Tag Archives: Rhetoric

Some observations on a paragraph from Addison

01 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Literature

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Here is a paragraph from Richard Addison

Thus I live in the World, rather as a Spectator of Mankind, than as one of the Species; by which means I have made my self a Speculative Statesman, Soldier, Merchant, and Artizan, without ever medling with any Practical Part in Life. I am very well versed in the Theory of an Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Oeconomy, Business, and Diversion of others, better than those who are engaged in them; as Standers-by discover Blots, which are apt to escape those who are in the Game. I never espoused any Party with Violence, and am resolved to observe an exact Neutrality between the Whigs and Tories , unless I shall be forcd to declare myself by the Hostilities of either side. In short, I have acted in all the parts of my Life as a Looker-on, which is the Character I intend to preserve in this Paper.

There are so many wonderful things about this quotation Addison in the first number of The Spectator March 1711

Consider

Thus I live in the World,

rather as a Spectator of Mankind,

than as one of the Species;

The “rather” sets an anticipated contrast. Contemporary style is for the immediate comparison. We would “rather than”, but here Addison breaks the contrast into two balanced clauses with an anticipation of the contrast. Notice also that the “s” of “species” recounts the “s” of “spectator”. The contrast begins with spectator and ends with species. The rhythm, sense, and sound all work together.

He gets the added benefit of “spectator” being the name of the paper for which Addison was writing.

Notice how he continues with the alliteration on the “s”

by which means

I have made my self

a Speculative Statesman,

Soldier,

This is a matter of taste and I cannot think of any certain rule, because he stops after self, speculative (which harkens back to spectator), statesman, and soldier. There is a ambiguity in the sense, because what is a spectator soldier – a speculative statesman is anyone of the bores on social media shouting an opinion without any real authority.

Notice what he does here with the sounds:

Merchant,

and Artizan,

without ever medling with any Practical Part in Life.

The m of merchant and meddling, artisan and any, which creates a patterned echo.

The “and” before artisan draws the list to a close.

The final life then breaks up the proceeding patterns of sound

With the Practical Part in Life.”

The concept is silly in their is no spectator merchant or soldier or artisan – unless he never acts.

We now come to the professional pundit:

I am very well versed in the Theory of an Husband, or a Father, and can discern the Errors in the Oeconomy, Business, and Diversion of others,

He does nothing but knows what is wrong with everything. This is the status of the internet: because he does not merely observe, but he also knows why everyone who is leading an actual life is doing the wrong thing.

The charm of Addison’s point of view is that it is ironic and detached without being unkind. In fact in this lovely prose, he is teasing only himself.

Thus there is a patterned irony: he is posing as a gadfly who is weirdly without the ability to see his own deficiency as he promises to critique others.

But the entire the standing is a pose which the real author is mocking.

This playful position itself comes in an essay where he is promising to tell the truth about his status as an author. The essay begins with the promise

I HAVE observed, that a Reader seldom peruses a Book with Pleasure ’till he knows whether the Writer of it be a black or a fair Man, of a mild or cholerick Disposition, Married or a Batchelor, with other Particulars of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right Understanding of an Author. To gratify this Curiosity, which is so natural to a Reader, I design this Paper, and my next, as Prefatory Discourses to my following Writings, and shall give some Account in them of the several persons that are engaged in this Work. As the chief trouble of Compiling, Digesting, and Correcting will fall to my Share, I must do myself the Justice to open the Work with my own History.

Aesthetic Judgment and Persuasion (Wittgenstein)

19 Tuesday May 2020

Posted by in Persuasion, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

In a 1983 article published in Crítica, Richard Shusterman examples Wittgenstein’s doctrine indeterminacy in aesthetic value and the work of critical evaluation. At first, this may seem rather remote from the matter of persuasion, but Shusterman rightly notes that the work of a critic (literary, musical, dramatic) is a work of persuasive rhetoric. In fact, Shusterman notes a passage in Wittgenstein’s Lectures and Conversations where he equates the nature of legal argument with the rhetorical procedure of a critic. As a lawyer, I can affirm correctness of Wittgenstein on this point.
Briefly, Shusterman notes three ways in which an aesthetic judgment is indeterminate.
Perhaps under the pressure from natural sciences and their seeming claim to indisputable truth, objective and eternal as a sort of sight of Platonic Forms, non-physical sciences beginning in the 19th century often sought to stylize themselves along “scientific” lines. Theology and literary criticism were taken up as sciences (in the sense of chemistry or physics).
A movement was made to formalize aesthetics in terms of deductive and inductive argument. If you have ever seen Dead Poets Society, the introduction from the beginning of the poetry book on how to graph the quality of a poem – which the new literature teacher has the students tear from their book – is a perfect example.
Wittgenstein critiques such deductive and inductive evaluations of art on the ground that the necessary grounds for evaluation have a degree of flux (Shusterman calls this “radical indeterminacy”, but I think he overshoots the mark; there is however a relative indeterminacy without question).

