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infant damnation, the perdition of the unevangelized, the necessary doom of men who, prior to their personal choice, came into the world depraved, utterly averse to good, and disabled from doing right-men who never were elected, for whom Christ has made no atonement, and in behalf of whom the Holy Spirit puts forth no renewing power. Nothing has made Universalists, or has turned men over to the delusions of conditional immortality and annihilation, so rapidly and in such. numbers, as citations from the old creeds and the deliverances of orthodox teachers. These errorists could boast of only a fractional success in spreading heresy, if the medieval theology had not furnished them with such materials. Addressed to minds unused to investigation, such materials furnish appeals, ad invidiam, which no logic can meet.

It is painful to utter these criticisms upon the orthodox symbols, to which, in great part, the writer adheres. But in studying this subject and watching the arguments and appeals of the advocates of Universalism and Annihilation, we are convinced that their success in spreading heterodoxy is due more to the prejudice they create against these repulsive exaggerations, than to the force of their arguments. And what is now needed is, for us to see the errors into which our predecessors have fallen and frankly to acknowledge them, and so present the scriptural argument as to sustain the doctrine of punishment as germane and even necessary to the Gospel system.

Without extending these specifications further, such causes seem fully to account for the recent decline of faith in this orthodox doctrine. And these causes all lie outside of the fundamental principles on which that doctrine rests. Their operation may be nullified by a return to a stronger faith in Divine Revelation, by more honest and reverent methods of interpretation, by a sounder mental philosophy, and a more rational social science; and especially by removing from the doctrine itself the unsightly incrustations which have brought it into dishonor.

ARTICLE IV. -PHILLIPS BROOKS AS A PREACHER, BOTH IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE.

It is rare good fortune to students in a difficult art to have as teacher an acknowledged master of it, both in theory and in practice. And the more difficult the art, the greater the need of such an instructor. But what art is more difficult than that of persuading men to be reconciled to God, warning and teaching every man in all wisdom that he may be presented perfect in Christ Jesus?

Among those who stand in the very front rank of the many thousand preachers in our country, the "Rector of Trinity Church, Boston," is eminent. When, therefore, the press put into the hands of these thousands of ministers his "Lectures on Preaching delivered before the Divinity School of Yale College," and soon after a volume of his "Sermons," they were eagerly read by this army of preachers, that by scanning both his theory and his practice, they might learn the secret of the great preacher's success. It may not be uninstructive to look somewhat carefully into these volumes with this same end in view-to note the homiletic principles which the author lays down as the basis of all good preaching, and then to see how he embodies them in his discourses. It may be well to look at these Lectures on Preaching in the order in which they stand in the volume. But it should be remarked that it was farthest from the author's intention to give in them a full course of lectures on homiletics, but simply, as he modestly says-in accordance with the design of the lectureship-to tell of his own life in the ministry-of the principles by which he had only half consciously been living and working for many years.

Since it seems impossible properly to notice these Lectures without going somewhat fully into details, the indulgence of the reader is asked in this respect.

In the first of the eight lectures comprising the course, in which the author treats of "The Two Elements in Preaching," truth and personality, it would seem that the definition of

preaching with which he opens the discussion, covers too much ground. "Preaching is the communication of truth by man to men." This would make the communication of truth of whatever kind by man to men, preaching. Had truth been limited to religious or Christian truth, there would be no objection to the definition.

This lecture is one of great value, and contains the germs of the lectures which follow. Divine truth and the preacher's personality are admirably set forth as the two chief elements in preaching, and the more perfectly they are blended, the greater the power of the pulpit. The preacher who would sway and mould the people must ever remember that he has both a message to give and witness to bear, and that the more fully these characteristics appear in his preaching, the more powerful it will be. If he come forth from the Divine presence to speak to the people as a messenger from God, with mind intent on his message and heart aglow with it, he cannot fail to speak in demonstration of the Spirit and of power. In closing this lecture the author well says that the world will not hear its best preaching, while "there is more of God's truth for men to know," and while "it is possible for the men who utter it to become more pure and godly."

