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O N THE PREACHING OF OUR SAVIOUR.
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A s E R Mo N
D E L I V E R E D AT T H E O R D IN AT I O N
J O S E P H A NGIER,
AS P A S T () R O F T H E
F I R S T C O N G R E G A T 1 O N A L C H U R C H
N E W - IB E D F O R D.
MAY 20, 1835.
H3 y R E v. ( ) R V I 1, L E D E W F. Y.
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NE w BED FOR D
B E N J A M1 N T. co N G Do N.
1835.
ERRATA. Page 9, line 7 from top, omit “and.”
Page 14, line 3 from bottom, for emotions, read emotion.
Page 15, line 14 from bottom, for “was,” read ever.

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S E R M O N.
Matthew VII.28, 29.
AND IT cAME TO PASS when JESUs HAD ENDED THESE SAYINGS, THAT
THE PEoPLE were AstonisłłED AT HIs DocTRINE. Fort HE TAUGHT
As on E HAVING AUTHORITY, AND not As THE SCRIBES.
WHAT was it that made this impression upon the Jews,
when they listened to our Saviour 2 What, in fact, was
the impression which they felt Was it of any thing
mysterious or supernatural about him 2 Was it any thing
in his manner, any thing in his tone or gesture, any
singularity of appearance or of action that was so impressive?
The text informs us, that “the people were astonished at
his doctrine.” And although by his doctrine some com-
mentators understand, and rightly, I think, his mode of
teaching, I do not suppose, that by this phrase they mean
his mere manner, but rather, the kind of truths he insisted
upon. He taught not as the Scribes, who were accustomed
to engage in endless disquisitions on the most puerile and ,
trifling questions. On the contrary, Jesus taught plain,
practical, solemn truths. He taught a doctrine that carried
the weight of moral authority with it. What was the doc-
trine then 2 Was it some imposing form of oriental mysti-
cism 2 Was it the secret of the Essenes? Was it the
mystery of his miraculous power? Was it his coming agony?
Most interesting, affecting would this have been ; but was it
this? Was it a touching and solemn foreshowing of the dark
4
fate that awaited him—of his own blessed patience therein,
of his glorious humiliation, his victorious sacrifice, his life-
giving death 2 Or, if none of these were his theme, then was
it some new and before unheard of truth, at which the people
were astonished On the contrary, the solemn and soul-
amazing doctrine which so moved the people, was the simple
doctrine of the Sermon on the Mount. It is at the close of
this sermon, that we find recorded the testimony of the text.
It was the advantage of poverty and of depression in this
world; it was the blessedness of a meek temper, and of
aspirations after spiritual excellence, and of pity and purity
and gentleness, and even of persecution for righteousness
sake ; it was the sin of angry passions, and unchaste thoughts,
and profane words; it was forgiveness of enemies, and un-
ostentatious alms-giving, and simplicity in prayer, and
candor, and heavenly mindedness, and trust in God—it was
all this that he taught, when the people were astonished at
his doctrine. And all this was nothing new, nor mysterious,
nor mystical, nor curious, nor admirable, nor eloquent, in
the ordinary sense of those words—it was only simple truth.
But what was it in this truth, then, that made it so im-
pressive, so much more impressive, than it is from the lips
of other teachers ? This question presses us to some more
specific view—it obliges us to point out some particular trait
of the preaching of Jesus. If its remarkable power did not
lie in the bare circumstance that it was true, if ordinary
truths had this power in his hands, and if there was nothing
extraordinary in his manner, then what was it in his preach-
ing that made it so powerful? I answer, it was that which
will make all preaching powerful in proportion as it ap-
proaches the same point—that however, in which no
preacher ever came near the great Master—it was the de-
claring not of truth merely, not of truth as it is in the abstract,
or in books; but it was a declaring of the truth of things
5
as it is in the human heart. It was a penetrating insight
into human nature. It was a preaching to experience. It
was the preaching of him who “knew what was in man.”
This is the grand moral peculiarity in the preaching
of our Saviour that I shall first attempt to illustrate: after
which I shall inquire how far his example is to be considered
as a model for our imitation.
Our Saviour spoke to the age in which he lived—to its
maxims, philosophy and spirit. He spoke to the very com-
munities in which he taught—to the precise moral questions
and difficulties that engaged their attention. He spoke to
the very individual that approached him—and to his inmost
experience. “Come, see a man,” said the woman of
Samaria, “who told me all that ever I did.” In other
respects his manner varied. He sometimes used great ten-
derness, and at other times great severity. He exhorted,
encouraged, upbraided, warned, as the occasion required ;
but he always spoke directly to the case before him.—
Truth in his hands was never, for one moment, an abstraction.
To prepare the way, however, for some illustration of this
great moral trait, I may state two or three things in a
negative form.
One is, that our Saviour never delivered any collection of
wise sayings, that is, of apothegms and rules, which are
general and abstract ; which are as applicable to one time,
or to one person, as another. No discourse of his probably
bears so much of this aspect as the Sermon on the Mount;
and yet we shall soon see, I think, on referring to it again,
that it is no less specific and pertinent than the rest of his
teachings. In this respect our Saviour departed from all
the sages of antiquity. It has been said, and perhaps it is
true, that all, or nearly all, the precepts of Jesus may be
found in Plato, and Seneca, and Confucius. The separate
precepts may be found; and all carefully set down in order,
6
#:
in the philosopher's thesis, or in the moralist's code; but
where will truth ever be found, in such living intimacy with
the human heart.
It is also worthy of notice, that our Saviour, in his teach-
ings, never delivered any system of doctrines. He very
clearly taught doctrines, it is true; but he never taught them
in a systematic form. He never made a creed. It may
be said, that he left the materials out of which creeds may
be formed. However true this may be, yet it is certain
that he never saw fit to draw out the articles of such an
instrument. He never set the example, of what the world
has shown itself ready enough to do, without an example.
He drew up no summary of his doctrines. He did not make
that appeal to the pride of reason, nor to the love of dispu-
tation. He did not appeal to the power of cavilling, but to
the power of conscience.
I am not objecting to summaries of doctrine, provided they
are rightly used and regarded. As designed to aid the
studious, and to lay open the philosophy of doctrines, they
are useful, and always will be. But I think, the experience
of the world cannot much longer ſail to teach it, that of all
things designed to be bonds of union, creeds are the most ill-
advised—being as they ever have been, and yet are, chal-
lenges to controversy, and trials of ingenuity in evasion ;
the very watchwords to strife, the very barriers, around
which the theological war has always raged the fiercest.—
No form of words ever did or ever can secure unanimity of
explanation, even with those who profess to receive them,
and therefore no form of words ever can be a real bond of
union. More wisely did our great Master establish the union
of his disciples in the bond of the spirit, the bond of mutual
love and forbearance. And I thank heaven, that bond
still holds, unbroken by all the dissensions of the Christian
world; that there are men, and they, I trust, not a few,
7
who, though separated by the widest supposed differences of
speculative faith, still respect, and admire, and love one
another. If I could not feel, and delight to feel these sen-
timents towards real Christians of every name, I should stand
in painful doubt of my own discipleship to the great Master.
But to return: as our Saviour did not deliver any collec-
tion of wise sayings, nor draw up any formal summary of
doctrines, so neither did he attempt to fix in any one exact
form of definition, the varying modes and ways of christian
experience. He did not describe any precise order of mental
exercises in religion as the only right one, nor demand an
accordance of the affections with any precise formula of faith,
and I must be allowed to say, that, if any such order and
accordance be requisite, if no man can be a Christian who
does not pass through a certain prescribed process of con-
viction and conversion, of despair and hope, of distress and
relief; or, if no man can be a Christian, who has not “cer-
tain views,” as they are called, who does not “see the doc-
trines” in a certain light; it is most extraordinary and unac-
countable that not a trace of this specific plan appears in the
preaching of Christ. For, I affirm that it is just as impos-
sible to find any such plan, any such definite frame work of
experience in the teachings of Christ, as it is to find it in
the teachings of Confucius or of Cicero. I deny not that
such may be the religious experience of thousands, and that
it may be an honest and sound experience, but I deny that
it is, by way of eminence, Christian experience.
For if—and I now return to the main position—if there
was any thing distinctive and remarkable, in the preaching of
Jesus, it was just the easy and natural adaptation of every
principle of spiritual truth to the case and exigency of every
individual whom he addressed. Inquirers of every character
approach him continually. Where is the one formula of
expression with which he replies to all 2 Where is the one
8
plan of experience which he lays down for all Do you
continually hear from his lips, the words, conviction, conver-
sion, the new birth, the grace of God, important as they all
are. No. It is sometimes, faith, that he requires ; some-
times, repentance. Then again, it is charitableness or can-
dor; then, alms-giving; then honesty, meekness, patience,
humility, forgiveness of injuries, fidelity to relatives; every
virtue in fine, every grace, that belongs to goodness and
piety. All is natural, simple, unforced. The style is as
natural, it has as little that is technical in it as you would use,
if you were talking and expostulating with one of your child-
ren about any fault or vice into which he had fallen.
