IN the best days of Scotland’s religious history she was favoured by men who caught the ear of the people and whose discourses made a profound impression on them. One has only to think of John Knox; Alexander Henderson; Samuel Rutherford; Alexander Peden; John Livingstone; Richard Cameron; James Renwick; Andrew Gray; Hugh Binning; Thomas Boston; Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine; John Brown, of Haddington; Thomas Chalmers; John Duncan; Robert Murray MacCheyne; William C. Burns; George Smeaton; John Kennedy, Redcastle; Angus and Charles Mackintosh, Tain; John Macdonald, Ferintosh; Alexander Stewart, Cromarty; John Kennedy, Dingwall, and a host of others, perhaps less renowned, but whose words were owned and acknowledged by the Lord to an extraordinary degree. As one reads the names in this incomplete list of Scotland’s famous preachers, one begins to realise how goodly was the company of the heralds of the Cross with which Scotland was blessed. Of these great preachers it may be said without hesitation that they preached not themselves but Christ crucified. There was no hesitating note in their message, and their hearers listened to it as glad tidings of their salvation. When one reads the effects produced by their preaching, a wistful longing is created that such days of power would return again to Scotland. Among Scotland’s famous preachers must be mentioned Rev. John M’Laurin, Glasgow, whose renowned sermon on “Glorifying in the Cross of Christ” has obtained an undisputed place as one of the great utterances not only of the Scottish, but of the Church of Christ in general.
The sermon was preached on the text: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Gal. vi. 14). It is almost impossible to convey anything like an adequate description of the hallowed eloquence, the felicitous language in which the thoughts of the preacher are clothed and the impressive majesty with which he presents his august theme. In reading the sermon, the tremendous nature of the requirements of eternal justice confronts the reader with overwhelming effect as the preacher lays bare what Calvary’s cross means. Perhaps the best thing one can do is to give extracts from the sermon itself, as many of our readers may never have read it. In speaking of the Apostle glorying in the cross of Christ, he says: There are not two things more opposite than glory and shame; here the Apostle joins them together. The cross in itself is an object full of shame; in this case it appeareth to the Apostle full of glory. It had been less remarkable had he only said, he gloried in his Redeemer’s exaltation after He left the world, or in the glory He had with the Father before He came to it, yea, before the world was. But the object of the Apostle’s glorying in the Redeemer, not only considered in the highest state of honour and dignity, but even viewed in the lowest circumstances of disgrace and ignominy, not only as a powerful and exalted, but as a condemned and crucified Saviour. Glorying signifies the highest degree of esteem; the cross of Christ was an object of which the Apostle had the most exalted sentiments, and the most profound veneration; this veneration he took pleasure to avow before the world, and was ready to publish on all occasions. This object so occupied his heart and engrossed his affections, that it left no room for anything else; he gloried in nothing else; and, as he telleth us in other places, he counted everything else but loss and dung, and would know nothing else, and was determined about it (I. Cor. ii. 2). The manner of expressing his esteem of this object has a remarkable force and vehemence in it, God forbid, or let it by no means happen; as if he had said: ‘God forbid, whatever others do, that it should ever be said of Paul, the old persecutor, should glory in anything else but in the crucified Redeemer; who plucked him as a brand from the burning out of the fire, when he was running farther and farther into it; and who pursued him with mercy and kindness, when he was pursuing Him in His members with fierceness and cruelty. I did it through ignorance (and it is only through ignorance that any despise Him); He has now revealed Himself to me, and God forbid that the light that met me near Damascus should ever go out of my mind; it was a light full of glory the object it disclosed was all glorious, My all in all and God forbid that I should glory in anything else.’ Here is another passage: “Thus Christ’s outward meanness, that disguised His real greatness, was in itself glorious, because of the disguise of it. Yet that meanness did not wholly becloud it; many beams of glory shone through it. His birth was mean on earth below. But it was celebrated with hallelujahs by the heavenly host in the air above; He had a poor lodging, but a star lighted visitants to it from distant countries. Never prince had such visitants conducted. He had not the magnificent equipage that other kings have, but He was attended with multitudes of patients, seeking and obtaining healing of soul and body; that was more true greatness than if He had been attended with crowds of princes. He made the dumb that attended Him sing His praises, and the lame to weep for joy, the deaf to hear His wonders, and the blind to see his glory. He had no guard of soldiers, nor magnificent retinue of servants; but, as the centurion, that had both, acknowledged, health and sickness, life and death, took orders from Him. Even the winds and storms, which no earthly power can control, obeyed Him; and death and the grave durst not refuse to deliver up their prey when He demanded it. He did not walk upon tapestry, but when He walked on the sea, the waters supported Him. All parts of the creation, excepting sinful men, honoured Him as their Creator. He kept no treasure but when He had occasion for money, the sea sent it to Him in the mouth of a fish. He had no barns, nor corn fields, but when he inclined to make a feast, a few loaves covered a sufficient table for many thousands. None of all the monarchs of the world ever gave such entertainments. By these and many such things, the Redeemer’s glory shone through His meanness, in the several parts of His life. Nor was it wholly clouded at His death; He had not, indeed, that fantastic equipage of sorrow that other great persons have on such occasions. But the frame of nature solemnized the death of its Author; Heaven and Earth were mourners. The sun was clad in black; and if the inhabitants of the earth were unmoved, the earth itself trembled under the awful load; there were few to pay the Jewish compliment of rending their garments, but the rocks were not so insensible; they rent their bowels. He had not a grave of His own, but other men’s graves opened to Him. Death and the grave might be proud of such a tenant in their territories, but He came not there as a subject, but as an invader, a conqueror; it was then the King of Terrors lost his sting, and on the third day the Prince of Life triumphed over him, spoiling death and the grave. But the last particular belongs to Christ’s exaltation; the other instances show a part of the glory of His humiliation, but it is a small part of it.”
After reading the sermon and the extracts we have given, we feel that they do not convey an adequate idea of the impressiveness of the sermon and we would recommend that all of our readers who are interested in the subject of this article should read the sermon for themselves. It was printed in the volume entitled Precious Seed Discourses, a second-hand copy of which may be picked up in the second-hand book-shops.
But as there are spots in the sun so in this noble sermon there are a few words which grate on one’s feelings. For instance, such words as those referring to the Saviour’s face, “that bloated, mangled visage, red with gore, covered with marks of scorn.” We have always felt in reading this sermon that other words could have been used which would have expressed the preacher’s thoughts without causing a feeling of revulsion in reverent minds.