First, the basic concepts of balance and beauty do not have hard edges. Second, the work of the critic depends upon what sort of question the critic is asking (Wittgenstein’s concept of “game”). Thus, a critic who considers Hamlet psychological or the emotive or the political or metaphysical work will come to different conclusions. (Merrill Tenney’s book on Galatians is an example of how to perform this sort of critical evaluation. I also just realized that I have lent this book to someone and now I can’t find my copy.) Third, evaluations of beauty and art take place in a larger cultural context.
When we come to the contemporary period (granted Shusterman is writing 40 years ago; but the situation is even more extreme at present than then), the cultural context does not provide a universal scheme in which we can make a deductively valid and sound argument: who can say whether the premises are true.
What then does a literary critic do in such an environment? The critic cannot present “a nice knock-down argument for you.”
The critic’s work in this environment is thus to bring you to see the work from a particular point of view:

Validity is success, success in inducing the desired perception of the work, if not the desired critical verdict. He held that ‘aesthetic discussions were like discussion in a court of law’, where the goal and criterion of success is that ‘what you say will appeal to the judge.’ Elsewhere, Wittgenstein suggests that the criterion for adequacy of argument and correctness of explanation is acceptance or satisfaction. ‘The answer in these cases is the one that satisfied you.’ ‘That explanation is the right one which clicks,’ and is accepted by the interlocutor; ‘if he didn’t agree, this wouldn’t be the explanation.’

Richard Shusterman, “Aesthetic Argument and Perceptual Persuasion,” Critica 15, no. 45 (Dec. 1983): 51-74.
There is an important point: a deductive or inductive argument is not persuasive in some manner abstracted from the person who hears the argument. A deductive argument only works if it persuades the hearer in the direction intended by the speaker (it is possible that the deductive argument merely annoys the hearer and you have merely persuaded him to dislike you).
Thus, the work of the critic is to bring you see the artwork from a particular perspective: I seek to have you understand this poem, this painting as I do. When you see it as I see it, my literary criticism has been “worked.”
If anything, legal persuasion falls into this category even more than literary criticism. The lawyer seeks to bring the court to see the world from the perspective of the client.
Wittgenstein also notes that science functions in a similar manner:

Wittgenstein in fact suggests that such persuasion is also present in science. For instance, it underlies our firm and ready acceptance of the theories of Darwin and Freud, even when the grounds for their doctrines were in strictly logical terms of confirmation ‘extremely thin.’ We have been largely persuaded by the attraction of looking at things the way these theories present them.

Subsequent research into things such as confirmation bias only strengthen this insight. The strength of an argument – even a scientific argument – ultimately lies in the fact that it persuades: it causes one to see the world from a particular point of view.
Shusterman goes to offer a correction to those who take Wittgenstein further than is warranted. While literary criticism may be to bring you see a work from a particular perspective (and thus perhaps is the intended – and not always successful — end of all argument), that does not mean that deductive and inductive arguments are illegitimate.
Since arguments exist in the context of “conventions”, the “conventions” may permit or even dictate the use of deductive or inductive aesthetic judgment. Thus, “logical” arguments are not wrong even in the case of aesthetics. They just may not be effective (as determined by the intent of the one making the argument).

Finally, this understanding of persuasion as seeing the world from a particular perspective helps explain why certain ideas will be particularly difficult to change. When we ask someone to give up a certain perspective, they must not only give up the particular idea under review, they also must give up their conclusions on all of the world as seen from that perspective. Certain ideas form the context and basis for a worldview.

It is one thing to change a window on the second floor; it is quite another to tear our the foundation on the entire high-rise.

Spurgeon’s Preaching: Figures of Repetition

29 Monday Oct 2018

Posted by in Charles Spurgeon, Preaching, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I affirm, and the Word declares it, unbelief is a sin. Surely with rational and unprejudiced persons, it cannot require any reasoning to prove it. 

