_PREACHING_ (ii.).
_For Thy sake, beloved Lord,
I will labour in Thy Word;
On the knees, in patient prayer;
At the desk, with studious care;
In the pulpit, seeking still
There to utter all Thy will._
I pursue the subject of attractive preaching, taking still the word
attractive in its worthiest sense, and again laying stress on the
_necessity_ of attractiveness of the right sort. We have looked a little
already at some of the external requisites to this end; now let us
approach some which have to do with matter more than manner.
CONSIDERATENESS.
On the way, I pause to say a word in general on one of the reasons why
we should do our best to speak so that our hearers shall care to hear.
The supreme reason is manifest; it is the glory of our Master and the
good of souls. For His sake, and for the flock's sake, we long and must
strive to speak so as to draw their attention to His message and to
Himself. But subordinate to this great motive, and in fullest harmony
with it, there is another; and this is a motive which, once clearly
apprehended, will affect not our preaching only, but all parts of our
ministry--our conduct of public worship, our pastoral visitation, our
whole intercourse with our neighbours. I mean, the simple motive of a
loyal and faithful _considerateness for others_, as we are on the one
hand Christian men and English gentlemen, and on the other hand
servants, not masters, of the Church and parish. Possibly this aspect of
the Pastor's public and official ministry may not have presented itself
distinctively as yet to my younger Brother; but it cannot be recognized
and acted upon too early. Some things in our clerical position and
functions tend in their own nature to make us forget it, if we are not
definitely awake to it beforehand. In some respects the Clergyman, even
the youngest Curate, has dangerous opportunities for _in_ considerate
public action. Take the management of divine Service in illustration. In
his manner of reading, his tone, his pace, the Clergyman may allow
himself, only too easily, to think of himself alone. In the
reading-desk, or at the Table of the Lord, he may consult only his own
likes and dislikes in attitude, gesture, and air. But if so, he is
greatly failing in the homely duty of loyal considerateness. What will
be most for the happiness and edification of the congregation? What will
least disturb and most assist true devotion? How shall the Minister best
secure that the worshippers shall remember the Master and not be
uncomfortably conscious of the servant? The answers to such questions
will of course vary considerably under varying conditions; but it is
_the principle_ of the questions which I press home. Our office, and the
common consent and usage of the Christian people, give us a position of
independence in such matters which has its advantages, but also its very
great risks; and it is for us accordingly to handle that independence
with the utmost possible _considerateness_.
This thought was much upon my own mind lately during the interesting
experiences of a Continental summer chaplaincy, to which I referred in
the last chapter. As usual in a health resort abroad, the English
residents represented many different shades of Church opinion and
practice. By the convictions of many long years, I am an Evangelical
Churchman, in the well-understood sense of the term; and of those
convictions I am not at all ashamed. My manner of conducting public
worship, especially in the Communion Office, would probably make it
plain at once to most worshippers where I stand as a Churchman. But that
does not mean, I trust, that I am to allow myself to be inconsiderate of
the feelings of others in the matter; and on the occasions referred to
it was my earnest and anxious aim to remember this with regard to
worshippers, and particularly communicants, whose beliefs, or however
whose sympathies, were what is called "higher" than my own. On their
account I sought to make it plain that no rubrical direction was
neglectfully treated by me, and that reverence of manner and action was
a sacred thing in my eyes--a reverence not elaborated, but attentive. I
hope I should have been reverently careful whatever the composition of
the congregation was; but under the circumstances the duty of this
obvious sort of ministerial _considerateness_ was laid on my heart with
special weight. That duty bears in many directions. It is, I venture to
say, inconsiderate, on the one hand, when the Clergyman conducts the
services of the Church with a disturbing artificiality of performance.
It is inconsiderate, on the other hand, when he conducts them with any,
even the least, real slovenliness and inattention.
TEMPTATIONS TO FORGET IT.
