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appearance of the Messiah to judgement had gained great ground in the community [Thessalonica.] It is slightly [?] 18 alluded to in the first epistle, v. 2, 3. The second seems to have been written expressly to counteract this notion. The notion of the approaching end of the world, and the final consummation of all things in the second coming of the Messiah, appears to have been the last Jewish allusion from which the minds of the apostles were disenchanted; and there can be no doubt both that many of the early Christians almost hourly expected the final dissolution of the world, and that this opinion awed many timid believers into the profession of Christianity, and kept them in trembling subjection to its authority." 19 We can only say that we are astonished at such statements from so learned and candid a writer. We have always thought, and still think, that the apostles, after the resurrection of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit on them at the feast of Pentecost, were pretty thoroughly disenchanted from all merely Jewish illusions, and safe and correct expounders of Christian truth. "The notion of the approaching end of the world and the final consummation of all things in the second coming of the Messiah," in the spiritual and true sense of these words, in which the apostles used them, is not a Jewish illusion, but Christian truth, and now veritable history.

De Quincey also says, with characteristic assurance, "Moreover, we know that the apostles fell into some errors which must have affected their views in these respects, [the expediency of marriage and the customs of the Essenes.] For a time at least they thought the end of the world close at hand," &c. 20 Henry Rogers also states that he finds no proof that the apostles had positively stated that the second coming of Christ would take place in their own time, but much to the contrary;" and thus he also, unintentionally, helps to point the arrows which unbelievers are aiming at the Christian

" 21

18 How "slightly" we trust to have made apparent 'in what goes before.

19 Hist. Christ, pp. 164, 172.

20 Biog. and Crit. Essays, i. 43.

21 Eclipse of Faith, 58, 66.

faith, even while professedly laboring to exhibit its evidences. All these writers are respectfully commended to a more careful study of the New Testament, that they may learn to interpret it more correctly. Nay, we beg of them to consider the certain inference which will be drawn by unbelievers from this charging of delusion upon the apostles, on the subject of Christ's second coming, when they only repeated the very terms in which he himself announced the time when he should "judge the quick and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom," (2 Tim. iv. 1;) and if they were mistaken and enchanted by a Jewish illusion, on this point, to the end of their days, the whole responsibility must fall back on Him, who, in his last message to them while he was on earth, sent them forth to teach all nations whatsoever he had commanded them. We beg that this momentous consequence of the notion of Grotius and Locke and Milman, and those who follow them in this matter, may not be lost sight of. It reaches a vital point in respect to the evidences of the Christian religion. Nor is it any answer to our general position to say that Christ did not pretend to know the precise "day and hour" of his second coming, when he has declared so often and so unequivocally that it should take place in his own age.

We now submit this exposition to our readers with a single remark. If it be sound, (will it be asked,) what scriptural foundation is left for the doctrine of the general resurrection of the dead, and the final purity and happiness of all our race? In reply, we observe, that if it be sound, that is enough. We have sought, in this discussion, only to ascertain what is true, not to support the creed of a sect, believing that "Truth is of infinitely higher value than the excitement of controversy, the triumph of victory, the pleasure of sympathy, or even the pride of consistency." The doctrine of the final purity and happiness of our race rests on its own proper basis, nor will it be prejudiced by the discovery and vindication of any other truth. We are aware of the wide relations of the subject we have so imperfectly discussed, and that if the views we have presented be correct, more than one Christian denomination will not only need to revise, but to remodel its dogmatic system from foundation to turret.

But believing with Robinson of Leyden, that "the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word," we have endeavored deliberately, candidly, and we hope not presumptuously, to give utterance to thoughts we have long held, and are prepared to accept all the consequences legitimately flowing from the views we have here presented.

J. O. S.

ART. XIX.

The Idea of a Sermon.

Graces and Powers of the Christian Life. By A. D. Mayo, Pastor of the Independent Christian Society, Gloucester, Mass. Boston: Abel Tompkins. 1853.

NOTWITHSTANDING the great number of published works, called volumes of sermons, there are comparatively but few such works that have any right to the name. Religious literature is prolific of almost every good thing, except sermons, truly such. We can find almost any amount of learned disquisition, exhaustive argument, biblical exposition, and scrutinizing polemics; but seldom do we find any thing at all approaching the true idea of a sermon-the sermon that is, as distinguished from simple argument, and other forms of essay composition.

