recognizes neutrals, and has given no command which can be obeyed without full and instant love; they therefore elude the humbling influence of truth, which profits the penitent and the impenitent, but passes by without touching the species of men who lie midway between something and nothing; and they often receive, as the positive recompense of their negative service, a blunt conscience, a self-complacent and self-confident heart, and an inveterate habit of waiting for God to do what he requires them to do. Thus prolific of mischief, and unsuited to the tendencies of the moral constitution, is the philosophy which describes repentance as something to be prayed for, rather than something to be performed; and teaches man to comply with the conditions of his duty, rather than do his duty. The truth of God is "quick,' 99.66 cease to do evil, learn to do well;" and not hypothetical and circumambulatory, "try to pray that you may be enabled to begin the right course.'

No other luminary than that which God has made, can enlighten the earth; no other doctrine than that which God has revealed, can meliorate the heart. It is then almost a truism to say, that he who would eloquently persuade men to godliness, must make his eloquence a vivid presentation of the great motives to godliness, and as these motives are all involved in divine truth, he may, without understanding that truth write elegantly and speak gracefully, but what he writes will be no sermon, and his speaking will be a declamatory profanation of the pulpit, which is not the orator's, but the "preacher's throne," and should exhibit nothing but the life and life-giving spirit of evangelical doctrine.

I remark in the last place, that sacred eloquence depends essentially on theological study, because this study discloses the essential truths which glorify God. The preacher is commanded to declare all the doctrines of the Gospel; to declare them variously, explicitly, thoroughly; and he who obeys this command, honors not only the government but also the character of Jehovah. To represent the Divine excellencies so that they shall be apprehended, is the sacred eloquence of thought; so that they shall be loved is the sacred eloquence of feeling: for if the heathen's remark be true, that to know God is to glorify him, then to make him known is to glorify him more extensively; and if to make him known be glorious to him, to make him loved is still more glorious. Whether an audience adore or despise the character of Jehovah, their very apprehen

sion of the character will eventually honor it; and their contempt even will illustrate the boundlessness of His mercy, or the purity of His Justice. It is a thought which may always add solemnity to the preacher's emotion and energy to his eloquence, that when he portrays the Divine attributes, his words, if they be understood, shall not one of them be lost, but shall forever elicit new praise to Him who maketh even sin the occasion of new and honorable developments. If this thought be impressive, there is another still more animating to the faithful preacher, that by his vivid delineations of the Divinity, he may multiply copies of that infinite perfection, and by transfusing the Divine image may call forth the glory which comes not barely from the knowledge, but also from the love and resemblance of God.

But how can men love an object which they do not apprehend? How can souls be converted, without a notion of the Being to whom they are converted? To make Christians is the easiest thing in the world. Constantine made them by the thousands in a day. The Popes have made whole nations true to the faith, by a single decree. A single sermon may convert an audience without the aid of an interposing spirit, save perhaps the spirit of darkness. When Christians are multiplied at a protracted meeting, the great quere is, are they lovers of that excellence which constitutes Christ? Are they converted to that holiness which is the moral sum of Jehovah? From what, to what are they transformed? There is often the most lamentable ground for fear, that they are changed from the worship of one form of sin, to that of another. The Deity is not glorified by conversions, but by conversions to the truth. It is not the three letters God, which make the object of adoration, but a pure spirit of excellence. The indefinite preacher speaks of a something, who is nought but kindness and mercy, and he calls that something God; and then asks his hearers to love it, because it is so full of love to them. They love it, and are proclaimed as converts. But they have loved it, in another form, ever since they loved themselves. Every sinner loves it so long as he remains a sinner. They are converted only to the love of a new conformation of their own depravity. This something, it may be called God, but remains the same in essence, by whatever cognomen it be designated, and is the likeness of nothing in the heaven above, but is the image of its makers on earth, selfish, partial, and sinful. Their love to it is love to an

idol. Their prayers, and praises, and songs, and obedient service to it, are all to their own creature, rather than their great Creator. The true spiritual Divinity is the discerner of the thoughts, and sees that this homage is mistaken and misapplied; was meant for another Being who wears his name indeed, but none of his attributes, and who has only a fictitious existence. Oh there are many anthems, and solemn dedications, and devout observances, which go up from nominal worshippers, but go by God's throne, and wander about in search of their shadowy object, which exists anywhere, rather in the regions above. Even in the true church of Christ, there is much idolatry. Intermingled with devotion to Jehovah, there is much devotion to an etherial figment of our own fancies. Secular eloquence may persuade men to love the gold of God's throne, but He does not feel praised unless we love the holiness of it. A meagre system of theology will suffice for the preacher, who inculcates the love of many things connected with religion, but God does not feel glorified unless we love religion itself. He has no corporeal ears to be pleased with the sound, God; but heareth with the Spirit, and acknowledgeth no name save his true character, inwardly appreciated and loved. With wrong views of his character we cannot actively glorify him. The first duty then of the preacher is to publish this character, so that an assimilating influence may flow forth from it upon those who hear; to hold up this living and life-imparting mystery of perfection, so that it may reflect its own likeness upon the lookers on. The more perspicuously and properly a preacher delineates the divine character in a sermon, so much the more hope may be entertained, that the Spirit will use that sermon as an instrument of good to souls and glory to God. This interposition of the Spirit is the only source of hope; this hope is the great spring of eloquence. It is needless to say, that the preacher must understand the whole system of revealed truth, if he would faithfully describe the divine perfections; for these perfections embrace the whole system. Sacred eloquence then, which is the power of speaking so as to glorify God, is the power of speaking well on all the truths of God; and peculiarly on those attributes which, in themselves, make up his essential, and in their exhibition, his declarative glory. As the sacred is the top-stone of all eloquence, so it ultimately rests on the broadest of all bases, a complete theological science.

