'Clear reasoning, sober argument, touching exhortation': In praise of 18th century Anglican preaching

In 1828, Richard Warner, an English parson, published Evangelical Preaching, commonly so denominated: Its character, errors and tendency, a critique of "this new system of preaching, [which] is called, (with singular inconsistency) evangelical preaching".  Nockles in The Oxford Movement in Context, describes Warner as one of those "Orthodox churchmen in the forefront of campaigns of 'refutation of Calvinism'", an exponent of the 'Tillotsonian' character in the Orthodox school.  What is particularly striking about the work is its explicit defence of the style of preaching which was common in 18th century Anglicanism, only years before the Tractarians would commence their historiographical assault on the church of that century:

That this style of spiritual teaching [i.e. of the evangelical preachers] has something wrong in it, may fairly be inferred, not only from its novelty, (for, in such cases, new and erroneous, are, usually, synonymous terms) but, also, from the variance of its views, and the discordancy of its spirit, with the pulpit instructions, of the holiest, wisest, and most learned divines, of the Church of England, from the era of the Reformation, to the middle of the 18th century. 

The giants who laboured in the vineyard of the Lord, in the days of the second Charles; William; Anne; and the two first Georges; "mighty in the Scriptures", and intimately conversant with the nature of fallen man, as a rational and responsible being; aimed to convince his understanding, and affect his heart, by clear reasoning; sober argument; and touching exhortation: and, aware of his natural propensity to sin, and reluctance to holiness and virtue, from the violence of his passions, and the waywardness of his will; they were ever careful to place his duties, as a creature and a Christian, and his moral obligations, as a subject and a citizen; a husband and father; a neighbour and friend, in the most striking and prominent light; and to invite him to their performance, by "the mercies", and deter him from their infraction, by "the terrors of the Lord" ... 

The glories of heaven, and the sorrows of perdition, were unfolded by them, not to inflame the fancy, or terrify the imagination of the hearer, but, as motives to moral obedience; and the enjoyment of the one, and an escape from the other, I repeat, depended, in their scriptural representation of the terms of the Gospel covenant, on man's fulfilment of the three indispensable conditions of salvation; repentance for past transgression; Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: and earnest endeavours to obey the precepts of his law. 

Such ... was the spirit and form of the pulpit exhortations of our most powerful Divines, for upwards of a century: and, since they have passed away, many, who caught their mantle; and many, who now tread in their steps, earnestly asserted, and still continue to hold out, to their congregations, the same scriptural views of the nature of the Gospel covenant; to preach, like them, the indivisibility of faith and practice; and to present fully to the minds, and urge home upon the consciences of their flocks, the importance of the precepts, as well as the doctrines of the Holy Scriptures. 

Against this noble tradition, Warner contends, were the "evangelical preachers".  It is worth noting here John Wesley's insistence of the Methodists, "we are no Gospel preachers".  As Ryan Danker states in his excellent study Wesley and the Anglicans, the term was denied because it was deemed to have "a lack of emphasis on holy living and a rejection of humanity's required reaction to God's movement of grace".  Appropriately, then, Warner particularly highlights a radical view of the Fall as disordering such preaching:

[they] delight to dwell on the perfect and unmixed malignity of human nature: describing it, as altogether, incapable of a holy thought; a benevolent impulse; a generous emotion; or a worthy action. In their gloomy view of our corrupted race, Man, at the Fall, became one uniform mass of "defecated evil": and "the image of God", in which his Maker had created him, was changed into the horrid semblance of a fiend. Benumbed, and rendered utterly powerless, by the lapse of Adam, his offspring, (they tell us,) can do nothing in the work of salvation, (though we are expressly commanded to "work together with God"), but that an overwhelming grace, and the blood of the atonement, are to effect everything, in our restoration to the favour and acceptance of the Almighty: thus paralyzing the energies of virtue: checking the struggles of piety; damping the ardour of benevolence; and extinguishing the spirit of Christian charity.

Flowing from such a radical view of the Fall was an inability to articulate a coherent, convincing theology of virtue and good works:

The very phrase of "good works", as a condition of salvation, is not known in their theological vocabulary: and the utmost they will allow to moral virtue, when it claims their reluctant and accidental notice, is, that its only value in the sight of God, arises, not from its being a proof of religious obedience, but, merely, as it forms an evidence of faith. Fearful that man should build any claim of merit, upon any thing he can do him self, and plead his personal righteousness as a reason for God's acceptance of him, (though all such "boasting" is cut off, by the conviction of every serious Christian, that, after all, he is only an "unprofitable servant"), they oscillate into the contrary extreme, and, either by an actual disparagement of "good works", or, by their sullen silence respecting them, they rob religious and moral obedience of its legitimate honours: of that value and approbation, in the sight of God, which He, in His mercy, is pleased, for the sake of Jesus Christ, to confer on every humble and sincere endeavour "to do his will": and, to which he put his own seal, when, in the case of Cornelius, his angel said, "thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God".

As Warner emphasises, the inability to meaningfully integrate exhortation to good works into this preaching - in stark contrast to the Anglican preaching of the 18th century - was a failure to respect the teaching of the New Testament on the moral character of the Christian life: 

The fuller dispensation of "life and immortality", by Jesus Christ, was introduced into the world in language of the same practical import. The harbinger of the Saviour, John the Baptist, when he heralded the ministry of the Messiah upon earth, preached in the wilderness, and said, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand - bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance". Our blessed Lord began, and prosecuted his labours, in the same spirit. All his public exhortations and private discourses: his Sermon on the Mount, to "the multitudes"; and his conversations with his Disciples, apart; have a moral, as well as spiritual, character. They are invariably fraught with practical instruction; adapted to the improvement of the heart, and directed to the corroboration of the principles of virtue. That the preaching and writings of the Apostles, were of a similar description, will be denied by no man, who is conversant with either: for certain it is, that their exhortations to Christians, to labour after an increase and proficiency, in personal righteousness, are only less powerful, than the injunctions of their Lord and Master, to the same effect. St. Paul himself ... the favourite Apostle of the Clergy of the Evangelical school, (because "he has some things hard to be understood" in his Epistles, and, therefore, easily "wrested" and perverted, to false conclusions) affords an example of practical teaching, which nothing short of judicial blindness can mistake. The commencement of his several Epistles, is, in deed, of a doctrinal cast; adapted to heal the divisions, and regulate the faith, of the different churches to which he wrote: but, no sooner has he settled the points in dispute, (a step of the utmost importance to the harmony, and, consequently, to the Christian virtue of the new believers), than he proceeds to moral instruction: to wise and holy maxims, bearing upon the conduct of human life: to precepts, applicable to every rank and condition, to every age and character, in the great family of man; to a specification of the various virtues, which must be exemplified in the outward behaviour of those, who would adorn their Christian calling, and save their immortal souls.

Warner, in other words, provides a significant apologetic for the character of 18th century Anglican preaching, rooted in a Scriptural account of the moral nature and vocation of the Christian life.  In our contemporary context, with considerable cultural seeking after convincing accounts of the good life, it is an approach to and style of preaching that Anglicans should be unembarrassed about renewing.