To My Younger Brethren Part 14

(_d_) Avoid altogether such touches of expression as characterise verse, or rhetorical prose. I find in one sermon the sentence, "_Think you_ St Paul trembled at the prospect?" Please re-write this, and say, "_Do you think_ St Paul was afraid?" For you certainly would not say, speaking however gravely, to your friend, "Think you that we shall have a fine day to-morrow?" Rhetorical phrases rarely give an impression of practical reality.

(_e_) Do not speak in the pulpit as if you were writing notes for an edition of the Epistles. What does the labourer (and what do many hearers more highly educated than he) think when you say, on Rom. v. 1, that "_weighty ma.n.u.script authority gives another reading_"? And what does he think you mean when you talk about "_Sheol_"? By the way, when you quote Scripture in the pulpit, pa.s.singly, to a general congregation, I would advise you to quote not the Revised Version, but the Authorized, which will surely be "_the_ English Bible" for many long days yet. Unless you have before you some special difference between the two Versions, on which you can _stop to speak explicitly_, quote the familiar (and inimitable) diction of 1611.

PREACH WHAT CAN BE REPORTED.

(_f_) Prepare your sermon, and preach it, so that it shall be _easy to report_. One sermon here before me would be as hard as possible to retail at home. It is on Rom. v. 1, and it says some excellent things upon it. But it brings in holiness of heart where the text speaks only of acceptance of person, and it mingles the two topics so ingeniously together that the impression is seriously complicated. Think of the pious daughter yonder in church, going home to her infirm old mother, and trying to answer the question, "What did the gentleman preach about to-night?" Let us do our best to preach sermons which are not only sound, but portable.

(_g_) Take care to keep the sermon in _tune with the text_. Here is a ma.n.u.script on Psal. v. 12, a verse of exultant joy; but the last pa.s.sage of the sermon, the pa.s.sage which ought to concentrate the whole message, is full of solemn _warning_. Warn by all means; do not forget to sound the watchman's trumpet. [Ezek. x.x.xiii.] But sound it in the right place.

CUT THE PREFACE SHORT.

(_h_) Here is a sermon sadly spoiled by a _long introduction_. It tells us much about the circ.u.mstances of the inspired writer, but so as to throw little light on the message of the text. Here is another, on the wonderfully definite hope of blessedness after death given us in Phil.

i. 21. This also is ruined by its introduction, which truly begins _ab ovo_, discussing the genesis of man's belief in immortality! That preface would leave, in the actual delivery of the sermon, about five minutes for the handling of the precious words, "To depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Generally, be shy of much introduction and preface in the pulpit. I do not mean that we are never to elucidate connexions and contexts. But, remember limits. Your minutes are few, ah, so few, for such a Message,--Christ Jesus in His fulness, for man's need in its depth. Pa.s.s quickly through the porch into that Church.

BE ACCURATE IN STATEMENT.

(_i_) When you refer to _Scripture facts_, be accurate; a slip-shod habit there may fatally prejudice a not quite friendly hearer who knows something of the Bible; and it will certainly do no good to _any_ hearer. Here is a sermon on Phil. i. 21, and it speaks of St Paul as writing to Philippi from his "_dark cell_." But St Luke says that he was "in his own hired house," [Acts xxviii. 30.] or at worst, "his own hired rooms." Here again I read of David as returning to "Jerusalem, _the city of his fathers_." But his fathers had lived and died at Bethlehem; and Jerusalem was in heathen hands till David himself took it!

2. _Remarks on Points in the Substance of the Sermons._

(_a_) Are you quite sure that the Patriarchs had no antic.i.p.ation of a life eternal? Many lecturers, and many editors, now say so. But the Epistle to the Hebrews says that "they desired a better country, that is an heavenly" [Heb. xi. 16.]; and that is better evidence for this purpose than any inferences (or beliefs) of modern "scholarship." True, the old saints say little explicitly about their hope. But many things lie deep in a man's faith, and in his experience too, about which, for various reasons, he may say very little.

REVELATION WAS NOT INTUITION.

(_b_) I do not like this sentence, which says that the later Prophets had a "_fuller perception_ of" the eternal future than their predecessors. Not that I blame the phrase in itself; but I dislike its a.s.sociations. There runs a strong drift in modern theology, as we all know, towards the explanation of Scripture by "perception" rather than by revelation. "The Lord appeared unto me"; "The Lord spake unto me"; say the Prophets, and they appeal occasionally to supernatural attestation of their a.s.sertions. But the modern expository savant, wiser to be sure than the Prophet, a.s.sures us that they arrived at their messages by observation, by meditation, by development of thought and character, and practically by nothing different from these things.

