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open or remote and secret dwelling places, to bring together and build again into a living body the disparted members of truth scattered everywhere among all the sects and schools of Christendom; in short, to read and interpret the divine word, both the written revelation and the no less sacred revelation of things, not superficially but as looking through and beyond the letter to the indwelling spirit. He needs therefore an insight, a searching depth and clearness of vision beyond what logic or hermeneutics can supply, a conscious light shining out of his own spirit, as well as a light meeting him from without. In a word, he needs "the vision and the faculty divine" of imagination, purged indeed and sanctified, first of all to see, and then to body forth in its own form, the truth it is given him to behold. Nothing, we repeat, will compensate for this, not piety itself; for are there not standing examples on every hand, of preachers eminent for godliness and orthodoxy, and sound wisdom withal, whose words are powerless because they come from them not as things, i. e. living and embodied realities, but as ghostly abstractions, detached from all communion with the actual living world, from aught that can move the senses or sensibilities of men, as truly so as if they were demonstrating a theorem in mathematics by the use of exponents x, y, and z. It is for the sake of the truth itself, which never is thus disembodied except in the mind of man or the domain of pure reason, it is for the truth's sake chiefly that we seek to vindicate the nature and claims of imagination; that in passing from the written word or the universe of things, through the mind of its interpreter, it may not suffer mutilation, but may go forth from man to man in the same radiant and living form in which God has arrayed it.

If it be not too sacred an illusion here, we may refer to the Great Teacher himself, as the highest example of what we mean by the right use of this power. Himself the incarnation of Eternal Truth, it was his prerogative in all that he said to exhibit it in fresh and living forms. Never have we read words so instinct and alive with imagination in its very highest activity, as are to be found in the discourses and parables of Christ. Observe how he looks on nature with a spiritual and even poetic eye; how he seizes everywhere its open or lurking analogies, and makes all outward objects tributary to his thought, by furnishing alike the lesson he would teach and the words to convey it; lighting up by his illustrating similes not only the spiritual but the outward and material world, till it almost loses its materiality, and becomes a transparent language. How he goes even beyond the poet and the philosopher in his insight into nature; since to these it yields only partial and superficial meanings, but unveils to him its innermost

divine import, as if the Lord and Author of nature were himself reading and interpreting his own works; making the houseless raven, the deciduous grass, and royally-apparelled lily, perennial preachers of trust and faith, and linking his immortal doctrines to the life-imprisoning seed, the clustered and embracing vine, and the heaven-descended, universal and emancipating light.

Finally, for we must not proceed further, we would recommend to all readers, as one of the best means of cultivating this power, and the only means of getting at the full significance and power of words, to accustom themselves to the calling up of the primary images of the words they read, of looking at thought through the medium of things, and not merely of abstract terms. The mind will thus have a double grasp upon the thought, first with the senses, and then with the reason, or rather with both in one in the imagination. We shall come to know words as we know men, after the flesh, as well as after the spirit. At the same time it is well, and somewhat important we think, to be able to know and discriminate what is flesh and what is spirit, by a discernment that can distinguish without separating, and can apprehend the limits and power of each in the unity of both.

ARTICLE V.

REINHARD'S SERMONS.

By Edwards A. Park, Professor in Andover Theological Seminary.

§ 1. Prefatory Remarks.

THE clergy of every land are apt to regard their own pulpit as superior to every other. Bossuet, Fenelon, Saurin, Bourdaloue, Massilon, are in France thought to be unequalled. Luther, Dinter, Spener, Herder, Zollikofer, Reinhard, Schleiermacher, Dräseke, Hofacker, are in Germany regarded as without a foreign rival. Who, asks the Briton, have discoursed like Latimer, Barrow, Taylor, South, Tillotson, Whitefield, Hall, Chalmers? And the American is unwilling to exalt any preacher above Edwards, Bellamy, Davies, Mason, and some of more recent times. Now, if it be true that the clergy of eyery land are superior to their foreign brethren, in their ability to influence their own countrymen, they may still obtain essential aid from

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the study of a foreign pulpit, how inferior soever to their own. As, according to the proverb, wise men have learned more from fools than fools have ever learned from wise men, so the most accomplished preachers may derive instruction from those who are most open to criticism, even from the very faults of the faulty. We should remember, that the excellences of every pulpit vary from those of every other, and are a complement to them in the formation of a perfect model of sacred eloquence. The object of the present Article is, not to eulogize the divines of any particular land, nor to make lengthened criticisms upon any individual preacher, but to give some illustrations of the sermons of Reinhard, who is confessedly one of the princes among the pulpit orators of Germany. It is not pretended that his sermons are patterns for indiscriminate imitation, that they are free from glaring faults, but it is supposed that they deserve a studious examination, as specimens of a peculiar style of preaching, which, while it contains many evils to be shunned, contains also many excellences to be admired. Before we make any excerpts from his discourses, let us briefly consider the

§ 2. Life and Labors of Reinhard.1

Francis Volkmar Reinhard was born in Vohenstrauss, a markettown once belonging to the principality of Sulzbach, Bavaria, March 12, 1753. His early education was superintended with great skill by his father, who was the learned preacher of Vohenstrauss. In his sixteenth year he was sent to the Gymnasium Poeticum at Ratisbon, and in 1773 he entered the university of Wittenberg, where in 1778 he was invited to take part in the instructions of the philosophical faculty. In 1780 he was appointed Professor Extraordinary of Philosophy, and in 1782 Ordinary Professor of Theology at Wittenberg. In 1792 he was called by the Saxon government to be First Court Preacher, Ecclesiastical Councillor, and First Assessor of the Consistory. To fill these important stations he removed to Dresden, and there resided twenty years. He died Sept. 6, 1812, in the sixtieth year of his age. A view of his philosophical and theological principles was published by Pölitz, in four volumes, in 1801-4. The same author issued, in 1813-15, in two volumes, an account of Reinhard's life and writings. A description of Reinhard's character was also given by Charpentier and Böttiger in 1813. Since his death, some of his works have been edited by such men as Schott, Bertholdt, and Heubner.

