p. 691 | LOGIC IN THE PULPIT

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 16, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 44.

LOGIC IN THE PULPIT.

THERE are people in all our congregations who complain that preaching is too dogmatic or too hortatory—that the preacher does not construct syllogisms to prove the truth of his assertions—that he speaks too much with authority and backs up his statements with proof texts rather than arguments. They would like to have him, whenever he says God, stop and prove that there is a God; when he quotes from the Bible stop and prove that it is a divine book; when he addresses them as sinners, stop and prove that they are. If he did so then they could reject what he said if he failed to demonstrate it to their satisfaction. They want to regard the minister as an advocate, and themselves as the jury who are to render a verdict according to their estimate of the argument. These people, and we fear that there are a good many of them, have not learned what the preaching of the gospel really is. They regard it as a kind of moral and spiritual lectureship—or, if it is not this, then to them, as to the Greeks of old, it is foolishness. A set of men no wiser than their hearers claim to tell those hearers what they ought to do. What right have they thus to dictate and even to denounce? Why, if a campaign orator should do so he would be hissed from the stump. Give us more logic, they cry, if you want to convince us and proselyte us!

Paul, though he reasoned before Felix, did not reason like a dialectician. He gives us in one of his letters the key-note of his preaching, "commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God." No doubt he grappled with the conscience of the Roman governor, for we are told that Felix trembled. Men don't tremble when a logician is trying to prove before them some abstract idea, but when he appeals to their fears, when he startles the moral nature that they have drugged into insensibility.

Let us suppose a man arraigned for murder in one of our criminal courts. The prosecuting attorney in his opening argument says: "May it please your honor, we shall prove to you and the jury that this man slew his victim deliberately, with malice aforethought, and we shall expect a verdict of guilty and condemnation to the gallows." And then the judge instead of assenting says: "Mr. Attorney, you are not logical. You are taking too much for granted. You must first prove that it is a crime to kill a man, and that killing with malice prepense is a capital offense. We will have an open debate on these points before we proceed with the facts in the case."

The attorney would, of course, reply that those points are settled by the criminal code, and to discuss them now would be illogical. And so it is with certain great truths in the minister's commission. His business is to present them, not to prove them. He may illustrate in order to impress, but never for a moment should he make the impression that their claim upon his hearers' attention depends on his skill in presenting them. An ambassador sent to a province in revolt might be slow of speech, or a tyro in logic, but he claims to be heard not because he is an eloquent speaker or a great reasoner, but because he comes with authority, and presents the terms of pardon which the Government has sent by him. And so is it in the case of Christ's ambassador and the sinner who is in rebellion. The logic the sinner needs is in the application of the word to his conscience and his heart. And let all the preachers remember this. Let none of them be tempted by the senseless clamor for logic in the pulpit to try to prove what God has sent them to proclaim. God's authority is worth a thousand times more than any argument that they can construct.—Selected.