Is it not a sin for a creature to doubt the word of its Maker? 

Is it not a crime and an insult to the Divinity, for me, an atom, a particle of dust, to dare to deny his words? 

Is it not the very summit of arrogance and extremity of pride for a son of Adam to say, even in his heart, “God I doubt thy grace; God I doubt thy love; God I doubt thy power?” 

Oh! sirs believe me, could ye roll all sins into one mass,—

could you take 

murder, 

and blasphemy, 

and lust, adultery, and fornication, 

and everything that is vile, 

and unite them all into one vast globe of black corruption, 

they would not equal even then the sin of unbelief. 

This is the monarch sin, 

the quintessence of guilt; 

the mixture of the venom of all crimes;

 the dregs of the wine of Gomorrha; 

it is the A-1 sin, 

the master-piece of Satan, 

the chief work of the devil.

 C. H. Spurgeon, “The Sin of Unbelief,” in The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 1 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855), 19.

Now let us consider the rhetorical parts. Although he argues for the proposition elsewhere in the sermon, here he seeks not make you think that unbelief is a sin; but rather, to make you feel that unbelief is a heinous sin. This section functions as an introduction into the catalogue of sins which flow from unbelief. 

Therefore, at this point, he raises the emotional strain so that you will willing consider the danger of this sin. 

First, he states the proposition: it does not require proof to know unbelief is a sin. Thus, it requires only a look at unbelief to realize it is a sin.

He first begins with a series of three questions, all which have the same introductory formula (Is it not ….). All three questions demand an emphatic “Yes!”

While the three questions are parallel, they also show development:

Part one:

The first question states the general proposition:

Is it not a sin for a creature to doubt the word of its Maker? 

The second question repeats the general proposition but it expands both parts

Is it not a crime and an insult to the Divinity, for me, an atom, a particle of dust, to dare to deny his words? 

“Sin” becomes “a crime and an insult to the Divinity”. “Creature” becomes “me, an atom, a particle of dust”. “Doubt” becomes “dare to deny”

The third repetition again expands the proposition.

Is it not the very summit of arrogance and extremity of pride for a son of Adam to say, even in his heart, “God I doubt thy grace; God I doubt thy love; God I doubt thy power?”

Here “sin” become “the very summit of arrogance and extremity of pride”. “Creature” becomes “a son of Adam”. The final element “doubt’ is expanded and is made concrete with a very particular three-part question:

to say, even in his heart, 

“God I doubt thy grace; 

God I doubt thy love; 

God I doubt thy power?”

Part Two A.

Second, he makes two forms of comparison. The first comparison entails a weighing of unbelief against all other sin. On one side he balls up all other other sins (“everything that is vile”) and says that unbelief is worse than the lot. Notice that he does not merely say use the conclusion, but he also makes a list of various sins. The list is three basic groups: violence, blasphemy, sexual immorality. The short list gives some depth and color to “everything that is vile”.

Part Two B

He then ends is a list of seven labels for the sin of unbelief. The list is broken up at 4-5 with a repetition of the verbal phrase “It is”. Each item on the list begins with “The” and includes the (implied) verb “is”. The last two lines are parallel substituting the emphatic titles (master-piece/chief work) and the owner (Satan).

Figures of repetition for emphasis are easily overdone. Spurgeon avoids that fault in a couple of ways. First, not every paragraph is this emphatic and repetitive. 

Second, he does not use one type of repetition (for instance merely repeating a list of synonyms for a final noun, “A sin, a crime, a rebellion”). He asks questions. He uses two types of labeling repetitions. 

Third, within the three forms employed, he creates variety. The three questions are parallel, but they vary in length and rhythm. The two labeling repetitions vary significantly between themselves in form. They also show rhythmic variation within the form. The first set of labels breaks into three distinct parts. The second labeling form has a break mid-way three, repeating the “it is” to gain control for the final couplet. 

Fourth, the repetitions are not bare repetitions of sound. He increases the sense. There is an increase in information as he moves along. For instance, in the first three questions he shows that doubt is both unthinkable for a creature (by emphasizing both the lowliness of the creature (“an atom”) and the rebelliousness of the creature (“a son of Adam”). He also notes that doubt does not require a great act of rebellion, it is an unspoken whisper in the heart which is sufficient to create the sin. 

