did with a people who had not been trained by a ministry whose pulpit had laid out its strength on the people. They knew no "high" and " low " in the aims of their preaching. They acted on the principle of common sense, that, in building up any thing, the building process is as valuable at the bottom as at the top, and that the bottom may be the more vital to the stability of the structure. Thus act- ing, with no consciousness of literarj^ theory, they hit upon one of the axioms of literary taste ; that the most useful thing for its purpose is the best thing of its kind. Therefore their congregations were what they were, — the foundation and the pillars of a State. Viewed thus in every light of which it is susceptible, the true ideal of a sermon is reflected back upon us as a production which is popular in the sense of being independent of class, and therefore as belonging to the first rank of literature. Let us admit this; let us model our preaching upon it.- As builders of men, let us respect ourselves, and respect our work, in " building low down, and in using the tools which our business requires. Let us count that as the most perfect litera- ture, which is most perfectly adjusted to the most per- fect ends by the most perfect uses of the materials and the arts of speech. Let us cultivate in this respect the literary taste of Clmst. Can you conceive of him as laboring under the burden of literary enthusiasm to LECT. I.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 9 improve and polish, the Sermon on the Mount, or the Beatitudes, or the Lord's Pra3-er, by adapting them more tastefully to the upper classes of Judsea? Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. 3d, A sermon is an oral address to the popular mind, upon religious truth. This is too obvious to need fur- ther remark than to observe two things. One is, that this quality distinguishes a sermon from secular lec- tures. Political, historical, scientific, literary discourses may be popularized in their materials and form, and may be orally delivered : the religious theme and dis- cussion are necessary to constitute the sermon. The other is, that nothing is a sermon which is out of the range of the religious necessities of the people. Use- fulness of discourse does not make preaching. Theo- dore I^arker once discoursed, on a Sabbath morning, upon the " Prospects of the Democratic Party in Amer- ica. " It may have been a truthful and useful oration, but it was not a sermon. It was not religiously useful. No religious necessities of his audience called for its delivery. 4th, A sermon is an oral address to the popular mind, upon religious truth, as contained in the Chris- tian Scrijjtures. Truth is contained in the Bible by expression and by implication. In either mode it has the biblical sanction. Inspiration recognizes sources of religious knowledge outside of itself. A sermon, therefore, may follow the line of biblical recognition, as well as that of the inspired record. A special significance appertains to this alliance of the sermon, in every form and theme of it, with the word of God. This will be evident from observing that natural theol- ogy is best adjusted to the uses of the pulpit when it breathes most heartily the biblical spirit. Only 10 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. t when Christianized in spirit and in form does the reli- gion of nature become on any large scale the power of God unto salvation. The most corrupt civilizations the world has ever seen have existed in the midst of its most impressive natural scenery. A temple of Venus, the scene of the most revolting orgies of Pagan cultus, stood in one of the most exquisite valleys of South- ern Italy, where, if anywhere, one would suppose that nature would have led men to a spiritual worship. This is a symbol of the fate of natural theology every- where, when it is left alone to contend with the de- pravity of the human heart. Be it ever so true or so pure, abrasion with depravity wears it dim, and wears it out, except when it is delivered in its biblical forms, and -supported by its biblical auxiliaries. God in Christ, or no God at all, is the alternative suggested by the religious history of mankind. The identity of a sermon with scriptural types of thought is emphasized, also, by the fact that preaching owes its existence to revealed religion. It is a remark- able fact that the religion of nature isolated from the Scriptures has never been preached on any large scale. Sporadic cases are of no account. Natural religion creates pliilosophers, and founds academies ; it pro- duces priests, and builds temples ; it pictures and carves itself in symbols and ceremonies : but it has no churches, no pulpits, no preachers. Vinet says very truly, " There is no Mohammedan church, nor Brah- manical ; and certainly there was no church in the reli- gion of Homer." Natural religions all end where Chris- tianity began. They create the temple, the symbol, the priest, the ritual, the choir, in a word, all the functions and the paraphernalia of the cultus ; and there they stop. Beyond that, they have no growth, and no power I.ECT. I.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 11 of conversion. Among the masses of mankind they do not arouse intelligent thinking. enough to create the material on any broad scale for a preacher to work upon. They do not create the desire to be taught, rea- soned with, persuaded, preached to, on religious themes. They do but imitate Christianity, when they employ preachers for their propagation. Gibbon speaks of the pulpit of the caliphs. Omar is represented as a preach- er; but that conception of Mohammedan oratory was borrowed from the Christian vocabulary. The oral ad- dresses of the cali]3hs were military harangues, nothing more. Alexander and Napoleon on the eve of battle were as truly preachers as Omar ; and their aim of dis- course was as really a religious aim as his. Only by a figure of speech, and a delusive one, can Mohammedan discourse be termed " preaching. " Of all human sys- tems of thought which have made nations in history, Mohammedanism contains the least material for preach- ing. It has no subjects for the pulpit. The system is fatalism pure and simple, the most brazen assault upon the common sense of mankind which stands recorded in history. It can not be consistently urged upon the con- victions or the sensibilities of men by oratorical persua- sion. The Mohammedan is not a proper subject of persuasion. He is not a reasoning being. Fate drives him in grooves. Hence the argument of Mohamme- danism is the sword. Preaching, therefore, I repeat, is both theoretically and historically Christian. It owes its existence to the Christian Scriptures ; and nothing but the spirit of biblical religion keeps it alive. This view of the relation of the pulpit to the Bible is confirmed by the fact that retrograde tendencies of the Christian Church from its primeval purity are always tendencies to the disuse of preaching. A slid- 12 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. i. ing scale miglit be constructed, by which one might gauge the degree of corruption in the Church of the middle ages by the progressive decline of the pulpit. No matter whether the Church succumbed to Paganism or to philosophy, the result was the same : the pulpit succumbed proportionately. While the symbols of Cliristian worship multiplied in number, and increased in splendor, the symbol of Christian thinking and per- suasion sunk into imbecility. When the Church lost its faith in the Bible as the only inspired source of knowledge, then sacerdotalism took the place of religious teaching, and the priesthood became too ignorant or too indolent, or both, to be preachers. Christianity became only a religion of the altar, a cultus, just as Paganism had been before it. There is no evidence from the his- tory of Christianity, that worship, however spiritual and intelligent at the outset, can keep itself pure by the working of its own elements. The preservative from putrefaction, the disinfectant of moral disease, so far as human instrumentality is concerned, is the preaching element. Reformatory struggles in the Church point to the same truth. They have always been • aimed at two things which they have kept nearly abreast with each other. One is the restoration of an uncorrupted and unfettered Bible ; the other, the revival of the pulpit. The early Waldensian movement in Italy, that of Huss in Bohe- mia, that of Wickliffe in England, the Reformation of the sixteenth century, we have only to name these, to recall the two great instrumentalities which they exalted, — a free Bible and a free pulpit. The conflict of the Puritans with Queen Elizabeth _ was waged chiefly around the same two foci of the religious thought of England, — the Bible in the homes, and a free pulpit t,ECT. I.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 13 in the sanctuaries of the people. The Puritans con- tended for liberty to preach the word of God, and for multiplying the number of priests who could preach it. The papal party in the English Church decried both, and denied the necessity of either. The recovery of the biblical spirit to the piety of England was due to the Puritan prophecyings. Does not history perpetually repeat itself, in this respect, in our own day ? Revivals of religion go hand in hand with a deepened reverence for the Scriptures, and a multiplied use of the pulpit. A dying or a dead Church thrives, if at all, externally on its form of worship. Of evangelical denominations, those which exalt the pulpit above worship have the most vital sym- pathy with religious awakening among the people. The genius of revivals is germane to them. Those which exalt worship above preaching only tolerate such awak- enings, as they feel the distant refluence of them from surrounding sects. In brief, the more exclusive the popular reverence is for the Bible as the only sacred book unrivaled by books of prayer, and catechisms, and confessions of faith, and the more intense the spirituality of the popular interpretation of the Bible unperverted by the love of forms, so much the more exalted is the respect of the people for the pulpit, and so much the more vital is preaching to their religious faith. Such is the law of religious life as evolved from the history of the Church. Account for it as we may, somehow the pulpit and the Bible go together. If the one sinks, it carries down the other : if the one drops out of the popular faith, the other dies. Neither is ever resuscitated alone. It is not, therefore, a narrow conception of a sermon, if we incorporate into its very definition the fact of its d*ependence on a revealed religion, and that, the religion of the Scriptures. LECTURE II. THE SEEMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 5tli, Continuing the discussion of the generic idea of a sermon, we notice a fifth thesis ; namely, that a sermon is an oral address to tlie popular mind, upon religious truth as contained in the Scriptures, and elab- orately treated. A sermon must be distinguished from certain forms of religious discourse, from which it does not differ except in point of elaboration. A religious exhortation, for instance, is not a sermon. A part of a sermon it may be ; but hortation standing alone is not preaching. Informal remarks in a meeting for religious conference are not a sermon. Woven into a sermon they may be ; but isolated they are not preaching. A sermon is a structure : it is something put together with care. It has unity, coherence, propor- tion, a beginning, a middle, and an end. As a literary production, it has a philosophical construction as truly as a tragedy or an epic poem. How is this theory of the essential elaborateness of a sermon to be reconciled with the apparent power of spontaneous preaching ? Dr. James Alexander repeats the experience of every pastor, when he expresses his surprise at the failure of his most costly efforts as com- pared with his extemporaneous effusions. How is this to be reconciled, can it indeed be reconciled, with the 14 LECT. II.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 15 theory here advanced of the necessary elaborateness of all pulpit discourse ? (1) I answer, by observing that the power of sponta- neous preaching is often overrated. Often it is not true that such preaching has great relative power. We are all liable to a delusion in our judgment of this, and none more so than the preacher himself, who has every j)ossible inducement, every temptation I may sa}^, to see evidences which do not exist of eifects from such preaching. Some subtle infirmities of human nature are gratified by the conviction that such preaching does accomplish the work of the pulpit. The temptation it presents is very insidious to dignify by the name of Christian simplicity that which is commonplace in thought, shallow in feeling, and ephemeral in effect. Let us, then, be honest Avith ourselves, and see this thing as it is. In the pulpit, as everywhere else, the pre- sumption is always against the efficiency of any thing which costs the producer little. The facts of life con- firm this presumption. Preaching, which is really the fruit of a mind at ease, does not end in powerful results. Profound impressions do not come from such sermons. Permanent impressions do not. Impressions formative of character do not. Impressions upon the strongest characters are from no such preaching. I speak now of the law of the pulpit respecting this thing, not of anomalous exceptions. Much is often said and made of weeping in an audi- ence. We overrate this. Tears are* not evidence of the profoundest emotions. They are not more so in religion than in other things. They are sometimes nothing but a nervous luxury. They are not wholly beyond the stimulus of the will. A man weeps less easily as his sensibilities deepen with time, and his char 16 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. u. acter sloughs off self-delusions. Old age is very apt to be tearless. The dying almost never weep. In a pub- lic speaker tears are an infirmity to be got rid of, never a gift to be vain of. Audiences which are habitually moved to the weeping mood are not those in which the most healthful piety is forming under the ministrations of the pulpit. Their religious experience is in danger of settling into a routine of theatric sensibility. I once saw a German audience weeping under an exclamatory sermon such as would scarcely be tolerated in an American conference-meeting. The greater part of that audience, I was informed, were present at the theatre in the evening of the same day. It may be reasonably doubted whether such would have been the case, if the sermon had given them any thing to think of, instead of the luxury of a few tears. The criticism of men of the world upon the habits of religious people is worth reading, if not heeding. A critic in the " Saturday Review " thus discourses : " The assumption that a ready command of lachrymal secretions is a sign of virtue is very common among a large class of people. . . . They find a sweet relish in comparing their own sensitiveness with the aridity of other folk. . . . This worship of demonstrative sensi- bility is one of the most silly and mischievous super- stitions of modern times. . . . The fact is, that the sort of sensibility which is very close upon crying is in great degree constitutional. Some people are born with weaker nerves and softer susceptibilities than oth- ers, as some are born with red, and some with black hair. The fact has no moral significance either way. Hearts worn upon the sleeve are not the most delicate and sensitive." Such is the strong and rather stern good sense which the pulpit must encounter among LECT. II.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 17 men of the world. It is not apt to be very tolerant of moist preachers and paralytic audiences. (2) The genuine power of sj)ontaneous preaching is very largely a reflection of the power of elaborate dis- course. The first owes its existence to the second. You will not have been very long in the ministry when you will discover the worth of your own history in the pulpit. That which you say there you will find inter- preted by that which you have said. That which yon do will be received with the weight of that which you have done. That which you preach will go to the people with the momentum of that which you have been found to he. Your character will energize your words. This history of every preacher, and of his pulpit, is always to be taken into the account in judg- ing of the efficiency of single sermons. Apply this principle, for a moment, to the sponta- neous sermon. The effect of such a sermon often indi- cates only that the preacher's present effort carries the weight of his history. One great sermon will overshadow and protect many small ones. Still more successfully will strong preaching as the rule bear up weak preach- ing as the exception. The truth is, that any great art, to be sustained in its weak points, must have its strong points. In all varieties of power there is a class of petty, one may almost say frivolous, instrumentalities which seem to have more power than they have, because of this secret suction of strength from richer re- sources. They can never be wisely depended on, to the neglect of those richer resources. They can not be even what they honestly are, without the cultivation of those resources. They are scintillations which can not have even their momentary glare, without the solid, massive, heated globes from which they emanate. As 18 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ii. there can not be a parody without a poem, so there can be no preaching impromptu without elaborate ser- monizing to keej) the pulpit alive, and to make preach- ing respectable enough to command a hearing for its inferior effusions. (3) Another view of the subject of spontaneous preaching remains, which is the most vital of all. It is, that apparently spontaneous trains of thought are often the result of the most severe elaboration. Fre- quently that which seems to be preaching " offhand " is any thing but that. It is preceded by most labori- ous, and, as related to the subjects in hand, most mas- terly, mental processes. Years of culture are behind it. It is the ripened fruit of thoughts which struggled into the mind's life years before, and which have been mel- lowing there ever since. Two classes of these ripened materials are observable in sermons of the kind now in question. One is that of strong thought, which has lost its appearance of elaboration through the long familiarity of the preach- er's mind with it. He has revolved it, and dissected it, and pursued it into lateral relations, and experimented with the uses of it, till he knows it all around and all through. The choice aspects of it he recalls on the instant. The lights and shadows of it are all pictured in his mind's eye. Fragments and connections of it which are useless for popular impression he knows, and therefore he knows when to let them alone. His per- ception of it now has the quickness of intuition ; but was it intuition at the first? His use of it now has the spontaneity of genius ; but was it genius originally ? His preaching of it now has the facility of nature. There seems to be no science, no art, no study, no toil, about it. The truth seems just to flow to him and LECT. n.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 19 through him by natural inspiration. Verily he has " opened his mouth and taught them, saying." But was he always inspired thus? Not at all. He has reached his present mental possession of that truth by some of the most elaborate mental processes of his life ; but the elaboration is out of sight, perhaps for- gotten by the preacher himself. The delving and the boring and the blasting are finished ; and now the foun- tain gushes out, the freest and easiest and freshest thing in nature, just because the vein has been struck. It is only a play upon words to exalt such preaching as opposed to or different from elaborated sermons. But often there is another element in such preaching, more valuable than any intellectual fruitage, yet indic- ative of elaboration of the severest and profoundest quality. It is that of thought which has grown rich in the mind of the preacher through his own long experi- ence of it in his own character. No other elements of truth are so thoroughly at a man's command as elements like these. If he is a true man, he is living them every hour. The preaching of such truths is the nearest approach one can make to the discourses of Christ. No wonder that it is has power. But is there no elabo- ration Ij'ing back of such power? The most intense and the most intricate elaboration of truth is involved in those mental processes by which character is fdrnxed and consolidated. As no other product of thought equals character, so no other discipline is so severe or so complicated, so ingenious or so artful, as the hidden discipline by which character matures. No matter wliether the preacher has derived his experience of the truth from the stimulus of books or not, the essential point is that his mind has gone through the process of revolutionary struggle in coming to its present com- 20 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. n. mand of the truth he preaches. He is but a half- formed man, if he has not discovered this, and if he therefore decries elaborate sermons as something unlike his own. If his is not elaborate preaching, there is no such preaching. You can all easily test the truth of the views here advanced, by your own experience, real or probable. Suppose that you were driven in an emergency to preach without present preparation. You are on a journey. On the Sabbath morning you are placed in circumstances in which you must preach, or be cow- ardly, through fear for your reputation. You have no written sermon which is accessible : you must preach extemporaneously. You have only the time in which the devotional services are in progress to cast your thoughts into order, and choose a text. What sort of a text will you certainly choose in such an exigency ? what kind of subject? what train of thought? Will they be text, theme, thoughts, wholly novel to you, unexplored, untried, undigested ? or will they be mate- rials which are familiar to you? Most surely, if you are a man of sense, they will -be the latter. You will instinctively select a channel in which your mind has been used to flowing, and in which, therefore, it flows easily and naturally. You will, in other words, choose a theme on which your mind has a history, an experi- ence either of intelletJt or of heart, or of both ; and that history, if it is worth any tiling to anybody, has cost you something. You have toiled for it ; you have strug- gled for it ; you have given time to it ; j^ou have suf- fered mental failures about it : in short, you have elab- orated it. When, therefore, at the close of tlie service, you see evidence that good has been done by your preaching, perhaps a soul awakened or converted, do LECT. II.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 21 not set it down to the credit of simple preaching as opposed to intellectual preaching. Do not be beguiled into a lazy ministry. Rest assured that such preaching is truly useful just in proportion to its cost in previous labor. Up to the extreme border of your own hard- bought experience, you can preach thus with power: beyond that border, such preaching is the weakest of all possible dilutions. When it ceases to be an experi- ence, and becomes an imitation, it wins no hearts, be- cause it commands no respect. The pulpit which then depends upon it for results dies out, and no man mourns. For the reasons thus given, we insert into the very definition of a sermon, as belonging to the generic idea of the thing, that it must be a structure, and there- fore the fruit of elaboration. 6th, A sermon is an oral address to the popular mind, upon religious truth contained in the Scriptures, and elaborately treated ivith a vieiv to persuasion. This assigns the sermon to the loftiest form of rhetorical discourse. It distinguishes preaching, also, from two species of composition from which it is not otherwise entirely distinct. (1) One of these is poetry. Poetry and preaching may have numerous resemblances. Both may be orally delivered. Homer chanted the Iliad. The poetic drama is constructed primarily with reference to oral utter- ance. Both may be addressed to the popular mind. The ballads of all literatures are thus addressed. Italian improvisators address their poetic effusions to the popu- lace. Both may be upon religious themes, upon biblical themes, upon themes elaborately treated. For all these qualities, Milton hoped for the "Paradise Lost" an undying fame. Madame de Stael, in" Corinne," repre- sents some of the ephemeral productions of the im- 22 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. n. provisators as finished specimens of literatnre. A poem, then, may possess every feature which has been remarked as essential to homiletic discourse, except one. Poetry and preaching differ in the conscious aim of the speaker. All forms of poetry differ from all forms of oratory in the fact that a preacher always consciously aims at the persuasion of the hearer, while a poet never does so. The esse itial idea of poetry is a vexed theme of literary criticism. After all that has been said and written iipon it, I find the essential idea of poetry in the spon- taneity of its utterance of truth in rhythmic forms. Popular criticism very nearly hits this principle, when it speaks of poetical productions as poetical effusions. Poetry floats in an element of emotion. It flows unbid- den : it comes into life in speech because it must come. Being the expression of a soul so full of its thought that it utters the thought for its own sake, poetry rep- resents no consciousness of design to move the will of reader or hearer. Hence in the ancient criticism the poet was the creator : he wrought only for self-expres- sion. Something of the unconsciousness of inspired seers clings to all the ideas which the ancient critics had of the genius of poetry. To this view it may be plausibly objected, "What of certain popular ballads which have moved masses of men to a purpose? What of revolutionary ballads like the Marseillaise Hymn ? What of certain battle-songs like tjiat of Gustavus Adolphus ? " These have so thrilled and moved to action armies and nations, that they rank among the most persuasive powers in litera- ture : is there, then, no persuasive aim in their construc- tion? I answer, none, so far as the consciousness of the poet, is concerned in the act of composing. The re- corded experience of poets confirms tliis theory. Such lECT. II.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 23 productions never come into life by conscious design : they always burst upon the world as a surprise, — as much a surprise to their authors as to any one else. No man ever creates such a hymn who sets about it with conscious aim. This theory is confirmed by the history of the best specimens of religious hymnology. The choicest hymns of all languages, which have lifted the Christian Church to heaven in the service of song, have not been created with any such conscious design. Their moving of the world was in the divine purpose, not in the human purpose, of their construction. They all breathe an atmosphere of solitude. Intense indi- vidualism in communion with God characterizes them. " My faith looks up to Thee " is the keynote of their production. Listening and sympathizing and partici- pating and obedient audiences are as much out of mind as out of sight, when such immortal hymns come to their birth. Only the Spirit of "God then moves upon the face of the waters. On the other hand, the least impressive fragments of all our hymnological literature are the expostulatory and comminatory hymns. They are not poetry : they are only preaching in meter. A perfect taste rejects them. In the nature of things, an exhortation to repentance is not meant to be sung. A multitude of our religious melodies, popular in revivals of religion, come under this condemnation. A perfected spiritual taste, and a perfected aesthetic taste as well, eschew them. The time is coming when our hymn-books for use in the public service of song will be expurgated of every thing which is not a spontaneous outflow of some form of communion with God. A hymn-book limited to the loftiest songs of worship would be as perfect in poetic quality as in spiritual experience. In both 24 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ii. respects it would be a reproduction of the Psalms of the Old Testament, in which but one solitary instance occurs of expostulatory threatening. Since these pages were written, I have been confirmed in the views they advance of the nature of true poetry by discovering an expression by Goethe on the same subject. He says. " Poetry is the spontaneous effluence of a soul absorbed in its own inspirations." What, now, is the distinctive feature of oratory as compared with poetry ? It is the ascendency over every thing else of that which does not exist at all in poetry ; namely, the conscious aim at persuasion. In poetry, the audience is nothing: in oratory, the audience is every thing. In poetry, therefore, persuasion finds no place : in oratory, it commands every place. Preach- ing, therefore, excludes every thing which is not either persuasion, or a tributary to persuasion. In the con- sciousness of the preacher in the act of preaching, and in the consciousness of the hearer in the act of listening, this aim at persuasion is everywhere and always felt. Nothing is preaching of which this is not true : nothing is eloquence of which tliis is not true. Eloquence is always an aim at a mark, never a solitary self-expres- sion. As Daniel Webster defined it, it is " always a progress on, right on, to an object." That object in the end is always the same, — persuasion. In true preach- ing, therefore, argument is never used for the sake of the argument; illustration, never for the sake of the illustration ; ornament, never for the sake of the orna- ment. These are always means to an end, and the end is persuasion. The more elaborate they are, if true to their purpose, the more faithfully tributary they are to the one end, and the more powerful is the impetus they give to the movement of discourse towards that end. LECT. n.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 25 The broader the sweep of the circle, the more irresis- tible is the momentum of the descent, and the more concentrated the unity of the blow struck. (2) The second of the two species of composition from which the present thesis distinguishes preaching is that species of prose composition in which the only object is either intellectual or emotive. Some compo- sitions there are which combine every requisite of a sermon except this, of aim at the will of a hearer. Some discourses in the pulpit are purely instructive in their aims : knowledge is communicated for the sake of the knowledge, and nothing more. Others are purely imaginative : feeling is wrought upon by imaginative art, for the luxury of the feeling, and nothing more. The question arises, then. Are these productions ser- mons ? The answer, strictly speaking, must be in the negative. The immediate object of a sermon may be instruction, or the excitement of emotion, or both ; but the ultimate object is neither. True eloquence, and therefore true preaching, alwaj^s foreshadow the per- suasion of the hearer as their final aim. They may not disclose the thing to which he is to be persuaded ; but they must disclose the fact of something to which he is to be persuaded. In a series of sermons, for instance, the applicatory persuasion may lie at the end of the series ; but its beginning and middle will breathe the spirit of the coming persuasive process. That is living in the consciousness of the preacher, and the whole line of the discussion will vibrate with it. The discussion exists for it and for nothing else. Herein lies the vital distinction between the pulpit and the stage. Theatric discourse, in its purest and most lofty purpose, stops short of the persuadhig of a hearer. It may amuse, it may instruct, it may rouse 26 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ii. emotion, it may play indefinitely back and forth between intellect and sensibility; but it does not per- suade. It is busy with the intellectual facultie's , it plays with the sensibilities ; it riots among the pas- sions; but there it ends. It does not move upon the will as the grand point to be carried by dramatic appeal. Just here the pulpit and stage are at antipodes to each other. On the stage, the will of the hearer is nothing ; the intellect and sensibilities every thing. In the pulpit, the will is every thing ; the intellect and sensibilities nothing but tributaries. Yet this distinction condemns certain varieties of discourse which are often heard in pulpits. Some dis- courses are essentially theatric in their aim. They instruct, and that only; they sport with the imagina- tion, and that only ; they play with the feelings, and that only. Specially in certain forms of argumentative discourse is the theatric quality obvious. It marks the chief distinction between two classes of argumentative preachers. One preacher discourses as if he felt, and he makes his audience feel, that his argument is the all in all. He argues for the sake of the intellectual treat ; he communicates the knowledge for the sake of the knowledge ; he tasks the intellect for the sake of the strain ; and that is the whole of it. The being of God, and the necessity of an Atonement, he proves as Agas- siz would have lectured on an Amazonian fish or the glacial theory. Another preacher will appear to feel, and will make his audience feel, that liis argument is a preliminary; his use of the intellect is an instrument; the wliole argumentative process is a means to an end ; and the whole discourse is alive and tremulous with the consciousness of that end. He proves an Atonement as he would build a raft, or man a life-boat, for drowning LECT. II.] THE SERMON : ITS GENERIC IDEA. 27 men. This eager on-looking to tlie end in all the intel- lectual processes of the pulpit is to preaching what the circulation of the blood is to the vital powers of the body. If it languishes, life languishes : when it ceases, life goes out. Therefore the persuasive aim enters into the very definition of a sermon. LECTURE III. TETE SEEMON: CLASSIFICATION, ANALYSIS. II. The generic idea of a sermon, then, is that of an oral address to the popular mind, on religious truth contained in the Scriptures, and elaborately treated with a view to persuasion. Proceeding with this ge- neric idea of preaching, we are prepared to consider sermons more specifically as subject to certain varieties of classification. 1st, Homiletic classification is founded, either in practice or in theory, upon seven different principles. They are the following, (1) One is the mode of delivery. On this princi- ple, we recognize, in practice, 'sermons as delivered from manuscript, from memory, and extemporaneously. This, obviously, is not a rhetorical classification. The same principles of rhetoric apply to an extemporaneous as to a written discourse, if both are orally delivered. Rela- tively this is not an important classification. No vital principles of discourse are concerned with it : still, in practice, it is a convenient classification. (2) A second classification is founded upon the oc- casions on which sermons are delivered. This, again, is a superficial arrangement of discourses : relatively it is unimportant ; strictly it is not rhetorical. Still it is often a practical convenience to classify by occasion. 28 tECT. in.] THE SERMON: CLASSIFICATION. 29 "We therefore speak of " ordinary " and " occasional " sermons; and occasional sermons we subdivide indefi- nitely. (3) A third classification is founded upon the sub- jects of sermons. Schott classifies sermons mainly by subject. He terms them "doctrinal," "practical," "his- torical," and "philosophical." But the distinction be- tween "doctrinal" and "practical," as applied to ser- mons, is mischievous. Schott is apparently sensible of this ; and he therefore tones down the distinction by terming the one class " doctrino-practical," and the other class " practico-doctrinal." This is keen analj'sis, and very necessary in practice, if the primary distinc- tion is retained. It hints at the relative proportion of doctrinal discussion to practical application in the two classes of sermons. Again : classification by subject is not a rhetorical method. As a rhetorical structure, a sermon is inde- pendent of subject ; that is, its rhetorical peculiarities do not depend on its subject. Still it must be conceded that classification by subject is a practical convenience. Preachers do and will arrange subjects, rather than discourses. This may often take the place of more philosophical arrangements. It is impossible to reduce to a brief series all the themes of sermons ; but, on this principle of division, the most important classes consist of sermons upon doctrines, upon duties, upon persons, upon events, and upon institutions. (4) A fourth classification is founded upon the char- acter of the audience addressed. This is not rhetori- cally significant of the differences of sermons. What matters it to the essential structure of a discourse, whether it be an argument addressed to learned hear- ers, or an argument addressed to the illiterate? An 30 THE THEORY OF PEEACHING. [lect. nx argument is an argument; and this fact is the thing which determines its rhetorical character. Still the distribution of sermons by reference to the audience addressed is a practical convenience. Pastors often designate their discourses, and arrange the proportions of their preaching, by the questions : " Is this a sermon to Christians? to the unconverted? to parents? to chil- dren ? to young men ? to the aged ? to the afflicted ? to merchants? to clergymen? to Sabbath schools?" and so on indefinitely. Valueless as this method is for the purposes of rhetorical science, it has a large place in the habits of pastors. (5) A fifth classification suggested by Dr. Campbell is founded upon the different faculties of mind to which sermons are supposed to be addressed. Dr. Campbell thus distributes the discourses of the pulpit into those addressed to the understanding, those addressed to the imagination, those addressed to the passions, and those addressed to the will. The ingenuity of this arrangement is unique. It would appear to be a neat, complete, philosophical distribution of all possible dis- courses. Yet it is remarkable for its unpractical char- acter. We may safely believe that no man ever used it in adjusting the proportions of his preaching. Neither is there any rhetorical principle in this method of classification. Rhetoric does not go out of the dis- course itself to find the principle by which to classify it. It analyzes the thing heard, not the hearer, to discover what that thing is. (6) A certain anomalous classification, which is a peculiarity of homiletics, is founded on the use made of the texts of sermons. I term it an anomaly because general rhetoric does not recognize it. Oral discourse as such need not have a text. Outside of the pulpit LECT. m.] THE SERMON: CLASSIFICATION. 31 it commonlj has none. Yet in the pulpit the text is a necessity, and the classification of sermons upon the nse made of the text is convenient and of great value. Though an anomaly in rhetoric, we may accept it as homiletic. The anomaly grows out of the necessities of the pulpit. On this principle, sermons may be ar- ranged in four classes, — the topical, the textual, the expository, and the inferential. The topical sermon is one in which a subject is deduced from the text, but discussed independently of the text. The textual ser- mon is one in which the text is the theme, and the parts of the text are the divisions of the discourse, and are used as a line of suggestion. An expository sermon is one in which the text is the theme, and the discussion is an explanation of the text. The inferential sermon is one in which the text is the theme, and the discus- sion is a series of inferences directly from the text : the text is the premise, a series of inferences is the con- clusion. As these distinctions are of great practical value in the labors of the pulpit, let me illustrate these four classes of sermons by examples in which the same text shall be employed in the four methods here indicated. The text is Phil. ii. 12, 13. " Work out your own sal- vation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleas- ure." From this text we may deduce the subject of the " Sovereignty of God in the Work of Salvation,'' or the subject of the " Activity of Man in Regeneration," or the " Duty of Earnestness in seeking Salvation." Either of these themes might then be discussed independently of any further use of the text, and we should thus have a topical sermon. But we might make the text itself the theme of dis- 32 THE THEORY OF PREACHESTG. [lect. ni. course, and might follow its line of tliought by remark- ing : 1. The duty enjoined in the text, " Work out salvation ; " 2. The individual responsibility for the soul's salvation implied in the text, "Work out your own salvation ; " 3. The spirit with which salvation should be sought, " With fear and trembling ; " 4. The dependence of effort to be saved upon the power of God, " It is God which worketh in you ; " 5. Depend- ence upon God for salvation is the great encouragement to effort for salvation, "Work, for it is God which worketh in you." This train of thought developed would constitute a textual sermon. Yet again we might make the text the theme, and let the sermon consist of an explanation of the text, by inquiring: 1. In what sense is a sinner commanded to achieve his own salvation ? 2. What is the spirit of fear and trembling in the work of salvation? 3. In what sense does the text affirm God to be the author of salvation ? 4. What connection does the text affirm between the earnestness of the sinner and the agency of God ? An answer to these inquiries, devoted to the language of the text, and designed to evolve the force of the text, would constitute an expository sermon. Once more : we might consider the text as the theme, and assume, that, as a well-known passage, it does not need much explanation. Explain it briefly, if you please, give in a paraphrase the result without the pro- cess of exposition, and then let the body of the sermon consist of a series of inferences drawn directly from the text. 1. That salvation is a pressing necessity to every man. 2. That every man is responsible for his own salvation. 3. That every man who is saved does in fact achieve his own salvation. 4. That depend- ence upon God is a help, not a hindrance, to salvation. LECT. III.] THE SERMON: CLASSIFICATION. 33 5. The guilt of trifling with rehgious convictions. 6. The unreasonableness of waiting in impenitence for the interposition of God. 7. The uselessness of lukewarm exertions to secure salvation. 8. The certainty that every man who is in earnest to be saved will be saved. This line of thought developed would be an inferential sermon. Its characteristic feature is neither topical, nor textual, nor expository discussion, but independent yet direct inference from the text. (7) A seventh method of classifying sermons re- mains to be considered. It is a classification founded on the mode of treating the subject of discourse. This method is preferable to all others for several reasons. In the first place, it is a strictly rhetorical classification. It does not go outside of the discourse itself to find the character of the discourse. What is it that chiefly dis- tinguishes one sermon from another ? Not the subject, not the occasion, not the audience, not the method of deliver3% not the faculty of mind addressed, not the use made of the text : it is the method of discussion. By this we must necessarily characterize any discourse as a rhetorical structure. Moreover, this is a practically convenient classification. The practical as well as the theoretic differences of sermons arise chiefly out of di- versity of method in the treatment of subjects. Nothing else creates so wide a difference, or so many varieties. Again : this is a comprehensive classification : it covers all varieties of sermons. No variety exists in the usage of the pulpit, none is conceivable in homiletic theory, which it does not reach. Furthermore, it is no peculiarity of homiletics : it covers all varieties of oral address. The principle threads every thing known as public discourse, and does it naturally, without forced connections. Ask, respecting any kind of Dublic speech, 34 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. iu, what is its method of discussion, and you classify it instantly as a rhetorical structure, upon a principle which combines philosophical accuracy and practical convenience with comprehensiveness of application. Upon this principle of division, sermons may be ar- ranged in four classes, — the explanatory, the illustra- tive, the argumentative, the persuasive. ^Explanatory sermons, as the name indicates, include all sermons the chief object of wliich is explanation. It may be an explanation of a text ; then the discourse is technically an expository sermon. It may be an ex- planation of a doctrine ; then it is one kind of doctrinal sermon. It may be an explanation of a duty ; then it is one kind of ethical sermon. It may be an explana- tion of a ceremony ; then it is one kind of sermon on a positive institution. The rhetorical feature which char- acterizes all these discourses is the same, — the process of explaining what the thing is. Illustrative sermons, as the name betokens, comprise all sermons the chief object of wdiich is to intensify the vividness of truth ; not to originate the knowledge of truth, but to realize conceptions- of it already known ; not to explain truth, though often it is an incident of illustrative discourse that it does explain ; not to prove truth, though often it is an incident of illustration that it does prove. The prime object is to impart glow to truth, to make men feel the reality of what they know It is literally to illustrate, to make truth lustrous, and therefore impressive. This class of sermons includes, you will perceive, descriptive discourses, sermons ima- ginative of biblical scenes, historical and biographical sermons, also a large class of discourses upon acknowl- edged doctrines, duties, virtues, the force of which lies dormant in the popular faith. The range and signifi- LECT. III.] THE SERMON: CLASSIFICATION. 35 cance of sucli preaching in nominally Christian lands are obvious at a glance. Not explanation, not logic, not hortation, but pictorial imagination holds the place of pre-eminence in such preaching among the conditions of ministerial success. Argumentative seriyions, as the title signifies, embrace all sermons the chief object of which is proof. They are aimed primarily at the intellect of the hearer. They propose either to create conviction where none exists, or to change conviction where the false exists. The prime element in such a discourse is logic pure and simple. The syllogism is the framework : belief is the result aimed at. This class comprises, therefore, a large proportion of so-called doctrinal sermons, also many ethical sermons. Persuasive sermons have an infelicity in their title. It has been affirmed that all preaching has persuasion for its ultimate object, even that nothing is a sermon which is not aimed at persuasion. It is a misfortune to restrict the term " persuasive " to any one class of discourses ; but no other one word designates the thing by wliich a certain class of sermons are distinguished. It includes all those sermons the immediate object of which is persuasion. The key-note of the persuasive sermon, technically so called, is urgency to present action. 2d, Before leaving this topic of the classification of sermons, several memoranda deserve mention. (1) The classification here commended does not limit discourse to any one rhetorical method. The prepon- derance of one method, not the exclusion of others, gives character to every class. We pronounce a sermon explanatory, if explanation leads the discussion. Illus- tration, argument, hortation may all exist in it, but 36 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. hi. only as subordinates. So each element, in its turn, may lead the discussion ; and the sermon is classed accordingly. A classification which should leave no room for this intermingling of rhetorical elements would be practically useless. Practice would leap over it. In all good preaching the standard elements of com- position are constantly interchanged, but always with subordination of the majority to one. Rhetoric and practice in this respect exactly tally. Use and beauty require the same thing, (2) The four elements of discourse recognized in this classification cover every variety of oratorical composition." Explanation, illustration, argument, per- suasion are all that exist of rhetorical material and method with which to deal. One or more of these four things must be done in all good discourse ; and in such .discourse nothing else can be done. When you have exhausted these four elements of speech, you have ex- hausted all the resources of speech. This classification, therefore, includes all the variety of which rational discourse is susceptible. (3) The proper classification of sermons is funda- mental to the subject of unity of discourse. A sermon can not be pointed in its aim, if it has no oneuess of rhetorical character by which to classify it. The same qualities which adjust it to its class give it unity as an individual. If you have a clear idea of the kind of discourse which you purpose to frame, that localizes your sermon where it belongs, and at the same time goes far to unify it as a rhetorical structure. Oneness of impression results from the same process by which you gain oneness of construction. (4) The proper classification of sermons is equally fundamental to the subject of proportion in preaching. LECT. III.] THE SERMON: ANALYSIS. 37 In a ministry of ten years, the proportions of preaching depend more on the adjustment of the four grand methods of rhetorical discussion than on all things else combined. No variety of subject, of text, of occasion, of audience, will save you from monotony, if you always do one and the same thing with subject, text, occasion, and audience. Always explain, or always prove, or always paint, or always exhort, and versatility of im- pression is impossible, though you range the universe for themes. Construct your sermons for ten years so that you have symmetrical proportions of argumenta- tive, of illustrative, of explanatory, and of persuasive materials, and you have symmetry of impression, with- out the possibility of monotony or of distortion. Be the impression strong or weak, it will be rounded. It will leave no blanks and no excrescences. III. We have thus far considered the sermon in its generic idea and in its fundamental varieties. We have now to consider the analysis of a sermon. What are its constituent parts ? (1) In reply, let it be observed, that by the parts of a discourse are not meant portions necessarily visible as such to the eye in the manuscript. They are not apartments in the area of a sermon. Some of them are visibly distinct in the writing, and audibly distinct in the delivery, but not all of them. (2) By the constituent parts of a sermon are not meant parts all of which are essential in every dis- course. Nearly all of them are so, but exceptions exist. (3) By the constituent parts of a sermon are meant those features of discourse, which, in the process of its construction, must engage the attention of the preacher. If sometimes one or more of the parts of a discourse 38 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. hi. are unnecessary, still a preacher must consider them, that he may decide intelligently that they are unneces- sary. Is an introduction superfluous in a given sermon ? Perhaps so. But the preacher must consider whether or not it be so. (4) Philosophically regarded, the number of the parts of a discourse depends on the limitation of terms. This accounts for the diversity in the analyses of dis- course adopted by the ancient rhetoricians. Thus Aristotle reckons four parts only, the introduction, the proposition, the proof, the conclusion. Of these, he affirms that only the proposition and proof are essential to the rhetorical completeness of a discourse. Qumtilian enumerates five parts, the introduction, the narration, the proof, the refutation, the conclusion. Yet there is no material distinction between Aris- totle's proposition, and Quintilian's narration ; between Aristotle's proof, and Quintilian's proof and refuta- tion. The narration in Quintilian's analysis referred specially to forensic address : it was a lawyer's statement of his case. This corresponds to what Aristotle meant by the proposition. Proof and refutation also are parts of one process, which Aristotle, with a sharper ana- lytic eye than Quintilian, discerns as such, and calls by one name. Does Aristotle, then, fail to recognize the introduction, Avhen he pronounces it non-essential to the completeness of a rhetorical structure ? Not at all. In a proposition he would in that case include all that is requisite to a skillful enunciation of the subject. The proposition thus extended would commonly com- prise an introduction. (5) It follows, then, that the question whether we shall adopt a condensed or an extended analysis of a sermon is chiefly one of convenience in criticism. For LECT. III.] THE SERMON: ANALYSIS. 