Homiletical Paragraphs

§ 1. Formalism of Sermons. — Without flattering myself with the notion that I was ever eloquent, I am persuaded that the most effective discourses I ever delivered, were those for which I had made the least regular preparation. I wish I could make sermons as if I had never heard or read how they are made by other people. The formalism of regular divisions and applications is deadly. And as to written sermons, what is written with weariness is heard with weariness.

§ 2. Avoid Abstractions. — If you would keep up attention, avoid abstractions in your sermons, except those of mere argument. Come down from generals to specifications, and especially to individual cases. Whenever possible, give name and place, and intersperse anecdote. By tins means the Puritans, even when they were prolix, were vivacious. They subsidized every event of Old Testament history, and talked of David and of Judas, instead of royalty and treason.

§ 3. Ifeonoriter Discourse. — When Pompey the Great was going from the vessel to be murdered, he spent his time in the little Egyptian boat, in reading a little book in which he had written a Greek oration, which he intended to speak to Ptolemy. Yol. 13, p. 257.

§ 4. Suggested ly my Last Sermon. — Unless a sermon is amazingly long, one must not write an analysis, or brief, of many members. You will find that on each you have hardly more than a couple of pages, in which short space you cannot get a-going on any of the topics.

Again: There is a greater force and condensation in the rapid first draughts which I write as a basis, than in the sermons which I make on them: why? Because in writing the second time I try to expand each of the points. How shall the weakness consequent on this be avoided? By writing a rapid, warm, percussive, cordial hasis at a glow — and then doing little more than to put this into shape; turning the hints into propositions.

§ 5. Diction. — The great fastidiousness of the House of Commons is often mentioned, but it is nothing to that of the Greek Demos. The standard which Aristotle assumes, and which was evidently that of the times, was so severe as to exclude from oratory every thing in the diction which betrayed the slightest artifice. Read particularly on this subject what is written, Chap. 2, Book iii. of the Rhet., especially §10.

The third chapter of the third book, about Frigid diction, is capital. The four sources of the Frigid are flowing perpetually among our Americans. He speaks admirably of the tendency to make prose run into poetry.

§ 6. Beading the Scriptures. — To-day I took up my Greek Testament, and, as I walked about the floor, read the 2d Epistle to Timothy, pausing in thought on certain striking places. I saw many new excellencies — had some new rays of light — and was more than ever convinced of the excellency of this way of Scripture study. Especially when, after a number of rajyid perusals, one goes over the ground with more and more ease every time.

§ 7. On Composincj Sermons. — Notes on Conversations loith J. A. A. — My father says a man should not begin with making a plan. Should not wait until lie is in the vein. Begin, however yon feel; and write until jou get into the vein — however long it he. ‘Tis thus men do in mining. Yon may throw away all the beginnings. Men who write with ease think best pen in hand. This applies to sermons, and also to books. It might be well to write a sermon currente calamo, and then begin again and write afresh (not copying, or even looking at the other, but), using all the lights struck out in the former exercise.

§ 8. Preaching. — The sermon I have last written, on Gen. 49, 4, is the least evangelical I ever made; yet this did not once enter into my head until I had finished. Let me learn to be careful how I censure others. Further, let me learn the importance of making all my written sermons discussions of some important point of doctrine. The times need this, and my mind needs it, both in regard of theological knowledge and ratiocinative discipline. Treat doctrines practically, and experience argumentatively. Avoid technicalities, avoid heaping up of texts, like stones without mortar.

§ 0. Dioell OR Good Thoughts. — Yery important. This seems something more than what is hackneyed. Think it out. If it occur in reading, pause, raise your eyes from the book, and follow it out. Thoughts which come lip first are naturally trite. This is especially so of illustration. If one occurs, pursue it, follow it into the particular parts of the resemblance. If a metaphor or similitude, cany it forth in all its lesser resemblances. If it seem hacknejed, take some analogous one — take several. All these processes of thought will be useful at some other time, for our good trains of thought are seldom entirely lost. Iso man could ever speak extempore, if eveiy thing he said was literally the fruit of the moment. No; in many instances by some association, a whole train of thoughts which had been forgotten for years will be brought up.

§ 10. On Sermon-ivriting. {Co7wio ad mcipsum — The last Lord’s day of the year has arrived, and, on reviewing your labours, you must feel that you have not stirred up the gift that is in you. Your talent, qualiscunquG sit has been too much laid up in the napkin. Especially in the matter of writing you have been delinquent. Many things you have written, and even printed; but few sermons. You have bestowed your time and labour on secondary and inferior thino-s. One thine; is needful.

You have been favoured by Providence with a degree of acceptance as a writer which you had not dared to expect, and for which you cannot be too thankful; but the same little attractions might have been cast around the great things of the kingdom. Consider these hints.

1. If your life bo spared, yon will never sec a time in which, better than now, yon can lay up a store of sermons. Eyesight, mannal dexterity, memory, and vivacity must necessarily be on the wane.

2. Consider in what manner yon have produced those things which have gained a little popularity. They have all been written currente calamo / especially those which have most life in them were so written. !Not so most of your sermons. Turn over a new leaf. Do not lay out new j)lans too carefully. “Write while you are warm. Do not be avaricious of your best thoughts, nor reserve warm ideas for the last. This is like flooding the stomach of guests with soups, before dinner. Much of Jay’s excellence arises from this. Try your father’s recommendation of writing with great rapidity what first occurs to you. This you may methodize afterwards.

3. You study much of the Scriptures, and sometimes warm over the sacred page. Avail yourself of these moments, and let your discoveries and suggestions flow into the channel of a sermon.

4. Be willing to write even part of a sermon. Perhaps you will do the whole. If not, remember how few of these fragments have ever been lost to you; is there one, the time sj)ent on which you regret?

5. You have praved to have your tastes, feelings, and pursuits more concentrated on divine things; and, for a short time past, you have felt as if this grace Iiad in some degree been granted to you. Cherish this feeling, and make it available towards pulpit exercises.

6. God has granted you better health. Be tenderly thankful for such a benefit, and keep your harness always bright, that you may be ready as soon as God shall cause the trumpet to sound, to go out into the regular ranks.

T. You have a text-book. Use it. Spend more time on it. Collect your scattered fragments. Mortify that procrastination which keeps so many j)lans in jpdlo,

§ 11. Offhand Writing. — If I have ever written any thing acceptably, it has been with a free pen, and from the full heart; not from compiled stores, though I have done much of the latter also. One who has preached in so many fields, and exactly surveyed so few, had well confine himself to this sort of offhand and discursive composition. What is the reason that, having plainly shown a turn for a lively, superficial, easy kind of chat, enlivened by a few out-of-the-way stories, &c., &c., I have never perpetrated any thing like a book of this kind, save the two books for the workingfolks, which were mere strung beads? And why have

I, contrary to my natural turn, always preached in the commonplace humdrum manner, instead of giving free vent to the things that come into my head? I have been gathering long enough; it is time for me to write more, and to write something which may attract attention to the things of God, and do good to people who will not read heavy, learned books. I have penned a great deal, but mostly under some constraint, which has pent me up and hampered me. It is high time that I followed nature, and let out the stream without constraint. Sometimes I have written for children, and this was of course a great restraint; at other times for newspapers, where I had to be very short, or very careful not to offend; and in the case of the Sunday-School Journal, for which I have done a good deal, I have had to avoid every thing sectarian. “When I wrote for the Review, which pieces have been most laboured, I have necessarily tied myself up to the formal paces demanded in such affairs. And as I said, my sermons have never got clear of the formality with which I unfortunately began to write. I am conscious of a great desire to use my poor, and almost single talent of witing for the people, in some way which may recommend religion more than I have ever done yet.

§ 12. Earnest Preaching. — I have been reading an article on the Eloquence of the Pulpit in the Montauban “Eevue Theologiqne” for the present month, written by Adolphe Monod. It is one of the best things I ever read on the subject. He makes elocution to depend on the inward conce^tion and feeling. The work must begin from within.

