MANY writers upon Homiletics condemn in unmeasured terms even the occasional spiritualizing of a text. F15 “Select texts,” say they, “which give a plain, literal sense; never travel beyond the obvious meaning of the
passage; never allow yourself to accommodate or adapt; it is an artifice of men of artificial culture, a trick of mountebanks, a miserable display of bad taste and impudence.” Honor to whom honor is due, but I humbly beg leave to dissent from this learned opinion, believing it to be more fastidious than correct, more plausible than true. F16 A great deal of real good may be done by occasionally taking forgotten, quaint, remarkable, out-of-the-way texts; and I feel persuaded that if we appeal to a jury of practical,
successful preachers, who are not theorizers, but men actually in the field, we shall have a majority in our favor. It may be that the learned rabbis of this generation are too sublime and celestial to condescend to men of low estate; but we who have no high culture, or profound learning, or
enchanting eloquence to boast of, have deemed it wise to use the very method which the grandees have proscribed; for we find it one of the best ways of keeping out of the rut of dull formality, and it yields us a sort of salt with which to give flavor to unpalatable truth. Many great soul- winners have felt it meet to give a fillip to their ministry, and to arrest their people’s attention by now and then striking out a path which had not been trodden heretofore. Experience has not taught them that they were in error, but the reverse. Within limit, my brethren, be not afraid to spiritualize, or to take singular texts. Continue to look out passages of Scripture, and not only give their plain meaning, as you are bound to do, but also draw from them meanings which may not lie upon their surface. Take the advice for what it is worth, but I seriously recommend you to show the superfine critics that everybody does not worship the golden image which they have;
set up. I counsel you to employ spiritualizing within certain limits and boundaries, but I pray you do not, under cover of this advice, rush
headlong into incessant and injudicious “imaginings,” as George Fox would call them. Do not drown yourselves because you are recommended to bathe, or hang yourselves on an oak because tannin is described as a
valuable astringent. An allowable thing carried to excess is a vice, even as fire is a good servant in the grate, but a bad master when raging in a
burning house. Too much even of a good thing surfeits and disgusts, and in no case is this fact more sure than in the one before us.
I. The first canon to be observed is this — do not violently strain a text by illegitimate spiritualizing. This is a sin against common sense. How
dreadfully the word of God has been mauled and mangled by a certain band of preachers who have laid texts on the rack to make them reveal what they never would have otherwise spoken. Mr. Slopdash, of whom Rowland Hill tells us in his Village Dialogues, is but a type of a numerous
generation. That worthy is described as delivering himself of a discourse upon, “I had three white baskets on my head,” from the dream of
Pharaoh’s baker, Upon this the “thrice-anointed ninny-hammer,” as a friend of mine would call him, discoursed upon the doctrine of the Trinity! A dear minister of Christ, a venerable and excellent brother, one of the most instructive ministers in his county, told me that he missed one day a laboring man and his wife from his chapel. He missed them again and again, Sunday after Sunday, and one Monday, meeting the husband in the street, he said to him, “Well, John, I have not seen you lately.” “No sir,”
was the reply, “We did not seem to profit under your ministry as we used to do.” “Indeed, John, I am very sorry to hear it.” “Well, me and my missis likes the doctrines of grace, and therefore we’ve gone to hear Mr. Bawler lately.” “Oh! you mean the good man at the High Calvinist Meeting?”
“Yes, sir, and we are so happy; we get right good food there, sixteen ounces to the pound. We were getting half starved under your ministry — though I always shall respect you as a man, sir.” “All right, my friend; of course you ought to go where you get good for your soul, I only hope it is good; but what did you get last Sunday?” “Oh! we had a most refreshing time, sir. In the morning we had — I don’t seem to like to tell you — however, we had really a most precious time.” “Yes, but what was it, John?” “Well, sir, Mr. Bawler led us blessedly into that passage, ‘Art thou a man given to appetite? Put a knife to thy throat when thou sittest before a ruler,” “Whatever did he make out of that.” “Well, sir, I can tell you what he made out of it, but I should like to know first what you would have said upon it.” “I don’t know, John; I don’t think I should have taken it at all, but if I must have spoken about it, I should have said that a person given to eating and drinking should take care what he was about when he was in the presence of great men, or he would ruin himself. Gluttony even in this life
is ruinous.” “Ah!” said the man, “that is your dead-letter way of rendering it. As I told my missis the other day, ever since we have been to hear Mr.
