Introduction

The publishers of this vohime desire a few introductory paragraphs from one who knows the famous London preacher.

Joseph Parker was born in 1830 in Northumberland, England, a county which has produced such a lawyer as Lord Eldon, such an engineer as George Stephenson, and such a preacher as Thomas Binney. He regards his training for the ministry to have commenced when he was seven years of age. It is told that when he was not more than five he was seen alone, and heard saying, as he looked at the dazzling sun,

“What are these arrayed in white,
Brighter than the noonday sun.”

After a thorough training in the ancient languages and mathematics, he studied logic and natural and moral philosophy in University College, London. After that he was for a short time pulpit assistant to Dr. John Campbell, of the Whitfield Tabernacle. Then he was settled five years in Banbury, where he built a new chapel, after which he succeeded the learned Dr. Robert Halley in Manchester, where he labored with increasing success and distinction until he was called to the Church in the Poultry, London, 1869. More and more, as preacher and author, he became known to the public. By instituting a Thursday morning course of sermons he increased the numbers of those whom he reached with the Gospel, as many whose engagements elsewhere precluded them from hearing Dr. Parker on Sunday could attend these services. He projected and built the City Temple, a noble structure at one end of Holborn Viaduct, far from the fashionable quarter of London and removed from even the plainer portion of dwellings, but in the heart of what is technically called “The City.” This great church cost $250,000, and such men as Dean Stanley and England’s great Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, have spoken in it.

The first knowledge we had of him in America was, I think, the publication of his work styled “Ecce Deus.” “Ecce Homo” had appeared anonymously and been known and read by all religious American scholars, and had produced a very great impression. “Ecce Deus” would naturally iv INTRODUCTION.

attract attention as probably occasioned by “Ecce Homo.” So in point of fact it was. But, while meeting many points of “Ecce Homo” polemically, it had its own aim and scope. It exhibited a freshness and a power which would have secured its place, on the ground of its other higher merits, even if it had not had the additional virtue of antagonizing certain errors of “Ecce Homo.” Whoso read it felt that its author must be a man of much more than ordinary ability. When it was announced that Dr. Parker was the author thousands on this side of the Atlantic became interested in him. It prepared the warm reception which he met when he came to the Evangelical Alliance in 1873. It is well remembered that no representative from Great Britain produced such a marked impression as Dr. Parker did by the magnificent address which he delivered in the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. Ever since that very many Americans have had a great interest in this London preacher. His book, “The Paraclete,” maintained his reputation and enlarged the circles of his readers. His sermons have been republished frequently in religious newspapers of different denominations in different parts of the United States, and perhaps the Doctor never speaks from his pulpit without having Americans in his audience. But nothing that he has published so shows the man, I think, as the following sermons. I heard three of them. The Doctor’s plan is to preach his sermons from notes, not very copious, and the discourse of Sunday morning is taken down verbatim by an American phonographer. They are very little “touched up” for the press, and are printed in “The Fountain” so as to be ready for the public on the Thursday morning when they are redelivered. This Thursday morning service is a peculiarity. It is duly advertised. Indeed, a large placard stands in front of the City Temple, making announcements of church work and publications. As the Doctor’s stated parishoners have heard these sermons, they leave the edifice for the worshippers on Thursday morning. Ordinarily the lower floor is well filled, and it is a congregation of mark. People who have heard of the Doctor or of the City Temple or have read his works come from different parts of London and of the world to hear him preach. In the vestibule the sermon which is about to be delivered can be bought for a penny. You may undertake the experiment of following the delivered discourse from the printed page, but it will be a failure. The preacher looks his congregation in the face, and goes at preaching as one goes at threshing. He keeps on the track of the printed discourse until he has got on a head of steam, and then in turning an angle in the road he is very liable to jump off and plough the fields until he reaches the track again. Like all strong preachers he is most difficult to report. The finest passage I heard in the three discourses to which I listened was not in the printed report in “The Fountain,” nor does it appear in the sermon in this volume. The preacher had climbed to the top of the ladder of one portion of his sermon, and had ascended

SO rapidly and ardently as to have acquired a rush which made him spread his wings and take a flight beyond. That flight carried his whole congregation with him, and they were more breathless than he. The advantage of extemporaneous preaching is that it accomplishes that for which preaching was intended, but it can never be reproduced. The preacher must make his choice. Usually what is richest in preaching is poorest in print. Whitfield’s sermons as printed are almost absolutely worthless. The “report” shows the track on which the sermon ran; but we know that the most intelligent man, who had never seen a railroad, could never from gazing at a track produce mentally the bounding locomotive and the richly freighted train as they thundered along the railway. These republished discourses, which show very accurately the track of the preacher’s mind, will be very useful as studies to those who have not listened to Dr. Parker; while those who have heard him, of whom there are multitudes in America, will have fresh pleasure in filling up the outline by recollections of the large, hearty, impressive preacher.

