THE CHRISTIAN REVIEW.

No. XX.

DECEMBER, 1840.

ARTICLE I.

PLAINNESS, AS A QUALITY OF SERMONS.

IT is to be regretted, that our language furnishes no unequivocal word for expressing that general quality in discourses, by which they become readily and fully intelligible to their hearers. The word intelligible is not sufficient to designate this excellence; for some discourses are susceptible of being understood, though not without severe. and prolonged effort. The word simple is sometimes used to denote the quality of being readily and easily understood; but is also used to denote naturalness and unaffectedness of style. The word popular is likewise equivocal, being not only applied to discourses fitted for the general comprehension, but also to those which are well received by the public.* Perspicuous is the term by which the quality is often indicated; but this term is too specific for our purpose; it applies to the language of a discourse rather than to the discourse as a whole; to the characteristic of a medium, rather than of what is seen through that medium. It is a figurative term, designating the transparency of the glass which has no flaw, and which we look through (perspicio) without impediment; but we wish a term to express

* The Germans express the quality now under consideration by the words, Simplicität and Popularität. See a valuable work of Fr. Wilh. Hesse, Ueber Popularität und Simplicität im Predigen.

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the transparency of the object also which is seen behind that glass. We sometimes hear, indeed, of a perspicuous arrangement or argument, but not often of a perspicuous doctrine, thought or theme. The word plain is likewise ambiguous, denoting free from art or ornament, honestly rough, faithful in reproof, and also easily and fully intelligible. The last meaning, however, is one element of all its other meanings when it is applied to discourses; and therefore this term will be used throughout the present article in preference to the others, though not in exclusion of them. The word clear is in some respects more suitable to our purpose than either of the preceding, yet is often used as nearly synonymous with undeniable, and does not equally with the word plain stand in obvious and striking opposition to excessive metaphor, artificial constructions and complicated arrangement. But whatever term we employ, the thing to be now considered is, that general quality of a sermon, of its phraseology and plan and thought, by which it becomes not merely susceptible of being understood, but of being understood without hesitation and doubt; by which the thought is presented to the mind like light to the eye; not needing to be searched after, but obtruding itself upon the organ; being perceived not merely because we chose to perceive it, but if the eye be open, whether we choose or not.*

This subject is so important, that it has become a hackneyed one, and for this very reason demands a renewed examination. It is upon the hackneyed theme, especially when fundamental, that many are apt to form the most superficial and injurious notions. We shall be called to criticise some of the oft-repeated canons on this subject, while we consider, as we now propose to do, the proper standard of plainness in sermons. How far shall this quality be carried? What degree of it shall we aim to acquire?

It may be needless to say, in the first place, that discourses should not be so plain as to seem low and vulgar.

* Id ipsum in consilio est habendum, non semper tam esse acrem judicis intentionem, ut obscuritatem apud se ipse discutiat, et tenebris orationis inferat quoddam intelligentiae suae lumen: sed multis eum frequenter cogitationibus avocari, nisi tam clara fuerint, quae dicemus, ut in animum ejus oratio, ut sol in oculos, etiamsi in eam non intendatur, incurrat. Quare non, ut intelligere possit, sed ne omnino possit non intelligere, curandum. Propter quod etiam repetimus saepe quae non satis percepisse eos, qui cognoscunt, putamus.-Quintil. Inst., Lib. VIII, § 2.

We use the word seem, rather than be; for lowness and vulgarity are relative terms, and it were unjust to condemn every thing in every place, which would offend the tastes of some refined hearers in some places. By so doing we should condemn the Bible. There is a standard of true dignity; and, though we may not be able to fix this standard with exactness, we may decide confidently upon certain approximations to it. We may settle the principle, that a minister should never sink beneath the standard adopted by his audience, or justify any suspicion in any of them that he is degraded in his intellect or sensibilities. It is not true, that a low expression is always plainer than a dignified one. As one part of an audience cannot understand a learned phrase, so another part will not understand a rude phrase. Cultivated minds feel the significancy of a vulgar remark not much more than vulgar minds feel the force of a literary abstraction. When we have read in the sermons of a certain popular writer such expressions as this, "The conduct of inconsistent Christians makes the devil laugh," we have felt that this writer's style is liable to the very objection which he so often makes to scholastic discourses; the force of it cannot be appreciated by some of his readers. His strong words fall powerless upon many ears which are not attuned to this mode of speech. Low sayings suggest to a delicate mind a very different notion from that which their author intended. Their repulsive form prevents their designed signification from even entering that soul which is so sensitive as to shut itself up against every apparent rudeness. And there are many vulgarized idioms, which the vulgar, who so often use them, do not themselves understand. It is truly observed by Dr. Campbell, "that in some popular systems of religion, the zeal of the people is principally exerted in support of certain favorite phrases, and a kind of technical and idiomatical dialect to which their ears have long been inured, and which they consequently imagine they understand, but in which often there is nothing to be understood."*

