The Expulsive Power of a New Affection: Thomas Chalmers Glasgow and St Andrews (2)

This is the second in a blog series on Thomas Chalmers by Rev James Maciver.  You can read the first one here.  The content was originally delivered at the 1996 Scottish Historical Studies Conference and can be found here.

3. Glasgow - 1815-1823

To begin with Chalmers missed Kilmany and was considerably frustrated with Glasgow, especially the amount of time he was expected to devote to serving on council boards and committees. While his pulpit oratory probably reached its zenith at this time Chalmers was restless and unsatisfied.

While the population of Glasgow had grown enormously by this time the church had lost many of the working masses from its numbers. Poverty was a serious problem in the depression following the Napoleonic War, and as political economy had always been a favourite subject with Chalmers, so now he addressed the question of poor relief.

The power of the Gospel for him was much more than pulpit oratory for the citizens that flocked to hear him. The working classes must also be saved from lapsing further into paganism and crime. In Chalmers' estimation, only as the Church was seen to be a mighty engine for good was it worthy of people's veneration, in post-Industrial Revolution Scotland. Poor relief, church extension, evangelism, and Gospel preaching were all of a piece for Chalmers, inter-related strands of the church's business in the world.

St. John’s Parish

Appalled by the spiritual ignorance as well as the social deprivation of masses of people in his own parish, Chalmers was now prepared to put his theories to the test. He persuaded the town council to erect and finance a new parish, St. John's, in an area populated by many of the poorest in the city.

To try and keep pace with the swelling population in the cities the church had increased the number of ministers in already existing parishes in a "collegiate" arrangement. When that proved inadequate, new church buildings were erected, but the financial cost was high and the councils, by whose patronage they had been set up, recouped their outlay by charging high seat rents which the poor could not afford. This was the situation Chalmers was determined to remedy in St. John's.

The Organiser

From 1819 to 1823 Chalmers presided over the work in St. John's, preaching, visiting, organising schools and charity work. These years were remarkably fruitful for Chalmers and his deacons. Wherever possible family members were encouraged to contribute to poverty among their own relatives. Chalmers consistently emphasised to those who were in work the stigma of sending their out-of-work relations to the poor-house, when they should instead be prepared to contribute to a scheme like his to prevent this.

One of the main objectives of his scheme was to stimulate this sense of responsibility. Compassion and contribution from relatives and neighbours, coupled with independence, economy, and sobriety would ward off poverty to a much greater degree. He viewed the legalisation of pauperism as a degradation of the poor.

He was convinced that poverty was only exacerbated by encouraging dependence on State help. For him the old method of relief from church door collections, when accompanied by a careful system of parochial visitation, was the best solution to the needs of the poor. Chalmers in this no doubt looked back on a pre-Industrial Revolution Scotland, but not in the spirit of the romanticist that longs merely to repeat the past. He believed that a church revitalised from the grip of Modaratism was the best means to effectively deal with the rapidly increasing social problems of his day.

Looking at the venture from a financial perspective makes interesting reading. The cost of maintaining the poor in the area of this parish up till then had amounted to £1400 per annum. The St. John's door collection ran to £480, yet Chalmers was determined that all cases of poverty within the parish, apart from those already inmates of the local poor-house, should be met from these door collections.

The outcome of these labours was such that by the end of his time in St. John's Chalmers had seen a considerable drop in the number of new cases of poverty in the parish, and in addition a corresponding drop in the cost of keeping them. By the second year of the scheme St. John's had taken over the maintenance of all the inmates of the poor-house. The poverty that had cost the council £1400 a year was now managed by St. John's at a cost of £280.

The comment of Dr. Hanna in his Memoirs of Thomas Chalmers, is instructive.

"The St. John's deaconry - employed as it was to promote the education as well as to manage the indigence of the parish - mingling as it did familiarly with all the families, and proving itself, by word and deed, the true but enlightened friend of all, did far more to prevent pauperism than to provide for it."

