01.01. Lecture I. Specimens Of Preaching In The Bible

Lecture I. Specimens Of Preaching In The Bible

It is my purpose in these lectures to offer you some observations on the History of Preaching. The subject is obviously too vast to be treated in five lectures. You will please notice, therefore, that I shall by no means attempt a systematic discussion of the history of preaching, but shall only make observations upon some of its most characteristic and instructive periods. My general plan will be as follows:—While giving a brief account of the leading preachers in one of these periods, I shall concern myself chiefly with two inquiries; first, what was the relation of these preachers to their own time, and secondly, what are the principal lessons they have left for us. These lessons will in part be formally stated, but will often come out only in the way of incidental remark as we go on. I hope that we shall thus draw from the wide field of our contemplation some immediate instruction and stimulus for our own work as preachers, and also that you may become so far interested in the subject as hereafter to occupy yourselves, more largely than might otherwise have been the case, with the truly magnificent literature of the Pulpit. This first lecture will be devoted to Preaching in the Bible. I can only mention some of the most important examples, including one or two secular speeches which are of some interest. On the Old Testament it is necessary to be particularly brief, in order to discuss somewhat more fully the preaching of our Lord. The speech of Judah before Joseph, is unsurpassed in all literature as an example of the simplest, tenderest, truest pathos. And if you want to see the contrast between pathos and bathos as you will rarely see it elsewhere, just read the reproduction of this speech by Philo (Works, II, 73, Mangey), elaborated in the starchy fashion of the Alexandrian school—and do by all means read this as translated and expanded in worthy Dr. Hunter’s Sacred Biography, ironed out and smoothed down into the miraculous elegance of style which belongs to the school of Dr. Blair. That two men of cultivation, one of them a man of eminent ability, should regard this vapid stuff as in any sense an improvement upon Judah’s speech, is a phenomenon in criticism, and a warning to rhetoricians.

We have a Farewell Address from Moses, viz. the Book of Deuteronomy. And like many English and German discourses, the sermon ends with a hymn, composed by the preacher. Some students of Homiletics would at once fasten on the fact that this first recorded example of an extended discourse was a written sermon. Others would reply that in this case the speaker was aware that he was not, by training or by nature, an orator, but a man “slow of speech and slow of tongue.” The one remark would be about as good as the other, each of them amounting to very little—as is the case with a great many other remarks that are made on both sides of the question thus alluded to.

There are two brief Farewell Addresses from Joshua, which are really quite remarkable, as might appear if we had time to analyze them, in their finely rhetorical use of historical narrative, animated dialogue, and imaginative and passionate appeal. The brief speech of Jotham (Jude 1:9) is noteworthy, for although a purely secular speech, it offers several points of suggestion to preachers. (1) He had a magnificent pulpit, standing high on the steep sides of Mt. Gerizim—and some people appear to think the pulpit a great matter in preaching. (2) He had a powerful voice, for although beyond the reach of arrow or sling, he could make himself heard far below. This is not only an important gift for open-air preaching, but it will be indispensable for all preachers if we are to have many more of these dreadful Gothic churches, which are so admirable for everything except the proper object of a church, to be a place for speaking and hearing. (3) He employed a striking illustration, a fable. (4) He applied the illustration, in a very direct and outspoken manner, without fear or favor. (5) He ran away from the sensation he had made.

David possessed such unique and unrivalled gifts as a sacred poet, that we are apt not to think of him as a speaker. But in sooth, this extraordinary man seems to have been a universal genius, if ever there was one, as well as to have had that for which Margaret Fuller used to sigh, a universal experience. And his speeches to Saul (1 Samuel 24:1-22, 1 Samuel 26:1-25), with his reply to Abigail (1 Samuel 25:1-44), do seem to me, though so briefly recorded, to exhibit eloquence of a very high order, on which you would find it instructive and stimulating to meditate. We ought to notice, too, the singularly skilful and effective speech addressed to David by Abigail. Its tact and sagacity are truly feminine; some of the most destructive German critics have admitted that this at least is a genuine bit. Persons in search of Scripture precedents might in this case also imagine themselves to find one, by noting that we have here a woman speaking in public. But again there is an obvious reply, that this was not really a public address, but a petition addressed to one man, and that in behalf of her husband, because he was a “fool” and could not speak for himself. The address of Nathan to David, the winning and touching parable with which he stirs the king’s feelings and awakens his sense of right and wrong, and then the sudden and pointed application, and fierce outpouring of the story of his crimes, strikes even the most careless reader as a model of reproof, a gem of eloquence.

