Familiar as most readers of this work are with examples
of the kind of manner intended, it will help to illustrate and enforce its
nature, if a few extracts from different authors are here introduced, by way
of specimens. Those which are here presented are not selected as possessing
anything very extraordinary, or as being the best of the kind that could be
selected from the same authors; but they are sufficient to answer the
purpose. Nor are they exhibited as models, to be in every particular
imitated in modern composition—but as being pervaded by that one quality of
intense earnestness, which it is the object of this work to recommend.
The first extract which shall be quoted is from a sermon
of Mr. Doolittle. This eminent minister of Christ was ejected by the Act of
Uniformity in 1662. He was a man of extraordinary courage, power, and
success, in preaching; and, after his expulsion from his living, educated
young men for the ministry. The extract which follows is taken from a
discourse contained in that valuable series called "The Morning Exercises,"
and is entitled "How we should eye Eternity, so that it may have its
influence on all we do." It is perhaps the most solemn sermon in the English
or any other language; it is sadly overcharged with terminology, which
should be sparingly introduced, though it ought not to be altogether
excluded from the pulpit, even in this fastidious age. The sickly
sentimentalism which would "never mention hell to ears polite," should be
renounced with as much disgust, as gross familiarity with such solemn
realities. It was not only Doolittle's fault—but it was the vice of the age,
to approach somewhat too near to the latter extreme. But then, after this
admission is made, let us look at the burning and overwhelming earnestness
of the sermon.
"Is there an eternal state—such unseen eternal joys and
torments? Who then can sufficiently lament the blindness, madness, and folly
of this perishing world, and the unreasonableness of those that have
rational and eternal souls, to see them busily employed in the matters of
time, which are only for time—in present honors, pleasures, and profits,
while they do neglect everlasting things! Everlasting life and death is
before them, everlasting joy or torment is near at hand; and yet poor
sinners take no care how to avoid the one, or obtain the other. Is it not
matter of lamentation to see so many thousands bereaved of the sober serious
use of their minds? That while they use their reason to get the riches of
this world, they will not act as rational men to get the joys of heaven!
They will avoid temporal calamities—yet not escape eternal misery. Or if
they be fallen into present afflictions, they contrive how they may get out
of them if they be sick, reason tells them they must use the means if they
would be well—if they be in pain, nature puts them on to seek after a
remedy. And yet these same men neglect all duty, and cast away all care
concerning everlasting matters. They are for worldly pleasures and profits
which are passing from them in the enjoyment of them; but the unseen eternal
glories of heaven they neither seek, nor think of.
"Are they unjustly charged? Let conscience speak what
thoughts they lie down with upon their pillow; if they wake, or sleep flies
from them in the silent night, what a noise does the care of the world make
in their souls? With what thoughts do they rise in the morning? Of God, or
of the world? Of the things of time, or of eternity? Their thoughts are in
their shops before they have been in heaven; and many desires after visible
temporal gain, before they have had one desire after the invisible, eternal
God, and treasures that are above. What do they do all the day long? What is
it that has their endeavors, all their labor and time? Their most painful
industry and unwearied diligence? Alas! their consciences will tell
themselves, and their practices tell others, when there is trading—but no
praying; buying and selling—but no godly duties performed—the shop-book is
often opened—but the sacred book of God is not looked into all the week
long.
"O Lord! forgive the hardness of my heart that I can see
such insufferable folly among reasonable creatures, and can lament this
folly no more—good Lord, forgive the lack of compassion in me that can stand
and see this madness in the world, as if the most of men had lost their wits
and were quite beside themselves, and yet my affections yearn no more
towards immortal souls that are going to unseen miseries in the eternal
world; to see foolish, unthinking men busy in doing things that tend to no
account, is not such an amazing sight as to see men that have reason for the
world, to use it not for God, and Christ, and their own eternal good—to see
them love and embrace a present ash-heap world, and cast away all serious,
affecting, and effectual thoughts of the life to come—to see them rage
against the God of heaven, and cry out against holiness as foolish
preciseness, and serious godliness as madness and melancholy.
"Let us call the whole creation of God to lament and
bewail the folly of man that was made the best of all God's visible
works—but now by such wickedness is bad beyond them all; being made by God
for an everlasting state, and yet minds nothing less than that for which he
was principally made.