But let us refer again to the Sermon on the Mount. It
was this, as I have already said, that called forth the
demonstration of feeling recorded in the text. Was it
enough, so to move the people, to inculcate the virtues of
meekness, spiritual mindedness, forgiveness, purity of heart,
religious veneration, candor and love; and to inculcate these
things in the general and in the abstract 2 Was this the
character of the Sermon on the Mount Was it a mere col-
lection of wise sayings On the contrary, at every step, it
fastens upon reality, fact, circumstance—upon the very
thoughts and questions and prejudices of the persons who
were to be taught. In the first place, our Saviour addressed
a company of men, his disciples and others, who looked for
their Messiah as a temporal king, who expected that he
would deliver them from the Roman yoke, conquer the sur-
rounding nations, and reinstate the Jewish people in all and
more than all the possessions and splendors of their ancient
monarchy. In the next place, he addressed a company who
were accustomed to all those evasions of the moral law,
which had been brought in by tradition, and which were
daily multiplied by Jewish doctors and scribes. Let these
things be borne in mind, and we shall see how far from being
9
abstract, how pertinent, indeed, and pointed, is every word
he utters. Blessed, he says, are the poor in spirit, which,
whether it means the literally “poor who repine not,” or
those who are conscious of their moral poverty, is mainly to
the same purpose—blessed are the poor in spirit, rather than
the children of pride, or of abundance and luxury. Blessed
are they that mourn, and rather than they who whose days
are given to mirth and gaiety. Blessed are the meek, and
not the arrogant and exacting. Blessed are they that hun-
ger and thirst after righteousness, and not the worldly-
minded, who are hungering and thirsting after worldly ad-
vancement. Blessed are the merciful : I call you not to
take vengeance on your oppressors. Blessed are the pure
in heart: I spread before you no prospect of sensual indul-
gences. Blessed are the peace-makers: I summon you to
no field of battle. Blessed are the persecuted, the reviled,
the rejected for my sake : I tell you, my disciples, that ye
shall have bonds instead of thrones, injury and oppression,
instead of conquest and glory. And then he exhorts them
to steadfastness and fidelity, and to an open and bold pro-
fession of his name, telling them that they are the salt of
the earth, and the light of the world.
He next applies himself to the popular misconceptions of
the moral law. The people had been taught that inward
offences were of small account, provided the outward act
were restrained ; and that almost all virtue consisted in
obedience to the ceremonial law. Ye have heard that it
hath been said by them of old time, thou shalt not kill, thou
shalt not commit adultery: ye have heard that in these cases
abstinence from the outward act is sufficient; but I say unto
you, that he who hath an angry feeling, or an unchaste
design, is guilty, and is in danger of the judgment. Again,
he taught the duties of alms-giving, and prayer, and fasting ;
but how did he teach them In alms-giving let not thy left
2
10
hand know what thy right hand doeth. When thou prayest,
enter into thy closet. When thou fastest, anoint thy head
and wash thy face ; be not of a sad countenance. What
pointed precepts were these to a people who were accus-
tomed to the most estentatious charities, who were wont to
pray, standing at the corners of the streets, and who, when
they fasted, disfigured their faces, that they might appear
unto men to fast! And again, judge not that ye be not
judged. What a cutting precept was that to the most cen-
sorious and bigoted of all mankind.
Nay, and this kind of teaching imposes the necessity for
the most careful and considerate interpretation of it. The
New Testament is not a book of maxims, nor a book of
doctrines, nor a book of laws ; that is to say, it is neither of
these in its form; but it is in form, a book of conversations.
It has, indeed, the weight of maxims, and the authority of
doctrines, and the force of laws, but it has, I repeat, the form
of neither. It is a book of conversations, and popular ad-
dresses. It bears, every where, a character of colloquial
freedom. Its instructions are so specific, they so constantly
relate to peculiar and individual cases, and this makes it
necessary so frequently to modify, to limit or to enlarge the
application of what is said, that the interpreter who over-
looks this trait is certain to err in his exposition. If our
Saviour's mode of teaching had been sufficiently regarded,
if he had been regarded, not as a propounder of tenets, but
as one simply and solemnly talking with the heart, he would
not be thought to have lent his sanction to such a variety of
sects and to such a variety of opinions, as have sprung up in
the christian world. How many things are to be modified,
even in that discourse which we have been considering—
commonly regarded as the most elaborate of his discourses.
Poverty, and Sorrow, and persecution are not, abstractly
desirable things. They are not things to rejoice at, Surely,
1 i
for their own sake. Yet there may be a state of mind to
which these things may be well addressed. And there may
be a state of society, in which persecution is better than
praise and honor. So a joyous countenance is not abstractly,
the most proper for a day of fasting; but it was proper
to be recommended in the circumstances. And so also, to
take no thought for our life, what we shall eat, nor for our
body, what we shall put on, cannot be expedient or right for
the mass of mankind. But it was expedient for those dis-
ciples, who were set apart and devoted to a peculiar office,
inconsistent with the business of life—to an office requiring
celibacy, and incompatible with the care of families.
Indeed, almost the entire Gospels might be quoted to
show that our Saviour always addressed himself directly to
the case before him ; and that this was the secret of his
power, as a teacher. I am aware that I can do nothing
more in this discourse, than to draw your attention to this
peculiarity of his recorded instructions. With this view,
having considered the most remarkable of his discourses—
recommended to our attention also, by its having been im-
mediately connected with the declaration of the text—let
me now refer to one of his conversations—if not the most
remarkable, at least, more remarked upon than any other.
And I choose the passage the rather because in it our Saviour
is commonly considered as having spoken very technically,
and as having adopted language peculiarly proper for general
use and universal application.
A man comes to Jesus by night, a distinguished man, a
ruler of the Jews, who though convinced of the truth, is
not yet prepared to compromise his reputation by an open
avowal of his convictions. He comes to Jesus by night, and
he says, Master, we know that thou art a teacher come from
God, for no man can do these miracles that thou doest,
except God be with him. Our Saviour, who “knew what
12
was in man,”—and this, we may observe, is the striking
declaration which precedes the whole account—our Saviour
answers, not so much to what Nicodemus had said, as to
his state of mind,-and he says, except a man be born again
he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus carps at
the phrase “born again,” though he very well understands
it. He knows very well that according to the usage of
Jewish language, it refers to an open—to a cordial indeed—
but especially to an open profession of the new religion.—
Proselytes to Judaism, he knows, were constantly and
familiarly described as “born again.” So highly did the
Jews conceive of the distinction and advantage of belonging
to their spiritual community, that they habitually denomina-
ted proselytes “new creatures.” Jesus speaks again, and
what does he say ? Does he simply and emphatically repeat
what he had already said, as if it were some great and re-
markable canon-law of the new kingdom, and as if he was
now, for the first time announcing the spiritual part of this
requisition ? On the contrary, he had announced that a
thousand times before | He never spoke to a bad man, of
of whom he did not virtually require a conversion. No,
he speaks again, only to touch again the point of the noble
but irresolute and time-serving inquirer's deficiency. “Except
a man be born of water”—be baptized into an open pro-
fession of his faith—“except a man be born of water, and
of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”—
Have you ever thought it strange, my friends,-for I confess
that I once did—that the spiritual teacher should lay such
stress on a mere form * This is the explanation: that regard-
less, as it were of every thing else, regardless of all system,
regardless almost of his own great claims, and of the congru-
ities of his own public character as a spiritual teacher, he
always fixed his eye upon one point, he always spoke to
one point, and that was the point on which the inquirer's
13
improvement depended. The great obstacle in the way of
Nicodemus, was his worldly pride, ambition—subserviency
to the world; and our Saviour lays the stress precisely there;
he tells the Jewish ruler, that if he would be a Christian,
he must throw away these vain compromises with the world,
and be an open, bold, and decided professor of Christianity.
Religion to him, was to be a victory over worldly fears and
compliances.