Having discussed in general terms the two main elements in preaching-religious truth and the personality of the preacher, -the author proceeds in his second and third lectures to enlarge with much justness and force on his second point under the head of "The Preacher himself," and "The Preacher in his Work." In answering the question-" What sort of a man may be a minister," he gives it as his conviction "that the ministry can never have its true dignity or power till it is cut aloof from mendicancy,-till young men whose hearts are set on preaching make their way to the pulpit by the same energy and through the same difficulties which meet countless young men on their way to business and the bar." If the withholding of aid from needy students would in time fill our pulpits with an able and efficient ministry, it were

"a consummation

Devoutly to be wished,"

and the sooner all pecuniary assistance to young men struggling to prepare for the ministry is cut off the better.

But it is to be feared that the result would be not a higher order of pulpit talent and efficiency, but a general lowering of the present standard of ministerial education, and the crowding into our pulpits of men with as little intellectual training as have the majority of those who are surging into the professions of law and medicine. And, to say the least, it admits of a reasonable doubt whether the men who prove failures in the medical and legal professions be not as many in proportion as those who are unsuccessful in the ministry. Our author having forcibly and suggestively set forth as essential qualities in a preacher, personal piety, mental and spiritual unselfishness, hopefulness, good physical condition, and enthusiasm, proceeds to speak with great justness as well as felicity of expression, of his preparation for the work, which should include a good knowledge of special studies, of doctrine with reference to its being taught, as also the power of appropriating out of everything the elements of true instruction. this last point he speaks words which are indeed "apples of gold," when he urges "a true devotion to our work, which will not let us leave it for a moment when once ordained ; preachers once and preachers always; but a conception of our work so large that everything which a true man has a right to do or to know may have some help to render it."

On

Equally correct and forcible seems the author in his setting forth as the elements of personal power which will make a preacher successful in his ministry, uprightness, freedom from self-consciousness, genuine respect for his people, enjoyment of his work, gravity and courage; and in his warning the preacher of the dangers of self-indulgence, and self-conceit.

The lecture on "The Preacher in his Work" is full of valuable suggestions. He must be a good pastor if he would be a good preacher, must know his people and their needs, and be in hearty love and sympathy with them-at once their leader and brother. And then, he should have such method and system in his studies and teachings as will not only keep him from resorting to unworthy expedients to gain so-called success, but also make his ministry the most instructive and fruitful.

Having set forth to us his conception of what the preacher should be, the author gives us in his fourth lecture his "Idea of the Sermon." And it is an idea worthy of the man. The true sermon comes into being not as a work of art, but for a purpose the saving of the souls of men. The frequent misconception of the sermon as a work of art has done great injury to preaching, but the idea of it as existing solely for the salvation of men, gives to the pulpit great freedom and power.

While the ideal sermon should be thoroughly alive with the personality of the preacher, it should not be "autobiographical," but, as the author finely says, "the truth should go out as the shot goes, carrying the force of the gun with it, but leaving the gun behind."

The outcry against what is termed doctrinal preaching can be traced, the lecturer thinks, to such preaching often having apparently no practical end in view. "It means," he says, "that men who are looking for a law of life and an inspiration of life are met by a theory of life. Much of our preaching is like delivering lectures upon medicine to sick people." While the lecturer insists on doctrine as the foundation of all effective preaching, he would have the preacher's eye fixed not on the production of "a faith that consists in the believing of propositions," but on "a faith that is personal loyalty to Christ."

This conception of a sermon as a unit of elements, no one of which can be absent without injury to the discourse is such that he regards the ordinary classifications of sermons-"expository, topical, practical, hortatory," and the like, as "of little consequence. "I frankly say, that to my mind, the sermon seems a unit, and that no sermon seems complete that does not include all these elements, and that the attempt to make a sermon of one sort alone mangles the idea and produces a onesided thing."

Of course it does, and we think it would be hard to find a man having a scintilla of homiletic knowledge, who would not agree with our author. But he seems to imagine that "expository preaching" must be wholly expository, and argumentative preaching purely argumentative-a view which it would be difficult to find taken in any treatise on homiletics.

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