Bawler, the Bible has been opened up to us so that we can see a great deal more in it than we used to do.” “Yes, but what did Mr. Bawler tell you about his text?” “Well, he said a man given to appetite was a young convert, who is sure to have a tremendous appetite for preaching, and always wants food; but he ain’t always nice about what sort of food it is.”
“What next, John?” “He said that if the young convert went to sit before a ruler — that is to say, a legal preacher, or a duty-faith man, it would be the worse for him.” “But how about the knife, John?” “Well, sir, Mr. Bawler said it was a very dangerous thing to hear legal preachers, it would be sure to ruin the man; and he might just as well cut his throat at once, sir!” The subject was, I suppose, the mischievous effects of young Christians listening to any preachers but those of the hyper school; and the moral drawn from it was, that sooner than this brother should go to hear his former minister, he had better cut his throat! That was accommodating considerably! Ye critics, we give over such dead horses as these to your doggish teeth. Rend and devour as ye will, we will not upbraid. We have heard of another performer who delivered his mind upon Proverbs 21:17.
“He that loveth pleasure shall be a poor man: he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich.” The Proverbs are a favorite field for spiritualizers to disport themselves withal. Our worthy disposed of the proverb in this fashion: “ ‘He that loveth pleasure, that is, the Christian who enjoys the means of grace, ‘shall be a poor man,’ that is, he shall be poor in spirit;
‘and he that loveth wine and oil;’ that is to say, rejoices in covenant provisions, and enjoys the oil and wine of the gospel, ‘shall not be rich,’
that is, he shall not be rich in his own esteem;” showing the excellence of those who are poor in spirit, and how they shall enjoy the pleasures of the gospel — a very proper sentiment, but my carnal eyes fail to see it in the text. You have all heard of William Huntingdon’s famous rendering of the passage in Isaiah 11:8: “The sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.” “ ‘The sucking child,’ that is, the babe in grace, ‘shall play on the hole of the asp,’
‘the asp,’ that is, the Arminian: ‘the hole of the, asp,’ that is, the
Arminian’s mouth.” Then follows an account of the games in which simple minds are more than a match for Arminian wisdom. Professors of the other school of divinity have usually had the good sense not to return the
compliment, or the Antinomians might have found themselves ranked with cockatrices, and their opponents boastfully defying them at the mouths of
their dens. Such abuse only injures those who use it. Theological differences are better expounded and enforced than by such buffoonery.
Ludicrous results sometimes arise from sheer stupidity inflated with
conceit. One instance may suffice. A worthy minister told me the other day that he had been preaching lately to his people upon the nine and twenty knives of Ezra. I am sure he would handle these edged tools discreetly, but I could not refrain from saying that I hoped he had not imitated the very sage interpreter who saw in that odd number of knives a reference to the four-and-twenty elders of the Apocalypse.
A passage in the Proverbs reads as follows: “For three things the earth is disquieted, and for four which it cannot bear: for a servant when he
reigneth; and a fool when he is filled with meat: for an odious woman when she is married; and an handmaid that is heir to her mistress.” A raving spiritualizer declares that this is a sweet picture of the work of grace in the soul, and shows what it is that disquiets Arminians, and sets them by the ears. “ ‘A servant when he reigneth,’ that is, poor servants like ourselves, when we are made to reign with Christ; ‘a fool when he is filled with meat,’ f17 that is, poor foolish men like us, when we are fed with the finest of the wheat of gospel truth; ‘an odious woman when she is married,’ that is, a sinner when he is united to Christ; ‘A handmaid that is heir to her mistress,’ that is, when we poor handmaids that were under the law, bondslaves, come into the privileges of Sarah, and become heirs to our own mistress.”
