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Preface

Alexander McClelland was remarkable in his youth for his great facility in learning, and the rapid development of his mental faculties. Having received his collegiate education at Union, Schenectady, he commenced his preparatory studies for the ministry of the gospel at Pittsburgh, Pa., under the care of the late Rev. John Anderson, d. d., of the Associate Presbyterian Church ; but, owing to the superior advantages which the Theological Seminary of the Associate Reformed Synod then presented at New York, he availed himself of the earliest opportunity of attending the lectures of the late Dr. John M. Mason. It was in connection with that seminary he completed his course ; and when but nineteen years of age he was licensed by the Associate Reformed Presbytery to preach the gospel. Shortly after this — in 1815 — he was ordained and installed, and became the successor of the late Dr. Philip Milledoller in the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church, then situated in Rutgers street in the city of New York. After the lapse of seven years (during which period he sustained himself in the duties of his charge with distinguished ability? and growing reputation as a preacher), he was elected to

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the Professorship " of Rhetoric, Logic, and Metaphysics " in Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pa. Thither he moved with his family in 1822 ; and there remained, applying himself with marked assiduity to the duties of his professorship, and securing increasing influence over the minds of his students, until, in 1829, he removed to New Brunswick, New Jersey, where, in connection, at first with Rutgers College as " Professor of Languages," and afterwards with the Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Church in the department of " Oriental Literature and Biblical Criticism," he spent the greater part of his remaining days. His death — preceded by a gradual paralysis of all his organs — occurred in the sixty-ninth year of his age, on the nineteenth day of December, 1864. 1

He was in some respects better fitted for the professor's chair than the pastoral office, — at least so he himself thought, — and, on this account, retained his professorship at Carlisle, though repeatedly invited to resume a charge, and unanimously called to the First Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia, when rendered vacant by the death of Dr. James Wilson.

Still, Dr. McClelland continued to preach at intervals, — though oftener than otherwise in some retired place, and where he was not expected. Being averse to having himself announced, he was seldom forward to make a timely engagement.

1 On the sixth of August, 1816, he was married to the eldest daughter of the late Charles Dickinson, of the city of New York, who still survives him, with six of their children, — two sons and four daughters.

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He was reluctant, moreover, to publish any particular sermon or lecture ; not so much through fear of criticism (though he was nervously sensitive to the least flaw that might be detected), as from the consciousness of not having satisfied his own mind, — so high was his standard of excellence in the lecture-room as well as in the pulpit, and so irksome to him the labor of preparing a manuscript for the press. ,

Whatever he might have accomplished in other relations, in this respect he disappointed his friends. They had anticipated some great work from his pen ; but, with the exception of a few racy articles for newspapers, he has left in print only "A brief Treatise on the Canon and Interpretation of the Scriptures ; " a pamphlet on " The Marriage Question ; " together with two discourses, — the one on "A Standing Ministry ; " the other, " A Vindication of the Religious Spirit of the Age," — both written and preached during the period of his youthful pastorate.

But whoever may have read these discourses will respond to our expression of regret that Dr. McClelland had not selected and revised a given number of manuscript sermons for the press.

Though hearers differ in their views of the merits of a particular sermon, and their judgment is not unfrequently strangely biased, — some preferring that which cost the least expense of studious preparation, or that which has merely captivated the fancy; yet no one is so competent a judge of his own written utterances for the pulpit as the preacher himself, — that is, if he be a man of disciplined thought, and

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critical acumen. He alone knows what object, in reliance on God's grace, he proposed to himself in essaying a particular discourse ; and whether it is in the clearest, strongest manner, according to his ability, adapted to that end. In proportion to its adaptedness, not to display mental resources, nor to secure a brilliant reputation ; but, in keeping with the great design of the gospel ministry, to bring home Bible-truth to the„heart and the life, — will be its merits in the view of him who can conscientiously say : " I believe, and therefore speak."

The Bible never violates its unity of design. The Old Testament is contained in the New, and the New Testament in the Old ; and whether our attention be directed to ceremonial enactments or to evangelical requisitions, — to prophecy or to miracles, — to a fact, a character, an incident, an argument, or a saying, — to the tables of the decalogue, or the - precepts of the gospel, — to Moses or to Christ, — it is manifest that the Scriptures have but one and the same object; that is, to guide us into the way of eternal life. Thus, the author of these sermons, though wont to select his texts from different parts of the Old Testament as well as the New, seems to have been guided in the disposition of his thoughts on any given topic, by the drift of Eevelation or the analogy of Scripture, — showing its subservience to evangelical truth and duty ; and sometimes disclosing, but in a manner quite unexpected to his hearers,- its designed, if not necessary, relation to the Alpha and Omega, or to its scriptural bearing on the future of the soul.

