There are two extremes into which professing Christians of the present day are very apt to fall. While one class adopt a system of doctrinal sentiments without any practical regard to their influence on the heart and on the life, another satisfy themselves with the simple performance of social duties. Into the religious scheme of the former, there enter few, if any, of those holy affections, and little of that sublime practical virtue which the gospel requires. Into the scheme of the latter, there enter few of the leading principles of the Christian revelation, and a very small portion of that spirituality of sentiment and of feeling, which constitutes the very essence of vital godliness.
At the induction of Dr. Thomas Smith as successor to the late Rev. Dr. Duff in the chair of Evangelistic Theology, in the New College, Edinburgh, Dr. Begg, who addressed the newly appointed professor, made the following very admirable remarks on the true source of ministerial usefulness and success.
When a country is invaded by some foreign foe, when the armies of the aggressor have overspread the land, when a blighted surface marks the progress of their ravages, when the chains of unoffending victims display the relentless cruelty of their revenge, when the active movements of hostile squadrons are discerned, and the voice of the trumpet that hitherto has sounded the certain note of battle and defeat is heard from the watchtowers of the fortress, that forms the last and lingering hope of a once flourishing, but now greatly diminished power; when it is dreaded that within are many faithless men, whose treacherous machinations are concealed under the mask of friendship, and who only await the critical moment of disaster or despair, to strengthen the hands of those who have laid bare many an altar, and left many a city smoking in its ruins—shall he be hailed as a patriot citizen, who whispers in softest accents that danger is far distant; who circulates and foments the ruinous suggestion to relax those efforts that might yet render resistance successful, and, turning the tide of conquest, lay prostrate the insulting foe; who encourages the thousands around him to banish idle cares and silence unfounded alarms, and speedily betake themselves to gay and luxurious delights, and loll in the lap of voluptuous ease, and run the round of lawless revelry? No. He is pronounced a traitor to his country’s cause; to him is awarded a traitor’s doom; and over his remains are raised the insignia of a traitor’s grave.
The most immediate, and to this audience, the most impressive suggestion conveyed in this half sentence is, that a preacher of the Divine Law and Christian Gospel may be a castaway. Nay, when we remember who was the “I myself ” that wrote these lines, we perceive that even an Apostle, an inspired preacher, was not, on that account, beyond the peril. We have the still more positive confirmation of fact; for an older Apostle than Paul, one of the original twelve, called and endowed with power by Christ himself, fell by transgression from “this ministry and apostleship,” perished by suicide in the field he had purchased with the reward of iniquity, and went from Aceldama to what was, in a more fearful sense, “his own place,” a castaway.
We often pray for unction on the preaching of god’s word but we seldom pause to define what we mean by this term. We know instinctively as Christians that for preaching to be effective it needs something from above to enhance and empower the spoken word. This need which we feel, and which moves us to pray, does not imply any defect in the word of God. Rather, it recognises that there is inadequacy in those who preach that word and also a profound deficiency in the heart of those who hear it preached. Consequently, when we pray, as we should pray, for unction in preaching we are rightly confessing to God that something supernatural is necessary if His word is to have its proper effect on our hearers.
I do not think that enough of stress has been laid by theologians or Christian ministers on the various particular terms in which the overtures of the gospel are couched for presentation to the world. Each man would understand the import of a special message to himself, but he may not see how the Bible can be understood, as being adequately and fully such a message. An express letter from the upper sanctuary, with his name and designation, might satisfy him; but in the general record of Scripture, that name and that designation are nowhere to be found.
Of all the catastrophes known to man, few evoke scenes of greater horror in the hearts of God’s people than the prospects of a famine of the Word. Preaching holds an indispensable place in God’s economy. Believers know that their spiritual vitality depends on the food delivered from the pulpit by God. In Christ’s words: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4b).
Dingwall is a royal burgh in the heart of the Scottish Highlands; in the mid-nineteenth century, it was the administrative centre of the county of Ross and Cromarty, and a busy market town with a settled population of around 2000 people. Like much of the Highlands, Dingwall was firmly Episcopalian during the seventeenth century. A mob thwarted an attempt to hold a Presbyterian service there in 1704, and an attempted settlement of a Presbyterian minister four years later was similarly prevented. Gradually, over the course of the eighteenth century, a peaceful and stable Presbyterian ministry was established.
A previous article in the journal described the preaching ministry of John Kennedy (1819–1884), minister of Dingwall Free Church of Scotland from 1844 until his death, and the leading preacher of the Highland section of the Free Church of Scotland during the second half of the nineteenth century. That account of Kennedy’s preaching ministry underlined the importance of the work of pulpit ministry, fulfilled in faithful Scriptural exposition, experimental application and earnest evangelistic appeal. The present article explores what one can learn of Kennedy’s preparation for the pulpit, and practice there, in fulfilling his significant and influential preaching ministry.
We say, that even in reference to the plainest and most unquestioned doctrines of religion, there is to be observed a difference of treatment between the congregation and the classroom; but there is a still wider difference to be observed when, from the generally admitted truths of the simply and purely didactic, you pass to the much agitated truths of the controversial theology.