While such rhetorical forms are not common in most preaching they are typically repetitions without point beyond emphasis. There is no development of the idea in the repetition of parallel nouns. The parallels were chosen often because they provide no change in the idea.

Toward and Exegetical Practical Theology, Joshua Clutterham

13 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Theology of Biblical Counseling, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Joshua Clutterham’s article in this edition of the Journal of Biblical Soul Care develops a point which is crucial to any effective pastoral work (and by that, I limit pastoral work to work which takes Scripture seriously). The Bible is not merely a book of facts and propositions (although it does contain such). The words are there not merely be read and recognized. The information does not exist merely so we can pass some hypothetical Bible knowledge trivia test. The words of the Bible are given to do something to us; to change us.

The Bible must not be merely thought of as a basis for systematic theology. Even preaching must not terminate in what the Scripture means as a proposition, but what that proposition does.  The Bible is given to not merely inform, but also to change people. This changing people is a matter of practical theology.

This matter of application is admitted by most preachers (indeed, many very bad sermons are merely a string of applications: Cheer – up! You’ll do great if you try!). There is another group who deliver an enormous volume of information, but with no point. Great, I can answer questions about the economy of Egypt, but I’m not sure why that matters.

The point of Bible’s information is to transform human beings in conduct, knowledge and affection: to make people different than they were before they read.

This matter of using the Bible to change people is also the purpose of counseling. And thus we should merely think of counseling as private exegetical practical theology. Preaching largely differs in the number of persons present.

What Joshua further proposes is that we take care to notice the rhetorical structure of the Scripture’s application: When we apply the text, we should note how the text functions and rely upon that rhetorical structure to help deliver the application. As Joshua writes, “We [must] consider the method of delivery of Scripture along with its meaning.”

The article itself is quite detailed. He develops and explains the rhetorical structure of the Scripture’s application — giving many examples and helps.  The article contains a number of proposals for future development, and explains the relationship between preaching and counseling.  This brief bit merely provides the slightest introduction to his work.

You can get your free subscription to the journal here:

http://www.masters.edu/jbsc

Epiphora

03 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by in Rhetoric, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

,

More from Henry Peachum, The Garden of Eloquence (1593):

EPIPHORA.

Epiphora is a figure which endeth diverse members or clauses still with one and the same word.

An example: Since the tiem that concord was taken from the citie, libertie was taken away, fidelitie was taken away, friendship was taken away.

Examples of the holy Scripture: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I imagined as a child.”1.Cor.13.

Another: “Have we not prophecied in thy name? have we not cast out devils in they name? and done miracles in thy name?”Mat.

Ambition seeketh to be next to the best, after that, to be equall with the best: last, to be chiefe and above the best.

THE USE OF THIS FIGURE.

This figure is esteemed of many to be an ornament of great3 eloquence, yet it is very sparingly used in grave and severe4 causes, it serveth to leave a word of importance in the ende of a sentence, that it may the longer hold the sound in the mind of the hearer.

THE CAUTION.

It appeareth by experience that this figure is not commonly used by eloquent authors, but sparingly, and as it were thinly 5 sprinkled, as all exornations are, and therefore it ought not to be too much in use, if we desire to follow the examples of the most eloquent authors.

A most masterful use of this device is seen in The Merchant of Venice. The play hangs upon a courtroom scene. Portia, disguised as a lawyer, has saved the life of  Bassanio’s friend Antonio. At the end, this mystery lawyer asks of Bassanio the little ring “This ring, good sir — alas, it is a trifle”). Portia had given the ring to Bassanio as a token of her love:

I gave my love a ring and made him swear
Never to part with it; and here he stands;
I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it
Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth
That the world masters

Portia (who actually has the ring), demands to know what happened to the ring:

Even so void is your false heart of truth.
By heaven, I will ne’er come in your bed
Until I see the ring.

Since the ring is the focused of the conflict (it will be resolved), Shakespeare underscores the conflict by ending each line with “the ring”. Effect underscores the meaning:

BASSANIO
Sweet Portia,
If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
If you did know for whom I gave the ring
And would conceive for what I gave the ring
And how unwillingly I left the ring,
When nought would be accepted but the ring,
You would abate the strength of your displeasure.
PORTIA
If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honour to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring.
What man is there so much unreasonable,
If you had pleased to have defended it
With any terms of zeal, wanted the modesty
To urge the thing held as a ceremony?
Nerissa teaches me what to believe:
I’ll die for’t but some woman had the ring.

