orthography, and the adjoining of words; and when we our felves learnt the catechifm? Is it agreeable to a father, fays St. Austin, to ftammer out half words with his fon, in order to teach him to fpeak? Yet this gives him great pleafure. Does not a mother take more delight in putting aliment into her infant's mouth fuitable to its weak and tender condition, than to take the nourishment proper for herself? We must perpetually call to mind the tenderness of a hen, who covers her young ones with her extended wings; and, hearing their feeble cries, calls them with a faltering voice, in order to fhelter them from the bird of prey, who unrelentingly fnatches away fuch as do not fly for fafety to their mother's wings. y The love and Charity of Chrift, who vouchfafed to apply this comparifon to himself has been infinitely more extensive, and it was in imitation of him, that St. Paul 2 made Limfelf weak with the weak, in order to gain the weak ; and had, for all the faithful, the gentleness and tenderness of a nurfe and a mother. b This, fays St. Austin, is what we must represent to ourselves, when we are tired or difgufted; when we are weary of defcending to the puerility and weaknefs of children; and to repeat inceffantly to them the moft trite things, and run them over a hundred times. It often happens, continues the fame father, that we take a fingular pleasure, in fhewing friends newly arrived at the city we live in whatever is beautiful, uncommon, or curious; and the sweetness of friend * Num delectat, nifi amor invitet, decurtata & mutilata verba immumurare? Et tamen optant homines habere infantes quibus id exhibeant: & fuavius eft matri minuta mana infpuere parvulo filio, quàm ipfam mandere ac devorare grandiora. Non ergo recedat de pectore etiam cogitatio gallinæ illius, quæ languidulis pennis teneros fœtus operit, & fufurrantes pul. los confracta voce advocat: cujus blandas alas refugientes fuperbi, præda fiunt alitibus. De catechif, y Matt. xxiii. 27. . .... b Si ufitata & parvulis congruentia fæpe repetere fafidimus fi ad infirmitatem difcentium piget defcendere. . . . . cogitemus quid nobis prærogatum fit ab illo qui, cum in forma Dei efèt, femetipfum exinanivit, formam fervi accipiens. Ibid. c. 10. fhip diffuses a fecret charm over things which would otherwife appear exceeding tirefome; and gives them, as to ourselves, all the graces of novelty. c Why fhould not charity produce the fame effects in us that friendship does, efpecially when the thing propofed tended towards making God himself known to men, who ought to be the end of all our knowledge, and of all our studies? I thought it my duty to enlarge a little upon the manner of framing catechifms, which is not foreign to the end I propose to myself in this article, viz. of inftructing youth in what relates to the eloquence of the pulpit. It is now time to proceed to the fecond duty of preachers. II. DUTY OF A PREACHER. Fo please, and, for that end, to jpeak in a florid and polite manner. St. Auftin recommends to the preacher to endeavour fift, and above all things, to be clear and perfpicuous, but he does not pretend he must confine himself to that only. He would not have truth divefted of the ornaments of speech, which it alone has a right to employ. He would have human eloquence fubfervient to the Word of God, but not the Word of God made the flave of human eloquence. It often happens, that we cannot reach the heart but through the understanding, and that in order to affect the one we must please the other. e it is an extraordinary quality, in his opinion, to love and to teach in the words only the things themselves, and not the words: but he owns at the fame time, that this qua c Quanto ergo magis delectari nos oportet, cum ipfum Deum jam difcere homines accedunt, propter quem difcenda funt, quæcunque A difcenda funt? d Nec doctor verbis ferviat, fed verba doctori, De doct, Chrift. 1. 4. n. 61. e Bonorum ingeniorum infignis eft indoles, in verbis verum amare, non verba. Quòd tamen fi fiat infuaviter, ad paucos quidem studiofiffimos fuus pervenit fructus. Ibid. n. 26. N 5 lity/ lity is very uncommon; that, in cafe truth is reprefented without ornaments, it will affect very few. f That speech, like food, must be palatable in order to make it agreeable; and that, in both, we must pay a regard to the delicacy of mankind, and gratify their tafte in fome meafure. It was for the fame reason that the fathers of the Church were far from forbidding those who were called to the miniftry of the Word the reading of ancient authors and profane learning. g St. Auftin declares, that all the truths found in Heathen authors are our own, and, confequently, we have a right to claim them as our property, by taking them out of the hands of thofe unjuft poffeffors, in order to employ them to a better use. b He would have us leave to Heathen writers their profane, words and fuperftitious fictions, which every good Chriftian ought to abominate, after the example of the Ifraelites, who by the command of God himfelf plundered Egypt of her gold and most precious garments, without touching their idols; and that we fhould take from the Heathen authors thofe truths we find in them, and which are, as it were, the filver, the gold, and ornaments of difcourse; and clothe our ideas with them, in order to make the one and the other fubfervient to the preaching of the Gospel. He cites a great number of fathers who made this ufe of them, in imitation of f Sed quoniam inter fe habent nonnullam fimilitudinem vefcentes atque difcentes, propter faftidia plurimorum etiam ipfa, fine quibus vivi non poteft, alimenta condienda funt. Ibid. g De doctr. Chrift. 