Solomon, at the Dedication of the Temple, made an address to the people, and then a prayer, the first reported prayer of any considerable length— a prayer strikingly appropriate, carefully arranged, and very impressive. The singular book of Ecclesiastes is a religious discourse, a sermon. Its mournful text is often repeated, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” The discourse should be read as a whole, or listened to while another reads, its successive portions ever coming back, like a certain class of modern sermons, to the text as a melancholy refrain, sinking ever deeper into your heart with its painful but wholesome lesson, till at last the ringing conclusion is reached, “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole of man”—the whole of his duty and his destiny, the whole of his real pleasure, the whole of his true manliness, the all of man. I think we ought never to repeat “All is vanity” without adding “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is all.” But the great preachers of Old Testament times were the Prophets. You are no doubt all aware that the New Testament minister corresponds not at all to the Old Testament priest, but in important respects to the Old Testament prophet. Alas! that the great majority of the Christian world so early lost sight of this fact, and that many are still so slow, even among Protestants, to perceive it clearly. The New Testament minister is not a priest, a cleric—except in so far as all Christians are a priesthood, a clergy, viz., the Lord’s heritage—he is a teacher in God’s name, even as the Old Testament prophet was a teacher, with the peculiar advantage of being inspired. You also know that it was by no means the main business of the prophets to predict the future—as people are now apt to suppose from our modern use of the word prophet—but that they spoke of the past and the present, often much more than of the future. The prophets reminded the people of their sins, exhorted them to repent, and instructed them in religious and moral, in social and personal duties; and when they predicted the future, it was almost always in the way of warning or encouragement, as a motive to forsake their sins and serve God. The predictive element naturally attracts the chief attention of Bible readers to-day, and yet in reality, as things stood then, it was almost always subordinate, and often comparatively diminutive. The prophets were preachers. The earlier prophets have left us no full record of their inspired teachings. From Samuel we have a few brief addresses, wise and weighty; from the great Elijah, several single sentences, spoken on great occasions, and which are flashes of lightning in a dark night, revealing to us the whole man and his surroundings. Abrupt, terse, vehement, fiery, these utterances are volcanic explosions from a fire long burning within, and they make us feel the power, the tremendous power, of the inspired speaker. It is true of every born orator, that in his grandest utterances you yet feel the man himself to be greater than all he has said. And so we feel as to Elijah. You have doubtless observed that Elijah has given us a striking example of the use of ridicule in sacred discourse. He mocked the priests of Baal, before all the people. Idolatry is essentially absurd, and ridicule was therefore a fair way of exposing it. In like manner, all irreligion has aspects and elements that are absurd, and it is sometimes useful (if carefully done) to show this by irony and ridicule. In the book of Proverbs, irreligion is constantly stigmatized as folly, and frequently depicted with the keenest sarcasm. Slight touches of irony and scorn are also observed in the apostle Paul. We have then a certain amount of Scripture example for the use of ridicule in preaching. But it should be a sparing use, and very carefully managed.

Notice now the prophets from whom some connected teachings are preserved — what we call books of the prophets.

