CHARGE.

DELIVERED IN BROOKLYN, CONNECTICUT, AT THE INSTALLATION OF REV. SAMUEL JOSEPH MAY, NOV. 5TH, 1823.

MY DEAR BROTHER,

YOUR duty as a minister of the gospel is best learned from the sacred scriptures, and from your own observation and experience; but as it is customary on these occasions to deliver a charge, and as it has pleased the ecclesiastical council, convened for your installation, to assign that part to me, I enter upon it in obedience to their commands.

Your duty is, to lead the publick devotions of the church; to read a portion of the holy bible, whenever your people shall be assembled in this house; to administer the ordinances; to catechise the children; to visit the sick; to comfort the afflicted; and to preach the doctrines and precepts of the christian religion. But as an exhortation on all these heads would require more time, than this auditory can afford, I will confine myself to the last, your duty as a preacher of the gospel. I make

this selection, because preaching is generally considered in the churches of New-England as the pre-eminent business of a christian minister. This was the common opinion of our ancestors and of their contemporaries in England; and it is not much impaired in the present age. In many other churches preaching is regarded as a secondary object; whilst it is supposed that the essential parts, which the clergy have to perform, are prayer and the administration of the sacraments. Whatever your private opinion on this subject may be, it is proper that you should adopt the customs, that prevail in the age and country in which you live, provided they are innocent, and can most easily be made the instruments of doing good.

Preaching is of two kinds, speculative and prac

tical.

I. The former, though the least useful, is not without its advantages. A sermon on such a subject produces an intellectual exertion in the hearers, and invigorates, exalts, and, if the arguments alleged are not sophistical, purifies their minds. In the present state of religious sentiment among us, it seems to be absolutely necessary that you should sometimes give your attention to subjects of speculation. For a great variety of doctrines, which are more or less opposed to each other, is proclaimed in our land. Few of them in any church are taken on trust; but

almost all of them have powerful advocates, who are able to produce either sound or plausible arguments in their favour. As you are encompassed by men of strong and enlightened minds, you also should be furnished with reasons, with which you can defend your creed. The people are not only willing, but eager to hear sermons on these subjects; and it is proper they should be gratified, as far as it can be done without weakening their charity, and diverting their attention from the great business of life, the fear of God and obedience to his commands. I counsel you therefore to make yourself master of all the learning, which may be necessary to qualify you for the writing of such discourses. Happily this is not so laborious a task at present, as it would have been in former ages; because almost every region of theological science has been carefully explored by different persons, who has each one, according to his taste, examined a portion of the tract. For the sake of saving time, which you may devote to a still more important purpose, I recommend to you to avail yourself of their labours. In this age of the church it is unnecessary that you should read the Fathers, except for improvement in morals and devotion; because others have read them for you, and have extracted from them almost all the facts, which they contain. In like manner you may satisfy yourself with the results of biblical criticism, without entering into all the details. It

will be sufficient to make yourself acquainted with the various readings of the bible, which produce any alteration in the meaning of texts, whilst you pass over the many other various readings, which are acknowledged by all to be of no importance. You will not forget that the time of this transitory life is too precious, to be much employed in the minutiæ of knowledge, of whatever kind it may be; and that the mental sight, when it pores too long over microscopical objects, is contracted within limits, which become more and more narrow, till at last it almost loses the power of extending itself to the magnificent prospects of nature and religion.

Having collected from the works of the great masters in theology as much learning, as your leisure and opportunities permit, you will impart the knowledge, which you have acquired, to your people, as far as may be useful to them. As they will not understand you, unless your intellectual vision is distinct, endeavour to obtain a clear view of every subject, which you offer to their attention. Let there be light in your mind, and there will be light in your discourses. Gain, whatever it may cost you, the art of writing with perspicuity. Obscurity of style arises not so much from hard words, as from hard sentences, and from using words in a new sense. There are publick speakers, who, for the sake of making themselves intelligible to the vulgar,

affect to preach in homely language. Now this is as needless, as it is offensive; because in this country such a class as the vulgar scarcely exists. There are few of our men and women, who in their childhood were not taught at schools; and beside reading the holy Scriptures, in which there is such a treasure of words fitly spoken, of words that shine like apples of gold in pictures of silver; beside this divine volume, they are in the practice of reading the best written English books, in which a great variety of terms, scientifick as well as elegant, are introduced. But even they, with all their advantages of education, cannot comprehend a sentence, in which there is no meaning, or in which the words are thrown together without order, or in which the principal term has a meaning, but one which it never received before. Let there be no superfluity in your language. One pungent word will penetrate more deeply into the understanding, than a pointless word, which is barbed with two or three of a similar signification. Be a severe critick on your own compositions; and expunge not only every word, but every sentence, and every paragraph, which is not to the purpose. This may render your sermons shorter; but what you lose in mass, you will gain in weight and it will be most acceptable to your auditors; because the attention to a speculative discourse becomes painful, when it is too long continued.

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