Sermons are not the only preaching which doth save souls. For concerning the use and sense of this word Preaching, which they shut up in so close a prison, although more than enough have already been spoken to redeem the liberty thereof, yet because they insist so much and so proudly insult thereon, we must a little inure their ears with hearing how others whom they more regard are in this case accustomed to use the selfsame language with us whose manner of speech they deride. Justin Martyr doubteth not to tell the Grecians, that even in certain of their writings the very judgment to come is preached5; nor the council of Vaus to insinuate that presbyters absent through infirmity from their churches might be said to preach by those deputies who in their stead did but read Homilies6; nor the council of Toledo to call the usual public reading of the Gospels in the church Preaching7; nor others long before these our days to write, that by him who but readeth a lesson in the solemn assembly as part of divine service, the very office of Preaching is so far forth executed8. Such kind of speeches were then familiar, those phrases seemed not to them absurd, they would have marvelled to hear the outcries which we do9, because we think that the Apostles in writing, and others in reading to the church those books which the Apostles wrote, are neither untruly nor unfitly said “to preach.” For although men’s tongues and their pens differ, yet to one and the selfsame general if not particular effect, they may both serve. It is no good argument, St. Paul could not “write with his tongue,” therefore neither could he “preach with his pen.” For Preaching is a general end whereunto writing and speaking do both serve. Men speak not with the instruments of writing, neither write with the instruments of speech, and yet things recorded with the one and uttered with the other may be preached well enough with both10. By their patience therefore be it spoken, the Apostles preached as well when they wrote as when they spake the Gospel of Christ, and our usual public Reading of the word of God for the people’s instruction is Preaching11.
Nor about words would we ever contend, were not their purpose in so restraining the same injurious to God’s most sacred Word and Spirit. It is on both sides confessed that the word of God outwardly administered (his12 Spirit inwardly concurring therewith) converteth, edifieth, and saveth souls. Now whereas the external administration of his word is as well by reading barely the Scripture, as by explaining the same when sermons thereon be made; in the one they deny that the finger of God hath ordinarily certain principal operations, which we most steadfastly hold and believe that it hath in both.
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Footnotes
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[Eccl. Disc. fol. 76. “Ne putemus eos de ecclesiis non esse sollicitos, mirifica quædam ratio inventa est, qua quum lectores tantum habeant, qui Scripturæ partem aliquam et preces reliquamque liturgiam recitent, idoneos tamen pastores et verbi divini prædicatores se habere existimant.” Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 579. “Reading is not feeding, but it is as evil as playing upon a stage, and worse too; for players yet learn their parts without book, and these, a many of them, can scarcely read within book.”] ↩
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[Adm. “By the word of God it is an office of preaching, they make it an office of reading.” Ans. 159. “What contrariety is there betwixt reading and preaching? If a man should write his sermon, and read it in the book to his flock, doth he not preach?” T. C. i. 127. (al. 160.) “What if I granted that it is preaching, yet I deny that he that readeth another man’s sermon preacheth: and further I say that if there be any such as being able to preach for his knowledge yet for fault either of utterance or memory cannot do it but by reading that which he hath written, it is not convenient that he should be a minister in the church.”] ↩
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[2 Tim. iii. 15.] ↩
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[“The ordinary and especial means to work faith by is preaching and not reading.” … “It is the excellentest and most ordinary means to work faith by in the hearts of the hearers.” … “The ordinary ways whereby God regenerateth his children is by the word of God which is preached.” T. C. i. 159. ↩
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Parænet. ad Gent. [p. i. C. τὴν μέλλουσαν μετὰ τὴν τελευτὴν του̑δε του̑ βίου ἔσεσθαι κρίσιν· ἣν οὐ μόνον οἱ ἡμέτεροι κατὰ θεὸν ΚΗΡΥΤΤΟΥΣΙ πρόγονοι, προϕη̑ταί τε καὶ νομοθέται, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ παρ’ ὑμω̑ν νομισθέντες εἰ̑ναι σοϕοί, οὐ ποιηταὶ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ϕιλόσοϕοι οἱ τὴν ἀληθη̑ καὶ θείαν ἐπαγγελλόμενοι παρ’ ὑμι̑ν εἰδέναι γνω̑σιν.] ↩
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Concil. Vasen. ii. (Vaison,) [vel iii.] ca. ii. [vid.supr. p. 78, note 1.] ↩
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Concil. Tol. iv. c. 12. [“In quibusdam Hispaniarum Ecclesiis Laudes post Apostolum decantantur, priusquam Evangelium prædicetur.” t. v. 1709.] ↩
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Rupert. de Divin. Offic. lib. i. c. 12, 13. [“Lecturus, benedictionem petens, hoc significat: quod nemo nisi missus aut permissus officium prædicandi usurpare debeat.” “Quodque in fine dicit, Tu autem Domine miserere nostri, ne ipsum quidem bonum officium prædicandi sine alicujus vel levis culpæ pulvere posse peragi.”]Isid. (of Seville, † 636) de Eccles. Offic. lib. i. c. 10. [“Ideo Diaconus clara voce silentium admonet, ut sive dum psallitur, sive dum Lectio pronunciatur, … quod omnibus prædicatur, æqualiter ab omnibus audiatur.”] ↩
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The Libel of Schoolp. art. 11. T. C. lib. ii. p. 388. “St. Paul’s writing is no more Preaching than his pen or his hand is his tongue: seeing they cannot be the same which cannot be made by the same instruments.” [i. 127.] ↩
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“Evangelizo manu et scriptione.” Rainol. de Rom. Eccles. Idolol. Præf. ad Co. Essex. [John Rainolds, Oxon. 1596. In answer to his Roman opponents who sneered at his gout, which prevented his public work. He had been Hooker’s tutor, v. i. p. iii and 11. The book must have been just published.] 1886. ↩
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T. C. i. 133. “The ministering of the holy Sacraments … is a declaration and seal of God’s favour, and a plain preaching, … that they be washed from their sins, &c.”] ↩
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John vi. 46. [45?] Matt. xvi. 17; 2 Cor. iv. 6; 1 Cor. xii. 3; Acts xvi. 14. ↩