THE PRESBYTERIAN REVIEW. No. LXXIX.-JANUARY 1848. ART. I.-Posthumous Works of the Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D.D. LL.D. Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM HANNA, LL.D. Vol. I. Published for Thomas Constable by Sutherland and Knox, Edinburgh. 1847. THERE is a double value belonging to this work of Dr Chalmers. There is, first of all, the value attaching to it from its own excellence; and there is, next, the value attaching to it from the circumstances connected with its origin and its publication. As to the latter of these circumstances-we mean its publication, or rather the time of its publication-we do feel that the fact of its being posthumous does not a little enhance, if not the positive value, at least the interest of the work. It is a voice from the tomb,-a voice speaking for the last time,-giving forth its last utterance. The hand that wrote is now but bones and dust; the mind that conceived has gone within the veil. And in this volume there are presented to us the "last words" of this mighty man, whose ever-active pen used to pour forth its fruitfulness among us for so many memorable years. We mean nothing irreverent when we say, that in reading these pages, as we have done with untiring and solemn interest, we have felt somewhat as when reading the last words of Jacob, or of Moses, or of David. As to the former of these circumstances,-we mean the origin of the work, we may say a little. It evidently originated in the writer's longing to become more thoroughly acquainted with the word of God. He sits down to his meditations as the thirsty traveller at the side of a clear fresh brook. It is not to analyse or moralize, but to refresh his thirsty spirit. His desire is to know more of God, and of that wondrous Book in which He has revealed himself. He does not come to question, or cavil, or philosophize; he comes to learn, he comes to drink. Oftentimes VOL. XXI. NO. I. B wearied with a vexing world,—a world that cannot sympathize with him,-nay, that delights to thwart and misunderstand him, he retires to sit alone for a while under the shadowing branches of this heavenly tree, and to eat its pleasant fruits, forgetful of the noise and storm without, of which now scarce even the echo reaches him. The joy with which he seems thus to sit apart in communion with the word, the relish with which he feeds upon it, the eagerness and simplicity with which he throws himself upon it, are of themselves most refreshing to the reader. We delight to muse on these things as we read along, and to fancy ourselves in the study or in the closet of the holy man, as he sits or kneels with his Bible before him. And we do thank God, that one whom we loved so well enjoyed such hours of meditative calm, in the midst of the rudeness, the vexation, the toil, the distraction with which he was compassed about. In these meditations, it is not the critic or the commentator that we discern. We have often enough passed through the divine volume in company with these. But, in the case before us there is something very different. The work is that of a soul in continual contact with the word. It is not a book coming from the study, though it is not without many marks of the study. It has come from another, an inner chamber. It has come from the closet. Its birth-place has been there. hence the sanctity and the fragrance that float around it. It speaks to us not of the author, or the professor, or even the preacher; but of the man of prayer, the man of God. - And We specially prize these pages as the utterance of the writer's soul and heart. His mind we have elsewhere; but here we have his soul. It is in these meditations that his inner man gives vent to itself; and in the prayers, or, as we must call them, the ejaculations which occur in every page, we have the utterances of his whole heart, in the presence of that God on whose word he was seeking to nourish his immortal being. In this respect, we look upon this work as beyond all price. It unveils to us that very region of Dr Chalmers' character into which we have often longed to penetrate. In it we seem as if putting our hand upon his very heart, and feeling how true and strong were its pulses heavenward. Those who were honoured to know him,-and perhaps still more those, who, like ourselves, enjoyed his professional teaching, will, we are persuaded, sympathize in the above remarks. Even strangers, who have but known him by his writings, will in some measure accord with us. We have a volume that preserves to us not only Dr Chalmers' thoughts, but Dr Chalmers himself. We read it as we would gaze upon his portrait, marking each lineament, each expressive feature in the countenance of one whom it was our joy to honour, and whose name is written on our hearts in characters of deep and ineffaceable affection. How naturally and how simply the work commences! How well the first paragraph strikes the key-note of the volume. "In reading the life of Sir Matthew Hale, I find that he employed the pen to aid him in his spiritual meditations. He wrote as he thought; and hitherto my attempts at the sustained contemplation of divine things have been so confused and unsatisfactory, that I am glad to try the same expedient. May the Spirit of God, who worketh not without means but by them, bless this humble endeavour after a nearer approach to the viewless objects of faith and eternity! Guard me, O Heavenly Father, against the illusions of fancy. Suffer me not to walk in sparks of my own kindling. In thy light may I clearly see light; and let me never abandon the guidance and supreme authority of that Word which thou hast exalted above all Thy name. Teach me the habit of communion with thyself; and may these imperfect aspirations after Thee upon earth, open a way for the full enjoyment of Thine immediate presence and of Thy revealed glory in heaven." P. xvii. After this commencement there is the following striking statement of personal experience, 66 September 6.—To express my religious state in one sentence: I have a strong general desirousness towards God, though often suspended by the avocations of life, and daily overborne amid its manifold and besetting urgencies. And it is a desirousness not satisfied-as if knocking at a door not yet opened, with a sort of earnest and indefinite longing after a good not yet attained. Perhaps the experience which I have oftenest realized is that of the Psalmist when he said, 'My soul breaketh for the longing which it hath unto Thy judgments at all times.'" P. xviii. In regard to this point, we mean that of his own spiritual feelings, let us throw together a few scattered paragraphs from different parts of the book. This will preserve something like order in an article which must be mainly devoted to extracts, and in which, therefore, exact arrangement is not very practicable. "O how often is this will overborne amid the provocatives to anger and to all evil affection which beset my path. And yet how little I am tempted in comparison of others; and how much after all is there in the ease and quietness of my present retirement to aggravate my ingratitude, and make my hard