The Twin-Laws of the Sermon
Ertain principles, which pertain to preaching, present themselves in fti (Joubles, like the parallel parts of a proverb, or like the apposite members on the right and left sides of the human body which correspond to each other.
I. For example, there is what we may call the germinal and terminal law.
By the germinal law of the sermon we mean that it must get its theme, and the essentials of its treatment, from the teachings of the Word and of the Spirit. Then there is preparation for preaching with the power of God.
The correspondent to this germinal law is a terminal law, /. e., there is a certain end, or terminus, to be kept in view. A sermon is, as we have seen, a speech having a definite aim, or result, in the convictions, affections, resolutions of the hearer. The germinal law gives the starting-point; the terminal gives the goal of sacred discourse. There must be a terminus ad quein as well as a terminus a quo.
In pulpit oratory are three elements, either of which may control: the text, the subject or theme, and the object or end aimed at. If the text rule, the result is an exposition or exegesis; if the subject, an essay or discourse; if the object to be attained be steadily kept in view, and control the disposition of the parts and the expression and delivery, we get properly a sermon.
If then the first thing fixed, in framing the normal sermon, is the end or result to be reached, then we are ready to choose the best subject to reach the object, and the best text to develop the subject. Other methods may reach some success, but not the highest. If one starts with a subject which he proposes to treat, he risks accommodating the text to the theme rather than the theme to the text. In such cases the germ of the sermon is found often in the preacher’s brain rather than in the mind of God, and the use of Scripture is sometimes so foreign to its original purport and purpose that it becomes a caricature. Others start with a text which seems attractive or effective, and elaborate it into an exposition; but if, in the course of its treatment, yio other oid is kept in hew, there is risk of merely displaying such ingenuity and originality in interpretation, as, though it may interest and perhaps instruct the hearer, fails to grapple with his conscience and will, as in the most energetic and effective oratory.
The preachers who wield most spiritual power, although their methods may be defective and even crude, are always seeking after souls; they may set all homiletical and even grammatical laws at defiance, but, whether consciously or unconsciously, there is a definite purpose, evolved, perhaps, in the process of making or preaching the sermon, which purpose reacts upon the product. Many a discourse which began in the violation of this fundamental law of the sermon, has been remodeled while it was wrought. He who started with a topic or a text ends with an all-engrossing object — the saving or sanctifying of souls, the only object that can produce the ideal sermon.
If we are to have a new era of power in preaching, we must have a more definite result, toward which all else moves. An
THE r IV IN-LAWS OF THE SERMON. 27
essay may be ingenious, and an exposition original, and yet lack oratorical power; as Whately said, the man “aims at nothing, and hits it.” Above all others the preacher needs the power of an engrossing purpose. Then Betterton’s remark to the Lord Bishop of London will no longer have point; that while “actors speak of things imaginary as though real, preachers speak of things real as though imaginary.” *
This germinal and terminal law we believe to be fundamental to preaching-power; could it become a governing law, it would revolutionize modern preaching.
2. Another of these twin laws is that of impression and expression.
An influence must first be exerted by the truth on the mind of the preacher himself, and then through his mind on that of the hearer. This double process reminds us of the affluent and effluent action of the nervous system. “Expression is the result of impression,” and the power of the former will correspond to the depth and breadth of the latter, as in the tree the expanse of
* Betterton’s original epigram was:
You in the pulpit tell a story;
We, on the stage, show facts.
branches above ground corresponds to the expanse of roots below. Impression therefore represents the truth at work on the speaker, and expression will represent that impression as conveyed to others through the channels of utterance.
We have little need to fear as to the expression if we have been careful about the impression. Let the conception of truth in ourselves then be clear and well defined, and its effect on us deep and ineradicable, forceful and powerful. The longer the exposure to the influence of the truth, the deeper and more permanent the image formed on the mind. By what Mr. Lockyer calls a magnificent arrangement, images made on the back of the eye are never deepened and extended beyond a certain limit. However long we gaze, the first fade to give place for those that follow. It is exactly opposite with the sensitive plate; the longer the exposure, the intenser the image, and the minuter the details. Distant stars are therefore depicted on the long exposed plate which never could be seen by naked eye. The mind is such a sensitive plate, and the power of impression depends on the length of the exposure. Every student needs to
THE TWIN-LAWS OF THE SEKMOiY. 29
cultivate the power of concentrating his mind on themes, of going after and recovering lost and incomplete trains of thought, and of holding and burying truth in mind until it takes deep root.
3. There is a corresponding law of intensity and extensity. These terms are used with reference to the effects to be sought for on the hearer. Extensity may express the touching of the whole man, spreading the truth over a wide surface, bringing it into contact with conviction, emotion, conscience, will; and intensity may remind us that we should not sacrifice depth of impression, but strike to the very vitals, not satisfied to make a superficial impression, but aiming to grapple with the deepest man. We must make others feel that we are profoundly in earnest. “Father Vassar,” in Boston, approached on one occasion a worldly woman whom he had never met before, and engaged her in conversation about -her soul. When her husband rejoined her and she told him the circumstances, he said, “If I had been there I would have told him to go about his own business.” But she replied: “Husband, if you had been there, you would have thought he
3° THE DIVIiVE ART OF PREACHING.
was about his own business.” F. W”. Robertson has said that there are four great forms of power: prescriptive authority, physical force, reason, and truth. May we not add, that of them all, reason and truth are far the mightiest.
