The Press.
London, England, 1856-10-04 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

ourselves doubtful of the utility of the present
publication. Mr. Neale's design is to hold up
as a pattern to modern preachers the practical,
homely, and at the same time impassioned,
addresses delivered to their flocks by the
clergy of the middle ages ; and he is no doubt
right in believing that the pulpit oratory of
the present day is deficient in the power
of awakening the conscience and stimulating
devotion. The question is, whether this de-
feet be solely attributable to the clergy them-
selves, or whether it springs from the altered
conditions of both the Church and society in
the nineteenth century. We ourselves believe
rather in the latter. There arc indeed two
simple and well-known reasons why this
should be so ; for in the first place the autho-
rity of the Church is weakened, and in the
second the efficacy of all oral teaching is con-
siderably diminished. When a preacher felt
that all his audience believed implicitly in
heaven and hell, not as vague abstractions,
but in the real and vivid shapes which they
assumed in former times, and believed also
that he himself held the keys of admission,—
when priest and people alike felt as convinced
of these things as of their own existence, a
tone of fervour and passionate exhortation
was to be expeoted which we desiderate in
vain now. At the present day even the
poorest audience is critical; and that is a
difficulty which wo believe no preacher can
ever fully overcome. In the second place,
libraries and tract societies have in great
measure cut the preacher's ground from under
him—just as pamphlets and blue-books, and
the Quarterly and the newspapers, have super-
seded the oratory of statesmen. We should
apologise to our readers for the triteness of
these observations, were it not that their
application to the tone of our modern sermons
seems to be generally overlooked. Mr. Neale,
for instance, is inclined to insinuate that the
Reformation was one great cause of the evil
complained of. But the Reformation itself
arose from those very same causes which were
beginning to reduce men's emotions under the
control of reason.

On tho whole, the English Church seems to
have done fairly. The preachers of the last
century, notwithstanding their stilts and
polish, accomplished, by Mr. Neale's admis-
sion, what the fervid and sublime eloquence
of Massillon and his school failed to accom
plish in France,—namely, the preservation of
the national belief in revealed religion. A
hundred years ago religious observances were
fashionable ; the beaus went to church ; Top-
ham Beauclero had a large collection of
sermons in his library. But men of this
stamp would have smiled at the homely vehe-
mence of the n:lediteval preacher, and would
have admired Massillon as they admired Gar-
rick: neither would have touched their hearts.
The calm, logical arguments and elegant style
of Sherlock and Jortin were more really useful
perhaps under these conditions than any other
method which could have been adopted.
These are Mr. Neale's own words :
Now there can be no doubt that there was some excuse
for this style of preaching in the last century. When the
state of religious, or rather irreligious, feeling was such
that a divine. by no means disposed to take a gloomy view
of things, could say, " It seems to be now generally assumed
by mankind that the Christian religion is an imposition
which it was left to this age to expose," it might be neces-
sary, even on the highest festival, to say something in
proof of the fact, before anything was added of a more
edifying nature. He that cometh to God, must believe
that He is, before he can believe anything further with
regard to His doings. And so in a fashionable congrega-
tion, as it was a hundred years ago, when Archbishop
Potter, or Bishop Lavington, or Archdeacon Paley, or Dr.
Jortin was to preach, when the pews of the then new
church of St. George's, Bloomsbury, or the still aristocratic
place of worship at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, were crowded
to excess, and ladies were obliged to slide their hoops over
one shoulder, in order to make room, just at the time
when Lord Chesterfield was going out of fashion, and Dr.
Blair was coming in, it might be necessary to prove to the
worshippers on an Eastcr-dsy, or a Whitsun-day, that the
Resurrection was not altogether incredible, and that the
Descent of the Holy Ghost was within the bounds of
possibility. For we must never forget that, however
lowering and debasing was this constant struggle against
infidelity,—however much it might be impossible to touch
pitch without being defiled ( so that Douglas, the defender of
Scripture miracles, based his argument on • foundation
which destroyed all ethers, and even Leslie's celebrated
criterion of their truth defends only one not recorded in
the Bible), still the work which the Church of England
then had to do—to defend revelation—was done, and was
done effectually. If we compare the state of the French