The great reason why we have so little good preaching is that we have so little piety. To be eloquent one must be in earnest; he must not only act as if he were in earnest, or try to be in earnest, but be in earnest, or he cannot be effective.

We have loud and vehement, we have smooth and graceful, we have splendid and elaborate preaching, but very little that is earnest. One man who so feels for the souls of his hearers as to be ready to weep over them — will assuredly make himself felt.

This is what makes effective; he really feels

what he says. This made Cookman eloquent. This especially was the charm of Summerfield, above all men I ever heard. AYe must aim therefore at high degrees of warmth in our religious exercises, if we would produce an impression upon the public mind. Two or three such preachers in our Old School Cliurcli

as is, would make themselves felt throughout

the country. Oh! that we had them! Oh! that those we had were inspired with greater zeal!

Without any increase of our numbers, the very men we now have, if actuated with burning ze?! for God, might work a mighty reformation in our country.

§ 13. New Sermons. — Philip Henry used to love to preach sermons which were ‘• newly studied.” It is a crying sin of mine that I am so ready to go to my old store. Even when I preach to the blacks, I ought, for my own sake, no less than for theirs, to prepare a plan, and study it out. If I daily had on hand some sermon on an important passage, I should be daily learning more Scripture and more theology.

§ 11. Great Subjects. — Again I am impressed with what I have already mentioned in this book, viz., the importance of choosing great subjects for sermons; such as Creation, the Deluge, the Atonement, the Last Things. This is the more important considering that I preach only occasionally, and write seldom.” These discourses ought to be highly elaborated. I have no sermons such as I ought to preach, and such as I think I have preached extempore. Humphrey’s remarks on easy engraving have given me new thoughts on easy writing. I have often intended to write out a discourse which I have preached with some sense of doing better than common; but as far as I remember, I have never yet done it.

* lie was at this time Professor in the College of New Jersey.

§ 15. Themes for Preaching. — They should be great themes — the great themes. These are many. Evil of dwelling on the smaller themes. They are such as move the feelings. The great questions which have agitated the world — which agitate our own bosoms — which we should like to have settled before we die — which we should ask an Apostle about if he were here. These are to general Scripture truth, what great mountains are in Geography. Some, anxious to avoid hackneyed topics, omit the greatest. Just as if we should describe Switzerland and omit the Alps.

Some ministers preach twenty years, and yet never preach on Judgment, Hell, the Crucifixion, the essence of Saving Faith — nor on those great themes which in all ages affect children, and aflect the common mind, such as the Deluge, the sacrifice intended, of Isaac, the death of Absalom, the parable of Lazarus. The Methodists constantly pick out these striking themes, and herein they gain a just advantage over us.

A man should begin early to grapple with great subjects. An athleta (2 Tim. 2, 5) gains might only by great exertions. So that a man does not overstrain his powers, the more he wrestles the better, but he must wrestle, and not merely take a great subject, and dream over it or play with it.

Evil of seeking new and recondite subjects. All the great subjects are old and often treated. False refinement and wire-drawing. Analogy of the great sculptors and jDainters. Many took the same themes. Greek tragedians. JSTo two men will treat the same subject alike, unless they borrow from one another.

§ 16. Sermon-yyriting. — As I consider sermonizing a great art, and one of the chief employments of a minister, I think it good from time to time, to set down the results of my experience; though I have a painful consciousness of my own want of proficiency.

In the early part of my ministry there were two methods of preparation, which I highly valued, both of which I now reject.

1. It was my manner to take some doctrinal head, such as Justification, and carefully to read the best authors on it, such as Calvin, Witsius, Markius, Dwight, making notes as I went along, and then endeavouring, when I wrote, to introduce the best things I could remember from these authors. I had not then learned, that the only way to profit from such authors, is to let their matter digest in the mind, and then to write freely, with a total forgetfulness of them. Only in this way, does it become our own. Only in this way does it take a natural method, and have a natural liveliness. It is diflicult to reject the things remembered, and the effort at recollection is itself an incumbrance. I would advise a preacher, in preparation, to take no notes. I would advise him to take no schedule of arrangement from another. If one thinks at all for himself, his train of thoughts will be his own, and this will suggest its own arrangement. There is something unreasonable in setting out with a preadjusted method. It is to attempt a classification, before we have that which is to be classified. It produces a stiffness, hardness, and want of continuity, which are great faults. The true way is, be full of the subject, and then write with perfect freedom, beginning at any corner of the subject.

2. Another method which I pursued, was to choose a text, and then having written out in full all the parallel passages, to classify them, and found my divisions on this classification. Then to coiTcct all these passages, interweaving them with my own remarks. I flattered myself that this was a haj)py method, because it made my sermon scriptural. It did so indeed, but it had great disadvantages. The nexus between the texts was factitious; often refined and recondite; and always more obvious to the writer than it could be to the reader. It prevented the flow of thought in a natural channel. It was like a number of lakes connected by artificial canals, as compared with a flowing natural stream. The discourse was disjointed, and overladen with texts, and uninteresting. I am convinced that those passages of Scripture which suggest themselves unsought, in rapid writing or s|)ealving, are the most effective; nay, that one such is worth a hundred lugged in collo ohtorto. To be Scri^tural in preaching, we must be familiar with the Bible at common times. Hence one of the great advantages of preaching without notes, even in regard to method. Such is the sympathy between soul and soul, that a connection of thoughts which is easy, agreeable, and awakening to the hearer, wdll always be found to be that which has been natural and unconstrained, in the mind of the preacher. The best way is, to study the parallel places exegetically, perhaps as they lie in the Scripture, and then to let them come in or not, as they may suggest themselves during preparation.

§ IT. The Power of the Pulpit. — I fear none of us ap23rehend as we ought to do the value of the preacher’s office. Our young men do not gird themselves for it with the spirit of those who are on the eve of a great conflict; nor do they prepare as those who are to lay their hands upon the springs of the mightiest passions, and stir up to their depths the ocean of human feelings. Where this estimate of the work prevails, men even of inferior training accomplish miicli; such as Snmmerfield, and even.

The pulpit will still remain the grand means of affecting the mass of men. It is God’s own method, and he will honour it. The work done by Wesley and by Whitefield, and by Christmas Evans in Wales, could not have been accomplished by any other human agency — the press, for instance. In every age, great reformers have been great preachers; and even in the corrupt Roman Church, the most wonderful effects have been produced by preaching. Bourdaloue and Massillon were successively brought to Paris from the Provinces; and when the former, late in life, most pathetically entreated that he might go into retirement, and at first was gratified, his Jesuit superiors used means with the Pope to have him restored to the metropolis.

To be a great preacher a man must be nothing else. The daily exercises of Demosthenes and Cicero may give us a hint of the devotion which is necessary. The analogy of all other arts and sciences may instruct. There are among us preachers who may be considered good, and in a certain sense great ones,, who spend their j)rincipal strength during the week upon other pursuits. They write essays, systems, and commentaries. It may be observed of them all, that however useful they may be, these are not the men who move and warm and melt and mould the public masses. Indeed, I think, to be a great preacher, a man must lay his account to forego that reputation which comes from erudition and literature. The channel must be narrowed, that the stream may flow in a rapid current, and fall with mighty impression. Even the learning of the schools must undergo a great process of transmutation and assimilation, before it is suitable to be produced in the pulpit. Great is the difference, though little apprehended, between a theological dissertation and a sermon, on the same subject. The crude matter falls heavily upon the popular ear. Only the last exquisite results of mental action are proper for public address. Not that the truth of doctrine is to be neglected; this is the very substance of all good sermons, and of every sentence of them, even in their most impassioned parts; but it must have undergone a great change in the mind of the preacher, and present itself in a more popular form, with more of colour of imagination and warmth of passion, before it can reach the deep places of the heart with due effect.

