(_h_) Here is a sermon sadly spoiled by a _long introduction_. It tells us much about the circumstances of the inspired writer, but so as to throw little light on the message of the text. Here is another, on the wonderfully definite hope of blessedness after death given us in Phil. i. 21. This also is ruined by its introduction, which truly begins _ab ovo_, discussing the genesis of man's belief in immortality! That preface would leave, in the actual delivery of the sermon, about five minutes for the handling of the precious words, "To depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Generally, be shy of much introduction and preface in the pulpit. I do not mean that we are never to elucidate connexions and contexts. But, remember limits. Your minutes are few, ah, so few, for such a Message,--Christ Jesus in His fulness, for man's need in its depth. Pass quickly through the porch into that Church.
(_i_) When you refer to _Scripture facts_, be accurate; a slip-shod habit there may fatally prejudice a not quite friendly hearer who knows something of the Bible; and it will certainly do no good to _any_ hearer. Here is a sermon on Phil. i. 21, and it speaks of St Paul as writing to Philippi from his "_dark cell_." But St Luke says that he was "in his own hired house," [Acts xxviii. 30.] or at worst, "his own hired rooms." Here again I read of David as returning to "Jerusalem, _the city of his fathers_." But his fathers had lived and died at Bethlehem; and Jerusalem was in heathen hands till David himself took it!
2. _Remarks on Points in the Substance of the Sermons._
(_a_) Are you quite sure that the Patriarchs had no anticipation of a life eternal? Many lecturers, and many editors, now say so. But the Epistle to the Hebrews says that "they desired a better country, that is an heavenly" [Heb. xi. 16.]; and that is better evidence for this purpose than any inferences (or beliefs) of modern "scholarship." True, the old saints say little explicitly about their hope. But many things lie deep in a man's faith, and in his experience too, about which, for various reasons, he may say very little.