39 purely scientific tlieoiy, the more condensed analysis is the more finished ; but, for convenience in practical criticism, the more extended subdivision is the superior. I prefer, therefore, to enumerate the parts of a sermon as follows : namely, the text, the explanation, the intro- duction, the proposition, the division, the development, and the conclusion. Is the text a necessary part of a sermon? Yes, or no; on the same principle on which Aristotle in one view admitted, and in another rejected, the introduction. Doubtless a complete rhetorical struc- ture on a scriptural theme may be formed without a text. The text may also be theoretically regarded as an incident to the proposition, and involved in the process of announcing a subject. But in practice preachers have a text : it is in practice commonly distinct from the proposition. Important homiletic questions concern it as a text, and a text only : there- fore it is convenient to treat it thus in homiletic theory. IV. We recognize, then, seven principal parts of a discourse for the pulpit, under the titles above named. It will be the object of the subsequent lectures to con- sider them in their order. Before doing so, however, I wish to forewarn you of several things which may otherwise occasion you some disappointment as we proceed. Let me ask you to observe, first, the necessity of minute criticism in our discussion of these parts of a sermon. Many things must receive attention which may appear to you trivial. Relatively to some other things, they are trivial, considered singly ; but in the aggregate they are not so. Preachers err egregiously who trust to the excellences of discourse to weigh down minute defects. Multitudes of clergymen suffer under a contracted usefulness, because their sterling virtues 40 THE THEOEY OP PREACHING. [lect. m. are blocked by numberless little impediments whicb reduplicate tbe amount of friction. A commanding genius is required to force the way to results through deficiencies in themselves so small that genius despises them. But that which a genius can do successfully, I can not; probably you can not. Chr3^sostom, the golden-mouthed, may be useful in spite of violations of taste which would bury in oblivion a pastor of wooden speech. Besides, it is the inferior genius which con- temns inferior excellences. The very first order of mind does no such thing. Michael Angelo did not think it beneath him to execute one of the consummate marvels of his genius in the carving of a peach-stone. So the most exalted style of manhood in the ministry will count no excellence too minute to subserve the objects of the pulpit. Some of the processes of preach- ing are of such a character, that no genius can force them. They must be performed warily, gently, scrupu- lously. They are like the movements of a watch : only a few grains of sand are needed to clog them ; and the more perfect the movement, the more easy its arrest. A second preliminary suggestion is that of the neces- sity of profuse illustration in the discussion of the parts of a sermon. Mr. Dickens says that criticism in litera- ture of any kind "is not worth a farthing without innumerable examples." This is doubly apt in applica- tion to homiletic criticism. The mere statement and eulogy of principles, however minute, form the most useless kind of discourse on such topics as must come before us. By far the most difficult part of the process needed is the discovery or the invention of pertinent illustrations. A third suggestion, preliminary to the work before us, is that a defect in preaching often needs to be made LECT. m.] THE SERMON: ANALYSIS. 41 ludicrous to excite our repugnance to it effectually. A curious phenomenon in literary history is this, that the pulpit has tolerated faults which literary taste endurea nowhere else. The seriousness of the work of the pul* pit seems to have acted as a shield to deformities which good taste feels to be intolerable elsewhere. There is no remedy for this shelter of the pulpit from robust criticism, except that preachers should therefore be more severe in their criticism of themselves. No other fault is so hurtful as one which is sanctified by its surround- ings. Honest good sense may see it, but can not get at it through fear of irreverence. We must subject our- selves to healtful criticism in such a case. If we can fix in mind a vivacious caricature of such faults, put them into the dress of a clown, we do ourselves a good service. Blessed be the man who invented caricature ! We are compelled to practice this adroitness on our own minds to spur them up to an instinctive repulsion of a fault which we shall tolerate otherwise on the plea that we have a pious object. Set that down as the plea of mental indolence : it is nothing else. The proper antidote to it is ridicule. The fourth preliminary remark is that in these lec- tures many things must be observed the necessity of which you will outgrow. Homiletic discipline is some- times undervalued heedlessly as a preacher advances in his profession, because he finds, that, in some respects, he leaves the need of it behind him. His owa good sense teaches him some of its lessons so thoroughly, that he begins to doubt whether the time ever was when he did not know them by heart. But homiletic discipline does its work for a man, if it expedites his experience. A young man receives a great boon in any thing which economizes expenditure of his early manhood. Homi- 42 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lkct. in. letic lectures^ therefore, sliould in my view be aimed at the early years of practice in the pulpit. Their immediate object is to teach a man how to begin his work. They are valuable just in proportion to their power to diminish the inevitable waste of early effort to its minimum. That a young preacher quickly out- grows them is the best evidence that they have been effective. That discipline in every thing which we outgrow the need of is the discipline to which we are the most deeply indebted. Literature contains no other one thing to which we owe so much as to the Roman alphabet. These remarks suggest a fifth preliminary: it is that homiletic instruction can never make a preacher. Unreasonable expectations often defeat the very object of homiletic discipline. Men often come to it, not as to discipline, but as to a process of accumulation. They expect to be put in possession of a new power of speech. They expect homiletics to give them pulpit eloquence, as history gives them the opinions of the past, and dogmatic theology those of the present. This is absurd. Preaching is a business. Every busi- ness must be learned in the main by the doing of it. The theory can give you principles to start with, can forewarn of perils, can set up defenses, can disclose existing faults in culture, can reveal abnormal tenden- cies of mind, and disproportion of mental character, can do all that theory does for a man in any thing which is a practical business. In brief, it can make the business practicable ; but it can never create the doing of it. A man must work the theory into his own culture, so that he shall execute it unconsciously. This he can do only by his own experience of the theory in his own practice till it becomes a second LECT. m.] THE SERMON": ANALYSIS. 43 nature. This is the work of time. We learn how to live by living : so we learn liow to preach by preach- ing. Yet law, principle, theory have as valuable a use in tlie one case as in the other. Vinet says that the "homiletics of the study should leave room for that of the temple and the parish." Not so : the homiletics of the study is that of the temple and the parish. So far as it becomes a part of the preacher himself, he will be constantly emitting it from his own culture in expedients of usefulness which will be the legitimate fruits of it, but which will seem to him to be the spon- taneous production of the hour LECTURE IV. THE TEXT : HISTORY, USES. The first thing which attracts the attention of a critic of pulpit discourse is the custom of founding it upon selections of inspired words. It will aid us in obtain- ing the true theory of the text as a part of pulpit dis- course, to consider, in the first place : — I. Some notices of the history of the custom of employing texts. The sources of information on this topic are not fertile. Objections to the custom are almost wholly of modern origin. At least, if objections existed in the early Church, they have not lived in his- toric records of opinion. 1st, We may observe, first, the 'Jewish origin of the custom. It had its birth, unquestionably in the old Jewish reverence for the letter of the word of God. What, then, was the position of the text in the Jewish idea of a religious discourse? In the earliest Jewish worship the text was the chief part of the discourse. Being originally a direct communication from God, it absorbed all the interest of a hearer in itself. When first revealed, it must have stood alone, without enlarge- ment, without comment. The very words of God, and no other; were the first sermon. Large portions of the Scriptures of those times were chosen as the themes of meditation in the temple. Preaching, other than the 44 LECT. IV.] THE TEXT : HISTORY. 45 reading of the law and the prophets, can scarcely be said to have existed. The nearest approximation to it was simply the interpretation of the passage which had previously been read. In the Jewish idea, the inspired text is the sermon; comment upon it, an appendage. More than this prevailed subsequently in the later worship of the synagogue. Our Saviour and some of the Apostles made the reading of the law in the syna- gogue an occasion of extended exposition and hortation. Their doing so excited no surprise among, the Jews, it being already an established usage among them. Still, the central idea of preaching was exposition. The in- spired text was the center of interest. 2d, Observe, secondly, the transfer of the custom of employing texts, from Jewish to Christian usage. Apostolic usage was not uniform. The Apostles often preached without texts. An evident reason for this is found, as in the case of our Lord himself, in the fact that they were themselves inspired teachers. But we find no trace of preaching without a text among the immediate successors of the Apostles. The instant that inspiration ceased, tlie Jewish reverence for the inspired records was revived, and the only model of preaching known for some centuries was the homily ; that is, as we should call it, a practical exposition, or, as the Scotch clergy would term it, an expository lecture. Sometimes several homilies were preached on one occa- sion, each occupying from six to twelve minutes. The etymology of the word " text " suggests very nearly the ancient idea of its relation to the homily : it was texfus (woven in), the warp and woof of the whole pro- duction. 3d, Observe, thirdly, the Romish corruption of the custom of employing texts. In this period of the his- 46 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. iv. tory of the custom several things are noticeable. The allegorical prmciples of interpretation applied to tlie Scriptures by Origen and others after him destroyed the legitimate force of the custom. It destroyed logical connection between text and homil}^. A text "which is torn from its connections in inspired usage, or to which an imaginary sense is given, is no text. This was largely true of the use of texts in the time of Augustine.- It was the taste of the age to make a text mean any thing that was convenient, or fancifully attractive, or more especially any thing that should seem to support the dominant philosophy of the times. The Protestant pulpit owes nearly all the puerility, and the unscholarly license which it tolerates in the interpretation and uses of texts, to that period in which grammatico-historical exegesis was abandoned, and the mystical interpreta- tion took its place. Moreover, the unsettling of the inspired canon at that time corrupted tlie sources of texts. The consequence was that sermons were often preached upon passages from apocrj^phal sources. The reverence for. philoso- phy also weakened the clerical reverence for texts of the Scriptures. In many instances it was deemed a matter of indifference whether texts were chosen from inspired sources or not. Melanchthon says that they were sometimes taken from the ethics of Aristotle. This was perfectly natural. A forced interpretation of inspired language brings it into conflict with the com- mon sense of men. In such a conflict, no language can hold its place in the reverence of the human mind. When it had become the usage of the pulpit to employ a biblical text as no other language would be seriously employed by a sane mind, it was an improvement to turn from St. Paul to Aristotle, whose language had not LECT. IV.] THE TEXT : HISTORY. 47 yet undergone distortion. As a consequence of the corruption of texts, some of the Fatliers preached with- out a text. Tliis, too, was a natural result. Here and there a vigorous thinker would revolt from the puerility of the schoolmen, and throw off all trammels upon free discourse. Some of the sermons of Chrysostom were preached without a text. Augustine preached over four hundred sermons without texts. During this period the topical sermon came into exist- ence. For the first twelve centuries of the Christian era, the restriction of the text to an isolated verse, or fragment of a verse, of the Bible was unknown. The topical sermon, therefore, was an innovation. Originally the Christian sermon was an exposition, and only that. In England it was called, for some centuries, " postulat- ing." The only kind of preaching which varied from it was that of preaching without a text, and which was called " declaring ; " that is, the preacher " declared " his subject and discussion without explaining any text. The assertion that the use of texts met with no important dissent is not true of such a use of the text as the topical sermon creates. The restriction of the text to a verse, or a fragment of a verse, which is com- mon in the modern topical discourse, met with very strenuous opposition for two hundred years. It origi- nated about 1200 A. D. ; and the older clergy of that date contested it stoutly. Among others, Roger Bacon wrote against it with great severity. He prayed God to " banish this conceited and artificial way of preach- ing from his Church." The notion of the topical sermon Avhich he entertained was a singular one. It lets us into the clerical life of the times significantly. He writes, " The greatest part of our prelates, having but little knowledge in divinity, and having been little used 48 THE THEORY OF PREACHING, [lect. iv. to preaching in their youth, when they become bishops, and are sometimes obliged to preach, are under the necessity of begging and borrowing the sermons of cer- tain novices, who have invented a new way of preach- ing, by endless divisions and quibblings, in which there is neither sublimity of style, nor depth of wisdom. . . . It will never do any good." Thus judged one of the wisest men of his age, of a style of preaching which has been the predominant one in this country, and spe- cially in New England, for two hundred years, and in which are to be found the most valuable contributions to theology which this country has produced. To the foregoing facts should be added, that preaching itself, during the period of the Romish decline, gradually fell into disuse. Indolence in the priesthood, and supersti- tion in the Church displaced the pulpit, and exalted the altar. 4th, The modern period in the history of the custom of employing texts dates from the Reformation. It is characterized b}'' three features which deserve mention. (1) We find a return to the ancient usage respecting the sources of texts. The unanimity of the reformers in this regard is remarkable. I have met with no evi- dence of a solitary instance in which any other than a biblical source was acknowledged by them in the choice of a text. The religious vitality of the Reforma- tion is indicated in no other one thing so signally as in this backward spring from human to inspired authori- ties, in the search for a preacher's texts. (2) Another feature which characterizes this period is a similar return to the ancient simplicity m the inter- pretation of texts. This movement was more gradual, and not universal. But the tendency of modern scholar- ship for three centuries has been to settle the interpre- tECT. IV.] THE TEXT: HISTORY. 49 tatiou of texts on the same principles of grammatico- historical exegesis by which common sense interprets the language of any other ancient volume. (3) A third feature by which this modern period is characterized is a variety of usage respecting the objects for wliich texts are employed. The etymological idea of a text is not now universal in the usage of the pulpit. Modern sermons are more than homilies. Dis- cussion of subjects independently of texts has grown upon modern usage immensely. As familiarity with the Scriptures is extended among the people, the effect must necessarily be to throw the pulpit forward upon more elaborate discussions for the materials of sermons. Still we have not reached any uniformity of usage in reference to the objects of texts : it is to be hoped that no such uniformity will be established. We need the present diversity to meet diverse wants of the popular mind. II. We proceed now to observe briefly some of the objections to the custom of employing texts. Of these the following are the chief. It is claimed that the custom tends to attenuate the material of a sermon. Voltaire, for this reason, expressed the wish that Bour- daloue had banished this custom from the pulpit. It is urged further that the custom tends to create pedantic methods of preaching. Sismondi, in his "History of the Italian Republics," attributes the decay of secula r eloquence "in Italy to the loss of clerical eloquence fx'orn the pulpit, occasioned by the priesthood in preaching from texts. Moreover, it is said that the custom tends to contract the range of the subjects of the pulpit. Vinet, in urging this objection, says very truly, " Ex- perience is a book. Experience furnishes texts." The question is a fair one, then. Shall a preacher cramp hU 60 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. rv. experience to bring the themes of his pulpit within the range of scriptural texts'? Again: it is objected that the custom tends to isolate the pulpit from the usages of secular eloquence. It is a fair inquiry, Why do not secular orators employ texts, or their equivalent ? May not the proverbial dullness of a sermon be attributable, in part, to an unnatural separation between the pulpit and the bar, or the Senate, in this respect ? Might not something of the vivacity of the platform be given to the pulpit, if the formula of a text were abandoned ? This suggests a further objection : that the custom tends to stiffen the routine of the pulpit. Claus Harms, in his work on " Practical Theology," expresses the opinion that this custom has been prejudicial, " not only to the perfection of preaching as an art, but also to Christian knowledge, and, what is more serious, to the Christian life." It is a reasonable query. What is to prevent the use of a text from degenerating into an utterly lifeless form ? Is it not often like the address and subscription of a letter, — a form which the hearer feels to be void of meaning? If so, is it not all the worse for its inspired origin ? Finally, William Lloyd Garrison urges against the custom its tendency to antiquate the pulpit. He claims that it assumes an- tiquity to be synonymous with authority ; that it pro- motes silence upon existing forms of sin on the plea of fidelity to an ancient type of thought and of religious experience. In a word, it tends to give to the past a moral ascendency over the present, to which nothing in the experience of the past entitles it, and which is not commended by the example of Christ and the Apostles. Respecting all these objections, I can not but think that something must, in candor, be conceded to them. Vinet puts the case fairly when he imagines a stranger, XECT. rv.] THE TEXT : USES. 51 unacquainted with the usages of the pulpit, and know- ing only its object, as listening for the first time to a sermon, and learning that this entire department of eloquence is subjected to the rule of developing, not the idea of the speaker, but a text clipped from a foreign discourse. Would the usage, to such a stranger, appear to be a natural one? If there were not opposing advantages attending the use of texts, or even if the abuses indicated by objectors were inevita- ble, the custom would not be worth defending. It is not enjoined on the pulpit by inspired authority. It must exist, if at all, on its intrinsic merits. The revul- sion of some minds from it is not unnatural in view of the puerilities to which it has often given rise. Still the custom will be found to be defensible on the ground that its abuses are not unavoidable, and its uses are of surpassing moment. III. In defense of the custom of employing texts, we proceed, then, to consider the positive uses of texts. These demand consideration in a twofold aspect. They are advantages supporting the custom of employing texts : they are also objects to be aimed at in the selec- tion of texts. That is the best text which secures the largest number, and the most vital, of the objects of having a text. 1st, Of the positive uses of texts, may be named, first, that of giving inspired authority to the sentiments of a sermon. This is the prime object of a text. This is a use which the best class of texts always does secure. This, doubtless, is the radical idea which lies at the foundation- of the usage. (1) This use of a text outweighs much objection to the custom of preaching from texts. It answers abun- dantly Voltaire's objection. An inspired thought is 52 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. rr. not likely to be the material of an attenuated discourse. If the sermon be diluted, the defect is not, probably, in the text. Voltaire did not fail to appreciate the value of a pithy saying of genius as a motto of discourse. Why may not inspiration claim at least as much respect as the utterances of genius ? Very much of the rever- ence which is silently paid by the popular mind to the pulpit is probably due to the secret educating power of this custom of the pulpit. Again : this use of a text answers Mr. Garrison's ob- jection. If the Bible be an inspired volume, it is in- spired for a purpose. If inspired for a purpose, it is divinely fitted to that purpose. If fitted to that pur- pose, it is a compend of the truths most necessary to the world in all time. Distinctions of i^ast, present, and future do not destroy its pertinence as a whole. Much more inspired truth has been uttered to men than the Bible contains. The Bible is God's selection from the accumulated archives of inspiration. Its his- tories, its biographies, its liturgies, its psalmody, its doctrines, its precepts, its prophecies ; its pictures of character, divine, angelic, and human ; the secret life with God which it portrays ; and its disclosures of the eternal worlds, — all are selected fragments, put togeth- er for a purpose, like a mosaic. Such a book, framed for such a purpose, can never, as a whole, be antiquated. It can contain nothing, which, for the purposes of such a volume, can ever be obsolete. The world will always need it, and will need the whole of it. As a unit, it will be as fresh to the last man as to you and to me. This, then, is the strong point in the claim which the pulpit asserts to reverence for its usage in preaching from texts, — that they give divine authority to the senti- ments of the pulpit. Yield this, and you revolutionize LECT. IV.] THE TEXT : USES. 53 the pulpit in less tlian one generation. The instincts of infidelity are very keen in scenting out and worrying down, if possible, a clerical usage like this, which is the most vital exponent the pulpit has of its own faith and of the popular faith in inspiration. (2) Further, this use of a text as an inspired author- ity is of special value in the preaching of obnoxious doc- trines. On the doctrine of future punishment, for ex- ample, it is not the argumentations of the pulpit which hold the popular mind to the truth most rigidly : it is the downright and inevitable authority of a few texts. He would be a very unwise man who should throw away his advantage in advancing to the discussion of such a doctrine under the cover of a divinely spoken word. It is more than the protection of a masked bat- tery. This protective bearing of a text is specially assisted by the position of a text in the construction of a sermon. The text usually heads the discourse. It predisposes a reverent hearer to listen with a docile tem- per, if a preacher advances behind inspired leadership. Divine words first, the human teaching in the sequel : this order of thought tends to secure reverent assent. (3) But does not this very subjection of the human to the divine, as has been suggested, hamper the free- dom of the pulpit? Not at all. For we notice, fur- ther, that this use of a text encourages a regulated freedom in the pulpit. Some subjects, it is true, are not expressed in any scriptural text ; but, if they are not expressed, they may be contained in a principle which is expressed. Some principles, it is true, are not affirmed in a declarative form ; but they may be implied in a narrative, a parable, an act, a character which is recorded. Some subjects, it is true, are not logically contained in any such text ; but they may be rhetori- 54 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. iv. cally suggested by a text, and the text may be used by a manly accommodation to the theme. Here, we con- tend, i& all the freedom that the pulpit needs, all that a preacher of a revealed religion has any right to desire. If a subject is not expressed in any scriptural passage, and is not contained in any scriptural principle, and is not implied in any scriptural narrative, parable, event, character, and is not, by any manly association of thought, suggested by any scriptural language, the preacher of a revealed system of truth will not waste much time in defending such a subject against the pov- erty of the Bible in not furnishing a text for it. It is a healthful corrective of idiosyncrasy in a preacher, that if he proposes, as an ancient pastor of the Hollis-street Church, Boston, once did, to preach on " The Morals and Manners of the Marquis de Rochefoucault," he should find himself driven out of the Bible, as the preacher was, and compelled to preach without a text. (4) This view suggests, further, that this use of a text tends to put a preacher in his true relation to divine authority. The real character of a preacher as a minister of God, speaking for God, uttering God's words, unfolding God's thoughts, is silently kept before his own mind, and before that of his hearers. The ten- dency is to impart a most vitalizing spiritual influence to both, — to him, in giving; to them, in receiving. If secular orators had an inspired collection of secular themes of discourse, nothing but depravity would pre- vent their using it as the clergy use the Scriptures. Upon all the principles of high art in public speech, they would be dolts if they did not use it. A curious phenomenon is observable here in secular eloquence ; it is that it has, in fact, invented for itself expedients which are in some respects equivalent to the LECT. IV.] THE TEXT : USES. 55 texts of the pulpit. What is the object of indictments and other legal forms, the reading of which precedes forensic addresses ? What is the object of resolutions and bills, the reading of which introduces legislative speeches ? As related to secular oratory, they are de- signed to put the speaker at once in position with the business in hand and with his audience. When Daniel Webster rose to reply to Gen. Hayne in the United States Senate, he answered in a breath much of the harangue of his opponent, and put himself in position before his auditors, by saying, " Mr. President, I call for the reading of thS resolution before the Senate." This was no more nor less than taking a text. 2d, Of the positive uses of texts, and the objects to be aimed at in their selection, the second is that of promoting popular intelligence in the perusal of the Scriptures. It is not a small benefit to a people to have a hundred passages of the Bible expounded every year from the pulpit with the aid of the latest scholar ship in exegesis. (1) Observe especially that this use of a text grows naturally out of the preaching of a revealed religion, and that the popular knowledge of such a religion will be proportioned to that of preachers in their use of texts. The popular mind obtains unconsciously its principles of interpretation from the usage of the pul- pit. As the one is, so is the other. Clearness in the pulpit is good sense in the pew. Mysticism in the pulpit is nonsense in the pew. The absence of exposi- tion from the pulpit is ignorance of the Bible in the pew. Like priest, like people. The Sabbath school, Bible classes, family instruction, under a vigorous min- istry, will in the long run take character from the pulpit. The key which will wind up and keep in 56 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. iv. movement the whole machinery of popular growth in a knowledge of the Scriptures is the handling of texts by a skillful preacher. (2) Importance is added to this use of a text by the fact that the exposition of texts is the exposition of the choicest passages of the Bible. Well-chosen texts are the gems of scriptural thought. They rep- resent fundamental doctrines, and vital principles, and essential duties, and central characters, and critical events, and thrilling scenes, and profound experiences. They are the dense points of revelation, at which light is most vivid. The Bible is dcrtted over with them. To see them is to see the whole firmament of truth in which they are set. They are constellations in a cloud- less sky. An intelligent and scholarly explanation of a thousand texts might indoctrinate a people in the whole system of biblical truth. 3d, A third use of a text, and object in its selection, is to cherish in the minds of hearers an attachment to the language of the Bible. In the popular notion of religious truth, words very easily become things. Never is language more readily consolidated into a living thing around which the reverence of a people will grow, than when that language is long used to express their religious convictions, or their religious inheritance from their fathers. Therefore, if reverence be not cherished for the scriptural forms of truth, it will be for uninspired forms. The popular mind will have it for something. We are suffering to-day from a morbid attachment, in some sections of the Church, to uninspired standards of religious thought. A rever- ence is cherished for technicalities of theological science, and for certain forms of truth expressed in ritual and liturgic service, which nothing should receive but an LECT. rv.] THE TEXT : USES. 57 inspired production. It has been believed by more than one of the lovers of the Book of Common Prayer, that its authors and compilers were under the guidance of inspiration in their work. Views of divine super- intendence have been advanced in behalf of the West- minster Confession, which involve a subordinate degree of the inspired gifts in the leaders of the Westminster Assembly. Similar ideas have been expressed con- cerning the works of John Wesley. A very intelligent Baptist clergyman once inquired of me if I did not believe that something very like apostolic inspiration was imparted to Robert Hall. Why does a most excellent missionary society report its labors in a destitute section of Pennsylvania, as consisting of a distribution of Bibles and Testaments to the number of five hundred and thirty-nine, and of prayer-books three thousand two hundred and seventy ? Why is it, that, in our own communion, that phrase- ology in theological controversy which is most hotly contested, and is deemed most sacred, because most essential to truth, in the viow of the contending parties, is not scriptural phraseology ? Tliis leads us to a furtlier fact, which is that some truths can not be concisely presented to the popular mind otherwise so clearly as by the exact scriptural forms of them. The statements of the doctrine of the Trinity in many of our standards — are they not noto- rious failures? It has cost the pulpit infinitely more labor to explain and defend them than it would have done to explain and defend the Scriptures on that doc- trine. Some such truths it will not do to define to the popular mind as we should to the scholastic mind. A definition which is metaphysically true may be practi- cally false. The connection of the race with Adam, 58 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. iv. and the character of mfants it is unwise to attempt to define to the popular comprehension beyond the very limited notices taken of either subject in the Bible. We are almost certain of coming into conflict with the necessary beliefs of men, if we make the attempt, — a thing which the Scriptures never do. Let us have this instinct of popular reverence, then, in its legitimate uses. Let us so treat uninspired formularies as to sub- ject them, in the habits of the popular feeling, to the inspired standards, no more, and no less, and no other. This view meets the objection to the custom, drawn from its abuse by pedantic preachers. Sismondi may have been reasonably disgusted by the pedantry of the priesthood of his day ; but a scholarly care for verbal exposition of an inspired book is not pedantry. An inspired production deserves a minuteness of exegesis of which no other production is worthy. The words of the Scriptures are to the popular mind like the words of a will by which an inheritance is conveyed. The presumption is that any and every word is important, and may be emphatic. 4th, A fourth use of a text is to facilitate a hearer's remembrance of the truths presented. The best texts are brief statements of truth. They are easily remem- bered. Moreover, the best texts contain a comprehen- sive view of the whole scope of the sermons founded upon them. The most felicitously chosen texts are the sermons in miniature. The sermons are in them like an oak in the acorn. To recall them is to recall the train of thought which the sermons develop. Further : inspired language, other things being equal, impresses the memory the more strongly for being inspired. It is authoritative language. Memory is assisted by rever- ence for authority. Inspired language is usually of un- LECT. IV.] THE TEXT : USES. 59 common raciness. The Bible is the most brilliant book in the world, in respect of style. It abounds in sen- tentious utterances of truth. It is a book of axioms. Its imagery is fascinating. Its style pulsates with life. It has a wonderful power to fasten itself in the human nemory. The first missionaries in the South Sea Islands found that their most ignorant converts to Christianity were attracted to the Scriptures often, when they seemed to get no pleasurable or even con- nected ideas from " Pilgrim's Progress " or from " Rob- inson Crusoe." LECTURE V. THE TEXT : USES, SOURCES. 5th, Continuing the discussion of the positive uses of texts, we notice, in the fifth place, that a text aids in the introduction of a subject of discourse. (1) Upon this it should be remarked, that the pulpit without texts is inferior to other departments of public speaking in facilities for introduction of themes. A speaker before a legislative body has a theme pre- announced by the bill or the resolution before the House. A speaker at the bar has a similar aid. Oc- casional speakers, too, have assistance in the introduc- tion of their themes, in the fact that an occasion is usually, in some sort, a preparative to an audience for the kind of theme and of discussion which are becoming to it. But a preacher has no such facilities in any degree proportioned to the frequency of his discourses. His range of topics is almost unlimited. He is con- stantly addressing one audience. His hearers can have no specific preparation of mind for one religious theme rather than another, until he creates it. The danger of formality, or of sameness, therefore, in his approaches to his themes, is very great, unless he has a singularly inventive mind. Here the custom of preaching from texts comes to his aid. (2) Moreover, the brevity of a sermon renders facility 60 LECT, v.] THE TEXT : USES. 61 of introduction peculiarly needful in preaching. Usage rarely tolerates more than forty minutes to a sermon, generally less than that. Utility certainly requires re- striction within that time. Whitefield said that there were no conversions after the first half-hour. Yet the subjects of the pulpit demand time for discussion. A preacher often wishes that he could have the three hours of a lawyer in a court-room ; and on some themes what would he not give for the nine hours which Edmund Burke once occupied, or for the four whole days which he filled in Westminster Hall at the trial of V/arren Hastings? The preacher has no time for leisurely, circumlocutory approach to his theme. Any thing which facilitates brevity of preliminaries is valua- ble. A test does this. (3) But how does the use of a text aid in the ap- proach to a subject? I answer. Often a text is the subject. When it is not such, it may suggest material for an explanatory approach to the subject. When it needs no explanation, it may suggest the best material for an introduction proper. Remarks not explanatory of the text, and yet suggested directly by the text, may lead to the theme quickly, and in a way which shall stimulate attention. Again : a text itself may be such as to awaken interest in a subject. The Rev. Horace Bushnell, D.D., late of Hartford, often insured the interest of an audience through a whole discourse by the ingenuity of his selection of a text. The instant inquiry of a hearer was, " What will he make of such a text as that ? " 6th, A sixth use of a text is to promote variety in preaching. Vinet remarks, that, " in general, a text is an originality ready-made." (1) The Bible is full of diversified original forms of 62 THE THEORY OF PEEACHING. [lect. v. truth. It contains every variety of &tjle known to lit- erature. If the prime object of the biblical revelation had been to prepare a book of texts for the pulpit, a more copious variety of fresh thought could hardly have been collected in any other form. Let a preacher stamp upon liis ministry the biblical impress by repre- sentative texts, unfolded by sermons which are true to their texts, and he has an absolute guaranty of a sym- metrical pulpit. (2) This leads me to remark that inspired thought often presents in a single text original combinations of truth. One of the peculiarities which a student of biblical texts first discovers in them is that their ideas do not seem to have come together at the bidding of science. No inspired author seems to have aimed at the building of a system of any thing. If a metaphysi- cal truth is stated, it seems as if it happened to be where it is : perhaps it stands side by side with a gleam of poetry. Pure intellect and pure emotion play in and out, often, in the structure of a text, with the art- lessness, yet without the incoherence, of dreams. Pas- sages in the Epistles of St. Paul and of St. Peter, and in the visions of Isaiah, remind one of a tropical grove, so free is the growth and the undergrowth of ideas, and so versatile is the play of that which, in any other production, we should call genius. It is a sequence of this characteristic of inspiration, that biblical texts fre- quently present combinations of truth which are full of surprises. A single text will often be a picture in its combinations. If a preacher is sensible that his mind is exhausting itself, and that he is falling into a dull round of repetitions, which make the Sundays like the steps of a treadmill to him, let him set about the study of the Scriptures more earnestly; let him study his LECT. v.] THE TEXT : USES. 63 texts, and select rich texts, and then preach textual sermons for a while. It will make a new man of him. (3) This suggests, further, that the usage of preach- ing from texts promotes versatility of habit in a preach- er's mental culture. If mind grows by what it feeds upon, a preacher's mind can not habituate itself to thinking in scriptural lines of suggestion without ac- quiring some degree of scriptural versatility in its own lines of thought. What it originates will resemble the stimulus it has received. The preacher's sermons will become as picturesque as his texts are. 7th, But this consideration of the use of the text in promoting variety suggests a correlative object of the custom : it is to aid in the preservation of unity in a sermon. It is true that many texts appear to be hete- rogeneous in material : they are not a single thesis. But, on the other hand, the large majority of texts are logically one in their structure. They invite a strictly synthetic discourse. If a paragraph of a chapter does not, a single verse may : if a verse does not, a portion of it may. It is optional with the preacher to select more or less of the inspired record. A multitude of texts give a preacher no opportunity for rambling remarks. He must abandon them utterly, if he wanders out of their logical range. They are as rigidly one as a syllogism. But, further than this, many texts are rhetorically one which are not logical theses in form. Vinet says that there are two kinds of unity ; one logical, the other psychological. The psychological unity is the unity of soul in the text as an utterance of its author, and a corresponding unity of impression on the minds of hearers. A multitude of apparently heterogeneous texts have this psychological unity. The text — " The 64 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. v. fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance ; against such there is no law " — is intensely one in the spirit which animates it. A preacher can not appro- priate into his own mental working the aim of that text, and yet ramble into a centrifugal discourse on lo^e, and on joy, and on peace, as themes of independ- ent discussion. There is an aim in his text which steadies his aim in the sermon. This suggestion is enhanced in significance by the fact that intensity of aim is characteristic of inspired thought. Intensity of aim is singleness of aim. An eager mind tliinks in right lines : so an inspired mind thinks with a vigorous tension of intellect, and always for an object. Rambling thought is the work of an idle mind. The Scriptures have none of it. Hence paragraphs of inspired thought often develop tliQ point of unity when a verse does not. A chapter may develop the point of unity when a paragraph may seem to have none. Even in those passages in which inspired emotion overflows into seemingly redundant parenthe- ses, as is so often the case in the writings of St. Paul, we find, after all, a " lucidus ordo^'' which tlireads the whole. The intellectual tension which is incident to the inspired state often gives to the scriptural style a ring which reminds one of the twang of a bow-string. Fidelity to the spirit of texts in preaching, then, will secure unity of aim through the force of the sympathy of a preacher's mind with the intensity of inspired thinking and feeling. To these views of the point before us is to be added the fact that any collection of inspired words which have neither rhetorical nor logical unity is not a text. It can not be woven into a continuous discourse. For LECT. v.] THE TEXT : USES. 65 example, turn to the first three verses of the fourteenth chapter of Proverbs. They read thus : " Every wise woman buildeth her house ; but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands. He that walketh in his upright- ness feareth the Lord ; but he that is perverse in his ways despiseth. him. In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride ; but the lips of the wise shall preserve them." Here is a continuous collection of biblical utterances ; but they are not a text. They are inde- pendent proverbs. They have no unity, logical or rhetorical. They were not intended as a unit of thought by the inspired writers. No sensible preacher would force them into the attitude of a text. The custom, then, of preaching from texts must be regarded as always tending to unity of discourse. We have no occasion to apologize for textual sermons, as Mr. Jay does. Sermons true to texts will have as real a unity as sermons on a logical thesis. Texts will invite unity of sermon, and to a good preacher will necessi- tate it, just as they promote variety. Variety in unity, unity in variety : this is nature, and this is the rhetori- cal drift of the influence of texts. Such are the most important of the uses of the cus- tom we are considering, and of the objects to be aimed at in the selection of texts. From these considerations it is obvious that the selection of texts is of vast moment to the power of the pulpit. It is to the pulpit what the work of adjusting the range of guns is to a battery. A false range, or a range at random, is equiv- alent to none. It is not an exaggerated indication of the importance of texts, that sometimes a text itself is the occasion of the conversion of a soul. This occurred under the preaching of Whitefield. In powerful re- vivals it is no uncommon occurrence. 66 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. v. The study of texts, also, which is essential to intel- ligent selection, is of itself one of the most healthful moral preparations to a preacher's mind for the work of constructing a sermon. It enriches his emotive nature. I'he tendency of it is to subdue unhallowed emotions, and to bring a preacher, as a messenger of God, into sympathy with his work as the work of God. Have we not all learned the importance of cultivating habits of mental intensity in our religious experience? The most perfect example of such intense experience that we have on record, next to the life of our Lord, is found in the working of inspired minds. That is a most wonder- ful law of inspiration by which thought direct from the mind of God comes to us in solution with the religious emotions of the human soul chosen for its utterance. It comes in such form, that often you can not separate the divine thought from the human feeling which em- bodies it. The moral individuality of the man is as in- tense as the truth which is communicated through him. Hence we are never sensible of distance, or of conflict, between the intellect and the heart of an inspired writer. His intellect is never chilly : his heart is never empty. An experience closely resembling this is practicable to every preacher. It creates the perfection of preach- ing. The prayerful study of texts is one of the direct means of acquiring it. I think that preachers of earnest piety are more frequently sensible of intuitions which seem to them to be direct from the Holy Ghost in their selection of texts than in any other portion of their 2")reparation for the pulpit. Whitefield, Suramerfield, Edwards, Payson, — all of them recognized such hints from the Holy Spirit in their ministerial experience as Df frequent recurrence. In many less celebrated in- LECT. v.] THE TEXT : SOURCES. 67 stances it is not so mufh a theme wliicli unfolds itself richly to the mind, as it is the suggestion and opening of a text, — often sudden, and by no laws of association which the mind can detect. You will be sensible of this in your own pastoral experience, if you are eager biblical students, and intensely prayerful men. As the rainbow often gives a reflection of itself, so the promise of Christ to his disciples will seem to have a secondary fulfillment in your life : " The Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say. " If the business of selection, then, be so important to the management of texts, it may seem natural to pro- ceed to lay down rules of selection. But we experience a difficulty in practice as soon as we attempt to subject ourselves very rigidly to rules on a subject like this. I prefer to consider the principles of selection under the general title of inquiries^ rather than rules., respect- ing the choice of texts. This is the precise form in which the subject comes before a pastor's mind practi- cally. It is, " Shall I choose this, or shall I choose that, for a text? " With very few exceptions, principles will require diverse applications in different cases, and our practice will often overleap them, if we have suffered them to stiffen into rules. IV. The most important inquiries respecting the selection of texts group themselves naturally into four classes. 1st, The first of these classes relate to the sources of texts. (1) And of these, the first is the query, ]\Iay we select and use as a text an interpolated passage, or a mistranslation ? In reply, it should be observed that plausible argu- ments are often given in the affirmative of the question. 68 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. v. The convenience of such texts ;s frequently urged in defense of them. The text (1 John v. 7), "There are three that bear record in heaven," is a very con- venient proof-text for the doctrine of the Trinity. The passage in Prov. viii. 17, " Those that seek me early shall find me," is a very useful text for a sermon on youthful piety. If homiletic reasons alone should control our usage, we should deem it a misfortune to part with these passages. Yet the first is an interpo'a- tion, and the second is a mistranslation. The latitude adopted by opponents of evangelical truth in their use of the Scriptures is also urged in vindication of such uncanonical texts. We can not afford to be scrupulous, it is said, while our opponents are not so. The failure of audiences to detect the error, if we use these texts, is further alleged in their support. Why may we not use their ignorance for their own good? Said one preacher, "In using this ignorance of my audience, I am only doing that which God does with us all. The use of human infirmity to the extent even of a decep- tive silence concerning human ignorance is a prmciple very largely wrought into the divine administration of this world." The ostentation of correcting the accepted Bible of the people is also adduced in behalf of the larger liberty in using such passages. The Bible of the people is the English version, not the private though unanimous reading of the schools. It is further affirmed that evil is done by disturbing popular associations with biblical language. The Bible of the people, again, it is affirmed, is King James's translation. Their faith in the whole may be impaired by the loss of their faith in a fraction. The reverent lady who declared her faith in the narrative of Jonah, saying, that, if the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed LECT. v.] THE TEXT : SOUECES. 