Accordingly, their "inspiration" was strictly speaking the same in kind as that of a Chrysostom, or a Luther, or a Shakespeare. Do not you say so, or imply that it is so. Do not go for mere company's sake with the current of naturalistic thought. Sure I am that you are most unlikely, if you do, to be the instrument of _super_natural _effects_ in your preaching.

"WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION?"

(_c_) "What is Justification? It is, _the making man just_." Is it indeed? I should read that sentence with alarm, if I did not know the writer! Its sentiment is practically Roman Catholic. Moreover, it puts a meaning on the word in question, contradicted by the common usages of language; an important consideration when we study a Scriptural theological term. When I "justify my opinion" I do not _make it right_, but vindicate it as already right. When the Hebrew judge "justified the righteous," [Deut. xxv. 1] he did not improve him, but p.r.o.nounced him satisfactory to the law. And when G.o.d, for Christ's sake, justifies you who believe in Jesus, He does not in that act make you good; He p.r.o.nounces you, for His Son's sake, to be satisfactory to His Law, for purposes of your personal acceptance.

"WHY DOES FAITH JUSTIFY?"

(_d_) "Why has faith such power to justify? Because, _carried out to its fullest extent, it implies a.s.similation_ to its Object." Here again I should be alarmed, if I did not know the writer's general convictions, which are sound enough. But this particular sentence again is in full harmony with Romanist doctrine. And, as a fact, with the Bible open, and with usages of common language before us, it can easily be exposed as a confusion of words and thought. Faith, carried out ever so fully, is just faith still; personal reliance, personal confidence on G.o.d in His Word. That reliance is His appointed (and divinely natural) way for our reception of Jesus Christ. For our Justification, it receives Christ in His merits; it does _that_, and that only, and always. For our Sanctification, it receives Christ in His inward power, by the Holy Ghost. But faith is just faith, to the end.

(_e_) "We are not _forced_ to receive salvation." Most true. "He enforceth not the will." But do not forget on the other hand to magnify the necessity of grace, "preventing grace," [Act. x.] that is to say, G.o.d Himself "working in us _to will_" to receive our salvation. The two sides of truth are both divine. [Phil. ii. 13.] Do not neglect either, whether you can harmonize them or not here below.

END OF THE LECTURE.

Such are some specimens of a Sat.u.r.day morning's talk in our library.

They are taken, just as they come, from notes constructed after the study of a set of some twenty sermons, written, and then commented upon, without the slightest thought that any public or permanent use would be made of the materials thus given. But perhaps the remarks may be in point to some of my readers all the more because of the unstudied nature of the materials.

Let me say, before I quite leave this part of my subject, that adverse criticism was by no means my only work this morning in the lecture-room.

It was my happiness, on the other hand, to commend thankfully many a clear setting of living truth, and many a sentence of forcible point and of true beauty, happy omens for future years, in which, if it please G.o.d, "the torch shall be carried on," bright and clear, when we elders shall be heard no more.[34]

[34] Ungracious as it may seem, I must betray one less pleasant confidence of such occasions. Sometimes I have had to note in sermon MSS. a strange neglect of punctuation, and, here and there, a little aberration from received usages of spelling! No Clergyman ought to think such matters beneath his notice. His people, some, if not many of them, will from time to time receive letters or other written messages from him; these ought to be unmistakably the writing of the educated gentleman. Is it too much to say also that _the handwriting_ ought to be clear and easy? It is distressing, certainly to one who has many letters to read daily, to see how _rare_ such handwriting is now.

"MY CASES OF OLD SERMONS."

But now let me return from this discursive report of a sermon-lecture to some more central thoughts about the Preaching of the Word. Sacred, solemn theme! I was made to realize its character in a peculiar way quite lately, when reading a heart-searching and most instructive essay, by the Rev. R. Glover, Vicar of St Luke's, West Holloway, ent.i.tled, _My Cases of Old Sermons_.[35] The essay was simply an experienced preacher's review of many years of pulpit labour, in the light of the collected and ordered ma.n.u.scripts which silently represented it. The writer had much to say, to my great profit, about his methods of preparation and delivery, and about the pains taken to distribute the choice of texts widely and impartially over the field of Scripture.

Then he went on to speak of the ascertained spiritual history of some of those many sermons; the messages to souls which in this or that instance they had carried; the savour of life unto life, or perhaps, alas, of death unto death, which had to his knowledge breathed from them. The impressions left on my mind were, above all others, two; first, the call to thorough diligence in preparation, if the preacher is to give his account with joy; and then, the indescribable solemnity and greatness of the work of a true pastor-preacher.

[35] In _The Churchman_ of August, 1891.

*BE A PREACHER INDEED.

