Preachers of Scotland: From the Sixth to the Nineteenth Century

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XII. THE PULPIT OF TO-DAY. On a retrospect of the history of Scottish preaching since the Reformation it becomes clear that all its more earnest periods have been marked by a combination of two forces or factors,--one personal, the other public; one having regard to the direct and proper business of the pulpit, the preaching of the Gospel; the other connected with some public cause or movement, believed to have a vital bearing on the other. From the pulpit at such times the message of the Gospel has been warmly and earnestly proclaimed; men have been called in God's name to receive in Christ the offer of mercy; warned that the wages of sin is death; pressed to look to the Saviour for deliverance and renewal; and urged, while they live in this world, to live, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. But alongside this earnest proclamation of the message of grace, the Church as a whole, and pre-eminently the foremost of her preachers, have been the earnest and uncompromising advocates of some public, if not political, course of action, deemed by them most sacred,--demanded, in their view, by allegiance to Christ, and essential to the permanent efficiency of the Church, as guardian of the Gospel. And these two forces have acted and reacted on each other; their connection has not been incidental, but vital. We question if there be any other country in Europe where the sword and the trowel have been in such constant alliance, and where the pulpit has taken on so much of the form and hue of the Church militant. At the Keformation, in Scotland as in other countries of Europe, it was judged necessary to concentrate every effort on the overthrow of the Church of Eome, as a political institution as well as a spiritual force; and we have seen how this nece...