His Piety
Maclaren once wrote
I have always found that my own comfort and efficiency in preaching have been in direct proportion to the depth of my daily communion with God. I know no way in which we can do our work but in fellowship with God, in keeping up the habits of the student's life, which needs some power of saying "no" and by conscientious pulpit preparation. The secret of success is trust in God and hard work.
He once said to a group of ministerial students
I thank God that I was struck down in a quiet, little, obscure place to begin my ministry; for that is what spoils half of you young fellows ... You get pitchforked into prominent positions at once, and then fritter yourselves away in all manner of engagements that you call duties ... instead of stopping at home and reading your Bibles, and getting near to God.
Bishop notes that Maclaren's “religious life was hid with Christ in God. He walked with God day by day. He loved Jesus Christ with a reverent, holy love and lived to make Him known.”
In 1905, speaking to the Baptist Word Alliance Maclaren said
We are crying out for a revival. Dear friends, the revival must begin with each of us by ourselves. Power for service is second. Power for holiness and character is first, and only the man who has let the Spirit of God work His will upon him, and do what He will, has a right to expect that he will be filled with the Holy Ghost and with power. Do not get on the wrong track. Your revival, Christian Ministers, must begin in your study and on your knees. Your revival must he for yourselves with no thought of service. But if once we have learned where our strength is we shell never be so foolish as to go forth in our own strength, or we shall be beaten as we deserve to be.
His evangelicalism
E C Dargan says that “Dr Maclaren’s theological position was candidly and thoughtfully evangelical. His sermons show how his heart and mind were anchored on essential Christian truth.” E S Moyer also speaks of him as “a profound and instructive Bible Scholar whose theological position was thoughtfully and candidly evangelical.”
However, Ian Sellers says that while
in the pulpit he expounded evangelical certainties, yet his writings and private conversations show him prepared to accept a critical position. His attitudes are thus ambiguous, though Spurgeon excepted him from the “Downgraders”
He once told students “See to it that you rectify the threatening preponderance of merely critical study by communion with your Saviour.”
In December 1887 Maclaren was to have been one of four ministers who were to meet with Spurgeon following his resignation from the Baptist Union but he was unwell at the time.
In 1954 W B Glover claimed that Maclaren
was an important mediator [ie of higher criticism], though Nicoll points out that he deliberately declined to make this his major interest. His greatness as a preacher rested on his emphasis on evangelical certainties rather than on the reconciling of old theology with new theories. Nevertheless, the example of so great a preacher who was tolerant of higher criticism and who even entertained the possibility that the story of the fall was mythical could not have been without effect.
He adds that
despite the pronounced conservatism of his attitude towards the Bible, he was aware of the work of the critics, and he stood ready to accept whatever they could clearly demonstrate. He was simply very slow to admit that radical ideas had been demonstrated.
Some brief examples of his preaching
Perhaps we can end with some examples of Maclaren's preaching. A famous sermon is his exposition of Genesis 50:26 They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.
He begins
So closes the book of Genesis. During all the period leading up to the Exodus, Israel is left with a mummy and a hope. For three centuries that silent coffin in Egypt preached its impressive messages. What did it say? "That coffin was a silent reminder of immortality. It was a herald of hope. It was a preacher of patience. It was a pledge of progression.
He concludes
The average Christian of today may well be sent to school to Joseph on his deathbed. We have a better inheritance and fuller, clearer promises and facts on which to trust. Shame on us if we have a feebler faith.
On 2 Samuel 23:1-7, he begins
It was fitting that ‘the last words of David’ should be a prophecy of the true King, whom his own failures and sins, no less than his consecration and victories, had taught him to expect. His dying eyes see on the horizon of the far-off future the form of Him who is to be a just and perfect Ruler, before the brightness of whose presence and the refreshing of whose influence, verdure and beauty shall clothe the world. As the shades gather round the dying monarch, the radiant glory to come brightens. He departs in peace, having seen the salvation from afar, and stretched out longing hands of greeting toward it. Then his harp is silent, as if the rapture which thrilled the trembling strings had snapped them.
David Larsen commends the sermon on Jacob from Genesis 32 with its three points
1. The angels of God meet us on the dusty road of common life
2. The angels of God meet us punctually at the hour of need
3. The angels of God come in the shape that we need
He ends
Better still, the 'Captain of the Lord's host' is 'come up' to be our defence, and our faith has not only to behold the many ministering spirits sent forth to minister to us, but One mightier than they, whose commands they all obey, and who Himself is the companion of our solitude and the shield of our defencelessness. It was blessed that Jacob should be met by the many angels of God. It is infinitely more blessed that 'the Angel of the Lord'—the One who is more than the many—'encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.'
The postscript of the last letter which Gordon sent from Khartoum closed with the words, 'The hosts are with me—Mahanaim.' Were they not, even though death was near? Was that sublime faith a mistake—the vision an optical delusion? No, for their ranks are arrayed around God's children to keep them from all evil while He wills that they should live, and their chariots of fire and horses of fire are sent to bear them to heaven when He wills that they should die.
One final quotation – the close of a sermon on Matthew 13:12
Brethren. cultivate the highest part of yourselves. and see to it that by faith and obedience, you truly have the Saviour whom you have by the hearing of the ear and by outward profession. And then death will come to yon, as a nurse might to a child that came in from the fields with its hands full of worthless weeds and grasses. And empty them in order to fill them with the flowers that never fade. You can choose whether death - and life too for that matter - shall be the porter that will open to you the door of the treasure-house of God, or the robber that will strip you of misused opportunities and unused talents.
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