Letters to Mrs. Glasgow of Mountgreenan
No. LXXI.
Glasgow, 24th April 1819.
DEAR MADAM, — Your interesting and kind letter reached me at least three weeks after it was written, and when I was in the midst of all that heat and hurry which are unfortunately too much associated with the business of the Sacrament in our large towns. I have since had a small excursion into the country, and this is the first day of my return home. I think it necessarj’to state all this, for it does require explanation that a letter so replete with valuable and friendly observations should have remained for such a length of time unanswered.
The notice that has been excited by my publications is certainly beyond all that I could have ventured to anticipate; and my attention has been a good deal exercised on the question
—in how far this was due to the pure and single ingredient of Christianity, or to certain adventitious ingredients which entered into my exposition of it? and I trust that I speak the genuine desire of my heart, when I affirm the feeling of a much truer satisfaction in being made to understand that any hearer has become more reconciled than before to the preaching of those who hold fast the simple and unaccompanied Gospel, or that any reader has acquired either a juster perception or a more approving taste for the doctrine of the Bible.
In these circumstances I could not fail perusing your letter with much interest and gratification; and happy shall I be that, by entering upon the fellowship of confidence and affection with Christ, you experience in your person the fulfilment of all His promises, receiving from Him power to become one of the chil dren of God, created anew unto good works, and rendered a new creature in Him who died for you.
Be assured, dear Madam, that you cannot think too extravagantly either of your own native guilt or native helplessness, and that on such a feeling as this you need lay no limitation whatever. And on the” other hand, you cannot think too confidently either of Christ’s power or of Christ’s willingness to expiate the one and to perfect His own strength in the other. It is my earnest prayer that neither of us be permitted to stop short with approving of this process intellectually, but that we shall be led by the good Spirit of God to enter upon the process actually and experimentally. I have just room to add, that I do not know a more stimulating kind of reading than the lives of religious persons — Philip Henry, Matthew Henry, Doddridge, Halyburton, Newton, are among the most useful subjects of religious biography that at present occur to me; but let all our reading be subordinate to the Bible.
After the many kind encouragements which you have had the goodness to aiford me, I assure you of my hearty inclination to visit Mountgreenan, and will certainly never be in your neighbourhood, with health and any degree of leisure at all, without offering my respects to you. I am greatly engrossed at present however, and from the circumstance of my relations being all situated on the east side of the island, I have it rarely in my power to be in your neighbourhood. — Believe me to be, Madam, yours with great regard and esteem, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXII.
Anstruther, 13th August 1819.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I am here upon sea-bathing. You were from home when I was last in your neighbourhood, and I fear that I shall not be able to make out my meditated visit to Mountgreenan for some time. Your last letter interested me greatly, and the question about sin I trust proceeded from a mind more enlightened, both as to its existence and its enormity, than before, and therefore having more of its magnitude in view as residing in her own character, while in respect of its absolute magnitude it is actually becoming less.
The topic to which you adverted has puzzled and mortified many an aspiring disciple of Christ. He becomes the sanctification as well as the redemption of those who believe in Him, and why, then, is He not now my complete sanctification? Just because we do not yet completely believe in Him. In proportion to the strength and consistency of our faith is our experience of His faithfulness. He gives power to become the children of God to as many as receive Him. (John i. 12.) But not to keep Him, just brings us back to the condition in which we were when we had not received Him; and so is it worthy of remark, that unless we keep in memory the truth which we have learned, we have believed in vain, and are not saved. (1 Cor. xv. 2.) The great excellence of the Gospel is, that the same principle which stands connected with our acceptance in
MKS. GLASGOW. Ill
the sight of God, (Acts xiii. 39,) will also, if admitted and kept in the heart, maintain within it the principle of all holy and affectionate obedience. (Gal. v. 6; 1 John v. 4.) But faith is a progressive principle. In its infancy it often fluctuates into feebleness, and appears to fade away altogether. It says no thing against but for the supremacy of its influence that, when away from the mind of man, he relapses into the sin and the vanities of nature, and that it is only when present in the mind that this new and implanted principle ensures the ascendency of the Spirit, and subordinates the flesh to its pure and prevailing influence. It is of importance to know, that the privilege of a Christian in the world consists not in an exemption from the motions of the flesh, but in a power of control over them. There is a conflict between nature and grace, even unto the end. (Gal. v. 17.) Paul describes this conflict in his own person. (Rom. vii. 9-25.) Sin was present, but it had not the dominion, when he recurred by faith to Christ as his helper. To feel the instigations of sin is one thing, to walk after these instigations is another. Commit yourself to Jesus as the Lord your sanctifier, and you will experience the same reason of gratitude that Paul did when he uttered the exclamatiori, Rom. vii. 24, 25; and in Rom. viii. 4, you find that through Christ strengthening him, he, and every true believer after him, walks after the Spirit. I have often thought that “whosoever is born of God committeth not sin” would be more intelligible, and apparently more consistent with experience, were the first word rendered, which I think it might be, “whatsoever,” viz., the new principle of regeneration — the love which faith worketh — the radical element of the new man, out of which no sin can possibly emerge, and which, in proportion to its growth in the Christian, will more and more prevail over the old man, and expel sin from the whole man, compound as he is in his present state of the two put together.