Some of these were highly educated men, perhaps trained, as some writers think, in the Theological Schools begun by Samuel, “the schools of the prophets.” Yet others were destitute of all such training. Amos says expressly (Amos 7:14) that he was “no prophet nor a prophet’s son,” i. e., not trained in the schools as one of the so-called “sons of the prophets,” but that he was a shepherd and gardener. Accordingly, many of his illustrations are rural, and they are fresh, as we sometimes find now in a gifted but uneducated country preacher. The prophets frequently quote each other, as is well Known, and besides quotations, they often exhibit such similarity in leading thoughts and favorite expressions as seems to indicate that they had studied in the same schools. At any rate, they did carefully study the inspired discourses of their predecessors and contemporaries. Take now a few examples. From Jonah, we have apparently only the burden or refrain of his preaching in Nineveh, and can learn very little in the rhetorical sense, but we catch right impressive glimpses of his character and feeling. You see him (1) Shrinking from his task—as has been since done by many a preacher, young and old. (2) Desponding when the excitement of long-continued and impassioned preaching had been followed by reaction; ready to take unhealthy views of his preaching and its results, of God and man, of life and of death. (3) So much concerned for his own credit—more, in that morbid hour, than for the welfare of man or the glory of God. The most eloquent of all the prophets, the one from whom most can be learned as to preaching, is obviously Isaiah. Isaiah was the very opposite of Amos, the shepherd and gardener. He lived at court during several reigns, and in that of Hezekiah was high in influence. He was a highly educated man, a man of refined taste, and singular literary power and skill. He enjoyed in the best sense of that now often misused term, the advantage of Culture, with all its light and its sweetness. His writings, like all the other inspired books, take their literary character from the natural endowments, educational advantages, and social condition, of the man. They exhibit an imperial imagination, controlled by a disciplined intellect and by good taste. This imagination shows itself in vivid and rapid description, as well as in imagery. The careful and loving study of Isaiah has educated many a preacher’s imagination to an extent of which he was by no means conscious, and few things are so important to an orator as the real cultivation of imagination. True, the book of Isaiah presents the poetic oftener than the strictly oratorical use of this faculty. But the two shade into each other; and we also, when we become greatly excited, and our hearers with us, do naturally use in speaking such imaginative conceptions and expressions as generally belong only to poetry. In Part I of the book of Isaiah the oratorical element very distinctly predominates—it is direct address, aiming at practical results in those who hear. Sometimes the style even sinks into quiet narrative, but oftener it rises into passionate appeal. And in Part II (from the 40th chapter on), the orator is lost in the poet. The prophet’s soul is completely carried away by imagination and passion, till we have no longer an inspired orator directly addressing us, but a rapt seer, bursting into song, pouring forth in rhythmical strains his inspired and impassioned predictions. He is like the angel that appeared to the shepherds, whose message soon passed into song. Besides the yet higher blessings which have come to the world from the devotional and practical, the predictive and theological contents of this grand prophet’s writings, who can estimate how much he has done in training servants of God for the highest and truest forms of religious eloquence!

Jeremiah, whom the Jews of our Lord’s time regarded as perhaps the greatest of the prophets, has in modern times been much misunderstood, the popular term “jeremiad” representing him as a doleful and weak lamenter, like some of the “weeping preachers” we occasionally see, whose chief capacity seems to lie in the lachrymal organs. But Jeremiah uttered his “Lamentations” upon such great and mournful occasion as might make the strongest man weep, if truly patriotic and deeply pious. And his discourses, like his personal history, recall no tearful weakling, but a statesman and preacher of strong character and intense earnestness, tender in pity but resolute of purpose. Such a man’s bursts of passionate grief are a mighty power in eloquence. Jeremiah is also an example in the way of preaching unwritten discourses, and then, by divine direction, gathering them up into a book, with the hope of thus renewing and deepening their impression on the popular mind (Jeremiah 36:2-3).

Among the other prophets I can only say a word as to Ezekiel. His high-wrought imagery has little power to develop our imagination (compared with Isaiah), because mainly very far removed from our modes of thought and feeling. But as to the spirit of the preacher he offers us singularly valuable instruction. E. g., “And go, get thee unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them and tell them Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.” “When I say unto the wicked, O wicked (man), thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.” Nor are there any sadder words in all the Bible for a preacher, any that more touchingly appeal to a common and mournful experience, than the following: “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” Alas! how often still, they come and hear, they are entertained and pleased, they go off with idle praises, and that is all!

We cannot stop to speak of Ezra, and his grand expository discourse “from the morning until midday;” nor of Malachi, with his sharp common sense, and his home-thrusts of question and answer; nor of that curious production of the Inter-biblical period called the 4th Book of Maccabees, really a sort of sermon by a Jew who had become a Stoic philosopher; nor of much else that might have some interest—for we must come at once to the New Testament.

