Earnestness Exemplified in the Matter and Manner of Preaching

Fifthly. Earnestness will manifest itself by energetic and untiring action in the use of those means by which its object is accomplished. It does not satisfy itself with contemplation, however enraptured; schemes, however well concerted; wishes, however fervent, or anticipations, however lively: but proceeds to vigorous and welladapted exertion. An earnest man must of necessity be an active one: he is the opposite and the contrast of an idle dreamer. “I see my object,” he exclaims; “it stands out in bold relief, clearly denned before my eyes, and I will leave no effort untried to accomplish it. I have made up my mind to labor, self-denial, and fatigue; and if I do not succeed, it shall not be for want of determined and continuous effort.” Such is his resolution, and his practice is like it. He is always at work. You know where to find him, and how he is employed. He is the very type of diligence. Labor is pleasure. No difficulties deter him, no disappointments dishearten him. The ignorant do not understand him, the indolent pity him, but the intelligent admire him. There is something in his earnestness commanding, grand, especially when the object of it is worthy.

Apply this to the ministry: there are two means by which this accomplishes its end, preaching and the pastorate.

In reference to the former, I advert first to the matter of our ministrations. And this must consist of course of those topics which bear most obviously and directly upon the great ends we are seeking to accomplish. Earnestness will take the nearest and most direct road to its object; nor will it be seduced from its path by beautiful prospects and pleasant walks, that lie in another direction. “I want to reach that point, and I cannot allow myself to be attracted by scenes, which, however agreeable and appropriate to others, would, if I stayed or turned to contemplate them, only hinder me in my business.” Such is the language of one intent upon success in any given scheme. Now what is the end of our office? The reconciliation of sinners to God, and their ultimate and complete salvation, when so reconciled. It is easy then to see that the matter of our instruction and persuasion must be, the ministry of reconciliation. Of course it must be our purpose to declare the whole counsel of God, and to remember “that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” In the way of exposition a minister should go through the greater part of the whole Bible, fairly and honestly explaining and enforcing it. But since the whole Bible, as explained by the most perfect revelation of the ISTew Testament, directly or indirectly points to Christ, or may be illustrated and enjoined by considerations suggested by his mission and work, our preaching should have a decidedly evangelical character. The divinity, incarnation, and death of Christ — his atonement for sin — his resurrection, ascension, intercession, and mediatorial reign — his spiritual kingdom, and his second coming; the offices and work of the Holy Spirit in illuminating, regenerating, and sanctifying the human soul; the doctrine of justification by faith, and the new birth; the sovereignty of God in the dispensation of his saving gifts — these and their kindred and collateral topics should form, so to speak, the staple of our public ministrations and teaching. It surely must be this which the apostle meant when he said, “I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified.” “The Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” If there be any meaning in language, this must imply that the apostle in his ministry dwelt chiefly upon the work of Christ, as the theme of his discourses. His epistles all sustain this view of his meaning. They are all full of this great subject. We may perhaps smile at the simple piety of the individual who was at the trouble of counting the number of times that the apostle mentioned the name of Jesus in all his epistles, but at the same time something is to be learnt from the fact that he found it to reach between four and five hundred. This teaches us how thoroughly Christian, how entirely imbued with evangelism, his mind and his writings were. His morality was as evangelical as his doctrine, for he enforced all the branches of social obligation by motives drawn from the cross. His ethics were all baptized with the spirit oi the gospel, so that the believer, in reading the writings of Paul, has his eye as constantly kept upon the crucified one, in the progress of his sanctification, as the sinner’s eye is turned towards the same object, for his justification. Here then was the earnestness of the apostle, one constant, uniform, and undeviating endeavor to save men’s souls by the truth as it is in Jesus.