Out of all this observation I would say, in the first place, that the best practical attitude for obedience from one hour to another, is to live in faith 011 the Son of God from one hour to another — is to feed the flame of gratitude all the day long, by trusting all the day long — is to commit yourself in good earnest to Him under this one and that other temptation, and then see whether He will not keep that which is so committed — see whether, when the Lord is besought earnestly, He does not in deed and in truth return the answer, “I will make my grace sufficient for you; I will perfect my strength in weakness.”
Let me say, in the second place, that though the existence of sin be compatible with a state of safety, (1 John i. 8,) I know not a worse symptom than when a professing disciple is willing, on this account, to lay down the armour of hostility against it. It is a war in which no quarter must be given — a war of extermination — a war with self, and with temper, and with wilfulness — a war which is never slackened by the offers of pardon or the hopes of impunity. It is remarkable that after John has brought forward the things stated in chapter i. of his first Epistle and verses 7 and 9, he should say, in chapter ii. verse 1, he wrote these things not that they might securely sin, but that they might sin not, and follows up this with another ample declaration of the grace and forgiveness by which the Gospel is characterized.
Did I think that natural talents were enough for an intelligent perusal of the Epistle to the Romans, I would recommend this epistle to none more readily than to yourself. But in the actual truth of the case, let me recommend the perusal of this admirable compendium of Christianity with earnest prayer — with sustained and persevering attention — with a constant feeling of dependence on that Spirit who, by the Word as His instrument, can alone effectually teach you, by taking of the things of Christ and shewing them unto you.
I have read with impression lately Alleine’s “Alarm to the Unconverted,” and I am now reading Doddridge’s “Rise and Progress of Religion.” The former is a very close and vigorous performance. Its occasional coarsenesses of imagery and expression I feel persuaded that you will now overlook; nor do I know a more pleasing collateral transformation that takes place on an inquirer than when, in spite of accompaniments which at one time would have utterly repelled him, his taste becomes reconciled to the phraseology of evangelical writers from the weight and preciousness of the matter which it conveys. — Believe me, my dear Madam, yours with great esteem and regard. THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXIII.
Glasgow, 30th April 1821.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I send you my book on National Resources. I should like your frank and explicit avowal respecting the merits of my theory, which to me is still as convincing as when I first conceived it.
I look back with no common emotions of interest and delight to the hours of enjoyment I had while under your hospitable roof; and it is indeed my earnest wish and solicitude that your decided tendencies to the best of subjects may end in a blessed consummation. There is no possibility of coming forth with any prescription as to the time that might allowably be given to literature, and elegance, and society; and it would obliterate the character of Christianity altogether were she made so to deal out her allowances by hours and by quantities. The great object is to keep the heart with all diligence, and if it were right, everything else would find its right and natural adjustment in the system of one’s concerns, and from a code of restraint the law of the Gospel would rise to the high distinction of being a law of liberty. For the right keeping of the heart, I know not a more summary and thoroughly evangelical expedient than we find in Jude 20, 21.
