The Lord o'erwhelms me with the weight of pain, Alas! unheard, I raise my wail of woe; Strikes through the livelong day my wounded heart. scorn; The skin hangs wither'd on this shape forlorn; God hides his mercy in the day of wrath : My God, the fury of thy wrath recall, I oft with tears those mournful days review; Blest, doubly blest! is he who from a child He sees thee, Lord, his heavy burden bear, Cease, O my lyre! ye prophets cease! Thou Universe, be hush'd in peace, Be hush'd, ye lips of hallow'd fire; Be still, each consecrated lyre; Till from the height of heights the day-spring rise, And till is heard from heavenly throne Peace upon earth, and glory in the skies! W. 643 CORRESPONDENCE. The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions ON PLAIN PREACHING. SIR,-The letter in a late number subscribed "Commorans in Rure” has brought before your readers a subject of equal importance and delicacy; and perhaps there are few particulars of clerical duty of practical consequence, in the present state of the church, on which it is more necessary to obtain clear and firm opinions than on this. Like most, perhaps, of your clerical readers, I have had frequent occasion to consider this subject, both in relation to myself and others, most seriously and anxiously; and have felt and seen the mischief which must always follow indistinct and unsettled views of our duty in this respect. It has often appeared to me that, as the excellence of preaching must always be relative, the circumstances in which we are called to instruct congregations in the present day generate peculiar difficulties, and involve the rules of conduct, which have been variously suggested in former times, in the most infelicitous uncertainty and doubt. If we consider our public instructions in relation to the different classes of the community, we have, intellectually and morally, new classifications to make; if we consider them in relation to the concrete of our congregations in general, we shall find that the change which has come over society modifies in a most perplexing manner their common character; or if we content ourselves with considering the relation of our instructions to the middle and lower classes, to the exclusion of all such as might modify our views of their capacity and intelligence, we shall find habits of mind and acquirements, combined with pernicious errors, demanding something different from the plain and very elementary instruction which has usually been recommended in preaching to the mass. It would occupy too much space to develope the manner in which this state of things has embarrassed the whole art or practice of preaching. It must suffice to observe in this place, that in this way those distinctions of style and matter have been mainly promoted, if not originated, in the present day, among which we often find a peculiar manner-scilicet, simplicity or plainness-so recommended as to discredit all others. Now many questions may be raised on the aggregate amount of intelligence, general and religious, to which preaching should be adapted-or the real advantage to the true success of the gospel of that simplicity for which, in the present day, an invidious distinction is claimed; and on the extent to which a particular simplicity, of admitted excellence, should supersede all other distinctions of style and manner in all the pulpits of the land? In addition to the advancing changes of society, modifying the demand of intelligence for instruction, to which we have adverted, the different characters belonging to a rural and town population, and to a trading and mercantile population, blending in the circle of its location with the higher and most educated classes, might be insisted on at great length. But leaving these topics, Sir, to other of your correspondents, more capable of doing justice to the subject in its length and breadth than I am, I will confine my remarks in the present letter to the necessity of assuming some fundamental principles of duty in determining the style of our preaching, and to the importance of studying the place which preaching should be made to occupy in the instruction of the church. If we regulate the style of our preaching by its superficial acceptance with our hearers, we shall seriously err both in principle and prudence. In the first place, we are in danger of adopting a very subordinate rule in place of the highest and most solemn obligations of duty. The intelligibility of style to the vulgar or idle must be influenced by the matter; and where men are culpably or contentedly ignorant on religious subjects, they will rebel against every demand on attention, reflection, and inquiry, and censure the preacher who makes this demand. But surely, to remove this ignorance, with all its trains of prejudice, worldliness, and depraved hostility to the truth, must be done at the risk of personal or temporary acceptance, and may engage the preacher in matter which, according to certain canons of criticism, will injure the intelligibility of his style. Again, let particular subjects be discussed with the greatest simplicity of which they are capable, their discussion may be unintelligible to hearers who have in the first instance no mental associations nor habits of religious sympathy to ensure their acceptance. The Christian instructor is therefore placed at a great disadvantage with such persons; yet this is a disadvantage which he must not hesitate to incur if he would be faithful to them and true to his trust. Such considerations must shew to every one that our superficial acceptance with our hearers, too often made the test of true simplicity, is a very subordinate rule of conduct, which may seduce the minister of Christ into the most mischievous errors and unpardonable guilt. Let us therefore distinctly admit, in all our inquiries on this subject, the necessity of resorting to higher rules for the regulation of our style and matter in preaching than can be furnished by the measure of our superficial acceptance among hearers in general, before we have had opportunity to build up the church in our parishes by patience and perseverance. In seeking for some principles of regulation in this matter, it is obviously necessary to commence with clear views of the nature and design of preaching in general. And here it may assist us to inquire, what place has been formerly assigned to preaching in the instruction of the church-what place it has obtained in the practice of the present day-and what is the place it should now take in the present state of the church in the world? I. Without dwelling at any great length on these topics, it will be enough to remind your readers, that from antiquity, and the early practice of the Anglican