These are a few specimens of ecclesiastical curiosities which are as numerous and valuable as the relics which are every day gathered so plentifully on the battle-field of Waterloo, and accepted by the more
verdant as priceless treasures. But we have surfeited you, and have no wish to waste more of your time. From all such rank absurdity need you be admonished to turn away! Such maunderings dishonor the Bible, are an insult to the common-sense of the hearers, and a deplorable lowering of the minister. This, however, is no more the spiritualizing which we recommend to you than the thistle, in Lebanon is the cedar of Lebanon. Avoid that childish trifling and outrageous twisting of texts which will make you a wise man among fools, but a fool among wise men.
II. Our second is, never spiritualize upon indelicate subjects. It is needful to say this, for the Slopdash family are never more at home than when they speak in a way to crimson the cheek of modesty. There is a kind of beetle which breeds in filth, and this creature has its prototype among men. Do I
not at this moment call to mind a savory divine who enlarged with wonderful gusto and sensuous unction upon the concubine cut into ten pieces: Greenacre himself could not have done it better. What abominable things have been said upon some of the sterner and more horrifying similes of Jeremiah and Ezekiel! Where the Holy Spirit is veiled and chaste, these men have tom away the veil, and spoken as none but naughty tongues would venture to do. I am not squeamish, indeed, far from it, but
explanations of the new birth by analogies suggested by a monthly nurse, expositions of the rite of circumcision, and minute descriptions of married life, would arouse my temper and make me feel inclined to command with Jehu that the shameless one should be thrown down from the exalted position disgraced by such brazen-faced impudence. F18 I know it is said,
“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” but I aver that no pure mind ought to be subjected to the slightest breath of indelicacy from the pulpit. Caesar’s wife must be without suspicion, and Christ’s ministers must be without speck in their lives or stain in their speech. Gentlemen, the kissing and hugging which some preachers delight in is disgusting: Solomen’s Song had better be let alone than dragged in the mire as it often is. Young men especially must be scrupulously, jealously modest and pure in word: an old man is pardoned, I scarce know why, but a young man is utterly without excuse should he overstep the strict line of delicacy.
III. Next, and thirdly, never spiritualize for the sake of showing what an uncommonly clever fellow you are. Such an intention will be wicked, and the method used will be foolish. Only an egregious simpleton will seek to be noted for doing what nine men out of ten could do quite as well. A certain probationer once preached a sermon upon the word “but,” thus hoping to ingratiate himself with the congregation, who would, he thought, be enraptured with the powers of a brother who could enlarge so
marvelously upon a mere conjunction. His subject appears to have been, the fact that whatever there may be of good in a man’s character, or admirable in a man’s position, there is sure to be some difficulty, some trial in connection with us all: “Naaman was a great man with his master, but…..” When the orator descended from the pulpit the deacons said,
“Well, sir, you have given us a singular sermon, but — you are not the man for the place; that we can see very clearly.” Alas! for wit when it becomes so common, and withal puts a weapon into the hand of its own adversaries!
Remember that spiritualizing is not such a wonderful display of ingenuity, even if you are able to do it well, and that without discretion it is the most
ready method of revealing your egregious folly. Gentlemen, if you aspire to emulate Origen in wild, daring, interpretations, it may be as well to read his life and note attentively the follies into which even his marvelous mind was drawn by allowing a wild fancy to usurp absolute authority over his
judgment; and if you set yourselves to rival the vulgar declaimers of a past generation, let me remind you that the cap and bells do not now command the same patronage as fell to their share a few years ago.
