Preached by the late REV. DR. GEORGE MACKAY in the Free North Church, Inverness, on Sabbath, 19th April, 1885.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (GALATIANS v. 1).
THERE are three points chiefly to be considered from this passage we have under consideration. The first point to be considered is the liberty or freedom that is here spoken of. Second—The source of this freedom and liberty, and some considerations implied in it, and also the author of this freedom. Thirdly—The exhortation that is given here, and some things implied in it, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.” These three points take up the whole of the verse. You will notice the spiritual import of this freedom. This freedom implies, in the first place, deliverance and freedom from sin. Now, sin is put before us under various aspects in the Scriptures. It is put before us under the aspect of the power and love of sin. This freedom also implies a deliverance from the guilt of sin. Guilt is that which exposes us to punishment. By sinning against God we become guilty sinners, and are thus exposed to His wrath. Oh, my friends, we can never come to God until we see ourselves to be sinners. The Spirit of God must show you the vileness of your sins. I must add this to it also, that we can never be delivered from sin until we love our Saviour more than sin. The love of sin is broken if the Spirit of God is within you. This freedom also implies a deliverance from the curse of the law. Adam broke the covenant of God, and fell under the curse—”Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” We are under this curse until we are delivered, and this can only be done by Christ. He came to fulfil the law, He suffered the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God; and this is the only way we can be delivered from the curse; hence, my friends, we cannot be saved by the law, because we cannot do it. Yet there is a tendency to perform all this by our own works, and to make our own way of salvation without the righteousness of Christ.
The freedom here spoken of implies freedom of the will from the bondage of sin. “Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power.” “Be not conformed to the things of this world,” etc. You will also observe that the freedom here spoken of implies in it that the sinner is to seek those things that are above.
There are so many things in the world to draw us away from Christ, but there is nothing in the present world able fully to satisfy the desires of the flesh. Take as much of the world as you can, but it will not satisfy you. There is nothing here to satisfy the animal spirit. Satan can tempt the people of God, but cannot overcome them, because he is not so strong as Christ—they shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved them. They are delivered by the freedom spoken of here. God shall trample Satan under their feet. I was going to say on this point that the people of God are delivered from the sting of death by the power of God, but I cannot just now go into that part of the subject. When I die I die in Christ. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But, thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “He shall be called Jesus, because He saves His people from their sins.”
In the second place, we were to consider the source and author of this freedom, and, in the first place, let us notice Christ as the author of this freedom and liberty—”Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” There are various points of Scripture to be taken up on this. You will remember that there was a covenant made between God the Father and God the Son; this covenant was made from all eternity, and by it provision was made for men. We cannot form an adequate estimate of this. He made a covenant with His chosen One, and laid help on One that is mighty to save. He made a covenant with Him, and became bound, as the surety of His people, and sealed the covenant with His death and blood. He undertook the place of perishing sinners, and saved them from going down to the pit. His Spirit was poured out on Him without measure. He came into the world and assumed our nature, a body as I have, yet without sin—a true body and a reasonable soul. Although He was the Eternal God He dwelt upon this earth thirty-three years, and although Lord of Heaven He descended to take our guilt upon Him. He suffered the Just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. The source of this freedom and liberty here spoken of also implies the Spirit of redemption. What a glorious subject! The Three Persons in the Glorious Trinity, employed in our salvation. What wonder of wonders that the Son of God should come and lay down His precious life a ransom for many! Now the blessings in connection with this liberty: “Of His fulness have we all received, and grace for grace.” There is more fulness of the Spirit under the New Testament Dispensation, and I admit that the Spirit under the Old Dispensation was not given to them in such measure as under the New Testament. He rose from the grave on the third day, and shortly after this the Spirit was poured forth in great measure; the great work of redemption was finished, and He ascended up on high leading captivity captive.