4. There is also the law of inclusion and exclusion. Sermon delivery should include the whole man; conviction must insure positive faith in his message, for hesitation in him will beget it in others; there must be emotion to help in persuasion; conscience, to give intrepidity and force, as it gave to Chrj’sostom before Eudoxia, Knox before Queen Mary, and Luther before the Diet of Worms, and Ambrose before Theodosius. By exclusion, we mean that all unworthy motives should be shut out, all unfair dealing with the Truth or the hearer, all conscious sophistry or fallacy in argument; and that all personal hindrances to the work of the Holy Spirit should be sedulously avoided.
One word may be added about the place of humor in public discourse. Especially do I fear that this element of humor is much abused. It is contended that man is a harp of a thousand strings and all may be Icgiti-THE TWIh’-LAWS OF THE SERMON. 3 1
mately played on; but while all the notes are necessary to a complete instrument, all combinations of notes are not helpful to harmony. Melody and harmony must obey the law of the chord. There is a manifest difference between irony and satire — the more dignified forms of humor — and ridicule and jest, which often verge upon trifling and frivolity. A laugh when a man at Niagara Falls was going over into the chasm, would be manifestly akin to a crime. Humor which is genuine and spontaneous is like a flow of the waters from a spring, but an artificial and mechanical humor is very like the spasmodic action of an old, dry pump. There are proprieties which ought to govern all occasions. Varley preached to five thousand souls in May, 1890, in the vast crater of Mount Eden, which has a capacity for holding two hundred and fifty thousand. We are actually preaching to souls in the very crater of perdition, and such preaching is a very solemn business which largely limits the play of the humorous faculties. Waldenstrom, the famous Swede, of whom Mr. Moody says that he is probably the greatest winner of souls of this century, sent for Mr. Moody while he was in the city of
Chicago, and begged him not to allow speakers to create uproarious merriment in his religious mcetin”;s, for, the wise man added, that he always noticed that those times when a congregation is stirred to laughter, are the moments that the devil takes to catch away the seed of Truth sown in their hearts. I would especially warn the students of the Pastor’s College against inferring that, because Mr. Spurgeon made such use of humor, they also can employ it with equal effectiveness. In this, as in other respects, Mr. Spurgeon showed marked genius; he knew how to use humor skillfully. I question very much whether even he did not regard his use of humor in his earlier ministry as somewhat illegitimate, for he certainly sobered very much in his manner of preaching toward the latter part of his life.
5. There is the law of flow and glow, or fluency and fervency. Fullness of matter and amplitude of preparation must be secured, in order to freedom of utterance; and besides this, we need ardor and fervor and passion in delivery. The flow depends on the ample accumulation of material. Always let a man get more than he can use. then he can elect and select. There is great power in reserve. It is well for a speaker to have more material behind than he brings to the front. Meditation on Scripture and comparison of Scripture with Scripture will serve to make preparation so ample that there will be no failure of thought or speech when the utterance becomes necessary. As to the glow, it will depend on experimental application of the truth. Truth must first lay hold of you and be matured in your own soul. There is needed a practical rumination, till that which you have cropped in the external pasturage becomes milk in the udder, full and warm. Then it is not grass but milk that you are giving to your hearer.
6. There is a sixth law, that of the fundamental and the- ornamental. To this we may apply the architectural maxim: “Never construct ornament, but ornament construction.” The basis of discourse claims, first of all, our attention. The general foundations must be broad and firm, scriptural and spiritual. The structure must be according- to the pattern shewed us in the mount. The ornamental features are subordinate and comparatively of little consequence, and they are mostly of value when they are unconsciously developed in the process of building the sermon. To make a sermon for the sake of working in an anecdote or figure of speech, or a line simile, or a verse of a poem, or a quaint conception, is beginning at the wrong end. It is like finding some stray Corinthian column, and erecting a structure for the sake of building in that column. We should begin the other way. Get the doctrinal basis; get a practical purpose, and then let everything else pertaining to the rhetorical be subordinate.
There are yet other double laws which may be simply mentioned, such as the law of argument and experiment, or logic and love; the doctrinal and the practical; exposition and apposition, or finding the truth in the Word and fitting it to the needs of the hearer; the perpetual and the occasional, or the great staple of discourse and the incidental occurrences which may justify special sermons; the analytic and the synthetic, etc.
But the object in view is served, if these brief hints have called attention to those principles of sermonic structure which affect the sermon as an artistic product — perhaps it may be added — when the ideal is reached, the highest product of which the mind is capable.