1. 2. n. 6. h Sic doctrinæ omnes gentilium, non folùm fimulata & fuperftitiofa figmenta... quæ unufquifque noftrum duce Chrifto de focietate gentilium exiens debet abominari atque devitare': fed etiam liberales difciplinas ufui veritatis aptiores & quædam morum præcepta utilis fima continent.... quæ tanquam aurum & argentum debét ab eis auferre Chriftianus ad usum juftum prædicandi evangelii. Veftem quoque illorum accipere atque habere licuerit in ufum convertenda Chriftianum. De doct. Chrift, 1. 2 n. 60. i Nonne afpicimus quanto auro & argento & vefte fuffarcinatus exierit de Egypto Cyprianus doctor fuaviffimus, & martyr beatiffimus? Ib. n. 61. Vir eloquentia pollens & martyrio, S. Hieron. Mofes Mofes himself, who was carefully instructed in all the wisdom of the Ægyptians. k St. Jerom treats the fame topic more at large, in a fine letter *, where he juftifies himself from the reproaches of his adverfaries, who imputed it as a crimein him, that he had employed profane learning in his writings. After pointing out feveral places in the Scriptures, where Heathen authors are cited, he makes a long enumeration of the ecclefiaftical writers, who alfo made use of their teftimonies, in defence of the Chriftian religion. Among the holy writers, he had named St. Paul, who quotes feveral paffages from the Greek poets. And indeed, fays he, he had learnt "from the true David the way of forcing the enemy's weapon out of his own hand, in order to fight "him; and to cut off the head of the proud Goliah "with his own fword." It were therefore much to be wifhed, that those who are defigned for the pulpit should begin by imbibing eloquence at its fource, that is, from the Greek and Latin authors, who have been always looked upon as masters in the art of speaking. m The Sacred Orator fhould have learnt from them the distribution of the feveral ornaments of discourse, and this not barely to please the auditor, much less to gain a reputation,, (motives which even Heathen rhetoric thought unworthy its orator.) But in order to make truth more amiable to men, by rendering her more lovely; and to engage them by this kind of innocent allurement 4 to relifh her holy fweetnefs, and to practife her falutary leffons with greater diligence and fincerity. It is well known that St. Ambrofe's eloquence had this effect on St. Auftin, though he was ftill charmed with the beauties of profane eloquence. "That great bishop preached the Word of God to his people with fo many charms and graces, that all his auditors were transported with a kind of divine enthusiasm. • St. Auftin fought only in the fermons of that preacher the flowers of language, and not the folidity of fenfe; but it was not in his power to separate them. He thought to have opened his understanding and heart to the beauties of diction only; but truth entered at the fame time, and foon gained an abfolute fovereignty over them. He himself made the fame ufe of eloquence, afterwards. We find the people were so ravished with his fermons, that they beftowed the utmost applaufes on them. He was, however, very far either from feeking or affecting those applauses; for his humility was fo great, that they really afflicted him, and made him fear the fecret and fubtle contagion of that poisoned vapour. P But whence fhould fuch frequent acclamations arife, but from this, viz. that truth, thus illuftrated and placed in her utmoft fplendor by a truly eloquent man, charms and tranfports the mind of man? I cannot here avoid exhorting my readers to perufe M. Arnaud's little treatife, intitled, Reflections on the Eloquence of Preachers. He there refutes part of the. preface which M. du Bois his friend had prefixed to his tranflation of St. Auftin's fermons, in which he pre Veni ad Ambrofium Epifcopum... cujus tunc eloquia ftrenuè miniftrabant adipem frumenti tui.. & fobriam vini ebrietatem populo tuo. Confeff. 1. 5. c. 13. • Cum non fatagerem difcere quæ dicebat, fed tantum quemadmodum dicebat audire... veniebant in animum meum, fimul cum verbis quæ diligebam, res etiam quas negligebam: neque enim ea Unde autem crebrò & multùm acclamatur ita dicentibus, nifi quia veritas fic demonftrata, fic defenfa, fic invicta, delectat? De doar. Chr. 1. 4. n. 56. tended |