Clerical Studies

“When learning in the ministry is mentioned, some are ready to think of a purely secular erudition, such as withdraws a man from his duty, or unfits him for it. Of this there haYo been too many instances, especially in countries Y’here rich benefices liaYc been afforded by an established religion. Even in a Yery different state of things, the clergyman may become a mere saYant or litterateur and rob his spiritual charge of the time which he spends in his researches. Such scholars may be Yery useful to society, yet most unfaithful to their yows, and it is under their auspicesthat cYangelical warmth has commonly died out in Protestant Churches. Without going to the extreme of Sterne, vdio was a licentious trifler; of Swift, Y’ho was a Cynic, in both the senses of misanthrojDy and filth; and of Eobertson, who was scarcely a belicYcr, one may sacrifice Christ to the muses. The

Church of England continnes to furnish some brilliant examples of tins from the prizes held out to men of learning, and the rich livings and fellowships which support clergymen without the necessity of parochial labour. “Where the vocation of such a man is to the instruction of youth, we surely will not complain, if Providence allot to him a high distinction in science or letters, along with faithful discharge of ministerial duty, even though the latter should not absorb all his care: yon will remember such men as Isaac Milner, Jowett, and Farish. Yet I beg you to observe, that the ministerial learning which I am recommending is none of these, but is solely the discipline and accomplishment whereby you shall be better fitted for your appropriate work, and is therefore subordinated to your professional activity. This circle indeed is much vaster than some people think, and may in its sweep, comprise, in certain circumstances, and by turns, every part of the field of knowledge; yet the particular aspect under which it is viewed is that of an auxiliary to the preacher and the pastor. The study is not a place for lettered luxury, nor for ambitious lucubration, with views fixed on secular authorship or academical promotion; but the sacred paltestra in which Christ’s soldier is supposed to be forging his armour, and hardening his muscle, and training his agility, for the actual combat of the ministiy. And joii must allow me to tell you plainly, that the danger is not that you will have too much of this preparation, that you will be overeducated, or extravagantly learned, hut all the reverse. You may get great learning, with a bad motive; you may get little, with the same: but all you will ever get, multiplied ten times, will not be too much for your work, or more than the Church and the times demand. either devotion, nor active labour, will furnish you an excuse for the neglect of knowledge. This is a question where examples are worth more than reasons. Look at Luther. Who was more devout? who was more active? Yet who was more devoted to learning, or more profoundly anxious, to the very close of life, that literature and religion should never be divorced, in the ministry of the Protestant Churches? This it was which occasioned his famous sermon on the education of children: he perceived as early as 1530, that in the fervours of reformationpiety there was a disposition to neglect refined cultivation; he therefore penned this address, during a sojourn at Coburg. There is in it a passage so truly-Lutheran, that I must give it you, even at risk of not sticking to my text. You will see in it the very presence of the Brother Martin of Goethe’s Goetz von Berlichin2:en, as knitting: his brow asrainst the hardfisted barons of his day. It shows, moreover, that he tlioHglit of labour, and not amusement.” There be some who think that the writer’s office is a light, trifling oflice, but that to ride in armonr, and bear heat, cold, dust, drought, and the like, is labour indeed. Aye, this is the old, trite, every-day proverb. No man knows where his neighhour’s shoe finches. Every one feels his own disquiet, and gapes after the quiet of his fellow. True it is, it were toil to me, to ride in armour; but then, on the other hand, I would fain see the knight who could join me in sitting still all day, looking on a book. Ask of any chancery scribe, preacher, or orator, what sort of labour there is in writing and speaking; ask the schoolmaster, what toil there is in teaching and training boys. A pen is a light thing, that is true; and there is no tool more easily obtained, among all handicraft, for it asks only the wings of geese, of which there is abundance; but there must be added to this the best part of man, the head and the

noblest member, the tongue and his highest work, discourse. All these must work together, in the writer; whereas in the other it is only the fist, foot, and loins, for he can sing and joke all the while, which the writer must let alone. ‘It is three fingers’ work,’ (so they say of writing;) but it takes the whole body and soul to boot. I have heard say of the noble dear Emperor Maximilian, when the great Jacks (Ilansen) about him used to grumble, because lie employed writers so much in embassies, and otherwise, that he spoke thus: — ‘Well, what must I do? You would not let yourselves he useful, so I had to take writers.’ And again: ‘Knights I can make, but not doctors.’ So I have heard of a clever nobleman that he said: ‘My boy shall go to studies; it is no great art to hang two legs over a horse, and be a rider; that he has already learnt with me.’ It was well and cleverly spoken. I say not this out of contempt for the knightly order, or any other order, but against the losel troopers {^osen SGharrhcmsen) who contemn all letters and art, and boast of nought but wearing harness, and bestriding horse; though this they do but seldom, and have for it lodging, ease, mirth, honour, and well-being all the year round. It is true, as the saying goes, ‘Harness is heavy, and learning is light; ’ yet on the other hand, to learn to bear harness is easy, but to learn, practise, and exercise art and science is hard.” Perhaps no one, not even Melancthon, ever uttered a higher panegyric on clerical learning than Luther in one of his letters to Eobanus Hess. “Ego persuasus sum,” says he, “sine literarum peritia prorsus stare non posse sinceram theologian!, sicut hactenus ruentibus et jacentibus literis miserrime et cecidit et jacuit. Quin video, nunquam fuisse insignem factani verbi Dei revclationem, nisi primo, velut preecursoribus baptistis, viam pararit siirgentibns et florentibus Unguis et Uteris.” *