It may however be affirmed, that it is a good discipline to maintain self-denial in reference to all our natural indulgences, and we cannot be too thoroughly aware, that just as it constitutes the crime of idolatry, whether the image we fall down to worship be of gold or of baser materials, so it is quite a possible thing to feed the defection of the heart from Grod by a refined, as effectually as by a coarser species of worldliness.
I crave my most respectful regards to Mr. Glasgow, whose kind reception of me I felt to be truly gratifying. — I am, my dear Madam, yours very affectionately, No. LXXIV.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I have at length perused your paper, and though to me there is no task more fatiguing and more formidable than that of transferring my mind to a new subject, with the view of critically appreciating the argument that has been raised upon it, yet I trust I have been enabled to seize upon the principle of your composition, and on rational and deliberate grounds to acquiesce in it. I have neither Alison nor Jeffrey by me, and am unable to estimate the whole amount of the difference between your theory and theirs; yet I can perceive a very important novelty in the compromise that you have struck between Socrates and Plato; in conceding to the former his principle of utility, as indeed the inherent or pervading principle of all beauty; and to the latter, that as our impressions of utility vary in different individuals with the accidental circumstances or affections, the character of beautiful which we assign to visible objects will depend on the character of our own emotions. I felt mvself on more familiar ground, and where I was perhaps better able to esti mate the value of your argument when I approached towards the conclusion of your essay. It is indeed a most important truth, that in morals and theology the soundness of the affections stands most intimately linked with the soundness of the understanding; and I can perceive how this very principle does indeed shed a most beautiful light on the department of Taste, the correctness of which will, according to the views that you have so ably unfolded, depend on the correctness of the heart and feelings.
You still, I apprehend, leave as wide though not so extensive an empire as does Alison to the law of association. The physical pleasure that certain sounds or sights confer, from their suitableness to the bodily organ, is no doubt an ingredient of beauty which has its primary and immediate residence in the object itself, though the remembrance of this in time past will influence to a certain degree, too, the present emotion wherewith the object is regarded. But saving on this ground the principle of utility seems to have no other instrument than association for working its influences upon taste.
Mrs. Chalmers and our family are still at Ardincaple, and I do feel the sea-bathing to be of great benefit, and retirement a very great luxury. I took the liberty of recommending a few Christian duodecimos to you when we last met. May I add to the list Romanic’s “Life of Faith,” and Romaine’s “Walk of Faith.” I think he unfolds the most peaceful, and, at the same time, the most powerful way of prosecuting the good work of sanctification.
I again beg my most respectful compliments to Mr. Glasgow, and with every assurance of esteem and attachment to yourself, I entreat you to believe me, my dear Madam, yours very trulv, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXV.
Glasgow, 15th November 1.821.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I am glad you have looked into Edwards; I think that the great strength of his argument for the agreement of his doctrines with moral distinctions, lies in an Appen dix that is subjoined to all the later editions of his works. I am quite aware, however, that he has failed to convince some of the ablest and most accomplished understandings. I feel both amused and interested by the lucubrations of Mr. Stewart on this subject in his Preliminary Dissertation.
Edwards, though the profoundest of all writers on the more deep and hidden tracks of speculation, is also the plainest and most practical on the more popular topics of Christianity; nor have I read anything more urgently, and even appallingly impressive, than are some of his sermons. His works are now formed into a complete edition; and I think of them that they should hold a place of supereminence in every theological library.
We must have more conversation on the subject of Alison and Jeffrey on Taste. I have still the haunting impression that Alison would concede to you the opinion that you have formed, and at the same time affirm it to be in entire unison with his own theory. If I recollect him right he denies the power of calling forth the emotions of taste to any qualities strictly material, independent of their association with something else, or that there is nothing either in colour or form to awaken these emotions. There are at the same time inherent qualities in external and visible objects which may be conceived as disjoined from either their colour or shape, as the usefulness of a horse. This usefulness might enter into our impression of the beauty of the animal, or in other words, it may be something inherent in the horse that constitutes part of its beauty; and yet a something reducible into the principle of association, because that some thing is not addressed immediately either to the eye or the car, or any of the senses. The sight of him suggests his usefulness, and it is not what is immediately before you, but what the mind is led to conceive from it that is the cause of the emotion in question. I speak rather in the obscure and floundering style of one whose mind is not made up on the subject; and I am sure you must think me provokingly stupid in regard to it.
