INTRODUCTION.
1. If there were never a time when so many sermons issued from the press as at the present day, it is equally certain that, however much we may boast of our Scriptural knowledge, there never was a period when such compositions showed so little deep and ready acquaintance with the Bible. The actual quantity of reference to Scripture contained in the first volume of modern sermons which one may happen to take up, is surprisingly small: and further, the quotations are almost entirely made from favourite books— parade the same texts over and over again—leave vast portions of the Bible utterly untouched—and are superficially adduced without regard to their context. Now, whatever judgments may be formed in other respects of medieval preachers, in this one thing it cannot be denied that they excel their successors. It is not merely that they quote ten texts for one in modern discourses; but that the passages they adduce are brought forward with impartiality, and according to analogy, from the Old and the New Testament; from the historical books and the prophets, as well, and as much, as from the Epistles and Gospels. This is what gives those sermons so much value. Their writers took, as it were, a bird’s-eye view of the whole volume of Scripture at once—saw, at a glance, what was most apposite—were as much at home in one portion as in another; and could, therefore, select the very text, or passage, which bore most strikingly on the point which they had in hand. Ours, on the contrary, wander