69 tlie whale, she should have believed it, might not have borne complacently the loss of the celebrated Trinita- rian interpolation in the First Epistle of St. John. We must concede, even on the ground of the largest lib- erty, that it is a misfortune that Christian scholarship has lost from the Bible the only literal declaration it was once thought to contain of the triune existence of the Godhead. Other passages, too, are so enshrined in the reverent associations of the people, that the loss of them would be like the loss of the ancient hymns of the Church. So strong is this feeling, — prejudice, if so you please to call it, — that Noah Webster and his success- ors, in the editing of his dictionary, though revolution- izing the orthography of every other kindred word in the language, did not venture to exclude the spelling of the word " Saviour " with the " u," as they should have done if they had been self-consistent. They have yielded scholarship, as they regard it, to popular rever- ence for a single letter. This inherited popular feeling is so powerful, that, in the judgment of many, if the reverend and scholarly authors of the " New Version," now in progress, should decide to abandon the closing ascription of the Lord's Prayer, the Church of the peo- ple probably would not accept the scholastic decision in a thousand years. Why, then, it is plausibly asked, should we be punctiKous about a few uncanonical texts ? This strain of reasoning leads us to observe that some concession to the affirmative of this question is but reasonable. For instance, it is reasonable that a preacher should not needlessly obtrude the scholastic correction of these passages upon an audience. We should never go out of our way to encounter and rebuff the popular faith in them : we may be justified 70 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. v. in going out of our way to avoid such an encounter. A profound principle was that of our Lord respecting the tares and the wheat: it has innumerable varia- tions. Truth bears an immense amount of association with error with less evil than human nature suffers from the convulsions necessary to a rapid rectification of the wrong. Our Saviour was an adroit preacher : he knew when to hold his peace. So may we, upon occasions, let these- questionable texts alone : to do so is no violation of Chi'istian simplicity. Further : it is obviously reasonable, that, under any circumstances, we should not commonly choose for texts passages which need correction. So much is to be conceded to the affirmative of the question. But, when we are driven to face the question, the negative argument is conclusive ; and this for impera- tive reasons. The license of using such texts without correction injures the moral and mental habits of a preacher. Whatever may be said in defense of it, it does involve an untruth. It imposes upon the -faith of an audience. The audience will never know it ? Per- haps so; but the preacher must know it, and, if it injures a preacher's moral tone, it must also injure his intellectual habits. Few thing^s are so debilitating: to intellect as special pleading. No man can afford, as a matter of mental discipline, to tamper with his own sense of truth. An equally conclusive argument against the use of these texts is the hazard to a preacher's reputation. It is not true of all hearers in every audience, that they will not detect such liberties in the pulpit. It would not be safe to preach to any audience in New England on the text, "There are three that bear record in heaven," without disclosing its true character. If the LECT. v.] THE TEXT : SOURCES. 71 majority did not know it, an individual here and there would know it. You can bear a weak spot in your reputation as a scholar at any other point more secure- ly than at this of biblical scholarship. One of the ablest laymen in Boston, the parishioner of one of the most scholarly pastors of New England, once turned away from him to seek direction elsewhere in biblical studies, because he had lost somewhat of his faith in his pastor's biblical scholarship. A scholar in every thing else, he was not a scholar in this; and the keen parishioner had found it out. A third reason for the rejection of the class of texts in question is the fact, that, in an enlarged view, it is not an evil that popular ignorance of the English Scriptures should be enlightened. The mind of the Spirit is the Word, and nothing else. The inspired record is the Word, and no other. The genuine trans- lation is the Word, and nothing different. Cautiously and reverently, but faithfully, we should transfer, if possible, the misplaced reverence of the people. Let it be affixed to the exact word of God, not to the most useful substitute ; to the exact word of God, not to the interpolations of monks ; to the exact word of God, not to the wisdom of King James's translators. Schol- arly commentators have reason for their complaints of the pulpit in this respect. De Wette speaks the feeling of all candid commentators, in saying of the German pulpit, "It is unpardonable that preachers adhere purely to the version of Luther, so often faulty, especially in the Old Testament ; and they thus preach upon a pretended biblical thought which is found no- where in the original." (2) A second inquir}^ of the class now before us is. May we select as texts passages the sentiment of 72 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. v. whicli is not inspired? These passages are of three kinds. One consists of the false sayings of wicked beings. The record is inspired of the sayings of Cain, Ahab, Saul, Herod, Judas, Satan. A second consists of false sentiments of good men. The complaints of Job, some of the arguments of Job's friends, the skep- tical reasonings of Koheleth, are specimens of these. The third class consists of true sentiments uttered by men not inspired. The historical and biographical parts of the Bible abound with such passages. These uninspired passages are a good source of texts. A good source, I say ; not that they are all good texts. They constitute a large portion of the Scriptures. They are in the Bible by inspiration of record. They therefore hold a rank which an interpolation and a mistranslation do not. One who has not investigated the matter would be surprised to find how great a pro- portion of the Scriptures is inspired only in record. It is largely an inspired record of uninspired sentiments. These passages are a good source of texts because of the intrinsic value of the truth which many of them contain. " Who can forgive sins but God only ? " was a truth uttered by men, who, in the same breath, charged our Lord with blasphemy. " Never man spake like this man" was a truth affirmed by men who had just re- turned from an attempt to arrest him for his destruc- tion. " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian " was said by one before whom an Apostle was on trial for his life. " Lord, I believe ; helj) thou mine unbelief:" " Lord, teach us to pray : " " Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life," — these, and a multitude like them, are the utterances of infirm minds struggling into truth, and for that reason may be the more valuable for the purpose of a preacher. LECT. v.] THE TEXT : SOUECES. 73 Again : these uninspired passages are many of tliem confirmed by others which are inspired. Why not pre- fer those inspired passages as texts? Because those which are uninspired except in record may have rhe- torical advantages which the others have not. " Lord, I believe ; help thou mine unbelief : " compare this with the text, " A bruised reed shall he not break." Might not the first of these be preferable as the text of a discourse to the weak in faith? Words from the lips of a doubting disciple may carry more weight than even inspired words addressed to such a disciple. Furthermore, many of this class of texts are valua- ble specimens of the working of uninspired minds. Confirmation of inspired truth may spring from unin- spired sources. The " Meditations " of M. Aurelius Antoninus are the more valuable for the tacit tribute which Paganism pays in them to the spirit of Chris- tianity. " I know thee, who thou art, the Holy One of God," was a truth exploded by consciencQ from the lips of a demoniac spirit; and for that reason, used as a text, it may be the more impressive. On the other hand, it is an honor to the truth of Revelation to see how falsely men will often reason for the want of it. The theory of temporal suffering advanced by Job's three friends is a grand text to illustrate the danger of illogical working in minds devoid of divine illumina- tion. Still further: the class of passages under considera- tion contain valuable specimens of unregenerate char- acter. " Let us eat, and drink ; for to-morrow we die : " where shall we find another so fit a text for a sermon on the abuses of the certainty of death? Yet it is not inspired, and it is false in sentiment. Atheism is concentrated and exploded in it. What would the 74 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect, v. pulpit do ■witliont the text from the troubled conscience and the trembling faith of Felix : " Go thy way for this time ; when I have a convenient season I will call for thee " ? " What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you?" — where is to be found another so apt a text for a sermon on the truth that " the extreme of wickedness is the extreme of meanness " ? Nothing else discloses the theory of sin like examples of it from real life. The Scriptures would be less valuable than they are for homiletic uses, if they did not abound with such extracts from the real experiences of sin. Yet they are inspired records of uninspired falsehoods. Certain cautions, however, should be observed in the selection of texts from this source. One is that we should never use them as proof-texts of doctrine. Job, Bildad, Zophar, J^lihu, Ahab, Saul are no authority for revealed truth. They often contradict each other : they commonly contradict the direct teaching of the Holy Spirit. You make a hazardous concession to infidelity, if you use such texts as proof-texts. We must employ this whole class of texts for just what they are, and no more, — an inspired record of uninspired beliefs. A second caution is that we should not give to this source of texts an undue proportion in our sermons. The history of a ministry of ten years might surprise some preachers by its disclosure of a disproportion between inspired record and inspired sentiment in their preaching. It is one of the most insidious of the temp- tations of this world that sin is so attractive in its forms of speech. Wicked men are very apt to be fas- cinating men. Periods in history occur in which the most charming literature is infidel literature. The reading public of England ran wild over the produc- tions of Byron, Shelley, and Thomas Moore, when their LECT. v.] THE TEXT : SOURCES. 76 Cliristian contemporaries, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and SoLithey, could scarcely command a hearing. The press could not supply the demand for Lord Byron's "Don Juan," while Coleridge's " Christabel " was circulating in manuscript. Even intrinsically considered, sin is racy in its utterances. Not only do its sentiments please depraved minds; but its style is apt to allure scholarly minds, and, among the illiterate, bright minds. The most popular wit in the world is blasphemy. To the mass of men the most forcible style is profaneness. Nothing else is so sure to command a round of applause on the platform as an oath. This element of power in the style of speech adopted by sin runs into its utterance in the Scriptures. If, therefore, we pay no heed to our choice of texts, we may find ourselves unconsciously attracted by the raci- ness of sin to an undue proportion in our choice of the sayings of wicked men and even of other wicked beings. One preacher I knew, who seemed to have a mania for the character and doings and words of Satan. Preach- ing upon them was to him a safety-valve through which he let off a secret accumulation of the profane impidse. Very many preachers discourse upon the biblical ex- pressions and illustrations of sin more frequently than upon the utterances and examples of holiness. Set a watch upon this peril in your own ministry. Preach rather on holiness than on sin ; more often on God than on man; on the rewards of piety more frequently than on the doom of guilt; and choose texts accordingly. Valuable as many of these uninspired passages are, the richest texts in the largest profusion will be found to be the direct expressions of the Holy Spirit. A third caution respecting the passages in question is that generally, when they are employed as texts, the 76 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. t. fact slioiild be named that they are not from inspired sources. Tliis need not always be done in express terms : something may be said wliich implies it. It need not always be done at all. Some texts, like the words of Felix to St. Paul, would never be mistaken for in- spired sentiments. But in the majority of cases these passages are on neutral ground. Their sentiment and structure do not disclose whether Solomon is the author, or Zophar. In these cases the text should not be left neutral in the minds of hearers. LECTURE VI. THE TEXT: FOEMS, PEESPICUITT. 2d, The second class of inquiries respecting the selection of texts relate to the form of texts. (1) Of these the first is, Must a text be a gram- matical sentence ? That is, must its grammatical .structure be complete, so that all its words could be parsed? Good taste responds "Yes," as the general rule. It has the look of affectation to choose for a text language which grammatically considered has no sense. " Beginning at Jerusalem" was the text of a pastor in Philadelphia. Beginning what? who begins? what for ? what of it ? Imagine the announcement of such a fragment as the theme of a secular speaker ! " As in Adam all die ; — " why retain the first word, which, torn from its connections, has no meaning? Omit the first word, and have you not the more tasteful text ? It is an emphatic, grammatically finished proposition. " Pas- tor Harms " has published a sermon on the text, " A little while." Vinet does not object to it. But I ven- ture to place it side by side with the theme of another sermon on the text in full, by a preacher in Philadel- phia, and let each speak for itself. This is the plan of the German pastor : " 1. These words are cheering to the afiQictecl — "a little while ; " 2. They maintain joy in joyful hearts — "a little while;" 3. They arouse 77 78 ' THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vi. slnggishness — "a little while ; " 4. They disturb care- lessness — "a little while ; " 5. They sustain those who are combating — "a little while ; " 6. They strengthen the dying — "a little while." From the text in full, " A little while and ye shall not see me, and again a little while and ye shall see me," the American preacher presents this subject : " Some of the lessons to be derived from the absence of our Lord from us, and its brief duration." By the side of this what becomes of the " little while " of " Pastor Harms " ? Imagine St. Paul on Mars Hill as sentimentalizing on " a little while " ! Any thing can be caricatured; the best things the most ludicrously. Yet only by caricature can we pic- ture to the life this method of dawdling over fragments of inspired words. Imagine, then, a full-grown man, for a half-score of Sundays in succession, quiddling over the following texts, all of them inspired fragments : " The precious ointment that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard ; " " Alexander the coppersmith ; " " Bowels of mercies ; " " The great and noble Asnap- per ; " " The shaking of a spear ; " "A piece of the nether millstone ; " " The eyelids of the morning ; " "The little owl and the great owl;" "Peter's wife's mother " ! But exceptions exist, in which ungrammatical texts are admissible. They are cases in which the fragments chosen are very weighty in thought, and so well known, that they instantly suggest the complete idea. Why do we say, " The greater the truth, the greater the libel " ? Why do we say, " Like people, like priest ; " ""Waste not, want not;" "No pains, no gains;" " Handsome is that handsome does " ? These are not grammatical structures, yet good taste does not veto LECT. VI.] THE TEXT : FORMS. T9 their proverbial abbreviations. Why ? Because of two elements in them, — their pith of sentiment and the instantaneousness with which they are -understood. The thought is racy, and at the same time complete, though the form is not complete. Because of the raci- ness, it is pleasing to have it in a nutshell, provided that we have the whole of it. On the same principle of taste we are pleased with certain exceptions to the general rule against fragmen- tary texts. Certain fragments of inspired speech are of striking significance, and at the same time so well known, that to utter them is to suggest to hearers instantly the complete idea. Such fractional texts are the following: "The glorious gospel of the blessed God ; " " Without God in the world ; " " Our Father, which art in heaven ; " " The precious blood of Chi'ist." These are good texts, because of their very striking significance and the instantaneousness with which they are completely understood. Their significance alone would not justify them; their completeness of idea alone would not : but the union of these two elements puts them into the same category with abbreviated proverbs. A delicate sense of propriety wiU enable a preacher to distinguish these exceptions, though they are somewhat numerous. The number of these excep- tions suggests a caution, that, in doubtful cases, the entire passage should be cited with a repetition of the textual fragment. This is admissible in all cases, and required in some. (2) A second inquiry concerning the form of texts is, Can any principle regulate the length of texts? Ob^dously no rule can be of any value on a point like this. Yet on few of the expedients of the pulpit do preachers differ more widely. All that criticism can 80 THE THEORY OF PREACHmG. [lect. vi. wisely say of it is contained in a few onemoranda. One is, that long texts have advantages which are sometimes conclusive in their defense. They familiarize the peo- ple with the Bible. The Book of Common Prayer is justly commended on the ground that it introduces so much of inspired language into the routine of worship. Long texts, if well treated by elaborate exposition, effect the same object more instructively than the mere rehearsal of the Scriptures. Moreover, long texts pro- mote a taste for exposition among the people, and invite a preacher to expository discourse. Prolonged texts, furthermore, are the more accordant with the original theory of the text : they are conservative of the ancient reverence for the inspired utterances. But a second memorandum is, that short texts have advantages which should sometimes give to them the preference. They are more easily remembered than long texts. A brief message in the memory is of more worth than a long one in the ear. Short texts, again, promote unity of impression. A lengthy text is apt to have some redundant materials which must be elimi- nated as the sermon proceeds. The brief text more easily tallies with the range of the sermon. Further, it often promotes interest, of introduction by the omis- sion of needless exposition. Indolent composing in the introduction frequently takes the form of exposition irrelevant to the aim of the sermon. Once more : the laconic text admits of emphatic repetition in the body of the sermon. Facility of repetition in the use of a text is often a prime element in the force of a conclu- sion. For the reasons now noted, it is obvious that the only rule which can be wisely adopted as to the length of a text is, " Fit the text to the demands of the subject." The advantages in either direction are only i-ECT. VI.] THE TEXT : FORMS. 81 secondary ; but the demands of the subject are always imperative. They wiil necessitate variety. But, while this is the only rule which criticism can wisely apply, another suggestion is, that a preacher's skill in the homiletic use of the Scriptures should affect the general length of his texts. The mere heading of a sermon with a dumb block of biblical words is inane ; not so the skillful handling of it with oratorical genius. Plod and drone over a text, copying lazily from your commentaries, and no style of sermonizing is more stale ; but use inspiration in the spirit of an orator, speaking as if you were yourself inspired, and your preacliing becomes a model of fascinating speech. A clergyman, formerly of Brooklyn, used to preach upon entire chap- ters. He had trained his inventive power to act in devising methods of making the Bible interesting. He had at command an inexhaustible fund of biblical information. In his seriuons, he would career over an entire biblical chapter with such exhilarating comment, that, in the result, he carried an audience with him to the end of an hour without a moment of weariness. He made exegetical learning kindle with oratorical fire. It is doubtful whether any thing else than his taste for scriptural truth, characters, events, idioms, and scenery could have saved his pulpit from being overwhelmed by the irrelevant materials stored in his polyglot mem- ory. A man who can use biblical materials thus, with oratorical, as distinct from merely exegetical, skill, may safely indulge in the use of long texts. On the other hand, the most lifeless preaching possible, and therefore in spirit the most unscriptural preaching, is that which is made up of commonplaces, drawn from concordance and commentary, on a conglomeration of biblical words. 82 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vi. (3) A third inquiry concerning the form of texts is, May we choose for one sermon* more than one text ? The leading principle which decides this question is the same with that which regulates the length of the text, — fit the text to the subject and its discussion. This, how- ever, will of necessity require that we generally adopt but one text. We should never choose more than one text, without an obvious demand for it in the nature of the theme, or of its discussion. What constitutes an obvious demand ? It must be some departure from singleness in the subject. Two or more texts should not be chosen merely for the purpose of dignifying a subject by an accumulation of inspired statements of it. The text is not the proper place for this. If the subject be one, the text should be one. Neither should two or more texts be announced for the sake of discussing two or more independent subjects in one sermon. No such discussions of independent subjects are permissible in one sermon. The law of unity forbids them. Two or more texts may properly be chosen for a sub- ject which is twofold, or manifold, and for which no single text can be found which covers its whole range. The late Professor Hitchcock of Amherst discussed before the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1850, the mutual dependence of liberty, education, and religion. The subject was single, yet threefold : no correspond- ing threefold text in the Bible exactly expresses or suggests that tlireefold theme. Therefore the preacher properly announced three texts, — one for each of the leading topics of the sermon. On the same principle, double texts are often appropriate to the discussion of related truths. Certain biblical doctrines lie over against each other. They are opposites without being contradictories. If no single text suggests such a brace i,ECT. VI.] ^ THE TEXT: FORMS. 83 of truths, two may be chosen to introduce them. Thus Professor Shecld, in a discourse designed to reconcile the benevolence with the justice of God, announced tlie double text : " God is love," and " God is a consuming fire." A reconciliation of the theories of St. Paul and St. James on justification may require two texts. The Rev. Bishop Huntington, preaching upon " The cross as a burden and a glory," selected these two texts : " They found a man of Gyrene, Simon by name, him they com- pelled to bear his cross," and " God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." The two dispensations of the Old and New Testa- ments furnish a class of themes which may require double texts. Revelation as a whole derives a dual structure from this feature in its history. The views of Job and of St. Paul on the immortality of the soul,; the Mosaic and the Christian laws of the Sabbath ; the Mosaic and the Christian theories of marriage ; the Mosaic and the Christian theories of human servitude ; the Ten Commandments, and their summary in the Christian law of love ; the imprecatory Psalms, and the Sermon on the Mount, — these are examples of subjects properly treated by mutual comparison, each couple in one sermon, with two texts. In all the cases in which double texts are allowed, you will perceive that the principle of selection is simply that of necessity. It is very -different from that by which a preacher chooses double texts to intensify the biblical authority for a theme, or to discuss independent themes, or to affect a homiletic singularity. 3d, The third class of inquiries concern the impres- sion of texts upon the audience. In the very concep- tion of it a text is a rhetorical expedient: it is no essential part of discourse considered as such. Aristotle 84 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vi. knew nothing of it. We employ it as an oratorical device for certain advantages, most of which consist in the direct impression of the text upon the audience. Therefore this impression gives rise to a significant class of inquiries. (1) Of these the first is, Should a preacher restrict his choice to perspicuous texts? "What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" "Turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways, for why will ye die ? " " Seek ye the Lord while he may be found : " " By their fruits ye shall know them : " " Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand : " " Grow in grace : " " By grace are ye saved through faith," — such passages, together Avith the narrative parts of the Bible, the parables, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the devotional Psalms, represent the staple of texts in the ministra- tions of many preachers. Is it wise to confine the pulpit to so narrow a range of choice ? Is it desirable to give to such passages, even an ascendency in one's range of selection? In answer we should defend the affirmative, if we were prescribing for an itinerant ministry ; for perspicu- ous texts have some very positive advantages. Such texts are immediately suggestive of the subjects de- rived from them. Often it is desirable that a theme should disclose itself to hearers instantaneously : there- fore it is judicious to choose a text which needs no comment. Often suspense is the very thing which we wish to retrench: therefore we take a clear text, that the hearer may not be held aloof from the theme by the interpolation of expository preliminaries. An oc- casion is sometimes such as to indispose an audience to such preliminaries. A wise preacher in Connecticut, after the death of a young person by a shocking calam- lECT. VI.] THE TEXT : PERSPICUITY. 85 ity, at one stroke took command of the "wronght-up feelings of his hearers by announcing as his text tlie words, " It is I : be not afraid." Make a subject thus chime in, if possible, with the mood of an audience, instead of plodding through an explanation of an ob- scure text, before you can reach a subject. Again : a perspicuous text may facilitate a long and intricate discussion. It may save time for such a dis- cussion. We must watch for all fair expedients for shortening preliminaries. Ten minutes saved by the absence of an expository introduction to a sermon may save the whole force of it in its final impression upon the hearers. On those economized minutes may depend the question whether the conclusion shall fall upon interested or upon jaded sensibilities. A clear text saves, also, not only time, but the intellectual strength of an audience for a difficult discussion. If a subject must task the hearer's power of attention or abstraction, an adroit preacher will not exhaust that power by a needless expenditure of it upon the text. The tactics of military skill are the true strategy of the pulpit. Concentrate the mental resources of an audience where they are most imperatively demanded. Reserve fresh force for the critical juncture of the discussion. Moreover, a transparent text assists the illiterate part of an audience in the comprehension and recollection of the sermon. A text plainly expressive of the theme helps an untrained mind to the understanding of much which is not transparent. If an invalid hearer loses some part of the discourse, a perspicuous text may assist him to rejoin the train of thought. It is like a beacon to one who has lost his way. Such a text, also, very obviously assists the memory of such a hearer. 86 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vi. The remembrance of the entire sermon will often de- pend on the simplicity of the text. This suggests, fur- ther, that a plain text may predispose many to listen to the sermon founded upon it. You will often detect a liearer deliberately composing himself to sleep when be sees the prospect of an elaborate discussion. A wise tactician in the strategy of the pulpit will catch such imbecile listeners, if need be, with guile. Do not indulge them with a dark text suggestive of another indulgence of darkness. I have known one preacher, who, in preaching to an audience which was unusually demonstrative in its religious emotions, would always choose a sermon which had an impassioned text. His text for one such audience was, " Howl ye ; for the day of the Lord is at hand." You will find yourselves driven by pastoral fidelity to invent expedients for breaking up habits of somnolence in a certain class of hearers. By a law of our nature we grow fond of ano- dynes to which we become habituated. May not this account for the attachment of certain attendants upon the worship of the sanctuary to pastors whose sermons they certainly do not hear ? A faithful preacher will deem nothing beneath his care which may predispose infirm minds to listen to his discourses. Still another advantage of a clear text is that it brings biblical authority to the front at tlie outset of a discussion. This supreme object of a text is achieved most readily by one which is easily understood. Texts which unequivocally affirm unwelcome doctrines may sometimes be made to capture a hearer's convictions or sensibilities before prejudice has time to rally. A plain declaration of God's word forbids cavil. An adroit preacher will thus forestall cavil, at times, by blocking its way with such a text. " My text is found in Mark LECT, VI.] THE TEXT : PERSPICUITY. 87 xiv. 21 : ' Good were it for that man if he had never been born.' Who, then, can believe that Judas has been in heaven these eighteen hundred years?" — such were tlie text and introduction of a certain discourse on the future punishment of the wicked. Such advantages as these have been the inducement to some homiletic writers to advise the selection of trans- parent texts only. Probably the same reason led to the adoption, by the Fathers, of the Ttepixomj of texts, and to the restriction of the range of choice in some of the Reformed churches to the scriptural lesson for the day. But such limitations presuppose a low state of culture in the popular mind. For the necessities created by the advanced culture of our own times, obscure texts have advantages which often offset those of perspicu- ous texts. The discussion of an obscure text, if well constructed, promotes popular knowledge of the Scrip- tures. An obscure text understood is so much added to the common stock of biblical information. If we always avoid such passages, out of regard to the wants of infirm hearers, one of the objects of having a text is lost. Some persons in every congregation are not students. They do not read commentaries. Their reading of the Scriptures is not very intelligent. Their daily devotional reading of the Bible is largely routine : they estimate its value, often, by the quantity read, rather than by the thoughts appropriated. For solid growth in scriptural knowledge they depend upon the ministrations of the pulpit. A considerate pastor will care for this class of souls by often choosing texts, which, when explained, will be some addition to their scriptural ideas. After many days, you may find the bread you have thus cast upon the waters in the good service which such a text performs in the meditations 88 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vi. of a Cluistian on his death-bed. Other thing-s beincc equal, therefore, an obscure text is preferable to a per- spicuous one in a stationary ministry, for the opj)ortu- nity it gives for enlarging, the range of biblical thought in the experience of many hearers. On this ground Bishop Horsley advocated and sustained by his own practice the frequent selection of difficult texts. In his pulpit he thus put himself at the head of a Bible class. Again : an obscure text often facilitates a gradual approach to the subject of a discourse. Is it an argu- ment for a plain text that it discloses the subject at once ? True ; but sometimes it is not desirable to dis- close the subject at once. A prudent speaker will sometimes count it a misfortune to have the subject foreseen at a glance by its reflection from the text. If sometimes it is wise to overawe cavil by a biblical command to accept an obnoxious doctrine, at other times it may be wiser to conceal the obnoxious doctrine till certain prefatory remarks have quickened tlie inter- est of a hearer in it. In such a case a text which by its transparency tell;: the whole story defeats itself. The text, "He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth," leaves a preacher no leeway for suspense in announcing the theme of "The Decrees of God." But Dr. Emmons approaches a branch of that subject more ingeniously from the text, " Except these abide in the ship, ye can not be saved." The text, " The wicked shall be turned into hell," gives inevitable foresight of what the subject is to be.^ But the same subject might be derived legiti- mately, yet gradually, from the parable of the house built on the sand. In the choice of a text, we must often strike the balance between opposing advantages. The same weights are not always in the same scale. LECT. VI.] THE TEXT : PERSPICUITY. 89 Further: an obscure text tends to interest the more cultivated hearers. If invalid minds may be benefited by facile texts, robust minds are on the alert for an object of intellectual interest. Such minds will grapple with a difficult discussion, will be attracted by a dif- ficult text. One of the practical perplexities of preach- ing on the text, " What shall a man give in exchange for his soul ? " is the intellectual disappointment which thoughtful hearers feel at the announcement of that which promises them no intellectual refreshment. Have you not been sensible of this in listening to sermons upon that passage ? It is one of the most difficult texts in the Bible on which to construct an interesting dis- course. This suggests that an obscure text furnishes a fa- vorable mode of training to reflective habits the less cultivated hearers. A certain class of hearers are un- reflecting, not from mental weakness, but from want of culture. One of the multifarious aims of a preacher should be to elevate this class of minds. The pulpit is the chief educating power to them. Yet they need a considerate pulpit. Specially do they require a train- ing which shall associate genially their intellectual aspirations with their religious emotions. In practical life pastors are embarrassed by the antagonism which exists, in the popular convictions, between intellect and piety. You will soon encounter this antagonism in some form. You will find the presumption lurking in the minds of some of your most excellent hearers that a very intellectual thing can not be a very religious thing. It is a pernicious error : few to which the pop- ular mind is exposed are more so. Yet you will never succeed in removing it, except by elevating such minds to a higher level of culture. 90 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vi. One metliod of inducing tliis state of improved cul- ture is to take advantage of tlie reverence of your hearers for tlie word of God, their awe in view of its mysteries, their faith in the value of its unexplained obscurities, and their consequent desire to know more of its meaning. Take advantage of the assemblage of moral feelings which gather around the Bible, and make them tributary to the intellectual training necessary to the understanding of the Bible. Preach, therefore, often on obscure texts. One thing which has sustained theological thinking among the common people of Scot- land is the taste for elaborate and argumentative expo- sition, which has been cultivated by the Scottish pulpit. A profound principle of tactics in the education of a people by the pulpit is contained in this advance of in- tellectual culture in alliance with the moral affections. Such are some of the advantages of obscure texts. A pulpit which recognizes progress in the education of the masses, and therefore aims to keep itself at such a height that it can be an educating power to the masses, must admit discussions of the obscurities of revelation. Yet such discussion may be abused. Therefore it is desirable to observe certain cautions respecting the choice of obscure texts. One caution is that we should not choose an obscure text unless we are confident that we can make it plain. Not only should we ourselves understand it, but we should be able to make our audience understand it. A positive evil is done, if we drag into view a scriptural obscurity, and, after a bungling exposition, leave it as we found it. Another caution is that we should not select a dark text, when to make it intelligible would require a disproportionate amount of the time allotted to the sermon. A discussion of a theme should not be LECT. VI.] THE TEXT : PERSPICUITY. 91 cramped in order to unfold an unmanageable text. A third caution is, that we should not choose a very ob- scure text for a very simple subject. Some passages when explained are reduced to an exceedingly simple meaning, yet the process of explanation is difficult and prolonged. Many of the most valuable religious sentiments of the Old Testament are but hints of the same sentiments recorded more luminously in the New Testament. To evolve them from the texts of the Old Testament may be a laborious process, yet some sim- ple texts of the New Testament may have rendered them familiar to hearers of to-day. A text is never designed for a displa}^ of ingenuity in extorting a senti- ment from it. The text is made for the subject, not the subject for the text. A fourth caution is, that we should not choose ob- scure texts in such proportion as to misrepresent the simplicity of the Scriptures. Some preachers have a mania for exposition. A difficult text is a treasure to them, of value proportioned to its obscurity. Arch- bishop Whately, if one may judge from his published sermons, was inclined to a disproportioned treatment of the difficulties of the Bible. It is not wise to be eager to array these before the people from the pulpit. I consider thus at length the question of perspicuous and obscure texts, because it is fundamental to the whole subject of the degree of intellectuality which should be cultivated in the pulpit. We need to correct those traditions of the pulpit respecting it which do not recognize progress in popular intelligence ; and yet no 'sweeping principles can be safely adopted against them. A certain average of regard for conflicting interests must be aimed at, and this may not be the same in the experience of any two pastors. LECTURE VII. THE TEXT: EMOTIOISr, DIGNITY, NOVELTY, PEESON- ALITY. (2) The second inquiry which concerns the impres- sion of texts upon an audience is, Ought we to select texts of elevated emotional character? These have been termed by homiletic writers "promising texts." It was an ancient homiletic rule that such texts should not be chosen. The aim of the rule was to insure sim- plicity in all the labors of the pulpit. Care to make preaching elementary has been the burden of a vast amount of homiletic advice. In sympathy with this view it must be conceded that serious difficulties attend the management of emotional texts. One of these is the obvious danger of exciting expectations which the sermon will disappoint. Take, for example, such passages as the following : " Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach- thani:" "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ? " " They rest not day and night, saying. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, wliich was, and is, and is to come." These passages a preacher can not read appropriately without the sug- gestion of sublime emotions. An audience may natu- rally anticipate from them splendid discourses. The gi-and text needs to be buoyed up by a grand sermon. 92 tECT. vn.] THE TEXT : EMOTION. 93 Will any sermon equal siicli texts ? This difiicnlty is aggravated by the incongruity between an impassioned text and the quiescent state of an audience when the text is announced. Hearers are generally unexcited when a preacher rises to utter his text. Such passages as we are considering come upon them suddenly. The transition is abrupt. Can even inspired passion com- mand instantaneous sympathy? Another difficulty of such texts is, that they invite a preacher into an impassioned introduction. The ten- dency is to produce a strain to lift the introduction to the level of the text. Therefore eloquent description, or impassioned appeal, or richly-wrought imagery may be thrust into the preliminary portions of a sermon, where such composition is very rarely natural. So much the more prodigious, then, is the labor devolving upon the preacher of sustaining such an impression by a corresponding splendor in the sermon. If a man besfins with the sunrise, he must rise to the meridian. And this suggests the danger of bombast in a futile attempt to equal promising texts. Some passages of the Scriptures no uninspired mind can imitate. No preacher can describe the New Jerusalem as St. John has described it. Preachers become turgid when they imitate the old prophets in denunciatory discourse. They appear effeminate when they struggle to copy the beauty or the pathos of certain biblical appeals. They still more frequently make the pulpit ridiculous by pro- longing and improving upon scriptual imagery. These are real difficulties in the treatment of such texts. Yet it must be said, on the other hand, that promising texts can not always be dispensed with. One reason is that they form the most significant por- tions of God's word. Are we never to preach upon the 94 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vn. biblical descriptions of the judgment, of heaven, of hell? Moreover, some subjects are not congenial with an unpretending text. Some of the themes of the pulpit are intrinsically grand, awful, overpowering: others are plaintive, beautiful, exquisite. These quali- ties are ingrained in the subjects. The one class, if presented becomingly, must be discussed in bold, im- passioned style : the other class, if discussed tastefully, must appear in elegant words, with elaborate imagery, leaving a gorgeous impression. "With or without texts, subjects have these varieties of nature. They need congruous texts. Good texts on immortality are not numerous in the Scriptures. Shall a preacher content himself with the language' of Christ to his disciples, " Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul," in order to evade the grand text, " This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. . . . Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory " ? Furthermore, some occasions demand eloquent texts. Occasions occur on which a preacher must make a great effort. The theme must be great, the sermon great, and the text on a level with both. Dr. South, when he preached before Charles the Second on the anniversar}'- of the " martyrdom of King Charles the First of blessed memory," struck the key-note of the sympathies of his audience by a text taken from the narrative of the early barbarism of the Hebrews, recorded in the Book of Judges: "And it was so that all that saw it said. There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of tlie land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds." There are occasions on which LECT. vn.] THE TEXT : DIGNITY. 95 text, subject, sermon, prayer, liymns, the tunes, and, it may be, the very drapery of the pulpit should be sug- gestive of an extraordinary event. Every thing must be becoming to such an occasion : whatever is not so ■will jar upon the wrought-up sensibilities of the hearers. These reasons are conclusive for the admission of promising texts into the pulpit. Yet, as they are liable to abuse, we have occasion to remember certain cau- tions in the use of them. One is, that they should not be the exclusive favorites of a preacher. Eloquent texts, often chosen, degenerate in the popular esteem. A preacher gains a name for grandiloquence, which is transferred unjustly to his favorite Scriptures. Another caution is, that we should guard against the dangers in- cident to the treatment of promising texts. Those dan- gers, though real, are not inevitable. If a preacher is self-possessed under the inspiration of his text, he will use it : he will not suffer it to use Jam. Practically a preacher's good sense will regulate his use of tliis class of texts. (3) Certain suggestions concerning the impression of a text upon an audience arrange themselves under the general inquiry, What is essential to the dignity of a text? Is not all inspired language of sufficient dignity for the pulpit ? No ; not when isolated as a text. In the third chapter of Lamentations, verse six- teenth, occurs the text, " Gravel-stones." Is this a dig- nified text ? It suggests the rule that the dignity of a text requires that it shall not be restricted to a single word. One of the ancient preachers delivered a ser- mon on the word "But." We can conceive of an ingenious discourse on this very significant particle, yet it is a very insignificant text. What shall we say, then, of the selection of such words as " Remember," 96 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vn. '^Rejoice," " Repent," " Jehovah," "Sabbath," "Faith," " Anathema," " Christ," " Verily," " Charity " ? They all fall under the same condemnation. Fruitful as they are of suggestion, it is an affectation of smartness to choose them as texts. What shall we do, then, if the significance of the word " Christ " or " Jehovah " is the theme of the sermon? Take a passage in which the word occurs, announce a grammatical section of it, and then limit attention to the word by the proposi- tion. Any other method is unnatural. No matter how solemn the selected word may be, it is not impressive if so announced as to appear artificial. In the same line of remark lies the more general principle, that texts should not be mutilated for the sake of giving them a forced pertinence. Homiletic authorities present abundant examples of this error. Generally they are miserable attempts at facetiousness. "We need not debate them. It was unworthy of Dr. South to preach to a corporation of tailors on the text, " A remnant shall be saved." The good sense of every man condemns this, and the reverent feeling of every Christian pronounces it beneath the dignity of the pulpit. Yet, in the principle which underlies it, it is not more objectionable than the indulgences of some more sober preachers. For example, one preacher dis- courses on the text, " There is no God." This is in- spired language, but it is not inspired thought. An- other has a discourse on the text, " Be ye angry ; " the design of the discourse being to show the duty of a virtuous indignation. But this is not the inspired design. Chrysostom's sermon on excessive grief at the death of friends is from the text, " I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not." But this is not the LECT. vn.] THE TEXT: DIGNITY. 97 apostolic injunction. In condemning this abuse of texts, good sense echoes the verdict of good taste. Such abuses of texts as these very naturally excited the disgust of Voltaire at the whole custom of using texts. The papal pulpit had been full of such imperti- nences. They were so characteristic of preaching at the height o^ the papal corruption, that it became a proverb, adopted from one of the early cardinals, to exclaim, if one happened to hit upon a happy travesty of the Scriptures, " Good for the pulpit ! keep that for a sermon ! " There is one apparent exception to this principle, which is not a real one. It is where a passage is re- trenched by elision, and yet is a pertinent text, because the fragment chosen does not depart from the spirit of the whole. " By grace are ye saved " is a good text, because the fragment, and the passage from which it is taken lie on the same plane and in the same line of thought. There is, then, no mutilation of the passage, and no want of dignity in the text. The exception is only apparent ; and it represents a large class of frag- mentary passages, which are perfectly good texts. Yet again: it is essential to the dignity of texts that they should not be such as to suggest low or ludi- crous associations. The following are examples from the extant literature of the pulpit, — "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on?" "The bellows are burned : " " There was no harm in the pot : " " Ye are straitened in your own bowels : " " Moab is my wash-pot:" "A jewel of gold in a swine's snout:" " The dog is turned to his own vomit again ; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire." These are biblicaL Sermons have been preached upon them ; but they are beneath the dignity of the pulpit. 98 THE THEOEY OP PREACHING. [lect. vii. That inspiration has recorded them is no evidence that inspiration authorizes the use of them as texts. The proprieties of location are every thing here. A pas- sage in its place in the inspired record may fit into the picture of inspired meaning, with its oriental surround- ings ; but it does not follow that the passage is a becom- ing text for an occidental pulpit. This suggests that the dignity of a text requires that it be not such as to violate modern and occidental ideas of delicacy. Dr. Watts endeavored to versify for public worship some passages from the Song of Solomon. But the good taste of the Church has silently dropped nearly every one of those lyrics. They are stored in our older hymn-books ; but no pastor offers them, and no choir nor audience uses them for purposes of song. The elder Puritan taste luxuriated in that portion of the Scriptures as a source of texts ; but an advanced culture is much more discriminating in the selection, and wisely so. .Many of the most intense passages of that epithalamium are exquisitely beautiful in their places as parts of an Eastern bridal-song ; but those same passages, isolated from their surroundings, and exalted as texts, to be scrutinized by modern and occi- dental criticism, are simply repulsive. That is not a fastidious taste which is offended by them. That is no affectation which avoids them. (4) The relation of a text to an audience suggests the further inquiry. What principles should govern a preacher respecting the choice of novel texts? In reply, it should be observed that the pulpit has some standard texts. " Joy shall be in heaven over one sin- ner that repenteth : " " What shall I do to be saved ? " " I pray thee have me excused : " " Almost thou per- suadest me to be a Christian : " " Go thy way for thia LECT. vn.] THE TEXT : NOVELTY. 