The power of the preacher is not to be attained by rhetorical studies. These have their place, but it is an inferior and subsidiary one; and the result of undue attention to them is beautiful debility and cold polish. Let the imbecile elegancies of Blair be an everlasting beacon to the student of homiletics. It has been observed, that the age of elegant criticism follows that of poetry and eloqnence. It would seem that the creative and critical spirit cannot coexist. The scruple and hesitation of rhetorical criticism are deadly foes to passion, the true source of effeetive discourse. To be powerful in pulpit address, the preacher must be full to overflowing of his theme, affected in due measure by every truth he handles, and in full view, during all his preparation and all his discourse, of the minds which he is to reach.

§ 18. Bel f -repetition in Preaching. — It has been often observed, that preachers who rely on their extemporaneous powers, are very apt to fall into a great sameness. They repeat the same thoughts and the same trains of thought, and at length almost the same sermons: and this they do without being conscious of it. The same thing occurs to them which happens to some story-tellers: who remember the anecdote perfectly, but forget that they have told it before. Mere writing is not a certain preventive of this evil, but it has an excellent tendency to prevent it; as in-. suring an excellent amount of fresh study, and by keeping the mind, for longer periods and with greater deliberation, in view of the truth.

The evil is so disastrous, that there should be a constant effort to avoid it. Without this struggle, the preacher, on arriving at certain topics, ‘wliicli are familiar, will, bj the simple influence of association, hitch into the old rut, and treat them exactly as he has treated them before. We observe this in extemporaneous prayers, vliich with some good men become as stereotyped as if they had been committed to memory: as, indeed, though imconsciously, they have been. We observe the same thing in that part of sermons, on wdiich least of new meditation has been bestowed, namely, the conclusion. This accounts for the familiar fact, that some very fluent extemporaneous preachers are quite popular abroad, wdiile at home, among their own flocks, they have lost all power, and seem to the people to be preaching the same discourse over and over.

The only remedy for this evil is the obvious one of devoting the mind to the origination of new trains of thought, which may vary, complete, or supersede the old ones. There may be superficial reflection and even superficial WTiting; but the meditation which is intended must go deeply into thorough investigation, and follow out the thoughts into new relations. It must be the habit of the preacher to be continually opening new veins, and deeply considering subjects allied to those on wdiich he is to prea(ih. This habit is greatly aided by judicious reading on theological topics. A man will be as his books. But of all means, none is so effectual as the perpetual study of the Scriptures. Let a man be interested in them day and night, continually labouring in this mine, and, whether he write or not, he will be effectually secured against self-repetition. There is such profundity, comprehensiveness and variety in the Word of God, that it is a library of itself There is such a freshness in its mode of presenting truth, that he who is perpetually conversant with it can scarcely be dull.

The liveliest preachers are those who are most familiar with the Bible, without note or comment; and we frequently find them among men who have had no education better than that of the common school. It was this which gave such animation to the vivid books and discourses of the Puritans. As there is no poetry so rich and bold as that of the Bible, so he who daily makes this his study, will even on human principles be awakened, and acquire a striking manner of conveying his thoughts. The sacred books are full of fact, example, and illustration, which with copiousness and variety will cluster around the truths which the man of God derives from the same source. One preacher gives us naked heads of theology; they are true. Scriptural, and important, but they are uninteresting, especially when reiterated for the thousandth time in the same naked manner. Another gives us the same truths, but each of them brings in its train a retinue of Scriptural example, history, a figure by way of illustration; and a variety hence arises which is perpetually becoming richer as the preacher goes more deeply into the mine of Scri]3ture. There are some great preachers who, like Whitelield, do not appear to bestow great labour on the preparation of particular discourses; but it may be observed, that these are always persons whose life is a study of the “Word. Each sermon is an outHowing from a fountain which is constantly full. The Bible is, after all, the one book of the preacher. He who is most familiar with it, will become most like it; and this in respect to every one of its wonderful qualities; and will bring forth from his treasury things neio and old.

§ 19. Scripture Citation in PTeacMng. — Do not cite many Scripture references in your notes. You often find them less available than those which occur inter loquendum. The best way of preparing for prompt quotation, is to be daily conversant with Scripture, and to commit large portions to memory. I regret more than I can express, vj neglect of this in former years. The next best way, and a means of getting the facility just mentioned, is, in preparing for a given performance, to read attentively and with meditation all the pertinent Scriptures, committing as many as possible to memory, but not referring them to particular places, or determining to use this or that without fail; it is enough to imbue the mind with them, and leave the use of any or all to be prompted by the impulse of the moment. The best eifect of many Scripture texts on a sermon is often that which does not lead to a direct rehearsal of them. They suggest new thoughts and illustrations, and afford the very best preventive of that sameness and routine, into which most extempore preachers fall. The tendency in all, is to be contented with a narrow stock of texts. Take almost any extemporaneous preacher, whom you hear often, and observe how seldom he quotes a new text, one which you have not heard him quote before. How many noble incidents in the Old Testament history, touching emblems in the Levitical ritual, and poetic strains of the Prophets, are never introduced into the pulpit! All which commends the daily interested study of the Bible.

§ 20. Uninmted Trains of TJioiight. — The thoughts which come to us unasked, and the trains which float in the twilight of our careless hours, are. often those which are most j)recious, longest remembered, and most deep in their influence on future life. They are sometimes the result of long studies pursued at irregular intervals dui’ing previous years, the distillation from many gathered flowers, and therefore they cannot be looked for as daily visitations. As they will not come for being called, so they will not stay for being courted. And when they give the first intimations of their approach, we should lay aside lesser employments and joys; as we open our windows when the frajirance of orchards is wafted on the breeze. Yet there is a posture of soul, better fitted than all others for the rece]3tion of these revelations; and there are pursuits and habits so alien to them as to be almost prohibitions.

“We must not look for them in the crowd of mammon-mongers, or amidst the clangour of political array, or the mining drudgery of technical study. They steal over us rather when we close the eye at nightfall, listening to the drowsy music of the autumnal insect-tribe; when we walk alone in the sight of moimtains, or on the sea-shore; or when we kneel before the open Bible, and meditate on the oriental usages of inspiration. Enthusiasts of various sects have taken these goodly visions for direct revelations of new truths: and mystics have deemed themselves inspired. But they are, after all, only higher manifestations of the Reason which is common to us all. We deny not that a Divine agent is sometimes at work, but the operation follows the laws of our rational humanity, and conforms itself to the conditions of all influence from above upon free creatures.

The mind though elevated is not overborne. The free-thinking principle is the same as before, though raised to a loftier point of observation. God, who speaks in this silence, speaks by the word which was recorded hundreds of years ago; and though chapter or verse or textual phrase may not always be recognized, the truths which ring in the ear are echoes from Sinai or from Zion. That word of the Lord which abideth forever, has an infinite variety in its combinations and suggestions. It is a well whose sources are hidden in infinite wisdom, and whose flow is fresh and abundant and sparkling to everlasting periods.

“We place ourselves in the way of such favoured contemplations, when we linger long and often over the holy pages, and imbue our thoughts with the lessons of Apostles and Prophets. To be insj)ired like them, we may not pray for, in this world, but we may catch a kindred glow from their heavenly rapture, sympathize with their affections, carry out the trains which they have begun, harmonize the scattered propositions which they have announced,- and live over again in our experience the divine happiness of their sanctification. Though our circumstances may be unlike theirs, in the proportion in which the new world is unlike the old, our faith and love may be essentially the same, and may at some favoured moments realize to us glories of religious awe or fruition, wliicli after many years of Scriptural study, shall still be new and unwonted. It is thus that Christian experience is a book, of which the page we are turning over to-day, is unlike all that have filled the volume before.

To gain these results, a man must in some degree live apart. He must leave the beaten track, and converse less with earth than heaven. There are meditations which the common talk and worldly reading of our busy day do not prompt and cannot represent. They are beyond the scope of science, and unwhispered in the halls of letters, and the galleries of art. But as little should we seek them in the cell of the ascetic. True love and true humility, which are the nurses of such a ]3rogeny, are closely connected with familiar converse with our kind. Best thoughts are those which spring up under the shower of tears that falls over the ills of distressed fellow-creatures. Jesus Christ is still present by his Spirit where broken hearts are to be bound up. The house of mourning and the house of i:>rayer are the places where the heart is made better.

