“The sermon is to be sacrificed to the soul, the system of work to the purpose of work always. It strikes at the root of all clerical fastidiousness and the tyranny of order.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 191
The Worth of Souls
“There is a power which lies at the center of all success in preaching, and whose influence reaches out to the circumference, and is essential everywhere . . . Where it is largely present it is wonderful how many deficiencies count for nothing . . . Without this power preaching is almost sure to become either a struggle of ambition or burden of routine. With it preaching is an ever fresh delight. The power is the value of the human soul, felt by the preacher, and inspiring all his work.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 183
The Primacy of Truth
“To claim that men should believe what we teach them because we teach it to them, and not because they see it to be true, is to assume a place which God does not give us and men will not acknowledge for us.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 178
Child and Father
“Let them see clearly that you value no feeling which is not the child of truth and the father of duty. And to let them see that you value no other feeling you must value no other feeling either in yourself or them.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 176
Good Order
“Truth and timeliness together make the full preacher . . . First, seek always truth first and timeliness second, never timeliness first and truth second.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 161
A Deadly Snare
“There is truth in the belief that much of the best thinking and preaching of the land is done in obscure parishes and by unfamous preachers . . . To set one’s heart on being popular is fatal to the preacher’s best growth. To escape from that desire one needs to know that the men who are in no sense popular favorites do much of the very best work of the ministry.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, pp. 156-157
Which Can Be Disconcerting
“Often the horse knows the rider better than the rider knows the horse.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 155
If You Want Them to Trust You
“Trust the people to whom you preach more than most ministers do.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 154
The Word is for All
“However difficult it may be to do it, it is clearly recognized that men ought to preach so that the wisest and the simplest alike can understand and get the blessing.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 153
Two Effects
“There are two effects of every sermon, one special, in the enforcement of a single thought, or the inculcation of a single duty; the other general, in the diffusion of a sense of the beauty of holiness and the value of truth.”
Phillips Brooks, The Joy of Preaching, p. 148