JULY 12
Which is the best method of preaching?
i. to invite. ii. to convince. iii. to offer Christ. iv. to build up; and to do this, in some measure, in every sermon.
1. Be sure to begin and end, precisely at the time appointed.
2. Endeavour to be serious, weighty and solemn in your whole deportment before the congregation.
3. Always suit your subject to the audience.
4. Choose the plainest texts you can.
5. Take care not to ramble from your text, but keep close to it, and make out from it what you take in hand.
6. Beware of allegorizing or spiritualizing too much.
7. Take care of anything awkward or affected, either in your phrase, gesture or pronunciation.
Minutes of Conversations, 1744
However tempted thereto by profit or pleasure, contract no intimacy with worldy-minded men.
Letter, 1st August, 1786
