LECTURE VI.

STRUCTURE OF SERMONS, PRELIMINARY REMARKS, -NECESSITY OF SOUND JUDGMENT, AND A PIOUS SPIRIT IN A PREACHER.—EXORDIUM.

OUR attention will be directed through several following lectures, to THE STRUCTURE OF SERMONS. In entering upon this large class of topics, some preliminary suggestions seem to be required.

The composition of a sermon calls into exercise both the intellect and the heart. As a work of intellect, the preacher's success in selecting and arranging his materials, depends in no small measure on the soundness of his judgment. Through an infelicity of taste or habit, some men treat all sorts of subjects in one precise method. They have just so many principal heads, just so many subdivisions, and so many inferences in each discourse, following in exact succession, like the strokes of the clock, which mark the hours of the day. The hearers easily anticipate the particulars of this unvarying round, Now this rigid uniformity is not applicable to any important business, depending on the agency of mind. What should we think of a general, who should plan a battle or a siege according to books, without regarding the character of his troops, the circumstances of his position, or the strength of his enemy? He might spend the time of a campaign in drawing lines of circumvallation or contravallation, and with all his mathematical exactness,

he might prove a harmless enemy to those who would have trembled at the prompt use of bayonets and heavy artillery. Should the lawyer treat all causes of his clients, or the physician all diseases of his patients, in one technical method, without regarding the endless variety of circumstances, what should we say of their skill in their several professions? Certainly a mode of proceeding, which is absurd in all other cases, is not less absurd in the pulpit.

But the reasonable disgust which we feel at a mechanical uniformity, should not push us into the opposite extreme. Oratory, like other arts, has settled principles. The barrister when he speaks, has some end in view ; and applies his powers to attain it, not at random, but according to some plan, adapted to his purpose. He states facts, adduces testimony, cites authority, reasons, obviates prejudices, rouses emotion. To gain his cause, he combines more or fewer sources of argument, and directs his efforts to a given point of attack or defence, as a versatile invention, and a skilful judgment may dictate. He adopts a particular course, not by accident, but because his knowledge of men and of his profession, induces him to prefer this, as most likely to be successful.

The wise preacher too, will proceed according to the subject and design of his discourse; and will not be so afraid of rules, as to determine that a sermon should have no subject nor design. Without using judgment, every rule indeed will be unavailing, even to teach him the meaning of his text. Does it therefore follow that the system of sacred interpretation can give him no aid in understanding the Bible?-or that he is to ascertain the sense of a single text only by chance, without any prin ciples to guide him? No more does it follow, because mere rules cannot enable him to compose a good sermon,

that therefore he can never hope to make such a sermon, except by chance. The thought, the method, and the expression, all demand pains and skill. Writing is a fine art, and has elementary principles. Accident might as well produce the Messiah of Handel, as the Paradise Lost; might as well guide the chisel of Praxiteles, or the pencil of Raffaelle, as the pen of Addison.

I am aware that a random effort in the pulpit, is sometimes successful. But when it is so, if it was occasioned by affected peculiarity, or careless neglect of regular preparation, it requires apology rather than commendation.

This leads to another remark, viz. on the necessity of pious feeling. The preacher's success in composing a sermon, depends pre-eminently on the state of heart with which he comes to the work. Suppose he engages in it with the same frigid calculation, with which a mechanic sits down to the construction of a clock. His object is to amuse his hearers; to make an advantageous display of his own genius, or learning, or eloquence. With this view, he chooses his subject and his method; adopts some novel interpretation of his text, becoming a man of erudition; calls to his aid all the resources of profound theological research; adjusts all his topics of argument and of address to the passions, according to the best canons of taste;-and when the sermon is finished, what is it?-a body with fair proportions, elegant, splendid, perhaps, in its decorations, but a body without a soul.

But let the preacher commence his preparation for the pulpit with the heart of a devout Christian; a heart that regards as the great end of preaching, the glory of God and the salvation of man; a heart that feels the worth of souls, glows with holy affection to the Re

deemer, and anticipates with trembling hope, the day when he shall come to be glorified in them that believe; and this spirit will diffuse a savour of godliness through the sermon, that will warm, and impress, and penetrate his hearers. Luther's maxim, Bene orasse est bene studuisse,' should be graven on the memory of every preacher. None but God can effectually teach us how to teach others. A heart devoted to him in the study, will stamp its own character of sanctity and energy on every preparation for the pulpit. And let it never be forgotten, that no fund of knowledge, no rhetorical skill in the selection of matter, or in the arrangement or embellishment of a discourse, can make it in any measure what a Christian sermon should be, if it wants that vital impulse, which nothing can impart but a spirit of fervent piety.1

With these general remarks in view, we may proceed to consider that arrangement of parts, which is most usual in a regular sermon. To every such sermon, some of these parts will of course belong. You will readily perceive that it is not my object to designate the cases in which more or fewer of them may be dispensed with; but to lay down some principles in respect to each, that may assist the young preacher in his preparations for the pulpit; taking it for granted, that he will endeavour to make such an arrangement of parts, in any given case, as is best adapted to the subject and design of his discourse. The principal parts of a sermon which now demand our consideration are these five, exordium, exposition and proposition, division, discussion or argument, and conclusion. The observations which I shall make on these particulars, will necessarily bring into view some of the great principles of preaching; and instead

1 See Erskine's Discourses on Ministry, Ser. I.

of exhausting the subject, will only prepare the way for examining, more fully, the general characteristics of

sermons.

EXORDIUM.

The only valuable purpose for which any public speaker can address an assembly, is to make them understand, and believe, and feel, the sentiments which he utters. The chief object of an introduction then is, to secure that attention which is most favourable to the attainment of this purpose; and the obstacles which prevent this favourable attention, are commonly found in the prejudice, the ignorance, or the indifference of the hearers. They may have a low estimate of the talents or the moral character of the preacher. In such a case, however, the remedy lies not in any effect which he can hope to produce by a few prefatory sentences at the opening of a sermon, but in his becoming better known to his hearers, if he deserves their respect, or becoming a better man, if he does not. If the prejudice is directed against general opinions, which he holds, or is supposed to hold, no benefit can arise from attempting, in an exordium, to defend those opinions; nor from alluding to them in any form, except in some rare case, where a prompt disavowal may remove at once some injurious mistake. But if he is aware that the hearers are preoccupied with unfavourable impressions, as to the particular subject he is about to discuss, his first aim evidently should be, so to present that subject, if possible, as not to strengthen, but to obviate those impressions.

Supposing, however, the preacher to be satisfied, that no prejudice of the hearers exists to frustrate the effect of his discourse, still he is to presume that their ignorance, or at least their indifference to divine things, will present