DR. CHALMERS'S PRELECTIONS. *
Tam concluding volume of the edition of the Posthumous Works of Dr. Chalmers contains the lectures, notes, or commentaries, delivered by the great preacher of the Scottish Church from the Theological chair, on Bat- ter's Analogy, Paley's Evidences, and Hill's Lectures in Divinity. There are two modes, as Dr. Chalmers lays it down, of teaching that " most voluminous of all the sciences, theology." . . . . "One method is for the professor to describe the whole mighty series of topics in written compo- sitions of his own." Another, and our author thinks a better way, is to take certain classics in theology, to prescribe a given portion to be read and digested by the students at home, to subject them to examination in the lecture-room on what they have thus perused and mastered, and then for the professor to give " prelections " on the successive parts so read, as Dr. Chalmers has done in the volume before us.
The plan has this objection, if it is an objection—the student will not be surrounded by the theologico-literary atmosphere of his own day, nor will the latest novelties in theology be presented to his mind, unless the teacher add a kind of supplement to his commentaries. In other points of view the method is a very good one. The student has the printed text of an established classic before him to study at leisure, instead of listening to a spoken lecture that may be far from classical, and of which he, however attentive, can only carry a portion away. A full knowledge of his author will be secured by a proper examination of the pupils, es- pecially if their teacher look into their note-books to see whether they have really made the species of analytical abridgment Dr. Chalmers recommended to his class. Any errors in the original author may be pointed out by the preleetor, any obscurities cleared up, and any de- ficiencies supplied, even to the extent of whole topics if such should be omitted in the original.
No objection can be taken to Dr. Chalmers's choice of books. Butler
shows the consistency of revelation with creation such as we see it, and the probability of the Scriptural revelation ; thus placing Christianity on the basis of nature. Paley rightly comes next in order, with historical and logical evidences in support of that Christianity whose possibility Butler had argued for, while he had shown the probability of some revela- tion. Bill, unfolding a professor's system of what may be called clerical theology, properly closes the series, and winds up with the professional, as it were, in opposition to the general character of the preceding writers.
In a scholastic sense, the execution is not equal to the plan. Probably it was some misgiving as to how far his previous habits and studies had fitted him for the task of unfolding an entire system of theology, that suggested to Dr. Chalmers the course we have described ; since, however generally preferable his method may be, there was no reason why a man of ambition and ability should not have given a course of lectures adapted to his own times. Even in the humbler and more dis- cursive path he has chosen, there is some want of the clearness and close- ness of the well-trained scholar and divine. There is something of the platform orator in the manner in which he now and then needlessly heaps illustration upon illustration, and smothers an argument by avoidance or by words, rather than settles it in a close grapple. Occasionally he appears to be averse to "close quarters," and keeps firing long shots, as much round as at the mark. It should be observed, however, that these observations apply more to Paley's Evidences than to the other authors ; and Dr. Chalmers's Notes on Paley are only fragments, the choicer matter having been used in other works. The peculiarities, though not adding to the value of the Prelectiona in a scientific sense, have attraction from their display of the genius of the author, and his well-stored, various, and discursive mind. They also very often contain useful advice to the young divine ; and, when impressed by Chalmers's earnest yet playful manner, they might be more serviceable in fact than they may seem in print. The following hints on preaching may be advantageously pon- dered by young pulpit orators ; though they are not likely to repeat the
good story that closes them.
" I doubt if the literary or argumentative evidence is a befitting topic for the pulpit at all. The tendency of the youthful preacher, when warm from the ball, is to prepare and to preach sermons on the leading topics of the Deistical contro- versy, and sometimes even to come forth with the demonstrations, the merely academic demonstrations, of natural theology. It is not stripping the expositions of the pulpit of evidence, and of sufficient evidence, even though the historical argument, or indeed any formal argument whatever, should form no part of them. as we believe, the main credentials of Christianity lie in its substance and contents, then you, in the simple unfolding of these contents, are in fact presenting them with the credentials, although you never offer them to their notice as cre- dentials, but simply as truths which do in fact carry the belief by their own manifestation to the consciences of the people. In making demonstration of their guilt, in making proposal to them of the offered remedy, in representing the dan- ger of those who reject the Saviour, in urging the duty of those who have em- braced Hint—when thus employed, you are dealing with what I would call the great elements of preaching; and it is a mistake, that because not formally des- canting on the evidence, you are therefore labouring to form a Christianity among your people without evidence. In the language of the Apostle, what you thus preach can commend itself to every man's conscience, and the resulting faith IS neither the faith of imagination nor of servile compliance with authority ; but a faith which has a substantial and vindicable ground of evidence to rest upon, and not the less substantial and vindicable though not one word about the vin- dication ever passes betwixt you and the people whom you are the instrument of Christianizing. The moat striking example of the inapplicable introduction of an academic subject into the pulpit that I remember to have heard of, occurred many years • Prelections on Butler's Analogy, Paley's Evidences of Christianity, and Hill's Lec- tures in Divinity. With two Introductory Lectures, and four Addresses delivered in the New College, Edinburgh. By the late Thomas Cbalmers,D.D., LLD. (Chalmers's Posthumous Works, Volume IX.) Published by Hamilton and Adame, London; and Sutherland and Knox, Edinburgh. ago in the West of Scotland ; when a preacher, on reoeiving a presentation _to a country parish, preached his first and customary sermon previous to the modera- tion of the call. The people were not, even from the first, very much prepossessed in his favour ; and he unfortunately did not make ground amongst them by this earliest exhibition of his gifts, he having selected for the topic of his pulpit de- monstration the immateriality of the souL This had the effect of ripening and confirming their disinclination into a violent antipathy, which carried them so far, that they lodged with the Presbytery a formal complaint against him, contain- ing a series of heavy charges; where, among other articles of their indictment, they alleged that he told them the soul was immaterial,—which, according to their version of it, was tantamount to telling them that it was not material whether they had souls or no."
