For many people, ‘boring’ and ‘sermonic’ are synonymous. Who was the writer who noted
that eighteenth century sermons could be put into three categories – dull, duller, and
inconceivably dull? Bagehot suggested that ‘if we are to be dull, let us be dull in
silence.’

Here is a book about and by a preacher who was not dull. William Malcolm Macgregor was,
with James Stewart and A.J. Gossip, one of Scotland’s premier twentieth century
professor-pastor/preachers. They don’t come any better – for scholarship, erudition,
theological balance, and pastoral and evangelical zeal. There have not been many preachers
who combine ‘heat’ and ‘light’, but Macgregor was one of them.

The book comprises his 1942-3 Warrack Lectures. The Foreword’s ‘Appreciation’ by
A.J.Gossip is effusive but honest about the great man’s strengths and weaknesses. (There
was a ‘majesty about him’ but he was also a ‘man of moods!’). Macgregor ‘was a preacher
because he had heard incredibly good news which he could not keep to himself; he knew
Christ intimately, and exulted in this Friend of his of Whom he was immeasurably proud.’

Macgregor begins with a chapter on ‘The Ideal of Ministry’. Among other things ministry
is about awakening the conscience of people who might profess themselves to be (in the
words of the Church of England Prayer Book) ‘miserable sinners’ but ‘do not strictly mean
it’! A good minister identifies with parishioners and others as friends. As Matthew Arnold
put it:

"Was Christ a man like us? Oh, let us see  If we then too can be such men as
He!"’

A preacher’s main goal is to know God. Developing a godly character is much more
important than ‘the cultivation of fluency and professional dexterities.’ Augustine wrote:
‘In order to his being obediently listened to, the life of the teacher is of greater
weight than any splendour of diction.’  It is easy for a preacher, in Dante’s
terrible words, to be ‘neither for God nor for God’s enemies, but for themselves.’ (When I
was considering entering seminary a wise old pastor said ‘Rowland, always remember,
preachers can easily be peacocks!’). Too often, alas, ‘the ministry has men who have
offered themselves as guides, knowing nothing of the way.’

Such persons, writes Macgregor, ‘are not a new plague: already in the second century
Hermas speaks of those who "empty themselves, give empty answers to empty
people", and Milton denounces those in his day who posed as preachers though they had
nothing to give, so "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed".’ Preaching, as
Phillips Brooks has famously said, is ‘truth through personality’, to which Macgregor
adds: ‘truth vitalized by experience, and whenever it loses this quality, it may be clever
and eloquent, but, as Paul would have said, it is like a tinkling cymbal, musical but
rather futile.’ Note John Owen’s fundamental rule for every preacher, – ‘Oportet esse
aliquid intus’ – ‘it needs something inside it’.

But then, in the third lecture, Macregor notes that knowledge of God ought to lead to
the knowledge of people. A preacher might ‘make something of the text’ but what is made
may be of no use ‘to the long-suffering people’! Or, then, there’s the story of a minister
who was so schedule-driven, that he measured his pastoral calls in minutes.

‘One evening, on entering the home of a very poor and very solitary woman, he looked at
his watch and said, "I see I can only give you seven minutes" to which she
replied "Aweel, if that is a’ ye needna sit down".’ Such unimaginative and
uncaring ‘punctuality’ is unforgiveable in a shepherd…

For the true follower of Christ, the French maxim has great power – ‘tout comprendre
est tout pardonner – to understand everything is to forgive everything.’ In the two
familiar stories of the adulterous woman (John 8:1-11) and the woman in the Pharisees’
house (Luke 7:37-50) the contrast between Christ’s way and ours is evident: the
overly-religious treated these sinners with contempt, Jesus with accepting love. If a
preaching pastor has not the mind of Christ, that person does not properly belong in the
Christian ministry.

Then there’s a whole lecture on reading. ‘The mind of a working minister is in constant
danger of suffering, like soil relentlessly overcropped, where too much is taken out of
the land and too little is put in.’

Reading preachers are more prone to offer an ‘apt word’ – and whether ‘it be a
scholar’s word or no, it is a living power, whereas a string of customary verbiage is
nothing but a strong soporific.’

Macgregor offers a little discourse about a common problem: the ‘unnatural pulpit
voice’, for ‘as Spurgeon once said to students, if they asked for a cup of tea in such
silly tones as they used in preaching no one would dream that they seriously wished it.’
And words must be plain an unmistakable in their meaning. ‘I used market language’, said
Whitefield of his own preaching.

Now what books to read? There’s a famous saying by an old minister to a young one:
‘There are only two – the Bible and Shakespeare: the one tells you what you can know about
God, and the other all you need to know about [humans].’ A good principle, though De
Quincey divided books another way – books of knowledge and books of power, the books which
inform and those which move and inspire. Read both kinds, counsels Macgregor.

