RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Preaching
1. The Controlling \ Factors.
Utino (d. 1400), Bernhardin of Busti (d. after 1500), and Roberto Caracciolo, who was celebrated as a second Paul. In Germany the decline of preaching showed itself in the serene Augustinian Gottschalk Hollen in Osnabruck (d. after 1481). In France the Minorite Olivier Maillard exhibited the declension in style which included the profane and the burlesque as characteristics, while his fellow Minorite Michel Menot presents what partakes of the comic and laughable. The sermons of the period contain much that is foreign to Christian edification, and indicate a demand for the renewing of Christian life.
III. The Continental Pulpit in Modern Times — 1. The Period of the Reformation; The age of the Reformation marks a new stage in the history of preaching. The central truths of salvation being drawn anew from Scripture, the sermon engendered a new Church with a service the central point of which was the ' sermon, and this was again the means of a new activity in pulpit oratory. Yet this new development was confined almost entirely to the Protestant Church. In this period various streams of ecclesiastical life make their contribution to the river of sermons. The age of the Reformation forms the first period in this new age, the sermon developing in the Lutheran and then in the Reformed Church; the period of Spener and the coming of Pietism marked a new stage. A second period is noted by the sermon of Protestant orthodoxy, in Germany especially by polemic and confessional dogmatism. There is to be considered the Roman Catholic preaching of the period from the beginning of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century, especially the brilliant French product. Pietism, orthodoxy, and supernaturalism fought with rationalism on this ground during the eighteenth and part of the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century makes in itself a period of note. The new start of pulpit oratory took its rise in the deep thirst of the soul for a certainty in the experience of grace and of righteousness. There was a general demand for the bettering of ecclesiastical conditions, but leaders of impressive personality were needed to bring about the change, men who drew inspiration from the Scriptures and from their own experience of salvation. When these came forward, the Reformation could owe its success largely to preaching. The keynote of this was the Bible, by which the Reformers satisfied the longing of their own hearts, and its message of salvation in Christ. The preachers broke through the scholastic method and returned to the Biblical homily. The protest against Rome led to a development of the vernacular as against the Latin ecclesiastical tongue, and this played a great part in the unfolding of the sermon. From the work of Luther's Bible the vernacular sprang from the position of a dialect to that of a great speech, and became indeed the speech of the Protestants. The new constitution and basis of the clergy had also its effect, combined with the new order of service, which was no more prevailingly liturgical, while the sermon became indispensable. Luther probably preached to the monks in the
Erfurt period before 1508, and by 1509 he had preached in the monastery churches at Wittenberg and at Erfurt. After 1514 he assumed also the
duty of preaching in the Wittenberg 2. Luther, parish church; about 1517 he was
preaching twice a day regularly on Sundays and feast days; after 1522 he preached to the monks early and afterward in the parish church, and after Bugenhagen became city pastor in 1523, Luther often took his place. There are extant Latin sermons going back to 1515 or perhaps 1514; a series of sermons in Latin dating from 1514-17, preached in the parish church, the former and some of the latter still scholastic in type, though the public sermons are practical. His sermons of 1516-17 on the Commandments are in his " Latin Remains "; those on the Lord's Prayer (1517) he worked over and published in 1519. Steady progress toward practicality is discernible as the time goes on. After 1516 he shows the influence of Mysticism, which came to mean much for him, and grace and faith are already significant for him. In 1521 appeared at the direction of the elector the first part of a collection; and the same year he wrote at the Wartburg a series in German on the pericopes, and these with the first part just mentioned, worked over (1522), make the first beginning of German collections, intended for the use of preachers as yet unfitted or inexperienced. Their form is simple, and the aim is to bring out the truth of the Word. From 1522 till 1543 there appeared, either issued by himself or by others (Aurifaber, Andreas Poach, and others), various collections on different subjects and preached on different occasions. The sermons of 1528 on the Catechism formed the basis for the Deutsche Katechismus which appeared April, 1529, which served as a pattern for catechetical preaching. His sermons on the Sermon on the Mount appeared 1532. From his sermons at home in the bosom of his family was made up the so-called Hauspostille, in which polemics retreats and simple practical exposition controls. The Weimar edition of his works reproduces many other of Luther's sermons than those here noted.
Surely if the preaching of any Reformer deserves the title of heroic, Luther's does, being the work of a man who was an orator by nature. As in ordinary life so in the pulpit he was unshakably convinced
of the verity and righteousness of his
cause, while his talents, tempered in
3. His Sermons Char-
acterized. tne nre °f God's word, enabled him to be a fearless path-breaker in his preaching. He had a firm faith in the Gospel which makes free, a hold upon his own certainty of salvation and joy in testifying to it, aptness in reaching the popular heart, an eye open to the facts of life, command of dialectic and oratorical means, and a union of life and doctrine which made an array of force not equalled since apostolic times. He dealt little with history, much with doctrine. In his exposition he freed himself gradually from the use of allegory, choosing the literal sense. Withal, he gave an ethical turn to his preaching, having in mind not the learned but the common people. The form of his sermons is simple, and they contained ever a fundamental and governing ground thought. For dec-
Preaching'