Thoughts on Preaching: Being Contributions to Homiletics

Chapter 1

2. Consider in what manner you have produced those things which

have gained a little popularity. They have all been written currente calamo; especially those which have most life in them were so written. Not so most of your sermons. Turn over a new leaf. Do not -- 10 of 326 -- lay

Chapter 2

5. You have prayed to have your tastes, feelings, and pursuits more

concentrated on divine things; and, for a short time past, you have felt as if this grace had in some degree been granted to you. Cherish this feeling, and make it available towards pulpit exercises.

Chapter 3

7. You have a text-book. Use it. Spend more time on it. Collect your

scattered fragments. Mortify that procrastination which keeps so many plans in petto. § 11. Offhand Writing.—If I have ever written any thing acceptably, it has been with a free pen, and from the full heart; not from com

Chapter 4

1. It was my manner to take some doctrinal head, such as

Justification, and carefully to read the best authors on it, such as Calvin, Witsius, Markius, Dwight, making notes as I went along, and then endeavouring, when I wrote, to introduce the best things I could remember from

Chapter 5

2. Another method which I pursued, was to choose a text, and then

having written out in full all the parallel passages, to classify them, and found my divisions on this classification. Then to correct all these passages, interweaving them with my own remarks. I flattered myself that th

Chapter 6

2. Whenever I write down heads, from which to preach extempore, I

always find myself disappointed, by not having as much to say under each as I thought, but whenever I premeditate a subject, and take my pen to write on it, I always find myself disappointed in a way exactly opposite.

Chapter 7

4. As men who strut in walking, sometimes find it difficult to get out

of it, and step in the ordinary way, so in writing men get into a measured, rhythmical, ornamental flow of diction, and find it hard, even when the subject demands it, to come down to the pedestrian style. Hence a great

Chapter 8

10. Often give full scope to freedom of thought and style.

Thought creates style. If you write down to your readers, you lose this particular advantage of writing, as exercising thought. Even in sermons to intelligent audiences there will be much of this, necessarily. It is desi

Chapter 9

12. It matters comparatively little whether you ever read over

what you have written or not. § 24. Mode of making Brief.—I follow a brief penned at my table during a short interval. I made it thus: mere catchwords—took a general thought to start with, let the next come of itself, th

Chapter 10

9. In delivery, learn to know when to dwell on a point; let the

enlargement be, not where you determined in your closet it should be; but where you feel the spring flowing as you speak let it gush. Let contemplation have place while you speak. For this, pauses are all important. Thus

Chapter 11

4. Divine rather than Human.—Revealed, not found out—inspired—

the Bible above all. He that should observe these rules for the conduct of his understanding, would save much time and escape many troubles. § 62. I find it hard to mingle doctrine and practice in due proportion in my pr

Chapter 12

3. To treat these doctrinal points warmly, with a perpetual reference

to Christian experience. § 63. Preaching.—My morning sermon was written and preached with more flow and animation than usual. I ascribe this to my having meditated somewhat on the history, and then written straight on, w

Chapter 13

2. That they are also an infallible guide as to the mutual relations and

practical applications of these truths; and that, while the manner of exhibiting and illustrating them requires adaptation to the present circumstances and habits of thought among the people, they may not be intrinsicall

Chapter 14

4. That all other acquirements, attractions, graces, or means of

power and influence in a preacher, are legitimate and valuable in proportion as they subserve this end; and any sources of power in the pulpit, aside of this, no way contribute to the discharge of his mission. Their tend

Chapter 15

1. That God should be the great, overshadowing object set forth in

the preacher's message. All preaching that violates this precept must be vicious. This appears from every side and aspect in which the subject can be viewed. To say, as we shall say, that Christ should be the burden of t

Chapter 16

2. We are thus prepared to understand the attitude in which man

should be put by the preacher. As the Bible is addressed to man, and aims to bring him to the salvation it proffers, i.e. to spiritual life, holiness, and bless, this is a point of capital importance. But it is needless

Chapter 17

3. Be pre-eminently set forth as "God in Christ, reconciling the world

unto himself, not imputing their trespasses." It were a poor and unworthy work to smite, and not to heal; to tear, and not bind up; to kill, and not make alive. Hence, since He, who by death overcame him that hath the po

Chapter 18

1. We apprehend that preachers are in little danger of excess in

setting forth Christ objectively to their hearers. He, God in him, is the great object towards which their faith, love, hope, obedience, and devotion, are to be directed. They are Christians only as they thus bow to that