The rule that a preacher defer writing his discourse, until he

have a distinct apprehension of the topics which he means to introduce into that discourse, is elementary. With this distinct apprehension he may not always write with clearness; for he may be so deficient in his power of language, his mind may move so quickly over premises which he glances at but does not mark for remembrance, to results which he seizes at strongly and holds too nakedly for plain communication to others, or he may have formed a habit of association elevated so far above all communion with the common intellect, that he is unable to utter intelligibly what he very vividly conceives. But if a writer cannot always express with clearness the ideas which he has, he can never so express the ideas which he has not; and he may nearly as well preach in a foreign language, as in a style which does not emanate from his distinct conceptions. "Those orators," says one," who give us much noise and many words, but little argument and less wit, and who are most loud when they are the least lucid, should take a lesson from the great volume of nature; she often gives us the lightning even without the thunder, but never the thunder without the lightning."

It is, however, by no means sufficient, that a man investigate barely those parts of his subject, which he wishes to discuss in his sermon. He must investigate all parts, before he can safely decide which to discuss and which to exclude. He must be able to take the whole subject into his hands, as a ball of ivory, and turn it over and over, and present all sides of it. Even if he deem a particular branch to be inappropriate to the pulpit, still it must be analyzed. The analysis will give impulse and acumen to his mind, suggest the most suitable and eloquent collocation of his more popular thoughts, and often initiate him into new fields of practical reflection. Every part of his doctrine has its collateral parts, its dependences, its intimations; and if he explore the circumjacent ground as well as the spot on which he intends to build, he will often discover a fruitful spot in the very darkest corners, under the most tangled shrubbery. "Even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold ornaments; also many a scene, that looks desert and rock-bound from the distance, will unfold itself, when visited, into rare valleys." Our clergymen commit an injurious error, when they neglect and repudiate all discussion, which promises no immediate practical bearing. They should reflect, that in a great building there are rough and unsightly foundation stones, which are not to be wholly dispensed with, because they are unsuitable for a place in the

parlor; on the sofa, or the piano. They should reflect, that in a finished picture there are some colorings, which will disgust if presented in bold relief, but will leave the picture yet more disgusting, if excluded from the back ground, where perhaps only a connoisseur will be able to explain their effect. A sermon is incomplete, unless its arrangement, its allusions, its whole spirit betray the author's familiarity with the fundamental and even suppressed branches of his theme. A minister need not, in these days, be afraid of study. He cannot know too much of truth. He must remember, that all sacred rhetoric is but a new arrangement of the materials of theology, and in proportion to the abundance of his materials may be the felicity of his selection. In vain will he labor to polish his discourses, unless he have given them the firm solid contexture which is derived from sacred science. Disintegrated sand-stone cannot be polished. In vain will he hope to elevate the minds of his hearers by fervent appeal, unless himself be borne aloft by his subject, his whole subject, and nothing but his subject; unless, I say, his subject raise him, and he be relieved from forcing his own progress upward, like a bird of prey dragging his subject along after him. In vain will he decorate his style with tropes, when his doctrine like a poor stray child is lost amid a forest of similes. A neat shroud is very neat, and a white fillet is very white; but a carcass is still a carcass notwithstanding the shroud, and the vacant face is still vacant, notwithstanding the fillet. In vain will he strive to impart a becoming energy to his sermons, unless he have that enthusiasm which nothing but sacred study can inspire; an enthusiasm, which is but another name for a fervent love of truth, and which is more essential for a preacher than even secular enthusiasm is for a secular orator. It is mild to say that a preacher, unskilled in the word of righteousness, will inflict upon his audience, sermons ephemeral, unimpressive, emitting their first and only light, when his administrators shall perform the duty which he should have anticipated, of consigning them to the flames; the severe fact is, that he will not only fail to teach the truth, but will teach error; error in the substance of his doctrine, error in the shading of it, error at least in the moral impressions of it; and whoever has computed the mischiefs of one error under sacerdotal sanction, may estimate the influence of one man, instructing by conjecture, warning at random, mutilating at hap-hazard the doctrines, which an angel would not dare to touch save with a delicate hand, and after a wary, circumspect survey.