In the third place, the exhortation: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” What does this mean? This is an exhortation to be steadfast and immovable. In the first place I notice it implies danger. “Stand fast therefore.” It evidently implies that we are inclined to be unsteadfast or in danger of losing our liberty or freedom. The people of God go on from strength to strength until they arrive at the promised land; hence it implies that we must be steadfast. This freedom is precious; let no one take away your liberty because Christ shed His blood that it might be yours. Let us remember that our freedom in this country is great; let us take care we don’t lose it. I am afraid this generation is inclined to depart from its glorious privileges.
Rev. Professor John Duncan, LL.D.
BY THE LATE REV. JAMES S. SINCLAIR.
(Continued from page 180.)
BUT I must hasten on to notice the great change which took place in the character and life of this remarkable man. The instrument in the hand of God of that change was Dr. César Malan, of Geneva, an eminent preacher of the everlasting Gospel. Malan, who was persecuted in Geneva for his faithful proclamation of the evangelical faith, paid his first visit to England and Scotland in the year 1822. He was gladly welcomed by all who loved the true gospel. In 1826 he came to this country for the first time as an expressed “missionary character,” and it was while on this tour that he visited Aberdeen, and was the guest of a brother of Dr. Brown (Dr. Duncan’s biographer). Brown, who himself had but recently entered into gospel light and liberty, was intensely desirous to get Mr. Duncan to meet Malan with a view to spiritual benefit, and had two days beforehand long and intensely interesting conversations with Mr. Duncan on his soul’s case, which undoubtedly prepared the way for his listening to Malan. Mr. Duncan came to the house of Dr. Brown’s brother, among other guests, and had a long private conversation with Malan, who plied him with the text, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” It is impossible for me to give the details of this striking interview, but when Mr. Duncan happened to quote a text in the course of the conversation, Dr. Malan started forward and said, “See! you have the Word of God in your mouth,” to which Mr. Duncan gave the memorable reply, “And may He not utterly take it out of my mouth.” Mr. Duncan said in later days that Malan’s utterance “passed through him like a shock of electricity—the great thought that God meant man to know His mind; God—His Word—in my very mouth.” “It was, I believe,” he added, “the seed of perhaps all I have, if I have anything, to this hour.” The proud scholar was completely changed, and became as a little child at the feet of Jesus. As he sat down to study a day or two after he “became suddenly (according to his own words) the passive
recipient of all the truths he had heard and been taught from childhood. I sat there wondering for hours, and they came and preached themselves to me.” And night after night—God was now speaking home to his mind and heart the whole plan of salvation—he laid himself down to rest with the child’s prayer on his lips, as the genuine outflow of his heart:—
“This night when I lie down to sleep,
I give my soul to Christ to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
Dr. Duncan’s conversion—by the way like the Apostle Paul’s and the great John Calvin’s—was a sudden one, but it was none the less genuine on that account. Its suddenness and its thoroughness gave a vigorous proof of the almighty, wonder-working power of God, who can turn in a single moment the shadow of death into the morning. He saw revealed truth in a new light, and he began to walk with a tender conscience in the fear of God. The very temptation to daily sin was for the time being gone, and he contended for the truth in the person of Christ as God manifest in the flesh with an earnestness and zeal born of a new vision of the glory of God as revealed in His Son, treading with intense vehemence on his former views, which were practically Socinian and Unitarian. His reverence now for the Word of God, with all his natural suspicion of temperament, and keen critical powers, was profound in the extreme. Dr. Moody Stuart bears testimony:—”More than any man I ever knew, he trusted every word, reverenced every word, and loved every word in the book of God.” His preaching at this time took its colour from the teaching of his spiritual father, Dr. Malan. He insisted on an immediate faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal Redeemer and Saviour, and without defining too particularly the nature of saving faith as the gift of God, he assured his hearers of their possession of acceptance with God and eternal life, if they but believed. He took a high line on the subject of the assurance and joy of faith, and did not bring out sufficiently the place and necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work. Still, it was the time of his “first love,” and while his preaching had its defects, not slight, yet coming as it did from one who was really anointed with the Spirit, it had its excellencies and its power. It may be mentioned here, by the way, that although the spiritual change in Mr. Duncan was complete and manifest, his special peculiarities of character remained. His absent-mindedness continued as a permanent feature. An amusing illustration of it is often repeated. He was walking to Maryculter, seven miles from Aberdeen, on a Sacramental Fast Day, to preach, and when he had gone a considerable way he drew out his snuffbox to take a pinch. The wind being in his face he turned about to perform the operation; but when he accomplished this he did not turn round again; he moved on in the direction of Aberdeen, from which he had come, until eventually he was brought to his senses by the enquiry of a man who was going to the church at Maryculter, and who recognised him as the expected preacher for the day.
