Preaching: It's Two-Fold Character

"From its origin preaching has a two-fold character - proclamation and teaching. It proclaims the gospel of Christ to men with a view to their acceptance of him as their Saviour and Lord; and it teaches to those who have so accepted him the lofty morality and the inspiring hopes and consolations which that gospel includes. It brings to men's minds the truth of God, to their wills his law, to their hearts his love. In the very beginning, and ever as time goes on, these two elements of proclamation and instruction are variously combined in the Christian sermon, which as a part of the congregational worship is occupied with the explanation and enforcement of the mind and will of God as revealed in Holy Scripture. From this origin the history of preaching proceeds through the centuries."

Edwin Charles Dargan, A History of Preaching: From the Apostolic Fathers to the Freat Reformers A.D. 70-1572 (London:Hodder and Stroughton, 1905), 553.