James W. Alexander Books: A Guide to All 11 and Where to Start
FamilyPreachingSermonsBiographyRevival
James Waddel Alexander (1804–1859) was a Presbyterian pastor in New York City and a professor at Princeton, the eldest son of Archibald Alexander. He wrote for families, for preachers and for suffering Christians, and he translated the hymn "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded." TheWay Library has eleven of his books, all free to read: a book on family worship, a little handbook for first communicants, a book on preaching, four books of sermons, his papers from the revival of 1857–58, the life of his father, and two volumes of his letters. For his life story, see who was James W. Alexander.
Where to start
Start with Thoughts on Family Worship. It's his best-known book, it reads cleanly, and it's practical from the first chapter. Then choose by what you need:
- In a time of trouble or grief: Consolation.
- To understand saving faith and justification: Faith.
- Before the Lord's Supper: Sacramental Discourses, or Plain Words to a Young Communicant if it's your first time.
- For varied sermons on the Christian life: Discourses on Common Topics.
- If you preach or teach: Thoughts on Preaching.
- For American church history: The Life of Archibald Alexander, then his own Forty Years' Familiar Letters.
- On revival and seeking Christ: The Revival and Its Lessons.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of James W. Alexander quotes.
For the home
Thoughts on Family Worship
Alexander's 1847 call to heads of households to lead daily worship at home. He sets out what family worship is, where the Bible warrants it and how Christians have practiced it, then traces its good effects on personal piety, on parents, children and servants, on a home in affliction, on guests, on sound doctrine, on the church, the nation and the generations to come. The closing chapters give plain directions for prayer, Scripture reading and singing, and answer the usual excuses.
Praying together is a certain means of attachment; those who pray for one another cannot but love.
Thoughts on Family Worship, Influence of Family-Worship on Children
Read Thoughts on Family Worship.
Plain Words to a Young Communicant
A small handbook, in eighty-five short sections, for a young person about to profess faith and come to the Lord's Supper for the first time. Alexander explains the sacrament, answers fears and excuses for waiting, and guides self-examination and the first communion itself. The later sections turn to the whole Christian life: prayer, the daily walk, the Lord's Day, amusements, brotherly love and giving. It takes about an hour, and it would make a good gift for a new church member.
The profession which you here make, is of faith in Christ, and not of assurance of hope.
Plain Words to a Young Communicant, Section XIII: May Doubting Souls Come?
Read Plain Words to a Young Communicant.
Sermons
Consolation: Discourses Addressed to the Suffering People of God
Eighteen sermons of comfort. Alexander starts with God's character, His everlasting mercy, providence, power and goodness, then turns to hope rising to assurance, rest in God and Christian joy. The central sermon shows how God uses affliction for good. Later sermons draw comfort from Christ's submission in Gethsemane, His strength in our weakness and His compassion to the weak, and they speak to the aged and to those grieving the saints who have died.
Whatever may be the cause of disquietude, immediate peace is found, when the soul reposes itself on God.
Consolation, God's Everlasting Mercy a Source of Consolation
Faith, Treated in a Series of Discourses
Sixteen sermons preached to his New York congregation in 1856 and 1857. Alexander meant to turn them into a treatise but died first. In order they cover Christ our righteous Advocate, spiritual light, the nature and object of faith, justification by faith without works, union with Christ, how faith grows, joy in believing, strong faith, being accepted in the Beloved, conversion as God's work and the mystery of the gospel. It's the clearest place to see his theology.
Establish it as the law of progress forever, that your joy is to be all in God.
Faith, Treated in a Series of Discourses, Joy in Believing
Sacramental Discourses
Thirteen sermons preached at the Lord's Supper and printed after his death just as he wrote them. Because the occasion called for Christ and the cross, every one comes back to His person and atoning work: God is love, the two natures of Christ, the crucifixion, Christ bearing our sins, His death as the cardinal doctrine, communion in His body and blood, and His cross and crown. They're a rich help to anyone preparing for communion.
The great efficacy of the cross, indeed, towards God, is in the way of expiation; but its great efficacy towards us is as proof of love.
Sacramental Discourses, God's Great Love to Us
Discourses on Common Topics of Christian Faith and Practice
Twenty sermons on everyday themes. The first ones speak to faith in a doubting age: modern unbelief, the harmony of God's perfections, His providence in small things and the incarnation. Then come portraits of the worldling and the scorner, gospel sermons on the blood of sprinkling and the invitation to the thirsty, and practical ones on inward religion, new disciples, love casting out fear, daily service of Christ, true cheerfulness, and youth renewed in age.
We cannot in any way so intelligently love God, as when we love Christ.
Discourses on Common Topics, The Incarnation
Read Discourses on Common Topics.
The Revival and Its Lessons
Seventeen short papers Alexander wrote in New York during the great revival of 1857–58, with a preface on how it grew out of that year's financial panic and the noon prayer meeting on Fulton Street. A few speak to Christians about prayer and winning souls. Most speak plainly to the anxious: don't harden your heart, look to Jesus, pray the publican's prayer, and how to tell whether you have come to Christ. Our copy comes from an uncorrected scan with many misread words, so read it after the others. Read The Revival and Its Lessons.
For preachers
Thoughts on Preaching
Gathered after his death from his journals and essays. The first part is a long run of numbered paragraphs on sermons, preparation, delivery and the Spirit's help, frank and personal. Letters follow on devotion to the ministry, personal piety, study and finding time to learn, and three on preaching without a manuscript. Longer essays make the case for doctrinal substance and for expository preaching through whole passages, and survey the history of the pulpit, including the great French preachers.
Form the habit of contemplating all your study as the study of the word of God.
Thoughts on Preaching, How to Find Time for Learning
His father's life and his own letters
The Life of Archibald Alexander
The son's life of his father, the Virginia preacher who became the first professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. Built on Archibald's own recollections, it tells of his awakening and conversion in the revivals of southern Virginia, his preaching, his presidency of Hampden-Sydney College, his Philadelphia pastorate and his forty years teaching at Princeton, through to his last days and death in 1851. It's long and detailed, and a treasure for anyone interested in early American Presbyterian history. Read The Life of Archibald Alexander.
Forty Years' Familiar Letters, Volumes 1 and 2
Alexander wrote some eight hundred letters to one lifelong friend, who printed them after his death in place of a memoir. They're frank, witty and personal.
- Volume 1: from his student days in 1819 through Princeton Seminary, his first sermons, a country church in Virginia, the Trenton pastorate, a year editing The Presbyterian and his years teaching at the College of New Jersey, to 1844.
- Volume 2: 1844 to his death in 1859: his New York pastorates, two years at Princeton Seminary, his father's death, two visits to Europe (where he heard Spurgeon), and an account of his last weeks. An appendix prints his charge to a young pastor.
strive to keep the fountain full, rather than to multiply the streams; cultivate the graces of the closet, in order that you may come forth in public and private, fresh from divine communications.
Forty Years' Familiar Letters, Volume 2, Appendix: Presbyterial Charge
A note on these editions
Several of these books were restored from scans of the original printings and are still being proofread. Consolation has frequent misread words, The Life of Archibald Alexander has garbled chapter summaries in capital letters, and Thoughts on Preaching has scattered errors, and The Revival and Its Lessons has many. Thoughts on Family Worship, Plain Words, Faith, Sacramental Discourses and Discourses on Common Topics read more cleanly.
Why read Alexander today
Alexander is clear about the gospel and gentle with people. He'll help you pray with your family, preach with more substance, and find comfort in God when life is hard. Begin with Thoughts on Family Worship, then read Faith. All eleven books are on the James W. Alexander author page.