Concerning the Choice of Texts
1. Never take a teict which you do not fully understand; and make it a point of conscience to give the literal meaning of it to the people. This is a matter of great and solemn importance. To give Gkpd’s words a different meaning to what he intended to convey by them, or to put a construction upon them which we have not the fullest proof he has intended, is awful indeed! Any person who is but even a little acquainted with spiritual things, may give a spiritual interpretation (according to his own opinion) to any text: but it is not every person that can give the literal sense. The spiritual meaning must ever be drawn from the literal; and indeed when the first is well known, the latter, which is its use and application, will naturally spring from it; but, without all controversy, the literal meaning is that which (Jod would have first understood. By not attending to this, heresies, false doctrines, and errors of all kinds have been propagated and multiplied in the world.
2. Remember you are called, not only to explain the things of God, but also the words of God. The meaning of the thing is found in the word; and if the word which comprises the original idea be not properly understood, the meaning of the thing can never be defined; and on this ground the edification of the people is impossible. We often take it for granted, that the words which are in common use are well known, especially when we understand them ourselves: but this is a very false opinion, and has bad consequences; for elementary matters being not well known, it is no wonder if the intellectual improvement of the people do not keep pace with our labours. No man can read a language, the alphabet of which he has never learned. Every mathematician feels it a matter of imperious necessity to define all the terms he uses in his demonstrations.
3. Never appear to contradict the Holy Spirit by what is called treating a subject negatively and positively. I shall wave all strictures on the barbarism of” showing negatively what a thing is not f and will only beg leave to state that the following instances of this injudicious and dangerous mode of handling the word of Gtod have fallen within the compass of my own observation.
A Preacher took for his text, Isa. xxviii. 16. ‘’He that believeth shall not make haste.’’ On this he preached two sermons. His division was as follows: I shall first prove that he who be- 2a LETTER TO A PREACHER.
Heveth AaXL make haste: and, secondly, show in what sense he that believeth iall not make haste.*’ On the first, which was a flat contradiction of the text; he spent more than an hour: and the congregation were obliged to wait a whole month before he could come back to inform them that he who believeth shall not make haste. I would not be thought to insinuate that the first sermon was not sound doctrine and good sense, as to its matter; but I say it was injudicious. And, besides, it was absurd to found his work upon a text, the very letter of which it contradicted in the most palpable manner.
Another, a citizen of no mean city, not a thousand miles from the place where I write, took his text from Psa. xxxiv. 19. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Grod delivereth him out of them all.” His division was as follows: “In handling this text I shall first prove that there is none righteous. Secondly, That the afflictions of the righteous are many: and. Thirdly, That the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” The honest man’s meaning and design were undoubtedly good: but who could hear his division without trembling for himself and his text!
Another took Luke xii 32. ‘Tear not little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.’’ In opposition to the letter of his text, the Preacher laboured to prove that the flock of Christ is not a little, but a very large flo<^: and in order to do this, brought in multi* tudes of pious heathens, vast numbers who sought and found mercy in their last hour, together with myriads of infants, idiots, &c.
Who does not see, that in each of the above cases, ignorance of, or inattention to, the literal meaning of the text, was the grand cause of. this absnr<Cty and contradiction? Choose, therefore, such texts as you understand; and, after having conscientiously given the literal interpretation, im* prove the whole in the best manner you can to the edification of your hearers.
4. Seldom take a very short text; because a short one may not afford you sufficient matter to entertain and instruct your congregation. There are not many to be found who have the ability to use a few words of Scripture, as Addison and Steele did the Greek and Latin mottos of their Spectators: and those who have the ability should Hot use it in this way, for this plain reason, that in preaching, God should be heard more than man. But where imagination and invention are put to
3 — 2 the rack to supply the place of the words of Qod the hearers may admire the address of the Preacher, but are not likely to be fed with the bread of life. In such cases man speaks most, God least. Such preaching must leave the people ignorant of the Scriptures. With many at present, preaching is become more of a human art, than of a Divine science: and when this is considered, we need not wonder that the pulpit is so often employed, without becoming the mean of salvation to them that hear.
5. Never take a text which out of its jMX>per connexion can mean nothing. I travelled once with two Preachers who trifled the whole year in this way. Their texts were continually such aa these. “Adam, where art thou V* “I have some* what to say unto thee.” “If thou wilt deal justly and truly with my master, tell me.” “I have put o£r my coat, how shall I put it on f ‘’ Thy mouth is most sweet,” &c. I need not add that these solemn triflers did the people no good: and it will not surprise you to hear that they are both, long since, fallen away. Such texts as the for;oing may be preached from without any study; for twa reasons: first, Because they are not subjects for study, and should not be studied; and, secondly.
Becaase the person who takes such, speaks on them whatever comes uppermost, as one explanation will suit them just as well as another: for, taken out of their proper connexion, they mean — nothing. Beware of this, and never do violence to the word of God, by taking a text out of the connexion in which his Spirit has placed it. Let GU)d speak for himself, and his words will bear convincing testimony to their own excellence.
