B. It binds us to the most sedulous activity in our vocation. Jesus tried Peter by requiring a new duty, before he elevated him to be a fisher of men. And if we do not endure our trial, if we are unfaithful in the unrighteous mammon, will God commit to our trust the true riches? Will he call to the higher sphere of heaven, those who are remiss on earth?

C. It consoles us for our want of visible success in our labors. The

crowning result of these labors is inward. What if men have toiled all the night and gained no external good? They have qualified themselves for a nobler labor with which they are to be honored. Was the net full of fishes the chief reward for Peter's diligence? "When they had brought their ships to land," says the text, "they forsook all and followed him." D. It proves that we should not abandon our present calling, be it what it may, until God summon us to another. Almost every one has, at times, a prurient desire to do something else: women to manage the affairs of men, the lower classes to imitate the higher, the ignorant to set up for scholars, etc.; and multitudes ruin themselves by fickleness and instability in their profession, by overstepping their proper limits. But He who called fishermen to a more exalted office, will call us to one when we are fitted for it.

E. It awakens in our hearts the hope of immortality. All this discipline of our daily business is not to be wasted on our ephemeral comfort, but was designed to form our characters for an eternal state. What if thousands on thousands die in obscurity, "we are not concerned for them, Almighty Father, since we know how much thou workest in stillness, to what perfection thou leadest all who follow thee. Let us only hear, when thou teachest, let us obey, when thou commandest; let us all, after we have been faithful over a few things, be made rulers over many things, and enter into thy joy. Amen."

From precisely the same text with that of the preceding discourse, our author introduces another sermon, with remarks on the frequency of commencing new friendships, the indifference with which they are regarded, etc., and then, after stating his text, explaining the particulars of Christ's first interview with Peter, he announces his theme, The Beginnings of our Acquaintances, which he divides

thus:

A. They are often on our part accidental;

1 Predigten, 1808, Band II. ss. 40-58.

1849.]

a. in the time,

Their regular Structure.

b. in the circumstances of their occurrence.

B. They have always a wise design on the part of God; a. as means of good to us,

b. as tests of our character. C. They are rich in their results; a. upon our moral feelings,

b. upon our happiness or misery.

D. They impose on us new duties;

a. to be circumspect in our conduct,

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b. to make a zealous use of our new privileges. Peter instantly left all and followed his new friend.

Sometimes Reinhard adopts the alternative or disjunctive division; and very often employs the disjunctive phraseology in his plan. In a sermon on Luke 15: 1-10,1 his Proposition is, The conversion of a sinner is an event which gives joy in heaven; and his Division, first, The meaning and truth of this Proposition, secondly the application and use of it. I. In giving the import and proof of this Proposition I remark, that it admits a double meaning, and is to be understood as either an emphatic description of the great importance of the sinner's moral improvement, or as an express announcement that this event does rejoice the hearts of beings in heaven. In other words, it is a figurative and rhetorical sentence, or a literal and historical one. A. It may be an emphatic but figurative description of the great importance of the sinner's conversion. Such phrases are used in this rhetorical manner. a) Reason proves, and b) the Bible teaches that the reformation of a man is thus inconceivably momentous. B. The Proposition may be a literal and historical announcement that a sinner's conversion pleases the inhabitants of heaven. They actually feel this interest in his spiritual condition. a) Reason makes this statement probable, and b) the Scriptures favor it. II. In the application and use of this Proposition I remark, A. it teaches that human nature, even in its degraded estate, merits our high regard; B. it is fitted to touch the hearts of the impenitent especially, and make them zealous for their own moral transformation; C. it should encourage the regenerate to perseverance and to progress; D. it should stimulate all who can contribute to the moral improvement of their brethren, to do so with an unwearying zeal.This skeleton also illustrates a peculiarity, and a somewhat monotonous one, of the Plans of Reinhard's discourses. He is too much inclined, first to explain, secondly to prove, and thirdly to apply

2 Predigten, 1804, Band I. ss. 373-390.

every subject which he discusses. Now many subjects need no explanation, or no proof, or no personal application. Besides, the explanation when introduced, should not ordinarily be deferred to the body of the discourse, but should precede it, as the practical appeal should follow it, being not a part of the discussion but a consequence of the same.

Instead of announcing his subdivisions technically as such, Reinhard sometimes compresses them into a single sentence, and afterwards recurs to its successive clauses, each of which is the topic of a distinct part of his discourse. Thus, in a sermon which we should suppose might be appropriately delivered in a hospital, but which, in the exuberance of his ethical instructions, he introduced into the order of his services before the Saxon Court,2 from the text Mark 7: 31-37, he adopts the following plan; "Therefore will I devote this hour to a useful contemplation on the state of those unfortunate persons, to whom nature has given a deformed or imperfect body. How should we look upon their state, and what practical use should we make of it?" In what light should we regard it? "It is not the play of accident, but the unavoidable consequence of good natural laws, and it results from them according to a design of God which we cannot entirely understand, but which, as we may believe, is to promote the welfare of the sufferers themselves, and thereby of others also." This last sentence contains five clauses, which are five subdivisions of the first general head, and which are afterwards introduced as topics of remark, not numerically but distinctly in the order above specified. But what practical use should we make of the condition of these unfortunate men. a) It should increase our abhorrence of sin, for although often not, (as in our text,) yet often it is the result of violating the divine laws. b) It should incite us to the Christian treatment of those who are thus afflicted. c) It should awaken within us sentiments of gratitude to God for giving to us sound bodily organs. d) It should animate us to a conscientious use of our physical powers. e) It should stimulate us to hold fast the hope of immortality and of the resurrection of the body.