But if all this is true of the desk and of the blessed Table, it is true
also, and in a high degree, of the pulpit. Singularly independent, up to
a certain point, is the position of the preacher. He chooses his own
text; he assigns himself (at least in theory) his own length of
discourse; he is entitled, under the Êgis of the law of the land, to
speak on to the end without interruption; he is bound, within the limits
of a sanctified common-sense, to speak with the authority of his
commission. Here are powerful temptations to an inconsiderate man,
perhaps especially to an inconsiderate young man, to show much
inconsideration. And therefore, here is a pre-eminent occasion for the
true Pastor, who thinks, prays, loves, and is humble, to practise the
beautiful opposite. Shall you and I seek grace to do so?
RESPECT ELDER HEARERS.
Put yourself often, my dear Brother, while I do the same, into the
position--which we once occupied always, and often do still--of the
hearer. You, the Curate, or the young Incumbent, have recently come into
the parish, and you are full of a young man's energy and enterprize, and
a little infected perhaps with a common and natural belief of your time
of life, but a belief not quite true to facts, that the world is made
for young men. And among your hearers, week by week, as you preach from
that pulpit, sit men and women who were working, and thinking, and
perhaps believing, literally long before you were born. Put yourself in
their place. Into many of their experiences, and their sympathies born
of experience, you cannot possibly enter personally. You cannot _feel
personally_ how this or that innovation of language or manner, this or
that too crude statement of your message, this or that baldly new and
perhaps by no means true theory, aired as if it were all obvious and of
course, must look and sound to them. You cannot _feel_ it all; but you
can think about it. Perhaps these are educated and refined people, and
accustomed all their lives to value clear thought and pure diction, in
any case accustomed to carefulness in the matter and manner of the
sermon. You cannot enter into all their mental habits in your own mental
workings; but you can take account of them, and in a loyal and
thoughtful _considerateness_ you can remember them in practice, and
honestly aim so to prepare and to preach as to conciliate the thoughtful
and the elders.
Such considerateness will not mean the stifling of prayerful conviction,
or the failure to be faithful as the messenger of the Lord. But it will
mean a severity upon yourself as regards the tone and spirit of your
thoughts, and also as the manner of your utterance. You will take pains,
even at a heavy cost to self (and such costs are always gains in the
end), so to minister as to attract the attention of the flock, not to
yourself, but to your blessed Master and His Word; preaching "not
yourself, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and _yourself their servant_ for
Jesus' sake." [2 Cor. iv. 5.]
With this aim of Attractiveness, then, in our minds, and with this
motive of Considerateness beside it, let us come to some thoughts in
detail about the matter of preaching.
And here first I must bring in another word to meet the word
"attractive." That word is "faithful."
WRONG KINDS OF ATTRACTIVENESS.
As a matter of most obvious fact (we noticed it in the previous
chapter), there is a false and useless attractiveness, as well as a
true. There is the poor and miserable attractiveness--it draws a certain
class of modern hearers--of mere brevity; the "ten-minute sermon." There
are no doubt exceptional occasions when ten minutes, or even five, may
be the right limit to our utterance; but there is something wrong with
both sermon and audience if in the regular ministration of God's holy
Word the preacher must at once begin to stop. There is again the
specious and spurious attractiveness of excitement and froth of manner,
or of a merely emotional appeal to perhaps not the deepest emotions, an
attraction which has little in it of that divine magnet which draws the
will and lifts the soul in regenerate faith and surrender. There is the
attraction, tempting, but futile for the true purposes of the pulpit,
of the sermon which is after all only a lecture, or a leading article;
full of the topics of the day, of the hour; full perhaps of some
celebrated name just immortalized by death[32]; but not full of the
eternal message for which the pulpit exists. Most certainly there is no
divine rule which excludes from the sermon all allusions to politics, to
society, to science, to great men; but there _is_ a divine rule, running
through the whole precept and example of the New Testament, which keeps
such things always subordinate to the supreme work of preaching Jesus
Christ.
[32] "I went longing to hear about Christ, and it was only Newman from
beginning to end." This was the actual lament of an anxious soul, one
Sunday in 1890.
FAITHFULNESS.
Across all our thoughts how to secure attractiveness, as a co-ordinate
line which fixes attention to the true point, runs the word
"Faithfulness." The preacher is to be attractive while faithful,
faithful while attractive. And he is to be attractive not for the sake
of so being, but in order that he may win an entrance for the words of
faithfulness, to his Master's praise.