It is proper to let Dr. Parker speak for himself, that the reader may know what the preacher’s idea of this volume really is. In accounting for the abrupt and urgent style often perceptible in these discourses, and which will be their chief charm to many, the Doctor says:

“There is no attempt at literary composition. My aim was to preach j to formulate sentences that would go immediately home to the intelligence and feeling of my hearers, and to prevent all wandering of interest and expectancy. Now that I see my own hurried words in print, I see where I could mend many of the sentences as to their merely literary structure; on the other hand I see a force in many of them which could not have been imparted in the coldness of the study. I care less and less for literary sermons. What Mr. Gladstone is in parliament; what Henry Brougham was at the bar; and what Bishop Wilberforce was on the platform; that, as to extetnporaneotisness, preachers should aim to be in the pulpit. It is not to be supposed that extemporaneous preaching is extemporaneous thinking. With the thoughts of these discourses I have been familiar for a life-time; the words alone are the choice of the moment. Let young preachers mark this distinction carefully, lest they imagine they have only to ascend a pulpit and give out a text in order to preach and enforce the sacred gospel. To young preachers I have often said, Give your days to study and your nights to prayer, if you would solidly and permanently excel in the holy ministry. That solemn advice I reiterate with all the mellow emphasis of ever-enlarging personal experience of pulpit life and service. At the same time, /r-ar/^ the gospel! Do not read’ii, or if you must read to some extent, reserve the power to speak directly and fervently to the heart of the hearer, with all the urgency and passion of the most earnest yearning for his instruction and salvation. Strange as it may vi INTRODUCTION.

appear to those who have had no experience in the matter, it is easier to read than to preach a sermon, assuming that both the reading and the preaching are really to be of the best quality. Less thought is required in a written than in a spoken address, because so much more use can be made of language; it can be arranged in so many different ways; it can be made to take on all sides and varieties of rhetorical color; the writer has time for all this in the seclusion and quiet of his study. It is not so with the speaker; he must seize the thought instantly and hasten forward without lingering in literary wistf ulness over the form and line of his eager sentences. Preachers should remember that there is extemporaneous hearing as well as extemporaneous preaching. Hearers are unprepared; probably their last sentence before entering church was rather secular than religious; their minds have to be brought from afar to the immediate business of the transient occasion; they are in no mood to appreciate merely literary beauties; they must be called almost with sharpness and military decision to the work which is to be done, and this call will be most effectively delivered by the man who is least trammeled with the mere formalities of his sacred office.’*

Last summer Dr. Parker and his charming wife made a hurried visit to New York. He came merely for the rest which the sea-trip gives. We had several delightful interviews with him, renewing the pleasant intercourse which we had in his beautiful home at North Holme, Highbury Park, in the north of London. A writer in the “Homiletic Monthly” availed himself of an opportunity to get his views on various points. We have space for two: —

“Do you pay attention to physical training?”

“My residence at North Holme, Highbury Park, is three miles from City-Temple. Every Sunday morning I walk to church and take a bath there, coming, therefore, to my work fresh and resilient.

“A walk home gives me six miles for the day’s exercise. My studies are not usually extended into the night. This trip is taken mainly for the invigoration to be gained by the ocean passage.”

“How do you prepare sermons?”

“I have no uniform plan of preparation for the pulpit. I have tried all plans except the memoriter, and that I have never been able to adopt. I cannot commit anything to memory with the certainty of recalling it when needed; indeed, I may say that for words I have no memory at all. Some of my most friendly critics have suggested that I should have been an actor, not knowing, I presume, that Shakespeare would have been verbally slain by my treacherous slips, and that Hamlet or Othello would have been a new character every night and an eternal surprise to the actor himself. I leave the words to suggest themselves at the moment of delivery, though sometimes, especially when the subject requires critical handling, I have s;arefully shaped and adjusted every sentence.

INTRODUCTION. Vll

“Of all kinds of preaching, I love the expository most. You will understand this from the fact that I have, during the last seven years, expounded most of the first two books of the Pentateuch, the whole book of Nehemiah, the whole of Ecclesiastes, and nearly half the Gospel of Matthew. I care less and less for mere catch-texts and for small ingenuities in pulpit mechanics. Our cleverness is our destruction as expositors. In its exercise we lose breadth, substance, and dignity, and become mere tricksters and jugglers. I care very little for merely literary polish in preaching. We want intelligence, unction and directness. All the rest is comparatively worthless. The preacher is not an author, reading his own manuscript; he is a Voice, a Fire, a Herald, bold and eager in his sacred work — an orator speaking in Heaven’s name and strength. There are more authors in the pulpit than preachers. Here is the weakness of the pulpit. It has become a competitor of the press, and has abandoned its special and incommunicable function.”

It will give me pleasure to know that any word of mine can make an increase in the number of Dr. Parker’s readers and friends. I thank the publishers for giving me an opportunity of saying a kind word in behalf of a preacher of whom I have occasionally heard unkind words, but from whose lips I never heard an uncharitable speech of mortal man.

CHARLES F. DEEMS.

Church of the Strangers,
New York, Dec, 1880.