Preface to the First Edition

At various periods, of late years, startling disclosures have been made regarding the management of mercantile affairs. In particular, during the summer of 1850, a painful sense of uncertainty hung upon the community. Men’s hearts failed. The foundations of society seemed to be shaking. Not only were injurious practices rife, but principles were mooted in defence of them that seemed to throw loose again the question, What is righteousness? Ideas, muffled and disguised, stealthily flitted through the market-place, whispering in men’s ears that the precepts of the Bible could not be strictly applied to the great transactions of modern merchandise. Exercising the ministry in the midst of the greatest mercantile community of Scotland, the writer felt, that if he would be jealous for the law of God, he ought, with special reference to the times, to proclaim that it is exceeding broad, covering all the transactions of men. With mingled hope and fear, he proceeded to fulfil a duty, from which, when it was once suggested to his mind, he could not with a good conscience escape. Six discourses, such as seemed suitable to the occasion, were prepared and addressed to the congregation during the autumn, in the ordinary course of ministerial duty. The same reasons which at first led to the preparation, were, when pressed by others, felt to be equally valid for the publication of the discourses. Hence this little volume.

lvi PREFACE TO TIIE FIRST EDITION.

The subjects are in some measure different from those which generally are, and should be, the chief theme of a minister’s sermon on the Sabbath. It is because of this peculiarity that they are submitted to the public. The writer alludes to this characteristic for the purpose of explanation, not that he thinks it needs an apology. He counts it a useful and an honorable work to preach righteousness according to God’s Word, and applied to all the transactions of men. He thinks that ministers of the Gospel, in these days, while they glory only in the Cross, are not only permitted but required to let their ministrations occasionally range over a wider sphere. While they preach Christ, they should not allow the adversary to revel unchecked in any field to which their weapons can reach. Provided always that they plant their compass in the centre, they may at times with great profit lengthen the radius, and sweep round a wider circumference.

The original form of the discourses has not been changed. The material might easily have been metamorphosed into a treatise, with the view of avoiding the proverbial unpopularity of printed sermons, but the writer does not feel disposed to be so accommodating. He believes that form is in itself well fitted to explain and impress truth. If he did not think it an efficient instrument, he would not lay out on it, as he does, the chief labor of his life. If the matter is good, it is none the worse for being found in a sermon; if the matter is trifling or erroneous, chapters and sections could not remove its defects, and ought not to conceal them.

Glasgow, May, 1851.