99 time:" "Now is the acc-epted time," — these and a large number of the same class contain themes which are nowhere else so pithily expressed. They seem as if they had been fore-ordained primarily for use in the discussion of those themes in the pulpit. It would be affectation to avoid these standard texts, for no other reason than that they are familiar to all. Every faith- ful preacher must employ them, though every faithful preacher of much experience before him has done the same. They are among the jewels of the pulpit. Dia- monds are never obsolete. Yet, on the other hand, a large proportion of sermons should be upon unhackneyed texts, and this for several reasons. Some of the advantages of obscure texts are, also, advantages of novel texts. Especially are novel texts desirable, often, for the sake of the interest they excite. True, the interest of novelty is not the most profound, but it may be the forerunner of a more valuable interest. George Herbert said, "Nothing is small in God's service." One of the most masterly suc- cesses of the pulpit is that of freshening an old story. Other things being equal, a novel text is an element in this power. A novel text is a new voice. The novel text, like an obscure text, may also promote exposition of the Scriptures. Often it will be an obscure text, and will demand exposition. If it is not obscure, the announcement of it is an addition to the scriptural knowledge of many ; and, if it be a striking passage, it may add to their materials of scriptural meditation for a life-time. Furthermore, novel texts promote variety in preach- ing. We need a broad range of biblical authorities, as we need a broad range of themes. Monotony of thought in the pulpit often results, as we have seen, from 100 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vn monotony of textual selection. Moreover, a strange text will often facilitate permanence of impression. It is a law of mind that a truth is apt to be deepened in its impression upon us, if it comes to us from an unex- pected source. A profane man who happens to utter an acknowledgment of the value of prayer moves us by his commonplace thought as no preacher could. It is not so much the greatness as it is the worldliness of statesmen which often renders their trite and jejune tributes of respect to Christianity as solemn to us as proverbs of religious wisdom. The principle here involved is very strikingly illus- trated in the deduction of themes from unexpected texts. A listener often expresses the impression which a sermon has made upon him by saying, " I did not know there was any such text in the Bible." Such a remark means more than it says. It means, " That sermon has affected me : its truth I feel. That text has disclosed it to me, — a gem of truth which I never saw before. I shall remember the sermon for the sake of the text." Dr. Bushnell's sermon on the theme, " Every man's life a plan of God," is a striking sermon in itself. It will be remembered by many for the sake of the subject, but by some for its deduction of such a subject from an unwonted source, the text being the address of Jehovah to Cyrus, in Isaiah's vision : " I girded thee, though thou hast not known me." Com- pare this with the more common texts, " Without me, ye can do nothing," or, " He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." Dr. Bushnell's sermon on unconscious influence is another instance of the same kind. No one would for- get the sermon, who had observed its ingenious yet apt LECT. VII.] THE TEXT : NOVELTY. 101 derivation from a text which perhaps was never preached upon before : " Then went in also that other disciple." Compare this with the standard text on the influence of Christians, "Ye are the light of the world; a city that is set on a hill can not be hid ; " or the common text for a sermon on the evil influence of the wicked, " One sinner destroyeth much good." Dr. South's ser- mon against extemporaneous prayer must have gained some force from the novel aptness of his text, " Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God." Compare this with the text so often employed in defense of a liturgy, " After this manner, therefore, pray ye." Once more, an unhackneyed text invites effort on the part of a preacher. It stimiilates his mind in the com- position of a sermon as it does the hearer in listening to the sermon. He is aroused by an object in the early part of his work in constructing the discourse. Tliis you will find to be often of great moment in the labor of habitual composition. Do we never listen to dis- courses which are pointless, and are preached with no enthusiasm, till the conclusion approaches, when they change signals, and become luminous with oratorical fire ? The preacher has seemed to construct and develop his sermon with no object which aroused him early in his work. His thoughts have not been intense ; his transitions have not been ingenious ; his style has not been vivid, till the peroration has begun to loom up ; and then " he mounts up on wings, as an eagle." Such dis- courses often flow from an indolent use of a hackneyed text. The preacher, acting under the chill of profes- sional routine, has allowed himself to be beguiled into a hackneyed strain of remark. He does not wake up, and put his invention to the task, and his pen to its speed. 102 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vir. till the application of his theme makes him conscious of an object. He has not started enthiisiasticall}^ : there- fore he plods lifelessly. For the foregoing reasons, with- out subjecting ourselves to any rule respecting novelty of texts, we may wisely adopt the principle, that while we recognize some standard texts, yet, other things being equal, an unhackne3^ed text is preferable. (5) One inquiry remains to be considered of that class which concerns the impression of texts upon the audience. It is, May a preacher choose texts which to an audience will seem to be personal ? By person- ality in a text is meant a significance which applies it palpably to any individual, be he preacher or hearer. This is another of the topics on which only principles, not rules, can be laid down. It is obvious that a peacher should not avoid pungency in his choice of texts. That would be a timid caution which would prompt a preacher to do this through fear of seeming to mean somebody. But, on the other hand, it is equally obvious that a preacher must not, in the choice of texts, disregard the claims of courtesy. That is a selfish boldness which abuses the liberty of the pulpit by making it the medium either of egotism or of insult. Our Saviour and the Apostles were gentlemen in their preaching. The most objectionable forms of personality in texts will be avoided by attention to a very few simple prin- ciples. One is that of avoiding a violent accommodation of texts. A very large proportion of those instances of textual personality which make up in part the fund of clerical anecdote consist of an extreme license of accommodation. Scriptural language is wrested, not only from its own proper sense, but from all good sense. The significant passages of the Bible, which are usually LECT. VII.] THE TEXT : PERSONALITY. 103 chosen as texts, are not so framed as to strike indi- viduals alone. They have a range of shot : they cover classes of men. A preacher may aim them at an indi vidual ; but they reach an individual as the representa tive of a class. Hence violence must be done to them to give them a significance which shall apply them to an individual alone. Let us test this by one or two examples. The sub- ject is of some importance as affecting the whole range of clerical impertinence. Many years ago, a man re- siding in West Springfield, Mass., was buried by the caving-in of a well. He remained for some hours in a perilous condition, and was rescued in the last stages of exhaustion. On the following Sabbath the Rev. Dr. Lathrop, pastor of the Congregational Church in the town, announced as his text, " Look ... to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." This was one of the mildest forms of a personal text. The man referred to probably did not faint under it. But how does it strike a thoughtful hearer as an application of the word of God ? Was it a manly use of inspired language ? A certain pastor lost his popularity with his people, and they refused to pay his salary. He sued them for it, and gained the suit. They, in revenge, paid him in coppers. He, in rejoinder, preached a farewell sermon on the text, " Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil." This was a Roland for an Oliver ; but was it a dignified treatment of the Scriptures ? The vast major- ity of cases of personality in the choice of texts are just such violent applications of biblical words by an abuse of accommodation. Let a preacher preserve a manly habit in the accommodation of texts, and he will not be betrayed into such distortions. A due regard for a second principle will protect a 104 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. vn. preaclier against improper personalities in the choice of texts: it is that such freedom with the Scriptures is founded on a false theory of clerical influence. Real power in a clergyman is essentially solemn and affec- tionate. Those elements in a man's ministry which appeal to conscience and to the sense of kindness are the chief sources of the strength of his pulpit. With- out these, he may gain notoriety, but not influence. Such influence as he may seem to gain is not clerical in its nature. Therefore to him it is worse than none. A man who establishes a reputation for personality, oddity, or buffoonery in the pulpit, does just so much against his reputation, and therefore against liis usefulness as a Christian preacher. He establishes a kind of influence of which he can not but feel ashamed when he is clothed, and in his right mind, and begins to aim at the conver- sion of souls. By his buffoonery he has done a work which he must undo, before he can successfully approach men who are inquiring what they must do to be saved, or men who are in affliction, or men who are on a death- bed. Yet these are among the classes of our congrega- tions whose instincts about a preacher are the most unerring test of his clerical influence. It is a curse to a minister to have an influence founded on qualities which are repellant to the sympathies of such minds. No preacher can afford to support the reputation of having more grit than grace. A clergyman was once settled in one of our cities, of whom an intelligent lawyer, not a Cliristian man, used substantially this language, "I admire my pastor. He is a tingling preacher, witty, eloquent, severe. He is not afraid of a laugh in his audience. I am willing to pay largely to retain him, and so are we all. But if I were in afflic- tion, or were about to die, he is the last man I should LECT. vn.] THE TEXT : PERSONALITY. 105 want to see then." Such a criticism, if well founded, should annihilate a pastor. What must the Saviour think of him ! We can not too earnestly remind our- selves that clerical influence may be easily sacrificed to clerical notoriety. And no two things are more unlike. A third principle, which, if properly regarded, will protect a preacher from certain forms of impertinent personality in his choice of texts, is that modesty is a power in a public man. A genuine modesty will pre- vent a preacher from thrusting himself immoderately, or in an untimely way, upon the attention of his hear- ers. Tact is needed to strike always the right line of procedure in this respect. It was not a clerical im- propriety in an aged clergyman in Worcester County, Massachusetts, whose son was ordained as his colleague, to preach at the ordination upon the text, " He must increase ; but I must decrease." A favorite and becom- ing text for sermons of pastoral reminiscence, in which, after a quarter or half century of service, pastors may properly speak of their own labors, is, " Having ob- tained help of God, I continue unto this day." The modesty of these personal texts is obvious. Is it as obvious in the text of the young preacher, who in a farewell sermon, after a ministry of three years, preached upon the words, " Remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one, night and day, with tears"? Was there net an intol- erable impudence in the personality of the following instance? An evangelist of considerable reputation was invited to preach in a certain place ; and the reason urged for his acceptance was that the pastor had out- lived his influence, and the people were in a distracted state. The evangelist came, and commenced his work 106 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vii. with the text, "Without me ye can do nothing." Against all such impertinences a preacher is protected by simply remembering that modesty is itself a power in a public man. One other principle, which will also tend to shield the pulpit from a perverted personality in texts, is that a preacher has no right to invade the privacy of domestic life. The clergy need sometimes to be reminded of the old maxim of English law, that every man's house is his castle. As a preacher, a man may not say «very thing which as a pastor he may say. As a pastor, a man is the personal friend of his people. He goes into their homes, and there may speak in all fidelity truths which it would be impudence to utter in his pul- pit. Again : as" a preacher, a man may utter in the body of a sermon things which he may not say in a text. It may be a stretch of his authority to accom- modate a text to a hearer, so that, because it is a text, it shall stick to him like a label to a man in a pillory. But the most offensive errors of this kind are those in which a preacher chooses texts by which he invades the sanctity of his own home by foisting his private affairs upon the notice of his people. A pastor in Massachu- setts made the Scriptures the medium of his rudeness of culture by preaching, on the Sabbath morning after his marriage, from the text, " Two are better than one ; " and, on the Sabbath after the birth of his child, from the text, " Unto us a son is given." No man who is fitted for the pulpit in other respects will be guilty of such blunders as these ; but perversions in which the principle is the same, any preacher is liable to, whose self-respect does not unite with his reverence for the Scriptures to prevent his indulgence of a frivo- lous or a rude taste in his selection of texts. LECTURE VIII. THE TEXT: PERTINENCY, COMPLETENESS, ACCOMMO- DATION. 4th, We have thus considered the sources of texts, and the form of texts, and the relation of texts to the audience. Let us now advance to a fourth class of inquiries, which concern the relation of a text to the main body of a sermon. (1) Of these the first is. On what principles shall we judge of the pertinency of a text ? Pertinency to the sermon is the most vital quality of a good text. Vinet says that no human book has been so tortured and jested with as the Scriptures have been by preach- ers in their choice of texts. With equal justice, he charges the Romish pulpit with having been specially culpable in diminishmg thus the respect due to the word of God. Protestant usage has been corrupted to a greater extent than is commonly imagined by the relics of Romish levity in the treatment of the Bible. Yet a very large proportion of these abuses would have been prevented, if a manly taste had protected the sin- gle excellence of pertinency between text and theme. Let it be observed, then, that the pertinency of a text relates chiefly to congruity of sentiment between text and theme. A perfect text will express exactly the subject of the sermon, no more, and no less. Con- 107 108 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. vin. gruity of sentiment, then, may be sacrificed in several ways. It is sacrificed by the selection of a text which does not contain the subject, either expressly, or by im- plication, or by natural suggestion. For example, one clergyman — the author, by the way, of a treatise on preaching — has a sermon on education, the text of which is, " Thou shalt not steal." An English preach- er selected as his text the words, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men," and then proceeded to announce his subject, which was, "to examine the doctrines of Calvin as laid down in liis Institutes." A French preacher selected the text, "Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art, that judgest ; " and from these words he professed to derive the subject of capital punishment. These are flagrant cases of incongruity ; but in principle they are the same with the entire class of texts, wliich, by misrepresentation, are made to intro- duce a theme which is foreign to their real meaning. A text foreign to the subject is no text. Again : the pertinency of a text is sacrificed where the text contains the subject, but not the proposition ; that is, where it contains a different aspect of the subject from that which the sermon discusses. Some preachers are fond of making a text and a proposition seem to contradict each other. One preacher discourses on tne perseverance of the saints, designing to vindicate the doctrine ; but he adopts as his text the words of St. Paul to the Galatians, " Ye are fallen from grace." Dr. South has a sermon on the truth that " Good Intentions are no Excuse for Bad Actions ; " but the text is, " If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted, according to that a man hath." These are frivolous uses of the in- spired thought : the remote consequences of them may r,ECT. nn.] THE TEXT : PERTINENCY. 109 be more serious than tlie immediate evil. One abuse invites another : one abuse justifies another. The prin- ciple of a slight abuse is the principle of an extreme abuse. The moment we abandon common sense in interpretation, we abandon all sense which can com- mand respect. The mystical uses of the Scriptures advocated by Origen and Augustine, and revived by Swedenborg, are the logical result of some of the homiletic usages adopted by preachers in the choice of texts. Furthermore, the pertinency of a text is often sacri- ficed by the choice of a general text for 'a specific sub- ject. " Grow in grace " is not a good text for a sermon on humility. " They went out and preached that men should repent" is not a good text for a discourse on encouragements to repentance. A more pertinent text would be, " Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." On the same principle, the passage, " They shall be my people, and I will be their God," is not a pertinent text for a sermon on the sympathy of God with his people. Saurin has a ser- mon on this theme from a far better text, because more specifically expressive of the theme : " He that touch- eth you toucheth the apple of His eye." This text thrills the hearer with its image of the subject. We should observe, however, that a specific text for a specific theme is not always practicable. Some sub- jects are not specifically named, or implied, or suggested, in the Scriptures. For such themes we are compelled to choose a general text ; that is, an inferior text. Still this quality of pertinency of sentiment is the crowning virtue of a text: it should never be needlessly sacri- ficed or impaired. Many preachers habitually choose unsuggestive texts. They seem to think that any thing 110 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vra. will do for a text, if the subject lias even a remote con- nection with it. On the contrary, a reverent preacher, and a live man in the pulpit, will aim to make a text, if possible, strike a good blow for his conclusion. But pertinency in a text is not restricted to the sentiment. It relates, also, to congruity of rhetorical structure between the text and the sermon. Is tliere not, to the eye of good taste, an incongruity between a very imaginative text and a severely argumentative discourse ? Do we not feel a similar infelicity be- tween a difficult logical text, and a hortatory address ? Neither an argumentative nor a hortatory address on the duty of religious conversation with impenitent men would very congruously follow the text, " A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Per- tinency of rhetorical structure is one of the secondary excellences of a text. Often it is not practicable. We should no*t subject ourselves to a rule requiring it : still it is a beauty where it is attainable, and very many themes of the pulpit admit of variety of choice in this respect. • Let me illustrate this. Here is a hortatory text, "Fear not them which kill the body." Here is a historic text, "And, when he had said this, he fell asleep." The following is an exclamatory text, " O Death ! where is thy sting ? " This is an argumentative text, " There remaineth, therefore, a rest to the peo- ple of God." Another is a didactic text, "Into thy hand I commit my spirit." We have a text of solilo- q^uy in the passage, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come." From all these; texts might be derived, either by logical deduction or by natural suggestion, the subject of a good man'& peace in death. Yet it is not difficult to see that a. keen sense of rhetorical pertinency would require jiome CECT. vni.] THE TEXT : PERTINENCY. IH reference, in the selection, to the rhetorical character of the sermon. But pertinency in a text is not confined to congruity of sentiment and of rhetorical structure : it relates, also, to congruity of the associations of the text with the object of the sermon. The associations of a text should, if possible, be such as to aid the subject of the sermon. This kind of congruity will be best understood by seme illustrations of the want of it. A preacher discoursed upon the exalted rank of the redeemed in the future world, and he chose for his text the words " Ye shall be as gods." Here the subject is above the text, and the associations of the text tend to drag down the subject to a level with the work of devils. An evangelist in the State of New York preached upon the solemnity of the close of a protracted meeting, and selected as his text the dying words of Christ, "It is finished." Such conceits as these degrade texts into connections with themes which can not by any inge- nuity be forced up to a level with the texts. Apolo- gies for such uses of texts should go for nothing. We should not be deceived, if we can palliate them plausi- bly. They are deformities, often monstrosities, how- ever blandly or reverently we may disguise them in an apologetic introduction. Observe, now, how the associations of a text may aid a subject by the force of sympathy with it. You wish to preach a discourse on diligence in the Christian life, and you select as a text the words expressive of the ycuthful awakening of Christ to his life's work, " Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" You wish to preach a sermon to Christians on neglect of prayer, and you adopt the words of Christ in the garden, "What! could ye not watch with me one 112 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vm. hour ? " You wish to preach on the forgiveness of in- juries, and you take as your text, " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do." Would not the associations of these texts be auxihary to the object of the sermons? I have said that this congruity of association should be obtained, if possible. Sometimes it is not possible. We can not, therefore, prescribe any rule of universal application. We can only say that the congruity of association is- an excellence in a text, when it is practicable. (2) A second inquiry concerning the relation of a text to the body of a sermon is. What principles apply to the regulation of incompleteness and redundancy in texts ? In answer, let it be observed that good taste requires that a text should comprise no less material than is discussed in the sermon. The text should, in some natural development of thought, cover the whole area of a sermon: it should not be a patch upon the fabric. Dr. Emmons has a discourse on the being and perfec- tions of God. You observe the subject is of the most general kind : it suggests a broadcast discussion. But what is the text ? Is it an equally comprehensive pas- sage, like the words of Jehovah to Moses, " I am that I am ; " or the words of the Psalmist, " Know ye that the Lord he is God?" Not these, but the argumen- tative passage from St. Paul to the Hebrews, " Every house is builded by some man ; but he that built all things is God." Why is not this a perfect text ? Be- cause it covers but a portion of the theme. It is an admirable text for a sermon on the being of God as proved by the argument from design; but for a dis- course on the being and perfections of God it is in- complete. A text may not specify all the topics of a LECT. vra.] THE TEXT : COMPLETENESS. 113 sermon ; but it ought to comprise them all, as a princi- ple comprises all its applications. Further, good taste requires that, if possible, a text shall comprise no more material than is discussed in the sermon. The reason for this is its obvious tendency to promote unity of impression. Study of texts for the sake of retrenchment down to the precise limits of the subjects is the mark of an accomplished preacher. A text is for use. Enough is better than more. Dr. South's precision in his selections is often excellent. For instance, he discourses on a subject which he en- titles " Christianity mysterious, and the wisdom of God in making it so ; " and his text is, " We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery." He preaches on the love of Christ for his disciples, and chooses the text, " Henceforth I call you not servants ; . . . but I have called you friends." One advantage of deriving sub- jects from texts, instead of choosing texts for subjects, is that redundancy of text is more easily avoided. But sometimes, often indeed, it can not be avoided. We can not always find a passage which expresses ex- actly our theme, no more and no less. We must, then, admit redundancy as a less evil than incompleteness. Too much is a less evil than too little. This suggests that good taste forbids the elimination of superfluous material from within the limits of a text. This error is not that of mutilating a text for the sake of a forced pertinency ; nor is it that of elision from the end of a passage, nor that of omission from its be- ginning : it is elimination from within' a text, as super- fluous terms are thrown out from an algebraic equation. For example, in the Epistle to the Colossians occurs the passage, "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, hum- 114 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. lect. vni. bleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering." The late Rev. Mr. Barnes of Pliiladelpliia published a sermon on a benignant spirit, of which the text was, " Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, kindness." This expur- gation of inconvenient elements from the interior of a passage is not in good taste. Dr. Watts may thus pick up a version of a Psalm by eliminating from the origi- nal the fragments which are neither lyrical nor devo- tional ; and on the same principle we may properly eliminate portions of the Scriptures in the public read- ing of them for devotional purposes. You may form a burial-service with which that used by the Church of England, impressive as it is, can bear no comparison, by weaving together selected fragments of the Scriptures. But the selection of a text for purposes of discussion is a different thing. Here no such skill in ricochet is agreeable. Therefore, when a redundant text is necessary, we should repeat all that is needed to avoid elimination, and then specify the words which are the text. Many passages require this treatment. For example, you wash to discourse on Christian honesty ; and you select as your text the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, reading the entire pas- sage. Then you soon specify the phrase, " Whatsoever things are honest," as containing the theme of your remarks. In this manner you preserve the connecti( n of inspired language, and do not distort or confuse the ideas of a hearer respecting it. This is good taste, because it is the dictate of reverence. (3) A third inquiry respecting the relation of a text to the sermon is, May a preacher employ an accommo- d8,ted text ? What is an accommodated text ? A text is not neces- LECT. vm.] THE TEXT: ACCOMIVIODATION. 115 sarily accommodated wlien it receives a different applica- tion from that which it has in its inspired use. A text may be a biblical fact ; that fact may illustrate a princi- ple ; that principle may be susceptible of other illustra- tions : of those illustrations, one which is not expressed or implied in the text may be the theme of discourse. For instance, the evangelist affirms that "Pilate and Herod were made friends together." This illustrates the principle that wicked men who are enemies to each other often agree in their deeper hostility to Christ, This principle is further illustrated in a vari- ety of ways in modern life. Of these ways, one preacher selected the coalition of two hostile parties against the temperance reform as the theme of a dis- course on a Fast Day. This was not an accommodated text : it was a remote application, yet a perfectly legiti- mate one, of the principle illustrated in the original. Dr. Bushnell's sermon on unconscious influence, from the text, " Then went in also that other disciple," was not on an accommodated text. An accommodated text is one which is applied in a sermon to a subject resembling that of the text, yet radically different from that of the text. Examine an illustration. Bishop Huntington has a sermon the subject of which is more properly termed regeneration. He defines it " the economy of renewal." His text is taken from Micah, "Arise ye and depart; for this is not your rest." This passage does not express the doc- trine of the sermon ; it does not imply that doctrine ; it can not by any logical inference be made to reach that doctrine: it is, therefore, no authority for that doctrine. But it does resemble the doctrine ; for there is in regeneration an arising and a departing from an old state to a new, and at the command of God. 116 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. llect. viti. This text, therefore, may be made to suggest the doc- trme of regeneration, by accommodation. It resembles that from which it is radically different. Accommodated texts may be of three kinds. One kind is where the resemblance between text and theme is only in sound. Thus an Episcopal preacher dis- coursed on the observance of Ash Wednesday, from the text, "I have eaten ashes like bread." Another preached on the duties of judges, from the text, " Judge not, that ye be not judged." Another kind of accommodated text is one in which the accommodation is founded on a metaphorical resem- blance ; and this, again, may be twofold. A literal text may be used metaphorically. A sermon was once preached on the truth that " depravity pervades the moral virtues of man." The text was, " Now, in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden ; and in the garden a new sepulcher," — a literal, narrative text used figuratively to express a doctrine of religion. A metaphorical text, again, may be used as figurative of a different sense from that of the original. IMany sermons have been preached on the text, "Look . . . to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged," from which preachers derive the duty of Christians to re- member the depraved state from which they have been redeemed. This j)assage is figurative in the original ; but not at all figurative of any allusion to depravity. It refers to God's dealings with the Hebrew nation : it pictures their origin as a people. The figure in the original is not a pit, but a quarry. The sentiment is, therefore, "remember your national infancy, and the labor bestowed on your national training. You were once a rough, unhewn block : remember that." Yet, by a change in the character of the metaphor, this is made LECT. vra.] THE TEXT: ACCOIVIIMODATIOK 117 a text on individual depravity. Professor Longfellow, in one of his works, introduces a preacher, whom he represents as discoursing on autumn from the text, " Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed gar- ments from Bozrah?" This passage is figurative in the original ; but the metaphor is referred by commen- tators diversely either to God or to Christ. It has, at least, no inspired reference to the autumnal foliage : it can be so applied only on the ground of metaphorical resemblance. Still another kind of accommodation of texts is on the ground of resemblance in principle; that is, the principle in the text resembles the pruiciple of the sub- ject, but is radically distinct from it. The words of the text, therefore, will express the principle of the subject perhaps equally well with that of their true meaning. For example, Dr. South has a sermon on preparation for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, of which the text is, "Friend, how earnest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment ? " Here is resemblance between text and theme, not merely in sound, not only by metaphor, but in principle. Yet text and theme are radically distinct. Dr. Blair has a sermon on the importance of time, which he derives, by this kind of accommoda- tion, from the inquiry of Pharaoh addressed to Jacob, "How old art thou?" A preacher in Maine, by the same kind of accommodation, preached upon the prin- ciple of subjecting the sale of intoxicating drinks to the Maine law, which he derived from a passage in Esther, "And the drinking was according to the law." These three kinds of accommodation should be remem- bered; for upon them depends the whole question of the propriety of accommodated texts. We are now prepared to answer the question. May 118 THE THEORY OF PEEACHING. [lect, vm. a preacher use an accommodated text ? The abuses of accommodation have been such, that many of the more manly of the ministry have said, without qualification, " No : let us have none of this puerility." But I think that a little discrimination will show that the question must be answered variously. Do not the following positions commend themselves to a manly taste ? First, accommodation of texts on the ground of resemblance in sound is puerile. A manly culture revolts from it. It degrades the Bible. It places texts on the same level of rhetorical character with puns. Rejecting this kind of accommodation, we should con- demn all forced applications of scriptural names of per- sons and places. It was a frivolity worthy of a pope, that Pius VI. should flatter an Austrian general whose name was John, by preaching a sermon in honor of a victory which the general had gained, choosing for a text, " There was a man sent from God, and his name was John." It was an impertinence of which none but an idle mind would have been guilty, that a preacher, living no matter where, saluted an unruly parishioner whose name was Ephraim, on the Sabbath after his marriage, by choosing for the text of the morning ser- mon the words, " Ephraim is joined to idols ; let him alone." These are specimens of a most unscholarly and unmanly taste, which has made the pulpit noto- rious. We owe a vast amount of it which still degrades the clergy to the mental idleness of the Romish priest- hood. A mind which feels that it has any thing else to do will not, without violence to itself, stoop to this play upon a jew's-harp. Further : accommodation on the ground of metaphor- ical resemblance is also to be condemned. Some exam- ples of it may appear plausible ; but the principle rECT. vni.] THE TEXT : ACCOMMODATION. 119 involved in it is always the same. Such accommoda- tion is not natural to a well-trained mind when that mind is in earnest. It belongs to a sportive or a fanci- ful state of mental activity. Least of all is it becoming to the use of a volume so burdened with thought as is the Bible. Some examples of this kind of accommoda- tion are even more objectionable, because more elabo- rate, than the accommodation by jew's-harp, which we have already condemned. Can you conceive of a more ridiculous combination than the following, from one of the old preachers ? He adopted the distinction between clean and unclean beasts under the Levitical law as emblematic of the distinction between Christians and sinners, after this fashion : " The clean beasts divided the hoof; so Christians believe in the Father and the Son : clean beasts were those who chewed the cud ; so Christians meditate on the law : sinners do neither of these things, and therefore are unclean beasts." Even the best specimens of this kind of accommoda- tion are objectionable. For instance, Massillon, whose taste was sadly corrupted by his Romish inheritance in culture, selects the text, " In these lay a great multi- tude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, and withered ; " a purely literal, historical text, as it stands in the Bible ; but Massillon accommodates it, on the ground of meta- phorical resemblance, to three distinct classes of reli- gious characters. Under the head of "the blind" he considers those who are deficient in religious knowl- edge; under the head of "the halt," those who are insincere in confession ; and, under the head of " the withered," those who have no sorrow in repentance. We feel without argument the levity of such uses of the Bible as these ; but why are they not, in princi- ple, as worthy of commendation as the following, which 120 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. vnr is a specimen of a large class of very plausible conceits which have frittered away much of the dignity of texts ? A preacher chose for his text the words, " Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent ; " and he accommodated it to this theme, " the necessity of drawing near to Christ in hours of trouble and dark- ness." The whole usage of the pulpit by which meta- phorical resemblance is tolerated as the ground of accommodation is false in principle, and puerile in taste. As culture advances, taste condemns it ; and as piety grows in alliance with culture, the heart revolts fi'om it. There is no Christian good sense in it. It holds the Bible at arm's-length. It is sympathetic with a religion of the fancy rather than with a religion of the reason and the conscience. One is not surprised to find it rife in the Romish pulpit : it is at home there. That superficial religious culture, and that idleness of mind which can amuse itself with subjecting the salva- tion of a soul to the cut of a surplice, are in perfect af&nity with this frivolous method of using the word of God. Yet a considerable part of the literature of the Protestant pulpit is infected with the same abuse ; and many Protestant commentators have encouraged it by cultivating the taste for " spiritualizing " the Scriptures. The accommodation of texts on the ground of resem- blance in principle between the text and the theme is admissible. William Jay preached a sermon on a national jubilee appointed in England on the occasion of the king's entering the fiftieth year of his reign. His text was taken from Leviticus, " It shall be a jubilee unto you." President Davies of Virginia preached a discourse on a New- Year's Day, and selected as his text the words of Jeremiah to the false prophet Hana- niah, " Tliis year thou shalt die." Dr. Hitchcock of LECT. VIII.] THE TEXT : ACCOMMODATION, 121 Amherst has a sermon on the text, "Behold an Isra- elite indeed, in whom is no guile." His subject is, "certain mineralogical illustrations of character." In each of these cases the subject of the text is not the subject of the sermon. The text can not logically be made to cover the sermon; yet there is more than resemblance in sound or figure; there is resemblance in principle. Even this kind of accommodation may be abused; but its right use is defensible on several grounds. Such accommodation is a natural use of a text. Our minds are so made, that similar princi^^les suggest each other. If, then, the same language may express either, it is not unnatural to a manly train of thought to use that language by transfer from one to the other. Fur- ther, it is a scriptural use of a text. Passages from the Old Testament are sometimes quoted in the New Testament, introduced by the phrase 'iva nhipwdtj^ on no other principle than this of accommodation. The quo- tation is transferred from its original sense to another, which that sense resembles, but from which it is dis- tinct. Again: it is often a pleasing use of a text. So faa* from detracting from the value of a text, if not abused, it augments that value, through the interest which the mind feels in the discovery of resemblance. This interest is similar to that which attends the method Df teaching by parables. What is a parable ? It is a narrative illustrating a truth by means of resemblance. The language has its narrative sense, and yet is applied in a didactic sense on the ground of resemblance of cases. The hypothetical case resembles the real one. The conduct of the ten virgins was not identical with that of men under the conditions of probation, but it was similar. The theft of the ewe lamb was not the 122 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. viii. same as the sin of David, but it was like it. Once more : this is often a necessary use of a text. Subjects must be discussed in the pulpit which can not be intro- duced by a text in any other way, and yet retain the significance of the custom of employing texts. Which is better, — to introduce the duty of sinners to seek eter- nal life in company with Christians by the text, " He that hath an ear let him hear ; " or by the text, " Come thou with us, and we will do thee good " ? Respecting many themes, we have no range of choice. We must do one of three things, — we must preach without a text, or we must take a general text, which as a text means nothing, or we must select an accommodated text. For these reasons we accept the usage of accommo- dating texts on the ground of resemblance in principle, but reject all accommodation on the ground of resem- blance in sound or in metaphor. Yet even this re- stricted usage is liable to abuse. We shall therefore consider in the next lecture certain cautions to be observed in the use of accommodated texts. LECTURE IX. THE TEXT : ACCOMMODATION, MOTTOES, MISCELLANIES. It has been observed, that, in the use of accommo- dated texts, certain cautions are necessary. Of these, the first is that we should not select accommodated texts when logical texts can be found. Why do we need an indirect authority for a theme when a direct one is at command ? Why should we be content with a hint of a subject when an expression of it is practicable ? We sport with a truth which we seek to introduce by needless circumlocution. Earnest processes of mind are always as direct as they can be without hazard to their object. The pulpit suffers in its reputation for manliness, and it deserves to suffer, if it is tempted into dalliance with truth for the gratification of a fancy for a text. Why should we discourse upon the parental love of God from the narrative of Jacob's affection for Joseph, or of Abraham's for Isaac, when we have a t*ext which seems as if inspired for our purpose: "If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Why should we choose as the text of a sermon on the abso- luteness of human obligation to God the words, " How much owest thou unto my lord ? " when we have such a text as this by the side of it, " When ye shall have 123 124 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ix, done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : we have done that which was our duty to do " ? If we gain nothing by an accommodated text, we may be assured that we lose something. Intrinsically, the logical text is the superior. From this it follows that we should not generally choose accommodated texts. This is one form of abuse of this usage of the pulpit, — that preachers are ser- vants to their fancy in the selection of texts, and therefore they preach disproportionately upon those which are not, logically, sources of their themes. It is no defense of such disproportion to say that the themes have no logical texts, and therefore the accommoda- tion is a necessity. It is so much the worse for the themes then. That is a distorted ministry which deals in any large proportion with subjects which are not logically presented in the Scriptures. It is not a bib- lical ministry. A regard for biblical authority requires, moreover, that we should not accommodate passages in such a way as to distort or degrade their biblical associations. This may be done, even when a remote resemblance in principle exists between text and theme. Bishop Lati- mer once preached a discourse on the text, " Who art thou ? " The interrogation was originally addressed by the Pharisees to our Saviour. But Latimer employs it as a monitory inquiry addressed by the Holy Spirit to sinners. He asks, "Who art thou?" and answers, "A lost sinner; " and, again, " Who art thou? " and replies, "A redeemed sinner." The sermon is a series of such repetitions of the query, with admonitory respo'nses. This is accommodation on the ground of some distant resemblance of text to theme in point of meaning ; but LECT. IX.] THE TEXT : ACCOMMODATION. 125 it is fanciful, because it distorts the associations of the text. Distortion of the biblical associations of texts sometimes takes the form of transposing classes of hearers to whom texts are supposed to be addressed ; that is, addressing to Christians language which origi- nally is addressed to sinners, and vice versa. Such transposition is not always a distortion of a text. Sometimes the truth declared is naturally applicable to both classes, though addressed to one ; but in other cases a text has become localized in the midst of certain surroundings in a hearer's mind, so that no preacher of good taste would disturb those associations. On this ground we must condemn the choice of a clergyman who once preached on the text, " One thing thou lack- est," and accommodated it to a discourse on the defi- ciencies of Christians. Are we not sensible of a vio- lence done to the biblical associations of a text in this case? Yet sometimes the danger is not only this, but of an absolute destruction of a text in its biblical sisrnifi- cance. I remark, therefore, that we should not accom- modate passages, which, by frequent accommodation, are in danger of losing their true meaning in the minds of hearers. The necessity of this caution will be evi- dent from an illustration. The text, "Watchman, what of the night ? " is one of the standards of the pulpit ; but who of the people knows its legitimate meaning ? The pulpit has appropriated it almost uni- versally to sermons on the " signs of the times." If a preacher wishes to discourse upon the prospects of missions, or the prospects of reform, or the prospects of the nation, he turns to tliis as the most convenient passage in the Bible, because it seems to restrict dis- cussion to no tiling in particular. But in fact it is one 126 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ix. of the most individual and restricted of all texts. In its biblical significance it is a taunt of infidelity. The propliet is represented as stationed in a watch-tower, in a time of great peril, on the lookout for friend or foe. The triumphant Idumcean is then represented as passing along, and crying out in derision of the solitary senti- nel. The elocution of the passage ought to express this derision. It is as if the Idumsean stranger spoke thus, " Ha, ha, watchman ! how do you like the look of the night?" A sermon on this text, designed to develop the taunting spirit of infidelity in a time of misfortune to the cause of Christ, might disclose the significance of the language with great force. But the passage is scarcely known to the people in any such use of it. Such a discourse upon it would be a novelty. Preachers generally have used the text as it is used in the missionary hymn founded* upon it by Bowring : — "Watchman, tell us of the night, What its signs of promise are." That hymn and the usage of the pulpit have almost destroyed that text in the minds of the people. Such texts as this ought not to be accommodated by the present generation of preachers. They have been wrenched out of place in the popular thought of them. They are almost lifeless. They should be permitted to rest from accommodated uses till they have recovered their biblical force. (4) Similar to this inquiry concerning accommodated texts, yet distinct from it, is a fourth inquiry affecting the relation of the text to the sermon. It is. May preachers properly employ motto-texts ? What is a motto-text ? It is not necessarily an accommodated text. The subject may be a logical LECT. IX.] THE TEXT : MOTTOES, 127 deduction from a motto-text : it can not be such from an accommodated text. For examj^le, " The field is the world " may be a motto-text for a sermon on the conversion of Madagascar to Christianity, but it can not be accommodated to that subject. The subject is logically related to the text. Again : a text to which no expressed reference is made in the discussion is not necessarily a motto-text. " What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" maybe the text of a sermon in which the text is not once repeated, or expressly referred to, throughout the eutke discussion ; yet it may not be a motto. A motto implies two things, — remoteness of con- nection between the text and the theme, and independ- ence of the text in the discussion of the theme. Observe one or two illustrations. Upon the text, " That the soul be without knowledge it is not good," Professor Park once preached a sermon on the value of theological seminaries. In this case, the text con- tained a principle. From that principle the theme was a remote inference. No further use was made of the text than to introduce that inference. From the text, " Prove all things, hold fast that which is good," the late Professor Edwards once preached a discourse on the state of the Roman Catholic religion in Italy. On the following Sabbath, in the same pulpit, a sermon from the same text was preached on education socie- ties. In these instances, the text was a command to which the sermons were acts of obedience ; yet no mention was made of the text after the subjects were announced. These were not accommodated texts. Why? Because the connection was logical between text and theme. Yet they were not suggestive texts as related to the themes. Why ? Because the cc'^nec- 128 THE THEORY OF PEEACHHsTG. [lect. ix. tion between theme and text was remote. Neither were they suggestive of the discussion, nor the discus- sion of them. Why ? Because the discussion proceeded independently of the text. Yet, ao-aiu, a text may be both a motto and an accom- modated text. Some years ago, on the occasion of a famine in Ireland, a charity-sermon was preached in Boston from the text, " I saw the tents of Cushan in afiliction." This was an accommodated text : the sub- ject of the original does not contain at all the subject of the sermon. The text was applied to the sermon only on the ground of resemblance in thought. But it was also a motto-text : no use could be made of it in the discussion of the theme. It represents an extreme class, yet not a small one, of instances in which the liberty of the pulpit takes the broadest range. It is very popular to condemn the use of motto-texts, and for reasons which are not Avithout force. It is urged that it is trilling with the Scriptures to choose a text, and then abandon it : the text is said to be, in such a case, only a pretext : therefore it is said to be unfavorable to evangelical preaching to employ motto- texts. We often hear objection made to them as facil- itating literature or philosophy at the expense of the gospel. These are valid objections to the use of mot- toes in preaching, but they are not conclusive. A decisive argument can be advanced in defense of such texts. Of this, one consideration is that the exclusion of mottoes would restrict injuriously the range of the topics of the pulpit. Such texts are a necessity to any broad compass of thought in preaching. Combinations of truth are suggested by the wants of a modern con- gregation which no text of the Bible will express, and which none will inclose otherwise than by remote rela- LECT. IX.] THE TEXT : MOTTOES. 