Lamps,
Pitchers and Trumpets - lectures on the vocation of the preacher
Second Series, 1869 - 'On the
Mental Tools and Apparatus' p 243 ff - Edwin Paxton Hood
Hood
(1820-85) was the son of one of Nelson's sailors, and was ordained as a
Congregational minister in 1852, serving in London, Brighton and
Manchester - where his political sermons against jingoism led to his
resignation, after which he preached in a local town hall. After a long
visit to the USA, he was invited to become minister of Falcon Square
Chapel in New York, where he attracted a large congregation. An
obituary noted that Mr Hood,
notwithstanding an unpleasant peculiarity in his voice and a somewhat
eccentric mannerism, obtained no little popularity as a preacher and
lecturer; he possessed a great store of originality and wit and humor. His
two series of lectures on preaching certainly demonstrate this, with
touches like 'the oracle of Mudfog' and imaginary preachers such
as 'Dr Windy Doctrine' and 'the Rev. Cloudy Screech', though his
humour, as a nonconformist critic of preaching standards in the
established church, is barbed and sarcastic. Dr Blunt, Vicar of
Scarborough, was one of his antagonists, criticising nonconformist
practice.
Secretan's reported sermon is certainly strange, even
for a 'Broad Churchman', though he was obviously passionate to share
the insights of the new German learning, and given the remarks above
there is perhaps an element of the pot calling the kettle black!
Because this is transcribed from a digitised version, a few words
(marked with an ellipsis) are unreadable.
I
was so fortunate the other day in the course of a ramble into
Yorkshire, as to alight upon one of the most remarkable of the many
remarkable sermons it has been my ... to peruse. It appears to
have been preached not very long since, in the parish church of Howden,
by its then curate, who is, also, the master of its Grammar School, the
Rev. Samuel Secretan, B.A., and the delectable little brochure carries
the information upon its title-page that its treasures are to be
obtained for the sum of six pennies. Those bishops who hold the
pastoral crook over the sheep and shepherds of the Church of England,
delegate the function of the shepherd to strangely qualified
characters. I have often had occasion to marvel at the wondrous
teachers ordained and set apart to the task of instructing, but I never
felt a disposition to marvel more loudly than when I read the
performance of Mr. Secretan. What adds to the interest of the
performance is, that several of his hearers, the parishioners had
expressed dissatisfaction at the strange. obfuscatory character of his
elucidations and emendations of Divine truth when, in simple
self-defence, the good young man published the remarkable performance
into which I have struck my fangs.
In the sermon, Mr. Secretan
boasts very loudly of his Greek and Hebrew; and informs his hearers,
that the meaning of Scripture depends upon a Hebrew or Greek
dictionary. How far he is acquainted with the German lights we know
not, but, before his astonished hearers, and in the pages of this
astonishing sermon, he most certainly out-Hegels Hegel, out-Schellings
Schelling, and out-Strausses Strausse; in fact, the sermon — which
seems to be on no subject or topic, or text either, in particular,
Genesis chapter i. being the somewhat liberal allowance of Scripture he
sets before himself to open — the sermon, I say, is that veritable old
hag Atheism, dressed up in gown and bands, made sacerdotal, and led to
bob about her old skeleton in all the gimcrackery of scholastic bathos.
That I do not express myself too severely, may be seen by the
following:
We are soon
struck with the peculiar manner in which Moses speaks of the Elohim —
the reverences. He speaks of those spiritualities as if they were a
person. He supposes them to possess bodily organs, such as the tongue
and the eye. This appears in the words "Elohim said" — Reverence said,
"Elohim saw that it was good." I
am not pretending to explain that spirit which, under the name of
Elohim — reverences — is stated by Moses to have created the heavens
and the earth. Far from it. But I only submit to you the necessity of
remembering that as the Creator is a spirit, having no body, or parts,
He has no tongue, nor eye and consequently cannot speak or see.
I
will now draw your attention to the words — the Spirit of the Elohim
moved upon the waters. This I would attempt to explain thus: — That
agency, of which Moses had so grand a conception, that he gave it the
name of reverence, mysteriously operated in the formation of physical
matter. In other words, the wind, the breath, the principle of life,
which abstract qualities such as reverence must have, exerted itself in
the work of creation. The breath of abstract ideas — the life of the
spirit consists of wisdom, excellence, ... These brooded over
nothing — and lo! the heavens and the earth ...
I must, however, quote one other paragraph : —
I
believe that the terms now used in reference to the Creator, whom we
ought to reverence, worshipping the spirit of understanding,
excellency, power; — honouring, that is, whatsoever is spiritual,
intellectual, pure, moral, noble — are the terms conveying best the
idea which Moses had of the Creator. And, if we descend to later
times, to those of the writers of the New Testament, I think we get
another idea still of the Hebrew word Elohim. We get the idea of
the Greek word Theos, which is supposed to come from the word theo,
to set in order, to arrange. The three languages together — the Hebrew,
the Greek, the Saxon — Elohim, Theos, God — Reverence, Arranger,
Goodness — impress our minds with the high worth that the Creator
Spirit has — of the indisputable claim which he has upon our sympathy
and devotion!
Let
us take a passage of St. Paul to the Corinthians, in which the Greek
word Theos, Arranger, occurs, and let us substitute the Hebrew idea for
that Greek idea, and notice how the passage reads. Let us select this
passage — "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the
Spirit of God dwelleth in you; if any man defile the temple of God, him
shall God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
Now, instead of the Saxon idea of Goodness attributed to the Spirit
here referred to, substitute the Hebrew idea of Reverence ........ high
spiritual qualities, worthy of reverence; — "Know ye not that ye are
the temple of high spiritual qualities, worthy of reverence; and that
the spirit of these qualities dwelleth in you: if any man defile
the temple of these high spiritual qualities, him will these spiritual
qualities destroy.'" To me this seems a deeply sensible reading of the
passage. High spiritual qualities, worthy of reverence, dwell in man.
