# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1857_S356
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

356   Compilation of the Reports on Exordia.

this the hearers derive more profit from the smallest verse than from an exordium however beautiful" (?).

It is not to be denied that when an exordium fails, it can happen from the two grounds adduced. The former, the author's lack of diligence, is to be remedied by his diligence, and then the exordium will attain its purpose. And precisely because the all-round understanding of the text is to be furthered by it, one ought not at once to spare oneself the labor which the working out of a good exordium brings with it, by omitting it altogether. To be sure, no one requires of our hands that we make an exordium; but this our Lord and Master does require of us, that we help our hearers to an all-round understanding of His Word. Since, then, this is to be achieved among other means by the exordia as well, the requirement of these latter is contained therein. If, of course, a complete ineptness for working out good introductions is present, then it is certainly better for such as perceive this in themselves that they leave them out altogether. —

The third question, whether the exordia are advisable, is likewise answered in the negative by the contributors. The one adduces the following as his ground: "For they are time-consuming, to the detriment of the sermon, especially when a pulpit hymn stanza still follows the exordium — apart from the great drawback that by the singing of such a stanza, which often, even when chosen with the greatest care, will not quite fit, the thoughts are easily directed to something else. I say the use of exordia is time-consuming; we preach for the most part too long even without one, and how rich is the text, if it is to be handled sufficiently! How much less time remains when the exordium is employed!"

The grounds of another contributor are these: 1. The exordia disturb the unity of the sermon. Of this a German periodical says, on the occasion of the abolition of exordia in Frankfurt on the Main: "'It can certainly only be approved that the unnatural separation of the sermon from the introduction, and the still more unnatural interposition of an intervening hymn, as well as of the text, between the two, has been removed, and the unified character of the whole sermon, grown out of and unfolded from the Word of God, has been preserved.'" This is confirmed by the practice of the ancient Christian church, where, as is well known, after the reading of the Gospel before the lectern, and after a few verses sung thereupon, the sermon or exposition began at once in the pulpit, without a second reading and still less with an intervening hymn. The Lutheran Church in its flourishing period did indeed in most places have the second reading of the Gospel, but of an intervening hymn no trace is to be found, nor of a benediction or prayer before the reading of the text. 2. The exordia are time-consuming. — Whoever, according to Dr. Luther's counsel and example, will preach the chief matters of every Gospel every year and treat the particulars only a little in detail,