ARTICLE VI.

DISCRIMINATIVE PREACHING.

By Rev. George Shepard, Prof. Sac. Rhet. Theol. Seminary, Bangor, Me.

Rightly dividing the word of truth.-2 Tim. 11: 15.

THE direction implied in these words, originally addressed to Timothy, is a valuable one to every preacher of righteousness, that he may show himself approved unto God, and make himself felt in the hearts and consciences of his fellow men.

The meaning of the direction I suppose to be simply this:Adapt yourself to the natures, characters and cases of those whom you address.

The preacher, who means to comply with the direction, has regard to the various attributes which belong to man as a moral agent. He does not address him, as a purely spiritual being, but as having also an animal nature;-not as endowed with intellect alone, or with passions and affections alone; but as endowed with intellect and affections, the power of reasoning and the power of feeling. He endeavors to meet these several attributes or powers, in their true, relative importance and proportion.

Again; He regards, not only the variety of attributes in man as an individual, he regards likewise, the variety in the individuals which compose his auditory.

He has discriminating respect to the various ages of his people; the child, the youth, the man in mature life, the person far advanced in years; addressing each according to their several circumstances and temptations.

He regards too the different relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, ruler and subject.

He discriminates and addresses the different characters before him, not merely regarding the generic division into righteous and wicked, but descending to the various types, which the all-pervading moral disease assumes, and which he knows it has assumed in the hearts of many of his people.

He has a message for the scrupulous moralist; another for the flagrant transgressor, whose heart of hate, and lips of blasphemy, and life of crime, are in horrid consonance.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. II. NO. III.

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He has a message for the profound slumberer in sin, another for the chafed and rankling caviller..

He has a message for the secret doubter, and the open infidel; another, for that large class, who promptly and stupidly assent to everything, and really believe and do nothing.

He brings forth a portion for the brazen-faced hypocrite; another, for the unconsciously deluded; still another, for the weak and tremulous believer.

At one time he has in view the man obdurate,, and at ease in his rebellion; at another, the weeping, anxious inquirer.

There are those who will hope against all good ground of hope. There are others who will keep up the dismal strain of despair, when with cheerful hearts, they ought to be serving and honoring the Saviour. These conflicting cases he considers and endeavors to meet in his appeals.

There are the ignorant, who need the simplest elements of doctrine; by their side, the learned distorter of revelation, who can take the scattered material-the stones and pillars of truth— and adroitly build them into a "refuge of lies." These are not forgotten in his discourses.

I might extend the detail to the different constitutional biases, and the varying attitudes of mind, of less prominence and importance, but not too insignificant to be regarded by the preacher in the adjustment of his messages, in his apportionments of truth.

In view of all these attributes, characters, and classes, it is obvious, that it will not do at all, to preach very much in one strain. Those ministers, who have been signally successful, have not done so. Paul did not do so, but the opposite. “Unto the Jews," he says, "I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak, became I as weak, that I might gain the weak. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.' When his Corinthian hearers could not bear meat, he fed them with milk, instead of strong meat. It was on account of their unskilfulness in the word of righteousness. Strong meat he assigned to those who were of full age.

This principle of adjustment is recognized by Jude. "Of

some," he says, "have compassion, making a difference; others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire."

The preacher, at the present day, has to make a difference; always preaching truth, but holding different aspects and phases of truth, according to the varying purposes to be accomplished, or cases to be met. Now, he speaks in a tone of sharp rebuke; again, in a strain of winning tenderness. To-day he employs rigid, compact argument. The next Sabbath, he pours from a warm heart, the simple, fervid appeal. In one discourse, the soothing, the consolatory predominates; in another, truths and considerations, adapted to alarm and agitate. In all, he preaches truth; but truths of varying temper and tone, such as in his judgment will the most accurately meet (and benefit) the diverse cases and characters before him.

Having, now, glanced at the method of effecting this prescribed division of truth, in other words, presented some of the detail, involved in a compliance with the injunction of the apostle, I proceed to consider the difficulties and embarrassments which the preacher commonly meets with, while endeavoring, in style and doctrine, to adjust his messages to the diverse characters and wants existing among his people. He soon finds it is a very nice and responsible matter, and that injury may be effected, when he means only good. Even when he commits no mistake, verges to no extreme, some evil may come of his effort. His position often is like that of the physician, called to a patient laboring under a complication of diseases. The prescription which mitigates one class of symptoms, aggravates another class. The distinctive style of truth which meets and benefits one hearer, tending to one extreme of opinion or feeling, operates unfavorably upon another hearer, who is tending to the opposite extreme. I will illustrate by some instances of not unfrequent occurrence.