§ 21. Preaching Bemarks stnick out in Talk with J. A. A. — 1. Almost all extemporaneous preachers have this fault; they talk about the way in which they are preaching — ^Tlms: “After a few preliminary remarks, I shall proceed to,” &c.; or, ““What I lay down shall take the form of general principles.” “I come with hesitation,” &c. “I shall be more brief on this point.” “You will observe that in this discussion I do so and so.” Avoid all such observations. — More generally still, avoid all that brings the speaker’s personality before the hearer. A better model than our honoured father, in this, there could not be.

2. Whenever I wiite down heads, from which to preach extempore, I alwa)^s find myself disappointed, by not having as much to say under each as I thought. But whenever I premeditate a subject and take my pen to write on it, I always find myself disappointed in a way exactly opposite.

3. Addison says truly, there is this difference between him and me. I am more warm and ornate when I do not write; he, when he does.

4. As men who strut in walking, sometimes find it difiicult to get out of it, and step in the ordinary way, so in writing men get into a measured, rhythmical, ornamental flow of diction, and find it hard, even when the subject demands it, to come down to the pedestrian style. Hence a great argument for simplicity. What a wonderful simplicity in Goethe! It is his characteristic in regard to style. Even Yoltaire, simple as his structure of sentence always lies, has a mannerism: so has Macanlay. The reader comes to look for a certain pungent apodosis. In Goethe, nothing leads yon to expect any particular bringing up of the period, or antithesis of the thought.

§ 22. Omvliaul Sermons, — It strikes me as a great neglect that I have scarcely ever looked over my pulpit MSS. except when I was going to preach. There is much work to be done in this field at other times.

§ 23. On Writing down One’s Thoughts. — I mean such writing as I put in this book.

1. Writing does good to one’s thinking.

2. It has the same effect in part as animated conversation.

3. Many good thoughts are lost that might have been preserved in this way.

4. Many good trains are carried to greater length by this means.

5. Style is improved, especially by promptness and facility. Earnestness and impressiveness in writing grow as one advances.

G. Write till you feel a glow.

1. “Write lohen you feel a glow. You will otherwise lose the very best things that ever occur to you. Remember Pascal (vid. Bib. Eep. Ap. 1845).

8. This is one of the chief exercises of mind; therefore embrace every occasion.

9. Choose topics which will excite yon in the greatest degree. Choose the most important subjects, difficulties but not niceties, fundamentals, cardinal and central points, those which touch the heart of systems.

10. Often give full scope to freedom of tJioiight and style. Thought creates style. If you wiite down to your readers, you lose this particular advantage of writing, as exercising thought.

Even in sermons to intelligent audiences there will be much of this, necessarily. It is desirable, therefore, to have some outlet for thoughts more free and unobstructed. The reflex influence of perfectly free composition is very great. What we so write, even in fragments, is remembered by us, goes to establish oxinions, lays up arguments, gives matter for extemporaneous discourse, and moulds the character.

11. Devotional writing and prayer are of the highest moment.

12. It matters comparatively little whether you ever read over what you have written or not.

§ 24. Mode of onaMng Brief, — I follow a brief penned at my table during a short interval. I made it thus: mere catch-words — took a general thought to start with, let the next come of itself, then the next, and so on without effort. It served well. The thing to be noted is, that in a few moments, by letting the mind flow and not interfering with the flow, one may jot down materials for a long discourse. It was not merely heads: these are barren, they are disconnected; it was concatenation, it was genesis,

I consider this a little new, but IS’evins showed me something like it for Sabbath lectures; I have done too much in the way of naked skeleton. I wish I could embody my thoughts in a formula; try it thus:

1. Write rapid sketch, the faster the better.

2. Li first draught omit all partition, and do not force your mind to method.

3. Let thought generate thought.

4. Do not dwell on particulars; leave all amplification for the pulpit.

5. Keep the mind in a glow.

6. Come to it with a full mind.

7. Forget all care of language.

8. Forget all previous cramming, research, quotation, and study.

9. In delivery, learn to know when to dwell on a point; let the enlargement be, not where you determined in your closet it should be; but where you feel the spring flowing as you speak — let it gush. Let contemplation have place while you speak.

For this, pauses are all important. Tims Rob. Hall preached. Thus my beloved honom-ed father, above all men I ever heard; his eje kindled, his face was radiant; he forgot the people; and as he was rapt in contemplation, he thought aloud.

All this is connected with the subject of gifts in preaching; and the operation of the Holy Spirit aiding the speaker. Holy emotions are indispensable. Hence the best sermons can never be exactly reproduced — much less written. The best written discourse of my father is no more to his best preaching, than a black candle is to a burning flame.

§ 25. Extempore Preaching. — This afternoon I made another trial of the method mentioned above. I found it good as far as tried. The fault was, that I used an old skeleton, and used my method only in the application.

JSfota hene. It would be all the better if I made my brief early in the week.

§ 26. Sermonizing. — I have just finished a sermon on Isa. 59, ult. I am not pleased. I was ‘’ ham-. pered” throughout, by a preconcerted skeleton. Thus it worked. Tilings would arise in my mind, and flow into my pen just at the right place, but I could not use them, because they he longed to another head. The result was, the articulation was broken, the flow was inteiTiipted; the work became a mosaic. I perceive my father was right, when he advised me to write my first draught currente calamo without any plan, with absolute abandon; giving free scope in every direction whenever a vein was struck, and reserving the larticulars for the copy.

]Sr. B. The best time for noticing emendations in a sermon, is just when you are done. They should be jotted down, even if you have no time, to rewrite.

§ 2T. Sermons. — I sometimes think I never acted out my inner man in a sermon. The nearest approach has been extempore. Causes which prevent v — fear of being too learned; fear of being too sentimental; fear of being too decorative; fear of being obscure; fear of being too vehement: all this is fear of being myself.

I reconsider some of my conclusions about simplicity; and doubt, more than doubt, whether a man may not aim at overperspicuity. The thought makes the language. High thoughts will make high language.

Some men of study and research are called upon to preach in a strain above the common level, even if some do not understand them. There are enough who cannot rise above average minds. A man’s best and loftiest meditations should go out of him in the shape of sermons.

I love to write, yet I have a repugnance to write sermons. This arises j)artly from constitutional trammels — skeletons — plans — traditionary modes. Why do I not break out? I read Yinet or Howe, and feel “lo ancheson pittore “!

§ 28. Eloquence, — In physics there are forces which operate not mechanically, but dynamically; not by the conveyance of new matter, but by the production of a new state or contact. Such is now believed to be the mode of producing vision in the human organ.

Something analogous to this occurs in operation of mind on mind. Over and ctbove the truth conveyed, I believe there may be an operation. When I go to see a poor widow, and take her by the hand, the words which I speak to her are for the most part such as she has laiown before; and yet she is comforted. The same truths uttered from the pulpit by different men, or by the same man in different states of feeling, will produce very different effects. Some of these are far beyond what the bare conviction of the truth so uttered would ordinarily produce. The whole mass of truth, by the sudden passion of the speaker, is made red-hot and burns its way. Passion is eloquence. Hence the great value of extempore discourse.

Demosthenes’ discourses read coldly sometimes; but who can restore on paper the whirlwind and eartlicpake power of the passion with which they were delivered! JSTo man can be a great preacher, without great feeling. Hence the value of devotional preparation. You should seize, for writing, moments of great feeling. Record the outfloAV of these, and you will perhaps have some measure of them in delivery.

§ 29. Dividing Sermons. — My opinion has changed a little within a few months, about formality of Division. I mean I incline more to Fenelon’s judgment after having been very much the other way.