Remember Your Creator

16 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Ecclesiastes, Thomas Brooks, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;Ecclesiastes 12:1 (ESV)

‘Remember now thy Creator.’
Remember to know him,
remember to love him,
remember to desire him,
remember to delight in him,
remember to depend upon him,
remember to get an interest in him,
remember to live to him, and
remember to walk with him.

‘Remember now thy Creator;’ the Hebrew is Creators, Father, Son, and Spirit. To the making of man, a council was called in heaven, in the first of Genesis, and 26th verse. ‘Remember thy Creators:’

Remember the Father,
so as to know him,
so as to be inwardly acquainted with him.

Remember the Son,
so as to believe in him,
so as to rest upon him,
so as to embrace him, and
so as to make a complete resignation of thyself to him.

Remember the Spirit, so as to hear his voice,
so as to obey his voice,
so as to feel his presence, and
so as to experience his influence, &c.

‘Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.’
He doth not say in the time of thy youth, but ‘in the days of thy youth,’ to note,
that our life is but as a few days.
It is but as a vapour,
a span,
a flower,
a shadow,
a dream;
and therefore Seneca saith well, that ‘though death be before the old man’s face, yet he may be as near the young man’s back,’ &c.

Man’s life is the shadow of smoke, the dream of a shadow.
One doubteth whether to call it a dying life, or a living death. (Aug. Confess. lib.i.)

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1, “Apples of Gold”, chapter 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 178–179.

The Pretense of Neutrality

27 Saturday Sep 2014

Posted by in Culture

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Every political argument makes a moral claim. This may seem like an obvious statement, but it is one that those who craft our political rhetoric seem determined to obscure. We are inclined to appeal to concepts such as tolerance and freedom—which are, of course, moral concepts—as if they are ways to avoid reflecting on the moral merits of the policies under consideration. In every case, this is either the unwitting burying or the willful disguising of one’s moral and philosophical commitments.

But not so much as he deserves

16 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Faith, Love, William Romaine

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

“By him they expect a continual supply of all their temporal and spiritual needs, and therefore on him they would have their eyes ever fixed—looking unto Jesus. While by faith their eyes are kept steady upon him, they will be discovering something new in this wonderful God-man, and receiving something out of his fullness, to strengthen their hopes, and to inflame their affections. He will grow more lovely in their sight, fresh beauties will discover themselves, new worlds of delight will appear: for all the glories of heaven and earth shine in their fullest lustre in his person. The believer sees them at present: for by faith he can see him that is invisible, and although he has not such a perfect vision, as they have, who standing round his throne see him face to face, yet he hopes to enjoy it soon: and he has even now this peculiar pleasure in viewing the glories of his God and Saviour, that he can truly say of him–” this is my beloved, and my friend,” here I fix, and on him I rest; I want to look no where else for any good, since it all meets and centres in one object: for it hath pleased the Father and the eternal Spirit, that all fullness should dwell in the Son of God, and he is my beloved Saviour, and my dearest friend; he is the chief among ten thousand in my affection, yea he is altogether lovely. The more I live by faith upon him, the more I love him: for I experience such tender compassion in his heart, and such a kind concern for me and my interest, that the love of Christ constrains me to love him again. He endears his person to me by continual favours. I do love him, but not so much as he deserves, I would increase, and abound more and more in love to him, as his mercies increase and abound to me but a grateful sense of them, and love to him for them, are his own gifts, for which as well as for his mercies I must be content to be indebted to him for ever and ever. Lord shed more of thy precious love abroad in my heart: enlarge it in true affection to thee, and make all that is within me bless thy holy name.”

William Romaine, Treatise Upon the Life of Faith.

When compared with the self-centered drivel which often passes for preaching (I do not believe that the pulpit was better in Romaine’s day; good preachers are rare; great preachers are “rarer than radium” (Dylan Thomas’ wonderful line)), this paragraph (among) is a gem. Here are a few brief observations. Consider the first sentence:

By him they expect a continual supply of all their temporal and spiritual needs,
and therefore
on him they would have their eyes ever fixed—
looking unto Jesus.