Still, he must have been an exception from all preachers, had

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IX he not had his favorite texts or subjects, and his preferences among his mental productions. But his manuscripts disclose no marks by which we may ascertain whether he preached some more than others ; or whether any one among them was at any time uttered in public. Devoid of a single entry, — such as ministers are accustomed to make, and which, in some instances, amount to scores, — a stranger, on examining the manuscripts, might conclude, from the hue of the paper, or from some local reference or allusion to the events of the day, that, though written at different periods of his history, they were never delivered. Yet, independently of my own recollection, I have, on inquiry, ascertained from several ministers of standing in different churches, that these are some of the sermons he was accustomed to use after his retiracy from the pastoral office. A few of them, though comparatively of less intrinsic value, — having owed the interest they awakened at the time of their delivery mainly to the force of circumstances, — are so well remembered, that to withhold them would be to disappoint. Nor have I felt at liberty to modify a sentiment, much less suppress any view of a mooted point as found in the manuscripts, lest the writer should not be immediately recognized by those who have been most desirous of their publication. I find, however, from various interlineations and transpositions in his unmistakable chirography, that some of the manuscripts have been subjected to successive corrections, with here and there either an erasure or addition ; and that several have been re-written with special care.

Bearing, then, the impress of his intellect and the charac-

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teristics of his style, no less clearly than serving to convey to the inquiring mind the grounds of his faith and the use he was wont to make of the ethical element in Christianity, they may be viewed as constituting a fair specimen of his pulpit utterances.

It comes not within our province, in simply editing these sermons, to analyze their character, or formally estimate Dr. McClelland's merits as a preacher of the gospel. Suffice it to say, that, aside from his " eccentricities," so called, which failed not to attract notice, and his not unfrequent forms of expression, which were apt to be repeated, — thus rendering minds of a certain class not a little curious to hear him, — it were to be expected that a man who could deliver his sermons from memory with the earnestness of one whose mind is surcharged with his subject, with the naturalness and ease of an extemporaneous speaker, — having, too, a voice of unusual flexibility, fulness, and power, adapted to the appropriate expression of every sentiment, — would awaken an interest in the community, and become noted for the style and manner of his preaching.

He himself could not endure either declamation or mistiness in the pulpit, much less prosing. If he was careful to avoid any one thing, it was preaching in such a way that no one could understand him, or take an interest in what he said ; much more of exposing himself to any invidious reflection on his understanding. This was so characteristic of him, that he might have appropriated the language of old Harrington : " There is nothing in the world, next to the favor of God, I so much desire as to be understood."

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On one occasion, after a service, he said to the minister who had occupied the pulpit : " Will you be good enough, sir, to tell me what you meant by that expression ? I did not understand you ; and I doubt whether your Master did."

Again: while delivering a' charge to a young minister just installed, he said : " I know it is by the foolishness of preaching that it has pleased God to save them that believe ; but be careful, young man, be careful lest you should make your preaching too foolish ! "

It was, perhaps, owing to this, — his aversion to stereotyped forms, his nervous dread of even approaching to monotony and tediousness in the pulpit, — that he at times verged to the other extreme : resorting to irony, to a stroke of humor, a sarcastic allusion, a quaint story, or employing phrases but too obvious in their import and too well fitted to divert the mind of an audience from the weighty subject to which their attention had been called.

Aside from this, and however much the more serious among his auditors might have thought that he occasionally deviated too far from that grave propriety of utterance which becomes the pulpit, yet to hear him was to be arrested by the manner of his discourse : preaching as he did in his early and best days with the freshness and fervor and vigor of a mind that, smitten with the love of truth, works out its own thoughts and conclusions ; with the solemnity of one whose soul is overborne with a sense of spiritual realities ; with the boldness and fidelity of one who is " determined to know nothing," while addressing dying sinners, " but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."

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Adhering strictly to his text, he was, by turns, argumentative, expository, descriptive, inferential, and experimental : having cultivated his imagination no less than his powers of reasoning, and disciplined his faculties to habits of philosophic observation as well as to rigorous method in the investigation of truth : thus securing to his pulpit clearness, strength, variety, and aptness of illustration ; and, had it not been for that vein of sarcastic humor in which he was so prone to indulge, rendering his ministrations in all respects adapted to wide-spread usefulness and permanent results.