I am perhaps in more favourable circumstances for a judgment than I was, because I am constantly experimenting.

The principle from which I set out, is one which grows in my esteem every day, as a canon of composition: it is this — In writing or speaking tJiroio off all restraint.

Technical Divisions are a restraint. I am familiar with their effect in trammelling the thoughts. Writing from a precomposed skeleton is eminently so. It forces one to parcel out his matter in a forced, Procustean way. There is a feeling like this: “I must have five pages for this branch, and five for that.” The current is often thus stopped, at the very moment when it begins to gush.

The ideal of a discourse is that of a flow from first to last. The writing should begin when the mind is full. If then a division suggests itself, it may be followed; it may even be written down; but great care should be taken to prevent the mechanical partition of matter, so much here and so much there. Let the thoughts go on.

■, a veteran and able sermonizer, has formed the

habit of casting every subject into a certain mould; two or three principal heads, followed by a series of reflections. The result is stifliiess and sameness. I am not opposed to the strictest method, nor to the enunciation of it; but to the laying down beforehand of arbitrary arrangement. The matter to be arranged must precede legitimate arrangement.

In a sermon on Sanctification, I proceeded well till the application; when I went astray by making several topics of inference, which divided the stream instead of enlarging and quickening it.

It is impossible to close a sermon well, that is warmly, unless the train of thought has been so conducted as to bring the heart into a glow, which increases to the end. Having chosen a subject, it is well to think it over deeply, day and night, and to read on it carefully before putting pen to paper. Take few notes, but as far as may be let the matter digest itself in the mind. The result will be facility.

fluency, close contexture, natural articulation of parts, vivacity, abundance of material, and as much originality as belongs to the author’s genius. In this way, sermons will have each a separate, individual physiognomy, and sameness will be avoided.

I do not see why a sermon should not have all the freedom and fulness and progress of an oration. Consult in regard to this Demosthenes and Cicero. Though Augustine’s sermons are very faulty as models, and abound in the false point of his time, they have their excellency. It belongs, moreover, to Fenelon, Howe, Chalmers, and Foster. Incomparable as Robert Hall is, in regard to argument, greatness and devotion, I am sensible in reading him, that he was clogged by the conventional manner of partition.

Be not prevented from indulging a flow which opens, even though it makes the sermon or any particular part of it, too long. You need not preach all that you have written; and the matter may be available for another occasion. This applies particularly to perorations, in which thoughts often overflow.

In a pathetic part, never write invitd Minervd, JSTever spin out coldly, or force the language of emotion. Eather be content with a single sentence: it way find enlargement in the delivery.

§ 30. Application of Sermons. — ^I still find myself trammelled, whenever I undertake to go in any of the regular harness of sermonizers. To be worth much, a sermon must begin like a river, and flow, and widen, and ronghen, and deepen, until the end; and when it reaches this end, it is hurt by every syllable that is added.

Ordinary ‘Applications ’ mar the unity of a discom-se. They are often doctrinal corollaries; often commonplaces; often generalities, which equally fit a score of topics. When three or four heads of application are appended, the mind is first drawn one way and then another, and frequently altogether away from the body of the discourse. Every sermon tends 17i some direction: let it take that direction; it is the proper ending.

The siij)erstitious reverence for an application of several points, cuts up this part of our sermons, short enough at best, and does not allow time to rise upon the wing, or to kindle with a flame.

It would be well, if we could grow hotter and hotter without intermission, from beginning to end.

The true way is to have an object and be full of it. Grace does more than rules.

§ 31. Fresh Writing. — There is a certain kind of wi’iting on religion which greatly afiects me, but wdiich I find it hard to describe.

It is fresh, unscliolastic, and awakening. It lias little to do with quotation or erudition.

It proceeds from a mind full of thought and of feeling, and strikes as original even wdiile the subject is familiar.

Examples: Pascal and Foster. Such an author reads the Bible, as if no one had ever read it before. It has a fresh impression. He meditates deeply, even on the smallest particular, and sees what has escaped others. He deduces reflections, which are at once natural and new. J^Tothing can produce such writing, but a constant and profound study of the original documents. And for this there must be a certain exclusion of other books and reading.

§ 32. Genesis of Thought. — Reading Mozart’s life. What wonderful precocity! wonderful genius! Yet such a life seems frivolous, and his death was sad; no religion. What most strikes me is the spontaniety of his genius. His comjDositions came to him unsought, whether he would or no. The parts filled his mind, not successively, but all at once. Having bestowed much time on music, I see the wonder of this. I am totally destitute of the slightest musical conception of this kind. I believe, however, in exactly such a genesis of thought and feelings. We are more passive than is thou2:ht in our trains of thinking]:. Often have

I been forced to say, “My best sermons make themselves.” I fully believe in this kind of poetry. It is plain that Ovid wrote so: lie says so somewhere in a verse, of which I only remember the last words,

“Yersus erat.”

“What dependent beings we are! How awful the thought, that we may be sometimes guided by spiritual agency above our own.

Waiting upon God is often the most we can do. K the experiment were more believingly made, we should doubtless have more results. To fix attention is often all we can do, if, indeed, we can do this. Look in a given direction and the train of thought will have a certain character. Look towards God, and the effect will sometimes be wonderful.

§ 33. Massillon introduced a new method of not citing so many ]3assages verbatim from the Scriptures and the fathers. In preparations I am constantly violating my own rules, and perplexing myself lest I should not remember to use all the texts which I have looked out; and this even when it is not a subject requiring j)roof.

§ 34. Preaching. — Sermons should be written on subjects which thoroughly interest the mind of the writer. Those are seldom such, which he takes up by a sort of constraint, in a series, or invitd Ifinervd nor those on wliicli lie is unprepared, and for which, he has to make collection. Sometimes, though rarely, it happens, that during the process of collation a view is opened, in which the mind goes on con amove.

For an approximation to the right kind of study, one must have a permanent theological and religious interest. Something on these topics must always be uppermost. It must be the natural tendency of the mind when left to itself.

Here opens to our view a new value in the Scriptures. He who constantly reads them will be constantly awakened to trains of new thought. The best sermons are so suggested. No man can be uniformly a good preacher, who is not habitually perusing the Scriptures as his book of delights. There is no special preparation for the pulpit which can take the place of this general preparation. ISTo man can lack subjects who is thus commonly employed.

The best subject is commonly that which comes of itself. I never could understand what is meant by making a sermon on a prescribed text.

The right text is the one wdiich comes of itself during reading and meditation; which accompanies you in walks, goes to bed with you, and rises with you. On such a text, thoughts swarm and cluster, like bees upon a branch. The sermon ferments for hours and clays, and at length, after patient waiting, and ahnost syontaneons working, the subject clarifies itself, and the true method of treatment presents itself in a shape which cannot be rejected.

Those texts of Scriptm-e which come up, of themselves, or bj the laws of mental suggestion, are the right ones, and are very different from those which are sought out. But observe, in order that this should take place largely and fully, and that the citations should be rich and pertinent, the mind must have a large stock of Scripture reading. Hence again the great value of close, enlarged, perpetual Bible-reading; reading with delight. There are various models of Scripture quotation. Some search out the texts with a concordance or similar helps. These are often the greatest quoters. But their citations are like strangers and foreigners. Or they may be likened to stones put together loosely with mortar. Others seldom go beyond a certain routine of stock texts; a hundred such writers shall give you the same texts on a given topic. They are so many dead branches on a living tree. The excerpted verse deadens the discussion instead of enlivening it. But one whose mind is full of a subject, will have abundance of passages flowing in, without opening the volume; they will be his own, suggested by peculiarities of his own thinking; so that nothing in his discourse will have more the air of originality, than the familiar passages of Scrip tm-e which he quotes. The jewel will shine with double lustre from its setting. The word fitly spoken will be “as apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Striking instances may be found in Kobt. Hall, and especially in Jay.