Two years after this time Mr. Duncan underwent a new experience which he was accustomed to describe as his “second conversion.” His first spiritual joy had gradually ebbed away. The Lord’s comfortable and powerful presence had been withdrawn. He found himself preaching a faith and assurance of which he had no inward conscious experience. Hitherto overlooking to a large extent the deceitfulness and wickedness of the heart, he now awakened to a new sense of the moral corruption within, and charged himself with wretched hypocrisy, “babbling,” as he said, “but an assurance to which he himself was a stranger, deceiving himself and, he feared, deceiving others too,” a mere sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. He passed through a severe and protracted conflict, in which he went down to the bottoms of the mountains, in his soul’s exercise, condemning himself, and imploring the Lord’s mercy. On one occasion, when outside in distress, he ran into certain brick kilns that were near, went down on his knees and prayed thus: “O Lord, I have broken thy law, and I have not believed in thy Son, and I have refused thy Holy Spirit; and if thou shouldest now cast me into hell, all holy beings would say, ‘Righteous art thou, O Lord, when thou judgest.’ But, Lord, for thy mercy’s sake, give me thy Holy Spirit, that I may believe in thy Son.” He was deeply taught at this time the holiness of God’s law, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the justice of the sentence of eternal death, the sovereignty of God in bestowing salvation through Christ, and the necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work to the production of saving faith and all other Christian graces—truths that he was familiar with and in agreement with before, but which were now made real and powerful in his personal experience by a special discipline of the Divine Spirit. He was thus more fully qualified—qualified to a degree, to say the least, not excelled by any in his generation—to speak to his fellow-sinners and to the household of faith of the depths and heights of the redemption which was finished upon the cross, and of the love and other perfections of a Triune God as therein gloriously manifested, as well as of the trials, temptations, and comforts of God’s people in their journey to the land of eternal light and blessedness. As to his messengers of help in this trying but blessed period, he acknowledges special indebtedness to the Rev. Gavin Parker, Dr. Kidd, and the writings of Dr. Love, Dr. Owen, and Herman Witsius, the Dutch divine. Mr. Parker, who was a disciple of Dr. Love, was a gospel minister of great solidity and weight, whose labours were much crowned of the Lord, and his teaching at this time more than that of any other on the great subjects of sin and grace was blessed to Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan’s preaching engagements now increased, and through a series of providences, which need not be presently detailed, he was chosen in 1830 minister of the Chapel of Ease at Persie, in the parish of Bendochy, situated towards the eastern boundary of Perthshire (a chapel, by the way, that was at one time ministered to by the Rev. Mr. Shaw, afterwards of Bracadale in Skye). Here he laboured (without ordination) for a period of ten months, and proved himself not only a profound preacher of the gospel, but a faithful witness against sin in every form—Sabbath desecration, promiscuous dancing, and other evils. At the close of one of his services, where he had preached with great originality and power, two strangers from a distance met and talked on the sermon they had heard. One of them said, “What did you think of Mr. Duncan’s sermon to-day?” The other replied in the words of Proverbs xxxi. 29: “Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.” His stay in Persie was short. Through the influence of Mr. Hugh Mackay, “a most estimable Glasgow gentleman,” who heard him and was “profoundly impressed with the spirituality and depth of his ministrations,” he was brought in 1831 to Glasgow as an assistant to the Rev. Robert Clark, A.M., minister of Duke Street Gaelic Chapel (afterwards of Kinlochbervie, Sutherlandshire). Mr. Duncan’s special work was to deliver an English lecture every Sabbath afternoon. He also delivered a week-night lecture. His preaching was much followed by those persons who hungered for “the deeper and richer things” of God’s Word, and their number at length so increased that it was resolved to make an effort to have him settled in a congregation of his own. A Church-Building Association had been started in Glasgow at the time, and on certain conditions the association consented to make a grant so as to enable Mr. Duncan’s people to proceed with the erection of