John the Baptist, the herald of Messiah’s approach, presents several good lessons as to preaching. Consider (1) His fearlessness. The Pharisees and Sadducees represented the culture and wealth, the best social respectability and religious reputation of the time, and yet when their conduct demanded it, he boldly called them a ‘brood of vipers.’ He was braver than Elijah, who faced Ahab but was so frightened by one threatening message from Jezebel that he ran the whole length of the land, and a day’s journey into the desert, and wanted to die; while the new Elijah declared Herodias an adulteress, though he knew her character and must have foreseen her relentless wrath. (2) His humility—always turning attention sway from himself to the Coming One, testifying of him on every occasion, willing to decrease that he might increase. (3) His practicalness. He brought a grand and thrilling announcement, but brought also a practical injunction, for which it was to be the motive. “The reign of heaven has come near—therefore repent.” And you have noticed his remarkable directions in Luke 3, to the people at large, to the publicans, to the soldiers, indicating to each class its characteristic fault, hitting the nail on the head at every blow. (4) His striving after immediate results. He did not say, go off and think about it, and in the course of time you may come to repentance; he said, repent now, profess it now, and show it henceforth, by fruit worthy of repentance. (5) His use of a ceremony to reinforce his preaching, and exhibit its results—a ceremony so solemn to those receiving it, so impressive to the spectators. Many a prophet had preached that men should repent, i. e., should turn from their sins, many had enforced the exhortation by predicting the coming of Messiah (though they could not declare it to be certainly near), but here was a striking novelty; this prophet bade them receive, and at his hands, a most thorough purification, in token that they did repent, and did wish to be subjects of the kingdom of God. This striking and novel ceremony gave name, among all the people, to the man and his ministry. John the Baptizer, he was universally called, as we see from the fact that he is so named in the Gospels and Acts, and in Josephus too. And when Jesus in the last week of his ministry asked the chief priests and scribes a question about John, he did not say, the preaching of John—nor, the ministry of John—nor, the work of John—but, “the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men?” That represented to the people his whole mission. Now apart from all its significance in other respects, we can see that this ceremony had an important bearing on his preaching, as picturing what the preaching demanded, and as an appropriate action by which the people promptly set forth the effect which the preaching had produced on them. Many of the measures employed now, by which hearers may show that they are impressed, and profess their purposes, are but appeals, more or less wise, to these same principles of human nature to which John’s baptism appealed. The central figure of Scripture, for our present purpose as in all other respects, is the Saviour himself. We can but touch a few of the many points that here present themselves. Our Lord as a Preacher, is a topic that has waited through all the ages for thorough treatment, and is waiting still.

(1) Every one observes that as a preacher our Lord was authoritative. You know that the tone of the ordinary Jewish teachers at that time was quite different from this. If some question was under discussion in synagogue or theological school, an aged man with flowing white beard and tremulous voice would say “When I was a boy, my grandfather who was a Rabbi often told me how R. Nathan Bar Tolmai used to say—so and so.” For them nothing was weighty till sanctified by antiquity, nothing could be settled save by the accumulation of many ancient opinions. But here came a teacher who spake ‘as one having authority,’ who continually repeated, ‘Ye have heard that it was said to the ancients, but i say to you;’ in a way which no one could think of calling egotism, which all recognized as the tone of conscious and true authority. Of course our Lord was unique in this respect, but in truth every preacher who is to accomplish much must, in his manner and degree, speak with authority. And do you ask how we may-attain this? For one thing, by personal study of Scripture. What you have drawn right out of the Bible, by your own laborious examination, you will unconsciously state with a tone of authority. Again, by personally systematizing the teachings of Scripture, or at any rate carefully scrutinizing any proposed system in every part before accepting it, so that you feel confident, as a matter of personal conviction, that it is true. Further, by personal experience of the power of the truth. And in general, by personal character. And the authority drawn from all these sources will be every year augmented by the usefulness already achieved, for the French proverb is here profoundly true, “There is nothing that succeeds like success.”

(2) I shall not dwell upon the originality of our Lord’s preaching. This has been sufficiently treated by various popular writers. In fact, I think they have insisted too much on this point, and I prefer to urge,

(3) That although so original, he brought his teachings into relation to the common mind. He did not startle his hearers with his originality, but employed current modes of thought and expression. E. g., The Golden Rule was not wholly new to the world. Confucius, Isocrates and others had taught the negative side of it; our Lord states it as a positive precept, thus making the rule much more comprehensive, and more widely important. Moreover, the essential principle was really contained in Leviticus 19:18. So the Golden Rule was not presented as something absolutely new. Again, the thought of the Fatherhood of God was not alien to the heathen mind, and was sometimes taught in the Old Testament. Christ brought it out clearly, and made the thought familiar and sweet. Furthermore, he taught much that had to be more fully developed by the apostles; since men could not understand any full account of certain doctrines till the facts upon which they were to rest had taken place—for example, atonement and intercession. And he acted upon the same principle in his mode of stating things. He used proverbs and other current modes of expression. He drew illustrations entirely from things familiar with his hearers. And what they could not then understand he stated in parables, which might be remembered for future reflection.