129 tion. Occidental civilization renders some discussions needful which were not needed in patriarchal or apos- tolic times, and for which, therefore, the Scriptures contain no forcible texts. Modern methods of useful- ness are affected by modern inventions. The invention of printing has created tract societies, for instance. Are not they a suitable theme for a sermon? Yet where is the text which names or implies this depart- ment of religious action otherwise than by remote sug- gestion ? Modern theological discussions render necessary some combinations of truth in preaching which were not needed at Ephesus or at Rome in the ministrations of St. Paul. We can find no texts for them other than mottoes. The local history of a parish may create an occasional need of certain methods of discourse, which no inspired thought embraces otherwise than by a gen- eral principle, that reaches the exact case of that parish, two thousand years later, only by remote connection. Shall these modern, occidental, local, in every way peculiar needs of a congregation be neglected for the want of texts by which a preacher can meet those needs textually ? So far from promoting the evangel- ical spirit of the pulpit, such a principle would restrain and cripple that spirit. As a book of texts, the Bible is made for the pulpit, not the pulpit for the Bible. We must have freedom, or we can not have life, in the adaptation of texts to subjects. Another consideration in the defense of motto-texts is that they are a less evil than a forced intimacy be- tween text and sermon would be. An artifice to which some preachers resort to avoid the appearance of having a motto-text is to foist the text into the sermon by re peating it at every convenient landing-place. Another 130 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ix, artifice of this kind is to dwell upon the text by point- ino- out forced resemblances between it and the train of thought in the sermon. One need scarcely say that these artifices are unmanly. We see them to be so when they are stated in form. They are among the tricks of composition to which no manly mind will stoop consciously. But, as with some of the more venial faults of composition, we fall into them uncon- sciously. We need, therefore, to define such artifices as these to our own criticism, and see that they are in bad taste, that they are worse logic, and that, most of all, they are miserable exegesis. Admitting that a motto-text is an evil, it is a less evil than an unnatural connection of text and theme. A third consideration in defense of motto-texts is that they are a less evil than accommodated texts. It is a singular fact that the very taste which declaims against the irreverence of using mottoes in the pulpit is especially fond of the accommodation of the Scriptures to uninspired trains of thought. The most unnatural conceits of the pulpit have been attempts to spirit- ualize passages which had no religious thought in them. But which is the worse, — to choose a text which logi- cally contains the theme, and then discuss the theme independently of the text, or to choose a text which contains neither discussion nor theme, except as the preacher puts them there ? Which is the more irrev- erent,— to neglect a text, or to force into it unin- spired contents? The truth is, that, under proper restrictions, neither is an act of irreverence. But, of the two, the use of the motto is the more vigorous expedient. It is less liable to abuse ; it has created less abuse of the usages of the pulpit than have the conceits of accommodation. Yet the clerical taste LECT. ix.] THE TEXT : MOTTOES. 131 wliich has rioted in these has been offended at the motto. But if mottoes, in this view of them, seem to be a necessity, they suggest the question. Is it invariably necessary to have a text ? This leads me to remark a fourth consideration in vindication of motto-texts, that they are a less evil than to preach, even occasion- ally, without a text. It seems plausible to ask. If a text is not needed in a discussion, why have a text for the theme ? But the objection will not stand the test of practice. A custom like this of building the pulpit upon divine foundations will not bear tampering with. An invasion of it occasionally invites a longer suspen- sion of it, and a suspension tempts to an abandonment. The custom as it stands gives a valuable advantage to evangelical preachers. It is a silent but powerful check upon a heretical pulpit, that usage requires its ministrations to be founded on inspired texts : it is compelled to use a volume which is its own refutation. This is too great an advantage to the truth to be lightly thrown away. Let an evangelical ministry allow oc- casional departures from the usage, and we may rest assured that preachers of error will very speedily widen the breach. They will often preach without texts ; they will choose texts from uninspired sources ; event- ually they will abandon the custom, as Voltaire ad- vised. The liberty we claim, however, is obviously liable to abuses. We should, therefore, observe certain restric- tions in the use of motto-texts. Of these, one is that mottoes should not be needlessly chosen. If passages can be found which are exactly fitted to the demands of a discussion, they should always have the preference. Another restriction is that mottoes should not be gen- 132 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ix. erally chosen as texts. Here, as in the case of accom- modated texts, it proves a fault in a preacher's range of themes and methods of discussion, if his texts are in large proportion mere mottoes of his sermons. The fjroportion is, probably, the exact proportion in which ]]is trains of thought are but distantly related to the Scriptures. A third restriction is that we should, if possible, refrain from employing as mottoes texts which are seldom employed in any othei way. Some passages have been standard mottoes for ages. " The field is the world" has been the motto of missionary sermons innu- merable. Who ever heard a sermon on it which was designed to unfold the principle of the text ? " Glory to God in the highest " has been persecuted with ser- mons upon a vast' variety of subjects. So has the text, " Faith Cometh by hearing." A merciful preacher will be merciful to such texts. It relieves very much of the evil incident to a motto, if it be an unhackneyed passage. This suggests a fourth restriction, that, in the choice of a motto-text, we should have special care for the pertinence of it to the sermon. An interesting coinci- dence of text and theme, though it be but momentary, will, by the pleasure it gives, balance the evil of seem ing to neglect the text in the discussion. It indicates care on a preacher's part: it shows that he has chosen the motto thoughtfully; he has not chosen it simply out of deference to custom. Let us illustrate the point of this restriction by the contrast of two examples. A Sabbath-school missionary preached a discourse in Richmond, some years ago, on the text, " The field is the world." The object of the sermon was to give some information respecting the establishment of Sab- bath schools in Minnesota. The result was the request LECT. IX.] THE TEXT : MOTTOES. 133 for the sum of twentj-five dollars for a Sabbath-school library. Of course, the text was necessarily a motto ; yet it had a perfectly logical connection with the sub- ject. " The world " includes Minnesota : the cultivation of " the field " includes Sabbath schools. But w^as it a becoming text? Was it an interesting text? Did it add anything to the force of the sermon? Did it suggest any pleasing answer to the question, Why did the preacher have a text? Did it not leave bare the fact that he chose a text out of deference to usage, and for no other purpose ? In the same j)ulpit, at about the same time, a clergy- man preached in behalf of the Waldenses. His object was to give the most recent intelligence concerning the state of that people, and to ask a contribution to the supply of their wants. He must, of course, select a motto-text. He had recently visited the Waldenses, and had been requested by them to present their good wishes to the American churches. He accordingly availed himself of this coincidence between his own experience and that of St. Paul, and selected for his text the words from the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews, " They of Italy salute you." This was both a motto and an accommodated text. It had no logical connec- tion with the subject : it had no place whatever in the discussion. One can not conceive of a wider latitude between text and theme. The case represents the very extreme of usage respecting texts. Still who will say that it was not a good text ? Did it not furnish a sat- isfactorj^ answer to the question. Why did the preach- er choose a text ? A fifth restriction upon the use of motto-texts is that we should not choose them if we do not mean to treat them in a manly way. We may better abandon them 134 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ix. than attempt to disguise them. We need not inform an audience that our text is not the best conceivable. The less we say of the processes of composition in the delivery of a discourse, the better ; but we should manfully leave these processes to disclose themselves, if hearers have the skill to observe them. So we should leave a motto-text to speak for itself, without any effort to conceal the fact that it is a motto. If we do not need the text in the body of the sermon, we should let it alone. We should not thrust it into the interstices of the structure, as if to remind the audi- ence, in the absence of better evidence, that we had a text. 5th, We have now considered the most important inquiries relating to the selection of texts. There re- main a few topics, not of vital importance, and yet not matters of indifference, which may be considered, in the fifth place, under the title of "miscellaneous in- quiries." (1) Of these, the first is. Where should be the place of the text in the delivery of the sermon ? The Ameri- can and the German usages, as you are aware, differ. American usage is almost uniform in placing the text at the beginning of the discourse. The German usage is not uniform; but, more frequently than otherwise, it locates the text at the end of an introduction. The German method has some advantages. It pre- pares a hearer's mind for the text. Some texts may need such a preparative process. A text may contain a repulsive doctrine. A preacher may have reason to prefer the conciliatory to the authoritative process in discoursing upon that doctrine : therefore he may deem it prudent to introduce the text with prefatory remarks. A text may contain an offensive simile : a preface not LECT. IX.] THE TEXT : MISCELLANIES. 135 apologetic, but commendatory, may rescue it from criti- cism. A text may excite undue expectations in an audience. It is sometimes expedient to forestall exces- sive expectations by remarks introducing such a text. Again: the German usage assimilates preaching to secu- lar oratory. In itself it is a disadvantage to isolate the pulpit. As it is against nature to make monks of clergymen, so it is not in itself desirable to separate preaching from other methods of public, oral address. Further : the German method is less formal than ours, and therefore is better adapted to appeals to the feelings of hearers. In this respect it is well fitted to the character of the German pulpit, which is more imaginative and emotional, and less argumentative and instructive, than ours. German preachers state and de- fine truth less severely than American preachers ; they argue less ; they illustrate and appeal more. Moreover, the German method of locating texts, if not uniformly adopted, promotes variety in preaching. Any thing is valuable which prevents any usage of the pulpit from crystallizing. We may, -therefore, with good effect, occasionally adopt the German form. But the American usage should predominate in our practice, and this for several reasons. One is that it is the usage of our pulpit. Another reason is that the American usage gives greater prominence to the Scrip- tures than the German. Something is gained by be- ginning discourse with inspired words. The text of a sermon is like the title of a book. The place of honor, wherever that is, is the ordinary place for the text. This suggests, further, that it is accordant with the religious feelings of a preacher commonly to place scriptural language before his own. It is natural that we should follow, rather than seem to lead, inspired 136 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. ix. tliouglit. Again : tlie American method promotes brev- ity of preliminaries. The danger attends the German mode, of having a double introduction, — one for the text, and one for the subject. This is often the fact in German preaching. In earnest discussion, and espe- cially in difficult discussion, such as is often heard in the American pulpit, economy of time in the delivery of preliminary matter is a necessity. The American custom, therefore, should predominate in the habits of an American preacher; but an occasional deviation from it is no eccentricity, and may be an excellence. (2) A second miscellaneous inquiry is. Should a text be repeated in the announcement? This is not always necessary : the text may be short. It is not always convenient : the text may be long. No rule can be adopted. Sometimes emphasis may require repeti- tion; again, elegance may forbid it. Why should we seek uniformity in a matter of this kind ? Variety is better. (3) Another inquiry is, What should be the order of announcement of a text? Always announce chapter and verse first ; and this simply because it is natural. When we quote an authority, it is natural to give the authority before we cite the words. A text is an au- thority quoted. To cite the language first, and then give the reference, is always abrupt, sometimes af- fected, and occasionally ludicrous. (4) Another inquiry is. With what kind of preface should a text be announced? Have no rule, except to cultivate simplicity and variety. It is a gross viola- tion of simplicity to announce a text with a pompous or long-winded preface. I do not refer now to introduc- tions of texts where the German usage is adopted, but to the prefatory words which almost all preachers use IIECT. IX.] THE TEXT: MISCELLANIES. 137 to avoid abruptness. These are sometimes offensively elaborate. Have yon never beard prefaces of texts of which this is a caricature? "You will find the par- ticular passage of the Sacred Scriptures to which it is my present purpose to invite your earnest attention on this solemn occasion, in that most interesting and im- pressive description of the most blessed of the virtues, recorded in the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corin- thians, in the thirteenth chapter, the first verse, the last clause of the verse, and expressed in the following lan- guage ; to wit, ' I am become as sounding brass.' " I close these remarks on the subject of texts, with a statement of the general principle upon which all ques- tions respecting them should be determined. It is that a keen sense of the reverence due to the Scriptures should be associated with a liberal construction of rules. That is the best text for a sermon which associates it in the most manly, free, and intimate connection with the Word of God. LECTURE X. THE EXPLANATION: DEFINITION, OBJECTS, MATEEIALS. Having finished tlie discussion of the text of a ser- mon, we proceed now to that feature of discourse which has been entitled tlie explanation. I. What is the explanation? It is that part of a sermon which comprehends all those remarks of wliich the object is to adjust the meaning of the text to the homiletic use which is to be made of it. 1st, Observe that it is not entirely identical with the process by which we have characterized an explanatory sermon. All that is needful to constitute a sermon of that class is that the main process of it be explanatory of something. But the explanation as a part of a topical sermon concerns exclusively the text and its contemplated uses. It may not be the chief feature of a discourse : it may be the briefest incident to the chief discussion. 2d, Further : the explanation as executed should be distinguished from the process of investigation. This is self-evident when stated, but the statement is essen- tial. Explanation, it should always be remembered, is an after-process to that of discovery: it concerns the results of investigation, not the process. The expounder ceases, for the time, to be an investigator. The speaker is no longer a recluse. Some essentials LECT. X.] THE EXPLANATION : DEFINITION. 139 of good preaching grow out of this truism, and yet are often sacrificed b}^ forgetting it. 3d, Moreover, the explanation in a sermon is often distinct from exegesis in a commentary. These may be synonymous, but they are not necessarily so. Exe- gesis concerns a text, with no reference to its homiletic uses: the explanation concerns a text, with no other reference than to its homiletic uses. It explains the text, therefore, only so far, and with such incidents of illustration, as the object of the sermon requires. Its aim is to make the text useful. Beyond this, the ser- mon finds no place for a text, and therefore no place for its explanation. Exegesis, then, is no more a model for homiletic explanations than the homiletic explana- tion is for exegesis in a commentary. The two things differ as their uses differ. 4th, Moreover, the explanation, as a part of a topical or a textual sermon, is distinct from exposition in an expository sermon. The distinction is, that the one is only a preliminary, while the other is the bulk of the sermon. Rhetoricall}^ this distinction is not radical. The rhetorical process in the two specimens of composi- tion is the same. The principles which we are about to consider, therefore, have a double importance. They are suggested by the explanation as a fragment of a topical sermon ; but they cover, as well, the whole sub- ject of expository preaching. What the explanation in a topical sermon is, that the body of an expository sermon is, with this difference only, that one is prelimi- nary, and the other not. We discuss the explanation, then, not merely as one part in the analysis of a sermon, but also as a rhetorical specimen of expository discourse. I prefer, for the sake of rhetorical unity, to discuss the subject of expository preaching in this connection, rather than to treat it as a distinct theme. 140 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. x. II. We pass, in the second place, to consider more specifically the objects of the explanation. 1st, Of these, may be* named, first, verbal criticism. Certain texts require this, and nothing more. Verbal criticism may take the form of an analysis of the text. A text sometimes needs to be partitioned in order to be appreciated. Significant words need to be distinguished; points of emphasis need to be made obvious ; an ellipsis may need to be amplified ; a person implied may need to be expressed. An illus- tration of some of these objects is found in a discourse published by the late Rev. Dr. Tyler of East Windsor. On the text, " Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," the preacher proceeds in his explanation to inquire : 1. Who utters this language ? 2. What is the offer made in this language ? 3. On what condition is the offer made ? Having thus developed the forcible points in the text, he deduces the proposition that nothing hinders the salvation of any man but his own will. The explanation here consists of verbal criticism in the form of an analysis of the text. Again : verbal criticism may be necessary in the form of definition. This will sometimes be the object. Mr. Robertson, in a sermon on the text, " For their sakes I sanctify my- self," devotes nearly the whole of his explanation to a definition of the word " sanctify " as applied to the Son of God. His whole sermon hinges on that definition. Again : verbal criticism may be necessary in the form of verbal paraphrase. This is only a succession of defi- nitions. It is often necessary as a translation from the antique dialect of the Scriptures into the language of modern life. Verbal criticism, again, may be necessary in the form of correction of the text. If the English version be wrong, the aim of the sermon may require LECT. X.] THE EXPLANATION : OBJECTS. 141 that it be righted. If the English version be obscure, the design of the sermon may require that it be made clear. 2d, A second object of an explanation may be logi- cal adjustment. The logical relations of the text to the context may need to be adjusted. A text intelligible in itself may seem to contradict the context. It may seem to be irrelevant to the context. It may be parenthetical. Its truth — if not its truth, its force; if not its force, its pertinence — may depend on certain logical conaec- tions with the context, which are not obvious. To make them obvious may be all the exposition which the text demands. The logical relations of the text to other portions of the Scriptures than the context may requu^e adjustment. Some passages instantly suggest appar- ently contradictory passages. An explanation achieves much for a sermon, if it makes distant Scriptures but- tress a text. The relations of a text to arguments con- firmatory of its interpretation may require adjustment. Much to the purpose is often accomplished by showing briefly that a metaphorical text resembles a similar metaphor in modern usus loquendi. The protection of a text from a distorted literalism may depend on match- ing it well with homely examples of common speech. The relations of a text to certain intuitions of man may need adjustment. One of the first duties of a preacher is to keep inspired language in line with the necessary beliefs of men. Isolated as texts are from their inspired connections, they often seem to contra- dict our intuitions, when, if located in their places, they do not so contradict them. No wise preacher will drag a text through a sermon with the semblance or the suspicion of contradiction to intuitions. On the 142 THE THEOKY OF PREACHING. [lect. x. other hand, it is often a grand support to a text to shape its explanation so as to suggest its clear coinci- dence with an intuition. 3d, A third object of an explanation may be rhe- torical amplification. Oftener than otherwise, this is the chief object. A text which needs no verbal criti- cism and no logical adjustment may need to be ampli- fied. The Bible is a book of suggestions mainly. Texts, especially, are but hints. An explanation should often expand them ; sometimes it should magnify them. It should do the work of the telescope, in bringing a distant truth near, and of the microscope, in disclosing the beauty of a minute truth. Rhetorical amplification may assume either or both of two forms. It may be illustrative paraphrase. This differs from verbal para- phrase only in being constructed for illustration instead of interpretation of a text. The aim is to give not merely a new version, but an illumination of the text. The other form of rhetorical amplification is that of descriptive incident. This adds to paraphrase of a text its surroundings in the inspired narrative. The object is the same as before, — to educe the full force of the text. A careful study of the demands of a text in respect to these several objects of explanations will save a preacher from needless and aimless expositions. The inquiry should be. Does the text, for the use to which I am to put it in this sermon, demand either of these objects ? Does, or does not, the full force of the text, for my use of it, lie on the face of it? If it does, then no explanation is required. If given, it will be only an encumbrance, as many long-winded, expository intro- ductions are. III. From these ob^'ects of the explanation, we pro- LECT. X.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 143 ceed, in the third place, to consider the materials of explanations. Bearing in mind the relation of the sub- ject to expository preaching, this inquiry assumes more importance than if it were limited to a fragment of discourse. The chief design in discussing it is to an- swer it homiletically, by showing how this part of a discourse, and how expository sermons in full, may be adjusted to popular presentation. The laws of exege- sis, of course, underlie the whole question. Homiletics has somewhat to say, however, of a preacher's use of those laws in the pulpit. 1st, Of the sources of expository materials, then, should be named first, and, of course, primarily in point of importance, the words of the text. This is obvious. 2d, Equally obvious is a second source ; namely, the immediate context. Popular interest in a text will often depend on a skillful use of the context. Some- times an elaborate use of the context is necessary to disclose any homiletic force in the text itself. The text of a certain discourse is found in Judges xvii. 13 : " Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest." What homiletic use does such a text suggest ? What hearer, in listening to it, sees in it any thing to quicken interest beyond the mo- mentary wonder that a preacher should found a sermon upon it ? But Rev. Dr. Bushnell, by an ingenious yet not. forced manipulation of the context, shows ^that the text is a unique example — perhaps the most pithy one in the Scriptures — of the natural fraternity between wickedness and superstition. Half the vivacity of ex- pository preaching depends on a skillful evolution of texts from their biblical surroundings. 3d, This suggests a third source of the materials of explanations ; namelv, the scope of the whole argument 144 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. x. from wliicli a text is taken. Not merely the test, not merely the immediate context, but the drift of an epictle is often essential to a truthful interpretation of a word. A precept, a doctrine, an ordinance depends, it may be, not on a text, nor on its proximate para- graphs, but on the aim of a volume. The root shows what the branch must be. The interpretation of the entire Book of Revelation hinges on the assumed aim of tlie book at the outset. This principle is as valuable to a preacher as to an exegete. The great theme of anathema in the Epistle to the Romans is not moralism, but ritualism. The scope of the epistle discloses this, and it sharpens the point of a hundred texts against a totally different sin from that which many sermons on those texts assail. Luther and his associates were more biblical in their use of this epistle than many modern divines. They made it teach not only the doctrine of justification by faith, but this doctrine as opposed, not to moralism chiefly, but to reliance for salvation on religious ceremonies. Their sermons on the epistle are just in the line of the Apostle's aim. 4th, A fourth source of the materials of explanations is found in the historical and biographical literature of texts. Facts respecting the character of the writer of a text, events in his history, the place from which he wrote, the time at wliich he wrote, the immediate occasion of his writing, the place held by him in the biblical canon, the literary qualities of his produc- tions, the character of the persons he addressed, events in their history, the effect of his message upon them, the peculiarities of the age, nation, sect, family, to which they belonged, the eminent contemporaries of both writer and readers, — these and similar materials you recognize as being often the expository setting in LECT, X.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 145 wliicli texts are presented by the pulpit. Every thing vitalizes a text, which, in a natural way, introduces persons into and around it. A group of characters will impress a text on the popular mind, as an illustrated newspaper teaches the people a campaign or a pageant, when no grammatical explanation could get a hearing. The biblical writers and characters may sometimes be delivered from the mist in which the fact of their in- spiration envelops them in many minds by mentioning some of their secular contemporaries. Can you not imagine some of your more intelligent hearers deriving a gleam of fresh interest in an explanation of a text from the life of Elijah from a notice of the fact that he was contemporaneous with Homer? Or of a text from the writings of St. Paul, from the fact that he was contemporaneous with Seneca ? In the eighth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul discusses the point of casuistry respecting the eating of meats offered to idols. What is a merely verbal exegesis of that chapter worth to a popular audience? It is extremely difficult to make such an audience feel that the question there raised by the Apostle had any religious significance. In the handling of that passage the people need to know some of the historic facts of Pagan worship. They need to get a glimpse of the old Greek and Roman private life. They should see that the question of which St. Paul treats was a very practical one to a Roman Christian every time he went into the market to supply his table. They should be told that the question concerned the common social courtesies of Roman life. Not only was it true that meats from the temples were sold in the markets, but Roman banquets were often sacrifices to the gods. Invitations to dine with a friend were 146 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. x. often expressed in language teclmical to religious wor- sljip. Hortensius invites Cicero to a sacrifice to Jupi- ter : he means that Hortensius desires the pleasure of Cicero's company at dinner. The ritualistic character of private banquets remained in form long after the faith of the cultivated classes in Paganism had collapsed. That which was true in this respect at Rome was equally true at Corinth. The Apostle's casuistry, there- fore, entered into the conventional courtesies of life in Corinth and throughout the then civilized world. The question in its principle was world-wide, and perpet- ual in its bearings. Christian life to-day in Paris and New York needs the discussion of it as much as in Rome and Corinth in St. Paul's time. It is a great thing to establish in the popular convictions this perti- nence of the Scriptures to modern wants; and very largely this must be done by the apt use of the histori- cal and biographical literature of texts. 5th, A fifth source of the materials of exposition is found in the comparison of texts with parallel passages of the Scriptures; (1) One obvious use of this expedient is to define the limits of an interpretation. Many texts are truths in their extremes. Some are metaphors. Some are the boldest of hyperboles. Some, on the face of them, are paradoxes; literally interpreted, they are absurd. Some, in the history of Christian doctrine, have become enslaved to philosophy. Some are loaded with inherit- ed misrepresentations. Some are disputed by balanced authorities. It is a great art to handle these texts wisely before an unlettered audience. The common mind is childlike in its tendency to literalism and its attachment to inherited beliefs. That is a masterly aim from the pulpit which can always evolve the truth to LECT. X.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 147 popular satisfaction without awakening the suspicion that the Bible is explained away. One of the most effective methods of doing this is to make Scripture interpret Scripture. Explain a meta- phor by a literal passage. Offset one extreme by its opposite in biblical speech. Interpret an hyperbole by yoking it with a biblical definition. Read the poetry of the Scriptures by the help of its prose. An abused text disabuse by association with one which speaks for both. A disputed text expound by parallels which are not disputed. The proper limits of interpretation are thus often defined most quickly, and, for the popular satisfaction, most conclusively. It assists the common mind to understand the Third Commandment, — "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children," — if we set over against it the declaration in Ezekiel, " The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father." If the text, " God is love," is abused by a humanitarian laxity, we tone up the truth most readily by the contrasted text, " God is a consuming fire." Many texts which are abused by fatalistic interpretations we redeem most securely by alliance of them with such passages as, "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." The gen- eral 'drift of parallel passages is the best defense we have against a false interpretation of one or two iso- lated texts which merely grammatical exegesis can not save from fatalistic teachings, because, grammatically expounded, they do teach fatalism more naturally than any thing else. " No man can come to me except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him," is a text of this kind. If any language interpreted by grammatical exegesis alone can teach fatalism in the matter of salva- tion, that text teaches it. We save it only by limiting 148 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. x. it by the general drift of the Scriptures as indicated by parallel passages. (2) Another use of this expedient in expositions is to explain peculiarities of idiom. The New Testament contains Hebraisms. These are often best explained by parallels from the Old Testament. The dialect of prophecy has idioms peculiar to no other type of revela- tion. The so-called double sense of prophecy is of this character. The use of the word " day " in projDhetic idiom is a peculiarity. We gain much, if, by parallel citations, we make it clear that such idioms exist. The interpretation of an idiom comes to light of itself, if we can collect examples of it in groups. (3) Again : parallels are valuable in explanations, for purposes of illustration. An obscure text may often be best explained by comparison with a plain one teaching the same sentiment. A text declarative of a principle may be explained by a biblical narrative illus- trating the principle. Our whole sacrificial theory of the Atonement, so far as it depends on biblical proof, hinges finally on parallels between the apostolic decla- rations of it and the Mosaic illustrations of it. What those declarations mean depends on what the Mosaic ritual was. (4) Further : parallels are valuable in explanations as confirmatory arguments. The exposition is precisely the place in which to strengthen an interpretation by reduplication of it from other texts. It was a favorite method with Rev. Albert Barnes to buttress his texts by citations of similar Scriptures. I once heard him preach a sermon of which seven-eighths consisted of biblical passages illustrating and confirming difi"erent phases of his text. This expedient is liable to great abuse ; but, skillfully employed, it is sometimes all the explanation that a text requires. LECT. X.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 149 6th, A sixth source of the materials of exposition is the application of the philosophy of common sense to exegesis. The intelligibility of language grows out of the roots of philosophy which are in every mind. We bring to the Bible, antecedently to our interpretation of it, the germs of philosophy by which we understand it, if at all. We can not help this. A preacher should understand and appreciate it, if he would commend the Bible to the common mind. The Bible, rightly inter- preted, has an almost omnipotent ally in the common sense of common people : falsely interpreted, it has as potent a foe there. This principle is liable to abuse ; but, like other abused truths, it must be used to save it from abuse. (1) In application, and in illustration of the princi- ple, the fact deserves notice that progress in mental science reacts upon the interpretation of the Scriptures. The effect of improvements in mental science upon dog- matic theology is well understood. The creeds of the Church establish it beyond question. The same princi- ple is not always so fully recognized in the relation of mental science to the history of exegesis. It is a truth of great moment to the pulpit, that exegesis has a his- tory which has been open all along the line to the in- fluences of philosophy. Those influences have been less direct upon the history of exegesis than upon the his- tory of creeds, but not a whit less powerful. For instance, we do not interjDret the Scriptures pre- cisely as men did when the dominant schools of philoso- phy were all tinged with fatalism. We can not, if we would, interpret certain texts as Augustine, or even as Calvin did, without sacrificing much which mental sci- ence has established since their day respecting the free- dom of the will. The common mind, as well as the I 150 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect; x. more liiglily cultivated, will not, if left to itself, inter- pret the Scriptures now precisely as it did when its own consciousness was overshadowed and repressed by a fatalistic philosophy on the part of its religious teach- ers. Mind is so related to language, that philology in- evitably responds to philosophy. The two periodically salute each other on the march of the ages. We can not interpret certain Scriptures as Turretin did, any more than we can interpret certain other Scriptures as the popes did, who made them teach the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. The freedom of the will has conquered a place in all civilized philosophy ; certain doctrines of theology have shaped themselves by the side of it ; and these have been stereotj^ped by certain improved exegeses. This inter-relationship has been entirely legitimate. Truth has responded to truth. Dis- covery in the one direction has necessitated discovery in the other. True, the principle here involved has been abused. It is a perilous principle because it is so effective. The blade is dangerous because it has so keen an edge. But, with the guards which every vital principle needs when in the possession of a finite and a depraved mind, it is a necessary jDrinciple in tlie inter- pretation of a book which counts its age by thousands of years, and yet claims to be a revelation of the mind of God. (2) Further : progress in political science affects our use of the philosophy of common sense in the interpre- tation of the Scriptures. Our whole modern theory respecting responsibility to the State for religious belief depends on an abandonment of many venerated inter- pretations of texts. Those interpretations have yielded to common sense. They have not surrendered to gram- mar and lexicon • for, under grammar and lexicon alone, tECT. X.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 151 they are possible still. They have yielded to pressure from "without. _ Common sense quickened by political progress has discovered that those interpretations were false. The Bible does not teach them, and never did. Do we not, for example, necessarily interpret to-day the language of our Lord, " Go out into the highwaj' s and hedges, and compel them to come in," differently from the manner in which those Fathers interpreted it who drew from it most prayerfully, not only their authority, but their duty, to establish the Inquisition? Yet we owe our deliverance from thraldom under that text largely to the Prince of Orange. Do we not in- evitably interpret the text, " Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft," differently from the manner in which the churchmen of Milton's time interpreted it, when they understood from it that republicanism was blas- phemy ? De Quincey says that this was once " a jewel of a text ; for broomsticks were proved out of it most clearly, and also the atrocity of republican govern- ment." Look into Algernon Sidne}^ or into Locke's controversy with Sir Robert Filmer, or into any books of those days on political principles, and you will find that the Scriptures were so used as to form an absolute bar against human progress. What has wrought the change to modern methods of. interpretation ? In part, it is the two centuries of progress in the philosophy of civil government, which has reacted upon the Scrip- tures through the state of mind which men bring with them to the work of interpretation. The same phenomenon is seen in the history of the biblical argument on slavery. Slavery was unanswera- bly vindicated from the Bible, so long as we allowed its advocates to bring to the exegesis of the book that philosophy of civil government which had been domi- 152 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. x. aant for a tliousand years. It is not yet a hundred and forty years since John Newton, after his conversion, took command of a slave-ship, and held it for four years, praying over his Bible all the wliile, and verily believ- ing that he had tender communion with God, " espe- cially," as he says with charming stupidity, "on my African voyages." What is it that renders such an anomaly impossible now? It is mainly an intuition brought by the popular mind to the interpretation of the Scriptures. " If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Men have ^discovered the true interpretation of the Bible by the lightning of that intuition to which President Lincoln gave utterance. Yet the power to feel it, and the courage to trust it in its fullness, have been the product, mainly, of the last two hundred years. These illustrations indicate the broad and varied reach of the principle before us, — that the philosophy of common sense is progressive, and that its progress reacts legitimately upon the discovery of the meaning of the Scriptures. The principle, be it repeated, is a perilous one ; but, because it is so, we should recognize it in its uses, to save it from its abuses. We can not bury it by disuse. It is no scholastic monopoly. The popular mind will use it lawlessly, if the pulpit does not teach the people its legitimate use. It is one of those forms of popular conviction which we can not control, unless we accept it cordially. If we force upon the Scriptures interpretations which ignore common sense, the popular mind will either create for itself wiser bib- lical teachers, or will reject the Bible as an authoritative revelation. LECTURE XL THE EXPLANATION: MATERIALS, QUALITIES. 7th, Proceeding with the discussion of the materials of exposition, we find a seventli source of them in the facts of natural science. (1) Sometimes natural science illuminates the com- monly received interpretation of texts. Dr. Chalmers brought the whole system of modern astronomy under tribute to the text, " Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth." William Jay added to the clerical stock of thought by his use of the science of metallurgy to illustrate the text, "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." John Pye Smith and others have brought the science of physiology to enforce the text, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." A volume has been written on the religion of chemistry, which can not but be auxiliary to the exposition of many biblical texts. The science of anatomy has often been made to assist interpretations of the narratives of our Lord's crucifixion. A certain physician now living has probably been saved from infidelity by observ- ing the unconscious truthfulness of the evangelists, in their account of the crucifixion, to anatomical facts which then were entirely unknown to science. • No doubt can exist of the propriety of employing the fruits of natural science in homiletic service, in cases 153 154 THE THEORY OF PREACHESTG. [lect. xi. like these, in wliicli science directly illustrates and in- tensifies the commonly received interpretations of the Scriptures. (2) Occasion for solicitude arises, however, in the minds of many, lest natural science, in other cases, should make havoc with exegesis. A homiletic ques- tion arises, therefore, to this effect , " Ought a preacher to disturb the popular mind by the homiletic use of scientific discoveries which seem to conflict with bibli- cal exegesis ? " The following well-known facts appear entitled to the weight of conclusive argument in the affirmative. The weight of scholarly authority among commenta- tors now admits the principle that scientific discovery may modify within certain limits our interpretation of the Scriptures. It can not be questioned that modern philology has jdelded somewhat to natural science. Commentators may differ in detail as to what and how much should be yielded ; but the weight of authority, by a vast preponderance, agrees in yielding something. The principle is admitted, that philology is not above admonition and instruction from other sciences. This fact should have great weight in guiding the ministra- tions of the pulpit. On questions of this nature the popular mind should be taught to follow the authority of Christian scholarsliip. We do incalculable injury if we encourage the people in a pious independence of learning in their interpretations of the Bible. It h unsafe for a preacher, even by silence, to allow a hiatus to grow between the popular faith and the results of learned investigation. A second fact to be remembered is the one so often and so justly claimed by biblical philologians, — that science has never yet established facts inconsistent with LECT. XI.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 155 a natural interpretation of the Scriptures on philologi- cal principles. The truth of this position need not be argued now : it is too familiar to you. But its bearing on the policy of the pulpit for the future needs to be enforced. Two points, speciallj-, we should claim as settled. One is that the controversy between science and exegesis has an accumulated history. Apparent collision between the two is no novelty. We should never treat it as a novelty in our own minds, nor allow an opponent to do so in discussing the claims of the Scriptures. Very much is lost with the people, if we lose a certain prestige to which the history of this con- troversy entitles us, by seeming ourselves to come to it, or permitting our opponents to do so, de novo, as if the conflict were one in which nothing had as yet been settled, and nothing, therefore, could at present be assumed. We should always start with the indispu- table claim that the conflict has a history. The other point is, that, setting aside the question of the inspiration of the Scriptures, a philosophical ar- gument may be constructed in their defense, founded upon the history of this controversy. Candid philology has never yet been contradicted by candid science, and it is a philosophical inference that it never will be. Presumed contradictions in numerous in- stances have been disproved by the final conclusions of authorities on both sides. Philology has modified its interpretations. True ; but science has modified its claims ; some it has abandoned ; others it has qualified. Natural science has shifted its ground more frequently and more rapidly than biblical philology has done. The result thus far is, that, with no disparagement to either, each has approached the other. On several great topics once in dispute there is no longer any 156 THE THEORY OF PREACHESTG. [lect. xi. respectable debate between them. They see eye to eye. The point of the argument for exegesis is that sound philological principles have not been abandoned. Sci- ence has created no necessity for the surrender of them. They have only been defined more accurately. Exege- sis understands itself better than ever before, and is all the stronger for its changes of base. It follows that the pulpit need not be disturbed by the occurrence of new points of contact between nat- ural science and exegesis. These will occur as old ones have occurred. The time may come when the most candid and the most reverent attitude of mind respect- ing them will be one of temporary suspense. As hon- est men we may be obliged sometimes to suggest prob- able interpretations rather than those of which we feel assured. Even possible conceptions of the inspired meaning may be temporarily given for the want of better. Be it so : temporary suspense of confident exe- gesis is no new thing: the Bible has survived many such periods. We should not be alarmed. Nor should we ever intimate to the people a doubt from which they might reasonably infer that our faith is disturbed. The pulpit should never tremble at the shaking of a spear. Faith ought not to waver at a phenomenon which has become almost i^eriodical in the history of opinion. Timid utterances from the pulpit under such suspenses of interpretations are like the fright of savages at an eclipse. Wait. Teach the people to wait. Teach them mtellectual patience. The history of such phenomena in the past is a pledge for the future. What if heredi- tary theories of inspiration have to undergo revision? This is no novelty. Inherited faith can scarcely suffei a ruder shock than it received and lived through when the Copernican astronomy first met the word of God, LECT. XI.] THE EXPLANATION : MATERIALS. 157 The current theories of inspiration were revolutionized b}^ that apparent collision. Yet how simple a thing that revolution seems to us now! How securely we smile at the popes who tried to throttle it ! Why, then, should we fear to encounter similar revolutions in the future ? Why, for instance, should we fear the Darwinian speculations, be their conclusions what they may ? Is there not here a philosophical argument alto- gether independent of the divine authority of the Scrip- tures, and yet an argument so simple that it can often be made available for anchoring the faith of the people in the Bible ? I can not but think that the pulpit itself frequently needs toning up to a more philosophic confi- dence in the destiny of the Scriptures. (3) This leads me to observe that an educated clergy must bear some opprobrium caused by the reckless claims of an uneducated clergy. Ignorant and partly educated preachers do immense injury to the pulpit by their blind hostility to science. They assert claims in behalf of inspiration which can not possibly be sus- tained. Christian scholarship has no desire to sustain them. Christian ignorance insists on interpretations at which the intelligence of the world laughs, and over which the intelligence of the Church mourns. When zeal in opposing the science of infidels intemperately charges infidelity upon science, infidelity gets the best of the argument. A reaction to the discredit of cleri- cal candor and clerical learning is inevitable. We must, therefore, take this into account in adjusting the policy of the pulpit. We should be more cautious to do justice to the facts of science, because we must bear the brunt of the conflict at a point where we are weak- ened by our own allies. Our strategy should be simply that of candor and courage. Not only admit all that 158 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xi. science can fairly claim, but admit it witli the coolness of one who can afford to do it ; admit it with the magnanimity of one who claims his enemy for a friend. As interpreters, we claim science as the tributary of the Bible. The hostility is only apparent, and that appearance is but temporary. We should act upon this conviction. We can afford to be generous ; for all that we give will return to us again. (4) A final fact, which you have doubtless antici- j)ated me in uttering, is that the policy here recom- mended is the only one which can be permanently successful. The popular mind has a very brief and blunt logic, which it will inevitably oppose to a written revelation if it is once permitted to believe that the revelation can not bear the facts of the material world. In the long run, men will believe that they see what they see, and hear what they hear, let the book say what it may. Fire is fire : there are no two opinions about that. That is not a divine revelation which disputes the fact. The popular mind will feel not a moment's hesitation, if, by any blindness of the pulpit, infidelity can succeed in narrowing the conflict down to any such controversy as that. It is then no longer a conflict between faith and reason : it is a conflict between faith and the human senses : it is between faith in dead ages and the testimony of a man's own eyes. For permanent service, therefore, the only policy wliich is practicable to the pulpit is to hold science in its normal relations as the friend and ally of the Scriptures. Use it as a tributary; use it freely; use it trustfully ; use it courageously. IV. We pass now to the fourth topic in the discus- sion of the explanation ; namely, its qualities. 1st, In the first place, an explanation should be such LECT. XI.] THE EXPLANATION: QUALITIES. 