a place of worship. The site chosen was in the district of the Cowcaddens, but before the building was erected Mr. Duncan was ordained on the 28th April, 1836, as minister of what was to be known as the Milton Parish congregation. He was introduced to his new pastoral charge by Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Macdonald of Ferintosh, “the Apostle of the North.” Here he ministered for upwards of four years to the great edification of hearers who hungered for the bread of life. Among his eminent contemporaries in the pulpit at this period was the late Rev. J. R. Anderson, who had begun his useful and honoured ministry in Kirkfield Chapel, and Mr. Duncan and he highly esteemed one another in the Lord. Early in the year 1837 Mr. Duncan was married to Miss Janet Tower, of Aberdeen, one of Mr. Parker’s devoted hearers, and an excellent Christian lady, who proved a helpmeet in every sense of the word to her husband. Their first-born child (born 10th March, 1838) was a daughter, who was named Annie, Mr. Macdonald of Ferintosh officiating at the baptism. But their married life together was short, for Mrs. Duncan passed away in the spring of 1839, a week after the premature birth of a second child, also a daughter, who did not survive. Our godly divine thus passed through still further sore and trying experiences which undoubtedly contributed more and more to make him a son of consolation to the flock of Christ, and to deserve for himself the encomium which an old worthy woman in Glasgow (Judith Jack), who was one of his hearers, passed upon him to the speaker, “Oh, he was rale merciful!” During this period he took his share in several courses of lectures—on Protestantism, the Ten Commandments, and the Jews—
which were delivered by ministers of the Established Church. One of these lectures, entitled “The Work of the Holy Spirit in connection with the Conversion of the Jews” is a truly noble production, full of genius, massive doctrine, and solemn, wise affectionate appeal to the Jewish people.
In the year 1838 there was the dawn of a new era in the history of Mr. Duncan, which led to the dissolution of his tie with the Milton Church. Much interest had arisen in the Church of Scotland on the subject of the conversion of the Jews, and Mr. Duncan was appointed a member of the Glasgow Jewish Committee. The issue was that he formally offered his services as an agent of the Church, either at home or abroad, for the promotion of Christianity among the Jews. This offer was cordially accepted. Shortly thereafter a vacancy occurred in the Hebrew Chair of Glasgow University, and with the permission of the Committee Mr. Duncan sent a letter of application to the University authorities, and a remarkable letter it was. At the end of a lengthened statement of his varied and vast attainments in Oriental learning, he wrote: “In conclusion, with the exception of Cabalistic works, which are exceedingly abstruse, and require deep study, I profess all Hebrew; and I would most willingly present myself, along with any other, for competitive examination, by any man throughout the world, whether Christian or Jew.” Though a more profound scholar in the field described could not be found, he was unsuccessful. Still his application brought him into notice so remarkably that his Alma Mater, the University of Aberdeen, conferred on him the degree of LL.D. as a mark of respect for his outstanding linguistic attainments. This year, 1839, was also signalised by the departure of a famous deputation from the Church of Scotland to the Continent for the purpose of collecting information respecting the Jews. The members of it were Revs. Drs. Black and Keith, R. M. MacCheyne, and A. A. Bonar. They went as far as the Holy Land, and were absent seven months. Their report gave rise to much discussion and prayer as to when the first mission could be started. It was ultimately agreed in 1840 that the first mission should be planted in Moldavia, to be followed by another at Pesth, the capital of Hungary, in which places there were a large number of Jews. Dr. Duncan was appointed to go to Pesth. The pastoral tie was dissolved in October, 1840, but he continued to officiate in the Milton Church on the Sabbaths, while during the week he spent the winter between Edinburgh and Glasgow, conducting Hebrew classes, and superintending the studies of the aspirants to mission work among the Jews. He was married the second time in the spring of 1841 to a lady of excellent qualities. Here a story of his absence of mind may be related. On the day of the marriage his niece sent him upstairs to dress for the ceremony. Undressing was associated in his mind with going to bed. The cab came to take him away, but there was no sign of the dressed bridegroom. His niece went upstairs and found him fast asleep in bed, with a Hebrew book in his hand. In the month of May he was finally