This passage is from the Notes on Hill ; which are closer than those on Paley, probably for the reason already suggested. We, however, rate the commentary on Butler the highest. The clear close logic of the Bishop keeps Dr. Chalmers closer to his subject, and the Analogy may have been an old and familiar companion. He takes large views of its subject and treatment ; his criticism is sounder and. firmer ; though he is more successful in impugning the evangelism than the logic of Butler. The last century was deficient, no doubt, in vital religion ; but perhaps Dr. Chalmers may not have sufficiently discriminated between an argument addressed under an assumed state of things, and an opinion held abso- lutely. At the same time, it must be allowed that Butler and many of his contemporaries (very pious men too) did not partake of the views of the Puritans, or of the Methodists of last century, and might not have gone the more sober length of some modern sects as to new birth and the instantaneous effects of grace.
"Butler, in one brief paragraph of this chapter, exceeds the usual aim and limit of his argument, and aspires to an absolute vindication of the ways of God. He tells us, that in regard to religion, there is no more required of men than what they are well able to do and well able to go through. We fear that he here makes the first, though not the only exhibition which occurs in the work of his meagre and mo- derate theology. There seems no adequate view in this passage of man's total in- ability for what is spiritually and acceptably good; for by the very analogy which he institutes, the doctrine of any special help to that obedience which qualifies for hea- ven is kept out of sight. We are represented as fit for the work of religion, in the same way that we are fit, by a moderate degree of care, for managing our tem- poral affairs with tolerable prudence. There is no account made here of that pecu- liar helplessness which obtains in the matters of religion, and that does not obtain in the matters of ordinary prudence; yet a helplessness which forms no excuse, lying, as it does, in the resolute and by man himself unconquerable aversion of his will to God and godliness. There is nothing in this to break the analogies on which to found the negative vindication that farina the great and undoubted achievement of this volume, and with which, perhaps, it were well if both its author and its readers would agree to be satisfied. The analogy lies here—that if a roan wills to obtain prosperity in this life, he may, if observant of the rules which experience and wisdom prescribe' in general make it good; and if he will to attain to blessedness in the next life, he shall, if observant of what religion pre- scribes, and in conformity with the declaration that he who seeketh findeth, he shall most certainly make it good. It is true that in the latter and larger case the condition is universally awanting; for man, in his natural state, has no relish and no will for that holiness without which we cannot see God. But to meet this peculiar helplessness, there has been provided a peculiar remedy; for God makes a people willing in the day of His power, and gives His Holy Spirit to them who auk it
Dr. Chalmers oftener than once recurs to the topic : the Anti-Calvinism of Butler finds no favour in his eyes ; and at last he seems to intimate, that, however eminent as a defender of the faith, the Bishop personally was in a dubious way.
" It were great and unwarrantable presumption to decide on the personal Christianity of Butler ; but I may at least remark on the possibility, nay, I would even go so far as to say, the frequency of men able and accomplished, and zealous for the general defence of Christianity, being at the same time meagre and vague in their views of its subject-matter. I might state it as my impression of our great author, that when he does offer his own representations on the form and economy of that dispensation under which we sit, he seems to me as if not pre- pared to state the doctrines of our faith in all that depth and peculiarity where- with they are rendered in the New Testament. That man achieves a great ser- vice who, by strengthening the outworks of our Zion, places her in greater secu- rity from the assaults of the enemy without; but that man, I would say, achieves a higher service who can unfold to the friends and disciples who are within, the glories of the inner temple. Now I will say of Butler, that he appears more fitted for the former than for the latter of these achievements. I would trust him more on the question who the letter comes from, than I would on the question what the letter says; and I do exceedingly fear, that living, as he did, at a period when a blight had descended on the Church of England—at a time when rationality was vigorous but piety was languid and cold—at a time when there had been a strong revulsion from the zeal and the devotedness, and withal the occasional excesses of Puritanism,-1 do fear, I say, that this illustrious defender of the repository which held the truth would have but inadequately expounded in all its richness and personal application the truth itself. I IV lr it but fair to warn you, that up and down throughout the volume, there do occur the symptoms of a heart not thoroughly evangelized, of a shortness and a laxity in his doctrinal religion, of a disposition perhaps to nauseate as fa- natical those profound impressions of human depravity and the need of a Sa- viour, and the virtue of his atoning sacrifice, and the utter helplessness of man without the spirit of God, not to reform merely but to renew, not to amend but to regenerate, not to fan into vitality the latent sparks of virtue and goodness which may he supposed originally to reside in the human constitution, but to quicken him from his state of death in trespasses and sins, so that from a child of the world he may be transformed into one of the children of light, who aforetime alive only to the things of sense, becomes now alive to the things of faith —alive to God. There is nothing I feel less disposed to exercise than the office of a jealous or illiberal inquisitor upon one who has wielded so high the polemic arm in the battle of the faith. But I would caution you, when I meet with such an expression as that of the Holy Ghost given to good men, against the delusion of this preternatural aid being only given for the purpose of helping further onward those who have previously, and by dint of their own independent exertions, so far helped themselves. I would have you to understand that the intervention of this heavenly agent is the outset of conversion, and accompanies all the stages of it. He is not only given in large measure to good men, but He makes men good."
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