preaching the gospel, as in any other mode of public speaking. The oratory of the pulpit ought to be conducted on those general principles which have been ascertained, by long experiment, to prove effective when observed on other occasions. Whatever be the topics selected, and whatever the attendant circumstances, still the preacher is addressing the human mind; and can any one maintain that a mode of address which has been found effective when used in the market-place, the senate, or the court of law, will necessarily fail when applied to a congregation convened within the precincts of the sanctuary? Public speaking in a place of worship must be adapted to the end; why should not the kind of adaptation in this case be similar to that which has proved effective elsewhere?

It cannot be denied, however, that this principle is not abused by the generality of preachers. Hence the essential difference between a speech and a sermon, and hence the essential difference in the expectations and feelings of hearers, according as they are going to attend a public meeting or to hear a discourse.

It has often been said that the aim of the orator is to persuade; and no one could doubt that this was the object of a candidate for a seat in parliament, who might listen to his strenuous appeals to his anticipated constituents. But does persuasion appear to the impartial hearer to be the purpose of the generality of preaching? Does it not too frequently assume the appearance of a mere task, which is performed in accordance with certain arbitrary regulations, and with as great a regard for the credit of the speaker as the decency of a professedly religious service will possibly allow?

Preaching, like all other modes of public address, ought to be persuasive; hence it should partake of the following properties:

1. Let it be intelligent. The human mind is interested by exercise. It is wearied and pained by inactivity. Tiresome as it is to have nothing to think about, under ordinary circumstances, it is peculiarly vexatious to listen to an individual who assumes the office of a public teacher, but who has no more to communicate than the generality of his hearers already know. The least informed can appreciate sound instruction; and nothing will rivet the attention of an audience which is not superior to their own resources.

2. Preaching should be plain. The meaning of the speaker should always be apparent. The human mind does not object to exercise -but it is excessively annoyed in being compelled to pursue a circuitous course when a straight path would lead to the same point. Let an individual think clearly, and he will necessarily speak plainly. Confusion in language is the result of confusion of thought, and this in a public speaker is wholly unpardonable.

3. Let preaching be affectionate. Every audience should be satisfied of the benevolent disposition of the speaker. Listening is a voluntary act and an act of respect. Such an act will never be rendered in return to magisterial dictation, or unfeeling censure. Faithfulness is acceptable to a member of an assembly, however galling, when applied personally. But faithful admonition should be baptized with the tears of affection. When compelled to blame, the speaking should administer reproof, "even weeping." Let an

audience be persuaded of the benevolent disposition of their instructor, and their favourable feelings will be awakened; defects will be forgotten, and appeals will be clothed with all the additional force that sympathy can convey.

4. Preaching should be animated. Excitement is the natural effect of addressing a multitude, and hence is always expected by the hearer. A religious assembly still further anticipates an animated delivery on account of the stirring nature of the truths delivered, and the momentous consequences attendant upon the reception they gain. Hence the want of animation in a preacher is generally traced to a defect in christian principle. Such an exhibition must have the most repulsive effect upon the audience. An animated delivery, on the other hand, awakens sympathy; and by affording an evidence of the sincerity of the speaker, establishes confidence and produces that serious attention which is the first step to a cheerful acceptance of the truth.

5. Let preaching be natural. From the days of the Schoolmen, down to the present time, sermonizing has been sadly too artificial. We are apt to regard the habit of taking a text, and screwing out of it a set number of leading heads and subordinate particulars, each of which is to be scrupulously attended by a very appropriate quotation from Scripture or Dr. Watts as the only authorized mode of calling sinners to repentance. But this custom is, after all, a modern invention. We meet with only one occasion in which Christ selected a text; and even that was chosen in order that he might, at that very time, fulfil the prediction that it contained. Did the ancient orators-do our modern statesmen, I ask, uniformly bind themselves to the formal announcement and logical arrangement of set divisions? Is this the mode of address which we adopt when conveying any important message of a secular character? Is not the strict adherence to any given mode of exhibiting divine truth calculated to give the impression that the whole is a mere form, and that the speaker is guided more by the arbitrary rules of official etiquette, than governed by a single and overwhelming desire, by any means at his command, to bring the immortal spirits before him to immediate repentance? How can we expect to awaken necessary sympathy, unless we treat with the minds of our hearers according to those rules and modes of thinking which are adopted by them on ordinary occasions?

