SEP -1 iS57 
 
 ; 
 
 BR 315 .E88 1884 
 
 The evangelical succession 
 
THE 
 
 EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION 
 
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 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Delivered in Free St. Geonje's Church, Edinburrih, 
 1881-82. 
 
 CONTENTS-FIRST SERIES. 
 Paul the Apostle. By the Rev. Principal Rainy, D.D. 
 Augustine. By the Rev. Marcus Dods, D.D. 
 COLUMBA. By the Rev. J. C. Macphail. 
 Anselm. By the Rev. Prof. T. Smith, D.D. 
 Bernard. By the Rev. Prof. T. M. Lindsay, D.D. 
 WiCLiF. By the Rev. Principal Brown, D.D. 
 Luther. By the Rev. Prof. Salmond, D.D. 
 
 "A worthy memorial of a fine coui'se of lectures." — Literary World. 
 
 " It is eminently a healthy book to read, for it stimulates thought and 
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 life inspired and sanctified by gospel trutli can attain, and setting before 
 a generation which needs to be reminded of the Christian heroism many 
 beautiful examples of unswerving devotion and fearless courage." — Daily 
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 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 CONTENTS— SECOND SERIES. 
 
 Calvin. By the Rev. Prof. Candlish, D.D. 
 Knox. By the Rev. R. W. Barbour, M.A. 
 Henderson. By the Rev. G. W. Thomson, M.A. 
 RuTHERFURD. By Ale.x. Taylor Innes, Esq. 
 Leighton. By the Rev. Prof. Blaikie, D.D. 
 Baxter, By the Rev. James Stalker, M.A. 
 ZiNZENDORF. By the Rev. Prof. Binnie, D.D. 
 
 " Choice productions, and should be found upon the shelves of all 
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 EDINBURGH : MACNIVEN & WALLACE. 
 
THE EVANGELICAL 
 SUCCESSION 
 
 ^ Course of Hectare^ 
 
 DELIVERED IN FREE ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH 
 EDINBURGH, 1883-84 
 
 Third Series 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 MACNIVEN & WALLACE 
 
 1884 
 
PEEFATORY NOTE. 
 
 The special object of these Lectures is, as 
 the title indicates, to exhibit the genius of the 
 Evangelical Principle, to trace its manifestation, 
 development, and vicissitudes in various ages of 
 the Church and human history, and to illustrate 
 its ruling and moulding power over diverse types 
 of national, intellectual, and spiritual character. 
 
 May 1884. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 1/ PAGE 
 
 OWEN, .... ^ ... . 1 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. Goold, D.D. 
 
 BtJNYAN, ...>.... 41 
 By the Rev. W. R. Nicoll, M.A. 
 
 BOSTON, 73 
 
 By the Rev. W. Scrymgeoue. 
 
 "^EDWARDS, 109 
 
 By the Rev. James Iverach, M.A. 
 \/ 
 WESLEY, ... ^ .... 145 
 
 By the Rev. J. H. Wilson, D.D. 
 
 y 
 
 CAREY, . . 17f> 
 
 By GEOiirxE Smith, Esq., LL.D, 
 
 VINET, 219 
 
 By the Rev. R. J. Sandeman. 
 
 y 
 
 CHALMERS, 255 
 
 By the Rev. W. C. Smith, D.D. 
 
 y 
 
 CHALMERS— A Fragment, . . ., . 291 
 
 By the late Rev. Sir H. Wellwood Moncreiff, 
 Bart., D.D. 
 
JOHN OWEN. 
 
 By the Rev. W. H. Goold, D.D., Eaiuburgli. 
 
 THERE is a spot, almost in the very heart of 
 London, to which a peculiar and sacred in- 
 terest attaches, in the estimation of those who have 
 any sympathy with the struggles in which the 
 religious freedom of our country had its birth. 
 Streets upon streets surround it now, and, walking 
 from one end of it to the other, you never lose the 
 sound and din of busy traffic. Had we been stand- 
 ing near it almost exactly two centuries ago — in 
 September 1683 — our attention would have been 
 arrested by a lengthened and solemn procession, 
 winding upon our view from the west, and indicating 
 by sable trappings and the usual insignia of death, 
 that an interment was about to take place. It 
 could be no common personage the open grave 
 was about to receive. No fewer than sixty-seven 
 carriages of noblemen and gentlemen — several 
 mourning coaches, — and gentlemen on horseback 
 follow the bier to the place of sepulture. The dark 
 times of oppression had not 23assed away. Every 
 form of Protestant dissent was under the ban of 
 the Government, and yet this multitude, represen- 
 A 
 
2 THH EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 tative of all ranks in rociety, has gathered to pay 
 the hist tribute of respect and honour to the 
 greatest of Dissenters — to commit dust to dust, 
 ashes to ashes, all that remained on earth of John 
 Owen. 
 
 He was worthy to whom this homage was ren- 
 dered, and who thus sleeps in Bunhill Fields with 
 other great and devout men, with Thomas Goodwin, 
 associated with him in the most important official 
 duties of his life, and with John Bunyan, whose 
 sanctified genius was so warmly recognised by 
 Owen, that he protested his willingness to part with 
 all his learning if he could only preach the Gosjjel 
 with the urgency and pathos of the tinker of 
 Elstow — the dreamer of Bedford Jail. In the 
 massive theological works which the great Puritan 
 divine has bequeathed to posterity, ample reason 
 will be fcund for the singular veneration in which 
 he was held by his contemporaries ; but, apart 
 from his writings, there is much in his character, 
 and in the course which he pursued in public life, 
 that explains and justifies the grateful renown which 
 embalms his memory. There are difficulties, how- 
 ever, besetting any attempt to sketch his career. 
 No biography of him appeared till nearly forty years 
 after his death. He has himself left on record 
 nothing important, in regard either to his public 
 conduct or private habits. Towering into a just 
 pre-euiinence among the leading men of his age, 
 he allows his actions to speak for themselves and to 
 find a record only so far as they belonged to the 
 events of his time. Calm ami self-possessed, with 
 
JOHN OWEN. 3 
 
 his faculties and affections uniformly under wise 
 control, lie favours us with no disclosure of the 
 inward workings of his spirit, and no statement in 
 regard to the incidents of his life, or the public 
 movements with which his name was identified, 
 beyond a few facts gleaned from some prefaces to 
 his works. It is a marvellous instance of humility, 
 when throughout twenty-four densely printed octavo 
 volumes, so little of self-consciousness appears in 
 his works, and hardly an egotistic reference can be 
 found. There is but one exception to the truth of 
 this remark. AYhen the heart of Owen warms and 
 opens under the influence of his love to Christ, his 
 sentences sometimes glow with emotion, shedding 
 a solemn light upon his secret principles of action 
 and the real elements of his character. Otherwise 
 we have no diary of religious experience, no details 
 of domestic life, no glimpse behind the screen of 
 his modest privacy. His biography, in the main, 
 must be traced in the public events of his age, — 
 his personal influence is seen in the extent to 
 which his writings have moulded and consolidated 
 the religious thought of his own and subsequent 
 
 Born in 1616, and sprung from a Welsh family 
 of distinction, he enjoyed certain advantages in his 
 youth. His father was vicar of Stadham, a small 
 parish in Oxfordshire, and distinguished himself by 
 his zealous piety in the fulfilment of his duties. 
 His son received from him for a time instruction in 
 the ordinary branches of education, as well as a 
 happy impulse in the direction of njorality and 
 
4 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 religion. At a private academy iu Oxford, he 
 afterwards made good progress in his studies, under 
 the care of an eminent tutor, Sylvester, till, at the 
 early age of twelve, he entered the University. 
 Kesorting to physical exercises of a manly and even 
 violent kind for the benefit of his health, and 
 solacinsj himself with lessons in music from a teacher 
 whom he afterwards, in the day of his power, made 
 Professor of Music to the University, the young 
 student devoted himself with ardour to the pursuit 
 of learning, restricting himself to four hours of 
 sleep in the day. For nine years, he thus toiled in 
 study, correct in all his habits, but without the life 
 of faith in his soul, and animated by no higher 
 motive than ambition for preferment in Church or 
 State. 
 
 It does not follow that a quiet season in the 
 history of a nation, making no special demand on 
 the higlier energies of our nature, is the best for 
 the origination and growth of the nobler virtues, 
 or that absolute seclusion from public interests and 
 affairs is most conducive to the real development of 
 mind in a College. The breeze of political and 
 ecclesiastical commotion visited Oxford, and Owen 
 seems to have been awakened by it to the necessity 
 for decision in regard to questions on which his 
 conscience could not be silent. Laud sought to 
 enforce his new ritualism on the University, and 
 expulsion was the penalty which a refusal to comply 
 with it entailed. Owen took the momentous step 
 which committed him for life to the cause of the 
 Eoformation and of religious liberty. He had to 
 
JOHN OWEN. 
 
 leave the University, where Ids great attainments 
 afforded every promise of office and honour in future 
 years, and he lost besides the favour of an uncle, by 
 whom he had been supported hitherto, and who so 
 vehemently resented the conduct of his nephew as 
 to cancel his will and bequeath to another the 
 estate originally destined for Owen. But this 
 outward change in his position and circumstances, 
 while in part connected, is not to be confounded 
 with a deeper change which about this time he 
 experienced. He had been conscious of great 
 spiritual perplexity and distress. It would seem 
 that God fits his instruments for great work by a 
 discipline of personal anxiety and concern. It was 
 so with Paul, Augustine, and Luther. It was so 
 with Owen, His vigorous intellect, competent to 
 scale the utmost heights, and master all the details 
 of sacred science, could not keep him from agony, 
 when his soul awoke to consider the relation in 
 which he stood to God. For three months, a 
 peculiar tempest of spiritual anxiety raged within 
 him. Oppressed wdth melancholy, he shunned all 
 converse with his fellow-men, and when he spoke, 
 the incoherency of his utterance betrayed the 
 intensity of his convictions. By this time, he had 
 received orders from Bishop Barlow, and yet his 
 soul was a stranger to the peace of the Gospel. The 
 long period of five years elapsed before he found 
 it. Entering Aldermanbury Church in London, in 
 order to hear the celebrated divine and preacher, 
 Calamy, he experienced no small disappointment 
 when an unl<nown minister officiated and preached 
 
6 THE F.VAXGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 from Matt. viii. 2G — "Why are ye fearful, ye of 
 little faith]" There are instances in which the 
 Lord sends his people more than they sought. 
 Owen sought the pleasure of hearing Calamy — 
 the Lord sent him the peace that passeth all under- 
 standing. In spite of efforts to discover it, Owen 
 never could learn the name of the man to whose 
 simple preaching he owed under God his confirma- 
 tion in the principles of grace, and to whom 
 the whole Church of Christ owes so much in the 
 rich tide of holy instruction with which Owen has 
 refreshed and blessed it. The process of mental 
 anxiety through which he had to pass, — anxiety in 
 regard to the truths claiming reception from him, 
 as well as to his own interest in Him in whom they 
 all centred, and who is the Truth, — teaches an 
 important lesson. How often is the modern agnostic 
 prone to account for the faith entertained by the 
 general body of Christians on the principle of facile 
 acquiescence with traditional notions and impressions, 
 as if there were a species of heredity in belief! 
 Such a case as that of Owen, — belief cordially 
 embraced and tenaciously held as the result of an 
 agonising and prolonged conflict with difficulty and 
 doubt — nor is the case unusual, — serves to prove that 
 personal Christianity may be no dream of ignorance, 
 but the conclusion attained by minds alert and 
 awake in all their fiiculties to the legitimate demands 
 of evidence. 
 
 It was important to dwell on the saving change 
 which the great Puritan divine underwent, as it is 
 in reality the key to the events of his life, and to 
 
JOHN OWEN. 7 
 
 the character of his whole theology. He believed, 
 and therefore he spake. The whole Eeformation of 
 Europe had its germ in the cell of " the solitary- 
 monk who shook the world." Not an argument of 
 the humble preacher, by whose discourse Owen's 
 conversion was effected, but might have been familiar 
 to him in his previous studies, and indeed his earliest 
 biographer affirms as much. Brought home to him 
 now, " in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much 
 assurance," he felt the reality of grace in its actual 
 influence and workings ; and the essential distinction 
 between nature and grace, upon which all evangelical 
 theology proceeds, became henceforth not merely an 
 article in his creed, but a fact in his experience. 
 Need we wonder if his future years became a reso- 
 lute consecration of his energies and resources to 
 the exposition and defence of truths in believing 
 which the storm within him had been changed into 
 a calm 1 The precious discipline, while it gave him, 
 amid all the waves of speculation and controversy, 
 an anchor for his soul both sure and steadfast, taught 
 him besides that pathetic tenderness in dealing with 
 the aAvakened and the anxious which form a marked 
 feature of several of his works. 
 
 Eepairing to London, after having acted as chap- 
 lain in some noble families, he gave his first work 
 to the press: The Dkplay of Arminianism. So soon 
 as Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury, he ex- 
 erted himself in support of that theological system, 
 between which and the ritualism he enjoined a 
 natural affinity may be traced. A royal prohibition 
 was issued aijfainst the discussion of the controverted 
 
8 THE EVAXGKLICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 points in the pulpit ; and, in appointing to vacant 
 benefices, patronage was extended specially to such 
 men as evinced Arminian tendencies. Partly as the 
 result of his new convictions as to the necessity of 
 grace, partly in indignant protest against the 
 arbitrary power which, to use his own phrase, 
 " would beat poor naked Truth into a corner," 
 Owen prepared this elaborate treatise against 
 Arminian error. It is a remarkable production for 
 a youth of twenty-four — replete with learning, 
 acumen, some humour, and occasionally a spice of 
 acerbity, with no tinge, however, of offensive person- 
 alities. It had the effect of drawing attention to 
 his rare abilities, and he w^as presented to the living 
 of Fordham, Avhich, after a year and a half, he had 
 to leave ; but on the earnest request of the people 
 of Coggeshall — a market town of Essex, five miles 
 distant from Ford li am — he consented to be their 
 pastor under a presentation from the Earl of War- 
 wick. Sometimes it has been affirmed that Owen 
 could trace no spiritual results from his ministry. 
 Asty, his biographer, writing under the eye and cor- 
 rection of Owen's j)ersonal and intimate friend, Sir 
 John Hartipp, declares that at Fordham " great was 
 the success of his labours in the reformation and 
 conversion of many," and at Coggeshall equal 
 success attended his ministry, a congregation of two 
 tliousand. Sabbath after Sabbath, hanging on the 
 lips of the preacher. Engrossed with his work, 
 he published on The Didij of Pastor and People, and 
 catechisms also for the reliirious instruction of the 
 young. His fame, however, began to spread beyond 
 
JOHN OWEN. 9 
 
 tlie limits of the district in which he laboured with 
 such diligence, and, summoned in April IG-IG to 
 preach before Parliament, he delivered the " noble 
 sermon from the cry of the man of Macedonia, 
 entitled ' A Vision of Free Mercy.' " He seized the 
 opportunity to urge upon Parliament the duty of 
 providing the means of religious instruction for 
 destitute districts in England, with a special refer- 
 ence to the country of his ancestors, Wales. To the 
 sermon was appended a tract in which he deprecates 
 appeals to the civil magistrate for the erection of an 
 ecclesiastical polity, and yet he seems conscious of 
 no inconsistency, when he insists before the great 
 council of the nation upon the duty of sending the 
 Gospel where it was needed, rising, in his ardent 
 desire for this object, to a combination of argument 
 and pathos, — the vehement logic of a holy enthusiasm 
 — which John Howe or Eichard Baxter never sur- 
 passed. Illustrating how much they want who are 
 destitute of the Gospel, he proceeds : — 
 
 " They want Jesus Christ, for he is revealed only 
 by the Gospel. Austin refused to delight in Cicero's 
 ' Hortensius,' because there was not in it the name 
 of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is all, and in all ; and 
 where he is wanting, there is no good. Hunger can- 
 not truly be satisfied without manna, the bread of 
 life, which is Jesus Christ ; — and what shall a hungry 
 man do that hath no bread 1 Thirst cannot be 
 quenched without that water or living spring, which 
 is Jesus Christ ; — and what shall a thirsty soul do 
 without water ] A captive, as we are all, cannot be 
 delivered without redemption, whidi is Jesus Christ; 
 
10 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 — and what shall the prisoner do without his ran- 
 som ] Fools, as we are all, cannot be instructed 
 Avithout wisdom, which is Jesus Christ ; — without 
 him we perish in our folly. All building without him 
 is on sand, which will surely fall. All working 
 without him is in the fire, where it will be consumed. 
 All riches without him have wings or will away. 
 •' ^fallem mere cum Christo, quam regnare cum 
 Caesare," said Luther. A dungeon with Christ, is a 
 throne ; and a throne without Christ, a hell. Nothing 
 so ill, but Christ will compensate. The greatest 
 evil in the world is sin, and the greatest sin was the 
 first ; and yet Gregory feared not to cry, ' felix 
 culpa, quae talem meruit redemptorem !' — ' hap23y 
 fault, which found such a Eedeemer 1' All mercies 
 without Christ are bitter ; and every cup is sweet 
 that is seasoned but with a drop of his blood ; — he 
 truly is ' amor et deliciae humani generis,' — the 
 love and delight of the sons of men, — without whom 
 they perish eternally ; ' for there is no other name 
 given unto them, whereby they may be saved,' Acts 
 iv. 12. He is the Way; men without him are 
 Cains, wanderers, vagabonds : — he is the Truth ; men 
 without him are liars, like the devil, who was so of 
 old : — He is the Life ; without him men are dead, 
 dead in trespasses and sins : — He is the Light ; with- 
 out him men are in darkness, and go they know not 
 whither: — He is the Vine; those that are not 
 grafted in him are withered branches prepared for 
 the fire : — He is the Kock ; men not built on him are 
 carried away with a Hood : — He is Alpha and Omega, 
 the first and the last, the author and the ender, the 
 
JOHN OWEN. 11 
 
 founder and the finisher of our Salvation. He that 
 hath not him, hath neither beginning of good, nor 
 shall have end of misery. blessed Jesus ! how 
 much better were it not to be, than to be without 
 thee ! — never to be born, than not to die in thee ! 
 — A thousand hells come short of this, eternally 
 to want Jesus Christ, as men do that want the 
 Gospel." 
 
 Owen preached several times before the Parliament. 
 In one of these sermons, delivered after his return 
 from Ireland in 1649, while he admits the necessity 
 of repressing such atrocities as the Irish massacre of 
 1641, he urges the adoption of remedial as well as 
 coercive measures. If the Gospel had been sent to 
 Ireland at that time, in the spirit of the Gospel, — 
 in the spirit in which Owen would have sent it, — 
 modern statesmen would not have had to complain 
 of Ireland as their difficulty. It is thus he pleads : — 
 
 How is it that Jesus Christ is in Ireland only as a lion 
 staining all his garments with the blood of his enemies ; and 
 none to hold him out as a lamb sprinHed ivlth his own bloods 
 to his friends ? Is it the sovereignty and interest of England 
 that is alone to be there transacted ? For my part, I see no 
 further into the mystery of these things but that I could 
 heartily rejoice that, innocent blood being expiated, the Irish 
 might enjoy Ireland so long as the moon endureth, so that 
 Jesus Christ might possess the Irish. But God having 
 suffered those sworn vassals of the man of sin to break out 
 into such ways of villainy as render them obnoxious unto 
 vengeance, upon such rules of government amongst men as 
 he hath appointed ; is there, therefore, nothing to be done 
 but to give a cup of blood into their hands ? 
 
 Listening to one of his sermons, Cromwell had 
 foimed such an estimate of Owen's gifts and abili- 
 
12 THE EVANOKLTCAL SUCCES^STOX. 
 
 ties as led him to a conclusion which he carried 
 out with his usual tenacity. Owen must accom- 
 pany him to Ireland. He wrote himself to the 
 church at Coggeshall, insisting that it "was their 
 duty to acquiesce in the loss of their pastor's services 
 for a season. The congregation reclaimed against 
 the proposal, hut Cromwell was resolute, and, in the 
 end, Owen proceeded with him to Ireland. Resid- 
 ing in Trinity College, he preached frequently to 
 large audiences in the city of Dublin, not without 
 the fruits of conversion and striking testimonies to 
 the effects of his ministrations ; on his return to 
 England, under the influence of his appeals to 
 Parliament, various Acts for the encouragement of 
 religion and learning, and the extension of the 
 University in Dublin, were immediately passed. 
 Such had been the value of his counsels in Ireland, 
 that when in 1650 Cromwell entered Scotland at 
 tlie head of the army which may be said to have 
 turned defeat into victory at Dunbar, by an order 
 of the House of Commons, Owen Avas again enjoined 
 to accompany him. He preached in Berwick and 
 Edinburgh sermons afterwards printed, but beyond 
 this publication, it is somewhat disappointing to 
 Scotsmen to find no other authentic traces of the 
 influence and proceedings of the great Puritan 
 divine in their country. 
 
 The highest honour of his life was about to reach 
 him. He had returned to his quiet and congenial 
 work as a pastor in Coggeshall, when one morning he 
 read, to his surprise, in some newspaper of the day, 
 the following announcement-^'^ On the 18th March 
 
JOHN OWEN. 13 
 
 1651, the House, taking into consideration the 
 worth and usefuhiess of John Owen, M.A., of 
 Queen's College, ordered that he be settled in the 
 Deanery of Christ's Church, in room of Dr. 
 Reynolds." In the following year, Cromwell, ha^ ing 
 become Chancellor of the University of Oxford, 
 nominated Owen Vice-Chancellor. His administra- 
 tration of its affairs is admitted, even by parties 
 opposed to the policy of the Puritans, such as even 
 Clarendon, to have done him the utmost credit. 
 The University had been a scene of ruin and con- 
 fusion. It settled down into order and peace 
 when the firm hand of Owen controlled it, buildings 
 shattered by the commotions of the times were 
 repaired, its revenues were restored and increased, 
 and a goodly crowd of eminent men, whether as 
 professors or students, frequented it, adorning its 
 history by the lustre of a reputation already achieved, 
 or soon to be achieved, in various departments of 
 learning. Incidents are on record, attesting the 
 vigour and dignity with which he secured com- 
 pliance with his rule. The natural benignity of the 
 man, however, was not lost in the assertion of his 
 authority. Cromwell, who generally is credited 
 with larger and juster views on the subject of 
 toleration than he really held, denied, in his " Instru- 
 ment of Government," liberty to Episcopalians as 
 well as Ilomanists, to " make profession of their 
 faith and enjoy the exercise of their worshii)." 
 Not far from the Vice-Chancellor's own door, how- 
 ever, Episcopalians held a meeting every Sabbath, 
 and had worship according to their lituig}'. Owen, 
 
14 THE EVANGPXICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 though solicited to put the laws in force against 
 them, would not suffer them to be disturbed. To 
 the Presbyterians, though in respect of ecclesiastical 
 polity he now differed from them, he was equally 
 generous, consulting with them on important 
 emergencies, and appointing their ablest men to 
 vacant livings. When the Commission, called the 
 Tryers', gave trouble to Pococke, the distinguished 
 Arabic scholar, Owen wrote warmly against his 
 threatened ejection, and hastened to the spot where 
 the Commissioners met, to use his personal influence 
 to the utmost in order to dissuade them from the 
 step they proposed to take. In the end he was 
 successfid. Such actions, in unison with the tenor of 
 his whole life, illustrate the consistent generosity of 
 his nature — a generosity rare at any time — rarer 
 still in those troublous times — to be ascribed, we 
 cannot but believe, to that strength of religious 
 principle which is the richest element in the 
 character of Owen. 
 
 Owen, as we have seen, had left Oxford a 
 friendless student, rather than violate conscience by 
 compliance with the schemes of Laud. He had his 
 rev/ard, when he was recalled with honour to be its 
 head as Vice-Chancellor. The circumstances under 
 which he resigned the office, after he had held it for 
 five years, reflect no honour upon Cromwell. Cer- 
 tain officers in the army — among them his own 
 brother-in-law and son-in-law — had learned his 
 design to assume royal dignity and prerogative, 
 and resented it as inconsistent with the Mdiole 
 movement, the success of which they had purchased 
 
JOHN OAVEN. 1 5 
 
 with their swords, and at the hazard of their lives. 
 They resolved on a petition to Parliament, and got 
 Owen to prepare it. How far he accorded with 
 them in their opposition to Cromwell's project, it 
 would be difficult to say, although at this time 
 suspicion in regard to the ultimate designs of the 
 Protector appears to have prevailed among the 
 chief of the Puritan divines. Owen's share in this 
 opposition to his aims was never forgiven by Crom- 
 well. In 1G56, changes were made through which 
 Owen ceased to be Vice-Chancellor of the Oxford 
 University, soon afterwards he was discharged from 
 the Deanery of Clirist Church, and his connection 
 with Oxford thus terminated entirely. His address 
 in demitting the former office is manly and dignified 
 — reviewing in no boastful tone the services he had 
 rendered the University, and without a syllable of 
 resentment against the arbitrary and ungrateful 
 spirit to which he owed his removal from it. 
 
 During the remainder of his life, Owen was busy 
 with various controversies — preaching as often as 
 he could find opportunity, though in the persecution 
 to which dissenters during the reign of Charles ll. 
 were subjected, he could only officiate at times in 
 secret assemblies, and sometimes was obliged to 
 consult safety from arrest by flight. He exerted 
 himself to procure the release of John Bunyan from 
 prison. Availing himself of the connivance extended 
 to the Puritans after the plague and the great fire of 
 London, he preached in the " tabernacles," — build- 
 ings, reared of wood, in which thousands gathered to 
 hear messages of pe;ice and consolation under these 
 
16 THE j:va\gelical succession. 
 
 terrible visitations of Providence. A congregation 
 afterwards gatliered round him in Leadenhall Street. 
 Several pious noblemen attended liis ministrations. 
 On one occasion he was summoned to an interview 
 with the King and the Duke of York. Towards the 
 close of his life, he suffered under painful maladies. 
 But he was unwearied to the last in his efforts to 
 commend the Divine Master whom he had served 
 so well ; on the very eve of death, he finished a 
 treatise — his Meditations on the Glori/ of Christ. 
 The seraphic elevation of Christian hope which the 
 treatise breathes was soon to be fulfilled in the 
 experience of its author. On the day of his death, 
 when told by a friend to whom the publication of 
 the work had been intrusted, that it was committed 
 to the press, he expressed his satisfaction, " But, 
 brother," he exclaimed in an outburst of joy,"thelong 
 wished-for day is come at last in which I shall see that 
 glory in another manner than I have ever done, or 
 was capable of doing in this life." Dying saints have 
 sometimes sighed for rest — for blessedness — for the 
 presence of God, when the supreme moment has 
 come to them. It was characteristic of Owen — the 
 end and scope of his life-long toil, when his antici- 
 pations of heaven merge and centre in the vision of 
 his Lord, glorious as John saw him in Patmos, " the 
 brightness of the Father's glory and the express 
 image of his person." 
 
 So much, briefly and imperfectly", have we given 
 of the life of this great divine ; for otherwise it 
 would be difficult to estimate aright his writings 
 generally on the religious views he specially 
 
JOHN OWEN. 17 
 
 espoused and advocated. It is a case in which a 
 knowledge of the man slieds some light on the 
 nature of his works. There is in his greater pro- 
 ductions so little obtrusion of self, so little of the 
 personal element, that some acquaintance Avith the 
 public affairs and momentous interests which 
 occupied the mind and time of Owen supplies a 
 key at times to the prevailing turn of his thoughts, 
 at times even to the precise conclusions which he is 
 seeking to establish. He is indeed a voluminous 
 author, no fewer than 80 treatises, that need twenty- 
 four octavos to contain them, having issued from 
 his pen; and he was only 67 years of age when 
 he died. A large proportion of these treatises 
 is controversial, though no great eagerness for 
 controversy can be ascribed to him, most of his 
 publications in this department having been enjoined 
 upon him by authority, or elicited by request, or 
 provoked by assaults. He has occasion to be firm 
 at times even to severity ; but it may be claimed for 
 him that, on the whole, he is singularly free from 
 acrimonious invective and personalities. 
 
 His place and rank, however, in the " Evangelical 
 Succession " must be determined by his doctrinal and 
 exegetical works, though some reference is due to 
 his writings on the subject of toleration and church- 
 government, all the more that the peculiar tendencies 
 of Owen on these subjects spring undoubtedly from 
 the intensity of his Evangelical convictions. It is 
 when clear views and a vivid grasp of the doctrines 
 of grace take hold of the mind, that a spirit of wise 
 consideration and forbearance will manifest itself 
 li 
 
18 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Under an outer shell of character, hard, rigid, un- 
 yielding, where faith in salvation by grace notwith- 
 standing really exists and reigns, the heart is most 
 likely to be amenable to the kindlier and nobler 
 influences under which the Gospel trains us to fulfil 
 the duties of life. It is in this school — the school 
 of Evangelical belief and training, — that the grandest 
 benevolence of our age has been developed — on a 
 scale wide as the vast field of missionary enterprise. 
 So far as relates to toleration, the honour has 
 been claimed for Owen of first announcing and 
 advocating the principle on which Governments 
 should proceed in allowing the free expression of 
 thought in a community. He would be a bold man 
 who would assert that to this hour all the difficulties 
 encumbering this question have been removed and 
 solved. Owen did much to extricate it from pre- 
 judice and misconception. On the one hand, it may 
 be admitted that he was by no means the first to 
 assert and vindicate the great principle of religious 
 liberty. The right to the free expression of con- 
 scientious belief, when not abused to the purposes 
 of public disorder or impious blasphemy, had been 
 often affirmed. The essential principle on which 
 the right is founded is clearly stated by the early 
 Christian Father Lactantius, has been traced in 
 medieval writings, was vehemently asserted by 
 Luther, was enunciated by Zuingle, and embodied 
 in authoritative documents by divines in Holland. 
 Nor should it be forgotten that two years before the 
 the treatise on toleration from the pen of Owen 
 appeared, the Westminster Confession of Faith had 
 
JOHN OWEN. 10 
 
 been finished and published, containing the noblest 
 assertion of the true i:)rinciple by which legitimate 
 freedom of thought and utterance is secured,— ■" God 
 alone is Lord of the conscience." On the other 
 hand, while we cannot concede to Owen the merit 
 of any originality or priority in asserting the genuine 
 principles of religious liberty, we are not disposed to 
 involve him in the condemnation to which he has 
 sometimes been subjected in connection with the 
 Sixteen Fundamentals. These were a summary of 
 the essential truths of Christianity, prepared by a 
 number of divines who had been called uj^on by a 
 Committee of Parliament to undertake the duty 
 Cromwell had presented to the House his Instru- 
 ment of Government, granting protection to all " in 
 the profession of their faith and the exercise of their 
 religion,"— "provided " (it is significantly added) 
 '' this liberty be not extended to Popery or Prelacy." 
 In dealing with this document. Parliament went into 
 a discussion as to what were the fundamentals of 
 religion, and ultimately appointed the Committee, 
 in answer to which the divines consulted submitted 
 a list of Sixteen Fundamentals. Nothing appears 
 from which it can be directly concluded that these 
 divines, of whom Owen was one, held that no 
 toleration should be extended beyond the tenets 
 specified, and the title of the paper rather suggests a 
 different object in view — " The principles of faitli 
 presented to the Committee of Parliament for 
 Religion, by way of explanation to the proposals for 
 p'opagating the Gospel." 
 
 The value of Owen's treatise on the subject of 
 
20 TFIE EVAXriELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 toleration lies in the fact that, not content with a 
 mere incidental expression of his views, he enters 
 frankly on a full and formal discussion of the whole 
 question. He commits himself, moreover, to the 
 advocacy of toleration, when the political party to 
 which he belonged w^as in power ; for under the fires 
 of persecution or when but a weak minority, most 
 parties can plead for liberty, and, as the elder M'Crie 
 has shown, even Koman Catholics, so early as the 
 reign of Elizabeth, could talk of " the inestimable 
 blessing of toleration." The chief merit of Owen, 
 however, is that he places the liberty for which he 
 pleads, on the true ground — on a principle much 
 deeper and safer than Jeremy Taylor and John 
 Locke have done — not the difficulty of arriving at 
 certainty in regard to any truth, but on the incom- 
 petence of the civil magistrate to act as a judge of 
 spiritual offences, and on the prohibition by the 
 Gospel itself of any resort to external force for its 
 propagation. It is true that he admits the warrant- 
 ableness of civil penalties against blasphemy and 
 errors directly published in order to promote rebel- 
 lion and disturbance, and these are to this day civil 
 offences in the British Statute Book. He would lay 
 some restraint on Popery, for in his time the friends 
 of liberty had to deal with it, not simply as a system 
 of theological error, but as a political conspiracy. 
 But while he holds the magistrate bound to ascertain 
 the truth for himself, and even to take measures for 
 the spread of it in his dominions, he " is bold posi- 
 tively to assert " that, saving the qualifications just 
 referred to, " the magistrate hath no warrant from 
 
JOHN OWEN. 21 
 
 the Word of God to force persons to submit unto tlie 
 truth as by him established, or to molest them with 
 any civil penalty in case of refusal." Simple words 
 these may seem in the light of modern opinion ! 
 But had the principle embodied in them swayed the 
 rulers of this country in Owen's day and after it, 
 what a world of strife and anc-nish and siifferiiio- had 
 been saved to Ensfland — what torrents of blood to 
 
 o 
 
 Scotland ! 
 
 The truth is that, in wading through the discussions 
 which took place in the time of the Commonwealth 
 and subsequently, it must be admitted that no part}', 
 as such, was altogether consistent with itself. As to 
 the Independents, passages have been quoted from 
 John Cotton against John Owen -, as to Presby- 
 terians, Samuel Eutherfurd has been quoted against 
 Robert Baillie. It is well, accordingly, in the long 
 struggle from the early times of Puritanism to grasp 
 the essential princi})le at stake, and, to judge of 
 all the parties who, by their heroism in doing or 
 suffering, had an honourable share in that struggle, 
 we must be guided in the main by the general scope 
 of their policy and conduct. To be on the right line 
 is much, though we may not have reached the station. 
 No man questions the debt which the cause of civil 
 and religious liberty owes to the Long Parliament, 
 and 5^et from that Parliament emanated tlie terrible 
 Ordinance of 1648, enacting death without benefit of 
 clergy as the penalty due to certain heresies. Men 
 are often better than their principles, as principles 
 too are often better than the men who advocate 
 them. The Ordinance was never carried into effect, 
 
22 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 and it must be remembered that the real contlict of 
 the nation was with a system embodying royal and 
 hierarchical despotism, and which had for a century 
 resorted to the worst extremes of persecution. The 
 attempt to suppress Puritanism was an attempt to 
 suppress the doctrine so admirably asserted and un- 
 folded by Calvin in his Institutes, that the Church 
 of Christ must not, in the maintenance of discipline, 
 resort to civil penalties or external force. Hooker 
 himself, representing moderate Anglicanism, in his 
 elaborate argument against the views of the Puri- 
 tans, thus states the question as between him and 
 his opponents : " Their judgment is that the Church 
 of Christ should admit of no law-makers but the 
 Evangelists, no courts but Presbyteries, no punish- 
 ments but ecclesiastical censures." There can be no 
 difficulty in drawing by legitimate evolution from 
 these w^ords such principles as the exclusive Head- 
 ship of Christ over His Church, the supreme autho- 
 rity of the Word, the spiritual independence of the 
 Church, the rights of the Laity in the administration 
 of its affairs, and religious liberty to all beyond 
 the Church who dissent from it conscientiously. 
 How many generations of effort and of sacrifice has 
 it cost us to get these simple principles, so essential 
 to civil and religious liberty, understood simply, not 
 to say established in paramount influence and 
 ascendency — effort and sacrifice as yet in some 
 measure in vain. Once admit, in the rites and 
 tenets of the faith, an authority beyond the AVord, 
 and the result is spiritual despotism on the one 
 hand, and bondage on the other. 
 
JOHN OWEX. 23 
 
 The only fragment of autobiography which Owen 
 gives will be found in his Vindication of the Trea- 
 tise on Schism. It is so remarkable that we could 
 wish to have had more of such allusions to his per- 
 sonal history. It is a defence of himself against the 
 charge of inconsistency in the change his sentiments 
 underwent on the subject of Church Government. 
 He intimates that if his opponent conceived any 
 advantage to accrue from thus charging him with 
 inconstancy, " I shall not labour," he meekly replies 
 in allusion to a greater change, " to divest him of 
 this apprehension, having abundant cause to rejoice 
 in the rich grace of a merciful and tender Father, 
 that, men seeking occasion to speak evil of so poor 
 a worm, tossed up and down in the midst of in- 
 numerable temptations, I should be found to fix on 
 that which I know will be found my rejoicing in 
 the day of the Lord Jesus." 
 
 It is a poor and narrow spirit which afifects in- 
 difference to the question how the living resources 
 of Christianity are best to be marshalled and 
 organised for its support, and defence, and spread. 
 Under an honourable eagerness to get men to 
 embrace and act upon the principles of the Gospel 
 — in other words, directly to save souls, — some may 
 feel unable, even averse, to occupy their thoughts 
 with what they deem subordinate questions, such 
 as the proper government of the Church or its 
 legitimate independence. Let all justice be done to 
 the predominant motive by which they are in- 
 fluenced ; but an enlightened anxiety to secure the 
 most effective orsjanisation for tlie Clnistian Cliurch 
 
24 TIIK KVANCIKLTCAL SUCCESSION\ 
 
 in;iy spring from a zeal for conversion quite as great, 
 if not indeeil even greater. To set the battle in 
 array may be as great a service as to fight in the 
 ranks. If we could place ourselves for a moment in 
 tlie circumstances of Owen and realise the exigencies 
 of the Clmrcli in his age, we would feel the need 
 of earnest inquiry how it was to be guided and 
 governed. He had broken utterly with the hier- 
 archical system, to which the miseries of the nation 
 must be ascribed. Virtually to all intents and 
 purposes a Presbyterian, he might be convinced 
 that the great majority of the nation could not be 
 won to Presbyterianism all at once, and that to 
 establish it by the mere authority of the State 
 would render it still more unacceptable. Above all, 
 Owen had a strong yearning for a higher measure 
 of godliness and spirituality, as requisite to 
 membersliip in the Church. A vast national system, 
 the sudden creation of the State, would foster ten- 
 dencies at variance with his most cherished convic- 
 tions of Avhat a church should be. He falls back 
 upon Scripture ; " impartially examining," he tells 
 us, " all things by the Word, comparing causes with 
 causes and things with things." The attempt to 
 confute a work by Cotton, in favour of Inde- 
 pendency, led him into this careful examination and 
 ultimately into the adoption of that system. The 
 peru-al of all he lias written on the subject, how- 
 ever, leaves the impression that beneath the argu- 
 ment on the surfixce, honestly felt and stated, there 
 was the desire as honest for a system which could 
 in().>t directly sustain and deepen religious life in 
 
JOHN OWEN. 25 
 
 the Cliurcb. It was his belief and hope tliat not in 
 a vast system, the result of parliamentary enact- 
 ment, but in separate communities of the fiiithful, 
 piety, deep and true, might grow and prosper. 
 
 As the result of his examination into Scripture, the 
 views of Owen on the polity of the Church were in 
 the first place settled and abiding, and they were at 
 the same time somewhat fresh and peculiar. He 
 could plead for them a divine right, in the proper 
 sense of these words, as implying merely that they 
 were " founded upon and agreeable to the Word of 
 God," not in the sense in which they have some- 
 times been used, and with which they are often 
 confounded, — to the denial that any association of 
 Christians under a different polity could be a Church 
 of Christ. Holding that his principles on this 
 question had the sanction of Scripture, he adhered 
 to them steadily. With Owen, however, it was 
 not the mere chancre from one denomination into 
 another, when he became a Congregationalist. 
 There was a specialty in the conclusions at which, 
 in the exercise of his own free inquiry and judgment, 
 he arrived, on the footing of which it has been 
 contended that he was still in a measure Presby- 
 terian. It seems no easy task to discriminate from 
 Presbyterianism his views on the subjects of the 
 Ruling Elder and of Synodical authority ; and 
 perhaps on this ground he was led in one of his 
 treatises to remark, " For my part, so we could once 
 agree practically in the matter of our Churches, I 
 am under some apprehension that it wei-e no im- 
 possible thing to reconcile the Avhole difference as to 
 
26 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ci ricsbyterian Clmrcli and a single congregation." 
 These words deserve consideration as indicating his 
 pacific disposition, or, as one of his contemporaries 
 calls it, "his healing temper," and as confirming the 
 view given of his chief aim in all his researches and 
 writings on chilrch-government — his paramount 
 desire for purity and spiritual life in the Churches. 
 It will be noticed that the one tliini;^ on which he 
 insists as essential to the reconciliation, which he 
 deemed not impossible, is practical agreement as to 
 " the matter of the Churches," — in other words, the 
 character of their membership. Free from bigotry, 
 sanctimoniousness, or any tinge of sectarian bitter- 
 ness, Owen stands honourably distinguished in 
 Christian authorship, for his fervent yearnings after 
 a devout, pure, holy, and spiritual Church. 
 
 It is, however, on his character and work as a 
 Theologian that his claim to the reverence and 
 gratitude of posterity chiefly depends. The very 
 number of his works in this department — the pro- 
 found and comprehensive nature of the discussions 
 embraced in them — the extent to which they in- 
 fluenced religious thought, not in Britain only, but in 
 other countries — the revived demand for them in our 
 own times, as attested by the sale of five thousand 
 copies of the complete edition of his works, are reasons 
 which snrely warrant and constrain inquiry into the 
 leading features and principles of an author whose 
 productions in size and number almost form a litera- 
 ture of themselves. They vary in style; in some 
 instances, rare enough we admit, vigorous, efl*ective, 
 bcaiitiful, blinding a heroic manliness witli tender 
 
JOHN OWEN. 27 
 
 l)atlios, they are for the most part heavy and diffuse, 
 the result of the haste and urgency in which they 
 were commonly written, and perhaps of a certain 
 proud disregard for minor graces, if only he had 
 ascertained the truth and honestly stated it. Never- 
 theless there is a sonorous majesty in his lumbering 
 sentences, which, when they were uttered by himself, 
 helps to explain the effect his speaking produced ; 
 for it is the testimony of Wood, who had heard him 
 at Oxford, and was bitterly opposed to the cause of 
 the Puritans, that " he could by the persuasion of 
 his oratory move and wind the affections of his 
 admiring auditory almost as he pleased." 
 
 To discuss the wide range of sacred learning 
 which he traversed would be impossible. In order 
 to a proper estimate of the nature and tendency of 
 his theological views, the standard by which he 
 tested them, the system into which they were 
 reduced, the scope contemplated in them, and the 
 application made of them, may in succession be 
 considered. 
 
 1. With Owen, the standard of truth, as revealed, 
 was Scripture exclusively, Scripture supremely. It 
 is needful to bear this fact in mind to distinguish 
 liim from one class of theologians, such as Hooker, 
 who, in the external administration of the Church, 
 contended for a certain measure of deference to 
 reason, apart from revelation, and from another 
 school which, even in the highest articles of faith, 
 leaned to the former, as in some sense a co-ordinate 
 revelation of the Divine Mind. According to Owen, 
 reason had its own function and province in re- 
 
2S THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ligioii, but so far as truth was the substance of a 
 revelation, it could not emanate from our mental 
 faculties, nor could these be in any sense a test and 
 criterion of it. Their limits were reached, their 
 function was exhausted, when they had determined 
 its character, as an essential part of revelation. 
 Hence in Puritan theology — in the writings specially 
 of Owen — tlie authority of Scripture is supreme, not 
 merely as regards the doctrines to be believed, but 
 in tlie regulation of the discipline, government, and 
 worship of the Church. He manifests a stringent, 
 but, at the same time, a discriminating jealousy in 
 defence of the supreme authority of Scripture ; 
 he dwells on the principle witli peculiar fulness and 
 urgency, not merely from a profound insight into 
 the limits of the human understanding in matters of 
 faith, but from a conviction that any departure from 
 this ground — any recognition of another authority 
 in revealed religion beyond the Word of God — 
 would, as history had proved, be fatal to the 
 spiritual liberties of the Church. 
 
 Take a brief illustration of his views from the 
 subject of Christian worship. To use almost his 
 own words — certain things " without worship, but 
 about it," such as the fit time and place for publicly 
 observing it, "may be left to common prudence;" 
 but he objects to " the imposition of uncommanded 
 rites," and holds that "instituted worship . . . de- 
 })('nds on supernatural revelation," and therefore that 
 Divine revelation must be " the sole rule " in regard 
 to the proper observance of it. 
 
 Impressed with a deep conviction of the para- 
 
JOHN OWEN. 29 
 
 iiiuunt importance of this principle, he was naturally 
 led to defend Avith peculiar fervour what he called 
 " the perfectness of the standard." Hence arose 
 what has been represented as " the only blunder of 
 Owen," and a grievous blot upon his memory. 
 He is supposed to have denounced sacred criticism 
 by writing against the Polyglott of Walton, and 
 objecting to the collection of discrepancies in the 
 manuscripts of the sacred text. Tliat Owen, in 
 common with eminent scholars of his day, 
 erred on some questions of Biblical criticism, 
 such as Hebrew punctuation, cannot be denied ; and 
 that he shared in the panic created by the 
 publication of the various readings existing in the 
 manuscripts is also to some extent true. His fear, 
 however, was occasioned by the use actually made 
 of them by Eomanists and sceptics, to whom he 
 refers, — the former exalting, in consequence, the 
 authority of the Church to the disparagement of 
 Scripture, — and the latter maintaining, on the same 
 ground, that no confidence could be reposed on the 
 sacred text. So far, however, from Owen evincing 
 " the outrageous violence " imputed to him, it was 
 his desire, according to his own profession, to conduct 
 the dispute " with Christian candour and moderation 
 of spirit." His work on the subject is in existence, 
 and it will take sharp eyes to discover any sentence 
 inconsistent with this profession of its author. So 
 far from assailing Walton or his Polyglutt with 
 unseemly invective, he declares that " he would 
 never fail to commend the usefulness of the work, 
 and the learning, diligence, and pains of the worthy 
 
30 THE EVANrxKUrAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 persons that have brought it forth." It will even 
 be a greater surprise to many, when they are told 
 that, instead of condemning the cultivation of sacred 
 science, he admitted the existence of various 
 readings in the New Testament, and held that if 
 others, from a collation of manuscripts, could be 
 discovered, they " deserved to be considered," He 
 assigns rules by which worthless errata could be 
 discriminated from more important discrepancies 
 entitled to such consideration. His chief object 
 was a just and noble one, specially needed when the 
 existence of various readings was almost a new 
 disclosure to the mass of Christian readers ; — it 
 was to vindicate the text from such uncertainty as 
 to afford an excuse for disdaining its authority. 
 Conscious at the same time that his own learning, 
 vast as it was, great even in relation to the very 
 subject discussed, did not lie in the line of Biblical 
 criticism, he says, with a humility which should be 
 remembered to his credit, and which might have 
 saved him from some bitter epithets of reproach, 
 "Those who have more wisdom and learning, I hope 
 will rather take pains to instruct me, and such as I 
 am, than be angry or offended with us, that we are 
 not so wise and learned as themselves." 
 
 In relation to the Word of God as the standard 
 of faith, the merits of Owen as an exegete cannot be 
 overlooked. Here too he was in advance of his 
 times. Apart from minor works in this department, 
 such as his delightful treatise On the 130//i Fsalm, 
 his Commentary on the Epistle to the Hehreics — in a 
 sense his dying bequest to the Church of Christ — 
 
JOHN OWEN. 31 
 
 constitutes the nol)lest monument to his memory, 
 discussing, with exhaustive fuhiess and a spiritual 
 tact which is unrivalled, the meaning of the sacred 
 writer, the doctrine to be evolved from his statements, 
 and the application to be made of it. Refraining from 
 any attempt to describe his rare qualities as an 
 expositor, as beyond our limits, we content ourselves 
 with one remark. The principles on which he con- 
 structed his commentary, as well as sj)ecial solutions 
 of difficulties in the course of it, are singularly anti- 
 cipative of the light which modern research has 
 brought to bear on the subject. For instances of the 
 latter, his work itself may be consulted ; as to the 
 former, the principle on which he conducts the 
 exposition, he recognises the value of what is now 
 termed the historical method of interpretation, and 
 holds it essential for the discovery of the real scope 
 and bearing of the Scripture expounded that it 
 should be studied in relation to the circumstances 
 of the age when it was written, and specially to 
 the condition of the Church to which it might be 
 addressed. 
 
 Another important principle in regard to Scripture 
 Owen has the merit, if not of discovering, at least of 
 first placing in a clear light. It is know^n as " tlie 
 self-evidencing power of the Word." He was at 
 pains, and wrote indeed a particular treatise, to dis- 
 criminate the principle from any taint of mysticism. 
 He illustrates this self-evidencing efficacy by the 
 analogy of two influences, light and power. As light 
 manifests itself, and otherwi'se would be no light, 
 and as power would be no power unless it made 
 
32 Tin-: kvaxoelical succession. 
 
 itself felt, so witli Scripture. In its necessary effect 
 on the awakened mind, when its truths are brought 
 home to it by the Holy Spirit, there is a source of 
 internal evidence commending the Word to the 
 conscience, and investing it with the equalities 
 divinely claimed for it as " quick and powerful." 
 Prejudice may resist this evidence, but, as he quaintly 
 remarks, '* the light is not the eye," and unwilling- 
 ness to appreciate the truth of God, either in its own 
 nature or in its claims to our belief, may be due to 
 causes independent of both. 
 
 2. Advancing from the standard by which he 
 regulates his faith, to the system of theological truth 
 which he deduced from it, we are confronted with 
 a series of massive treatises on some of the weightiest 
 truths of revelation, such as the Divinity of Christ, 
 the Person and Work of the Spirit, the Extent of 
 Redemption, Justification by Faith, and the Per- 
 severance of the Saints. The general character of 
 his theology may be described as Evangelical rather 
 than Calvinistic; for, though he embraces the 
 Calvinistic system, he reaches his conclusions so 
 directly in the light of Scripture, that there is a 
 freshness all his own in his presentation of Divine 
 truth. He has stamped the impress of his religious 
 thinking so deeply on the generations tliat followed 
 him in the same scliool, that the originality of Owen 
 in the sense just indicated is not discerned, because 
 his views have l)ecome so familiar to us. Dr. James 
 Hamilton draws attention to the fact, and states 
 that the "Evangelical theology of the last hundred 
 years has been chieffy alluvial," and that the element 
 
JOHN OWEN. 33 * 
 
 in it " which we chiefly recognise is a detritus from 
 Mount Owen." The great Puritan thought out his 
 conclusions for himself, differing on some points from 
 Calvin, from Twisse, from Rutherfurd, and others. 
 His comprehensive learning enabled him to take 
 stock of the theology of ages. But he is never 
 encumbered with all he knows ; far less does he quit 
 his hold of Scripture to drift on the current of 
 human opinions. Unlike his great contemporary, 
 Jeremy Taylor, not certainly his inferior in learning, 
 he does not, simply to clench an argument or point 
 a moral, surprise us with a curious felicity of 
 quotation or with incidents selected from some dark 
 recess of ancient literature. The whole field lies open 
 to him, and the ease with which he accumulates 
 facts to bear upon the question on hand with him 
 is wonderful. There are two schools of Evangelical 
 divines : such as travel upward from the ruin of man 
 to the redemption by God ; others who travel down- 
 ward from the Divine purpose of redemption to our 
 actual deliverance in all its process and results. 
 Both methods have their advantages and disad- 
 vantages. Owen belonged to the latter class. His 
 very first publication — The Display of Arminianism 
 — led him to unfold the sovereignty of the Divine 
 will in salvation, and his mind kept throughout life 
 to this line of contemplation, in expounding the 
 mystery of the faith. It had its disadvantages, for 
 we have no such direct dealing with sinners, as in 
 Baxter's Call to the Unconverted^ in any treatise 
 from Owen specially devoted to such a purpose ; and 
 at times he may be conceived to press his argument 
 C 
 
34 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 to conclusions unduly rigid. There is compensation 
 for these defects, as we shall afterwards see. Mean- 
 while it is not to be supposed that there are not, inter- 
 spersed with his hardest argumentations, arousing 
 appeals to the conscience and the most urgent com- 
 mendation of Christ. There are passages, even in 
 the work in which he contends for definite and 
 particular redemption, asserting in the noblest terms 
 the duty not merely of tendering a free and universal 
 offer of the Gospel, but of urging upon every sinner 
 individually his responsibility under the call thus 
 addressed to him. This much must be said, on the 
 other hand, that from his standpoint in viewing the 
 system of Divine truth, he was brought to realise 
 and cherish a vivid apprehension of God, as the 
 source and substance of all truth. Eevealed truth 
 was of value to him as it gave him, to borrow words 
 from the title of one of his own treatises, " an 
 understanding of the mind of God." He wrote for 
 the same purpose for which he lived. Nor did he 
 either write or live in vain. " In the treatises of 
 Owen," says Dr. Hamilton, " there is many a sentence 
 which, set in a sermon, would shine like a brilliant, 
 and there is bullion enough to make the fortune of 
 a theological faculty." If any man is under the 
 delusion that the exhibition and enforcement of 
 dogma, even though it bear the seal of inspiration, 
 are necessarily inconsistent with depth of thought, 
 warmth of emotion, and originality of genius, let 
 him peruse Owen On Communion icifh God, in 
 which he expounds the relationship of the saint to 
 all the persons in the Trinity. He has occasion, for 
 
JOHN OWEN. 35 
 
 example, to insist on the holiness of the Saviour : 
 " Adam," he tells us, " had this spotless purity, so 
 had the angels, but they came immediately from the 
 hand of God, without concurrence of any secondary 
 cause. Jesus Christ is a plant and root out of a 
 dry ground, a blossom from the stem of Jesse, a 
 bud from the loins of sinful man, — born of a sinner, 
 after there had been no innocent flesh in the world 
 for four thousand years, every one on the roll of his 
 genealogy being infected therewith. To have a 
 flower of wonderful rarity to grow in Paradise, a 
 garden of God's own planting, not sullied in the 
 least, is not so strange ; but, as the Psalmist speaks, 
 to hear of it in a wood, to find it in a forest, to have 
 a spotless bud brought forth in the wilderness of 
 corrupted nature, is a thing which angels may desire 
 to look into." 
 
