THE ART OF PREACHING 747-1 939 THE ART OF PREACHING A Practical Survey of Preaching in the Church of England 747-1939 BY CHARLES SMYTH FELLOW AND DEAN OF CHAPEL. CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE. CAMBRIDGE: HON. CANON OF DERBY "There is a particular art of Preaching, to which if Ministers did more seriously apply themselves, it would extremely facilitate that service, making it both more easie to us, & more profitable to others." BISHOP WILKINS, Ecclesiastes, or the gift of Preaching. (lst edtn. 1646. p. I.) " Instruction relative to the Composition of Sermons is of great importance, not only to Ministers, but, eventuall)', to the community at large. And it were much to be wished that more regard were paid to this in the education of those who are intended for the ministry." The Rev. CHARLES SIMEON, Horae Homileticae. (vol. i. 1832, Preface. P. v.) LONDON SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.2 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY First published in 1940 MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN VIRO ADMODUM REVERENDO REGINALD SOMERSET WARD SACERDOTI ANIMARUMQUE CURATORI CUIUS OFFICIIS DEUS EX CLEMENTIA SUA IN ME BENEFICIA MULTA CONTULIT PREFACE THIS little work makes but few pretensions to what is called ' original research.' Anyone who has ever put this sort of book together knows how the thing is done. My indebtedness to the researches of Professor Owst, of Father Charland, O.P., and of Mr. Fraser Mitchell of the Univer­ sity of Reading, is undisguised, and I sincerely hope that it is obvious. On the other hand, I think that this book may claim a little credit for originality of treatment. Its terms of reference are other than those of previous investigators of the history of preaching. It studies the sermon litera­ ture of the period, not in order to illuminate the history of English literature or of English eloquence or of English social history, but in order to illuminate the past history and the present problems of the Ministry of the Word in England. Secondly, the period covered-747-I939-is, I think, a longer period than has been reviewed by any of those scholars to whose work I am so much indebted. Therefore, although this survey of preaching in the Church of England can hardly claim to have broken new ground, it can, I believe, claim to have driven a longer furrow than has previously been driven in this field. The nucleus of the book is a course of four Lent Lectures to Clergy given at Sion College in I939 on the invitation of the President, the late Reverend F. G. Masters, Rector of St. Mary Abchurch. Mr. Masters, who will be remembered chiefly for his work on the Central Readers' Board, was an old member of my College. He was a very good friend to me when I was a curate in London; and, grateful as I am to him for his invitation to give these lectures, I am still more grateful to him for his kindness during those years of my apprenticeship in the parochial ministry. Three of the lectures were afterwards repeated at a Clergy J viii PREFACE School in the Diocese of Derby, where they were very generously received. One of the definite advantages of being a Fellow of a College is that a man in that position finds himself a member of a co-operative Society, and is as such entitled to approach his colleagues, not only for general encouragement, but also for particular assistance whenever his work trespasses across the frontiers of their several departments. Thus, Mr. H. D. P. Lee has very kindly helped me when required with Friar Waleys' Latin, and Mr. P. E. Charvet with Friar Bozon's French; while many of the best things in these pages are due to conversations with the Rev. F. N. Davey. To the Rev. A. M. Ramsey, Vicar of St. Bene't's, I owe many extremely valuable directions regarding the sermon literature of the nineteenth century and after. Among others who have also assisted me by their advice and encouragement I may mention Professor Owst, the Rev. Professor Clement Rogers, the Rev. Dr. A. J. Macdonald, the Rev. F. M. Yglesias, and, of course, my wife. For the imperfections of this book, and for all errors of taste or of judgment, I am alone responsible. I wish also to acknowledge my gratitude to the Staff of the University Library, and in particular to Mr. Pink of the Anderson Room. Finally, I hope that this book may be of use to two classes of readers: to parish priests, and to professional historians; to those who are interested in preaching, and to those who are interested in the history of preaching. Of the two, it is written primarily for the former: and I trust that, for this very reason, it may be the more useful to the latter. For the study of the language of the pulpit is the study of a living language: and a practical survey of Preaching in the Church of England is perhaps the only kind of survey that can meet the practical requirements even of those who are concerned with homiletics only as a branch of literature or of rhetoric. CHARLES SMYTH. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 2I August, I939 SON. "All the men who were ordained with me seemed to think that the faculty of preaching will come to them as a matter of course." FATHER. "Then I pity their congregations. Tom, my dear boy, don't entertain any such delusions. Here and there a man of exceptional genius may preach well from the beginning. Beyond all question, however, the vast majority have to learn this thing. It is one of the dangers of the Church of England that so many don't learn it." CANON TWELLS, Colloquies on Preaching. (2nd edtn. 1889, p. 137.) "Of all the actions of the Christian ministry preaching is the highest, and the test of our reverence for our profession is our performance of the preacher's duty." BISHOP HENSLEY HENSON, Church and Parson in England. (1927, p. 153.) CONTENTS PAGE I. INTRODUCTION I Il. THE MEDIAEVAL PERIOD: I. The Sermon Scheme. 19 Ill. THE MEDIAEVAL PERIOD: 2. The Exemplum 55 IV. THE TRIUMPH OF TILLOTSON 99 V. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 167 Appendix 248 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY • 25° INDEX 253 I INTRODUCTION THE .laity are often telling us how badly so many of the clergy preach: and they sometimes add that that is why they never go to church; thereby ingenuously undermining their authority to pronounce so sharp and so censorious a judgment. Possibly the facts are as stated: possibly they were as stated fourteen years ago, when Archbishop Davidson speaking almost ex cathedra at the Eastbourne Church Con­ gress in October 1925 1 assured us that' Complaints of the inadequacy of our sermons are rife, and the fact of the inadequacy is beyond dispute,' and the late Mr. Drawbridge of the Christian Evidence Society diligently amassed and analysed and tabulated the comments of the Press upon, the Primate's statement and gathered them into a little­ book entitled Futile Sermons. 2 But, great ecclesiastical statesman and administrator though he was, Archbishop Davidson himself, regarded as a preacher, belonged to the worst period of the English pulpit: his brilliant and con­ spicuous talents did not lie in that particular direction, for it is remarkable how trivial and unevangelical his pub­ lished sermons seem to-day: and both the causes which he assigned for the decline of Anglican homiletics, and the remedies which he advised for its revival, appear to be curiously misconceived. Indeed, there is a strong sugges­ tion that it was these criticisms, and in particular the phrase' But, personally, I put among first causes the fact 1 The Official Report of the Church Congress: Eastbourne, 1925. Sermon by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, pp. 3-II (also printed in Occasions: Sermons and Addresses delivered on Days of interest in the life of Church or Nation by Abp. Davidson, 1925. pp. 108-25), esp. pp. 'i-8.-Cf. The Teaching Office of the Church (Report of the Archbishops' First Committee of Inquiry, 1918), p. 9 (Intellectual lVeakness of the Clergy): ' ... Sermons are often without real substance, deficient in intellectual quality, and unable to arouse interest or response in their hearers.' 2 Futile Sermons: Opinions of the Primate and the Press, ed. C. L. Drawbridge (1928). 2 THE ART OF PREACHING that our average Church of England sermons have not kept pace with educational advance or with the average man and woman's wider interest in all sorts of human know­ ledge and world affairs,' that stampeded the Anglican clergy into preaching about Eddington and Jeans: the sort of thing which is now done only by the simpler type of bishop when trying to impress an academic audience. But even if the general level of preaching was so low in 1925, I cannot believe that it is equally low, or lower, in 1939. Without going so far as Dr. Selbie, who protested that 'the ministry and the preaching were never better than they are to-day,' 1 I can conscientiously aver that in my own experience of plain and parochial sermons I have hardly ever heard a really bad sermon, a sermon from which there was no instruction to be gained nor pleasure to be had. Yet it is clear that our sermons might be better than they are if the art of preaching were more studied. You may say that the real trouble is that we are most of us too overworked and too shorthanded, too much engaged in serving tables, to have time to compose fine sermons.