It delights me to witness the approximations of one who has so much both of literary accomplishment and intellectual vigour, to a doctrine that is still an oifence and a derision among the philosophers of our existing generation; and when I think of the great moral distance that there is between an appreciating taste either for Alison or Stewart upon the one hand, and a relish for the writings of Guthrie or Romaine, or Owen, or John Newton, upon the other, I cannot but rejoice in the infusion of the latter into a mind before strongly impregnated with the former, as the hopeful evidence of one who is under the workings of a high and heavenly influence; and it is indeed my earnest prayer that, through the Word and Spirit of God, you may become every day wiser unto salvation. — With most respectful compliments to Mr. Glasgow, believe me, my dear Madam, yours with great esteem and regard, No. LXXVI.
Friday, llth July 1822.
MY DEAR MADAM, — In the publishing of your Essay there are two things that must be taken into account: — First, the taste of the public has declined prodigiously of late years for all the topics of pure and abstract speculation. The talent of our land has now forced its way into the channel of periodical literature; and there is certainly a force and spirit in our magazines, and reviews, and even newspapers, which might have done credit to the best of our British classics. But certain it is, that a separate and independent essay on such a topic as you have chosen, is not fitted to meet the present direction which the demand for reading has taken. No merit or power of argument, or of matter, that is of so scientific a character, will countervail the present tendencies of the popular tastes, — and the slow sale of Brown’s “Lectures”’ is a very striking instance of it. The same remark applies, I believe, to Stewart’s works; so that both he and Playfair, to widen the circulation of their views, have thrown them into Encyclopedias, these great periodical eddies of literature in our day.
But, secondly, to make a work of abstract speculation noticeable and an object of demand, it should be brought out in the permanent form of a book. It is a heavy additional drawback on the circulation of an argument that is purely philosophical when it is offered to the public in a pamphlet. Brown’s Essay on “Cause and Effect” appeared at first in this ephemeral form, for it had a temporary importance from the Leslie controversy; but to stamp endurance upon it, it had to be dilated into a volume. The same is true of a most profound metaphysical pamphlet of Edwards, which might have come out still-born, or speedily died away from all general observation, had it not been incorporated with his “Essay on the Will” in an Appendix.
The suggestion that I would found upon all this — but with the utmost deference, and in the hope that you will give it no further place than you really think it entitled to — is, that the Essay should appear, in the first instance, in one of our most distinguished periodicals, (say the “Christian Observer,”) where it might call forth a world of observation and argument, and give a direction, perhaps, to other illustrations of the principle on your part; and when enough of materials have been thus digested and accumulated for a volume, let it pass into this state, as Cunningliame’s last work did, which, in fact, was brought out by a gradual preparation of this very kind. — With most respectful compliments to Mr. Glasgow and Miss Dunlop, I entreat you to believe me, my dear Madam, yours most truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXVII.
Glasgow, 15th November 1822.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I do not know whether Mr. Collins has written you in regard to the dedication; but you must really permit us both to say that there are many serious and weighty objections against the appearance of it. I have already been made the subject in print of most gross and ungenerous imputations, on the score of the interested connexion which is alleged to subsist between myself and that house; and any thing so very eulogistical printed by them would, I am sure, give a colour to these imputations, and altogether form such an exhibition as might revolt even many who at present entertain no suspicion of that kind.
I fear that this would be an insuperable barrier to the publication of your work by that house, if the dedication be persisted in; and I farther entreat your forgiveness when I say, that though published in any circumstances I should be distressed by the appearance of it. It is no doubt most flattering to my self that I should stand so high in the estimation of one whom I myself so highly and so sincerely esteem. But I would infinitely rather that the world was not admitted as a spectator upon this gratih’cation, which to me were far more precious and satisfying if. undisturbed by the public gaze, it were left in the state of a friendship that none but the parties themselves should know, and which none else could appreciate.