How different is this from our modern teaching, when
neither speaker, nor hearer oftentimes, is satisfied with a
sermon, unless it contains what is called “the whole counsel”
—unless the sermon be a kind of epitome of divinity—or
at any rate unless the sermon preach Christ; which means
not as it anciently did, preaching Christianity, but preaching
some peculiar views of the person or sufferings of Christ. I
fear, that some of our modern hearers who turn contemptu-
ously away from many sermons, saying there is nothing of
Christ in them, would have found the preaching of the
Master to have been scarcely satisfactory. “What,” they
would say, had they overheard the conversation with Nico-
demus—“tell an anxious inquirer about the great salvation,
that he must make a profession of religion ; lay all the stress
upon that? Not a word about sin; not a word about the
atonement; not a word about faith, nor repentance P’—
How many modern divines would be alarmed for their
reputation, if they could be proved to have been, in this
respect, very close imitators of Christ—if they could be
convicted of having preached discourse after discourse, to
some simple point of every day morality, without having said
a word about what are called “the great doctrines.” No
wonder that our modern preaching is dull, when we are oc-
cupied with this eternal generalizing: when we preach from
books of Essays or from some Body of Divinity, and not
from the book and body of our own experience; when we
14
set forth, not the living truth that is within us, but some dead
truth that is without us ; when our aim is not so much to
touch the heart, as to touch, adroitly, and with anatomical
skill, the skeleton of a creed l—as if the art of the preacher
were the art of the necromancer, or the dialectic of the
sophist And how would Jesus have lost all his power and
charm, as a teacher—how, indeed, could we have believed
in him, if he had come forward on all occasions with his
formula of doctrine, or his shibboleth of faith !
Instead of this, Jesus evermore speaks to the heart, and
to the very heart before him, and not another. Not one
technical form of truth, but the whole world, the whole
universe of truth is before him, and he wields all its powers
and commands all its resources freely, and freely applies
them to the regeneration of men around him. He speaks,
not so much as the champion of truth, as its master. He is
not so much an innovator, as a reformer. The founder of a
new religion, he forgets not the old, the eternal truths, that
have been taught in former days, that have dwelt forever in
the bosom of human experience, but labors to start them
into life and action.
Well is it said, that “never man spake as this man;” there
never was such a teacher. I am not surprised that “the
people were astonished at his doctrine.” I follow him, with
a kind of wonder in my own heart, at every word he utters.
There is a piercing discrimination, and at the same time, an
awful reality and sobriety in his instructions, that make me
feel as if the words he uttered, had reverberated in the secret
places of my own soul; as if they were tones from the
innermost Sanctuary of consciousness.
My feeling is, that the teachings of our Saviour were not
ordinarily accompanied with any strong emotions. Their
leading characteristic seems to me to have been a calm and
penetrating insight into the human heart. “He knew what
15
was in man.” He looked, beneath the surface, into the very
heart. The power of his preaching was not so much the
power of emotion, as the power of simple, practical, perti-
ment truth. We follow him through his life and teachings,
with the feeling that he is solving just such questions of duty
and cases of conscience, as are wont to rise in our own
hearts. They are every where filled with those natural and
touching incidents, those affecting interviews, that sober and
quiet talking of heart with heart, that make us feel that it is
all real and true—that such events and conversations must
have happened. It is as if a parent sat down by his erring
child, and said, “my child l you know that these things are
true.” That parent might not make any great demonstra-
tion of feeling, perhaps; he would be too intent and serious,
it may be, to give way to a flood of emotion; he might not
weep. Neither did Jesus; for of this extraordinary being it
is but once recorded that he wept. But he spoke with a
power of truth, that went far beyond the contagious power of
sympathy. And if I were called upon to mention what is to
me the most touching trait in the preaching of Jesus, I should
say, it is that sobriety, that self-restraint; that heart, fired
with zeal, yet filled with patience; that heart filled with
the most exquisite tenderness, yet was calm and subdued.
The majesty of the Gospel, indeed, is its truth; but that
truth comes more powerfully to the heart, when veiled
beneath those softened and touching features of sweet Seren-
ity and tenderness, than if it flashed out from the splendors
of Sinai.
But I must not farther enlarge at present, on these views
of the preaching of Jesus—hints though they have been.
I beseech you to read the New Testament with this intent—
to feel the pertinency and heart-penetrating power of our
Saviour’s instruction. I would that I could persuade the
skeptic, so to read the New Testament, for once. And I
16
feel morally sure, that he could not do this, and remain an
unbeliever. He might have his difficulties about the mira-
cles; but he could not doubt in his conscience, whether this
was a teacher to be reverenced, to be loved, to be obeyed.
And would not this settle the whole question. For the
narrative, before us, is either truth or fiction. The question
is between these. And I say, if it is fiction, it is the most
extraordinary, nay, and I must say, the most incredible of
fictions. It is, on this supposition, infinitely more extraor-
dinary, as a work of genius, than any such work, that the
world ever saw. For this narrative, let it be remembered,
was written in part by a Jewish publican, and, in part, by
fishermen from the lake of Galilee
I have thus spoken of the preaching of our Saviour, and
have endeavored to show, that its grand peculiarity is a deep
and penetrating discrimination of the truth of things as they
are in the human heart. The question now arises, and it is
most important, and most pertinent to the present occasion,
whether the example of our Saviour's preaching is imitable,
and whether its results are attainable by us.
There are circumstances, doubtless, of unapproachable
peculiarity in the preaching of our Saviour. His divine
commission and his immaculate purity authorized him to
speak with a tone of absolute infallibility and lofty rebuke,
which would not become his imperfect and erring minis-
ters. It would not be enough to say, in defence of a
similar manner on our part, that so Christ preached. That
which in him was authority and rebuke, may become, in our
hands, arrogance and railing. We may not speak to erring
men, as if we were not also liable to err. We may not speak
to sinful men, we may not say to them, “sinner! sinner l’’
in a stern tone, as if we forgot that we also are sinners.-
This pulpit, raised and railed around, for the convenience
of speaking, should never make us forget that we stand,
17
weak and erring brethren, amidst brethren erring and weak;
to sympathize with them, to Sorrow with them, to seek with
them after truth, purity and happiness, to respond to the
sighs of poor, struggling humanity around us, to feel upon our
cheek the breath of inſant prayers, to bear up the burthen
of common want and guilt and grief, to the throne of grace.
Nor indeed did our Master forget all this, save in the two
respects beforementioned, that he was faultless and infallible.
But while there are respects in which we may not dare
to imitate Jesus as a preacher, there are respects in which
the mission of Christ and his ministers is common. Their
mission to the human heart is common. And it is precisely
in that trait of his instruction, which embodied its chief
power, that the imitation of him is open to us.
Not, of course, that we can expect to equal him. Never
man spake as he spake, and I think man never will. But
if his power as a preacher, lay in his simple, faithful, close
reasonings with the heart, then may we not study him—and
may we not strive to imitate him : This specific qualifica-
tion presupposed, this habit of penetrating into the deepest
motives and interests of human nature; and I say that truth
in our hands, would never be powerless nor uninteresting.
With this deep experience of the truth in our own minds,
though possessed neither of genius, nor learning, nor elegance,
nor fluency, we should preach in demonstration of the spirit
and with power. For, the human heart is still the same, its
wants and sorrows and sins are still the same, and he who
truly speaks to these, will not speak in vain.
I assert, then, that there are truths in religion that would
move all hearts, ay, and the bad as well as the good, if we
only clearly saw and clearly presented them. Man, how-
ever irreligious, is still a rational being—as much so, as when
Jesus spoke to him, with his words of astonishing power.
That is to say, man is a being who is and must be affected
by motives. And the centre and circumference, the strength
3
18
and expansion of all rational motives, is TRUTH. It was the
specific character of the preaching of Jesus, that it made men
perceive the truth. And it is, in fact, a want of the per-
ception of truth, that lies at the foundation of all religious
indifference. Not of all wickedness—I do not say that ;
but of all indifference. The truth, however clearly per-
ceived, might not move a man to be good; it might move
him only to the hatred of it; but, I say, that the truth, if
clearly perceived, would move him; and that he can no
more help experiencing this effect, than he can help his
being a rational creature. Such, my brethren, are the sol-
emn attributes of human nature. Such is the strong moral
necessity, that is impressed upon it by the hand of God.
It was in the strength of that moral necessity that the
preaching of Jesus was powerful. And weak as I am, or
as you are, in the comparison, yet there never was an
audience of human beings which I should not boldly con-
front—no, nor ever could be, though it were gathered from
the regions of perdition—which I should not boldly confront,
in this simple assurance, that if I could tell them the truth,
in clear and exact application to their moral condition, they
would be moved in the very deepest springs of their nature.
The great Teacher never addressed a dull assembly. No
soul ever slept under his piercing instructions. If his hear-
ers were not made better by his teachings, yet they felt
those teachings, though they were delivered with the utmost
calmness and sobriety. Those hearers were moved, if not
converted; they gnashed on him with their teeth, for his
fidelity to the truth. They, at length, put him to death,
because he told them the truth. -
But what is this all-powerful truth, some one may say ?
