epistles, did not scruple to read the dramatic pieces of heathen poets; nay, he has even thought fit sometimes to quote their sentiments with approbation, and to give their very words the sanction of sacred writ. Where debates arise on any subject, it is almost invariably the case, that both sides run to extremes, alike deserting truth and moderation. It is the part of a wise man, like the bee, to extract from every thing what is good and salutary; and to guard against whatever is of a contrary quality. But I am aware that the most of what I have said on this subject may be looked on as a digression. I acknowledge, it in a great measure is so; but as the mention of it was perfectly apposite, and as few topics have occasioned warmer disputes among Christians, I did not think it suited that decorum of character, which I would wish always to preserve, to appear artfully, when a fair opportunity offers, to avoid telling freely my opinion.

LECTURE VI.

On the Composition of Lectures.

IN In my last lecture on the subject of pulpit eloquence I told you, that every discourse was addressed either to the understanding of the hearers, to their imagination, to their passions, or to their will. As those addressed to the understanding may be intended either for explaining something unknown to them, or for proving something disbelieved or doubted by them, sermons in the largest acceptation of the word may be distributed into five classes, the explanatory, the argumentative or controversial, the demonstrative or commendatory, the pathetic, and the persuasive. It will not be amiss here, in order to prevent mistakes, to take notice of the particular import which I mean to give to some terms, as often as I employ them on this subject. The first I shall mention is the term demonstrative, which in the application usual with rhetoricians, hath no relation to the sense of the word as used by mathematicians. Here it hath no concern with proof or argument of any kind, but relates solely to the strength and distinctness with which an object is exhibited, so as to render the conceptions of the imagination almost equal in vivacity and vigour with the perceptions of sense. This is entirely agreeable to the use, both of the Latin word dem

onstrativus, and of the Greek moduintinos among critics, orators and poets. Another difference I beg you will remark, is between conviction and persuasion, which, in common language, are frequently confounded. To speculative truth, the term, conviction, only with its conjugates, ought to be applied. Thus we say properly, I am convinced of the being of a God. In popular language, we should sometimes in this case say persuaded, but this application of the term is evidently inaccurate. Thus also, he hath proved the truth of revelation to my full conviction, or, I attempted to convince him of his error. And even in regard to moral truth, when no more is denoted but the assent of the understanding, the proper term is to convince. I am convinced it is my duty, yet I cannot prevail on myself to do it. This is well illustrated by that of the poet,

Video meliora proboque,
Deteriora sequor.*

I am convinced, but not persuaded: My understanding is subdued, but not my will: the first term always and solely relates to opinion, the second to practice. The operation of conviction is merely on the understanding, that of persuasion, is on the will and resolution. Indeed the Latin word persuadeo is susceptible of precisely the same ambiguity with the English. It is this double meaning which gave occasion to that play upon the word used by Augustine, when he said, "Non persuadebis, etiamsi persuaseris." The import of which in plain English manifestly is, Though your arguments may convince my reason, they shall not determine my resolution: Or, you may convince, but shall not persuade me. The first of the distinctions now mentioned will serve to discriminate the argumentative or controversial, from the demonstrative or commendatory, the other distinguishes the controversial from the persuasive.

I would further observe, that [though any one discourse admits only one of the ends above enumerated as the principal, nevertheless in the progress of a discourse, many things may be advanced, which are more immediately and apparently directed to some of the other ends of speaking. But then it ought always to appear, that such ends are introduced as means, and rendered conducive to that which is the primary intention. Accordingly the propriety of

*I see the right, and I approve it too,

1 hate the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.

these secondary ends will always be inferred from their subserviency to the principal design. For example, a sermon of the first or second kind, the explanatory or the controversial, addressed to the understanding and calculated to illustrate or evince some point of doctrine, may borrow aid from the imagination, and admit metaphor and comparison. But not the bolder and more striking figures, as that called phantasia, prosopopeia, and the like, which are not so much intended to throw light on a subject as to excite admiration ; much less will it admit an address to the passions, which never fails to disturb the operation of the intellectual faculty. Either of these, it is obvious, far from being subservient to the main design, simple explanation or proof, would distract the attention from it. Such arts, however, I cannot call them legitimate, have sometimes been successfully used; but in such cases, if impartially examined, the scope of the speaker will be found to have been more to cloud than to enlighten the understandings of his hearers, and to deceive rather than to edify. They are of those unlucky arts, which are naturally fitted more for serving a bad cause, than a good one, and by consequence, when used in a good cause, rather hurt it with the judicious, by rendering it suspected.

