For example, expository preaching affords inducement and occasion to the preacher to declare the whole counsel of God. It keeps him from neglecting many important doctrines and duties which otherwise would almost necessarily be overlooked. It gives a symmetry and completeness to his pulpit efforts. It promotes variety and enables him to escape ruts. To how many people are such biblical truths as predestination and election unwelcome! Yet, how important they are, how necessary to be discussed and explained by the minister of the Gospel, and how likely to be avoided nonetheless! But let him be expounding Romans, and he must deal with those difficulties, and glorify God in the doing of it. I say glorify God; for the reason that those doctrines, and some others, are abhorrent to the popular mind, is chiefly that they are usually set forth in their "naked theological form," and not in their scriptural connection. And then, too, there are certain sins which every pastor feels he ought to inveigh against once in a while, but from which he is prevented either from delicacy, or through fear of being considered personal in his remarks. Let him adopt the expository method of preaching, however, and his hesitation in these respects will be removed as he comes across the very themes that should thus be touched upon, in a natural way. [Sidenote: The Popular Way] It may become the most popular form of preaching. Indeed, it should become so. The fault is ours, _i.e._ the ministers', if such is not the case. We should keep at it till we learn to do it well. We should besiege the throne of grace for power and wisdom to do it well. Who doubts that the Author of the Holy Scriptures would answer such entreaties? Chalmers' lectures on Romans, Archbishop Leighton's lectures on First Peter, F. W. Robertson's on First Corinthians, are old, but standard types of what may be done in this respect. I doubt not that Archbishop Trench delivered the substance of his book on the _Epistles to the Seven Churches_ to his congregation before it appeared in print; and so in the case of Bishop Ryle and his _Expository Thoughts on the Gospels_, and Dr. Moule and his _Studies in Philippians_. I, myself, have seen large congregations held from week to week in city churches, where the chief attraction was the exposition of the Bible text. God wrote the Bible for the "common people," and it is irreverent to suppose that they cannot be interested in the reading and explanation of it. There is no other book in the world which sells like God's Book; it leads the market! How short-sighted, then, are we ministers who fail to take advantage of the fact, and utilise it to draw our audiences, and interest them, and nourish them with the bread of life! [1] [1] A part of what the author has here written on the subject of expository preaching formed the substance of a previous communication from his pen in _Current Anecdotes_, a monthly magazine for ministers, F. M. Barton, Cleveland.