But do not imagine from these remarks, that what I recommend to you at present is only, or chiefly, literature, in the popular acceptation of the word, and as distinguished from professional study. It is this last which should awaken your chief interest, and the rest may be more safely left to take care of itself. There is no need of solicitation or stimulation, to bring a man in our day to acquaint himself with the lighter material; it floats on the surface, and is carried by the tide to his very doors. Make sure of the solids, and I have small fear of your suffering for lack of novels, fugitive poems, magazines, and young-lady literature. Familiarize yourself with master-pieces; you will And in them relaxation enough, and may afibrd to look on the perishing nothings of the hour, as you do on the drift that plays along the edges of your river. I do not, of course, exclude the master-pieces of our own day; but truly great works are so numerous, that you need no more debauch your taste by reading them, than you need drink Oberlin breadcoff’ee instead of Mocha.

These things are true, even of simple literature; but how the subject rises, when you look on yourself as called of God to live for his glory, to labour for

* Tol. X. ed. Berl. 1S41, p. 159. Ep. cccclxxviii.

souls, to expound his word! One lifetime is veiy little for the attainment of the objects which seem indispensable, and some of which I hope shortly to table before jou. Who, for example, even of the Chalmerses, D wights, and Masons, could say that he had trayelled round the entire cnrricnlnm of theology? “Who is the perfect historian? I am sure it will be claimed by any rather than the Schroechhs, Gieselers, and I^eanders. “Who is omnibus numeris complete in Hebrew, or oyen in Greek? Thus might I go through the encycloydia, and each would say, “It is not in me.” So that the difficulty will not be to find out what a minister shall fill his time with in the study but how, amidst his sacred and importunate engagements, he can obtain any time for private labours. Looking at the greatness of the haiwest, and the shortness of life, one is tempted at the first blush to say, Let the study alone; go forth and saye souls. And this has been so much the tendency in every era of church revival, that it would have been the settled policy to multiply unlettered preachers, if God, in his wonderful providence, had not, at the forming periods, raised up men to hold fast by the immovable maxims of sound learning. Such was Melancthon in Germany; such was Melville in Scotland. To the second of these, who can tell how much Presbytery is beholden? When, in lot-:!-, he returned

106 THOUGHTS ON rKEACHING.

to his native land, from a five years’ attendance on the prelections of such men as Turnebus, Ramus, and Beza, deeyly read in Hebrew and Sjriac, able to declaim fluently in Greek, and a fit comrade for Buchanan, the great latinist of his day, Melville set up a standard at Glasgow, which may well surprise us. “He taught usuallie twise in the day. Beside his ordinar professioun of divinitie and the oriental tongues, he taught the Greek Grammar, Bamus’s Dialectick, Talseus’s Ehetorick, Eamus’s Arithmetick and Geometric, the Elements of Euclide, Aristotle’s Ethicks, Boliticks, and Physicks, some of Plato’s Dialogues, Dionysius’s Geographic, Hunterus’s Tables, and a part of Fernell. The schoUers frequented to the Colledsre in suche numbers that the rowmes were skarse able to receave them.” ‘- Thorough learning in the ministry was builded into the very foundation, and has continued to characterize the structure. In the earliest strufro:les of our Church in this new country, Presbyterian ministers were constantly seen uniting the self-denying ardours of the mission with the toils of the school and college. And when, under temptations almost irresistible, it was sought to change the demand of qualification, the General Assembly chose rather to sufi’er the loss of a valuable limb, than to swerve from princiyles which were nec-

Caldevwood, pp. Ill, 339.

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essaiy to the healthful integrity of the body. If our brethren are imanimons in any thing, it is, in Luther’s judgment, that sound and varied learning must be sustained, if Tve would j)reserve the Church.