"O sun! why is it not your burden to give light to men to
do those works and walk in those ways that bring them to eternal darkness? O
earth! why do you not groan to bear such burdensome fools that dig into your
mines for gold and silver, while they neglect everlasting treasures in the
eternal world? O you sheep and oxen! fish and fowl! why do you not cry out
against those who take away your life to maintain them in being—but only
mind present things—but forget the eternal God that gave them dominion over
you, to live upon you, while they had time to mind eternal things—but do
not? O you angels of God, and blessed saints in heaven, were you capable of
grief and sorrow, would not you bitterly lament the sin and folly of poor
mortals upon earth? Could you look down from that blessed place where you do
dwell and behold the joy and glory which is to us unseen, and see how it is
basely slighted by the sons of men, if you were not above sorrow and
mourning, would not you take this up for a bitter lamentation? O you saints
on earth! whose eyes are open to see what the blind deluded world does not
see—let your heads be fountains of water, and your eyes send forth rivers of
tears for the great neglect of eternal joys and happiness of heaven. Can you
see men going out of time into eternity in their sin and in their blood, in
their guilt and unconverted state, and your hearts not be moved? your
affections not yearn? Have you spent all your tears in bewailing your own
sin, that your eyes are dry when you behold such monstrous madness and
unparalleled folly of so many, with whom daily you converse? You holy
parents, have you no pity for your ungodly children? Godly children, have
you no pity for your ungodly parents?"
The next extract I shall present is from holy Baxter,
under whose ministry Doolittle was converted, and from whom he
appears to have borrowed his own manner of preaching.
"O sirs, they are no trifles or jesting matters that the
gospel speaks of. I must tell you that when I have the most serious thoughts
of these things, I am ready to wonder that such amazing matters do not
overwhelm the souls of men—that the greatness of the subject does not so
overmatch our understandings and affections as even to drive men besides
themselves—but that God has always somewhat allayed it by distance; much
more do I wonder that men should be so blockish as to make light of such
things. O Lord, that men did but know what everlasting glory and
everlasting torments are! Would they then hear us as they do? Would they
read and think of these things as they do? I profess I have been ready to
wonder when I have heard such weighty things delivered, how people can
forbear crying out in the congregation; and much more do I wonder how they
can rest until they have gone to their ministers, and learned what they
shall do to be saved, that this great business should be put out of doubt. O
that heaven and hell should have no greater effect upon men! O that eternity
should effect them no more! O how can you forbear when you are alone—to
think with yourselves what it is to be everlasting in joy or torment! I
wonder that such thoughts do not break your sleep, and that they do not
crowd into your minds when you are about your labor! I wonder how you can
almost do anything else! How can you have any quietness in your minds? How
can you eat, or drink, or rest, until you have got some ground of
everlasting consolations? Is that a man or a corpse that is not affected
with matters of this significance; that can be readier to sleep than to
tremble when he hears how he must stand at the judgment bar of God? Is that
a man, or a 'clod of clay' who can rise up and lie down without being deeply
affected with his everlasting state; who can follow his worldly business and
make nothing of the great business of salvation or damnation, and that when
he knows it is so near at hand?
"Truly, sirs, when I think of the weight of the matter, I
wonder at the best saints upon earth—that they are no better, and do no
more, in so weighty a case. I wonder at those whom the world accounts more
holy than necessary, and scorns for making so much ado, that they can put
off Christ and their souls with so little; that they do not pour out their
souls in every prayer; that they are not more taken up with God; that their
thoughts are not more serious in preparation for their last account. I
wonder that they are not a thousand times more strict in their lives, and
more laborious and unwearied for the crown of glory, than they are. And for
myself, as I am ashamed of my dull and careless heart, and of my slow and
unprofitable course of life, so the Lord knows I am ashamed of every sermon
that I preach—when I think what I am, and who sent me, and how much the
salvation and damnation of men is concerned in it, I am ready to tremble
lest God should judge me a slighter of the truth and the souls of men, and
lest in my best sermons I should be guilty of their blood. Methinks we
should not speak a word to men in matters of such consequence without tears,
or the greatest earnestness that possibly we can. Were we not too much
guilty of the sin which we reprove, it would be so. Whether we are alone or
in company, methinks our end, and such an end, should still be in our mind,
and as before our eyes; and we should sooner forget anything, or set light
by anything, or by all things, than by this."
The next extract is from John Howe. "If anyone
does not love the Lord--a curse be on him." 1 Cor. 16:22. Oh! what a soul
have I—which can love anything else, which can love trifles, which can love
impurities, which can love sin; but cannot love God, Christ, and heaven! Oh!
