dom. Yet is there no preparation for the pulpit which is so easy, and none to which in certain states of mind, a preacher is so much tempted as this. To individuals of certain qualities, the temptation is irresistible. Far easier is it to detect the sophistries, expose the absurdities of false reasoning, than to unfold and enforce a spiritual truth, in all its simplicity, clearness, and power. Except one possess a mind balanced with extremest accuracy, together with piety of an uncommon purity and power, it may be looked upon as a great misfortune to be brought into near vicinity to a conspicuous error. Without these qualifications he will unconsciously acquire the habit of contemplating truth only under one aspect. He preaches, not with a direct aim, to the consciences of all, but with a side-way reference to a certain few. His mind runs in a groove. His calculations are all made for one meridian. He is under a species of hallucination, losing sight of the stupendous revolutions of God's great plan, behind a very small object. The chameleon darkens in the shadow of him who bends over it; and the mind of such a one is discolored through and through by the towering form of

error.

In several ways does a spirit of uncommon piety operate to restrain or regulate this practice. Indeed, all the restrictions and limitations which pertain to this whole subject are the offspring of a meek and intelligent piety. It is itself indifferent to all minor and unessential differences; mindful chiefly of one thing, a resemblance to the great object of its own love. It is not the spirit of exalted piety which is so keen-eyed to detect every trivial departure from our own mode of thinking; or which is ready to be alarmed or offended at the provincialisms of a religious technology. Not more certainly does the secret well reveal its presence by the verdure which it nourishes, than does warm-hearted piety discover itself by a generous oblivion of all unimportant differences, and a superior love for all such, as amid indefinite varieties, exhibit the general resemblance of a family likeness. Official religion, forms, modes, rites, ceremonies, in short nothing extrinsic and casual can ever become the main topics of his discourse, whose heart glows with tender, ardent, spiritual affections.

This influence of piety in regulating a controversial style of preaching is farther apparent as it tends to rectify the notion that great zeal for the truth is of paramount importance. Some are accustomed to cite the words of the apostle, "first pure,

then peaceable," as if they really meant that religious affections were of less consequence than an agreement of opinions. Belief of the truth is indeed of vital consequence; but it is so because it is a means of something higher and better. Perfect conformity of opinion is not enough to satisfy heaven-born piety. The life is more than meat, and the body than raiment. Purity of doctrine may exist without sufficient vitality to keep it from putrefaction. Sticks and stones and grass, all heterogeneous materials, says Leighton, may be frozen into one mass. Defection and error have ever been the legitimate and undeniable product of lifeless creeds and conformities; just as the fairest and manliest forms, when life forsakes them, nourish decay and breed corruption. Dr. Pusey, of Oxford, some of whose opinions have more recently given him great notoriety, twelve years ago, writing concerning the cause of the great defection in Germany, has given very important testimony on this point. "It is a problem," says he, "of immense interest and importance to solve, how Germany, from having been, in appearance at least, sound, became, by a rapid change, and to a fearful extent, an unbelieving church. I was startled, when Neander, on my asking him to what he ascribed the progress of unbelief in Germany, said: The dead orthodoxy.' I was much prejudiced at first against the opinion, but came at last to no other result." It is a fatal mistake to make that as a chief end of the ministry, which is, after all, but a means to something higher; the intellectual is subordinate to the moral; and neither reason nor Scripture permits us to seek an exact conformity of opinion, as an ultimate object of greater importance than the life and power of religion in the soul.

All this is verified by a reference to events in the history of the church. Seasons of truth are not always times of spiritual prosperity. Mr. Taylor, the author of the Natural History of Enthusiasm, calls attention to the striking fact, that the Reformation, though a season of renovation, was not one of enlargement; and he accounts for this on the ground, that though it was a time of truth, it was not a time of love. We speak of the men of that day with unfeigned reverence and gratitude. Far easier is it to enter into their labors, than to have borne the heat and burden of the day, as did they. There was a necessity, we suppose, that the preachers of that day should be men of almost impetuous qualities. The misfortune was, that not only were they as lions towards their enemies,

A

they had but little harmony among themselves. Hence the church, though delivered, like a captive, by their sturdy blows, did not spread and multiply as in the days of the apostles, making accessions from the wilderness and solitary places; and because of these vain janglings, the church was given up to the spirit of discord, and thence sank through the natural stages of formality and frivolity and absurdity and unbelief.* Oh, that is a most unnatural divorce between zeal for the truth and the spirit of love. Without the latter, the former is always incomplete, like Milton's lion, the one half rampant, shaking its brindled mane, ere the remainder was freed from the sod.