set apart to his new office in St. George’s Church, Glasgow, and only four weeks after a party consisting of Dr. Duncan, his wife, Mrs. Torrance, an officer’s widow, and her daughter by a first marriage, and his own, still a child, as well as two young missionaries (Messrs. Smith and Allan), set out for the appointed field, where they safely arrived in the month of August. I regret that in the limited time at my disposal I can only notice in a few sentences this short but spiritually romantic period in the history of Dr. Duncan. My hearers must read the Memoirs for themselves, if they have not already done so. He was only in Pesth for two years, but it was a time of crowded activity and precious fruitfulness. What a combination of providential circumstances had led to the inception of this Mission! The deputation referred to already were advised by their committee not to waste time by visiting Austria, as it was reckoned a hopeless field for a Protestant mission, but an accident befalling Dr. Black in the Egyptian desert it was found necessary that he and Dr. Keith should separate from their two junior brethren and return homeward by the Danube. They came to Pesth. Dr. Keith took seriously ill in a hotel there. The Archduchess of Hungary, a noble and pious lady of the Protestant faith, heard of his illness, and sent immediate orders that everything possible should be done for him. He was restored from the very point of death. The Archduchess had been long praying that God would send His true gospel to Pesth, and she had premonitions for a fortnight before she heard of Dr. Keith’s illness that something was to happen to her. She had long conversations with him, and when she learnt his earnest desire that a mission to the Jews would be started, she assured him that should the Church of Scotland plant a mission there she would place her own person between it and whatever danger might assail it. It was to this scene that Dr. Duncan came with his assistants, and the Lord blessed his labours to the conversion of not a few, such as the well-known family of Saphirs and others, who became notable witnesses for Christ. The mission also exercised a most beneficent influence upon a variety of classes besides the Jews, Protestants, and Roman Catholics, learned and unlearned. Dr. Duncan and his family had a short change for health reasons in the winter and spring (1842-43) to Leghorn in Italy; they returned in June, 1843. In the course of their return journey they got a copy of the Witness newspaper containing an account of the Disruption, which they read with deep interest and sympathy.
The Disruption of 1843 made many changes. Two of the Divinity Professors, Drs. Chalmers and Welsh, came out, and were at once recognised in their respective offices in the Free Church of Scotland. The Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages adhered to the Establishment, and so a new professor was required. When the news came that Dr. Duncan and all the other missionaries of the Church of Scotland had adhered to the Free Church, the Education Committee unanimously elected Dr. Duncan to the Hebrew Chair, and the appointment was finally confirmed by the General Assembly which met at Glasgow
in the autumn. He accepted the office, and arrived in Scotland at the beginning of November, when he had immediately to begin his professorial work. This important position he occupied for the remaining twenty-seven years of his life with untold benefit to his students. It certainly cannot be said, however, that he was a success in systematically drilling the students in the elements of the language, in its grammatical structure, peculiarities, and niceties. Not but he had all these things at his finger ends, and was capable of doing so, if he only could methodically concentrate his mind in such rudimentary work. But he was defective in orderly method, and so students who were not themselves enthusiastic in the study of Hebrew suffered in their acquisition of a knowledge of the language. On the other hand, he was admirably qualified (as one of his students bore testimony) to handle the exegesis of Scripture, especially that of the Old Testament, and in this department his vast learning, his still more remarkable powers of thought, and, above all, the profound reaches of his spiritual experience, made him a rare master. Moreover, the students had before their eyes daily a man of the most powerful and penetrating intellect and prodigious learning, who was naturally of a sceptical turn of mind, and who had lived at one time, as he said himself, in almost all the heresies, expounding the Scriptures with profound loyalty