CHAPTER III.

METHOD OF PREACHING ON THE

ATTRIBUTES AND

DIVINE PERFECTIONS OF GOD-EXAMPLES.

E have said that the great Christian truths may be classed, in a general way, under the heads of the divine perfections and attributes of God, the benefits of the Creator to the creature, and the Four Last Things; and we now proceed to consider each of these subjects in detail.

It is the duty of the pastor of souls frequently to speak to his people on the perfections and the attributes of God, and to show them how the principle of all their obligations, and the motives for all the virtues which they are bound to practise, are contained in their proper appreciation of these divine perfections. God is not known! The world wilfully, with more or less of malice, ignores its God, His divine perfections, and unchangeable attributes, and deifies the three-fold concupiscence which it worships in place of its Creator. To this ignorance is to be attributed all the evils which desolate the earth. "With desolation is all the land made desolate, because there is none that considereth in the heart."1 God is not known; and therefore, love grows cold, and malice rears its foul front unblushingly

1 Jer. xii. 11.

Hence it is that Jesus Christ lays down the knowledge of God as the very key to the kingdom of heaven. "Hæc est vita æterna, ut cognoscant Te, solum Deum verum;"1 and hence it is, too, that the zealous pastor will labour unceasingly to make his people know their God; that, knowing Him, they may love and serve Him, and thus gain the end of their creation. The following suggestions will be found practically useful in preaching on these most important subjects :

I. The preacher should use his utmost endeavours to inspire the people with a most elevated idea of the greatness of God, and hence, he should never speak of Him unless with the most profound respect. It is said that the philosopher, Newton, never mentioned the name of God without uncovering his head. Whether we speak professedly of the greatness of God; or whether we only mention Him incidentally in the course of our instruction, we should do so with equal reverence; and this exhibition of reverence and respect on the part of their pastor, will most effectually teach his people to adore their Creator, and to humble themselves before Him, will render them obedient to His commandments, submissive to the decrees of Providence, and respectful towards His adorable name, which they will then fear to employ so lightly, and utter with so little reverence. It is truly painful to walk along the streets of our cities and towns, and to hear the Adorable Name of God bandied about from mouth to mouth, as if it were the name of some mean reptile, instead of the Creator of heaven and earth. It is more painful still,

1 Joan. xvii. 3.

to hear that name so often blasphemed, even by the lips of children, who copy, only too faithfully, the evil example which is set before them by their parents in this respect. This positive blasphemy, this light and unworthy use of His holy name, is an evil which cries aloud to God for vengeance, and an evil which the zealous pastor of souls will ever labour most earnestly to remedy. Hence, as we have just said, he will never use this Holy Name unless with the most profound respect. He will labour to inspire his people with an intimate appreciation of the great truth contained in those words of Holy Writ, Quis ut Deus! He will understand the immense importance of inspiring his people with this sovereign esteem of God, and he will best gain his end by laying before them, in accents animated by faith, and with a demeanour full of reverential love, the Omnipotence, the Greatness, the Holiness, the Eternity of God, and those divine perfections, which are incomprehensible, simply because they are Infinite. He will show them the angels lost in the sense of their own nothingness before the majesty of God. He will tell them of those countless hosts whom St. John saw, prostrate upon their faces in awful adoration before His throne; and he will do all this with such respectful veneration of word and of act, as may most efficaciously inspire his hearers with reverential awe and dread of the infinite majesty of their Creator.

II. Whilst he labours to inspire his people with this sovereign esteem of the greatness of God, he ought to lay himself out, still more earnestly, to represent Him

as infinitely to be loved, infinitely to be feared. Love and fear are the two sentiments which are most powerful in their influence over, as they are most necessary in the right regulation of, the heart of man. By love we are drawn to God. By fear we are deterred from indulging in those passions which separate us from Him. And it will be very easy for the preacher to discover in the Divine Perfections those considerations and arguments which will be most powerful to excite these sentiments of love and fear. What is more easy than

worthy to be loved, since

to show that God is infinitely He is infinitely perfect, our Father, and the centre of all our joys! What more easy than to show that He is infinitely to be feared, since He is to be our judge ; a judge infinitely holy, who can tolerate nothing that is sullied by the stain of sin; a judge infinitely terrible, who holds in His hand the irrevocable sentence of our eternal happiness or woe!

III. In treating the Divine Perfections, the preacher should dwell principally upon those which are imitable, proposing them to his people as the great models of all that is most magnificent and sublime in the Christian. life. Since God has created us to His own image and likeness, it is the great object of religion to perfect this likeness in our souls. We are the children of God, and therefore we ought to show ourselves worthy of our Father. And, therefore, the preacher should carefully bring the Divine Perfections of their heavenly Father before His children. He should dwell He should dwell upon the mercy

of God, with all the abundance of its riches, saying in the words of Jesus Christ: Estote misericordes sicut et

Pater vester misericors est.1 Upon His sanctity, as put before us in His own divine words: Sancti estote, quoniam ego sanctus sum.2 Upon His patience, which bears with all the sins of men; upon His sweetness, which is never disturbed; upon His goodness, which turns evil itself into good, and which, with a love that is more than maternal in its tenderness, heaps His benefits upon His creatures: in fine, the preacher should love to portray these Divine Perfections of His Lord and His God, and to show the obligation which all men are under of approaching as closely as possible to the imitation of the model set before them: Estote perfecti sicut et Pater vester cælestis perfectus est.3

IV. Practically, a discourse on any of the Divine Perfections may be composed in either of two ways.

The first method is, to explain and establish the Perfection in question in the first point, which will then be purely dogmatical; and to develop in the second point, which will be moral, the special fruits which we should derive from the consideration of it. Ex. g.

First Point.-God is present everywhere.

Second Point. The obligations which are necessarily imposed upon us by the omnipotence of God.

Or, to use another example.

First Point.-There is a Providence which watches over each one of us.

Second Point-What are our obligations towards this Providence?

The second method is, to include the fruits, affections,

1 Luc. vi. 36.

2 Lev. xi. 44.

3 Matth. v. 48.