6. Let preaching be as diversified as possible. This rule applies both to the matter and the manner of our public addresses. God has implanted the love of variety in the human mind; hence the constant repetition of a few sentiments, the unvaried intonation, and the uniform gesture, impose as heavy a burden on the patience of our auditory as it can decently bear. Man is a creature of habit and association, as well as the admirer of variety; hence there must be a limit to our variations in thought and expression; and hence there is nothing necessarily wearisome in listening for years to one pastor. But no settled minister will ever interest, and thereby benefit one congregation long, without a plentiful blending of the "new" with the "old" in his public instructions.

7. Preaching should be applicable. Religion is adapted to man. In this perfectly consists its essential charm. Preachers must so exhibit its truths as to make them fitted to the identical characters and the present circumstances of their hearers. The more applicable, the more deeply interesting it will be found, and the more available for practical purposes. Hence the preacher should make the practical study of human nature commensurate with the examination of Scripture. Prudence is requisite to avoid giving an unnecessarily painful turn to existing events, and in guarding remarks against a personal bearing. But any wholesome rule is capable of abuse. 8. Preaching should be applicatory. Disquisitions never interest hearers compared with direct appeals; and the pronoun they falls with a very different effect from the pronoun you. Applications should never be confined to the close, or to any one part of the discourse. Let the sermon be applicatory throughout.

9. Sermons should be short. Immediately attention begins to flag, the speaker has lost his opportunity of producing salutary impression. Long sermons are generally the least studied. They generally exhibit a sort of compromise with conscience. Length is given to make up for the omission of strength; and the use of the lungs is too often judged to be a fair compensation for the sluggish

ness of the brain.

10. Preaching should be richly scriptural. The generality of hearers are either well versed in scripture, or quite disposed to yield to it implicit deference. One passage of the word of God tells upon a professedly christian audience more powerfully than twenty arguments drawn from other sources. Besides, the words of the Spirit are more likely to be favoured with the blessing of the Spirit. 11 Preaching cannot be too practical. Practice is the end to be aimed at, and nothing strikes an audience as more worthy of their attention than what is to regulate their conduct and secure their everlasting felicity.

12. Preaching should be eminently evangelical. No doctrines can be compared, in their effect, on the human mind, to the doctrines of the cross. They have been sufficiently proved to be "the power of God unto salvation." Evangelical preaching, cæteris paribus, uniformly attracts the largest congregations, and is the only exhibition of truth which God honours by conversion.

The above remarks have been sustained by general reasoning. But they can claim a much higher sanction. The few specimens of the discourses of our Saviour and his Apostles, which the Spirit has preserved for our investigation, illustrate and confirm the principles here laid down. It would be easy, too, to refer to many modern preachers, whose success has impressed the mode of preaching here recommended with a divine sanction. Few preachers combine all these excellencies. But we may find all of them respectively recommended by the eminent advocates of the truth. Baxter was intelligent, pathetic, animated, applicatory, practical. President Edwards adopted the plainest language, and was eminently intelligent. Whitefield enforced evangelical sentiment with an impassioned manner and continual variety of intonation. Spencer was scrip

tural, simple, and earnest. But the preacher that has especially excelled in what is emphatically natural, and has combined with that first of attainments the greatest share of other excellence, is Charles Finney, the author of Lectures on Revivals, a book which, with all its doctrinal and practical extravagance, exhibits, on the whole, a very fine specimen of effective preaching.

J. C. G.

ON THE PRESENT CONFLICT BETWEEN THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND CIVIL POWERS OF SCOTLAND.

SIR, I endeavoured, in my last paper, to explain to your readers the present position of the Kirk of Scotland'; and I hardly think that there can be one of them, even the most indisposed, to arrive at such a conclusion, who does not see, that if the law of the land be left as it is, the Kirk of Scotland must, in a very short time, cease to be an established church.