 3. It would be injustice to Owen if we overlooked 
 the scope of his theology. There is a noble con- 
 secration in it to a special end. The greatest 
 name in infidel literature of our day, Strauss, in 
 his New Confession, remarks, as if it were a discovery 
 of his own, that the controversy between faith and 
 unbelief turns mainly on the Person of Christ. Had 
 he read Owen, he would have found that it was no 
 discovery. So convinced was Owen of the fact, that 
 he wrote a treatise specially on this very point — 
 On the Person of Christ — a treatise of which the 
 elder M'Crie does not hesitate to say that " of all 
 the theological works published since the Eeforma- 
 tion, next to QdlYUi^ Institutes, he would have deemed 
 it his highest honour to have produced." Dr. M'Orie 
 
36 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 was not accustomed to speak from ignorance, or with- 
 out weighing liis words. To exhibit Christ in the 
 strength of His claims is the design of the work, and 
 he brings out, with rare fuhiess and felicity, how in 
 the whole contendings of the Church, directly or 
 indirectly, the momentous claim embodied in the 
 doctrine of His Person has been the design and scope 
 of its testimony. The settlement of it so for, in the 
 happy issue of the Arian controversy, committed 
 the Church, in the elucidation of Scripture, to lines 
 of development and progress, necessarily resulting in 
 evangelical theology, for to assert the divinity of 
 the Redeemer was, in other words, to assert that 
 redemption was not human, but Divine, and this 
 obviously is the essence of evangelical teaching. 
 But the profound discussions of Owen on the Person 
 of Christ must be taken into connection with another 
 of his works, published in the year after his death, — 
 his Meditations on the Glory of Christ. In these 
 two works will be found the prevailing aim of his 
 life, the scope of all he taught and wrote. In 
 Christ he found the rock and foundation of all 
 theology, as a revelation of mercy and pardon for a 
 fallen world — the basis of the Divine administration 
 in the moral universe — the bond that unites heaven 
 with earth in the experience and hopes of the saint 
 — the source of life to the Church as well as the 
 central doctrine of its beliefs. In the former treatise, 
 rising above the irritation of controversy, the great 
 Puritan casts his eye in profound and pensive 
 thoughtfulness over the Christian Church in its past 
 
JOHN OWEN. 37 
 
 history as well as its present condition. He finds 
 it in a woful state. The world itself in its opposi- 
 tion to Christ had been filled " with blood and con- 
 fusion." To terminate ''these woful conflicts," he 
 would " re-enthrone," to use the words expressive of 
 his own grand design, "the Person, Spirit, Grace, 
 and Authority of Christ in the hearts and consciences 
 of men." All prophecy is a fable, if his conviction 
 is a fallacy and his hope a dream. Not that he 
 would commit himself in the least to any mood of 
 despondency under the present disorder around him. 
 The faith he breathes in all he wrote on this theme 
 comes like a refreshing breeze over the mind, im- 
 parting new invigoration to our spiritual nature ; and 
 towards the close of the latter treatise, when he 
 anticijmtes the recognition of his Lord in glory, there 
 is such a gathering up of all the elements of that 
 glory revealed in Scripture that the day seems to 
 break and the shadows to flee away under the dawn 
 of a Sun of righteousness, not merely with healing 
 under its wings for all the miseries of time, but 
 with the brightness of a joy that gives to heaven itself 
 all its savour and its zest. 
 
 Finally, small space has been left, we fear, to 
 dwell on what is really the cardinal and distinctive 
 honour of Owen as a great divine, — the sjnritual 
 application or hearing of Divine truth on human 
 character generally, on the experience of the saint in 
 particular. No divine excels him in this depart- 
 ment. Profound insight into human nature is 
 needed for it, — human nature as renewed and 
 
38 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 wrought upon by grace. To discover and trace the 
 relation of Divine truth to tlie human conscience 
 requires no common skill, is indeed a holy art learned 
 only in the school of the ripest experience, and taught 
 only through a special gift of the Holy Ghost. In this 
 field of religious thought and inquiry, — the field in 
 which the truest originality in preaching the gospel 
 may be evinced, — it would be impossible to name a 
 Christian author who surpasses Owen, difficult to 
 name another who ranks on the same level. It is 
 not with him morbid speculations in casuistry, such 
 as some divines have indulged in. It is the calm, faith- 
 ful, lucid, searching investigation into the workings 
 of grace, — analysis keen and penetrating into the 
 motives of human action, with a view to separate 
 the precious from the vile, the genuine from the 
 counterfeit, thought and feeling as the result of 
 grace from thought and feeling which, under the 
 veneering and varnish of seeming piety, may be 
 nothing better than the old corruption in disguise. 
 In most of his purely religious treatises this skill in 
 spiritual diagnosis may be noticed, as in his Com- 
 munion vj'ith God, when he distinguishes between 
 the dying of sin as to the habit, and the dying of 
 sin as to the root ; but he has special treatises of 
 this character On Temptation, On Inchcelling Sin, On 
 Spiritual-mind edness, and others. Amongst all these 
 some of the ablest men I have met with, who have 
 made a study of Owen, give the palm to his work 
 On the Mortification of Sin. 
 
 To such lectures as have now been resumed on 
 
JOHN OWEN. 39 
 
 the Evangelical Succession, objection has been taken 
 that "the great biography" — the life of our Lord 
 alone — should be unfolded in the pulpit, and con- 
 stituted the subject of meditation on the day of 
 God. The holy feeling from which the objection 
 springs is worthy of the deepest respect, Christ, 
 however, is to be seen, and it is his glory that he 
 is seen, not merely in the page of Scripture, but in 
 the persons of all who truly love and follow him ; 
 and so far as they have done Christ's work, reflected 
 Christ's imasre, advanced Christ's cause, our faith 
 surely can rise from the servant to the Master, 
 and give Him all the praise. You remember 
 the scene in the south of Scotland, as recorded 
 in faithful history. One aged martyr struggles 
 amid the rising waters, soon to engulf her, and her 
 companion, in the sweet years of tender girlhood, 
 tied to a stake nearer the shore, is made to notice 
 the death with which her friend was threatened, and 
 asked what she thought of her, and her terrible 
 situation. She answers in calm heroism, " What do 
 I see, but Christ in one of his members suff'ering 
 there 1 " If in the history of the Church, in the in- 
 dividual lives of martyrs, confessors, and reformers, 
 while making due acknowledgment of the human 
 error and frailties which abound in the best of them, 
 we recognise what grace has wrought in them, and 
 wrought by them, and see Christ in them, as the 
 dying martyr saw in her companion, we are but 
 reading a new chapter in the great biography and 
 erecting new trophies to the praise of Him who 
 
40 JOHN OWEN. 
 
 is its theme ; and if I have succeeded in inspiring 
 any minds ^vith the desire to study the writings of 
 him wlio has been styled " the prince of Puritan 
 divines," it is my humble belief that they will be 
 brought nearer the truth of Christ, nearer Christ 
 Himself 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 
 
 By the Rev. W. Robertson Niuoll, M.A,, Kelso. 
 
 GREAT as is the place occupied by John Banyan 
 in English literature and theology, many 
 points in his life are still obscure, and many incorrect 
 and incomplete statements aj^pear to this day even 
 in books by writers of authority. A brief sketch of 
 his life may therefore not be superfluous. I have 
 to acknowledge my indebtedness, in preparing it, to 
 the kindness of the chief living authority on John 
 Bunyan, Dr. John Brown, his accomjilished successor 
 at Bedford, from whom we expect what Avill doubt- 
 less be the standard biography of Bunyan.^ 
 
 He was born at the village of Elstowe, about a 
 mile from Bedford, in 1628. At that time, the dis- 
 parity of Bedford and the village beside it was by 
 no means so great as it is now. It seems probable 
 that then the population of Bedford was about four 
 times the population of Elstowe ; by the census of 
 the present year it is thirty-five times. Few places 
 in England have been less changed in the eventful 
 years that have passed since Bunyan's time than 
 
 1 See Personal Relics and Recent Memorials of Bunyan, and 
 Wylie's indispensable Book of the Bunyan Festival. 
 D 
 
42 TIIK EVAXCxELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 Elstowe. The old half-timber cottages, with over- 
 hanging storeys, gabled porches, and peaked dormers, 
 covered with roses and honeysuckles, must be much 
 the same as in the days of the Commonwealth. It 
 is only recently that we have been able to identify 
 with precision the exact place of Bunyan's birth. 
 The tradition held for many years by the oldest in- 
 habitants was that the cottage where he was born 
 was about a mile from the Church, at a place called 
 Bunyan's End. About a year ago Dr. Brown was 
 fortunate enough to verify this tradition by a dis- 
 covery in the Eecord Office, which shows that 
 Bunyan's ancestors were living there in 1542, nearly 
 one hundred years before his birth, and that the 
 place was then called Bunyan's End, and had pro- 
 bably been in the possession of his family long before 
 that. Bunyan's father was a tinker — the first in the 
 family — what we should now call a white-smith or 
 brazier ; indeed he describes himself in his will by 
 the latter name. His son says : " My Other's house 
 was of that rank w^hicli is meanest and most despised 
 of all the families in the land." The fact that the 
 family were so long living in the same cottage and 
 cultivating the same ground is quite fatal to the utterly 
 baseless theory that Bunyan was of gipsy blood ; nor 
 is it in the least more probable that he was, as has 
 been recently asserted, of Scotch descent. There is 
 the clearest evidence that more than 400 years before 
 his birth there were Bunyans living in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Dr. Brown is inclined to consider the 
 name Norman in its origin, and derived from some 
 ancient Norman town or village. The name of 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 43 
 
 Bunyan's mother has been discovered very recently ; 
 it was Margaret Bentley. We have always known 
 that he was born in 1628, and now it has been dis- 
 covered that it was on the last of the chill November 
 days of that year that his mother carried ont the 
 son, who was afterwards to be so famous, from the 
 tinker's cottage to Elstowe Church for baptism. His 
 father was able to send him to school, and it was 
 l)erhaps neither his fault nor his son's that what the 
 boy learned there he forgot afterwards almost utterl}^ 
 being driven by poverty soon to bear a hand at the 
 anvil. 
 
 The years of Bunyan's boyhood were those when 
 the Puritan spirit culminated in England, and 
 especially in Bedfordshire ; and from the very begin- 
 ning the young mind, so full of undeveloped forces, 
 was exercised by religious terrors. As he grew older 
 these increased, and his vivid description of his own 
 youth has led to the most varying inferences. Kyland 
 says : " No man of common sense and common in- 
 tegrity can deny that Bunyan was a practical atheist, 
 a worthless contemptible infidel, a vile rebel to God 
 and goodness, a common profligate, a soul-despising, 
 a soul-murdering, a soul-damning thoughtless wretch, 
 as could exist on the face of the earth. Now be 
 astonished, heavens ! to eternity, and wonder, 
 earth and hell ! while time endures. Behold this 
 very man become a miracle of mercy, a mirror of 
 wisdom, goodness, holiness, truth, and love." On 
 this Lord Macaulay observes : " AVhoever takes the 
 trouble to examine the evidence will find that the 
 good man who wrote this had been deceived by a 
 
44 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 phraseology whicli he ought to have understood better. 
 It is quite certain that Bunyan was at eighteen what 
 in any but the most austerely Puritanical circles 
 would have been considered as a young man of 
 singular gravity and innocence." He points out that 
 when Bunyan was accused of impurity he broke into 
 vehement and passionate protest ; that there is no 
 evidence that he was ever drunk, and that the worst 
 that can be said of him was that he had a great liking 
 for some diversions, harmless in themselves, but con- 
 demned by the rigid precisians among whom he 
 lived. In this opinion Lord Macaulay has almost 
 been universally followed, and yet those who read 
 with attention his own writings and the contemporary 
 biographies may hesitate in affirming that the whole 
 truth has been told. He says himself that " he did 
 still let loose the reins of his lust, and delighted in 
 I all transgressions against the law of God, so that until 
 ' he came to the state of marriage he was the very 
 / ringleader in all manner of vice and ungodliness." 
 Nor do other utterances, fairly interpreted, recall this 
 confession. Besides, in him the text was illustrated, 
 " When the commandment came, sin revived." " One 
 day," he says, " I was standing at a neighbour's shop 
 window, and there cursing and swearing and playing 
 the madman with my wonted manner. There sat 
 within the woman of the house and heard me, who, 
 though she was a very loose and ungodly wretch, yet 
 protested that I swore and cursed at that most fearful 
 rate, that she was made to tremble to hear me, and 
 told me further that I was the ungodliest fellow for 
 swearing that ever she heard in all her life, and that 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 45 
 
 T, by thus doing, was able to spoil all the youth in 
 the whole town if they came in my company." 
 Besides, we can see that his associates were amongst 
 the wildest, and that when outward reformation came 
 it excited the great astonishment of his neighbours. 
 His sins, however, we may hope, were sins done 
 against God rather than against man — sins for 
 which he received a complete forgiveness. We 
 may hope that he never fell into those transgres- 
 sions which disable and darken the whole life, even 
 after they have been forgiven by God, by their irre- 
 trievable results in others. 
 
 However this may be, when he was about seven- 
 teen he became a soldier, and here we approach 
 one of the most controverted points of his life — 
 viz., on which side he took up arms. Lord Mac- 
 aulay pronounces, without hesitation, that he was 
 a soldier in the Parliamentary army. His most 
 recent biographers are strongly of opinion that he 
 was a Eoyalist, and Mr. Froude holds this view, 
 supporting it with somewhat doubtful arguments. 
 For example, one of the reasons he gives for saying 
 that Bunyan was probably on the side of the 
 Koyalists is that John Gifford, afterwards his pastor, 
 had been a Royalist. It is scarcely necessary to 
 point out that Gifford and Bunyan could not have 
 known of each other's existence for at least four 
 years after Bunyan's soldiering experiences were all 
 over. The evidence on the other side seems very 
 strong. At the time when Bunyan was a soldier, 
 Bedfordshire declared unmistakeably that the Parlia- 
 ment and not the King was the lawfully constituted 
 
46 THE EYANGELTCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 authority of the realm, and it does not seem likely, 
 as Dr. Brown remarks, that he, a mere lad of 
 sixteen or seventeen, listening to a Puritan preacher, 
 and living in a county intensely Puritan, should 
 have come to different conclusions from the majority 
 of his neighbours on the great question then agitat- 
 ing the nation. Next, even if this were the case, 
 it is very improbable that he would be able to 
 make his w\ay to the King's quarters through strong 
 lines of Parliamentary forces, and long roads jealously 
 guarded. The only reference made by himself to 
 his military experience is the well-known passage : 
 " When I was a soldier, I wdth others were drawn 
 out to go to such a place to besiege it, but when I 
 was just ready to go one of the company desired to 
 go in my room, to Avhich wdien I had consented, he 
 took my place, and going to the siege, as he stood 
 sentinel, he was shot into the head with a musket 
 bullet, and died." It has been unhesitatingly taken 
 for granted that this passage refers to the siege of 
 Leicester, but against this view there are very 
 strong arguments. More probably it refers to some 
 sudden call made upon the garrison at Newport, for 
 men to assist in the Parliamentary operations in 
 the west. The significant fact is that it should be 
 l)0ssible to have any doubt upon which side Bunyan 
 served. Lord Macaulay remarks that "his brief 
 c^'limpse of the pomp of "war strongly impressed his 
 imagination, and to the last he loved to draw his 
 illustrations of sacred things from camps and for- 
 tresses, from guns, drums, flags of truce, and 
 regiments arrayed each under his own banner." 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 47 
 
 After a few months lie returned home. His first 
 biographer, a personal acquaintance, says : " The 
 few friends he had thought that changing his 
 condition to the married state micfht reform him, 
 and therefore urged him to marry as a sensible and 
 comfortable advantage ; but his poverty and irregular 
 course of life made it very difficult for him to get 
 a wife suitable to his inclination." His mercy, 
 however, was to light upon a wife whose father was 
 counted godly. " This woman and I," he says, 
 " though we came together as poor as poor might 
 be, not having so much household stuff as a dish or 
 spoon betwixt us both, yet this she had for her 
 part — The Plain Mans Pathuwj to Heaven and 
 The Practice of Piety which her father had left 
 her when he died. In these two books I should 
 sometimes read with her, wherein I also found 
 some things that were somewhat pleasing to me ; 
 but all this while I met with no conviction. She 
 also would be often telling of me what a godly man 
 her father was, and how he would reprove and 
 correct vice, both in his house and among his 
 neighbours ; what a strict and holy life he lived in 
 his days, both in word and deed." Soon there com- 
 menced the tremendous spiritual conflict described in 
 his Grace Abounding. A mighty external reforma- 
 tion took place in his character. He abandoned one 
 sin after another, and astonished his neighbours by 
 his conversion from " prodigious igrofaneness " to 
 moral life. With all this he found no real peace. 
 One day in the streets of Bedford he came to where 
 there were three or four poor 
 
48 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 door in tlie sun, and talking about the tilings of 
 God. He heard, but hardly understood, for their 
 themes were out of his reach. They talked of the 
 new birth, their miserable state by nature, God's love 
 in Christ, the suggestions and temptations of Satan, 
 their own wretchedness of heart and unbelief; and 
 they spoke, he thought, as if joy did make them 
 speak. They were like people that dwelt alone in 
 a new-found world. He saw himself then in a 
 forlorn and sad condition, and yet was provoked by 
 a vehement, hungering desire to be one of the 
 number that did sit in the sunshine. At home or 
 abroad, in house or field, he lifted up his heart in 
 prayer, " Lord, consider my distress ! " But peace 
 was far off, and difficulties were endless. Was he 
 elected 1 Was the day of grace past and gone ] 
 He broke his mind to these poor people in Bedford, 
 but all was for a time in vain. Though his con- 
 science was very tender, and he shrank from sin, 
 whole floods of blasphemies were poured upon his 
 spirit. He doubted the Scriptures. He was tempted 
 to think that the Turks had as good Scriptures to 
 prove Mahomet their Saviour, as we had to prove 
 our Jesus is. His heart was very hard. He would 
 have given a thousand pounds for a tear, and, 
 although he was not without brief glimpses of 
 comfort, they were, like Peter's sheet, suddenly 
 caught up to heaven again. At last he began to find 
 rest. He saw, with great evidence from the relation 
 of the four Evangelists, the wonderful work of God 
 in giving Jesus Clirist to save us, both from His 
 .conception and l)irth, even to H^s second coming to 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 49 
 
 judgment. " Metliouglit," lie says, " I saw as if I 
 had seen Him born, as if I had seen Him grow up, 
 as if I had seen Him walk through this world from 
 the cradle to His cross, to which also when he came 
 I saw liow gently He gave Himself to be hanged 
 and nailed on it for my sins and wicked doings; 
 and as I was musing on this His progress that 
 dropped on my spirit, He was ordained for the 
 slaughter." As he gazed on the thorn-crowned head, 
 he often longed that the end were come. " Oh ! 
 thought I, that I was fourscore years old now, that 
 I might die quickly, and that my soul might be gone 
 to i-est." About this time he earnestly longed to 
 read the experience of another soul, and he found it 
 in an old tattered copy of Martin Luther's Commemt 
 on the Gahitians. Luther had himself ploughed 
 through like seas of terror and blasphemy, and it is 
 pathetic to see these mighty spirits meet — deep 
 calling unto deep, heart answering to heart. "I found 
 my condition in his experience so largely and pro- 
 foundly handled as if his book had been written out of 
 my heart. I do prefer this book of Martin Luther 
 before all the books that ever I have seen as most fit 
 for a wounded conscience." But the end was not 
 yet. He was tempted to sell and part with Christ ; 
 and, though he answered, " I will not, I will not ; no, 
 not for thousands, thousands, thousands of worlds," 
 one day he felt the thought pass through his heart, 
 " Let Him go, if He will," and that terrible Scrip- 
 ture seized him, " He found no place of repent- 
 ance, though he sought it carefully with tears." For 
 two years together nothing would abide with him 
 
50 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 but damnation and the expectation of damnation. 
 Thoughts like these make the soul like a sword of 
 fire, wearing its way through its sheath. His bod}- 
 was racked with such pains that he expected to 
 burst asunder like Judas. He trembled for whole 
 days together with fear of death and judgment. At 
 last light came. He heard the assurance, " I have 
 loved thee with an everlasting love," and after, with 
 grateful heart and watchful eye, turning over with 
 great seriousness every leaf, and considering every 
 sentence of the promises, he had amazing experience 
 of the grace of God. Once he saw himself within 
 the arms of grace and mercy, and though he was 
 afraid before to think of a dying hour, yet now he 
 cried, "Let me die." Death was lovely and beautiful 
 in his sight, for he saw that we shall never live 
 indeed until we be gone into the other world. " Oh ! 
 methought, this life is a slumber in comparison with 
 that above." He joined himself to the little society 
 of Baptists at Bedford, consisting of " twelve ancient 
 and grave persons," including the women whom he 
 had heard speaking in the sun, and presided over by 
 John Gifford, a man with a strange history. He 
 had been a major in the King's army, a desperate 
 profligate, but, by God's mercy, a new life entered 
 into him, and the little society at Bedford — one 
 amongst them being Harrington, whom Gifford in 
 old days purposed to kill on account of his reli- 
 gious principles — made him their pastor. He was 
 baptized in the river Ouse. Although a Baptist, he 
 never attached great importance to the distinguish- 
 ing priufiple of that sect. "The Gospel," he said, 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 51 
 
 "may be effectually preached, and yet baptism 
 neither administered nor mentioned. Paul made 
 no such matter of baptism as some in these days do. 
 No ; he made no matter at all thereof with respect 
 to Church communion. When Satan abuseth it 
 and wrencheth it out of its place, making that which 
 was ordained of God for the edification of believers 
 the only weapon to break in pieces the love, the 
 unity, the concord of saints, then what is baptism 1 
 Then neither is baptism anything." 
 
 How are we to regard these awful and prolonged 
 agonies 1 Were his troubles a mere series of phan- 
 tasies 1 Was he, as a recent writer has said, led 
 astray by failing to understand the use of the Bible 1 
 " The cause," says Canon Venables, " of this pro- 
 tracted agony was his regarding the Bible as a 
 bundle of isolated texts instead of a comprehensive 
 revelation of God's loving and holy Avill." The 
 very simplicity of these explanations suggests a doubt 
 of their completeness. It is true, indeed, that Bun- 
 yan had that deep and even mystical faith in the 
 letter of Scriptui-e which unites men so far apart as, 
 for example, Milton, Newman, and Maurice. And, 
 if we are to set aside the personal agency of the 
 Tempter as an exploded ftible, if we are satisfied to 
 label as morbid fancies the similar experience of so 
 many other souls that have sought the face of God ; 
 if we see in the revelation of Clirist nothinej but 
 sunshine, and are able to get rid of all the deep 
 shadows of sin and judgment, then, indeed, such 
 solutions may suffice. But if not, we may see in 
 the record of Banyan's experience a frequent under- 
 
52 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 stcaiiding of Scripture not giv^en to the mere scholar, 
 an insight into tlie real, i:)iercing, and tremendous 
 significance of words too familiar to our dull eyes, 
 and a record of the Divine preparation and training 
 of a great soul for a high and singular service. 
 By and by, Bunyan began to preach. He tells 
 us that after he had been about five or six years 
 awakened he was desired by some " to take in 
 hand to speak a word of exhortation unto them, 
 and did twice, at two several assemblies and in 
 private, though with much "weakness and infirmity, 
 discover my gift amongst them, at which they not 
 only seemed to be, but did solemnly protest as in 
 the sight of the great God, they were both affected 
 and converted, and gave thanks to the Father of 
 mercies for the grace bestowed on me." At last 
 he was more particularly called forth and appointed 
 to the preaching of the Word, and soon gained 
 great popularity. " They came in," he says, " to 
 hear the Word by hundreds, and that from all 
 parts, though on sundry and divers accounts." His 
 profound experience, deep conviction, thorough 
 knowledge of the Scriptures, and vigorous genius, 
 gave him great and immediate influence. After he 
 liad been about five years a preacher, he was thrown 
 into the jail at Bedford. Under an unrepealed Act 
 of Parliament, and within six months of the King's 
 arrival, he was arrested for preaching at Samsell, 
 and sent on to Bedford jail. He would have to 
 walk through Elstowe in the custody of the 
 constable. Past the cottage door where he had 
 lived with the gentle companion of his youth, past 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 53 
 
 the scene of his early sports and struggles, ''along the 
 road where he had once thought of putting his faith 
 to the test of miracle, but where it was now to be 
 put to a nobler test than that," he makes his way to 
 the grim structure of the county jail, long since 
 thrown down, where he was to lie for twelve years. 
 He had seen what was coming, and had had two 
 considerations especially warm upon his heart. 
 Tlie first was how to be able to endure the long 
 tedious imprisonment, and the next was how, if 
 need be, he might glorify God in dying. He was 
 not afraid that he would shrink from death, but his 
 terror was that he should die with a pale face and 
 tottering knees for such a cause as this. He was 
 wonderfully comforted — enabled to see that the best 
 way to go tlirough suffering was to trust in God 
 through Christ for the world to come, and, as for 
 this world, to count all things dead. But still he 
 was a man compassed with infirmities. " The part- 
 ing with my wife and poor children have often been 
 to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from my 
 bones, and that not only because I am somewhat 
 too fond of these great mercies, but also because I 
 should have often brought to my mind the many 
 hardships, miseries, and wants that my poor family 
 were like to meet with should I be taken from them 
 — especially my poor blind child, who lay nearer 
 my heart than all I had besides. 0, the thought of 
 the hardship I thought my blind one might go 
 under would break my heart to pieces ! Poor child, 
 thought I, what sorrow art thou like to have for thy 
 portion in this world ! Thou must be beaten, must 
 
54 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 beg, suffer hunger, cold, nakedness, and a thousand 
 calamities, though I cannot now endure the -wind 
 should blow upon thee. But j'et, recalling myself, 
 thought I, I must venture you all with God, though 
 it goeth to the quick to leave you. 0, I saw in this 
 condition I was as a man who was pulling down his 
 house upon the head of his wife and children ; yet, 
 thought 1, I must do it, I must do it." 
 
 Of late years it has been maintained that 
 Bunj'an's imprisonment was by no means irksome, 
 and Mr. Froude goes so far as to say that it was little 
 more than formal. This view is supported by the 
 remarkable argument that " the church in Bedford 
 would never have abandoned to want its most dis- 
 tinguished pastor." But Bunyan was not chosen to 
 be pastor at all till his imprisonment had been 
 ended, and his distinction had all of it yet to be 
 won. It is true that Bunyan was too high-hearted 
 to Avhine over his afflictions, and that there were 
 mitigations. He had a friend in the under-jailer, 
 John White, who in 16G8 was brought before the 
 Archdeacon's Court for refusing to pay the church 
 rates of his parish. It is also true that he was 
 several times out of prison during the twelve years 
 of his imprisonment. " I had," he says, " some 
 liberty granted me more than at the first, and, 
 following my wonted course of preaching, did go to 
 see Christians at London, taking all occasions that 
 were put into my hand to visit the people of God." 
 All this freedom, however, he expressly says, was 
 granted between the two assizes of August 16-61 
 and April 1662, when he was seeking in vain to get 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 55 
 
 his name on the calendar for triah He also tells us 
 that his enemies were so enraged by the clemency 
 of his jailer, that they almost cast him out of his 
 place. We may be sure his confinement was hard 
 enough. A man of the name of John Bubb, who 
 was in jail along with him for about nine months, 
 sent up a most plaintive petition to the King, still 
 extant in the Record Office, in which he says that 
 during his imprisonment he " hath suffered as much 
 misery as soe dismall a place could be capable to 
 inflict, and so is likely to perish without your 
 Majestie's further compassion and mercie towards 
 him." John Bubb evidently would not have agreed 
 with Mr. Froude ; he knew what imprisonment in 
 Bedford jail meant. I^ot being able to carry on his 
 old trade in prison, Bunyan learned to make long 
 tagged thread laces for the hawkers, and thus sup- 
 ported his family. He formed a little church out of 
 his fellow-prisoners, and, as he tells us himself, " I 
 was never out of the Bible," words which are the 
 key to a true understanding of his life and work. 
 He had also Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and on the 
 margin of his copy are still legible " the ill-spelt lines 
 of doggerel in which he expressed his reverence for 
 the brave sufferers, and his implacable enmity to the 
 mystical Babylon." 
 
 An application for release failing, Bun3\an reso- 
 lutely set himself to writing. The first book he pub- 
 lished while in prison. Christian Behaviour, is dated 
 "From my place of confinement at Bedford, this 
 17tli of the 4th month, 1663,"i that is, in the third 
 
 1 See Brown's Personal Relics, etc., p. S. OtFor erroneously 
 gives the date as 1674. 
 
56 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 year of his iinprisonment. His writings were at 
 first mainly controversies against the Quakers, the 
 liturgy, and Church of England, and the Close Com- 
 munion Baptists. At last, however, he commenced 
 the work that was to make him immortal — The 
 Pilgrinis Progress. It was begun, he tells us, before 
 he ivas aware, and carried on to its completion in 
 silence. For while he made his fellow-prisoners free 
 of all his other writings as they went on, this he 
 kept secret, as if there were about it something 
 separate. A great critic of our own day, writing on 
 Dante, uses words that may well be applied to 
 Bunyan : " We approach the history of such works, 
 in which genius seems to have pushed its achieve- 
 ments to a new limit, with a kind of awe. The 
 beginnings of all things, their bursting out from 
 nothing, and gradual evolution into substance and 
 shape, cast upon the mind a solemn influence. They 
 come too near the fount of being to be folloAved up 
 without our feeling the shadows which surround it. 
 We cannot but fear, cannot but feel ourselves cut off 
 from this visible and familiar world as we enter into 
 the cloud. And as with the processes of nature, so 
 it is with those offsprings of man's mind by which 
 he has added permanently one more great feature 
 to the world, and created a new power which is to 
 act on mankind to the end. The mystery the 
 invention and creation presents, the subtle and 
 incalculable combinations by which it was led to its 
 work, and carried through it, are out of the reach of 
 invcstiLratini^ thoutrht. Often the idea recurs of the 
 precariousness of the result : by how little the world 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 57 
 
 might have lost one of its ornaments — by one sharp 
 pang, or one chance meeting, or any other among 
 the countless accidents among which man runs his 
 course. And then the solemn recollection super- 
 venes that powers were formed, and life preserved, 
 and circumstances arranged, and actions controlled, 
 that thus it should be ; and the work which man 
 has brooded over, and at last created, is the foster- 
 child too of that Wisdom which 'reaches from 
 end to end, strongly and sweetly disposing all 
 things.'"! 
 
 Something was no doubt due to the circumstances 
 in which the book was written. He had, what is 
 so hard now-a-days, to gain the stillness and leisure 
 needful for a great and worthy expression of his 
 genius. We can see how his mind gradually worked 
 itself clear of all partial and impairing elements ; 
 how the petty interests of the world outside cease at 
 last to torment. His mind attained the calmness 
 needful for the healthy activity of the imagination, 
 and, if the controversialist was silenced for the time, 
 the poet's mouth was opened. The prison became a 
 large place, as he took counsel with himself, and 
 gradually brought to perfection an undying product 
 of the imagination. Some of the most famous studies 
 of that period were prison cells, and it is impossible 
 not to speculate how many preachers and publicists 
 of our time might save their souls alive if they 
 were provided with another such opportunity as 
 Bunyan's. 
 
 When he had finished the manuscript of the first 
 
 1 Church's Dante, pp. 2, 3. 
 E 
 
58 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 part, he, if we may trust what seems a good tradi- 
 tion,^ read it to his felio^y-prisoners in jail : 
 
 " Some said, John, print it ; others said, Not so ; 
 Some said. It might do good ; others said, No." 
 
 The author conchided not to publish it in the 
 meantime, and the first part did not appear till 
 1678, six years after his release from prison. 
 
 As to how that release was obtained, tliere is 
 considerable controversy. In 1672 there was a lull 
 in the storm which had raged so long, and, either 
 from Aveariness in the cruel and fruitless work of 
 suppression, or from a policy meant to favour Eome, 
 a Declaration of Indulgence was issued, under w4iich 
 more than 3000 licences to preach w^ere granted, 
 Bunyan's being one of the first. Thus came to an end 
 the long bondage so devoutly borne, so nobly used. 
 He had been elected in January of the same year 
 pastor of the Baptist Church at Bedford, " after 
 much seeking of God by prayer and sober conference," 
 and for the next seventeen years there, and over 
 all the neighbouring country, he laboured in season 
 and out of season. 
 
 The PUfjrims Progress in a very short time caught 
 tlie popular mind. Its circulation among religious 
 families of the lower and middle classes in England 
 
 o 
 
 was immense, and w\as even greater in Scotland and 
 New England. In Holland and in France he had 
 numerous admirers. It was Bunyan's fate as an 
 author to be scourged by his own laurels ; but in 
 1682 he published the Holy fFar, which, says Lord 
 ^ Ste Birrell, Book of the Limyan Festival, p. 102. j 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 59 
 
 Macaulay, if the Pilgrim's Progress did not exist, 
 would be the best allegory that ever was written. 
 Grace Abounding was first published in 1666, and 
 six editions were called for in that year. In 1684 
 appeared the second part of the Pilgrim's Progress ^ 
 the Odysseij of Christiana to the Iliad of Cliristian 
 — unaccountably depreciated by recent critics, but 
 delightful for the tenderness of its pervading spirit 
 and the exquisiteness of many separate touches. 
 
 It is not wonderful that his incessant labours and 
 great literary reputation, gained for him paramount 
 authority amongst his co-religionists. His large j^lace 
 of worship in Bedford was usually crowded witli a 
 devout auditory. When he preached in London an 
 immense concourse assembled to hear him in the 
 coldest winter weather, and before daylight in the 
 morning. From London he went through the country 
 animating the zeal of his brethren, distributing 
 alms, and settling disputes. With all this his literary 
 activity never relaxed. 
 
 In the year 1685, on the accession of James ir., 
 an advanced Papist, scarcely one eminent dissenting 
 minister remained unmolested. Feeling the un- 
 certainty of his position, Bunyan that year made 
 over by deed of gift to his wife, all his worldly 
 possessions. In this, with a characteristic touch 
 of his grand simplicity, he describes himself as 
 John Bunyan of the parish of St. Cuthbert's, 
 hrazier. 
 
 The end was not far aAvay. In 1688 he suffered 
 from the sweating sickness, but, in addition to his 
 other labours, published six considerable volumes, 
 
60 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 and left twelve more ready for the press. In the 
 August he rode on horseback to Eeading, to reconcile 
 a fatlier and son who were at variance. His mission 
 was successful, but on his return he had to ride 
 through heavy rain to the house of his friend John 
 Strudwick, on Snow Hill, London. Not old in years, 
 but worn with the stress of life, he was stricken for 
 death. Before the worst symptoms of his fever 
 showed themselves, he sent out a short treatise, 
 The Acceptable Sacrifice, or the ExcclJencc of a Broken 
 Heart. He was able to revise some of the proof- 
 sheets, but that was all. His last words, it is 
 said, were : " Take me, for I come to Thee," and 
 therewith the pilgrim ended his journey. He 
 died, as he had desired, at the feet of Christ in 
 prayer. 
 
 He was buried in Bunhill, in the great city 
 which is the centre of the national life. I may 
 mention that his great-granddaughter, Mrs. Bithrey 
 of Carlton, died in 1802. His will, whose existence 
 was unknown to his wife, Avas found in a recess of 
 his house in St. Cuthbert's. His estate was of the 
 value of £42, 19s. 
 
 It remains that something should be said of 
 Bunyan as a man, as an author, as a preacher, and 
 as one of the Evangelical Succession. 
 
 As a man, it is natural to compare him with his 
 great contemporary Milton. "While it is too much 
 to say that the personality of Milton repels all 
 commentators, it is certainly true that Bunyan is 
 much more strongly attractive. His human sarcasm, 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 61 
 
 penetration, and poetry are never far away from a 
 deep and constant tenderness. " He appeared," says 
 Charles Doe, " in countenance to be of a stern and 
 rough temper, but in his conversation mild and 
 affable ; not given to loquacity or much discourse in 
 company, unless some urgent occasion required it, 
 observing never to boast of himself or his parts, but 
 rather seem low in his own eyes, and submit him- 
 self to the judgment of others, abhorring lying and 
 swearing; being just in all that lay in his power to 
 his word ; not seeming to revenge injuries; longing 
 to reconcile differences, and to make friendship with 
 all. He had a sharp quick eye, accompanied with 
 an excellent discerning of persons, being of good 
 judgment and quick wit. As for his person he was 
 tall of stature, strong-boned though not corpulent, 
 somewhat of a ruddy face with sparkling eyes, wear- 
 ing his hair on his upper lip in old British fashion ; 
 his hair reddish, but in his latter days time had 
 sprinkled it with grey ; his nose well set, but not 
 declining or bending, and his mouth moderate large, 
 his forehead something high, and his habit always 
 plain and modest." It has been assumed that he 
 was an ascetic, but he understood Christianity too 
 well for that. He knew that earthly good is 
 possessed only when surrendered. And so he had his 
 own simple and modest tastes, and sunned himself 
 in the love of his home. From all records we get 
 the same impression of a character sometimes playful, 
 sometimes stern, sometimes using the weapons of w^ar 
 unsparingly, sometimes striving to heal Avounded 
 hearts, but always simple, and unselfish, and loving, 
 
62 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 because ahways submitting itself completely to the 
 truth and will of God. 
 
 In determining his place as an author, many 
 things are more needful than to pile up testimonies 
 to the supremacy of his genius. It is only in com- 
 paratively recent times, however, that it has been 
 fully allowed. Scarcely a century ago Cowper shrank 
 from naming him, 
 
 " Lest so despised a name 
 Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame." 
 
 It is mainly due to Soulhey and Macaulay that the 
 Pilgrims Progress is now recognised as one of the 
 glories of our literature. "Bunyan," says Macaulay, 
 "is as decidedly the first of allegorists as Demosthenes 
 is the first of orators or Shakespeare the first of 
 dramatists." "I have always," says Arnold of Rugby, 
 " been struck by its piety. I am now equally struck, 
 and even more, by its profound wisdom." The 
 catholicity of its spirit, the raciness of its style, its 
 kindly undeceivable insight into life and character, 
 the strong and effortless freedom with which the 
 writer's imagination works, and, perhaps above all, the 
 human interest of the book, which makes it so enthral- 
 ling to those who see nothing of its deeper meaning, — 
 all these have been sufficiently dwelt upon. It is a 
 true judgment which sees as much of the novelist as 
 of the allegorist in Bunyan, and makes him, much 
 rather than his follower Defoe, the parent of English 
 prose fiction. But I may say something of the place 
 he held among his literary contemporaries. The 
 whole literary bent of the generation was towards 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 63 
 
 borrowing foreign elements and style. When lie 
 grew up the influence of the " spacious times of great 
 Elizabeth," in which Milton shared, was exhausted, 
 and the age was correctly represented by such men 
 as Butler and Dryden. Cynical, satirical, faithless, 
 the spirit of such a time was not for him. His 
 genius would have died in it. Hence it was in all 
 respects fortunate that he owed so little either to 
 predecessors or contemporaries. " I was never out 
 of the Bible " — that is the explanation of his literary 
 activity, so far as it can be explained. His royal 
 genius not only worked on the biblical vocabulary 
 and style, but shared to an unexampled degree in the 
 new imaginative force and direction which has been 
 given to the common life of Englishmen by their 
 study of the Bible. And thus alongside of the purely 
 literary developments of the Augustan age, there 
 was kept alive a fashion of writing and speech which 
 presents the historical continuity of the English 
 language, and which was both literary and popular. 
 It is needless to slay again the thrice-dead fables 
 which accuse Bunyan of plagiarism : 
 
 " It came from mine own heart, so to my head, 
 And thence into my fingers trickled." 
 
 He practised, without knowing it, Sidney's complete 
 Ars Poefica : " Foole, saide my Muse to mee, look in 
 thine heart and write." 
 
 He explains in a singularly interesting part of 
 his Grace Abovndin/j, his experiences as a minister 
 of the Gospel. 
 
 Notwithstanding great natural difhdcnce, he Avas 
 
64 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 brought to see that liis gifts should not be buried but 
 stirred up ; he began to preach, and did not preacli 
 long before hearts were touched, and he recognised with 
 a strange incredulous joy tliat God " had owned in 
 his work such a foolish one as I." Next he preached 
 the terrors of the law, " what I smartingly did feel, 
 even that under which my poor soul did groan and 
 tremble to astonishment." Next he much laboured 
 " to hold forth Jesus Christ in all his offices, relations, 
 and benefits, unto the world, and did strive also to 
 discern, to condemn, and remove those false supports 
 and props on which the world doth both lean and 
 by them fall and perish." After that God led him into 
 something of the mystery of the union with Christ. 
 Wherefore that he discoursed and showed to them also. 
 He never cared to meddle with controverted subjects, 
 " yet it pleased me much to contend with great ear- 
 nestness for the Word of truth, and the remission 
 of sins by the death and sufferings of Jesus." He 
 knew the unspeakable depressions of the Christian 
 ministry. To see his converts go back, as many 
 did, was more than to lay his own children in the 
 grave. Yet there were hours when the work drew 
 itself up to its true grandeur ; and he counted him- 
 self more blessed in his labour than if he had been 
 lord of all the glory in the earth without it. Always 
 he was in pains to win souls ; if he were fruitless, 
 it mattered not who commended ; if he were fruitful, 
 he cared not who condemned. He was sometimes 
 tempted to pride, and yet not greatly. All gifts, he 
 knew, would cease and vanish, "so I concluded a 
 little grace, a little love, a little of the true fear of 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 65 
 
 God is better than all these gifts." So it continued 
 to the end, and if, in the later part of his life, his un- 
 paralleled popularity was a temptation to pride, it was 
 met and vanquished. For, as we are told, by the 
 friend that closed his eyes, to the very last God " was 
 still hewing and hammering him by His word and 
 sometimes also by more than ordinary temptations 
 and desertions." His ministry was also steadily 
 carried on by his pen. No doubt he wrote too much 
 for his reputation, if reputation was his aim. But an 
 author whose books are messengers of the most high 
 God, sent to declare the way of salvation, is not 
 much moved by considerations such as these. Per- 
 haps no writer has ever yet done justice to the 
 enormous self-forgetting toil which Bunyan and others 
 of the Puritans, in their high and true estimate of 
 the power of the press, went through, that the Gospel 
 might be spread in the land. In short, this was 
 a ministry which sought, above all things, to grave 
 deeply on the minds of men the abiding distinction 
 between saint and sinner. 
 
 In conclusion, Bunyan's place in the Evangelical 
 Succession suggests two lessons for those who hold 
 his creed in these anxious days when the ground of 
 religious controversy is strewn with ruins ; when 
 all who can think are in some measure saddened 
 and sobered ; when we are loudly told that we 
 have exhausted the legacy of the past, and must 
 now strike out a new path for ourselves and our 
 children. 
 
 1. He teaches the priceless value of a true spiritual 
 
66 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 experience. He j^reaclied and wrote what he himself 
 had gone through. He was never out of the Bible, 
 but then he had proved the Bible ; he had taken the 
 guide with him through all the devious and difficult 
 paths of his experience, and his heart and the Word 
 answered each unfailingly to the other. He tells us 
 that he made no use of other men's lines ; he spoke 
 what was taught him by the Word and Spirit of 
 C'hrist and his own experience. Thus he speaks of 
 spiritual things as a witness ; he has seen with his 
 own eyes the glories and terrors of the spiritual 
 universe. He has been tempted by Satan, crucified 
 with Christ ; with Christ he has risen from the grave, 
 and now Christ liveth in him. 
 
 If Evangelical preaching is to retain and increase 
 its power, it also must rest on an original and definite 
 experience on the part of the preacher. This is tlie 
 only way in which we can speak freshly even on the 
 most worn themes. A witness does not weary. Let 
 him describe the roads with which we have been 
 familiar all our days — the hills that have almost be- 
 come friends ; and still it is new. Some aspect, 
 colour, flower, cloud he has seen which we have always 
 missed. How different if the description is compiled 
 from a guide-book ! And so men are very weary of 
 permutations and combinations of theological phrases 
 and words with a pious sound. They will not grow 
 any less weary. Once it may be such phrases were 
 stained through with soul-colour and filled as it were 
 with the very blood of life. Now they seem faded 
 and worn, and only living souls can renew their 
 youtli. 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 67 
 
 And it is this experience alone which will 
 give us security and wisdom in controversy. The 
 strength of Evangelicalism lies in its accordance 
 with the teaching of Scripture, now growingly ad- 
 mitted by fair-minded scholars of all schools, and 
 its correspondence with the experience of the exer- 
 cised human heart — the inner facts of the world of 
 consciousness. If we are to be calm and bold 
 in the face of the tremendous onslaught now made 
 upon our creed, we must plant ourselves firmly 
 there. So long as we look upon faith as merely 
 intellectual, we shall always be liable to panic; 
 afraid of the ideas of the age, or, what is scarcely 
 less humiliating, dependent upon them. This experi- 
 ence also will teach us wisdom. Bunyan has been 
 much applauded by certain writers for his breadth 
 of mind in not dwelling upon controverted points. 
 But it should be almost superfluous to say that 
 in his days unbelief was comparatively a rare 
 and distant enemy, and men were agreed, as 
 they are not now, on what was fundamental 
 to faith. No one with any real knowledge of 
 Bunyan's writings will deny that he held a 
 large, fixed, and exacting creed. No doubt, if his 
 beliefs as to his lifelong conflict with principalities 
 and powers, the infinite evil of sin, the justice 
 and judgment of God, the straitness of the gate, 
 and the narrowness of the way, were mere morbid 
 fancies, much of his creed must go, and they who 
 care will fight for the rest. Bat if the human 
 heart and its needs are deeper than some juc'.ge 
 them, it will turn from those Avho would heal its 
 
68 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 hill t slightly and cry, " Peace, peace," when there 
 is no peace, and pray again — 
 
 " Eock of Ages ! cleft for me, 
 Let me hide myself in tliee." 
 
 How securely Banyan l<ept by his foundation is 
 illustrated by the almost forgotten attempt of John 
 Mason Neale — the simplicity of whose sternly self- 
 denying career demands a charity he could never 
 give to others — to turn the Pihjnnis Fror/ress into a 
 Tractarian manual. With stupendous crassitude 
 Xeale not only tampered with the masterpiece 
 of one of the great lords of the imagination, 
 but made the two sacraments the most con- 
 spicuous part of the allegory. Here the ground 
 of experience was forsaken, and it is not wonder- 
 ful that the audacity was received with universal 
 derision. 
 
 Once more : it is only as we are possessors of this 
 experience that we have the true temper in which 
 religious questions should be discussed. Of the two 
 indispensable requisites for treating properly the 
 questions and issues brought before us — accuracy and 
 elevation — we have the first abundantly, the second 
 scantily. Yet surely elevation is as needful as 
 cleverness, accuracy, knowledge of facts, and the day 
 Avill be evil when it is not counted so. *'A due 
 sense of what these questions mean and involve ; a 
 l)Ower of looking at things from a height ; a sufficient 
 taking into account of possibilities, of our ignorance, 
 of the real i)roportions of things," — these we shall 
 need more and more. 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 69 
 
 2. A consideration of Banyan's life and work 
 shows us how we are to meet the re23roach that 
 associates Evangelicalism with meanness in conduct 
 and in thought. In conduct, because men are often 
 repelled by its high pretensions, unctuous boasts, 
 and pitiful performances; in thought, because it 
 frowns upon the development of the intellect and 
 imagination. There has doubtless been ground for 
 both charges, but they cannot successfully be brought 
 against Bunyan. 
 
 As regards the first — meanness of conduct — it must 
 be confessed that the complacent, censorious, selfish 
 life of many Evangelicals is perhaps the most un- 
 lovely and repellent of all types of the religious life. 
 Nor is it less so because it is connected with such a 
 creed. For Evangelicalism, which insists on the 
 soul's direct approach to Christ, its everlasting union 
 with Him, the awful hazards of the future, and the 
 terrible needs of perishing man, ought to issue in 
 lives high, simple, heroic, unworldly, and devoted. 
 So it issued in Bunyan. The heroism of the 
 simple unconscious kind that accepts peril and 
 suffering Avithout effort, and as a matter of course, 
 was conspicuously his. The " holy hope and high 
 humility" with which his imprisonment was endured, 
 the clear and delicate conscience never moved 
 by menace — ready, if need be, not only to confront 
 opponents, but to disappoint friends — compelled 
 belief in the reality of his professions. Evangeli- 
 calism has been most powerful in days of adversity. 
 When it was associated, as in the early part of this 
 century, Avith an unselfish war against such evils as 
 
70 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 slavery ; when it issued in the sacrifice of the Dis- 
 ruption, men owned its power. Somehow it seems 
 to become enervated in days of prosperity, and it 
 perhaps needs again to be associated with some 
 lieroic struggle, some great sacrifice, to rekindle its 
 dying fires. 
 
 A word on the charge of meanness of thought — 
 which also is not undeserved. For it cannot fairly 
 be denied that many Evangelicals have looked with 
 suspicion upon many legitimate developments of the 
 God-given faculties of intellect and imagination. 
 Many were scandalised in Bunyan's time at a minis- 
 ter of the gospel copying the evil fashions of the 
 world by writing an allegory like the Pilgrims 
 Progress. In our own day the comparative inferi- 
 ority of distinctively Evangelical literature is too 
 painfully apparent, and Bunyan's critics have living 
 representatives. Such join hands with unexpected 
 allies — those who would separate religion and ima- 
 gination, and speak as if poetry were something 
 high, distant, and far apart from the realities of 
 life and the everlasting conflict of our Lord 
 with Satan. Bunyan followed in the footsteps 
 of his Master when he showed that the highest truths 
 can be conveyed in the noblest forms of imaginative 
 speech. 
 
 Christianity claims the ministry of the beautiful 
 in the whole field of life. It seeks to present the 
 truth of things under the aspect of beauty, while at 
 the same time the firmest stress is laid upon all 
 the aspects of duty. This ministry is the privilege 
 
JOHN BUNYAN. 71 
 
 of the redeemed soul, as is said so profoundly in 
 The Palace of Art — 
 
 " ' Make me a cottage in the vale,' she said, 
 ' Where I may mourn and pray. 
 Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are 
 
 So lightly, beautifully built : 
 Perchance I may return with others there. 
 When I have purged my guilt.' " 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 
 
 By the Rev. W. Scrymgeour, Glasgow. 
 
 THOMAS BOSTON was born at Dunse^ on the 
 17th March 1676, " of honest parents of good 
 reputation among their neighbours," as he has a 
 justifiable pride in telling us. His lot Avas cast on 
 troublous times. Charles ll., then on the throne, had 
 abolished Presbyterianism and set up Episcopacy in 
 its place, casting forth from their charges about 400 
 ministers who refused to submit to the change. 
 But, as the great mass of the people espoused the 
 cause of the ejected ministers, and gathered around 
 them wherever they found it possible to preach, the 
 holding of such conventicles was forbidden, and 
 those who disregarded the prohibition were sub- 
 jected to severe punishment. Armed resistance to 
 such measures followed, and was treated as rebellion. 
 After the disastrous battle of Bothwell Bridge, the 
 persecution waxed hotter, till five years afterwards 
 it reached its climax in " the killing-time," when 
 Graham of Claverhouse and his troopers hunted to 
 death the adherents of the Covenanted Reformation, 
 and the best blood of Scotland's sons was shed witli- 
 
 ^ The liouse in -which he was horn is still to be seen, with a 
 
 tablet on it bearing this inscription : " Thomas Boston was born in 
 
 this house March 17th, 1676 ; ordained minister at Simprin Sept. 
 
 21st, 1705; minister of Ettrick July 1707 ; died May 20th, 1732." 
 
 F 
 
74 THK EVAXr^KMCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 out mercy cand without stint. The death of Cliarles, 
 and the accession of his brother, James vii., did 
 nothing to mitigate the severity of this treatment, 
 till dread of the consequences likely to follow on it 
 imposed a check upon the persecutors. It was only, 
 however, when James Renwick, on the 11th of Feb- 
 ruary 1688, sealed his testimony with his blood, that 
 the martyr roll of our native land could be declared 
 complete. The Eevolution, accomplished by the 
 aid of William of Orange, towards the end of that 
 year, effaced the Stewart dynasty, and put both 
 England and Scotland once more in possession of 
 civil and religious freedom. 
 
 Within a year after the Revolution, Presbyterian- 
 ism had been re-established, all of the ejected min- 
 isters who survived, sixty in number, restored to 
 their parishes, and a General Assembly of the 
 Church held amid the rejoicings of the nation. Not, 
 however, till five years after this (a.d. 1694) could 
 the Church be regarded as settled on a permanent 
 basis ; when, in compliance with the wish of the 
 Sovereign, and with an Act of the National 
 Parliament, the General Assembly consented to 
 recognise the ministerial status of as many of the 
 Episcopal clergy as were willing to conform to 
 Presbyterian rule. But, though this measure seemed 
 to be dictated by expediency, the adoption of it 
 could not contribute to the true well-being of the 
 Church. The admission to the ranks of the min- 
 istry of a considerable body of men but little 
 influenced by conscientious conviction did much to 
 lead onward to that general laxity both in life and 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 75 
 
 ill doctrine - which now made itself painfully 
 manifest. 
 
 At the time of Boston's birth Charles ll. was still 
 on the throne, and the persecution of Nonconform- 
 ists, though far from having reached its most 
 sanguinary stage, was being carried on with rigour. 
 While he was yet a little boy his father, whether for 
 attending a conventicle or for failing to appear at 
 the parish church, was thrown into prison, and had 
 his son beside him for a time to keep him company. 
 After this, however, he " kept the kirk punctually," 
 he tells ns, and " heard those of the episcopal way, 
 that being then the national establishment." Attend- 
 ing at first a dame's school, he made such progress 
 that, at seven years of age, he could read the Bible. 
 A course of five years at the grammar-school followed, 
 at the close of which he was a good Latinist and 
 knew the rudiments of Greek. But the great event 
 of his boyhood was his spiritual awakening. This 
 occurred in the twelfth year of his age under the 
 preaching of Henry Erskine, one of the outed 
 Presbyterian ministers, and the father of Ebenezer 
 and Kalph Erskine, who, availing himself of a pro- 
 clamation of indulgence issued by James vii., was 
 conductinsf a meetinsf at the villasre of Kevelaw. 
 
 o o o 
 
 " After that," says he, " I went back to the kirk no 
 more till the Episcopalians were turned out ; and 
 it was the common observation in those da3^s that, 
 whenever one turned serious about his soul's state 
 and case, he left them." The first effect of the 
 earnest preaching of the gospel by this honoured 
 servant of God was that his youthful hearer was 
 
76 THE EVAXGELTCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 " like one amazed with some new and strange thing." 
 His lost state by nature and his need of Christ being 
 disclosed to him, he began to pray in earnest, to 
 attend carefully on the preaching of the Word, and 
 to hold meetings for the study of Scripture, and for 
 converse on Divine truth with some of his school- 
 fellows whose hearts the Lord had also touched. 
 " Sure I am," says he long afterwards, " I was in 
 good earnest concerned for a saving interest in Jesus ; 
 my soul went out after Him, and the place of His 
 feet was glorious in mine eyes." At one time the 
 doctrine of election threatened to turn him aside 
 from further pursuit of wliat he felt to be the one 
 thing needful, and he was tempted to come to the 
 conclusion that, since the number of those destined 
 to be saved was already made up, there was no room 
 for him. But this and other stumbling-blocks were 
 happily taken out of his way, and he was enabled to 
 take Christ as his own Saviour. 
 