Nor have we yet adverted to the most material influence of a preacher's piety, in preventing a controversial style. The motives of good men, the best of men, are complex. That is sometimes mistaken for a regard for the honor of truth, which, in the eye of God, deserves not such a name. How much is a pure and simple piety needed, to decide one when to speak, and how to speak, in controverting the opinions of others, from the sacred desk! Unless an angel from heaven disturb the waters, they will possess no power to heal.

What has been said of the influence of piety in protecting the pulpit from the intrusion of a controversial style, is true also of a philosophical and speculative spirit. But here there is need of greater discrimination. If any man on earth should be a philosopher in the best sense of the word, it should be the Christian minister. He, whose province it is to inform, convince and direct the mind, should himself be familiar with the laws of mind; he whose duty it is to solve the difficulties of conscience, should understand full well all the phases and phenomena of conscience; and he is obviously unfitted for the high office of God's ambassador who cannot give to an inquiring spirit the reasons of the truth which he declares. Qualifications like these, however, are the very antipodes of that spirit which concerns itself exclusively with modes, and processes and reasons; which erects private speculations into matters of religious importance; and which asserts an abstract notion of its own after the same manner as Warburton is represented by a critic as having uttered some of his opinions concerning the "Legation of Moses;" as if the words had originally been applied to his philosophy, rather than the mountain of the law:

Saturday Evening.

"If so much as a beast touch it, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart."

The limits which define a philosophical style of preaching are best understood by one whose heart yearns over lost men with earnest affection. He would not frustrate the very object which he most desires. Not content with demonstrating how men may repent, he would persuade them to repent. Not enough is it, in his view, to set forth the nature and process of faith; he would beseech his hearers to believe for themselves on the Lamb of God. Piety, in this matter, takes pattern from the word of God; which concerns itself with results rather than processes; with facts rather than modes; many of whose truths are always enfeebled by any attempt to demonstrate them; and we have yet to learn that the great Author of man and of inspiration did not himself best understand and illustrate the true methods of conviction and persuasion.

There is yet another cast of preaching, differing totally from those already mentioned, but, like them, utterly failing of the great design of the pulpit; against which piety in the heart of the preacher is the only safeguard. The poet Burns said he never could read the closing chapters of the Apocalypse without being affected to tears. There is much within the province of the preacher which is fitted to excite the sensibilities of genius as well as those of religion. There is scarcely a fact in Scripture which is not invested with such pathos or sublimity, as, in skilful hands, may be made the means of the highest and most pleasurable emotion. How easy for one to discourse with great effect on death, with all its sad and mournful associations, without even suggesting the necessity of seasonable preparation for standing before God; the judgment-day, with its flames and convulsions, and imposing array, has often been described without the least disturbance to conscience; and even the crucifixion of the Son of God, so tender, so awful, has been rehearsed in plaintive words and mournful cadence, till preacher and hearer have been transferred from the sphere of religious feeling to the region of poetic excitement. Feeling is produced, but it is not of the right kind. Emotion is generated, but not to save. Tears are made to flow, but not of godly sorrow. Considered simply as means of exciting the sympathies and imagination, nothing can be compared with the simple facts and verities of Scripture. But will the spirit of piety be satisfied with such an employment of

them? Was the gospel intended only for dramatic effect? In the hour of retirement and self-examination, when the man of God solicitously inquires what has been the result of his labors, is it enough to know that he has been unto the needy as one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument? Nay, verily. The words of the faithful preacher are something more than a plaintive song. Not content with playing about the outer courts of the soul, he presses into the very citadel of life, and lays the solemn claims of God before the heart and conscience.

Thus far have we adverted only to the effect of a preacher's piety, with reference to the topics which are made conspicuous in his ministratious. Nor is this immaterial. One thing only is the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation; and except this be preached, and preached aright, men may be pleased, instructed, moved, but never persuaded to become reconciled unto God.

Does nothing, however, depend on the manner in which even the truth is preached? Much every way. The very same words as pronounced by one, are cold and powerless; while from the lips of another, they are spirit and life. To-day, a deathlike languor pervades the manner of the preacher; for it is a season of religious declension; the pulses of life are feeble at his own heart; and his pale lip attests that no seraph has touched it with a live coal from the altar of God; to-morrow, he is as the angel of God's strength, for religion is revived, and his own soul has felt its power.

In passing to speak of the effect of piety on the manner of the preacher, the most superficial will be struck with the coincidence between religious impulses and rhetorical laws. Towards the latter we do no despite. Rather do we magnify them, for they are founded in truth. Aristotle, the earliest writer on rhetoric whose works are extant, informs us, that having observed that some speakers were more successful than others in producing conviction, and setting himself to inquire after the causes of the fact, he arrived at the conclusion that certain methods of speech are, in the nature of things, better adapted to convince and persuade than all others. "It is impossible," is the frequent remark, interspersed throughout his writings on this subject, "to effect persuasion in any other way." Dr.Whateley's distinction between an art and the art of composition is founded on the same philo