WE ARE MESSENGERS.
Yes, this is what we are to be as preachers. We are to seek "mercy of
the Lord to be faithful." [1 Cor. vii. 25.] We are not popular leaders,
looking for a cry, or passing one on. We are not speculative thinkers,
feeling out a philosophy, communicating our guesses at truth to a
company of friends who happen to be interested in the investigation. We
are "messengers, watchmen, and stewards of the Lord." We are in
commissioned charge of a divine, authentic, and unalterable message. We
are the expounders of a "Word which liveth and abideth for ever," [1
Pet. i. 23.] a Word which man is always trying to judge and to
disparage, but which will judge man at the last day. [Joh. xii. 48.] We
are the bondservants of an absolute Master, who is at once our Sender
and our Message, and who overhears our every word in its delivery.
It is a grave mistake, as we saw in our last chapter, to think that
faithfulness means a repellent utterance of "the faithful Word." [Tit.
i. 9.] But it is at least an equal mistake to think that attractiveness
means a modification of that Word, which to the end of our world's day
will still be a "folly" and a "stumbling-block," [1 Cor. i. 23.] in
some respects, to the unconverted soul, and will always have its
searching point and edge for the converted soul also.
But this consideration here is only by the way. I return from it to the
matter of a right and faithful attractiveness and some of its higher
conditions.
SECRETS FOR TRUE ATTRACTIVENESS.
"_Preach the Gospel--earnestly, interestingly, fully._" Such, I believe,
is the prescription given, by the great preacher whom I cited in the
last chapter, to the Pastor who would fill his church, and keep it full.
In the first instance, no doubt, Mr Spurgeon gives it as a prescription
to the Nonconformist Pastor; but it is quite as much to the purpose for
the Conformist, so far as he is a Minister of the Word.[33] What I have
to say in these present pages shall run on the lines of that sentence of
good counsel.
[33] And let it never be forgotten that this is his _primary_ function
in the mind of the Church of England. See the Priest's Ordination,
particularly its Exhortations, its Commission, and its final Collect.
"PREACH THE GOSPEL."
i. "_Preach the Gospel_," that is to say Jesus Christ, in His Person,
His Work, His Offices, His Teaching, all applied to the souls and lives
of men. Would you truly and permanently attract, with an attraction
which God will bless? Let that be your first condition. I do not dilate
upon it here, but with all the earnestness possible I lay it upon my
younger Brother's heart as we pass on. Preach the Gospel, that is to say
the Lord, in all He is for man as man is a sinner, a mortal, a mourner,
a worker. Do not let Christ be one subject among others. As little can
the sun be one among the planets. He is _the_ Subject; all others get
their reality and importance for us preachers by their relation to Him.
In particular I venture to say, do not let occasional, temporal, local
topics, even very important ones, dislodge Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ
of the whole Bible, from His royal place in your preaching; and do not
forget continually (though not monotonously) to keep to the front the
fact that He is _the sinner's Saviour_. More will be said later about
that point of view, but I state it at once. Speak indeed of Christ as
Exemplar, Ideal, Friend, Man of Men; but do not let your brethren forget
that, "_first of all, Christ died for our sins_, according to the
Scriptures," [1 Cor. xv. 3.] and that His primary practical relation to
us is always that of Saviour to sinner. That truth is not altogether in
fashion now. But it is eternal; it is deep as the human soul, and as the
Law of God, and as such it is a mighty condition to attractiveness,
wisely and truly handled. It corresponds to the inmost facts of the
hearers' being, whether they are aware of it yet or not; and is there
not here the most powerful of magnets, at least _in posse_?
"PREACH IT EARNESTLY."
ii. "Preach the Gospel _earnestly_." This does not mean necessarily
with vehemence, or even with fervour, of manner. Some men's delivery is
fervent, or even vehement, in the most natural way possible; and let
such men preach so, if they will do it thoughtfully and to the purpose.
But the slightest artificial cultivation of such qualities, or of the
semblance of them, is a great practical mistake. And earnestness is at
once a wider and a simpler matter all the while. The man who preaches
earnestly is the man who is altogether in earnest, and speaks out his
conviction and his purpose.
