Thomas Chalmers And His Vision Of The Church Of Scotland

Rev William M Mackay

The parents of the child born to them on 17 March 1780 could scarcely have imagined at the time the significance and influence their child would have. But Thomas Chalmers was no ordinary child, and his influence on the life of the Scottish people of his time was very great. It was said of him by Lord Roseberry that "he warmed Glasgow", but it would also be true to say that he 'warmed' Scotland, and by the testimony of his life and word brought many to look to the Word of Life, to love and obey its precepts and live for the Lord and King of the Church, Jesus Christ.

Chalmer's view of Christ

The concept of the Headship of Christ is prominent in Chalmers' thought, as it had been prominent in the thought of the Reformers. This was especially so after he had turned to vital Christianity during his ministry at Kilmany. Christ is the believer's righteousness: "Jesus Christ has in our nature fulfilled this law; and it is in the righteousness which He hath thus wrought that we are invited to stand before God .. You have a warrant to put on the righteousness of Christ as a robe and as a diadem, and to go to the throne of grace with the petition of 'Look upon me in the face of Him who hath fulfilled all righteousness".

Chalmers' love for the Scriptures is humble and profound: "Nothing can be more distinct or satisfactory in the way of guidance than simply to be told that the word of God is the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. But, should the affirmation be made that this applies only to part of these Scriptures, and we are left without any test by which to fix and identify that part - then the light wanes back again into darkness; and an extinguisher is put upon the Bible".

Dr Chalmers was a man of great vision. If Christ had called the church into existence, it had a great function to fulfill. If Christ were its Head, then its purposes were glorious, not of weakness, but of strength. Chalmers sought that his ideas of the church would be worthy of it. His service was outgoing, working with the Church to improve and strengthen it, working outwards to those who lay beyond its immediate sphere of action, working within limited areas to extend knowledge of the gospel, working on a world scale that the Kingdom of Christ and His righteousness should be known and loved in lands beyond the existing boundaries of Christendom.

The Church of Scotland a Parish or Territorial Church

Thomas Chalmers wished to see the Church of Scotland as a church bearing the word of Christ to all its people. Every congregation in its organisation and activity should serve the area or territory in which it was, bringing the light and power of Christ to bear on the life of the people in the parish.

The preaching of the Word of God was an essential aspect and central to the concept. Chalmers understood the significance of worship, the gathering of God's people to worship Him on His day. This gave him the incentive to be a good preacher. For many, perhaps this was his greatest contribution. Kilmany Church, a small rural church, became crowded and in Glasgow his experiences were similar with congregations larger than the building could hold. The Word was preached, and preached with power and much blessing. Chalmers' maxim was, "To fill the Church well, we must fill the pulpit well".

Personal devotion and family worship were encouraged, and it was a special aim of Chalmers to have at least one Bible in every home. At times in Glasgow he would go out in the evening after 9pm accompanied by an elder to encourage the people in family worship.

The minister and elders together carried the spiritual responsibility of the congregation. Manageable districts were organized and the homes regularly visited. Area Sabbath Schools were set up to supply Christian teaching for the children. Deacons were appointed to serve the material need of the people. It is interesting to note the type of activity they were encouraged to undertake. They had special responsibilities for the poor - not so much in providing directly for them, as in helping the poor to help themselves.

At a time when little public provision was made to cover the needs of the people, Chalmers encouraged those with financial means to look for unobtrusive but useful means of aiding others within the parish. "The education of some dumb boy, the promise ... by purchase if necessary, of a place in an asylum for one of their blind, the pensioning .. of a poor cripple or idiot or in any way helpless victim of accident or disease .. the generous subscription for the mitigation of some disaster that, in the shape of a burning, or the fall of a crazy tenement, or the death of his horse, may have befallen one of the poorest of the householders."

Other uses for surplus wealth would be the building of a district school, or hall for a library, and savings bank "and well-regulated news room, where lectures too might occasionally be given and social meetings be held free of all that can repel the attendance of the virtuous .. A thousand other things might be specified - a well, a pavement, a sewer; if in the country a little commodious bridge or the opening of a playground for their young".

Chalmers rejected the shallow arguements of the revolutionaries of his time, seeking improvement for the people in other lasting ways, seeking to bring rich and poor together in united service to God. "If there be one topic more than any other which puts the distinctions of rank out of view, and places high and law on the same even platform, it is that Christianity which tells of the common guilt and the common salvation, of the death which awaits all, and the glorious immortality alike held forth in the gospel for the acceptance of all".

The Church of Scotland an Established Church

In 1838, Chalmers accepted an invitation by the Secretery of the Christian Influence Society, set up to defend the position of the Church of England as an Established Church, to deliver a series of six lectures in London. His theme was "The Establishment and Extension of National Churches as affording the only adequate machinery for the moral and Christian instruction of the people." He was a recognised exponent of the theme, a powerful orator and a widely respected figure, the recipient of an honorary degree, Doctor of Civil Law, from Oxford University in 1835. We are told by an American visitor that, at the lecture, "dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, baronets, bishops and members of Parliament were to be seen in every direction".