From the text Matt. 6: 24-34, Consider the lilies, etc., Reinhard derives the Proposition 3 "On Sensibility to Nature," and discusses it in the following Plan: "Let me, first, show wherein this sensibility

1 Reinhard himself confesses that the first heads of his Divisions are often inappropriate to his Propositions. See Geständnisse, ss. 148-151. Sulzbach,

1810.

2 Predigten, 1801, Band II. ss. 151-171.

3 Predigten, 1801, Band II. ss. 192-213.

1849.]

Their Vivacity.

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consists, then illustrate its importance, and lastly state the results which flow from the preceding considerations." 1. The nature of this sensibility. Then follows a sentence including the three subdivisions of the first head: "This sensibility involves an attentive and meditative observation of the visible works of nature, accompanied with lively emotions in view of them, and with an elevation of the mind to the useful truths which they may suggest, and to God himself." a) It involves an attention, etc., b) lively emotions, etc., c) an elevation, etc. 2. The importance of the already explained sensibility to nature. a) It is a source of enjoyment, b) a test of moral character, c) a means of moral improvement. 3. The results flowing from the preceding considerations. a) If we find that we want a sensibility to nature, we should be very studious and distrustful of our own character. b) If we possess it, we should scrutinize it, and see whether it be of the right kind. c) We are bound to praise God, that he has made "it so easy for us, my hearers, to attain a taste for the beauties and the teachings of nature. The natural scenery of our residence [Dresden] is peculiarly rich and suggestive. Let our fields become, in our mental associations, a temple of God, a porch of heaven."

A philosopher, having never perused Reinhard's sermons, and judging of their vitality from their form, might conjecture that they were "coldly correct and critically dull." It is certainly unusual to unite a punctilious regard for symmetry of construction, an artificial regularity of paragraphs, sentences, and even clauses, with a fervor and energy of feeling. But Reinhard does unite these apparent opposites. Hence we proceed to the

§ 7. Vivacity of his Discourses.

His phraseology being lucid and precise as well as masculine and elegant, his ideas being so arranged that one readily suggests another, his illustrations being apt and forcible, and his whole style being instinct with the life of a vigorous mind and a benevolent temper, Reinhard carries the feelings of his readers with him through the most carefully adjusted series of topics. His evenly balanced sermons are in a glow. Their rigid structure breathes with emotion. His delivery was so impassioned, that his audience would overlook the almost finical niceties of his arrangement, his occasional straining after originality, and would remain enkindled with the ardor of his consecutive appeals. No paragraph, severed from its connections, will represent the life of the system to which it belongs, more than a VOL. VI. No. 22.

28

heart exscinded from a human body can exhibit the action and warmth of the organized structure which it once animated. It may be interesting, however, to examine the syllabus of a discourse which combines the exactness of Reinhard's method with the fervidness of his emotion. The following abstract of a double sermon preached on the days of a Christmas festival, illustrates many peculiarities of his and of other German discourses. Their introductions are often so animated as to promise more than can be easily performed. Even their Propositions and Divisions are sometimes announced with a degree of vehemence, which would be deemed excessive in the concluding appeal of a Scotch or New England discourse. Reinhard introduces his Christmas sermon thus:

"Oh! thou Infinite, Incomprehensible, and Invisible One, who hast all sufficiency in thyself; who dwellest in light which no mortal eye can endure; thou hast come forth from thy silent hiding-place; thou hast tempered the brightness of thy glory into the softest radiance, for the sake of being able to manifest thyself unto thy creatures, and among them unto us also, us the feeble inhabitants of this earth. Everywhere around us do we behold the proofs of thy greatness, the master-pieces of thy wisdom, the benefactions of thy goodness; the heavens declare thy glory, and the firmament showeth thy handiwork. But oh! how hast thou in a peculiar manner distinguished this earth; what a theatre for the display of thine attributes hast thou made it! With deep amazement, with tremulous joy, does this festival devoted to the contemplating of thy most magnificent, thy most wonderful, thy most condescending revelation, fill my heart; for I am now about to announce this revelation; I am now about to declare that thou whom no finite mind comprehendeth and no sense reacheth, hast sent to us thine only begotten; that thou the Invisible hast, in one of our race, made thyself as it were perceptible to our feeble eyes; I am now to proclaim aloud that thou hast clothed the splendor of thy glory and the image of thy being with our own nature, and hast given to us him who could say, Whoso seeth me seeth the Father also.

"So important, beloved brethren, so noble, so useful is the great event to which are devoted the days now to be celebrated. True, the devices are innumerable by which God imparts to his creatures the knowledge of his greatness and his will. All nature around us is a vast and splendid temple, where his glory sometimes expresses itself in forces that cause all things to tremble, sometimes beams

'Reinhard's Predigten, herausgegeben von Hacker, Band IV. ss. 284-316.