Who Was Thomas Chalmers? Scotland's Great Preacher and Church Leader

Biography Sermons Church History Preaching

Thomas Chalmers was a Scottish minister who lived from 1780 to 1847. He was the most famous preacher in Scotland in his day, a professor at two universities, a pioneer of caring for the poor through the local church, and the leader who took hundreds of ministers out of the Church of Scotland in 1843 to form the Free Church. Today he's best known for one sermon, "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection," which argues that the only way to drive the love of the world out of the heart is to fill it with a stronger love for God.

Here's the story of his life, the heart of his message, and where to start with his books.

A gifted young man

Chalmers was born in Anstruther, a fishing town in Fife, in 1780. He was a bright boy and entered the University of St. Andrews before he was twelve. He began studying for the ministry at fifteen and was licensed to preach at nineteen. But his real love in those years was mathematics and science, and his faith was the cool, respectable religion of the "Moderate" party in the Church of Scotland.

In 1803 he became minister of Kilmany, a country parish in Fife. For several years he gave his best energy to lecturing on mathematics and chemistry at St. Andrews and to his own studies. He did his parish duties, but his heart wasn't in them.

Conversion at Kilmany

Around 1808 a series of family deaths and a long, serious illness brought him face to face with eternity. He began to read and think about the gospel in a new way. Over the next few years he came to see that he could not make himself right with God by his own efforts, and that Christ's righteousness is freely given to those who trust Him. By the end of 1811 his journal records the joy of assurance and a full surrender to Christ.

The change showed at once in his preaching. He had preached morality; now he preached Christ. His people at Kilmany noticed, and so did others. Years later, writing to a friend who was struggling to find peace, he put the gospel this way:

Your sin put to Christ's account, and His righteousness put to your account, totally alter your relation with God.
A Selection from the Correspondence of the Late Thomas Chalmers, Letters to Mr. Robert Brown

Glasgow

In 1815 Chalmers moved to the Tron Church in Glasgow, then a booming industrial city. His preaching took the city by storm. He spoke with fire and power, and merchants left their offices at midday to hear him. His weekday sermons on the Christian faith and modern astronomy, published in 1817 as the Astronomical Discourses, sold in huge numbers across Britain. That same year he published The Evidence and Authority of the Christian Revelation, a defense of the faith from history.

His Tron Church sermons hammer at one theme: human nature is fallen, and decent morality without God cannot save. He also preached a series to the city's businessmen on honesty, the golden rule and the love of money, published as The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life.

In 1819 he took charge of St. John's, a new parish in one of Glasgow's poorest districts. There he tried a bold experiment. He divided the parish into small districts, each with an elder and a deacon who visited every home, taught the gospel, opened schools, and cared for the poor through the church's own giving instead of the public poor rates. Many people have studied that experiment since. It was at St. John's that he preached "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection."

Professor and church leader

In 1823 Chalmers left Glasgow to teach moral philosophy at St. Andrews, and in 1828 he became professor of divinity at the University of Edinburgh. He trained a generation of Scottish ministers, and many of the young men who later led the missionary and evangelical work of the Scottish church sat under him. In 1832 he was moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Through the 1830s a long conflict grew over who should choose a parish's minister: the congregation, or the wealthy patrons and the civil courts. Chalmers and the evangelicals held that Christ alone is head of His church and that the state had no right to force ministers on unwilling congregations. When the courts and Parliament refused to give way, the crisis came in May 1843. In what's called the Disruption, more than four hundred ministers walked out of the General Assembly, giving up their churches, homes and salaries. They formed the Free Church of Scotland, and Chalmers was its first moderator. He also became principal of its new college in Edinburgh.

In his last years he returned to the work he loved most, starting a church and school among the poor of the West Port in Edinburgh. When its church opened early in 1847, he called it one of the happiest events of his life. He died in his sleep at the end of May that year.

What he taught

A new affection

Chalmers' best-known sermon makes a simple point with great force. You can't empty the heart of the love of the world by telling people the world is passing away. The heart won't stay empty. It has to be filled with something better:

The heart is not so constituted, and the only way to dispossess it of an old affection, is by the expulsive power of a new one.
Sermons Preached in St. John's Church, Glasgow, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection

That new affection is love for God, and it is kindled by the free offer of the gospel. When a sinner sees that God loves him and freely forgives him in Christ, a new love takes hold that pushes the old one out.

Faith that works

Chalmers never separated faith from life. He believed true faith shows itself in love and obedience, in the office as much as the church. He wanted Christianity to reach into the smallest dealings of business:

It is evangelizing human life, by impregnating its minutest transactions with the spirit of the gospel.
The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life, The Guilt of Dishonesty Not to Be Estimated by the Gain of It

A big God and a small planet

As a man of science, Chalmers took seriously the question of how a God who made countless worlds could care about this one. His answer, in the Astronomical Discourses, was that the vastness of creation makes His care for us more wonderful, not less:

When I enter into company, amid all my forgetfulness of him, he never forgets me.
A Series of Discourses on the Christian Revelation, On the Extent of the Divine Condescension

Why he's still read

Chalmers is still read because he joined things that often come apart: a brilliant mind and a warm heart, gospel preaching and care for the poor, personal faith and public courage. "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection" is reprinted again and again because its point is so true to life. His letters show a pastor who wrote patiently to troubled friends, pointing them to Christ.

Where to start

TheWay Library has six of his books, all free to read. Start with Sermons Preached in St. John's Church, Glasgow, and read the Expulsive Power sermon first. If you're interested in faith and science, read the Astronomical Discourses. For the man himself, try his letters, or William Garden Blaikie's short biography, Thomas Chalmers.

Our guide to Thomas Chalmers' books describes all six, and our collection of Thomas Chalmers quotes gathers his best lines. You'll find all his books on the Thomas Chalmers author page.