§ 35. Theological Preaching. — Better far to take a theological topic, and popularize it, than the reverse, namely, to take a hortatory topic and thicken it by doctrine. Argument made red-hot, is what interests people. Generally speaking, nothing interests so much as argument. People are accustomed to argument, in such a country as ours. Argument admits of great vehemence and fire. Argument may be made plain. Argument may be made ornate. Argument may be beaten out and thinned down to any degree of perspicuity.

It is a shame for a minister not to be acquainted with all the heads of theology, all the great schools of opinion, and all the famous distinctions: and he will not learn them well, unless he preaches upon them.

Theological study brings along with it other important and interesting branches; as doctrine, history, church history, symbolical history, dogmatics, metaphysics, ethics, homiletics. All these are of high value. They are all best approached from the side of theology.

Theology is superior, because it is the grand result. That is greatest, which is nearest the end. Exegesis is only a means to that end. Theology includes all the other things.

Theology, as inferring close and logical reasoning,, is suited to the strength of middle life. As age advances, imagination and memory decay: not so the reasoning faculty. It may be going on and increasing in vigor to the latest day of life.

The stimulus to this pursuit will be best kept up if a man accustom himself to give a doctrinal tinge to all his preaching. Then he will read on these subjects. It is a great matter for a preacher to have the habit of deriving his entertainment day by day from the perusal of argumentative theology. Let him continually advance into new fields, and attack new adversaries. Let him continually revolve the terms of former controversies.

§ 36. Dr. Channing. —” Gradual change of tone in Dr. Channing’s address ... it was constantly becoming less ministerial and more manly (Biography.) I think I know what this means — coming out of the homiletic tortoise-shell — not leaving humanity at the foot of the pulpit-stairs — talking like other men — as any profoundly thinking thorongUy, agitated man would talk on a great subject to a casual group of waiting persons also deeply interested. Effect of such a (7’)(eG-L^ on style, divisions, quotations, &c.

A little before, the biographer tells of Dr. Channing’s leaving off much ceremonious dignity in the pulpit. This, also, I know. I am getting to feel the evils of the academic manner-primness, &c. — Also meditate on the tendency of clergy to be much with the rich and the lettered, instead of being lights to the world. I should have understood this less, if I had remained at Princeton. The Democracy must be reached — people must be made to feel that the heart of the minister is with them. Common people require this. Age requires it. Young men require it.

§ 37. Preaching on Great Things. — Differing as I do from Channing, and protesting as I do against him, I can never cease to honour and admire him for this; that he always wrote and preached on those things which he considered the great things. Let me explain my thought. I have written a good deal and published some; it has been too much off at one side. I have not seized hold of the main things. All topics which I treat are regarded by me more historically than philosophically; more with reference to books and authors than reasons. How different mj father — Dr. Hodge — Yinet — and (in error) Channing.

Yet I am constantly Qiieditating on the great points. Is it that I never come to any results? Do I prove nothing? Attain nothing? Am I ever to be retailing what this man says, and that man says?

§ 38. Theological Sermons. — ‘Dr. Tliornwell appears to me to show some greatness in devoting his preaching j)Owers to the nnciking of great theological sermons. Those who do this successfully leave their mark on their generation. It is not the turn of the age however. The’ young ministers who are coming out seem to me to preach sentimental, rather than argumentative sermons.

I have written a whole sermon to-day, the first of two on 1 John iv. 18. I am less and less in favour of quotation in sermons. My tendency used to be very much that way. As my manner becomes warmer, director, and more practical, I let these brilliant patches alone.

§ 39. Be Yourself. — In the making of sermons I have never so well succeeded as when I have forgotten all models, and consented to be myself. Every man has his own way, in which he is better than in all others. Those sermons have turned out the best in which I have turned the matter over in my mind several times, and then written without predetermined skeleton.

§ 40. Collect Texts. — There are particular times in which a man is better disposed and better able than at others, to seek out texts, and arrange plans of sermons. Such moments should be embraced; and if the result should be an accumulation of texts and plans, it will be well; for often the great difficulty is to get a text: as soon as one is lighted on, the matter goes easily on.

It has occurred to me as useful, to sit down and plan a series of discourses, not in any theological order, but with reference to some given effect on the people; as for example, to promote a true revival of religion.

§ 41. Free Writing, — It seems to me that some of the best writings are those which men have made for themselves; * that is, without having other people in view; without any end but to discharge the mind of its thoughts. In this posture the mind works most naturally and simjDly, and hence more strongly. Voltaire somewhere says the reverse, for he thinks the writer should always have both judge and audience

See Vinet in his account of Yannar”;ues.

in view; for such writing as Yoltaire’s, this is doubtless the best way. But there is always some interruption, some diversion, and some cramping of the thoughts in this mode. It is true, when a writer seeks only this natural overflow of his thoughts, that he is apt to be destitute of that method which j)revails in the schools. The numerical partitions of discourse are sometimes forced, and when they are read, they partake more of aggregation than of growth. There is as real an order in the evolution of parts in a tree as in the successive additions which build a house: and if a discourse proceeds by an inward law which disregards symmetrical plans, it may have more coherence and vitality than could be produced by rule and square. The noble master-pieces of the ancients possess this easy flow, which often defies the analysis of the commentator; but they are not therefore less pleasing or less great.

To write by a plan, is in some degree to bind the thoughts to a given track. He is most likely to arrive at what is original and new who like the river “wanders at his own sweet will.”

It is constraining and so injurious to thought, where one has some end constantly before him other than the prosecution of the trains on which lie has entered. These ends may be various and some of them may be very good; they may even be necessary: but so far as the fall and independent unfolding of the mind is concerned, they are injurious. The writer may seek the entertainment or profit of a particular class of readers. He may seek fame or emolumentj or the elevation of sect or party. He may write as an exercise for proof of his powers or to strengthen them. So doing he may produce much that is excellent; but he does this in a less degree than when he gives full scope to the inward prompting. Hence the ill effect of writing for the public only; never encouraging those expatiating processes which take no note of readers and critics. Free writings of the kind just mentioned, are after all those which most interest the reader, and produce least weariness, even where the subject is a trifling one, as is exemplified by Montaigne. On higher subjects the same holds true, as in the case of Pascal’s Thoughts.

A singular elevation is given to writings which are devotional in such a sense as to be addressed to God. Such are the Confessions of St. Augustine. There are also discourses, which in form are addressed to an audience, but which nevertheless have this character of meditational flow; such as the writings of Leighton and Scougal. The inspired books of the sacred canon, though they cannot properly be brought into comparison, have this quality of unconstrained flow and ample digression, which makes it hard to parcel them into regular divisions. This is true equally of the Psalms, the Prophecies, and the Epistles.

§ 42. The pulpit is too sacred to be turned into a place for exchanging clerical civilities, or into a space for ceremonious etiquette.

§ 43. Study of the Scrijpture. — Constant perusal and re-perusal of Scripture is the great preparation for preaching. You get good even when you know it not. This is one of the most observable differences between old and young theologians.

“Give attendance to reading.”

§ 44. Preaching on Politics. — A minister may well be absolved from preaching, or even forming opinions on politics. He has the common right of all citizens so to do; but his proper work is enough for all his time and powers. The great themes of religious truth are enough to occupy more time than he can get. Statesmanship is a science by itself. If a preacher excels in it, he must do so by sacrificing some of his” sacred hours.

§ 45. Excess of Manner. — Every excess of manner over matter hinders the effect of delivery, on all wise judges. Where there is more voice, more emphasis, or more gesture, than there is feeling, there is waste, and worse; powder beyond the shot.

§ 46. Feeling. — Feeling is the prime mover in eloquence; but feeling cannot be produced to order; and the affectation of it, however elegant, is powerless.

§ 47. Animation. — Every man may be said to have his qiiantmn of animation, beyond which he cannot go without forcework and affectation. Hence, to exhort a young man to be more animated, is to mislead and perhaps spoil him, unless you mean to inculcate the cultivation of inward emotion. It is better therefore to let nature work, even though for the time the delivery is tame, than to generate a manner only rhetorically and artificially warm, which is hypocrisy.