Romaine constructs this sentence to further concept: by him, on him, looking unto Jesus. He then moves to develop the proposition, creating emotional content (not merely emotional affects) by repetition and development (in many ways the sentences are structured like Hebrew poetry. When laid out like verse on the page, it reads like the poetic from Whitman will later exploit):

While by faith their eyes are kept steady upon him,
they will be discovering something new in this wonderful God-man,
and receiving something out of his fullness,
to strengthen their hopes,
and to inflame their affections.
He will grow more lovely in their sight,
fresh beauties will discover themselves,
new worlds of delight will appear:
for all the glories of heaven and earth shine in their fullest lustre in his person.

Romaine effortlessly moves among doctrines, the sight of faith, the ultimate sight of God, hope, joy, love, the object of faith.

He weaves pastoral application in the doctrine and rhapsody:

The more I live by faith upon him,
the more I love him:
for I experience such tender compassion in his heart,
and such a kind concern for me and my interest,
that the love of Christ constrains me to love him again.

It is good counsel to note that love and faith flow from one to the other. It is not uncommon for one to complain that he feels very little love for Christ. Perhaps the trouble flows from very little faith in Christ.

Note also the structure: (1) Proposition, based upon experience, the I exercise faith, the more I love. (2) He repeats the proposition by means of amplification. ‘Live by faith’ becomes ‘experience such tender compassion in his heart and kind concern for me and my interest.” The love of the first proposition becomes “the love of Christ constrains me to love him again.”

He not only exhorts and teaches, he stops and prays in the midst of his teaching. Nothing in his prayer sounds artificial: it is spontaneous and flows directly from his instruction and application. It comes from both conviction (I do not love Christ sufficiently) and hope (and yet God will hear my prayer);

Lord shed more of thy precious love abroad in my heart: enlarge it in true affection to thee, and make all that is within me bless thy holy name.

I deeply appreciate that he speaks of the love of Christ without becoming maudlin, trite or affectionless. He states love held and desired, but he also gives content to that love.

Another aspect is the density of information. Romaine makes the information digestible by means of elegant writing, imagery, and emotional content; but he does not waste his words. Everything moves forward toward his goal of explaining and encouraging faith.

Sermon Introductions: A Weaned Child (Spurgeon)

23 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by in Charles Spurgeon, Preaching, Psalms, Quotations, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Spurgeon took his text from Psalm 131:2:

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.

When I first read the text, I did not immediately gain the meaning of the simile. While for some it may immediately make sense, for others the image could be disorienting at first. Thus Spurgeon has the task of unpacking the image.

Second, Spurgeon must also draw a line from the text to the life of the hearer — why should I desire to have such a soul? What is the advantage of such a heart?

Third, he will need to draw a line from one’s present trouble to the blessing promised in the text. This is perhaps the most common failing of a exegetical preacher: he may expertly explain some facet of the text and even tell the hearer that the end to be obtained — but without explanation of the relationship between means and ends, the end serves only to distress and discourage the hearer.

The Bible never lays out demands without also explaining the means. Moreover, it never lays out the means without sympathy for one’s affections. Yes, many — perhaps most — preachers fail to see and convey the logical and affections in right tandem. But, and this is a great part of his genius, this was not a fault of Spurgeon.

Here is the introductory paragraph of Spurgeon’s sermon, “The Weaned Child”. Note how Spurgeon both sets out the need for the text, and the beauty of the metaphor — but he does so in a way that draws it out in sympathy with the weakness of our flesh [I have broken it out into multiple paragraphs for ease of reading]:

I was once conversing with a very excellent aged minister, and while we were talking about our frames and feelings, he made the following confession: he said, “When I read that passage in the psalm, ‘My soul is even as a weaned child,’ I wish it were true of me, [note how he draws the need — not by telling us that we need this, but in showing us a representative man who expresses his desire & need] but I think I should have to make an alteration of one syllable, and then it would exactly describe me at times, ‘My soul is even as a weaning rather than a weaned child,’ for, said he, “with the infirmities of old age, I fear I get fretful and peevish, and anxious, and when the day is over I do not feel that I have been in so calm, resigned, and trustful a frame of mind as I could desire.”

