Click to hide HTML preview
þÿ
How to Hear a Sermon
From Richard Baxter's
Christian Directory (1673), as quoted in
Truth & Power: The Place of Scrip-
ture in the Christian Life, by J.I. Packer, InterVarsity Press, 1999, pp. 134ff)
Directions for...Understanding the Word
Directions for Remembering what you Hear.
which you Hear.
I.
It greatly helpeth memory to have a full
I.
Read and meditate on the holy Scriptures
understanding of the matter spoken which
much in private, and then you will be the
you would remember....Therefore labour
better able to understand what is preached
most for a clear understanding according
on it in public, and to try that doctrine,
to the last directions....
whether it be of God....
II.
Method is a very great help to memory....
II.
Live under the clearest, [most] distinct,
Ministers must not only be methodi-
convincing teaching that you possibly can
cal...but ...choose that method which is
procure.... Ignorant teachers...are
most easy to the hearers to understand
unlike[ly] to make you men of under-
and remember....
standing; as erroneous teachers are
unlike[ly] to make you orthodox and
III. Numbers are a great help to memory....
sound.
IV. Names also and signal words are a great
III. Come not to hear with a careless
help to memory....Therefore preachers
heart...but come with a sense of the un-
should contrive the force of every reason,
speakable weight, necessity, and conse-
use, direction, [etc.] as much as may be,
quence of the holy word which you are to
into some one emphatical word. (And
hear: and when you understand how
some do very profitably contrive each of
much you are concerned in it, and truly
these words to begin with the same letter,
love it, as the word of life, it will greatly
which is good for memory....) As if I
help your understanding of every partic u-
were to direct you to the chiefest helps to
lar truth....
your salvation, and should name, 1. Pow-
erful preaching. 2. Prayer. 3. Prudence.
IV. Suffer not vain thoughts or drowsy negli-
4. Piety. 5. Painfulness. 6. Patience. 7.
gence to hinder your attention...be as ear-
Perseverance...the very names would help
nest and diligent in attending and learning,
the hearers= memory....
as you would have the preacher be in
teaching....
V.
Grasp not at more than you are able to
hold, lest thereby you lose all. If there be
V.
Meditate on what you hear when you
more particulars than you can possibly
come home....
remember, lay hold on some which most
concern you, and let go the rest....
VI. Inquire, where you doubt, of those that
can resolve and teach you. It showeth a
VI. Writing is an easy help for memory...
careless mind, and a contempt of the
word of God, in most people...that never
VII. Peruse what you remember, or write it
come to ask the resolution of one
down, when you come home; and fix it
doubt...though they have pastors...that
speedily before it is lost....Pray over it,
have ability, and leisure, and willingness
and confer on it with others.
to help them.
VIII. If you forget the very words, yet remem-
Directions to bring what we Hear into Prac-
ber the main drift....And then you have
tice.
not lost the sermon, though you have lost
the words; as he hath not lost his food,
I.
Be acquainted with the failings of your
that hath digested it, and turned it into
hearts and lives, and come on purpose to
flesh and blood.
get directions and helps against those par-
ticular failings...say when you go out of
Directions for Holy Resolutions and Affec-
doors, I go to Christ for physic [medicine
tions in Hearing....
or treatment] for my own disease....
I.
Remember that ministers are the messen-
II.
When you come home, let conscience in
gers of Christ, and come to you on his
secret...repeat the sermon to you. Be-
business and in his name....
tween God and yourselves, consider what
there was delivered to you in the Lord=s
II.
Remember that God is instructing you,
message, that your souls were most con-
and warning you, and treating with you,
cerned in.
about no less than the saving of your
souls....
III. Hear the most practical preachers you can
well get...that are still [constantly] urging
III. Make it your work with diligence to apply
you to holiness of heart and life, and driv-
the word as you are hearing it.... You
ing home every truth to practice....
have work to do as well as the preacher,
and should all the while be as busy as he:
IV. Associate yourselves with the most holy,
as helpless as the infant is, he must suck
serious, practical Christians.
when the mother offereth him the breast;
if you must be fed, yet you must open
V.
Keep a just account of your practice; ex-
your mouths, and digest it, for another
amine yourselves in the end of every day
cannot digest it for you.... Therefore be
and week....Call yourselves to account
all the while at work, and abhor an idle
every hour, what you are doing and how
heart in hearing, as well as an idle minis-
you do it ...and your hearts must be
ter.
watched and followed like unfaithful ser-
vants, and like loitering scholars [school-
IV. Chew the cud, and call up all when you
children], and driven on to every duty,
come home in secret, and by meditation
like a dull or tired horse.
preach it over to yourselves....
VI. Above all set your hearts to the deepest
V.
Go to Christ by faith, for the quickening
contemplations of the wonderful love of
of his Spirit....Entreat him to...open your
God in Christ, and the sweetness and ex-
hearts, and speak to you by his Spirit, that
cellency of a holy life, and the...glory
you may be taught of God, and your
which it tendeth to, that your souls may
hearts may be his epistles, and the tables
be in love with your dear Redeemer, and
where the everlasting law is written....
all that is holy, and love and obedience
may be as natural to you. And then the
practice of holy doctrine will be easy to
you, when it is your delight.
Click to see HTML preview