I repeat, then, that our Lord tempered his originality, so as to keep his teachings within reach of the common mind. If you are teaching a child, you do not present thoughts entirely apart from and above the child’s previous consciousness; you try to link the new thoughts to what the child has thought of before. Thus wisely did our Lord teach the human race. But unreflecting followers have felt bound to insist that his ethical as well as his theological teachings were absolutely original; and superficial opposers have imagined they were detracting from his honor when they showed that for the most part he only carried farther and lifted higher and extended more widely the views of ethical truth which had been dimly caught by the universal human mind, or had at least been seen by the loftiest souls. What they make an objection is a part of the wisdom of our Lord’s preaching.

(4) His teachings were to a great extent controversial, polemical. He was constantly aiming at some error or evil practice existing among his hearers. You remember at once how this principle pervades the entire Sermon on the Mount. His strong words as to wealth and poverty were addressed to the Jews, who believed that to be rich was a proof of God’s favor, and to be poor was a sure sign of his displeasure. “No man can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him,” was said to the fanatical crowd who imagined they were coming to him and following him because they were gaping at his miracles and delighted to get food without work. Like examples abound. In fact, there are very few of his utterances that have not a distinctly polemical character, aimed at his immediate hearers; and we must take account of this, as affecting not the principles but the mode of stating them, or we shall often fail to make exact and just interpretation of his teachings. The lesson here as to our own preaching is obvious, though very important. Truth, in this world oppressed with error, cannot hope, has no right, to keep the peace. Christ came not to cast peace upon the earth, but a sword. We must not shrink from antagonism and conflict in proclaiming the gospel, publicly or privately; though in fearlessly maintaining this conflict we must not sacrifice courtesy, or true Christian charity.

(5) Our Lord’s frequent repetitions are remarkable and instructive. I shall mention some examples, of course not giving mere parallel accounts from the different Evangelists of the same occasion, but cases in which the same saying is recorded as repeated on different occasions. The Son of man is come to save that which was lost, was spoken twice, Matthew 18:11; Luke 19:10. If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, etc. (3), Matthew 17:20; Matthew 21:21; Luke 17:5. Whosoever shall confess me, etc. (3), Matthew 10:32; Luke 12:8; Luke 9:26. He that finds his life shall lose it, etc., (4), Matthew 10:38-39; Matthew 16:24-25; Luke 17:33; John 12:25. Take up his cross and follow me (4), Matthew 10:38; Matthew 16:24; Luke 14:27; Mark 10:21. Whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, etc. (3), Matthew 23:12; Luke 14:11; Luke 18:14. Except ye become as little children, etc. (2), Matthew 18:3; Matthew 19:14; and other modes, besides these two, of inculcating the same lesson of humility (2), Matthew 20:26; John 13:13 ff. (comp. Luke 22:24, ff.) The servant is not greater than his lord (4), Matthew 10:24; Luke 6:40; John 13:6; John 15:20, where he refers to the fact that he had told them this before. In two other cases, John 13:33 (comp. John 7:34; John 8:21), and John 10:26, he speaks of having before told them what he is now saying again. Where I am, there shall also my servant be (3), John 12:26; John 14:3; John 17:24. To these examples of short sayings (and there are others) add the fact that considerable portions of the Sermon on the Mount, as given by Matthew, are also given by Matthew and the other Synoptics as spoken on other occasions. E. g., The remarkable exhortation to take no thought, etc., ten verses of Matthew 6:1-34, is reproduced with slight alteration in Luke 12:1-50, the former in Galilee, the latter probably long afterwards, and in Judea or Perea. The Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:9-13, was given on a later occasion, Luke 11:2-4, in a greatly shortened form (according to the correct text), but with all the leading thoughts retained. So likewise the instructions to the 70 disciples (Luke 10:1, ff.) closely resemble those previously given to the twelve apostles (Matthew 10:5, ff.) The lament over Jerusalem was made three times, and our Lord foretold his death to his disciples five times. The parable of the pounds (Luke 19:1-48) was reproduced a few days afterwards in the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:1-46), with only some special features omitted.