and reverence, walking in the fear of God and the faith of Jesus Christ, trembling and alive to his personal relationship with the Lord, and seeking above everything else the experimental enjoyment of divine favour and fellowship. Sometimes he was treading the dark valley of desertion, at other times rejoicing in the light, and when his soul was come into deep waters, such was his profound humility and open frankness of disposition that he did not hesitate to ask his students in the class, or as he met them going in and out, to pray for him, or to put the question whether they had a word from the Lord for him. His prayers, further, were remarkable, and constituted an intellectual, doctrinal, and spiritual education in themselves. He frequently forgot himself in the exercise, and the prayer occupied nearly the whole of the class hour, while on more than one occasion it was the bell at the end of the hour that awoke him to the fact that he had gone entirely beyond the limits. But one must not think from these circumstances that he was entirely oblivious to the technical details of his work. Sometimes, indeed, a student allowed this idea to take possession of him, and grossly neglected his preparations, but he discerned, perhaps, before the class hour was over that this was far from a safe policy. On one occasion a student who made a shameful exhibition of ignorance of the simplest elements of Hebrew in the class received the following unexpected but scathing rebuke: “I trust, sir, for the honour of Christianity, that you will never meet with an unconverted Jew.” This was as if a thunderbolt had suddenly crashed down upon the class, and made the most careless feel that their professor, with all his apparent obliviousness and patience, was not to be trifled with. He had also a keen sense of humour,
though it was not always apparent from the seriousness and gravity of his demeanour. An amusing illustration of this occurred one day. The students were reading in the 22nd chapter of Numbers, the story of Balaam. One of them was found very deficient in the nicer details of the Hebrew, and Dr. Duncan almost lost his temper with him. At last, in despair, he said to the student, “Well, read on,” and the very first words that he came to were, “And the ass said unto Balaam, Am I not thine ass?” The scene was truly ludicrous, and the Professor broke out into a loud burst of laughter, in which the class joined. But no sooner was the explosion over than the sensitive conscience of Dr. Duncan smote him. “A cloud passed over his face, and his eyes filled with tears while he confessed to the class that he had done wrong and set a bad example. He said that no one should ever laugh over the Word of Jehovah, and that he especially, a Professor of the Old Testament Scriptures, should have been the last to do so.” (See Life by Dr. Brown.)
As time wore on, Dr. Duncan had assistance in his class teaching, which relieved him largely of the kind of work he was least fitted for, and latterly, owing to the infirmities of age, a colleague and successor (Rev. A. B. Davidson), who undertook all the elementary instruction. He was able himself, however, to do his own part till a few weeks before his death.
During this long and closing period of his career he was frequently a member of the Assembly, and took part in its deliberations. His most impressive appearances were in connection with the Jewish Missions Day, when he delivered addresses of remarkable elevation and enthusiasm, still on record in the Assembly blue-books. The question of Union with the United Presbyterian Church was also started in his time. Dr. Duncan, though a lover of the image of Christ, no matter where he saw it, was a conscientious and ardent opponent of the Union movement—he viewed what is called Voluntaryism with the greatest dread, as through its lack of acknowledging sufficiently God and Christ in the affairs of the State having a tendency to Atheism—and he would have made any sacrifice rather than enter the proposed United Church.
There was one sphere of service outside his ordinary work during this time in which his labours were of the highest spiritual value and usefulness, that is, in assisting ministers in the pulpit at Communion and other seasons. For many years he assisted Dr. Moody Stuart in Free St. Luke’s, and latterly Dr. Horatius Bonar in the Grange Free Church. The Great Day will only declare the amount of spiritual benefit which godly and exercised souls derived from his profoundly illuminating and comforting discourses. Some such followed him wherever he went, and drank in “the living water” with rare satisfaction and delight. He was a nonesuch as a messenger of Christ in their esteem, and they could not get enough from his heaven-taught lips.
