“Reading approved sermons is generally supposed to be preaching the Gospel. If this were really so, we need but look out some schoolboy of tolerable capacity; and, after instructing him to read, with proper emphasis and gesture, the sermons of Tillotson, Sherlock, or Saurin, we shall have made him an excellent minister of the Word of God. But, if preaching the Gospel is to publish among sinners that repentance and salvation, which we have experienced in ourselves, it is evident that experience and sympathy are more necessary to the due performance of this work, than all the accuracy and elocution that can possibly be acquired.
“When this sacred experience and this generous sympathy began to lose their prevalence in the Church, their place was gradually supplied by the trifling substitutes of study and affectation. Carnal prudence has now for many ages solicitously endeavoured to adapt itself to the taste of the wise and the learned. But, while ‘the offence of the cross’ is avoided, neither the wise nor the ignorant are effectually converted.
“In consequence of the same error, the ornaments of theatrical eloquence have been sought after, with a shameful solicitude. And what has been the fruit of so much useless toil? Preachers, after all, have played their part with much less applause than comedians; and their curious auditories are still running from the pulpit to the stage, for the purpose of hearing fables repeated with a degree of sensibility, which the messengers of truth can neither feel, nor feign.”
For want of space, further extracts from Fletcher’s invaluable, but neglected, book cannot be given here. Those, however, already presented deserve attention. Though written a hundred years ago, they are sadly appropriate to the state of things at the present day.
As already stated, both “La Grace et la Nature,” and the “Portrait of St. Paul,” were written in the French language, a strong presumptive proof that he intended to publish both of them in his native country. So far as the “Portrait of St. Paul” is concerned, that intention was not fulfilled.
[496]. The bridge across the Severn, at Coalbrook Dale, regarded as one of the wonders of the age.
[497]. Voltaire’s “Henriade,” printed in London in 1726, was dedicated to the Queen of George I.
[498]. “An Essay on the Peace of 1783,” also written in French, and now incorporated with “La Grace et la Nature.”
[499]. The title, in French, was “La Louange.”