RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Preaching
German Reformed preachers is Abraham Scultetus (q.v.), and others are Johann Miiller, Felix Wyss of Zurich (d. 1666), Bernhard Meier of 4 . The Bremen (d. 1681), and Samuel Eyen of Keformed Bern (d. 1700). Friedrich Adam Lampe u " (q.v.) led the Cocceian Biblicalpractical reaction against scholastic orthodoxy. Here is to be mentioned also Johannes Amos Comenius (q.v.), the most significant preacher of the Bohemian Brethren, whose discourses were characterized by quiet exposition, thoroughgoing exegesis of prophecy and fulfilment, and careful arrangement and articulation. In the Reformed Church outside Germany arose a real eloquence, responding more quickly to national conditions. This was especially the case in France, where the political conditions were favorable. The polemic was principally anti-Roman. The more forward condition of the national tongue made easy the productions of pulpit orators after classical models. A stimulus was found in the French literature of the period before and under Louis XIV and in the brilliant oratory of the Roman Catholic Church. Pierre Du Moulin (q.v.), the most popular Protestant preacher of France, showed less of the oratorical than of a simplicity of illustration, thought, and direction expressed in frank, emphatic, terse, and lively language. Michel de Faucheur of Montpellier and Paris used little of art in his work, which was essentially exegetical and anti-Roman. Moiise Amyraut (q.v.) displayed a native oratorical talent, but was dogmatic in tone and synthetic in construction. Rather didactic in type were Jean Daille (q.v.), who left twenty volumes of sermons, and Samuel Bochart (q.v.). While thus far the analytic and polemic had prevailed, the synthetic style began with Jean Claude (q.v.). But with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes began an exodus of the best French preachers. Claude, whose eloquence in controversy made even a Bossuet tremble for his hearers, by the firmness of his character, his manly earnestness, his majestic calm, his precision, and clarity earned the position of one of the foremost preachers of his time. Such preachers as Ancillon, Abbadie, Lenfant, and Beausobre (qq.v.) were surpassed by Daniel de Super ville of Rotterdam (d. 1728), who in lovable disposition, speculative might, and philosophical endowment surpassed his predecessors. Jacques Saurin (q.v.) attained the high point of French Reformed preaching for the eighteenth century; of less significance were Jacob Basnage (q.v.) and Henri Chatelain (d. 1743). In Holland the pulpits echoed with the dogmatic wrangling of Remonstrants (q.v.) and Counterremonstrants. The school of Gysbert Voetius was influenced by scholasticism and the analytical method, devoted to the justification of dogma. For a year the whole church of Holland was moved by a sermon of Conrad Vorst (q.v.) on long hair (I Cor. xi. 14), and Smijtegeld (d. 1739) preached 145 sermons on " the bruised reed." Of a better class were Hellenbroek of Rotterdam (d. 1731) and the more practical W a Brakel (d. 1711). When the homiletic practise through the Cocceian school broke away from its scholastic bonds, the prophetic-typical style entered, though remaining drily philological. But gradually
life invigorated the dead orthodoxy of the pulpit in the discourses of David Flud van Giffen (d. 1701), Jan d'Outrein (d. in Amsterdam 1722), and H. Groenewegen. Antischolastic preaching was heard from J. Uytenbogaert (q.v.) of the Remonstrants, and Philip van Limborch (q.v.) of the Arminians.
Apart from the brilliant flight of Roman Catholic
pulpit oratory in France, mission preaching and
compact addresses to the peasantry ruled inside that
Church. In Italy in the seventeenth century in the
missions of Jesuits and other orders,
" ° sermons on penitence and confession
Catholic were *^e 0T^eT °f tne day. The Jesuit Pulpit. Paolo Segneri (q.v.) traversed Italy for twenty years preaching, and with him should be named his nephew of the same name (d. 1713). A continuator of the homely discourse to the peasantry was the Augustinian Andr6 of France (d. 1675) ; a preacher of note was the Augustinian Abraham a Sancta Clara (q.v.). The direct opposite of this folk-sermon was exhibited in the discourse of the brilliantly oratorical pulpit of France in the period of Louis XIV., the basis 'of which was less in the church itself than in the circumstances of the times and in the general literature of the nation; the pulpit strove for a revival of the eloquence of the early Church. The result was an oratory only for the cultured, to the embellishment of which the graces of rhetoric were skilfully lent. The substance dealt with morality, the fear of God, inculcation of virtues, meditation upon death and its meaning, lessons from history and life. And the results came, with just pride in their finished form, to be included in the classical literature of the nation, and to be regarded as models of style to be employed in the Church both in France and elsewhere. A pathbreaker was the general of the Oratorians, J. F. Senault (d. 1670); the brightest star in this constellation was Jacques B6nigne Bossuet (q.v.), whose eloquence flamed; his flow of thought was full and genial, and his imagination creative. Of special celebrity were his funeral sermons, and not a few of these belong to the masterpieces of French style. Among these may be mentioned his oration over Henriette Marie, that at the death of the duke of Orleans, and that over the bier of the Prince of Conde, from which cultured Frenchmen make quotations as from classics. One of the faults which somewhat repels, however, is the flattery directed to court circles; unworthy of the house of God are the epithets constantly applied to the king, and the unfortunate impression made is sometimes that of a man-serving courtier. But even more than was accomplished by Bossuet for the uplift of the French pulpit came about through Louis Bourdaloue (q.v.), especially by his passion sermons and those with the title Dei virtutem. After him is to be named Esprit Fleshier (q.v.), whose sermon on Turenne is his masterpiece, on whom J. Mascaron of Versailles (d. 1703) also delivered a celebrated discourse. Another star in this constellation was the Oratorian Jean Baptist Massillon (q.v.), among whose celebrated sermons are that on the Prodigal Son, that on Matt. v. 3 sqq., on Luke iv. 27, that on the deity of Christ — a model dog-
Preaching: