System of Sacred Theology · §1.11.3 · Ludwig Crocius

Invocation and exhortation (precept, persuasion, congratulation)

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The third is INVOCATION, which is discourse either proclaiming God's past benefits or asking for future ones; and it uses the order that affection, place, and time nearly dictate.

The fourth is EXHORTATION, which is discourse not so much declaring some deed done or to come as wanting and requiring something to be done by a human being.

It includes (1) a precept about doing or omitting; (2) persuasion, which works by promising and threatening, or by foretelling the goods the obedient will obtain and the evils the resistant will run into; (3) congratulation, complaint, consolation, and the like, which call for joy or patience or sorrow by praising present goods and lessening or enlarging evils, and so on.

And this mode of sacred speech again uses chiefly the order of prudence, or fitness to the affection that is to be stirred or calmed in the hearer.

Latin

TERTIUS est INVOCATIO, quae est sermo vel praeterita Dei beneficia praedicans, vel futura postulans: utiturque ordine quem affectus, locus, tempus fere dictitant. QUARTUS est EXHORTATIO, quae est sermo non tam declarans factum aliquid vel futurum, quam qui vult & postulat ab homine aliquid fieri, ut est 1. praeceptum de faciendo aut omittendo. 2. Suasio, quae fiat promittendo & comminando sive praedicendo bona quae consecuturus sit, qui obediat, & mala, in quae incursurus, si repugnet. 3. Gratulatio, querelarum, consolatio & similia, quae vel gaudium vel patientiam, vel tristitiam exigunt, bona praesentia commendando, mala extenuando, exaggerando, &c. Atque hic sacri sermonis modus utitur rursus ordine prudentiae potissimum, sive congruentiae ad affectum, qui ciendus est aut sedandus in auditore.

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