 Before his school course reached its close. Prelacy 
 had passed away and the Presbyterian Church had 
 regained its rightful place. And now his father's 
 wish and his own choice pointed toward the Gospel 
 ministry as the employment for which he should 
 seek to prepare himself. Two years, however, inter- 
 vened ere the means requisite for accomplishing 
 this could be provided. It was in the fifteenth year 
 of his age that he set out for Edinburgh to enter 
 college. After attending the literary and philo- 
 sophical classes for three sessions, he had the satis- 
 faction of taking his degree, or (as it was then 
 termed) laureating. And it gives us some idea of 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 77 
 
 the stern resolution required to carry him through 
 the work of these three winters, and of the rigorous 
 self-denial which he had to practise, when we learn 
 that the entire cost of his maintenance and college 
 education amounted to the sum of £128, 15s. 8d. 
 Scots, or about £11 sterling. A bursary given him 
 by the Presbytery of Dunse enabled him next winter 
 to attend the Hebrew class at college, taught by 
 Mr. Alexander Kule, from which he obtained no 
 great advantage, and the theological class taught by 
 Mr. George Campbell, " a man of great learning, 
 but excessively modest, undervaluing himself, and 
 much valuing the tolerable performances of his 
 students." This single session, supplemented by a 
 month's attendance at the Divinity Hall two years 
 afterwards, constituted the whole of his formal 
 training for the ministry. Much against his own 
 will, his theological studies were interrupted by 
 several unavoidable engagements, and particularly 
 by a tutorship which took him away to Kennet in 
 Clackmannanshire, and detained him there for a year. 
 " It was heavy to me," says he, " that I was taken 
 from the school of divinity and sent to Kennet ; yet 
 I am convinced God sent me to another school there, 
 in order to prepare me for the work of the Gospel 
 for which He designed me." At this period of his 
 life he passed through spiritual experiences of a very 
 decided kind, at once evidencing the genuineness of 
 his piety, and stimulating him to seek still higher 
 attainments. " I had some Bethels there," says he, 
 " where I met with God, the remembrance Avhereof 
 hath many times been useful and refreshful to me. 
 
78 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 particularly a place under a tree in Kennet orchard 
 where, Jan. 21, 1697, I vowed the vow and anointed 
 the pillar." 
 
 Yet though for years he had been looking forward 
 to the ministry, a sense of unfitness for it for a long 
 time kept him back from seeking Presbyterial 
 licence. But at last his scruples were overcome, 
 and on the loth June 1697 he was licensed by the 
 Presbytery of Dunse and Chirnside as a preacher of 
 the Gospel. His first sermon was on the words, 
 " Consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you 
 in pieces, and there be none to deliver" (Ps. L. 22), 
 and his second on the words, '' Not every one that 
 saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven" (Matt. vii. 21). "I began my 
 preaching of the word," says he, " in a rousing strain, 
 and would fain have set fire to the devil's nest." 
 Yet it was with a trembling heart that he delivered 
 his message. At first, indeed, he could scarcely 
 look on the people whom he was called to address. 
 But in course of time he attained such confidence 
 that, when once the pulpit door was closed on 
 him, fear was shut out. The cpiiet hint, however, 
 dropped by a minister whom he deeply esteemed, 
 " If you were entered on the preaching of Christ, 
 you would find it very pleasant," led to a great 
 change in the general strain of his preaching. But 
 liow was he to speak to his fellow-men of a Saviour 
 whom he knew but imperfectly ? This question 
 caused him great distress. At last, however, he 
 was able to put on record such an experience as 
 this : " 1 conversed with Christ, and it Avas a Bethel 
 
THOxMAS BOSTON. 79 
 
 to me. Long-lookecl-for came at last. If ever poor 
 I had communion with God, it was in that place." 
 
 It may seem strange that at a time when, througli- 
 out the land, there was a famine of the Word, a 
 preacher so devoted and so gifted should have 
 remained for more than two years without a call to 
 any congregation. But the character of Boston and 
 the circumstances of the times go far to account for 
 this. Though patronage had been abolished, the 
 initiative in the settlement of a minister was not 
 in the hands of the congregation. The heritors 
 and elders proposed to a congregation the one who 
 seemed to them fitted to be its pastor, and the 
 people simply intimated their approval or dis- 
 approval of the proposal made to them. Now, 
 though it might be said of Boston that " the common 
 people heard him gladly," it very often happened 
 that those representing the landed interest in a 
 parish objected to his preaching as being bold and 
 severe. Sometimes also, when he was assured that 
 a visit from him to the leading heritor was all that 
 was required to secure his support, he declined to 
 have recourse to any such expedient. '' This," says 
 he, "was the ungospel-like way that then much 
 prevailed in the case of planting of churches -, a way 
 which I ever abhorred." Only if there should occur 
 a case in which heritors and elders and congregation 
 should all unite in electing him, could there be pre- 
 sented to him a call to the pastorate which it was 
 possible for him to accept. These indispensable 
 terms were first of all fulfilled in an invitation given 
 to him to become minister of Simprin, a small 
 
80 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 parish in Berwickshire, since absorbed into that of 
 SAvinton. But still the question remained, Was 
 the call addressed to him one that could be recog- 
 nised as coming from God ? The population was 
 very sparse; the parish only containing, as he 
 afterwards found, 88 examinable persons. And he 
 could have wished for a larger and more important 
 sphere of labour. Yet an attentive and prayerful 
 consideration of all the circumstances of the case 
 seemed to him to show that this was the place pro- 
 videntially marked out for him. And very specially 
 he tells us, "It contributed not a little to the 
 clearing of me, that if I was at all to be admitted 
 to the holy ministry, it should be at Simprin, as 
 being unfit for a more considerable post." Accord- 
 ingly he was ordained as minister there on the 
 21st September 1699, and on the following Sabbath 
 entered on his work by preaching from Heb. xiii. 17, 
 '' They watch for your souls, as they that must give 
 account." 
 
 From the day on which he became minister of 
 Simprin, he threw himself with his whole soul into 
 his work. He preached twice every Sabbath, giving 
 the evening service a character of its own by enter- 
 ing on the systematic exposition of the Shorter 
 Catechism. He began a week-day sermon also on 
 Thursdays. Occasionally too he held diets of 
 catechising, for the purpose of ascertaining to what 
 extent his people were really acquainted with Divine 
 truth. And his visiting of the families of his con- 
 gregation was no formality, as he endeavoured to 
 acquaint himself with the spiritual state of old 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 81 
 
 and young, and pressed on them the necessity of 
 attending to secret and family prayer, and to the 
 discharge of their relative duties. 
 
 For some years after entering on his ministry, he 
 did not write out his sermons, but took somewhat 
 copious notes of the thoughts suggested by the text, 
 and then trusted to Divine help to enable him to 
 present to the people what he had thus prepared. 
 But by-and-by he came to feel that, in dealing with 
 important subjects, greater exactness of expression 
 M-as desirable than could be attained by this mode 
 of pulpit preparation ; and this led him to write out 
 his sermons at large, — " a yoke," says he, " which 
 often I would have been glad to have shaken off, 
 but could not get it done." 
 
 While busily fulfilling the duties of his quiet rural 
 charge, Boston was also an ardent seeker after truth. 
 While believing all that the Bible tells both regard- 
 ing God and man, and specially all that it states 
 concerning Redemption by the work and sacrifice of 
 Christ, there was not a little in God's plan of salva- 
 tion which he failed to understand. There were 
 important truths also which it was difficult to 
 reconcile with other truths quite as clearly revealed. 
 Some of these hard questions he felt himself under 
 not merely an intellectual, but a practical necessity 
 of looking at and grappling with. As a Christian 
 man, he met with difficulties which he must en- 
 deavour to get solved. And as a minister of Christ, 
 called on to deal with his fellow-men in regard to 
 their spiritual interests, he could not be satisfied till 
 he had got light on some things which were dark 
 
82 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 to liim. It was mainly under a spiritual pressure 
 of this kind that Boston became an earnest thinker. 
 And lie got little help from others in prosecuting 
 his inquiries. Books were for a long time almost 
 bcA-ond his reach. He tells us that a brother 
 minister, Avho happened to look into liis book-press 
 shortly after his settlement at Simj^rin, could not 
 refrain from smiling at the contents of it. Being 
 anxious to read the famous work of Witsius on the 
 Covenants, he had to borrow a copy of it. It was a 
 great event in his history, when he was able to 
 possess himself of Luther on the Galatians, of Beza's 
 Confession of Faith, and of the works of Zanchius. 
 Another parcel of books which he succeeded after- 
 wards in purchasing, and which included the works 
 of Lightfoot, seemed to have gone amissing when 
 on the way to him ; and with touching simplicity 
 he tells us of his distress on this account, and of tlie 
 joy to which it gave place when the treasure was at 
 length delivered to him safe. For many a day his 
 only commentary on the whole of Scripture consisted 
 of the Westminster Assembly's Annotations. And 
 it was not till years after his removal from Simprin 
 that he became the happy possessor of a Hebrew 
 Bible, and addressed himself to the earnest study 
 of it. 
 
 There was, however, one book which he met 
 with at an early stage in his ministry, and which 
 proved invaluable to him. He was sitting in the 
 house of one of his parishioners, when he got sight 
 of a little old book above the window-head, which 
 he took down and began to read. It was entitled 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 83 
 
 The Marroiv of Modern Divinitt/, and was from tlie 
 pen of Edward Fisher, a graduate of Oxford. 
 Published in the year 164G, it had been brought to 
 Scotland by one who had been engaged as a soldier 
 in the wars of the Commonwealth. Its object was 
 to set forth the freeness and fulness of the Gospel 
 salvation, so that every sinner might feel himself 
 warranted to come at once to Christ, and that the 
 believer might be assured that in Christ he had an 
 all-sufficient Saviour. Boston became so deeply 
 interested in the book that he got it away with him 
 and at length purchased it. " I found it," says he, 
 " to come close to the points I was in quest of, and 
 to show the consistency of those which I could not 
 reconcile before ; so that I rejoiced in it, as a light 
 which the Lord had seasonably struck up to me in 
 my darkness." By the end of the year 1700 he 
 had not only digested the doctrine of the book, but 
 had begun to preach it. The extent to which its 
 teachings influenced him can be seen in his discussions 
 in Miscellany Quedions in Dkinitii, written for the 
 most part during his ministry at Simprin. And it 
 can be seen still more clearly in events which after- 
 wards gave a distinctive stamp to the theology and 
 the religious life of Scotland. 
 
 After a ministry of about eight years at Simprin, 
 Boston was called to Ettrick in Selkirkshire, and, 
 having accepted the call, Avas inducted to his ncAv 
 charge on the 1st of May 1707, a day ever memor- 
 able as that in which the Legislative Union betwei u 
 En2;land and Scotland was consummated. In makini,^ 
 this change " I i)arted," says he, " with a people 
 
84 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 wliose hearts were knit to me, and mine to them ; 
 nothing but the sense of God's command making 
 me to part with them." But for many a day it 
 seemed as if the translation were little likely to be 
 of any advantage either to himself or to those who 
 had obtained him as their minister. AVith deep 
 disappointment he says, " Being settled here, I soon 
 found I was come from home." The people he 
 describes as being " naturally smart, and of an un- 
 common assurance, self-conceited, and censorious to 
 a pitch, using an indecent freedom both with Church 
 and State." His chief difficulty arose from the 
 Society-men or Cameronians, many of whom were 
 scattered throughout his parish, and who, instead of 
 attending on his ministry, held separatist meetings 
 of their own. He felt constrained in the most 
 public manner to condemn all such as guilty of 
 schism ; maintaining that those who separate them- 
 selves from a true Church because of corruptions in 
 her, which they are not called on to approve or take 
 part in, or because they have got hold of some 
 truth which that Church does not oblige them to re- 
 nounce, act wrongly and sinfully. But such sermons 
 as that on " The evil and danger of Schism," though 
 they might be of some use in preventing the spread 
 of dissent, could not but exasperate conscientious 
 dissenters. Another matter which excited much 
 dissatisfaction in Ettrick and the south of Scotland 
 generally was the willingness of the great majority 
 of the ministers to take the Oath of Abjuration, 
 which, while designed to secure the Protestant Suc- 
 cession, was so framed as apparently to exclude 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 85 
 
 Presbyterians equally with Papists from the throne. 
 Boston, indeed, was one of the non-jurants ; but, 
 since he refused to break off from ministerial com- 
 munion Avith the jurants, even he was regarded with 
 suspicion. So thoroughly alienated did his people 
 at length become both from the Church and the 
 Government, that, on occasion of the Jacobite 
 insurrection in 1715, Ettrick was the only parish 
 within the Synod that could not be induced to raise 
 a company of volunteers to aid in suj^pressing the 
 movement. It is open to doubt whether the atti- 
 tude assumed by Boston toward his parishioners 
 was fitted to win for him their favour. ]\Ioved as 
 he Avas in all his public actings by a high and stern 
 sense of duty, he tried with all his might to prove 
 to others that it was incumbent on them to adopt 
 his views and to apply them to the guidance of their 
 conduct ] but, if his reasonings had no influence over 
 them, he was apt to think of their case as hopeless, 
 and either to leave them out of account, or to meet 
 them with resolute resistance. On the first occasion on 
 which there appeared any serious difference of opinion 
 between him and his congregation, though he might 
 have gone some way to humour their prejudices, he 
 refused to do so. " Considering the temper of the 
 people," says he, "I thought, if I should have yielded 
 to them in this, I would teach them to dictate ever 
 after unto me." Had he sought to conciliate op- 
 ponents, rather than to subdue opposition, he would 
 often have gained his end more effectually, and 
 would have escaped much that not only saddened 
 his heart, but militated against his usefulness. And 
 
86 THE i:vax(;klical succession. 
 
 no one was better aware of this deficiency than him- 
 self, — as appears from his ingenuous confession : — 
 " I am very little serviceable with regard to public 
 management, being exceedingly defective in ecclesi- 
 astical prudence, — and very little useful in converse, 
 being naturally silent." From the first, indeed, 
 there were some in Ettrick to wliom Boston's 
 ministry was precious. His devoted life and powerful 
 preaching and unceasing labours in course of time 
 obtained for him general esteem. But it w^as not 
 till ten years had come and gone and his worth 
 had been discovered for them by others, that they 
 came fully to understand Avhat a treasure they 
 possessed. 
 
 From the time of his settlement at Ettrick, the 
 great aim of his preaching was to impress the people 
 Avith a sense of their need of Christ, and to bring 
 them to consider the foundations of practical religion. 
 With this view he delivered a series of discourses 
 on "Human Nature in its fourfold state;" the four 
 states being : — the state of innocence or primitive 
 integrity, the state of nature or of entire deprava- 
 tion, the state of grace or of begun recovery, and the 
 eternal state. These discourses made such an im- 
 pression on his hearers as to convince him that they 
 had not been preached in vain. And when, some 
 years afterwards, it was suggested to him, that out- 
 side of his own parish there were many who would 
 fain get some benefit from his ministry, it seemed to 
 him as if there were no theme on which he could so 
 fitly address that larger audience, as the one handled 
 in these sermons. It was not, however, easy at that 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 87 
 
 time for a country minister to become an author. 
 It was difficult to find any one willing to take the 
 risk of publishing a volume which might fail to 
 repay him. And when, through the kindness of a 
 friend, who held the office of treasurer to the City 
 of Edinburgh, this difficulty had been overcome, 
 another quite as formidable presented itself. For to 
 this friend it seemed as if the work which he had 
 undertaken to introduce to the reading world were, 
 notwithstanding its great merits, written in a style 
 uncouth and harsh. What has been termed the 
 Augustan a3ra of our literature had just passed by, 
 and the polished diction and flowing periods of 
 Addison and the other English essayists had come 
 into favour. Boston's patron, earnest Christian man 
 as he was, was smitten with the prevailing admira- 
 tion of this ornate style of writing, and wished that 
 ev^en such subjects as the depravity of the human 
 heart should be treated with " true spirit and 
 elegancy of expression." Accordingly, setting to 
 workwith the best intentions on the manuscript trans- 
 mitted to him, with the view of removing whatever 
 appeared likely to be unpleasing to men of refined 
 taste, he made so many and such material changes 
 on it, that the author had at length to interfere and 
 to insist on his being allowed to speak in words of 
 his own choosing. For this " modish style," as he 
 termed it, Boston would have none of. But at last, 
 after much experience of hope deferred, a bound copy 
 of the Fourfold State was put into his hands on the Gth 
 November 1720, and he was able to make this entry 
 in his memoir : " I did, on the morrow after, spread 
 
88 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 it before the Lord in prayer, for His "blessing to go 
 out witli it, cand to be entailed on it while I live, 
 and when I am gone, and that it might be accepted." 
 And most abundantly was this earnest praj'er 
 answered. A few years afterwards he could record 
 that he had received " a comfortable account of the 
 acceptance and usefulness of the Fourfold State in 
 remote places, particularly in the Highlands.*' A 
 second edition of the work, carefully revised by 
 himself, Avas issued during his lifetime. AVithin 
 half a century after his death, about thirty impres- 
 sions of it had been published. Indeed, there was 
 a time when, throughout the homes of our Scottish 
 peasantry, wherever a little library was to be found, 
 Boston's Fourfold State was one of the volumes sure 
 to have a place in it. It was read and prized, not 
 only by the poor, but by pious people of all ranks. 
 More perhaps than any other uninspired book, not 
 excepting the PUgrims Progress, was it the means of 
 leavening the community with the knowledge of 
 Gospel truth. Nor, among the many treatises on 
 Practical Divinity that have appeared in more recent 
 times, would it be easy to point out one in which 
 the whole teaching of Scripture with regard to man, 
 is so clearly, and fully, and impressively set forth. 
 
 But certain views of truth, to which Boston had 
 been led to attach great importance, and which on 
 this account obtained a prominent place in his 
 preaching, seemed likely to be not only called in 
 question, but condemned by the Church of which he 
 was a minister. He had brought under the notice 
 of several of his brethren the book which had been 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 89 
 
 mainly instrumental in leading him to the adoption 
 of these views. One of their number, Mr. Hog. 
 minister of Carnock, thought so highly of it as to 
 republish it, and to preface it with some words of 
 earnest recommendation. TJic Marrow of Modem 
 DivinUij thus found its way into the hands of a 
 large circle of readers, and obtained for itself a 
 measure of attention which had never been given to 
 it before. Principal Haddow of St. Andrews, in 
 particular, passed some severe strictures on it in a 
 sermon preached before the Synod of Fife, in April 
 1719; and in consequence of this and similar mani- 
 festations of opinion, the Assembly, which met in 
 the following month, instructed its Commission to 
 inquire into the publishing of books inconsistent 
 with the Confession of Faith, and to call the recom- 
 menders of such books to account for their conduct. 
 The issue of this inquiry Avas, that the Assembly 
 of 1720 condemned certain doctrines alleged to be 
 taught in The Marroiu, and prohibited " all the 
 ministers of this Church, either by preaching, writing, 
 or printing, to recommend the said book, or, in dis- 
 course to say anything in favour of it," but enjoined 
 them rather " to warn and exhort their peo})le, in 
 whose hands the said book is, or may come, not to 
 read or use the same." 
 
 This decision could not but deeply disquiet those 
 against whom it was levelled. They ^vould have 
 had no difficulty in admitting that some expressions 
 occurring in The 3Iarrow, and condemned by the 
 Assembly, were objectionable. Certain of the doc- 
 trines attributed to the author of the book they 
 G 
 
90 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 could in the most explicit manner disavow, Avliile 
 stating that in their opinion his words, fairly in- 
 terpreted, did not bear the meaning attached to 
 them. But what caused them most concern was, 
 that the Assembly had singled out and denounced, 
 as contrary to the Church's Confession, views which 
 they believed to be in harmony with it, and which 
 they held to be essential to a clear and full exhibi- 
 tion of Gospel truth. Such being their convictions 
 as to the import of this Act of Assembly, they could 
 not in silence submit to it. They could not, out of 
 deference to Church authority, be unfaithful to the 
 commission received from their Master, or refrain 
 from proclaiming to their fellow-men the whole 
 counsel of God. Accordingly, after anxious con- 
 sultation with each other, it was resolved that they 
 should join in making a representation to the next 
 Assembly, complaining of the Act that had been 
 passed, and asking for its repeal. A draught of the 
 representation, prepared by Boston, was revised by 
 Ebenezer Erskine, and, having been put into a form 
 acceptable to those ready to take part in the move- 
 ment, was signed by twelve ministers in all, who on 
 this account came to be spoken of as the Marrow- 
 men. The Representation, however, though brought 
 before the Assembly, was remitted to the Commission, 
 which, after several meetings with the Representers, 
 handed them certain questions on the matters of 
 doctrine in dispute, with a demand that written 
 answers should be given to them. These answers, 
 prepared by a man singularly fitted to undertake 
 such a task, Mr. Gabriel Wilson of Maxton, were 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 91 
 
 in due time presented, and the case was finally 
 adjudicated on by the Assembly of 1722. The 
 judgment Avas a long and elaborate one, formally 
 confirming the decision of 1720, but giving im- 
 portant explanations of it, with a view to meeting 
 weighty objections that had been taken to it, and 
 sentencing the Kepresenters to receive a solemn 
 lebuke from the Moderator's chair. And rebuked 
 accordingly they were, though protesting against the 
 sentence passed on them, and intimating that they 
 meant to continue to preach the doctrines that had 
 been condemned, whatever the consequences. Nor 
 did they shrink from carrying out their intentions. 
 They preached the Gospel of the grace of God with 
 the same fulness as before. Boston went so far as 
 to write full explanatory notes on The Marrow, which 
 were published a few years afterwards. And painful 
 as the controversy had been, he was able to say of 
 it: — "That struggle hath been, through the mercy 
 of God, turned to the great advantage of truth in 
 our Church, both among some ministers and people ; 
 having obliged both to think of these things and 
 inquire into them more closely and nicely than 
 before ; insomuch that it has been owned that few 
 public diff"erences have had such good efi"ects." 
 
 The Marrow Controversy and the preaching and 
 writings of the Marrow-men had undoubtedly the 
 efi'ect of bringing clearly out certain important 
 Gospel truths. 
 
 1. The truth which, in the view of Boston and 
 his friends, held the foremost place among all that 
 they were called on to contend for, was this, — that 
 
92 THE EVANCiELlCAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 the Saviour and the salvation provided by Him are 
 offered to all men without distinction. This truth 
 is expressed in Tlie Marrow in such words as these : — 
 '' God the Father, moved with His free love to man- 
 kind lost, hath made a deed of gift and grant unto 
 them all, that whosoever of them shall believe in 
 this His Son, shall not perish, but have eternal life. 
 And hence it was that Jesus Christ Himself said 
 unto His disciples, ' Go and preach the Gospel to 
 every creature under heaven ; ' i.e. Go and tell every 
 man without exception, that here is good news, 
 Christ is dead for him, and, if he will take Him and 
 accept of His righteousness, he shall have Him." 
 Nothing, however, was further from the mind of the 
 writer who used such language than to hint that it 
 was the intention of God, or the effect of the work 
 of Christ, to save all men, or even to bring all men 
 into a condition of salvability. It is true that he 
 said, " Christ hath taken upon Him the sins of all 
 men," and even " God hath, for the obedience and 
 desert of our good brother Jesus Christ, pardoned 
 all our sins." And it is true that such expressions 
 were interpreted by the Assembly as showing that 
 he taught " Universal atonement and Pardon " or 
 '• A Universal redemption as to purchase." Yet, in 
 point of fact, he was a thorough predestinarian, and 
 tjiudit that Christ "had all the elect included in 
 Him," that He came "to deliver believers," and 
 " put Himself in the room and place of all the 
 faithful." 
 
 But, whatever the oi)inions of the author of The 
 Marroiv, certainly his Scottish followers put it beyond 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 93 
 
 a doubt that they, for their part, held no theory of 
 Universal Redemption. "Although we believe," 
 said they, " the purchase and application of redemp- 
 tion to be peculiar to the elect, who were given by 
 the Father to Christ in the counsel of peace ; yet 
 the warrant to receive Him is common to all ; 
 ministers, by virtue of the commission they have 
 received from their great Lord and Master, are 
 authorised and instructed to go to preach the Gospel 
 to every creature, — Le. to make a full, free, and un- 
 hampered offer of Him, His grace, and righteousness, 
 and salvation, to every rational soul to whom they 
 may in providence have access to speak." To the 
 same effect Boston, in his notes on The Marroir, 
 remarks regarding the statement that " Christ hath 
 taken upon Him the sins of all men,"— " Our Lord 
 Jesus Christ died not for, nor took upon Him the 
 sins of, every individual man ; but He died for, and 
 took upon Him the sins of, all the elect ; and no 
 other doctrine is here taught by our author." So, 
 in explaining in what sense God can be said to have 
 " pardoned all our sins," and to have ordered pro- 
 clamation of this to be made throughout the whole 
 world, he distinguishes between the "general par- 
 don," of which offer is made to all, and the " formal 
 personal pardon " that comes only to those by whom 
 the ol!er is embraced. 
 
 The Marrow-men, therefore, had little in com- 
 mon with universalism. They did not think of God 
 as having, out of love to the whole world, pro- 
 vided a salvation in which all men might share. 
 They believed Him to have out of His mere good- 
 
94 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSTOX. 
 
 pleasure elected some to everlasting life, to have 
 sent His Son to be a Saviour to these, and to have 
 provided for and secured the salvation of these, and 
 of these alone. But they saw also that salvation, 
 ere it could be enjoyed, must be accepted, and that 
 in order to its being accepted by any, it must be 
 offered to all. All men equally, elect and non-elect, 
 stood in need of a Saviour, because all were sinners. 
 The Saviour of whom all had need must therefore 
 be set before all, and pressed on the acceptance of 
 all, that those whose hearts the Divine Spirit touched 
 and influenced might be led to embrace Him as their 
 own. With all the greater confidence could Christ 
 be offered as a Saviour to sinners of mankind gener- 
 ally, since as their kinsman He stood related most 
 intimately to them all, and since His work and 
 sacrifice were of such intrinsic worth as to suffice for 
 the salvation of them all. " He died," says Boston, 
 'Mn the room and stead of the elect only; but, 
 l)eing offered up for them, and being of suflficiency 
 for the needs of all. He is made the ordinance of 
 God for taking awa}^ the sin of the world of man- 
 kind, and as such is gifted to them of the Father." 
 "Christ," says he, "is given to mankind sinners 
 indefinitely. It is not to the elect only, but to 
 sinners indefinitely, elect or not elect, sinners of the 
 race of Adam witliout exception. If Christ were 
 not given to mankind sinners indefinitely, but there 
 were some in the world who have no part in the 
 gift of Ciirist, then the ministers of the Gospel might 
 not offer Him to all, nor might all receive Him." 
 This is far from being the doctrine of a Universal 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 95 
 
 Redemption, but it contains some of the elements 
 that contribute to give to the creed of the Univer- 
 salist its attractiveness. In the weighty words of 
 Dr. M'Crie (himself, like Boston, a native of Dunse) : 
 " The Marrow doctrine, while it holds forth a com- 
 plete salvation, presents a revealed ground — call it 
 an offer, a promise, or a deed of gift, or grant, from 
 God — warranting sinners, as such, irrespective of 
 any decree, or any qualification connected with the 
 decree, to believe in, receive, and rest upon Christ 
 for all they need for their recovery and happiness." 
 
 2. Only second in importance to God's giving of 
 salvation is man's receiving of it. By grace are we 
 saved through faith. Hence, as the author of The 
 Marroiv, and those who indorsed his teachings 
 represented God as graciously making over Jesus 
 Christ to men to be their Saviour, they strove to show 
 how each man for himself may become possessor of 
 God's unspeakable gift. What Scripture itself says 
 on this point is, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ 
 and thou shalt be saved," and this charge to the 
 earnest inquirer after salvation was interpreted thus : 
 " Be verily persuaded in your heart that Jesus 
 Christ is yours, and that you shall have life and 
 salvation by Him, — that whatever Christ did for 
 the redemption of mankind, He did it for you." 
 
 To this definition of saving faith, however, it was 
 objected that it represents assurance of personal 
 acceptance with God as an essential element in it, 
 and, in doinar so, contradicts the statement of the 
 Confession, that " this infallible assurance doth not 
 so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true 
 
96 TTIE EVAXOETJCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ])eliever may wait long and conflict with many 
 difficulties before he be made a partaker of it," and 
 the still stronger statement of the Larger Catechism 
 that such an assurance of salvation is " not of the 
 essence of faith." But it was easy for Boston and 
 the other Marrow-men to show that this objection 
 arose from a misapprehension of the definition 
 complained of. For when it was said to one 
 earnestly seeking salvation, "Be persuaded that 
 Jesus Christ is yours," the meaning was not that 
 Christ was his in 'possession, but tliat He was his in 
 offer ; and, when such an one was exhorted to be 
 confident that he should have " life and salvation by 
 Him," he was simply told to entertain the confidence 
 with regard to Christ which every one must have 
 who would "receive and rest on Him alone for 
 salvation." Nor could it be denied that one wlio 
 thus believed in the offered Saviour and appropriated 
 Him as his own, would be entitled to say that what- 
 ever Christ did for man's redemption He did it /or 
 him. It was easy also to show that faitli in Christ 
 had never been understood by the Scottish Church 
 or by any of tlie Churclies of tlie Reformation as 
 being merely an assent to certain doctrinal state- 
 ments in regard to Christ, but had always been 
 considered as combining with tliis assent a personal 
 appropriation of Him and confidence in Him as an 
 all-sufficient Saviour. But how coidd there be trust 
 in Christ without some accompanying feeling of 
 comfort and peace 1 
 
 At tlie same time Boston and his friends freely 
 admitted that it is not essential to faith that the 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 97 
 
 believer should have a clear and settled conviction 
 that he is Christ's and that Christ is his. They 
 distinguished between the assurance that springs up 
 in the heart simultaneously with the exercise of 
 faith, and the assurance derived from reflection on 
 the facts of Christian experience. The former they 
 called the assurance of faith, the latter the assurance 
 of sense or evidence. " The assurance of faith," 
 they said, " looks to Christ, the promise and covenant 
 of God," and says, " This is all my salvation ; God has 
 spoken in His holiness ; I will rejoice." But the 
 assurance of sense looks inward at the works of 
 God, such as the person's own graces, attainments, 
 experiences. The one says, "I take Christ for 
 mine ; " the other says, " I feel He is mine." The 
 one says, " My God will hear me ; " the other, " My 
 God has heard me." The one says, " He will bring 
 me forth to the light, and I shall behold His right- 
 eousness ; " the other, '' He has brouglit me forth to 
 the light, and I do behold His righteousness." 
 
 3. Another point on which the Marrow theology 
 laid much stress was the believer's freedom from 
 subjection to the Law. Its favourite statement was, 
 that the believer had been set free " both from the 
 Law's condemning and commanding power." But 
 this was simply another way of stating that " true 
 believers are not under the Law as a covenant of 
 works, to be thereby justified or condemned." It 
 was never meant to convey the idea that believers 
 are under no obligation to accept the moral law 
 as the rule of their life. Yet the teaching of the 
 Marrow-men on this point had something distinc- 
 
98 THE EVAXOELTCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 tive in it and intensely practical. If, said they, 
 Christ as the representative of all the believing 
 came under the Law to bear the penalty due to their 
 transgressions, the condemning power of the Law 
 has, so fiir as they are concerned, l)een put forth and 
 exhausted. There is no reason therefore why 
 believing men, when they are conscious of having 
 committed any sin, should be overcome with terror, 
 and should implore forgiveness as if it were possible 
 for them to be doomed to the punishment which 
 their sin has merited. And if Christ, in the room 
 of His people, rendered to the Divine Law a perfect 
 obedience and earned for them the reward of eternal 
 life, there is no fear of their losing the prize, and 
 no reason for their thinking of any work of theirs 
 as indispensable to their gaining it. The believer 
 should not be deterred from sin by any slavish 
 dread of the consequences of it, or drawn to a life 
 of holiness by any mercenary hope of reward. His 
 salvation is secured by Christ, and by the faith which 
 laid hold and keeps hold of Christ. And it is the 
 love which a sense of his unspeakable indebtedness 
 to Christ awcikens within him, that should repel him 
 from everything displeasing, and draw him toward 
 everything pleasing, to his Redeemer. The Law 
 that should govern his life is the Law of Christ. 
 That Law is not, indeed, difterent from the Law of 
 God, the Creator, engraven at tirst on the human 
 heart, and republished in its main requirements in 
 the Decalogue. It is the same Law ; but it comes 
 to the believer as the expression of his Savour's will 
 with regard to him^ and he yields to it the submission 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 99 
 
 due from one whom Christ has redeemed with His 
 blood. 
 
 This view of the believer's relation to the Law 
 was at the time condemned as Antinomian. But it 
 was welcome to many who longed to be animated 
 by the spirit of adoption, and to live a loving and 
 childlike and holy life. 
 
 In the year 1729 Boston finished a treatise on the 
 Covenant of Grace, the substance of which had been 
 previously preached to his people. It was published 
 shortly after his death, and is in several respects 
 the most important contribution made by him to 
 theology. It treats of the parties in the Covenant, of 
 the making of the Covenant, of the conditionary and 
 promissory parts of the Covenant, of the administra- 
 tion of the Covenant ; and it gives practical direc- 
 tions as to the trial of a personal saving inbeing in the 
 Covenant, and the way of instating sinners personally 
 and savingly in it. The parties in the Covenant are, 
 on Heaven's side, God the Father, and, on man's side, 
 God the Son, as rppresenting the elect of manldnd. In 
 the description of the parts or contents of the Covenant 
 also, the elect alone are taken into account : Christ 
 fulfils all righteousness for them, and, as the reward 
 of this, He obtains the blessings of salvation /o?' thejn. 
 But, when we come to the administration of the 
 Covenant, it is not the elect only, but all manldnd, 
 that are viewed as coming Avithin its scope. Christ 
 is the administrator of the Covenant, and those to 
 whom He administers it are sinners of mankind. 
 His commission clothes Him with ample powers to 
 administer the Covenant to all ; and from this fulness 
 
100 THE EYAXGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 of power He issues forth tlie general offer of the 
 Gospel. And He executes this commission in an 
 iniliampered manner, saying to His apostles, " Go ye 
 into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature," i.e. " Be they what they will, if ye can 
 but know them to be men, ask no questions about 
 them on this head, what sort of men tliey are : being 
 men, preach the Gospel to them, offer them the 
 Covenant ; and, if they receive it, give them the 
 seals thereof; my Father made them, I will save 
 them." It is admitted, indeed, that Christ, con- 
 sidered as an adaal Saviour, saves only the elect 
 ones who are led to believe in Him ; but, considered 
 as an official Saviour, He is the Saviour of the world : 
 — by the authority of His Father He is invested 
 with that office, and, wherever the Gospel comes. 
 His patent to that eff'ect is intimated. It belongs 
 also to the office of Christ as administrator of the 
 Covenant to be the trustee and the testator of it, 
 and to be the executor appointed to carry His own 
 testament into eff'ect. As the sole executor of the 
 testament, He is called on to dispense tli.3 legacies 
 to those to whom they are bequeathed. But who 
 are the legatees? ^'^ot actual believers: for actual 
 believing is the legatees' claiming of the legacies left 
 them, which claim must of necessity have a founda- 
 tion in the testament j^rior unto it." " Neither are 
 the legatees the elect ; for, though in them only is 
 the testament eff'ectual, yet it is not to them onl}^ 
 that the legacies are left : election, being a secret, 
 not to be known by us until once Ave believe, cannot 
 be the gronml and warrant of believing, or embracing 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 101 
 
 the testament and claiming tlie legacies." But the 
 legatees are manldnd sinners indefinitely : " to those 
 of the family of Adam are the legacies left, to be 
 claimed and possessed of them by faith." Whoso- 
 ever therefore would have any saving benefit by 
 Christ's testament, or would partake of the legacies 
 therein bequeathed, must come to Himself to receive 
 them. " Thus it is left open to mankind sinners 
 to come into the Covenant, taking place therein 
 under Christ the head, and to become personally 
 confederate with Heaven to their eternal salvation. 
 And there is room enough within the compass of 
 the infinite name of the Second Adam for all of us 
 to subscribe our little names." 
 
 It must be admitted that, in this treatise on the 
 Covenant of Grace, Boston has succeeded in show- 
 ing that a salvation intended only for some may be 
 presented for acceptance to all, and that, consistently 
 with the strictest Calvinism, the fullest proclamation 
 may be made of the Crospel offer. And to have 
 done this is to have done much. But the question 
 remains, Is this all that is meant, when we are told 
 that God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, 
 that He is not willing that any should perish, and 
 that He so loved the world as to give His only- 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
 should have everlasting life 1 Is it enough to say, 
 that the salvation provided is sufficient for all, and 
 is offered to all, if we cannot also say that it is 
 intended for all ] Does not Scripture represent God 
 as yearning to save, not some men merely, but all 
 men, — as with all the earnestness of tenderest love 
 
102 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 pressing salvation on their acceptance, — as rejoicing 
 when they close with, and grieved when they reject 
 His gracious offer ] It is true that Scripture speaks 
 as decidedly of those who are " ordained to eternal 
 life," and tells us that " many are called, but few are 
 chosen." But why should we follow one of these 
 lines of Scripture representation, to the exclusion of 
 the others Though Ave cannot see it to be possible 
 that the two lines should meet and harmonise, is it 
 therefore impossible ] Surely the Church should 
 find it possible to give a place in its creed to such a 
 statement as this : " We trust in the living God, who 
 is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that 
 believe." Boston did not go so far as this, but he 
 prepared the way for others doing so. And he did 
 noble service to the cause of the Gospel, when he 
 addressed to his fellow-men such words as these : 
 ^'' None of us shall jx'rish for icant of a Saviour; Jesus 
 Christ is the Saviour of the world ; He is j/our 
 Saviour, and ivt/ Saviour, be our case what it will." 
 
 Of other Avell-known works of Boston, such as 
 The Crook in the Lot, great as their value is, we 
 have not time to speak. Nor can we do more than 
 name a few of his sermons, such as those on " Gospel 
 compulsion," " The necessity and foundations of a 
 throne of grace," " The everlasting espousals," " The 
 worm Jacob threshing the mountains," — sermons of 
 rare doctrinal richness and spiritual power. It 
 cheers us, as we read such sermons, to think that, a 
 century and a half ago, they formed the daily bread 
 set on the Father's table for His children in a secluded 
 Scotti.'^h parish. We are not surprised to learn that 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 103 
 
 strangers, lieaiing of the fiire provided fur the people 
 of Ettrick, often joined them on Sabbath-days, and 
 sat down with them to partake of it. At Communion 
 seasons especially, the influx of visitors was very 
 great, — so great, that on one occasion the number 
 of tokens distributed was 777. And many of these 
 occasional hearers of Boston's carried away with them 
 precious truth, which became seed to the sower as 
 well as bread to the eater. 
 
 There was work of another kind also done at 
 Ettrick, which fev/ would have thought of For 
 Boston was a hard student, and his chosen study 
 was Hebrew, and esj^ecially the Hebrew Bible. His 
 attention was at an early period directed to the 
 somewhat recondite subject of Hebrew accentuation. 
 As the result of earnest consideration of it, he came 
 to the conclusion " that the accents are the true key 
 to the genuine version and sense of the Hebrew text, 
 and that they are divine." He was led also to regard 
 all previous theories concern ing'the use of the accents 
 as defective, and to form one of his own, to which 
 he attached all the greater value, as the application 
 of it to several obscure texts seemed to irradiate them 
 with meaning. His views on this subject were at 
 length thrown into the form of a treatise on Hebrew 
 accentuation, a Latin translation of which, made by 
 himself, was brought under the notice of some of the 
 leading scholars in Europe, and drew forth the ex- 
 pression of their warm approbation.^ With much 
 
 1 This treatise was puLlislied at AnisterJaiu in 1738, with a 
 recomiiieudatory preface by David Mill. It forms a (juarto volume 
 of 220 pages. The title is curious : — "Tlionue Boston, Eccksite 
 
lOi THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 earnestness also he addressed himself to the work 
 of rendering into English the Book of Genesis, but 
 had only got to the end of the 23d chapter, when 
 an arrest was laid on his labours by the illness that 
 soon afterwards terminated in death. 
 
 Boston never enjoyed robust l^ealth. From his 
 student days onwards, he was subject to fainting fits 
 and other symptoms of constitutional weakness. 
 But the last seven jears of his life brought with 
 tliem a succession of serious ailments, often causing 
 him acute pain, and producing growing enfeeblement. 
 He speaks of this as " the groaning period " of his 
 life ; and, during it, he is to be found employed at 
 one time in settling his worldly affairs, at another, in 
 keeping a secret fast to aid him in preparing for 
 death ; and at another, in " gathering some evidences 
 for heaven." Yet, during all that time, the work 
 of studying, preaching, visiting his parishioners, and 
 assisting brethren on Communion occasions, went on 
 very much as before ; Divine help being graciously 
 given him after the fashion which he himself thus 
 describes : " Perceiving myself overcharged with 
 necessary business, I prayed for strength for it, 
 trusted I would get it, and accordingly I did get it." 
 Nor did the bodily infirmity that pressed so sorely 
 on him, keep him from discharging a most painful 
 public duty, and rising up in the General Assembly 
 when it seemed to him that in an important case 
 faithfulness to truth was about to be sacrificed for 
 
 Atriceiisi.s apud Scotos Pastoris Tractatus Stiginologicus Hebraio- 
 Bil)licii.s, ([uo accentuum Hebiu^jrum doctriiia traditur, variuscjue 
 L'onuii in explaiiauda Saiicta Scriptura iisus exponitur." 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 105 
 
 the sake of peace, and saying, " I dissent in my own 
 name, and in name of all that shall adhere to me, — 
 and for myself alone, if nobody shall adhere." 
 
 Distress and debility, however, gradually gained on 
 hijn, till he was no longer able to stand when preach- 
 ing. Then it became impossible for him to leave 
 his room ; but from the window of the Manse for 
 several Sabbaths he spoke, as he was able, to the 
 people standing outside. And at length, on the 20th 
 May 1732, he entered into the joy of his Lord. 
 
 The story of his life cannot be better summed up 
 than in his own words, penned when the end of it 
 was coming into view : " I bless my God in Jesus 
 Christ that ever He made me a Christian, and took 
 an early dealing with my soul ; that ever He made 
 me a minister of the Gospel, and gave me some 
 insight into the doctrine of His grace ; and that ever 
 he gave me the blessed Bible, and brought me 
 acquainted with the originals, and especially with 
 the Hebrew text. The world hath all along been a 
 step-dame to me ; and, wherever I would have 
 attempted to nestle in it, there was a thorn of un- 
 easiness laid for me. Man is born crying, lives 
 complaining, and dies disappointed from that quarter. 
 ' All is vanity and vexation of spirit : ' 'I have 
 waited for thy salvation, Lord.' " 
 
 The full extent of the influence exercised by 
 Boston over the religious thought and life of Scotland 
 could not be estimated during his lifetime. He 
 lived and laboured, not merely for his contemporaries, 
 but for posterity. The works that he left behind 
 him soon found thousands of appreciative readers. 
 H 
 
106 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 And, within half a century of his death, his name 
 was a household word all over the land, and the free 
 and full Gospel that he proclaimed was as sunshine 
 streaming into man}^ a soul that would otherwise 
 have been in darkness. 
 
 Nor should we, in estimating Boston's influence, 
 leave out of account the work done by his chosen 
 friends, Ebenezer and Ealph Erskine, and the other 
 fathers of the Secession. It was fully as much on 
 grounds of doctrine as of ecclesiastical j^olicy that 
 they were led to leave the National Church, as may 
 be seen from the Act concerning the Doctrine of 
 Grace passed by the Associate Presbytery in 1742. 
 Indeed the favourite phraseology of Boston and the 
 Marrow-men regarding the grant of Christ in the 
 Word to mankind sinners as such is perpetually 
 recurring in the writings of the first seceders. And 
 the doctrine of " The open door " (as it was familiarly 
 called), or of the free access that sinners have to the 
 Saviour, has from the beginning down to our own 
 time been the leading characteristic of the theological 
 teaching of the Secession. 
 
 It deserves to be remembered, too, that Boston's 
 youngest son, Thomas, who succeeded him in the 
 pastorate of Ettrick, after a ministry of more than 
 twenty years in the Established Church, left it and 
 became one of three who formed the first Presbytery 
 of the Relief, and that he contributed materially to 
 leaven that imi)ortant Denomination with his father's 
 teachings and spirit. 
 
 By far the greater part, however, of Boston's 
 personal friends, though grieved with the dead ortho- 
 
THOMAS BOSTON. 107 
 
 doxy on the one hand, and the laxity of doctrine on 
 the other, which prevailed in the Church of their 
 fathers, did not feel it to be their duty to leave it. 
 Though but a small minority and in disrepute with 
 the leaders of their Church, they kept bravely on 
 their way, preaching the Gospel of the grace of God 
 with all earnestness, and hoping and praying for the 
 advent of a brighter day. And, long after they had 
 been called from their field of labour, the seed which 
 they had sown in tears yielded its rich fruit in the 
 triumph of Evangelism, and in an outburst of mis- 
 sionary zeal and effort worthy of the best days of 
 the Church of Christ. 
 
JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 
 
 By the Rev, James Iyerach, M.A,, Aberdeen. 
 
 TO-NIGHT we follow the Evangeliccal Succession 
 into new lines, and see it at work under new 
 conditions. In former lectures it has been shown 
 that Evangelical principles were equal to the task of 
 reforming a nation, of pouring new life into insti- 
 tutions grown old and effete, and of lifting an old 
 nation to a great height of purity, charity, and self- 
 sacrifice. In America a new historical test is applied 
 to the efficacy and power of Evangelical principle. Is 
 it equal to the task of laying the foundations of a 
 national life 1 Has it strength enough to mould the 
 character, influence the life, and to give a moral aim 
 and purpose to a people struggling with special 
 circumstances, and trying to solve an historical 
 problem untried before in the whole history of the 
 world 1 To New England the Evangelical Succes- 
 sion was handed over at one of the greatest eras in 
 its history. In Scotland, in England, and in many 
 parts of Europe, Evangelical principles had come into 
 the clear consciousness of the Church, and were 
 held by the people with a full view of their causes 
 and their consequences. Debate and discussion, 
 and practical application of Evangelical principles, 
 I 
 
110 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 had combined to set them forth in detailed and 
 reasoned order and method, so that the Evangelical 
 Churches had come into full possession of their 
 birthright. 
 
 It was when this was accomplished, when the 
 question of principle had been fully discussed in the 
 Old AYorld, that the foundations of New England 
 life were laid. The founders of New England were 
 men in every way worthy of the great future which 
 lay before that English-speaking people on the 
 other side of the Atlantic. AYe sometimes specu- 
 late with some curiosity on what would have 
 happened in England and in America, had Oliver 
 Cromwell been able to carry out his purpose of 
 setting sail for America, and of settling in the 
 New AVorld. Or perhaps we ask ourselves what 
 would have been the result if Dr. John Owen, " who 
 had given orders for his passage in a vessel bound 
 for Boston," had carried over to America his vast 
 learninsr, his wise counsel, and his earnestness of 
 purpose. A greater theologian than Dr. John Owen, 
 — namely, Dr. Ames, better known as Amesius, the 
 greatest Calvinistic theologian since Calvin, almost 
 the only English theologian who has permanently 
 influenced the thought of Europe, — was on the eve 
 of departure for America when death took him. 
 These great names are mentioned because of the 
 conviction, which some reading has forced on my 
 mind, that the leaders of New England thought 
 and life were men of the snme bulk and mental 
 stature as Amesius and John Owen. Some of the 
 men mentioned in Mather's Magnalia were the fore- 
 
JONATHAN EDWATIDS. Ill 
 
 most in their time at the English Universities, — men 
 of widest culture, and richest Iccirning, and of great 
 spiritual strength. One testimony I quote. Amesius 
 says of one of them, Mr. Thomas Hooker, " though 
 he had been acquainted with many scholars of divers 
 nations, yet he never met with Mr. Hooker's equal, 
 either for preaching or for disputing." What old 
 England had to give, in the way of scholarship, of 
 culture, of religious earnestness, and strength of 
 mind, body, spirit, she gave, whether w^illingly or 
 unwillingly, to the New England on the other side 
 of the Atlantic. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that the outcome in the form of 
 theological literature we have received is not great. 
 Their work was of another kind. They were 
 pioneers, and they had to plant the people in the 
 wilderness, to impress on tliera the stamp of an 
 earnest, serious purpose in life. In short, their lives 
 were spent in living contact with men, and their 
 influence was not of the kind transmitted throudi 
 books, but of the kind more personal and quite as 
 lasting. So powerful was that influence, that the 
 New England type of thought and life is the domi- 
 nant one among the fifty millions who people the 
 United States to-day. 
 
 New England society had been founded by men 
 to whom Evangelical principles were so precious 
 that they had not hesitated to expatriate themselves 
 for their sake. They were earnest, zealous, and 
 godly people, to whom life was full of seriousness, 
 and on whom the responsibilities of life pressed 
 with great weight. They had a great ideal before 
 
112 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 their minds, and they set themselves with all their 
 strength to live up to it. Amid the roughness of 
 their outward circumstances, and amid the unloveli- 
 ness of sj^eech and form which clung to them, they 
 sought to live a true, godly life on the earth. Xot- 
 withstanding all that has been written on the 
 narrowness and unloveliness of the life lived by the 
 descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, it is still true 
 that no people ever lived in more conscious nearness 
 to God, in no people did belief and conduct corre- 
 spond more closely, and no people ever tried more 
 sincerely to shape their personal, family, social, and 
 public life according to the pattern revealed to them 
 in the Scriptures. 
 
 The more immediate ancestors of Jonathan 
 Edwards were in full sympathy with the prevailing 
 tone and tendency of the time. His father, the Eev. 
 Timothy Edwards, was minister of Windsor on the 
 banks of the Connecticut, and his mother was her- 
 self the daughter of a minister, to whom Jonathan 
 Edwards was, in after years, colleague for a 
 lengthened period. Born on the 5th October 1703, 
 at Windsor, one of a family of eleven children, he 
 was from his infancy surrounded with influences of 
 a grave and serious kind. From the accounts we 
 have of the family life in the midst of which he 
 grew up, we gather that the influence of his parents 
 was steadily directed to one great end. They were 
 ])eople of high intellectual power, and of great 
 religious decision, and they made it one of the great 
 aims of their life to make their children realise their 
 relation to God. Thus it came to pass that when a 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 113 
 
 child he was " familiarly conversant with God and 
 Christ, Avith his own character and duty, with the 
 way of salvation, and with the nature of that eternal 
 life which, begun on earth, is perfected in heaven." 
 The life of the family was shaped in consistency with 
 the views of truth and duty taught by the parents. 
 " There was nothing in the example of those who 
 taught to diminish the force of instruction; there 
 was nothino; in social habits which counteracted the 
 lessons of wisdom." Both in precept and practice 
 the parents of Jonathan Edwards showed him that 
 the aim of human life was to walk with God, and 
 its reward to be for ever with the Lord. 
 
 It was to be expected that a boy brought up 
 amid such surroundings should soon come to have 
 religious experiences of his own. Passing by some 
 earlier thoughts, we come to these experiences which 
 were personal and characteristic of the man. It is 
 characteristic that his entrance upon the settled 
 peace of religious conviction came to him through 
 the apprehension of the absolute sovereignty of God. 
 He had been earnest and sincere in seeking salva- 
 tion through Jesus Christ, and in seeking to share 
 the rapture of others who believed in Christ. But 
 no settled peace or gladness came until one day he 
 read the words, " Unto the King, eternal, immortal, 
 invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory 
 for ever and ever" (1 Tim. i. 17). "As I read these 
 words, there came upon my soul, and was as it were 
 diffused through it, a sense of the glory of the Divine 
 Being; a new sense quite different from anything 
 I ever experienced before." It was the decisive 
 
114 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 moment of his life, and gave colour to all his think- 
 ing and acting from that time forth. AYitli earnest- 
 ness and sobriety of resolution, he henceforth made 
 the glory of the Divine Being, whose glory was thus 
 flashed upon him, the guiding purpose of his life. 
 The absolute sovereignty of God satisfied the need 
 of his speculative intelligence, the need of his moral 
 nature, and the need of his affections. His thought, 
 his acting, and his love were all evoked, and were 
 all satisfied by the thought of the gracious sover- 
 eignty of God. 
 
 The rapture of this man of such logical under- 
 standing, the language of whose affections ever was 
 set forth in abstract terms, resembled the raptures 
 of the mystics, who seemed to have lost the sense 
 of self in the sense of God. For instance, read the 
 following, and think that it is written by him who 
 wrote the treatise on the Freedom of the Will : — 
 
 "I walked abroad alone, in a solitary place in my father's 
 pasture, for contemplation. As I was walking there, and 
 looking upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind 
 so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, 
 as I know not how to express. I seemed to see them both 
 in a sweet conjunction, majesty and meekness joined 
 together. It was a sweet, a gentle, and holy majesty, and 
 also a majestic meekness, an awful sweetness, a high and 
 great and holy gentleness. After this, my sense of Divine 
 things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, 
 and had more of that inward sweetness. The appearance of 
 everything was altered, there seemed to be, as it were, a 
 calm sweet cast or appearance of divine glory in almost 
 everything. God's excellency. His wisdom. His purity, and 
 love seemed to appear in everything ; in the sun, moon, and 
 stars, in the clouds and blue sky, in the grass, flowers, trees, 
 in the Avater and all nature, which used greatly to fix my 
 mind. I often used to sit and view the moon for a long 
 time, and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds 
 
JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 115 
 
 and sky, to behold the sweet joy of God in these things ; hi 
 the meantime singing forth with a loud voice my contem- 
 plations of the Creator and Eedeemer. And scarce anything 
 among all the Avorks of nature was so sweet to me as 
 thunder and lightning ; formerly nothing had been so terrible 
 to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly territied with 
 thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunder- 
 storm rising ; but now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. 
 I felt God, if I may so speak, at the first appearance of a 
 thunder-storm ; and used to take the opportunity at such 
 times to fix myself in .order to view the clouds and see the 
 lightnings play, to hear the majestic and awful voice of God's 
 thunders, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, 
 leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious 
 God"— {WorJcs, Tegg's Edition, p. Iv.) 
 
