Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

shine nor burn. He who wishes to save souls must both burn and shine:
the clear light of the sacred records must fill his understanding; and the
holy flame of loving zeal must occupy his heart. Zeal without knowledge
is continually blundering; and knowledge without zeal makes no converts
to Christ.
Never take a text which you do not fully understand; and make it a
point of conscience to give the literal meaning of it to the people: this is
a matter of great and solemn importance. To give God's words a different
meaning to what he intended to convey by them, or to put a construction
upon them which we have not the fullest proof he has intended, is awful
indeed!
Never appear to contradict the Holy Spirit by what is called treating a
subject negatively and positively. Seldom take a very short text. Never
take a text which, out of its proper connection, can mean nothing. I would
most solemnly guard you against what is termed fine or flowery
preaching. I do not mean preaching in elegant, correct, and dignified
language; as every thing of this kind is quite in place, when employed in
proclaiming and illustrating the records of our salvation; but I mean a
spurious birth, which endeavours to honour itself by this title. Some
preachers think they greatly improve their own discourses by borrowing
the fine sayings of others; and when these are frequently brought forward
in the course of a sermon, the preacher is said to be a flowery preacher.
Such flowers, used in such a way, bring to my remembrance the custom
in some countries of putting full-blown roses, or sprigs of rosemary,
lavender, and thyme, in the hands of the dead, when they are put in their
coffins.
But the principal fault in this kind of preaching is the using a vast
number of words long and high sounding, to which the preacher himself
appears to have fixed no specific ideas, and which are often foreign, in
the connection in which he places them, to the meaning which they
radically convey.