Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

BR65
A8455
1848
V.l

BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.

PREFACE.

FREQUENT preaching in the congregation was held by St. Augustine to be an indispensable part of a Bishop's duty; and to his own unremitting assiduity as a Preacher we are indebted at this day for most that remains of his invaluable labours as an Interpreter. Few, comparatively, of his exegetical works were composed at leisure in the closet. Thus his great work on the Psalter consists chiefly of Sermons which he had preached from time to time, for the most part before he had conceived the design of forming a complete exposition of the Psalms. Of the Enarrations which were not preached, Possidius reckons only twenty-six: the remaining hundred and twenty-three were " tractatus," that is, not" commentarii," but Sermons ad populum. Towards the close of the year 415, we find St. Augustine intent upon finishing what was necessary to complete this work, (Epist. 169, 1.) and it appears that he had but just brought it to a conclusion, when he took in hand to expound the entire Gospel of St. John, in a course of Sermons; which, together with a course on the First Epistle, delivered in Easter-week, occupied most part, if not the whole, of the year 416. Only in this way was he permitted by the multiplicity of his avocations to put forth a continuous interpretation of the Theological Gospel.

Like most of his other Sermons, these "Tractates" were delivered ex tempore, taken down in writing at the time,

[blocks in formation]

and sent forth, revised indeed, but with little alteration either of matter or of method. That we have them, in the main, as they were preached, is obvious from their familiar and colloquial style, the frequent iteration, and especially the great length at which he dwells upon some parts of his subject, when, to a reader, he might seem to have exhausted all that was necessary to be said. He is not addressing himself to readers, but to a mixed audience, and he shews himself unwilling to quit any topic of argument or illustration, until he has reason to believe that what he has said has taken hold of his hearers. It may be presumed, however, that few readers of St. Augustine's Sermons will regard it as a blemish, that they lack the oratorical finish of style or condensation of matter which he was so well able to have given them; so vividly do they bring before us the very person, lock, and tones of the great Doctor, such as he was seen and heard while expounding the Scriptures in the congregation. The consummate dialectician and accomplished orator, the man whose voice ruled synods, and on whose wisdom the wisest of his age waited for instruction, is here exhibited to the life as a Preacher, intent upon the work which he has in hand, and affectionately desirous to impart his wonderful insight and fervid apprehension of Divine Truth to the very rudest of his provincial and Punic hearers. He has left on record more than one lively description of his own preaching. Thus in his treatise, "The Instruction of the Christian Teacher," he says of himself, that "he is cheered by the eager attention with which the people listen to him; now by their acclamations evincing that he has cleared up some difficult question to their satisfaction; now in their quickened apprehension even outrunning his utterance, forestalling the word he would speak, and finishing his sentence for him. Their applause, as it betokens their love of the truth, fills him with delight, not unmixed however with alarm for himself. But if the matter be of graver moment, it does not satisfy him to know that he is understood: he cannot quit the subject until he sees the tears rise to their eyes." (de Doct.

« AnteriorContinuar »