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LECTURE VIII.

UNITY.

WHEN the preacher has ascertained the sense of his text, and, after a proper exordium, has placed his subject distinctly before his hearers, he must proceed in some method to elucidate and apply this subject. The next thing that comes regularly to be considered in the structure of sermons, is division. Many persons appear to object to divisions, especially to regular and explicit divisions, in a sermon ;--because, as it is said, they are inconsistent with unity. This objection is not merely the offspring of a fastidious or fanciful taste; it has been made by men of respectable name. The Archbishop of Cambray, whose judgment is entitled to high regard, says-There remains no true unity after such divisions; seeing they make two or three discourses which are joined into one, only by an arbitrary connexion.' And Bishop Burnet, himself an excellent preacher, recommends that a sermon should have one head and only one, well stated and fully set out.'

The canons of rhetoric invariably require unity, not only in dramatic and epic poetry, but also in oratory. And every one who has learned his first lessons in sacred eloquence, admits without doubting, that unity is an essential attribute of a good sermon. Now, though the same precision of language is not demanded here, as in the abstract sciences, it is perfectly obvious that men of good sense seem to differ on this subject, because they

have been accustomed to attach no definite meaning to their words. It becomes necessary then to examine the question, what is unity in a sermon? and the importance of this point to our main business, requires that the examination shall be extended through this lecture.

In entering on this subject, let me say, I do not mean by unity that sameness which excludes all interesting variety of thought and illustration in a discourse. If twenty pieces of coin, stamped with the same die, are spread before you, each is so perfectly like the rest, that though you turn them over and over, you see the same object still without variety. If you travel across an extended plain of arid sand, stretching around you in a wide, unchanging scene of barrenness, there too you have oneness without variety. But how soon do you long for a hill, a rivulet, a cottage, a tree, or even a shrub, to relieve you from this intolerable unity of prospect. If you stand on the deck of a ship, in mid-ocean, on the morning of a calm summer's day, you contemplate this vast expanse of waters with emotions of sublimity. But how soon does the eye become weary of a scene, which presents nothing but one immense, unvarying, unmeaning uniformity? Suppose now you sail down a majestic river; here on its banks a flourishing village meets your eye; there a rugged cliff, there cultivated fields, and there a tributary stream rushes down from the neighbouring mountains. Or suppose you travel on a great road leading through a fertile country, interspersed with meadows and forests, with the splendour of wealth, and the simplicity of rustic life. In these cases, the unity of the river or the road, is associated with an interesting variety. You glance at the changing scenery as you pass on, and feel the vivacity which it inspires, without being at all diverted from your chief object.

Now, to apply these illustrations to the purpose in hand. There is a kind of unity in a sermon, which indeed is in no danger of distracting the attention of hearers, by the multiplicity of objects presented. It consists in a constant recurrence of the same thought, attenuated and repeated with undeviating uniformity. The hearers pass on with the preacher, not from one branch of the discourse to another, delighted with the richness of matter and variety of illustration; but from one topic presented again with some trifling changes of representation. The above sort of taste, indeed, does not always deign, in this last particular, to humour the caprice of hearers. It gives them over and over the same favourite thoughts, in the same favourite expressions, and often very consistently completes its claims to their attention, by a favourite monotony in delivery. Nor is this sameness limited to a single discourse of the preacher; it extends, perhaps, through the whole range of his instructions; so that whatever reason the hearers may have to expect a new text, they have the advantage of foreseeing essentially what the sermon will be, from sabbath to sabbath. Now if this is the indispensable quality in sermons which we call unity, it is one, as all will agree, in which it is the province of dulness to excel. But to suppose that our hearers are benefited by such a sameness in the pulpit, is to suppose that when they enter a place of worship, they cease to be men. Correct views on this subject, are to be acquired only by studying the human mind in its general operations. That acute and able writer, the late Professor Brown, in analyzing the philosophy of emotions, has the following remarks which I quote with pleasure, as strengthening the illustrations already given. Even objects that originally excited the highest interest, if long con

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tinued, cease to interest, and soon become painful. Who, that is not absolutely deaf, could sit for a whole day in a music room, if the same air without variation, were begun again in the very instant of its last note? The most beautiful couplet, of the most beautiful poem if repeated to us without intermission, for a very few minutes, would excite more uneasiness than could have been felt from the single recitation of the dullest stanza of the most soporific inditer of rhymes. How weary are we of many of the lines of our best poets, which are quoted to us for ever, by those who read only what others quote. What we admired when we read it first, fatigues and disappoints us, when we meet with it so often; and the author appears to us almost trite and common in his most original images, merely because these images are so very beautiful, as to have become some of the common places of rhetorical selection.

Notwithstanding our certainty that a road without one turn, must lead us to our journey's end, it would be to our mind, and thus indirectly to our body also, which is soon weary when the mind is weary, the most fatiguing of all roads. A very long avenue is sufficiently wearying, even when we see the house that is at the end of it. But what patience could travel for a whole day, along one endless avenue, with perfect parallelism of the two straight lines, and with trees of the same species and height succeeding each other exactly at the same intervals? In a journey like this, there would be the same comfort in being blind, as there would in a little temporary deafness, in the case before imagined of the same unvaried melody, endlessly repeated in the music room. The uniformity of similar trees, at similar distances, would itself be most wearisome. But what we should feel with far more uneasiness, would be the constant dis

appointment of our expectation, that the last tree, which we beheld in the distance, would be the last that would rise upon us; when tree after tree as in mockery of our patience itself, would still present the same dismal continuity of line."

I need not be more particular in applying these illustrations. As men are constituted, they demand variety in intellectual subjects, as well as in material. And the preacher of good sense, will never be anxious to attain that unity in his public instructions, which excludes a proper variety.

What then is the unity so important to be observed in the composition of a sermon? I answer, it requires that the sermon should be,

In the first place, ONE IN SUBJECT.

It will be unnecessary to dwell on this point, farther than to explain my meaning. The preacher may have but one chief subject in his eye, and yet manage so unskilfully as by way of preparatory remark, to suggest a number of distinct subjects, which will preoccupy the attention of the hearers, and leave a divided impression on their minds. This is especially liable to be the case, when a sermon commences with critical discussions, extended to some length. As an example of this fault, I mention Claude's plan on the text, Acts ii. 27. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." The subject is, the resurrection of Christ. Before entering on this, however, he would discuss two other points. In the first place, he would show that the language of the Psalmist, quoted in the text, was correctly understood by St. Peter, as referring to Christ. In the second place, he would refute the opinion of the Romish Church respecting Christ's descent into what they call limbus patrum,' as

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