If you defile your understandings, your excellence, your power, they
will defile you. Privileges abused become their own Nemesis —
avenger. Your spiritual qualities will become that two-edged
sword — a remorseful conscience. These high spiritual qualities, worthy
of reverence, that dwell in you in this gospel age, are the perfume of
Christ. They are a sweet savour or perfume, though you abuse them. They
are a sweet perfume in those that are being saved, and in those that
are perishing. In you that are being saved is made manifest the savour
or perfume of Christ's knowledge. In you that are perishing is still
the perfume of Christ's knowledge — still there, hoping, and knocking,
and warning, and assisting.
What
more useful, and therefore I must think Scriptural, advice can I give
than that we take care of "those high spiritual qualities, worthy of
reverence, which dwell in us — created at first with a shadow of them —
in their likeness — and renewed into them now by the sweet savour of
Christ's knowledge. Taking this care of them because they are the
representatives in us of that Great Unknown Creator Spirit, whose
earliest name in the Scripture is Reverence."
Such are
specimens of this astounding utterance, delivered in the venerable
church of the small old town in the east riding of Yorkshire. An
intelligent little town. I have had some knowledge of, and affection
for it for nearly twenty years; but whatever may be the mental calibre
of the town in general, you may conceive the utter bewilderment of the
upturned eyes and wide open mouths of farmers and labourers, and
artizans, at these amazing discourses from the oracle of Mudfog. For
myself, I may tremble lest Mr Secretan should issue an injunction
against me for printing the whole of his sermon; the extracts will not
seem to you lengthy, but I assure you that I have quoted the greater
part of the published sermon. Mr. Secretan, heretic as he is to his
prayer-book and his creed, is orthodox enough as to time; to think of
it, that a man cannot talk for more than a quarter of an hour, and
scarce a syllable of sense in the whole fifteen minutes; and Mr.
Secretan is an ordained clergyman and faithful watch-dog of the Church
of England, one who would receive Mr. Blunt's commendations as
"possessing a structure of knowledge substantial and massive," such as
no Dissenting minister, "not even Robert Hall, can attain unto or
approach."
Once more I say — What will these bishops ordain
next? I should like to know whose were the episcopal hands whose
fingers transferred power and might to that much-thinking and
penetrative brain. I should be curious to know the name of the
chaplain who examined him for ordination. Certainly he could not say,
"Thine eyes shall see thy teachers", here is "false doctrine, heresy,
and schism"; and it will be well to recollect that, in Paul's view,
there was no schism like that of "not holding the head." Yet it is
probable that Mr. Secretan is not much more heretical than many of that
theological school he represents. I suppose he would pass muster with
many a clergyman better known, and occupying a far higher position in
the establishment as a Broad Churchman. Many of these gentlemen seem to
allow for their theology a margin of uncommon breadth. Perhaps most of
them would be more at home in Mr. Secretan's region of "Abstract
ideas", than among explicit texts and statements. Like our singular and
eccentric Yorkshire curate, their minds seem to be either possessed by,
or in the possession of (it really does not matter which), a vast
number of incognizable, ... , and inexpressible ideas, not
particularly edifying to themselves, and utterly worthless, for all
purposes of edification to their hearers. It really was a very wise
thing in the Church of the Establishment, when it was first settled on
something like a solid basis, to provide for the exigencies of
religious clerical ignorance, or egregious clerical heresy, by the
publication of the Homilies, though this did not always avail, as you
will very well recollect in the instance of the erudite clergyman of
the last century, who got hold of a volume of Comedies instead of
Homilies, and read one off for the practical edification of his
interested audience. I sometimes think, amidst the entanglements of
clerical wisdom or folly, it would be well if the Bishops saw a little
more vigilantly into the reading of these Homilies, or parts of them,
to congregations.
It would appear that the Privy Council never
had much faith in the average gifts of the clergy. We poor
Congregationalists have had strange people amongst our teachers —
blacksmiths and shoemakers — so at any rate say the members of the
Establishment — tinkers and sweeps; but, whatever may have been the
depth of social ignorance from which our preachers have emerged, it has
never been necessary to provide them with a volume of sermons, because
they could not make a deliverance of some kind for themselves; not that
we are disposed to harp too much upon this as a very peculiar
excellence. I have even sometimes thought it might be well to prepare,
compile, and publish some volumes of sermons, which might be
recommended to the innumerable, incompetent heads we have amongst us. I
have long felt how great a calamity it is, while our shelves are
crowded with admirable sermons suited to every capacity, with all the
pith and power of puritanism, or the music and majesty of the great
masters of mind and diction, our congregations should be compelled to
listen to long discourses from that remarkable preacher. Dr. Windy
Doctrine, or his equally eminent brother-in-law, the Rev. Cloudy
Screech. It has occurred to us, that it would sometimes be a good thing
to call upon a brother, and put into his hands a piece of old Thomas
Watson, or Thomas Adams, or Brooks, or perhaps old John S... , and
say to him — "It must be very clear to you, you have nothing very
distinct to say to your people from yourself, this is Monday — now take
this, read it over twice every day ; here is material for two sermons "
(for people were not only better preachers, but better listeners two
hundred years ago), "drill this thoroughly into you, and then go you
up next Sunday into your pulpit and give it to your people — they will
thank you — the probability is they will understand you, or the
stupidity will be on their part." Such reflections have passed through
our minds as we have meditated the performance of Mr. Secretan.
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