 I have quoted this paragraph at length, because 
 
 of the Hght it casts on Edwards' character, and the 
 
 insight we get from it into his rehgious life. His 
 
 delight in nature is not that of the man of science, 
 
 who is bent on seeking into the causes of things, and 
 
 the laws of their working, nor is his pleasure that of 
 
 the artist, who delights in form and colour, and 
 
 stands enraptured before the beautiful effects, visible 
 
 before him on earth, and sea, and sky. His delight 
 
 is more akin to that of the Hebrew prophet and 
 
 psalmist to whom the heavens declared the glory of 
 
 God, and had much in common with the mystic 
 
 sentiment, in which all finite being and second 
 
 causes are swallowed up in the mysterious life 
 
 which seems to pervade the universe. Edwards 
 
 touches at points not a few that mysticism which 
 
 has so great a fascination for the greatest spirits of 
 
 our race. Religion, in its fundamental principle, is 
 
 fellowship and communion between the Infinite and 
 
 the finite, between the Eternal Spirit and the creatures 
 
 He has made ; and therefore, in its very nature, it is a 
 
116 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 mystery. In common with Paul, and Augustine, and 
 Calvin, Edwards felt the profound mystery which 
 pervades all existence. He has the feeling of de- 
 pendence, and an exalted conception of the glory of 
 the Supreme Being. So great was this apprehension 
 of the glory of God, that we note a tendency in 
 Edwards to lose sight of the finite in the Infinite, to 
 realise but feebly the reality and the working of 
 second causes, and to see in nature nothing but the 
 manifestation of the power of the First Great Cause. 
 To see God in everything, and everything in God, 
 to regard the thunder as the voice of God, and the 
 light as His garment, and to look at the laws of 
 nature as embodied Divine thoughts, has been the 
 tendency of the greatest spirits of the race. They 
 have felt themselves to be encompassed behind and 
 before, and to be pervaded through and through 
 with a presence from which they could not escape. 
 The i^resence, the power, the glory of the Divine 
 was the starting-point of all their thought; to 
 know the divine, to be united with the divine, was 
 also the goal of all their efforts. It was emphatic- 
 ally so with Edwards, to whom the glory of God 
 was purpose and desire, aim and goal of life. 
 
 It is a habit of mind, quite consistent with the 
 most fervent faith in a personal God, and with the 
 most devoted attachment to practical duty. When 
 a man's apprehension of the majesty, glory, and 
 grace of God is intense and vivid, and, at the same 
 time, is accompanied by a firm conviction of the 
 character of God as personal, we find the elements of 
 religion present in a powerful degree. In almost 
 
JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 117 
 
 any other person, the language often used by 
 Edwards would have come perilously near to the 
 view which regards God as "the thought or self- 
 consciousness which is beyond all individual selves, 
 which is the unity of all thinkers, and of all objects 
 of thought." From this view Edwards was saved by 
 the firm persuasion he had of the living God, not 
 only as " He in whom we live, and move, and have 
 our being," but also as the supreme Judge, Euler, and 
 Governor of the world, of whose personal character, 
 holiness, justice, and love, he had no doubt. Some- 
 times indeed Edwards speaks of God, as the all-com- 
 prehensive existence ; but to the interpretation of 
 these statements we must bring the other conviction 
 which he ever felt, that the God he worshipped was 
 the living God, who is truth, light, and love, who 
 could exercise justice and show mercy to His 
 creatures. If at times we find expressions which, 
 strictly interpreted, would logically lead to a modi- 
 fied pantheism, we must remember to place along- 
 side of them the profound persuasion of Edwards, 
 that God is a person with whom we can have per- 
 sonal dealings, — not the Supreme Being, or the 
 sum of existence, or the self-consciousness in w^hich 
 all distinctions and differences are lost. 
 
 At this point, however, let us seek to obtain some 
 knowledge of the man, of his way of work, ere we 
 seek to inquire what place he fills in the Evangelical 
 Succession. The life we have to consider was one 
 of singular purity. No stain rests upon it. From 
 his childhood he responded to the loving care and 
 anxious guidance of his parents, and in early youth 
 
118 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 manifested the intensity of purpose and the decision 
 in the search after truth, which were characteristic 
 of him while life lasted. The intellectual fare 
 supplied to him v/as of the severest kind. The graces 
 and charms of literature were not likely at that 
 time to visit him in his New England home, nor 
 were there any of those more kindly waj^s of com- 
 municating knowledge, and arousing the attention 
 of young people, to which we have now grown 
 accustomed. AVe find Edwards at the a^-e of 
 fourteen reading Locke's Essay, pen in hand, not 
 merely to find out what Locke had to teach him, 
 but reading as a critic, whose business it was to 
 weigh arguments, to notice weak points, and to form 
 an estimate of the value of the system of philosophy 
 contained in the work of Locke. The results he 
 recorded in writing, which appears in his Avorks. 
 In his College days his chief delight was to study 
 philosophy. To it he gave his strength. But he 
 was too conscientious a student to neglect any part 
 of his work, and he so bore himself, that when he 
 quitted college at the age of eighteen he left with 
 the highest honours. 
 
 He was appointed to be colleague to his maternal 
 grandfather, February 15, 1727, and there he con- 
 tinued to labour until 1750, and he makes the 
 following business-like entry in his Family Bible : " I 
 was dismissed from my pastoral relation to the first 
 church in Northampton, June 22d, 1750." For the 
 next few years he labours among the Indians, was 
 elected President of New Jersey College, 1758, and 
 died, March 22, 1758. 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 119 
 
 The greater part of Edwards' life was spent in 
 the work of a preacher of the Gospel and the pastor 
 of a congregation. Any view of his work which 
 did not notice how he bore himself in both relations 
 would be inadequate. Most of us know his sermons, 
 — those closely-reasoned, massive, thoughtful struc- 
 tures of theological thinking and close-searching prac- 
 tical application. His mode of preparation varied : 
 some sermons were written out, and read word for 
 word ; others, and these by far the greater number, 
 were simply jottings, written down on any scrap of 
 paper which came to hand ; and having thus traced 
 out the line of thought, he trusted to the moment 
 to find suitable language. But whether the sermons 
 were fully written out or partly extemporised they 
 were always solemn and impressive. With Edwards 
 preaching was business, by means of which work 
 was to be done. Men must be persuaded to surrender 
 themselves to God, and for this end all the resources, 
 mental, physical, spiritual, which Edwards possessed 
 were used to the utmost. 
 
 By his preaching work was really done, and 
 during his ministry there was a great revival of 
 religion. Some recent writers, who agree with 
 the views of Edwards on the freedom of the will, 
 and who admire beyond measure his intellectual 
 and dialectic vigour, hardly know what to say when 
 they come to speak of these revivals which took place 
 under his ministry at Northampton. They do not 
 give any earnest consideration to the phenomenon, 
 or they speak of it as an "excitement," or they coldly 
 pass it by with a sneer. Leslie Stephen says of it : 
 
120 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 " Wheu the angel of the Lord comes down to trouble 
 the waters, one would expect rather to see oceans 
 upheaved than a trifling ripple in an insignificant 
 pond," and he affects to speak with deep pity of 
 Edwards' delusion, and smiles at the ''simplicity 
 with which he traces distinct proofs of the Divine 
 hand in the familiar phenomena of religious conver- 
 sion." Edwards' reputation will no doubt survive 
 the pity and the smile. For here Mr. Stephen is 
 dealing with magnitudes for which he has no 
 measure. He could understand the upheaving of 
 an ocean, which he thinks a task worthy of an angel 
 of the Lord ; he is unable to conceive the magnitude 
 of an event which we have reason to believe causes 
 joy among the angels in heaven. The repentance of 
 a sinner is an event of greater magnitude, and has 
 more lasting consequences, than the upheaving of an 
 ocean. But those who have learned to regard the 
 birth of the Child who was born at Bethlehem as the 
 greatest event of the v/orld's history have learned 
 a new way of measuring the comparative magnitude 
 of events, and think of the conversion of the three 
 hundred souls who, in the course of six months, 
 were " savings brought home to Christ " under the 
 ministry of Edwards, as a greater triumph in itself, 
 and in its consequences, than any victory won 
 through blood and iron. 
 
 Into that work Edwards cast himself without 
 reserve, and gave to it all his strength, and his 
 ministry went prosperously on. At length he 
 seemed somehow to lose touch of his people. Per- 
 haps this may have been owing in some measure to 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 121 
 
 the fact that he was not much in the habit of social 
 intercourse with them. He deliberately came to 
 the conclusion that the most profitable w^ay of dis- 
 charging his ministerial duty was not to visit his 
 people from house to house. He had not much 
 readiness of speech, nor could he enter easily into 
 conversation on any of the chance topics of the time 
 and place. He was ready always to see them when 
 they called, and would freely converse with them on 
 matters connected with their religious life and 
 experience. But he held that pastoral visitation 
 w^as for him, though not for others who were ready 
 of speech, waste of time and of strength. Thus the 
 solitary student became even more solitary, and 
 w^ent his way apart. We need not trace the steps 
 of the process which issued in the severance of the 
 pastoral tie, nor need we dwell in detail on the work 
 he did and the difficulties he overcame in his mission 
 to the Indians. Our interest mainly lies in the life 
 as a thinker and theologian. He was a loving 
 husband, a kind father, a great preacher, a man who 
 always did his duty, yet his eminence lies in his 
 strength as a thinker. 
 
 In this connection therefore the following account 
 will be of interest : — 
 
 "Owing to his constant watchfulness and self-denial in food 
 and sleep, and his regular attention to bodily exercise, not- 
 withstanding the feebleness of his constitution, few students 
 are capable of more close or long-continued attention than 
 he was. He commonly spent thirteen hours every day in 
 his study ; and these hours were passed, not in perusing or 
 treasuring up the thoughts of others, but in employments far 
 more exhausting — in the investigation of difficult subjects, 
 in the origination and arrangement of thought, in the 
 
122 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 invention of arguments, and in the discovery of truths and 
 principles. Xor was his exact method in the distribution of 
 his time of less essential service. In consequence of his 
 uniform regularity and self-denial, and the force of habit, 
 the powers of his mind were always at his command, and 
 would do their prescribed work in the time appointed. 
 This enabled hitu to assign the preparation of his sermons 
 each week to given days, and specific subjects of investiga- 
 tion to other given daj^s, and, except in cases of sickness, 
 or journeying, or some other extraordinary interruption, it 
 was rare indeed that he failed of accomplishing every part 
 of his weekly task, or that he was j^ressed for time in the 
 accomplishment." — {Worhs, vol. i. p. Ixxxi.) 
 
 He was thus a solitary thinker, and pursued 
 solitary trains of thought, sometimes indeed to issues 
 which were fruitful, and sometimes to issues which 
 were barren. As with Eeformed theology in general, 
 so also with respect to the theology of Edwards, the 
 bearing of his system is most clearly seen when we 
 group his works in their relation to one central 
 thought. The ruling idea of Edwards is the sovereign 
 grace of God : and man in his relation to divine grace. 
 When we inquire into the state of man apart from 
 divine grace, and ask what in the view of Edwards is 
 the state of a man without grace, we have his answer 
 in the gi^eat treatise on Orig'mal Sin. When we ask," 
 What is the relation of Divine sovereignty to human 
 agency 1 in other words, AVhat is the mode of God's 
 government of the world 1 we find Edwards' answer 
 fully set forth in the treatise on The Freedom of the 
 Will. When we ask what is the relation of the 
 Sovereign God to the bestowal of grace on man, we 
 have Edwards' answer in the treatise on Grace} 
 
 ^ Published in Selections from the Unpuhlished Writings of 
 Jonathan Ethoards, by the Rev. A. B. Grosart. Printed for 
 private circulation. 1865. 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 123 
 
 If we ask further, What is the behaviour of those on 
 whom grace has been bestowed 1 there we find an 
 adequate description of their dispositions and desires 
 in the work on the Religious Affections, and the 
 great outcome of grace working in man, we find in 
 the treatise on the Nature of Virtue. The manifesta- 
 tion of divine grace in actual human history we find 
 delineated by Edwards in the History of Redcmjption ; 
 and lastly, the supreme justification of the ways of 
 God to man, the result which vindicates the power, 
 wisdom, and glory of God, is set forth by Edwards in 
 the work The End of God in Creation} Unless we have 
 some such guiding clue in our hands, we shall 
 certainly lose ourselves amidst the many mazes of 
 his profound and intricate reasoning ; with this clue 
 in hand, we shall gradually find his system fall into 
 order, and every part become luminous. Had he 
 lived to complete his great work, he would no doubt 
 have set forth in detailed order the main thought 
 of his system, and have shown the mutual depen- 
 dence and internal consistency of all the related 
 parts, and their logical connection with the central 
 thought. The student of Jonathan Edwards has to 
 do this for himself, and has to deal with a number 
 of detached treatises, written at different times and 
 with different aims, most of them controversial, and 
 bearing the local marks of their origin. 
 
 In our endeavour to set forth the system of 
 Edwards, we shall follow the order given above. 
 
 1 This classification is largely due to Dr. H. B. Smith, of New- 
 York. See Faith and Philosoxjlnj , by H. B. Smith, D.D., p. 151, 
 et passim. 
 
124 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 What is the state of man apart from Divine grace 1 
 The treatise on Original Sin sets forth the common 
 view of the Eeformed Churches on this subject, and 
 also some modifications of the view made by him, 
 which has had important consequences in more 
 recent New England theology. In seeking to estab- 
 lish the doctrine of original sin, Edwards draws his 
 arguments from the actual experience of man, and 
 from the Holy Scriptures. He proves with great 
 and characteristic elaboration, that all men tend to 
 sin and ruin, that such a universal tendency must 
 have a cause — a cause not to be found in the freedom 
 of every one to sin. The cause lies in a universal 
 sinful propensity ; men are stupid and Avicked, and 
 men are mortal, therefore sin is as universal as 
 death is. The Scripture testimony to the fact is set 
 forth with patient elaboration, and the conclusion is 
 drawn afresh, both from the fact of redemption 
 and from its application. Then objections to these 
 doctrines are stated and answered, but the question 
 arises, What is the explanation of this state of uni- 
 versal sin and misery 1 Edwards gives the usual 
 answer, that all sinned in Adam, and all died in 
 Adam. Adam is the federal head of the race. He 
 is not content merely to give the general answer of 
 the Covenant theology. He seeks unconsciously to 
 find a real basis for imputation, and finds it in the 
 assumption that the relation between Adam and his 
 posterity is not merely federal but real. He did 
 not merely represent them. He was one with them 
 as the tree is one with its germ, and the man is one 
 with the child : — 
 
JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 125 
 
 " Indeed the derivation of the evil disposition to Adam's 
 posterity, or rather the co-existence of the evil disposition, 
 implied in Adam's first rebelliou, in the root and branches. 
 is a consequence of the union that the wise Author of the 
 world established between Adam and his posterity ; but not 
 properly a consequence of the imputation of his sin, nay 
 rather antecedent to it, as it was in Adam himself. The 
 first depravity of heart, and the imputation of that sin, are 
 both the consequences of that established union ; but yet in 
 such order that the evil disposition is first and the charge of 
 guilt consequent, as it was in the case of Adam himself." 
 — {Original Sin, iv. 3.) 
 
 Edwards thus inverts the order of terms in the 
 imputation of the guilt of Adam^s first sin to all 
 mankind. The charge of guilt follows on the con- 
 traction of guilt, and in his hands the basis of im- 
 putation is real. Along with this, and to justify it 
 on grounds of reason, he propounds a thing which 
 is far-reaching. Identity does not lie in things 
 themselves, but in the fact that " God treats them 
 as one, by communicating to them like properties, 
 relations, and circumstances ; and so leads us to re- 
 gard and treat them as one." " When I call this an 
 arbitrary constitution, I mean that it is a constitu- 
 tion which depends on nothing but the Divine will ; 
 which will depends on nothing but the Divine 
 wisdom. In this sense the whole course of nature, 
 with all that belongs to it, all its laws and methods, 
 constancy and regularity, continuance and proceeding, 
 is an arbitrary constitution. In this sense, the con- 
 tinuance of the very being of the. world and all its 
 parts, as well as the manner of continued being, 
 depends entirely on an arbitrary constitution." Pre- 
 servation thus becomes a continued creation, and the 
 identity even of a personal being is possible, because 
 
 K 
 
126 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 it depends on " God's sovereign constitution." His 
 argument shortly is, that if personal identity depends 
 solely on the constitution given to consciousness by 
 God, then such a constitution may have been given 
 by God to the whole human race, as may establish 
 a real organic unity between Adam and his posterity. 
 The metaphysical foundation established by Edwards 
 is precarious, and the theory of an " arbitrary con- 
 stitution " has far-reaching consequences, which must 
 cause us to hesitate ere we commit ourselves to it. 
 
 It is not necessary to accept the metaphysical 
 foundation, in order to test the results attained by 
 Edwards in this relation. For the tendency of 
 philosophy and theology has been in the direction of 
 establishing a closer unity of the human race. A 
 new series of facts has been discovered, and a new 
 way of regarding these facts has arisen, so that we 
 now have a new word, " solidarity," to express what 
 Edwards has expressed in a round-about way. The 
 main thing in the doctrine is conserved, on the view 
 of Edwards as on the other, and this thing is, that 
 there is a proper imputation, that certain penal con- 
 sequences of the great apostasy are reckoned to 
 Adam's posterity, in virtue of their union with him, 
 and from these evils no one can be deliv^ered save 
 by Divine grace. Our own Dr. Duncan, that great 
 and subtile thinker, near of kin in speculative insight 
 to Edwards, puts Edwards' view in these striking 
 words : " My Theanthropology has only two texts : 
 ' God made man in His own image, in the image of 
 God created He him,' and ' God sent forth His Son, 
 made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 127 
 
 those who are under the law,' therefore theologi- 
 cally there are only two men, Adam and Christ.'* 
 This last sentence sums up what is characteristic in 
 the theory of Edwards, and, so stated, it enables us 
 to solve problems, and to answer questions, which 
 press somewhat heavy on us when we make what 
 is legal the basis of what is real in this matter. 
 
 Unfortunately Edwards approached the great 
 question of the relation of Divine sovereignty to 
 human agency from the philosophical side. In his 
 treatment of the subject there is no reference to the 
 bondage of sin under which man lies as a sinful 
 creature. It is only incidentally, and in answer to 
 objections, that sin comes into view, and then it is 
 discussed to obviate the charge brought against his 
 system that it makes God the author of sin. As 
 Principal Cunningham has shown, the question of 
 the freedom of the will in man, considered simply 
 as a creature, is a different question altogether from 
 the freedom of man considered as a sinful fallen 
 creature. Reformed theology has a definite opinion 
 on the theological question : it has left the other an 
 open question on which men may take different sides 
 according to their view of the evidence. 
 
 It is unfortunate also that, while Edwards 
 establishes his system of determinism by abstract 
 arguments, drawn from reason and experience, in 
 the second part, when he seeks to prove that men 
 are subjects of moral obligation, his arguments are 
 drawn from Scripture. In the case of those readers 
 who do not care for argument drawn from Scripture, 
 the natural consequence was that they accepted the 
 
128 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 first part of the treatise, which proves the will to 
 be determined, and rejected the second part, which 
 held man to be responsible notwithstanding. As a 
 matter of fact, Edwards' peculiar theory is now held 
 mainly by Agnostics. But it is held with a difference. 
 It seems somehow to be forgotten by almost all 
 people that Edwards' theory is of a most refined 
 order. He is very careful to show that there are dif- 
 ferent kinds of necessity, according to the different 
 natures and conditions of the beings with which, or 
 whom, the necessity deals. His favourite illustra- 
 tion of the kind of necessity which determines the 
 will to action, is that set forth in the relation of 
 subject and predicate in a sentence. Obviously the 
 necessity here spoken of is rational and not 
 mechanical. In truth, Edwards' illustration may be 
 used for another purpose, and may go far to estab- 
 li.-sh freedom as the very essence of intelligence. 
 He can reach the connection between the subject 
 and predicate only by the exercise of our rational 
 freedom. Let me seek to make this plain. You 
 may test the matter for yourselves easily. For you 
 have only to sit quietly down in your chair at the 
 fireside, let your mind free to wander where it will, 
 make no effort to check the flow of idle fancy, and 
 you will at once learn what kind of world that 
 would be in which there was no rational order. 
 There, in your idle reverie, you let your mind drift, 
 and you speedily enough know the result of the 
 association of ideas, which knows no higher order. 
 On the other hand, when you desire to find out the 
 lull and fixed connection between the subject and 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 129 
 
 predicate of a proposition, you pause, you control 
 yourself, you cause the aimless flood of ideas to cease, 
 you choose, select, and try again, until you reach 
 what seems to be the rational order of thought. 
 It is strange that the most rigid determinists are 
 those who also most strongly advocate freedom of 
 thought. 
 
 It is only bare justice to Edwards to say that 
 he anxiously disclaimed fatalism of all sorts, that he 
 did assign to every one the power of doing as he 
 pleases. It is also fair to say that in the particular 
 conflict, w^iich was the occasion of his elaborating 
 his view, he was victorious all along the line. The 
 forces of the opponent w^ere routed everywhere. 
 The question is too large to be fully reasoned here ; 
 but I may remark that the strength of Edwards' 
 argumentation lies in the abstractness of his terms, 
 and in the way in which he isolates the faculty of 
 the will from the other faculties of the human spirit. 
 His argument becomes meaningless when you substi- 
 tute for the action of the will the action of the 
 person, and when you get away from abstractness to 
 the concrete realities of life. 
 
 At all events, we do not need Edwards' particular 
 view of the will, in order to vindicate the main con- 
 clusions of Eeformed theology. The Westminster 
 divines have said, "Although, in relation to the 
 foreknowledge and decree of God, the First Cause, 
 all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, 
 yet by the same j^rovidence He ordereth them to 
 fall out according to the nature of second causes, 
 either necessarily, freely, or contingently." Edwards 
 
130 THE EYANGELTCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 first eliminated freedom from the number of second 
 causes, and, when the issue was raised between 
 necessity and contingency, he had no difficulty in 
 showing that the idea of contingency in relation to 
 human action was quite irrational. But the issue is 
 not so plain when we introduce between necessity 
 and contingency a third thing — freedom. We may 
 tlien, with Kant, regard freedom as the transcendent 
 correlative of the categorical imperative, or, to keep 
 on lower ground, we may regard freedom as the 
 fundamental quality of a rational being, whose con- 
 duct is not shaped by pressure from behind, or kept 
 in position by pressure from without, but who can 
 guide his conduct by a foresight of the future, and 
 strive onwards and upwards to an ideal end. In 
 either event, we overthrow the pre-supposition of 
 those who recognise only one kind of necessity, 
 and who regard the present as the outcome of the 
 past, and that alone. When we place Edwards' 
 theory of determinism alongside his view of preserva- 
 tion as a continued creation, we obtain some strange 
 and curious results. Taken by itself, his determin- 
 ism, which has regard to the nature of will in itself, 
 and not merely to the human will, logically leads to 
 the conclusion that God acts necessarily, and the 
 creation of the world was an act which God could 
 not but do; on the other hand, his statement about an 
 arbitrary constitution already quoted is a tremen- 
 dous assertion of the freedom of God, not only that 
 He is free to create or not to create, but that at any 
 moment He is free to sustain or not to sustain the 
 universe. The one view leads to the pantheistic 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 131 
 
 assertion, that the world is the necessary evolution 
 of the Divine ; the other view tends to regard the 
 world and man as unreal, and only the shadowy 
 manifestation of the mysterious life that lies beyond. 
 Edwards seems to have held both views, and some 
 of the most strange of the peculiarities of New^ 
 England theology arose out of them. 
 
 But theology has not followed Edwards' steps in 
 either direction. On the contrary, while affirming 
 strongly the freedom of God to make the world or not 
 to make, it recognises that, when once creation began 
 to be, the course of it did not proceed on arbitrary 
 lines ; God graciously bound Himself to have respect 
 to the nature of the creatures He had made. As in 
 revelation the first promise included all the others, 
 so in creation the first work Avas a pledge that the 
 outline thus begun would be filled up. Predestina- 
 tion is not to be taken by itself in an abstract 
 manner, nor is there any arbitrariness in the method 
 of nature or providence. Predestination is ethical, 
 it is the action of the highest wisdom in the service 
 of the greatest goodness, working for the blessed- 
 ness of created life in harmony with the infinite 
 perfections of God. How great soever be the dif- 
 ficulty of harmonising some speculative views of 
 Edwards with this conclusion, it is abundantly 
 evident that this, or something like this, is his 
 fundamental principle : — 
 
 "If there be any such doctrine of fate as is inconsistent 
 with the world being in all things subject to the disposal 
 of an intelligent wise agent, that presides — not as the soul 
 of the universe, but — as the sovereign Lord of the universe, 
 governing all things by proper will, choice, and design, in 
 
132 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 the exercise of the most perfect liberty conceivable, without 
 subjection to any constraint, or being properly under the 
 power or influence of anything before, above, or without Him- 
 self, I wholly disclaim any such doctrine." — ( Will, iv. C.) 
 
 We pass to his treatises on the doctrines of grace. 
 In addition to many sermons, Edwards has devoted 
 three of his greater works to this great subject. In 
 the treatise on Grace we find how grace is bestowed, 
 in the treatise on Ficligious Affections, we see how 
 the regenerated man behaves under the influence of 
 Divine grace, and in the treatise on The Nature of 
 True Virtue we are shown grace in its triumph over 
 the weakness and selfishness of man. In speaking 
 of these treatises, I cannot help saying that here the 
 results of Edwards agree, in a remarkable manner, 
 with the conclusions reached by modern exegetes. 
 " We have thus found," says Dr. Dickson in his work 
 on St. Paul's use of the terms Flesh and Spirit, 
 " from an induction of the leading fact presented in 
 the apostle's letters, that the chief sense in which 
 the term irvevfia is used by him, is that of the 
 Divine power or influence given to him, or dwelling 
 in him, Avhereby he is enabled to live unto God, or 
 specially qualified for God's service. . . In all in- 
 stances it denotes an element or factor not belonging 
 to man as such, but originating apart from him, coming 
 to him, and maintained in him as a Divine gift." 
 
 Dr. Dickson's view describes exactly the position 
 of Edwards. Saving grace is a Divine gift, and the 
 possession of it separates the possessor from those 
 who are merely natural. It is not a question of less 
 or more, but the separation is absolute, and those 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 133 
 
 who are not in a state of salvation do not partake 
 in the Divine nature. This is commonplace Evan- 
 gelical truth, but soon we find Edwards developing 
 the doctrine in his own way. " The first effect of 
 the power of God is to give the heart a Divine taste 
 or sense ; to cause it to have a relish of the love- 
 liness and sweetness of the supreme excellency of 
 the Divine nature; and indeed this is all the im- 
 mediate effect of the Divine power that there is, that 
 is all that the Spirit needs to do, in order to a pro- 
 duction of all good effects in the soul. If God by 
 an immediate act of His, gives the soul a relish of 
 the excellency of His own nature, other things will 
 folloAV of themselves without any further act of the 
 Divine power than only what is necessary to uphold 
 the nature of the faculties of the soul." In other 
 words, the communications of Divine grace to a 
 man who has received from God that relish or taste 
 for the excellency of the Divine nature, are given 
 in a way which may be described as natural. It 
 needed a special Divine act to open the eyes to 
 the light of God, and to have a taste for His excel- 
 lency ; but the opened eyes turned naturally to the 
 light, and the heart delights to feed on the excel- 
 lency of the living God. Thus, with Edwards, all 
 grace is resolved into love, and all moral excellence 
 in the creature is resolved into love to God. One 
 of his propositions is that "that principle in the 
 soul of the saints, which is the grand Christian virtue, 
 and which is the soul and essence of all grace, is a 
 principle of Divine love." It is this which radically 
 distinguishes them from the unconverted, and lifts 
 
134 THE EVAXGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 them uj) above common human nature. They have 
 received it by a direct act of God's Spirit. This leads 
 Edwards on to connect the principles of love and 
 grace with the personal operations of the Holy Spirit. 
 He shows that, as the Son of God is spoken of as the 
 wisdom, understanding, and Logos of God, so the 
 Spirit of God is spoken of as the love of God, and 
 may, with equal foundation and propriety, be called 
 the personal love of God. I quote the following 
 striking passage : — 
 
 " We often read in Scripture of the Father loving the Son, 
 and the Son loving the Father, yet we never once read of 
 the Father or the Son loving the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit 
 loving either of them. It is because the Holy Spirit is the 
 Divine love itself, the love of the Father and the Son. 
 Hence it is also to be accounted for, that we very often read 
 of the love of the Father and the Son to men, and particu- 
 larly their love to the saints ; but we never read of the 
 Holy Ghost loving them, for the Holy Ghost is that love 
 of God and Christ that is breathed forth primarily towards 
 each other, and flows out ^secondarily towards the creature. 
 This also will account for it, that the ajjostle Paul so 
 often wishes grace, mercy, and peace from God the 
 Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ, in the beginning 
 of his Epistles, without ever mentioning the Holy Ghost, 
 because the Holy Ghost is himself the love and grace of 
 God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the 
 Deity — wholly breathed forth in infinite, substantial, in- 
 telligent love : from tlie Father and the Son, first towards 
 each other, and secondarily freely flowing out to the creature, 
 and so standing forth a personal subsistence." — [Grace, p. 47.) 
 
 All saving grace is summed up in love; and the 
 Spirit of God is the Divine love in a personal sub- 
 sistence. And therefore the whole duty of a re- 
 generated man is to love. A regenerated man is, 
 however, a spiritual man, and here Edwards' view 
 coincides with the view Mhich Dr. Dickson hag 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 135 
 
 reached, from an exhaustive study of the Epistles of 
 Paul. Spiritual men are those in whom the Spirit 
 of God dwells. For Edwards says that the Scrip- 
 tures do not call grace spiritual, but spirit; and 
 spirit is none other than the Holy Spirit. So that 
 true " saving grace is none other than that very love 
 of God — that is, God in one of the persons of the 
 Trinity — uniting Himself to the soul of a creature, as 
 a vital principle, dwelling there, and exerting Him- 
 self by the faculties of the soul of man, in His own 
 proper nature, after the manner of a principle of 
 nature." 
 
 The treatise on Grace is of unspeakable impor- 
 tance for the right apprehension of Edwards' view 
 of the doctrines of grace. It enables us to under- 
 stand the teaching of the treatise on The BeVujious 
 Affections. This treatise bears the marks of the 
 occasion which induced Edwards to write it. In 
 connection with the revivals of religion at North- 
 ampton, and the spurious imitations of true religion 
 which were then manifest, Edwards was led to ask 
 the question, What is the nature of true religion^ 
 and what is the distinguishing note of that virtue 
 which is acceptable in the sight of God 1 — and his 
 answer leads to a discussion of the nature of the 
 affections, their place in religion, by what signs affec- 
 tions that are gracious may be distinguished from 
 those which are not ; and what are the distinguishing 
 marks of affections which are truly gracious and holy. 
 The statement in both treatises is clear, and in both 
 it is made plain that gracious affections are the 
 result of Divine grace. But in the treatise ou 
 
136 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Grace we are led further back, and gracious affec- 
 tions are seen not to be accidental and arbitrary, but 
 rooted in the Divine nature, and are the result of the 
 abiding desire of God to communicate Himself to His 
 creatures. We do not know which of these treatises 
 was first written, but, in any event, they each sup- 
 plement the other. The Holy Si)irit is the personal 
 love of God, in personal form subsisting, and is ever 
 seeking to make men partakers of the Divine nature, 
 to dwell in them, and to be one with them. If, in 
 some respects, the theology of Edwards seems to lead 
 to arbitrary sovereignty as the one essential note of 
 God, that arises only when we limit his view to 
 certain aspects of it. But when we penetrate into 
 the essential conception, we find enthroned in the 
 central position the ruling thought, God is love. 
 And His wrath is only the other side of His love. 
 The sovereignty of God means ultimately the sover- 
 eignty of one whose nature is love. Thus, with 
 Edwards, as with Eeformed theology in general, the 
 articulate and final expression of the sovereignty of 
 God is, God is love. 
 
 Thus gracious affections are implanted in us by 
 the communication of the Hol}^ Spirit, who gives 
 Himself to us, and dwells in us. This is their 
 origin ; as to their nature, they are love in its diver- 
 sified operations. They have as their object the ex- 
 cellence of the Divine character. Writing to meet the 
 pressure of a practical need, Edwards is minute and 
 particular in his description of the way and manner in 
 which we may discriminate between true religious 
 affections and those which are spurious. But the 
 
JONATHAN EDWAEDS. 137 
 
 result he reaches agrees with the result obtained in 
 the calmer, more theological treatise ; as the essential 
 nature of God is, God is love, so the essential glory 
 of religious affections is contained in the words, all 
 true religious affection and all virtue is love. 
 
 In the treatise on The Nature of True Firhie, 
 Edwards, with that predilection of his for the 
 use of abstract terms, has defined virtue as love 
 to being in general. It becomes plain in the issue 
 that more concrete terms would have expressed his 
 meaning better. He has consequently been mis- 
 understood, and his view of virtue has been pressed 
 to issues which have made it agree with the view of 
 Spinoza. Still, when we seek to understand what 
 Edwards really means by being in general, we find 
 that it is not quite the same as the universal sub- 
 stance of Spinoza. No doubt he sometimes speaks 
 of God as the universal substance. But then we 
 must harmonise that statement with the more 
 definite statements in other works of his. It is 
 only fair to interpret his general statements by his 
 more specific doctrines, and his definition of virtue 
 as the love of being in general will bear to be 
 translated into the concrete language of Scripture : 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy 
 heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and 
 thy neighbour as thyself." This more concrete 
 meaning satisfies all the conditions of the case, 
 answers all the demands of Edwards' argument, and 
 is free from many implications which may be evolved 
 from the highly abstract language which he uses. 
 This appears more clearly in his work on God's 
 
138 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 Cldcf End ill Creation. Here he sets himself to 
 answer the questions, " Is the end of creation the 
 happiness of the creature ? or is it the manifestation 
 of the glory of God]" Edwards' solution of the 
 problem is this. He refuses to put these two as 
 alternatives. They are not alternative. Both are 
 ultimate, and both are, in fact, one and the same 
 thing. The creation, looked at as a whole, and in 
 the final outcome, is the manifestation of the glory 
 of God, and is also the highest blessedness of the 
 creature. There is in God, according to Edwards, 
 a disposition to manifest the fulness of His glory 
 and power. When, therefore, He resolved to make 
 the world and to make man, He desired to com- 
 municate to them the fulness of Himself. He 
 delighteth to communicate Himself to men, and 
 this communication of Himself to His creatures is 
 delightful to God, on its own account, and not 
 merely in relation to the further end of manifesting 
 forth His glory. " God communicates Himself to the 
 understanding of the creature in giving him the 
 knowledge of His glory ; and to the will of the 
 creature, in giving him holiness, consisting primarily 
 in the love of God; and in giving the creature 
 happiness, chiefly consisting in joy in God. These 
 are the sum of that emanation of Divine fulness 
 called in Scripture the glory of God." 
 
 Stress is laid by Edwards continually on this 
 original property of the Divine nature to communi- 
 cate Himself to His creatures. God delighteth in 
 mercy. To communicate good to the creature is in 
 itself well-pleasing to God. It is also pointed out 
 
JONATHAN EDWARDS. 139 
 
 by Edwards that while God delights in exercising 
 goodness and showing mercy, on the other hand, in 
 the execution of wrath, " God proceeds to execute 
 wrath with backwardness and reluctance ; the misery 
 of the creature being not agreeable to Him on its 
 own account." Though the exercise of justice is a 
 work which must be done, it is work in which God 
 takes no delight. From this jDoint of view, we can 
 enter with deepest sympathy into the passion and 
 the terror with which Edwards preached the terrors 
 of the Lord, and the awful consecjuences of sin 
 unrepented of. Edwards had a deep sympathy 
 with the wounded feeling of Divine love, which has 
 sought to bless men, and was rejected by them. 
 He had sympathy also with the reluctance and 
 backwardness with which God proceeded to do 
 " His strange work." And the ferocity which some- 
 times appals us, and the burning intensity which 
 scorches us in his sermons, are but the expression of 
 the horror of sin which Edwards felt, and of the 
 desire within his heart that all hindrances which 
 prevented God from communicating Himself to his 
 creatures might be taken out of the way. Thus, on 
 reflection, we shall find that Edwards' preaching of 
 the terrors of the Lord is Cjuite consistent with — 
 nay, is part of his central conception, God is love. 
 
 In his History of Redemption and in his ser- 
 mons on Justification, we have Edwards' views of 
 many great and cardinal doctrines. The History 
 of RedeuqAion is only the first rough outline of the 
 great work which was in the thought of Edwards at 
 the time of his death. But the first draft is a work 
 
140 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 of extraordinary power. In it almost all his thoughts 
 on Divine things have met, and are in the process of 
 being formed into a unity. God's works and God's 
 ways, all theology, and all history are shown forth 
 as culminating in the redemption that is in Christ. 
 It is a theodicy, a vindication of the ways of God 
 to man ; it is a philosophy of history, which shows 
 that through the ages " one increasing purpose runs." 
 It is a wonderful work to have been written while 
 the historical method was yet in its infancy, and the 
 historical material at his command so scanty. As, 
 however, the method of severe scientific exegesis 
 has justified the conclusions which Evangelical in- 
 sight reached without their help, so it may be said 
 that the historical method has largely justified the 
 main conclusions reached by Edw^ards in the Hidory 
 of Redeinijtion. All previous history was a prepara- 
 tion for the coming of Christ, and all subsequent 
 history has been moulded by His influence. We may 
 have to shift some of the material used by Edwards 
 from one period to another, or otherwise alter tlie 
 relative adjustment of topics ; but the main outline 
 and the central thought of it will remain, for it is 
 based on the due recognition of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ as the uniting principle, the aim and goal of 
 universal history. 
 
 Had time permitted, we might have dwelt on 
 Edwards' view of the atonement made by Christ, 
 on the relative order and place of the decrees, on 
 justification, and on other kindred topics. In truth, 
 there is room for much to be said, which might not 
 be without interest and edification. But we must 
 
JONATHAN EDAVAEDS. 141 
 
 be content with the statement that his treatment of 
 these doctrines is in substantial agreement with that 
 of Calvinistic divines generally. We say, in sub- 
 stantial agreement ; for Edwards cannot write on any 
 topic without raising important questions, or setting 
 old doctrines in new light, and placing them in fresh 
 points of view. If there has been any doctrine which 
 has engaged the attention of divines from the time 
 of the' Reformation downwards, it has been the doc- 
 trine of Justification by Faith alone. All systematic 
 treatises on theology have dealt with it, and separate 
 works, not a few, have expounded it. But Edwards 
 cannot handle even a well-worn subject like this 
 without raising a number of questions untouched 
 before, all of them lying within the statement of 
 the doctrine as set forth, say in the Shorter Catechism. 
 He does not doubt that our sins are pardoned and 
 we are accepted as righteous in the sight of God onl}^ 
 for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and 
 received by faith alone. Not questioning the truth of 
 imputation, he yet asks why and how is the righteous- 
 ness of Christ imputed, and the answer is as follows : 
 
 "God does not give those tliat believ^e an union Math or 
 an interest in the Saviour as a reward for faith, but ouly 
 because faith is the soul's active uniting with Christ, or is 
 the very act of unition, on their part. God sees fit, that in 
 order to an union being established between two intelligent 
 active beings or persons, so as that they should be looked 
 upon as one, there should be the mutual act of both, that 
 each should receive other, as actively joining themselves 
 one to another. God, in requiring this in order to an union 
 with Christ as one of His people, treats men as reasonable 
 creatures, capable of act and choice ; and hence sees it fit 
 that they only who are one with Christ by their own act 
 should he looked at as one in law. What is real in the 
 L 
 
142 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 union between Christ and His people is the foundation of 
 what is legal ; that is, it is something really in them, and 
 between them, uniting them, that is the ground of the suit- 
 ableness of their being accounted as one by the Judge. 
 And if there be any act or qualification in believers of that 
 uniting nature, that it is meet on that account the Judge 
 should look upon them and accept them as one, no wonder 
 that, upon the account of the same act or qualification, He 
 should accept the satisfaction and merit of the one for the 
 other, as if these were their own satisfaction and merit." 
 — {Worls, i. p. 626.) 
 
 In the same series of sermons he touches on a 
 number of questions concerning the Atonement, the 
 active and passive obedience of Christ, the relation 
 of the sins committed after justification to the 
 declarative sentence of justification ; and, as his 
 manner is, while holding fast the faith once delivered 
 to the saints, he ever seeks to apprehend it in all 
 its bearings and relations. Thus it is vith his 
 treatment of any particular doctrine ; he comi)els us 
 to think, and will not permit us to go away with a 
 mere abstract general statement of doctrine. He 
 forces us to examine it in all the phases of its opera- 
 tions. 
 
 While laying out for himself new works for years 
 of toil, while his thoughts were occupied with the 
 purpose of setting forth the truth of God " to the 
 greatest advantage, in the brightest light, and in the 
 most striking manner," the end swiftly came — 
 " God's finger touched him, and he slept." His 
 earthly work was done. In any view of it, a great 
 work it was. It is something for which we may be 
 thankful, that Scotland in the person of Dr. Erskine, 
 was among the first to recognise his greatness and 
 
JONATHAN EDAVARDS. 143 
 
 his power, that his works from the beginning have 
 had a place among the works read by the godly 
 people of Scotland, in former years. Along with the 
 works of Boston you will find detached volumes of 
 the works of Edwards in the treasured and well- 
 read books, which our fathers were wont to read in 
 the far-off villages and withdrawn glens of Scot- 
 land. I have met grey-haired farmers, weavers, and 
 others, who could enter with intelligence into dis- 
 cussions on various points in the works of Edwards, 
 whose intelligence was fed, and whose hearts were 
 kindled by the mighty religious emotion of the great 
 New England divine. These men are now gone, 
 and others have risen in their room who are not 
 accustomed to think thoughts so great, nor feel the 
 pulse of so mighty an emotion. But neither would 
 we have been what we are, nor would Scotland have 
 accomplished her work, had not our sires in castle 
 and in hut pondered on the ways of God to man, 
 and learned wisdom and strength at the feet of the 
 fathers who make the great Evangelical Succession. 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 By the Rev. J. H. Wilson, D.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 ON the night of the 9th February 1709, the 
 rectory of Epworth, in the fens of Lincohi- 
 shire, was set fire to by the rough people of the 
 parish, who bore no kindly feeling to the minister, 
 Samuel AYesley. With difficulty all the family, 
 save one, made their escape from the burning house, 
 and when the father, hearing a chikVs cry from the 
 attic, attempted to rescue the one who had been 
 left, he found the stair burned away and all access 
 debarred. By one friendly helper standing on the 
 shoulders of another, the child was rescued just 
 before the roof fell in, and a precious life was almost 
 miraculously saved. That child was John Wesley, 
 then about six years of age, whose mind was 
 deeply impressed by this remarkable providence at 
 the time, and who regarded and spoke of himself 
 through life as, in a very peculiar sense, " a brand 
 plucked from the burning"! He had these words 
 engraved on his seal, and when half a century later 
 he thought himself dying, and wrote his own 
 epitaph, he wished them carved on his tombstone. 
 His father's words had a more weighty significance 
 than, at the time, he had any idea of, when he said 
 
146 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 on that memorable night, " Come, neighbours, let 
 us kneel down. Let us give God thanks. He has 
 given me all my eight children. Let the house go. 
 I am rich enough r' Had that young life perished, 
 a mighty and world-wide influence for good had 
 been lost. 
 
 John Wesley was born at Epworth on the 1 7th 
 June 1703. He was the fourth son and tenth 
 child in a family of nineteen. His parents, Samuel 
 Wesley, rector of the parish of Epworth, and 
 Susannah Annesley, were both descended from 
 godly Puritan forefathers, and had the advantage 
 of Puritan training and teaching, though both had, 
 in early life, conformed to the Church of England, 
 and become warmly attached to it. The father, in 
 the discharge of his ecclesiastical duties, and in the 
 prosecution of his literary pursuits, found occasion 
 for frequent and lengthened absences in London, 
 and the entire care and training of their large family 
 devolved upon the mother. She was a woman of 
 remarkable character and gifts, who made the up- 
 bringing of her children the great work of her life, 
 and laid the foundations, in a more than ordinary 
 degree, of the life and character and work of her 
 afterwards famous sons. Her methodical training 
 moulded the habits and developed the powers of 
 her children, and she has come to be familiarly 
 recognised as not only the " Mother of the Wesleys," 
 but the " Mother of Methodism." 
 
 The first and most important school which Wesley 
 attended, was the school — for such it was in the 
 strictest sense — conducted by his mother in the 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 147 
 
 rectory. There he had the benefit of all that 
 systematic and painstaking teaching and discipline 
 could do for him, from the age of five till he was 
 between ten and eleven. His spirit and behaviour 
 were such, that, when but eight years old, he was 
 admitted by his father to the Lord's Table. His 
 mother's practice of devoting a portion of time 
 every week, to personal conversation about the 
 things of God, with each of her children separately, 
 had great influence in directing their thoughts and 
 developing and stimulating their spiritual nature, 
 and young Wesley made touching reference to this 
 in after years. 
 
 In his eleventh year he was sent to the Charter- 
 House School, in London, where he remained for 
 six or seven years. There he applied himself 
 resolutely to his studies, so as to secure the cordial 
 approval of the head of the school. He had to 
 submit to very serious hardships at the hands of 
 the older boys, by whom he was relegated to the 
 companionship of the younger scholars, with an 
 important twofold effect, in the way of training him 
 for the work of his after life — accustoming him to 
 the bearing of privations uncomplainingly, on the 
 one hand, and, on the other, to the habit of exercis- 
 ing control over those associated with him. Besides 
 his classical studies, in which he made great pro- 
 ficiency, his elder brother, Samuel, speaks of him as 
 "learning Hebrew as fast as he can." His school 
 life was not favourable to his spiritual progress, 
 though he still kept up the form of religion. He 
 says, "What T now hoped to be saved by was — 
 
148 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 1. Not being so bad as other people ; 2. Having 
 still a kindness for religion ; and 3. Eeading the 
 Bible, going to church, and saying my prayers." 
 
 In this state of mind he went, in 1720, to Oxford, 
 where he was elected to a studentship at Christ 
 Church College. In 1726 he was elected Fellow 
 of Lincoln's, and a few months later, in his twenty- 
 fourth year, he was chosen Greek Lecturer and 
 " Moderator of the Classes " — a position which 
 indicated the high place he had taken as a student, 
 and gave him the very kind of practice that helped 
 to fit him for other fields of conflict where his regulat- 
 ing hand was to be powerfully felt. He specially 
 distinguished himself as a logician and a classical 
 scholar, studies which he continued to cultivate 
 long after his student days were over. In 1727 
 he took his degree of Master of Arts. 
 
 During the earlier part of his University career 
 his religion seems to have been of the same formal 
 character as when he left the Charter House. He 
 was startled by the irreligiousness and even im- 
 morality of many of those who were in training for 
 the Christian ministry ; and when he came to think 
 of taking deacon's orders in the Church of England, 
 which he did in 1725, he had to face the great 
 question of his own state in the sight of God. As 
 before, he found a faithful counsellor in his mother. 
 She had written to him : " I heartily wish you 
 would now enter upon a strict examination of 
 yourself, that you may know whether you have a 
 reasonable hope of salvation by Christ. If you 
 have, the satisfaction of knowing it will abun- 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 149 
 
 dantly reward your pains ; if you have not, you will 
 find a more reasona.ble occasion for tears than can 
 be met with in a tragedy. This matter deserves 
 great consideration by all, but especially by those 
 designed for the ministry ; who ought, above all 
 others, to make their calling and election sure, lest, 
 after they have preached to others, they themselves 
 should be cast away." 
 
 It was about this time that he began the earnest 
 study of Thomas a Kempis' Imitation of Christ, and 
 Jeremy Taylor's Rules for Holy Living and Dying, 
 and, some time afterwards, William Law's Serious 
 Call to a Devout Life. These became very much his 
 spiritual guides. They wakened up his conscience, 
 and he sought to deal with his heart and to frame 
 his life according to their teaching. Doubtless there 
 must have been a purpose in his being guided to 
 these authors at such a time ; and they may have 
 done their part, in that transition period of his life, 
 in preparing him for the great work that lay before 
 him. And yet, one cannot but regret that he did 
 not, at this critical time, meet with some more simple 
 and direct evangelical teaching, in book or living 
 friend, which might have guided him to the sinner's 
 one resting-place, saved him long years of painful 
 soul-struggle, and given the world sooner the benefit 
 of those labours which it so urgently needed. 
 
 Not now, nor till long after, was the great dis- 
 covery made to him of a full, free, and immediate 
 salvation through faith in Christ. Amid all his 
 earnestness, his views were entirely legal. His aim 
 was to attain salvation by devoutness and self-denial^ 
 
150 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ]jy holy living and deeds of charity, to which he gave 
 himself with all the ardour of his nature. And 
 while these books might have helped him at a later 
 stage, they but served, in the state of mind in which 
 he then was, as with others in the same state of 
 mind now, to furnish rules for a life which had not 
 yet begun, and to stimulate the soul to higher and 
 intenser efforts, where the motive power was awant- 
 ing, instead of leading to the life itself. He himself 
 comes back upon this bitterly in after years, and 
 speaks of it as "laying a foundation beneath the 
 Foundation." 
 
 In the latter part of 1727 he returned to Epworth, 
 at his father's request, to aid him in his days of 
 failing strength, and for two years he acted as curate. 
 There he gave himself largely to the reading of 
 mystic authors, regarding which he says at a later 
 date, " I think the rock on which I had the nearest 
 made shipwreck of the faith, was the writings of the 
 mystics." His labours bore no visible fruit, and 
 gave no foreshadowing of the spiritual power that 
 was afterwards to accompany them. When urged 
 to settle down permanently in the parish and get the 
 succession to the living, he could not forego the 
 attractions of Oxford, alike from regard to the work 
 he might do there, and the help he might get. 
 
 On returning to Oxford he found that a very 
 important step had been taken. His brother Charles, 
 who was his junior by four years and a half, was an 
 undergraduate of Christ Church. He had become 
 an earnest and diligent student, alive to the reality 
 of divine things. During John's absence at Epworth, 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 151 
 
 he had gatliered several younger students around 
 him, and formed them into a kind of club, partly for 
 purposes of self-improvement, literary and religious, 
 and partly for the helping of others. In connection 
 with this, the name Methodist came into use, as 
 describing the men who originated the great move- 
 ment to which this term came to be permanently 
 applied. It had been in use, before the times of 
 Nonconformity, as marking out one of the sects of 
 the day, which was characterised by its plain preach- 
 ing and plainness of dress and manners. Towards 
 the close of the previous century, the name had also 
 been applied to some of the Nonconformists who 
 differed from their brethren on the subject of Justi- 
 fication, and adopted what was called the Neio MetJiod. 
 Charles Wesley thus explains the application of the 
 name to himself : " He had lost his first year at 
 college in diversions ; the next, he set himself to 
 study ; diligence led him into serious thinking ; he 
 was wont to go to the weekly sacrament, persuad- 
 ing two or three students to accompany him ; he 
 observed the practice of study prescribed by the 
 statutes of the University, and this gained him the 
 harmless name of Methodist." 
 
 John Wesley joined this band of students, which 
 had come to be known by the name of the " Holy 
 Club," and his age and abilities at once placed him 
 at its head. Besides the reading of the Greek New 
 Testament and the classics, and the study of theology, 
 the object of the society was declared to be — " to 
 converse with young students, visit the prisons, 
 instruct some poor families, take care of a school and 
 
152 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 a parish workhouse, rescue younger members of the 
 University from bad company, and encourage them 
 in a sober, studious life." It was a remarkable 
 association of young men, all of kindred spirit — 
 including James Hervey (afterwards well known by 
 his Meditations) and George Whitefield, — stinting 
 themselves so as to give all they could to others, 
 abounding in philanthropic labours, practising the 
 severest austerities, and being subjected, in conse- 
 quence, to serious persecution. It is difficult to 
 believe that they should have persevered for years 
 in such Christian labours and such trying cross- 
 bearing, and in such blamelessness of life, without 
 having some root of true godliness in them ; and yet 
 several of them afterwards spoke of this as a time of 
 spiritual bondage and darkness, out of which they 
 emerged, after severe mental conflict, into the full 
 light and liberty and rest of faith in Christ, 
 
 In 1735 old Mi\ AVesley died, and the house at 
 E}iworth was broken up. Shortly after, a proposal 
 was made to Wesley that he should go as " missioner " 
 to Georgia, in the Southern States of America, to 
 minister to a body of British settlers and to preach 
 the Gospel to the Red Indians When his mother 
 was consulted about the project, though she was then 
 in the first months of her widowhood and without a 
 permanent home, in a noble spirit of self-denial, she 
 answered, " Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice if 
 they were all so engaged, though I should never see 
 them more." Wesley's state of mind, at this time, 
 may be gathered from what he says : " My chief 
 motive, to which all the rest are subordinate, is the 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 153 
 
 hope of saving my own soul I hope to learn the 
 true sense of the Gospel of Christ by preaching it to 
 the heathen." 
 
 His experience in Georgia was in the last degree 
 humbling, and yet in its issue was not a little pro- 
 fitable, in its bearing on the crisis of his life. His 
 outward voyage was eventful, as bringing him in 
 contact with the Moravian Brethren, to whom he 
 afterwards owed so much. He could not but see and 
 feel that they had something which he utterly 
 wanted. Their calm confidence and fearlessness, 
 during a terrific storm, in marked contrast to the 
 bearing of the English passengers on board, and the 
 mild answer of one of them, " Our women and chil- 
 dren are not afraid to die," deeply impressed him — 
 an impression which the kindly and faithful dealing 
 of their pastor with him still further deepened, as 
 convincing him that he still wanted a true faith in 
 Christ. And yet all through the voyage he laboured 
 indefatigably from morning till night, for the good 
 of those on board, learning German, that he might 
 be able to speak to a body of German emigrants (as 
 on his arrival he learned Spanish, that he might be 
 able to help some Spanish Jews who came in his 
 way), and leaving no moment unoccupied. 
 
 In Georgia he came out as the full-blown Eitualist 
 and High Churchman, enjoining confession and fast- 
 ing, re-baptizing the children of dissenters, and re- 
 fusing to admit to the Lord's Supper or to bury, any 
 who had not received Episcopal baptism. We find 
 him afterwards saying, "Can High Church bigotry go 
 fiirther than this ? And how well have I since been 
 
154 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 beaten with mine own staff!" He stirred up the 
 people against him, not by his faithfulness, but by 
 his excessive and ill-directed zeal. His ministry 
 there, as at Ep worth, was very much a failure, and 
 the account which he gives of it, in the one case, 
 applies to both: "From 1725-29 saw no fruit of 
 my labours. It could not be, for I neither laid the 
 foundation of repentance nor of preaching the Gospel. 
 1729-34, laying a deeper foundation of repentance, 
 saw a little fruit — but only a little, for / did not 
 preach faith in the blood of the Covenant.^' 
 
 Humbled and self-emptied by the result of his 
 American expedition, he returned to England in 
 1738. He had a stormy passage, and was led by his 
 fear of death to doubt his having any interest in 
 Christ at all, and to feel that all that had been, must 
 go for nothing. He was thus prepared for what was 
 the great event of his life. 
 
