LECTURES

HISTORY OF PREACHING.

JOHN A. BROADUS, D.D., LL.D.,

PROF. IN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, GREENVILLE, S. C. AUTHOR OF “A TREATISE ON THE PREPARATION AND DELIVERY OF SERMONS.”

NEW YORK:

SHELDON & COMPANY,

No. 8 MURRAY STREET.

1879.

PREFACE
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These lectures were delivered at the Newton Theological Institution, near Boston, in May last. I had been requested to discuss subjects connected with Homiletics, and the place of delivery was the lecture-room of the church. It was therefore necessary that the lectures should be popular in tone, and should abound in practical suggestions. Under such circumstances, I could not fail to perceive the difficulty of treating, in four or five lectures, so vast a subject as the History of Preaching. For this history is interwoven with the general history of Christianity, which itself belongs inseparably to the history of Civilization. Yet I greatly desired to develop, however imperfectly, the leading ideas involved in the history of preaching; to show what causes brought about the prosperity of the pulpit at one time and its decline at another; to indicate the great principles as to preaching which are thus taught us. I trust that my attempt may be of service to those who have never made any survey of this wide field, and may stimulate some persons to study particular portions of it with thoroughness, and thus gradually to fill up the gap which here exists in English religious literature.

The principal helps which are accessible, chiefly in other languages, are mentioned in the Appendix. While using them with diligence, I have scarcely ever simply borrowed their statements, and in such cases have always indicated the fact. Where not giving the results of my own study and teaching in the past, I have sought to test by personal examination the ideas and critical judgments of others, before adopting them. At some points my knowledge has of necessity been quite limited. If errors have arisen as to matter of fact, I shall esteem it a favor to have them pointed out. As regards the merits of particular preachers, there is of course much room for difference of opinion. The sketches of eminent preachers are usually very slight, but it could not be otherwise if space was to be saved for general ideas and for practical hints.

Some further explanations will be found at the beginning and end of the closing lecture.

The kind reception given to the lectures at Newton by a general audience of ladies and gentlemen, as well as by the Faculty and Students, has led me to hope that they may find readers who are not ministers, but who take interest in preaching, in Christianity, in history.

God grant that the little volume may be of some real use.

Greenville, S. C., Oct., 1876.

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Specimens of Preaching in the Bible

Design of the lectures

Our Lord as a Preacher

Relation to the common mind

Use of paradox and hyperbole

Preaching in the Early Christian Centuries

As scholar and teacher

General remarks, as to entrance on the ministry

A Theological Seminary

As to Christian classics

Blank after Chrysostom and Augustine

Medieval and Reformation Preaching

Reasons for attention to Medieval Preaching

Dominicans and Franciscans

Why all in twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Reformation Preaching

A revival of preaching

A revival of Biblical and expository preaching

Of controversial preaching

Of preaching upon the doctrines of grace

Contrast between Luther and Calvin

Yet both great preachers

Calvin as a commentator and a preacher

Luther as a preacher

Personality in preaching

Anabaptist preachers, viz,

Use of printing to aid preaching

The Great French Preachers

Prosperity of France

An age of great intellectual activity

Of elegant general literature

Excellence of the French language

Catholics stimulated by the Reformed and by the Jansenists

The king’s penchant for eloquent preaching

Fashionable to admire pulpit eloquence

Low stage of the Catholic pulpit before Bossuet

Able Reformed preachers before Bossuet, viz.

Decline of the French pulpit in the eighteenth century

Eloquent French preachers in the nineteenth century

Certain faults of the great French preachers

Letter from M. Bersier

Decline after the Reformation

Revival in the next century

Threatened decline in the eighteenth century

Atterbury, Watts, Doddridge

Recent English preachers

Expository Preachers

Importance of reading old books

Suggestions for the future, viz.

As to Physical Science and Theology

Reaction from skepticism

Humanitarian and liberal tendencies

Freedom as to methods of preaching