Our third caution is, never pervert Scripture to give it a novel and so-called spiritual meaning, lest you be found guilty of that solemn curse with which the roll of inspiration is guarded and closed. Mr. Cook, of Maidenhead, felt himself obliged to separate from William Huntingdon because of his
making the seventh commandment to mean the Lord speaking to his Son and saying, “Thou shalt not covet the devil’s wife, i.e., the non-elect.” One can only say, horrible! Perhaps it would be an insult to your reason and your religion to say, loathe the thought of such profanity. You instinctively shrink from it.
Once more, in no case allow your audience to forget that the narratives which you spiritualize are facts, and not mere myths or parables. The first sense of the passage must never be drowned in the outflow of your
imagination; it must be distinctly declared and allowed to hold the first rank; your accommodation of it must never thrust out the original and native meaning, or even push it into the background. The Bible is not a compilation of clever allegories or instructive poetical traditions; it teaches literal facts and reveals tremendous realities: let your full persuasion of this truth be manifest to all who attend your ministry. It will be an ill day for the church if the pulpit should even appear to endorse the skeptical hypothesis that Holy Scripture is but the record of a refined mythology, in which globules of truth are dissolved in seas of poetic and imaginary detail.
However, there is a legitimate range for spiritualizing, or rather for the particular gift which leads men to spiritualize. F19 For instance, you have frequently been shown that the types yield ample scope for the exercise of a sanctified ingenuity. Why need you go about to find “odious women” to preach upon, when you have before you the tabernacle in the wilderness, with all its sacred furniture, the burnt-offering, the peace-offering, and all the various sacrifices which were offered before God? Why struggle for novelties when the temple and all its glories are before you? F20 The largest capacity for typical interpretation will find abundant employment in the
undoubted symbols of the Word of God, and it will be safe to enter upon such an exercise, because the symbols are of divine appointment.
When you have exhausted all the Old Testament types, you have left to you an heirloom of a thousand metaphors. Benjamin Keach, in his
laborious treatise, proves most practically what mines of truth lie concealed in the metaphors of Scripture. His work, by the way, is open to much criticism on the score of making metaphors run not only on all-fours, but on as many legs as a centipede; but it does not deserve the condemnation of Dr. Adam Clarke, when he says it has done more to debase the taste both of preachers and people than any other work of the kind. A discreet explanation of the poetical allusions of Holy Scripture will be most
acceptable to your people, and, with God’s blessing, not a little profitable.
But supposing you have expounded all the usually accepted types, and have cast light upon the emblems and figurative expressions, must your fancy and delight in similitudes go to sleep? By no means. When the apostle Paul finds a mystery in Melchisedek, and speaking of Hagar and Sarah, says, “Which things are an allegory,” he gives us a precedent for discovering scriptural allegories in other places besides the two mentioned.
Indeed, the historical books not only yield us here and there an allegory, but seem as a whole to be arranged with a view to symbolical teaching. A passage from Mr. Andrew Jukes’ preface to his work on the types of Genesis, will show how, without violence, a most elaborate theory may be constructed by a devout mind: “As a base or ground for what is to follow, we first are shown what springs from man, and all the different forms of life, which either by nature or grace can grow out of the root of old Adam.
This is the book of Genesis. Then we see, that be it bad or good which has come out of Adam, there must be redemption; so an elect people by the blood of the Lamb are saved from Egypt. This is Exodus. After redemption is known, we come to the experience of the elect as needing access, and learning the way of it, to God the Redeemer in the sanctuary. This we get in Leviticus. Then in the wilderness of this world, as pilgrims from Egypt, the house of bondage, to the promised land beyond Jordan, the trials of the journey are learnt, from that land of wonders and man’s wisdom to the land flowing with milk and honey. This is the book of Numbers. Then comes the desire to exchange the wilderness for the better land, from, entering which for a season after redemption is known the elect yet shrink; answering to the desire of the elect at a certain stage to know the power of the
resurrection, to live even now as in heavenly places. The rules and precepts