translation into terms of their own experience: that is your task, not theirs. Beware lest with facile platitudes and prosy commonplaces you cheapen the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. Eliminate everything which does not ring true. Be chary of indulging in oratory. "If a learned brother," said Spurgeon, "fires over the heads of his congregation with a grand oration, he may trace his elocution, if he likes, to Cicero and Demosthenes, but do not let him ascribe it to the Holy Spirit." If you have a tendency towards purple passages, suppress it sternly. A generation which is suspicious and impatient of high-sounding declamatory language in Parliament and press and on the public platform is not likely to be impressed by it in the pulpit; and if you once give men the idea that you are indulging in self-conscious artistry, they will hardly believe that the things of which you speak are overmastering realities. John Bunyan declares, in the Preface to Grace Abounding, "I could have stepped into a style much higher than this, and could have adorned all things more than here I have seemed to do." But he is quite candid about his reason for refusing such tricks of elegance and ornament: "I dare not. God did not play in tempting of me; neither did I play, when the pangs of hell caught hold upon me; wherefore I may not play in relating of them, but be plain and simple, and lay down the thing as it was." You are to be dealing in your preaching with real things: temptation, crushing grief, the fear of death, the grace of Christ. On such themes, you cannot indulge in
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