159 as to give the true meaning of a text. Bearing in mind the preliminary remark ah-eady made, that we are considering the theory of explanations with reference, not to the explanatory fragment of a toj)ical sermon alone, but to the whole subject of expository preaching as well, the rule now before us is evidently fundamen- tal to a large proportion of evangelical preaching. We have, on a former occasion, considered the question of the use of interpolated texts and of mistranslated texts. A practical question distinct from that occurs in every preacher's experience. It is, " May we employ a popu- lar or an inherited misinterpretation of a text for the sake of homiletic advantages attending such a use of it?" Such advantages doubtless exist. Effective ser- mons are preached on such misinterpretations. Souls have been saved by such sermons. Still the obvious reply to the inquiry must be in the negative ; and this, on substantially the same principles as those applied to the use of interpolations and mistranslations. (1) The meaning of the text is the text. The in- spired thought constitutes the text. A misinterpreted text is no part of the Bible. (2) Moreover, many popular misinterpretations are inferior in homiletic value to the true interpretations. Many texts are more pertinent and beautiful and sug- gestive for the direct uses of the pulpit in their true version than in their commonly received perversion. An example of this occurs in the popular interpretation of Col. ii. 8 : " Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit." This is misinterpreted commonly, as teaching the danger of the corrupting influence of philosophy upon religious doctrine. Both the pulpit and theological schools are responsible for encouraging this erroneous interpretation. The pas- 160 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xi. sage contains no such warning. It teaches a far more necessary and impressive lesson. Strictly interpreted, and translated into modern speech, this text means no more nor less than this : " Be on your guard, that no man may captivate you by religious sophistry." This idea, for the purposes of the pulpit to say the least, is vastly superior to that which has been so often foisted into the passage, of the danger of philosophy in cor- rupting systems of theology. So it will be found to be in the large majority of instances. The true sense of a text exegetically expounded is its best sense for homi- letic use. (3) It should be further observed, that the past and present usage of the pulpit respecting trutlifulness of interpretation is not entirely trustworthy. Explana- tions which exegesis has exploded are sometimes re- tained by the pulpit for their homiletic usefulness. Preachers often employ in the pulpit explanations of texts which they would not defend in an association of scholars. The pulpit suffers in its exegetical practice by retaining for polemic uses explanations which ori- ginated in an abuse of philosophy. I do not say in the use of philosophy. We have seen that there is a legiti- mate use of philosophy, within certain limits, in aiding the discoveries and application of sound philology. But philosophy has often tyrannized over philology. In the defense of the creeds of the Church, the exigen- cies of philosophy have overborne the philological in- stinct of the popular mind, as well as the philological learning of the schools. A modern exegete afBrms that the interpretation of the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans which makes it a description of Christian experience was never heard of m the Church till the time of Augustine. He originated it to support LECT. XI.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 161 liis theory of original sin. He held the opposite inter- pretation, as now held by many German exegetes, till he was pressed in the argument with Pelagius. The authority of Augustine, and the force of his theology, have sent down to our own day the interpretation he tlien adopted. Again : the pulpit often suffers, in its exegetical prac- tice, from an unthinking acceptance of certain popular traditions. Where no homiletic nor polemic uses of texts are in question, certain traditional ideas are blended with the popular reading of the Scriptures, which the pulpit often adopts without inquiry into their biblical authority. For example : the idea that Mary Magdalene was a harlot is generally assumed in homiletic explanations of her history. This is the popu- lar idea. From this is derived a popular title for asy- lums for fallen women. But there is no evidence in the Scriptures that she was any thing worse than the victim of demoniacal possession. Yet the popular mind has assumed that the phrase " seven devils " (so often called " unclean spirits " in the Scriptures) means profligacy. Painters have seconded the assumption, and art has made it immortal. The pulpit has fallen in with it without much inquiry into the precise significance of the inspired narrative. Archbishop Whately says, that, when he once ventured to question the popular theory, the Scriptures were confidently referred to by his oppo- nent as proof conclusive against him. But the only evidence was found to be the table of contents which formed the heading of the chapter in our English ver- sion. Still further: the pulpit suffers, in its exegetical authority, from the habit of spiritualizing all parts of the Scriptures indiscriminately. Ancient usage justi- 162 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xi. fied any use of a text, which, by any eccentric laws of association, could be made serviceable to any practi- cal religious impression. Popular commentaries have largely contributed to this abuse. Some of them no preacher can read respectfully without insensibly sur- rendering somewhat of his integrity of exegetical taste. Such are the more important of the reasons for the caution which I have advanced, that the past and pres- ent usage of the pulpit respecting truthfulness of in- terpretation is not entirely trustworthy. You can not safely accept that usage as authority. It is improving, but it is no model for a youthful ministry. Do not be misled by it. Form your own model, and let it be one which scholarship, and good taste, and good sense can approve. (4) In further consideration of the question before us, let it be observed that a want of hermeneutic accu- racy in the explanation of the Scriptures is hazardous to the authority of the pulpit. A preacher is in danger of great inconsistencies of interpretation who accepts any other ultimate guide in his expositions than that of hermeneutic science. " Ultimate guide," I say ; for the legitimacy of the influence of philosophy and of natural science, as proximate guides, has been admit- ted. That is, they legitimately help to define and dis- cover principles of biblical hermeneutics. But, when those principles are settled, their authority is final. A preacher puts in peril the power of his pulpit, if he fails to recognize this, and to act upon it. He will often make the Scriptures self-contradictory. A more subtle danger is that of awakening the silent conviction in the minds of hearers that a preacher's interpretations are not trustworthy. Hearers are more slirewd than is often supposed in detecting a real weak- LECT. XI.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 163 ness in the pulpit. As strengtli makes itself felt, so does weakness, when hearers can not define either, or tell their sources. It matters little what it is, a weak- ness will be discovered. The common people may know little of the laws of interpretation, but they will dis- cover the fact, if these laws are often violated by their religious teachers. First in the form of a suspicion, then in the form of an impression, and at length in the form of a conviction, the feeling will find its way among them, that, whatever else their pastor may be, he is not a safe interpreter of the Scriptures. He adds nothing to their knowledge of God's word. They do not feel assured of his accuracy in the use of biblical language. A commentary like Barnes's Notes appeals to their common sense more satisfactorily. It needs no argu- ment to prove, that, if this is the silent impression which the pulpit makes upon a people, the prestige of that pulpit is in peril. You will be struck with the fact, when you become familiar with the ministry, that there are two classes of men in the profession : there are the men who sustain the pulpit, and the men whom the pulpit sustains. There are preachers whom the profession carries. They are so much dead weight. They add nothing to its power of movement. They do nothing which a layman might not do as well. As laymen themselves, they would be as useful as they are, except for this fact, — that they gain something from the glamour of profes- Luonal connections. Such men are the first to be over- whelmed by the rising tide of biblical thought and biblical enthusiasm which they do not understand, and of which they can make no use. Infidelity starts inquiries, and Christian thought seconds them, which such men can not answer. Thev can only plod on in 164 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xi. what they call more practical ways, and in time the Church drops them. Yet a moderate amount of bibli- cal learning, kept constantly fresh by biblical study, would save such men. (5) This view is further enforced by the fact that biblical science is advancing more rapidly than any other with which the pulpit has directly to do. No other has received such a solid, enduring impulse as this has during the last fifty years. It has far more palpable results of progress to show than speculative theology. One cause and one consequence of this is the constant appearance of new commentaries and other works expository of the Scriptures. No other depart- ment of sacred learning is now multiplying books so rapidly as this. The literature of it changes with every decade of years. Few other books of solid worth are so soon displaced by later authorities as books of com- ment on the Bible. In no other department does a pastor's library need such frequent weeding and replen- ishing as in this. This rapidity of growth in biblical science is vital to the tastes and habits of a preacher. Is it not easy to see how fatally a pastor may be left in the rear of biblical scholarship ? It will never do to plod on in old ways of exegesis, content with the ancient interpreta- tions of texts, yet hoping to be sustained as religious authorities with the people, merely because we build useful sermons on such interpretations. You might as sensibly teach in colleges the Ptolemaic system of as- tronomy. A preacher, then, has a very significant part of his life's work before him in qualifying himself to explain truthfully the meaning of his texts. LECTURE XII. THE EXPLANATION: QUALITIES. Having discussed the topic of truthfulness of inter- pretation, we may pass more rapidly over several other principles which should regulate the' qualities of expos- itory discourse. 2d, The explanation should be such as to develop the meaning of the text in its full force. The signification of a text is one thing ; its significance, another. The signification of a text is complete when its words are truthfully interpreted, and its grammatical idea ex- pressed. Its significance is its signification clothed in all that is needful for vividness of impression. Lord Brougham, in laying down rules for constructing the narration in the plea of a lawyer, insists upon that which he terms "picturesque expression." A similar quality is often necessary in the explanation of a text. Purely philological processes, though underlying every* thing, may, in many cases, be the least part of the work of exposition. Rhetorical invention must often supplement philology very largely in order to magnify a text to its true proportions. (1) Picturesque explanations are especially neces- sary to the interpretation of an ancient volume like the Bible. The Scriptures are ancient, not antiquated. We must see them as we see the heavens, — through a 165 166 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xii, lens of large magnifying power. We must bring the distant near, must make the ancient fresh. This must be done by the highest finish of art. Do we exaggerate a text by such achievement of art ? Not at all, in any legitimate use of it. The telescope does not exaggerate the size and brilliancy of Jupiter in the evening sky. We only approximate the truth, even thus. (2) Picturesque exposition is necessary, also, to the interpretation of a foreign volume like the Bible. We must read the Bible through a foreign atmosphere. Language, climate, nationality, customs, politics, sci- ences, almost every thing that can give idiosyncrasies to a book, do give such to the Scriptures. And their idiosyncrasies are not our idiosyncrasies. To us they are more emphatically a foreign volume than the Iliad. Nor, on that account, is the Bible unpractical or unfit. But a multitude of its choicest passages do, for that reason, depend, for their significance to us, upon a re- production to our vision of those foreign conditions in which they had their origin. (3) Picturesque explanation is especially necessary to the popular mind. The people need to have done for them in this respect that which a scholar can do for himself. The people can often determine by the force of common sense the philological meaning of a text, when they have neither the learning nor the imaginative invention which are necessary to fill a text with its true significance. The pulpit must mod- ernize and Americanize texts, and thus realize them to a modern and American audience. One of the radical diversities of talents in the ministry concerns this power of picturesque exposition. Some preachers are admi- rable expository critics : others are expository painters. It is not difficult to foresee from which of the two iECT. xii.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 167 classes the great preachers must come. So necessary- is some degree of this power of picturesque invention to a versatile eloquence in the pulpit, that we may almost say of preachers what Alison says of historians, — that there never was a truly great one whose talents would not have made him eminent as a painter or a dramatic poet. Here, in my judgment, is the hinge of the whole question of expository preaching. Its practicability depends on that which, for distinction's sake, may be termed the expository culture in the making of the preacher's own mind. If a preacher must be limited to one intellectual talent for the pulpit, let him pray for this. The preacher who has it in any large degree is always a power in the pulpit. He is always among the men who do not seek places, but whom places seek. 3d, A third quality of the explanation is that it should be such as not to give to a text more than its full force. One of the old divines calls the error of exaggerating exegesis a " bombarding of the text." It may be most happily illustrated by observing several of the immediate causes of it. (1) One of these is an abuse of textual preaching. A man who always preaches textual sermons will inev- itably " bombard " some texts. Many texts otherwise good do not naturally furnish the textual divisions of a good sermon. They are units. You can not divide them, and find your materials of thought in the several clauses, without inventing material which is not in them. (2) Another cause of exaggerated explanation is un- chastened rhetorical painting. An example will illus- trate this. On the text, " Hear, ye O mountains, the Lord's controversy," an English preacher indulges in a 168 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xn. prolonged description of tlie biblical scenery at which the text hints. The word " mountain " is sufficient to reproduce in his fancy the whole picture of the vale of Chamouni. God and man are arrayed in a forensic debate in a vast amphitheater, and the surrounding mountains are summoned as spectators and listeners. The description is so elaborate and minute, that one who has seen the Alps imagines Mont Blanc and the Aiguille Verte bending in attentive silence to hear the argument pro and con between the infinite and the human disputants. Yet the more vivid the picture to the fancy of the reader, the more positive is the sense of inflation of the text. The text is a brief and solitary hint. Its grandeur consists in that glimpse which flashes for a moment, and is withdrawn. That is all that the text means. In that momentar}^ gleam of sub- limity its full force is given. By prolonged expansion it loses force, because the idea will not brook delay. It is like lightning. Fix the lightning in the sky long enough to describe a thunder-storm, and it becomes no more than a streak of yellow paint. So the most sub- lime and poetic hint of a truth may dwindle to the veriest humdrum of prose, if you attempt to paint it with all its correlatives and auxiliaries. A more chas- tened taste in rhetorical description would save a preacher from such violence to biblical poetry. This is one of a thousand instances in which the true taste is the inspired taste. You can not improve it. (3) Another cause of the error before us is the sub- jection of exegesis to the service of polemic theology. An ancient Calvinistic divine endeavored to prove that the Ten Commandments are all violated by a belief in Arminianism. Arminians make a divinity of man's power, and thus break the First Commandment. They LECT. xn.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 169 bow down to this idol of their own creation, and thus break the Second Commandment. They talk of ineffec- tual grace, and thus take God's name in vain : so they break the Third Commandment. They commit spirit- ual adultery with their idol, and thus they break the Seventh Commandment. They take away from God the dignity which is his due, and thus they break the Eighth Commandment. They covet their elect neigh- bor's interest in Christ, and so break the Tenth Com- mandment. A similar sport is carried on with the whole Decalogue, as if the chief object of the divine conference with Moses on Mount Sinai had been to fur- nish him with rubbish to fling at Arminians. Such biblical exegesis can not be lifted in point of dignity above the sport of schoolboys. (4) A similar cause of this error is the perversion of the Scriptures to uninspired political uses. Lord Macaulay relates an instance of the preaching of the Bishop of Ely before the court of King James II. A passage from one of the Chronicles was the text, and it was expounded to this effect : King Solomon represents King James ; Adonijah was undoubtedly the forerunner of the Duke of Monmouth; Joab was a Rye-house conspirator ; Shimei was a Whig ; Abiathar was a Cava- lier : and he called special notice to two clauses in the text, one of which, he said, implied that King James was superior to Parliament, and the other, that he alone had command of the militia. (5) Yet a more inexcusable cause of the error before us is a heedless ignorance of biblical facts. A preach- er a few years ago, whose imagination had been cul- tivated more assiduously than his biblical learning, discoursed upon the scene which took place between David and Abigail on the occasion on which she came 170 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xit- out to meet him for the purpose of moderating his anger against her husband NabaL The preacher dwelt in glowing terms on the beauty of the Carmelite lady, and described, among other details of the interview, her apj)earance as she approached David on a richly caparisoned and prancing horse. Tlie preacher himself was noted for his fondness for a good horse, which, in the view of some of his parishioners, exceeded the bounds of clerical dignity ; and, as he dwelt with great zest upon the equestrian accomplishments of the beau- tiful rider, an old lady in the congregation gratified her secret distaste for that feature in her pastor's character by turning to her neighbor, and whispering that the sermon was "very handsome," but she "knew better," for the Bible said that Nabal's wife came out to meet David " on an ass." That horse belonged to the " Mil- tonic interpretation " of the Old Testament. (6) Another cause of exaggerated exegesis is an abuse of prophecy. Dr. Arnold says that he has never read a commentary on the prophecies which does not, in some point or other, distort the truth of history to make it fit the prophecy. Yet the pulpit can be in this respect no other than the echo of commentaries. The biblical learning of the pulpit will scarcel}^ ever rise above that of the schools. (7) Perhaps the most violent cause of the error "in question is found in the abuse of the Parables. The- pulpit has been slow to learn that many incidents in the Parables teach nothing. They are expletive inci- dents, thrown in to round out the story. To find in them a profound spiritual sense is uninspired manufac- ture of thought. Inspiration and bibliolatry are in this respect at antipodes. Bibliolatry digs, awestruck, for the occult sense of words: inspiration is calmly con- LECT. xn.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 171 tent with common sense. What shall we say, then, of the following from Bishop Heber? On the Parable of the Good Samaritan, he says that the traveler repre- sents the human race ; his leaving Jerusalem symbolizes man's departure from God ; Jericho is the synonym of the temptations of this world; the robbers are the devil and his angels ; the priest signifies the sacrifices of the patriarchal age ; the Levite is the Mosaic law ; • and the Samaritan is Christ. The bishop's good sense seems to have halted here. He adds, not as the discov- ery of his own genius, that the two pieces of silver "have been supposed" to signify the two sacraments which are left behind for the consolation of Christians, "till their good Samaritan shall return." Professor Stuart, in remarking upon this specimen of exegesis, used to ask whether " somebody " was not represented by the ass on which the Samaritan rode. Yet Bishop Heber was a sensible man. In the affairs of life he called water water, like the rest of us. Why should words and things in the Scriptures be interpreted and used as men never interpret them in any other book, or in the colloquial intercourse of life ? Such vagaries as these were once regarded as a part of the staple of the pulpit. By the ancient standard of pulpit eloquence the ingenuity of such conceits marked the rank of the preacher. The more original his iuA'^en- tion, the more authoritative was his exegesis. The theory was that inspired language, because it was in- spired, was an inexhaustible mine of hidden treasures of the fancy, in which every preacher might delve at will. He was the prince of preachers who could invent the interpretation least likely to suggest itself to the common reader or to be supported by his common seuse. The struggle for liberty to interpret the Scrip- 172 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xil tures by the rules of good sense, as men interpret the language of other books, has been long and hard- fought ; and it is by no means ended. 4 th, A fourth quality of an explanation is that it should be clear. An obscure explanation is a self-con- tradiction. Several causes of such obsc-xirity deserve mention. (1) One cause is ignorance of oriental life and of ancient civilization. A preacher can not himself under- stand certain portions of the Scriptures, if he is not familiar with Eastern and ancient usages. He should be a well-informed man in Asiatic researches. Even when the letter of a text is not misunderstood, the force of it may be lost for the want of culture in the depart- ment of general oriental knowledge. (2) Another cause of obscurity of exposition is the needless use of technical phraseology. Terms techni- cal to exegesis, to theology, to Christian experience, or even to biblical usage, should be employed, if at all, with caution. The Bible itself does not needlessly employ them. Even technicalities which the usage of the pulpit has made common are not always understood ; if understood, they are but dimly so. They are hke windows of ground glass. (3) Another occasion of obscurity in the explana- tion is confusion of philosophical distinctions. It is a truism that the Scriptures are not inspired to teach philosophy. Yet philosophical distinctions underlie all sound exegesis, as they do the interpretation of all lan- guage. Such distinctions must often be stated to save a text from contradiction of other texts, or of the necessary beliefs of men. If, therefore, a preacher does not admit such distinctions, if he does not understand them, if they are overborn.e by his theology, if he dare LECT. XII.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 173 not accept tliem courageously, if lie have not the skill to make them clear to others, he may leave such a text more obscure than he found it. The common sense of the people should rather be let alone in its reception of the Scriptures than be muddled by lame philosophizing. As specimens of such texts, may be named passages respecting dependence and ability ; passages respecting the causes of sin, like that concerning the hardening of Pharaoh's heart; passages respecting providence and decrees ; passages respecting the power of prayer ; and passages respecting inherited depravity. Many such tests involve the whole philosophy of the human will. To exj)lain them truthfully, that philosophy must not be falsified nor ignored. A distinction must often be stated, when it is not expanded. When not stated, it must often be implied in the explanation. The preacher must have it in mind unexpressed. To the audience it is the invisible key. The door does not open unless the key is turned by a cunning hand. (4) A further cause of obscurity in exposition is the want of naturalness of arrangement. Have you never listened to expositions in which the preacher seemed to touch every thing, and explain nothing? He handled every thing vigorou.sly, it may be, yet nothing so as to leave a definite impression. In such a case the diffi- culty will often be found to be simply the want of nat- ural order. Events are described, not in their actual, nor in any probable, order of occurrence. Characters are grouped in relations which are not proportional. They remind one of a certain cartoon by Raphael, m which figures of half a ton's weight and some hundreds of pounds of fishes are crowded into a skiff not larger nor more seaworthy than a Swampscott dory. The preacher talks at random. He dances from the great 174 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xii. to the small, from the near to the remote, from the •material to the spiritual, from the figurative to the lit- eral, and back again, and forth anew, rambling with no order which seems such to a logical mind. He neglects nothing, yet explains nothing. His work re- sults in a literary kaleidoscope. 5th, A fifth quality of an explanation is that it should, if possible, express positive opinions. A preach- er should, if possible, have an opinion of his text for which, as an exegete, he is willing to be responsible. The following particulars are worthy of note on this topic. (1) By far the major part of the Bible is suscepti- ble of positive interpretation. Passages impracticable to exegesis are comparatively few: not one exists, probably, of vital moment. A preacher will find no very large part of the Bible closed to faithful biblical study. Any thing which is thus closed to him is not, for the time being, a canonical text for his pulpit. (2) Moreover, expression of unsettled opinions of the meaning of the Scriptures does great injury to the pulpit. The pulpit is the place for a religious teacher. Some degree of authoritative instruction is essential to its power. Hearers have a right to expect defined and settled convictions from one whom they have chosen as their instructor. They do not want dogmatism ; but they do demand, and justly, confidence of judgment. A man is not "apt to teach" who does not know what he believes. This is especially true when the meaning of the Scriptures is in question. If the pulpit does not know its own ground here, to the people it will seem to know nothing to the purpose. The well-known prin- ciple of all popular oratory is applicable here also, — that the popular faith is powerfully affected by the way LECT. xii.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 175 in which a preacher treats the foundation of his opin- ions. Other things being equal, the man who knows w^ill be heard in preference to the man who only be- lieves. He who believes will be heard in preference to the man who doubts. The Scriptures are the foun- dation of the pulpit. Texts are its pillars. In exegesis, if in any thing, a preacher needs confident opinions. Unsettled faith there ceases to be faith in any thing else with which a Christian pulpit is concerned. A pulpit skeptical as to the Scriptures becomes a floating island: the popular faith can anchor nothing to it. (3) A Calvinistic theology, especially, requires posi- tive exegesis on the part of its preachers. It is a strong theology. Say whatever else we may of it, it is an oaken theology. Its gnarled branches must be rooted in a deep and solid soil. Its destiny is to encounter tempests of the moral elements. Its life must be far underground. 'No dawdling exegesis can support it; nor can any confidence in it as a system of truth be propagated from a pulpit which does not know whethei it finds the system in the Scriptures or not. We must find it in the Scriptures, or nowhere. We must know it to be there, or the people will soon know nothing about it. It could not live beyond one generation in the faith of a people who should be thoroughly pos- sessed of the skeptical spirit respecting its biblical foundations. (4) The tactics of infidelity demand a positive exe- gesis in the pulpit. I allude here to the standmg charge of infidelity, — that the Bible is not a self-consistent volume. This charge is often very effective with a cer- tain ignorant and indolent type of popular skepticism. It declares that the Bible is an instrument on which any tune can be played. Learned and thoughtful infi.- 176 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [leCt. xii delitj knows better than that; but that is the most facile way of neutralizing the biblical argument of the clergy with an unthinking and unlearned commonalty. The pulpit must rebut the charge, not by loud-mouthed denials, but by acting upon the assumption of its false- ness. Preachers, by having positive opinions in biblical interpretation, and by expressing them positivel}', will bear down the charge. They need not pause to debate it. (5) Turning, now, to some of the failures of preach- ers to exhibit a positive biblical faith, I remark that some fail unconsciously by a skeptical mannerism in their expositions. Have you not heard one explain a text with the forms of doubt, when nobody doubts, or can doubt, the truth of the explanation ? " If this be the meaning of the Apostle ; " " This seems to be the idea of the Prophet;" "Such maybe supposed to.be the design of the Psalmist ; " " Probably our Lord meant to teach," — these and similar formulge of doubt are employed when there is no reasonable doubt. Commentators on the passages in question express no doubt. The preacher has no doubts. He speaks from the habit of affected wisdom. His impulse would be to speak of the certainty of death with a codicil of doubt in the case of a long-lived stock. I call this a skepti- cal mannerism. Contrast it with the robust style of apostolic preaching : " I am persuaded ; " " Hereby we know;" "I say the truth in Christ;" "We have the mind of Christ;" "Know ye not?" "I have received of the Lord that which I delivered unto you ; " " We use great plainness of speech ; " " Great is my boldness of speech ; " " The Spirit speaketh expressly ; " " We know ; we are confident, I say ; " " Thus saith the Lord." In such varied and intense forms of speech the LECT. XII.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 177 inspired preachers express intense convictions. Theirs is an indubitable message. The Epistles of the New Testament seem as if ^yritten under oath. (6) Failure in point of positiveness of exegesis some- times results from constitutional timidity of opinion. In some minds original opinions are always the result of a trembling balance of probabilities. Which way the scale preponderates never seems absolutely certain. The opponents of Dr. Arnold used to say of him, — though on what grounds I can not imagine, — that he always woke up in the morning with the conviction that every thing was an open question. (7) In other cases, the failure arises from an over- bearing of the speculative upon the exegetical taste. The history of the religious opinions of some men is almost exclusively a dogmatic history. They have come at their opinions through the avenue of specula- tion, not through that of exegesis, but substantially to the exclusion of exegesis. Consequently for a long time, perhaps for a lifetime, biblical interpretation is of practically 'no account in their habit of thinking. Such minds make inefficient exegetes in the pulpit. They are so much bolder as theologians than as exe- getes, they speculate so much more confidently than they interpret, they are so much more at home in natu- ral than in revealed theology, and in revealed the- ology they are so much more fond of its catechetical than of its biblical forms, that, in the interpretation of the Scriptures, they never make the impression of authorities. LECTURE XIII. THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. Gth, Continuing the discussion of the qualities of the explanation, we notice, as a sixth quality, unity of exposition. This is an exceedingly subtile quality. We may sacrifice it unconsciously. (1) It is often sacrificed by the want of unity of text. If a text be a double, triple, quadruple structure, no oneness can grow out of it. Aiiy discussion of such a text will resemble the rattling of a handful of marbles. This suggests one secret of failure in expository preach- ing. I once proposed to an association of clergymen the inquiry, what their chief difficulty was in such preaching; and their answer almost unanimously was "The want of unity." For this reason the}'^ could not interest in that kind of preaching, either their hearers or themselves. The problem is how to interweave the textual materials into one fabric. The sermon is apt to be a string of beads with nothing but the string to make them one. The preacher's instinct for unity of aim is balked at the outset, and the hearer's instinct for singleness of impression is balked in the end. Where lies the remedy ? I answer, it lies in limiting expository preaching to passages of the Scriptures which have unity of structure. Leave more desultory methods of exposition to Bible-classes. Reserve for 178 LECT. XIII.] THE EXPLANATION: QUALITIES. 179 the pnlpit only such paragraphs of inspired material as admit of unity of discussion. Search for groups of inspired thoughts. These are very abundant. Often, expository treatment of them is the very best that can be given, — the richest, the most original, the most in- teresting, the most useful. A young preacher's vexed problem of originating materials of sermons is solved when he makes the discovery of the inexhaustible re- sources of the Bible in unified passages. Many a group of biblical verses has as definite a unity as a constella- tion in the heavens. You will soon be surprised and delighted by your discovery of the extent to which the Scriptures can be mapped out in such groups. No preacher need despair of success in expository preach- ing for the want of good homiletic material for it. (2) Unity of explanation is often sacrificed by a needless t uggestion of conflicting interpretations. Sometimes a contested passage may need this method. In the majority of cases, however, it is not needed ; and, if not necessary, it is impolitic. We have no occasion for our enemy's guns, unless we can shift them around. Why take the trouble to spike them even, if they can not be used against us? Homiletic policy does not admit that it is a matter of indifference whether hearers shall receive impression from one force, or from four. It admits of no such self-counteracting and disjointing process of instruction. A mind intent on one object does not work so. Such a mind marches to its object by one path : it chooses its own path : it shuts out all needless glimpses of divergent and opposite avenues. So far a preacher is an advocate, not a judge. (3) Unity of explanation is also, sacrificed by irrele- vant verbal exposition. I have here in mind one of the most singular indulgences of pedantry that has ever 180 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xm. afflicted oral speech. It is that of hunting a word through its whole philological history in the Scriptures. A few, instances occur in which the true meaning of a word is a growth which can be determined only by such historical pursuit. "Baptize," "ransom," "jus- tif}^" "sacrifice " are specimens of such words. They are the crucial words of certain texts, some of which are the crucial texts of systems of theology. But such words are rare ; and the usage to which I refer is not limited to them, nor to any choice selection. It has spread itself enormously, until, in some pulpits, it has become the stereotyped and only method of exposition. Critical commentary is thus imported whole into ser- mons, with no reference at all to any homiletic demand. The emphatic word, and sometimes a word which has Qot even the dignity of emphasis, is pursued with philo- logical fury up and down and across t'le biblical records. Homiletically the result is a ludicrous com- pound of dullness and irrelevancy. An example will most clearly define this error. You will see from it that my description is no caricature of fact. A Presbyterian clergyman in a Southern city once preached a sermon on these words, " It containeth much." The text was a fragment broken from a verse in the Book of Ezekiel, " Thou shalt drink of thy sis- ter's cup : ... it containeth much." The passage is a comminatory one addressed to the ancient j^eople of God. The preacher, probably in that vacuity of thought which is apt to dilute the beginnings of ser- mons, pounced upon the word "it," which had the dis- tinction of heading the text. He remarked, that, as the context indicated, " the word had for its antecedent the word ' cup.' ' Thy sister's cup : it containeth much : ' thou shalt drink of it ; of thy sister's cup shalt LKCT. XIII.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 181 thou drink ; it containeth much : a full cup, brethren, it containeth much : yes, thou shalt drink of thy sis- ter's cup ; it containeth much, — these are the words of our text." I give you in the rough my impressions of the ser- mon after thirty years, not claiming verbal accuracy. The impression of the exposition, however, which has remained in my mind, justifies this inane mouthing of the text as the preliminary to the following exposition. The exegesis of the word " cup " was the burden of it. I do not exaggerate in saying that he told us of the great variety of senses in which the word " cup " is used in the Scriptures. A marvelous word is it. The Bible speaks of the " cup of salvation," and, again, of the " cup of consolation ; " then it is the " cup of trem- bling," and the " wine-cup of fury." Babylon is called a "golden cup." Tlie cup of Joseph which was hidden in the sack of Benjamin was a " silver cup." The Pharisees, we are told, " made clean the outside of the cup ; " and, " he shall not lose his reward who giveth a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple." And therefore in the text we are told, " Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup : it containeth much." The preacher rambled on in this manner, with his finger on the right page of the concordance, till at last the sound of the word " cup " was made familiar to the audience ; and having accumulated, as I have in this paragraph, a respectable bulk of "sounding brass," the preacher announced as his subject of discourse the future pun- ishment of the wicked. (4) Unity of explanation may be sacrificed by erro- neous representations of the " double sense " of certain biblical passages. This is a peculiarity of biblical style which it is exceedingly difficult to define clearly 182 THE THEOKY OF PREACHING. [lect. xm. to the popular mind. Few commentators succeed well in defining- it to the clerical mind. Preacliers may destroy the unity of impression made by the explana- tion of the passages in question, in either of two ways. One is that of distinguishing the two senses of the language too literally. The theory of the double sense, which some advance, borders hard on the' Swedenbor- gian principle of exterior and interior interpretation. Senses absolutely independent of each other are at- tributed to the words of a text, with no reason for the double sense which is palpable to common sense. A recondite sense superinduced upon an obvious sense, a spiritual sense affixed to a literal sense, a prophetic sense subjoined to a declarative sense, — such is the "double sense " as a hearer obtains it from some pulpits. The popular mind is impatient of mystic laws of speech, of which it finds no parallel in popular usage. It can not be made to see why two such interpretations should be injected into the same words with any more consistency or continuity of thought than three or thirty. The door seems open to Swedenborg, or any other maniacal interpreter, if such a theory of the double sense be recognized. The people, therefore, dis- miss Swedenborg none the less, but the double sense as well. The true theory of the double sense, as I under- stand it, always involves the idea of type and antitype. This is not undisputed, and I can not pause to defend it: I can only explain. it. The senses of the language are not arbitrarily two : they are reasonably twofold. The reason is obvious. The language is true of the type, first for what it is in itself, then because it is the type of something to come after in the order of time. And to that antitype it passes over with an expanded LECT. xm.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 183 and a deepened meaning. Was a Messianic Psalm true of David? Yes. How? First on Ms own account and as a literal expression of his own experience ; then because he was a type of the Messiah ; and therefore its meaning passes on to a wider and profounder appli- cation to Christ. The one application is an outgrowth of the other. It is the prolongation, or, as the Scrip- tures so often pronounce it, the fulfillment, of the other. A certain continuity of thought connects them. Stand- ing back of the type, we look through the language descriptive of it to the antitype, as if in perspective. They lie in the same line ; the first being suggestive of the second, and the second the fullness of the first. This is a concei)tion of the double sense, — is it not? — which can be made intelligible to the popular mind without violence to its common sense. A reason is obvious why two, and only two, senses should be at- tributed to the language. It is a conception which helps marvelously the interpretation of some of the Psalms, and some of the prophecies of the Old Testa- ment, and some of our Lord's predictions of the final judgment. I have called it a peculiarity of the Scrip- tures. To what extent it may be called a fundamental law of language in the interpretation of history is an open question. Natural science has revealed a similar law of type and antitype in the successions of natural history, which very strikingly reminds one of the double sense of the Scriptures. Whether or not it runs into all history in any such way as to make itself intelligible in the philosophy of events is an interesting query. That the Scriptures recognize it in certain grand responses between the Old Testament and the New is beyond reasonable dispute. Nothing of the style of innuendo, or of play upon words, degrades it. 184 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xm. The same language expresses two things, because they are alike, and are divinely constituted in certain corre- spondences to each other in the eternal order. The other method by which the theory of the double sense may be made to sacrifice unity of exposition is that of leaving the full sense of the text in obscurity. The difficulty here is a want of didactic vigor in the preacher. If he have optical vigor so that he sees for himself, he has not power to make others see through the media of his exposition. A cloud is left overhang- ing the text in any sense. Passages to which the theory of the double sense is applicable are difficult themes for the pulpit at the best. We may prudently defer the treatment of them till we are confident of our power to make them clear. 7th, A seventh quality of an explanation is that it should be as concise as clearness and fullness will per- mit. Whatever value conciseness has in any thing it has with special emphasis in expository discourse. (1) Observe especially that in a topical sermon the explanation is a preliminary. Like all other prelimina- ries, it should be dispatched rapidly. (2) In either a topical or an expository sermon, con- ciseness itself stimulates interest. It is an interest- ing virtue in the explanation of any thing, that it be given briskl}^ Condense. Make every word signifi- cant. Say nothing in a rotary way. Let every step be an advance. Hearers are pleased with you, and pleased with your subject, and pleased with themselves, if they find themselves able to seize your thought nimbly. Have you not been sensible of the difference in this respect between different expounders ? One will pare and peel and slice and scrape a text, as if it were an apple. Another will crack it as if it were a nut. LECT. xni.] THE EXPLANATION: QUALITIES. 185 With the one, you must bide your time : the other gives you no time to spare. You have no question which quickens your interest the more skillfully. (3) In no part of a discourse is the temptation to indolent composition more insidious than in the ex- planation. The very nature of the process invites delay. We often dally with an explanatory thought when we should not think of doing so with a link in an argument. Even an illustration tells us more plainly when we have done with it, and motions to us to pass on. Nothing but exhortation equals the explanation in its allurements to long-winded speech. Some of the most decisive failures in expository preaching are due largely to its length. If any doubt exists as to the interest of an audience in an expository discourse, con- dense ; pack your thoughts ; shorten the process ; make haste ; come quickly to the gist of things ; and you are sure of one element of success. This simple expedient will often save an expository sermon from falling flat. (4) Conciseness of explanation is sacrificed in several ways. One is by explaining things which in themselves need no explanation. We shall notice again the petti- fogging method of explanation. I name it now only as contributing to needless expansion. Another method is by explaining things of which an explanation is not demanded by the use which is to be made of the text. The distinction which we have ob- served between the work of the preacher and that of the commentator is forgotten. Much that deserves exposi- tion may not demand it now. No homiletic necessity for it may exist in the aim of the sermon: if so, no exegetical demand at present concerns the preacher or the hearer. Take, for example, the text, " The times of this ignorance God winked at, but now command- 186 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xni. etli all men everywhere to repent." Suppose that you preach a sermon from that text on the obligation of all men to repent. Why should you dwell on the phrase "winked at"? Why expand at all the principle of God's toleration of evils in one age which he condemns in another ? Why say any thing of the first half of the text? Why not proceed at once to the last half as containing the germ of your sermon ? It does so, and every thing back of it is, for your purpose, rubbish. Yet probably four out of five of the sermons preached on this standard text begin with a more or less elabo- rate discussion of the principle involved in the plu-ase " winked at." Why is this ? Only because this phrase suggests an easy beginning. It points to something to say. It is the prop underneath the keel, which, knocked away, permits the vessel to launch. That is to say, the reason of the unnecessary exposition is vacuity of thought in the mind of the preacher. Keep to your text, not as an independent passage, but as a text. Use it for your aim, nothing more. Act the preacher, not the commentator. A third method by which conciseness of explana- tion may be sacrificed is by dwelling needlessly upon things incidental to the text. Tediousness in the detail of familiar facts bearing feebly on the homiletio pur- pose unstrings the tension of interest in the early part of many sermons. Just then and there, when and where you need to accumulate and to husband resources ct interest, this error often introduces a debilitating prolixity which makes the whole discourse flabby. Try the criticism on some of your own sermons. See if a brisk hint at the scenes of a very familiar parable is not of more worth to your conclusion than a labori- ous recapitulation of them. Make the experiment of r,ECT. xni.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 187 trusting something to the intelligence and the memory of your hearers respecting a miracle which they know by heart. "Mr. Jones," said Chief Justice Marshall on one occasion, to an attorney who was rehearsing to the Court some elementary principle from Black- stone's Commentaries, "there are some things which the Supreme Court of the United States may be pre- sumed to know." ]\[any an audience would give the same reproof to some expository preachers, if they could. Their defenseless position should shield them from assumptions of their ignorance which they can not resent. Be generous, therefore, to the intelligence of your hearers. Assume sometimes that they know the Lord's Prayer. Do not quote the Ten Command- ments as if they had been revealed to you, instead of Moses. The Sermon on the Mount is a very ancient specimen of moral philosophy: do not cite it as if it were an enactment of the last Confess, The Parables are older than the " Meditations " of Aurelius Anto- ninus : why, then, rehearse them as if from the proof- sheets of the first edition ? In a word, why suffer the minds of your audience to be more nimble than your own, and to outrun you ? A fourth method by which conciseness of exposition is sacrificed is by evasion of the real difficulties of a text. Explanation which is afraid of its own aim is apt to spin itself out in wretched commonplaces. Did you ever watch the last expiring spurt of an engine- hose whose power is spent? How it droops, and splashes, and wriggles, and drips, and drizzles, and spits, and gurgles, and wets everybody, sending a jet where it is least expected, and wasting its contents in puddles, until everybody frets, and is glad when it stops ! Like that are expositions which expound nothing. 188 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xm 8tli, An explanation should preserve the dignity wliicli is becoming to the treatment of inspired thought. Believers in inspiration repel debasement of it in expo- sition as they do in the choice of texts. (1) It is, therefore, a homiletic error to explain that which needs no explanation. This error not only de- stroys conciseness, but it chiefly offends the dignity of expository speech. It degrades exposition to putter over it in a pettifogging way, trusting nothing to the good sense of an audience, and assuming nothing as already known to them. On the text, " I am the good shepherd," said a preacher in the chapel of this Semi- nary,— -and that after twenty years of experience in the pulpit, — "a sheep, my brethren, is a very defense- less animal. A shepherd is one who takes care of sheep." If a New England audience can not be sup- posed to know what a sheep is, what do they know? Simplicity in preaching is not driveling. In gauging the intelligence of an audience, we must take into account the popular use of commentaries. Some of these have had an immense circulation. Barnes's Notes alone have been circulated to the extent of a million of copies. That which fifty years ago would have been an addition to the biblical knowledge of the people may not be such now. A serious di£B- culty attending expository preaching now arises from the familiarity of multitudes with the most significant parts of the Bible. He must be a learned biblical scholar who can add any thing to the biblical knowl- edge of some hearers. (2) Another offense against dignity of exposition is the suggestion of fanciful interpretations. What shall be said of this example from Dr. Gill? In ex- pounding the phrase " Abba Father," he remarks that LECT. xm.