Despite this the scheme was not to continue successfully in Glasgow, nor was it much taken up elsewhere. This was not due to lack of interest. There were those who took note of the success of his scheme, and Chalmers longed to see something similar applied in England, but many of those who identified with it there were already committed in time and resources to the anti-slavery movement.

In addition, from 1828 onwards, Chalmers, by that time in Edinburgh, faced staunch opposition from the Dissenters, or Separatists, and from a government which had no intention of allowing the church to regain its claim over society.

In Glasgow itself Chalmers had called for laws of residence to be drawn up to prevent the poor in other areas descending upon St. John's, and so limiting the scheme to that parish alone, but this was never done.

Perhaps one of the main reasons why it wasn't replicated elsewhere at the time was that Chalmers in his social policies was ahead of his time. And such a scheme as St. John's required an enormously energetic leadership. Chalmers himself could not only enter enthusiastically into such work, but also inspire others to carry his plans into effect. But there were few, even then, of his kind around.

The Preacher

We cannot leave Chalmers' ministry in Glasgow without touching upon Chalmers as a preacher of the Gospel. Before he came to Glasgow evangelical preaching had been regarded by many, as had been true of Chalmers himself, as either sentimentalism or fanaticism, or something of both. Through Chalmers now that perception was being steadily transformed. It was by his voice that the city awoke to the evils and corruptions it possessed, as it was through his industry that the means were set up to tackle them. Not the least of his achievements in Glasgow was the raising in public esteem of evangelical preaching.

Yet Chalmers left Glasgow in 1823, after eight dynamic years. No doubt the incessant toils of preaching, writing, visitation, correspondence (some 50 letters a week), family commitments, and all his practical schemes, were taking their toll. He was at times exhausted. But that would not explain his decision to leave, and to take up the offer of the chair of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews. Nor was the main reason in his desire for an academic chair which he had cherished since boyhood. Chalmers saw that his influence could now be even more widespread than was possible through his Glasgow pulpit, especially through the press, and without the burdens of a parish ministry. He could build upon his unrivalled fame as a preacher and extend his usefulness even further.

In fact, as he mentioned in his letter to his elders, deacons, and Sabbath School teachers in January 1823, he saw that, to all intents and purposes, to continue to hold a preaching ministry and be a leader of such an enlarged work as his social reform, would require him to be a pluralist!

And there was something else, something of which he had written in the early stages of his work, The Christian and Civic Economy of large Towns, in 1819.

"You know that a machine in the hand of a single individual can often do a hundred-fold more work than an individual can do by the direct application of his own hands...But further, the elevated office of a Christian minister is to catch men. There is, however, another still more elevated, and that too, in regard to Christian productiveness - which is to be employed in teaching and training the fishers of men. A professorship is a higher condition of usefulness than an ordinary parish...Were there at this moment fifty vacancies in the church, and the same number of vacancies in our Colleges, and fifty men...rich in their qualifications for the one department and the other, some of you would be for sending them to the pulpits - I would be for sending them to the chairs. A Christianised university, in respect of its professorships, would be to me a mightier accession than a Christianised county, in respect of its parishes. And should there be a fountain out of which emanated a thousand rills, it would be to the source that I should carry the salt of purification, and not to any of the streams which flow from it."

It was in such a mind, from such a work, into even greater influence, that Thomas Chalmers preached his farewell sermon in Glasgow on 9th November, 1823, and gave his introductory lecture in St. Andrews five days later.

4. St Andrews University - 1823-1828

Very different were the thoughts, feelings and aspirations of the new professor of Moral Philosophy to those he had cherished some twenty years earlier in this same place of learning. The enthusiasm with which students awaited his lectures was intense, especially in the second year of his professorship there, regarded by many as the most brilliant in all his academic career.

Excitement and Activity

St. Andrews university sat petrified in Moderatism when Chalmers arrived there. Students now began to vote against it with their feet. Chalmers had brought life, conviction and enthusiasm. A Missionary Society was established and some of the young men who now gathered at his feet, like Alexander Duff and John Adam, were destined to become highly influential missionaries.

