His Publications
Perhaps it is best next to consider how his well over 50 different books, which are nearly all simply written versions of preached sermons, came into being.
Maclaren resolved from the very beginning that if he could not look his hearers in the face he would give up. He wrote out fully the first few sentences of his sermons but after that his notes were scant. When one day the notes he had placed in the Bible blew away, he resolved to face his people without a scrap of paper.
Until 1862, when he was 36, he published nothing. That year a bi-centennial lecture marking the 1662 ejection was published on Fidelity to conscience. Someone had also taken down notes of his preaching and this was published privately as Sermons preached in Union Chapel, Manchester. This was the first of three such volumes that appeared over the next few years and his sister-in-law says “first made Maclaren's name known to a very wide public.” She gives examples of how they went on to be preached by many others, usually unacknowledged, as often happens with good printed sermons.
Over the next few years some lectures and a sermon were published. The lectures - Counsels for the study and the life given to the students of Rawdon College (1864) and Religious equality, in its connection with national and religious life delivered in the Corn Exchange, Manchester (1871). A sermon (on Mark 7:33, 34) was published as The pattern of service n 1871 as was his 1875 address as Baptist Union President - The gospel for the day. He also wrote up and had published A spring holiday in Italy in 1865. Apart from a book of poetry that appeared in 1889 (Heart breathings or songs of twenty years), this is the only work not containing spoken material.
There was a popular opinion in Manchester that “Maclaren is at his best on Wednesday evenings” at the smaller but still well attended week night meeting. In 1877, at his wife's suggestion a set of these Weekday evening addresses: delivered in Manchester were published and went through at least five editions.
From 1880 he began to contribute to Sunday at home. This brought him to the attention of William Robertson Nicholl who published his popular Life of David as reflected in his Psalms. From that point on Maclaren would produce a book of sermons every years or so beginning with The secret of power and other sermons 1882 and continuing with A year's ministry 1884 Christ in the heart and other sermons 1886. There was also a book of his illustrations in 1885 (Pictures and emblems) and, much later, his pulpit prayers (1907).
For much of his ministry Maclaren was a textual preacher. He was aware of the Scottish habit of lecturing through a book of the Bible, of course, but did not think an English audience would accept it. However, again urged by his wife, he attempted it and this led tot the very successful Epistles of St Paul to the Colossians and Philemon a volume in Nicholls' Expositor's Bible. Sadly, Mrs Maclaren did not survive to hear the whole series preached, dying quite suddenly in 1884.
Maclaren wrote weekly lessons for the American Sunday School Times and wrote up sermons for the in The Christian Commonwealth, The Freeman and The Baptist Times. This provided a store for further books - 1889 The unchanging Christ and other sermons; 1890 Holy of Holies (sermons on the Gospel of John); 1891 The God of the amen and other sermons. The series on John's Gospel paved the way for series on Luke and Matthew in two volumes in 1892. At that time he also started a three volume series on the Psalms, again for The Expositors' Bible. There were also a further two volumes on John and one on Mark and, in 1894, a first volume on Acts. The textual sermons kept coming - Paul's prayers 1892; The Conquering Christ and other sermons and The Wearied Christ 1893; Christ’s Musts 1894 The beatitudes 1896; Triumphant certainties 1897; The victor's crown 1897; Leaves from the Tree of Life 1899; After the resurrection 1902 and Last sheaves 1903.
Daily readings were made from his works beginning with Music for the soul Daily readings for a year from the writings of Alexander Maclaren, selected and arranged by Rev George Coates. (Also Creed and conduct and A Rosary of Christian Graces). His 1901 Baptist union lecture was called An old preacher on preaching.
In his retirement years Maclaren, at the instigation of Robertson Nicoll, began to collate his sermons into what became the multi-volume Expositions of Holy Scripture beginning in 1904 with the first volume of sermons from the Pentateuch. He had kept all his outlines and was able to put them in order and add new material where necessary. The set has gone through some 27 editions over the years and been translated into several other languages. It eventually consisted of 66 volumes and contains 1,526 of Maclaren's sermons. The major passages from Genesis to Revelation are all covered in approximately 7,000 pages.