I may seem to reiterate too much, but I _must_ say again, with new emphasis, to my younger Brother, resolve to be a preacher indeed, by the grace of G.o.d. Do not let secondary things, however good, distort your attention from that supremely sacred commission, "Preach the Word; be instant, in season, out of season[36] [2 Tim. iv. 2.]; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. _For_," the Apostle significantly proceeds, "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine." Therefore, an age impatient of thorough Scriptural preaching is the very age in which to seek, in wisdom and courage, to make much of it. Do not let organization spoil your preaching-work. Do not let current events spoil it. Do not let elaboration of ritual spoil it. Do not let organist and choir rule over you, and claim for music the precious moments called for by the Word.

[36] That is, irrespective of _your own_ convenience.

"THE DIRECTORY."

Let me present to my reader, in this last chapter, an extract from an old book which however may be new to him. The book is not one which as a whole I greatly love; how could I? It is that sternly-imposed subst.i.tute for the Book of Common Prayer, commonly known as the Parliamentary Directory of 1645; the exact t.i.tle is, _A Directory for the Publique Worship of G.o.d in the Three Kingdomes_.[37] Its a.s.sociations are altogether with an unhappy time, in which it was a seriously penal offence, at least in theory, to use the Prayer Book even at a sick friend's bedside. Yet great men of G.o.d had a hand in the making of the Directory; and their words are well worth the reading. In particular, I find in the volume one pa.s.sage, full of golden wisdom, a precious message to all Christian preachers. It is the section which I now quote exactly as it first appeared, and which is ent.i.tled

[37] It is printed in W.K. Clay's _Book of Common Prayer Ill.u.s.trated_.

Parker, 1841.

"OF THE PREACHING OF THE WORD.

*THE DIRECTORY ON PREACHING.

"Preaching of the Word, being the power of G.o.d unto Salvation, and one of the greatest and most excellent Works belonging to the Ministry of the Gospell, should bee so performed, that the Workman need not bee ashamed, but may save himself, and those that heare him.

"It is presupposed (according to the Rules for Ordination) that the Minister of Christ is in some good measure gifted for so weighty a service, by his skill in the Originall Languages, and in such Arts and Sciences as are handmaids unto Divinity, by his knowledge in the whole Body of Theology, but most of all in the holy Scriptures, having his senses and heart exercised in them above the common sort of Beleevers; and by the illumination of G.o.ds Spirit, and other gifts of edification, which (together with reading and studying of the Word) he ought still to seek by Prayer, and an humble heart, resolving to admit and receive any truth not yet attained, when ever G.o.d shall make it known unto him. All which hee is to make use of, and improve, in his private preparations, before hee deliver in publike what he hath provided.

CHOICE OF THE TEXT.

"Ordinarily, the subject of his Sermon is to be some Text of Scripture, holding forth some principle or head of Religion; or suitable to some speciall occasion emergent; or hee may goe on in some Chapter, Psalme, or Booke of the holy Scripture, as hee shall see fit.

"Let the Introduction to his Text be brief and perspicuous, drawn from the Text itself, or context, or some parallel place, or generall sentence of Scripture.

"If the Text be long (as in Histories and Parables it sometimes must be) let him give a briefe summe of it; if short, a Paraphrase thereof, if need be: In both, looking diligently to the scope of the Text, and pointing at the chief heads and grounds of Doctrine, which he is to raise from it.

HOW THE TEXT IS TO BE HANDLED.

"In a.n.a.lysing and dividing his Text, he is to regard more the order of matter, then of words; and neither to burden the memory of the hearers in the beginning with too many members of Division, nor to trouble their minds with obscure terms of Art.

"In raising Doctrines from the Text, his care ought to bee, First, that the matter be the truth of G.o.d. Secondly, that it be a truth contained in or grounded on that Text, that the hearers may discern how G.o.d teacheth it from thence. Thirdly, that he chiefly insist upon those Doctrines which are princ.i.p.ally intended, and make most for the edification of the hearers.

"The Doctrine is to be expressed in plaine termes; or if any thing in it need explication, is to bee opened, and the consequence also from the Text cleared. The parallel places of Scripture confirming the Doctrine are rather to bee plaine and pertinent, then many, and (if need bee) somewhat insisted upon, and applyed to the purpose in hand.

"The Arguments or Reasons are to bee solid; and, as much as may bee, convincing. The ill.u.s.trations, of what kind soever, ought to bee full of light, and such as may convey the truth into the Hearers heart with spirituall delight.

"If any doubt, obvious from Scripture, Reason, or Prejudice of the Hearers, seem to arise, it is very requisite to remove it, by reconciling the seeming differences, answering the reasons, and discovering and taking away the causes of prejudice and mistake.

Otherwise, it is not fit to detain the hearers with propounding or answering vaine or wicked Cavils, which as they are endlesse, so the propounding and answering of them doth more hinder than promote edification.