The pulpit essentially differs from the bar or the platform in the temper of its utterances. Not that it should lack directness, vividness, and force ; but what is allowable, if not necessary, in other relations of public speaking, in this is always questionable ; and we are the less reluctant to note the distinction, not merely because the high and serious end which the pulpit contemplates would seem appropriately to require words of soberness as well as of truth, but also from the fact that whatever in figurative language, in illustration, or in terms, is of doubtful propriety in the utterances of some conspicuously popular preacher, is wont, by amusing or infecting the imagination, to mislead the judgment of some youthful candidate for the ministry. Thus, whenever any of Dr. McClelland's youthful admirers essayed to imitate him, it was in his peculiarities rather than in those qualities which constituted his real excellence as a preacher, — excellence so decided, that allowance could be made even by those who would rather he had omitted his

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XIII episodes of irony, or reserved his sarcasm for a different occasion ; an allowance, be it considered, never extended to those who can rise no higher than abortive attempts at imitation.

But notwithstanding his propensity to excite a smile at the expense of some one or other, and which, from neglect of timely efforts to control, became a chronic affection of mind, he was rich in thought, evangelical in doctrine, in general practical, and, at times, searching in his analysis of the carnal mind ; never ministering encouragement to unscriptural hopes, nor failing to expose the sophistries of error and rebut the cavils of infidels. Few, if any, of his contemporaries, during the early years of his ministry, could be more instructive than he on any given point of duty; more graphic in the description of a scene or delineation of a character ; more affecting in showing forth the Saviour's dying love, or impressive in addressing dying men, when eternity, with its vast realities, seemed to fill the sphere of his vision.

In the course of preparation for his successive professorships, his studies necessarily assumed a wider range. He had resumed and extended his classical readings ; examined the various systems both of' ancient and modern philosophy; watched the progress of scientific investigation, and noted whatever was valuable in the literature of his day ; but the deeper his acquaintance with mind, under the natural conditions of its development, the higher his appreciation of the Bible. In it was exhaustless material for thought ; repose for the reason ; food for the soul, nowhere

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else to be found. To its divine authority he bowed with docility in all matters of faith ; for its teachings inculcated the deepest reverence ; and, inclined as he was to speculative thought, fond of broaching a theory for the sake of social discussion, or testing one's ability to reply, yet, in his serious hours, he never travelled in thought beyond the inspired record : thus devoutly recognizing the limits of legitimate speculation in relation to God and the soul.

In his judgment, no veneration for the Bible could be relied on as firm and effective, that is not founded on a deep and intimate acquaintance with its treasures. No one can be proof against the suggestions of " an evil heart of unbelief," and much less the imposing theories and malign insinuations of modern skepticism, who has not subjected himself to the same discipline by which the babe in Christ grows up to be a healthy, vigorous man in Christ. Hence, where the biblical studies of too many end, his began, and were continued at intervals, notwithstanding the pressure of other studies, until, during the period of his last professorship, his Bible became, as it were, a part of his intellectual self. A union seemed to be effected between his very thinking substance and the favorite subjects of its meditations, which, to use his own expression, " all the chemistry of hell could not dissolve."

Other ends are to be answered by the use of " the lively oracles of God," than to abstract from them a few simple propositions, like " algebraic formulas or gastronomical recipes." Error is to be respected rather than " a puffy, empty, gossiping Christianity." The motives which the Bible pre-

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XV sents to deter from sin are fearful enough to the mind of serious thought, without investing " the doctrine of everlasting punishment " with material terrors. Truth, however it may be assailed by its enemies, can be injured only by its friends. These, and similar views, expressed in his peculiar way, did not always convey the most felicitous idea either of his orthodoxy or brotherly love. But his occasional way of noticing any turgid representation of a doctrine, of treating some miserable conceit, or of exposing the weak points of an argument even when advanced in behalf of an orthodox point, only proved, to those who knew him, not the unsoundness of his faith, but that he had unwittingly rendered himself " an offender for a word."

For many years he preached but seldom. It was often difficult to prevail on him to accept an invitation ; nor would he preach unless thoroughly prepared. Here is the secret of that degree of pulpit excellence to which he attained, — it was by study. From my earliest recollection of him, he was a close student ; and, in the whole course of my association with ministers of the gospel, I have seldom met with one who bestowed more thought on a discourse, or expended more time in preparation for a particular service. It seemed to be his settled conviction, that no one could refresh, much less kindle and elevate, an audience but by real thought ; and this could be attained only by the patient application of a well-disciplined and richly-stored mind to the fundamental principles of Christian faith and practice.

