Plain Sermons, preached at Archbishop Tenison's Chapel, Regent Street. Second Series

by James Galloway Cowan

Whichever was the case, whether Ezekiel only expected, or actually experienced this treatment, we are sure that it was not wholly on account of special obscurities which veiled the matters he had to declare, nor on account of any special deafness and hardness of heart which belonged to that people. For every Christian teacher has had reason to anticipate, has actually endured the like from Christian congregations.

Often and often in preparing for the pulpit, is the preacher tempted to set aside some important theme, to withhold some wonderful truth, to forbear even to suggest some glorious consolation, because he believes that in uttering it, he will not have the ears, or, if he has the ears, he will not have the minds of his hearers; that they will not understand his saying; and so, of course, will not receive it. Often and often, too, when having used the full liberty of a Christian prophet and whatever ability God has given him, of simplifying to the utmost, and recommending with all his energy, the Gospel message, he is constrained to feel, he is made, perhaps, by men’s open speech to know, that he is regarded as the setter-forth of unmeaning, extravagant, or inapplicable words. Of course, this charge is not always unfounded. We are not inspired: we often speak our own words; our minds may not have rightly conceived the subject we would discuss, or we may be wanting in ability to express clearly what we understand. Under various influences we do, too, at times speak more or less extravagantly, and our knowledge and discretion are not so complete, that we invariably select what is precisely suited to our hearers. In such cases, we ought to expect, we have no right to complain of, the rejection, the disregard, or the fruitlessness of our preaching. But, brethren, when we are sure that the fault lies not in the preacher, when he has taken pains to enter into and reveal the mind of the Spirit, to teach what he knows God would have you understand and believe, to urge what he knows God would have you do, to describe and recommend what he knows God would have you love and seek—when he has done this, and you receive not his words, excusing yourselves by saying that he is obscure, or over-strict, or fanciful, or enthusiastic, or anything else—oh! then has he not a right to complain to God? yea; and is it not his duty to remonstrate with you? Brethren, we charge not such as you who are here assembled with the wilfulness of Ezekiel’s hearers. In you we do not suppose there is any actual unbelief, or deliberate dislike of the truth. It is not forced in your case upon unwilling ears: for you come to hear it. It is not rejected because you hate it. Nevertheless, we have somewhat against many of you of Ezekiel’s complaint, respecting your treatment of the read or preached Word of God.

We have to complain, brethren, that many of you are under the mistaken notion that you have almost a right to select the preacher’s theme, at least to dictate its mode of treatment; and that if your right is disregarded, then you are justified in excusing yourselves for not profiting or heeding. Bear with me, beloved. Is it not the case, that you sometimes find fault with the subject of the sermon? You do not want to hear so much about man’s depravity: you do not like the preacher to make such a point of observing religious ordinances: what a high standard of morality he sets up; how strict is the holiness he describes; why will he discourse of the horrors of hell? So, again, of the manner of treatment. You do not care for argument; you cannot enter upon theories; you are weary of quotations of historical illustrations; the style is too florid, or too bald: it is poetical; or it is commonplace; or somehow it is not what you like; and therefore—I would not say you turn away from it, but you do not try, as much as you ought, to heed it; and you excuse yourselves for not improving under it by blaming the preacher.

The fact is, there is too often a great forgetfulness of the fact, that when the preacher speaks to you it is your part to be as listeners and learners of God. It is not for you to choose the subjects, nor to dictate the method of teaching. It is true, perhaps, that your taste and aptitude are greater for some subjects than others: it is true that you are more easily enlightened, and impressed, and influenced in some ways than in others. It is natural, and I would not say it is wrong, for you to prefer those subjects and ways; but be sure nevertheless, that it is the very contrary of wisdom and humility, of reverence for God, of regard for duty and interest, not to give the most earnest heed to whatever God says to you through His servant, to dare to treat it lightly, because either of the topic or the way of handling it. When a message comes to you from God, surely it is no reason for not receiving it, that you would prefer a message about something else! And if the diction in which that message is clothed is hard or distasteful to you, while you may lament it, may ask for an explanation, may solicit consideration for your taste, or help in overcoming your distaste, you may not on any account disregard what has been said. The word gone forth shall not return. Where the seed has been sown, increase shall be expected. The day is coming, when all your opportunities and means of knowing God’s will, and all your incentives to serve Him, shall be taken account of by Him Who has afforded them, and then shall the worst preacher, the most apparently obscure and inapplicable sermon you ever heard be a witness for or against you, to testify what regard you had for God’s message, what humility, what teachableness, what readiness to receive and to do what was clear, what anxious diligence and pains to understand what was obscure.