Ah! my brethren, that is precisely what we do not yet
understand. There are deeper things in the human heart,
there are deeper things in human life, than we are wont to
suppose. There are feelings of the heart that do not lie on
19
the surface of human actions; feelings that are shut up by
many in close reserve; feelings that are never uttered,
though they spring up within at the call of many occasions—
though they often swell the heart and fill the eye in secret,
yet never uttered; there are feelings of want, and fear, and
anxiety, and despondency, and sorrow, and unworthiness,
and guilt; emotions, not the offspring of worldly conditions,
not creatures of earth, not bound to the clods of earth, not
bound up in the senses, but all spiritual, vast, solemn; there
are such things—there is a world of such things in the dark
and brooding chaos of human experience—oh blindness of
a dull and sensual generation! when shall we find it—when
shall we understand that world within, and address our-
selves to it, even as the master of science applies himself to
scan the secrets of nature ?
I do not think, my friends, that any thing is, in its truest
and most intimate character, what it is in its first and most
obvious aspects. I'do not think that any thing in the world
is superficial. Labor is not mere labor, and business is not
mere business, and life is not mere life; there are deeper
springs in them all than are wont to appear. I know that
some will tell you, and some who may seem to be very
sagacious, but I must think, very cynical observers, that
there is no depth of sentiment, no far-reaching thought,
among the mass of mankind; that they are all slaves of toil,
or creatures of mere condition. But I cannot believe so. I
distrust these observers, because they seem to me, most
unreasonable and arrogant observers. The denouncers of
their kind, whether philosophical or sentimental, consider
themselves doubtless as exceptions to their sweeping censure;
every tone of their scorn and satire shows that; and, I say,
that this very assumption is enough to refute the cruel
judgment they pronounce. True philosophy sees deeper
things; true poetry sees deeper things; and why shall not
20
true religion see deeper things, than lie upon the surface 2
The most ordinary and obvious things in life bear other
characters than that of being ordinary and obvious. When
I hear of such things as preying dulness, joyless indulgence,
sickening mirth, and sad laughter—what I say, is this,
dulness alone? Is this, indulgence alone Is this, mirth, is
this laughter alone No, there are revealed to me other
things—a nature which sin cannot satisfy, which pleasure
cannot satisfy; a want which the world cannot satisfy; and
the trouble—I have seen it in the averted eye, I have seen
it in the quivering lip—the trouble of a guilty conscience.
Ah! frail, erring, sinning, but also, sensitive, suffering,
wrestling human nature | What evidence of the mighty
power of God in thee—of that power that set in the dark
foundations of the earth its unchangeable laws—what evi-
dence of the mighty power of God in thee, when deep em-
bosomed amidst sins, and follies, and vanities; when amidst
all that can derange and pervert, and overburthen and crush
the mighty moral law of God in thee, still that uncontrolable
energy stirs, and struggles, and heaves in the dark places of
the soul, even as the earthquake heaves, and shakes the
great world. Fear not, my Brethren in the sacred office
fear not, my young friend, now to be set apart to this office
—fear not to meet this human nature, though its bosom were
mailed over with a thousand folds and fastenings of sin and
scorn and presumption. Truth is mighty, not in some
vague and general sense, but it is mighty with the human
heart, and will prevail. Tell me not, thou who art devoted,
this day, to a good and glorious work! tell me not of thy
youthful and modest fear. Speak but some simple word,
unfolded from the deep bosom of thine own experience, and
God will open the way for it to some other experience, deep
and dear as thine own. -
Pardon me, my brethren in office, that I should speak to
21
you, to whom it is meet that I should listen. Let me take
you to witness rather. Do we not know, with such medita-
tions on life, as we are wont to engage in, that there are
deeper things in life, than those which lie, in the sight of all
men, upon its surface
Both the virtues and vices of life lie deeper; and let me
add, that the description of virtues and vices constitutes a
part of the truth that we are to preach.
The multitude passes before us, and there may be little in
the countenance or manner, or even in the ordinary course
of visible actions, morally to distinguish one individual from
another. With the exception of notorious instances, the
routine of business is the same with all ; the same civilities
of society are paid by all ; and all perhaps bestow the same
charities; all, in fine, are decent and decorous ; amiable in
appearance, correct in deportment.
But beneath this exterior of life, how much is passing in
the breast of a good man, which the world never sees How
many silent prayers for heavenly aid, how many secret ejac-
ulations of thanksgiving, how many swelling emotions pour
their full tide through the hidden channels of the soul, when
he stands amidst the mercies of life and the fair visions of
nature, how many blessings, breathed, but not uttered, upon
the lovely, the excellent and wise ; what strugglings too,
against evil thoughts, what earnest moral reasonings, what
deep humiliations, “what carefulness, yea, what indignation,
yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what re-
venge l’ All these things belong to “the hidden man of the
heart;” the world knows not of them.
So it is with the bad man. The bad man—where is he
You mark him not in the ordinary paths of life, Look at that
man, whom you know to be a bad man. His garb is like
that of other men. His demeanor is decorous. He is con-
versing; but there is nothing extraordinary in his manner,
22
or speech, or in the expressions of his countenance—nothing
to show the demon that he is. His cheek, perhaps, is fair;
his brow is open ; his eye is clear and calm. “Nay, but
stop !” you say, “I saw a glance of the eye then, as if it
were of a wild animal looking out from its dark cavern!”—
Nay, I saw it not. Well, it is past. All is smooth, again;
all is bland and amiable; and yet that man, perhaps, is
meditating fraud, revenge, seduction, or even murder!
And therefore, I cannot altogether agree with that popular
maxim, that says, we are to judge of a man’s character by
his life, meaning by his life, that is to say, his outward con-
duct. By his life considered as embracing every thing
secret, every indirect manifestation, every nicely defined
trait of manner, every delicate discrimination of action, we
might indeed. But there are a thousand every-day actions,
a thousand civilities, a thousand forms of speech, that may
proceed from totally different and opposite motives, which
the good and bad alike may use, which therefore discriminate
neither. When actions are set forth in the Scripture as the
tests of character, we shall find, I believe, that they are set
forth, not as the absolute and only tests, but rather in
contradistinction to professions. “By their fruits, says our
Saviour, ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto
me, Lord, Lord, but he that doeth the will of my Father
who is in heaven.” And the doing of that will, we must
add, embraces motives. And motives lie, oftentimes, deep
in the heart. And especially has it been the effect of all
the forms of civilization yet seen in the world, to produce
concealment of motives. And yet more is this liable to be
true, in a country like ours, where public opinion presses
down upon every man, with a mighty and almost despotic
force. The danger here is extreme, that whatever in virtu-
ous conduct, whatever in religious action or enterprise,
has the sanction of public opinion, will obtain the homage
23
of visible acquiescenee, without obtaining the homage of
the heart.
It is therefore emphatically true, that he who would preach
religion must preach to the motives. And I cannot there-
ore account that the only, nor the most practical preach-
ing, which is occupied with visible virtues, such as honesty,
temperance and alms-giving, or with the outward actions of
life. All this is, doubtless, very well in its place; but it is
not exclusively nor eminently practical. That is most prac-
tical which touches, not actions, but the springs of action;
and the springs of action, are the motives, sentiments, views,
that govern it. He who can take hold of any great senti-
ment of human nature, or of human life, though he may
seem to discourse very abstractly or very transcendentally,
has the power to touch not only human life and experience,
but the very power that moves them. He is not telling the
people precisely what to do, and therefore many may not
think that he is practical, but what is better, and more prac-
tical, he is telling them that which arouses and impels them
to do something.
Let me now endeavor, in close, to bring the few remarks
which I have offered to you on the preaching of our Saviour,
and on the foundation there still is in human nature for the
imitation of it, to some closer application to the objects of
the present occasion—to some closer application, that is to
say, to religious congregations and to the preaching of religion.
And first to religious Congregations, The grand theme of
complaint against our Congregations, and all similar bodies
every where, is, that they are cold and indifferent in the
matters of religion. I shall not attempt to gainsay the
charge; it is too true. And yet, Brethren, I suspect that
there is something superficial in the views, upon which this
charge is oftentimes brought. We are a people, cold in
manner. How much social warmth and kindness are there,
24
that are never expressed And a stranger, a mere traveller,
may pronounce us, and very honestly pronounce us to be a
cold-hearted people. May not the same thing, to a certain
extent, be true, in regard to religion? May it not be, because
we are strangers to the secret workings of the religious prin-
ciple among us, that we so confidently and currently bring
the charge of utter coldness against our religious societies.