What a soul have I! No lover of God! no lover of God! Oh my soul, what will
become of you? Pity yourself! Where are you to have your eternal abode? To
what regions of horror and woe are you going? What society can be fit for
you? What, but of infernal, accursed spirits, who are at utmost distance
from God, and to whom no beam of holy vital light shall ever shine to all
eternity! You, oh my soul, are self-abandoned to the blackness of darkness
forever! Your doom is in your bosom, your own bosom! Your not loving God is
your own doom, your eternal doom! It creates you a present hell, and shows
where you belong!
The next extract is from Jonathan Edwards sermon,
on "Pressing into the Kingdom of God." This extraordinary man presents a
remarkable proof and illustration of the most acute logician and the most
earnest preacher. His sermons are some of the most impressive and alarming
we have—but certainly not a little lacking in the tenderness and melting
pathos of the gospel of salvation. They may be read with admirable effect to
teach us how to expound the nature and enforce the obligations of the moral
law so as to awaken the slumbering conscience of the unconverted sinner. His
astonishing usefulness shows the adaptation of his preaching to the age and
state of society in which he lived—but this method could not be rigidly
followed, except in its earnestness, in the present day.
"1. I would address myself to such as yet remain
unawakened. It is a dreadful thing that there should be any one person
remaining secure among us at such a time as this; but yet it is to be feared
that there are some of this sort. I would here a little expostulate with
such people.
"When do you expect that it will be more likely
that you shall be awakened and wrought upon than now? You are in a
Christless condition; and yet without doubt intend to go to heaven; and
therefore intend to be converted some time before you die; but this is not
to be expected until you are first awakened, and deeply concerned about the
welfare of your soul, and brought earnestly to seek God's converting grace.
And when do you intend that this shall be? How do you lay things out in your
own mind, or what projection have you about this matter? Is it ever so
likely that a person will be awakened, as at such a time as this? How do we
see many who before were secure, now roused out of their sleep, and crying,
What shall I do to be saved? But you are yet secure! Do you flatter yourself
that it will be more likely you should be awakened when it is a dull and
dead time? Do you lay matters out thus in your own mind, that though you are
senseless when others are generally awakened, that yet you shall be awakened
when others are generally senseless? Or do you hope to see another such time
of the pouring out of God's Spirit hereafter? And do you think it will be
more likely that you should be wrought upon then than now? And why do you
think so? Is it because then you shall be so much older than you are now,
and so that your heart will be grown softer and more tender with age, or
because you will then have stood out so much longer against the calls of the
gospel, and all means of grace? Do you think it more likely that God will
give you the needed influences of his Spirit then than now, because then you
will have provoked him so much more and your sin and guilt will be so much
greater? And do you think it will be any benefit to you to stand it out
through the present season of grace, as proof against the extraordinary
means of awakening there are? Do you think that this will be a good
preparation for a saving work of the Spirit hereafter?
"2. What means do you expect to be awakened by? As
to the awakening solemn things of the Word of God, you have had those set
before you times without number, in the most moving manner that the
preachers of the word have been capable of. As to particular solemn
warnings, directed to those that are in your circumstances, you have had
them frequently, and have them now from time to time. Do you expect to be
awakened by solemn providences? Those also you have lately had, of the most
awakening nature, one after another. Do you expect to be moved by the deaths
of others? We have lately had repeated instances of these. There have been
deaths of old and young—the year has been remarkable for the deaths of young
people in the bloom of life, and some of them very sudden deaths. Will the
conversion of others move you? There is indeed scarce anything that is found
to have so great a tendency to stir people up as this; and this you have
been tried with of late in frequent instances; but are hitherto armored
against it. Will a general pouring out of the Spirit, and seeing a concern
about salvation among all sorts of people, do it? This means you now
have—but without effect. Yes, you have all these things together; you have
the solemn warnings of God's word, and solemn instances of death, and the
conversion of others, and see a general concern about salvation; but
altogether do not move you to any great concern about your own precious,
immortal, and miserable soul. Therefore consider by what means it is that
you expect ever to be awakened.
"You have heard that it is probable some who are now
awakened, will never obtain salvation; how dark then does it look upon you
who remain stupidly unawakened! Those who are not moved at such a time as
this, come to adult age, have reason to fear whether they are not given up
to judicial hardness. I do not say they have reason to conclude it—but they
have reason to fear it. How dark does it look upon you, that God comes and
knocks at so many people' doors, and misses yours! that God is giving the
strivings of his Spirit so generally among us, while you are left senseless!