§ 48. Uttering a chain of reasoning with the mock tones of passion, is the crying sin of second-rate Southern orators. The true orators of the South are really eloquent, from natural inward heat.

§ 49. Reading good authors aloud, after full mastery of the sense by careful study, is a better exercise than declaiming one’s own compositions from memory.

§ 50. lo good preacher was ever made such by exercise in oratory.

§ 51. Eloquence, as a ministerial accomplishment, may be overrated. Only one man in a million can be eloquent. Now it is evident, Christ could not have intended that a work so universal should be dependent on a means so rare.

§ 52. Some of the greatest effects have been produced by men who had no external graces of style and elocution.

§ 53. There is a certain type of thought, diction, and delivery, which is proper to each individual; and he accomplishes most vrho hits on this. But all straining, all artifice, and all imitation, tend to prevent the attainment of this manner.

§ 54. The “utterance” which the Apostle Paul craved, and which is often mentioned in the ‘New Testament, is very different from worldly eloquence, being a spiritual gift.

§ 55. The attraction of the modern pulpit is something altogether different from any spiritual quality. It indicates a sickly mind in the Christian public. Under such preaching a morbid state is produced.

§ 56. If Apostolical j)reaching could reappear, while it would be mighty in its effects upon the assembly and on multitudes, it would probably answer no demands of the schools or the stage; but would be unartificial, expository, simple, paternal, brief, natural, varied, gusliing, and eminently spiritual.

§ 57. The day was when cliurclies were much more concerned than we, about the truths conyeyed, and much less about the garb of the truths.

Doctrine, rather than speaking, was what drew the audience.

§ 58. Let every preacher despair of delivering that discourse with true, natural, and effective warmth, which he has prepared with leisurely coldness.

§ 59. ‘No rhetorical appliance can make a cold passage truly warm. If, for any cause, an inanimate sermon must needs be altered, it ought to be delivered with no more emotion, than its contents engender in the sj)eaker’s soul. Every thing beyond this is pretence; and here is the source of all mock-passion, which is the fixed habit of many speakers.

§ 60. There can be no high eloquence without inward feeling, naturally expressed. Hence he who begins his discourse on an ordinary topic, with the elevated voice and manner of great emotion, convinces every just critic that he is acting a part.

§ 61. A Thought for Expansion. — Occuj)y your mind, since life is so short, on the following, viz.:

1. True rather than False. — Truth always good — food — safe — consistent — propagative.

Falsehood, even when conversed with for good ends, is perturbing, paining, defiling, misleading, and wasteful of time.

2. Positive rather than Negative. — Xot negation — not refutation — not mere defence.

3. Great rather than Small. — Great truths — orreat subjects — the most important — comprehensive of the lesser — elevating — discipline the understanding — not minutiae — not trifles.

4. Divine rather than Human. — Revealed, not found out — inspired — the Bible above all.

He that should observe these rules for the conduct of his understanding, would save much time and escape many troubles.

§ 62. I find it hard to mingle doctrine and practice in due proportion in my preaching. Latterly I fear there has been too much exclusion of doctrinal discussion. The following hints will not be out of place:

1. To open some point of doctrine, or some portion of Scripture needing explanation, at least in one discourse of each week.

2. To select for this purpose, very frequently, those doctrines which are most vital; those which concern the salvation of the soul; those about which an inquirer or believer would seek information.

3. To treat these doctrinal points warmly, with a perpetual reference to Christian experience.

§ 63. Preaching. — My morning sermon was written and preached with more flow and animation than usual. I ascribe this to my having meditated somewhat on the history, and then written straight on, without the slightest reference to a logical analysis or programme, though I had actually formed such a one. I am j)ersuaded, that as much as a discourse gains in method and articulation, by such a jjlan, so much it loses in rapidity, richness, and animation. I also found comfort in my method of preparing notes for an expository lecture, thus: 1. Study the exegesis. 2. “Write rapid and pretty full notes on the successive parts, numerically, as so many observations. It is not ahvays necessary to take them up in the order of the text.

§ 64. The BiUe. — K^ the Bible is the best of books, so the next hest is that which is most like it, that which teaches the same thing — or explains the Bible. Instead of studying and writing about Austin and Luther, do what Austin and Luther did, namely, tell what the Bible teaches. Go straight to the Law and the Testimony, instead of all subordinates and substitutes.

§ 65. In every age people have gone astray, by going away from the Bible. The statements of Scripture are positive truths, given on divine authority, and faith is as necessary as obedience; for it is as much our duty to believe what God says, as to do Y,diat he commands. If we received in its true meaning every proposition in the Bible, we should have a sufficient body of divine truth. But this is far from being the case. Some receive more and some less, but none receive the whole. One reason of this is, that we preposterously mingle our own reasonings with the conclusions of revelations. Having accepted as true a certain number of the plain declarations of Scripture, we use those as so many premises with which to connect trains of reasoning. We do not wait to see whether the conclusions at which we would thus arrive are not asserted or denied in other plain Scriptural declarations. Sometimes we arrive at conclusions from positive Scriptural declarations. This is an inevitable result of the weakness of human reason; and as there is nothing to which we have a more overweening attachment than the fruits of our ratiocination, we cling to these erroneous conclusions. In order to do this with any show of reverence for inspiration, we find it hereupon necessary to explain away those plain declarations of the Word, which are opyosed to our conclusions. Thus our perverse deduction, even from Bible trntlis, leads to corrupt interpretation of the Word of God. It is analogous to overliasty generalization in natural philosophy, from a narrow basis of facts or phenomena.

The practical rule to be derived from these remarks is, to go to the Bible as a fund not so mucJi of jprendses as of conclusions / to enlarge as far as possible the field of positive assertions; to prefer the plain sense of the record; to distrust our own reasonings from Scripture, in the way of logical inference; and to discuss every conclusion which wars with clear Scripture definitions.

Hence also the importance of being much engaged in the simplest study of the Word, in its plainest sense; heaping up this golden ore just as it comes out of the mine.

% QQ. My Father. — My dear and honoured father has some excellencies as a writer, which I did not value at a pro23er rate when I was younger. He goes always for the thought rather than the word; and is never led along by the bait of fine language or the course of figures. I am led to think that a man must early in life make his election between these two kinds of writing, and that I have fallen into the inferior one: though I am regarded among my friends as a simple writer.

Another remarkable quality of my father, is his going for truth and reason, rather than for authority. This is the more remarkable, as he has been one of the greatest and most miscellaneous readers I ever knew; has had the most extensive knowledge of books, and the most wonderful memory of their contents, so that I have often known him to give a clear account of works which he had not seen for forty years; and yet how seldom does he make citation! The train of his thoughts is all his own, with a thorough digestion in his own mind, and reference of all things to their principles. Hence he is original in the best sense; which superficial readers would not admit, because his style had no salient points, or overbold expressions.

I attribute this in some degree to the fact that almost every day of his life, known to me, it was his habit to sit alone, in silence, generally in the twilight, or musing over the fire, in deep and seemingly pleasurable thought. At such times he was doubtless maturing those trains of reasoning, which he brought out in his discourses; and this may account for his extraordinary readiness at almost any time, to rise in extemporaneous address.

§ 67. Some ministers seem to be familiar only with such and such passages and parts of Scripture.

The Puritans derived much of their liveliness from their minute acquaintance with the Old Testament, and their apposite citation of it. Another kind of familiarity with the “Word is apparent in such a writer as Hengstenberg. It amazes me. What extensive and at the same time profound knowledge of the original.

At times it is useful simply to turn over the pages of the Scriptures, touching here and there, as a man walks among the rows of his vineyard, receiving general impressions, or learning where to go again.

§ 68. Cut off superfluous studies. Come back to the Bible. This rings in my ears as years go on. Consider all past studies as so much discipline, to fit you for this great study. Make Scripture the interpreter of Scripture. Seek practical wisdom, rather than learning, and as tending to holiness and eternal happiness. Make the Bible your book of prayer.

