REVIVAL AND DOCTRINAL PREACHING.
I submit the following from the Christian Advocate as worthy the attention of the readers of the REVIEW, on account of the position therein taken on the law and gospel. J. H. Rogers. We are, and for a considerable time past have been, almost utterly at a loss to account satisfactorily for a wide-prevailing and apparently constantly increasing opposition to what is usually known as doctrinal preaching. In many cases the opposition is open and pronounced. In other cases it is rather covert, and may be regarded as more of a secret indisposition to preach or to hear doctrinal sermons than a pronounced antagonism to them. It has come to be a rare thing that one hears a plain, straight-forward, outright repetition of those solemn, unmistakable denunciations which the Bible contains against sin and its consequences, and of sinners and their doom. There is seemingly a manifested disposition either to ignore these things entirely, or so to smooth them over as that they may not offend the delicate sensibilities of worldly-minded people and formalistic professors of religion. There are truths contained in the Bible which, in the very necessities of the case, must be unpleasant to the carnal mind, and disagreeable to our unrenewed natures. To repeat and enforce these truths is to excite painful emotions in the minds of the hearers, especially of the unconverted; and there is something in human nature which instinctively shrinks from the task of exciting, as well as from the pain of experiencing, such emotions. Following these impulsions, both preachers and people may sometimes unconsciously glide to the opposite extreme, and thus fail to declare or to receive the whole counsel of God. Tracing the history of the church as closely as we can from apostolic days on down to the present, it is distinctly and clearly noticeable that most or all of the great revivals which characterize that history have followed and been directly connected with the practice of the most rigid, clear, and forcible doctrinal preaching the world has ever heard. It was so in the age of Luther and his contemporaries. It was so in the time of Wesley and his co-laborers, as is well known to every one acquainted with the history of those times. It was so in the time of Dwight and Edwards in the great revival which pervaded the American colonies about the middle of the last century. In each and all of these cases, the revivals were emphatically “doctrinal” revivals. All great reformations have been produced by the same kind of preaching. That was, humanly speaking, the foundation on which they rested. And now we wish to call the attention of the readers of this paper to two or three points which may be regarded as nearly axiomatic, and in reference to them offer a few suggestions. A genuine revival of religion, like every other great reformation, must rest on a foundation of truth; hence, in our judgment, the popular notion as to the best method of conducting a revival is superficial and erroneous. That notion is, or, at least, the practice, is, to let doctrine alone, keep it in the background, nor preach it, nor sing it, nor pray it. The aim seems to be to attract attention, to arouse feeling and get the people committed, with or without due consideration. Such labor may and will have its fruits, but those fruits will be like the morning flowers and the early dew, or like the summer fruit of the prophet, soon to wither and pass away. It is a dangerous, though widely-prevalent supposition, that it is arousing and not teaching, which the people now most need. They need both. But the foundation of all healthful arousing or excitation must consist of sound, scriptural truth. This truth must be taught, line upon line, and precept upon precept, and reiterated until clearly comprehended, fully received, and incorporated into the minds of the people. No great reformation in science, philosophy, in morals, or in religion, has ever been accomplished without such teaching. And what in this respect is true in the general, is equally true in the particular. Every individual conversion of man, if it be genuine and reliable, must be a conversion by the influence of truth. Truth must be recognized as the reason why, and the foundation of such a change; hence the wondrous results of doctrinal teaching as alluded to above. The whole history of Methodism, until within a few years past, is a history of doctrinal, controversial preaching—preaching in which the truths of God’s written word were placed in antagonism to all erroneous doctrines, and by rigid analysis, clear exposition and logical sequence, were made to controvert, refute, and overcome all that opposed. Under this preaching, convictions for sin were deep, poignant, and powerful—heart-searching, heart-rending, heart-breaking. With a deep and clear sense of its guilt, its wretchedness and utter helplessness, the heart fled to Christ as the only helper of the otherwise helpless, the only Saviour of the lost, threw itself unreservedly upon his mercy and merits, trusted in him and in him alone, and conversions were thorough, clear, satisfactory, and full of joy. Then the gospel was presented in its totality. The law and the gospel were presented in their proper relations the one to the other; the one pointing to sin and its consequences, the other to the atonement and its remedies for sin. Looking at the history of the past in connection with the state of things now existing in this country, we are profoundly impressed with the conviction that the great need of the present day is a more clear, close, logical, and thorough doctrinal preaching. Now let us look at it. How was it that the apostle knew sin? By the law. How are we to know sin but by the same means? Take, then, a company of people, intelligent or otherwise, and let them by the use of apostolic means be brought to a knowledge of sin, and what next? Of course they will most desire to learn of the remedies for sin. Here come in the doctrines of the atonement. How are the benefits of this atonement to be obtained? is naturally the next question; and then come up the doctrines of repentance, faith; and they come up as the only doctrines which will meet the exigencies of the case, and come up, too, to the very people by whom, and at the very time when, their need is most keenly felt, and will be most anxiously listened to. Suppose, then, these doctrines are received and the people converted; then what? They are babes in Christ, and must be fed, not with oratorical flourishes, circumlocutory sentences, stupid periods, nor with ad captandum appeals, but with the pure word of God. Here, again, is doctrinal preaching. And from the beginning to the end of Christian life and Christian experience, doctrinal teaching is the proper, and only proper, pabulum. It is the man who closely studies the Bible, who is continually learning more and more of the Bible, and is continually bringing things new and old out of the treasury of that word; he, and not the mere sensationalist, it is, who edifies, strengthens, and builds up the church of God. He lays his foundations deep and wide on the pillars of immutable truth, and his work abides. He and his people feel, because they first know. Truth has been received by the intellect, and the sentiment has warmed it into life, and the feeling abides because the knowledge remains. They have joy in the Holy Ghost; nor is it a joy in mere fact and histories. It is not the happiness of momentary surprise, nor that arising from the gratification of mere temporary desires; nor yet is it a flutter that has no meaning, nor a throb that has no moral history behind it. Below it lie the great facts of spiritual experience, the fact of pardon, the fact of regeneration, the fact of adoption and sonship; and these facts, like solid masonry, underlie the temple whose pinnacle flashes with joy in the Holy Ghost.