“The sermon should throb with robust life” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 87).
Heart of the Matter
The preacher “should find the hiding-place of power, in the revealed ideas of God’s personality and mercy, and man’s responsibility and guilt” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 81).
No Rock Without a Quarry
“The human mind . . . was made to receive truth into itself, and not to originate it out of itself. The human mind is recipient in nature, and not creative; it beholds truth, but it does not make it . . . The oratorical power of the preacher depends upon his recipiency; upon his …
The Real World Gives Traction
[A preacher’s] “power lies, therefore, in that objective world of truth and of being, over against which he stands as a finite and dependent subject. In simple and common phraseology, which so often, however, contains the highest philosophic truth, man’s strength is in God, and the mind’s strength is in truth” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral …
A Flaying Hatred
“In the midst of all this clamor for fine writing and florid style, the preacher should be a resolute man, and dare to be a plain writer . . . This determination will affect his whole sermonizing . . . It will appear in the composition and manner, in a stripping, flaying hatred of circumlocutions, …
Simply Plain
“The preacher should toil after this property of style, as he would toil after virtue itself. He should constantly strive, first of all, to exhibit his thoughts plainly. Whether he shall add force to plainness, and beauty to force, are matters to be considered afterwards. Let him in the first place begin at the beginning, …
A Plain as a Punch
“There is prodigious power in this plainness of presentation. It is the power of actual contact. A plain writer, or speaker, makes the truth and the mind impinge upon each other. When the style is plain, the mind of the hearer experiences the sensation of being touched; and this sensation is always impressive, for a …
Plainer Than That
“There is no characteristic more important to the preacher than this, and none which ought to be more earnestly coveted by him. Sermons should be plain” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 63).
A Window With a Defined Frame
“It is not enough that thoughts be seen through a clear medium; they must be seen in a distinct shape” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 61).
All Three
The “primary and indispensable characteristics [of good discourse] are reducible to three: viz. plainness, force, and beauty” (Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology, p. 59).