A question now arises whether it is the duty of modern preachers to adopt the same method, and whether, inasmuch as their ends are the same with those of the apostle, they are to seek them by the same means. One should suppose there can be no rational doubt of this. If the apostles were the inspired teachers of Christianity, and have given us in their writings a full exhibition of what Christianity really is; and if it is our business to explain and enforce their writings; it seems to follow as a thing of course that our teaching as to the matter of our discourses must resemble theirs: and will any one pretend that this resemblance can be established unless our preaching is richly and prevailingly evangelical? I am aware it is sometimes said that the times are altered since the apostles’ days, and that the state of the world is different from what it then was. But is not human nature in all its essential elements the same? Is it not the same in its moral aspect, impotency, and necessities? Does it not as much need, and as much depend upon the gospel scheme, as it did then? Is not the evangelical scheme as accurately adapted to its miserable condition as it was then? Can sin be pardoned in any other way than through the atonement of Christ; or the sinner be justified by any other means than faith in the Lord our righteousness; or the depraved heart be renewed and sanctified by any other agency than that of the Holy Spirit? Are not all the motive? of evangelical doctrine as adapted, as powerful, and as efficacious now, as they were then? No alteration of subject then can be called for now, to meet the advancing state of society, since the gospel is intended and adapted to be God’s instrument for the salvation of man, in all ages of the world, in all countries, and in all states of society. We reject alike the ancient practice of conforming the evangelical scheme to the systems of philosophy, and the modern Puseyite notion of the progressive development of Christian doctrine. To the men who would revive the former, we say, “Beware lest any man spoil you through a vain and deceitful philosophy, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ:” to the latter we say, “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines: for it is a good thing for the heart to be established with grace.” It appears to me that something like the same attempts are being made in this day to corrupt the gospel by superstitious additions on the one hand, and by philosophic accommodations on the other, as were carried on in the early days of Christianity. Our danger lies in the latter.

It should never be forgotten that the time when the apostles discharged their ministry was only just after the Augustan era of the ancient world. Poetry had recently bestowed some of its golden favors on the empire of letters in the works of Virgil and Horace. The light of philosophy, though waning, still shed its lustre on Greece. The arts, and their most splendid creations in architecture, sculpture, and painting, still lived, though they had ceased to grow. It was at such a time, and amidst such scenes, the gospel began its course. Apostolic voices were listened to by sages and their pupils who basked in tfce sunshjnc of

Athenian wisdom, and were reverberated in echo from temples and statues that had been shaken by the thunders of Cicero and Demosthenes; yet these holy men conceded nothing to the demands of philosophy, but held forth the cross as the only object they felt they had a right to exhibit. They never once conceived such an idea as that they must accommodate themselves to the philosophy or the taste of the age in which they lived, and the places in which they ministered. It is true the philosophy of that day was a false one, but it was not known or acknowledged to be such at the time. Whether the apostle addressed himself to the philosophers on Mars Hill, or to the barbarians in the island of Melita; whether he reasoned with the Jews in their synagogues, or with the Greeks in the school of Tyrannus; he had but one theme, and that was Christ, and him crucified. And what right, or what reason, have we for deviating from this high and imperative example? Be it so, that we are in a literary, philosophic, and scientific age, what then? Is it an age that has outlived the need of the gospel for its salvation; or to the salvation of which anything else can supply a means, but the gospel? The supposition that something else than the gospel, as the theme of our pulpit ministrations, is requisite for such a period as this, or that the gospel must be presented in a more philosophic form, appears to me a most dangerous sentiment, as being a disparagement to the gospel itself, and containing the very germ of infidelity. Let the taste be cultivated as it may by literature, or the mind be enlightened by science, or the reason disciplined by philosophy, the heart is still deceitful and wicked, the conscience still burdened with guilt, and the whole soul in a state of alienation from God. The moral constitution is mortally diseased, and nothing but the gospel is God’s saving health, which is as much required for the spiritual restoration of the polished son of science, as for that of the savage of New Zealand, or the Hottentot of South Africa. All else is but pretence and empiricism; and the man who would be in earnest, and successful in the salvation of souls, must have a clear conviction and a deep impression of these facts.

But perhaps the danger to which the evangelical ministry of the present age is exposed, is not so much a philosophizing spirit, or an attempt to conform the gospel to any metaphysical theory, as an effort to attain to a high intellectuality in setting forth received truths. We hear a great deal about this in modern times. It is become a kind of cant term, (for there is a high cant as well as a low one,) to speak of some men as very intellectual preachers. If by an intellectual preacher be meant a man who applies the acquirements of a vigorous and well-trained understanding to explain and enforce the great topics of evangelical truth; or the application, in the most attractive form, of whatever knowledge such a mind, in the pursuit after information of all kinds, can obtain, to the great end of the Christian ministry; or the employment of sound logic and natural eloquence to make the doctrines which are unto salvation bear down upon the heart and conscience; in that case a man cannot be too intellectual: the great and glorious doctrines of revealed truth and life eternal, deserve and demand the mightiest energies of the noblest intellects. But if, as is too generally the case, this intellectuality means the cold, dry, argumentative discussion of religious truth, rather than evangelical subjects, or even of the latter in an abstract and essay-like form: a mere heartless exercise of the understanding of the preacher, and intended or adapted only to engage the understanding of the hearers, without either interesting their affections or awakening their conscience; such intellectuality will do nothing but empty the places of worship in which it is exhibited, or at best draw together a congregation of persons who cannot do without some religion, but who prefer the* cold abstractions of the head to the warm affections of the heart.

