From John Dryden’s Religio Laici, Preface
If any one be so lamentable a Critick as to require the Smoothness, the Numbers and the Turn of Heroick Poetry in this Poem; I must tell him, that if he has not read Horace, I have studied him, and hope the style of his Epistles is not ill imitated here. The Expressions of a Poem, design’d purely for Instruction, ought to be Plain and Natural, and yet Majestick: for here the Poet is presum’d to be a king of Law-giver, and those three qualities which I have nam’d are proper to the Legislative style. The Florid, Elevated and Figurative way is for the Passions; for Love and Hatred, Fear and Anger, are begotten in the Soul by shewing their Objects out of their true proportion; either greater than the Life, or less; but Instruction is to be given by shewing them what they naturally are. A Man is to be cheated into Passion, but to be reason’d into Truth.
Dryden is correct and incorrect in the last sentence, depending on how we take him. As a statement of what happens, there is truth in the statement that a man is cheated into Passion (though considered in that journalistic light it seems hardly correct to say that men are reason’d into Truth, considering how rarely that happens). As a statement of the right method of procedure, it may be all right as far as telling you the easy way to raise passions; but that cannot be commended. Now applying this to preaching, I suppose it would scarcely be possible to exaggerate the horrors of sin and hell; and I am convinced it would not be possible to exaggerate the glory of Christ and the majesty of God. And so, when it comes at least to ultimate things, reasoning into truth and inciting into passion ought to go hand-in hand. The reasoning into Truth is the means of inciting into a just and proper Passion. To this may be added some words from J.I. Packer’s article “Jonathan Edwards and the Theology of Revival” in Puritan Papers, v.2: (quoting Edwards Works, v.1:394,391 �London, 1840 edition)
It is sometimes imagined that, because in the pulpit he read a manuscript in a steady, quiet, even tone, and avoided looking at his congregation as he spoke, he did not share the Puritan concern to preach directness, authority and felt power….
But this is a mistake. Edwards knew very well that “the main benefit obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind at the time, and not by an effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered.” And when the earnestness and vehemence of Whitefield and the Tennents during the revival of 1740 came under fire from the Latitudinarians, who saw it as a regrettable lapse into “enthusiasm,” Edwards ran to their defense:
I think an exceeding affectionate way of preaching about the great things of religion, has in itself no tendency to beget false apprehensions of them; but on the contrary, a much greater tendency to beget true apprehensions of them, than a moderate, dull, indifferent way of speaking of them…. If the subject be in its own nature worthy of very great affection, then speaking of it with great affection is most agreeable to the nature of that subject… and therefore has most of a tendency to beget true ideas of it. … I should think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth…. I know it has long been fashionable to despise a very earnest and pathetical way of preaching; and they only have been valued as preachers, who have shown the greatest extent of learning, strength of reason, and correctness of method and language. But I humbly conceive it has been for want of understanding or duly considering human nature, that such preaching has been thought to have the greatest tendency to answer the ends of preaching…. An increase in speculative knowledge in divinity is not what is so much needed by our people as something else. Men may abound in this sort of light, and have no heat…. Our people do not so much need to have their heads stored, as to have their hearts touched; and they stand in the greatest need of that sort of preaching, which has the greatest tendency to do this.
(…)
“His words,” wrote his first biographer, Samuel Hopkins, “often discovered a great deal of inward fervour, without much noise or external emotion, and fell with great weight on the minds of his hearers; and he spake so as to reveal the strong emotions of his own heart, which tended, in the most natural and effectual manner, to move and affect others.” Such a feeling communication of felt truth was, in fact, precisely what the Puritans had had in mind when they spoke of “powerful” preaching.
Perhaps the thread of the quotation has led us rather far astray from where he started with Dryden. I’m sure you all saw how what Edwards says bears on and corrects what Dryden says (is it not remarkable that Edwards is a better guide to preaching than a hurried poet who converted to Roman Catholicism and it would seem almost never revised anything he wrote?). But allow me to fuss briefly at both Packer and Edwards as well as at old Dryden.
Packer may be correct (he certainly knows more about it than I do) that the Puritans thought of a “feeling communication of felt truth” when it came to defining powerful preaching: and I certainly would not wish to suggest that this couldn’t or doesn’t enter in to the constitution of powerful preaching. But when Paul speaks of preaching that was powerful (1 Thessalonians 1:4-6) the power seems measured by the effect, not by the sensations or liberty or emotions of the preacher. In other words, however we define powerful preaching with regard to the preacher, we must not forget that in preaching there is also a congregation to be considered.
And when it comes to Edwards, I must fuss provisionally. I don’t know whether the quotation from him could properly be limited to that time period�as the references to “our people” might suggest�or whether he believes his words to be universally applicable. If the latter is the case, then I do not believe that his words can be accepted without qualification, because there are times when an “increase in speculative knowledge in divinity” is precisely what is needed. Albert Martin has remarked this with regard to Thessalonians 4: in the first two verses Paul attempts to stir them up, because they already know; but in v.13 he instructs them because they need to know. We could also mention that according to Paul there is a zeal that is not according to knowledge. I am not accusing Edwards of denying that, you understand; I simply think it as well to be explicit on that point lest someone should seize on the quote from him and either begin to throw over or justify throwing over instruction for emotional manipulation (which Edwards’ example certainly does not encourage).