What is a religious establishment? It involves making legal provision for the expense of religious ministrations - in other words, a nation stating its specific preference for supplying Christian teaching by providing a church or churches with the legal sanction and financial resources to carry out this task. In Scotland the established church was the Presbyterian, and south of the border, the Anglican.

The concept was being challenged - in England by the Methodist and Baptists denominations, and in Scotland by the dissenting Presbyterians from the Secession and Relief Churches.

Chalmers had no interested in a vitiated establishment, other than to see it purified. His desire was for a pure establishment. "That corruption and error have been spread abroad by the organ of an establishment is no more an argument for the destruction of the establishment than that infidelity and licentiousness have been printed is an argument for the destruction of printing-presses. The way is to preserve and to extend both - making the one the instrument for a full diffusion of Bibles, and the other for a full diffusion of Bible-preaching and Bible-sentiment throughout the land."

In so far as the establishment affected education it should be on the basis of the teaching of the Scriptures. "The attempt to harmonize Catholics with Protestants in a common habit of attendance on unscriptural schools, and that in the vain hope of a great moral regeneration to ensue from the experiment, proceeds on an entire reversal of the apostolic order - it is an attempt to be first peaceable and then pure".

The establishment principle had practical consequences of the highest importance. The church of itself without the assistance of the state would advance but slowly in reaching out to those in need of the Christian gospel and Christian education. Chalmers asks the question, "What is the most effectual method of making Christianity so to bear upon a population as that it shall reach every door and be brought into contact with all families?"

But this connection or partnership between church and state would relate only to temporal aspects: "There might be an entire dependence on the state in things temporal, without even the shadow of a dependence on it in things ecclesiastical."

Linked with the parish concept, the establishment principle was no arid dogma, but an instrument for evangelizing: "It is there that the work of Christianisation was essentially a missionary work from its very outset; and an establishment is, in fact, the consummation of this principle. It multiplies preaching stations all over the territory - thereby confining the attractive process within the narrow limits of a parish; and, so far from superseding, giving to the aggressive process its likeliest advantage - for though the families have to move on Sabbath towards the minister, the minister through the week might keep up a busy and incessant movement among the families".

An Extending Church

Since the time of the Reformation the population of Scotland had more than doubled, but the number of parishes had not increased. To keep pace with the growth another 1,400 churches should have been provided. Only 60-70 had been constructed. In the urban areas, the Town Councils had the responsibility for providing new buildings, but were often unwilling to undertake the necessary projects. Seat rents were fixed to provide income for maintenance and often these were so hight that it was relatively difficult for the poorer people of the parish to attend. Dissenting churches made provision for their congregations, but this was completely inadequate to care for the numbers still without 'Christian' ordinances.

In 1828 a Committee on Church Accommodation was appointed by the Church of Scotland but it appears that little was done for several years. At the General Assembly of 1834, the committee was re-appointed with new powers and new instructions - and a new convener, Dr Chalmers.

Chalmers rejected the idea that the committee's purpose was simply that of building churches and emphasised the necessity of 'a special and distinct reference to the Christian good of the families by whom the church is surrounded. The three essentials established for the relation between the church building and the families, in the words of the committee, were:

(1) We provide them with a church near enough else they are still unprovided families.

(2) We are labouring to provide them with a church at seat-rents low enough, else they are obviously still unprovided families;

(3) We take care that the district be small enough and its families few enough to be thoroughly pervaded by the week-day attentions of a clergyman.

The cost for this, if not forthcoming from the State, could be raised in other ways. ''It is quite marvellous in the organization of any system of means how much sub-division adds to its productiveness and its efficacy. Let us never forget that a penny a week from each household of Scotland would afford the yearly sum of a hundred thousand pounds''.

The practical fruits of this work can be seen in the fact that by 1841 almost £306,000 had been raised by voluntary subscription and 222 churches built in 7 years. Dr Chalmers had studied the need of Scotland, knew from his reports the areas that were distant from parish churches and set about to remedy the situation. In his time the tide was turned and Christian thought and action received such impetus through him and those who worked with him that the church renewed its offensive on ignorance and evil.

A Missionary Church

While Dr Chalmers' vision for his own country and its people was far-reaching and comprehensive it was not limited by the frontiers of Scotland. The Scriptural view of the Church of Christ is of the people of God redeemed out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation, and this was the view of Thomas Chalmers.

William Carey left for India in 1793, and people with concern for peoples overseas had formed missionary societies, but the Church of Scotland had not awakened to its responsibility. In 1804 the British and Foreign Bible Society was founded and soon local associations were being formed to assist in the diffusion of the Scriptures. After his own awakening in the parish of Kilmany Chalmers strongly supported the Association there. Speaking of the Scripture at that time he said ''It is the desire of our hearts that a gift so precious should be sent to the poor of other countries. The Word of God is our hope and our rejoicing: we desire that it may be theirs also that the wandering savage may know it and be glad; and the poor negro, under the lash of his master, may be told of a Master in Heaven who is full of pity and full of tenderness.''