I confess, it seems to me the more lamentable case of multi-
tudes around us, that the many feelings they have about
religion are brought to so little practical account. They
feel enough, oftentimes, but alas ! they do not wisely culti-
vate those feelings, and nurse them into principles. They
feel enough oftentimes, but they will not confess, they will
not recognize to themselves, what they do feel. They are
afraid to commit themselves, as it were, with their own
consciences; they are afraid, that they shall seem to profess
something. They feel as if religion were a thing so peculiar,
so shut up in professions and rites, or in certain persons and
certain manners, that they have no business to claim any
interest in it.
But are there not feelings among us? How often is it
found, that some person, commonly supposed to be devoid
of all seriousness, to be altogether frivolous, altogether a
heartless votary of this world’s fashions and vanities, will
discover, in an intimate and frank conversation, a degree of
reflection and solicitude, that equally astonish and delight
the inquirer How seldom will he fail, who has the talent—
how rare a talent!—to go not from house to house only, but
from heart to heart—how seldom will he fail to discover in
every mind that will unfold itself, traces of deep spiritual
anxieties |
Are there not feelings among us? Do you not feel, my
friend, whosoever you are to whom I speak? How, I was
ready to say, can you help it! From whence, when ye
25
gather yourselves to the holy assembly, from whence have
ye come 2 Ye have come from scenes of this world's business
and toil. Are there not questionings there, about honesty,
and rectitude, and generosity, and charity too? These,
then, are questionings about religion. Does not the thought
of death sometimes come across your minds in those scenes
—the thought of that hour, when accumulation will end,
and labor will sink to its last rest; when all your acquisitions
will be left behind, and all the care and toil of life will be but
a dream of the past? But from whence have ye come 2
Ye have come perhaps, from joyous society, from gay as-
semblies. Did the sight of fair and glad youth, did the
thrilling tones of music, never touch your hearts with grati-
tude? And, did no darker thought ever enter your mind,
when others were noticed, and you were neglected; when
others shone, and you were in the shade 2 Did you never
find that the scene of gaiety had become to you the scene
of a moral struggle, serious, ay, and bitter, as ever passed in
the hovel of neglected and pining indigence 2 How many
have retired from such scenes, and shut themselves up in
convents, because they found the moral struggle of social
gaiety, too hard for them | But from whence, I ask again,
have ye come 2 Ye have come from your homes. God bless
them 1 and they need his blessing, Poor homes, or rich
homes they may be ; sad homes, or joyous homes; health
may be there, or sickness may be there, pressing hardly,
and you may almost feel as if it were cruelly, upon some
beloved one—ah! do not the thoughts of religion come
there then 2–thoughts of patience and piety —or swelling
thoughts, which patience and piety can hardly tame down
Or ye have come, perhaps, from the circle of the bright
faces of your children, and though to a stranger's eye, all
may seem to be bright in that circle and nothing but bright,
you know that lowering brows are sometimes there, and
26
sullen looks, and passionate words—you know that in the
bosom of childhood, and in your own bosoms too, is carried
on, every day, a keen moral strife; that questions of right
and wrong, of injury and retaliation and forgiveness are every
day to be settled in that little empire, home.
And knowing all this, and all that life is, living amidst the
strife of business and beneath the pressure of toil, moving in
the jostling throng of society, dwelling in the homes of affec-
tion and fear and anxiety and want, tell me not, that religion
is nothing to you. I care not, for the purposes of this argu-
ment, whether you are a christian or an infidel. Sit down
with me, and look quietly into the heart, into the secret and
silent dwelling places of the affections; lay aside those su-
perficial views of things in which skepticism and worldliness
find all their strength; look beneath the surface, to the seats
of real conviction and wrestling passion, and then tell me,
if you honestly can, that the question of being right or of
being wrong, of doing good or of doing evil, is a question of
pure indifference to you. It is not. You know that it is
not. You may wear down your faculties to utter exhaust-
ion, in the attempt to prove this; and you cannot prove it—
you cannot feel it. A curious machinery is this of human
nature —is it not 2–when seventy years, employed only to
derange and pervert it, to pull out its levers and to break
its wheels, cannot prevent it from producing that great
moral result, that great conviction. A curious machinery, is
it? Why do you not feel that it is awful, as if it produced
the lightning and formed the thunder And why, oh! why
is it, but for the mercy of God, that he who has laid his
hand upon it millions of times, for many a year, only to per-
vert it, is not struck dead, with that presumptuous touch
But I must turn from considering that pervading sense of
religion, which is too slight and inconstant, indeed; but to
which he who knew what was in man appealed, and to
27
which we as preachers must appeal,—I must turn a moment
to that preaching of it which is designed to make the sense
of it deeper and more permanent.
And what is this preaching? I answer, it is first of all, a
preaching of truth, of moral, spiritual truth. It is not a
preaching of ſancies, puerilities, vagaries, subtleties, like
those of the Scribes, or of mere scholastic theologues. It is
not preaching about the matter, and about it, with however
many an ingenious turn of thought, or graceful variety of
phrase; but it is preaching the truth itself, the main truth,
the truth on which piety and happiness depend.
I answer again, that it is not enough to preach that which
is true, though it be the deepest and most spiritual truth;
but it is preaching it, in a certain order and with certain ap-
plications, accordant with truth. The order is the order of
reasoning; the application is to human experience. Our
Saviour’s discourses consisted of the closest reasonings as
well as the most pointed applications.
The order then, is the order of reasoning. There are
sermons, and long ones, and full of truths, which after all
have no instruction in them. A man may begin at the
creation, and come down through all the dispensations, and
tell all that he ever thought about religion, and yet teach
nothing; because there is, in his whole discourse, no con-
nection nor dependency of thought. In all right preaching
there must be right reasoning. Be the discourse extempo-
raneous or written, it must possess this trait, or it is good for
nothing. The greatest defect in the pulpit now, is not, after
all, its want of sensibility, but its vagueness, its indefiniteness,
its want of reasonableness, and truth, and penetration.
There are in preaching, two ways of making an impression.
The one is, by clear discrimination, and the other is, by the
contagious influence of sensibility. They ought doubtless
to be united ; but I think they are often separated, and I
28
fear too, that the popular preference is given to the latter.
I say that I fear it; because I cannot help asking, of what
use is it to me to be moved, unless I understand distinctly
the grounds on which I am moved? I might sit without the
range of the preacher's voice, and be very much and very
naturally excited by a mere pantomimic exhibition of feeling;
I might be moved even to tears by the tears of another in
such circumstances, and yet of what use would it be to me?
'It is from this cause, partly, that impressions made at church
are so transient. They have not laid their foundations in
the reason and conscience, but are spread upon the unstable
waters of emotion. Emotion is good; it is very good; and
yet, it is good for nothing, unless it is the offspring of
thought. “Sanctify them, through thy truth,” is a solemn
‘prayer, which should pervade all our preparations for the
pulpit.
I had intended to give myself larger space for this topic,
but I must leave it to say in the next place, in accordance
with the leading views of preaching presented in this dis-
course, that there must be an application of truth to human
experience.
It is only from the want of a discernment of the truth in
application to himself, that any man is able to contemplate it
negligently, to feel it slightly, or, I may add, to preach it
coldly. There are interests in human nature and human
life, if we could but get at them, which could not be dis-
cussed though ever so coldly, without being deeply felt. It
is as if you stood with your neighbor on the soil that covered
a mine of gold. You might talk with him, and you might
talk very ingeniously and learnedly about that surface of
soil, and he would, perhaps, scarcely give heed to you. But
strike down with your measuring rod, or take the wand
of the spiritual enchanter, and convince him that there is a
treasure beneath his feet, and then you may talk as coolly
$29
as you please, you'may-discourse as coldly as ever did math-
ematical lecturer from his chair, you may announce your
views in the weriest abstractions of arithmetic, and they shall
be eloquent as the speech of Demosthenes. The eloquence
of Demosthenes itself, consisted in nothing so characteristic,
as a plain and penetrating disclosure of the interests, which
the Athenians had at stake in the affairs of the Common-
wealth. I do not believe, it ever called forth a tear, or cost
the orator a tear; but it laid hold upon attention, it struck
the heart, it did the work of eloquence. I do not object to
any proper demonstration of feeling. And there are things
which we may well tell, as the Apostle did, even weeping.
And there are tears of religious joy and gratitude, too, as
well as of sorrow. But in the very torrent and tempest of
passion, let there ever be a temperance that shall give it
‘smoothness, a sobriety that shall give it reasonableness, and
a truth that shall give it power.
I have only one word more to say, and that also I beg
leave to offer for the consideration of my clerical brethren,
and especially of my youngbrother who is now to be inducted
into the sacred office. Self study is the secret of preaching.
The philosophy of our religion, like all true philosophy, is
the philosophy of experimenting. Nothing which is not
revolved in the bosom of our own experience, can ever be
true. It is not merely, not interesting nor affecting; it is
not true ; it is not true to ourselves ; it is not true to others.