Now before I proceed to consider the rules which ought to be observed in these different sorts of composition resulting from their respective natures, I shall make a few remarks on a kind of dis courses very common in this country, which come not under the general name of sermons, and follow rules peculiar to themselves. As the Bible is with us Protestants acknowledged to be the repository, and indeed the only original, full, and untainted repository of Christian knowledge; and as the study of it is maintained to be a duty incumbent on every disciple of Christ, that kind of discourses with us commonly called lectures, have been devised as means of facilitating to the people the profitable reading of holy writ. We acknowledge, indeed, that in all things essential to salvation, scripture is sufficiently perspicuous even to the vulgar; and that, in such important matters, if any man err, it will be found more the fault of the heart than of the head. But this acknowledgment is nowise inconsistent with the avowal, that there are in this repository many things highly useful and instructive, which do not immediately appear upon the surface, which require more time and application to enable us to discover, and in which in particular it is the province of the pastor to lend his assistance to the illiterate and the

weak. That people may be put in a capacity of reading with judgment and without difficulty, those parts of scripture which are most closely connected with the Christian faith and practice, lecturing, or as it is called in some places expounding, hath been first prescribed by our church rulers. The end or design of a lecture, therefore, is to explain the train of reasoning contained, or the series of events related, in a certain portion of the sacred text, and to make suitable observations from it, in regard either to the doctrines, or to the duties of our religion. As all discourses of this kind consist of two principal parts, the explication, and the remarks or inferences, so they may be distributed into two classes, according as the one or the other constitutes the principal object of the expounder. In discourses of the first class, it is the chief design of the speaker to explain the import of a portion of scripture, which may not be perfectly clear to Christians of all denominations. In the second, it is his great scope to deduce from a passage, whose general or literal meaning is sufficiently perspicuous, useful reflections concerning providence, the economy of grace, or the conduct of human life. Were we nicely to distinguish the two kinds, I should say that the ultimate end of the former is to teach the people to read the scriptures with understanding, and of the latter to accustom them to read them with reflection. The former therefore may more properly (according to the current import of the words) be termed an exposition, and the latter a lecture. And in this manner we shall afterwards distinguish them. Both are properly of the explanatory kind, though from the complex nature of the subject, the form of composition will be very different from that of the first class of sermons mentioned above. Indeed several English sermons, for instance those on the compassionate Samaritan, the prodigal son, or any other of our Lord's parables, may strictly be denominated lectures in the sense to which we just now appropriated the term. And of this sort also are several of the homilies of the ancient fathers. Nay there are some discourses, that go under the general appellation of sermons, particularly of Bishop Hoadley and Doctor Clarke, that properly belong to that class we distinguished by the name exposition, being no other than a sort of familiar commentary on some of the most difficult passages in the epistolary writings of the apostle Paul. They differ from us in Scotland, only in the manner in which the explication is introduced from the pulpit. We take the whole portion of scripture for a text; they, commonly a single verse in the end of it, by means of which all the

other verses as connected, are more awkwardly ushered into the discourse; for as all these share equally in the explication, so in most cases the remarks bear no more relation to the text, than to any other sentence in the context. The relation is commonly to the whole taken together, and not to a part considered separately. That it may not be necessary to return afterwards to the consideration of these two classes of discourses, which I denominate exposi tions and lectures, I shall now make a few observations in regard to their composition, and so dismiss this article.

And first, as to the subject to be chosen, care should be taken, that as much as posible it may be one, that is, one distinct passage of history, (if taken from any of the historical books of scripture) one parable, one similitude, one chain of reasoning, or the illustration of one point of doctrine or of duty. When a minister purposes in a course of teaching to give the exposition of a whole book of scripture, it is of much greater moment, and unspeakably more conducive to the edification of the hearers, that in the distribution of the parts, more regard be had to the natural connection, that may subsist between the sentiments, than to the artificial division of the words into chapters and verses. For it is manifest, that in making this distribution of the sacred books, which by the way is an invention merely human and not very ancient, there hath often been very little attention given to the sense. You will easily conceive, that it must be still a greater fault in expounding, to confine one's self regularly, as some do, to the same or nearly the same number of verses. Nothing can tend more effectually to injure the sense, and to darken (instead of enlightening) the subject. Nothing would less fall under the description, which the apostle gives of the manner of the workman that hath no reason to be ashamed, "his rightly dividing the word of truth." To merit this praise, one must, like a skilful anatomist, chiefly attend, in the division, to the distinctive characters and limits, which nature hath assigned to the several parts; and not, like a carver for the table, merely to the size and form.

The second remark I shall make, is that if the portion of scripture be, as to the sense, not so independent of the words immediately preceding, but that some attention to these will throw light upon the sacred lesson, the preacher may very properly introduce himself to his subject by pointing out in a few words the connection. There are cases in which this is necessary; there are in which we should say it were improper, and there are no doubt in which it is