After the 1825 Assembly he engaged in preaching and working in his former parish in the Tron, Glasgow. All the way through his enormously busy schedule he made conscience of being a good family man! Writing to his wife regularly, he told her that she was to give the children a feast of strawberries on the delivery of each letter and to let them know that these were from him!

Chalmers was far from confining himself to academic labours. St. Andrews was not Glasgow, but it had its dark side nevertheless. Chalmers took on the role of a Sabbath School teacher, visiting the families as well as teaching the children. On Tuesday evenings he began a class of religious instruction for students.

While at St. Andrews Chalmers advocated raising the academic standard for those entering Scottish universities. He proposed an entrance examination and that a secondary school should be attached to each of the universities, specifically to instruct students towards sitting this entrance examination. By modern standards this may seem a modest proposal to say the least, but it was part of a plea for greater endowment of Colleges, and the principle and vision behind this appeal should not be lost on us. As he put it himself,

"The family honour (of colleges) is built on the prowess of sons, not the greatness of ancestors."

To Chalmers the greatness of any College was not simply a matter of great men in their past; it was very much also to do with the calibre of men graduating from them continuously. That was why endowment was important to him.

In October 1927 he was elected to fill the chair of Divinity at Edinburgh University. He accepted, knowing he would not begin there till November 1828. Theology was higher in importance than moral philosophy, and Edinburgh was of greater influence than St. Andrews. But this phase of his career was to present him with even greater challenges.

To be continued.

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection: Thomas Chalmers: Early Days and Conversion (1)

The following blogs on Thomas Chalmers are part of an address given by my father in law, the Rev James Maciver, in 1997 at the Scottish Historical Studies Conference and used by kind permission.  You can listen to the original address here.

It is exceedingly difficult for us today to project ourselves back into the circumstances, ecclesiastically and nationally, that prevailed in the life and times of Thomas Chalmers. In comparing Victorian politics and the church in Scotland then with the present day we are soon aware that it is not a comparison of like with like, so many, and so revolutionary, have changes been in church and state, and even in the relation between them.

For example, to consider only the areas in which Chalmers was actively interested and influential, there was no Social Security system as such for the poor, no church bureaucracy to speak of, no National Health care, and no universal State education system.

Yet it would be very wrong of us to conclude that these changes have meant universal improvement in church and State, or that the Church is more effective in Gospel influence, or social concern and action, than the church of Chalmers. Indeed, to a man like Chalmers some of the above-mentioned changes, like the secularisation of social care, would undoubtedly have been an encumbrance to the carrying of his convictions towards a successful conclusion.

To look into the life and times of Chalmers will make us thankful for our present-day privileges in Church and State, but it will also make us feel very small, and often very guilty. This is because we shall be confronting vibrant faith, energetic concern and action, in the service of God, borne of a burden to have every individual know a decent education, an adequate employment, and above all a saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ.

We may persuade ourselves that we have inherited the Gospel principles of Chalmers and his colleagues, but after examining his life's work in his own time, it will be another thing that we can say we have consciously inherited, to the same extent, his Gospel practice.

In looking at this man’s life and times we cannot hope to include all that is of interest and importance in such a short space as this booklet. I have tried to major on issues involving Chalmers that were of national significance, and in which he left a lasting impression on subsequent generations. I make no pretence at any new thoughts, or even any adequate assessment of Chalmers and his work, although I will try to give an appraisal of some of the issues involved.

To this end I have avoided dividing the subject into an initial biographical account followed by a commentary on the main issues of his life's work. Instead I have tried to incorporate the details of his work and its environment into the framework of a chronological unfolding of his life. His life and times divides rather conveniently into six periods.

1. Early Days - 1780-1803

Born at Anstruther on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17th, 1780, Thomas Chalmers was the fifth child in a family of fifteen. His parents were hearty and happy Calvinist Christians, a theology which Thomas was to dislike until he came to be born again during his ministry at Kilmany.