§ 69. My greatest acquisitions in Scripture come from no commentaries or expositors. The perusals of many former years, turned over in the meditations, left to brew in the mind, yield their ripe results in new readings, and often make that clear which was formerly dark, and that fruitful which was once dry.

§ 70. Bible Study. — As Bible study is the best study, so I find it the most delightful. It is a good way to read large portions, and with mncli repetition, but always avoiding weariness. Having lately read over the Epistle to the Hebrews in Greek, I read it over this evening in the English version. Occasionally I looked ont the Old Testament quotations; I compared the Greek, wherever I had a suspicion about the English; and here and there looked in a lexicon, or another version; but my chief view was to the scope and comiexion; and on this I found greater lights than common. Some verses held me long, and I walked up and down the floor meditating uyon them. I omitted some separable parenthetic passages, reserving them for another perusal. By this means I got an unusual view of the lucid unity of the book. No method of Scriptural study gives me so much satisfaction. It unites reading with meditation. It is the best preparation for preaching. It scatters a thousand doubts. It familiarizes the English text, no inconsiderable part of a preacher’s furniture. Doctrines so derived are more firmly grasped, than when received from the ablest systems. Texts so learnt are better understood and more available, than such as are gathered from a concordance or marginal bible. They arc taken into the system and assimilated. They become constitutional parts of one’s mind. Even a human composition, when valuable, is an organized whole, united by a pervading principle, and with every part in its right place. Still more true is this of an inspired composition. Each proposition is not only truth, but truth in the right place, and in sacred connexion with what goes before and follows after. In this divine connexion, truth is best learned. And he who learns it thus, has a knowledge of it superior to that of one who learns even the same propositions, rent asunder, or forced into the technical connexion and arrangement of a system; as far superior, as the knowledge of the human frame derived from examining a subject, over that which is acquired by a tabular view of all the chemical elements which go to constitute the vital fabric, however fully and accurately they may be stated. It is, therefore, all imjDortant to study the Bible in its due connexion; and, for this end, to read over large portions, and even whole books, carefully and repeatedly.

§ 71. Bible Study. — I cannot revert to this subject too often. Reading what I wrote at the beginning of this book, has revived my interest in it. Experience shews me more and more the value of studying the ]3ure text. Reading the account of the Scottish mission to Palestine has had the same effect. The mere hearing of a husband and wife, devoting themselves to the research of the Scripture, without comment, has also been awakening. Recurrence to my morning task, of committing a few verses to memory, lias kept up my interest. This evening I read the book of Ruth in Hebrew, which confirmed my resolution. Late preaching experiments corroborate my opinion, that the very best preparation for extempore discourses is textual knowledge. Luther says truly. Bonus textuariiis est lonus theologies. What can I set before me more obligatory, useful or pleasant, than to spend my life in making the blessed word plain to others? If I were able to have a charge, how entirely might I give myself to the Word of God, and prayer, by the aid and impulse of the Holy Spirit. Twenty years ago, I had a great ambition to be extensively acquainted with the classics. I have, in rather an irregular way, acquired more of that knowledge than is perhaps common with our clergy, but I can truly say, I account it but stubble and dross in comparison with the Bible. The study of the text is the thing I mean. I have pored over many commentators, but life is too short for this circuitous method. If an hour is to be spent, either in reading and collating more of the text, or in reading human comments, surely the former is the way which gives more light. What is acquired in this way makes a peculiar impression, and is more truly one’s own. It also carries with it a savour of divine authority. Sometimes going slowly over verse by verse, and meditating on each — a delightful employment — I learn more than by turning over volumes. Especially ia this useful as a preparation for preaching. I can say with dying Salmasius, I wish I had devoted myself more to the study of the Scriptures!

]^. B. Regular times are indispensable to proficiency in these researches.

§ 72. The Christian, and above all the minister, is bound to devote all his powers to the glory of God, in the good of mankind.

This is a work which requires great diligence and earnestness, and may well occupy the whole man all his life.

Man may be called to labour in different spheres, but always with the same devotion and singleness of purpose.

The studies and authorship of a Christian are to be directed to this end.

Science and literature may be used as among the greatest in this work; but they are not to be used so as to usurp the time and heart of the Christian scholar as to make him distinctly a man of science or letters. The same remarks apply still more clearly to other pursuits, such as art, politics, agriculture, and trade. Instances: Swift, Sterne, Robertson, Howe, many English university scholars.

An exception is to be made in favour of those pursuits, or even publications which are for recreation, in intervals of labour. Lord Bacon has said that everj man owes a debt to his profession. A clergyman’s work should be governed by this rule. It is seemly that a man’s pen should utter the abundance of his heart, and that his books should bear the impress of that which is most in his thoughts.

It is unseemly for a minister of Christ to be known chiefly by works beyond the line of his calling, however valuable in themselves. Especially unfortunate is it, when his strength is dispersed among petty learned elegancies. Ko works of the pen are more honourable than those which evince a j)rofound interest in the good of one’s generation, church, and country. These betoken earnestness, patriotism, and a public spirit, and are far higher in the scale than even great treatises on scientiflc theology. Even though from their nature they have an interest that does not extend to coming generations, and thus do not become part of universal literature, they are of great value; sometimes in the very proportion in. which they are confined to time and place.

§ 73. Any man is excusable, to say no more, for employing himself about the great questions of the age and country.

It is a just reproach to any man to be indifferent to that wliicli concerns the welfare of his people, and, while their interests are at stake, to spend his days in delicate trifles. Such was the fault of Goethe. How different the case of Milton, though he was wrong in many points. Be earnest. Be up and doing. Eustis worse than work. There is an excitement which is bad, ruinous; there is also an excitement which is good, healthful, and corroborative. To be really in earnest is consistent with great care of health and strength. Husband your faculties, your acquisitions, your time. Husband them! Therefore give yourself more to great topics, especially to Christian topics; national topics; topics that promise good to the world. After a man has been a great reader for many years, he ought to repose. He ought to distil his accunmlations. He ought to write from his own mind. True, much of what he does so write will be the result of his previous reading, but it will be without rehearsal or quotation. If he belongs to the better order of minds he will quote little, except in those cases in which the very matter of the argument lies in the very words of another. He will think for himself. He will give the results of his learning rather than the learning itself. He will advise himself thus:

““Why should you be so careful to remember what others have said? Of all you have read much has sliiped. Well, most of such thoughts are of no value. It were a pitj to retain all. The mind acts not as a coffer, but partly as a sieve, and more as an alembic. Your book-knowledge, even if not increased, would furnish abundance for many works. Do not give way to the error of being afraid of saying plain and simple things, so they are true, reasonable, and logically knit. Consider Daniel “Webster. The greatest and most useful sayings are simple. Your thoughts seem more commonplace to others than to yourself, for an obvious reason.

“Try every day to repeat to yourself some solid truth, if possible some new one. But true rather than novel. Fix the truth in your mind, as something really attained and immovable. Deduce from it other truths, bat with caution. Shun haste and paradox. Go to the highest ]3i*iuciples. Be not so much concerned about the laws of thought as about truths, the matters of knowledge.

“Avoid vexing, plaguing cogitations. Those are often the best thoughts which have been wrung out with the knit brow. There is a spontaneity in thinking. We do not so much create the stream as watch it, and to a certain extent direct it. This is the reason why great thinkers do not always draw themselves out; rather the contrary. Placid, easy philosophising brings the abundant fruit. Let the thread sometimes drop; you will find it again and at the right moment. In this meditation differs from book-learning, which is necessarily wearing.

“The Scriptures furnish the best materials for thought. They stimulate the soil. They secure the right posture of mind for calm judgment and even for discovery. They correct error. They give positive conclusions. They promote holy states which are favourable to truth. They prevent trifling reasonings, by keeping the mind constantly in the presence of the greatest subjects.”