It may interest some of my audience to learn what the late Dr. Kennedy of Dingwall—himself a master of assemblies in the work of proclaiming the glorious Gospel—thought of Dr.
Duncan’s preaching. A friend asked Dr. Kennedy on one occasion if he had ever heard Dr. Duncan preach. “Yes,” he replied, “on two occasions. When I was a student at Aberdeen I won a money bursary, and at the close of the session I went to Glasgow, sight-seeing, and having been informed that he was preaching one week evening I went to Milton Church to hear him. The building was fairly large, but the congregation small and scattered. The light was not very good, but the brilliance of the sermon in close reasoning and soul-stirring power, I’ll never forget. On another occasion (he said) I was assisting Dr. Begg at the Communion season in Edinburgh, and Dr. Moody Stuart invited me to take the Friday evening service at Free St. Luke’s, which I would have done but for the closing remark in his letter, saying that otherwise he would have to fall back upon Dr. Duncan. My reply was, ‘Great is your privilege in having such a one to fall back upon; I’ll not be coming to preach.’ Then (added Dr. Kennedy) when I estimated Dr. Duncan had got under weigh with the service I stole quietly into the church, and heard a sermon that did not seem to have been prepared on earth, but felt as if one of the old prophets had come from within the veil to tell us what was going on there. Nothing more heavenly did I ever hear from human lips.”
Dr. Duncan’s labours were owned of God, both to the conversion of sinners and to the edification of the saints, particularly to the latter. Apart from a large number of godly people in general there was one notable instance of a public servant of Christ, the Rev. William C. Burns, the eminent evangelist and devoted missionary, whose preaching was signally blessed to hundreds, if not thousands, of persons about the Disruption time in Scotland and elsewhere. During his divinity studies in Glasgow, especially the last two years of them (1838-39), Mr. Burns attended closely on the ministry of Mr. Duncan in the Milton Church, and obtained, as biographers tell us, “deeper views of divine truth and more solemn aspects of the Christian calling and discipleship than he had known before.” “Every Sabbath spent by him in Milton Church” was as “a day in Patmos, and every sermon almost as an opening of the gate of heaven.” (Life of Rev. W. C. Burns, p. 38.) Mr. Burns at an after time bore testimony at a large meeting of those who had benefited by his ministrations at Perth, as follows: “If you have got any good from me, you owe it all to that remarkable man of God, Dr. Duncan, of Edinburgh. I have just taught you what he has taught me.” He added, “When leaving Edinburgh I asked him, ‘What advice will you give me?’ He answered, ‘Take you care of His Church, and He will take care of your interests; look after His glory, and He will look after your comfort.'” (Dr. Moody Stuart’s Recollections, pp. 52, 53.)
Dr. Duncan, after a few weeks illness, entered his rest on the morning of the 26th February, 1870, at the age of 74 years. His remains were buried in the Grange Cemetery amid a large concourse of mourners, professors and ministers, students and the
general public. An obelisk of granite was erected on his grave by his daughter Maria (Mrs. Spaeth), and it bears the following inscription, admirable both for the truth and modesty of its terms:—”In memory of the Rev. John Duncan, LL.D., Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages in the Free Church College, Edinburgh. An Eminent Scholar and Metaphysician. A Profound Theologian. A man of tender piety, and of a lively and loving spirit. Born, 1796. Died, 1870.”
I have given only the barest outline of the life and character of one of the brightest Christian ornaments that the Church of Christ in Scotland had in modern times, and must express regret for my very imperfect effort. One of his friends said, “He seemed to be a child and a giant in one—both characters curiously intermingled, making intercourse with him peculiarly delightful. No man ever inspired less awe, nor called forth deeper reverence.” And Dr. Moody Stuart, commenting on his death, makes the fitting and beautiful remark: “It seemed to be as if in the company of the blessed receiving him into the everlasting habitations, the enquiry might be made, ‘Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon the Beloved?’ and that they might be answered with the reply, ‘This is he who, when bidden to the marriage feast, went and sat down in the lowest room.'” “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: yea, saith the Spirit, they rest from their labours and their works do follow them.”