 Scarcely had he reached the shores of England 
 when he met Peter Bohler, a devoted Moravian 
 brother, who, from the moment of meeting them, took 
 the warmest personal interest in the two brothers, 
 John and Charles. He saw the state of mind in 
 which they were, opened up to them the real nature 
 and object of saving faith, and pressed Christ as a 
 personal Saviour on their immediate acceptance. 
 John, in his Journal, notes February 7th, 1738 — the 
 day on which he first met Bohler — as " a day much 
 to be remembered." Separately, the one at Oxford, 
 the other in London, the two brothers were being 
 driven out of their formal and self-righteous religion, 
 and were earnestly seeking the way of life. 
 
JOHN AVESLEY. 155 
 
 At Jength John got ihe news that, on the 21st May, 
 Charles had found rest to his soul, what he had be- 
 gun to learn from Bohler, being completed by a 
 brazier with whom he lodged, — "a poor ignorant 
 mechanic who knows nothing but Christ, yet by 
 knowing Him, knows and discerns all things." 
 
 John received the scriptural doctrine of faith as 
 taught by Bohler, after much conversation and 
 searching of the Word, but it was not till some time 
 later, on the 24th May 1738, that he finally surren- 
 dered himself to Christ. This is so important, that it 
 must be given at length and in his own words. His ex- 
 perience, throughout this whole period of anxiety and 
 suspense, strikes us as wonderfully like that of Luther 
 at the same stage. He says, " I continued preaching 
 and following after, and trusting in, that righteous- 
 ness whereby no flesh can be justified. Being igno- 
 rant of the righteousness of Christ, which, by a 
 living faith within, bringeth salvation to every one 
 that believeth, I sought to establish my own right- 
 eousness, and so laboured in the fire all my days." 
 After describing his conversations with Bohler and 
 others, he says, " They added with one mouth, that 
 this faith was the gift — the free gift of God ; and 
 that He would surely bestow it on every soul who 
 earnestly and perseveringly sought it. I was now 
 thoroughly convinced ; and by the grace of God I 
 resolved to seek it unto the end — (1) by abso- 
 lutely renouncing my own works or righteousness, 
 on which I had really grounded my hope of salvation, 
 though I knew it not, from my youth up ; (2) by 
 adding to the constant use of all the other means of 
 
156 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 grace a continual prayer for this very thing, justify- 
 ing, saving faith, a full reliance on the blood of Christ 
 shed for me ; a trust in Him as my Christ, as my sole 
 justification, sanctification, and redemption. 
 
 " I continued then to seek it (though with strange 
 indifference, dulness, and coldness, and unusually 
 frequent relapses into sin) till Wednesday, May 2 4th. 
 ... In the evening I went very unwillingly to a 
 society in Aldersgate Street, Avhere one was reading 
 Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. 
 About a quarter before nine, while he was describing 
 the change which God works on the heart through 
 faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. 
 I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salva- 
 tion ; and an assurance was given me that He had 
 taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from 
 the law of sin and death. ... I then testified 
 openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart." 
 Charles's account of it is : "Towards ten, my brother 
 was brought in triumph by a troop of friends, and 
 declared, ' I believe.' We sang the hymn with great 
 joy, and parted with prayer." 
 
 Thus, after having been tempest-tossed on a sea 
 of uncertainty for ten years, this vessel reached the 
 haven of rest. There will be various opinions as 
 to what the experience of these years amounted to, 
 and what was the real character of this change. 
 Wesley himself always spoke of this as the time of 
 his new birth, his conversion, his justification. At 
 one time indeed, he makes this distinction, that 
 before, he had " only the faith of a servant — now, 
 that of a soiiy But anon we find him declaring 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 157 
 
 explicitly, " I knew that I had not faith, unless the 
 faith of a devil, the faith of Judas, that speculative, 
 notional, airy shadow, which lives in the head, not 
 in the heart. But what is this to the living, 
 justifying faith, the faith that cleanses from sinl"^ 
 
 Some may be inclined to regard the change as a 
 mere re-quickening, what has come to be spoken of 
 in certain quarters as "second conversion," or as 
 " the higher Christian life." In any case, this much 
 is certain, that henceforth Wesley was a new man, 
 that this was the great era in his history, and formed 
 a new point of departure, alike in his life and in 
 his work. If his life is to be divided into two great 
 parts, this is unquestionably the dividing-line. 
 
 His first step, after this, was to visit Herrnhut, in 
 Saxony, the headquarters of the Moravian Brethren, 
 to study more closely their character and manner 
 of life, their teaching and organisation. There he 
 met the devoted Christian David, whose conversation 
 and clear and full evangelical preaching he much 
 enjoyed. " The right foundation," said he, '' is not 
 your contrition, not your righteousness, nothing of 
 your oivn, nothing that is wrought in you by the 
 
 1 "I did go thus I'ar for many years, as many of this place can 
 testify ; using diligence to eschew all evil, and to have a conscience 
 void of offence ; redeeming the time ; buying up every opportunity 
 of doing good to all men ; constantly and carefully using all the 
 public and all the private means of grace ; endeavouring after a 
 steady seriousness of behaviour, at all times, and in all places ; 
 and God is my record, before whom I stand, doing all this in 
 sincerity ; having a real design to serve God ; a hearty desire to do 
 His will in all things ; to please Him who had called me to * fight 
 the good fight,' and to 'lay hold of eternal life.' Yet my own 
 conscience beareth me witness in the Holy Ghost, that all this 
 time I was 1)ut almost a Christian.'''' — Sermon II. 
 
158 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Holy Ghost ; but it is something mthout you, — the 
 righteousness and blood of Christ." From him he 
 got a further impulse for the proclamation of the 
 new-found truth. To Count Zinzendorf, however, 
 the head of the settlement, Wesley was less drawn ; 
 the community was too little aggressive for the 
 ardent Englishman, and though he learned much and 
 borrowed much from their system of organisation, 
 and always regarded them with respect and gratitude, 
 he kept on a separate line of his own, and finally 
 separated from them in London, when, some time 
 after, serious error began to show itself among 
 them. 
 
 And now the great work of AVesley's life began. 
 He had before him a large and inviting field for a 
 spirit like his. We cannot enter into details regard- 
 ing the state of England at that time. A very dark 
 picture might be drawn, without at all over-colouring, 
 of the state of things alike among the uppor and 
 lower classes, the clergy and the people. The 
 peasantry w^ere ignorant and degraded, coarse in 
 their tastes, and in many cases almost brutal in their 
 enjoyments. In the large centres of population there 
 had been a great falling away from the means of 
 grace, and where there was not positive unbelief, and 
 hatred of everything that had the appearance of 
 godliness, there was a dead formality, and an utter 
 want of intelligent acquaintance with the vital 
 doctrines of Christianity. The Eeformation in 
 England had only been partial. The masses of the 
 people had never been thoroughly leavened with a 
 knowledge of CAangelical truth. And though both 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 159 
 
 ill the Church of England and in the ranks of non- 
 conformity there were bright lights, the lustre of 
 which has not been dimmed to this day, the ministry 
 of the Word had largely fallen into a state of spiritual 
 torpor, Socinian views had crept in where once 
 there was orthodoxy, and the lives of many were 
 as defective as their teaching. Vice in the upper 
 classes was winked at, while it was utterly unheeded 
 among the lower. Socially, morally, and spiritually, 
 there was much which earnest men could not but 
 mourn over, and which called loudly for help. 
 
 That was what met Wesley's gaze, wherever he 
 turned his eye. He had long sought and laboured 
 for the moral elevation of his country. But he had 
 wanted alike the right lever, the fulcrum on which 
 to rest it, and the spiritual power to move it. Now 
 he had all the three. He had the promise of God 
 as a great reality, he had the true doctrine that had 
 met his own need and brought light and life to 
 him, and he was himself full of faith and of the 
 Holy Ghost. He had large views of the possibilities 
 of the case, — of what might, should, imist be done. 
 He had no idea of starting a new sect. He was a 
 loyal Churchman, and continued so to the last, in 
 spite of all that was fitted to weaken his attachment 
 to the Church of his early love. He aimed at a new 
 Eeformation — a Revival of the Church of England 
 — the awakening of it out of its slumber — the reviv- 
 ing among its ministers and people of the true 
 doctrine and of spiritual life. He had no new 
 doctrine to propound. He wanted but to disentomb 
 and re-animate the doctrine of the Apostles and the 
 
160 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Eeformers. He had now got something to preach 
 to the people that he knew would do them good. 
 His great themes were few in number, simple in 
 their character, and vital in their importance — 
 Depravity, the New Birth, Faith, and Holiness : 
 the natural and utter depravity of man, the conse- 
 quent need of a supernatural work of regeneration 
 by the Spirit of God, justification by faith alone, the 
 scripturalness of instantaneous conversion, the possi- 
 bility of men knowing that they are saved, not only 
 by the fruits of the new life, but by the inward 
 witness of the Spirit, and as the result of all, holiness 
 of life. Or, as he himself put it — " repentance, faith, 
 and holiness ; the first, the way to religion ; the 
 second, the gate of it; the third, religion itself." 
 After his own experience he was clear and emphatic 
 on the subject of faith : " Christian faith," said he, 
 " is not only an assent to the whole Gospel of Christ, 
 but also a full reliance on the blood of Christ, a 
 trust in the merits of His life, death, and resurrection ; 
 a recumbency upon Him as our atonement and our 
 life, as given for us, and living in us." 
 
 "With this message he was prepared to go over 
 the length and breadth of England, and he did so, 
 without intermission, from the time of what he 
 believed to be his new birth till his death; from 
 the thirty-fifth year of his age till his eighty-eighth 
 — as one of his biographers has called it — " a grand 
 monotony of holy toil." And the results, direct and 
 indirect, were such, that the time from 1739 till 
 1791, might well be spoken of, as the "Revival of 
 the Eighteenth Century." 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 161 
 
 1. Let us look at Wesley as a Preacher. — His great 
 work was his p-eaching. He was the great Itinerant 
 Preacher of his day. He preached everywhere, — in 
 town and country, in all parts of England, repeating 
 these visits once a year till the very year of his death, 
 in North and South Wales, in Ireland, Scotland, 
 and the Channel Islands. He preached all the 
 days of the week, — one might almost say, all the 
 hours of the day. His habit was to rise at four in 
 the morning — this he did for sixty years — to preach 
 at five, and as a rule, three or four times daily, often 
 with long journeys between his services. In this 
 respect, Whitefield was the only man who could be 
 compared with him, Whitefield having preached 
 18,000 sermons in the course of thirty-four years, or 
 ten a week, and Wesley 42,400 in fifty- three years, 
 from the time of his return from Georgia, or fifteen a 
 week. He defended his practice of itinerating, in the 
 memorable words, " / look upon all the world as my 
 ])arish ; thus far, I mean, that in whatever part of it 
 I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty 
 to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad 
 tidings of salvation ; " or, as he said when he was 
 summoned to appear before the Bishop at Bristol, 
 " My lord, my business on earth is to do what good 
 I can. Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel wherever 
 I am, in the habitable world ! " 
 
 He kept up his habits of study to the last. 
 He accustomed himself to reading while travelling 
 on horseback, and continued the practice for forty 
 years, in this way going the whole round of literature. 
 He thus preserved a freshness and variety in liis 
 N 
 
1G2 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 preaching which few evangelists have succeeded, for 
 any length of time, in doing. 
 
 Like others of his fellow-labourers, he did not 
 deal in mere abstract statements of truth, or make 
 mere general appeals. He individualised. He pointed 
 his weapon, as a good soldier does, not indiscrimi- 
 nately at a multitude, but at a man, so that each 
 hearer felt as if he alone were in view, as if he were 
 the one man who was being spoken to. And so it 
 was noiv and here. To those who knew the way of 
 salvation more or less, and had thoughts of closing 
 with Christ, and to those who never had an earnest 
 thought before, the offer was, of a present salvation — 
 the call was, to present decision. Thus he says : " Who 
 art thou that noAv seest and feelest both thine inward 
 and outward ungodliness 1 Thou art the man ! I 
 want thee for my Lord ; I challenge thee for a child of 
 God by faith. The Lord hath need of thee. Thou who 
 feelest thou art just fit for hell, art just fit to advance 
 His glory, — the glory of His free grace, justifying 
 the ungodly, and him that worketh not. Oh, come 
 quickly. Believe in the Lord Jesus : and thou, even 
 thou, art reconciled to God." 
 
 He took a great step in advance, when, yielding 
 to Whitefield's urgent solicitations, and following 
 his example, he ventured on Field Preaching. It cost 
 him no little eti'ort, as one who, as he says, "had all 
 his life been so tenacious of every point relating to 
 decency and order, that he sliould have thought 
 saving of souls almost a sin, if it had not been done 
 in a Church ! " It was an immense addition to his 
 power, rendering him independent of Church accom- 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 163 
 
 modation, extending vastly the number and variety 
 of his hearers, compelling him to use the language of 
 the people, and throwing him back upon God. In this 
 as in other work, his courage, tact, and self-possession 
 were extraordinary, looking a mob in the face, plant- 
 ing his chair in the midst of it, taking the leader by 
 the hand, and turning him into a friend and helper ! 
 
 What his preaching was, his published sermons 
 remain to tell. His discourses on the Sermon on 
 the Mount are striking examples of practical exposi- 
 tion and appeal. 
 
 2. Wesley as an Organiser. — His system of organi- 
 sation has been the wonder and admiration of 
 Christendom ; in its efficiency and completeness, 
 rivalling that of the Church of Rome. In this 
 respect he differed utterly from Whitefield, who was 
 the simple preacher of the gospel, and had no turn 
 for organisation, and no thought of it. Wesley had 
 no finished scheme carved out from the first, and filled 
 up by degrees. He moved when the emergency 
 came, and followed the leading of God's Word and 
 providence and the teaching of experience. He saw 
 the importance of conserving the results of his work, 
 and keeping the converts together for their mutual 
 help and edification. This was the object which he 
 had in view in the Societies which he established 
 wherever he went. They were just such as might be 
 formed now, in any congregation or district, after a 
 time of revival, for mutual encouragement and instruc- 
 tion, for promoting helpful fellowship, and stimulating 
 to Christian activity. The Classes were subdivisions 
 under the Society, each composed of about twelve 
 
164 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 persons, meeting once a week for praise and prayer 
 and religious oversight, presided over by exhorters 
 or class-leaders, men of established character and 
 experience, who have been compared to non-commis- 
 sioned officers in the army. Then there were the 
 itinercmt and local preadiers ; who held the ground 
 which Wesley had gained, and who, as a class, were 
 called into existence by the very necessity of the 
 case. When an interest was awakened .and souls 
 were saved, in localities where the ministry of the 
 Word was utterly unhelpful, or where there was no 
 provision of any kind to meet the spiritual needs of 
 the people, while there was much to hinder and 
 discourage, it was necessary to send lay preachers to 
 share the work with Wesley himself, who, though 
 almost ubiquitous, could not by any means meet 
 the demands made on him. These preachers were 
 afterwards arranged in circuifs, which at the time of 
 Wesley's death numbered a hundred and fifteen in 
 the United Kingdom, by means of which the woi Iv 
 was kept going on in a permanent and systematic 
 way. And', finally, there was the Conference, where 
 his clerical brethren and itinerant helpers met to 
 consider the past and take counsel as to the future. 
 
 It was with great hesitation that Wesley ventuicd 
 to sanction lay preaching. He had hurried to London 
 for the purpose of stoj^ping it, when his mother, wlio 
 had heard the first off"ender preach, said to her son, 
 **Take care what you do with respect to that young 
 man, for he is as surely called of God to preach, as 
 you are. Examine ivJiat have been the fruil^ of his 
 preaching, and hear him also yourself" He took tlie 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 165 
 
 advice, and had his objections removed. He after- 
 wards defended his action in the matter on these 
 grounds : " It is true that in ordinary cases both an 
 inward and an outward call are requisite; but we 
 apprehend there is something far from ordinary in 
 the present case ; and upon the calmest view of 
 things, we think that they who are only called of God 
 and not of man have more right to preach, than they 
 who are only called of man and not of God. Now, 
 that many of the clergy, though called of man, are 
 not called of God to preach His Gospel, is undeniable, 
 first, because they themselves utterly disclaim, nay, 
 and ridicule the inward call ; second, because they 
 do not know what the Gospel is, and of consequence, 
 they do not and cannot preach it." 
 
 Wesley took great pains to instruct and guide his 
 preachers, above all things urging them to prayer 
 and study, and charging them to preach the need of 
 the new birth, and salvation by faith, and to seek 
 the conversion of men to God. Some of them were 
 very remarkable men, with a singular experience and 
 special gifts, and their work was productive of great 
 results. One of them says of himself : " I am but a 
 brown bread preacher, that seek to help all I can to 
 heaven, in the best manner I can." Wesley's three 
 tests for such men were piety, gifts, and usefidness, 
 taking them on probation, at first for one year, and 
 subsequently for four years. 
 
 One of the secrets of the success of Methodism, 
 making it the pioneer of all the Churches, has been 
 its organisation, which has only in small part been 
 described, its giving the people so large a place in the 
 
166 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 active service of the Church, and especially its system 
 of itinerant ])reaching, which has carried it every- 
 where, to the utmost limits of civilisation, where no 
 other agencies could exist. 
 
 Isaac Taylor,^ who saw the weak points in Wesley 
 and Methodism, and did not spare them, says, 
 " His organisation is the most efficiently expansive 
 Christian institute which modern times have seen. 
 It stands alone without a parallel in the field of 
 Church history. That * Society,' which was the 
 product of the founder's mind, claims to be con- 
 sidered as one of the most remarkable experiments 
 in ecclesiastical science that has ever been carried 
 forward," with " results which find no parallel, even in 
 the exciting times of the Reformation or since, 
 especially as regards the untaught masses of the ])eopJe, 
 non-attendants on public worship — the millions that 
 circulate every Sunday around church and chapel." 
 
 What I call special attention to here is, that all 
 this was carried on within the Church, and never 
 needed to have gone out of it. I have not been 
 speaking of the Methodist Church in its separate 
 condition, but of Methodism within the Church of 
 England. If the Church had been wise, all this 
 elaborate machinery and evangelistic power might 
 have continued within it, and been a source of 
 strength and spiritual life to it. Never was there 
 greater infatuation than when the Church closed its 
 pulpits against Wesley and his coadjutors, excluding 
 the great evangelist from the church of his early years, 
 (and even from the Communion table, as not being 
 1 Wesley and Methodism. 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 1G7 
 
 "fit" to be admitted!) so that once and again he 
 had to preach to his old parishioners from his father's 
 grave ! The very classes which the Church of England 
 is now so anxious to gain and to hold were thus alien- 
 ated from its communion. Men like the Kingswood 
 colliers and the Cornish miners, whose conversion 
 and altered life would have made them an honour 
 and strength to any Church, were actually debarred 
 from the Lord's Supper, because they came in such 
 numbers that they exhausted the patience of the 
 clergy! What might that Church not have been 
 to-day, with all this life and spiritual energy within 
 its pale, as might have been, if the people could 
 have found there the teaching and sympathy which 
 they were at length compelled to seek elsewhere ! 
 
 It is interesting to know that, in the Scottish 
 Church, in the dark times of Moderatism, there were 
 similar " Praying Societies." which maintained the 
 life of the godly people, these aftei wards forming 
 twenty-five congregations of the Secession Church. 
 
 3. Wesley as a Writer. — Amid his incessant 
 labours otherwise, Wesley found time both for study 
 and for writing. At that time there was great want 
 of a healthy and interesting popular literature. He 
 found the people to whom his ministry was useful 
 in special need of good reading, both secular and 
 religious; and forthwith he set himself to supply 
 this want. From 1 738, it is said, there was scarcely 
 a year, for fifty years, in which he did not issue from 
 the press some new work, large or sm-'Jl. He was 
 the precursor of such men as Charles Knight and 
 William and Eobert Chambers, in brin2;'!i» infonna- 
 
168 THE EVANGKLTCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 tion on almost every subject, in a cheap and attrac- 
 tive form, within the reach of the masses ; and he 
 anticipated the Tract Societies of later times by the 
 large issue and circulation of publications in a tract 
 form. He prepared numerous abridgments and 
 translations, in poetry, history, philosophy, and 
 biography, as well as grammars, dictionaries, and 
 other useful works. His principal original works 
 were his Sermons, Notes on the New Testament 
 with a revised translation, and Extracts from his 
 Journals. These last contained graphic descriptions 
 of his labours, in all parts of the country, which 
 were read everywhere with the deepest interest, and 
 did much to increase his influence and spiritual 
 power. He published the Christian Library in fifty 
 volumes, consisting of extracts from the writings 
 of the older divines. In 1773 he issued an edition 
 of his works in twenty-three volumes. And not 
 the least in importance, were his brother Charles's 
 Hymns, which, with others of his own, had an extra- 
 ordinary popularity, and came to be a very special 
 means of grace to multitudes. It would be difficult 
 to estimate the number of his separate publications. 
 They have been variously reckoned at between 200 
 and 400, which his preachers circulated everywhere, 
 the proceeds helping to carry on his other work, 
 and to maintain his large charities. 
 
 4. Wesley as a Phil ant hrojjist. — His whole work 
 was an outburst of genuine philanthropy. From 
 early life the prisons were his special care, till even 
 they were shut against him. He took up the cause 
 of the poor wherever he went, devising the means of 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 169 
 
 employment for them on a large scale, and otherwise 
 seeing to their support in times of scarcity. He 
 established schools and libraries. He anticipated the 
 work of modern Temperance Societies, practising 
 temperance himself, and promoting it among his 
 people. His denunciations, in his public sermons, 
 of the making and selling of drink, were scathing 
 and terrible in the extreme. He carried on what 
 would now be called Medical Mission work among 
 the sick poor. The last letter 'he wrote, was one to 
 Mr. Wilberforce, encouraging him in his great work 
 of Emancipation. His personal liberality was with- 
 out limit. His rule was " to save all he could, and 
 give all he could. His practice at Oxford is so well 
 known, as hardly to need mention : — living on £28 
 a year, he gave £2 out of £30 of income; after his 
 income increased to £60, £90, and £120, he still lived 
 on £28, and gave the balance; and thereafter, in pro- 
 portion. His reply to the "Accountant-General for 
 Household Plate," who had demanded a return of his 
 plate from him, cannot be omitted: "I have two silver 
 teaspoons at London, and two at Bristol. This is all 
 the plate which I have at present ; and I shall not buy 
 any more, while so many around me want bread." 
 
 Whitefield was equally large-hearted and self-for- 
 getful, and the infection spread, down to the humblest 
 of the people. In one case, where the giving was 
 large, inquiry was made as to whether the people 
 were rich ; the answer was, "No ; but all of us who 
 are single persons have agreed together, to give both 
 ourselves and all ive have to God. 
 
 5. Wesley as a Controversialist.^lt was not hig 
 
1 70 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 way to meddle much with controversy. But he had 
 to deal with errors that crept in among the Moravian 
 Brethren and among the people of his own societies, 
 and he did so with a firm hand. His most serious dis- 
 pute, however, was with his special friend and fellow- 
 worker, Whitefield, leading to a painful separation, 
 though ultimately, so far as personal friendship was 
 concerned, the breach was healed. Wesley left the 
 controversy, on his side (the Arminian), in the hands 
 of his friend Fletcher of Madeley, while Toplady, Ber- 
 ridge, and others championed the Calvinistic cause. 
 Wesley's teaching may, in the general, be said to 
 be Arminicm, as opposed to Calvinistic, and yet he 
 was, most emphatically, an Evangelical Arminian. 
 While denying the doctrines of Election and of the 
 Perseverance of the Saints, he differed from other 
 Arminians (as Arminius himself did), in holding 
 firmly the orthodox view of human depravity, the 
 work of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification, 
 the nature of the atonement, and justification by 
 faith. AVe shall have difficulty in finding anywhere, 
 stronger statements as to the depravity of human 
 nature, than we have in Wesley's Sermons. And 
 while he gave prominence to the doctrine of Perfec- 
 tion, there are many passages in his sermons which 
 ill agree with this view, and make it, as has been said, 
 a very " imperfect perfection " indeed.^ It is also 
 true, as Principal Cunningham, one of the greatest 
 Calvinistic authorities of recent times, says, that 
 " much of what is often classed under the general 
 name of Arminianism contains a much larger amount 
 1 See Sermon On Sin in Believers. 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 171 
 
 of error, and a much smaller amount of truth, than 
 the writings of Arminius and Wesley exhibit." At 
 the same time, Wesley's representations of Calvinistic 
 teaching cannot be accepted as a fair statement of 
 the views of its recognised exponents, least of all, 
 of evangelical men in the Scottish Church ; while he 
 held views on man's free will, which these have 
 always regarded as inconsistent with the sovereignty 
 of God in the salvation of men. 
 
 Eeferring to Dr. Cunningham's Historical Theo- 
 logy for a full discussion of the subject, I think it 
 well to quote a single sentence from that work 
 as to what Calvinism really is : " The salvation of 
 sinners is to be ascribed to the sovereign mercy 
 of God ; man can do nothing effectual, in the exer- 
 cise of his own natural powers, for escaping from 
 his natural condition of guilt and depravity, and 
 must be indebted for this wholly to the free grace of 
 God, the vicarious work of Christ, and the efficacious 
 agency of tho Spirit. Now Calvinism is really nothing 
 but just giving a distinct and definite expression 
 and embodiment to these great principles, applying 
 clear and precise ideas of them to each branch of the 
 scheme of salvation." 
 
 There can be no doubt that Wesley's views on 
 this subject, were a serious bar in the way of his 
 success in Scotknd, where he found a different state 
 of things, indeed, from what he had to do with in 
 England, but where he never got the welcome that 
 greeted Whitefield, and never reaped such fruit. 
 Wesley said of the Scotch : " They hear much, they 
 k7ioio everything, and feel nothing ! " 
 
172 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 I must say a word about TFesIey's associates in his 
 great work, as helping largely to make it what it was. 
 The names of several ministers of the English Church 
 who, at that time, preached with great spiritual 
 power the same evangelical doctrines, are familiar to 
 all — the saintly Fletcher of Madeley, Romaine, Venn, 
 Grimshaw, Berridge, and others. But by far the 
 most outstanding of his fellow-helpers were Charles 
 Wesley and George Whitefield. Charles Wesley 
 was more cautious and conservative than his brother, 
 and besides actively co-operating with him, was in- 
 valuable to him as his counsellor and friend. His 
 greatest service, however, was as the writer of those 
 Hymns which were one of the mainstays of the move- 
 ment at the time, and have been handed down as a 
 most precious legacy to the Church. 
 
 Whitefield, less intellectual and scholarly than 
 the Wesleys, excelled them both as an orator ; and 
 after passing through a very similar spiritual 
 struggle, emerged into the same clear light, and 
 devoted himself with burning zeal to the service of 
 Him who had saved him. We learn the spirit of 
 the man from such utterances as these : " When 
 the bishop laid his hands on ni}^ head, if my vile 
 heart doth not deceive me, I offered my whole 
 spirit and soul and body to the service of God's 
 sanctuary. ... I gave myself up to be a martyr 
 for Him who hung upon the cross for me ; I have 
 thrown myself blindfold, and, I trust, without reserve, 
 into His Almighty hands." He speaks of being 
 " constrained to throw himself on the ground, and 
 offer his soul as a blank in God's hands, to write on 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 173 
 
 it what He pleased." Wesley, urging him to go to 
 America, said, "Do you ask me what you shall 
 have? — Food to eat, and raiment to put on; a 
 house to lay your head in, such as your Lord had 
 not ; and a crown of glory that fadeth not away." 
 Whereupon, he says, " my heart leaped within me, 
 and responded to the call." 
 
 Some have spoken as if Whitefield's Calvinism 
 had prevented his doing a similar work to Wesley's, 
 leaving nothing permanent behind him. It should 
 be remembered, however, that he and Wesley were 
 entirely different men. As we have seen, he was 
 the preacher and evangelist, not the organiser and 
 administrator. Besides his great work in England 
 and America, he made his mark in Scotland as 
 Wesley never did. He helped to turn the tide in 
 favour of evangelism in the Scottish Church, and to 
 lay the foundations of what became a great spiritual 
 movement, the benefits of which we still enjoy. 
 And, along with the Countess of Huntingdon and 
 others, he did much to leaven the Church of England 
 with evangelical views and Christian life, so that 
 though he did not found a new Church, he helped 
 eminently to revive the old. He was emphatically 
 one of the founders of Methodism, and besides the 
 direct winning of souls, in which he was greatly 
 honoured, he acted a leading part in the revival of 
 religion both within the Established Church and 
 outside of it. With men of this stani]) heading the 
 movement, it was not strange that it made such 
 rapid progress. 
 
 It w^ould be difficult at all adequately to estimate 
 
174 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 the results of Wesley's life and labours, as the leader 
 in this great movement. Many of these were of an 
 indirect kind, and though of the very first magnitude, 
 cannot be calculated. There was the arrest put on 
 the progress of vice and unbelief. . There was the 
 revival of religion among the masses of the people, 
 bringing back the belief in a living and divine 
 Saviour (which, in many quarters, had died out), 
 persuading men that sin and atonement, and faith 
 and the life to come, were great realities ; elevating 
 the lower classes morally and spiritually, and through 
 them influencing the upper, and producing like 
 effects among these. There was the revival of the 
 ministry, in life and doctrine, alike among Episco- 
 palians and Nonconformists, so that they again 
 became a power for spiritual good where before 
 they had been a hindrance. There was the furnish- 
 ing of a practical illustration of the three great 
 means of reviving the Church and blessing the 
 world — the preaching of the doctrines of grace, the 
 opening of the door for Christian fellotvship, and the 
 calling into exercise of the gifts of the peojjle. Even the 
 extreme views, as some may regard them, of "Wesley, 
 on the subject of Assurance and the Witness of the 
 Spirit, served a purpose, as a rebound from the 
 opposite extreme. Extravagances and excrescences 
 were almost inevitable in such a work ; and yet it 
 is not too much to say that England has felt the 
 beneficial influence of it ever since.^ 
 
 1 Macaiilay says : "Wesley contUictetl one of the most -vvoiulerful 
 moral revolutions the world ever saw. His eloquence and his 
 piercing logic would have made him an eminent literary man, and 
 Ills genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu." 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 175 
 
 The history of Methodism since Wesley's death 
 has been remarkable, America has been its greatest 
 field. There, one of its offshoots, the Methodist 
 Ejiiscopal Church, is said to be the largest Protestant 
 Church on that great continent, which, I suppose, 
 means the largest Protestant Church in the world. 
 It seems to be the most defensible form of Episco- 
 pacy, rejecting Apostolic Succession, and "founded 
 on the principle of bishops and presbyters being of 
 the same degree— a more extended office only being 
 assigned to the former." Mr. Green states that the 
 Churches belonging to the great Methodist family, 
 number between twenty-three and tioenty-five millions of 
 adherents — " a fact unparalleled in modern ecclesias- 
 tical history." The Foreign Missions carried on by 
 the same Churches, in all parts of the world, have a 
 more numerous body of adherents and a larger 
 annual income, than those of any other Church. 
 
 If anything would shame us into activity and 
 self-denying devotedness, it should be the study of 
 such a life and such labours as Wesley's. At every 
 point, it puts one to the blush. What, to him, were 
 the mere "odds and ends" of work, cast into the 
 shade what most of us reckon our main occupation. 
 Even before he had come to apprehend the grace of 
 Christ in its fullest sense, we cannot but be im- 
 pressed with his untiring assiduity, in furnishing him- 
 self with the needed equipment for his ministry, and 
 in the actual discharge of it. He turned his many 
 and varied gifts to the utmost possible account. He 
 did what all Christian workers should do, — tried all 
 the ways of it, exercised a holy versatility, left no 
 
176 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 stone unturned, by which he might get a hearing 
 for his message and win men to God. No difficulty 
 discouraged him : no danger daunted him. 
 
 We need men like Wesley stiU. Different as the 
 times now are, there is ample room for such workers 
 and such work. Amid the prevalence of uilbelief, 
 worldliness, neglect of divine ordinances, intemper- 
 ance, and immorality, a Wesley would be a good gift oi 
 God to us to-day, shaping himself to the altered times 
 and circumstances, not paying a flying visit, like 
 Mr. Moody, but going over the same ground again 
 and again, and helping the Churches to conserve the 
 fruits of his labours. 
 
 But it would be a far greater gain if we were all 
 to aim at being Wesleys, to the extent, at least, of 
 having our lives as well filled up as his was, and 
 devoting ourselves with as great singleness of aim 
 and earnestness of purpose to the serving of God 
 and the saving of men. It were well that our 
 ministers and candidates for the ministry should 
 make a study of the life and labours of this apostolic 
 man. It would rebuke. It would suggest. It 
 would stimulate. It would show what even one 
 man, thoroughly consecrated, might, with God's 
 blessing, accomplish. Some of the things which he 
 did, may seem not desirable to be repeated in our 
 time. Some things were such as could only be done 
 by himself. But after making the largest deduc- 
 tions on that score, there still remains enough for 
 men of like spirit, and with more ordinary gifts and 
 abilities, to aspire to and to do. Can we think of 
 such large numbers of our fellow-countrymen, in 
 
JOHN WESLEY. 177 
 
 town and country, being left to perish "i And if not, 
 when and how is the work of reclamation to be over- 
 taken ] There is surely something to be learned by 
 the Churches, from that master of organisation, and 
 from the movement in which he was the leading actor. 
 We have a sufficient agency, in the ministry and 
 among the people, to do all that needs to be done, 
 if each man were doing his utmost and best, 
 adopting the best methods, and falling back, for the 
 power, on the Spirit of God.^ 
 
 It only remains to say, as regards Wesley himself, 
 that he continued his labours undiminished to 
 extreme old age. On his 86th birthday, he says 
 he " found it difficult to preach oftener than twice a 
 day !" He went all his ordinary rounds of duty to 
 the last. His prayer had been, " Lord, let me not 
 live to be useless ! " and the prayer was answered to 
 the full. On the 1 8th February 1 79 1, he preached at 
 Chelsea from the text, " The king's business requireth 
 haste." On the following Wednesday he preached 
 his last sermon on " Seek ye the Lord while He may 
 be found." Some of his sayings, during his last 
 illness, were — 
 
 " I the chief of siuuers am, 
 But Jesus died for me ! " 
 
 " There is no way into the holiest, but by the blood 
 
 1 Wesley's being able to overtake such an amount of work 
 throughout his long life— preaching, travelling, reading, overseeing, 
 dealing with individuals, keeping up an immense correspondence 
 —has been attributed to his "inflexible temperance and unex- 
 ampled economy of time;" and Isaac Taylor says, "A perfect 
 management of his time, his untiring energy, and his self-com- 
 mand, made it easy for him to accomplish tran(]uilly a vast and 
 various daily work." 
 
 
 
178 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION, 
 
 of Jesus ; " " The best of all is, God is with us ; " 
 "He giveth His servants rest;" "I'W praise — I'll 
 praise ! " " He is all— He is all !" On the 2d March 
 1791, he fell asleep, in the 88th year of his age and 
 65th of his ministry. The verse which he gave out, 
 almost uniformly, to be sung, at the close of his 
 latest meetings, was a literal description of the 
 end : — 
 
 " that, without a lingering groan, 
 I may the welcome word receive, 
 My body with my charge lay down, 
 
 And cease at once to work and live ! " 
 
 Note. — Southey, in his great biography, has immortalised 
 Wesley, but he failed to appreciate his motives and the 
 secret of his power. The "Observations" of Richard 
 Watson should be read as an explanation and corrective of 
 Southey, and in the edition which I have used (Bohn's 
 Standard Library), the two are given together. While 
 consulting the Journals and numerous biographies of 
 Wesley, I have had frequent recourse to Mr. Green's 
 admirable little volume (Cassell's) and M. Lelie^Te's, as 
 being easy of reference. These give a most graphic view 
 of Wesley's life and labours. 
 
 J. H. W. 
 
WILLIAM CAEEY. 
 
 Br GEORGE SMITH, C.I.E., LL.D. 
 
WILLIAM CAREY'S TEXTS. 
 
 " Look unto Abraham your father . . . 
 For I called liim alone, and blessed him, and increased him. 
 For the Lord shall comfort Zion : He will comfort all her waste 
 
 places ; 
 And He will make her wilderness like Eden, 
 And her desert like the garden of the Lord ; 
 Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the 
 voice of melody." 
 
 Isaiah li. 2, 3. 
 
 " Enlarge the place of thy tent, 
 
 And let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations : 
 Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes : 
 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left ; 
 And thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, 
 And make the desolate cities to be inhabited," 
 
 Isaiah liv. 2, 3. 
 
 COWPER IN 1782. 
 
 But, above all, in her own light arrayed, 
 See Mercy's grand apocalypse displayed ! 
 The sacred book no longer suffers wrong, 
 Bound in the fetters of an unknown tongue. 
 But speaks with plainness art could never mend. 
 What simplest minds can soonest comprehend. 
 God gives the word, the preachers throng around, 
 Live from his lips and spread the glorious sound : 
 That sound bespeaks Salvation on her way. 
 The triumph of a life-restoring day ; 
 'Tis heard where England's Eastern glory shines, 
 And in the gulfs of her Cornubian mines. 
 And still it spreads. 
 
 « « * ♦ * 
 
 Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed, 
 
 Were copied close in him, and well transcribed ; 
 
 He followed Paul ; his zeal a kindred tlame, 
 
 His apostolic charity the same ; 
 
 Like him crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas, 
 
 Forsaking country, kindred, friends and ease ; 
 
 Like him he laboured, and like him, content 
 
 To bear it, suffered shame where'er he went." — Ilviye. 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 
 
 By George Smith, CLE., LL.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 TWO events make the year 1783 memorable as 
 tlie close of the dreariest century of Christen- 
 dom and the opening of the brightest political and 
 spiritual period in all history. These events are the 
 Peace of Versailles, following the Independence of 
 the United States ; and the baptism of William 
 Carey, then twenty-two years of age. The Peace 
 of 1783 left England exhausted financially and 
 morally. But the righteous defeat of our country 
 by Washington made Great Britain the mother of 
 the Christian civilisation which has covered North 
 America ; and turned its own energies into a new 
 Indian and Colonial Empire greater even than that of 
 the United States. That all the ruling of old empires 
 and colonising of new lands is not only English- 
 speaking but aggressively Christian, is due to the 
 fact thus recorded by Dr. Pyland : "October 5th, 
 1783, I baptized in the river Nen, a little beyond 
 Dr. Doddridge's meeting-house, a poor journeyman 
 shoemaker, little thinking that before nine years had 
 elapsed he would prove the first instrument of form- 
 ing a society for sending missionaries from England 
 to preach the Gospel to the heathen." So, still, in 
 the midst of our modern progress and godlessness, the 
 
182 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 All-wise Soverei<i;n of men chooses the weak thino^s 
 of the world, even as wlien His Son was born into a 
 carpenter's home. 
 
 In 1783 the Evangelical Church had more nearly- 
 died out of Europe than in the tenth century, when 
 men cried for the Day of Judgment to end the misery 
 of the race, or in the fifteenth, when Luther came out 
 of a miner's hut and a Scottish cloister. The few 
 Moravian Brethren had fired John AVesley, and the 
 New England Edwards had inspired George White- 
 field; in Scotland the " Marrow " men had fought 
 under Boston in the General Assembly, and the 
 Erskines had seceded from it ; so that some place 
 tlie Evangelical Revival between 1730 and 1740. 
 But by 1783 Methodism had " subsided " for a time, 
 to use the language of Isaac Taylor, its ablest his- 
 torian. The light that w^as in all the reformed 
 lands at that time was slowly becoming darkness. 
 And how great was that darkness, made ever 
 denser by the Rationalism of Luther's land, the 
 Arianism of the Church of England, and the 
 Socinian " moderatism " of the Church of Scotland ! 
 The natural fruit was seen in the lives of a genera- 
 tion represented by George iv., M'ho, as Prince of 
 Wales, came of age and received a separate establish- 
 ment in 1783. The Church, the Universities, 
 society high and low, were all alike. The Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, Seeker, publicly bewailed that his 
 Church had lost many of the people " by not preach- 
 ing in a manner sufficiently evangelical." The 
 Bishop of St. David's questioned the right of one 
 people to send their religion to any other. Dissent 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 183 
 
 was little better. Isaac Watts wrote : " There is a 
 general decay of vital religion in the hearts and 
 lives of men." When the great lawyer Blackstone 
 removed from Oxford, he sought out every eminent 
 preacher in London, and this is his startling state- 
 ment made of 1780: "I did not hear a single 
 discourse that had more Christianity in it than the 
 writings of Cicero ; I never could discover, from 
 what I heard, whether the preacher was a follower 
 of Confucius, or of Mahomet, or of Christ." In 
 Europe the French Revolution was at hand, sup- 
 pressing belief in God altogether for eleven years, 
 and forming a fanatical mission against Christ, so 
 frightful, that Tocqueville terms it a Western 
 Mohammedanism. Cowper had pictured it the year 
 before, in his Table Talk. 
 
 The fire of Foreign Missions burning in the heart 
 of William Carey changed all that. That village 
 shoemaker was used by the Spirit of God to become 
 (1) himself the first Englishman who went out of 
 Christendom as a missionary ; and (2) the man who 
 put missionary work, its duty and its dignity, in 
 the van of all the spiritual and philanthropic move- 
 ments which it at the same time did most to 
 originate. For the peace of 1783 introduced on the 
 one side geographical discover}^, colony-founding, 
 the French Eevolution, English political and 
 fiscal reform ; on the other, the abolition of the 
 slave-trade and slavery, the improvement of prisons 
 and humanising of prisoners, the care for the poor 
 on rational principles, the establishment of education 
 on national lines, the spread of Sunday-schools, the 
 
184 ' THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 translation of the Bible into every language. And the 
 third (3) merit of the founder of modern missions is, 
 that while, in his humility, he first sought to go 
 to the cannibals of the Pacific, whom Captain Cook 
 had just revealed to Europe, he so educated himself 
 tliat God sent him to India, to the very front and 
 forlorn hope of the fight against idolatry. This was 
 at a time when the public life of England was being 
 corrupted by Nabob influence, against which Burke 
 protested and Pitt legislated, and India itself was 
 being denied all the Truth of the West, scientific and 
 spiritual, by the Brahmanised Englishmen who ruled 
 it. Carey was the first English missionary in the 
 modern sense of the word. Carey's mission revived 
 Protestant^ Christendom, and pointed the way to 
 modern philan_throj2y. Carey was the first~~and 
 grea test apostl e of India. 
 
 But he did and he became all this, in his modest 
 saintliness — always a John, and yet never a Boan- 
 erges — directly as the outcome of ten years of united 
 prayer. An evangelical writer of the Church of 
 England has recently remarked, in the only mission- 
 ary periodical worthy of the subject in our language, 
 that the missionary idea first took practical shape 
 amongst the Baptists, a body then enjoying far less 
 of social position than they do now, because they 
 are " almost the furthest removed from any help that 
 could be derived from national prestige or State 
 countenance." Most true, but the greater spiritual 
 freedom and evangelical faith of William Carey and 
 a few Baptists of the Midland counties, Avere the 
 ^ Church Missionary Jntelliyencer for December 1883. 
 
WILLIAM CAKEV. 185 
 
 direct offspring of what they called hearty and per- 
 severing prayer. In 1784 the Northamptonshire 
 Association (or quasi-presbytery) of Baptist minis- 
 ters and messengers, meeting at Nottingham, sent 
 forth to the people the first invitation to united 
 prayer, which is as truly the foundation of modern 
 missions as Carey was their founder. Sutcliff of 
 Olney, who first led Carey to become a minister, 
 himself suggested, and Ryland of Northampton, who 
 had baptized Carey the year before, wrote the appeal, 
 solemnly exhorting all to spend one hour in the first 
 Monday of every month in prayer, wrestling with 
 God for the effusion of His Holy vSpirit. The now 
 historic document contains this passage with its 
 emphatic italics : " Let the whole interest of the 
 Redeemer be affectionately remembered, and the 
 spread of the Gospel to the most distant parts of the habit- 
 able globe be the object of your most fervent requests. 
 We shall rejoice if any other Christian societies of our 
 own or other denominations will join with us, and 
 we do now invite them most cordially to join heart 
 and hand in the attempt." These obscure men had 
 the true note of Evangelicalism as given by the Lord, 
 charity to all, catholicity, universality of aim, and 
 petition, and labour. The difference between them 
 all and Carey was that they prayed, while only 
 Andrew Fuller went the length of writing ; Carey 
 prayed and wrote and gave himself. 
 
 Let us study the Man, and then estimate his work 
 in England and in India. 
 
 At a point fifty-six miles north-west of London, 
 over ground rising from the old Roman road to 
 
186 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Chester known as the Watling Street, straggles 
 the village of Paulerspury, so called from the 
 knightly family of the Paveleys. Here, in a two- 
 storied cottage and garden, now supplanted by meaner 
 structures, dwelt the Careys, from father to son, all 
 through the Civil War at least, and doubtless further 
 back, while the oaks of Whittlebury Forest still pro- 
 vided sport for Edward I v. The beeches which give 
 Buckinghamshire its name, and which Hooker loved, 
 are close to the south ; on the east are the lazy 
 streams and fat meadows of Olney and Bedford. In 
 conditions, physical and social, precisely similar to 
 those which surrounded John Bunj^an in the not 
 distant Elstowe, AYilliam Carey was born on the 17th 
 August 1761. His grandfather and father were suc- 
 cessively the village schoolmaster and clerk of the 
 church, then a fine example of the early English 
 style. In its decaying nave and aisles, and around 
 its altar-tombs and knightly effigies, young Carey 
 became proud of his connection with the Cliurch of 
 England, and learned also to be f\imiliar with the 
 Bible which he was to translate into all the languages 
 of Southern Asia. His father, who was a weaver 
 for a time, having married again, the boy was really 
 educated by his grandmother, a woman of high 
 Christian character, and by his uncle Peter, a 
 gardener, who, childless himself, developed in the 
 lad that love of Nature which made him the first 
 agricultural improver and the second botanist in 
 Bengal. Thus early, as in John Eliot's case, did 
 God through him teach the Church, that he who 
 would be a successful missionary should master and 
 
WILLIAM CAKEY. 187 
 
 apply all the best knowledge of his time if he is in 
 the full sense of the phrase to bring nations to the 
 l.)irth. The boy grew up gentle and loving, as he 
 carried one of his three sisters about, noticing 
 every plant and insect and bird, or playing with 
 the villagers, with whom he was a favourite. The 
 father gave him a little room to himself, which he 
 filled with natural history preparations of his own, 
 and with drawings and paintings, of which he was 
 fnid. His vices were those of the youth Bunyan, 
 whose Pilgrim he read with eagerness, as he read 
 every book that came in his way. He was fond of 
 bell-ringing, he was sometimes guilty of lying, 
 swearing and filthy talk, and it was an act of dis- 
 honesty in which his master detected him that led 
 to his conversion at the age of fourteen. Being 
 unfitted for out-door work, he had thus early been 
 apprenticed to a shoemaker in the hamlet of Hackle- 
 ton. There, when a journeyman and still under 
 twenty, he married the sister of his employer, who 
 had died, and he supported the widow also. 
 
 Thomas Scott, the commentator, used to visit 
 his master, and was attracted by the intelligence 
 of the journeyman. Carey owed the beginning of 
 his conversion to Scott's preaching, but the talk of a 
 dissenting fellow-journeyman, and especially a sermon 
 by Chater of Olney on the blessedness of bearing 
 reproach for Christ, led the youth to evangelical faith 
 and obedience. The only pride which this humblest 
 of great men ever felt was thus cast out of him. Law 
 and other mystics deepened his spiritual longings, 
 and the Hcl])s to Zion's Travellers, written by the 
 
188 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 fatlier of the eloquent Eobert Hall, who was to be 
 one of Carey's successors in Leicester, completed the 
 change. The Spirit of God caused the first English 
 Missionary to believe and rejoice in what the Reign- 
 ins: Christ had taudit Saul, when He called the 
 proud Jew to go forth to the Gentiles. No message 
 has ever yet in all history transformed individuals 
 and lifted whole races to the hidier life short of the 
 evanirelical — that of His free grace God became 
 Man in Christ Jesus to reconcile the world unto 
 Himself. The Nestorian heresy in the east, the 
 Arian in the west, .every message which does 
 not hold forth Christ, "the only wise God, our 
 Saviour," falls short of the glad tidings of great joy 
 which are for all people. Carey not only broke 
 through all delusions as to the person and work of 
 Christ which had smitten the Churches of England 
 and Scotland with a blight, but through a more 
 subtle heresy, the spurious orthodoxy which called 
 itself Calvinism, and yet used the fact of God's 
 sovereignty as a reason for declaring the inability of 
 sinners to accept the Gospel and for declining to take 
 the trouble to offer it to them. This false Pre- 
 destinarianism did more to kill the Church at home 
 and paralyse the few who would have covered the 
 earth with it, than all the other heresies together. 
 Carey, who had become a preacher at eighteen, while 
 still a shoemaker ever struggling on the margin of 
 destitution, when suddenly called to supply the place 
 of an absent minister, preached the fulness and free- 
 ness of the Gospel with a force which kuit to him the 
 heart of Andrew Fuller, who was present. Fuller's 
 
WILLIAM CARF.Y. 189 
 
 Gospel Wortliy of All Acceptaiion soon after theo- 
 logically dispelled the heresy in England as Boston 
 and the Fathers of the Secession had begun to do in 
 Scotland. Thus was the first Foreign Mission Secre- 
 tary prepared, as well as the first English Missionary. 
 AVilliam Carey had been, above all things, a reader 
 of such books of travel as he could find, and had 
 especially revelled in the narratives of Cook's three 
 voyages in the South Seas. As he sat in the little 
 shed, still standing, at the back of his well-kept 
 garden in Hackleton, plying his craft and teaching 
 the children whom he gathered around him, he 
 would pause and point to a rude map of the world 
 which he had made of sheets of paper pasted to- 
 gether and attached to the wall. The spiritual light 
 which by eighteen had fully shone into his darkness 
 now lit up all the past knowledge of history and 
 geography, of men and manners, of beliefs and 
 religions, of statistics and nature, which he had been 
 persistently arranging in his well-ordered mind and 
 marvellous memory. There, on the dirty but well 
 drawn map, the rough-handed shoemaker had entered 
 all that he could learn regarding the population and 
 religion of every land. Once his talk had been of 
 stirring adventure, and strange people, and new 
 customs. Now, night and day, he thought, and to 
 his own family and friends he spoke, only of the fact 
 — as old as Abraham, as pitiful as Christ painted it, 
 as real in its bearing on man's responsibility — that 
 darkness still covered the earth and gross darkness the 
 people, that the nearly eighteen Christian centuries had 
 brought only one-eighth of the whole human race with- 
 
190 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 in the iiiiiiience of the Christ. Banyan's picture of 
 the man burdened with his own sins was nothing to 
 the reality of this gentle soul's groaning under the sense 
 of the duty neglected by the whole of Christendom. 
 Even his natural modesty could not keep silence. 
 As Thomas Scott passed from Olney to North- 
 ampton he w^ould look in upon what he used to call 
 Carey's " College," and admire the learning and the 
 enthusiasm of the cobbler. There was in Olney about 
 this time another man whom Carey must have oftt'U 
 seen, as he meditatively w\alked, or pleasantly chatted 
 by the way ; but there is no evidence that he knew 
 Cowper, so like-minded with himself, so sympathetic 
 with all cultured dissenters, the poet of the Slave 
 and the oppressed Hindoo, the eulogist of AVhitefield, 
 of Howard and the Moravians. The English Cowper 
 and the Scottish James Montgomery w^ere the poets 
 of the dawn of the Missionary Reformation, 
 
 Carey turned for sympathy and aid rather to the 
 Baptist ministers and deacons who had been pray- 
 ing for action every month since ITS-t, for "the 
 spread of the Gospel to the most distant parts of 
 the habitable globe." But if the Eleven knew so 
 little of the nature of the kingdom after three years' 
 close converse with the Master Himself as to ask 
 Him petulantly, just before the Ascension, of the 
 immediate restoration of the glory to Israel, we 
 must not expect more of the Northamptonshire 
 preachers. True, the Spirit had come, and had 
 shown the Church " greater works " than those of its 
 Incarnate Head, but one man like Carey may seem 
 a far larger response to the prajer of those days 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 191 
 
 than they deserved. The Son of Man had come to 
 His Church in these Isles in "all power" and grace, 
 and had He found faith on the earth 1 Only in 
 humble Paulerspury, in a weaver's cottage ; or in 
 little Hackleton, on a cobbler's stall. It is pathetic 
 to read how, when this Jeremiah of Modern Mis- 
 sions, his heart breaking with the love he had to 
 his race, proposed as a subject of discussion in a 
 ministers' meeting the question of their duty to the 
 heathen, the chief of them, who had invited pro- 
 posals, thundered out, " Sit down, young man ; when 
 God desires to convert the heathen. He'll do 
 it without you or me." Not Sutcliff, not Ryland, 
 not even Andrew Fuller had faith, accordinsf to 
 their own confession, to believe in Carey's mission, 
 adopting the sneer of the Old Testament doubter — 
 "If the Lord would make windows in heaven, might 
 this thing be 1 " The difference was that Carey had 
 eyes to see the open windows, had felt the first 
 droppings of the rain. Now at Hackleton, then at 
 Piddington and Earls' Barton, again at Moulton, and 
 finally at Leicester, his cry was, " Woe is me if I 
 preach not the Gospel to the heathen ! " 
 
 For eight years Carey was scouted, or — worse — 
 politely put off by his brother ministers. His youth, 
 obscurity, poverty, and exceeding humility, were 
 all against him in their eyes. A layman came to 
 the rescue, whose plain name deserves a place in the 
 record of Mission worthies. The Baptist ministei-, 
 schoolmaster, and shoemaker then of Moulton, had 
 taught himself six languages besides his own, Latin, 
 Greek, Hebrew, French, Dutch, and Italian. He 
 
192 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 bad that linguistic gift which was sooii to make 
 famous the name of Mezzofanti, the librarian of 
 Bologna. He had reduced to the proportions of a 
 small volume the results of his geographical and 
 statistical studies, first set forth on his map. In 
 1790, when in Birmingham, he met Thomas Potts, 
 a retired haberdasher who had made a fortune in 
 trade with the United States. There w^as in the 
 room a lad wdio afterwards became knowni as 
 Medley, the portrait painter, and to him we owe 
 the report of the talk wdiich followed. 
 
 Potts. — " Pray, friend Carey, what is it you have 
 got into your head about missions % I understand 
 you introduce the subject on all occasions.'' 
 
 Carey. — " Why, I think, Sir, it is highly impor- 
 tant that something should be done for the heathen." 
 
 Potts. — " But how^ can it be done, and who will 
 do it 1 " 
 
 Carey. — " Why, if you ask who, I have made up 
 my mind, if a few friends can be found who will 
 send me out, and support me for twelve months 
 after my arrival, I will engage to go wherever pro- 
 vidence shall open a door." 
 