What were the precise results of his early ministry we are unable to state. The greater part of those to whom he

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then ministered preceded him to the grave. The influence of his public life, therefore, will be perpetuated rather through those who, during their collegiate or their theological course, enjoyed his instructions and heard his lectures, than by any who but occasionally heard him preach ; though all, who either attended his classes or retain the recollection of any sermon they might have chanced to hear, will be gratified to know that some of his productions were not included in the contents of the old " hair trunk " which he " bequeathed to the flames."

R. W. D.

New York, Jan. 2, 1867.

Contents

PAGE

1. Ps. xcvii. 1. The Lord Reigneth, . . . ■ . . . 1

2. Dan. xi. 32. The Source of Moral Strength, . . 23

II. The Source Of Moral Strength

Daniel 1 1 : ^2. %\z people tljat 00 knofo fym (Sob s^all 0£ s * r0

LITTLE more than a century ago an ingenious and learned writer excited no little ferment in the speculative world by proposing for grave consideration the question whether a community of atheists could exist. With his usual love of singularity, he held the affirmative, and wrote an elaborate work in its defence and elucidation. Not content with asserting that men might exist in a social state and perform all the duties of good citizens without any recognition of a Supreme Ruler and Judge, he declared his opinion that a community so organized possessed many considerable advantages, or at least was far preferable to a union of superstitious devotees, who, while they acknowledged the existence of a God, entertained false and mean conceptions of his character. It would be foolish to deny that this part of his argument is exceedingly plausible. Between the two extremes of rank superstition and pure, unadulterated scepticism, there is probably little to choose. If from the negation of all belief, which characterizes the latter, no pleasant or refreshing fruits may be expected, what better things can be hoped from positive error concerning the na-

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ture and will of the great Parent of the Universe. Is a vacant throne worse than a throne filled by a tyrant ? As soon let us acknowledge that there is no God as call up before onr imaginations a ghastly phantom, that delights in blood ; a childish phantom, that takes pleasure in idle ceremonies ; or a monster, who commands us, on pain of his everlasting malediction, to contradict the plainest dictates of^tar understanding, and belie the purest sentiments of the heart. On this topic, those who institute comparisons between atheism and corrupted theism, with a favorable leaning to the former, expatiate eloquently and amply. Superstition, say they, enervates the soul. Attacking us on the side of our conscious weakness, and awakening fear rather than stimulating hope, it paints the object which it proposes to our worship in the most gloomy colors. A God. whose holiness consists in prohibiting the gratification of inclinations he has himself implanted : whose glory is promoted by the unhappiness of his creatures : who watches over them only to mark with anger the slightest excess or omission ; whose justice is inexorable, or only to be appeased by painful and expensive sacrifices : and on whom his worshippers can place so little dependence that after all their efforts they may fail in procuring his favor, and securing themselves against the unknown evils of futurity : — such is the God who has too often been seated on the throne of the universe, and to whom a large proportion of mankind have in every age rendered trembling homage. Is it wonderful that, nurtured from earliest infancy in such conceptions of the great Father of all. they should grow up into

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poor, mean-hearted slaves, scarcely daring to walk upright on earth, and shivering at every unusual occurrence in nature as an omen of approaching vengeance ? Such is the religion of too many even in Christian lands ; a religion full of discomfort and dark forebodings, which, by its harrowing representations, changes the fair face of nature into deformity, casts poison into all the fountains of happiness, and makes cowards of the bravest hearts. Its wretched votary feels himself unfit to live, and yet more unfit to die.

But while we cheerfully concede to the enemies of superstition that in this statement, which we have put into their mouths, there is some truth, and that there are forms of that baneful evil almost as intolerable as the want of all religious principle, we would remind them that there is a true knowledge of God, which is not difficult of attainment, and the operation of which is as blessed as that of the other is pernicious and fatal. Happy is the community in which it nourishes and yields its appropriate fruits. Thrice happy the individual who feels its sacred influences. It exalts while it purifies the soul, and breathes a divine vigor into all its faculties. He who has come to the enjoyment of this heavenly light is like a benighted traveller, who, after toiling many weary hours through tangled forest and deep morass, the yell of some ferocious beast every moment striking upon his ear, and imagination conjuring up a thousand frightful spectres, at length sees the glorious orb of day rising, as if out of compassion upon his misery and for the express purpose of

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guiding him to a path of safety. He stands erect, looks around him fearlessly, and walks on with firm and elastic step, astonished at the change he has experienced. This is the truth to the consideration of which you are invited by my text. " The people that do know their God shall be strong." They shall be full of vigor and courage. They shall exhibit, under all circumstances, a force of character, which, though exerted in a very different direction from what the world calls such, is infinitely above it in respect both to the principles from whence they respectively spring and the effects they produce.