"3. Do you expect to obtain salvation without ever
seeking it? If you are sensible that there is a necessity of your seeking in
order to obtaining, and ever intend to seek, one would think you could not
avoid it at such a time as this. Inquire therefore whether you intend to go
to heaven, living all your days a secure, negligent, careless life; Or,
"4. Do you think you can bear the damnation of hell? Do
you imagine that you can tolerably endure the devouring fire and everlasting
burnings? Do you hope that you shall be able to grapple with the vengeance
of God Almighty, when he girds himself with strength, and clothes himself
with wrath? Do you think to strengthen yourself against God, and to be able
to make your part good with him? 1 Cor. 10:22, 'Do we provoke the Lord to
jealousy? are we stronger than he?' Do you flatter yourself that you shall
find out ways for your ease and support, and to make it out tolerably well,
to bear up your spirit in those everlasting burnings that are prepared for
the devil and his angels? Ezek. 22:14. 'Can your heart endure or can your
hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with you?' It is a difficult
thing to conceive what such Christless people think, that are unconcerned at
such a time."
The following extract is from that first of all
preachers, Whitfield; and who that considers the circumstances under
which these flaming words were enunciated, and the feeling and action which
accompanied their delivery, can wonder at the effects they produced?
"O my brethren, my heart is enlarged towards you. I trust
I feel something of that hidden but powerful presence of Christ, while I am
preaching to you. Indeed it is sweet, it is exceedingly comfortable. All the
harm I wish you, who without cause are my enemies, is, that you felt the
like. Believe me, though it would be hell to my soul to return to a natural
state again, yet I would willingly change states with you for a little
while, that you might know what it is to have Christ dwelling in your hearts
by faith. Do not turn your backs; do not let the devil hurry you away; be
not afraid of convictions; do not think worse of the doctrine because
preached outside the church walls. Our Lord, in the days of his flesh,
preached on a mountain, in a ship, and in a field; and I am persuaded many
have felt his gracious presence here. Indeed, we speak what we know.
"Do not reject the kingdom of God against yourselves; be
so wise as to receive our witness. I cannot, I will not, let you go; stay a
little, let us reason together. However lightly you may esteem your souls, I
know our Lord has set an unspeakable value on them. He thought them worthy
of his most precious blood. I beseech you therefore O sinners, be reconciled
to God. I hope you do not fear being accepted in the Beloved. Behold, he
calls you—behold, he goes before, and follows you with his mercy, and has
sent forth his servants into the highways and hedges, to compel you to come
in. Remember then, that at such an hour of such a day, in such a year, in
this place, you were all told what you ought to think concerning Jesus
Christ. If you now perish, it will not be for lack of knowledge—I am free
from the blood of you all. You cannot say I have, like legal preachers, been
requiring you to make bricks without straw. I have not bidden you to make
yourselves saints, and then come to God; but I have offered you salvation on
as cheap terms as you can desire. I have offered you Christ's whole wisdom,
Christ's whole righteousness, Christ's whole sanctification and eternal
redemption, if you will but believe on him. If you say you cannot believe,
you say right; for faith, as well as every other blessing, is the gift of
God—but then wait upon God, and who knows but he may have mercy upon you?
"Why do you not entertain more loving thoughts of Christ?
Or do you think he will have mercy on others, and not on you? But are you
not sinners? And did not Jesus Christ come into the world to save sinners?
If you say you are the chief of sinners, I answer, that will be no hindrance
to your salvation; indeed it will not, if you lay hold on him by faith. Read
the evangelists, and see how kindly he behaved to his disciples, who fled
from and denied him—'Go tell my brethren,' says he. He did not say, Go tell
those traitors—but 'Go tell my Brethren, and Peter;' as though he had said,
'Go tell my brethren, in general, and poor Peter in particular, that I am
risen.' O comfort his poor drooping heart, tell him I am reconciled to him;
bid him weep no more so bitterly; for though with oaths and curses he thrice
denied me, yet I have died for his sins, I am risen again for his
justification; I freely forgive him all.
