Dabney: Lectures On Sacred Rhetoric Analysis

Dabney/ On Preaching: Lectures on Sacred Rhetoric, pp. 137-153

• True Rhetoric, Dabney claims, consists with logic and rhetoric (rationality and emotion). This rhetorical division must be composed with Exordium (introduction), the Exposition, the Proposition, the Main Argument, and the Conclusion.

• Exordium is important because it is a segway or a passage for you to connect your audience with your main argument. Exordium, Aristotle said, reveals the purpose of the man discourse, to produce attention, to secure the favour of the hearers to the speaker, as well disposed well informed and honest, and last and least ,to give elegance to the beginning. Therefore, exordium (introduction) not only begins the sermon but it helps people to grasp

First, the text can be introduced in the happiest manner by unfolding the nexus of the thoughts amidst which it stands. Introduction, then, is like a time where our eyes beholding a moment when a flower is blooming to its full shape. Second, the text can be introduced with narration of the events, or a description of the place and times amidst which the text was uttered by the sacred writers. Third, the text can recite some historical events or incidents. Fourth, a legitimate exordium often be made by placing alongside of the text some related principle familiar and admitted among the hearers (147). A striking introduction can be made by citing some usage or opinion prevalent among the hearers, which is opposed to the doctrine or precept of the text. For example, the Scripture says “to give is more blessed than to receive.” People will be mentally refreshed when they hear that giving party is more fortunate than the receiving party. Last, it can be formed by a skillful hypothesis, putting in a concrete form the unexpected doctrine to be

This does not mean, of course, to tell people how he did not feel prepared for the sermon because of such and such in front of congregation. Dabney says this is lamentable and disastrous. However, genuine diffidence, which his felt and not spoken of, is exceedingly favourable to the effect of the subsequent discourse. o The best way to describe what genuine diffidence, I believe, is 2 Corinthian 2:16, “to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?” And our boldness in diffidence comes from 2 Corinthians 3:5, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of