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The minister has in mind, a desponding portion of his flock. They are always looking on the dark side of things,-making their case the very worst they can,-refusing to admit that degree of hope which is necessary as an incitement to effort. He prepares a sermon for their special benefit. He presses into it all the encouragement he dares to,-makes it as bright and winning as truth will admit. To the class for whom it was designed, it does good, perhaps. But the preacher is embarrassed with the fear, that another class will receive injury from it. Those who were too forward before,-too ready to build themselves

up, may be induced by the discourse, to hope, when they have no good reason to hope. They seize hold of what was intended for others, and pervert it to their own delusion and ruin.

Again, the preacher feels called upon, to make a very strong presentation and appeal, to arrest, if possible, a large class in the assembly, who are persisting in a course of perilous delay. He feels that strong measures, startling announcements are demanded by the gathering exigency of their condition. He selects the passage, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man.' He speaks plainly of the sin which has no forgiveness. He holds forth in vividness, the fact, that there is somewhere a line darkly drawn across the sinner's path, over which if he passes, he is beyond the pale of possible salvation; and he affirms the probability, that many after repeated seasons of the Spirit's vistation, do come into this state of premature reprobation.

The appeal does good. The slumbering are aroused; the presumptuous inspired with salutary caution. There are others, it may be but one or two, who are driven almost to despair by this aspect of truth,-persons quaking with the apprehension, that they have committed the unpardonable sin, and held back from all effort to obtain mercy, by the ever-brooding belief, that with them the day of mercy has finally closed. The considerate preacher cannot but be alive to the fear, lest while drawing out this terrific style of truth, he overwhelm, in absolute gloom and discouragement, some minds, whom a gentler and more attractive message might have decoyed to the regions of hope.

Again, there are some in every congregation who regard it as a very easy thing to become religious. They have little concern about the matter, for they can step into the kingdom of Christ whenever they please. All they have to do, is to sin circumspectly; look out and not let death get the start of them, and they will come out safe in the end. Repentance is easy, the work of a few moments, and heaven is gained. There are others who pretend to believe, that they have no sort of power whatever to move in this matter. As they are absolutely helpless, of course cannot do the work, nor take any step towards it, they have only to sit supinely down and wait for the Spirit of God to come and convert them.

To meet the former class the preacher deems it necessary to come forth clearly in proof and exposure of the sinner's weakness and ruin, that while there is no strength in himself, the work he is called upon to do, is a work of immense difficulty.

The sinner is shown that his deliverance does not lie so absolutely with himself as he supposes,-that he is dependent upon divine power, a power which may be justly withheld, and if withheld, he will assuredly perish. To all this, the latter class very reverently bow assent. They suck deadly poison out of these leaves of life. By a slight perversion, they turn what should awaken them, into opiates to make more profound, the already leaden sleep of death. So on the other hand, when we press on the last mentioned class, obligation, and ability as the ground of it, the former class push our position to an extreme, and presumptuously infer, that in the final exigency, they can wake up and walk forth in the freedom and joy of God's own children.

Again, when atonement is our theme, especially when setting forth the fulness of this provision, its adequacy for one world or a thousand; when striving to make the impression deep and productive, that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, no matter how aggravated the transgressions, how high they have arisen, all will be washed away on the first throb of penitence, or look and reliance of faith, we feel that we are in danger of throwing some beams of encouragement upon a career of guilt. Some one will be ready with the perverse deduction,—“ if a Saul has been forgiven, a Gardiner, a Rochester, a Newton redeemed, then I may venture to grow up to any stature in crime, and the same provisions will avail for me."

We cannot concentrate and pile on the hearts of the young all the motives to early piety, without filling the horizon of the aged with portentous blackness.

We cannot blot out the common delusory expectation of a death-bed preparation for eternity, by showing its almost absolute impossibility, without wounding the sensibilities of many before us, whose departed friends left no other evidence that they are at rest, than the agitated prayers and repentings which mingled with the death struggle.

We cannot come forth, pointedly in exposure and reproof of particular sins, in the practice of which, certain hearers are at the time engaged, without the hazard of awaking feelings of hostility which it would be far more pleasant to the preacher to have allayed and sleeping.

It may be thought by some, that, if there are these evils, these difficulties, these opportunities for perversion incident to the dividing and appropriative style of dispensing truth, it is better