Here I would not be misconstrued to mean that every sermon must be on strictly evangelical themes; but that these must be the prevailing topics of the man who is in earnest for the salvation of souls. Nor would I go so far as to say that each sermon must contain as much of the gospel as would make every hearer of it acquainted with the way of salvation, though he never should listen to another discourse. There is such a thing as treating these subjects so carelessly, so familiarly, and so frequently, as to deprive them of all their power to interest and impress. A man whose soul is possessed with the passion for doing good, will make almost any and every topic adapted for usefulness. Subjects, which in other hands will be dry and uninteresting, will in his be invested with the glow and the warmth which live in his own soul, and which he imparts to everything he touches. His heart beats with an action so strong, so steady, and so healthful, that his fervid and holy intelligence circulates an evangelical vitality through what in others would be a cold and torpid frame, and thus causes the principle of gospel life to reach to the very extremities of the system of general truth. Still even he, though he dwell occasionally on every topic which can with propriety be brought into the pulpit, will, like the apostle, “glory only in the cross of Christ.” Resisting the temptations to neglect a plain gospel, and to go in quest of airy speculations and unprofitable novelties, his aim will not be to gratify the imaginative by what is tasteful and poetic, the philosophical by what is profound, the metaphysical by what is subtle, or the curious by what is strange, but by manifestation of the truth to commend himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. Alas that any preacher of the gospel should take any other aim, and seek any other object, than this! Do we want subjects for eloquence, where can we find them in such abundance, grandeur, and sublimity, as in the gospel scheme? The cross is a fount of the purest, most impassioned, and most pathetic eloquence in the world, from which genius may go on to draw its streams without ever exhausting it. Compare the most finished orations and sermons of Massillon, Bossuet. or Bourdaloue, with McLaurin’s discourse on “Glorying in the Cross;” and though the former are more perfect as models of composition, more decorated by all the artifices and graces of rhetoric, yet how far below that incomparable sermon in the sublimity of its theme, and the grandeur of its evangelical eloquence, are these boasted models of the French pulpit. Even the soul of Blair kindled into something like a glow of pious warmth when he came, which he seldom did, within the attraction of this object; and though it was but as moonlight, compared with the ardor of his colleague Walker, yet in his sermon on “The Death of Christ,” his frigid elegance becomes enlivened by his theme, and furnishes a standing proof that the heathen morals of Epictetus are a barren source of eloquence, compared with the Christian doctrines of the apostle Paul. I make no apology for requoting a passage from an American author which I have already given to the public in my Address to Students:” My dear brethren, why are we not more impressive? Theology affords the best field for tender, solemn, and sublime eloquence. The most august objects are presented; the most important interests are discussed; the most tender motives are urged. God and angels; the treason of Satan; the creation, ruin, and recovery of a world; the incarnation, death, resurrection, and reign of the Son of God; the day of judgment; a burning universe; an eternity; a heaven and a hell — all pass before the eye. What are the petty dissensions of the states of

Greece, or the ambition of Philip; what are the plots and victories of Rome, or the treason of Cataline, compared with this? If ministers were sufficiently qualified by education, study, and the Holy Ghost; if they felt their subject as much as Demosthenes and Cicero did, they would be the most eloquent men on earth, and would be so esteemed wherever congenial minds were found. “*

To know what themes contain the greatest potency over the public mind, and which should form the subject of an earnest ministry, we have only to consult the pages of ecclesiastical history. It is unnecessary, after what I have already written, to dwell upon the matter of apostolic preaching. It was by the purest evangelism that Christianity was planted in the earth, and it was when this gave place to a religion of forms and ceremonies, that the power and vitality of true godliness declined, and a mass of splendid corruption grew up, in the dark shadow of which the man of sin erected his throne, and the Papacy commenced its bloody reign. During the long night of the middle ages the sound of the faithful preacher was not heard, and the voice of Zion’s watchman was silent, except in a few obscure nooks and corners of the earth; but wherever it was then heard, the same effects followed. It was this

* Dr. Griffin’s Sermon on the Art of Preaching.

