The test of a preacher is that his congregation goes away saying, not What a lovely sermon, but I will do something about it.

The preaching of divines helps to preserve well-inclined men in the course of virtue, but seldom or never reclaims the vicious.

Preaching has become a by-word for a long and dull conversation of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of everything agreeable and inviting, calls it a sermon.

He that has but one word of God before him, and out of that word cannot make a sermon, can never be a preacher.

The preacher's garment is cut according to the pattern of that of the hearers, for the most part.

What do our clergy lose by reading their sermons? They lose preaching, the preaching of the voice in many cases, the preaching of the eye almost always.

The sermon which I write inquisitive of truth is good a year after, but that which is written because a sermon must be writ is musty the next day.

Go into one of our cool churches, and begin to count the words that might be spared, and in most places the entire sermon will go.

Among provocatives, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching.

He preaches well that lives well.

He that does not know how wisely to meddle with public affairs in preaching the gospel, does not know how to preach the gospel.