Education and Career

His early school days were not characterised by the great industry of mind which many later would admire in him. In fact, he was rather lazy by all accounts, and yet from the outset he had that generosity and kindliness that marked him throughout his whole life.

Before he had reached the age of twelve Thomas was sent to the University of St. Andrews where he gained his enthusiasm for mathematics. Not only was his mind so obviously a mathematical one, but it could be argued that it was such a mathematical mind that enabled him to absorb the substantial truths of life itself, looking at their relations and proportions, and then applying his conclusions with great power.

It was even in mathematical terms that he reflected on the change that God wrought in his life in his conversion. In arguing against pluralities he was challenged by someone who reminded him that he had once written a pamphlet in favour of what he now argued against. Indeed, he had, he said, but that had been in the days of his spiritual blindness. He continued,

"What, sir, are the objects of mathematical science? Magnitude, and the relations of magnitude. But then, sir, I had forgot two magnitudes: I thought not on the littleness of time; I recklessly thought not on the greatness of eternity!"

Chalmers decided to study for the ministry although neither theology nor religion were then attractive subjects to him. He had a belief in God and could express great admiration for the wisdom of God through reading such works as Jonathan Edwards of The Freedom of the Will, but at the same time he positively rejected evangelical truth.

His style of discourse was developed in the first two years of these studies, a style which interestingly remained largely unaltered throughout the rest of his career. Indeed in 1842 on the very brink of the Disruption, at the meeting known as the Convocation, Chalmers gave a stirring speech in which he sought to make the demands of a disestablished church clear but impressive to his brethren.

"Enthusiasm", he told them, "is a virtue rarely produced in a state of calm and unruffled repose. It flourishes in adversity. It kindles in the hour of danger and rises to deeds of renown. The terrors of persecution only serve to awaken the energy of its purposes. It swells in the pride of integrity, and great in the purity of its cause, it can scatter defiance amid a host of enemies. The magnanimity of the primitive Christians is beyond example in history...Amid all their discouragements they were sustained by the assurance of a heavenly crown. The love of their Redeemer consecrated their affections to his service and enthroned in their hearts a pure and disinterested enthusiasm. Hence the rapid and successful extension of Christianity...the grace of God was with them."

Remarkably these words were lifted almost word for word from a student discourse from these years of early study. If they show that a man may be eloquent with the truth even though he be not saved they also show that not all productions of unconverted days are useless.

Chalmers was licensed to preach at the age of nineteen, a dispensation being granted him from the usual requirement of attaining 25 years of age on the basis that he was "a lad o' pregnant pairts." These "pairts", however, were spent in the study of mathematics, chemistry, natural and moral philosophy, and political economy, for the next two winters. He seems to have done little or no preaching during this time.

For a year he was an assistant minister in Roxburghshire, and then the parish of Kilmany in Fife fell vacant. Chalmers was enthusiastically interested, not over a place of ministry opening to him, but at the prospect of becoming assistant to the ageing professor of mathematics at St. Andrews. He secured the ministry of Kilmany and the assistantship in St. Andrews, and immediately threw himself into the demands of the latter.

He was ordained to the ministry at Kilmany on 12th May 1803.

2. The Kilmany Ministry - 1803-1815

Chalmers found little need to devote time and energy to his parish ministry at Kilmany. In letters to his father he stated that he felt the duties of the parish were slight and could be dealt with by two of his neighbouring colleagues. It was at this time that he wrote, anonymously, the pamphlet referred to earlier, in which he set out his views that a minister after having discharged his parish duties may rightly enjoy five days in the week in which to pursue any science that may be to his liking! He was, to be sure, at this time a thorough Moderate.

Conversion and Change

The first step towards conversion was in being with his brother George as he died at home in Anstruther, at the end of 1806. Chalmers saw that his brother possessed convictions he himself did not share. Indeed, what was more, George faced death with the very convictions Thomas had often denounced in his sermons at Kilmany! Could he be mistaken? Within two years his sister Barbara had also died of the same disease. She too died expressing confidence in Christ as her Redeemer. Could this faith be the fanaticism Thomas had disparagingly dismissed it as from his pulpit? 