Brethren, you may choose what subjects you will hear discussed in the secular lecture-hall, and if you do not like the entertainment you may refuse to be entertained by it, and resolve to hear no more of it, to dismiss it altogether from your thoughts. But you do not come to church to be entertained; you have no option there of selecting or rejecting. It is your misfortune (though it may be his fault) if the preacher does not interest you, or the sermon immediately commend itself to your mind, and to your heart; but, being there, you must hear whatever is said, and however it is said; and having heard, be sure you must give account to God of the hearing! Settle this in your minds, impress yourselves with the solemn authority of the preacher, and with the importance and responsibility of heeding him, and it will be very seldom that you will object even in thought, “Doth he not speak parables?”

But there are particular complaints, about which I would say a few words specially.

First, there is a complaint against the preaching of mysterious and profound truths. If the preacher dwells upon such a subject as the Incarnation of Christ, the nature of Christ’s presence with His Church, of the Spirit’s indwelling, or the rationale of the efficacy of the means of grace; or if he attempts to explain any difficult text, no matter what pains he may take to simplify the subject, how he may labour to show its importance and to recommend its consideration, he is met at once with the objection that he speaks parables, and so with a tacit refusal to heed. “Why puzzle one’s brains,” it is urged, “with such matters, when there are so many simple themes and easy lessons in the Gospel. I cannot understand such things. They are too profound. The preaching of them may be clever, but it is thrown away upon me. I do not want to work and task my mind, but to warm my feelings.” Such is the reward the preacher often gets for taking unusual pains to edify his hearers! Such is the wilful, the determined ignorance of many of God’s people respecting those truths, the understanding of which most concerns them, and honours Him. It ought to be sufficient to correct these unwise and unwilling, to remind them that whatever God has revealed He requires to be accepted, and that as there can be no acceptance of that which is not understood, it is a foremost duty of the Christian preacher and the Christian learner to employ themselves in the solution of Scripture difficulties, and the comprehension of revealed mysteries. Such objectors do not intend it, but they grievously slight God when they refuse to heed so much of His teaching, yea, they even cast a slur upon His wisdom in striving to teach what, according to them, cannot be learnt. And are they not unjust to themselves? Have they really such narrow and shallow understandings, so impossible to widen and deepen? Would they confess to such incapacity if they were listening to a scientific lecture? would they complain if the lecturer introduced them to new facts, showed them fresh experiments, suggested to them explanatory theories, sought to make them wiser than they were? Would they shut their ears at the sound of the first new term: would they shrink back at the first invitation to tread upon unfamiliar ground; would they protect themselves against being enlightened, by claiming to be hopelessly ignorant? Would they not rather make the most of the opportunity, opening ear and stretching mind to catch all they could, finding pleasure in being carried beyond and above themselves, resenting indignantly a hint that the thing was out of their reach, professing, somewhat ostentatiously pretending a greater delight and fuller understanding than they really had? O why is it the fashion to claim to be so wise in secular matters, to boast of ignorance in religion? It is well, indeed, that men should not sham to be wise in God’s presence, but it is ill, very ill, that they sham to be ignorant, or that they should be content to be ignorant when they might be wise, ignoring and disowning the powers which God has given them!