You will mistake my meaning, if you fancy that the learning which I am holding up as suitable for the minister of the gospel, is such as might be demanded in a professor of the sciences, or a writer on classical and philological literature. It may be as great as these, but it differs in kind, and excludes a multitude of details, on which the other must expend labour. It is ministerial, or in its widest sense theological learning, which is pleaded for: but this is enough for all the powers. No man need ever expatiate beyond the metes of divine science, from any want of room in the latter, or any excess of faculty above what may be consumed on the Scriptures. Lightfoot and Marckius, and other voluminous original commentators, doubtless were ready to acknowledge that they had touched these waters only j9r2- moribus laMis. It is therefore with no extenuation of the work, that I say the clerical student is to pursue clerical studies: yet it may prevent misapprehension, and remove objection, by showing the perfect harmony of the discipline proposed, with the daily incumbent duties of the sacred calling.

There is such a thing as maintaining a transient popularity, and having a little nsefulness, witliont any deep study; but this fire of straw soon burns out, this cistern soon fails. The preacher who is constantly pouring out, and seldom pouring in, can pour but a little while. I need hardly caution you against the sententious maxim, prevalent among freshmen, concerning those great geniuses, who read little tut tJiinh miicli. They even cite, as of their party, one of the greatest readers who ever wrote, as every work of his goes to prove; to wit, Shakspeare! The greatest thinkers have been the greatest readers, though the converse is by no means true. In reading the writings of those most remarkable for originality and invention — and mark, it is in reference to these qualities only the reference is now made — we know not whether most to admire the adventurous flights of their own daring, or their extensive acquaintance with all that has been written before, on their chosen topics. You will see this remark strikingly verified in the productions of Descartes, Leibnitz, and Hegel. While, however, I say thus much for reading, I own that reading is but a part of study; and that he cannot be admitted to the title of learned, who has not the habit of concocting, methodizing, and expressing his own thoughts. The great point is this: there must be perpetual acquisition. This is the secret of preaching. What theologians say of preparation for death,

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may be said of preparation for preaching; there is habitual and there is actual preparation: the current of daily study, and the gathering of material for a given task. It may be compared with what is familiar, in another faculty, that of Law: the lawyer has his course of perpetual research, in the great principles of general jurisprudence, or the history of statutory enactment, or the systematic arrangement of practical methods, and he has his laborious and sometimes sudden reading-up for an emergent case. Should he confine himself entirely to the latter, he must become a narrow, though perhaps an acute, practitioner. So likewise, the clerical scholar, however diligent, punctual, and persistent, who throws his whole strength into the preparation of sermons, and who never rises to higher views, or takes a larger career through the wide expanse of scientific and methodized truth, must infallibly grow up stifi”, cramped, lop-sided, and defective. His scheme of preaching may never take him through the entire curve of theology and Scripture; or the providential leadings of his ministry may bring him again and again over the same portions. These are evils which can be prevented only by the resolute pursuit of general studies, irrespectively of special pulpit performance. Such habits will tend to keep a man always prepared; and instead of getting to the bottom of his barrel as he

110 THOUGHTS ON PEEACHINa.

grows older, lie will be more and more prepared, as long as his faculties last. But the grand evil to be warred against by the younger preacher, is not that of confining himself to pulpit preparation, but that of not preparing at all: and by preparation I mean study. To seize a pen, and dash off a discourse, on a subject heretofore not familiar, and with such thoughts as occur while one is writing, may insure ease and fluency of manner, but is little better than the delivery of the same thoughts without writing: indeed, the latter possesses some great advantages, from the elevation of the powers by sympathy, passion, and attendant devotion. Engrave it upon your souls, that the whole business of your life is to prepare yourself for the work, and that no concentration of powers can be too great. The crying evil of our sermons is want of matter j we try to remedy this evil, and that evil, when the thing we should do is to get something to say: and the laborious devotion of some young clergymen to rhetoric and style instead of theology, is as if one should study a cookery-book when he should be going to market. I yesterday listened to a sermon, (and I am glad 1 do not know the preacher’s name,) which was twenty-five minutes long, but of which all the matter might have been uttered in five. It was like what the ladies call trifle, all sweetness and froth, except a modicum of cake at the bottom.

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It was doubtless written extempore. “When a young clergyman once inquired of Dr. Bellamy, what he should do to have matter for his discourses, the shrewd old gentleman replied, “Fill up the cask, fill 11]) the casJc fill up the cask! Then, if you tap it anywhere, you will get a good stream; but if you put in but little, it will dribble, dribble, dribble, and you must tap, tap, tap; and then get but little after all.”

If in this daily pursuit of knowledge, you keep constantly before your mind the end for which you seek it, there need be no fear of excess: it is studies which divert us from the evangelic work, that are to be deprecated. To the last day of life, regard your mental powers as given you to be kept in continual working order, and continual improvement, and this with reference to the work of preaching and teaching. You will find all great preachers to have lived thus; and though neither you nor I should ever become great, we shall sink the less by reason of such struggles. The whole of what we have to learn is, substantially, in one volume; for by this, it is declaredj the man of God may become apTto<; tt/jo? ttuv epyov ayaov eryfjTLcr/JLivo<;,