There are numerous other examples. And that so many should occur in the four extremely brief memoirs we have, the fourth, too, being almost entirely different from the others, is very remarkable. These repetitions may for the most part be classified as follows: (1) Different audiences, being similar in condition and wants, needed some of the same lessons. (2) Some brief, pithy sayings would naturally be introduced in different connections. (3) Some lessons were particularly hard to be learned, as humility, cross-bearing, etc.; and so as to the great difficulty the twelve had in believing that the Messiah was really going to be rejected and put to death. And what instruction do we find for ourselves in this marked feature of our Lord’s preaching? Here was the wisest of all teachers; in him was no poverty of resources, no shrinking from mental exertion. He must have repeated because it was best to repeat. Freshness and variety are very desirable, no doubt; but the fundamental truths of Christianity are not numerous, and men really need to have them often repeated. And many preachers, carried away by the tendencies of the present age, our furious 19th century, when the chief reading of most people is newspapers and books called emphatically novels, and the καινότερόν τι of the lounging Athenians pales before the eagerness with which we rush to bulletin boards to catch the yet later news that has just girdled the world,—many preachers go wild with the desire for novelty and the dread of repetition, and fall to preaching politics and news, science and speculation, anything, everything, to be fresh. Let the example of the Great Preacher be to us a rebuke, a caution, a comfort. A preacher should be a living man, and strive to get hold of his contemporaries; yet nearly all of the good that preachers do is done not by new truths but by old truths, with fresh combination, illustration, application, experience, but old truths, yea, and often repeated in similar phrase, without apology and without fear.

(6) There is no real conflict with all this when we add: Consider the wonderful variety of our Lord’s methods of teaching. Variety as to place. He preached in synagogues, courts of the temple, private houses; in deserts, on the mountain side, by the lake shore, from the boat; to crowds, or to single persons; anywhere, everywhere. Variety, too, as to occasion. Some of his discourses were deliberately undertaken, it would seem, with reference to certain conjunctures in his ministry, as the Sermon on the Mount, the instructions preceding the Mission of the Twelve (Matthew 10:1-42), the discourse on the Mount of Olives, the Farewell Address to his disciples, etc. But most of them appear to have been suggested at the moment, by particular events and circumstances, as the visit of Nicodemus, the woman coming to Jacob’s well, the message of John the Baptist, the application of the rich young man, the story of the Galileans whom Pilate had slain, etc. And variety as to modes of stating truth. He employed authoritative assertion, arguments of many kinds, explanation, illustration, appeal and warning. He also used striking paradoxes and hyperbolical expressions to wake up his hearers, and make them listen and remember and think, e. g., “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Let us pause a moment, and consider. Many persons have been perplexed by this saying of our Lord, many have misunderstood it, but one thing is certain, no one ever forgot it, when once read or heard, and no one ever failed to reflect that it stands in, the strongest antagonism to our natural feelings of resentment and revenge. Now remember. Our Lord was for the most part a street preacher and a field preacher. He had to gather his audiences and hold them, to awaken their minds, to lodge some leading and suggestive truths permanently in their memory. When we recall these conditions of his teaching, together with the fact that many of his hearers were indifferent and not a few were hostile, we may perceive why he should have somewhat frequently used what we may fairly call extravagant hyperboles, sayings which will mislead if taken literally, but which understood as they were intended are in an unrivalled degree instructive and suggestive, sure to be remembered, weighty and mighty. In thus using pithy, and paradoxical or hyperbolical statements, our Lord was suiting himself bo the customs as well as the wants of his hearers. There are scores of the Proverbs of Solomon, that are really of the same character. E. g., what does this mean?‘When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, mark well what is before thee; and put a knife to thy throat if thou art given to appetite’ (Proverbs 23:2). Better cut your throat than eat greedily before his excellency. And so with many other sayings of the uninspired Jewish teachers, as recorded in some of the Rabbinical books. *

