Preaching

"And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit, and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God."
I CORINTHIANS II. 4, 5.

PAUL, in his second epistle to the Corinthians, has expressed himself to the same effect as in the text, in the following words: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit."
In both these passages, the apostle points to a speciality in the work of a Christian teacher, - a something essential to its success, and which is not essential to the proficiency of scholars in the ordinary branches of education, - an influence that is beyond the reach of human power and human wisdom; and to obtain which, immediate recourse must be had, in the way of prayer and dependence, the power of God. Without attempting a full exposition of these different verses, we shall first endeavour to direct your attention to that part of the work of a Christian teacher, which it has in common with any other kind of education; and, secondly, offer a few remarks on the speciality that is adverted to in the text.
I. And here it must be admitted, that, even in the ordinary branches of human learning, the success of the teacher, on the one hand, and the proficiency of the scholars, on the other, are still dependent on the will of God. It is true, that, in this case, we are not so ready to feel our dependence. God is apt to be overlooked in all those cases where He acts with uniformity. Wherever we see what we call the operation of a law of nature, we are apt to shut our eye against the operation of His hand; and faith in the constancy of this law is sure to beget, in the mind, a sentiment of independence on the power and will of the Deity.
Now, in the matters of human education, God acts with uniformity. Let there be zeal and ability on the part of the teacher, and an ordinary degree of aptitude, on the part of the taught, - and the result of their vigorous and well-sustained co-operation may in general be counted upon. Let the parent who witnesses his son's capacity, and his generous ambition for improvement, send him to a well-qualified instructor, and he will be filled with the hopeful sentiment of his future eminence, without any reference to God whatever, - without so much as ever thinking of His purpose or of His agency, in the matter, or its once occurring to him to make the proficiency of his son the subject of prayer. This is the way in which nature, by the constancy of her operations, is made to usurp the place of God: and it goes far to spread and to establish the delusion, when we attend to the obvious fact, that a man of the most splendid genius may be destitute of piety; that he may fill the office of an instructor, with the greatest talent and success, and yet be without reverence for God, and practically disown Him; and that thousands of our youth may issue every year warm from the schools of philosophy, stored with all her lessons, and adorned with all her accomplishments, and yet be utter strangers to the power of godliness, and be filled with an utter distaste and antipathy for its name.
All this helps on the practical conviction, that common education is a business, with which prayer and the exercise of dependence on God have no concern. It is true, that a Christian parent will see through the vanity of this delusion. Instructed to make his requests known unto God in all things, he will not depose Him from the supremacy of His power and of His government over this one thing, - he will commit to God the progress of his son in every one branch of education he may put him to; and, knowing that the talent of every teacher, and the continuance of his zeal, and his powers of communication, and his faculty of interesting the attention of his pupils, - that all these are the gifts of God, and may be withdrawn by Him at pleasure, he will not suffer the regular march and movement of what is visible or created to cast him out of this dependence on the Creator. He will see that every one element which enters into the business of education, and conspires to the result of an accomplished and a well-informed scholar, is in the hand of the Deity; and he will pray for the continuation of these elements: and, while science is raising her wondrous monuments, and drawing the admiration of the world after her, it remains to be seen, on the day of the revelation of hidden things, whether the prayer of the humble and derided Christian, for a blessing on those to whom he has confided the object of his tenderness, have not sustained the vigour and the brilliancy of those very talents on which the world is lavishing the idolatry of her praise.
Let us now conceive the very ablest of these teachers, to bring all his powers and all his accomplishments to bear on the subject of Christianity. Has he skill in the languages? The very same process by which he gets at the meaning of any ancient author, carries him to a fair and a faithful rendering of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. Has he a mind enlightened and exercised on questions of erudition? The very same principles which qualify him to decide on the genuineness of any old publication, enable him to demonstrate the genuineness of the Bible, and how fully sustained it is on the evidence of history. Has he that sagacity and comprehension of talent, by which he can seize on the Leading principles which run through the writings of some eminent philosopher? This very exercise may be gone through on the writings of Inspiration; and the man, who, with the works of Aristotle before him, can present the world with the best system or summary of his principles, might transfer these very powers to the works of the Apostles and Evangelists, and present the world with a just and interesting survey of the doctrines of our faith.

And thus is, that the man who might stand the highest of his fellows in the field of ordinary scholarship, might turn his entire mind to the field of Christianity; and, by the very same kind of talent which would have made him the most eminent of all the philosophers, he might come to be counted the most eminent of all the theologians; and he who could have reared to his fame some monument of literary genius, might now, by the labours of his midnight oil, rear some beauteous and consistent fabric of orthodoxy, strengthened, in all its parts, by one unbroken chain of reasoning, and recommended throughout by the powers of a persuasive and captivating eloquence.

So much for the talents which a Christian teacher may employ, in common with other teachers; and even though they did make up all the qualifications necessary for his office, there would still be a call, as we said before, for the exercise of dependence upon God. Well do we know, that both he and his hearers would be apt to put their faith in the uniformity of nature; and, forgetting that it is the inspiration of the Almighty which giveth and preserveth the understanding of all His creatures, might be tempted to repose that confidence in man, which displaces God from the sovereignty that belongs to Him. But what we wish to prepare you for, by the preceding observations, is, that you may understand the altogether peculiar call that there is is in dependence on God, in the case of a Christian teacher. We have made a short enumeration of those talents which a teacher of Christianity might possess, in common with other teachers; but it is for the purpose of proving that he might possess them all, and heightened to such a degree, if you will, as would have made him illustrious on any other field, and yet be utterly destitute of powers for acquiring himself, or of experience for teaching others, that knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ which is life everlasting.

With the many brilliant and imposing things which he may have, there is one thing which he may not have; and the want of that one thing may form an invincible barrier to his usefulness in the vineyard of Christ. If, conscious that he wants it, he seek to obtain from God the sufficiency which is not in himself, then he is in a likely way of being put in possession of that power, which alone is mighty to the pulling down of strongholds. But if he, on the one hand, proudly conceiving the sufficiency to be in himself, enter with aspiring confidence into the field of argument, and think that he is to carry all before him, by a series of invincible demonstrations; or if his people, on the other hand, ever ready to be set in motion by the idle impulse of novelty, or to be seduced by the glare of human accomplishments, come in trooping multitudes around him, and hang on the eloquence of his lips, or the wisdom of his able and profound understanding, a more unchristian attitude cannot be conceived, nor shall we venture to compute the weekly accumulation of guilt which may come upon the parties, when such a business as this is going on. How little must the presence of God be felt in that place, where the high functions of the pulpit are degraded into a stipulated exchange of entertainment, on the one side, and of admiration, on the other! and surely it were a sight to make angels weep, when a weak and vapouring mortal, surrounded by his fellow-sinners, and hastening to the grave and the judgment along with them, finds it a dearer object to his bosorn, to regale his hearers by the exhibition of himself,- than to do, in plain earnest the work of his Master, and urge on the business of repentance and of faith, by the impressive simplicities of the gospel.