We trust it may be taken for granted, that the sermon has its essential peculiarity; as such, its composition is radically different from any other form of written or spoken speech. And let it be observed, that this peculiarity is in the composition itself, it is not in any accompanyment, but in the very temper of the language employed. The circumstance that the production is spoken from a pulpit to an audience, with the usual accompanyment of other services, does not constitute the production a sermon. lecture on phrenology, preceded and followed by singing and praying, might be delivered from the pulpit to a Sunday audience, and yet it would have no character of the

sermon.

A

The sermon-quality pertains to the phraseology

is the determining character in the aim and structure of the written or spoken words.

We repeat it, the sermon is a peculiar composition. That in it, which, as its essence, makes it a sermon, is something which can be detected in no other form of writing or speaking. And it is a rare quality-it is a rare gift that can produce it in any marked degree. We have strong, eloquent, and useful men in the pulpit, but we get few sermons from them. We get much that goes by the name; we get very little that has any claim to be so regarded. Scripture exposition,-exposition of difficult and controverted passages, such for instance as that in the last verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, and that concerning the sin against the Holy Ghost,-is not preaching, and the exposition is not a sermon. An elucidation of the principles of divine retribution, is not a sermon. Arguments drawn from Scripture and from fundamental principles to disprove the doctrine of endless misery, are not sermons; neither are arguments drawn from the same sources to prove the final holiness of all mankind, sermons. The reader will not misapprehend our meaning. We are far from indulging, directly or indirectly, in a tirade against the practice of explaining, from the pulpit too, difficult passages of the Bible, or against that of elucidating the principles of retribution for sin, or against that of controverting the doctrine of endless wo, and proving the doctrine of universal salvation. Our conviction and practice are in favor of these efforts; we simply aver that they are not sermons. In some cases, they are doubtless better than sermons-do a necessary work, which sermons could never do. Still, as they have not the essential, the peculiar quality of the sermon, they should not be called by the name.

We come now to the question,-In what does the sermon consist? What is its peculiar and essential quality? Preparatory to answering the question, we may remark that while, as we have said, the sermon is not an argument nor a theological disquisition, nor a biblical exposition, nor a historical treatise, it nevertheless may, and generally does, embrace and use all of these; and it is in the peculiar use made of such material-in the structure and temper of the phraseology by which the use is secured

-that we find what is essentially the sermon. Briefly, the sermon consists in the application of religious truth directly, and that of any other quality of availible truth collaterally, to the human conscience, affections, and will; the purpose always being to induce holiness of life. Now expository, argumentative, and disquisitionary efforts appeal directly to the understanding, and may be entirely successful-successful in producing conviction, which is their only direct purpose-without moving the conscience to penitence for guilt, or to one holy resolve. Or if these good results follow, they come indirectly, and not as the special end in view. But conviction in the understanding is not the special or direct purpose of the sermon. If indeed, as may be and frequently is the case, such conviction is aimed at, it is sought only as intermediate, and not as the ultimate and particular end-only as an instrument, and not as the final object in view. Any enforcement of the truth, any assault upon error, any elucidation of a religious principle, which does appeal directly to the conscience, purposing to induce holiness of life, is not preaching is not sermonizing.

Now it is impossible for any man to preach mechanically-sermons cannot be made. Only as "moved by the spirit" can a sermon, truly such, come from any soul. The truth which the preacher would apply to the guilty conscience, purposing to awaken repentance, cannot be taken, in its dry and abstract form, from the pages of a book, and immediately put to its divine use. No, it must, first of all," become flesh"-must become a pervading ingredient of the preacher's life-must, in him, become a living truth. In the appropriating of truth to its holy work, the preacher cannot "live from hand to mouth," cannot set himself to the task of selecting the matter he would immediately use. The process of masticating and digesting the truth, of absorbing it into the soul's very identity, is always the preliminary condition of producing a genuine sermon. To preach truth-that is, to develope it into a sermon-the preacher must be the truth. Then he speaks out of the abundance of his heart; the regenerating word leaping from his soul smites the guilty conscience. Indeed, it is the truth itself that speaksthe truth seizing the man, and using his life, his thought

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