"Thus slow to anger and of great kindness was our
all-merciful High Priest. And do you think he has changed his nature, and
forgets poor sinners, now he is exalted on the right hand of God? No, he is
the same yesterday, today, and forever, and sits there only to make
intercession for us. Come then, you harlots; come, you publicans; come, you
most abandoned of sinners, come and believe on Jesus Christ. Though the
whole world despises you and casts you out, yet he will not disdain to take
you up. O amazing, O infinitely condescending love! even you he will not be
ashamed to call his brethren. How will you escape, if you neglect such a
glorious offer of salvation? What would the damned spirits, now in the
prison of hell, give, if Christ was so freely offered to their souls! And
why are not we lifting up our eyes in torments? Does any one out of this
great multitude dare say, he does not deserve damnation? If not, why are we
left, and others taken away by death? What is this but an instance of God's
free grace, and a sign of his good-will towards us? Let God's goodness lead
us to repentance! O let there be joy in heaven over some of you repenting!
"Though we are in a field, I am persuaded the blessed
angels are hovering now around us, and do long, 'as the hart pants after the
water-brooks,' to sing an anthem at your conversion. Blessed be God, I hope
their joy will be fulfilled. A dreadful silence appears among us. I have
good hope that the words which the Lord has enabled me to speak in your ears
this day, have not altogether fallen to the ground. Your tears and deep
attention are an evidence that the Lord God is among us of a truth. Come you
pharisees, come and see, in spite of your fanatical rage and fury, the Lord
Jesus is getting himself the victory. And, brethren, I speak the truth in
Christ, I lie not—if one soul of you by the blessing of God be brought to
think savingly of Jesus Christ this day, I care not if my enemies were
permitted to carry me to prison, and put my feet fast in the stocks, as soon
as I have delivered this sermon. Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to
God is, that you may be saved. For this cause I follow my Master outside the
camp. I care not how much of his sacred reproach I bear, so that some of you
be converted from the error of your ways. I rejoice, yes and I will rejoice.
You men, you devils, do your worst—the Lord who sent will support me. And
when Christ, who is our life, and whom I have now been preaching, shall
appear, I also, together with his despised little ones, shall appear with
him in glory.
"And then what will you think of Christ? I know what you
will think of him. You will think him to be the fairest among ten thousand;
you will then think and feel him to be a just and sin-avenging Judge. Be
then persuaded to kiss him lest he be angry, and so you be banished forever
from the presence of the Lord. Behold I come to you as the angel did to Lot.
Flee, flee for your lives! hasten! linger no longer in your spiritual Sodom,
for otherwise you will be eternally destroyed. Numbers no doubt there are
among you that may regard me no more than Lot's son-in-law regarded him. I
am persuaded I seem to some of you as one that mocks—but I speak the truth
in Christ, I lie not; as sure as fire and brimstone was rained from the Lord
out of heaven, to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, so surely at the great day
shall the vials of God's wrath be poured on you, if you do not think
seriously of, and act agreeably to, the gospel of the Lord's Christ. Behold,
I have told you before; and I pray God, all you that forget him may
seriously think of what has been said, before he plucks you away, and there
be none to deliver you!"
These extracts will illustrate what I mean by
earnestness, better than any language which I have employed or could select,
and they appear to me to answer well to the apostolic method of beseeching
entreaty. I do not of course insist that the pulpit should be restricted to
the specific variety of preaching which we designate the hortatory method,
under which classification these specimens must all be placed. There should
be exegesis—as well as application; exposition—as well as admonition. The
judgment must be enlightened—in order that the heart may be impressed, and
the conscience awakened; and the believer edified—no less than the sinner
converted; and for this a less impassioned strain of preaching will not only
suffice—but will indeed be more appropriate. Yet with regard to that portion
of our public ministrations, and it should be no small portion of it, which
has reference to the conversion of the impenitent, where shall we find
better models on which to construct our sermons, than the Doolittles, the
Howes, the Baxters, and the Whitfields of former times—so far at least as
their intense earnestness is concerned.
It is true the moderns have improved upon these men in
matters of taste, in reference to which we do not of course hold them up for
imitation. In their numerous and complicated divisions and subdivisions,
through which, as so many little rills and channels, they poured the current
of their thought, instead of causing it to roll onward in the channel of
their sermon with the majestic flow of a noble river; in their quaintnesses
and quirks; in their fanciful imagery and uncouth diction; in the occasional
vulgarity, in which some of them were but too prone to indulge—they mark
errors to be avoided. Yet even in reference to some of these things, it may
be affirmed, that though in their free and reckless resort to every mode of
stimulating attention, they were often betrayed into great violations of
taste—the very same audacity of genius often produced felicities of imagery
and diction, with which the 'blameless common place' and the 'accurate
insipidity' of many modern discourses will not bear any comparison either
for beauty or effect.