I suppose, dear brethren, that frequently we have to make the same confession. [This is a technique which Spurgeon uses often: he makes a particular statement — here the wish of the particular minister — and raises it to a general proposition in which we share] We wish we were like a weaned child, but we find ourselves neglecting to walk by faith, and getting into the way of walking by the sight of our eyes, and then we get like the weaning child which is fretting and worrying, and unrestful, and who causes trouble to those round about it, and most of all, trouble to itself. [Here is sympathy with our weakness. Spurgeon does not treat his hearer as a freak or fraud because holiness seems foreign to our flesh. The Lord showed excellent patience with the weak — it was the surehearted, confident types that he gave his sharpest rebukes.]

Weaning was one of the first real troubles that we met with after we came into this world, and it was at the time a very terrible one to our little hearts. We got over it somehow or other. We do not remember now what a trial it was to us, but we may take it as a type of all troubles; for if we have faith in him who was our God from our mother’s breasts, as we got over the weaning, and do not even recollect it, so we shall get over all the troubles that are to come, and shall scarcely remember them for the joy that will follow. [He again draws out the meaning of the text, the need for its truth, and the sympathy for our weakness. A poor preacher will tell say, “You need to know this.” Spurgeon here has drawn out the affections and thought, and one says, “I need to know this.” That is why so many Sunday sermons are forgotten in the lobby and we still read these words a hundred and some years later.]

If, indeed, Dr. Watts be correct in saying that when we get to heaven we shall “recount the labors of our feet,” then, I am quite sure that we shall only do it, as he says, “with transporting joy.” There, at least, we shall each one be as a weaned child.

Mystical Bedlam.1

26 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by in Ecclesiastes, Meditation, Preaching, Puritan, Spiritual Disciplines, Thomas Adams

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mystical Bedlam, or the World of Madmen

Thomas Adams, collected works, vol. 1, p. 254.

(The text of the entire sermon can be found here: http://books.google.com/books?id=4qM_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA254&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false)

The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live: and after that, they go to the dead. Ecclesiastes 9:3.

In the introduction, we will see how Adams draws out the points of the sermon and works to create an emotional and logical effect in hearers. He does not seek to waste any time in his effort to make sin hateful and absurd.

Adams notes three elements of the verse:

1) The heart of the sons of men is full of evil,

2) and madness is in their heart while they live:

3) and after that, they go to the dead

The tripartite division follows the normal grammar and structure. He notes the relationship between the parts: “Wickedness in the first proposition, madness in the second, the ergo [therefore] is fearful: the conclusion of all is death” (254). Taking the first proposition he notes that the heart of the sons of men is full of evil.

At this point, he has done nothing more than make observations from the English text. Having made the observations, he then interrogates the text: What does this mean? Consider each element of the proposition:

How are the actors, the owners in this drama? “Sons of men.” This becomes the first proposition for the first division of the sermon: “The owners fo the this vessel, men, and derivatively the sons of men.”

What is the place of action? If the sons of men own something, what do they possess? A heart. What do I know about the “heart”? That become the second proposition: “The vessel is earthen, a pot of God’s making, and man’s marring, the heart.” How does he get to earthen? 

If the action takes place in a vessel, a container, what does it contain? Evil. This becomes the third proposition: “The liquor it holds is evil; a defective, privative, abortive thing, not instituted, but destituted, by the absence of original goodness” (254).[1]

Look back at the first proposition, what can we know about this vessel and its contents: It is full. This becomes the fourth proposition: “The measure of this vessel’s pollution with evil liquor. It not said sprinkled, not seasoned, with a moderate and sparing quality; it hath not aspiration, but imbution, but impletion; it is filled to the brim, ‘full of evil’” (255).

            Figures of Amplification

Note that on this final element [to be fair, he has used related techniques in each of the prior sentences] he uses figures of amplification to create an emotional effect.  Poor writers typically seek emotional effect by piling superlative adjectives before or after the noun, This is the greatest, most excellent, extraordinary, awesome X.  Write like that and you will bore people.   You have merely told people what to think and feel, but that will not cause them to think or feel in such a manner.

Rather than merely tell the hearer what to experience, Adams, by means of the amplification, creates a basis for the hearer to come to a decision. First, the repetition of balanced phrases creates an auditory effect by which the voice can create a sense of tense and urgency which breaks in the final phrase, “full of evil” – with the weight coming down on the final word, “evil”.