The majority of the clergy are determined not to obey the law, when it contravenes principles which they believe to be contained in the Bible; that is, they are determined not to allow the induction into parishes of unpopular clergymen.

It is impossible that the party who take this view can concede the point. Even if the clergy who have taken the lead were to wish to recede, they could not do so. They have stirred up the popular feeling, till the people—that is, those who are members of the kirk— have learnt to identify themselves with their ministers. If the clergy were capable of relinquishing the great principle for which they have contended, the people would leave the church, and become seceders. But I am convinced that the clergy will do nothing of the sort. Their language is "We may have mistaken the mind of the legislature, when it adopted the kirk as the Established Church of Scotland, as to the amount of liberty which it was meant to concede to us in respect of the civil rights and pecuniary endowments of incumbents; but we are sure that we know the mind of Christ." And so far from contemplating a surrender of their principles, I can safely say, that if Parliament does not, in some shape or other, give the communicants a control over presentations, the pious clergy will only hesitate as to which of two courses to adopt. They will either secede, or they will carry a vote of conditional or of actual separation from the State, at the General Assembly in May next. With regard to the first alternative, I believe their view will be, that "it is not majorities, but minorities, that secede." If they can command a majority, they will prefer carrying a vote embodying their principles. It is not improbable, in that case, some will wish to adopt a resolution of separation for a given period, or until Government and Parliament take a juster view of the question. Such I know to be the opinion of some influential persons in the kirk; but when the time arrives, they can scarcely fail to perceive that such a

separation will be a final one. If Parliament refuses to concur in their demands now, Parliament will never concede them. It appears therefore most likely, that if any step at all be taken, it will be an indignant vote of total disruption.

The whole question, therefore, and the only question at present is, will Parliament change the law? If they will not, the Kirk of Scotland, as an Establishment, is gone. It appears to me perfectly clear, that such a change as is proposed would not only be a violation of the rights of property, but a violation of the principles of the constitution. It is proposed to enact, that if the majority of male heads of families, being communicants, shall forbid the induction of a clergyman, even without assigning any reason, the presentation shall be null and void. Is it likely that patrons will consent to be thus divested of their patrimonial rights-rights which are secured by law, and which are as capable of being bequeathed or sold as any other property? The advocates of this proceeding assert, that their measure does not go the length of abolishing patronage; but surely it does so in every instance where the people choose to abolish it. It is no consolation to an individual patron, when he is deprived of his vested right, to be told that the right of presentation is not abolished for the entire nation! Wherever it continues to be exercised, it will be exercised upon sufferance. The people can any where exert the same irresponsible power of taking it away. This expression does not overstate the effects of the veto. It is deprivation; for if the patron does not, within six months, appoint a person whom the people approve, the nomination is to pass. away absolutely to the presbytery, that is, to the clergy and elders. All this is to take place, not only without any reasons being given, but without compensation to patrons for the loss of their rights. I am not saying that a christian congregation ought not to have the right of rejecting a minister, placed over it by a stranger. On the contrary, I think it ought to have this right at the very least. It ought to have more. A society of real Christians ought to elect its own pastor. This object is one which, if the Bible is to be believed, ought to be contended for. Patronage is a contravention of the will of Jesus Christ, for the religion of the gospel is a religion of love and sympathy. Local christian societies were originally, and ought still to be, bodies of persons affectionately attached to each other, and presided over by one or more persons out of their number, "not to have dominion over their faith, but to be helpers of their joy." 2 Cor. i. 21. The whole operation of the religion of Jesus Christ, from first to last, depends upon affection. Love towards God, because he first loved us, and gave his Son to die for us on the cross, is the constraining motive of every true believer. Love to all men, "specially towards them that are of the household of faith," is the necessary result of sincere love towards God. The incorporation of believers into organized societies, is to be the result of their mutual love. Their united labours for the conversion and happiness of the world are to be labours of love. Their united worship, their participation in the ordinance by which they commemorate their Lord's death, is to be an act and an exemplification of love.

N. S. VOL. IV.

Y