church, it plainly appears that preaching has not always been the fixed and absorbing exercise it has now become among us. "It's true, (says the learned Stillingfleet,) for some time preaching was an extraordinary thing in the church, and none but great and eminent men, of authority in the church, were permitted to preach, and the greatest bishops were then the preachers, as appears by the sermons of S. Ambrose, S. Chrysostom, S. Augustin," &c. (Bishop of Worcester's Ecclesiastical Cases, &c. p. 142.) It is also worth our notice, that when in this country preaching had fallen into disuse, and the mendicant friars had by their practice drawn attention to the subject, regulations were furnished, (9 Edw. I.) which shew the light in which the authorities of the church then regarded the practice. By a provincial constitution of this date it was appointed, that every parochial priest should, four times a year, read an explication of the creed, the ten commandments, the two precepts of the gospel, the love of God and the love of our neighbour, the seven works of mercy, the seven deadly sins, the seven principal virtues, and the seven sacraments; and this was to be done vulgarly and plainly, absque cujuslibet subtilitatis textura fantastica; "for so (says an old civilian) they call learned and orderly preaching." (Sir T. Ridley's View of Civil and Ecclesiastical Law, p. 171.) This was renewed in the province of York, Edw. IV. And in this manner the place of preaching in the instruction of the church appears to have been prescribed and restricted, till the influences which hastened the Reformation had begun to work. In the circumstances created by the labours of Wickliffe and his disciples, a provincial constitution under Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, extended the express authority of the church to preach to all legal incumbents, it being before confined to the parochial priests who officiated as curates, and regulated the preaching of persons duly qualified in different places. "And thus" (says the Bishop of Worcester) "the matter stood as to preaching before the Reformation." The light in which it was finally regarded by our church appears in the office of ordination, when the bishop substitutes the bible for the chalice and paten, and instead of accipe potestatem offerre Deo sacrificium, says, "Take thou authority to preach the word of God," &c. Canons 45, 46, 47, may also be referred to, as prescribing the place which the church, in the final revision of its laws, has assigned to preaching. And finally, the regulations for preaching, under Elizabeth, as well as the publication of the homilies, deserve our attention in this respect. A longer examination of this subject than can now be given would clearly establish such inferences as I can now attempt only to indicate. The instruction or discipline of the church has never included preaching as one of its principal offices; the necessity and form of this duty have grown out of circumstances from time to time; and in engaging in it, an adaptation is to be prudently studied to the educational and intellectual habits of the age in which we live, and of the people among whom we labour, always making it subordinate to the sacraments, the prayers, and the established offices of the church, in seeking among our people the complete formation of the Christian character. VOL. XV.-June, 1839. 4 0 II. It is plain that the circumstances attending the Reformation must be considered as commencing a new era in the preaching of the church. These circumstances are marked by the spread of knowledge and inquiry, which, as they mainly occasioned the reformation, awakened an appetite for popular instruction by means of the pulpit and the press. Hence, preaching speedily and properly lost that very elementary character which we have seen was originally prescribed by our provincial constitutions. It became discussional or argumentative, and, viewed generally, was addressed to the average intelligence of the mass, as exercised upon religious subjects. This character it has possessed through all the changes of our condition nearly to the present day, traceable in an improved intellectual excellence belonging to the sermons, both of the ministers of our church and of the leading teachers of nonconformity. But if I mistake not, dating from the appearance of Whitfield and Wesley, what both within and without our church has often been called a revival of religion, has introduced a change connected with what I conceive to be our present embarrassment on this subject. A devotional and zealous strain of preaching has been adopted-not confined to any party designated as evangelical-which has of late years lowered the tone of pulpit discussion by its restriction to certain topics of devotional interest, producing an excitement of feeling without any proportionate engagement of the intelligence of our hearers. This has produced a neglect of instruction, or discipline, properly considered-a consequent and very mischievous neglect of the discipline of our church-and as coincident evils, claiming in their coincidence our close attention, an unhealthy craving for excitement on the part of the unintelligent, and all but a justifiable contempt for much of our pulpit ministrations on the part of the secular intelligence of the day. If in these circumstances we attempt to rise to the rebuke, or conciliation, or due religious instruction, of the latter, we offend the former. We are in danger of becoming incomprehensible to those who, without catechetical preparation, and without the modesty and submission becoming them, have by the circumstances of the times been made to prescribe the general character of our auditories. Again, if, addressing ourselves to them alone, we attempt, by our preaching, their correction, and required discipline of mind and heart, we immediately get above the sphere of their sympathies; and having to deal with the indocility of ignorance and prejudice, are sure to be told that we do not speak so as to be understood. But unquestionably it is in this case our duty to persevere, till such persons are habituated to the discussions at which they first recoil, till their prejudices are broken, their sympathies awakened, and, being made at last to understand us, we "win" their souls. In such cases, the feeble-minded or time-serving preacher would repeatedly alter his preaching, till at the end of a year it would exhibit a pie-bald, and often a contradictory character, its unity destroyed, and its impressiveness prevented; when, without any high intellectual or moral purpose, he would weary of his duty, with a consciousness of self-degradation in the course he had erroneously pre scribed to himself. |