I look earnestly forward to a favourable deliverance from you upon this point; after which I shall have occasion to advert to other particulars connected with the publication.
With most respectful compliments to Mr. Glasgow, and most affectionate prayers for your own advancement in all that is good, and gracious, and heavenly, I entreat you to believe me, my dear Madam, yours most truly, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXVIII.
2d April 1823.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I felt exceedingly grateful for your letter, and much interested by all that you mention on the subject of the Essay. I have read it deliberately since I saw you, and I do think that it will most assuredly work its way. I left a copy with Dr. Charteris of Wilton, in Roxburghshire, about a month ago, who is much pleased and interested; and it has been read with very intelligent approbation by some cultivated ladies in that neighbourhood. I expect, however, soon a still more solid and profound testimony from Mr. Douglas of Cavers, author of the “Hints on Missions,” who has much exercised his talents on the philosophy both of taste and metaphysics. The subject is such that I should look for a very gradual sale. Mr. Alison’s first edition lingered for many years in the market, but I trust that yours will obtain an earlier impulse than his did from the reviews and journals of the day.
It grieves me to say that some recent accessions of labour and employment make it quite imperative upon me to husband my time to the uttermost, and more particularly to abridge all my excursions from home. I have on this account declined Mr. Wilson’s invitation, and I really can perceive no outlet from my accumulated urgencies till the summer of 1824.
I beg my most respectful compliments to Miss Dunlop and Mr. Glasgow. — I am, my dear Madam, yours with great esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
»No. LXXIX.
Glasgow, 2lst August 1823.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I have to apologize for delaying to acknowledge your kind attentions to me. However much I am gratified by your opinion of what you have seen of my coming voiume, I cannot but feel assured that your partialities in behalf of its unworthy author have enhanced your estimation of it. I cannot feel too grateful for your expression of friendship towards me.
You are kind enough to interest yourself in my preparation for the Moral Philosophy. I am far from satisfied, and must just flounder my way through the new materials of the subject next winter in the best manner that I can.
I can, however, see it to be replete with interest; and that so far from detaching one’s regards from the first and greatest of causes, I do not know how one can labour more directly or more importantly in its service than by a right elucidation of all the topics connected with moral science. I trust that I may at length be enabled to find my way to your favourite subject — the action and re-action that taste and principle have on each other. I was glad to understand from Mr. Collins that Foster appreciated your views. I hope that you have seen the last “Edinburgh” on newspapers. It gives us a singular view of the present state of the reading public; and I am more persuaded than ever, that the readiest way of obtaining public attention to almost any subject is through the medium of periodicals. I would strongly advise extracts from your work in some of our monthly publications; as to them the whole. talent of our writers, and the whole attention of our readers, seem to have taken, what I think, a very unfortunate direction. I trust that the good old fashion of entire, and independent, and systematic treatises will again be restored, as there is really nothing more fitted to superficialize an age than the sketches, however forcible, and the sallies, however lively, that have given such currency to our ephemeral literature.
I beg my most respectful compliments to Mr. Glasgow and Miss Dunlop; and I entreat you to believe me, my dear Madam, yours with much esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXX.
St. Andrews, 24th August 1824.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I have never lost sight of my promise to send you a sermon on Colossians iv. 5. I find that it does not by any means exhaust the subject, and, indeed, forms only the part of a projected treatise on the kindred subjects to that of which it treats. It is on this account that I would take the liberty of requesting you to send it back when you are done with it; at the same time you are most welcome to take a copy, and make any use of that copy which you please. But I shall require it, both for the preparation of my treatise, and also, perhaps, for preaching occasionally.
After the bustle of Glasgow, there is a peculiar charm in the-.; calmness and tranquillity of St. Andrews.
With most respectful compliments to Mr. Glasgow, I have the honour to be, my dear Madam, yours with great esteem, No. LXXXI.
St. Andrews, 2Gth October 1824.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I received your kind letter of the 7th of October, by the hands of Miss Dunlop, whom I had very great pleasure in meeting when last in Edinburgh.