 Potts. — "But where would you go? Have you 
 thought of that, friend Carey ? " 
 
 Carey. — " Yes, I certainly have. Were 1 to follow 
 my inclination, and had the means at command, the 
 islands of the South Seas would be the scene of my 
 labours, and I w^ould commence at Otaheite. If any 
 society will send me out, and land me there, and 
 allow me the means of subsistence for one year, I 
 am ready and willing to go." 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 193 
 
 Potts. — " Why, friend Carey, the thought is new, 
 and the religious public are not prepared for such 
 undertakings." 
 
 Carey. — " No, I am aware of that ; but I have 
 written a piece on the state of the heathen world, 
 which, if it were published, might probably awaken 
 an interest on this subject." 
 
 Potts. — " Why don't you publish it 1 " 
 
 Carey. — " For the best of all reasons, I have not 
 the means." 
 
 Potts. — " We will have it i)ublished, by all means. 
 I had rather bear the expense of printing it myself, 
 than the public should be deprived of the opportu- 
 nity of considering so important a subject." 
 
 The conversation is now historical. The ten 
 pounds of Deacon Potts was the first contribution to 
 Modern Missions, and, you will note, it was given to 
 use the Press in the great enterprise. I know not 
 in all prose literature, outside of that which is the 
 Avork of the imagination like Bunyan's allegory, any 
 book so remarkable as this production, written by a 
 young Northamptonshire shoemaker, on such a 
 subject and at a period when colonisation, trade, 
 and science were hardly born, in the modern sense. 
 But one copy exists, in the possession of Dr. Under- 
 hill, late Secretary of the Baptist Mission. It was 
 published at Leicester in 1792, and re-published 
 there in 1822, under the title of An Enquiry into the 
 Ohligations of Christians to the Means for the Conversion 
 of the Heathens, in which the Religious State of the 
 Different Nations of the World, the Success of P'ormer 
 Undertakings, and the Practicahility of Further Under- 
 
194 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 takings, are considered, by William Carey. So wide 
 is the grasp of spiritual principles, so graphic the 
 sketch of missionary development and obstruction, 
 from the giving of the Lord's commission down to 
 the effort of " the late Mr. Wesley " in the West 
 Indies, and so masterly the survey of the state of 
 the world in the decade 1783-1792, that if the 
 statistics were brought up to date and the Enquiry 
 re-published, it would be pronounced worthy of the 
 first literary ability in the present day. Still better 
 would it be to publish a Survey of the World in 
 1783 and in 1883 side by side, that men might 
 know what they owe on every side of progress, 
 secular as well as spiritual, to William Carey. 
 
 His praying, his talking, and his preaching, being 
 thus completed by his publishing, the faith of the 
 weaker brethren was braced to action at last. In 
 the same year, 1792, on the 30th May, Carey 
 preached in Nottingham, on the spot whence nine 
 years before the invitation to prayer had sounded 
 out, a sermon of which Dr. Ryland said : " If all 
 the people had lifted up their voice and wept, as the 
 children of Israel did at Bochim, I should not have 
 wondered at the effect ; it would only have seemed 
 proportionate to the cause, so clearly did he prove 
 the criminality of our supineness in the cause of 
 God." The preacher went for the text, in which 
 to lay deep and broad the foundation of Missions, to 
 the evangelical prophet, to the last twenty-six 
 chapters of Isaiab, in which the missionary triumph 
 springs from the travail of the Man of Sorrows, who 
 shall see a seed and shall be satisfied ; centres round 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 195 
 
 the marred visage and the wounded form of Him who 
 shall sj^rinkle many nations. From the picture in 
 Isaiah liv. 2, 3, of the little tent of a nomadic tribe 
 breaking out into the boundless canopy of the City 
 of God, Carey handed down to the Church ever 
 since the two pregnant maxims which are all that 
 remain of that sermon: "1. Expect great things 
 from God. 2. Attempt great things for God." 
 
 EetiriDg to the house (still standing) of a godly 
 widow, as if to secure, unconsciously, that woman 
 should take her place in the enterprise now as at its 
 beginning in Galilee and Calvary, the Mount of 
 Ascension and the Pentecostal upper room, twelve 
 ministers contributed £13, 2s. 6d., and signed the 
 resolutions which thus began : " (1) Desirous of 
 making an effort for the propagation of the Gospel 
 among the heathen, agreeably to what is recom- 
 mended in brother Carey's late publication on that 
 subject, we do solemnly agree to act in society 
 together for that purpose. (2.) As in the present 
 divided state of Christendom it seems that each 
 denomination, by exerting itself separately, is most 
 likely to accomplish the great ends of a Mission, it 
 is agreed that this society be called ' The Particular 
 (Calvinistic) Baptist Society for Propagating the 
 Gospel among the Heathen.'" Membership was 
 secured by a subscription of ten pounds at once, 
 or ten shillings and sixpence annually. The com- 
 mittee consisted of the Eev. John Eyland, Reynold 
 Hogg (Treasurer), William Carey, John Sutcliff, and 
 Andrew Fuller (Secretary). A layman almost im- 
 mediately succeeded Mr. Hogg as treasurer. Thus 
 o 
 
1^6 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 did the true Calvinism of Calvin vindicate itself, as 
 the first theological school to preach the evangel of 
 grace to all sinners. Thus did these despised Baptists 
 teach the lesson of toleration and catholicity. With 
 the modesty of gentlemen of Christ's school, they 
 went on to declare that, failing a mission of their 
 own, they would help the Moravian, Presbyterian, or 
 other missions then existing. Alas ! all that Presby- 
 terians did then was to send to Brainerd's successor 
 among the American Indians a dole from the Scottish 
 Propagation Society, and to seat in its Moderator's 
 chair the minister who had denounced missions to 
 the heathen as " highly preposterous." 
 
 To these men, dimly feeling their way amid the 
 darkness of the Church which had nearly lost its 
 hold of the Master's hand, and had altogether for- 
 gotten His last words, the world and its heathenism 
 looked like a blank unexplored mine, at the mouth 
 of the pit of which they stood. As Carey alone 
 offered to go down if they would hold the rope, they 
 seemed to themselves to take an oath to him that 
 they would never let the roi)e go. So Andrew Fuller 
 afterwards described the scene, when, in his study at 
 Kettering on the 10th January 1793, Carey agreed 
 to go to India. On the 26th M^rch thereafter, 
 a " holy convocation " was held in the chapel at 
 Leicester, where the Secretary gave the solemn charge 
 which sent the father of modern missions forth to 
 the millions of Hindostan. Thus Carey had led 
 England to become a missionary land once more, 
 had placed us in the van of the civilising races of 
 history. How was India prepared to receive him ? 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 197 
 
 England had not long before sent a Clive to 
 found the Empire of British India, and a "Warren 
 Hastings to consolidate it, both from old squire 
 families of the neighbouring counties. But from 
 the very heart of the people God early called Carey 
 to Christianise it, and from a village in the Gram])ians 
 He, in due time, sent Alexander Duff to receive from 
 the aged missionary's own mouth the apostolic mis- 
 sionary succession. But for the work represented 
 by Carey and Duff, even men of the world will admit 
 that the empire of Clive and Hastings would have 
 had no more of tlie salt of life and growth in it than 
 the world-empires which Daniel had seen in vision. 
 Two men were unconsciously used to prepare India 
 for William Carey. Charles Grant, a poor boy of 
 Inverness, had found his way out to Bengal in the 
 Civil Service, soon after Hastings. He had seen 
 thirteen millions of human beings swept away by the 
 most terrific famine of modern times — that of 1770. 
 He had learned, amid the responsibilities and the 
 solitude of an Indian career, the power of Christ. 
 From that hour he did not cease for half a century, 
 in India, in Parliament, in the Court of Directors of 
 the East India Company, and in the Press, to plead 
 that the Christian missionary and schoolmaster should 
 be sent to the Hindoos. He it was who stirred u]) 
 Wilberforce and even Pitt, Simeon and Sir James 
 Stephen, and the galaxy of evangelical philanthropists 
 who triumphed at last in the charter and the reforms 
 of 1833. And when he passed away he left behind 
 him two sons to continue his work, Lord Glenelg, 
 who administered the Colonies, and died in 186G, 
 
198 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 and Sir Kobert Grant, the Governor of Bombay 
 whose hymns we delight to sing in our churches and 
 families. At the time when the twelve country 
 ministers were founding the Baptist Missionary 
 Society at Kettering, Charles Grant was writing those 
 Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic 
 Subjects of Great Britain, ])articularly luith respect to 
 Morals, and on the means of imjrroving it, which 
 contain the germs of all Indian progress since the 
 House of Commons published the work in 1813. 
 Charles Grant had formed at Malda a scheme for 
 bringing out, chiefly at his own cost, eight mission- 
 aries, who were to qualify themselves for overthrow- 
 ing Brahmanism by study at Benares, but even 
 Simeon failed to find one Church of England clergy- 
 man willing to go. He had there become the centre 
 of a small Christian circle of godly civilians and 
 indigo-planters' families, through whom, all unwit- 
 tingly, he was providing a home for Carey. Thirty 
 years after this he wrote : " I had formed the design 
 of a mission to Bengal ; Providence reserved that 
 honour for the Baptists." 
 
 The second man who drew Carey to India was the 
 surgeon of an East Indiaman and his first colleague. 
 John Thomas, erratic enthusiast and first medical 
 missionary, found his way to the Christian com- 
 munity at Malda, whom he alternately edified by his 
 zeal and outraged by his fanatical eccentricity. He 
 was to Dissent and to Carey what John Newton, 
 once slave-trader, became to the Church of England 
 and to Cowper. The circumstance of his having 
 returned home from one of his long voyages at the 
 
WILLIAM CAKEY. 199 
 
 very time when his fellow-Baptists were considering 
 to what Land they should send their first agent, led 
 to the selection not only of India, but of Bengal, as 
 the scene of the Mission. Carey had thought of 
 Tahiti, and then of Western Africa ; the same wise 
 and loving Providence who had given India to us in 
 trust, sent there the man He had already trained 
 as if to teach England how He would have that 
 trust discharged. Christ sent forth His disciples 
 two and two, so Thomas was united with Carey, the 
 medical man with the preacher, the scholar, the 
 teacher, the giver of the Word of God, as Luke 
 with Paul. " We have not gone about this business 
 in a hurry," wrote Fuller, when asking Thomas if 
 he were willing to unite with the Society. " We 
 have been praying for it by monthly prayer-meetings 
 for these eight or nine years, and now we wish to 
 do something more than pray. We have solemnly 
 bound ourselves to God and one another at least to 
 make an effort, by individual subscriptions and 
 congregational collections." "You see," he wrote 
 to Eyland, "things of great consequence are in 
 train." • Yes, as one passes from the tombs of Carey 
 and his associates amid the dust of three genera- 
 tions of their native Christians in Serampore to 
 the grave of Andrew Fuller behind his church at 
 Kettering, and surveys the results of that year's 
 work, even man can see the grandeur of the con- 
 sequences which every year is unrolling before our 
 eyes, and only eternity will fully reveal. 
 
 When, after having been ejected from an East 
 Indiaman of that Company which has since perished 
 
200 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 as the victim of its blinded policy, and having been 
 carried in a vessel of Denmark which had sent out 
 the first Protestant Mission to South India, and was 
 to give them an asylum till their death, Carey and 
 his companion landed quietly at Calcutta, what did 
 they find ] We reserve for the central event of 
 history, the grand Greek phrase which, in all the 
 inspired as well as philosophic wealth of its meaning, 
 the missionary apostle applies to the state of the 
 Church and the world, when Christ came born of a 
 woman — "the Fulness of the Time" (Gal. iv. 4). 
 But the same apostle writes of " the dispensation 
 of the fulness of the times" (Eph. i. 10). If ever 
 that came in our national history, since we ourselves 
 received the gospel, it came then, when all these 
 events we have described conspired to send Carey 
 forth, and to receive him, that he might begin in 
 the heart of Hindooism, which is itself the very 
 kernel of idolatry, the work of gathering together 
 in Christ all things which the sin of ages had 
 separated, and is still striving to keep apart from the 
 One Fulness. 
 
 When, after touching at Balasore, Carey arrived 
 at Calcutta on the lltli November 1793, India 
 was in the same extreme of social and political 
 hopelessness, apparently, as the Europe which he 
 had left. The English had legally obtained the 
 sovereignty twenty-eight years before, but they had 
 continued to administer the country through corrupt 
 native officials. Nor were the Company's own 
 servants free from rapacity. Famine had desolated 
 vast tracts. Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-Geneial 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 201 
 
 after Warren Hastings, had ■ described agriculture 
 and internal trade as in a state of rapid decay. 
 His first step had been to create real property 
 in land by making "Zameendars" proprietors or 
 rent-collectors at a fixed rate for ten years. This 
 decennial settlement had just been made perpetual 
 before Carey landed. The peasant-proprietors had 
 thus been handed over to the exactions of the 
 large rent-receivers, in opposition to the opinion of 
 the new Governor-General, Sir John Shore, who, 
 when Lord Teignmouth, became the first President 
 of the Bible Society. A permanent settlement of 
 the land-tax with the people, on a system of corn 
 rents, might have made the now seventy millions of 
 Bengalees the most hopeful race of all Asia. But 
 this settlement doomed them to something like 
 praedial serfdom, which the Government to-day is 
 trying to correct, unrelieved by education and 
 intensified by the power of the money-lender using 
 our own civil courts. The seventy millions now 
 are paying thirteen millions sterling of rent to 20,000, 
 big landlords, who contribute only one-fourth of this 
 vast sum to the public treasury. Nor had the 
 judicial reforms introduced at the same time begun 
 to tell. Only one Christian missionary had been 
 seen north of Madras, the Swede Kiernander, whom 
 Clive had brought to Calcutta to do chaplain's 
 work. Not a Brahman had been baptized ; not one 
 of Kiernander's casteless converts had propagated 
 the faith ; not five converts from caste could be 
 found in all Hindostan proper. The millions 
 possessed not a page of the Bible or of a Christian 
 
202 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 book in their mother tongue. Their rich and 
 nervous and sweet vernaculars had no literary form 
 or works. From Calcutta across the breadth of 
 Eastern, Central, and Northern India, which had been 
 then thirty years under our sovereign rule, at least 
 a hundred millions of our new subjects walked in 
 what was far more a land of the shadow of death than 
 the evangelical prophet's Galilee of the nations 
 (Isaiah ix.). But now, for the first time — inscrutable 
 mystery — in all their far-reaching history wath its 
 Aryan literature, it could be said, " upon them hath 
 the light sinned." From this time began the 
 messengers of Jesus to preach and to say — " Repent 
 ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And 
 ever since, multitudes have rejoiced in the light. 
 In a sense peculiar to Bengalee and Burman, 
 Hindostanee and Sikh, Panjabee and Afghan, 
 Maratha and Goojaratee, Muhammadan and Parsee, 
 there has been fulfilled the prophecy, written when 
 as yet their Aryan ancestors were flocking south 
 from the uplands of Iran, and were chanting the 
 nature hymns of the Yedas : — 
 
 "Thou hast multiplied the nation, Thou hast increased 
 
 its joy ; 
 Thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff 
 
 of liis shoulder. 
 The rod of his oppi'essor. 
 
 For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, 
 Of the increase of His government and peace there 
 
 shall be no end." 
 
 The sun-rising was amid clouds, nevertheless, as 
 it was to Syria in Abraham's days ; and to Abraham's 
 experience Carey in his early years of solitude ever 
 
WILLIAM CAKEY. 203 
 
 turned. The Society, frowned on at first by the 
 leading Baptist ministers of London, and encouraged 
 only by John Newton, had raised a few hundred 
 pounds required for the passage of two missionaries 
 and their families, and also for their support for one 
 year. The latter sum was so invested, according to 
 the necessity of those pre-banking days, that it was 
 lost. Carey and his family had only starvation 
 before them, and he was indebted to a native for a 
 roof to shelter them. Toilsomely walking in the 
 sun, in the streets of Calcutta, as no European above 
 beggary ever dares to do, again at Nuddea and then 
 at Bandel, he found no help but in God. The 
 worthy chaplain, David Brown, who was afterwards 
 his friend till death, received him as a stranger, and 
 did not offer the dust-laden pedestrian a glass of 
 water. He apj^lied too late for an appointment 
 requiring botanical knowledge. He resolved to turn 
 to the jungle, there build a hut or two, and till 
 the ground as no white man can do in the tropics 
 with impunity. Meanwhile, assisted by an old 
 convert of Thomas, he preached daily in the streets 
 and markets of the capital, he disputed quietly with 
 Muhammadans, Jie worked at the language, he 
 enjoyed much communion with God. His wife had 
 reluctantly accompanied him, and she became a prey 
 to the mania which ultimately carried her off. They 
 had four children. His wife's sister was with them. 
 All these things were against him. His first gleam 
 of earthly hope was Avhen he sailed eastward to 
 farm a plot of tiger-haunted ground, and a neigh- 
 bouring official made tlie whole party his guests 
 
20-i THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 with Anglo-Indian hospitality. After months of 
 hardship and exposure which might have strangled 
 any lesser enterprise in the birth, Carey was invited 
 to Malda, to become an assistant indigo planter under 
 Charles Grant's friend, Mr. Udny. There for the 
 next six years he prepared himself for the Gospel 
 triumphs which, from the opening days of this 
 century, have been identified with Serampore. 
 
 The twelve village preachers whom the people's 
 prayer and Carey's faith had roused to attempt the 
 conversion to Christ of seven- eighths of the whole 
 human race with £13, 2s. 6d. in their treasury thus 
 began the organisation of modern missions. Out- 
 side of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles 
 they had only one precedent, the Moravian. From 
 the first Carey had adopted the plan that he, and 
 all missionaries, should be self-supporting after the 
 first year's experience in a heathen land, and should 
 form a brotherhood with a common purse. Hence 
 the whole sum allowed to Carey and Thomas, their 
 wives and children, was £200. Carey was to work 
 with his hands, as the Lord Himself did at Nazareth, 
 as Paul did all his life. Thomas had his profes- 
 sion, and he knew the language of the people well. 
 By an oversight the books for Bible translation, 
 tools and seeds ordered by Carey on his arrival, 
 were not sent for two years. He had no sooner 
 escaped from the six months' destitution and ex- 
 posure into the position of a manufacturer of indigo 
 on Rs. 200 a month — then equivalent to £300 a year 
 — than he wrote to the Society that he would not 
 require even the meagre support they had promised 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 205 
 
 liim, but vvouid like to see it devoted to a mission 
 to Africa, which was at once done. Tiie heroism 
 was Abraham's, as was the trial of faith. From his 
 personal income he established his mission, first 
 among the ninety native subordinates on the factory, 
 then in two hundred villages in which he regularly 
 itinerated, then all over the two counties of Dinaj- 
 pore and Malda, which now have a population 
 equal to that of Scotland at that period, and soon in 
 the neighbouring state of Bhootan on the Himalayan 
 slopes, from which he hoped to push into Tibet, one 
 of the few lands still shut against the Gospel. He 
 preached in Bengalee once every day and more 
 frequently on Sunday ; he founded a church w^hicli 
 required ministrations in English, and he won the 
 gratitude of the leading civilians of the Company. 
 He established schools for the people and projected a 
 college where Sanskrit and Persian should be taught, 
 and the students should be boarded after the simple 
 fashion of the Brahmanical Toh. He studied and 
 wrote with scientific accuracy on the varied natural 
 history of the district, its men, its beasts, its plants, 
 its agriculture, its communications. Above all he so 
 learned the language that in three years he translated 
 the New Testament, and in six years nearly the whole 
 Bible into Bengalee, of which he wrote the rudiments 
 of a grammar and dictionary. 
 
 If it be asked how all this was honestly possible 
 for one who was a grower and manufacturer of 
 indigo, the answer is, that William Carey worked and 
 prayed fifteen hours a day. His economy of time 
 was not less remarkable than his power of memory 
 
206 THE EVAXGELTCAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 and his linsruistic crift. All the time he was what 
 the East India Company officially termed an 
 " interloper," on sufferance. Under a regulation as 
 barbarous as that of the Chinese rnlers of Tibet, and 
 as rigorously applied to keep out Christian mission- 
 aries, Carey had a five years' passport as an indigo 
 planter, without which he too would have been de- 
 ported. Even up till the charter of 1833, our own 
 missionaries, John Wilson and Alexander Duff, had 
 to procure such a document, not only for themselves, 
 but for the young ladies they were about to marry. 
 Carey's first letters and journals, especially those 
 from Dinajpore, set the little evangelical world of 
 England and Scotland on fire. They are modest, 
 and seem even cold enough to us who read them 
 now in the Periodical Accounts, for he had not one 
 purely native convert to tell of. But to the 
 spiritual discernment of tliat time they were 
 redolent of lively faith and most reasonable hope. 
 They fell upon hearts in every Church prepared by 
 the Spirit, and longing for the life which service 
 begets from faith. They led directly and im- 
 mediately to the creation of the great London, the 
 Scottish, the Glasgow, and the Church Missionary 
 Societies, and after a time to the formation of the 
 Bible Society. Nowhere did they produce a more 
 profound impression than in Scotland. Presbyterian 
 ministers in England, like David Bogue, had been 
 the founders, and like Love, the first secretary of the 
 catliolic London Missionary Society. But in Scot- 
 land, which soon established two missionary societies 
 of its own, the letters of Carey called forth the most 
 
WILLIAM CAKEV. 207 
 
 Splendid home act of self-denial which the history of 
 the Church records, and second only to the self- 
 surrender of Carey and his associates. 
 
 Robert Haldane sold Airthrey, the beautiful estate 
 in the shadow of the Ochils, which he had been 
 adorning for ten years. Going to his friends Pitt 
 and Dundas, this Scottish gentleman declared his 
 determination to take out with him, at his own 
 cost, three ministers of the Church of Scotland, one 
 printer, and several catechists, in order to set up a 
 mission in the very centre of Hindooism, at Benares. 
 Bogue, then forty-seven, and Innes and Greville 
 Ewing, famous young preachers of Edinburgh under 
 thirty, were to be the missionaries, and John Ritchie, 
 the printer, was to superintend the press, " aided by 
 catechists, city missionaries, and schoolmasters." 
 The energetic John Campbell was to be the first 
 catechist. To this mission, on a gigantic scale for 
 these days, after all the ex})enses of establishing it at 
 Benares, Robert Haldane devoted £35,500 in case of 
 his death. The East India Company reprobated the 
 enterprise, as they had three years before got 
 Dundas to strike out of the charter of 1793 
 Wilberforce's " pious clauses," under which such a 
 mission would have been legalised. For another 
 twenty years, at least, the taunt of Burke was to 
 remain true of our empire in India : " With us no 
 pride erects stately monuments which repair the 
 mischiefs which pride has produced, and which adorn 
 a country out of its own spoils. England has 
 erected no churches, no hospitals, no palaces, no 
 schools. Every other conqueror of every other 
 
208 THK EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 desciipLiuii has lett some luoiiument, either of state 
 or beneficence behind him ! " Yes, for up to that 
 time it was a German, sent out by the Danes, who 
 had built the only church and schools for the natives, 
 and one of these in a Hindoo Rajah's palace. 
 Schwartz was already dying when his apostolic 
 successor, Carey, wrote to him a pathetic letter 
 which it fell to Guericke to answer. 
 
 The epistles of the more outspoken Thomas, and 
 of Fountain, who had been sent out as their first 
 colleague, had an effect of a different kind on the 
 anti-evangelical world of England. In an unhappy 
 hour, for which Francis Jeffrey afterwards expressed 
 his deep regret to Dr. Marshman, the Edinburgh 
 Review published a sarcastic attack on the Baptist 
 Mission, by the Rev. Sydney Smith. This the author 
 fortunately republished in his collected works, so 
 that all succeeding generations are enabled to con- 
 vict him of malicious blindness, as they see in the 
 ever-growing development of the missions founded 
 by Carey the salt of modern progress. The attack 
 seemed so outrageous even then, however, to the 
 conductors of the Quarterly Review, that its first 
 immber for 1809 contained an article on Sanskrit 
 Grammars, in which an eulogy is passed on Dr. 
 Carey's philological labours on grounds of pure 
 scholarship ; and another, in which the poet Southey 
 tells the story of the Baptist Mission, and advocates 
 the duty and the policy of missions to India in the 
 language of a statesman, and with the faith of a 
 Christian. What said the Quarterly, then just 
 established, and ever since identified with the 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 209 
 
 principles of the Erastian Church of which Sydney 
 Smith was a canon, and of a Conservative State ? 
 " There is ability and there is learning in the Church 
 of England, but its age of fermentation has long 
 been over, and that zeal which for this work is the 
 most needful is, we fear, possessed only by the 
 Methodists." Happily that is no longer true, but 
 it is still necessary to remind that non-evangelical 
 half of the Church of England, which has so often 
 told the Christians of India and the heathens of 
 Africa and Madagascar that true Christianity can- 
 not reach them save through a fictitious " grace of 
 orders," of what their own Southey said, with his 
 layman's love of fair play and truth : " We are 
 neither blind to what is erroneous in their doctrine 
 or ludicrous in their phraseology; but the anti- 
 missionaries . . . keep out of sight their love of men 
 and their zeal for God, their self-devotement, their in- 
 defatigable industry, and their unequalled learning. 
 . . . In fourteen years these low-born, low-bred me- 
 chanics have done more towards spreading the 
 knowledge of the Scriptures among the heathen 
 than has been accomplished or even attempted by 
 all the princes and potentates of the Avorld — and 
 all the Universities and Establishments into the 
 bargain. ... Do not think to supersede the Baptist 
 Missionaries till you can provide from your own 
 Church such men as these ; and, it may be added, 
 such women as their wives." Bishops Selwyn and 
 Patteson among the dead, and Caldwell among the 
 living, have done something to redeem this reproach, 
 but it is by walking in the footsteps of Carey. 
 
210 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Thus far we have surveyed the Evangelical Pre- 
 Ijaration, rather than the missionary triumphs of 
 William Carey, for two reasons. It is important 
 that you should watch how Protestant Christen- 
 dom came to see its Missionary Reformation some 
 three centuries after it had begun to pass through 
 the doctrinal and biblical Reformation of Luther. 
 And, after having for sixteen years lived, day by 
 day, in Carey's study, in his home, in his garden, 
 beside his college, and amid his converts' children, 
 where all the localities Avere very much as he 
 left them on his death, I cannot here without 
 emotion dwell on details which should find a more 
 appropriate place of record. But his life and work 
 of the third of a century at Serampore may thus be 
 generalised : — 
 
 When, in 1799, four colleagues and their families, 
 of whom Marsh man and Ward deserve an eulogy 
 second only to himself, were sent out in an Ameri- 
 can ship, they found toleration for the religion of 
 England only under the Danish flag at Serampore, 
 then governed by Colonel Bie, a friend of Schwartz. 
 They were there joined by Carey, with his mastery of 
 the language, his knowledge of the people and 
 climate, his translation of the New Testament, his 
 grammars, his unique missionary experience. Seram- 
 pore, which has still 25,000 inhabitants, was then 
 a river-port with large trade which the English 
 officials were glad to use for remitting home their 
 savings. Here, opposite the summer-palace which 
 the new Governor-General, the Duke of Wellington's 
 great brother, was beginning to build on the north 
 
WILLIAM CAIIEY. 211 
 
 side of the Hoogli at Barraclq3ore, the mission- 
 aries bought a house, enlarged and added to it a 
 chapel, with a noble park which soon became a 
 Botanic Garden. They deliberately formed a 
 Brotherhood which stands out in the annals of 
 modern Missions as those of lona and Lindisfarne, 
 Banchor and Lerina, Monte Casino and Corbie in the 
 similarly dark days of Europe. As the three grew 
 old, they added to their number Dr. Marshman's 
 accomplished son, and two ripe young scholars and 
 missionaries from the Universities of Edinburgh and 
 Glasgow, Mack and Leechman. Save occasional 
 grants for buildings and Bible translation, they re- 
 ceived no support from the Baptist Society, of which 
 they continued the loyal agents and loving friends 
 all through the secretaryship of Andrew Fuller, who 
 died in 1815. They vested the whole of the pro- 
 perty which they accumulated in the Society, but 
 wisely reserved its control to themselves as trustees. 
 They lived at first under one roof, ate at one 
 table, always had one purse, and reckoned no- 
 thing to be their own or their children's save, in 
 time, the small annuity provided for widows and 
 aged parents dependent upon them alone. For once, 
 at least, since the days of Barnabas and Stephen 
 they realised, in loving harmony yet full personal 
 independence, the apostolic ideal. From the first 
 streak of dawn in the eastern sky, which is marked 
 by gunfire in every cantonment, to near midnight, 
 these three men, two of their wives, and their asso- 
 ciates, worked for India in a way which more than 
 doubled the efficiency and results of each worker. 
 
212 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Private prayer and meditation on the Scriptures, 
 preaching and teaching in the Bengalee and English, 
 and intercourse with native converts and inquirers, 
 were common to all. Carey was pre-eminently the 
 scholar, who translated and superintended the trans- 
 lation of the Bible into forty Indian languages and 
 dialects ; and he was the Professor of three lan- 
 guages in the College of Fort William, where he 
 trained the young English civilians, and so influenced 
 many that they established or aided missions in 
 their own stations afterwards. Dr. Marshman was 
 also the scholar, for he was the first translator of the 
 Bible into Chinese, and the first who i^rinted. 
 it with metal types ; but he was the organiser, the 
 man of business, the writer, and he kept a large 
 school for Eurasian boys. Ward, printer and 
 editor, was master of the mighty press, with its type- 
 foundry and paper factory, sending forth "more 
 than 212,000 volumes of the Divine Word in forty 
 different languages" before Carey passed away, 
 besides countless English and Bengalee books, tracts, 
 magazines, and newspapers. Mack and Leechman 
 were untiring professors in the college. John 
 Marshman, C.S.I., who has lately passed away, so 
 that we may speak of his good deeds with the more 
 freedom that they have not yet found a chronicler, 
 was the teaching and literary member of the staff. 
 His school-books in English and Bengalee, his law- 
 books, his Biography of the Three Giants, his splendid 
 gifts to the natives of India, and above all his con- 
 version of the once quarterly and monthly into the 
 weekly Friend of Indicia which ceased only in 1875, 
 
WILLIAM CAREY. 213 
 
 mark him out as the most worthy member of the 
 Brotherhood next to the Three. The accounts I my- 
 self have handled prove that these men contributed 
 to the cause of God from their own earnings ninety 
 thousand pounds, and the Three left their children 
 penniless. 
 
 The secret of a self-sacrifice unparalleled in the 
 whole history of the Church, and offered to the Lord 
 with an unconsciousness of anything like heroism, 
 which gives it immortal bloom, was found in Carey's 
 childlike soul. It was perpetuated in a spiritual 
 covenant which the three missionary heroes and 
 their families entered into, and to which they 
 adhered till death. On Monday, 7th October 1805, 
 they drew up and signed a "Form of Agreement 
 respecting the Great Principles upon which the 
 Brethren of the Mission at Serampore think it 
 their duty to act in the work of Instructing the 
 Heathen." This agreement was read publicly, at 
 every station, at the three annual meetings on 
 the first Lord's day in January, in May, and in 
 October. The remarkable document, which covers 
 twelve printed octavo pages, expounds in lofty and 
 catholic language these points upon which " we think 
 it right to fix our serious and abiding attention." 
 (1.) It is absolutely necessary that we set an infinite 
 value upon immortal souls. (2.) That we gain all 
 information of the snares and delusions in which 
 these heathens are held. (3.) That we abstain from 
 those things which would increase their prejudices 
 against the Gospel. (4.) That we watch all oppor- 
 tunities of doing good. (5.) That we keep to the 
 
214 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 example of Paul, and make the great subject of our 
 preaching Christ the Crucified. (6.) That the 
 natives should have an entire confidence in us, and 
 feel quite at home in our company. (7.) That we 
 build up and watch over the souls that may be 
 gathered. (8.) That we form our native brethren 
 to usefulness, fostering every kind of genius and 
 cherishing every gift and grace in them, especially 
 advising the native churches to choose their pastors 
 and deacons from amongst their own countrymen. 
 (9.) That we labour with all our might in forwarding 
 translations of the sacred Scriptures in the languages 
 of India, and that we establish native free schools, and 
 recommend their establishment to other Europeans. 
 (10.) That we be constant in prayer and the cultiva- 
 tion of personal religion, to fit us for the discharge 
 of these laborious and unutterably important labours. 
 " Let us often look at Brainerd, in the woods of 
 America, pouring out his very soul before God for 
 the perishing heathen without whose salvation 
 nothing could make him happy." (11.) "Let us 
 give ourselves up unreservedly to this glorious cause. 
 Let us never think that our time, our gifts, our 
 strength, our families, or even the clothes we wear, 
 are our own. Let us sanctify them all to God and 
 His cause. Oh that He may sanctify us for His 
 work ! ... No private family ever enjoyed a greater 
 portion of happiness than we have done since we 
 resolved to have all things in common. If we are 
 enabled to persevere, we may hope that multitudes 
 of converted souls would have reason to bless God 
 to all eternity for sending His Gospel into this 
 
WILLIxVM CAREY. 215 
 
 country." That Agreement embodies the divine 
 principles of all evangelical missions since. It is 
 a manual to be daily pondered by all missionary 
 men and women^ and every Church and society 
 which sends them forth. Its heroism of humble 
 faith reveals the secret of the success with which the 
 Spirit of God then visited, and has ever since 
 followed the Brotherhood of Serampore. 
 
 Carey lived till 1 834. The evangelical missionary 
 became the friend of the Irish Lord AYellesley, the 
 "glorious little man," who said that he valued 
 his good opinion more than any honour he had 
 received ; of the Scottish Marquis of Hastings, 
 who, after a visit to Serampore in 1815, recorded 
 his admiration of the enterprise of the missionaries, 
 and especially of their Bible translations; of the 
 English Lord William Bentinck, who, in 1829, for 
 ever abolished that burning of widows which the 
 missionary had first denounced thirty years before. 
 Carey lived to see nearly all the heathen crimes he had 
 attacked put down in British India; all the intolerance 
 from which he had suffered, stopped ; all the social 
 and philanthropic reforms he had advocated, adopted, 
 all the eternal principles for which he had given his 
 life, triumphant both in India and England, in spite 
 of the East India Company at its worst. Strong in 
 faith, irresistible in the might of his humility, he 
 transformed public opinion by informing it, and used 
 the Christian consciousness in England and in India 
 to make Missions abroad and at home what they are 
 at this day. It was the story of his life, as told in 
 Simeon's rooms at Cambridge, that drew Henry 
 
216 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Martyn to work and pray by his side in the deserted 
 pagoda of Aldeen. It was the influence of his faith 
 that sent Judson to Burma. It was the knowledge 
 of his deeds that fixed on him the reverent gaze of 
 the young John Wilson of Bombay, who pronounced 
 him the most honoured and most successful mission- 
 ary since the time of the Apostles. It was the 
 blessing of the old man, entering his seventieth 
 3^ear, that nerved the young Alexander Duff to take 
 up the falling mantle of the saint who had been the 
 means of bringing the first Brahman to Christ, and 
 of creating the first College (in 1819) for the training 
 of Brahmans and outcasts alike to be ministers of 
 Christ to their countrymen. The pilgrims of Pro- 
 testantism, from Europe and America, go to Seram- 
 pore to see the tombs, the chapel, the Christian 
 settlement, the college, the library of Carey and his 
 associates, the Bibles, grammars, and dictionaries they 
 produced in forty languages. Their work has long 
 since left that centre to cover Southern Asia. Their 
 Bibles are found in every tongue, from Calcutta to 
 Kandahar, from Bomba}^ to Peking. Their first con- 
 vert of 1800, a carpenter of caste, and their first 
 Brahman disciple of 1803, have grown into a native 
 Protestant community of 600,000 souls at this day, 
 increasing at the rate of eighty per cent, every de- 
 cade, and of Christians of every kind, in India, there 
 are now two millions. This is only the beginning 
 of the " great things " which Carey expected, and 
 therefore attempted for God, when "hearty and 
 persevering" prayer for them began a hundred 
 years ago. 
 
WILLIAM CAEEY. 217 
 
 Since Carey went to Bengal, and even in the one 
 lifetime of seventy years since the India charter of 
 1813, the earth has become to its Christian inhabi- 
 tants like a new world. The one British Empire 
 has grown till it contains nearly one-fourth of the 
 whole human race, or 315 millions who increase by 
 25 millions every decade. It has an annual revenue 
 of 185 millions sterling, and an external trade worth 
 1000 millions a year ! It has given a language 
 and a literature to so many more millions, and 
 these the multiplying races, that English is the 
 written or spoken tongue of nearly half human- 
 kind. Great Britain spans the Old World and the 
 New, reaching from furthest Burma and China on one 
 side of the Pacific round the globe to most distant 
 Columbia on the other. She mediates between East 
 and West. She stretches from a hoary past more 
 remote than any that history records outside of 
 Judaism, to a future which only Christian faith dares 
 to estimate. That it is to Great Britain such a 
 leadership of the race has been given, is due — every 
 Bible-student must believe — to Christianity. That 
 our country was guided, by no will of its own, to be 
 aggressively Christian, a century ago, is owing to 
 one above all other men, to William Carey. 
 
 That the work of evangelical or missionary 
 Christianity has only begun, in spite of all this — 
 so long as the Gospel claims but one-fourth of the 
 race, and is actively sent forth, or earnestly prayed 
 for, by only one-fourth of the members of the 
 Catholic Church — is the confession of our own faith- 
 lessness w^ith which it becomes us to close this study 
 
218 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 of the greatest and meekest missionary of Christ 
 since Paul. 
 
 Carey, childlike in his humility, is the most 
 striking illustration in all Hagiology, Protestant or 
 Komanist, of the Lord's declaration to the Twelve, 
 when He had set a little child in the midst of them, 
 " Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, 
 the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven " 
 (Matt, xviii. 4). Yet Ave, ninety years after he went 
 forth with the Gospel to Hindostan, may venture to 
 place him where the Church History of the future is 
 even more likely to keep him — amid the seven un- 
 crowned kings of men, who have made Christian 
 England what it is under God to its own people and 
 to half the human race. These are Chaucer, the 
 Father of English Verse ; Wiclif, the Father of the 
 Evangelical Eeformation in all lands ; Hooker, 
 the Father of English Prose; Shakespeare, the 
 Father of English Literature ; Milton, the Father 
 of the English Epic ; Bunyan, the Father of English 
 Allegory ; Carey, the Father of English Missions. 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 
 
 By the Rev. R. J. Sandeman, Edinburgh. 
 
 ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE YINET was bom 
 on the 17th of June 1797, at Ouchy, on the 
 lake of Geneva, near Lausanne, the chief town of the 
 Canton de Vaud. The inn there where Lord Byron 
 wrote " The Prisoner of Chillon," " thus adding one 
 more deathless association to the already immor- 
 talised beauties of the lake," is in summer a great 
 resort of English tourists. Of these pilgrims not 
 one in a hundred knows that in the square tower 
 which dominates the village the greatest light of 
 modern French Protestantism was born. To most 
 of them the name of Vinet is unknown. His family, 
 which came originally from Switzerland, had been 
 settled in France for several generations. In a 
 moment of irritation with a freak of Swiss demo- 
 cracy, he spoke of himself as belonging to France 
 already by language, almost by birth, by literary 
 habitudes and by the keenest joys of his intelligence, 
 and as upon the point of claiming French Citizen- 
 ship. Yet of the Canton de Yaud he could say : " I 
 have loved this land of my fathers, this home of 
 my childhood ; its interests and its honour have 
 been ever dear to my heart." 
 
220 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Marc Vinet, his father, was a man of great talent 
 and elevated character. Brought up according to 
 the strict Huguenot tradition, he was extremely 
 conscientious, severe alike to himself and to others. 
 Starting in life as a schoolmaster at twenty louis ])er 
 annum, he passed through many vicissitudes of 
 fortune, and at last succeeded in obtaining a petty 
 government appointment which he held till his 
 death. Very affectionate, but devoid of imagination 
 and sympathy, he was a stern and exacting father, 
 especially to Alexandre, whose slow development 
 vexed him, and whose excessive sensitiveness he could 
 not understand. He made himself a terror to the 
 timid, morbidly sensitive child, who trembled when 
 he heard his father's footsteps on the stair as he 
 came home to meals. At the sight of his father the 
 child cried, promised not to cry, but cried still. 
 Alexandre had an unfailing refuge in his mother, 
 who was a woman of strong common sense and 
 " goodness itself," and a solace in books, with which 
 a friendly bookseller freely supplied him ; but the 
 severity of his father cast a shadow uj^on his child- 
 hood. Even after he entered college, at a students' 
 festivity where he was acting the part of cup-bearer, 
 the sudden view of his father's profile in an obscure 
 corner caused a thrill of terror which he never 
 through life forgot. The stern discipline was too 
 much for the tender sensitive nature. It aggravated 
 if it did not create an extraordinary nervous weak- 
 ness, which he deplored but could never overcome. 
 As he grew older, however, he discovered that this 
 severity was only a mistaken form of affection. 
 
ALEXANDKE KODOLPHE VINET. 221 
 
 Of liis father he himself says : *' The seventy of 
 his judgment was equal to his love for me : affec- 
 tion carried him into severity, just as it carries 
 others into indulgence." Vinet on his removal 
 to Basle corresponded regularly with his father by 
 letter. This correspondence is beautifully frank 
 and singularly full and minute in its reference to 
 the incidents of daily life. It is the free familiar 
 converse of two souls who have nothing to conceal 
 from one another, and whose interests are identical. 
 Parental love, as exacting as ever, criticises freely, 
 and seeks to make its object perfect in everything 
 from moral conduct down to the niceties of French 
 style and penmanship. Filial love, having cast out 
 fear, speaks with perfect freedom. Vinet, when 
 his father died, was overwhelmed with grief, and 
 in a letter to a friend wrote : "My well-beloved 
 father has been so long the light of my judgment 
 and the point of view of all my relations, that I seem 
 now to be in an unnatural state ; the spring of my 
 life is broken ; I have lost my way in the world, and 
 it is only when I raise my eyes to heaven that I find 
 anything immutable, sure, eternal." 
 
 In the Academy of Lausanne which he entered in 
 his thirteenth year the teaching power was at a very 
 low ebb. No lofty intellectual ideal was held np to 
 awake enthusiasm ; and the youth, wearied of the 
 mill-round of tasks that seemed to lead to nothing, 
 gave themselves up to social dissipation and desultory 
 reading. Vinet found employment chiefly in the 
 study of French literature and in literary composition, 
 writing verses with amazing facility. With overflow- 
 
222 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ing spirits and unfailing good humour lie was the life 
 of the college reunions. He entered with the keenest 
 relish into every innocent pleasure of student life. 
 
 Vinet made choice of the ministerial profession, 
 in compliance with his father's desire, without con- 
 straint, with a serious purpose, but without any- 
 thing that indicated a marked vocation. His highest 
 ambition was a quiet life of benevolence in a coun- 
 try parsonage. Most of the clergy, while their creed 
 was orthodox and their outward conduct correct, 
 manifested little of the evangelical spirit. In their 
 sermons they affected a literary in contradistinction to 
 a Biblical style, and for the most part confined them- 
 selves to an inculcation of the moral duties. Yinet 
 afterwards said of the preaching to which he then 
 listened : " A wooden orthodoxy sought to march 
 straight to a tottering morality which it endeavoured 
 to support by isolated fragments of Scripture." 
 Every special manifestation of religious earnest- 
 ness was discountenanced by the clergy. On the 
 Sunday evenings the students acted little comedies 
 and played cards in the parsonages with the wives 
 and daughters of the pastors of Lausanne. Among 
 the clergy, however, there was one outstanding indi- 
 vidual who, through the sincerity and depth of his 
 religious convictions and the force of his character, 
 exercised an immense influence for good. This was 
 Dean Curtat, one of the city ministers of Lausanne, 
 and the acknowledged leader of the clergy of the 
 canton. His fresh, fervid, manly preaching, which 
 was much run after, compelled attention. It touched 
 the conscience. It went straight to the heart. But 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 223 
 
 it was not only through his preaching that Dean 
 Curtat influenced the students. With the view of 
 supplementing the very defective theological course 
 of tlie Academy, he had a conference with them 
 twice a week in his study, at which controverted 
 topics were discussed, and sermons read by the 
 students, and criticised. In these conferences the 
 Dean was always lively and energetic. " You felt 
 that there was concentrated fire within." The 
 originality and force of his character gave a piquancy 
 and charm to everything he said. While his own 
 views of Gospel-truth were defective, he communi- 
 cated an evangelical direction and impulse to many, 
 which carried them far beyond the point which he 
 himself had reached. When the great Eeligious 
 Revival visited the Canton de Vaud, Dean Curtat 
 regarded it with suspicion, and became its bitterest 
 opponent. But its chief supporters were the young 
 ministers whose religious life had been kindled at 
 his conferences. They attributed to his influence 
 the origin of the whole movement. One of them 
 said of him : " He put our fingers upon the latch, 
 but he did not open the door to us." 
 
 Vinet has warmly acknowledged his obligations to 
 Dean Curtat. He was not, however, during his 
 College career awakened to a true and independent 
 religious life. The most striking feature of his 
 character was moral earnestness, combined with ex- 
 quisite tenderness. His large, massive, bodily frame, 
 with its fine nervous organisation, represented the 
 remarkable union of strength and refinement in his 
 personality. He is described as a big, broad-chested, 
 
224 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ungainly, coarse-featured youth, who, when he smiled 
 or spoke, revealed a feminine delicacy. Madame de 
 Montholieu, at the close of a conversation in which 
 he had taken part, after he left the room, asked : 
 " Who is that ugly young man that becomes beau- 
 tiful when he speaks V To the earnestness and 
 sincerity of his character one of his fellow-students, 
 and most intimate friends, bears testimony : " As 
 far back," he says, " as my recollections go, I saw in 
 Vinet an inborn need of truth, of rectitude, of frank- 
 ness, of clearness. Thus, when still very young, he 
 was scandalised at the oath which the members of 
 the Grand Council, of whom many were notorious 
 unbelievers, were obliged to take on assuming their 
 functions, as also at the oath required of catechu- 
 mens before admission to the Lord's Table ; and in 
 general in all relations, among friends and acquaint- 
 ances, he was always afraid lest the word should go 
 beyond the thought." 
 
 While Vinet was pursuing his studies, M. Charles 
 Monnard, in the course of his candidature for the 
 vacant professorship of French Literature in the 
 Academy of Lausanne, held, according to ancient 
 custom, a public disputation. The young Vinet 
 came forward to break a lance with the Professor 
 as the champion of the Classical against the Eo- 
 mantic School. In this appearance he acquitted 
 himself with such remarkable ability that, chiefly 
 through the influence of Monnard, he obtained the 
 post of Master of the French Language and Litera- 
 ture in the Gymnasium at Basle. He threw himself 
 enthusiastically into the work of teaching. He 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 225 
 
 laboured with untiring energy, giving lessons pub- 
 licly and privately from twenty-nine to thirty-two 
 hours a week. He says : " The interest of the studies 
 to which I devote myself, and, above all, the affection 
 of my pupils, make me love the post where Provi- 
 dence has placed me." He was a born educator. 
 Even the French Grammar became in his hands an 
 instrument of intellectual discipline and moral in- 
 fluence. In addition to his Mastership he received 
 the appointment of Extraordinary Professor in the 
 University. Two years after his removal to Basle, 
 he paid a brief visit to Lausanne, where, on com- 
 pleting his examinations, he was admitted to the 
 Christian ministry. He was at the same time united 
 in marriage to his cousin, Mademoiselle de Eottaz, 
 who proved to him a singular blessing. I cannot 
 follow his career at Basle in detail. Besides teach- 
 ing five or six hours a day, he preached frequently, 
 delivered courses of lectures, and wrote articles for 
 various periodicals which were read with admiration 
 by the most eminent men of the day. It was in the 
 humble position of French Master in a German 
 school, with a salary of about £100 a year, that 
 Vinet, by the force of his genius, seconded by his 
 indomitable industry, gained a foremost place 
 among the Christian thinkers of Europe. 
 
 At the University town of Basle Vinet came, for 
 the first time, into contact with the bold inquiring 
 spirit of German scientific theology. His traditional 
 opinions on many points were shaken. He felt an 
 imperative need of independent views. His father, 
 alarmed for his orthodoxy, earnestly warned him 
 
226 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 against the jDrcsumption of setting up his own 
 opinions, the opinions of a youth of twenty, against 
 the doctrine of the Church. Vinet, in a letter to 
 M. Leresche, said that with all his heart he hated 
 the domination of ecclesiastical authority. In this 
 mood, he saw even in the earnest Biblical piety of 
 the friends of the well-known Basle Missionary 
 Institute only a blind and servile faith. Of the 
 Missionary Society he spoke with contempt as an 
 English importation " maintained, some thought, 
 primarily for political ends;" and of its supporters, 
 he said : " These people are always furious against 
 reason, always preaching blind faith, servile submis- 
 sion ; the law of Christ is a law of light, and the 
 apostles were not pietists." 
 
 The process of independent inquiry gave rise to 
 a conflict and confusion in his understanding, through 
 which in regard to many things he fell a prey to 
 the most painful scepticism. But the consciousness 
 that essential vital trutli was so enshrined in his 
 heart as to be unassailable kept him tranquil. In 
 a letter to Professor Monnard, speaking of the 
 investigation in which he was engaged, he says : 
 " When in this conflict there are sacred truths, which 
 are in some degree imperilled, they are treasured 
 and preserved by feeling. I rejoice to be able to 
 say to you that for me there are several which have 
 nothing to fear from the investigation, because they 
 have taken refuge in my heart. Of this sort are 
 religion and i)atriotism, and why should I support 
 them by proofs 1 If God has deposited them in 
 my heart as a sacred asylum, while he will defend 
 
ALEXANDRE EODOLPHE VINET. 227 
 
 them against myself, would it not be a great 
 absurdity to assail them, or to bolster them up by 
 outside supports 1 Must one not in many cases 
 trust feeling as well as reason 1 " Yet the faith of 
 Vinet at this time was but the faith of tradition 
 and custom. It was not the individual appropriat- 
 ing faith that receives Christ as the light of the 
 intellisrence and the life of the heart. 
 
 CD 
 
 The wave of the great Kevival of Religion, which 
 passed over Europe in the beginning of the present 
 century, had reached the Canton de Vaud. There 
 evangelical truth, though never expressly denied, had 
 been long ignored in the preaching of the Church. 
 In the year 1820, twenty-five candidates for the 
 office of schoolmaster were being examined upon 
 their religious principles. The examiners put to 
 each the question : " Upon what foundation does the 
 Christian's hope of eternal salvation rest ? " Only 
 one of them pronounced the name of Jesus Christ 
 in his answer. In view of this state of matters, a 
 Roman Catholic Canon of Yalais said that the 
 religion of Calvin would have become extinct in 
 the Canton de Vaud had it not been for the 
 Methodists. 
 
 Vinet was at first more repelled than attracted 
 by the promoters of the Revival. Dean Curtat, who 
 was hostile to the movement, had written a violent 
 pamphlet against conventicles. At a conventicle 
 held under the auspices of Csesar Malan of Geneva, 
 known as " the Csesar of the Swiss Revival," prayer 
 was offered for the opponent of the Revival, that 
 God would give him light and love. The prayer 
 
90J 
 
 THE EVAXGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 appeared in an account of the conventicle published 
 with great imprudence by Malan. Vinet, in a little 
 brochure, expressed his indignation against this 
 public insult, as he regarded it, to his beloved 
 master. He denounced the doctrine of the Revival 
 as " new, sectarian, and a curious mixture of pride 
 and humility." Some years later, after he had 
 identified himself with the cause of Evanuelism, an 
 opponent made a handle of these words against 
 him. Vinet at once retracted them, saying that he 
 had "judged ignorantly, rashly, and wrongly." 
 
 Sometime in the course of the summer of 1823, 
 there took place a great and decisive change in his 
 views. At what precise date or in what form the 
 Heavenly Vision appeared, he never told, either 
 because he was fastidiously averse to such dis- 
 closures, or because he was unable clearly to read his 
 his own experience. " The first indication," his bio- 
 grapher says, " of a religious life really independent, 
 " and with marked features of individuality, followed 
 the distress occasioned by the death of his father, 
 and the excruciating attacks of a malady, brought on 
 by an accidental injury, which entailed life-long suffer- 
 ing." "Rome," says Vinet, "might be more easily 
 built than a man converted in a single day. Such a 
 prodigy is possible with God, but in a thousand, in 
 ten thousand cases to one, we may safely predict he 
 will not perform it." The spiritual process in his 
 case extended through many months; but of its 
 special character and progressive stages we know 
 nothing. The grand result however was a solemn 
 vow of service embodied in a poem which he com- 
 
ALEXANDRE IIODOLPHE VINET. 229 
 
 posed in August 1823. Not with the rapture of a 
 Charles "Wesley, but in his own subdued and humble 
 fashion, he says : " Lord, cast thine eyes upon the 
 tardy offering which my timorous piety brings to 
 thine altar." His life henceforward, in the spirit of 
 that vow, was a thankoffering most humbly but most 
 unreservedly laid upon the altar. 
 
 The public question that first stirred the soul of 
 Vinet to its depths, and called forth all his energies, 
 was the question of Eeligious Liberty. It had 
 become a burning question in his native canton. 
 Vinet was no mere man of letters, content to dis- 
 play his genius in the region of high literature. He 
 was no mystic, nursing pious feeling without seeking 
 or caring to act upon the world around him. He 
 was, above everything else, a Christian philanthro- 
 pist, keenly alive to the deepest needs and miseries 
 of men. He was a Christian patriot. 
 
 In the Canton de Vaud, the advancing cause of 
 Evangelism was met by a storm of persecution. 
 The people generally were in that state of self- 
 satisfied ignorance to which the light of the Gospel 
 is a disturbance and an offence. The Evani^elical 
 preachers, who presumed to address honourable citi- 
 zens as "sinners," and to declare the salvation of mem- 
 bers of the Church impossible without regeneration, 
 were reviled as intolerant fanatics, mobbed, insulted, 
 and assailed with brutal violence. The mai^is- 
 trates too often, instead of punishing disturbers of 
 the peace, struck the unoffending victims. The 
 legislature, yielding to popular clamour, passed a law 
 on the 20th May 1824, forbidding conventicles. 
 