Second, he creates a reasonable basis for the emotional disgust at the heart being filled with evil.  Adams uses the figure of exergasia, “Repetition of the same idea, changing either its words, its delivery, or the general treatment it is given. A method for amplification, variation, and explanation.”[2]

Hebrew poetry uses this structure as a basic building block: one statement which creates an expectation to be fulfilled by a second (or third) statement (See, Theodore H. Robinson, The Poetry of the Old Testament, 21. Take, for example, Ecclesiastes 9:3

1) The heart of the sons of men is full of evil,

2) and madness is in their heart while they live:

3) and after that, they go to the dead

The first proposition is repeated, with variation in the second proposition. The effect of the first two is given in the third. Delaying the conclusion through the repetition and amplification of the second phrase, increases the emotional tension and creates more weight to the sad condition of humanity. To understand this better, consider a rewrite, “The heart of all people is full of madness and evil.  In the end, everyone dies.” While most of the logical building blocks are present in the rewrite, the disgust is missing: you may agree that it is true, but it somehow doesn’t seem as important.

This does not mean that one does not use adjectives or evaluative language in a description. Adams makes repeated valuations, however, he does it through verbs: sprinkled, season. Even the latinate abstract nouns (typically a bad move) work for him because they imply the action and they are also given in a series of near-rhymes.

At the end, Adams then tells the hearer/reader what to think, “Thus, at the first putting forth, we have man in his best member corrupted.” Adams has been explaining for several sentences (going through his four points) the dismal state of humanity. Having run through the elements, he draws up the conclusion.

Dickens performs this move masterfully. For example, in the beginning of A Christmas Carol, Dickens tells us stories about Scrooge and Marley:

Marley was dead: to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that.  The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.  Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.  Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead?  Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?  Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years.  Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner.  And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The repetition; the comic play upon the word “dead”; the story of the absolute loneliness of Marley (no one cared he was dead, except for Scrooge – and Scrooge didn’t care); the ease with which Scrooge turned to business; all tell us that Scrooge was very covetous and one we should hate.  Dickens plays out the nastiness of Scrooge with other tangible examples of his bad conduct.

It is not until the fifth paragraph that Dickens tells us as opposed to shows us: “Oh!  But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!  Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”

By the time the delay is resolved with the name calling, we are ready to join Dickens in hating Scrooge.  Moreover, Dickens verbs to describe Scrooge: squeeze, wrench, grasp, scrape, clutch, — only then do we get the adjectival “covetous old sinner”.

He then tells more stories about Scrooge, we see Scrooge so that we heartily agree with Dickens that Scrooge is “solitary as an oyster” (bringing together December and cold seawater should make one shiver).

            How Did Adams Think to Ask the Questions of the Text

Most exegetical works will look at the parts, note various syntactical elements, grammatical elements. Adams did note grammatical features (his three-part division of the verse) but then brought out aspects which don’t seem to flow directly from a sentence diagram.

Adams merely does what one should do when meditating upon a text. Donald Whitney in Simplify Your Spiritual Life[3] quotes ten questions gathered from Joseph Hall’s 1607 The Art of Divine Meditation. I am not saying that Adams read Hall’s book, but that Adams and Hall came from the same religious and intellectual world and thus would think about texts in the same manner.

Whitney’s restated questions are

1.  What is it (definition)?

2.  What are it divisions or parts?

3.  What causes it?

4.  What does it cause, that is, what are its fruits and effects/

5.  What is it place, location, or use?

6.  What are its qualities and attachments?

7.  What is contrary to, contradictory of, or different from it?

8.  What compares to it?

9.  What are its titles or names?

10. What are the testimonies or examples of Scripture about it?

Adams does not merely break apart the text and say it means 1,2,3, therefore apply. Instead, he has spent a great deal of time meditating upon the text – only then does he proceed to teach it.

The care he spent in writing the sermon, the careful balancing of phrases for sound and meaning, and breadth of scriptural comparison (matters which would not be brought together by a topical index) and even examples from classical literature all bespeak of an extraordinary care to the matter he preached.

 

[1] Destitute as a transitive verb is not terribly common in modern English. In the early 17th Century, English underwent a great deal of expansion and experimentation.

[2] This definition comes from the Forest of Rhetoric, at http://rhetoric.byu.edu/

[3] Whitney’s book is quite good.  This would be a very fine place for some with little spiritual discipline to begin. The chapters are short, the material is clear and well organized, the wisdom is accessible, the benefits are tremendous. The undisciplined Christian will likely have trouble working through Whitney’s more detailed Spiritual Disciplines. This book is an outstanding gateway to the topic.