The volumes are not a commentary in the fullest sense – not every verse is covered, for example. Most of the biblical material but there are some omissions. Tim Perrine has written of them
Broadly evangelical in nature, Maclaren's sermons are not historical - rarely referring to the current events of his day - allowing them to retain their interest and power since he first gave them. Expositions of Holy Scriptures is thus highly practical and lively. It makes a wonderful companion to more textually oriented commentaries. To read Expositions of Holy Scripture is to be in the presence of one of the greatest preachers of the last few centuries.
Following Maclaren's death much of his corpus continued to be in print and fresh collections appeared such as A garland of gladness 1945; Psalms for sighs 1946 Our Father 1949 and the Best of Alexander Maclaren 1949. There was also Sermons and outlines on the Lord's Supper 1951 and Victory in failure 1981.
His Preaching
Both in Southampton and in Manchester, Maclaren concentrated on preaching. “From early days” says the Unitarian Alexander Gordon “he preached extempore, captivating listeners with his flashing blue eyes and expressive features, his nervous energy and spare, poetic style.” Partly from reserve, and partly from conviction that preaching was the minister's main task, he left routine pastoral visitation to others and avoided social and platform engagements wherever possible. Gordon says that he also “downplayed the sacraments of baptism and communion.”
Maclaren's own idea of what preaching should be is found in a letter written in 1900 to students in an American seminary.
I sometimes think that a verse in one of the Psalms carries the whole pith of homiletics. 'While I was musing the fire burned, than spake I with my tongue.' Patient meditation, resulting in kindled emotion and the flashing up of truth into warmth and light, and then and not till then, the rush of speech moved by the Holy Ghost - these are the processes which will make sermons live things with hands and feet, as Luther's words were said to be. Then spake I,' not, 'Then I sat down at my desk and wrote it all down to be read majestically out of manuscript in a leathery case'."
He could not understand how a man could prepare a sermon weeks before it was given. “I must give it red-hot,” he would say. His most remarkable gift was his power of almost perfect composition. It was noted that he was one of the few preachers who spoke better than he wrote. His sermons were reported by stenographers and needed little correction.
When Maclaren entered the study at 9 every morning to take up his sermon preparation, it is said that he would kick off his slippers and put on heavy outdoor work boots as a reminder to himself of the hard work he was about to do. It was this work ethic - coupled with his deep devotion to Christ and his Word - that brought Maclaren his reputation as “the prince of expositors.” In a book on expository preaching Faris D Whitesell refers to different styles such as
The imaginative approach - Joseph Parker
The pivot text method - F B Meyer
The lessons method – William M Taylor and J C Ryle.
He begins with Alexander Maclaren who he says models the disciplined approach. “We use this term” he explains “because he so thoroughly dedicated himself to an expository ministry, and so doggedly disciplined himself in it.” He goes on
He shut himself in his study every day of the week and devoted many exacting hours to the preparation of each sermon. He did very little pastoral calling and administrative work, nor did he travel around the world preaching in other places. He believed that if people wanted to hear him, they would come to Union Chapel in Manchester, England, where he was pastor for forty-five years, and occasional preacher for six more years.
Maclaren himself once admitted “you have just about hit it” when it was suggested to him that what he would like to be was invisible from the time he left his study till he was in the pulpit. A modern writer, John Bishop writes “He subdued action to thought, thought to utterance and utterance to the gospel. His life was his ministry; his ministry was his life.”
In his farewell sermon at Union Chapel he said “To efface oneself is one of a preacher's first duties.” His sister-in-law wrote that
Throughout Dr Maclaren's long ministry this was his aim, or to put it differently his mind was so full of his subject that thought of self had no place. But, for this very reason, that there was no self-consciousness, his hearers could not forget his personality, and it marvellously deepened the effect of his words.
As for the preaching itself, we can say a number of things.
1. Titles. His sermon titles were not usually very striking. They always kept close to the biblical passages on which they were based.
