Lectures on Homiletics and Preaching. with a Preface, an Appendix, and Notes, by J. Jones

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1835 Excerpt: ...the relations of different things. 'I never thought, ' says Baxter, 'that I understood any thing till I could anatomize it, and see the parts distinctly, and the union of the parts as they make up the whole.' This mental discipline accounts for the clearness and vigour of his style. A writer, who has not established habits of patient exact thinking, will use words with indeterminate meaning, and unskilful arrangement. But it is not enough for a writer to think clearly on any single subject. He may understand his own meaning, and yet have but little meaning; he may be intelligible to others, and yet be barren. That his style may be interesting, it must be rich in matter. It must exhibit those intellectual qualities in himself, which presuppose good inventive powers, sharpened by much reflection, and patient acquisition of knowledge. As a result of these principles, it must doubtless follow, that the man who sits down to write as the mere student of style, forgetting that language can be studied with advantage, only as the vehicle of thought, will be very liable to miss his aim. Some object he must have in writing, distinct from the attainment of a good style, or he will not write well. I know not that the style of Blair was formed in the method now condemned; but with all its good qualities, it possesses just those defects which I should expect such a process to produce. Secondly, Study Your Own Genius. As in a man's features, and other exterior qualities of person, so in his structure of mind, and habits of thinking, and of course in his style, there is an individuality of character. This appears in what he writes, with more or less distinctness, according to his native temperament, and the influence of circumstances, by which this temperament is strengthene..