6. It might be very proper to say something here concerning the abuse of Scripture, by whatsis termed Allegorical Preaching; but as the good sense both of preachers and people has nearly banished thi? deceitful handling of the word of God from the nation, observations on this head are rendered comparatively unnecessary. Yet the custom still lives, though it does not prevail. A very great man, and one of the most learned of his day, Origen, was the father of this most thriftless and unedifying art. His learning and reputation have gained it a sort of credit in the world with superficial people; though every scholar knows that Origen himself, far from deriving any credit £rom it, was degraded by the unsubstantial craft, which, with the wisest and best men, ranks among the sullenly departing shades of the whole
3 — 3 herd of “unreal mockeries.” Mr. Benjamin KeacVs work of Scripture Metaphors, has done more to debase the taste both of preachers and people than any other work of the kind. Fortunately, some years ago, a large edition of this work was printed: it got thereby into the hands of many private individuals. Many preachers, in making a libera! use of it in the pulpit, were, according to the popular phrase, “found out:” this has made them cautious, and Reach on Scripture Metaphors is now in less repute than formerly. Two instances of this finding out came within my own knowledge. Mr. Wm. C. was eminent for explaining Scripture Metaphors and Allegories; the people admired his deep knowledge and ability: in one of the principal congregations where he frequently preached, a gentleman luckily had in his library Reach’s Scripture Metaphors, and found that it was from this publication that Mr. Wm. C. derived all his excellencies — he spoke of this publicly; and an unlucky person, giving the name of Billy Reach to the preacher, spoiled his popularity.
Another, having taken his text, said, “I shall divide this into twenty-one heads ;*’ and, so saying, he produced them all in detail. ‘A gentleman in the congregation said, ‘When I return home I duJl examine Keach on the Metaphors, and see whether you have missed any.” He did so, and found that he could speak more for the fidelity of the preacher’s memory than he could for the honesty of his heart; as in this respect he had most servilely and disingenuously stolen the word from his neighbour. Let these accounts not only deter you, but all that may read them, from a conduct as disgraceful in a literary as in a moral point of view; and which, in the end, must involve its author in shame and highly merited reproach.
Independently of all this, the principle is bad: it is degrading to the dignified doctrines of the gospel to be treated in a way by which no rational conviction was ever produced; and by which no truth was ever proved.
Even metaphors and parables prove nothing; they only illustrate, and are never allowed to be produced in support of any doctrine. This is a maxim in theology to which all polemic divines are obliged to bow. Theologia symbolica non est aigumentativa. Similia ad pompam, non ad pugnam: illustrant, at nihil probant. Added to all this, what is called allegorical preaching, debases the taste, and fetters the understanding, both of preacher and hearers.
7. But there is another species of preaching against which I would most solemnly guard you, viz., what is termed fine or flowery preaching. I do not mean preaching in elegant, correct, and dignified language; as every thing of this kind is quite in place, when employed in proclaiming and illustrating the records of our salvation: but I mean a spurious birth, which endeavours to hotiour itself by this title. Some preachers think they greatly improve their own discourses, by borrowing the fine sayings of others; and when theise are frequently brought forward in the course of a sermon, the preacher is said to be a flowery preadier. Such flowers, used in such a way, bring to my rememtoance the custom in some countries of putting full blown roses, or sprigs of rosemary, lavender and thyme in the hands of the dead, when they are put in their coffins. And may I be permitted to say, that the unnatural association of words and sentences in a fine dignified style, with the general tenor of a discourse which is often of a widely different character, is to me as ridiculous and absurd as the union of a cart-wheel with elegant clock-work.
But the principal fault in this kind of preaching is the using a vast number of words long and high sounding, to which the preacher himself appears to have aflixed no specific ideas, and which are often foreign, in the conneon in which he places them, to the meaning which they radically convey.
Such preachers are remarkiable for the multitude of words of a similar meaning, which they often heap together. Their substantives are lost in the overbearing crowd of adjectives brought to explain them; and the case is not rare, where two or three of these epithets mean precisely the same thing; only, unluckily for the person who uses them, one happens to be derived from the Latin or Gl^ek, another from the French, and the third, the only one he appears to understand, comes from his mother tongue; and perhaps, the most proper on the occasion. Words used in such a way either lose all meaning, or, like equal antagonist forces, destroy one another. Thus ‘Hhey draw out the thread of their verbosity finer than the staple of their argument.” They are precisely such as a good woman used, who having completed a task of spinning, for a part of which she had been previously paid, returned to her employer, who was himself a correct and elegant speaker, with a speech which she thought would please him, and in which he was, no doubt, greatly helped by her benevolent neighbours: ‘’Sir, I have brought badk the rest, of the residue, of the remaanmg part of the work you gave me to spin.” The sunplicity and ignorance of the poor woman became a subject of innocent merriment; but a preacher who epesks thus will not so easily escape: his aS^ctation and pedantry will, among sensible men, become the subjects of the most caustic animadversion,