*PREACH IT AS A WITNESS.
He is the man who has the Lord's message deep in his own soul, and is
conscious of its vast importance for the souls of others. He is the man
who does not merely discuss, or explain, or even expound, however
soundly and luminously, but whose words--well chosen, well weighed, well
ordered--are _also_ the living words of one who "testifieth that he hath
seen." [Joh. iii. 11.] Yes, the essence of the right sort of earnestness
is the witness-character of the preacher. What is a witness? One who has
personal knowledge of the matter of his words [2 Tim. i. 12.]--"_I know
whom I have believed._" Is there not a great need at this time, in our
dear Church, of more such witness-preaching? I do not mean preaching
that advertises the preacher as a remarkable Christian, certainly not
preaching that puts for one moment our "testimony" on a level with the
infallible Word once written. But I do mean the preaching which, by one
of the surest laws of our nature, attracts attention to that Word in a
living way by the preacher's manifest confession that its message is a
mighty reality and certainty to himself.
Some years ago I heard an account of the peculiarly impressive preaching
of a young Mission-clergyman. It was described to me as remarkable not
for energy of manner, or warmth of diction, but for the impression left
on all hearers that the truths handled by the man were for himself
absolute and present facts. He stated them with a directness and
quietness which was emphatically matter-_of-fact_. This sort of
preaching is earnest indeed.
"PREACH IT INTERESTINGLY."
iii. "Preach the Gospel _interestingly_." How shall we secure this? Some
recipes for interest are familiar. There is the method of illustration;
there is the method of anecdote: both excellent, and almost
indispensable. Only, they are methods which have their risks, and must
be used with care. Illustrations are apt to overwhelm the thing
illustrated, the moment much detail is allowed; and they are apt to go
on three feet, or even upon one, instead of upon four; and they may be
drawn from quarters too remote to strike the hearers with effect.
Anecdotes have the same risks; and, besides, they need, if they are to
be used aright, to be carefully sifted and verified. I say this not to
disparage what in some preachers' hands is a most powerful and also a
most delicate weapon; yet the caution is certainly needed, especially by
younger men.
INTEREST OF EXPLANATION.
But the surest secrets of interesting preaching lie deeper than anecdote
and illustration. One of them, a very simple one to state, is clearness
of thought, and of the expression and explanation of thought. I entreat
my Brother to be an _explanatory_ preacher, by which I mean, not that he
should treat his _brethren_ as if they were his _children_ (unless
indeed it is a children's sermon), but that he should handle familiar
religious terms with the resolve to make them _live and speak_ to the
ordinary hearer. Nothing is more opiate-like than a sentence which is
unreal to the hearer because it is mere phraseology. Nothing can be made
more interesting than familiar phraseology (supposing it to be true and
important) so treated as to speak its meaning out fresh and living in
modern ears.
INTEREST OF EXPOSITION.
Another deep and unfailing secret of interest, so that it be used
intelligently and prayerfully, is close akin to this last. It lies in
the right sort of _expository_ preaching. I have in my mind such
exposition as will be found in Dr Vaughan's sermons on the Philippian
Epistle. The charm and power of those sermons lie, I know, very much in
the extraordinary excellence, the _curiosa simplicitas_, of their
literary style, so unpretentious and so masterly. But it lies also in
the fact that the preacher takes us over a familiar Scripture passage,
verse by verse, phrase by phrase, and translates it into the dialect of
present circumstances. Let me heartily commend this sort of preaching
from my own parochial experience in past days. In a congregation
consisting chiefly of the poor, I found that the most intelligent and
sustained interest was excited by a series of Sunday evening sermons on
a selected chapter or paragraph, in which the aim was first to
paraphrase the sacred phrases, as it were, into modern shapes, and then
at the close to enforce some main message of the portion. The method is
as old as the Homilies of Chrysostom, and older.
INTEREST OF PRACTICALITY.