Chapter 19

2. It hence follows, that the way and grounds of vital union to Christ

should be thoroughly and abundantly set forth and cleared up in preaching. The nature of saving faith, as distinguished from all counterfeits of it; its simplicity, as distinguished from all the entanglements with which

Chapter 20

3. A few words will suffice, after what we have already advanced, to

show our views of doctrinal preaching. We can hardly conceive of a Christian discourse which does not implicitly contain, and, with greater or less explicitness, articulate a Christian truth or doctrine. Christian doctri

Chapter 21

4. In combating the errors and lusts of men, we do not believe that

any great good is effected by abstract metaphysical and philosophical arguments. They are usually unintelligible to the common mind. They are the "wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God," and which no preach

Chapter 22

5. Here arises the question, as to the extent of which prudential

considerations, and the principle of expediency are legitimate in determining the matter of preaching. We are met by two classes of scriptural instructions, which in sound are contradictory, but in sense are perfectly co

Chapter 23

3. But since he cannot, in any one discourse, or in any limited period,

traverse the whole circle of divine truth, he must exercise his own conscientious discretion as to the times and occasions, when each respective part is to be brought forth as to divide to each his portion in due season.

Chapter 24

4. As to all matters indifferent, whether of act or word, private and

public, they are to be regulated by the single aim of giving the truth more facile and effective access to the souls of men; whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, all must be done to the glory of God and the edif

Chapter 25

5. With regard to rightly dividing the word of truth, in the foregoing

cases, as well as all others, much must doubtless be left to Christian prudence; a want of which, more frequently than any other fault, impairs the usefulness of clergymen, and ejects them from their positions. Dr Dwight

Chapter 26

1. With regard to all that is commonly understood by the moral and

worldly virtues; i.e. virtues which often exist without piety, and are commanded by the natural conscience, and the code of worldly respectability, as well as by the gospel, such as temperance, chastity, honesty, veracit

Chapter 27

2. With respect to the social and civil relations, and all interests

merely worldly, Christianity insists on the exercise of religious principles, and all the virtues of our holy religion in every sphere of life and action. There can be no doubt that God will honour those that honour him

Chapter 28

1. The expository method of preaching is the most obvious and

natural way of conveying to the hearers the import of the sacred volume. It is the very work for which a ministry was instituted, to interpret the Scriptures. In the case of any other book, we should be at no loss in wha

Chapter 29

2. The expository method has the sanction of primitive and ancient

usage. In the Israelitish, as well as the Christian church, preaching was an ordinary mode of religious instruction. In both it was justly regarded as a means of conducting the hearers to the knowledge of revealed truth.

Chapter 30

Genesis: "I am expounding the Scriptures; yet you are all turning

your eyes from me to the person who is lighting the lamps. What negligence! to forsake me, and fix your minds on him! For I am lighting a fire from the holy Scriptures, and in my tongue is a burning lamp for instruction.

Chapter 31

3. The expository method is adapted to secure the greatest amount of

scriptural knowledge to both preacher and hearers. It needs no argument, we trust, to sustain the position that every minister of the gospel should be mighty in the Scriptures; familiar with the whole text; versed in the

Chapter 32

4. The expository method of preaching is best fitted to communicate

the knowledge of scriptural truth in its connection. The knowledge of the Bible is something more than the knowledge of its isolated sentences. It includes a full acquaintance with the relation which every proposition su

Chapter 33

5. The expository method affords inducement and occasion to the

preacher to declare the whole counsel of God. No man, who selects his insulated texts at random, has any good reason to be satisfied that he is not neglecting the inculcation of many important doctrines or duties. This d

Chapter 34

6. The expository method admits of being made generally interesting

to Christian assemblies. We are aware that the vulgar opinion is just the reverse of this, and that there are those who refrain from this way of preaching, under the belief that it must necessarily prove dry and repulsiv

Chapter 35

7. The expository method has a direct tendency to correct, if not to

preclude, the evils incident to the common textual mode of preaching. It is an ordinary complaint that the sermons of the present day, as compared with those of the seventeenth century, are meagre, and often empty of mat

Chapter 36

5. Er bleibt verhullet den Seinen, bis er wird klär erscheinen.

But as a discourse is not made expository by having prefixed to it a connected passage of Scripture, we still maintain, that genuine exposition removes in great measure the temptation to these refinements. It deserves co

Chapter 37

II. As an exhibition of Divine Mercy.

Under the first head the preacher asks;* "Who is the victim immolated on the altar erected on Calvery? None other than the eternal Son of God, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. From the moment of hi