William Mackintosh, M.A., D.D. Glasgow: James Maclehose & Sons; New York: Macmillan & Co. 1894.1
Some fifteen years ago, the religious world was startled by the appearance of a volume bearing the simple title of “Scotch Sermons, 1880.” It was a collection of twenty-three sermons by thirteen “clergymen of the Church of Scotland,” and was designed to acquaint the public with “a style of teaching” which the editor thought was “increasingly prevalent amongst the clergy of the Scottish Church,” and which made it its object so to present “the essential ideas of Christianity” as to show that they are “in harmony with the results of critical and scientific research.” A good object, surely. The trouble with these sermons, however, was that they did not seek to consider the results of recent “critical and scientific research” in the light of the revealed truth of God, and to exhibit the harmony of all truth, whether derived from revelation or from nature; but, taking their point of view from current theorizing, pared down “the essential ideas of Christianity” to fit the assumed “results of the most recent critical and scientific research.” The volume was appropriately estimated by Dr. A. A. Hodge in the issue of The Presbyterian Review for January, 1881 (ii. pp. 212–214). “The collection, as a whole,” he said, “is utterly valueless, except as ‘specimens of a style of teaching’ which is said to ‘increasingly prevail amongst the clergy of the Scottish Church.’ Neither the learning nor the logic of these sermons avails to throw light upon any other subject of human interest under the sun. And neither the hearing nor the reading of such discourses could ever avail to promote any other valuable practical quality than that of patience. Some of these sermons do not contain any statements absolutely opposed to the essential truths of Christianity, but not one sets forth any doctrine or duty which can be in any special sense classed as Christian.”
One of the writers represented in the volume was the Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D., of Buchanan, who contributed two sermons on the text, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Gal. 6:7). With reference to these sermons, but more especially the latter of them, Dr. Hodge remarks: “Rev. William Mackintosh, D.D., Buchanan, discourses concerning the ‘renovating power of Christianity.’ He asks: ‘What is the Gospel good for? What title has it to that designation? What service does it render?’ (p. 162). This he answers thus: ‘The problem of human life—the task appointed to us—is our deliverance from the sway of our lower nature, our surrender to the control of our higher nature. The powers by which we are enabled to accomplish this task are three. First. Our own higher nature itself. Secondly. The beneficent constitution of things in general, their tendency in favor of what is good. Thirdly. These two factors are brought into full operation by the revelation to our consciousness, of that which was implicitly contained in them of the Divine good-will, or paternal relation towards us, given us by Christ’ (pp. 171–173). That is, all that Christ does for us is to assure us of God’s good-will. With this encouragement we save ourselves, by the use of natural powers acting under natural conditions.” Dr. Mackintosh’s sermons, in a word, fairly illustrated the hint of the editor of the volume, that the sermons included in it belong to a class which are seeking to bring “the essential ideas of Christianity” into “harmony with the results of critical and scientific research.” He himself describes his aim in them in such words as these: “Our endeavour has been to show what modifications of the popular construction of Christianity are needed to bring it into harmony with the laws of mental physiology” (p. 172). “The light which science sheds upon human destiny” is the light in which he would walk. And “science” with him is above all the investigation of physical nature: it is from this sphere that he would borrow his governing idea. “In these later times,” he tells us with extreme naïveté, “science, in its researches into the material world, has lighted everywhere upon the traces of an all-pervading continuity” (p. 145); and this being true, we may now “confidently postulate” “the existence in the moral and spiritual worlds of an analogous principle.” Wherefore, that a step may be taken towards the reconciliation of faith and science he devotes these sermons to showing that “the principle of continuity obtains in the moral sphere no less than in the material, and rules the succession of religious as of other phenomena” (p. 145; cf. p. 134).
The former of the two sermons is occupied with an attempt to demonstrate this “law of moral continuity.” “The law of the spiritual harvest,” we are told, “is that evil is the natural,” nay, the inevitable, “product of evil; that nothing either good or evil ever perishes of itself, but must, in some way, influence, or enter as an element into, the future” (p. 146). This is an article of natural religion, and “underlies Christianity as much as does the existence and unity of God, or any other article of natural religion” (p. 134). It cannot be “shaken or removed by any subsequent revelation”; it is rather one of the tests of the truth of systems (p. 134). If we speak of God’s judgment on sin, we must still think merely of this direct and infallible action of moral continuity, “without the intervention of any supplementary or epicyclical contrivance” (p. 139): for “the judgment of God is only another name for the natural and inevitable consequence of our lives” (p. 143). Divine judgment is therefore continuous and progressive, and all supernatural action is out of place in it: no divine fiat can interfere with moral development here or hereafter. “Such interference on the day of judgment is as inadmissible, because as inconsistent with human liberty, and with an inviolable order, as at any other crisis in the history of man” (p. 140). No, it is impossible to remove sin by a sovereign or forensic fiat: “the chain of moral sequence … is carried on in unbroken continuity” (p. 144)—we are under the operation of a universal law which acts, like all law, uniformly.