230 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 under penalty of fine and imprisonment. The 
 passing of this Law was hailed by the peoj)le with 
 savage demonstrations of joy. The inhabitants of 
 Fech came in a triumphal procession to Aubonne, 
 headed by a man holding a hatchet, which he swung 
 round his head, and, striking sparks from the pave- 
 ment, he exclaimed that he would " do for the Metho- 
 dists." The effect of this atrocious enactment was that 
 a house Avhere a religious meeting was suspected 
 was subjected to a visit from the police ; if the in- 
 habitants should happen to be occupied with bottles, 
 glasses, and cards, their innocence was established, 
 but if they were found with Bibles, or, as sometimes 
 liappened, upon their knees, they were arrested as 
 culprits. The repressive enactment did not put an 
 end to the conventicles ; but it drove them and their 
 supporters outside the National Church ; it called 
 into existence the first Dissenting Church in the 
 Canton de Yaud. The old story of the multiplica- 
 tion of believers through persecution was repeated. 
 The Dissenters flourished amazingly under a law 
 which forbade their existence. Vinet was deeply 
 moved by the state of matters in his native canton. 
 He wrote to his friend Monnard that he was con- 
 stantly dreaming about liberty of conscience, which 
 till then he had scarcely thought of, but which had 
 become his favourite idea. A scathing exposure of 
 the tyrannical government, which he inserted in a 
 journal, involved him in a public prosecution, which 
 ended in his being subjected to a fine, and sus- 
 pended for two years from his clerical functions. 
 " Voltaire had pled for liberty of conscience in the 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 231 
 
 name of relisiious indifference. Vinet does so in the 
 name of Christian faith." What he always places 
 in the foreground is, first, that Christ expressly for- 
 bids the employment of force in religion, and, second, 
 that it is of the very essence of the Christian faith 
 that it should be adopted freely. The principle, of 
 course, for which Vinet contended was liberty of 
 worship. Liberty of thinking is as much beyond 
 the control of governments as the ebb and flow of 
 the tides or the circulation of the blood. Even the 
 principle of liberty of worship, however, was gene- 
 rally conceded with this restriction, that it must be 
 withheld by the magistrate when he judged it to be 
 dangerous to the public peace. Upon this principle 
 the meetings of the Salvation Army have been lately 
 prohibited in Switzerland. The liberty of worship, 
 however, which a magistrate unfavourable to reli- 
 gion may withdraw whenever he considers it dan- 
 gerous to the public peace, is, as all history shows, 
 a very precarious possession. The principle, which 
 Vinet expounded with unwearied reiteration and 
 extraordinary elocj[uence, is that liberty of worship 
 is the indefeasible right of every human being, in 
 the exercise of which he is entitled to legal pro- 
 tection. 
 
 The cause of religious liberty is not safe in the 
 hands of men who are indifferent to religion. Those 
 who do not value it will not contend for it, and it 
 cannot be maintained without a struggle. Those 
 who support it merely in the interest of political 
 liberalism too readily, as we have often seen, oppose 
 it in the same interest. But, until religious men 
 
232 TIIK EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 apprehend that liberty is of the very essence of 
 religion, and are willing to grant impartially to all 
 the same freedom which they claim for themselves, 
 they are still really upon the side of persecution. 
 
 A^ery early the idea of the separation of Church 
 and State occurred to Vinet as the only satisfactory 
 solution of the religious difficulties. In a letter to 
 M. Leresche, written in February 1824, he attri- 
 butes all the troubles of the Canton de Yaud to 
 what he calls " the specious but false principle of a 
 State Religion." He says : " The existing relations 
 between civil society and the Kingdom of Heaven 
 appear to me, T avow it, adulterous and fatal." 
 This idea of the relation between Church and State, 
 to the exposition of which he devoted all his energies, 
 struck him suddenly, he says, like a ray of light. 
 His biographer recalls a similar passage in the life 
 of Rousseau, when, sitting under an oak, in a moment 
 of ecstasy and sudden illumination, the great ideas 
 that form the substance of his principal works 
 flashed into his mind.^ There is, however, a strik- 
 ing diff'erence between the vision of Yinet and that 
 of Rousseau. Rousseau had a dream of imaginative 
 genius, to which he at once surrendered himself with 
 joyful enthusiasm. Yinet had a stern vision of con- 
 science, of which he at first struggled hard to rid him- 
 self, and to which he yielded only when conquered. 
 His inspiration originated in that passionate thirst 
 for truth and justice which is, perhaps, his chief 
 characteristic. In a conversation with a friend, so 
 far back as 1816, upon the relation of Church and 
 A Ilambert: Alexcuulre Vinet, torn. ii. 98. 
 
ALEXANDRE KODOLPHE VINET. 233 
 
 State, he said : " We must find a means of being 
 equitable to every one." He was haunted by a 
 conviction that the existing arrangements were 
 unjust. 
 
 In his Prize Essay, entitled, Mdriioire en Faveur de 
 la lAherU des Cultes, published in 1826, and more 
 fully in a later work,^ Vinet has advocated the 
 separation of Church and State. In his view, State 
 and Church differ entirely in their origin, sphere, 
 and function, and can never be united without 
 injury to both. The State originates in necessity, 
 the Church in liberty. The State necessarily em- 
 braces all who iire born or come to live within a 
 certain territory. The Church is a purely voluntary 
 association, to which no man can belong save by his 
 own free choice, or longer than he chooses. Again, 
 the State is a civil institution, whose function is to 
 minister to secular needs. The Church is a religious 
 society, whose function is to further the spiritual 
 interests of men. State and Church lie in two 
 different spheres of human life, the secular and the 
 spiritual respectively. Their union is adulterous 
 and fatal. Their separation is demanded by their 
 very nature. 
 
 Vinet is a thorough-going and uncompromising 
 theorist. The view of the so-called "irreligious 
 godless state," which our religious voluntaries are so 
 eager to disclaim and their opponents so anxious to 
 fix upon them, Vinet boldly avows. He holds that 
 
 1 Essai sur la manifestation des convictions relir/ieuses et sicr la 
 separation de VEylise et de VEtat envisa<jee comme consequence 
 necessaire et comme garantie da principe. Paris, 1842. 
 
234 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 the State qua State has and ought to have no religion. 
 He goes the length of saying Avhat seems a 2:)aradox : 
 that society, and the State as the representative of 
 society, has no conscience ; for he says : If society 
 collectively has a conscience, the individual can have 
 none. In regard to the theory, I remark, First : It 
 entirely breaks down in its application to legislation. 
 Legislation cannot be confined within the sphere of 
 material needs. It must take into account the 
 moral well-being of society. Yinet admits this. 
 He affirms that there is a social morality which the 
 State is bound to protect, and on which it reposes. 
 This social morality of a community, however, 
 springs from and is inseparably bound up with its 
 religion. In fact when Vinet makes the admission 
 that social morality should have state-protection, 
 his Christian heart opens a door for Christian legis- 
 lation which his theory taken in its rigour excludes. 
 Second : What led Vinet so rigorously to confine the 
 State to the secular sphere was simply his deep 
 regard for the interests of religion. The spectacle of 
 a State asserting control over religion, with brutal 
 violence and with lamentable results, was under his 
 eye. The frightful evil kindled in his generous soul 
 a noble indignation. The logical instinct, acting 
 under the stimulus of strong passion, carried him in 
 oblivion of certain facts to an extreme theory. But, 
 in advocating his views, he is never merely the cold 
 logician. He concludes his i^rincipal work on the 
 separation of Church and State with a prayer which 
 breathes the fervid Christian spirit that characterises 
 all his writing on this subject. " Vouchsafe, 
 
ALEXANDKE RODOLPHE VINET. 235 
 
 Father of Spirits ! to infuse more of the spirit of 
 love into the souls of those who shall read than has 
 been manifested by the writer ; . . . touch the hearts 
 of my readers with those very truths which have 
 too little affected my own. Nevertheless, God ! 
 I feel at this moment that they do influence me, 
 and that I do love them. I am conscious of a desire 
 to act for thee and for my brethren ; some desire 
 for thy glory, some love for souls seems to awake 
 within me. Ah ! continue it, Lord, and make me 
 altogether what I ought to be as a teacher of others. 
 Great master of assemblies, thou seest the evil for 
 which in much weakness I have essayed to find a 
 remedy. Have compassion, God, and fulfil my 
 desires ! Bless the efi'orts of the society to which I 
 present this work ; and grant that others also who 
 are seeking to promote the cause of truth in the 
 spirit of charity may be sustained by thy powerful 
 spirit. ' Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto 
 thy name give glory ! ' " 
 
 Like some clergymen of the Church of England, 
 Vinet did not then feel constrained by his theoretical 
 voluntaryism to withdraw from the National Church. 
 The severance of Church and State was to him 
 then an ideal and not a dogma. He was deeply 
 attached to the Church of his fathers. But he says : 
 " I love in her rather what she may become, than 
 what she has been ; I love in her one of the provinces 
 of the territory of the invisible Church. I love in her 
 that which our fathers have loved in her, an asylum 
 for souls weary and heavy laden, a hospice for 
 travellers on the way to eternity, a thread of attach- 
 T 
 
236 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ment cast by the hand of the Lord upon my earthly 
 country. I love in her something more ancient 
 than all our past ; I would say, I love what she still 
 has in her of the Church of Christ, or rather it is 
 the Church of Christ that I love in her." 
 
 The Church of the Canton de Vaud, which reckons 
 the great reformer, Theodore Beza, among her 
 founders, had by the tyrannical domination of the 
 State been reduced almost to a nullity. She was 
 the merest shadow of a Church. She had no power 
 of self-government. There was properly no Church 
 at all. There was only a religion of the State. As 
 Dean Curtat, the most eminent representative of the 
 clergy, said : " In our happy country, Church and 
 State are one whole." The laity had no share in 
 the management of the Church. It was " a mere 
 clerical machine, controlled by the government." At 
 the Eeformation, when the Canton de Vaud was 
 a dependency of Berne, the infallible Pope had 
 been supplanted by an infallible government, whose 
 direction in religion the people accepted with 
 servile submission. A Swiss clergyman relates, 
 that a Vaudois peasant said to him what no Scotch 
 peasant could have said, that there was no danger 
 of his becoming a Methodist, unless indeed he were 
 ordered to do so by the government. 
 
 But, just as in Scotland before our " Ten Years' 
 Conflict," the religious life, awakened by the revival 
 in the National Church of the Canton de Vaud, 
 became impatient of the barriers that hindered its 
 free development. The ministers of the Establishment 
 saw the freedom which dissenting churches now 
 
ALEXANDRE KODOLPHE VINET. 237 
 
 legally tolerated enjoyed, and desired that their own 
 church should possess the same liberty. Vinet 
 heartily sympathised with this growing desire for 
 spiritual independence. The severance of Church 
 and State was evidently a distant ideal. He hoped, 
 however, that the Church even in union with the 
 State might attain to a measure of freedom. He 
 laboured as a journalist, with untiring energy and 
 zeal, to foster and direct the craving after Church 
 independence. He believed that the Church, when 
 she attained perfect freedom, would, like a fruit fully 
 ripe, fall of her own accord from her position of state- 
 dependence. His programme was first spiritual 
 independence, and then separation of Church and 
 State. His anticipation was not fulfilled. But the 
 character of the men who succeeded to the reins 
 of government after the Revolution of 1830 made 
 him at first very hopeful. Among them were states- 
 men of enlightened views and elevated aims, who 
 were favourably disposed to religion. Some of them 
 were even considered Methodists. In 1837 Vinet, 
 who by his writings had gained a European reputa- 
 tion, was called to the vacant chair of Practical 
 Theology in the Academy of Lausanne. The 
 University of Basle made an effort to retain him 
 by offering to institute for him a special chair of 
 French Literature and Eloquence. Many other 
 offers from different places were addressed to him. 
 But his love to his native land, and especially his 
 interest in her religious development, determined 
 him to accept the call to Lausanne. Li 1837 the 
 government prepared the draft of a new constitution 
 
238 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 for the Church. They called together a representa- 
 tive assembly of the four classes of the clergy which 
 had not met for more than a century, in order to 
 consult them in regard to the proposed constitution. 
 Vinet was appointed delegate of the class of Lausanne 
 and Vevay. Among the points discussed in the 
 assembly there were two of special importance. 
 There was first a proposal to set aside the Helvetic 
 Confession, the ancient symbol of the Yaudois 
 Church. This proposal was made in a spirit of 
 hostility to evangelism. The venerable creed was 
 attacked because it was regarded as the flag of the 
 Methodists. Vinet opposed the abolition of the 
 Helvetic Confession, not because he regarded it as 
 an adequate expression of the actual faith of the 
 Church, but because he believed, first, that a creed of 
 some sort was essential to a Church, and, second, that 
 if the old creed were abolished it would probably be 
 supplanted by a creed of a very negative and un- 
 satisfactory character. His attitude on this question, 
 as I understand the facts of the case, seems to have 
 been a mistake. The setting aside of the old creed 
 was in the circumstances a step out of the region 
 of fiction into that of truth and reality. In the 
 supposed interests of religion, he pleaded for the 
 retention of a creed which no longer represented 
 the faith of the Church. His attitude, on this 
 occasion, seems to me a solitary inconsistency in a 
 noble life, when the fear lest the cause of religion 
 should fall to the ground, if one of its traditional 
 supports were removed, prevailed over the fear of 
 insincerity and falsehood. 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 239 
 
 The other point was the admission of the laity to 
 a participation in the government of the Church. 
 There were those who regarded the Church as 
 a school in the direction of which the people 
 should have no part. Vinet regarded the Church 
 as a society, in order to the life and free develop- 
 ment of which it was essential that all its mem- 
 bers should share in the management of its affairs. 
 At one of the meetings of the Assembly he made 
 a powerful speech, in the course of which he 
 said : " There is a religious life ; and there is an 
 ecclesiastical life ; and the second is the complement 
 of the first. ... It is with the ecclesiastical life that 
 we are concerned here, because it is that which we 
 lack. I say boldly an ecclesiastical life, because we 
 have a Vaudois Church to preserve, to save, — to 
 save, do I sayl Yes, gentlemen, to save." A 
 prominent delegate, Dean Liardet, called upon Vinet 
 to state the last consequence. This of course was 
 separation of Church and State, which however could 
 not well be spoken of in such an Assembly. Vinet 
 was completely put out, stammered, and left the 
 meeting in confusion. The conviction seems to 
 have flashed across his mind at the moment that 
 the free ecclesiastical life he desired was unattain- 
 able by a Church in union with the State. The 
 Assembly did not much regret his withdrawal. 
 Some members even regarded it as a providential 
 deliverance ; for his speeches were at such an 
 elevation, that they hardly ever understood them, 
 and no one was able to make any proper reply to 
 them. Brilliant thoughts, one says, coruscated from 
 
240 TUE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 him, which dazzled you, but only made the darkness 
 deeper. AVith all his genius he had not the talent 
 of a debater, and so was not very helpful in an 
 ecclesiastical assembly. Vinet from the day of his 
 sudden withdrawal from the Assembly, it was 
 noticed, reijarded the severance of Church and 
 State no longer merely as an ideal, but as a dogma. 
 The new ecclesiastical constitution which expressly 
 sanctioned the supremacy of the State received 
 legislative sanction in 1839. Yinet regarded it as 
 a deathblow to the liberties of the Church. He 
 withdrew from the ministry of the National Church, 
 and soon after resigned his Theological Professor- 
 ship. He felt that it compromised his position, 
 and was unworthy of his Christian character, for any 
 worldly motive, to remain connected with a system 
 of which he disapproved. He believed that convic- 
 tions were given us that we might make sacrifices 
 for them, and that this special sacrifice was required 
 of him. 
 
 In the revolution of 1845, a radical government 
 came into power, animated by bitter hostility to 
 evangelical religion. The triumph of radicalism was 
 the signal for a deplorable outburst of popular 
 violence against the Momiers or Methodists.^ They 
 
 1 The Rev. Clement de F.aye of Brussels, in the British and 
 Foreign Evangelical Review, July 1872, (juotes from M. Guers the 
 following account of the origin of this injurious term, which the 
 Supreme Council of the Canton de Vaud and the Synods were not 
 ashamed to apply to Dissenters : — 
 
 "When M. Malan was interdicted from preaching in the Canton 
 of Geneva he began to preach from time to time at Ferney-Voltaire. 
 On the 7th October 1818, a man who had obtained a certain 
 literary reputation among us, J. G., published the following article 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 241 
 
 were denounced at political assemblies as the Pro- 
 testant Jesuits who must be expelled as the Jesuits 
 had been. Their prayer-meetings were dispersed by 
 brutal mobs. They were assailed with insult and 
 gross violence. The police either were or pretended 
 to be unable to afford them protection. The Eadi- 
 cal Government, ruling in the name and by the will 
 of ''the sovereign people," made no serious attempt 
 to allay the storm of popular passion. Their leader, 
 Henri Druey, an able and unscrupulous man with 
 Socialist tendencies, alluded in the Grand Council 
 to the sauvagerie primitive of the people, as having 
 its good side, as indicating native force. The old 
 law which had fallen into abeyance was revived, 
 forbidding the pastors of the National Church to 
 attend religious meetings held elsewhere than in 
 the parish Church, or at other times than those 
 appointed for public worship. " In fact this demo- 
 cratic Canton de Yaud framed an enactment as 
 stringent as the act of uniformity of the Cavalier 
 parliament of Charles ii. The intolerance of the 
 Monarchical party of that day w^as outdone by the 
 intolerance of the Democratic party in our own 
 time."^ The Government issued an order to the 
 clergy to read from the pulpit a manifesto in defence 
 
 in the Feuille cVAvis of Geneva : ' Next Sunday at Ferney- Voltaire 
 the company of the Moniiers under the direction of the Sieur- 
 Regentin (MaLau, Minister, and Regent of Geneva College) will 
 continue their exercises in phantasmagoria, jugglery, aud simple 
 feats of strength. The black clown will contribute by his buflbon- 
 eries to make his audience laugh. Tickets to be had at the door 
 near the lottery-office.' This ignoble joke was enough to bring the 
 name of Momiers into fashion among the poi)ulatiou." 
 J British Quarterly Review, January 1877. 
 
242 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 of the Eevolution. This resulted in the withdrawal 
 of 153 ministers from the National Church. On 
 one point, which he now regarded as of cardinal 
 importance, Vinet had no sympathy with these men. 
 He was a voluntary ; and they were State-Church- 
 men "to the very marrow of their bones." He 
 nevertheless publicly congratulated and thanked 
 them for their act of self-sacrifice as an invaluable 
 service to the morality of the country. The Free 
 Church of the Canton de Vaud which they founded 
 was for him as a manifestation of the free Christian 
 spirit, " a ray of light amid the dark shadows which 
 licentiousness and materialism spread over the 
 land." He became a Professor in her Theological 
 School. 
 
 The Free Church of the Canton de Vaud, unlike 
 her popular sister in Scotland, embraced a mere 
 fraction of the people. She was despised and hated 
 by the majority of the nation. The Radical 
 Government, to gratify " the sovereign people," or 
 the turbulent spirits who represented them, sought 
 by the revival of persecuting laws to stamp out the 
 Free Church. Vinet was once more called forth as 
 a defender of the cause of religious liberty. On 
 this subject as a writer he is at his best. Upon 
 other matters he writes with a too manifest 
 deliberation, with a too carefully measured step ; 
 but this theme always draws forth his heart 
 and soul in a torrent of free, fresh, and fervid 
 eloquence. 
 
 The Apostle of Religious Liberty, however, 
 preached in the wilderness. The savage spirit of 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 243 
 
 religious intolerance was not subdued by his power- 
 ful eloquence. At the date of Vinet's death the 
 right of public worship was denied to the Free 
 Church, and it was only through the multiplication 
 of conventicles held in private houses in defiance of 
 the law that for several years she maintained her 
 existence. In these conventicles Vinet often 
 officiated. A year after his death a prayer-meeting 
 held in the house of his widow was dispersed by 
 the police. Madame Vinet was summoned to the 
 court to answer to a charge of misdemeanour. At 
 the trial M. Guisan, her counsel, said : — 
 
 " There are causes which defend themselves. The 
 presence of Madame Vinet at the bar of this tribunal 
 for having a prayer-meeting in her house is more 
 eloquent than all that I could say. As to her, she 
 has the honour to be the first individual who is 
 struck for the cause of religious liberty. Among 
 the number of M. Vinet's titles of glory, is it not the 
 greatest perhaps to have been one of the first 
 apostles of liberty in the Canton de Vaud 1 Is not 
 the first of the writings that have made him 
 famous a treatise in defence of this liberty 1 And 
 did he not die in some sense a martyr to it 1 It was 
 fitting that his widow should be the first victim in 
 this noble cause. The day when Madame Vinet 
 received the summons to appear before this tribunal 
 was the anniversary of the death of M. Vinet. The 
 day when she appears before you is the anniversary 
 of the day when M. Vinet was buried in the midst 
 of a concourse of his fellow-citizens. It is not 
 possible to see in this singular coincidence a mere 
 
244 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 result of chance ; there is something in it evidently 
 providential, and the prosecution instituted to-day 
 will be an immense step towards the conquest of 
 religious liberty." 
 
 Madame Vinet, Pastor Scholl, who presided, and 
 all who had been present at the meeting, were 
 sentenced each to a fine of 5 francs with expenses. 
 
 In a letter written a year before his death Vinet 
 said : — " I have just spoken of my unhappy country ; 
 unhappy it is without doubt, very unhappy ; but I 
 cannot think that a country where impiety persecutes, 
 and where it always finds some one to persecute, is 
 a country abandoned by God. ... I hope that 
 good will come out of all this. Neither the Govern- 
 ment nor the people will in the end overturn the 
 Free Church which is being formed, and the worship 
 of which is now celebrated in private houses. They 
 will expatriate some of the best citizens ; many 
 have already gone, and the emigration increases, 
 but there will remain a nucleus of Christians resolute 
 and humble who at the price of some suff"ering will 
 restore to Christianity and civilisation a country 
 that has been violently torn away from them." 
 
 This prediction has been so far fulfilled. Mr. 
 Froude says that it was not the great theologians 
 who argued for Protestant truth but the simple 
 peasants and humble tradesmen who died for it that 
 established the Keformation in England. Christians 
 " resolute and humble " have, as Vinet anticipated, 
 at great personal sacrifice maintained the Free 
 Church of the Canton de Vaud, and in her the 
 cause of the Gospel and religious liberty. 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 245 
 
 Vinet has many other claims upon our regard 
 which I can only briefly indicate. Through his 
 rare literary talent he gained the ear of cultivated 
 France more thoroughly than any other representa- 
 tive of evangelical truth. Literature, which had 
 been his first love, was his life-long passion. In 
 Jesus Christ he found the perfect realisation of the 
 humane ideal which literature aims to represent. 
 In his view, in order to be wholly Christian it was 
 necessary to be entirely human, and " Christianity 
 and humanity were not antitheses." In him the 
 literary spirit and evangelical faith, commonly too 
 much at variance, were completely reconciled. 
 " The jotting in his commonplace book — ' Eeligion 
 and Literature, two liberties ' — expresses the unity of 
 his life." It was in the department of literary criticism 
 that he gained his chief distinction. Sainte-Beuve, 
 the first critic of the time, says of Vinet : " We have 
 at this time a critic, sagacious, exact, and, when it is 
 necessary, severe, who obeys in all his movements a 
 Christian spirit of charity." With the fan of 
 Christian criticism Vinet sought to purge the 
 threshing-floor of French literature from the chaff" 
 of levity and profanity. His criticisms, however, 
 are not mere assays of books ; they are just and 
 generous expositions of their authors, always from 
 a Christian standpoint. Several writers such as 
 Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve, and B^ranger, whose 
 works he reviewed, wrote letters to the critic, un- 
 known in some cases to them by name, in which 
 they express their deepest feelings as to a father con- 
 fessor. With some of them, as Sainte-Beuve and 
 
346 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 Emile Souvestre, he came into close relations of 
 friendship. It has been said that if there is a serious 
 reading public in France now it is due in great 
 measure to the influence of Vinet. Verny, in a 
 letter to Yinet, says of Le Semeur, the journal in 
 which his articles appeared : " It is an elevated 
 tribune raised expressly for you in the midst of 
 Paris, from which you are able to call all France, I 
 say intelligent and cultivated France, to the know- 
 ledge of the Gospel of God." 
 
 His preaching, w^hich was extemporaneous, at least 
 as regards the language, possessed charms that are 
 not found in his printed sermons. "Yinet," says 
 Chevannes, " was eloquent with true natural elo- 
 quence fortified and chastened by study. His 
 language was grave, correct, and pervaded by a 
 genuine warmth and austere grace. It effloresced in 
 appropriate images, springing from the thought itself. 
 Add to this a full and sonorous voice, admirably 
 managed, bringing out by itsinflexions every shade 
 of the thought, and every intention of the orator, 
 and you will have some idea of the charm of his 
 preaching." Of his printed sermons, many of which 
 liave been translated into English, it has been said 
 that "they resemble more the carefully weighed 
 address of the Christian philosopher than the simple 
 and direct utterances of the Christian preacher. 
 Yet throughout many of them, especially in the 
 volumes published after his death, there runs a 
 deep vein of Christian experience rising at times 
 into a rapture of devotion." ^ 
 
 ' Xorlh British Review, August 1854, 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 247 
 
 Vinet was, as lie always lamented, imperfectly 
 acquainted with scientific theology. Yet Professor 
 Asti^ speaks of him as " the greatest, the most fertile, 
 the most original theologian in the French language 
 since Calvin, and the father of a new conception of 
 Christianity which meets the exigencies of sacred 
 and profane science." 
 
 The theology of Vinet, which he never con- 
 structed into a system or expounded in a separate 
 work, which lies scattered through sermons, liter- 
 ary criticisms, and philosophical discussions, is a 
 distinctly original method of conceiving Christian 
 truth, of immense significance especially for French 
 Protestantism. It has been said that, while from 
 the men of the Eevival Vinet got religion, he 
 gave them a theology. We know that Christian 
 theology originated in apologetic. When the Church, 
 under the impulse of Christian love, strove to 
 commend the Gospel to the mind and heart of the 
 heathen world, she herself reached a deeper and 
 more comprehensive view of Divine truth. Every 
 fresh theology has originated in the same way. 
 It was through a loving effort in his apologetic to 
 bring the cultivated semi-paganised French world 
 of his day to Christ's feet, that Vinet reached his 
 theology. In the method of his apology he follows 
 Pascal, but not slavishly. He has even been accused 
 of unwittingly attributing to Pascal his own senti- 
 ments. Pascal, the solitary student, has perhaps a 
 profo under sense of the intellectual difficulties : 
 Vinet, the busy worker, thinks more of the moral 
 discords. But the fundamental idea of both is that 
 
248 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 the vanished divine light for which the human soul 
 thirsts is found in the Gospel. " Have you ever," 
 asks Vinet, "seen lines traced in sympathetic ink 
 become visible when presented to the fire"? The 
 law of nature is an invisible writing in the soul, 
 which the fire of divine love in the Gospel reveals." 
 Again] in a very beautiful passage : "You remember 
 the usages of ancient hospitality. Before parting 
 from a stranger the father of the family was wont 
 to break a clay seal on which certain characters 
 were impressed, and giving one half to his guest he 
 kept the other. After the lapse of years these two 
 fragments being brought together again would, 
 so to speak, recognise each other, and would be a 
 medium of recognition between the two men who 
 held them, and by the evidence they bore to the 
 relations of former days would become the basis of 
 new ones. Thus is it in the book of our soul ; the 
 lines there begun find their divine complement ; thus 
 our soul does not, properly speaking, discover the 
 truth, but may be rather said to recognise it. The 
 gospel is believed when it has ceased to be to us an 
 external fact, and has become an internal truth, 
 when it becomes a fact in our consciousness. 
 Christianity is conscience raised to its highest 
 exercise."^ 
 
 I might show in detail how Yinet, regarding the 
 Gospel from this point of view as meeting human 
 need, has laid the main stress upon the subjective 
 element in Christian doctrine. " Even in the pulpit," 
 
 1 Vinet's words as condensed by Pressense in his Contcm- 
 porary Portraits. 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPIIE VINET. 249 
 
 he says, "it is much better to treat the truths contained 
 in religion as internal moral facts than as objective 
 truths." In the prosecution of such a method there 
 is evidently a danger lest the objective contents of 
 historical revelation and of Christian doctrine should 
 fall too much into the background or even altogether 
 vanish. Of this Vinet himself was thoroughly aware : 
 "I cannot enough repeat," he says, "that every 
 truth whose subject is man has two poles, and is 
 truth only on this condition. In every truth of 
 this order two elements support and complement 
 one another, which are only apparently opposed to 
 each other. In other words the moral and the 
 religious truth is one combined whole; and life, 
 which is only the realised truth, has this combination 
 and this unity for its condition." Yet Vinet has, as 
 I said, by the method of his apologetic, been led 
 to give chief prominence to the subjective side of 
 Christian truth. Professor Astie, who as an able ex- 
 pounder of Vinet's theology, has rendered an invalu- 
 able service to the Church, maintains that Vinet in his 
 later years renounced the Calvinistic theology of the 
 Eevival.^ The evidence he adduces, however, in 
 support of his assertion, is of the slenderest and most 
 unsatisfactory kind. While Vinet disapproved of 
 modes of statement and procedure adopted by the 
 men of the Eevival, there is no reason to think 
 that he departed substantially from their theology. 
 This is the view taken by M. Frederic Chevannes, 
 who however holds that but for a constitutional 
 timidity of character, Vinet would certainly have 
 1 Le Vinet de la Legende et celui de Vllistoire, Paris 1882. 
 
250 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 cast off the yoke of traditional supernaturalism.^ 
 But the last failing with which Vinet can be justly- 
 charged is cowardice. If he never disclaimed the 
 traditional theology of his youth, the whole tenor 
 of his life sufficiently proves that it could not have 
 been because he wanted the courage of his convic- 
 tions. In the very year of his death he prepared a 
 draft of a Confession of Faith for the Free Church. 
 It professes merely to embody the minimum of 
 essential truth beyond w^hich in his opinion a 
 Church creed should not go. It is his last deliver- 
 ance upon what in his view constituted the sum of 
 saving truth. It acknowledges the "Divinity " of the 
 Old and New Testament, and proclaims as the only 
 means of salvation for penitent sinners faith in 
 Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the Son of man, 
 the Mediator between God and man, and the Priest of 
 the New Testament, delivered for our offences, raised 
 again for our justification, effecting our sanctification 
 by the Holy Spirit of God, which He conveys to us on 
 the part of His Father, able, worthy, and resolved 
 perfectly to save all that come unto God by Him.^ 
 The work of Vinet was manifold. As a teacher 
 
 1 Alexandre Vinet considere comme Apologiste et Moraliste 
 Chretien, Leyde, 1883. Vinet was silent in regard to those 
 Evangelical doctrines which did not specially appeal to his indi- 
 vidual experience. In the opinion of Schmid (Article " Vinet," 
 Herzog's Ecxd-Encydojjcicdie), who, as a foreigner, may be pre- 
 sumed to judge with the impartiality of posterity, Vinet did not 
 reject any of tliese doctrines. It is true that in a letter to Mr. 
 Thomas Erskine of Linlathen (25th November 1844) he expresses 
 his dislike of the doctrine of Substitution, but he takes care to 
 add that he is **not in a position to speak theologically against 
 Substitution." 
 
 - The Free Church did not accept this creed, regarding it as 
 too indefinite. 
 
ALEXANDRE EODOLPHE VINET. 251 
 
 lie exercised an extraordinary influence. Pressens^, 
 one of his pupils, says : " I never knew any teaching 
 so suggestive as Vinet's, any which so surely 
 communicated to heart and mind the living spark 
 without which all mere learning is comparatively 
 vain." As a philosopher he is distinguished as the 
 originator of the system known as Christian Indivi- 
 dualism. But as a man he was far greater than his 
 work. " The personality of Vinet," says Scherer, 
 *' is one of those that live in the memory of men as 
 having reflected in a quite peculiar manner the 
 image of the Master ; his work has consisted less in 
 what he has done than in what he has been." His 
 simplicity and gentleness appear in the following- 
 extract from a letter to a little girl in a house where 
 he had been visiting : " There remains something," he 
 says, " of the friends that have been under our roof 
 when they are gone : their remembrance haunts the 
 chambers where they are no longer seen. I am sure 
 tliat mine haunts you as a spectre, tall, pale, black. 
 1 hope, however, that you are not afraid of it. The 
 only spectres of the past that are frightful are those 
 of our faults. May they never appear to us but as 
 suppliants bathed in tears, who take us by the hand 
 and lead us to Jesus 1" He was a true son of 
 consolation, as the following extract from a letter 
 to a newly-made widow shows : — 
 
 " The separation under which you groan is more 
 apparent than real j after the breaking of visible 
 ties, the invisible remain ; the latter become even 
 stronger ; you and your husband are even more 
 united, nearer to each other than you have ever 
 U 
 
252 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 been. You know the secret of making this union, 
 unseen by the eye, but visible to the mind, and felt 
 by the heart stronger and closer. It will be so the 
 more your thoughts and sentiments continue true to 
 the henceforth unchangeable direction which the 
 thoughts and sentiments of your husband have 
 taken. Recollect in what frame of mind he closed 
 his life. Did he not humbly commit the interests 
 of his immortal soul into the hands of a Saviour ? 
 Did he not refuse every other su]3port than that of 
 Jesus Christ 1 Did he not accept with resignation 
 a separation which cost his heart as much as it did 
 yours 1 Such are the feelings with which he passed 
 from this world to his Father, and which make hence- 
 forth the elements of his new life ; for as he died, so 
 ■doubtless now he lives ; and the only difference pos- 
 sible between the last days of his earthly life, and the 
 days of his present life is this : that all the sentiments 
 which he carried with him from this world, — sub- 
 mission, adoration, peace, — are only intensified and 
 purified in his new existence. His love for you and 
 the children is penetrated by this pure and divine 
 essence. He loves you as an inhabitant of Heaven 
 ought to love. Can you, madam, would you picture 
 to yourself your husband with different dispositions 1 
 Do you not see him submitting to the will of God, 
 and adoring that will even in the dispensation which 
 separates him from what was most dear to him on 
 earth ? Ah, well, to be united to him, is it not to 
 think, feel, and love as he does 1 Without sympathy 
 there is no true union even on earth ; harmony of 
 sentiments makes communion of souls. Thus, 
 Madam, after the extreme bitterness of the first 
 
ALEXANDRE RODOLPHE VINET. 253 
 
 days of mourning, when God, touched with your 
 prayers, shall have, in the depths of your heart, 
 sweetly subdued nature, when you shall be able 
 with tears in your eyes, yet in sincerity, to say 
 ^ Amen ' to the blow which has fallen upon 
 you, then you will see the beginning of a better 
 union, then your joy will be that you think and 
 feel as he does now. You will be happy in the 
 knowledge that your souls are in unison, and that 
 you live the same life ; nothing will inter^Dose be- 
 tween his submissive soul and yours; and in the 
 measure in which you give him up to God, God will 
 give him back to you. The more love you have for 
 God, the more love you will have for the friend he 
 has given you. ... Do not give to God less than 
 he demands, nor to your husband more than he asks. 
 He does not ask from you a love that would make 
 of his dear memory an idol and a temptation. He 
 does not wish to be so loved ; he would be a bond 
 between God and you, and not a barrier. His life 
 edified you, I know ; but his death is a part of his 
 life, and the most living part of it, the crown and 
 the key of all. His death is a principal part of 
 God's plan for you; it was doubtless determined 
 beforehand as a means of grace and progress for you 
 as well as a means for him of deliverance and glory. 
 Honour the design of God by concurring in its 
 accomplishment. Accept this death even without 
 understanding it, and say to yourself with a sub- 
 mission full of hope, ' Except a corn of wheat fall 
 into the ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it 
 die it bringeth forth much fruit.' Dream no longer 
 of anything but of changing your loss into gain, 
 
254 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 your sadness into glory, and your separation into 
 a closer union." ^ This tender soul fought the 
 battle for freedom against the fierce Swiss democracy 
 without a tremor. His was very much the character 
 Bunyan sketches in Mr. Fearing. He was never 
 afraid of the lions upon the path of duty. " One look" 
 [to Christ], he says, " delivers from all fear, except 
 the fear of doing evil." The prominent characteristic 
 of his faith was the element of asi)iration. Hence 
 he was deeply dissatisfied with himself. He was 
 dissatisfied with the state of matters in the world 
 and in the Church of his day. In theology, it was 
 not his vocation to formulate the attainments of the 
 past. In everything he was reaching forward. 
 When death overtook him before he completed his 
 fiftieth year, he was full of plans of work that might 
 help to bring in a better future, "j^ot being per- 
 mitted to travel," he wrote to a friend, " my imagi- 
 nation travels, and shows me at the fireside, I 
 am persuaded, far more beautiful things than are 
 ever beheld with the bodily eye." Outwardly a 
 prisoner all his life through sufi'ering and severe 
 exactions of duty, he found his liberty in accepted 
 dependence. He was cheered by visions of the 
 ideal in which he believed, and which he steadily 
 pursued. In the noble line of the Evangelical 
 Succession, no one has commended the Gospel by a 
 more beautiful and attractive personal character, 
 or has more faithfully and courageously sought to 
 apply it to every province of human thought and 
 activity, and to every relation of society. 
 
 1 Lettres de Alexandre Vinct, tome i. p. 423. 
 
THOMAS CHALMEES. 
 
 By tlie Rev. W. C. Smith, D.D., Edinburgh. 
 
 TMHERE is no name that could more fitly wind 
 I up the " Evangelical Succession " than that of 
 Thomas Chalmers. For he was thoroughly embued 
 with the evangelical spirit, and convinced that its 
 view of doctrine was the true one. He brought to 
 its aid indeed certain philosophical instincts and 
 habits which some of its later leaders would have 
 thrown away as carnal weapons, but if he used the 
 sword of Goliath it was always to defend the Ark 
 and the Israel of God. He carried out also, with 
 absolute trust in their power, the evangelical methods 
 of work, its best traditions of Christian service ; and 
 if he differed from the English portion of this great 
 school in their views of the Church's independence, 
 it was only because he believed that we in Scotland 
 had an earlier and more catholic doctrine on that 
 head, which had been endeared to us by the long 
 struggles of a martyr-history. On the whole, then, 
 no man of late years more fully embodied the higher 
 thought and nobler qualities of the party than he 
 did. A theologian who had no rancour, a church- 
 man who was no schemer, a philanthropist as 
 sagacious as he was benevolent, and an orator whose 
 X 
 
256 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 splendid eloquence was ever at the service of any 
 righteous cause, he yet retained, amid the blaze of 
 an unequalled popularity, the perfect simplicity and 
 humility of Christian character, and turned from the 
 buzz of applauding multitudes to work in lanes and 
 closes where they wist not what manner of man he 
 was. Pity that he who would have so lovingly 
 described him to you to-night had to drop his pen 
 just as his memories and his studies were clearly 
 bodying forth the idea of the man whom he had 
 known so well, and held in such honour ! Late in 
 the day, I have been asked to fill the place vacant 
 by the deatli of Sir Henry Moncreiff. I do so with 
 shrinking, but yet with the feeling, that if love and 
 reverence and warmest sympathy can give one some 
 insight into a great man's nature, in these qualities 
 at any rate I come not behind even him who would 
 otherwise so much more fittingly have discharged 
 this duty to-night. 
 
 I do not mean to enter into the story of his life at 
 any length. It ought to be familiar to you all, for 
 it has been told with singular grace and beauty in 
 a biography which should rank on your book- 
 shelves among their most cherished treasures. Yet 
 the literature of the day is so abundant, and the 
 fresh currents of thought are so pressing, that 
 unhappily many great books have but short lives, 
 being smothered by the crowd and crush of their 
 successors. It may be well, therefore, to tell at least 
 as much of the story as will perhaps lead you to 
 read it for yourselves. P'or we have drifted, whether 
 for better or for worse, a great way oti" from the 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 257 
 
 point at which we stood in Chalmers's day ; and the 
 young especially might be all the better for knowing 
 what was thought and said in those years, and what 
 manner of men they were who then led the way. 
 
 Thomas Chalmers was born on 17th March 1780 
 at Anstruther in Fife, where his father was a substan- 
 tial burgher, and sometime provost. From the parish 
 school there the boy went to St. Andrews University 
 at an absurdly early age, as the custom then was. At 
 College he distinguished himself in Mathematics and 
 Chemistry and what other science was taught, but 
 he did not take to classical literature, which was a 
 pity, for that has long been the weak point of our 
 Scottish divines. We are all fain to be philosophers, 
 and not very careful to be scholars. Yet the 
 preacher should be something of both, if he would 
 do his work thoroughly. In due time he was licensed 
 to preach, and after acting as assistant for a short 
 time at Cavers, was presented to the parish of Kil- 
 many, whose little grey kirk stands in a quiet rural 
 valley, not very notable for anything but its connec- 
 tion with him. Settled to preach the gospel there, 
 he had yet pretty much to learn Avhat the gospel 
 was which would do any good to those Fifeshire lairds 
 and farmers and cottars. A theology indeed he 
 had, clear, logical, compact ; for he had been schooled 
 by Principal Hill, whose lectures, still known to 
 students as a system of lucid and sensible Calvinism, 
 retained their hold on his convictions as long as he 
 lived. But one may have a theology of a sort, and 
 yet have little or no gospel, — no feeling that one is 
 burdened with a message from God, and that he is 
 
258 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 straitened till it be delivered. As yet the " cure of 
 souls " sat somewhat lightly on Chalmers. He 
 thought that a parish minister could do all that was 
 necessary for his people, and have plenty of time 
 over for quite other affairs. *' Pluralities " therefore 
 seemed to him highly desirable institutions, and his 
 first publication was a strenuous defence of them. 
 We have some examples of the kind of work which 
 he did in those days for the poor Kilmany folk ; and 
 they are alike curious and interesting. They treat 
 of such themes as '* Courtesy," and in general of the 
 class of minor moralities, very good in their own 
 way : but the singular thing is, that he handles them 
 with all the fervid eloquence which he afterwards 
 devoted to the very highest concerns. His logic 
 works at the same white heat of conviction when he 
 is insisting on good manners, as it did when he 
 came to proclaim the grace of God that bringeth 
 salvation. He is the same man in both ; but in the 
 one case it is a noble and fitting passion of elo- 
 quence, in the other the vehemence seems a little 
 out of place. So things went on for a while, his 
 parishioners liking him, and wondering at him, but 
 not much the better for him, till he was stricken with 
 a fever, and brought to the gates of death. From that 
 sick-bed he rose like one " who had been caught up 
 into the third heavens," and who had seen and heard 
 that which " made all thincjs new " to him. It was 
 as marked a point of '' conversion " as that of Paul, or 
 Luther, or Colonel Gardiner. Preparatory stages 
 there may have been ; very likely there were. But all 
 we know is that, in the still hours of convalescence, 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 259 
 
 he thoughtfully read Wilberforce's Vieiv of Practical 
 Christianity, and that he came from that sick room a 
 changed man, with another idea of life, and its work 
 and its hopes. Now his fervid eloquence had a 
 fitting theme, and men's hearts were moved by it 
 to their very dej^ths. Of late years, Scotch preaching, 
 even the evangelical kind, had not sought much help 
 from the art of the orator. It had been sound, 
 judicious, earnest ; but rather carefully shunned the 
 whole field of imagination and passion. People 
 were pleased with it, but not greatly moved by it. 
 The intellect was satisfied, but the heart was not 
 much stirred. Now, however, genius once more laid 
 its offering on the altar, and the flame and the 
 fragrance of it drew wondering pilgrims from all the 
 country round. The little grey kirk was thronged, 
 Sunday after Sunday, with entranced and breathless 
 hearers. People looked forward to their Sabbath as 
 the supreme day of the week. Nor was that all. 
 Prayer-meetings, Sunday Schools, Bible Societies, 
 Missionary Societies, all kinds of pious and benevolent 
 agencies spring up, so that never was such a busy 
 little place as sleepy Kilmany now became. And it 
 was all because one young man had been touched 
 with the inspiring consecration of things unseen and 
 eternal. 
 
 Of course the tidings soon got abroad that there 
 was a new prophet in Fife, and Kilmany could not 
 hope to keep him always to itself, any more than 
 Capernaum could keep his Master long ago. Such 
 forces do not belong to villages : all great ])owers 
 must find a fitting sphere, otherwise some of their 
 
260 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 strength will be wasted. Glasgow greatly wanted 
 just such a man then, and did not rest till she had 
 got him. That great city was at that time, in 1815, 
 moving to the front, and taking its place as the 
 commercial capital of Scotland in an age when the 
 commercial promised to be the most energetic life 
 of the country. Wealth was rapidly growing there, 
 and it was of infinite moment that a voice should be 
 lifted up on behalf of the imperishable treasures, 
 which should be powerful enough to assert their 
 higher claims against those of this world. The 
 Church in Glasgow must not become second to the 
 Exchange, if that city was to flourish in the spirit of 
 its ancient motto. Thither therefore Chalmers went, 
 nominally as Minister of the Tron parish, but really 
 as God's messenger to the whole prosperous commu- 
 nity. And soon its merchant princes and its cunning 
 handicraftsmen were held fast in the spell of such an 
 eloquence as they never had heard before. It seemed 
 for the time to transport the speaker, even to trans- 
 form and glorify his ordinarily heavy countenance so 
 that it " shone like the sun for brightness." The 
 torrent of passionate persuasion carried the hearer 
 completely away. One could not criticise it — could 
 not analyse the source of its power — could only be 
 swept along with it, glad now and then of a momen- 
 tary pause, to draw a full breath and relieve the over- 
 wrought feeling. And yet it was not merely 
 emotional ; it was full of solid thinking, laying 
 down, as a rule, some broad principle, and applying 
 and illustrating it in a variety of practical details, 
 which carried conviction to all. Many were 
 awakened by it to a new life of which the fruits may 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 261 
 
 yet be seen. Many more were moved by it to acts 
 of liberal generosity such as became their prosperous 
 condition. A lively interest was stirred up in the 
 social and religious state of the town. Controversies 
 of course sprang up here and there as he went on 
 his victorious way, — small theological squabbles about 
 an occasional sermon — poor-law pamphleteering about 
 his parochial ideas — ominous voluntary storm aris- 
 ing for his Church extension scheme — and finally great 
 wrestle about patronage, passing ere long into deeper 
 issues as to spiritual independence, which finally 
 seemed to overthrow the whole work of his life, but 
 yet only completed it in the Disruption of 1843. All 
 that was inevitable. An earnest man has always a 
 deal of fighting to do ; and the more earnest he is, 
 the more he must be a man of war, longing for 
 peace, and finding it not. In due time Chalmers 
 passed from the Tron Church, where his eloquence 
 had its chief triumphs, to St. John's, where his paro- 
 chial ideas were put to the test, and found their 
 greatest sphere of action. By this time his work in 
 Glasgow appeared to be substantially done, and, 
 wearied with its tremendous strain, he retired to a 
 philosophical chair in St. Andrews, where he hoped 
 to find a period of lettered ease, and met only un- 
 congenial dulness and petty quarrels. Finally he 
 came to Edinburgh University, where he had the 
 making of Scotland's future ministry, and the shap- 
 ing of her Church history to carry on. There in May 
 1847, at his house in Morningside, he suddenly fell 
 on sleep, and rests in the Grange Cemetery after the 
 gigantic labours of a life of noble and beautiful 
 service. 
 
262 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 So much for the general outline of the story ; and 
 now by way of filling it up I will look — 
 
 1. At his Literary work. 
 
 2. His work as a Social Philanthropic Eeformer. 
 
 3. His Ecclesiastical ideas and labours. 
 
 1. As to his contributions to the Theological 
 literature of his day : — The first of these was the 
 Article on Christianity, contributed to Brewster's 
 Edinburgh Cyclopaedia while Chalmers was still 
 minister of Kilmany, and afterwards expanded into 
 a volume on Christian Evidences. It must be 
 admitted that this work is not quite satisfactory. 
 It rests too much on the mere external evidence, and 
 even that it does not sift very carefully. It assumes 
 that we know too little of God's character to be able, 
 in any measure, to test a message professing to come 
 from Him, and that consequently all we have to do 
 is to ascertain what the message is, which has been 
 miraculously certified to us. If that were a sound 
 principle, then all the reasoning of Scripture is an 
 idle superfluity ; for why appeal to reason if it is so 
 utterly incompetent to judge 1 In the end Chalmers 
 gave up this extreme position, and learned to rely 
 far more, as the Reformers had done, on the internal 
 evidence of the Spirit, and the harmony between the 
 Scriptures and our higher instincts and ideas. But 
 this work discovered an unusual power of philoso- 
 phising on religious questions, and it was the first of 
 a series of treatises dealing with the foundations of 
 our Christian fiiith. In one of these he discussed 
 the grounds and the limitations of what is called 
 Natural Theology, expanding the argument of 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 263 
 
 Paley, so as to make it embrace not only the nice 
 adjustments of organic matter, but also our intellec- 
 tual and moral and social correlations. On these 
 latter he shed not a little light that is incidentally of 
 much worth and beauty, especially from an ethical 
 point of view ; but so far as the essential argument 
 is concerned, the pith of the book is, no doubt, that 
 part of it in which he so far rectifies the position 
 of Paley in order to meet the subtle objection of 
 Hume. The latter had admitted that if any one had 
 ever seen a watch made, then the next time he came 
 across such a piece of mechanism he would at once 
 conclude that it had been made by a watch-maker. 
 But the world, he urged, is " a singular effect," if it 
 be an effect at all. We have never seen a world 
 made, and therefore we have no reason for asserting 
 that there is a world-maker. To this Chalmers rephed 
 that the argument did not rest on the kind of 
 material operated upon, but on the combinations and 
 adjustments which indicated the presence of a 
 designing mind working to produce a certain end. 
 Thus in a watch there are materials having different 
 properties, and wheels having different shapes and 
 sizes, all so arranged that they become a measure- 
 ment of time ; and it is in these arrangements that 
 we perceive the proofs of design or intention. So 
 also in the eye, e.g., we find lenses of different 
 shapes and qualities adjusted so as to throw an image 
 on the retina ; and it does not matter though the 
 material in the one case is brass, and in the other 
 organic substance ; for tlie argument rests entirely on 
 the fact, that both are so arranged as to produce a 
 
264 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 certain result wliicli could not otherwise be attained. 
 As the question stood in those days, assuredly Chal- 
 mers had the best of it. This was what it came to : 
 that our reason can discern the Eeason that is at 
 work in the universe — a thought that is old at least 
 as Plato. Tn another book he again encountered the 
 great Sceptic of the last century, but on this occasion 
 not quite so successfully, it seems to me. Hume 
 had objected to the miracles of Scripture, that the 
 constancy of nature is uniform, but that human 
 testimony is variable; and consequently that no 
 amount of human testimony could ever prove that 
 Nature had departed from her uniform law. One 
 feels that this is a sophism, but it is not so easy to 
 show wherein the sophistry lies. Chalmers held that 
 the human testimony might be of such a kind that 
 it would be more diflScult to question it than to 
 believe in the miracle it attested. And he laboured 
 to show that the martryrdom of the witnesses proved 
 their sincerity, and that the circumstances of the 
 case made itquite impossible that they could have been 
 deceived or mistaken. It is as to this last point that 
 there may be room to doubt whether he has altogether 
 refuted the subtlest thinker of the last century. 
 There can be no doubt of the sincerity of the 
 witnesses, but the evidence is not so clear that they 
 mififht not be mistaken or deceived. Of course I do 
 
 o 
 
 not mean that absolutely, but only so far as Chalmers's 
 Avork is concerned, which in this respect seems to 
 be defective. 
 
 He was working in the same vein when he 
 delivered his splendid series of Astronomical Dis- 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 265 
 
 courses to the Glasgow merchants who hurried 
 from the Exchange to hear them. The germs of 
 their argument, indeed, are ah'eady given in his 
 Natural Theology, and they are only expanded and 
 further illustrated in those brilliant orations. But 
 there is in addition a happy treatment of Voltaire's 
 sneer at the idea, that a God who had to deal with 
 the affairs of so vast a universe could concern him- 
 self with so puny a creature as man. The reply to 
 that bit of cynical contempt, drawn from the 
 revelations of the telescope and microscope, showing 
 that to the Infinite nothing is either great or little, 
 and that the hand which guides the majestic heavenly 
 bodies takes equal pains to perfect the minutest 
 organism that flutters for a brief hour in the sun- 
 light, is as conclusively put as it is eloquently en- 
 forced. 
 
 Yet all this part of his work which has to do with 
 Natural Theology rests, like the original argument of 
 Paley, on too mechanical a view of the universe after 
 all. It sufifirests the idea of a mind workinsf not from 
 within but from without, and skilfully overcoming 
 difficulties presented by the stubborn material which 
 itself had made. That is not the feeling which a 
 closer study of nature produces. On the contrary, 
 that which strikes us on more careful inquiry is, that 
 all is plastic there, and that, at least within certain 
 limits, it readily takes the form which the life within 
 it needs. The power, whatever it be, is not inge- 
 niously overcoming difficulties, but rather busily de- 
 veloping its resources. Hence it has come to pass 
 that many of the careful reasonings of half a century 
 
266 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 ago are already practically out of date. We have 
 drifted away from the ideas which then prevailed into 
 quite a new province of thought. It is no longer a 
 question whether the world is a singular effect or 
 not, or whether a miracle can be proved or not. 
 But what men are asking is, whether matter has 
 not in itself " the promise and potency " of all life 
 and thought, and whether the very idea of natural 
 law does not render a miracle utterly inconceivable. 
 Still Chalmers's work in this province did what was 
 needed at the time. It confirmed the faith of the 
 Church, and may be still read with j^rofit because of 
 its massive style and masculine sense. But the 
 theologian to-day must work on somewhat different 
 lines, because the problem has assumed an entirely 
 different shape. 
 
 This kind of service, however, was in a sense out- 
 side the boards of the Bible, and important as it may 
 be, he is doing a still weightier service who either 
 makes the Gospel itself more clear to us, or presents 
 it in such a light that it shall be more effectual for 
 its spiritual purpose. It is in this last respect that 
 Chalmers was greatest. I do not know that he did 
 very much to enlarge or deepen the religious thought 
 of his time. His scientific convictions, indeed, com- 
 pelled him to attempt some adjustment between 
 Genesis and Geology ; but it was one which should 
 disturb old ideas as little as possible, for all his ten- 
 dencies were essentially conservative. His interpre- 
 tation has not, in the end, commended itself to the 
 world or to the Church, but it quieted the alarm of 
 pious souls, and it showed that, without any unfair 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 267 
 
 strain of the Scriptures, the new doctrines of Lyell 
 and Phillips might readily pass into the general body 
 of Christian thought, and cause no more disturbance 
 than the Copernican system had done. For the 
 rest, Chalmers's own religious life had not been a 
 conversion from scepticism to faith, but rather from 
 common worldliness to earnest religion. He had 
 simply received a light from heaven which made 
 the Gospel an intense and overmastering reality to 
 him. Hence the familiar teachings of his father's 
 fireside, and of Principal Hill's class-room, passed 
 through no material change, but were simply vitalised 
 and charged with a power, which to him they never 
 had before. It is true that, in accordance with his 
 whole mental habitude, a priori systems of theology 
 fell into the background, and were not much 
 accounted of. The divine decrees, therefore, sup- 
 posed then to be the deepest tap-roots of Gospel, 
 gave place in his preaching to kindlier doctrines of 
 divine love ; and theories of atonement to justify 
 God were transformed into the method of justifying 
 those that believed in God. On two points only 
 did he differ from the rest of his brethren. His 
 doctrine of Faith was essentially Sandemanian, a 
 mere belief in the historic record ; and he held, with 
 Jonathan Edwards, a modified system of philosophical 
 necessity. On the whole, however, his work as a 
 Theologian was very much akin to Avhat the Divine 
 Spirit had done on himself. It was just a vitalising 
 of the common Catholic truth. And this was the 
 very thing that was needed for the time. For it is 
 the only safety of theological speculation and critical 
 
268 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 inquiry that they shall start from a revived spiritual 
 life. Nothing is more perilous than that question- 
 ing and doubting spirit which springs only from 
 intellectual restlessness, without any vital interest 
 in the matter. The pursuit of scientific theology, 
 when there is not first of all a living religion, is 
 commonly a wandering in dry places, seeking rest 
 and finding none. This vitalising of received 
 opinion, then, was very much the function which 
 Chalmers had to perform, and perhaps there is none 
 of his books in which you shall see more clearly the 
 contrast between dry dogmatising and living teach- 
 ing than his Exposition of the Epistle to the 
 Romans. Some of his incidental sermons may be 
 more striking, as, e.g., that on " The Expulsive Power 
 of a New Affection," or that on the text, " Fury is 
 not in me," which seems to have been a special 
 favourite of his own, if we may judge by its fre- 
 quent repetition. But nowhere else shall you find 
 the general character of his work better displayed. 
 There is nothing very new in it. But he takes 
 a firm grasp of truth, and brings it out into 
 the light both of philosophy and experience, and 
 proclaims it with a singular wealth of argument, 
 and illustration, and emotion. He was a great 
 poAVer, then, in the theology of his day ; yet it was 
 chiefly, and happily, as one who compelled men to 
 look at the things which they believed, and to re- 
 cognise that they were solid realities. 
 