Truth is an element of mind. It must be a part of our-
selves, or it is nothing. We must speak of the love of God,
and of the faith in Christ, and of penitence and of humility,
and of disinterested and self-denying philanthropy, as those
who have felt them, or we shall speak in vain. We must
feel our own soul’s want, burthen, trial, and have felt how
full and sweet are the supports and reliefs of God’s mercy to
ourselves, before we shall understand the boundless and
30
beautiful applications of religion to all human hearts. The
religion that we preach must be in us. From the toiling
brain and from the beating heart, from the springs of original
meditation, and from the fountains of tears, must every
sermon be drawn, or it will do no good; or none but a nega-
tive good. Our imaginations may ascend to heaven to bring
Christ down; or descend into the earth, to bring Christ
back; but in vain. Unless Christ be formed within us, we
understand not Christianity, nor how to preach it. May
God make us such preachers 1 May God give you, my
brethren, such a minister | And may God bless you in him,
and him in you ! I am sure I need not say, that I rejoice in
your prosperity and in your prospects. I feel, indeed, that
with reference to my interest in your welfare, I need say
nothing. If a ten year's mutual and harmonious acquaint-
ance had left any place for formal declarations, it would be
a place, I am sure, which no formal declarations could sup-
ply. On the other hand, it is the greatest happiness of my
professional life, that I may believe that this sentiment is
reciprocated on your part. I trust our friendship will con-
tinue, though the visible tie be broken. May it be one of
those friendships—and such be that which this day ratifies—
which shall last when these heavens have passed away !
Amen God grant it !
C H A R G E.
BY R. E. W. F. W. P. G. RE EN WOO D.
C H A R G E.
My Christian Brother, Your connexion with a Christian
church, as their pastor and teacher, is publicly sanc-
tioned. Your brethren have implored the blessing of
God on the connexion. In their name I now stand up to
charge you, that you perform your part of the engagement
with care and faithfulness, as a true servant of Christ, our
common Master. I speak to you with such feelings only,
as those with which a brother might speak to a younger
brother in the flesh, who is about to enter on a course of
duty and labor, in which the former had been permitted to
gain some experience;—and such feelings can only be those
of a sincere, strong, and tender interest. I speak to you
with such authority only, as that which may belong to a
venerable custom, that which always accompanies love un-
feigned, and that which may be given to my words by their
conformity to the Word of God, which is eternal truth.
Could I desire, or could I have a better authority?
I have said that I speak to you, as a brother might ad-
dress a younger brother, about to enter on a course of
duty and labor. I know of no duty more sacred and im-
portant, and no labor more arduous, than the duty and labor
of a Christian minister. Let the office which you have un-
dertaken to fulfil, as the minister of this society, be viewed
in sober simplicity, which is the only light in which Ishould
care to have it viewed, as an office of peculiar spiritual in-
5
34
struction, guidance and consolation, and there will be no
danger of over estimating its importance and value. I
therefore charge you, my brother, reverence your office.—
Reverence your office. Think highly of its claims, its dig-
nity, its holiness. Unless you do this, you cannot discharge
it worthily.
But you will not suppose, that by charging you thus, I
mean that you should be jealous of personal respect, or
troubled at any little slight which may be offered you, or
anxious for external place and precedence among men. I
certainly mean no such thing. Study to be wholly inde-
pendent of these small matters. But let your exalted
regards of the objects of the Gospel ministry, stimulate you
to a diligent accomplishment of them, and the respect of
men will follow of course—and such respect as will be worth
your having. Reverence your office.
Let me touch briefly on two points in which you may
most profitably manifest your reverence for the office of a
Christian teacher. I select those which bring you most
frequently and generally into contact not only with the
people of your charge, but with your fellow-men. I begin
with the place where we stand—the pulpit. I exhort you,
I beseech you, make it your especial care. Prepare your-
self well for its duties. Think and meditate, read, observe,
and feel, for the pulpit. Put your best, whole thoughts, and
not their mere ends and revellings into your sermons. Strive
to be interesting. Avoid dulness, as you would avoid sin.
Be not extravagant, however, Stand up high above affec-
tation. Desire not to be startling or amusing. But strive
to be interesting. Strive to engage the attention of your
hearers. Excite and aid their reflections. Take hold of
their sympathies. Persuade their understandings. Rouse
their affections—their deepest, gentlest, holiest, best affec-
tions. Try to enlist their reason and their feelings, in every
35
discourse which you preach, on the side of piety, virtue,
religion—in the service of Christ, and of God. Strive to
do this with the voluntary, the warm and natural strivings of
your own mind and your own heart. It should be a free
and unforced labor; but it can never be an easy work.
It will not do, in these times, to slight the services of the
pulpit, or to regard them in any other light than as calling
for the heartiest efforts which a minister can make. People
do not go to church now, so much as they used to, as a
matter of duty. I regret this, because public worship is a
duty, a great and serious duty, which ought to be regularly
performed, in the face of minor grievances. But the fact is,
that our people do not attend church so regularly and gene-
rally, fair weather or ſoul, sleeping or waking, as did their
fathers. If they do not expect to be interested at church,
many will stay away. And they who go, if they are not
interested, if they are neither affected nor instructed, will be
offended. They may think it a duty to go to church, but
it will not be a pleasant duty. It will be a task. In the
minds of both these classes, those who stay away and those
who go, religion will be made to suffer, by a want of interest
in the performances of the minister. I look upon it as one
great cause of religious indifference, that religion is often
presented in such an uninteresting manner from our pulpits.
People whose religious motives and principles are not very
clear or well fixed, are told of the pleasure of public wor-
ship and the beauty of God’s sanctuary, and the riches and
profit of his word, and they go and find neither pleasure,
beauty, riches nor profit, but weariness, emptiness, dulness;
and what wonder is it if religion suffers in their minds?
Strive to be interesting. Preach so that your audience can-
not help listening, or at least so that they will be rewarded,
if they take pains to listen.
You can hardly fail of being interesting, if you are yourself
36
interested. If, when you are preparing your discourse, you
are interested in its subject, and when you are preaching it,
are interested in its effect, then will your preaching be inter-
esting and effective. Go to your own heart for rules of
preaching—to your own heart and your own experience.
For the subjects of your discourses, I need not say, go to the
Bible. You have gone there. You know what a store-
house of spiritual wealth, what a fountain of truth and power
it is. Preach the simple truth, and preach it from your heart,
and simple though it be, it will be powerful. Preach man’s
wants and God’s mercies. Preach redemption. Preach
eternity. Preach Christ, and him faithful, him true, him
crucified.
I have not dwelt thus earnestly on the importanee of
preaching, because I undervalue the importance of other
ministerial offices and duties. I am deeply sensible of the
importance of them all. But I have confined myself to
speak on two points only, and those which bring a minister
oftenest into relation with all his people, and with the com-
munity. Twice every week at least, he comes with religion
in his hand before his whole people, or before some other
religious congregation. He must take care that the great
cause do not, in those frequently recurring occasions, suffer
in his hands.
On the other point I must express myself yet more briefly.
A minister is brought before frequent and general observa-
tion by his manners. He is connected in various ways with
society. He passes before many eyes. It particularly
behooves him to be circumspect in his demeanor. A small
indiscretion may work great harm. It is scarcely worth
while to inquire whether the community is right in looking
for more than ordinary propriety of deportment in the min-
ister of religion. It is enough that it is so. I believe that it
should be so; and that the minister should conduct himself
37
accordingly. Youth is exposed to considerable danger in
this respect. It is much to require from it, in any profession,
the prudence of maturity. But the grave duties of our pro-
ſession are continually presenting reasons and motives and
helps to prudence, and they will exert an influence, if their
seasonable monitions are duly heeded. It is unpleasant to
see levity in a teacher of religion, even though he be young.
None of us can remember it in any part of his own former
conduct, without regret, even though the instances of it may
be pardoned and forgotten by others. Be not, nor affect to
be, austere, rigid, gloomy, Fear not to be cheerful, to be
amiable, to be happy. But yet let your general bearing be
that of decent gravity. Reflect in your manners the spirit of
the religion you preach. That spirit is cheerful, but not
light; amiable, but not frivolous; happy, but not gay.—
Respect yourself, and you will be respected. Reverence
your office by a faithful discharge of its duties, and by a
conformable outward deportment, and you may be sure it
will be reverenced, at least by all the good, by all the well-
disposed.
Love your people, and they will love you, Serve God
faithfully, and he will surely and abundantly reward you.
Follow Christ affectionately, and he will receive you and
crown you. And may the blessing of God and the grace of
Christ be with you alway.
RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIP.
BY REV, CHANDLER R O B BIN S.
RIGHT HAND OF FELLOWSHIP.
IT affords me no little gratification, my brother and my
friend, that, as the organ of these assembled Churches, it
devolves upon me as a duty, thus publicly to express that
fraternal interest, and those affectionate wishes, which, to-
wards one whom I have so long and so pleasantly known,
it is my happiness in private most sincerely to feel.
It is not yet so long time, since my own bosom was heav-
ing under the influence of the same mingled and powerful
emotions, which—if I know your heart—are swayiugit now;
it is not yet so long since the day of my own ordination,
nor are the feelings of that occasion so transient in their im-
pression, that I can forget to-day how to sympathize, fully and
deeply with you. With no great effort my mind transports me
back a little space, and places me close at your side. I can
perceive how the future appears to you. The great outlines
of that dim prospect which occupies your forereaching vis-
ion, rush up afresh to my own recollection. I can see you,
I can feel you enveloped in the shadows of those great
duties, and indefinable difficulties, and lofty satisfactions,
which are soon to become realities. I seem to be again pre-
paring to enter with you into that rising cloud, somewhere
dark, yet gilded with many bright streaks of promise, which
to-day seems overshadowing your forward path. But, my
brother, I come back—though it is but from a day's journey
in advance—I come back, out of that future, from within
6
42
that cloud; come back with intelligence for you. It is the
best and the kindest that, in the relation in which we stand
to each other, a friend can give a friend.
Do not look with too troubled foreboding upon those dark
specks. They appear in the distance blacker than they are.
In the anxiety of your anticipation, they are more appalling
than you will find them to be in the day of their power. For,
your fears, believe me, are far less than will be your strength.
He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will sanctify
difficulties to you, and nerve you for trials as they come.—
And the thickest darkness may be the pavilion of the mercy
seat—and when it shall have rolled over your head, will
open before the eye of the spirit that searcheth the deep
things of God, and disclose to yourself the radiance of a
Father's smile beaming full upon your heart.
And do not look with too much confidence upon those
bright streaks. We know not from the prospect, what shall
be truly happy in the possession. We know not if the fair
promise of the future shall be realized in joy, till it has come,
and proved itself presently good—till it has passed, and left
an impress of heaven upon our hearts. The gay coloring
of hope, may be as delusive and dangerous as the darker
shading of fear. Nay, even more is it to be dreaded; for it
may gild our forward path with the brilliancy of false light,
which shall tempt us away from intense searching after the
only true glory and beauty, that which shineth from the
Fountain of light; and breaks upon us, and becomes a part,
and the ornament and the happiness of our lives, only while
we are toiling for it, as for the diamond in the mine, and
purifying the heart to reflect it, and trusting in God alone to
shed it down upon us.
Come forward, then, my brother, hail—welcome—into
your future—to the future of a devoted teacher of truth, of
a faithful exemplar of a blameless life—of a devoted disciple
43
of the Redeemer of the world. Come with chastened hope—
come, with lightened fear—come, seeking all from God—
come, trusting all to God—come, and find all in God.
But not alone the great outlines of your prospects, 1 see,
but your wants—deep, in this hour of your solemn under-
taking—your wants—are understood and felt. And do I
not exhaust them all, in naming sufficiency of inspiration
from the Fount of Perfection, and sympathy from the broth-
erhood of the faithful.
For the first, my brother, I need not point you to the
luxury of prayer. You cannot but have tasted and improved
it to-day. And I doubt not that the answering spirit of the
Holiest is hovering over you now.
And for human sympathy—it is my happiness to assure
you that your yearning is not in vain. 'Tis not a mere form;
I do not feel it to be a form—that which the representatives
of these assembled churches have assigned me as a duty—I
am sure that the warm hearts of all, are one with my own,
which is sincere and full in this fraternal grasp. Accept
then, from all the brethren—unreserved and true, this Right
Hand of Christian Fellowship. Receive it, as a pledge
of our interest, our cooperation, and our constancy of love.
Receive it, as a token of our cordial welcome to the fellow-
ship of all that is holy, elevated, arduous, and happy in our
venerated profession. Return it as a mutual bond, that on
your part you will be true to the free and life-giving princi-
ples which we regard you as having this day devoted your
life to defend, to act out, and to spread. Return it as an
assurance that we shall ever find in you a faithful brother
and friend in Christ Jesus—one with whom at all times hand
can join in hand as we go forward in the steps and the spirit
of the Master, bearing along the consecrated cross, and
mounting upward rejoicing, towards the inheritance of his
heavenly crown.
44
And now, my brother, one more wish, one more prayer,
together, and I have done. That life, which heretofore has
been so much enjoyed by your early friends, they resign to
day, at the call of God, to those whom henceforth you are
bound to love, and in whose service you are to spendiand be
spent. May they prove to you as affectionate, as forgiving,
and as faithful, as those from whom they have taken you
away. And may the dews of heaven, while you sleep, and
when you wake, drop down abundantly upon this field of
your care, so that you may look out upon it, and your heart
be refreshed and enlarged, as you see it thickly spread over
with all that is beautiful, and holy, and lovely in the graces.
that bloom in the garden that the Lord hath blessed;
ADDRESS TO THE SOCIETY.
BY R. E. W. C.A.L.E.B STET'S ON.
A DDRESS TO THE SOCIET Y.
It is not uncommon for a Society to receive the minister
of their choice with something of an exaggerated feeling.
Qualities, which lie perhaps on the surface of his character,
have won him present favor, and excited expectation that
the deep and hidden resources of the inward man will con-
tinue to unfold themselves in yet higher manifestations of
excellence and power. But little is yet known of him, and
from that little, groundless hopes have been raised, only to
end in an equally groundless disappointment. Hence the
first year or two of his ministry is a season of peculiar trial.
The enthusiasm of his people has cooled down. Whatever
was extravagant in their estimate of him has been corrected
by more dispassionate and longer observation. Having set-
tled down into their natural state of mind, they pass from
admirers to critics, and from critics they may easily become
cavillers.
Thus without any fault of his own, a young minister is in
danger of sinking too low in the estimation of his society,
merely because he has not done, what never ought to have
been expected of him. He has not changed; but their
feelings have changed—and he appears different to them be-
cause he is seen from a different point of view. He has been
long enough with them to dispel illusions; but not long enough
to obtain a strong hold on their affections. His experience
has been enough to bring him into the severest labors and diffi-
48
culties of his profession, but not enough to carry him
smoothly through them. In short, he has been a minister
long enough to have made mistakes, but not long enough to
have profited by them as he yet may. In many cases, dis-
satisfaction with a clergyman has risen very high, before he
has become familiar with duties, which the longest life is
not too long to learn.
In entering upon this scene of arduous duty, and perilous
trial, your pastor has received a solemn charge to bear him-
self as “a good minister of Jesus Christ.” But this inter-
esting relation implies mutual obligations. Allow me re-
spectfully to remind you that if he has duties to you, you
also have duties to him. The blessings which are expected
to flow from his ministry, depend not more upon his fidelity
than upon your kindness, sympathy and faith.
Receive your minister, then, kindly. Treat him with
respect. Listen to him with candor. Be moderate in your
claims. I speak not thus from any doubt of the disposition
or ability of my friend and brother to satisfy all reasonable
expectations; and I have too much confidence in you to
fear that you will entertain any other. Him I have known
long and intimately. I have watched his progress with the
deepest interest. I have rejoiced in the unfolding of talents
and virtues which give promise of distinguished excellence.
He is however but a man, a young man ; and I cannot but
feel that it requires no ordinary powers to minister wisely
and well to a society like this. Your late pastor, “whose
praise is in all the churches,” is still fresh in your remem-
brance and affection. Of his eminent qualities, his presence
forbids me to speak as I would. It is enough to say that the
ablest successor may well come with diffidence into such a
man's place. -
If you feel kindly towards your minister, you will respect
his independence. You will not wish him to conform him-
49
self to any idea of excellence preexisting in your minds. If
he is to succeed well at all, it must be by the exercise of
his own judgment, taste and feeling. He must never forget
that “one is his Master, even Christ.” He must strive
conscientiously to fulfil his ministry, “not as pleasing men,
but as pleasing God.” He may have truths to utter, un-
welcome to your ears. Hear and judge—spare not to
condemn yourselves, when truth condemns you. He comes
to you in his youth, to grow into strength and excellence
by the unfolding of his powers and affections. Let them
be free to unfold themselves according to the tendencies of
his individual nature, that he may be a sincere, manly, nat-
ural character. There are many ways in which a parish
may interfere with their minister's natural developement and
mode of action. They may have a bigotted attachment to
a specific style of ministerial character, and he is expected to
mould himself to it without regard to his individual habits
and temperament. It sometimes requires a good deal of
candor and virtue in a people to divest themselves of this
exclusive notion of excellence, so far as to be able, to do
justice to excellence of another kind.