Take these remarks, dear brethren, into your serious consideration. Remember that God has given you intelligent minds, in order that you might think of and serve Him with understanding. Much, indeed, about Him is absolutely incomprehensible; much has He designedly withheld; before many mysteries, has He put up the warning, “Draw not nigh hither;” but much has He told you plainly, and much has He propounded in sufficiently obscure or difficult terms, to task and exercise your minds in their necessary unravelling. With respect to these things, as it is only by much resistance that you can withstand the temptations to which you are exposed; as it is only by great efforts that you can acquire the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord, so is it, only by real and often hard study, that you can attain unto the knowledge of which God has made you capable, and in which He bids you grow. The elementary, the vitally necessary truths of the Gospel are, it may be, within the immediate comprehension of the simplest and most uncultivated understanding; but shall it, therefore, be said to you, shall you be allowed to say of yourselves, that you need not be concerned about anything beyond? Would you be satisfied if you had only so much secular education as would enable you to spell out sign-post directions? Would it be no reproach to you, having so many faculties and opportunities, only to be able to read and count? Would you miss nothing of duty, of interest, of pleasure, if your intellect were uncultivated, if you were wholly unacquainted and totally unable to appreciate arts and sciences, poetry, music, literature, or any facts or theories not connected with your worldly calling, not necessary to procure your daily bread? Would not life be irksome and intolerable, if held only on such terms? Would you not be ashamed of attempting to hold it on these terms? Would you not consider that you were robbing yourselves of all that was worth having? Would you not admit that you had missed and ignored your high calling, your power to be enlightened and wise beings, and had sunk shamelessly and guiltily to the level, below the level—for he answers the end of his creation—of the irrational brute? And shall you who feel such shame for worldly ignorance, shall you who make such efforts to gain secular knowledge, who are ever widening your minds, and storing up in them as much as they will hold, who delight in growing wiser and more learned, who will study unwearily, and exercise all your intellect, and consume I know not what time, in unravelling the worthless mystery of some enigmatical line in a poem of fiction—shall you contentedly pass over the difficulties, and remain ignorant of the mysteries which meet you in nearly every verse of the Word of God? Shall you be otherwise than glad and attentive when the preacher draws your attention to them? Shall you even unfairly and ungratefully charge him with speaking parables, when he is really explaining parables?

Dear brethren, it is rarely that the public preacher, who has to take thought for the simpler ones of the flock, can enlarge upon profound truths. When he does, take care that you make the most of the rare occurrence, and compensate for the forbidden frequency, by diligent private study, by ready use of that individual aid which the clergyman is as rejoiced, as he is bound, to afford you. Acquaint yourselves now, as far as may be, with God, and the things of God. Furnish yourselves with the answer, the want of which was such a reproach to Nicodemus, to the question—“How can these things be?” Show, at least, as much interest in salvation, in sanctification, in heaven, in eternal bliss, as will lead you to inquire what they are, and require, and promise. Get now the germ of that knowledge, which is to expand hereafter albut to an infinite grasp, and is to revel in spiritual science. Cast away the reproach of knowing not; provide against the doom which awaits him that improves not the talents entrusted him: “From him that hath not, shall be taken away even that he seemeth to have.”

There is another class of objectors—to another kind of preaching. Those, namely, who resist the force of plain exhortations to repentance, self-denial, submission, obedience, holiness, and the like; by persuading themselves that the preacher urges these severely and unduly. Doth he not speak parables, they say, exaggerating—describing ideal duties? Surely, what he urges is not the thing really required of us; surely, if we escape not with impunity, yet some allowance will be made for our want of it. Would he bring in all guilty? Would he cross every delight and desire of our life? Would he expect us so to subdue the spirit, so to overcome natural impatience, as never to resent, to shrink, to murmur? Must obedience be so uncompromising, so constant, so perfect, to be obedience at all? Is holiness so imperatively necessary? Surely the preacher is unreasonable, he is extravagant, he speaks parables. These objectors are easily answered. In this matter no teaching of our own can be more explicit, more exacting, more positive, and more unsparing, than that of the New Testament. When we enforce these things, we are backed by an authority which cannot be questioned; and are able to prove that our words are those of soberness and truth. “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” “Whosoever doth not this, cannot be my disciple.” “Whosoever loveth me, keepeth my commandments.” “If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema maranatha.” “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” Are these words parables, are they untrue, figurative, extravagant? And if not, what that we say, or can say, on this head, may be resisted or slighted, under the plea, that is a parable?