“Permit me also to caution you against aiming at too much accuracy in your sermons. The great end of preaching is to produce an effect; to rouse the careless and comfort the wounded conscience.
And these are seldom helped by a nice attention to divisions and subdivisions. There should be some method, but the plainer, and the less entangled by divisions, the better, especially in villages.
A chief reason why written sermons make less impression than extempore, is, that few can write them without giving into a style and method which raises them above the comprehension of plain and poor people.
Remember, my dear friend, it is one characteristic of the gospel that it is preached to the poor. Adapt yourself as much as possible to the poor and weak of the flock. If these can understand you, others will, of course.
And the more simple your discourses are, the better they will be relished by persons of superior taste and knowledge, if they are serious. And you will be the more felt by those who are not serious.
It is so long since I read Claude and Robinson, that I cannot tell what you may have learnt from them. But I can say something upon this subject from experience. There are persons of all sorts in my congregation: some very poor, weak and illiterate, some very sensible, of well informed and cultivated minds.
By their attention and constant attendance, I seem, through the Lord’s mercy, acceptable to them all. And I usually speak to them with freedom. I acquired my preaching talent, such as it is, at Olney. I cannot be sufficiently thankful that the Lord placed me in that school, and kept me there sixteen years, before he sent me to London.
The most of His people there were poor and afflicted, ignorant and illiterate, but they were taught of God before I saw them. I was their official teacher from the pulpit.
But I taught them chiefly by what I first learned from them in the course of the week, by visiting and conversing with them from house to house. Indeed I learned more from them than from all my great folios and quartos.
In their artless, simple talk, I saw more of the workings of the heart, the power of grace, and the devices of Satan, than any books could show me. I was likewise greatly helped by meeting the children weekly.
With them I was obliged to stoop in order to be understood. And I soon found that the familiar style I was obliged to use to children, was the most proper to engage the attention of grown people. And I talk to the people in London, to this day, much as I did to them at Olney.
I have always wished to avoid what is vulgar, gross, and low. And the books I have read, and especially the quires and reams I have written, have helped me to some measure of propriety in the use of words. But I may appeal to you, who have heard me, that I rather talk than preach, as preaching is generally understood.
I believe you have a few awakened people about you. Account these the best part of your library. Converse and pray with them often. Thus you will help them, and be helped by them.
The questions they put to you, and the answers they give to yours, together with what passes in your mind, will suggest subject matter to fill up your sermons, better than you can borrow from the learned doctors- I mean better for your people, because it will be your own, and directed by the knowledge you have of their cases.
And what suits twenty people would be suitable to as many thousands. For our hearts are all alike. In the mean time I can see you plainly, though at the distance of so many miles, and behind many a hill.
And I see that the Lord leads, and guides, and supports you. He always leads the right way, though we meet with a bit of road here and there that is rough. But then we have shoes of iron and brass prepared for us.
May I not apply to you Solomon’s Song 8:5? Is not Jesus your beloved? You are in the wilderness, but you do not wish to stay there, but are coming up out of it. Leaning implies weariness, but it likewise implies freedom and confidence. You can readily lean upon your husband, but not on every man you meet.
Should you see a woman leaning upon the king, you would suppose that she was either his queen, or one of his daughters. You are invited to lean upon a greater king, and he is your beloved. And surely if you lean upon an Almighty arm, though you feel yourself weak and weary, and at times almost fainting, you cannot fall. He does all things well.
He weighs the mountains in the scales, and the hills in a balance. And He likewise weighs, measures, and proportions our trials to our strength and our malady, with greater accuracy than the most skillful earthly physician can prescribe His medicines. No trial comes sooner, or falls heavier, or lasts longer, than the exigency of the case requires.
He knows our frame, and remembers that we are but dust. And He will lay no more upon us than He will enable us to bear. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pitieth us. His love is perfect.”
–John Newton, Sixty-Six Letters From the Rev. John Newton (London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., 1844), 122-126.
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