 II. His work as a Social and Philanthropic Re- 
 former. He had not been long settled in Glasgow 
 when the condition of the poor there was painfully 
 
THOMAS CHALMEKS. 269 
 
 forced on liis attention. The war had just ended, 
 and with the return of peace came^the usual collapse 
 of that strained and unwholesome activity which war 
 commonly produces, at least in certain departments. 
 There had been also a defective harvest, and the 
 dearth of victual was aggravated by the pernicious 
 corn-law which excluded foreign bread-stuffs, till they 
 had reached what were almost famine prices. So the 
 looms of Glasgow were silent, and the pinched weavers 
 looked greedily into the bakers' shops, and fiercely 
 at the houses and carriages of the rich. There was 
 much discontent, and hungry men took Chartism like 
 an epidemic. Infidelity too was rampant, for they 
 thought the Church was callous to their sufferings. 
 Chalmers was a statesman in character and intellect? 
 though not in office, and he had no sooner discovered 
 the real state of the case than he determined bravely 
 to grapple with it. You shall find his leading ideas 
 on these social questions in his Lectures on the 
 Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. Scat- 
 tered, however, through various books and articles 
 and speeches, are many carefully thought-out views 
 on such subjects as national education, savings' 
 banks, workmen's strikes, and corn-laws, which are 
 only incidentally referred to in the volume of 
 lectures. All of these are worth careful and thought- 
 ful reading, for they are not second-hand opinions 
 brought from the political warehouse, but the strong 
 convictions of a strong man who had practical deal- 
 ings with the poor, and who had brought to the 
 consideration of their affairs both intense thought 
 and experienced sagacity. 
 
 Of course, it was as a Churchman that he ap- 
 
270 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 proached these questions, for it was through the 
 Church that he hoped to remedy the evils connected 
 with them. He had great faith in the sympathy, as 
 well as the liberality of the Christian spirit, and he 
 had no faith in poor-laws and their officials. He 
 thouglit that they sapped the foundations of old 
 Scotch thrift and self-reliance and self-respect, 
 and that they involved no small waste of means, 
 and injury of feelings, without real improvement of 
 the condition of the poor. Therefore he set himself 
 to see what could be done with the means at his 
 disposal, — to vitalise, in short, ecclesiastical arrange- 
 ments, just as he had done religious doctrines. That 
 was the radical idea of his life — not to invent new 
 machineries, but to put force and human heart into 
 those which already existed. That is a true thought 
 always. Machinery of course may be improved, but 
 all machines are useless without the vigorous motive 
 power. Therefore he called to his aid congenial 
 labourers — merchants, manufacturers, gentlemen, and 
 common folk, all who were of his own spirit, and he 
 breathed his inspiration into them, and set them 
 over their fifties and over their hundreds, to visit 
 every street and lane and house and garret, and 
 to sweeten, as he said, the breath of society by 
 their presence. A great deal of sympathy was to 
 make up for the want of much money. Good 
 counsel and friendly influence were to arrest the 
 spirit of pauperism, and to foster an almost stoical 
 superiority to common human wants. "Where help 
 was urgently needed it was to be given, but in such a 
 way as not to degrade the receiver. Meanwhile the 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 271 
 
 great laws of social economics were to be enforced 
 by Christian principles, as the visitor drank a cup 
 of tea with some poor weaver or cobbler, and talked 
 over his affairs. So successful was this experiment 
 that he persuaded the magistrates of Glasgow to 
 liand over a poor parish in the east end of that city, 
 to be managed by him without interference of any 
 poor-law officials. He was to play the part of 
 benevolent despot, and rule supreme in St. John's 
 district, no one meddling with his work. There he 
 placed young Edward Irving, as a kind of fly-wheel 
 to regulate the machine for which he himself pro- 
 vided the motive power; and as long as he was 
 there to impel it, the work went on with eminent 
 success. Chartism withered down. Infidelity lost 
 hold of the people. There were many poor, but few 
 paupers. St. John's was a model parish as long as 
 Chalmers controlled and inspired its workers. 
 
 But we may not reason from premisses of genius 
 and enthusiasm to the commonplace people by whom, 
 after all, the world's work has mainly to be done. No 
 sooner was Chalmers's hand withdrawn, therefore, 
 from the wheel than the ship would not steer as it 
 had done. It had lost the wind, and would not 
 answer the helm any more. Soon it began to appear 
 that " a benevolent despot" could not count on a 
 like successor, and that the ancient provision for 
 the poor was inadequate to meet the wants of a 
 more complex state of society. There were large 
 parishes in Scotland where the whole collection for 
 the poor amounted to only a few shillings annually. 
 There were poor widows left to maintain a family 
 Y 
 
272 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 on a sixpence a week. There was a huge system of 
 recognised beggary, every respectable household hav- 
 ing its regular weekly visitors carrying a " pock " for 
 their allowance of meal. I do not know if Chalmers 
 got quite rid of these in St. John's, but they 
 abounded everywhere else. Unless there had been 
 a Chalmers in every parish, then the Church could 
 not do the duty which properly belonged to the 
 State. She might keep her own poor, and leave the 
 State to deal with the paupers; though even that 
 was doubtful. Certainly in the twofold battle with 
 poverty on the one hand and pauperism on the 
 other, the civil power was at a disadvantage as 
 compared with the Church. For all that the former 
 could do was to make its provision for the poor as 
 unpleasant as possible. It must mingle some bitter 
 ingredient with all its gifts, so that they should be 
 a little humiliating, otherwise it would have been 
 flooded with a deluge of mere mendicancy, while the 
 Church could bring moral forces to bear on them 
 which kept up their self-respect. In this way the 
 Church has an important part to play in solving 
 this difficult problem, for she can act on the springs 
 of moral character to prevent poverty from lapsing 
 into pauperism. She can, too, and I think she 
 ought to, take entire charge of her own poor, so that 
 none of her members should be in receipt of public 
 charity. But Chalmers's experiment in St. John's 
 parish, successful as it was, showed clearly that she 
 could not properly discharge the duty which the 
 State owes to all its subjects. Nevertheless, his bold 
 undertaking, and all his wise words and judicious 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 273 
 
 schemes in connection with social questions did no 
 small good in rousing the Church to a better sense 
 of her duty, as showing that she was not a mere 
 preaching institution for teaching sound doctrine, 
 and still less a breakwater to protect the respectable 
 class from encroachment of those beneath them, but 
 rather a cement binding all ranks together by the 
 bonds of Christian sympathy and helpfulness. 
 
 III. His work as an Ecclesiastic. — As we have 
 seen, Chalmers had a profound faith in the Church 
 as an institution not only fitted to prepare men for 
 eternity, but also to deal with many present affairs 
 far more wholesomely than any other power. He 
 held, indeed, no exclusive theory of Church organisa- 
 tion, and did not object to diflferent nations working 
 out what form of church-government most accorded 
 with their genius; meanwhile he reckoned that 
 Presbyterianism was, on the whole, the best, and 
 certainly the best for Scotland. Especially, he 
 loved that Church as it was by law established, 
 thinking that its connection with the State helped 
 it not a little to do its task effectually. Yet he held 
 with equal tenacity that it must be left free to 
 discharge its duty in its own way, and on its own 
 responsibility to God. They were independent 
 powers, which might be allied together, but neither 
 must dictate any way to the other. The State 
 might withdraw its aid if the work was not done 
 to its mind, but it might not interfere with the 
 Church's proceedings, or overrule its spiritual 
 decisions. Thus their alliance might be to their 
 
274 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 mutual profit — the Clmrcli getting help in the shape 
 of countenance and support, and the State reaping 
 its reward in the increased intelligence and comfort 
 and moral worth of the people. And he was fond 
 of picturing to himself a beautiful ideal world as 
 the result of this union, in which the machinery of 
 civil life was well oiled and worked smoothly, and 
 that with a most economical expenditure — for he 
 had always an eye to thrift — because the Church 
 through her cultured ministry and kindly eldership, 
 went out and in among all the people, taking 
 diligent oversight of their religious and social con- 
 dition, not as representing the government that paid 
 them, but as God's ministers for the good of all. 
 
 A great part of his life w^as devoted to the exposi- 
 tion of this idea. He did not greatly value meta- 
 physical theories, or analogies drawn from the 
 Hebrew theocracy, or any of the stock arguments 
 of the common theologian. For his mind was not 
 of their make or texture. He was rather a states- 
 man guided by facts and high expediencies, not by 
 mere abstract ideas. He found these two great 
 institutions already in the world, then, both of them 
 ordained of God, yet both also, in some measure, 
 shaped by man. They had different functions, and 
 the one could not do what the other could. They 
 moved on different planes, and relied on diverse 
 forces. They must be free, therefore, each to do its 
 own work in its own way. But there seemed no 
 reason why they should not enter into a treaty of 
 mutual helpfulness, which should be for the profit 
 of the whole people. 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 275 
 
 Now, he discovered in Glasgow a state of society 
 which had greatly outgrown the State provision for 
 religious instruction. It was the same in other 
 towns, but more marked there than anywhere else. 
 The commerce of that city had increased out of all 
 proportion to its church accommodation. Its religion 
 had nowise kept pace with its shops and ships. 
 The result was what he called " an outlying field of 
 practical heathenism," i.e. a great many people who 
 never looked near the Church, because the Church 
 never looked near them. Dissent, indeed, had done 
 something, but it was chiefly among the well-to-do 
 who could pay seat-rents, for as yet these com- 
 munities acted like separate units, and the richer 
 congregations gave no help to the poorer. Chalmers 
 saw then in the growth of " practical heathenism " 
 both a disgrace to the Church, and a danger to the 
 common weal, and set himself to remedy the evil at 
 once by an appeal to the Christian community, and 
 also to the government for aid. 
 
 This was the orisjin of his lectures on Church 
 Establishment ; they arose from the practical 
 necessities of Glasgow and other great towns, and 
 the doctrine which they enforced took its shape 
 from the same facts. There is a principle in 
 political economy that the supply will always, sooner 
 or later, equal the demand : that is just as certain 
 as that water will rise to its own level if you let it 
 alone. If people w\ant bread, beef, clothes, houses, 
 then bakers, butchers, tailors and carpenters will 
 find it their interest to provide what they need. 
 Yet there is no rule without its exceptions, and in 
 
27G THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 affairs of religion and education this law is no longer 
 applicable. There the want may be great, while 
 the demand is less than nothing. The greater the 
 need of these things, the less they may be sought 
 by the people. Hence religion especially must be 
 provided for them, and brought to them, and even 
 pressed on their acceptance. Therefore Chalmers 
 argued that it was the part of a wise government 
 to send the gospel to those who certainly would not 
 go in search of it for themselves. 
 
 I need hardly pause to show you that this theory 
 of Church Establishments is properly a plea for 
 home missions. There can be no doubt that the 
 principle on which it rests is sound. If religion is 
 not brought to such people, they will not go to it. 
 Therefore it is some one's business to see that this 
 is done. But the State is not a missionary society. 
 It would be all the better for it if its citizens were 
 also good Christians : but it is not its proper 
 business to make them so, and, on the other hand, 
 that is the very object for which the Church exists. 
 It is in the Church, therefore, that the heart to do 
 it, and the means for doing it, should alike be found ; 
 and if they are not, there must be something wrong 
 with the Church that lets such a crop of weeds 
 grow within her borders, and is helpless to remove 
 them when they are there. Chalmers did appeal 
 to Christian men for additional edifices, and he got a 
 considerable instalment of them from their generous 
 liberality. But it was one thing to raise funds for 
 building, and another thing to maintain the clergy 
 in their new cures, which were mostly in poor neigh- 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 277 
 
 bourlioods. There was indeed plenty of wealth in 
 the country, but there was no organisation for 
 developing its resources, and regulating them, so 
 that the people in Moray Place or Bath Street 
 should be helpful to the dairymen at the Dean or 
 the weavers of Camlachie. It was this practical 
 question that pressed on Chalmers, and led to the 
 great Voluntary controversy. As a matter of fact, 
 his defence of Church Establishments arose from an 
 overmastering desire to reclaim the spiritual wastes 
 of our great cities. At the time, he saw no means 
 of doing this except by aid from the State. But he 
 was not tied to theories, and provided the living 
 water were only brought to the desert places, he 
 was tolerably indifferent by what channel it came. 
 
 He was not destined to accomplish his object in 
 the way he first hoped. For his appeal raised a great 
 storm, and while that storm was still raging, other 
 matters of grave import had to be seen to, which 
 at last secured the needed Church-extension, but by 
 means of Church-disruption. On these matters I must 
 dwell at more length, because the younger race that 
 is growing up now is apt to forget, or even to make 
 light of, the great struggle which forty years ago 
 rent the Church in twain, and filled with hope or 
 with alarm almost every houseliold in the land. 
 
 In the beginning of the eighteenth century the 
 reactionary statesmen of Queen Anne, disliking the 
 free spirit of the Scottish Church, framed an Act 
 which lodged the presentation to a benefice there, 
 not in the congregation or its representatives, but 
 with the landlords whose feudal notions fitted them 
 
278 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 to be the tools of the State. Hence a race of 
 ministers grew up, who were devoted to the landed 
 interest rather than to the people, and there had 
 been several secessions from the Church on the part 
 of the better and more earnest-minded of the clergy. 
 If there was anything which Scotchmen hated more 
 than another, it was this law of patronage ; for the 
 patrons, as a rule, had forsaken the national Church, 
 or were grown indifferent to religion altogether, 
 and had little or no interest in securing the services 
 of such ministers as the people really needed. As the 
 result of this, there had been a great falling away 
 in the religious and moral condition of the rural 
 population, and many pious souls had drifted away 
 from the national shrines, and sought elsewhere the 
 help that they were needing. 
 
 The Church could not abolish this Law. She had 
 annually petitioned against it for many years in vain, 
 but latterly this had been given up as a mockery. 
 Chalmers, however, thought that she had power at any 
 rate materially to lessen the evil. There was such 
 a thing as a call of the j^eople, which Presbyteries still 
 required. It was a mere form now, yet it was an 
 old constitutional right. What if it could be made 
 a reality 1 AVhat if Presbyteries were enjoined to 
 ordain no man whom the people refused to call ? 
 Reasons for such refusal they might be unable to 
 give : enough, if they simply declared they did not 
 want him, for they did not profit by him. They 
 might know nothing against his morals. They 
 might be quite incompetent to judge his " literature." 
 But they were the best of all witnesses to the fact 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 279 
 
 that they did not profit by him. Hence the famous 
 "Veto Law," which like other historic vetoes un- 
 happily would not work. It might have done so, 
 indeed, had all parties loyally tried to make it work. 
 But ere Ions: Patrons and their factors would have 
 nothing to do with it. Then some Presbyteries re- 
 fused also to recognise it, setting their own judg- 
 ment above that of the General Assembly. Finally, 
 the Supreme Court of Appeal denounced it vehe- 
 mently — alas ! with as little wisdom as any parish 
 vestry. The General Assembly was powerless 
 against the House of Lords, but at least it had still 
 jurisdiction over those presbyters whose rebellious 
 conduct had led to this entanglement. So the 
 Strathbogie ministers were solemnly deposed for 
 contempt of their ecclesiastical superiors, but re- 
 poned and enjoined to go on by the Court of 
 Session, which threatened their ecclesiastical superiors 
 with imprisonment in Calton Jail. 
 
 The matter, you see, had drifted far away from its 
 original standpoint. At first, it had been simply a 
 question of wisely modifying the act of patronage 
 by giving force to the people's call, or to the absence 
 of a call. But hot blood had arisen from this, and 
 that had led to decisions which were quite in accord- 
 ance with English notions, but alien from all the 
 traditions of Scottish jurisprudence. AVith sorrow 
 and great pain, the Church now got orders to do 
 her spiritual functions at the bidding of the civil 
 power. But there was no hesitation as to the reply 
 she should give. The brave old spirit of our 
 fathers came back in a full tide of manly and even 
 
280 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 martyr resolution. Not by Chalmers and his followers 
 should the freedom of the Church be sacrificed, or 
 any compromise made of her allegiance to her proper 
 Head. Law in matters spiritual they would not 
 take from Caesar, but only from Christ. The inde- 
 pendence of the Church was far more to them than 
 its union with the State. They knew well that 
 nothing is so fatal to its proper religious influence 
 as to make it a mere department of civil govern- 
 ment, a kind of moral police for drilling the people 
 into orderly habits of thought. By thus becoming 
 the tool of the State it was sure to lose the hearts of 
 the community, and all hope of influencing them for 
 the higher ends to which the Church is specially 
 designed to minister. They need no more preach 
 faith, if they themselves were found faithless. Had 
 they drawn back in that grave crisis of our history, 
 then, they would have done more to shock the piety 
 of the country, and to unsettle its belief, than all the 
 sneers and sophistries of the sceptical eighteenth 
 century. But they showed no faltering or uncertain 
 spirit. They tried indeed, and rightly tried, to have 
 their claim of independence recognised by Parlia- 
 ment ; and they moved also to have the root of all 
 the entanglement taken away by getting lay-patron- 
 age abolished altogether, for the legalising of the veto 
 would no longer suffice. They calmly considered 
 too any healing measures that were proposed, and 
 more than one respectable statesman put his hand 
 to that work. But they found them all weak, well- 
 meaning but futile, not touching the essential 
 question of spiritual independence. And so at 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 281 
 
 length in 1843, between four and five hundred 
 ministers, who dearly loved the old Kirk of Scotland, 
 left their pleasant manses and familiar pulpits, and 
 truly went forth " not knowing whither they went." 
 I do not think it is good either for a Church or 
 an individual to be always remembering " the things 
 that are behind," fondly dwelling on past achieve- 
 ments. After all, every such attainment should be 
 only a new starting-point, an encouragement to go 
 on to yet further service. If we are fain to pause, 
 and think how well we have done, the world mean- 
 while is moving on, and fresh tasks have to be 
 undertaken, and we may chance to lose the tide of 
 noble opportunity as we stand looking at ourselves 
 in the fast-flowing stream. I am not sure that 
 our dear Free Church did not, for a Avhile, fall into 
 this mistake, and linger over the memories of its 
 Disruption- birth almost as if it had been the cul- 
 minating point of Christian history. But latterly it 
 is to be feared that we have swung to the opposite 
 extreme, and that the rising generation not only 
 knows very little about those stirring times, but 
 has even a growing distaste to hear about them. 
 Yet it is good for us, at fitting times, to remember 
 the struggles and heroisms of those who have left 
 us an inspiring example, even though we may 
 willingly acknowledge that time has brought many 
 changes to soften the sharp antagonisms of those 
 past years. Such changes, no doubt, it has brought. 
 The hard lines of demarcation, which separated 
 parties then, have been largely obliterated by sub- 
 sequent legislation — legislation, however, which 
 
282 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 substaiitically allows that the contention of Chalmers 
 and his friends was right. I am glad for the historic 
 Church of our country that even so far her ancient 
 claims have been acknowledged, and the long griev- 
 ance of patronage taken out of her way. Yet we 
 must not forget that still there is no recognition of 
 that spiritual independence, that right to act out 
 wdiat shall appear to be the will of her Lord with- 
 out interference from the State, which nerved the 
 men of the Disruption to endure the sore hardships 
 of many a weary year. I admit the difficulty of 
 embodying that principle in a law. Indeed, I am 
 disposed to think that no statute could formulate 
 a rule, to the effect that any one portion or organism 
 of the nation is independent of the supreme power 
 therein. I daresay that in this I differ from most of 
 my brethren; but holding this view, it seems to 
 me that entire separation from the State is the best 
 guarantee of freedom from its unjust control. I do 
 not say that even that is an absolute guarantee. 
 But meanwhile the common law of privilege is a 
 sufficient protection against the narrow logic which 
 wrought the confusion of those Disruption times. 
 
 Of course, the Disruption was a step which a man 
 like Chalmers could only have advised under the 
 constraint of an overwhelming sense of duty, and 
 not without exceeding pain. It was a terrible wrench 
 to break away from an institution, to the upbuilding 
 of which his whole life had been devoted, and which 
 was identified in his mind with the highest well- 
 being of the i)eople. But it was forced upon him to 
 break up the Church by his very love of the Church. 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 283 
 
 The results of that step were manifold, and 
 we have not yet seen the end of them. Its first 
 fruit, which was also its best, was seen in a deep 
 revival of spiritual life over all the land — a beautiful 
 and fresh spring tide, a humble and tender first love, 
 which men looked back to in after years as a thing 
 to be for ever remembered. It was not whipt up 
 by any excitements, but came silently as from the 
 deptlis beneath and the heights above, an unseen 
 power enlarging our hearts, and giving us a fresh 
 faith in the reality of things divine. It was far the 
 healthiest and strongest revival we have seen in our 
 day ; and its origin was the self-sacrificing obedience 
 of those true and faithful men. Moreover, the Church 
 extension for which Chalmers had so long laboured, 
 was now attained on a scale he could hardly 
 ever have dreamed of. Some five hundred Free 
 churches were at once added to the sum of ecclesi- 
 astical edifices, and if they were not all planted so 
 as to supply the wants of neglected neighbourhoods, 
 which, in the circumstances, could not be helped, 
 yet very many of them were ; and in due time that 
 principle of distribution prevailed, so that every 
 fluctuation of our industrial population is followed 
 by the Church, which tries to keep pace with their 
 requirements. Quite as important, in the long-run, 
 I believe, was that organisation of Ecclesiastical 
 Finance, which secures for unendowed Churches all 
 the solidarity of an "Establishment." Hitherto 
 dissenting Churches had been practically Congrega- 
 tional, and while some of their ministers in the 
 richer quarters of the cities were amply provided for. 
 
284 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 those in the poorer districts were often in great 
 straits, and many of the rural parts were, from 
 their extreme poverty, altogether neglected, though 
 their spiritual condition was deplorably bad. It was 
 to remedy this state of things that Chalmers worked 
 out the scheme of a Sustentation Fund — or common 
 revenue to which all the people were to contribute 
 as they were able, and from which all the clergy of 
 the Disruption were to receive an equal dividend, 
 and their successors a projDortional one according to 
 their congregational givings. That was the rule as 
 at first projected by him, though it has since been 
 considerably modified. New charges were to get back 
 one half more than they sent to the central fund, 
 — a plan which, it Avas hoped, would stimulate their 
 liberality, and keep them from being unfairly burden- 
 some ; but the original Disruption ministers were 
 guaranteed an equal division of the sum then left at 
 the Church's disposa]. In the latter case it was 
 thought that the sacrifices which all had made placed 
 them on the same level, and gave them a moral right 
 to equality of income ; and they agreed to share alike 
 whatever was contributed for their support. That 
 was a safe enough principle as applied to them 
 during their lives. But as a standing rule of general 
 application Chalmers dreaded any law of communism, 
 and therefore all new charges, and also the successors 
 of the Disruption ministers were placed on a different 
 scheme, by which the principle of distribution was 
 meant, as far as possible, to stimulate the sources of 
 production. Along with this central fun(5, there 
 might be also congregational funds to supple- 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 285 
 
 ment the incomes of ministers as their people 
 thought proper. For an absolutely equal dividend 
 would, of course, result in a great inequality. Living 
 was more costly in one place than in another. A 
 city minister with £150 a year would be very 
 much j)oorer than a country minister with the same 
 stipend. A real equality, even if desirable, could 
 only be produced by an apparent inequality. But 
 what Chalmers aimed at was not equality, but inde- 
 pendence and efficiency, without that dead level 
 which ends in a poor mediocrity. This was one of 
 the noblest fruits of his large-hearted sagacity. It has 
 already, more or less, directed the financial arrange- 
 ments of the disestablished Irish Church; and no 
 doubt it will provide a model for all Churches in 
 those days when they may have to consider in what 
 way funds, derived from voluntary liberality, can be 
 made to secure all the benefits of a State endowment. 
 Not that Chalmers looked forward to any such event, 
 or dreamed of preparing for it. On the contrary, 
 his defence of Church Establishments probably 
 seemed to him the most successful bit of work he 
 had been permitted to do. For his scheme on behalf 
 of the poor had been swallowed up in the new poor- 
 law, and his vindication of the Church's freedom 
 had ended in her disruption. But he had, to all 
 appearance, triumphed over those who had assaulted 
 the time-honoured institution of a State Church. 
 Eeverend bishops and noble lords and honourable 
 M.P.'s and able men of letters had hailed him as a 
 deliverer, and echoed his pleadings wherever they 
 could make their voices heard. He and his friends, 
 
286 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 therefore, had no misgivings as to the continuance 
 of those institutions, or the solidity of the founda- 
 tions on which they were rested. All his convic- 
 tions, indeed, were held with a strong tenacity, and 
 no change of circumstances appeared to throw a 
 shadow of doubt on their validity, least of all on this 
 one. Accordingly, the Free Church was launched 
 into the uncertain waters of practical Voluntaryism, 
 but with the standard of the Establishment prin- 
 ciple nailed to her mast. So it had been also with 
 the other Dissenting communities at first, but the 
 logic of events has proved in every case stronger 
 til an the resolutions of Synods and Assemblies. 
 
 In conclusion, Thomas Chalmers stands forth, I 
 reckon, as the greatest moral force of his age, simple, 
 massive, and grand as some structure of the early 
 world. "Ultimus Christianorum " Carlyle called 
 him ; but we shall have to wait a while before we 
 see the last of the Christians, though it may be also 
 a long time ere we see another like him. As I have 
 already hinted, not a little of his work has already 
 suffered that touch of change which comes upon all 
 things human ; and in his case it has been perhaps 
 more rapid and more marked than in many others 
 who were of less weight while they lived. Some 
 men's thoughts are almost independent of their 
 personality, and tell as weightily when their authors 
 have departed as they did while they were still present. 
 Others, again, liave a certain mass of character 
 behind their ideas, which gives a vast momentum to 
 all they say ; and when their individuality is with- 
 drawn, the thoughts they have bequeathed lose not 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 287 
 
 a little of their power. So it was with Chalmers : 
 one can see it even in his style, which is not good 
 in a correct or classical sense, but it is the style 
 of a great man with a marked personal character : 
 therefore it takes a firm grip of you, and hurries 
 you on as by an irresistible torrent; for you 
 cannot read it in cold blood any more than you 
 could have critically listened to his voice. And yet 
 comparatively few of his thoughts have now much 
 hold of men's minds. The Christian Evidences 
 have drifted out of sight. His discussion of Hume's 
 objections belongs to a past state of mind. His 
 defence of Church and State ended in a rupture 
 whose cleavage is growing daily wider. And his 
 Christian Economy of Great Cities broke down the 
 moment his own hand was withdrawn from the 
 work. It would be wrong, indeed, to conclude that 
 there was no truth in any of those views because of 
 their apparent practical failure. On the contrary, I 
 take leave to say that perhaps there was nothing he 
 put his hand to, in which there was not an element 
 of weighty truth which the world would do well 
 to hold fast by. On the moral side he was always 
 right in his contendings. It was right that the 
 gospel should be brought to those who otherwise 
 would not go to seek it, though it is the Church's 
 clear duty to do this, — not the State's, as he thought. 
 He was right in asserting the Church's liberty from 
 Erastian control, and her duty to obey her own 
 Lord alone, though it may well be doubted if any 
 nation can give special privileges to a sect witliout 
 some compromise of its proper freedom. Al)ove 
 z 
 
288 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 all, he was right in pressing on tlie community that 
 no legal provision for the poor could be wholesome 
 or safe without that kindly intercourse between the 
 different classes of society, and those moral influ- 
 ences which help to maintain the prudence and self- 
 respect of the poor, and to keep them from lapsing 
 into the careless improvidence of the unthinking 
 savage. It may not be possible for the Church, as 
 at present conditioned, to do all that he believed 
 ohe could do, and that in his hands she proved able 
 to do in St. John's parish ; but ever more and more, 
 happily, men are also beginning to see that the 
 system which, for a while, went on multiplying 
 jails and poor-houses, and trusted chiefly to them 
 for curing our social evils, was a wretched blunder, 
 while the human brotherliness on which Chalmers 
 relied, and which it is the Church's business to 
 evoke and to sustain, is novr felt by all thoughtful 
 philanthropists to be the main bulwark of society 
 against the terrible tide of poverty and discontent. 
 A very beautiful illustration of that, and of the 
 strong tenacity of his convictions, was that which 
 Chalmers presented, when, in his honoured old age, 
 he turned aside from the plaudits of the great and 
 the cultivated into the dark lane, once made horril)le 
 by murderous deeds, and still shameful for its vice 
 and misery ; and there gathered round him the out- 
 casts of our city, and set up his machinery of kindly 
 visitors and Savings' Banks, and helps and encourage- 
 ments, and the ministry of a matchless eloquence in 
 enlbrcing the gospel of Christ. From that room in 
 the West Port a mighty influence went forth, which 
 
THOMAS CHALMEKS. 289 
 
 has penetrated to many a dark slum and grimy close, 
 and in its spirit we find the true idea of Chalmers's 
 whole life — a steadfast faith in the Christian Evangel 
 "to love one another as Christ loved us." To 
 the end, he took a lively interest in all those 
 affairs that had so largely occupied his busy life. 
 New systems of philosophy were imported from 
 Germany, and he was as keen to learn about Kant 
 and Hegel as he had once been to study Hume and 
 Reid. Fresh facts of science were suggesting novel 
 lines of thought ; and he continued to look at them 
 with open vision, willing to learn, whatever the facts 
 of nature taught. New social problems arose, and 
 while he tested them, always by those convictions 
 which were the result of his own large experience, 
 he rejoiced not a little in the growing interest with 
 which these questions were regarded by statesmen, 
 as well as churchmen. But amid the seething 
 waters, and wavering mists, and mingled light and 
 shadow of human thought, one thing abided stead- 
 fast, like a green and fruitful land, with a haven of 
 quiet rest for all the weary and heavy laden ; and 
 day by day he turned joyfully from ecclesiastical 
 rivalries and theological quiddities, to plead with the 
 poor and the vicious and the criminal to take refuge 
 in its proffered peace. Carlyle truly said of this 
 that Chalmers was doing the thing which he and 
 other litterateurs only talked about getting done. 
 Very beautiful — truly a divine spectacle, it was, thus 
 to see the chief bishop of the Christian Church in his 
 day — for so he was by universal consent, — going, 
 like his Master, to seek and to save the lost. 
 
THOMAS CHALMEKS: 
 
 A FEAGMENT. 
 
 By the Rev. Sir Henry Wellwood Moncreiff, Bart., D.D. 
 
'^THOMAS CHALMEES:" 
 A FEAGMENT. 
 
 By Rev. Sir H. Wellwood Moncreiff, Bart., D.D. 
 Edited by the Right Hon. Lord Moncreiff. 
 
 [The late Sir Henry Moncreiff had undertaken 
 to contribute to this series a lecture on " Chal- 
 mers." There was found among his papers a 
 fragment which is evidently an intended com- 
 mencement of his dissertation; and although the 
 manuscript is a first draft, imperfect in many parts, 
 it has been thought right to print it substantially 
 as it stands, as an addition to this volume, with 
 only such corrections as the sense plainly requires. 
 The author explains, at the outset, the views of the 
 character of Chalmers which he means to enforce. 
 He says that these were chiefly his character as a 
 Christian evangelical luminary, of marvellously ex- 
 pansive power, the brightness of whose perceptions 
 and the ardour of whose aspirations gave him a 
 commanding and beneficent sway over multitudes. 
 
294 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 He proposes to inquire how far the effects of his 
 brilliant working have a sure and enduring value, 
 and whether by the combination of his mental gifts 
 with his moral and spiritual fervour, he mightily 
 contributed to fix the throne of the Redeemer in the 
 hearts of men. 
 
 These are the chief features of his subject on 
 which he expresses his intention to enlarge ; but he 
 proceeds to say that there are other views of his 
 theme on which, although subordinate, something 
 must be said. They are mainly the place occupied 
 by Chalmers in theology, philosophy, and in litera- 
 ture ; how far his published works will support his 
 reputation ; the merits of his arrangements for the 
 Free Church; and generally his views for the 
 advancement of mankind, and the scriptural grounds 
 on which he rested his ecclesiastical position. It is 
 only to a very limited extent that in the following 
 pages he has filled up this interesting outline, but 
 the fragment as it stands is sufficient to suggest the 
 probable features of the intended discourse, and is 
 characteristic of the author as it is valuable in 
 itselfl 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS. 
 
 THE preceding lectures in this course have been 
 more or less biographical. But even the 
 briefest notice of that kind must at present appear 
 to you as worse than superfluous. It certainly is so 
 in the case of one who in the view of many may be 
 regarded as the immediate precursor of our existing 
 Scottish evangelisation. The desire of literary re- 
 putation existed in his youthful ambition and threat- 
 ened to rule his heart till the overmastering power 
 of divine grace had implanted in liim the true fire 
 of the gospel. Even after that memorable era in 
 his progress, the same desire often influenced his 
 movements. Thus an undue multiplicity of publi- 
 cations has tended rather to diminish than to in- 
 crease his reputation. A fresh generation, in look- 
 ing at the question, What has Chalmers done ? is not 
 unnaturally led to ask, What did he effect for the 
 advancement either of theology, philosophy, or of 
 political economy, or any other subject of which he 
 has treated 1 But there is some delusion here. 
 Something worth while may be said in response to 
 those questions, but the grandeur of his achieve- 
 ments cannot be thereby fully exhibited. Justice 
 can be done to the splendour of his position only by 
 
296 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 the testimony of those who had heard and seen him, 
 with the confirmation of that testimony furnished 
 by some few specimens that may be gathered from 
 his recorded works, of the extraordinary power and 
 earnestness which once fascinated multitudes and 
 carried away their minds in rapturous delight. 
 
 Through William Wilberforce there came to the 
 pastor of Kilmany the first clear rays of the sunshine 
 which beamed so beautifully in the life and words 
 of that illustrious English layman. His Practical 
 View of Belirjion, designed mainly with the view of 
 rousing to an adequate sense of heavenly truth the 
 people of high condition among whom he lived, 
 was the torch in the hand of the Almighty to kindle 
 the flame which began in 1811 to burn witli unex- 
 pected brightness in the manse and in the parish of 
 Kilmany. Seven years of an ineff'ective ministr}', ac- 
 cording to his own confession, had passed ; and more 
 intellectual light had discovered to him the value of 
 the evidence powerfully exhibited by Bishop Butler 
 in the celebrated Analogy. He had sympathised 
 with the i)roofs adduced by Paley ; but now the 
 force of truth through the operation of the Holy 
 Spirit had laid hold of the whole man, as it did in 
 the case of Thomas Scott. Everything was changed ; 
 all things had become new. The parish church had 
 hitherto been very thinly attended. But during 
 three years that followed the change that humble 
 tabernacle was crowded. Both the high and the 
 low were attracted by the unwonted utterances that 
 came from its pulpit. Hearers came largely from 
 the surrounding districts. Men of mark came from 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS : A FRAGMENT. 297 
 
 Dundee, from Edinburgh, and from Glasgow. A 
 great evangelist had sprung up in the quiet rural 
 locality, whose power of riveting men's attention 
 and of commending Jehovah's message was unpre- 
 cedented in the experience of more than one genera- 
 tion. Not indeed that there was no illumination 
 elsewhere corresponding to that which had reached 
 Kilmany. There were then in the ministry of 
 our Church a goodly number not only of faithful 
 and earnest pastors, but also of effective preachers. 
 In particular, the energy and zeal of Andrew Thom- 
 son were beginning to exercise that catching influ- 
 ence over the upper classes of Edinburgh, which in 
 a few years changed the whole tendencies of the 
 city, and made it a peculiar stronghold of evangelical 
 truth. Under his expressive and masculine persua- 
 siveness, frivolity and carelessness of men, women, 
 and children were changed for a deep-seated attach- 
 ment to the vital truths of the Gospel, and to 
 vigorous activity in devoted service to Christ. But 
 there was a surpassing power in the brilliancy of 
 Chalmers which gave to the instrument of that 
 brilliancy the character of a star excelling in mag- 
 nitude all the burning and shining lights in the 
 spiritual atmosphere of his generation. 
 
 It has been alleged that his most valued utter- 
 ances to congregated multitudes, when stripped of 
 his peculiar phraseology, unfolded very common- 
 place sentiments. It is difficult for those who knew 
 how to appreciate him while he lived, and who 
 know now how to estimate the singular expressive- 
 ness of his recorded words, to restrain a feeling of 
 
298 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 indignation at this method of judging him. The 
 peculiarity of his phraseology was not a mere 
 peculiarity of language. It carried with it a pecu- 
 liarity of thought, whereby the vividness of his 
 conceptions, and the exactness of his representation, 
 imparted an impression of reality to the principles 
 illustrated, which produced an indescribable effect. 
 A dull and prosaic man might amuse himself by 
 taking to pieces the soul-inspiring sentences of such 
 a skilled magician, and find nothing hid under that 
 except the simj^le announcement of the glorious 
 Gospel. The student bent on depth of investiga- 
 tion, and the results of philosophical reasonings or 
 of scholarly research, may despise the adornment of 
 familiar doctrine by magnificent painting with rich 
 and soft colours, which by enchanting the imagina- 
 tion obtained a strong grasp of the heart. Many 
 persons have tried to accomplish such a result in 
 religious exhortation. The attempt has often failed 
 through want of correct taste and mental power. 
 Men of limited capacity may be of immense service 
 by proclaiming the message of Christ as they have 
 opportunity. But the genius of Chalmers invested 
 that message with an unprecedented interest, and 
 brought it home to vigorous and highly cultivated 
 intellects with extraordinary impressiveness. At 
 the same time his eloquence had charms for people 
 of all descriptions in our congregations. The pecu- 
 liarities did not hide the truths he spoke of by too 
 ambitious thought, beyond the compass of ordinary 
 hearers. He swayed the understanding and feeling 
 of the common mind, while he filled with satisfac- 
 
THOMAS CHALMEES: A FEAGMENT. 299 
 
 tion persons of superior judgment whom he gathered 
 round him. It is desirable to describe this bright- 
 ness as not only commencing its progress, but as 
 even reaching its highest effulgence in Kilman}-. 
 Of course its Avide diffusion in Scotland and the 
 world was realised after j^ears of varied experience ; 
 but the coincidence is clear from his biography that 
 the very same sermons which, afterwards addressed 
 to highly cultivated audiences in Glasgow and Edin- 
 burgh, raised his reputation as a popular preacher 
 to its well-known height, were the fruit of his 
 regenerated mind when filled with the simplicity of 
 anxious desire for the salvation and edification of a 
 humble rustic population. He bestowed intense 
 labour on what he wrote, not from the ambition of 
 applause, but from the fire of evangelical zeal taking 
 hold of his natural genius, and bringing into the 
 service of the pulpit all the force of a high-toned 
 and finely constituted mental organisation. Thus 
 the people of his parish were impressed, and multi- 
 tudes were attracted, not by novelties of human 
 invention, speculation, or imagination, but by the 
 grand proclamations of the enduring Gospel pre- 
 sented to them through the medium of j)eculiarly 
 vivifying words and sentences. Then the practical 
 outgoings from his moral sympathies were full of 
 corresponding effect upon the hearts of those with 
 whom he was either in habitual or occasional con- 
 tact. The change wrought by the Holy Spirit was 
 conspicuous in his pastoral work and in his social 
 life. The glorious Master had fixed on an instru- 
 ment of extraordinary capacity for the accomplish- 
 
300 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 meiit of sj^iritual work, and He set that instrument 
 to shine at Kilmany, not only that it might illumin- 
 ate all the region around, but also that it might be 
 seen afor off. I have endeavoured in a recent j^ub- 
 lication to associate its clearness with the radiance 
 of devotion to the only Head and King of the 
 Church, — but any such radiance, if genuine, must 
 sj^ring from the joyful embracing of Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified as the central object of a soul- 
 insi:>iring love. 
 
 The j)reciousness of the Kilmany light was felt 
 and realised by influential persons of Christian 
 judgment in Glasgow, who desired to set it on an 
 eminence in that commercial city for the benefit of 
 its teeming multitudes, and he was translated to the 
 ministry of the Tron Church. There Dr. Chalmers 
 rose to a great position, even in view of the general 
 public throughout the country. One effect was a 
 large demand for his work on the evidences, which, 
 originally published as an article in the Edinhirgh 
 Enciidojicediay had apj^eared in a separate form. As 
 the production of one now commanding the entranced 
 attention of multitudes it speedily acquired a widely 
 extended circulation. The freshness of its views as 
 to the extent of corroboration given by particular 
 parts of Scripture to the authority of one another 
 and the accumulation of proofs which the author set 
 skilfully before the mind, made that circulation a 
 remarkable event in the progress of evangelical 
 thought. But it contained defects and errors which 
 required correction ; so that its history illustrated 
 not only the peculiarity of a mind that was always 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS : A FRAGMENT. 301 
 
 prone to exhibit what seemed exaggeration of one 
 side in a complex subject, but at the same time the 
 candour and honesty of the same mind in its single- 
 hearted prosecution of truth. In his first publica- 
 tion of his thoughts on the evidences of Christianity, 
 Dr. Chalmers used language which appeared to dis- 
 miss as worthless all the internal evidence which 
 had hitherto been founded on, and to claim recogni- 
 tion for the external and historical proofs exclusively. 
 He afterwards acknowledged the rashness of the 
 language, and explained that his objection was to 
 the idea that the merits of Christianity must be 
 estimated by preconceived speculations of the natural 
 mind. In particular, he gave a high place to what 
 he called the experimental evidences. He came to 
 represent the external and historical proofs as chiefly 
 useful for commanding the attention of mankind, 
 and the experimental as alone fitted to lay hold of 
 the convictions and sympathies of the regenerated 
 soul. The subject of the Christian evidences is a 
 popular one, and thus during the initial stages of his 
 popularity in Glasgow, the estimate of his peculiar 
 treatment of this subject was mixed up with the 
 impression of his pulpit eloquence. The specialty of 
 that deep treatment presented some measure of 
 variety before it reached its maturity, along with the 
 additions given to it by his professorial judgment. 
 
 His time was otherwise occupied in the years which 
 immediately followed. Those years were very eventful 
 both for him and for the Church. The occurrences in 
 the course of them paved the way for the still greater 
 events which followed. But his place in the evan- 
 
302 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSIOX. 
 
 gelical succession, iiiid the brightness of his character 
 in tlie work of an evangelist, were largely due to 
 what he executed, what he planned for the spiritual 
 interests of Glasgow prior to 1824, and to what 
 he eloquently urged for the promotion of similar 
 interests throughout the country until 1827. The 
 nature and operation, therefore, of that Glasgow 
 ministry are, I think, by far the most interesting 
 and valuable j^ortion of my subject. That portion 
 leads me to the chief result of the striking experi- 
 ence through which he had passed. It also furnishes 
 the foundation of his vigorous and effective move- 
 ments in the later periods of his life. His specula- 
 tions upon scientific or political or economical 
 questions, or even on ecclesiastical subjects, are of 
 little consequence comparatively when we look at 
 the prodigious impulse which his exertions gave to 
 the advancement of religious truth and scriptural 
 enlightenment in the great commercial metropolis of 
 Scotland. There he moved the minds and hearts of 
 men and women belonging to all the various classes 
 of citizens. There he raised a magnificent standard 
 for their Christian guidance, and there he set up 
 a mark before them for Christian attainment, 
 which was largely aimed at, while he continued 
 liis ministrations among them. The high standard 
 and the soul-inspiring work did not cease to 
 have effect after his removal to St. Andrews. 
 He left behind him, by the blessing of God, 
 a spiritual force which swayed an active com- 
 munity for generations afterwards, and drew the 
 afllections of posterity to the cause of Christ and the 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS : A FRAGMENT. 303 
 
 Church. As described by a genial and zealous 
 friend, he had brought their fathers to know and 
 love the Gospel. Besides his preaching the cross of 
 Christ on the Lord's Day, in which his extraordinary 
 energy and his wonderful faculty of composition, 
 combined with delivery which enchained attention, 
 were exercised delightfully and profitably, he planned 
 and followed out a series of able discourses in which 
 he electrified an audience brought away from their 
 business through the attractions of his eloquence, 
 and painted in striking colours the harmony of 
 modern astronomy with the discoveries of the 
 Divine Word. In remarkably bold and effective 
 language, he gave a twofold reply to the arguments 
 against the credibility of the Christian revelation, 
 drawn from the apparent disproportion between the 
 magnitude of the redemption it speaks of, and the 
 insignificant position of the planet in which we 
 dwell amid the immensity of creation. Assuming 
 the certainty that the orbs rolling round our sun, and 
 even the distant luminaries in separate and untraceable 
 orbits, were all occupied and enjoyed by intelligent 
 beings, he suggested on the one hand that a candid 
 inquirer could not reasonably take it for granted 
 that the redemption proclaimed in the Gospel has no 
 bearing on the interest or happiness of those beings ; 
 and he suggested on the other hand that the amount 
 of loving-kindness supposed by the gospel might be 
 so lavished on the one alienated and lost world, as in 
 the view of an admiring universe to bring out all the 
 more vividly the glorious consistency of the Divine 
 mind and the excellency of operations in the Divine 
 
304 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. • 
 
 liand. These astronomical discourses had more to 
 do with his rise to celebrity than any other exer- 
 tions which he made. 
 
 The chief features of his Glasgow ministry, 
 however, were those that conspicuously marked 
 him as an evangelist to all classes in the social 
 scale. He looked upon the masses in the lower 
 parts of the city with a longing eye for their 
 emancipation from vice and ungodliness. He was 
 impressed with the feeling that as a commis- 
 sioned servant of Christ in such a locality it was 
 more his part to put himself alongside the victims 
 whom Satan was palpably carrying to destruction 
 than to visit assiduously the well-conducted par- 
 ishioners of the congregation. He had a vivid 
 conception of what a Church in a densely populated 
 locality ought to be, and of the manner in which the 
 district surrounding it ought to be cultivated by 
 his own diligence and by the various agencies which 
 had gathered round him. He instituted a system 
 for carrying out his views. Along with the erection 
 of a new place of worship, he succeeded in obtaining 
 an arrangement by which he was enabled to use it 
 for that kind of Church extension which he desired. 
 At the same time he delivered congregational dis- 
 courses which, whether recently composed or of 
 Kilmany origin, exhibited the character and founda- 
 tion of his evangelical zeal. He was vehemently 
 intent on the salvation of souls. He saw the 
 obstacles in the way from the indifference, the 
 scepticism, and the inveterate habits of thinking, 
 Avhich kept many apparently wise men in a state of 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS : A FRAGMENT. 305 
 
 resistance to his plans. He saw those obstacles in 
 addition to the natural enmity to spiritual influences 
 which he encountered among the outcast people 
 whom he strove to benefit. In the face of difficulties, 
 he accomplished a success beyond what he himself 
 perceived. The grand weapon of his warfare was 
 the spirituality of the great message as a remedy for 
 guilt and depravity. Not only was the doctrine of 
 our natural depravity maintained by him as a portion 
 of Divine truth ; but the persuasive and personal 
 consciousness of it was represented in his preaching 
 as fundamentally essential to the exercise of saving 
 faith, and a life of godliness. It is not enough 
 to say that he declared that doctrine, and enforced 
 the conviction of it as an absolute essential for the 
 effective reception of the Gospel, but his congrega- 
 tional sermons cannot be duly read and considered 
 Avithout fixing an impression on the mind that the 
 chief point in the bright sunshine by which the per- 
 ceptions of his audiences were lighted up, lay in the 
 vivid illustrations of what he called the disease and 
 its remedy. 
 
 You may thus see how, as an instrument of the 
 Holy Spirit, he brought the rays of Scriptural 
 effulgence to expose the depravity of many whose 
 life was unstained by any palpable departure from 
 the rules of accurate morality, but in whom love 
 for his God and his holiness did not supersede 
 the love of earthly pleasure. You may see how 
 he opened up to view the delight of fellowship 
 with those from whom is blotted out all sin, 
 through the blood of atonement, and through vie- 
 
306 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 tory over sin by regenerating power. You may 
 see also how his well-chosen words were the means 
 of bringing home to many a heart the urgency 
 of the call from heaven to look intently at Jesus 
 Christ and Him crucified. Thus the danger of 
 neglecting what God has said to us, the correspon- 
 dence between the revelation of Divine law and the 
 revelation of Divine mercy, the association of faith 
 with repentance, the blessedness of spiritual obedi- 
 ence and personal meetness for heaven, singleness 
 of aim and spiritual discernment, the truth that God 
 is love, a moral fear of God, the shortness of human 
 life, and the connection of faith with peace ; these 
 and other truths unfolded by the Divine Word 
 were dealt with in a manner which forced them 
 vividly on the mind. He illustrated the universal 
 blindness of mankind and the universality of the 
 Gospel offer. Tlie ideas brought out by or suggested 
 in the discourses representing such varieties of 
 doctrinal and practical Christianity were undoubt- 
 edly in themselves in a sense commonplace, but they 
 were not commonplace in the aspect of enchaining 
 interest which the genius and skill of a specially 
 gifted master gave to them. They attracted by 
 a blaze of overwhelming light the sympathies of 
 his hearers. Some of them flashed conviction 
 across the paths of both learned and unlearned to 
 an extent which largely helped in bringing him a 
 reputation that has not been equalled in our age or 
 country. That reputation extended first to Edin- 
 burgh, and to other Scottish localities, and afterwards 
 to the British Empire, to the Continent, and to 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS : A FRAGMENT. 307 
 
 America. The astronomical discourses began the 
 widely spreading influence of his voice and pen, but 
 the congregational discourses imparted strength to 
 the movement in his favour, and enriched the char- 
 acter of his popularity. The fact was all the more 
 remarkable, because while preparing to deliver what 
 he uttered in the pulpit, he was not governed by a 
 desire for the fame which followed him, but had his 
 mind and heart intently set upon the rescue of an 
 illiterate population among whom he laboured dur- 
 ing the week. His eminence as an evangelist, and 
 his place in the Evangelical Succession, must be 
 estimated by the specialties which I have now im- 
 perfectly described, and not by the results which 
 the rash criticism of a young generation of preten- 
 tious scholarship may extract from his rather too 
 voluminous publications. 
 
 AVe must connect my subject more particularly 
 with the views and efforts which Dr. Chalmers put 
 forth respecting the right operation in large towns 
 of evangelical exertions, and of all practical arrange- 
 ments for the Christian benefit of their inhabitants. 
 Those views and efforts cannot be separated from 
 the ideas as to the right treatment of pauperism, or 
 from his conviction that a public provision for 
 meeting all the temporal wants of the poor might 
 engender more poverty than it could heal. His 
 first sermon in Glasgow gave the germ and pith of 
 his contention on that subject. It contains the 
 following remarkable sentences : — " If every shilling 
 of the disposable wealth of the country were given 
 to feed the poor, it would create more poverty than 
 2 B 
 
308 THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION. 
 
 it provides for. It would land us in the mischief of 
 a depraved and beggarly population. Idleness and 
 profligacy would lay hold of the great mass. Every 
 honourable desire after independence would be ex- 
 tinguished. The clamorous and undeserving poor 
 would spread themselves over the whole of that 
 ground which should only be occupied by the 
 children of helplessness; and after the expenditure 
 of millions it would be found that there was more 
 unrelieved want and more unsoftened wretchedness 
 than ever." Accordingly he made it a condition of 
 his having to carry on his ministry in the new 
 parish of St. John's that he and his kirk-session 
 should have separate and independent power over 
 the weekly collections at the church-door, and that 
 the management of the poor of that parish should 
 be left entirely in their hands. His plan was by 
 means of a well-instructed stafl" of deacons to deal 
 with all applicants for relief in such a manner as, 
 through careful investigation in every case, to pre- 
 vent unnecessary burdens on the parochial resources, 
 to accomplish what was necessary through the 
 instrumentality of the collections alone, and to 
 dispense with the assessment altogether. For the 
 success of the plan, freedom of access to the church 
 and his ministrations by all classes within the parish 
 was indispensable. Arrangements were made for 
 this requirement, and it is remarkable that an ade- 
 quate amount of funds was obtained for the right 
 operation of the system in its essential parts, 
 through the collection at the special time of wor- 
 ship adjusted to suit the parochial hearers. " It 
 
THOMAS CHALMERS : A FRAGMENT. 309 
 
 required," said Mr. Stow, "the mind, enthusiasm, 
 urbanity, and childlike generous feeling of a 
 Chalmers to argue every j^oint, to bear with the 
 old-fashioned prejudice and stubborn resistance to 
 his schemes at every step. They could not but 
 admire the man, but to knock on the head at once 
 all their long experience by such a revolution was 
 not to be tolerated." 
 
 It was not enough for Chalmers to explain his 
 views in the most graphic manner when such men 
 believed them to be quite Utopian. He must prove 
 that they will actually succeed, or else they must 
 not even be attempted. They were attempted. 
 It was found easier to do the work than to convince 
 men that it was practicable. The success of the 
 experiment was triumphant. While Dr. Chalmers 
 remained in Glasgow, the expenditure, having 
 formerly been £1400 annually, was reduced to 
 £280, while the comfort and happiness of the 
 population Avere increased. Undoubtedly their 
 financial improvement as regards relief of the poor 
 was accompanied by vigorous movements for educa- 
 tional advancement and for religious instruction. 
 
 PRINTED BY T. AND A. CONSTABLE, 
 miNTEKS TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY. 
 
''il"i«^'i?,m.I.'',1i?.'??'"' Seminary Libraries 
 
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