I feel the exceeding justness of your remarks on the subject of my sermon. There is a great want of specification in its advices, and I fairly confess that I should feel it very difficult to condescend upon the details of our conversation, as becometh Christians, with the people of the world, and as yet am really not qualified for more than the very general bearings and land marks of the subject.
But what interested me far more, though very painfully and with deep sympathy for yourself, was, the account that Miss Dunlop gave me of Mr. Glasgow. His illness was subsequent, I observe, to the date of your letter, and I cannot think without emotion of the exercise that your mind and feelings must undergo. We have had experimental proof, on such trying occasions, of the efficacy of prayer; and sure I am, that how ever general this direction may be, it is pertinent and particular enough to have been often followed up by a special blessing even in those cases that looked most hopeless.
My syllabus of lectures is, indeed, a very imperfect exhibition of the great subject to which I should like to devote much of my future attention. I must model and remodel many times over ere I can bring it to that state in which I would “like to leave it conclusively. Mrs. Chalmers and our children, I have reason to bless God, are in very good health. She feels deeply with myself for the situation of Mr. Glasgow, and desires, along with me, her best and kindest regards. — I entreat you to believe me, my dear Madam, yours with the greatest esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXXII.
St. Andrews, 26th February 1825.
MY DEAR MADAM, — Your kind letter of llth December I should have replied to long ago. I enter fully into the difficulties of your situation, and am grieved to hear from most recent accounts that Mr. Glasgow’s health is not improved; but surely, if aught should reconcile us to these adverse visitations, it must be their undoubted efficacy as the instruments often of a great revival to the soul that is exercised by them. There is nothing of which I am more thoroughly aware than the utter difference which there is between a speculative and an experimental conviction of the same truth. I may know that there is peace with God through Christ, without that peace being actually mine: I may have the most orthodox notion of the ground of acceptance, without personally resting on that ground and having the sense of my own acceptance: I may have a just perception of the truth as it is in Jesus, without any real part in it; and this appears to me to be the use of affliction. It loosens us from the earthly dependence, and forces us to feel and to sound as it were for a heavenly one. Instead of merely looking to the solidity of that foundation which God hath laid in Zion, we are led actually to lean upon it. That which was formerly a thing of contemplation comes to be a thing of personal interest; and whereas the understanding alone was formerly concerned with the doctrine, the heart and the hopes and all the feelings of our nature come into busy engagement with the truths of revelation which the mind now gladly seeks to in the absence of those worldly blessings that wont to be enough for it.
It was therefore with no common interest that I read of your spirit of adoption, and your sense of peace in Christ Jesus — most precious experiences which I pray you may ever be enabled to retain, and which I can assure you are worthy of whole worlds to be realized.
There has left us for Glasgow a very particular friend of mine, Mr. Craik, a student of St. Andrews, and of most extraordinary eloquence and power. He has just delivered a course of lectures here upon English Poetry, and with very great force and felicity, both of imagination and language. He is to deliver the same lectures in Glasgow, and, though I fear it is out of the question that you should be in Glasgow during any part of his stay, yet acquainted as you are with the most literary and cultivated of the mercantile class in that city, I should deem it a kindness if you would simply state to any of them the kind of entertainment which they may expect by attending Mr. Craik. They will find in every one of his lectures a very rich feast, both of intellect and fancy.
Mrs. Chalmers and our family are all in good health. — With best wishes and prayers, both in behalf of yourself and Mr. Glasgow, I have the honour to be, my dear Madam, yours most respectfully, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXXIII.
Glasgow, 22d September 1825.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I have the utmost desire to meet with you, and contemplated writing you, when I should be at Fairley next week, upon the subject. I am glad to understand that Mrs. Parker has asked you to be there along with our family. I shall yet be other four Sundays in Glasgow, and have therefore time enough for postponing the consideration of any ulterior arrangement till next week.
I am much gratified by being made to understand from you that Mr. Glasgow is in a more comfortable state of health. May the Giver of all grace sanctify the various trials and apprehensions to which we are exposed in this our earthly pilgrimage. This is the day on which I preach a sermon at laying the foundation of Knox’s Monument, a subject not at all points congenial to me, but which was put upon me by the excessive urgency of some of my friends. — I am, my dear Madam, yours with great esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXXIV.