At this time also Chalmers was working on an article entitled Christianity for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia. His views may also be fairly assessed from his preaching at this time. 

"Consult your Bibles and you will see that the rewards of heaven are attached to the exercise of our virtuous affections. The faith of Christianity is praiseworthy and meritorious only because it is derived from the influence of virtuous sentiments on the mind...thus shall we approve ourselves worthy of the divine goodness, by directing our efforts to the cultivation of our pious affections and our social conduct."

Chalmers fell sick in 1810 with a severe liver infection. He was confined to his room for four months and was convinced he was about to die. Now his Christianity, was to be tested in the most critical test of all, in the prospect of death - and Chalmers found that this Christianity, when he needed it most, miserably failed him. 

Through these months of anguish Chalmers came to know the peace of believing. Writing ten years later to his brother Alexander he lets us have his own commentary on these crucial events, 

"I stated to you that the effect of a very long confinement...was to inspire me with a set of very strenuous resolutions, under which I kept a Journal, and made many a laborious effort to elevate my practice to the standard of the divine requirements. During this course, however, I got little satisfaction, and felt no repose...I am now most thoroughly of opinion, and it is an opinion founded on experience, that on the system of - Do this and live, no peace, and even no true and worthy obedience, can ever be attained. It is, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved".

Under the influence of this change Chalmers now diverted his priority from mathematics to divinity. His congregation also immediately began to reap the benefits of what had happened to their minister. Chalmers now told them that all his earnest appeals to them for the cultivation of moral excellence had not resulted in any reformation of their character. He now preached the faith which once he despised. His private thoughts, committed to his Journal, make the point as eloquently as any sermon he ever preached, 

"I felt my distance from my Redeemer this evening, but was helped in prayer to a livelier apprehension of him. O God, may I feel peace with thee through Jesus Christ our Lord; and let every good sentiment which I utter be not in word only, but in power...May I give my most strenuous and unceasing efforts to the great work of preparing a people for eternity."

Now he had begun to grasp spiritual magnitudes and the relation between them. Chalmers now began to involve himself with the work of Bible Societies, Foreign Missions, and the needs of the poor. He had always been desirous to see people prosperous and happy, but now as a "new creation" himself he began to formulate plans for church extension and social welfare. Little need of that kind existed in Kilmany, but the providence of God was now to provide Chalmers with a new field of service in which the greatness of his energy and vision could be demonstrated. 

Chalmers was presented to the Tron church in Glasgow, where he was inducted on July 1815. He would be fewer years there than in Kilmany. But they were to be years which would contain much that was to be influential not just in that city but in the church in Scotland for many years to come. 

To be continued.

The Mercy Tree

‘So completely was Jesus bent upon saving sinners by the sacrifice of Himself, He created the tree upon which He was to die and nurtured from infancy the men who were to nail Him to the accursed tree.’  

Octavius Winslow

One of my work colleagues, lets call her Sarah, recently asked my team the question 'what effect does mercy have on your life?'  For some reason the question really impacted me and I was lost for words (hard to imagine but true).  Part of the reason was that I had just finished a series on 'Christ's sayings from the cross' where I had talked a lot about mercy.  It is one thing to talk about mercy but it is something else to practice it. If you are a Christian you have probably heard dozens of sermons on the mercy of God, you've probably talked about it hundreds of times, but does mercy have any impact on the way you live your life?  Take a moment to think about it.