subject with which Claude, of Turin, when nearly all the world were wondering after the Beast, awakened in the ninth century, the inhabitants of Piedmont, and commenced that glorious work which was carried on, more or less, for centuries, amid the seclusion of Alpine rocks and valleys, and which the concentrated power and fury of the Papacy could never entirely subvert. It was this evangelism which our Wicliff preached in England in the fifteenth century, and by it kindled a fire, amidst the smouldering ashes of which lay concealed the embers that were again to ignite when fanned by the breath of the reformers a century afterwards. By what means did Luther achieve his immortal triumph over the powers of the Vatican, and smite off the fetters which had enslaved the judgment, heart, and conscience of man? By the potency of what subject did he lift up into freedom and dignity the prostrate intellect of the human race? What was the instrument with which he struck the empire of darkness, and inflicted a blow which resounded through the civilized world? It was the great evangelical doctrine of justification by faith. By what means did Whitfield and Wesley rouse the slumbering piety of our nation, and call up a spirit which is going on from strength to strength to this day? By the evangelical system of divine truth. What called forth the missionary enterprise, and constructed all that moral machinery which is at wprk upon the world’s conversion? Before what system of truths have the inhabitants of Polynesia and New Zealand surrendered their licentious habits and bloody rites; and the Hottentots and Esquimaux dropped their barbarism, and risen up into the form and manners of civilized men? What is the doctrine by which our missionaries are taking possession of India and China? I answer in one word, the doctrine of the cross.

Here then is a fact attested by authentic history, and uncontradicted by any one who is acquainted either with the present or the past, that all the great moral revolutions of our world, during the time of the Christian era, have been effected by one simple process, by one set of means, — and that process is the preaching of the gospel. Providential events may have prepared the way by levelling mountains and filling up valleys, and making smooth the course of the herald of the cross; but it was that herald’s mighty voice proclaiming, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world,” which by the power of God’s Spirit has changed the moral aspect of our dark and dreary world. All this has not been done by learning, science, and philosophy; it is not the result of profound speculations on any theory of morals or of fine processes of reasoning; or of splendid creations of poetic genius; or of the subtleties of metaphysical discussion; no, but of the simple testimony of the gospel. While the philosopher has been theorizing in his closet, and the moral arithmetician has been carrying on his calculations in his study, the preacher has gone forth into the midst of the people, ignorant, wicked, and wretched as they were, has lifted up the great truth of a loving God, a dying Saviour, and a regenerating Spirit, and has by those means, as an instrument of God, changed the aspect of society, and revolutionized the moral habits of the nations.

Strange that with the knowledge of these facts, any of our preachers should think of substituting these glorious truths, which have wrought such wonders in the world, by any other themes; or should act as if weapons that had proved their adaptation and their power, should be wielded now with a doubtful mind, and with a hesitating hand. If we would know how we are to convert souls to God, we have only to ask, how has God converted them? Nor is it necessary to go back to past ages, or abroad to other countries. Let us only look round upon our own country; let us go to our largest congregations and our most numerous churches, and ask what kind of preaching has done all this; what doctrine, and how handled, has drawn this multitude together; what magnet has put forth its attractions here? And the secret is soon discovered, and it will be found that here is an exemplification of our Lord Jesus Christ’s words, “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” Go into other places where an evangelical intellectuality is substituted for the vital truths of the gospel; where philosophical abstractions take the place of popular addresses on great fundamental doctrines, and cold, logical essays are read, instead of heart- stirring sermons beingpreached; and the attenuated and still declining congregation proclaims the want of adaptation in the pulpit ministrations, and prove that for the popular mind there can be no substitute for the cross of Christ. Nor does this apply exclusively to the uneducated, or partially educated classes. Human nature in all its prevailing features, tastes, necessities, and enjoyments, is the same in the king and in the peasant; in the savage and the sage. All men are made susceptible of emotion, as well as capable of feeling; and all men love to feel, as well as to think. A tradesman, or professional man, who has been at work all the week, having had his mind strained with hard thinking, as well as his body by hard labor, when he takes his seat in his pew on a Sabbath morning, wants something for his heart, as well as for his head. With a sermon, however intellectual it may be, which has nothing that comes home to his affections, and causes him to feel, he is sure to be disappointed and dissatisfied. A dry essay on some gospel subject which only proves a point he never doubted, or starts a difficulty he never dreamt of, is like giving him a stone when he asks for bread. He wants to be made to feel there is something higher and better than this world. He desires to enjoy the luxury of hallowed emotion, he covets the joy and peace of believing, and the anticipations of that world, where the weary are at rest, and the din of business will be forever hushed. That man, tired and jaded by the cares, anxieties, and toils of six days, wants to lie down and take repose on the soft green of evangelical truth, and not on the hard rocks of abstract speculation. It is true, that being a man of education and reading, his heart must be reached through his intellect, and though it must be the substantial bread of evangelical truth with which he is fed, yet it must not be coarse or chaffy; it must not only be prepared and made of the finest of the wheat, but it must also be well mixed, and made palatable to a refined taste by a skillful hand.