The statements in this section are derived from several notices of Reinhard, particularly from that in Cons. Lex., Auf. 1836.

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In the year 1721, Reinhard published his celebrated Inquiry into the Plan which the Founder of Christianity devised for the good of the race. The fourth edition of this work was issued in 1798; the fifth, under the superintendence of Heubner, in 1830. He commenced, in 1782, a Psychological Inquiry concerning wonder and the wonderful. Between the years 1788 and 1815, were published the five volumes of his System of Christian Ethics, of which the first volume has passed through five editions; the second and third, three each. All things considered, this is the most elaborate of his treatises. In 1801 was published his work, originally written in Latin, on the Worth of little things in Morals, of which a second edition was issued in 1817. His Lectures on Dogmatic Theology appeared in 1801, and the fourth edition of them in 1818. His Epitome of Christian Theology was published in 1804, and the second edition in 1819. His Opuscula Academica appeared in 1809, in two volumes. He published, in 1810, his far-famed Confessions relating to his sermons and ministerial education.1 The fifth edition of this work was issued in 1811. Besides the above-named volumes, he printed several learned dissertations, and contributed largely to the periodical literature of his time.

In the homiletical department, the number of his printed works is larger than we could expect from a philosopher so deeply read. The uniform collection of his sermons is contained in the thirty-five octavo volumes, published between 1795 and 1813, many of which have passed through several editions, and some have been translated into foreign languages; the four volumes for the use of families, edited by Hacker, in 1813; one volume, edited by Kenzelmann, in 1825; and one, edited by Haas, in 1833. In addition to the preceding, are two volumes of sermons, published in 1793; one on the Refining of the Moral Sentiments, in 1798, a second edition in 1813; one on Providence, in 1805; and three volumes of Reformation Discourses, published between 1821 and 1824. Many of the sermons issued by his editors since his decease, had been previously given to the public by himself; but, on the other hand, some which he had occasionally published, are not inserted in the above-named volumes; so that it may be safe to affirm that his printed sermons occupy forty-six or seven octavo volumes, each containing from three to five hundred pages,

The extent of his labors will be best appreciated by a comparison of them with those of our own Pres. Dwight, who was born one year before Reinhard, and died four years after him, of the same disease. Both of these distinguished men were obliged to struggle, in their lite

'Reinhard's Plan and also his Confessions, were translated into English, by Rev. O. A. Taylor, and published in 1831 and 1832.

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Number of his Sermons.

303 rary efforts, against obstacles resulting from impaired health. Reinhard was necessitated often to suspend his studies for successive months. Dr. Dwight was occupied in collegiate instruction twenty-seven, and Reinhard taught in the university fourteen years. Moreover, while Church Councillor at Dresden, the superintendence of both the school and university education of Saxony was, in a considerable degree, confided to Reinhard. His published works are at least sixty octavos and one quarto; those of Dr. Dwight, if printed in the same style with Reinhard's, would be less than twenty octavos. Both wrote systems of theology; Dwight in the form of sermons, Reinhard in the form of a logical treatise. All the published sermons of Dwight are not more than two hundred and fifty; those of Reinhard are about nine hundred. The discourses of Dwight, however, are longer and more argumentative than those of Reinhard, and he wrote hundreds which were never published.2 Nearly all of Reinhard's written sermons have been given to the public. What he wrote, he finished for the press. We read of Wesley that he preached annually eight hundred sermons, of Whitefield that he preached during his life fifteen thousand; these, however, were not different discourses, but many of them repetitions of each other. One of our New England clergymen wrote three thousand sermons, which having been consumed with his house by fire, he began anew and wrote fifteen hundred more. Several of our divines have written, each, four thousand discourses; one, at least, has left to his heirs five thousand; but these preachers have not prepared their manuscripts, either in substance or style, for publication. It had been wiser if they had written no more sermons than Reinhard, and had elaborated with more care the few hundreds on which they should have concentrated their energies. Dr. Chauncey, who spent fifteen hours every day in his study, lamented toward the close of his ministry that he had written so many sermons, and remarked that two hundred were sufficient for a long life. His motto was, “Think much, write little.”

Before we give any abstracts of Reinhard's discourses, it may be well to consider the

§ 3. Novelty and Variety of his Themes for the Pulpit.

When a reader, familiar with the strain of English preaching, opens

In the Repertorium sämmtlicher Predigt Sammlungen of Reinhard, which is confessedly imperfect, there are in the first edition 873, in the second 880 of his sermons enumerated.

2 He is said to have written a thousand in twelve years.

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