In some cases this disposition of parts is quite easy. A course indicated by the very nature of the subject will spring into view, and relieve us of further embarrassment. But often this portion of our task will require severe thought.
Many different kinds of plans have been specified by writers on Homiletics. We will be contented with four divisions, based on the mode of construction.
The first, we may call the narrative method. It is principally used when some scripture history forms the basis of the sermon. In it the different parts of the plan are arranged according to the order of time, except when some particular reason, borrowed from the other methods, intervenes. When there are few or none of these portions which give it a composite character, the development proceeds with all the simplicity of a story. Many beautiful sermons have been thus constructed.
A second method is the textual. Each part of the sermon rests on some of the words or clauses of the text, and these suggest the order of its unfolding, although they may be changed to make it correspond more nearly to the narrative, or the logical methods. This kind of plan has an obvious advantage in assisting the memory by suggesting each part at the proper time.
The logical method is the third we will describe. A topic is taken, and without reference to the order of time or the words of the text, is unfolded as a proposition in Geometry—each thought being preliminary to that which follows, and the whole ending in the demonstration of some great truth, and the deduction of its legitimate corollaries. This method is exceedingly valuable in many cases, if not pressed too far.
The last method, and the one employed more frequently than all the others, is the divisional. It is the military arrangement, for in it the whole sermon is organized like an army. All the detached items are brought into related groups, each governed by a principal thought, and these again are held in strict subordination to the supreme idea; or, to change the figure, the entire mass resembles a tree, with its single trunk, its branches subdivided into smaller ones, and all covered with a beautiful robe of leaves, that rounds its form into graceful outlines, even as the flow of words harmonizes our prepared thoughts, into the unity of a living discourse.
A subject will many times arrange itself almost spontaneously into several different parts, which thus form the proper divisions, and these again may be easily analyzed into their subdivisions. Even when this is not the case, we will see, as we examine our jottings, that a few of the ideas stand out in especial prominence, and with a little close study of relations and affinities, all the others may be made to group themselves around these. The individual ideas which we put down on the first study of the subject, usually form the subdivisions, and some generalization of them the divisions.
It is well not to make the branches of a subject too numerous, or they will introduce confusion, and fail to be remembered. From two to four divisions, with two or three subdivisions under each, are in a majority of cases better than a larger number. The tendency to multiply them almost infinitely, which was formerly very prevalent, and is still too common, receives a merciless, but well-deserved rebuke from Stephens, in his “Preaching Required by the Times.” He is criticising a popular “Preacher’s Manual”:
“These more than six hundred pages are devoted exclusively to the technicalities of sermonizing. We almost perspire as we trace down the tables of contents. Our eye is arrested by the ‘divisions’ of a subject—and here we have no less than ‘nine kinds of divisions:’ the ‘Exegetical Division,’ the ‘Accommodational Division,’ the ‘Regular Division,’ the ‘Interrogative Division,’ the ‘Observational Division,’ the ‘Propositional Division,’ etc.; and then come the ‘Rise from Species to Genus,’ the ‘Descent from Genus to Species.’ And then again we have exordiums: ‘Narrative Exordiums,’ ‘Expository Exordiums,’ ‘Argumentative Exordiums,’ ‘Observational Exordiums,’ ‘Applicatory Exordiums,’ ‘Topical Exordiums,’ and, alas for us! even ‘Extra-Topical Exordiums.’ One’s thoughts turn away from a scene like this spontaneously to the Litany, and query if there should not be a new prayer there.
“But this is not all. Here are about thirty stubborn pages to tell you how to make a comment on your text, and we have the ‘Eulogistic Comment’ and the ‘Dislogistic Comment,’ (turn to your dictionary, reader; we cannot stop in the race to define), ‘Argumentative Comment’ and the ‘Contemplative Comment,’ the ‘Hyperbolical Comment,’ the ‘Interrogative Comment,’ and the list tapers off at last with what it ought to have begun and ended with, the ‘Expository Comment.’