953

and English Churches at the beginning and at the con•
elusion of the eighteenth century, we shall find that with all
her great preachers, her Massillon, and her Bossuets, and
her Bourdaloues, the former failed, where the latter through
the mercy of God succeeded. But that what the miserable
condition of the last century rendered necessary should bo
carried on by a dry tradition into this—that every festival
should be made a lesson in evidences, and seasons of the
highest joy ushered in by a decoction of Paley or Lardncr,
is a disgrace from which we ought more thoroughly to
have freed ourselves than is at present the case.

We bow to Mr. Neale's larger experience. Yet
we had not thought this was the prevailing
character of sermons at the present day.
We have been fortunate enough not to hear
very many of these decootions of Paley and
Lardner.

How far the selections which Mr. Neale has
published are adapted for imitation by modern
preachers a clergyman must be able to judge
better than ourselves. To us they certainly
seem too full of allegory and far-fetched allu-
sions to be useful for a country congregation.
We have not space for many extracts. We
therefore select two from the sermons of St.
Antony of Padua, " one of the most effective
" and popular preachers of the middle ages "

This is the fleet of Solomon, which through the sea of
this world goes to Tarshish, that is, to those who search
out the joy of this world that they may rejoice in it. By
the gold, is set forth human wisdom ; by the silver, philo•
sophic wisdom ; by the elephant's teeth, doctors who
masticate that strong food, the Word of God, for little
ones. By the apes, that imitate human actions, but live
like beasts, we understand those who have come from
among the Gentiles to the faith, and seem to hold it in
word, but deny it in deed. By the peacocks, whose flesh,
if it be dried, is said to remain imperishable, and who are
vested with beautiful feathers, are signified perfect men,
who are so tried by the tire of tribulation, that they are
decorated and painted with various virtues. These are
brought from Tarshish, that is, from the various waves of
the sea of this world, by the preachers of the Church, to
the true Solomon, Jesus Christ.
• • • • • • •

Natural historians tell us that the smaller bees are the
better workers. They have subtle wings, and their colour
is black, and as it were sunburnt; but the handsomer bees
are of the number of those who do nothing. The small
bees are penitents, who are little in their own eyes, and
are always employed about some work, lest the devil should
come and find their house empty and idle. They also have
subtle wings, which are contempt of the world, and love of
the heavenly kingdom ; by which, elevating themselves
from this earth, they more subtilly contemplate the glory
of God. They are also of a dark colour ' • whence, iu the
first of Canticles, the penitent soul saith, " I am black ,
but c0u1d....

Penitents ought to do as the bees, who, when their king
flies from the hive, fly with him, and crowd closely round
him,—he in the middle, and they on every side ; and when
the king can fly no longer, the company of bees carries
him ; and if he dies, they all die together with him .
Christ, our King, flew to us from the hive,—that is to say,
from the bosom of the Father. Whom we ought to follow
like good bees, and to fly with Him, and to place Him,
that is, His faith, in the midst of us,—that is, in our
hearts. And if any one of His members shall have fallen
into sin, we ought to support and ►o bear Him up, and to
die with Christ crucified and dying, crucifying our own flesh,
with its affections and lasts.

Their familiarity with scriptural language—
another point very strongly put forward by
Mr. Neale—is certainly a recommendation
with these old preachers. We think that with
a poor congregation this is a quality that tells
very much.
The volume contains selections from the
sermons of twenty-one medieval preachers,
commencing with Venerable Bede (ob. 735),
and ending with Antonio Vieyra (ob. 1697).
Though we do not think these extracts likely
to be profitable for theological purposes, they
are interesting and curious from a literary
point of view, as showing the characteristics
qualities of divines whose reputation survives,
though but few readers have even the slight-
est acquaintance with their works.