“But are not such expressions hard to interpret, and likely to be misunderstood?” Yes, they require care, breadth of view and sound judgment to interpret them. And I think it absolutely necessary, if we would interpret aright the teachings of our Lord, to remember that he spoke not as a scientific lecturer but as a preacher, a preacher for the most part to the common people, an open-air preacher, addressing restless and mainly unsympathizing crowds. In fact one will be all the better prepared to interpret these discourses if he has himself had experience of practical preaching under similar conditions. Some of our Lord’s paradoxical and hyperbolical sayings have been often and grievously misunderstood. Interpreting them literally, some good people have tried, for example, to refrain from all self-defence, to give to all beggars, etc.; and other good people, seeing that these things were impracticable, have sadly despaired of living in any respect up to the requirements of him who has so earnestly urged us to hear his sayings and do them; while many opposers have sneeringly said that the morality taught by Jesus is impossible, and therefore really unwise. Misunderstood—yes, I suppose our Lord has been worse misunderstood than any other teacher that ever spoke to the human race. But what of that? All powerful things are very dangerous if improperly handled. That which can do no harm though misused, can it do any good? Our attempts at usefulness in this world may always be represented as to their results by this simple algebraical formula: + So much good done—So much harm done = So much. It is our duty, as far as possible, to diminish the harm as well as increase the good; but :an we ever reduce the harm down to zero, without reducing the good to zero too? If we are too painfully solicitous to avoid doing harm, we shall do nothing. The notions of our “sensation preachers” contain an element of truth. And to find that true and good and mighty something which they grope after in darkness and do not reach, we have but to study the preaching of Jesus Christ.

(7) I add but a word as to his tone and spirit. These cannot be fully analyzed, but we must seek to imitate them as far as we can apprehend, or can catch by sympathy. We must meditate on his perfect fidelity to truth, and yet perfect courtesy and kindliness; his severity in rebuking, without any tinge of bitterness; his directness and simplicity, and yet his tact—wise as the serpent, with the simplicity of the dove; his complete sympathy with man, and also complete sympathy with God—bringing heaven down to earth, that he might lift up earth to heaven. And so in him we see, as we see in all his more worthy followers, that materials of preaching are important, and methods of preaching are imortant, but that most important of all is personal character and spirit.

I have time for but a few words as to the preaching of the Apostles. I regret this, because we may find in their discourses a greater number of practical lessons as to preaching, than in other parts of Scripture. But it is also easier to find those lessons here than elsewhere, and one who is interested in the matter will have comparatively little need of help. The apostolical Epistles were not in general expected to be read by all or by many of those to whom they were sent, but were written addresses, designed to be read out in meeting, and listened to Most of them are really written sermons, not written to be read by the author himself, but sent to some distant church to be read there by another person. Especially is this true of 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Romans, Colossians, and the Circular letter or address which we call Ephesians; also of the discourses sent out by James, Peter, Jude, John. Most of all is it true of the epistle or discourse to the Hebrews, which has every mark of being a sermon, and concerning the origin of which I decidedly prefer the theory of Clement and Origen, that it was a sermon preached by Paul, and reported by some other person, perhaps by Luke, who has reported so many other discourses of his in Acts. However that may be, it is clear that many of what we commonly describe as epistles are really sermons Nearly all of those to whom they were originally addressed got their knowledge of them not by reading them but by hearing them read, as it is said in the Apocalypse, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear,” etc. It is important to recall this fact for several reasons. (1) In the enthusiasm which is now rightly and nobly felt for popular education, there is danger of our imagining that the ability to read is indispensable to one’s being a Christian. Certainly it is eminently desirable that the freedmen of the South, for example, should learn to read, and we must all labor for this; and yet some of them are not only sincere but somewhat intelligent Christians, simply by hearing the Bible read, as among the early Christians. (2) I f the apostolical discourses were originally designed to be read aloud to congregations, do they not err who suppose that there is little need now of publicly reading the Scriptures, because “everybody,” as they phrase it, can now read the Bible for himself? Still is the saying true, “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear.” (3) What we call the Epistles can often be better understood by studying them as discourses than as in the strict sense epistles. And useful lessons can be drawn from them as to the best methods of preaching.

Besides these great discourses, written verbatim after the dictation of the inspired authors, we have in Acts brief and usually condensed reports of other discourses, chiefly addresses by Peter and by Paul. From all these there is really much to be learned as to methods of preaching. Especially do the discourses, both in Acts and in the so-called Epistles, of the great apostle Paul, furnish a rich field for homiletical study.