And beware of what Charles Lamb calls ‘biblia abibla – books not worth calling books.’
Some books come highly commended but are not necessarily helpful to the pastoral preacher.
Macgregor believes Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ may fall into this category,
‘marvelous and moving as it is. But it is too inactive, too self-engrossed, too monkish at
all to exhibit the true character of Him "who went about doing good".’ Another
book too ‘overcharged with introspection’ is Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. Pascal’s Thoughts
is ‘the greatest and most original’ of the books Macgregor commends. ‘We can never forget
Augustine’s sublime saying – "Thou has made us for Thyself, and our heart is restless
until it rests in Thee", but alongside of it we may boldly set the voice which Pascal
heard in his heart, – "Be of good comfort, thou wouldst not be seeking me, if thou
hadst not already found me’.’ 

The final lecture is about ‘The Theme and Quality of the Preaching Which Would Ensue.’
The key quote is from Shakespeare, ‘exalting in his ideal minister one’s entire fidelity
to the message of God’ :-

"Who hath not heard it spoken How deep you were within the books of God?

To us the speaker of His parliament,

To us the imagined voice of God Himself;

The very opener and intelligencer

Between the grace, the sanctities of Heaven

And our dull workings."

Which matches closely with Malachi’s ideal (2:2) that ‘the priest’s lips should keep
knowledge, and men should seek instruction at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the
Lord of Hosts.’ Bunyan depicts the minister of his choice as one ‘with the world behind
his back, and the law of truth upon his lips, who stands as if he pleaded with men’. Any
preacher who has a real acquaintance with God cannot help but ‘proclaim the mighty deeds
of him who has called us into His marvellous light’ (1 Peter 2:8). The preacher is ‘a
servant of Christ, and a steward of the purposes of God’ (1 Corinthians 4:1-2): ‘a steward
is not free to do what he chooses with the resources put in his hands.’

There was an interesting change in the tone of Jewish preaching in the fifth and sixth
centuries A.D., according to Professor Archibald Duff. ‘For a long time the Synagogue
teachers had enjoyed the title of the Amoraim – the speakers, but now they preferred to be
called the Seboraim – the holders of opinions. They no longer cared to announce –
"God has said this or this," but preferred timidly to murmur – "We think
that such and such is probably the mind of God".’

Macgregor is scathing about ‘Christian falvouring’ which might be added to ‘a kettleful
of innocuous chatter such as fills so many sermons’! He likens one entertaining preacher
in London to Chaucer’s doctor of physic, whose ‘study was but little on the Bible.’

And we ought to expect the ‘word of God in our mouth… to be "living and
energetic" – it will do something!’ Sermons ought to be viewed as ‘speeches ending
with a motion’ – compelling hearers to make a decision.

‘As we read in Deuteronomy (30:19) the preacher’s characteristic note is, "I have
this day set before you life and good or death and evil: therefore choose life, that thou
and thy seed may live," or in more modern fashion we have Browning’s challenge –
  "It may be false, but would you wish it true? Has it your vote to be true if
it may?"

Paul’s precept to Timothy is to ‘Preach the word in season and out of season; rebuke,
convict, plead with your hearers: never lose patience with them, and never give up
teaching’ (2 Timothy 4:2).  Now this is not to be narrowed to a ‘fanatical
evangelical "preaching of the gospel"’ with no room for morals. Humans are
two-natured, dust of the earth and the breath of God. Certainly we should preach about
sin, whose wages is death, but the sins which drove Jesus to despair were the sins of the
pharisees – people who prided themsevles on their virtue.

And the New Testament requires us not merely to abstain from doing evil but to actively
endeavour to do good. Ultimately we are called to ‘the preaching of conquest’ – preaching
which directly aims at conversion.

It is sad that many attempt ‘the prophet’s task without the prophet’s furnishing.’ Such
furnishing is to know God and to understand his human creatures. Somewhere in this book (I
can’t find it at the moment) is a story of a young man who went to work in a remote part
of Egypt, with a company building a dam on the Nile. There was no church, no pastor, and
lots of temptations. One day a parson came through and gathered ‘the faithful’ for church.
The young man needed a spiritual shot in the arm, but all he got was a homily on the
necessity to observe Saints’ Days! Macgregor is scathing about such unfeeling ‘idiocy’…

Our calling is to ‘exalt Him as our sole Hope and Redeemer – strong amid the broken,
erect among the fallen, living among the dead and the dying, Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
our Lord. It is thus the Gospel should always be preached, and thus rejoicingly it should
be received.’

Rowland Croucher

August 1999.