It must always be remembered, that the word perspicuity indicates a certain relation between what is said and the

* See Philosophy of Rhetoric, b. II, ch. 7. See also Foster's Essay on the aversion of men of taste to evangelical religion, Letters 4 and 5.

character of him who hears, and that the same discourse is plain to one hearer and unintelligible to another.* When, therefore, the writer on homiletics addresses to preachers the advice of Cromwell to his soldiers, "Fire low," we must remember the danger of firing too low; and that he is as unskilful who discharges his ammunition into the earth under the feet, as he who discharges it into the air over the head of those whom he aims at. Says Wesley to one of his lay assistants, "Clearness is necessary for you and me, because we are to instruct people of the lowest understanding; therefore we, above all, if we think with the wise, must yet speak with the vulgar.t We should constantly use the most common little easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords." Now the same Wesleyan wisdom, which prompts the selection of the most common little easy words for people of the lowest understanding, will allow a more refined phraseology for hearers of a less vulgar stamp. We smile at the simple-heartedness of Thomas Hanson, one of Wesley's adherents, when he says, "I am a brown-bread preacher, that seek to help all I can to heaven, in the best manner I can." We feel thankful that there are some preachers made of this home-made, yet wholesome material, but we need not insist that every one be a Thomas Hanson, or adopt his brown style.

In the second place, a sermon should not be so plain as to appear common and trite. We say appear rather than be trite, for what is common-place to one audience is fresh instruction to another, and it is a universal rule, that a preacher should never sink below the standard of his hearers. If he do so, he may not be even intelligible to them. A sermon so simple as to appear childish, so clear as to seem shallow, will not be attended to, and the ability of a listless mind to understand a meagre preachment may be less than that of an interested mind to comprehend a rich and original discourse. By constantly rewarding the attention of our hearers, we may sharpen that attention the more; and as their mental activity increases, we may gratify their cravings with stronger and deeper thought.

The glass is without a flaw, but some cannot see through it on account of their distance from it.

†The old maxim of Roger Ascham was, "We ought to think like great minds, and speak like the common people."

We may keep up the proportion between their perspicacity and the depth or volume of our teachings. A discourse is made plain, not so often by the commonness of its phrases as by the fitness of the whole composition to awaken the inquisitiveness of the hearers. Let its plan be suited to excite curiosity, let its constructions be uninvolved, its sentences unincumbered with needless parentheses and tautologies, its language definite and pure, and the hearers will grasp its dense meaning more easily than if a single one of its thoughts were expanded well nigh to evaporation. When they listen to words which have been called the monuments rather than the signs of ideas; to "the perfect vulgar of pious authorship; an assemblage of the most subordinate materials that can be called thought in language, too grovelling to be called style;" when they say of their preacher as Bassanio said of Gratiano, "He speaks an infinite deal of nothing; his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have found them, they are not worth the search," the consequence is, the hearers lose the character of hearers, their minds are diverted to other objects, and the plainest style is not perspicuous, like glass, to an audience who are looking out at the windows. When the mechanic's chisel is blunt, he applies the more strength; when the material to be cut is hard, he may prepare it for the operation by a solvent; and if the preacher would be understood, he must perform a preliminary work upon the faculties which are to understand him, must secure an interested attention, must arrange his thoughts so as to force an entrance into the soul, must make his hearers co-workers with himself, and they will press through brakes of argument impassable to sluggish minds. Interesting thought often gives perspicuity to style. When the logical structure of a sermon is good, it often makes the rhetorical garb transparent. Adam Smith's discussion of doctrines in political economy is far clearer to a sound mind than Miss Martineau's Illustrations. Though Philip Henry says, "I never think that I can speak plain enough, when I am speaking about souls and their salvation," we may still query whether a sermon may not be so simple as to shut up the very minds it was intended to open; whether plainness may not cease to be such when it sinks into truisms.