His powers of eloquence were put at the service of the missionary cause. On 14 May 1817 at 11am, Dr Chalmers was to give the anniversary sermon of the London Missionary Society, but by 7am the chapel was already crowded. Chalmers' publisher, Mr Smith, said of the sermon, ''Nothing from the Tron pulpit ever excelled it nor did he ever more arrest and wonder-work his audience''. The same year, in England, he met a keen supporter of Moravian missions, and, impressed by what he had been told of their work, offered to raise £500 for them. The promise was faithfully kept.

One of Dr Chalmers' most powerful sermons has as its theme 'On the Necessity of Uniting Prayer with performance for the success of Missions'. He reflects on the work done by missionaries in Otaheite. They had gone there with the Scriptures. ''It is to the spread of the Bible, and to the reading of the Bible and to the charm of the preacher's voice when he urges home its lessons - it is apparently to these that they look for a regenerated species. To means to utterly insignificant, the end appears to be out of all measure romantic and impracticable and hopeless.''

He continues later: ''You must not forget that this book of doubted and decried and disowned efficacy is the Word of God - that it is a message constructed by him, and specially adapted by wisdom to the special object of recalling a lost world from its state of exile and degeneracy - that such is declared to be the power of its doctrine that, whensoever it is received, there are received along with it the forgiveness of sin, and ability from on high to dethrone sin from its ascendancy over our moral nature - that, with this chosen instrument of God for the recovery of our fallen race, there is a capacity for all those high and heavenly purposes which it is destined to accomplish''.

With such a powerful emphasis on the teaching of Scripture and the place of prayer in the Chrisitian life, missionary enterprise within the Church of Scotland began to prosper.

The years from 1823-8 spent at St Andrews University as Professor of Moral Philosophy link Dr Chalmers most closely with the missionary movement and Dr Alexander Duff, himself an outstanding missionary, is the one who records its significance in his own life and the life of the whole University. In public meetings in the Town Hall of St Andrews, Dr Chalmers dealt with the history and aims of missions. He corresponded with missionary societies, receiving their most recent reports on progress in different parts of the world. Extracts were read and prayer encouraged.

The University Missionary Society, previously repressed by the University authorities and refused a meeting place, was recognised as worthy of official help, and offered room by the Principal of St Mary's College. According to Dr Duff, a third of the students at the University supported it. Perhaps the most extraordinary fruit of the years Dr Chalmers spent in St Andrews was the number of those who offered themselves for missionary service. A very important part in the evangelization of India was played by those who had been influenced by Chalmers in St Andrews. Duff wrote: ''He carried about with him a better than talismanic virtue, by which all who came in contact with him were almost unconsciously influenced, moulded and impelled to imitate''.

If, at the Disruption, the practice of the Establishment principle was set aside, it was in order that the principle of the Headship of Christ should have pre-eminence.

Conclusion

Chalmers believed that the Church of Scotland - Free should be a parish or territorial church; he believed that the theory of Establishment was ound; he urged it to be an extending church in Scotland, and he sought that its missionary impulse would be maintained and strengthened.

The West Port experiment exemplified the territorial or parish concept, his dedication to raising support for the Sustentation Fund was a prodigious effort to provide means for a ministry to evangelize Scotland, and the former missionaries of the Church of Scotland offered themselves to the Free Church, abandoning the premises they occupied. New support and new premises were found, as well as new fields of endeavour.

To us it must seem an impossible taks that Chalmers undertook, as though he were beginning a life's work in the seventh decade of an already amazingly fruitful life. Thomas Carlyle put it thus: ''What a wonderful old man Chalmers is! Or rather, he has all the buoyancy of youth. When so many of us are wringing our hands in hopeless despair over the vileness and wretchedness of the large towns, there goes the old man, shovel in hand, down into the dirtiest puddles of the West Port of Edinburgh, cleans them out, and fills the sewers with living waters. It is a beautiful sight''.

This then is something of the vision that Thomas Chalmers had for the Church of Scotland, the vision that lies behind the formation of the Free Church of Scotland - a parish church, an established church, or at least a stout upholder of the principle and practice of a pure establishment, an extending church towards those who are ignorant of the Christian Gospel and Christ's redemption, a missionary church in the service of all nations - a vision leading to the ample vision of the kingdom to which he gives expression in the following words:

''I long to see the day, nor do I despair of seeing it, when every parish shall have a Christian society - when not a district shall be left uncultivated, but shall yield a produce to the cause of the Saviour - when these lesser streams shall form into a mighty torrent to carry richness and fertility into the dry and desolate regions of the world - and when Britain, high in arms and political influence, shall earn a more permanent glory by being the dispenser of light and power, and the message of Heaven to the remotest nations.''

May this also be our longing and our prayer.

Rev William M Mackay has now retired but was formerly a missionary in Lima, Peru and Headmaster of Colegio San Andres.

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