If the minister is not strong enough to resist an outward
pressure like this, he will endeavor to satisfy his people, by
conforming himself to their wishes too anxiously. But he
will do it ill at best; and he will do it at the expense of
truth and nature. He will be false to them and false to
himself. He can never become what God designed him to
be, by such a servile course. He will lose his simplicity and
his originality—his growth will be mean and dwarfish, unless
it is the free and natural developement of his inner man.
Following impulses which originate without himself, and
stifling the generous promptings of his own spirit, he will
reach nothing better than a barren imitation of some living
or ideal model. If the manifestations of his mind are re-
7
50
strained to forms prescribed by external influence, truth will
come from him, not as truth in its freshness and power;
because it has not taken the coloring and pressure of his
thoughts, by being reproduced in his own mind. Noth-
ing excellent can be expected, if all that is natural and
spontaneous must be displaced by what is artificial. His
virtue will degenerate into prudence, his seriousness into
cant. There will be the “form of godliness without the
power thereof.” His christian graces will be feeble and
poor, because they have no root in the natural affections of
his heart. If there is in a man any thing of living power or
enduring interest, it must be through his individuality; there
alone can he be original or strong.
No man ever ought to preach or act like another. How-
ever good the original may be, the copy must be bad; for it
wants life and nature. Whatever is estimable in the official
character must be spontaneous, savoring of the peculiarity of
the individual. You have a deep interest in the growth of
your minister's talents and virtues. Let them grow freely.
Do not expect him to walk in ſetters. Do not require him
to conform himself to a specific idea. The blossoms of his
mind must have no rough handling, if you would have good
fruit and abundant. Let them have their natural growth.
You may check it, but you cannot mend it by interference.
There is danger of too much restraint as to the subjects
and style of preaching. Every man has peculiar modes of
intellectual manifestation, in which he can exert more power
than in any other way. The richest veins of thought and
the manner of working them, must be discovered by himself,
and it will not do to be intolerant of his experiments in the
search after truth. He ought to be indulged with a good
deal of latitude in the choice and treatment of subjects for
the pulpit. If the demand for what is called practical
preaching is so loud, that he feels obliged to confine himself
51
to certain modes of thought, and abandon others more con-
genial with his nature, he will be a poor preacher and an
ordinary man. He will never sound the depths of the
divine philosophy, which reveals to man the relations and
uses of his spiritual being.
Let your minister then come to this pulpit always, with a
full assurance of a candid hearing—confident in a ‘fit audience’
for the products of his mind. And what if there should
sometimes be but little that appears practical in them—they
may lead hereafter to rich treasures of thought yet unex-
plored. It is in your power to assist and encourage his in-
tellectual activity, by showing yourselves interested hearers
and intelligent judges of whatever has tasked his mind. Let
him be sure that you will be always here—always earnest in
your attention—that your minds are with him, and your
hearts with him ; and the deep fountains of his being will
be broken up and flow freely. He cannot be a poor preacher.
Give him then your hearty sympathy, and you will find in
his ministry an unutterable blessing. Your hearts will be
the throne of his spiritual power, and there he will wield it
for your salvation.
In his pastoral duty he will need your sympathy and
candor. If you value him “highly for his work’s sake,”
you will wish to be intimate with him, and see him often at
your houses. But how often he can visit you, none but
himself can determine. No duty is more indefinite than
this. None but himself can know how much time he must
spend in direct preparation for the pulpit, and how much
more must be given to deep study and thought, that he may
be able to prepare something worthy of the pulpit. He
may perhaps judge wrong, as to the distribution of his time,
but it is certain that no one else can judge right. Be con-
siderate then in your claims upon his youth, and his feelings
will not allow him to disregard them. Remember that his
52
study is the source of his power—if he he has any power.
There he must grow and thrive, that he may carry to the
pulpit and into his pastoral and familiar intercourse the
treasures of a rich and generous cultivation. And you will
prize his visits the more, in proportion as the habits of a
scholar and the strength of a disciplined mind make him
more respected in the peculiar function of a preacher.
In your intercourse with your minister, you can do a
great deal for his happiness and usefulness. Show your
sympathy with him in subjects of great and immortal inter-
est; and his reliance upon it will be felt in the warmth of
his address, and the adaptation of his discourses to your
spiritual wants and disorders. You would not wish him
always to introduce religious conversation, and wholly sink
the man in the minister. Conversation on religious topics
should not be a matter of form, system, predetermination—
but a spontaneous flowing out from the deep sensibilities of
his soul. It is easy for you to draw it out, if you will, by
showing that it is interesting to you. His heart will yearn
after your sympathy in its profoundest and most cherished
emotions. If he is sure that you will go along with him in
his high communings with the world of invisible being, and
feel as he feels the worth of the soul's everlasting hope, there
will be no barrier to your free converse on the most inspiring
themes.
This kind of intercourse will do more than any thing else
can to qualify a minister to speak thrillingly to the human
mind and heart. He will come to you with no fear of over-
going your sympathies; and he will come “in the fulness
of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.” His preaching will
be a sincere and honest manifestation of his inmost soul—
of divine truth as he believes it, feels it, loves it. And you
will receive it in love, and in social communion reflect it
back upon him colored by the peculiarities of your own
53
minds—thus continually giving him new revelations of human.
nature in its individual varieties. The society with which
he is so intimately connected, will be to him the most
instructive of all books. t
If then you would have an efficient minister, make him so
by your generous sympathy. Let him see that you are
interested in religion—that you discernits spiritual truth, and
beauty—that you will gladly hear its most severe and
searching applications, and endeavor to profit withal. Open
your hearts to his influence—give him the inspiring confi-
dence that he can do you good, and he will do it. “Out of
the abundance of his full heart,” will he speak—and he will
speak to the profoundest sensibilities of your moral nature.
Finally, to make the word of salvation effectual, you must
receive it in faith. Truth is the great spiritual power, by
which Christ reigns over mind. Through his ministers it is
made the instrument of spiritual redemption. Truth pro-
duces no effect except on willing minds. It acts upon the
inward man, according to the unchangeable laws of his
being—producing faith, inspiring love, and raising him to
spiritual life. He must co-operate in the work. He cannot
become a Christian by listening passively to the word.
There must be a going forth of his own mind to meet it;
his affections must spring to embrace it as their joy and
hope—the most blessed revelation of God's goodness and
love. In this manner you must aid the work of the minis-
try, or it will have no power. Consider how great the
object is—nothing less than to redeem man from a strange
indifference or utter worldliness, or deep and deadly sin, to
a reverent and grateful worship of his Maker—to raise him
to goodness, happiness, glory—to quicken the faculties which
God gave him into the new and spiritual life to which he is
destined—so that his thoughts and desires shall be no more
of the earth, earthy, but of heaven, heavenly. And what a
54
moral revolution is this! As it regards the whole furnishing
of the inner man—all that gives him moral worth or dignity
or power, how superior is he who bears about him a living
image of Christ, to those who live for the world only—by
maxims drawn from the world and shaped to the world's
uses!
This effect can be produced only by faith. And by faith
I mean, not a cold assent of the mind to truth, but that strong
and vivid apprehension of it, which makes the revelations of
the spiritual world most interesting and affecting realities, in
view of which a man is willing to live and die—realities, in
which he finds his consolations, his hopes, and his joys.-
There can be none of this deep seated and heart stirring
belief in those who habitually listen with cold indifference
to the revelation of man's sublime destiny and God’s unut-
terable love. It can have no place in worldly men, who are
satisfied with what the world gives and promises, and feel no
yearnings of the heart, no quickening of the soul's aspira-
tions after a higher life.
Enter then, my friends, with a candid mind, with a gen-
erous sympathy, and with a believing spirit, into this new
relation. Listen with faith to him who reveals God to your
soul, and your soul to itself. Believe in Christ as the im-
personation of that perfect idea of humanity which existed
in the mind of God before he made man in his own image.
See in his character what you can be, and ought to be—
what the Christian ministry is designed to make you. If
you hold fast to your heart this sublime moral idea as a.
reality, you will find it the most blessed of all realities. It
will lift you above the world to the companionship of pure
and happy spirits. The discourses of your minister on these
high themes will be full of power and liſe. You will not be
“careless hearers, but doers of the word,” and this ministry
will indeed, be to you “the ministry of reconciliation”—
55
hallowed forever in the remembrance of those who shall be
“crowns of his rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus;”
of all who have “received with meekness the engrafted
word which is able to save their souls.”
unvess-
milliºn