Glasgow, 12th October 1825.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I spent all last week with my friend Mr-Wood, and got quit of my sore eyes in a few days. Will you have the goodness to say to Dr. Allan that I made use of his prescription with great effect.
I found it a very tough and arduous undertaking to deliver myself on the subject of Predestination in one day. However, I am now done with the subject; and while quite assured of the doctrine, I feel equally assured that it leaves all the incitements, and all the obligations, and the whole work of practical Christianity, from its commencement to its consummation, precisely where it found them. It is worthy of all observation, that while the Gentiles are represented as the objects of a previous Predestination, we are made to understand at the conclusion of the chapter, that this was made good by their acceptance of the free offer of the Gospel; and that those decreed reprobates the Jews, only became so through their rejection of that offer; and that the whole argument closes with a “whosoever,” a wide and a welcome proclamation to all who will. Our business surely is not with the decrees, whereof we know nothing, but with the instant declarations which are sounding in our ears, with the word that is nigh unto us, with God not in the act of ordination millions of centuries back, but with God in the act of urgent, and kind, and honest entreaty at this moment. Let us therefore leave the secret things which belong unto God, where they ought to be left, and proceed on those revealed things which belong to ourselves and to our children.
May I be permitted to say, that if I may judge from my own feelings, the trials wherewith you have been exercised must greatly enhance the regard and the interest of all your friends. It is a difficult, but to a Christian not an impracticable achievement, to count it all joy when he falls into divers tribulations. A believing view of eternity would absorb all our griefs and all our provocations. May the God and the Giver of all comfort prove a resting-place to your spirit, and may you be enabled to hide yourself in the pavilion of His residence till all calamities be overpast. — I am, my dear Madam, yours with the greatest esteem and regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXXV.
St. Andrews, 13th December 1825.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I feel myself a good deal goaded at present with the necessity of having my third volume on the Christian and Civic Economy of Great Towns in readiness for the press by January. It has been got up in a sad hurry, and with none of that leisure and care which I should like to bestow on all my future literary preparations. But it is my last engagement, and I am glad, by getting quit of it, to be wholly emancipated for the pursuits of my new profession, which are only commencing now in good earnest.
I observe by your last, that you have been exercised afresh by the death of relatives. May these visitations lead us to a truer estimate of the worth of things, that we may neither be elated by this world’s abundance, nor cast down by its adversities and its crosses. It is remarkable that in the parable of the sower, the cares of this life are enumerated along with its pleasures among the thorns which overbear the good seed of the word of God. I have often thought, too, of the sorrow of this world being adverted to as a counterpart to godly sorrow, and of the property which is ascribed to it — “that it worketh death.”
I am delighted with the justness of your views on the subject of Predestination. In regard to the union of fear and love, I feel the importance of what you say in regard to the former affection as an instrument for the conversion of sinners. It is exceedingly good to mark the gradual operation of this feeling in bringing the inquirer onward from the beginning of wisdom to the state of being perfect in love. I did touch upon this matter in a sermon on the text, “Some save with fear, and others with compassion, making a difference,” But it would require to be much more fully illustrated.
I do not know if you have seen “Leighton on Peter,” I am sure that you would rejoice in that book as a very high Christian feast. — I am, my dear Madam, yours with the greatest regard, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXXVI.
St. Andrews, 7th June 1826.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I fear that my first Sunday at Glasgow must be so late as the first Sunday of August, or August the 6th. I mean to approach it by a very unusual route by East Lothian, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire, Dumfriesshire, Galloway, and Ayrshire. On this line I visit several of my acquaintances, and more especially a sister, married only yesterday to a clergyman in Kirkcudbrightshire. If perfectly convenient for you, I would come from Irvine to Mountgreenan on Saturday the 5th of August, and return from Glasgow on the evening of Sunday the 6th, to spend a week there. I trust, however, that you will decline receiving me if either the state of Mr. Glasgow’s health or any other circumstance should render it unsuitable.