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 189 the word "abba" reads the same spelled backwards or forwards, and that "this sugge-^ls that God is our Father in adversity as well as in prosperity." Suggests to whom ? To anybody but the Rev. Dr. Gill ? We can readily conceive how it should have disgusted a robust mind like Robert Hall's, and led him to say to a Welshman who expressed the wish that Dr. Gill's works had been written in Welsh, " I wish so, too, sh' ; for then I never should have wasted my time and patience in reading them." LECTURE XIV. THE EXPLANATION": QUALITIES, LOCALITY. 9th, Continuing the discussion of the qualities of the explanation, we remark in the ninth place, that over agamst the conservative principle of the dignity of exposition, considered in the last lecture, must be admitted another; namely, that exposition should be made interesting. It is a truism that dignity and dull- ness are often synonymous. Have you not observed that the act of yawning closes the inner chamber of the ear, so that you are partially deafened by it ? That is as true morally as it is physiologically. We may, therefore, better tolerate a respectable eccentricity than be afflicted with tameness. (1) To promote interest in expository preaching, cul- tivate the "picturesque expression" recommended by Lord Brougham. Regulated by a chastened taste, that will insure interest. Dr. Arnold is represented by his pupils at Rugby as having been in his biblical dis- courses the freshest man they ever knew. One of his pupils writes of him, " Our Lord's life and death were to him the most interesting facts that ever happened ; as real, as exciting, as any recent event in history. His rich mind filled up the naked outline of the gospel." That was the secret, — "his rich mind." If a preach- er's mind is filled with biblical stores, and cultivated 190 LECT. xrv.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 191 in biblical tastes, and alive with interest in biblical history, biograph}^ prophecy, so that Gethsemane and Calvary are as real to him as Waterloo and Gettysburg, he can scarcely fail to make expository preaching inter- esting. (2) Certain expedients of study are valuable aids to the faculty of interesting exposition. Of these, one is familiarity with books of Eastern travel. A preacher should know something of the latest literature of ori- ental travel and exploration. A fresh mind must have fresh food. Another expedient is a study of the old English pulpit. Not for accuracy of exegesis, but for the means of clothing it in forms which will allure the popular mind, the old English preachers are excellent helpers. They were not trustworthy exegetes; but they abound with fresh illustrations, original uses of the Scriptures, and quaint remarks in the way of comment. The events and characters of the Old Testament es- pecially were very real to their imagination. Familiar- ity with them will put a preacher in possession of much material of biblical illustration, which, whatever else may be said of it, was fresh and pithy and luminous. A quotation from that source may sometimes be the one thing wanting to light up a modern exposition, and make it interesting to modern hearers. Again: a department of a commonplace book may be made a valuable help to the interest of expository sermons. Collections of biblical miscellanies, facts of science, incidents of travel, original comments, quota- tions, anecdotes, infidel concessions, uses of certain texts by illustrious preachers, uses of other passages on certain death-beds, notes of certain conversions at- tributable to specific texts, counections of other texts with Christian hymnology, missionary experiences in the 192 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xiv. use of others, — in brief, every thing of a miscellaneous character which explains, or illustrates, or enforces, or magnifies, or adorns any scriptural passage, is worth preserving. (3) A preacher needs courage to use the common stock of expository thought. There is no need of straining after expository conceits. Here, as elsewhere, the common stock of thought is the great bulk of true thought. To the popular mind it is the most necessary thought : therefore, for homiletic use, it is the most powerful thought. Jeremy Taylor defends the simpli- city of the materials and the structure of his sermons by saying that he cares little if any witty censurer shall say that he has learned from them nothing but that which he knew before ; " for no man ought to be offended that sermons are not curious inquiries after new nothings, but pursuances of old truths." But Jeremy Taylor, in his expositions as in other things, was "golden-mouthed." He threw a gorgeous wealth of illustration around his "old truths" and simple plans of thought. Says an English critic, "We may compare one of his discourses to such a country church as we sometimes see in these days, where some loving hand has covered the simple work of village masons with carvings, and filled the old windows with prophets pictured on the panes." Old biblical truths can be handled in this manner without conceits and without straining ; and, thus han- dled, they are the elementary forces of the pulpit. A preacher needs to believe this. Trust the common stock of biblical thought, and use it courageously. That very courage lifts a preacher's mind to a loftier level of working. Faithful manipulation of such mate- rials is the thing needed. Do not use them, in the LECT. XIV.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 193 bulk, at second-liancl. Work them over. Reconstruct them. Polish them. Put them through the laboratory of your own thmkiug. Get fresh robes for them from your own emotions. Do something, or the other thing, or all things, which shall make them your own. Quicken thus your own interest in them ; and the result will be, that, when they go from you, they will uplift hearers to the heavens. In illustration of the principle here involved, let me cite a criticism by William Taylor, a contemporary of Walter Scott. Southey's " Madoc " and Scott's " Lay of the Last Minstrel " were rivals for the popular favor. Li about one year after their publication Scott had received above a thousand pounds for the " Lay," and Southey had received, as he says, "just three pounds, seventeen shillings, and a penny." William Taylor, commenting on the contrast, writes as follows : " Sir Walter's great success surprises me. Yet he has this of prudence, that, far from scorning the ordinary, he dwells on our manners, our opinions, our history, our most familiar preconceptions. Goldsmith, the most pop- ular of recent poets, is remarkable for saying well what was most obvious to say. Tasso is another dealer in finished commonplace, stolen, everybody knows where. The far-fetched is not ware for the numerous class of readers." This is a gem of criticism. The principle here advanced runs through all popular literature. The success of expository preaching depends largely upon it. 10th, The explanation should be free from certain scholastic weaknesses. In no other part of a sermon is a preacher tempted more insidiously to unconscious scholasticism than in this. (1) We should especially avoid the needless use of the technical terms of philology. An exposition must 194 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xiv. often be more learned than it should seera to be. Never import into a sermon the paraphernalia of a critical commentarj. A double reason enforces this caution. Such technicalities are not intelligible to the people; and, if they were, they are not suited to oral address. (2) On the same principle, we should avoid need- less allusions to the authority of manuscripts, ancient versions, various readings, and the original of the Eng- lish text. The ancient conceit of English preachers in sprinkling their discourses with quotations from Greek and Latin classics was not, in their circumstances, so grave an error as the subjection of the Scriptures to scholastic associations in the minds of the people would be now. Yet that classicism of the English pulpit well- nigh ruined one entire age of that which was otherwise magnificent preaching. To test the principle one asks, " May we ever quote a word or phrase from the origi- nal Greek or Hebrew ? " I answer, circumlocution to avoid a foreign language in popular oral speech is always in good taste. Say, therefore, " The word in the original which is translated thus," or, " The more exact- translation here Avould be," etc. (3) The principle involved in this rule should lead us, also, to avoid a pedantic citation of unfamiliar com- mentaries. Possibly a blatant caviler here and there might be overawed by the names of half a score of mediaeval exegetes of whom he had never heard. But Dean Swift's advice to a young clergyman is more pertinent, when he urges him not to " perplex a whole audience of sensible people for the sake of three or four fools who are past grace." (4) Yet this same principle should lead us to avoid the affectation of independence of scholastic authority. Never give a thrust at the principle of authority in LECT. XIV.] THE EXPLANATION: QUALITIES. 195 the attempt to vindicate, or to exercise the right of private judgment. You have, perhaps, an original in- terpretation of a text : commentaries do not support you. Very well. Exercise your right ; but why bray about it? Exercise it modestly: let alone the slaugh- tered commentators. Speak your own mind without disturbing theirs. It may be that you are right; but the probabilities are five to one that your hearers will not believe that you are, if you fling your opinion in the face of half a dozen venerable teachers who were venerable before you were born. Treat it as a misfor- tune if you must part company with other learned men. The popular mind feels by instinct a more profound respect for scholarly authority than we often give it credit for. Underneath the current of democratic scorn of books and bookish men, there is an innate reverence for the thing which is thus depreciated. Another element, also, you will discover in the popu- lar instinct on this subject ; that is, a sense of a preach- er's professional infidelity in such flings at scholastic tribunals. It is human nature to respect a man who respects his own order. It is natural that educated mind should stand by educated mind; that culture should respect culture ; that cultivated taste should respond to cultivated taste ; that scholarly opinion should defer to scholarly opinion. The thinking com- •mon people, who know enough to know what educa- tion is, feel this profoundly. This popular instinct prompts respect for clerical fidelity to commentators. Illiterate men, when they are men of sense, like to know that there are libraries, and universities, and historic monuments of learning, and magnificent traditions of ancient wisdom, and mys- 196 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. xiv. terious insignia of intellectual authority, back of the pulpit. They do not care to see the libraries and the monuments; but they are glad to know that they are there, and that their religious teachers know all about them, and respect them. A parishioner who is a man of good sense receives a silent accession of respect for his pastor, and for every sermon that he preaches, from merely entering that pastor's study, and glancing at a large and well-used library. The very sight of books is an impressive spectacle to an uneducated man of sense. The man must be far down towards barbarism who does not take off his hat amidst such surround- ings. An educated preacher, therefore, who respects him- self, is the representative of all the libraries to his peo- ple. The wisdom of all the ages is tributary to his sermons. No other man can be master of the situation as he can be, if he appreciates the situation, and respects liis opportunity. He unites in himself the authority of his teachers and the sympathy of his hearers. He is on the middle ground between the heights of the univer- sity and the popular lowlands ; he blends the principle of authority with the principle of sympathy ; and that is a union of forces which no other combination of moral powers can equal. 11th, An explanation should, if possible, be in keep- ing with the rhetorical structure of the text. " This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal* must put on immortality;" — what kind of an exposi- tion, rhetorically considered, does this text invite ? A preacher once introduced a sermon upon it by observing that the word "mortal" is from the Latin word mors^ " death," and therefore means " deathly ; " " immortal " is from the Latin words mors, and m, which means "not," LECT. XIV.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 197 and therefore the entire word means " not deathly." Is the philological dissection of such a text in sympathy with it ? Does it prolong and sustain the impression which the text itself creates ? Another preacher, com- menting on the text, " Xow we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face," pounced upon the word " glass " as containing the most transparent idea he could find in the text ; and in his vitreous exposition he contrived to find a place for the fact that glass was first used for windows in the third century of the Christian era, and stained glass, for ecclesiastical win- dows, in the seventh century. The question is, Has not rhetorical congruity some- thing to say respecting such expositions as these ? The principle is an obvious one, that a certain rhetorical sympathy ought to blend a subject of thought with thought on that subject. The same principle should, if possible, blend a text and its explanation. An expo- sition should, if possible, be rhetorically a prolongation of the text ; it should make the same impression ; it should be on the same level of thought and feeling. Sustain, if possible, the key-note of inspiration. " If possible," I say : sometimes it is not possible. Three exceptions deserve mention. One is when a text demands only a verbal exposition. The definition of a few words may be all that it needs to put its mean- ing fully before the hearer. There is no place for a rhetorical expansion of it in the explanation. Another exception occurs when the use to be made of the text in the body of the sermon does not demand the aid of the text. The body of the sermon may be an independ- ent discussion. The text may be a motto only. Hav- ing introduced the subject, the sooner the text retires from the discussion, the better. A thii-d exception 198 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xiv. occurs, when to sustain tlie rhetorical impression of the text would neutralize, in whole or in part, the design of the sermon. This may be the case, as we have seen, in the treatment of "promising texts." An imaginative text may contain a principle which you ma}'' wish to treat argumentatively. The Psalms are lyric poems : yet they contain themes of sermons which we do not wish to sing. The beginning of the fifty-fifth chapter of Isaiah is an exhortation, "Ho, every one that thirsteth." But, in a discourse upon it, you may wish to elaborate the doctrine of an unlimited Atonement. In such cases your object re- quires that you should not prolong the rhetorical im- pression of the text. These exceptions, however, leave a large range for the principle, that, if possible, the explanation should be so conducted as to be in keeping with the rhetorical character of the text. 12th, An explanation should be so conducted as not to excite frivolity in an audience. Bishop Andrews, of the time of King James I. of England, took for the text of a Christmas sermon before the king the words, " That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ." In his exposition occurs the following : " Seeing the text is of seasons, it would not be out of season itself; and, though it be never out of season to speak of Christ, yet even Christ hath his seasons. ' Your time is always,' saith he; 'but so is not mine. I have my seasons,' one of which seasons is this, the season of his birth, whereby all recapitulate in heaven and earth, which is the season of the text. So this is a text of the seasons." Perhaps you can make sense of this : I can not. One of the most useless modes of preaching is that which depends for the interest it excites upon LECT. XIV.] THE EXPLANATION : QUALITIES. 199 the risible sensibilities ; and the most offensive species of this genus of sermons is that which degrades the Bible to the antics of rhetorical buffoonery. Three radical errors are involved in such preaching. One is that it almost invariably does violence to the biblical idea of the language used. That is rarely a truthful interpretation of the Scriptures which excites laughter. Moreover, the kind of interest which bibli- cal fun creates is hostile to the main end of preaching. Spiritual success in preaching depends quite as much on the kind as on the degree of the interest it awakens. The interest of mirth at the best, and in its legitimate uses, can perform only what may be called a menial service, so inferior is it relatively to the more noble workings of the pulpit. The instant that it gets above that menial rank, it becomes an encumbrance and an offense. A preacher who depends upon it as the charm of his pulpit has his own work to undo when he would reach the conscience of his people. He is like an un- skillful oarsman, who retards his own speed by con- stant back-water, for the entertainment of making the spray dance in the sunbeams. Moreover, the interest of mirth directly associated with biblical texts is especially hazardous to the popu- lar reverence for the Scriptures. We may admit, that in one or two instances, like the narrative of Elijah's mockery of the priests of Baal, there are biblical texts, which with vivid painting, and from the lips of a good mimic, miecht excite the mirth of an audience with no violence to the inspired thought ; but the admission is no acknowledgment of the expediency or the right to bring other passages into mirthful associations. Texts are injured by such uses. The interest of conviction, of reverence, of penitence, of love, ought never to be hazarded for the sake of the interest of mirth. 200 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xiv. 13th, An explanation should be such as to suggest a definite theory of inspiration. Homiletic exposition always involves some theory of inspiration. We can not, if Tve would, discuss the Bible as if the question of its inspiration were obsolete. Homiletic exposition must often disclose a preacher's theory of inspiration. If you do not define it in form, you must often express it by implication. When you do not express it, you will often hint at it. When you do not consciously hint at it, it will look out of the windows of your ser- mon, and show itself for what it is. It is important to observe, therefore, that no indefi- nite theory of inspiration can live in the popular faith. The fact is a most significant one, that the popular mind never, to any considerable extent, enters into refined distmctions on this doctrine. It receives the doctrine in some strongly defined form, or in no form. Vagueness of teaching destroys the doctrine as effectu- ally as flat denial. Exposition must assume it in a bold form. Undeveloped hints of it must suggest it in such form. If we claun that one text is authoritative, and another not, we must have a reason to give which will not seem to the common sense of hearers to fritter away from inspiration every thing that is clear, and every thing that is decisive. Yet the pulpit may suggest ill-defined ideas of inspi- ration by expositions which are regardless of varieties of biblical style. You can not make biblical poetry dogmatic, or biblical argument imaginative, or biblical dogma figurative, or biblical history allegorical, or bib- lical allegory biographical, without teaching, by impli- cation, ideas of inspiration which no man can so define as to save them from self-contradiction, and yet leave strong points to the popular faith in those ideas. To LECT. siv.] THE EXPLANATIOISr : QUALITIES. 201 the popular mind such interpretations will seem to make the Scriptures contradict all the laws by which thought expresses itself when uninspired. 14th, An explanation should be such as to suggest naturally the proposition of the sermon. Dr. Ross, a professor of theology in Glasgow in the seventeenth century, published a sermon on the text, " Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian." He states his propo- sition as fourfold : 1. To describe the different parties which distract our divided Zion ; 2. To show the ma- lignancy of the sin of schism ; 3. To show the neces- sity of Episcopacy for the support of the concerns of Christianity ; 4. To apply the subject. " The subject " here seems vast enough ; but how shall the gulf between it .and the text be bridged? Prefatory remarks may introduce such a proposition ; they may introduce any thing. But how, from the point of the text, shall we discover the proposition? The firmament to be ex- plored by our homiletic telescope is immense. Yet does not this extreme case illustrate a defect of which, in less degree, we are often sensible in listen- ing to sermons, — that the gulf between the text and the proposition is not bridged in any natural and effec- tive way? The text is explained, the subject is intro- duced; but neither is linked to the other. With the text in mind we listen to the proposition with surprise : with the proposition in mind we recall the text with surprise. Observe, then, that a good explanation will often show that the proposition is contained in the text. If not this, it will often show that the proposition is naturally suggested by the text. The pertinency of an accommodated text depends wholly upon the explana- tory transition from text to theme. No matter how brief the transition : if it be such as to build a natural 202 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xiv. bridge between text and theme, it is enough. A good explanation will often give to a subject the inspired authority of the text. This we observed as one of the uses of a text. The value of it often depends wholly on the exposition of the text. If it be so explained that it evidently indorses the subject, inspiration be- comes responsible for the subject. The proposition may then be discussed as if it were itself inspired. This is the chief defense of topical sermons. 15th, In a topical sermon the explanation should, if possible, be such as to bring the text to bear directly upon the conclusion. It is often of great value to be able to use a text in the application of a sermon. To repeat it, to urge it home as containing the germ of all that has been said, even to show that text and sermon are in the same line of thought, and the application of one is therefore supported by the other, — this is often of great force in the conclusion. Occasionally the text forms the best possible closing sentence of a sermon. " Choose you this day whom ye will serve " may be the most forcible beginning and ending of a sermon on immediate repentance. But I have said that this adjustment of explanation to conclusion is valuable when it is possible. Some- times it is not possible ; that is, it is not natural. The ax^plication of a discourse may flow more naturally from the body of the discussion than directly from the text. The applications may be divergent, not concen- trated in one textual thought. A closing appeal may grow out of the last division of a sermon, and may be too remotely connected with the text to invite textual aid in its development. The expedient in question can not be forced. It must be the natural outgoing of the text as unfolded in the explanation, or it will fall flat. LECT. XIV.] THE EXPLANATION : LOCALITY. 203 16th, The explanation should be varied on different occasions. A very obvious liint is tbis when attention is called to it; but often attention is not given to it. Have no stereotyped method of exposition. Do not always philologize by verbal criticism. Do not always explain descriptively. Do not always tell of the author of the text, his character, his condition, his history. Do not always speak of his readers, who and what they were, and why he wrote to them. Do not always cite parallel passages, nor always paraphrase, nor always pass rhetorical criticism on the beauty, the force, the logic, of the text. No one of these varieties can be alwaj's be- coming : no two, no three of them can generally be so. We must have variety, if we have fitness : then we gain a virtue in variety itself. Any thing will caricature itself in the course of time, if it never varies. " Para- dise Lost " would become ludicrous, if we should never hear any thing else. Macbeth and Hamlet would be- come comedies, if we were doomed to hear them rehearsed once a week, as people listen to sermons. Boys in the street would mouth parodies of them Respect the dignity of a preacher of the gospel enough to protect it from burlesque in your own person. V. We have now considered the qualities of the explanation. Another general topic demands a brief notice. It is the locality of the explanation relatively to other parts of a sermon. This will vary according to the character of the sermon. In an expository sermon explanation forms the body of the discourse. In a tex- tual sermon the explanation may often be divided. Each clause of the text being a division of the sermon, each may be explained in the development of its own division. Not that this will necessarily be so ; but often it will be the natural method to introduce each part of 204 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xiv. the explanation in tlie place where it is wanted for immediate use. In either a topical or a textual sermon the explana- tion may sometimes form an introductory division by itself. This will often be the natural method of explain- ing a very difficult text, or a text which is commonly misinterpreted, or a text which is severely contested. Take the text, "I could wish myself accursed from Christ." You wish to discourse from that text on the passion of love for the souls of men. This is pre- cisely what the text expresses. Yet to evolve it clearly from the text requires time. It can not be well done in a brilef, preliminary fragment of a sermon. Very well : let the first division of the sermon propose to explain the meaning of the text ; this serves the double purpose of giving time, and of attracting an attention which your exposition might not receive as a preliminary. But in a topical sermon the explanation will, more frequently than otherwise, be a preliminary to the proposition. If an explanation is needed in a topical discourse, it will generally be brief, and, as we have seen, is a bridge from text to subject. Which shall take the precedence, — the explanation, or the introduction proper, when both are needed, in a topical sermon ? As we shall see, these are two things. Which precedes the other, — the remarks explanatory of the text, or other remarks introductory df the sub- ject ? I answer. No rule is practicable : follow the homiletic instinct. Sometimes this will give the pre- cedence to one, sometimes to the other, and sometimes it will intermingle them. The question is one of the minutise of sermonizing, to which criticism can give no more definite answer than this without hampering homiletic freedom. LECTURE XV. EXCUBSUS: THE BIBLE SERVICE. This discussion of the subject of exposition suggests another topic, which does not necessarily belong to it as a subject of homiletic theory, but which excites con- siderable interest at present, and is naturally considered now in the form of an excursus. The question is specifi- cally this, Does the biblical instruction of our churches require any change in the present usages of the New England pulpit in conducting the services of the Lord's Day? I. To answer this question intelligently, we need to note, first, some facts respecting the state of things in which our present usages had their origin. One is, that, in the olden time, the two sermons on the Lord's Day, with the accompanying exercises, constituted the whole of the services of public worship. Sabbath-schools were not. The first Sabbath- school in this country is not yet seventy-five years old. Bible-classes Avere not common. I am not able to find evidence that they ex- isted, to any general extent, before Sabbath-schools were instituted. Weekly lectures were not frequent, except the single lecture preparatory to the administration of the Lord's Supper. We are within bounds in saying, that, as a general rule, the services of public worship were limited to the Lord's Day and to the two preach ing services of that day. 205 206 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xv. Another fact bearing upon the question is that bibli- cal exposition was not common, except in the exercises of public worship. Nearly all the exposition of the Scriptures which the people received was from their pastors, and was given by them from their pulpits. The formal, religious instruction of children at home was confined mainly to two things, — the Westminster Catechism and the text of the Scriptures, both of which were committed to memory. Aged persons are still living who give evidence of this fact in their own reli- gious culture. The second Sabbath-school in Massachusetts was es- tablished by my father, at the suggestion of a Christian lady, in his parish at West Brookfield. It was done in opposition to the judgment of some of his most devout parishioners. They refused to countenance the innova- tion by the presence of their children. And he has told me that he and others who favored it had reflected so little on the subject, that they scarcely knew what to do with the children who did attend. At the first they could think of nothing appropriate to the Lord's Day, but the committal to memory of biblical passages, the Catechism, and Watts's Psalms and Hymns. That state of things could not well have been differ- ent ; for there were no popular commentaries. Chris- tian parents had not the means of interpreting the Scriptures to their households without aid from the pulpit. "Doddridge's Family Expositor," published about a hundred and thirty years ago, was the first work of the kind in our language, and was not of great value for the discussion of the difficulties of the Bible ; nor was the circulation of it at all general. Books were costly, and the country poor. The best biblical com- mentaries were in Latin, and of course accessible only LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. 207 to the clergy. Rev. Albert Barnes once told me, that, when he began the preparation of his "Notes on the New Testament," the only books he could depend upon for his assistance were his lexicons, and a copy of the " Critici Sacri," — a work in thirteen Latin folios, which formed the best part of his library. Yet that was not far from the year 1830. I give these details in evidence of the fact, that, from the necessity of the case, biblical exposition through all the early periods of New Eng- land history must have come from the clergy, and must have been a part of the work of the pulpit on the Sab- bath. It is in evidence, furthermore, that the exposition of the Scriptures in the early history of our churches was not neglected by the pulpit. The biblical learn- ing of the clergy was, of course, variable. But among them were at all times to be found excellent Greek and Hebrew scholars. The proportion of those who had a working knowledge of the Hebrew language was at one time probably larger than at present. Many of the old manuscript sermons still found in the archives of our libraries are replete with exposition. So far as I am able to learn, the bulk of the ancient preaching of New England was not of a controversial or a dogmatic char- acter. The majority of those discourses were practical discussions of Christian experience, hortatory appeals to the impenitent, sermons of biblical biography and incident, and expositions and textual discussions. Another fact points in the same direction. The usage was almost universal of commenting on the pas- sage of the Scriptures which was read as a preliminary to the "long prayer." Many of the early churches of New England would not tolerate the reading of the Bible in their pulpits without such comment. The 208 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xv. rehearsal of tlie Scriptures as the " lesson of the clay," as practiced in the Church of England, and which has now become so common among us, our fathers reso- lutely discouraged and often denounced. They called it " dumb reading." As they would not " say prayers," but would pray, so they would not read the Scriptures after a manner which tempted them to indolent and listless worship. Whatever else they did, they would not mock God. That state of feeling led to a vast amount of exposition of the Bible outside of sermons. 11. It is very obvious that time has brought about a silent revolution in the relations of our pulpit to the work of explaining the word of God. The ancient usage of the two sermons on the Lord's Day remains, for the most part, without innovation; but that is nearly all that remains unchanged. Specially shoidd it be noted that biblical instruction has come to be very largely given by laymen. It has become a question for debate in Sabbath-school con- ventions, what duty and what privilege, if any, belong to the clergy in the working of the whole machinery of biblical teaching to the youth of their parishes. The practical connection of the pastor with the school is in the majority of cases nominal. Again : popular com- mentaries have greatly diminished the dependence of adult hearers upon the pulpit for their scriptural knowl- edge. It has become a much more laborious effort than it once was to preach expository discourses which will find listening ears. Exposition, if not more learned, must be more versatile and more spirited. As a natural consequence of this state of things, ex- position in our pulpits has suffered a very general and exhaustive decline. Coleridge pronounced it one of the silent revolutions by wliich learning had suffered ■LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. ' 209 in England, that literature had to so large an extent "fallen off from the liberal professions." By a similar revolution, scriptural exposition has silently fallen off from the pulpit. Comparatively few expository ser- mons are preached. In some congregations they would subject a preacher's zeal to adverse criticism. Even textual sermons are not nearly so abundant as they were a century ago. The habit of comment on the pas- sages of the Bible read for devotional uses has almost entii-ely ceased. Popular taste and clerical compliance have sacrificed this ancient and invaluable usage to the demand for brevity in public worship. Meanwhile, what of the ancient double service of the pulpit on the Sabbath? It surely is not holding our audiences with sufficient force to prevent their question ing its usefulness. One of the modern " signs," as you very well know, indicative of the relations subsisting between the pulpit and the pew, is the query whether one service for preaching purpos\;s is not better than two. However the question may be answered, it is a very pregnant matter to the pulpit that the question should ever have been asked. It indicates a flagging of Christian interest in the work of the pulpit as now conducted. Why is not the query raised, whether some other labor of the day is a necessity ? Why do not thoughtful laymen ask whether the Sabbath-school should be suspended, or the evening conference meet- ing? The people are sensible of monotony in the two sermons of the day, as they are not, in attendance upon any other services of a crowded Sunday. By parting with expository preaching, the pulpit has parted with its most important aid and stimulus to variety. No other one thing gives to preaching so wide a range of 210 ' THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xv. religious thought as the exposition of the Scriptures, when it comes forth as the fruit of a rich, full mind, — rich in scholarly resources, and full of intense practical aims. This, in my view, explains why tliinking and over- tasked laymen are asking how the Lord's Day can be made less laborious. The two sermons, with their devotional accompaniments, are the only two things in the occupations of the day in which, as now generally conducted, the sense of monotony is unavoidable. The second sermon is often a treadmill in its impression of sameness. There is no evidence that the popular in- terest in preaching as such has declined. The largest regular audiences in the land are in churches. No such audiences could be assembled weekly anywhere else. But Sabbath engagements have multiplied, and other stimuli to religious thought have crowded within the popular reach, so that, to sustain the preachiug at its established height of interest, a new inspiration of variety is indispensable. Under the circumstances, it is the most natural thing that church-going people should seek relief from overtasking by proposing to drop one of the only two services wliich appear to them to be substantially alike. We can not blame them for not being reverently fond of treadmills. III. We may then safely answer the main question, so far at least as to say, that, in some form or other, we need to reinstate the biblical instruction of our churches and our youth in the pulpit, and in the hands of pastors. This, it seems to me, is the vital point to be carried. The fatal evil is that preaching should be isolated from the work of scriptural teaching. No preacher can afford to allow that work to fall off from his pulpit. An orator in the pulpit is a great man ; but LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE, 211 no man is so great that he can afford to be nothing else than a pulpit orator. The evil thrusts with two edges. It cuts down the worth of the preaching, and it cuts down the worth of teaching as well. On this last point, both pastors and laymen often need to be wiser than they are. Nothing in the Chris- tian training of a people works as well as it might work, if it is not headed by the pulpit. Men talk more glibly than wisely of the superiority of laymen and of women in Christian work. The notion that on any large scale, and for long periods of time, we can put religious work under the leadership of either men or women who are doing any thing else than religious work is not philosophical. Nothing else of the kind in this world prospers under leadership which is not concentrated upon it, and concentrated in the hands of men. Yet the man who devotes his life to the far-reach- ing study and conduct of Christian labor becomes de facto a clergyman. Call him what you will, dress him as you please, put him where you choose, he is practi- cally a minister of the gospel. Licensed or unlicensed, " in orders,'" or without orders, or in disorder, he is, to the people among whom he works, a man set apart from themselves. He is not doing their work, nor living their life. He is not " one of them " in any vital sense of the phrase. He is a professional worker for Christ as truly as the Archbishop of Canterbury. We must not be misled by names in a matter of this sort ; and let us not succumb to a senseless prejudice against a clerical exterior. Of some things, we must have the form, if we have the thing. If the leadership of Christian work creates for itself the equivalent of ministers, the fact only indicates that the leadership naturally belongs to ministers, as theoretically we 212 THE THEORY OF PEE ACHING. [lect. xv. should suppose it would belong to them. If we do not create the men /or the work, they will be created hy the work. The work suffers, if it is deprived of such leadership. Decapitate the clergy to-day, and Chris- tian work has only to give itself for a generation to creating another set of men to take their places. This principle, then, it is reasonable to apply to the work of biblical instruction. We must believe that you can not have that form of Christian labor in its best develop- ment, if usages are so framed as to 'exclude the minis- try from the doing of it. They must lead it by actual participation in it, or it must degenerate in quality, whatever it may be in quantity. If these views are correct, it follows that one of the most vital changes which our present system of Chris- tian work needs is to reinstate in the pulpit the work of biblical teaching ; not at all to diminish that work elsewhere ; not at all to hamper its freedom anywhere ; but to restore the leadership in it to the pulpit. I say "restore," because the pulpit once had that leadership; for it had the whole of the work. It did all that was done. It is no innovation to devise methods of setting the pulpit again at the head of all expedients, and of all training for the scriptural education of the people. It is strictly a restoration of a prerogative which has be- come partially, and in many cases wholly, obsolete. It is a restoration which I believe nine-tenths, if not even a larger proportion, of our thinking laymen would gladly welcome. Depend upon it that you have a just and a generous constituency to deal with in this thing. In no develop- ment of working power in real life are the true arhtoi sooner found out and appreciated and obeyed than in our complicated system of labor for the religious cul- LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. 213 ture of the people. Workers of every grade find their honest level here by a gravitation more unerring than that of a plumb-line. The planets are not truer to their orbits. If, among any people of average intelli- gence and good sense and piety, you do not find your place of moral supremacy, where you shine as the stars, it will be because you lack something which belongs to the luster of that supremacy. There is a vacuum or a soft spot in you somewhere. Scholarship, tact, indus- try, innate force, or the graces of the divine in-dwelling, something or other, which, by the nature of things, lies in the ground-work of success, is always wanting when a biblical preacher fails to grasp and to hold the moral leadership of all the agencies at work among an honest and sensible people for their Christian building and adornment. IV. But how shall this re-instatement of biblical teaching in our pulpits be achieved ? I answer, in view of what has been said, that some modification seems to be demanded in one of the two preaching services of the Sabbath as now sustained in our churches. Recon- struct one of these two services in such a way as shall bring the pulpit more obviously to the front in the work of biblical instruction. The question of expedi- ency as affected by locality, by the public opinion of a church, by the character of a community, must, of course, be decided by the good sense of a pastor in each case as it arises. The substitution of the Sabbath-school for the usual service of the afternoon is often, but by no means always, the best thing that is practicable. Yet this should never be done, unless it can be so arranged as to make the pastor active in the biblical work of the school. Whether he should be superintendent, or not, 214 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. xv. is a minor matter. But the duties of the hour should be so phinned as to give the pastor an opportunity, and lay upon him the necessity, of engaging personally and prominently in the scriptural teaching. Then he should bring to that service the results of the best and latest biblical scholarship at his command. He must have not so much the headship of position as the headship of work. No pastor can afford an idle Sabbath half-day as the rule of his ministry. Never make the Sunday-school, therefore, a labor-saving expe- dient for your pulpit. Change only the form and method of your labor. Prepare for it with scholarly fidelity as laboriously as for a written sermon. Seek to elevate and expand by the change the biblical culture of your people. If you can not do that, by all means let the present usage remain intact. Any change which only gives to you a silent afternoon thrusts you into the rear of the Christian workers of your parish. It drapes your pulpit in token of bereavement of its most sacred prerogative. But in some cases the substitution of the Sunday-school for the preaching service of the afternoon, under the guidance of a studious and quick- witted pastor, is working with unquestioned success. Pastor and people alike are rejuvenated by it. In other cases the " Bible service," technically so called, can be substituted profitably for the usual ser- mon of the afternoon. If a pastor has the qualifica- tions requisite for such a service, and if the people are convinced of its value, so that they co-operate heartily in sustaining it, it is valuable far beyond the present second sermon. The social pliability of it, the freedom of question and answer, the directness with which it may bring to expression the questionings wliieh are alive in the hearts of the people, render it in some cases the LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. 215 most spiritual service of the day. Theoretically, at least, it looks very promising. It must be tested by time. But there are diversities of gifts. Not every pastor can engineer well a Sabbath-school. Not every pastor can conduct a Bible service in a large assembly with Socratic wisdom. There are diversities also of paro- chial caliber and culture. Not every parish is superla- tively wise. Not every parish is open to the innovations of a youthful pastor. Not every parish is co-operative with any pastor in infusing life into a public service. Very well : do not try to force j^our own nature or the inclinations of your people to distasteful experiments. Bend, rather, to your purpose the system now in vogue. Work into it an increase of expository and textual preaching. Seldom, if ever, preach two topical dis- cussions in one day. Make one, at least, of your two discourses a distinctively and specially biblical one in material and form. Lay yourself out to swell the fund of biblical knowledge among your people. This is practicable to any pastor who will create the resources necessary for it in the culture of his own mind. It requires more than biblical learning. It requires a men- tal assimilation to the biblical atmosphere of thought. It requires a quick eye, a ready memory, and a nimble tonffue. No man can succeed in it who does not love study, or who gives to biblical study the second place in the habits of his life, or who has not patience to train himself to fluent and versatile extemporaneous speech. But any man can make it a success who will give to it the same amount of enthusiasm and of toil which achieves success in other methods of preaching. At the first there is no saving of labor; but when time has developed a preacher's skill in the selection 216 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xv. and working of biblical materials, and his command of extemporaneous utterance, there is a vast saving of labor, because of the accumulation of available mate- rials. I mean a saving of labor relatively to the results achieved. It would be more accurate to say a more productive economy of labor. No other study is so prolific of the finest quality and variety of homiletic materials as the study of the Scriptures. No other materials work into the realities of human life and the emergencies of men's souls so deftly as the materials thus gained. Once full of them, and with a mind as- similated to their quality, with a speech which holds them at the tongue's end, a preacher need never exhaust himself. He need never rack his brain, or roam the streets, for something to say, and something to the point. The stream is perennial. It is the river of the water of life. I do not speak on this subject without knowing whereof I affirm. You will pardon me if I give you — what you will bear me witness I do not often give in a formal way — a leaf from my own experience. I am not ashamed to say that I spent the larger part of the first night after my ordination in vigils of hopeless despair of ever being able to rise to the level of my pulpit. My sermons were — what they were. I knew it, if nobody else did. The first gleam of confidence that I gained arose from the kindness with which my very indulgent people received my expository remarks in conference meetings, for which I prepared myself as regularly as for the services of the Sabbath. Led, as I believe, by the Spirit of God, I took up the Prophecy of Isaiah and the Epistle to the Komans as subjects of thorough study. I devoted to them from one to two hours daily, using the best helps at my LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. 217 command. The first money I earned for my library was spent for books of sacred literature. Wisely or unwisely I made much of Monday mornings in build- ing the biblical foundations of my ministry. The first tangible result was that I very soon found the materials of sermons thronging upon me from those two books of the Bible. I found unique texts "for textual sermons, compact and prolific paragraphs for expository sermons, philosophical combinations of inspired thought wliich notliing else would have suggested to me, novel rela- tions of Scripture to Scripture, discoveries of the secret harmonies of revelation, adjustments of truth to popu- lar wants which I could have met in no other way, illustrations from books of Eastern travel, and, more than all else, an uplifting of my own mind into a bibli- cal atmosphere, specially an atmosphere of faith in God and in this world's future. Then followed a repose of conscience in my labor which was entirely new to me. Before four months had passed away I began to use the results of my scriptural studies in my pulpit. On every Sabbath afternoon, if I preached twice to my own people, I delivered extemporaneously, though from a full brief, a textual or an expository sermon on a passage selected from one of those two books which were the subjects of my daily research. The sermon was prepared always on Saturday; but the texts and materials were ready to my hand weeks in advance. After the first four months of my ministry I never spent a quarter of an hour hunting for a text or a theme. That course of biblical sermons, with a parallel course of doctrinal discussions, constituted the staple of my preaching ; and at the end of my pastorate of six years I had not exhausted those two books of the Scriptures, 218 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xv. and liad traversed less than one-third of a system of doctrinal theology. My success was not brilliant, bnt I am confident that my biblical course saved my pulpit. Those scrip- tural sermons brought me near to the best Christian experience of my most godly hearers. They diversified and simplified my preaching, and expanded and deep- ened my range of thought in all the labors of my pul- pit. They assisted me greatly in extemporaneous prayer. Inferior as those discourses seem to me now, and though I have no idea that they did as much good to any one else as to the preacher, 3-et I am sure that nothing else of which I was master could have held for me the confidence of my people in my ability to be their spiritual teacher. The work of those years is yet to be tried as by fire ; but, if any thing in it shall bear the test by that purest of the elements, it will be found in that part of the work in which I went before my hearers with the most elaborate and yet the simplest results of my study of the word of God. I speak the less unwillingly to you of that chapter of my life, because there was nothing in my experiment which was the fruit of genius, or in any way exception- al. In kind it was a success which any one of you may achieve, I hope in much greater degree. I beg you to try the experiment for yourselves. Supply your libra- ries at the outset with the best works in biblical litera- ture. Do not spare your purses in so doing. Wear the old coat, and buy the new book. Incur any hazard or hardship, but those of debt or dishonor, to get your outfit of tools to work with. You must have them early in your ministry, if you are ever to use them. Your Avcdding can wait, but your library can not. Then systematize your biblical studies, and give your- LECT. XV.] EXCURSUS : THE BIBLE SERVICE. 