384 



PREACHING 



bettor ordered discourse and nave* the preacher 

 from what to many is a grievous slavery ; 1ml I >r 

 James Martineau put* it* defence on yet higher 

 grounds tut the best means of maintaining the 

 nigh level of thonght and feeling at which tlir 

 sermon was composed. And it is true thai many, 

 perhaps moHt, extempore preachers forget their 

 argument, and never progress, but ed.U round and 

 round, as Coleridge said, in verbiage, vain renc- 

 t it inns, and feeble and garrulous fluency. But 

 against this there is the ohiioiis disadvantage in 

 tln> k)H of |Hiwer and reality that roust needs 

 follow the rewarming of premeditated emotion. 

 The recitation of sennons by heart is scarcely 

 better, if not indeed still more likely to destroy 

 spontaneity and naturalness of expression, not to 

 speak of the ri-k of some accident depriving the 

 helpless reciter of his memory, as once happened 

 to Smith, whereupon he left the pulpit abruptly 

 with the words, ' Lord lie merciful to our in- 

 firmities." The method of extempore preaching 

 is in every respect the best, provided the speaker's 

 standard of excellence is one sufficiently high, 

 and he is not one of those vain men who make 

 a boast of going into the pulpit without pre- 

 meditation. Provided the sermon has been care- 

 fully thought out beforehand, and the preacher has 

 some measure of faculty in speech, this method of 

 preaching will be found the most effective, the 

 thoughts being previously methodised, the words 

 and sentences left to the moment. For it is both 

 the most natural manner and it allows speaker 

 and hearers alike to be lifted simultaneously on 

 the same waves of thonght and emotion. For, un- 

 happily, there are few men capable of reading a 

 sermon with the same fire and glow as Chalmers. 

 But the speaker must be cool and self-possessed 

 ' a great deal of talent is lost to the world for want 

 of a little courage,' says Sydney Smith and this 

 quality he must possess in a opiate unusual degree 

 if lie essays the task of preaching to crowds in the 

 open air. The great French preachers, again, 

 recited their sermons, apparently finding it easier 

 than Englishmen do to revive premeditated emo- 

 tion. Massillon said that his best sermon was the 

 one he knew best ; Bourdaloue, whose memory 

 was apt to give way in presence of any distraction, 

 used to preach with his eyes closed. 



' Most men,' said Leigliton, ' begin to preach too 

 soon, and leave oil' too late ;' and still worse for the 

 quality of the sermon is the too frequent necessity 

 lor the production of two or more every week. 

 Bishop Andrewes said, ' He who preaches twice will 

 prate once ;' and Koliert Hall used to say, ' A man 

 who concentrates his ideas, ami thinks out his 

 subject properly, can write one ; a diffuse, shallow 

 man may manage two, and a fool might very 

 likely write half a dozen.' Those under the neces- 

 sity of producing two might well be permitted to 

 make the second a diet of catechising, as Hooker 

 did at Bishopsbourne ; or an address specially 

 directed to children an admirable new feature 

 of modern preaching : or the K<*eond might lie 

 frankly allowed to l>e taken from some great divine. 

 or at leant to lie merely one of those simpler ex- 

 temporaneous sermons Hooker descrilies, ' which 

 spend their life in their birth, and may have public 

 audience but once.' Over-tasked preachers will 

 tinil help in tliuse collections of skeleton sermons, 

 of which Simeon's Horn- Homilttifir (21 vols. \~^'.\ 

 1 836) and Snurgeon's Sermon A'ofe*(4vols. 1884- 

 88) are well-known examples. 



As for the form of the sermon, it is usual for it 

 to lie divided into an introduction or exordium, the 

 propraitimi. the jiriatf, and finally the ronrltuum 

 or |>eroratin. Simeon and his school announced 

 the division" at the outset ; Newman notices them 

 only M be DMMS from one to the other. As for 



the logical divisions or head*, in which the Puritan 

 preachers were so prolific Baxter once having as 

 many as 120 the more modern usage is to em- 

 phasise these hut lightly and to have as few as 

 possible. These are of course all ini|Kiitant in the 

 structure of the sermon, for, as Quintilian says, 

 i,ini rectc diviserit, nunquam potent in rerum 

 online errare. ' (ieorge Herbert, in Tke Country 

 1'iir.inn, warns against ' crumbling a text up into 

 small |>arU< ;' and Bishop Brighton introduced into 

 Scut land the method of preaching without heads 

 'skimming the text,' as it seemed to the zealots 

 of his day. The introduction should lie of the 

 shortest, and may take the form of an exegetical 

 connection of text wit h con text as in Liddon almost 

 always, or an analog}-, or an anecdote. The pro- 

 position should be clearly set forth, and the proof 

 should follow in logical order, although the heads 

 need not lie named. The conclusion, peroration, 

 or application should lie an earnest, pointed appeal. 

 warranted by the arguments that nave preceilcd 

 it. ' Hie, si unquam, totos eloquent!!? fontes aperire 

 fas est,' says Quintilian. Indeed, fire and passion 

 we cannot have too much of, if only it is justified 

 by masculine feeling, keeping pace with the march 

 of the argument, yet allowing toe speaker to become 

 the clearer the more he glows. Hume said John 

 Brown of Haddington preached as if Jesus Christ 

 was at his elbow, and James Melville tells us that 

 Knox ere he had done with his sermon 'was 

 like to ding the pulpit in blads, and fly out of it' 

 Or if a tender closing appeal l>est fits the subject 

 the speaker must remember that he is a man and 

 not allow himself to be dissolved in tears, unless 

 he needs must, when nature will save him from 

 being ridiculous. Bishop Heber converted the 

 closing words of his sermon into a prayer. 



In the expository discourse, technically known 

 in Scotland as 'a lecture,' the preacher takes a 

 series of texts or a whole passage, and opens up 

 its meaning, the central truth being clearly set 

 forth, and the minor truths in their relation to it. 



Many of the older preachers of the evangelical 

 persuasion never closed a single sermon without a 

 hasty course round the whole range of cardinal 

 doctrines in the scheme of salvation, however wide 

 some of these might lie from the subject proper 

 of the text. Tliis might lie well for itinerating 

 preachers like While-field and Wesley, who would 

 most probably never address the same hearers 

 again; but is manifestly absurd in the case of a 

 parish clergyman whose duty is to instruct the 

 saints as well as rouse the unconverted, and who 

 speaks to the same people twice a week. Those 

 preachers whose sennons invariably deal with the 

 initiatory stages of Christian experience sometimes 

 arrogantly claim for themselves a monopoly of 

 'preaching Christ.' No phrase has been more 

 abused than this of St Paul's, which has been 

 twisted to mean a monotonous iteration of the 

 necessary conditions of the starting -point only of 

 a Christian experience, as if the pupils of a school 

 were to stand still at their primer because one had 

 not yet learned to spell. But indeed there is too 

 little variety in our teaching 'We hold a few 

 text*,' says Archer Butler, 'so near our eyes that 

 they hide" the rest of the Bible.' Still less profit 

 able were those wi-ekly tirades against t he Socinians, 

 the Scarlet Woman, or Prelacy, forced into the 

 conclusion of every sermon by nianv a painful old 

 Presbyterian divine. Even hell lost its terrois 

 when made a weekly show, and the majestic per- 

 sonality of the devil, once familiar, became con 

 tempt ible. Mut the pains of hell have furnished the 

 fuel for many a noble sermon, even without such 

 a special accessory as Fuller tells us belonged to 

 Mr I'erkins, who 'would pronounce the word damn 

 with such an emphasis as left a doleful echo in his 