Before, however, entering on details, it will be proper to determine the nature of this knowledge spoken of in our text, it being too evident that there is a knowledge of G-od which exercises no such invigorating influence on the human character.

That it must be true knowledge, involving accurate conceptions of the attributes, will, and government of the Almighty, we sufficiently intimated in our introductory remarks. It is not required that the ideas we have of him be adequate, or fully answerable to his mysterious nature. " Who by searching can find him out ? Who can know the Almighty to perfection ?" His pavilion is thick darkness, and the loftiest genius who attempts to rise above a few simple notions of unbounded power, unbending holiness, and goodness beyond compare, soon finds that he has no wings for such an adventurous flight. But our apprehensions, so far as they go, may be perfectly conformable to the Archetype ; and in the gospel he has given such clear notices of himself as

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leave every one who entertains ideas positively false, without excuse. He is there revealed as our Creator, our Legislator, and our Judge ; but he is more. Taking compassion on our sin and wretchedness, he sent his only begotten Son into the world to redeem us from death, and restore us to a place among his sons. He receives the believing penitent as a parent his returning prodigal child, enters into covenant with him, is ever present to support him, guides, sanctifies, and in due time receives him into his heavenly kingdom. These truths, with others of a kindred nature, distinctly apprehended and firmly believed, take possession of the whole man, and become so incorporated with his essential principles of feeling and action that they cannot be separated. He views them in a light very different from that in which they present themselves to the mere speculative understanding. They are not barren abstractions, they are not cold deductions of reason which chill while they enlighten, but warm, radiant, living realities, which seem to exist not so much without as within him, and to be parts of his own breathing self. To doubt the existence of a supreme and everywherepresent Spirit, who is before, and behind him, who compasseth his lying down and rising up ; to doubt his perfect justice, his ineffable purity, his boundless love ; to doubt whether in Jesus Christ he hath reconciled sinners to himself, and is preparing for all who accept the offered grace, mansions in the skies, — is to him little more intelligible than to doubt of his own existence. Hence that beautiful and most significant term by which this perception is often ex-

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pressed in the sacred Scriptures. The saints are said to " see God." The ideas they have of his presence, power, goodness, and the various solemn and tender relations he sustains to them, are so lively and beyond description impressive, that they may be almost characterized as images of sense.

And these are not occasional feelings, to which they have been wrought up by a concurrence of extraordinary circumstances. I make this remark to guard against a dangerous error into which many have fallen, the general frame of whose mind is very different from that described, in consequence of discovering that at certain periods of their lives, and in certain situations, they felt emotions not dissimilar. The idea of God is in itself so grand and elevating a thought, so calculated to rouse and absorb all the faculties of the soul, that the most carnal mind, when suitably prepared by a train of incidents, is constrained to feel and acknowledge its influence. As the giddy and tasteless traveller, who feels no sympathy with the sublime and beautiful objects in nature, but turns away from them with disgust, sometimes stumbles on scenes of surpassing grandeur and loveliness when in a state of mind favorable to receive an impression, and is astonished at discovering what a fountain of sensibility has been locked up in his bosom, — so the most thoughtless man of the world, who can pass whole weeks without one serious reflection, whose days are spent in the turmoil of business, and nights in revelling, wonders sometimes to find himself led by a sort of destiny, which he cannot resist, directly into the presence of Ms Maker. The

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heaven-born mind, as if conscious of the vile degradation to which she has been reduced, and determined for once to assert her right, climbs up to her native quarry, and claims a brief communion with the Parent from whom she had so long been separated. Yes, even the besotted sensualist is forced sometimes to exclaim, " There is a God ; how great, how glorious is God ! " He feels himself at the foot of his throne ; the world, with all its vain illusions, disappears, and he surrenders himself to a train of the most profound and affecting contemplations. These, it is true, are rare occurrences in his life ; and their infrequency constitutes a broad and strongly marked, though by no means the only, distinction between his case and that of the truly religious man. The devotion of the latter is no panic nor sudden paroxysm ; but an inwrought habit of thinking, feeling, and acting, in the view of that great Being whose transcendent purity fills him with adoring awe, and whose numberless acts of goodness he reciprocates with unceasing praise.