219 self to them religiously. Let the garden go unweeded, and let the potatoes rot in the ground. Get rid of church councils, and building committees, and execu- tive miscellanies, so far as you honorably can. Leave the social dinners, and the pleasure-parties, and the regattas, and the operas, and the fast horses, to those who need them. Say you, with Nehemiah, to the mes- sengers who tempt you to such things, " I am doing a great work, so that I can not come down : why should the work cease whilst I leave it and come down to you ? " Cultivate a stern unity of purpose in your calling of God, and hold to it to the death. Come thus to your biblical sermons with a full mind which aches to deliver itself. Get yourself into a state of biblical production in which your materials for the pulpit shall always crowd you, you never hunting them. Keep your pulpit thus in advance of your people in reverent knowledge of the word of God, and you may rest assured that the question of the double service on the Sabbath will settle itself, so far as your power to provide for it is concerned. You will at the same time have the leadership of your people in biblical instruction, without asking for it. The pulpit has only to take its own place, and sustain itself ably there, to have its biblical leadership acknowledged as its natural right. . The growth of such a ministry in spiritual power is like the " path of the just." LECTURE XVI. THE IXTEODTJCTION : THEOEY, SPECIFIC OBJECTS. The subject to wliich we now proceed in tlie further discussion of the constituent parts of a sermon is the introduction. I. The theory of the introduction : what is it ? In reply it should be observed as a preliminary, that not all that precedes the announcement of the subject is necessarily introductory. In exact definition we must distinguish between preliminaries in general and the introduction proper. For example, the exposition of a text is not necessarily introductory of the theme. It may take the place of an introduction; it may render an introduction proper unnecessary ; but in it- self it is distinct. An introduction might exist with- out a text : an exposition could not. An exposition might exist without a subject: an introduction could not. An introduction is a specific process, which resem- bles no other in the composition of a discourse. 1st, The theory of the introduction relates primarily to the mental state of the audience resiDecting the sub- ject of discourse. There is my audience, here is my subject : how to bring the two together is the practical question. Every public speaker of much experience feels it to be a question, often, of great moment to his success. All good definitions of an introduction agree 220 LECT. x\^.] THE INTRODUCTION : THEORY. 221 in tins, that its characteristic idea is that of prepara- tion of the minds of the hearers. To secure to the audience a natural approach to the subject and to its discussion — this is the aim. No matter how this is secured, the process is the introduction. If you gain it without words, you have an introduction without words. This answers the inquiry, whether the introduction is always necessary in a sermon. Some reply No, and think that their experience justifies them, because they sometimes "dump" a subject upon an audience, without prefatory remarks, yet apparently without loss of power. But let us not dispute about words. Every speaker's instinct teaches him the necessity of gradation in the progress of thought. His own mind has come to his theme by gradation: the minds of his hearers must do the same. With no rule on the subject, a speaker of prompt oratorical intuitions will feel this necessity of his hearers, and will adjust himself to it as best he can. Certain equivalents for an introduction exist, which may enable a preacher to dispense with the form of it in words ; but it is because the preparative process is otherwise accomplished. That such a process is a necessity lies in the nature of discourse. To omit it would be scarcely less unnatural than day without a dawn, and night without twilight. Nature never wins us by startling and convulsive changes. These excite only our fears. Even brute mind distrusts nature in an earthquake. Gradation is the law in all agreeable mental processes. This view of the general theory of an introduction suggests further that this part of a sermon is sus- ceptible of fine rhetorical qualit}^ Why, in announ- cing to a mother the death of her only child, would you select your messenger with care? Anybody can blurt 222 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvi. out the fact that a child is dead. The hangman might do that. But you desire a thoughtful announcement, a delicate announcement, a humane, S3anpathetic an- nouncement. The same principle holds in regard to introduction of discourse. In it the rarest qualities of thought and style are practicable. It admits, often, of rare originality ©f thought. The best method of approach to a theme is often a discovery or an inven- tion. The author deserves a patent for it. It admits, frequently, of condensed logic in its structure. Tact in hints of argument is often as necessary here as in the proof of a proposition. It admits of great beauty of illustration, and of finish in diction. The utmost delicacy of execution may be practicable and needful. Some subjects from some audiences can not get a hear- ing otherwise. When the prophet Nathan, at the risk of his life, sought to bring King David to repentance, his introduction cost -him more thought than all that came after it. An accomplished preacher will disclose his trained mind and practiced pen as clearly in this as in any other part of a sermon. An introduction may be as beautiful as the morning; and it may be like Milton's chaos. 2d, The theory of the introduction involves a cer- tain relation to the mental state of the speaker. Prepa- ration of the audience is needful — for what? For a subject alone? Not so. A speaker's opinion on the subject may contain some unexpected peculiarities for which the audience may need to be prepared. The speaker's opinions, with all that renders them momen- tous to his own mind, are what is to be floated over from his mind to the minds of his hearers ; and very much may depend on a smooth and rapid launch. But is this all ? Possibly not Preparation of the audience I.ECT. XYi.] THE INTRODUCTION : THEORY. 223 may be needful for peculiarities iu a speaker's methods of discussion. The subject and the results beuig given, a process lies between them which may demand pre- paratory forethought to enable hearers to follow and to accept it. Your method of argument, your style of illustration, omissions which you purpose may require prefatory remark to put your audience iu the way of your line of thought. Again : preparation is always needed to secure the sympathy of an audience with the effect of a subject upon a speaker's own heart. The work is but half completed if preparation is made for only intellectual results. You are not only iu possession of your sub- ject, but your subject has possession of you. You feel it: j'ou are under the moral dominion of it: you rep- resent in your own person the effects of the sermon you are about to preach. A vital object of preaching, therefore, is to lift the audience up to the same level of sensibility on which the preacher stands. Profound sympathies are never spontaneous. They start in pre- liminary emotions. A magnetic line may sometimes be laid down between the pulpit and the pew in the first five minutes of the delivery of a sermon, which shall vibrate with electric responses all the way through. 3d, We may, therefore, sum up these elements of the general theory of the introduction in the following definition ; namely, that an introduction is that part of a discourse which is designed to prepare an audience for agreement in opinion, and for sj'mpathy in feeling, with the preacher on the subject of discourse. Two inferences from the views here presented deserve notice. (1) It is obvious that explanatory remarks on the text will often be an equivalent for an introduction. Some subjects once evolved from forcible texts, and 224 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. xvi. thus carrying inspired authority on the face of them, will speak for themselves, and speak for the preacher, so eloquently that he has only to pass on, without a word of purely introductory remark. (2) When explanatory and introductory remarks are intermingled in a sermon, this should be done intelli- gentl}'. The most meaningless, and therefore forceless introductions are made up of heterogeneous materials, which, probably, the preacher does not clearly recog- nize as one thing or another. When you are sensible of such homiletic vertigo, stop ; let the brain clear itself; start anew, with clear insight into your bearings. II. The theory of the introduction is always the same, but it has specific objects which are variable. What are these specific objects ? Cicero says that the specific objects of the exordium are " reddere auditores benevolos, attentos, dociles" This statement is compre- hensive, yet compact. I can not improve it. Seldom can any one improve a rhetorical statement by Cicero. He was that rarest combination of rhetorical powers, a prince of orators and a prince of critics. 1st, It may be the specific object of an introduction to secure the good-will of an audience towards the preacher, — " reddere auditores benevolos" Power over the majority of men is largely the power of person. Even physical presence is an important factor in the creation of influence with the popular mind. Men of large frame and erect carriage have the advantage over diminutive men in competitive labors. We un- consciously admit this by the very language in which we describe the large men. We talk of their " com- manding presence." An instinct within us speaks in that phrase, — the instinct of obedience to a superior. Edward Everett used to lament that he could not tECT. XVI.] INTRODUCTION : SPECIFIC OBJECTS. 225 add four inches to his stature. In ancient times the Psalmist tells us that a man was famous " according as he had lifted tip axes upon the thick trees." It is com- monly mentioned as an anomaly which excites surprise, that Alexander the Great and Napoleon the First were small men. Mental and moral qualities are more vitally repre- sented in the influence of person. Do not the words of some men carry weight which you do not discover in their sentiments? The weight is in the men. Let an honest man honestly believe himself to be uttering an original truth, for the want of which the world is suffering, and, though you may find it in ^sop's Fables, yet the chance is that the world will ask with a sneer, "Who is tEsop?" and will believe in the man who is living to believe in himself. This power of person is no peculiarity of influence with the uncultivated. We all illustrate it in our own experience as listeners. Do we not all feel the force of a good elocution ? Men of culture may be more quick than others to discover a cheat under the imposing exterior ; but the imposing exterior carries weight with them as with others. The ancient orators cultivated studiously this power of person in the exordiums of their orations, and in their preliminary discipline for public speech. The ancient taste seems not to have been offended, but attracted, rather, by a freedom of personal allusion which was often childlike. The ancient usage is no model for a modern preacher ; but it illustrates the deference which the great orators of antiquity paid to the subtle magnetism of gfood-will between the hearer and speaker. Edmund Burke would have been pro- nounced by the cautious and painstaking orators of the ancient world a fool for his recklessness of all expedi- 226 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvi. ents of conciliation in the introductions of many of his parliamentary speeches. He aggravated hostility by defying it. He often produced it by inviting it. He gave occasion for it by assuming its existence, and answermg it in kind. On one occasion he said, " Mr. Speaker, I rise under some embarrassment occasioned by a feeling of delicacy towards one half of the house and of sovereign contempt for the other half." Cicero would have pronounced him a savage. This power of person with an audience is a legitl mate object of homiletic culture. Why not? That iji a false sentiment which prompts a man to say, " I will speak the truth, no matter what men think of me." Something of their respect for truth depends on what men think of you. Such is the divine ordinance of the ministry, that truth is never so powerful that it can afford to part with that alliance with the man appointed to proclaim it. No wise preacher, therefore, will defy a prejudice against himself among his hearers, or invite indifference to himself, by his neglect of any thing which forethought and self-discipline can add to his power of person. Applying these principles to the subject of homiletic introductions, it should be further observed that a preacher seldom needs to construct introductions made up of fragments of his personal history. This ancient expedient, with rare exceptions, would be an offense in the modern pulpit. The general habit of the pulpit respecting things personal to the preacher must be that of silence. He needs the power of person which personal introductions are aimed at ; no man needs it more : but he has certain advantages for gaining it which lie back of the pulpit. His personal character is known to his hearers : it may be presumed to be LECT. XVI.] INTRODUCTION : SPECIFIC OBJECTS. 227 favorably known. His reputation for intellectual abili- ty speaks for bim. His known history as a man of culture, as an alumnus of literary institutions, speaks for bim. His reputation for piety precedes and intro- duces every sermon that be utters. Fortunately for every individual of tbe clerical order, the order as a whole has an accumulated history of qualities which commends it to the respect of men. That history is a common fund from which each one ma}^ draw, for his own use, of the power of person, till be does something which proves bim unworthy of it. A preacher's chief cultivation of the power of person must be outside of the pulpit. In bis home, in tbe homes of his people, in bis study, in bis closet, he must build up, in part unconsciously, tbe reputation on which the power of tbe man must rest. Yet it should be remarked that every preacher must meet some occasions on which the introductions of bis discourses should be devoted to the work of gaining the influence of person. He may be called to preach to an audience which be knows to be prejudiced against bim. He may preach to another which is sublimely indifferent to bim. Every preacher, even in the most retired and staid parish, will find that there are some subjects in regard to which, if he would speak, he must undo a personal prejudice, or remove a suspicion, or break up indifference, of which be is the object. He can be beard genially, it may be, on all subjects but jue : on that he must charm wisely, if he would get a hearing which shall promise success. That was not a wise man, who, in the time of the civil war, in a South-western State commenced a ser- mon by laying a revolver on the pulpit by the side of tbe Bible, saying that his life had been threatened, and 228 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvi. that he was j)reparecl to defend it, as he would against a mad dog. A humble Massachusetts chaplain was his superior in homiletic tact, who was compelled by Gen. Butler to preach to a wealthy Presbyterian con- gregation of rebels in Norfolk, who were also in their seats on the Sabbath morning, in obedience to military order. Said the preacher, in commencing his discourse, " My friends, I am here by no choice of mine. I came to your city as a chaplain, to look after the souls of my neighbors who are here, as I am, under military rule. I stand in the place of your honored pastor by command of my military superior ; but I am a preacher of the same Christ whom you possess, and I ask you to hear me for his sake." He had a respectful hearing for the next tliree months. You can not foresee in what forms the need of such exordiums will arise ; but every preacher in a long min- istry must meet them, and his success must depend largely on his habit of estimating fairly, and cultivating in a manly Avay, the influence of person. 2d, The second specific object of the introduction may be to stimulate the attention of hearers, — " red- dere auditores attentosy Generally this is the cliief object of the introduction : oftener than otherwise, it is the only object. (1) Preachers labor under disadvantages in seeking the attention of an audience. The frequency of preach- ing is a disadvantage. No other public speakers speak so much as preachers do. The unchangeableness of .their audiences is a disadvantage. It tempts both hearer and preacher to listlessness. The pulpit and the lyceum are sometimes contrasted in respect to the popular interest. You might as Avell compare vegeta- tion with a cyclone. Nobody notices the one : every- LECT. XVI.] INTRODUCTION : SPECIFIC OBJECTS. 229 body is agape at the other. A lecturer spending six months of the year on one lecture, and delivering it to one hundred and fifty different audiences during the other six, is no model either of labor or of success to a pastor. Again: popular satiety with the subjects of preaching is a disadvantage to the pulpit. The great themes of the pulpit are well-known themes. The most necessary themes are those on which a Christian community has the most perfect knowledge. We must not ignore these themes ; yet we must recognize the satiety of the people, and must count the cost of meet- ing it. Further : the indifference arising from the de- pravity of hearers is a disadvantage to the pulpit. The hostility of sin is less to be feared than the indifference of sin. There is always hope of an audience which can be aroused into a contest with truth. Dr. Johnson complained that one of his books was not attacked by adverse criticism. It is not the " hot water " of our parishes which we have reason to fear : it is the lead. The pulpit needs to understand, and tacitly concede, its disadvantage as a competitor with other departments of public speech for the interest of the popular mind. The disadvantages are such, that competition is unrea- sonable. No intelligent critic will ask it of the pulpit : no wise preacher will attempt it. If he does, he ends inevitably by preaching clap-trap. Still the pulpit in its legitimate sphere may do much to commend itself to the popular attention ; and this may be done, in part, by skillful introductions. (2) Therefore an introduction should avail itself of the natural curiosity which hearers feel in the beginning of a discourse, because it is the beginning. The fact that it is the beginning pricks the ears. The first sentence of a sermon and the last are always interesting. That 230 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvi. preacher must have an ancient and subHme reputation for cluUness whose hearers look out of the window when he begins to speak. It is wisdom, therefore, to assume the existence of the interest of curiosity, and to use it. It is always a safe principle to begin with an audience where they are. Do not go behind or below them in search of them. Assume, therefore, the interest of curi- osity : fall in with it trustingly. Never tug at an in- troduction as a thing intrinsically spiritless because it is a preliminary. Never distrust its power to interest. Treat boldly the waiting eyes and ears before you. (3) Again : the introduction should direct interest to the subject in hand. Assuming that an interest exists, give it an object. The bees are swarming : give them something to swarm upon. That object must, of course, be your subject of discussion. Chrysostom used often to announce the subject of his discourse on the Sunday preceding its delivery. His object was to pre-occupy the minds of his hearers with that subject, and that only. Whatever may be said of such an expedient, it gives a valuable hint. The introduction should guide the interest of the hearer in the right groove, to the ricrht end. Therefore a series of disconnected remarks can not form an introduction. Such a series may be interesting. It may be original. It may sparkle with scintillations of genius. Thought, metaphor, antithesis, aj)othegm, every element of material and form which can fascinate a hearer, may be in it ; but, for the want of coherence and aim, it is not an introduction. It leads nowhere: it ushers .in nothing. Such prefaces are gay but meaningless arabesques. Furthermore : a preface which creates an independent interest of its own is no introduction. An introduction is a tributary. For the subject, and for that only, it exists. Therefore it is a LECT. XYi.] INTRODUCTION: SPECIFIC OBJECTS. 231 defect in an introduction, if it excites an interest whicli is confined to itself. This is sometimes the radical fault of initiatory remarks, — they introduce nothing. They are interesting ; they are connected ; they are discourses in miniature : but they transfer nothing to the subject in hand. Again : a preface, which, though aimed at the subject in hand, does not reach it squarely, is a defective intro- duction. Such prefaces there are, of which criticism can not say that they are disconnected, or that they are independent structures, but only that they do not come fairly and fully up to the theme in hand. They fall short of it, or on one side of it, or strike beyond it. They do not hit the target in the eye. (4) Therefore it should be further observed that an introduction should lead the interest of hearers to the subject in a natural wa3^ Did you never listen to the announcement of a proposition which started the inquiry in your mind, "■ How did the preacher come at it?" Something is faulty in the exordium which leaves honest room for that inquiry. Every subject has cer- tain natural avenues of approach. You can not search them out by more circuitous passages without loss. Our minds are not lawless in this respect. We can not help getting chilled in a North-west passage round the world. We choose, rather, the international pathway of commerce. That introduction is misnamed, which is only a literary adventure from text to theme. (5) Again : an introduction should sometimes direct the interest of hearers to the details of the discussion. Texts will often suggest to hearers methods of discus- sion which the sermons upon them do not realize. Yet it may cool the interest of some hearers, if you allow them to anticipate one kind of discussion, and give 232 THE THEORY OF PEEACHING. [lect. xvi. tliem another. Sometimes a text surpasses a discussion in solemnity, and tlie introduction must be adroitly con- structed so as to carry over the interest of the audience from such a text to such an inferior discussion without loss. Theodore Parker once chose for his text the words, " The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." It was soon after a presidential election, and the body of the sermon was devoted to a discussion of the prospects of democracy in this country. The introduction ought surely to have given the hearer some warning of such a leap as that. A superior sermon may not appear superior to a hearer who is disappointed in his expectations. 3d, The third specific object of an introduction may be to dispose hearers to receive favorably the sentiments of a sermon, — " reddere auditores dociles.''^ Men are often interested when not convinced, nor even predis- posed to conviction. Theirs may be an interest of antipathy. The most attentive listeners to Dr. Lyman Beecher and to Dr. Griffin in Boston were Unitarians. The most deeply entranced hearers of Whitefield were men who came with stones in their pockets to assault him. This suggests that the pulpit labors under a disad- vantage ga:owing out of the repulsiveness of many truths to the popular heart. We have before observed the indifference of depravity : its hostility is also a great disadvantage. The pulpit has large scope for sanctified tact in interesting unregenerate men in truth without awakening their latent enmity. If to awaken that is evidence of power, to win it over is evidence of conquest. In evading or conquering the hostility of hearers, much depends on securing the favor of an audience to the person of a speaker. If the man wins us, he will the more probably sway us. LECT. XVI. ] INTRODUCTION: SPECIFIC OBJECTS. 233 Much depends on Aippressing, by the introduction, the consciousness of difference of opinion between preacher and hearer. A French critic says that " elo- quence consists in saying every thing without getting into the Bastille, in a country where you are forbidden to say any thing." Every hearer who dissents from you has a Bastille open for you in his own mind. Once get your thought lodged there, and no " reign of terror " can set it loose again. The early abolitionists, under the lead of Mr. Garrison, attempted to circulate a pam- phlet which bore the title "The American Church a Brotherhood of Thieves." Was that a wise way to approach opponents ? Yet some preachers have as rare a talent as that title displayed for a belligerent intro- duction of truth. There is a class of men whose chief impression in the pulpit and out of it is that of bel- ligerents. If a subject of discourse can be approached in a militant Avay, they are sure to find that way. If there can be two opinions upon it, they are sure to advance one mainly as a shot at the other. If the audi- ence can be supposed to contain opposers of a truth, such preachers instinctively present that truth as if it were a loaded musket. Unconsciously and blandly they fire at men in smiling ignorance of any other way of approach to them in public speech. This belligerence of habit is the secret of a great deal of preaching at imaginary opponents. In many sermons we build our own cob-houses, and beat them down, and that is all. Nobody in the audience is hit. Yet that is a very effective way of creating a temporary opposi- tion. Men will bristle up in self-defense, if we approach them bristling. Such an approach in preaching is as profound an error rhetorically as it is morally. An ex- ordium should, if possible, discover common ground 234 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. xvi. between liearer and preacher. ■ Always start on the common ground, even if truth compels you to leave it. It is not necessary to obtrude into the foreground the obnoxiousness of truth to a depraved heart. A profound principle of rhetorical skill is involved in the apostolic injunction that the servant of the Lord should be " apt to teach, patient, in meekness instruct- ing those that oppose themselves." St. Paul himself exhibited a rare example of this rhetorical skill in his address to the Athenians. We are told that his " spirit was stirred in him when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry." A hot-brained, belligerent apostle of a new faith would have blazed out in a fury of denun- ciation. A man of fanatical conscience, in which there is always an element of malign emotion, would have talked of a "brotherhood of thieves." But St. Paul was too wise a man for that. " I perceive," he says in substance, " that in all things ye are much disposed to the worship of the gods. Among your countless altars I find one to the unknown God : Him declare I unto you." This was a most beautiful model of an eloquent introduction. In an introduction much often depends on an appeal to recognized authorities. A genial atmosphere is made to envelop a subject, if a preacher approaches it by the aid of authorities which the hearers trust, and which lend to it dignity. Here lies much of the force of biblical references in an exordium. What are such allusions, but appeals to an authority which the hearers acknowledge? In this, also, consists the pertinence of quoting a popular proverb in an introduction. Prov- erbs are the concentrated wisdom of common sense. The voices of ages are given in them in reduplicated echo. The world recognizes them as an authority. LECT. XVI.] INTRODUCTION : SPECIFIC OBJECTS. 235 Indirectly, but often perceptibly, they win acceptance for a truth which might not otherwise obtain a hearing. Much depends, also, upon a temperate expression of truth in the introduction. Extremes of opinion are not winning anywhere : least of all are they so in an ex- ordium. Impassioned utterances which are natural elsewhere will seem to be extremes here. They need to be approached by gradations of interest. Varied statement, proof, illustration, all natural arts of style may be necessary as preparatives for the utterance of ultimate views of truth. Begin the discussion of bold opinions as the new moon begins, — with a crescent expression only. Leave time for their fullness to grow upon the perceptions of an audience. We all love to be approached with moderation. Paradoxical men are not winning men. The world entertains an extrava- gant estimate of those whom it calls " safe men." It is astonishing what weakness, what folly, what com- monplace will be endured in a public man, if he is only a " safe man." Wise-acres are the most comfort- able of men : only a keen and irreverent minority find them out. Occasionally the aim of an introduction must be to transform an existing hostility to the sentiments of {» discourse. The occasions for this are not numerous, but no preacher is free from liability to them. Some of the most notable triumphs of the pulpit have consisted in producing revulsions of popular feeling and in actu- ally using the hostility of an audience as a tributary to the conquest of their hearts. This is not so impossible as it seems. A preacher in such an emergency is as- sisted by the tendency of excited feeling to produce its opposite. Laughter and tears often "^ncceed each other rapidly in an agitated assemblv. 236 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvj. This principle comes into play witli peculiar force in aid of a preacher. Conscience, in men who are raging with bitterness towards truth, is always silently strug- gling against them. The spring is strained against its nature, and its nature is to seek compensation from the opposite extreme. Sudden conversions sometimes illustrate this, and are explained by it. Some of White- field's astonishing conquests of hostile audiences are explained, in part, on the same principle. The most marvelous evidences of Whitefield's power ajjpeared often in the fact of his getting a hearing. He was the prince of preachers to mobs. He chose popular gather- ings at criminal executions as favorable opportunities for preaching. In Wales he once came to Hampton Common, and found twelve thousand people assembled to witness an execution. A more brutalized audience could scarcely be found in a Christian country. Who could hoj)e to win them to a favorable hearing of the gospel ? Yet to Whitefield they furnished one of his great opportunities. The expedients of a prepossessing introduction are, oftener than otherwise, adopted by an oratorical in stinct. In listening to criticisms respecting them, like this which I have attempted, the response is not un- natural that they are cognizable by criticism only ; that practically no one thinks of them in the construction of so brief a prelimmary as an exordium. I must ad- mit that this is, in part, true. Preachers who adopt these expedients successfully are apt to do so without premeditation. They do it in the exercise of the oratorical instinct. The power to work such expedi- ents well is gained chiefly by the cultivation of that instinct. LECTURE XVII. THE INTEODTTCTIOlSr : SIMPLICITY, UNITY, DIEECTXESS, CONGEUITY. III. The specific objects of an introduction wliich have been considered suggest, further, the inquiry, What are the most important characteristics of a good introduction ? 1st, Of these, the first in order and the first in im- portance is simplicity. Remember the mental state of an audience at the beginning of an address. They are unexcited. They are at leisure to criticise. They are waiting in suspense. Now, if ever, what is done should seem to be naturally done. Ease should pervade the whole movement. It may be elaborate, yet should never appear so. It may be original, novel, strildng; yet, when uttered, it should seem the most natural thing to say. (1) Simplicity in the introduction is obviously sacri- ficed by abstruse trains of thought. Abstruseuess is relative. That which is abstruse to one audience may not be so to another. That which would not appear abstruse in the heat of the argument, supported before and after by a chain of reasonings, and to the level of which the hearer has been lifted by a gradation of re- mark, may be too obviously elaborate for the introduc- tion. But the exclusion of abstruse thought does not 237 238 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvn. exclude profound thought from the exordium. Very- much profound thought lies so near the surface even of the popular experience, that it is always within reach of the popular consciousness. It needs only to be stated in simple diction to be recognized and approved. The most profound truths of all real philosophy are of this character. The most philosophical aspects of religious 'truth are those which the ]3opular mind instantly lays hold of when they are clearly stated. Power of sud- den recognition of profound truth is no peculiarity of educated mind. It is a property of mind as mind. Deep calleth unto deep of such treasure in every soul. Such material, therefore, does not exclude simplicity from introductions, if a preacher will only be content with simple forms of statement. Let alone a philo- sophical dialect ; seize such thought in its natural ap- proaches to the popular speech, and be b-ure that the popular mind will greet it with a welcome. (2) Simplicity of introduction is sacrificed by pro- longed argumentation. Vinet mentions a sermon by Bourdaloue, which contained in the exordium the plans of three or four additional discourses. That could not possibly have been a good introduction. Lay no severe tax here on the memory of the hearer. Never seem to drag an audience up to the subject by main force. Therefore never seem to climb up to it yourself, as the railway car climbs Mount Washington, by dint of iron chains, and clamps, and cogs. If they break, what becomes of you? (3) Simplicity of introduction may be sacrificed by the utterance of impassioned feeling. In the order of time, thought takes precedence of emotion, not emotion of thought. You must kindle the fire before you can use it. Therefore, as a rule, direct appeals are uufea- LECT. xvn.] THE INTRODtTCTION : SIMPLICITY. 239 sonable in an introduction. A direct appeal is an ex- pression of feeling addressed to feeling. It presupposes emotive excitement on both sides. If thrust into an introduction, it involves a waste of sensibility. Dr. Nettleton was one of the most economical of preachers in his use of the hearer's emotions in the early part of his sermons. He has been known to stay away frctm the pulpit till after the hour of service, so that the au- dience might become expectant and impatient. Then, wlien he did begin, he was often lifeless ; he hesitated ; he drawled ; he uttered truisms, so that he might get the advantage of the contrast when he roused himself to preach. These are artifices. In the pulpit they are affectations. But they illustrate the extreme of a sound principle. It is that of reserving the sensibilities of an audience till a place is reached in the sermon at which an appeal to them will be timely, because of the accu- mulated force of thought behind. (4) To tliis general principle adverse to impassioned introductions, there are some exceptions. Reverting to the mental state of an audience as the test, we derive the rule. Begin on a level with the hearers in point of sensibility. If events have lifted their level of feel- ing, it will not do to ignore that uplifting: therefore sermons on exciting occasions sometimes demand ex- cited exordiums. Sermons at the height of a religious awakening may admit of hortatory introductions. Ser- mons by a preacher whose illustrious reputation has preceded him, and has raised great expectations, may admit of such introductions. Sermons before large au- diences may admit of the same, when before a meager assembly they would be frigid. Numbers create sensi- bility. The juxtaposition of a multitude is like the jux- taposition of burning coals. Therefore an excited 240 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvii. exordium before such an audience may be only on a level with their mood of feeling. (5) An impassioned introduction should not be mis- taken for an abrupt beginning without an introduction. The exordium of Cicero's first Oration against Cati- line is often adduced as a case of impassioned exordium. It is not that : it is only an abrupt beginning without exordium. Not one word of that renowned invective is fitted or designed to prepare the audience for the subject of the coming discussion. On the contrary, the art of the orator consists in an explosion of his wrath upon the traitor, without forewarning either to him or to the assembly. He vaults into the subject by the spring of his anger. He flings it at the hearers as if by a catapult. The audience are trembling with pas- sionate expectations. To begin at such a crisis with a calm and gradual ascent to the subject in hand would be like prefixing a classic exordium to the cry of " Fire ! " In like manner, though rarely, a preacher is so pressed by exciting circumstances, that the question is not whether a cool or an impassioned introduction shall be chosen, but whether he shall have any introduction. (6) One form of hortatory exordium deserves to be named as a more frequent exception than any other. It is that of asking for the devout attention of hearers. " Hear ye the word of the Lord " is the opening appeal of some of Isaiah's prophetic discourses. Our Saviour called the multitude, and said, " Hear and understand." St. Stephen, in his dying address to the mob, begins by saying, "Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken." So, at the present day, an earnest Und brief, by all means brief, request that hearers will give you a prayerful attention may be in keeping with their mood. (J) Simplicity of introduction is further sacrificed by LECT. xvii.] THE INTRODUCTION : SIMPLICITY. 241 an obviously elaborate style. I say " obviously elabo- rate," because style may often be, must often be, the result of labor, when it has not, and ought not to have, the appearance of labor. Cicero says, " We must not depart from the familiar sense of words, lest our dis- course appear to he prepared with too much labor." For example, a succession of inverted sentences, a string of antitheses, a series of laconics, a protracted metaphor, studied changes of metaphor, elaborate invo- lutions of style, an unusual vocabulary are features of a style too labored for an introduction. The diffi- culty with such a style is that it attracts attention to itself. Its rhetorical character, not what it expresses, the form, not the thing, allures attention. To be con- sciously allured, even by an excellence in style, to the rhetorical quality of it is an evil. Dr. Whately says that if an absolutely perfect orator could ever have existed, his heareis would not at the time have discov- ered that he was such. That discovery would have been an after-thought. Eloquence is necessarily unper- ceived as such. Its presence is invisible ; its tread, inaudible. To illustrate one form of tliis defect in introductory style, I quote from a sermon by Dr. Barrow, on " the profitableness of godliness." The preacher starts off in the following canter : " How generally men, with most imanimous consent, are devoted to profit, as to the immediate scope of their designs and aim of their doings, if with the slightest attention we view what is acted on this theater of human affairs, we can not but discern." This style is a fair imitation of the gait of a cantering nag. It is clumsy style anywhere, but imagine it as an opening sentence ! Fancy the delivery of it ! Who could escape with it the clerical humdrum ? 242 THE THEORY OP PREACHING. [lect. xvn. We can readily believe the fact stated in the biography of Dr. Barrow, that he composed many of his discourses with no intention of preaching them. 2d, The second characteristic of a good introduction is unity. (1) Unity of introduction includes all that is essen- tial to oneness of impression. Certain ancient homi- letic writers recognized three divisions in this part of a discourse : 1. The exordium generate^ which was an introduction to the text ; 2. The exor'dium sjjeciale, which was a transition from the text to the subject; 3. The exordium sjyecialissimum, which was an introduc- tion following the proposition, and preparatory to the discussion. This is a fair symbol of many introduc- tions in the practice of the modern pulpit. They are • loose, disjointed, digressive, exhaustive. They are con- structed on the principle of saying all that can be said. They make rubbish for the sake of clearing it away. A true exordium is always an aim and a shot. No part of a discourse should be more intensely one in its im- pression. (2) Unity does not exclude from the exordium diver- sity of material. You may wish to dignify your sub- ject, and 3"et to remove a prejudice, and, again, to ex- plain a peculiarity in your method of discussion. Very well : these are pertinent materials for the introduction. But where is the point of unity? I answer, In the subject. All these objects of jouv introduction point inward to that. They are radii to a center ; or, to change the metaphor, they are figures painted in one group. If critical taste can only fore-arm a preacher against talking at random in this diversity of remark, oratorical instinct will use the diversity in the service of unity. This is one of the minutioe in which the LECT. xvii.] THE INTRODUCTION : UNITY. 243 •work of criticism is wholly negative. It simply checks rambling, and thus gives the oratorical instinct a chance to work. It will work as surely as the vis medicatrix will work when disease is once held at Lay. (3) The oratorical instinct thus assisted will com- monly secure unity of introduction by subordinating all other materials to one. Materials theoretically equal practically fall into the rank of subalterns and chief. Two yield to one. The oratorical instinct per- ceives this, and it works as Joseph's fancy did in his dream : the inferior sheaves make obeisance. Criticism has practically no direct concern with it. It can only fend off intruding materials, leaving the instinct of the orator free to work its own way to unity of aim. (4) Neglect of criticism, however, results commonl}'" in double-headed introductions. The form which the want of unity most frequently assumes in this part of a sermon is not that of incoherent rambling, but that which suggests a wavering in the preacher's mind in the choice of a subject. He discourses, first as if one phase of truth were to be his theme ; then as if not that but another though kindred phase ; and perhaps the subject shapes itself at last as the result of the tentative process through which his own mind has passed in composing his exordium. He has had no controlling wind in his sails to carry him straight on in one course. The introduction, therefore, flaps first this way, then that. Criticism, however, can do no more than to point out the error, and say, "Fix the subject to start with. Define it. Stop that wavering of preliminary thought. Give your oratorical instinct a chance to work in its own way." It will always work in one way, and but one. 3d, The third characteristic of a good introduction 244 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvn, is directness of approach to the subject in hand. Re- calling again the mental state of the audience, we ob- serve, that, during the delivery of an exordium, they feel only the interest of expectation. This interest of expectation is from its nature temporary. It flags if it is dallied with. Hence the necessity of direct ad- vance. Several things are needful to secure this quali- ty of directness. (1) The introduction should not begin at a needless distance from the subject. No defect of discourse is more frequent than that here indicated, — that the sermon begins in a nebulous remoteness from the real theme. How many sermons, think you, are written every year which begin in the garden of Eden ? Some- thing or other about the creation of man is the first thought. Adam is nowhere else so important a char- acter, not even in the Turretinian theology, as he is in the introductions of sermons. Eve herself was not so essential to the blessedness of paradise as she is to the comfort of certain preachers in their homiletic exordi- ums. Long-winded introductions generally possess, in some form, this fault of antipodean beginning. You will often find that the best beginning is in the middle of your exordium, and this by no hap-hazard. The first half of an introduction often represents, not the demands of the subject, but the disciplinary labor- ing of your own mind to come at the subject. It may have cost you by far the most toil ; but it is the toil of mental apprenticeship. It is a great art, which does not come to a preacher by intuition, to be able to strike into the trail of a subject at the outset, just at the right point of ease in drawing hearers after you. Do not be economical, then, of first thoughts in the introduction. Let them go : give them wings. Their LECT. XVI.] THE INTRODUCTION : DIRECTNESS. 245 worth is not equal to their cost. If yon are to preach on the perseverance of the saints, it is not necessary to begin by remarking that we are all the creatures of one Creator. If you are to discourse on infant baptism, your theme does not hang on the story of the deluge. If your subject is the fall of St. Peter, it is not imperative that you must start with the fall of Adam. If you are to discourse on the end of the world, it does not follow that you must begin with its creation. Begin always with your finished thinking on a subject, not with your first crude attempts to grasp it. (2) Directness of approach obviously requires prog- ress of thought. An introduction should never return upon itself. It should never do that, which, in the chase, sportsmen call " doubling the course." Of one thought we should say all that is to be said connectedly. On the same principle, the exordium should never dally with a thought. To linger when a preliminary is fin- ished, to pause as if we were delighted witli our own work, to yawn as if we knew not what to say next, is indicative of any thing but an eager mind. (3) Directness of approach requires as great rapidity of progress as the nature of the subject will permit. Progress we must secure always. The degree of rapidi- ty depends on the manageableness of the theme, but it is always safe to press on. Make every thing clear as you proceed, but press on. This one thing do, for- getting the things which are behind. A paragraph, a sentence, a clause, a word, a syllable, which can be omitted, omit. Rapidity of introduction is desirable especially for the sake of brevity. Nothing but expe- rience effectually teaches a preacher the value of brevi- ty in preliminaries. Keep your eye open to it in your own experience. Watch your subjects : see how large 246 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xyii. a proportion of them are more deftly introduced with few remarks than with many. Watch your audi- ences: see how fresh they are for a discussion where you have not wearied them with a long exordium. Watch your own mind : see what a sense of conquest you have when you have come up to a proposition by a quick march. Rapidity of approach is desirable also as a stimulus to interest. It is a stimulus to the preacher. Rapid movement in composition exhilarates like riding a spir- ited horse. On the same principle, a rapid introduc- tion is a stimulus to the hearer. Once get the idea into liis mind that you do not mean to waste words, and he will not waste attention. He will hear with the same alertness of mind with which you speak. Rapidity of approach to a subject is desirable, furthermore, for the confidence which it wins from hearers in the preacher's mastery of the subject. Napoleon's soldiers trusted liim as much for the tremendous marches which he\ gave them as for the battles in which he led them. They used to say, that, under his leadership, victory was due as much to their legs as to their arms. On a similar principle we trust or distrust a speaker. His quick approach to a theme, if it be clear, is a sign of mastery. We trust him for the business-like way in which he executes the first movement. (4) Directness of approach is not abruptness. One preacher announces liis text, and then remarks, " With- out further introduction I invite your attention to the following theme." This is misnamed an introduction. Not a word is uttered preparatory to the subject. We come to the subject b}- no gradation, but by a leap. If 3^ou will observe honestly the inducement to an abrupt beginning, you will find that it is not any horailetic LECT. XVII.] THE INTRODUCTION : CONGRUITY. 247 advantage, but mental Yacuit3^ We adopt it only as a device of ease. Yet directness of introduction admits of exceptions. Eloquence lias room for adroit- ness, if you please to call it such, in the structure of exordiums. Obnoxious doctrines, difficult discussions, special occasions, peculiar relations of speaker to theme and of speaker to hearers may demand such exordiums, and to withhold them for religious reasons is simpl}'' not good sense. You might as reasonably refuse to sail obliquely against a head-wind, because oblique sailing resembles deception. 4th, The fourth characteristic of a good introduction is congruity with the character of the sermon. (1) This requires that the introduction be character- istic of the subject in hand. This suggests the point of defect in many textual exordiums. You will find it to be sometimes the secret of a heavy exordium, that the text has suggested general religious ideas not explana- tory .of its meaning, not needed by the coming sub- ject, yet good in themselves ; and therefore your pen has dropped them as it passed along. They burden the introduction, as scattered barley is a nuisance in a field of wheat. Have you not detected procrustean introductions of this character, in which the preacher seems to have aimed, not to say only necessary things, but to make the introduction of a given length, no more, no less? Of such material as he has, he might add a page or subtract a page, prefix a page or append a page, insert a page or intersperse a page, and it would make no difference, except to change the meas- ure. The subject would neither gain nor lose. (2) Indolent composing produces incongruous in- troductions. Are you never afraid of your subject, loath to attack it at once, fain to linger in if^ out- 248 THE THEORY OF PREACHING. [lect. xvii. skirts, pleased to dally with straggling thoughts which occur to you without effort? lu such moods j^our stjde of thinking is not intense. You do not glow with the consciousness of a heated theme within. You muse, but the fire does not burn. You feel none of that necessity of production which Dr. Arnold said he often had in reflecting upon the political and social state of England. "I must write," he exclaimed, "or I shall die." Writing then, there, on that- theme, he would inevitably have introduced his theme in some intensely characteristic way. Dr. Holmes represents one of his clerical charao