Before I pass from this part of the subject, it may be proper to remark that perhaps there are few expressions more misunderstood, and on which more mistakes have been made, than “preaching the gospel.” Many by the use of this phrase aim to exclude from the pulpit almost every topic but a perpetual and almost unvarying exhibition of the death of our Lord, and consider this specifically, and this only, as preaching Christ. But it is strangely forgotten by the preachers of this school, that as the scheme of mediation by the Saviour is founded on the eternal obligation and immutable nature of the law of God, and was intended, not to subvert, but to uphold its authority, the moral law must be explained and enforced, in all its purity, spirituality, and extent. Repentance towards God is no less included in the apostolic ministry, than faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and how can a sinner repent of his transgressions against the law, if he know not the law he has violated? for “sin is the transgression of the law ;M and “by the law is the knowledge of sin.” So that no man can know sin without knowing the law: and herein appears to me one of the prevailing defects of modern preaching, I mean the neglect of holding up this perfect mirror, in which the sinner shall see reflected his own moral image. It is true that some are melted down at once into a sense of wickedness, and brought to the exercise of both repentance and faith, by an exhibition of divine love in the death of Christ; but I do not think this is so usual a method pf conversion as the first awakening of the sinner by an exposition and application of the perfect law. Dr. Dwight says, “Few, very few, are ever awakened or convinced by the encouragements and promises of the gospel; but almost all by the denunciations of the law. The blessings of immortality, the glories of heaven, are usually, to say the least, preached with little efficacy to an assembly of sinners. I have been surprised to see how dull, inattentive, and sleepy such an assembly has been, amidst the strongest representations of these divine subjects, combining the most vivid images with a vigorous style and an impressive elocution.”* This is a strong testimony, but it is perhaps a little overstated. Still I am persuaded there is much truth in it, for it seems to stand by reason, that men will care little about pardon till they are convinced of sin, and as the apostle says, it is by the law that they come to the knowledge of sin. In this particular there appears to me a superior adaptation in the American preaching to the work of conviction, than in the British pulpit: there is

* Vol. II. p. 417.

more of this exposition of the law, and of the application of it to the sinner’s conscience; more that is calculated to make him feel at once his obligations and his guilt; more of that which silences his excuses, unravels the deceitfulness of his heart, strips him of self-righteousness, makes him thoroughly acquainted with himself and his entire need of a Saviour; in short, more of what the apostle calls commending himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. With this, however, is I think associated a want of evangelical fullness and tenderness. I remember a discussion, by a large company of ministers in my vestry, on one occasion, as to what style of preaching had been found in their own experience to be most useful; and it was pretty generally admitted, and some of them had been among our most successful preachers, that sermons on alarming and impressive texts had been most blessed in producing conviction of sin, and first concern about salvation. At the same time it must be recollected, that though descriptions of sin may affect — exhibiting the consequences of it may affright — vehement censures of it may alarm — reasoning concerning it may open the gloomy road to despair — this alone will not convert. Law without gospel will harden, as gospel without law will only lead to carelessness and presumption: it is the union of both that will possess the sinner with a loathing of himself, and love to God. Still our danger in this age lies not so much in neglecting the gospel, as in omitting to associate with this the preaching of the law. It is worthy of remark that Jesus Christ, who was incarnate love itself, the living gospel, yea, the way, the truth, the life, was the most alarming preacher that was ever in our world. It is, however, especially incumbent upon us not to mistake grossness for fidelity, nor harshness for earnestness. The remarks of Mr. Hall on this, are as correct as they are beautiful. “A harsh and unfeeling manner of denouncing the threatenings of the word of God, is not only barbarous and inhuman, but calculated, by inspiring disgust, to rob them of all their efficiency. If the awful part of our message, which may be styled the burden of the Lord, ever fall with due weight upon our hearers, it will be when it is delivered with a trembling hand, and faltering lips.” The look, the tone, the action, when such subjects are discussed, should be a mixture of solemnity and affection — the awfulness of love. To hear such topics dwelt upon in strong language, vehement action, and boisterous tones, strikes us as being an utter violation of all propriety, and in every hearer of the least discernment, is likely to excite horror and revulsion. Real earnestness is the result of deep emotion, and the emotion excited by the sight of a fellow- creature perishing in his sins is that of the tenderest commiseration, which will express itself, not in stormy declamation and thundering denunciations, but of solemnly chastened expostulation and appeal.