How profitable it would be to examine narrowly his argumentation, as in Galatians, Romans, Colossians, Hebrews. Also to study his bursts of passionate feeling, and vehement exhortations, as in 2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, Hebrews. How instructive would be the collection and classification of his illustrations, which are not often drawn from nature (as in James), but chiefly from the practical life of men, their business, their amusements, etc. And his style is singularly rich in rhetorical lessons—a style consisting not in quietly earnest and straightforward talk, like practical Peter, and not poetic, pictorial, vivid like James, but logic set on fire—a ceaseless stream of argument and earnest appeal, often swelling into a torrent which bears everything along, confusedly, perhaps, but with mighty force, resistlessly. You see in the various addresses and epistles of Paul the style of a many-sided man—here a Boanerges in passionate vehemence, and there as tender as a woman’s love—hesitating not to break sentences in twain by sudden bursts or digressions—piling strong words upon each other, like Ossa upon Pelion, in the struggling effort to reach the height of his great argument, to give fit expression to his swelling emotion—scorning the ‘wisdom of words,’ the strained and artificial energy and elegance in which the degenerate Greeks of the day delighted, and yet producing without apparent effort a gem of literary beauty not surpassed in all the world’s literature, that eulogium upon love, which blazes like a diamond. on the bosom of Scripture. As I said of Isaiah, so it may be said of Paul, that thousands have unconsciously learned from him how to preach. And how much richer and more complete the lesson may be if we will apply ourselves to it consciously and thoughtfully.

One point as to the great apostle’s preaching I must not omit to mention—the striking adaptation of every discourse to the audience and the occasion. You have noticed that in the synagogue at Antioch in Pisidia he spoke as a Jew to the Jews, arguing from Scripture and from their national history. At Lystra, among ignorant and barbarous idolators, he utters the simplest truths of natural religion, while at Athens those same truths were brought out with varied, profound and skilful argument, and with a courtly grace of expression which came spontaneously to the lips of a cultivated and refined man in addressing such an audience. Similar examples of adaptation are seen in the great series of Apologies, before the fanatical Jews who had been trying to kill him in the temple court, before the Sanhedrim, before Felix and Festus, before Agrippa, and to the Jews at Rome. No one of all the apostle’s discourses recorded in Acts would have been suitable to take the place of any other. So likewise as to his Epistles. Think of sending Romans to Corinth, or Colossians to Rome—and so of the rest.

There is here a surpassingly important lesson for preachers. Every discourse ought to be so carefully and precisely adapted to the particular audience and occasion, that it would not suit another occasion or audience without important alteration. Very rarely is it allowable, if ever, to make a sermon so general that it will suit all places equally well, for then it does not exactly suit any place. If you do not attempt to imitate Paul in anything else as to preaching, be sure to follow his example in this—that you try to adapt every sermon to that time, that place, that people; and if you repeat it elsewhere, search eagerly beforehand to find out at least some points of specific adaptation to the new occasion and congregation. Even though these points be sometimes very slight in themselves, yet they may act like the delicate tendrils which hold the vine to its supports, and are essential to its fruitfulness.

I close with one general inquiry. When we note how many specimens of eloquence the Scriptures present, and see how instructive they are, even upon a hurried glance, are we to conclude, as some virtually maintain, that the Art of Preaching should be learned exclusively from the Bible? I answer, No, by no means. Men think they put honor upon the Bible by maintaining this, and by insisting that Homiletics shall be regarded as essentially distinct from Rhetoric. In like manner some are very unwilling to admit that Christian sculpture is inferior to that of the ancient Greeks; and I remember an American book in which it is earnestly contended that the model of the Parthenon must have been derived from Solomon’s temple—through the Phenicians, to be sure. Justin Martyr, who lived in Palestine less than a century after the crucifixion, told Trypho that Jesus, in his carpenter-life at Nazareth, made ploughs and ox-yokes, and there is nothing improbable in the statement. Would you suppose that he made ploughs of a new pattern, greatly better than those in use there before? Why should he not introduce all our modern improvements in ploughs, yea, and all those of the ages yet to come? You answer, our Lord came into the world to teach moral and spiritual truth, and not to introduce mechanical inventions. Precisely so as to architecture, then, and sculpture, and all the arts, including the art of Rhetoric. In speaking, our Lord and the prophets and the apostles have left us noble and highly instructive examples, from which we ought lovingly to learn. But they employed the methods common in their time, and natural to the Shemitic races. And we are really following their example, in the spirit of it, if we employ the methods best suited to the Aryan races, and to modern thought and modern feeling.

End Notes ^* My attention was called to this last fact by my colleague, Dr. Toy.