Christ's sayings from the cross are a rich study for the Christian.  They are scattered across the four gospels who record different aspects of Christ's sufferings.  Christ's path to the cross was marked by mercy.  Even as he went to Golgotha Christ turned to the 'Daughters of Jerusalem' in Luke 23 v 26-31 and pleaded with them not to weep for Him but for themselves and their children.  Christ quotes from Hosea 10 v 8 as he prophesies about how awful the coming judgement will be.  As Leon Morris notes 'Christ wanted their repentance not their sympathy.'  Christ saw the awful siege that was coming on Jerusalem in AD 70 and was seeking to warn them to prepare for that awful day by fleeing to Christ.  Christ quotes a curious proverb about green and dry wood (Luke 23 v 31).  What does it mean?  John Macarthur captures it well in in his commentary: ‘If the Romans would perpetrate such atrocities on Jesus (the green wood – young, strong and a source of life) what would they do to a Jewish nation (the dry wood – old, barren and ripe for judgement).’ 

As Christ is finally being nailed to the cross he utters these remarkable words 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do (Luke 23 v 34).  At the forefront of Christ's mind is mercy even as he is surrounded by his enemies (as predicted in Psalm 22 v 12-21).  Golgotha was certainly a place of death and destruction but Jesus made it a place of deliverance and mercy.  

At the cross, Christ was becoming the 'sin offering' which was offered 'outside the camp' (see Ex 29 v 14, 33 v 7, Le 4 v 12, 21, 6 v 11, 13 v 46).  This is captured well by the writer to the Hebrews; 'For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured' ch 13 v 11-13.  Golgotha was full of symbolism.  So many prophesies were being fulfilled.  All the types and shadows of the Old Testament were all coming to their completion at the cross.  

What was it all for?  It was the ultimate display of mercy and love that this world has ever seen.  As JC Ryle says 'as soon as the blood of the Great Sacrifice began to flow, the Great High Priest began to intercede.' Christ was pleading with His father to forgive his murderers even as they were in the act of killing him.  This word forgive is literally 'to leave'.  Christ was saying to His father not to judge them immediately but to give time for mercy.  Christ's prayers were answered within a few hours with the centurion in Matthew 27 v 54 saying 'Truly this man was the Son of God.'  Let's never despair over mercy when a hardened centurion can go from driving nails into the Saviours hands to being his disciple in around 6 hours!

Sin demands justice yet sinners need forgiveness.  How can they be reconciled?  At the cross.  Only at the cross can it be said that ‘Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other’ Psalm 85 v 10.  None of us deserve mercy, but Christ has made a way of salvation.‘But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.  He is the propitiation for our sins, and not our only but also for the whole world’ 1 John 2 v 1-2.  Dr Thomas Guthrie said of these words 'The whole world' - 'ah!' some would say, 'that is dangerous language.' It is God's language: John speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost. It throws a zone of mercy around the world. Perish the hand that would narrow it by a hair's breadth!'  Propitiation means that Christ's sacrifice satisfied God's wrath on the cross.  The Old Testament word for atonement is the same word used in Genesis 6 v 16 for Noah covering the ark in pitch.  Christ is covering His people at the cross.  As one writer says 'Christ not only provides, but is, the 'atonement cover' which obscures our sins from the sight of God, expiating our guilt by his blood.'

So what difference does mercy make in my life?  Well hopefully it humbles me.  As I look a the mercy tree of the cross I see the terribleness of my sin but also the greatness of my Saviour. I hope it also makes me merciful.  I wonder if I asked my family, friends and work mates if they find me merciful, what would they say?  Isn't that the ultimate test of our Christianity?  Is it seen in our everyday lives?  If I claim to have been forgiven and freed from a life of sin, how can I do anything else but show that mercy to others.  Lastly I hope that mercy helps me to see that if Christ has given me everything nothing is too much to ask in His service.  Christ doesn't call us to comfortable Christianity, he calls us to radical, sacrificial service.  Mercy is a wonderful subject but it is even more beautiful as it is lived out day by day.  

Oh on that cross, how it was seen
I can go now ever trusting in the One who died for me
What could I bring, for Your gift is complete
So I trust You, simply trust You, Lord with every part of me

Jesus, only Jesus
Help me trust You more and more
Jesus, only Jesus
May my heart be ever Yours
Jesus, only Jesus
Help me trust You more and more
Jesus, only Jesus

May my heart be ever Yours

CityAlight