ungodliness altogether inexcusable. Henceforward let self be annihilated, and Christ be all in all. O that I grew more and more in acquaintance with Him, and that in making Him the object of my thoughts, I felt this subjective and recipient mind quickening and coming alive under the influences of the faith. Let me consider Him the Apostle and High Priest of my profession-that looking unto Christ as my propitiation, I may have peace with God, that looking unto Him as my example, my footsteps may be established in the paths of right eousness. But what need of prayer and what need of persevering earnestness! Enlighten me, O God. Open the eyes of my understanding. Deliver me from the power of fantasies in religion. Let mine be a solid faith, exercised on those stable realities which are sought for and discovered only in the medium of Thy Word. I would learn of Thy Holy oracles. I would take the sayings of the Bible simply and purely as they are, and exercise myself on the trueness of these sayings." P. xx. "Let me record, however, a gleam of sentiment this morning, which, if awakened and made permanent within me, would remould my character entirely. I felt as if the transformation of those for whom the Saviour died formed the most appropriate triumph of his great enterprise -the object, therefore, on which His heart must be intensely set-the great fruit of the travail of His soul, and with the prosperous growth of which He would be most satisfied." P. xxi. xxii. "The most clear and satisfying view I can attain of my relationship to God, is that of my dependence-its entireness-its intimacy, and the consequent subordination of the creature to the Creator. I never have such a feeling of closeness to Him, as when I reflect that I altogether hold of His will, and that as clay in the hands of the potter, so have I been made and moulded by Him whose hands did fashion me at the first, and whose right hand continues to uphold me. Many attempts have I made to obtain more adequate notions than I possess of the Deity; but there is none in which I better succeed than when I aim at an intense recognition of the subject, and filial relation in which I stand to Him when simply regarded as my Maker. It is not on the strength of any remote or recondite contemplations that I expect to grow in fruitful acquaintance with Him-but by the stepping-stone of such thoughts as might be apprehended by babes-but still which neither babes nor philosophers will apprehend to any practical effect, till the Spirit brings them home." Pp. xxiii. xxiv. I "EDINBURGH, November 1.—I this day partook of the Sacrament— and though under great spiritual hebetude, yet trust that my peace was not altogether due to this, but grounded, in part at least, on the confidence I have in the efficacy of Christ's sacrifice, and my equal warrant and welcome with all men to receive and rest upon Him for salvation. I would make an entire dedication of myself to Christ. Let me no longer offend him by my distrust. In doing honour to His truth, may establish the tranquillity of my own spirit. O God, work in me faith with power. Perfect that which is lacking in it. Give me peace and joy in believing, and cause me to feel both the pleasures and the powers of a new moral existence. Raise me above the degrading anxieties of the present evil world, and give me the confident gait, the elevated tone and purposes of an immortal creature." P. xxiv. "Let me keep steadfastly by the belief, in the midst of darkness and deadness as to the conception. Is not this waiting upon God? Is it not trusting him even in the absence of all bright or sensible manifestation? But let me not only wait for this spiritual light and enlargement; let me also work for it. Let me proceed on the truth of those innumerable passages whence we learn, not only that obedience is prompted and sustained by faith, but that faith is brightened and confirmed by obedience. O my God, I feel how irregular my religious sensibilities, and how wretchedly small, if any, has been my progress in the life of godliness. O Lord, quicken me. Let the scales fall from my eyes. Let the veil be lifted off from my heart. Let this hebetude, this obstinate spiritual hebetude, be dispersed by the spirit of demonstration and power. Arouse me from my state of lethargy, O God, that I may become alive unto Thyself, and in Thy light clearly see light. I pray for these things to myself; I pray for them to others also, specially to those of my own. household. "Better; but a constant sense of deficiency, which is well, if it could find place and adjustment along with a confidence in the objective sufficiency of Jesus Christ. Why not more firm and frequent in the exercise of faith? Why not try more than I do the efficacy of simple reliance on the Word, and more particularly on such assurances-Whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved;' The blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin;' This is the record, that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.' Let me look fully and freely out upon these things, but combine with this the keeping of the precepts, so as to realize the harmony which obtains between the subjective and the objective in Christianity. Let me, for example, pray for forgiveness, believing that what I ask I shall also receive." Pp. xxxix. xl. "I would open my mouth, O God, do Thou fill it. I would present my emptiness to the fulness that is in Christ Jesus. I have nothing in myself to speak of but my own infirmities. O may the power of Christ rest upon me. May the Spirit of Christ be given to me. May His likeness be impressed on my soul. May His strength be perfected in my weakness. O let me ever depend on Him for grace as well as for mercy, that I may partake of His whole salvation." Pp. 192, 193. Some of the passages contain confessions of sin which are very striking, and show how thoroughly he sought to know and search out the plagues of his own heart. The following may be cited : : “CRAIGHOLM, April 10.—In solitude and stillness-but with a heart sadly prone to wander from the Fountain of light and life-made sad exhibitions of my natural infirmity-impatience in opposition to the long-suffering of the Spirit under the manifold interruptions of Edinburgh. Where is my slowness to wrath ?-where the approach in the way of resemblance or imitation to the characteristics of Godhead? and where, alas! a prevailing sense of God, so as to make Him the guide, and the master, and the arbiter of all my doings? O may I simply and singleheartedly become Thy servant, and feel what a way of pleasantness it is that the meek and humble followers of the Lord walk in. I have left town, and desiderate a whole season of retirement, and close study, in the country. O my God, let it be a season of remarkable advancement to my soul. In quietness, and confidence, and resolute perseverance, let me have strength. Let me not overwork or overstrain. Save me from diseased ambition in the labours of my authorship; and may piety and judgment preside over all my compositions. Wean me from the world and from the world's applause; and doing with diligence what my hand |