Another secret of interest, permanent and effectual, is _practicality_
in preaching. I protest, whenever I can, and I hope to do so to the
last, against the common but unhappy fallacy of an outcry against
doctrine: "_Give us not a creed, but a life_." The whole New Testament,
the whole Bible, protests against such a sentence. There, a divine creed
is always seen as necessary for a divine life. Supernatural facts,
livingly apprehended, are necessary for supernatural peace and power in
this formidable natural world. But then, on the other side, it is a
fallacy almost as fatal to preach the supernatural fact and truth
without a constant and practical application of them to the crude and
stern realities of life. A young pastoral preacher was once, in my
hearing, warmly and lovingly thanked for his pulpit-work, on the eve of
his quitting his Curacy; and the point on which his humble friends dwelt
was that he had always preached Christ, _and_ always showed them how to
make use of His presence and power in the actual circumstances of their
lives. Eloquent words, aye and true words, spoken _in vacuo_, will be
dull to most hearers; eternal truths laid alongside the weekday work and
temptation will always be interesting.
"PREACH THE GOSPEL FULLY."
iv. "Preach the Gospel _fully_." Here is our great Nonconformist's last
adverb, in his recipe for attractive preaching. Its point is not so
obvious perhaps as that of the other words, but it is nobly true. "The
Gospel" is, as I have said, and as we know, nothing less than Jesus
Christ the Lord, in His whole harmonious glory of Person, Work, and
Word. It is deeply true that in that mighty and manifold theme there are
points which must be always prominent and ruling; and most surely the
man-humbling and soul-blessing truths of the Atoning Sacrifice are such
points. "First of all" (we have recalled that all-significant sentence
already), "first of all, Christ died for our sins." [1 Cor. xv. 3.] Alas
for the Church, for the congregation, for the pulpit, where that is
forgotten, obscured, or put into a secondary, or perhaps a tertiary
place! One thing is certain; that pulpit cannot be bearing its right
witness meanwhile to the "exceeding sinfulness" of sin--not merely the
deformity of sin, but the awful evil and condemnable guilt of sin. [SN:
Rom. vii. 13.] But then it is a thing to be regretted (and corrected)
when the Pastor's preaching is _always and only_ concerned with the
urgent need, and wonderful provision, for the pardon and acceptance of
the believing sinner. I dare to say it is impossible that such preaching
should be permanently, or even long, interesting and attractive, and
this because of the nature of the case.
*PREACH PARDON, BUT MORE ALSO.
Man's fallen and sinful soul needs pardon unspeakably, and always, but
it needs it as a means to an end; and that end is nearness to God,
conformity to Him, power to do His blessed will as His servant for ever.
For this same great end the soul needs, even in the range of truths
which are of the order of means, to learn more than the glorious
_rudiments_ of forgiveness. It needs to know something of the heavenly
Offices of the once Crucified One: His Mediation, Suretyship, and
Intercession; His Priesthood; His Royalty; His Headship. In Him lie
stored the divine treasures with which our _whole_ extent of need is to
be met. And the preacher who would permanently attract his people, by
bringing out of his storehouse things eternally old and new, must seek
and pray to preach Christ fully.
CHRIST FOR US AND IN US.
To some devoted men it seems impossible not to be always preaching the
glory of "Christ _for_ us"; others can never leave the precious theme of
"Christ _in_ us." But if they are not missioners, but pastors, they will
assuredly find that a _permanent_ attraction can only be secured by
doing what the Word of God does--setting forth _both_ glorious sets of
truths in fulness, in harmony, and in application to the realities of
sin and of life.
So we have thought awhile about attractive preaching. Need I say again
what the sort of attractiveness is which I have in view? It is indeed,
on the surface, attraction to the church, attraction to the sermon; but
its whole inner purpose is an attraction which neither church nor sermon
can in the least degree cause, but which the Eternal Spirit, sovereign
and loving, can cause through them--an attraction to Jesus Christ, in
true repentance, living faith, genuine surrender, and patient, happy
service.
"_Ye servants of God, your Master proclaim,
And publish abroad His wonderful Name;
The Name all victorious of Jesus extol,
His kingdom is glorious and rules over all._
"_Then let us adore and give Him His right,
All glory and power, all wisdom and might,
All honour and blessing with angels above,
And thanks never ceasing, and infinite love._"
C. WESLEY.