I will not disguise it, that next to the happiness of your own society, I value the quietness and retirement of Mountgreenan, and would gladly avail myself of these advantages for a more intense work of Sabbath preparation than I have yet been able to fulfil. The truth is, that I have found the study and society together greatly too much for me on my recent visits to the west; and I should vastly desiderate that entire command of the forenoon which you have ever had the goodness to allow me, and which, intermingled as it was with recreation and converse of the highest order, has inspired me with the pleasantest recollections of your place and neighbourhood. — I am, my dear Madam, yours with the greatest esteem and regard, No. LXXXVII.
St. Andrews, 4th December 1826.
MY DEAR MADAM, — I am much interested by what you say of Mr. Cunninghame. When I had the pleasure of meeting him at Mountgreenan, he interested me much more than I had ever be fore been in the study of prophecy, by the assertion that he made, both upon his own experience and upon that of others, of its spiritualizing tendency. I have resolved to make a deliberate effort upon that subject, but have scarcely had time to begin. I have, however, been reading some proof-sheets of a new publication by Mr. Irving — that is, the translation of a prophetic work from the Spanish. It seems very able. I believe it will make me a millenarian; and I can certainly conceive from it that the study of prophecy should have a very powerful effect in strengthening one’s practical Christianity. I am glad that your work is speedily to be made the subject of a review, which I sincerely hope will do justice to it. That my mind is not absolutely established on the side of its theory does not affect the question of whether or not I think it should have been published. Both Alison’s and Jeffrey’s books on the same subject are valuable accessions to English Literature, even though their theories do diverge somewhat from each other, and though I cannot say that either has made me a decided proselyte. The same applies to what Brown has written upon this subject. Successive authors might make successive approximations to the truth, and though one is doubtful as to the truth of any of their promulgated systems, yet he may not be at all doubtful of its worth as a contribution to the mass of literature on that subject. I must repeat, however, that I should have preferred your work to have come out, in the first instance, through the medium of some of our best journals, as being far the most noticeable way in the present direction which the public have taken towards periodical literature. I experience this in the dull sale of my own works on Political Economy. — I am, my dear Madam, yours very respectfully, THOMAS CHALMERS.
No. LXXXVIII.
St. Andrews, 2lst February 1828.
MY DEAR MADAM, — Accept of my best thanks for your friendly congratulations on the subject of my recent appointment to Edinburgh. The preparation is a work of great labour, and indeed I may say that it is now my main though not my only employment, as I have at present the teaching of two classes besides. In the course of my reading for the Theological Chair, I have fallen in with a French work of Leibnitz’s, entitled “Essais de Theodicee sur la bonte de Dieu, la liberte de Thomme, et 1’origine du mal.” I am sure it would interest you. He is a Necessitarian; but though not so close in argument, is far more illustrative and philosophical than Edwards. He has besides a richness and an elegance which the other lias no pretensions to. He gives much information about the state of moral and metaphysical science in the Continent at that period; and though he has not just resolved the question of the origin of evil, yet he has advanced such plausibilities upon the subject as serve to reconcile us in the meantime to a suspension of our judgment till “the day shall declare it,” even the “day of the revelation of the mystery of God,” I do not recommend this work for its practical piety, but rather for what may be called its philosophical orthodoxy; and it is most interesting to follow the speculations of one so illustrious in science, on the sublime doctrines and mysteries of our faith.
My work of practical piety at present is Boston, one of our
Scottish authors. I am now reading his “Fourfold State,” and I think his little treatise entitled “The Crook in the Lot” is very precious.
I fear that my engagements are such that the composition of a sermon on any special topic at present is out of the question. The subject that you advert to, however, is one on which there must be some impressive treatises; and it occurs to me to say that if I remember right there are French tracts which have been published by the Continental Society, and some of which I am confident must bear upon Scriptural reading. I know not a cheaper and more productive benevolence than the distribution of such pamphlets when well chosen.
We are all pretty well. May the God of all mercy ever be with you, and in His precious Bible may you never want for refreshment and consolation. — Believe me, my dear Madam, yours with greatest affection and esteem,