1.A 05. Sermons and Liturgies
Sermons and Liturgies. In view of the statements I have made, I wish to discriminate between the two great Church bodies that exist. We are apt to divide the Christian world into the Protestant and Catholic. I prefer to divide it into the Evangelical and the Hierarchical.
They are sharply distinguished by various other things, but by nothing more, it seems to me, than by this, that the Hierarchical body, in all its various forms, relies for its success upon the administration of ordinances and systems of worship; while the Evangelical body relies substantially for its success upon the living force of man upon man. Both hold to the indispensableness of divine power; but one believes that power to work chiefly through church ordinances, the other believes that it works through living men.
Wherever you shall find the altar and the sacrifice wherever you shall find robes, candles, and liturgies wherever you shall find piled high instrumentalities of this kind sermons shrink, and sermonizers are fewer and fewer. Where the Church looks for power in external forms, preaching tends to decay. On the other hand, where the ordinances arc very few, and yet the Church has life, the pulpit thrives and waxes strong. The man in the pulpit is the only thing the Presbyterian and Congregationalist have to rely upon; but when you consider that preaching means the power of living men upon living men, you will see that they who have strength in the pulpit have the very heart of the matter.
There is just as much difference between the man who is a mere administrator of ordinances which Paul thanked God he had not much to do with, for he had not been sent to baptize but to preach the gospel, and the administration of ordinances with him was one thing, and the preaching of the gospel an entirely different thing there is just as much difference between the man who administers ordinances and the man who preaches the gospel, as there is between the man who prints a chromo and the man that paints the picture which the chromo prints. The man that strikes out the original plan upon the canvas and brings it to perfection is an artist. But the man who takes fifteen stones, every stone carrying one colour, and from them prints the chromo, may produce a perfect picture, but after all lie is nothing but the mechanician, putting the ink on the paper, while the stone does all the work. The man that preaches with power is an artist.
He is a living creature. But the man that merely comes to administer ordinances on Sundays or saints days, who goes through a regular routine, is nothing but the engineer who runs the machine. But does he not do good? Yes; a great deal. Is not the world better with him than it would be without him? Yes; a great deal better. Yet how much better it would be if you could have both if the man could be a living creature, to say what he has got in him, and then carry that along, and confirm it, and build it up by institutional influences.
Preaching arouses, gathers material, prepares the way; institutions come in to consolidate and keep.
There is a reason why different Churches and different men succeed as they do. For example, take a Presbyterian, or an Orthodox Congregational Church, in which the minister is an acute and eminent thinker; he runs all to thought. He will indoctrinate his people, educate them, build them up disproportionately in their minds, and that is about all. Things will stand steadily, grow slowly, and develop but little. Right alongside of him there is a man with strong, emotive, vitalizing life; a man who is not so much after thoughts as he is after the people, or after bait to catch the people with. He means men, first, and last, arid all the while. Systems to him are beautiful if they will act like a net to catch folks, and good for nothing if they do not. High doctrines to him are valuable, just in proportion as they give position from which to throw stones upon the besiegers round about.
It is power over men that he wants. He is not necessarily less a teacher; but what a vitality he will give to his Church! How strongly it will swell! How it will grow! What an effect it will produce in the community! It is the living force within him that does it. It is the manhood in him; it is the Spirit of God dwelling in him that is the occasion of such a success.
There is no Church, in my experience, more successful than the Methodist Church in the West.
I worked beside that Church for fifteen years, and saw the whole operation, and knew the men that were in the Church. They were not men largely equipped with theology. I knew Elder Havens when he began to preach. He knew so little, had so little culture, that he had to count the chapters to tell what chapter it was, and then count the verses to tell what verse it was; yet afterwards he became no mean scholar. I knew hundreds of men there that were stammerers in learning. Yet, on the whole, they had eminent power. They did no institutional work; but they had zeal, fervour, personal feeling; and by that, little as their know ledge was, small as was the area of the thoughts they brought to bear, they transformed communities.
They were real preachers. They had the right idea of preaching, and they succeeded in spite of their ignorance. Their personal experience was very strong, and their feelings were outspoken, demonstrative. They brought to bear the truth of God in their souls upon the masses of mankind, and the effect corresponded to the cause.