For pregnancy of thought, for knowledge of the Word of
God, for raciness of style, for evangelical sentiment, for anatomy of the
human heart, for closeness of application, and especially for intensity of
feeling—where shall we find their equals? They preached to their
congregations, and not merely before them—they felt that the objects
of their addresses were immortal souls in danger of being lost, and knew
their business in the pulpit was to save those souls from perdition—they
preached as if they expected there and then to achieve the great work of
conversion; and felt as if the eternal destinies of their hearers were
suspended on the manner in which they discharged their duties, and as if
they were to ascend the next moment after they had finished their sermons to
give an account of them at the bar of God. Do not the extracts given, (and
they are but a very inadequate sample of their works,) bear out these
assertions? The power they exhibit, the heart-searching appeals in which
they abound—are the very things now lacking!
There may be, and there should be, more of classic
elegance, more of logical arrangement, of theological precision, of vigorous
and clear argumentation, than we find in the old writers; but still,
combined with this, there should also be in our sermons, as there were in
theirs, the pointed interrogation, the pungent appeal, the bold figures, the
gush of feeling, the forcible admonition, and the tender invitation; now the
gentle flow of deep, and solemn, and placid thought, and then the
torrent-rush of impassioned sentiment—the beautiful and harmonious
combination of reason, imagination, and affection; and all employed to carry
out the purpose for which the gospel is to be preached, even to win souls to
Christ.
Especially should there be the direct personal address
which characterizes all the extracts which I have introduced. Our hearers
must be made to feel that they are not merely listening to the discussion of
a subject—but to an appeal to themselves—their attention must be kept up,
and a close connection between them and the preacher maintained, by the
frequent introduction of the pronoun "you," so that each may realize the
thought that the discourse is actually addressed to him. Many preachers do
not come near enough to their congregations. Those who were privileged to
hear Mr. Hall deliver, in his best days, some of his most popular and
powerful discourses, will not fail to recollect how strikingly he combined
the intense earnestness of the passages just quoted, with the chaste and
classic elegance of our best writers; and thus, considering the evangelical
strain of his preaching he may be said to have poured forth a torrent of the
water of life, clear as crystal. He reminded you of one, who in his
yearnings for the salvation of sinners seemed to feel that language was too
feeble an instrument for such a purpose and who, notwithstanding his
sovereign command and exquisite selection of terminology, was struggling to
burst the barrier by which words limit the communication of thought, in
order that he might by a still more direct method, reach and grasp the soul
of his hearers.
There is, however, hope that our old theological writers
will not be quite forgotten or neglected, while such men as Professor
Stowell, of Rotherham College, employ their talents in writing prefaces to
reprints of works such as those of Thomas Adams, and lend their authority to
recommend the perusal of such monuments of sanctified genius. Beautifully
and no less correctly has he said, "As Edwards constrains to closeness of
thought; as Howe inspires sublimity of sentiment; as Bates lights up the
soul with a soft and silvery light; as Owen loads the mind with a harvest of
rich knowledge; as Taylor cheers the imagination with a vintage of delicious
grapes; as Baxter fires the soul with longings for salvation, first of
ourselves and then of others; even so does Adams lead to those springs of
graphic power, of dramatic grandeur, and of subduing pathos, which it is the
fear of many are dried up. We believe they are not. We cannot but think
there are minds now opening on the solemn solemnities of the Christian
ministry, to whom this example will be inciting; let them look at the things
with their own eyes, ponder them in silent and lonely thought, pray over the
fruits of such meditations, until they kindle into living pictures; and so
let them pour out their feelings into the best words they can find; there
will then be no just complaint of the lack of power and originality in the
English pulpit."
Happy will it be for this, and for all coming ages, if
the men of the present day will study, with all the advantages, checks, and
guides of modern education—the divines of the seventeenth century—not indeed
as models of style or logic—but of intense earnestness; not as writers who
should teach us in all things how to think—but how to feel. I would not have
the modern mind, so much as the modern heart, cast in the mold of these
great-hearted writers. Even their theology is not to be rigidly copied; but
O! their unction; their mighty power of realization; their nearness to God;
their views of eternity—so intent, so clear, so piercing; their thorough
understanding of the object of their ministry, and their entire consecration
of themselves to its solemn functions. Oh that we could transcribe and make
all these our own!