2. Structure. Hughes Oliphant Old speaks of his clear though seldom striking outlines. He organised his sermons under three heads as a rule. A plain spoken critic once said that “he served the bread of life with a three-pronged fork.” Maclaren followed this pattern simply because he felt that for the most part it was the best way of organising his sermons. Robertson Nicoll said of his method of analysing a text that
he touched it with a silver hammer and it immediately broke up into natural and memorable divisions, so comprehensive, and so clear that it seemed wonderful that the text should ever have been handled in any other way.
3. Length. Most of his sermons run to about 4,000 words though some are longer. They must have taken around forty minutes to deliver. “Brevity is one of his greatest virtues” (H O Old).
4. Content. Bishop notes that
The real secret of his power is that his preaching was almost exclusively biblical. Current topics, questions of the hour were left severely alone in the pulpit. He never tired of quoting Archbishop Leighton's remark to those who complained that he did not "preach up the times." "Surely," said Leighton, "when all of you are preaching up the times, you may allow one poor brother to preach up Christ and eternity."
Maclaren stays with his text, gets the substance out of it, makes an application of it that is as practical and relevant as it is personal.
Dargan says “the exegesis of Scripture ... is thorough and accurate. The analysis, while not obtrusive, is always complete, satisfying, clear.”
Thomas McKibbens says that the secret of Maclaren’s power was that he was totally Christ-centred. “The essence of the whole,” he said in one sermon, “is not the intellectual process of assent to a proposition, but the intensely personal act of yielding up a heart to a living person.” In another sermon he says “Take it as a piece of the simplest prose, with no rhetorical exaggeration about it, that Christ is everything”.
He was careful to emphasise that it is not faith that saves, but the power of God in Christ. Speaking of a person running into the arms of God he says “it is not the running that makes him safe, but it is the arms to which he runs”.
McKibbens again
Maclaren regretted that he no longer heard the old ring of urgency in preaching, the earnest appeal to the unconverted, and the old, simple preaching of salvation, repentance and faith. In a striking illustration he said that if a person wished to build a house in Rome or Jerusalem he must go fifty or sixty feet down, through potsherds and broken tiles,and the dust of ancient palaces and temples. “We have to drive a shaft,” he concluded. “clear down through all the superficial strata and to lay the first stones on the Rock of Ages.”
5. Style. For Old “In the use of rhetorical forms he is sparing, and yet he is capable of some of the most beautiful similes and metaphors.” He goes on
For Alexander Maclaren preaching was a sacred art that required the same kind of concentration a pianist or vocalist gives to a performance. Happily his congregation recognized his genius. There was nothing flashy about it. It was the quality not of silk damask, but of tough, long-lasting Highland tweed. Just as a good Scottish tweed wears for years and years, so Maclaren's sermons wear as well today as when they were first preached.
Dargan says
Maclaren's style has all the rhetorical qualities of force, clearness, and beauty. It is not obtrusive or strained, is eminently natural, smooth, dignified, and at times eloquent. The tone and spirit are all that could be desired. Piety towards God, reverence, good taste, and a deep yearning for the spiritual good of his hearers animate his discourse.
Robert T Henry writes
Knowing that he spoke essentially what is printed, a modern reader cannot fail to be astounded by Maclaren’s amazing ability to compose beautiful English as he spoke it. It is not difficult to understand how a professor of English at the University of Manchester could say that Maclaren was “one of the chief, if not the chief, literary influences in Manchester.
Carlile said that “His two most striking peculiarities are his utter simplicity and his intense earnestness.” Henry goes on to remark on his simplicity. This allowed the least educated to understand clearly what he was saying. Henry quotes an old friend of Maclaren's
Once, in speaking about simplicity of style, he asked me whether I knew So-and-so, a member of his congregation who was not endowed with specially brilliant gifts. “Well, now” he said, “often when I am preparing my sermons I keep that man before me and say, What I have to do is to get this thought behind his skull".
6. Illustrations. Bishop says “He had a wonderful gift of felicitous and telling illustration. On every page are sparkling metaphors and illuminating phrases which not merely adorn but light up the subject under discussion.” Few and short, these illustrations were carefully thought out but only clothed when he faced the people.
7. Application. These, says Old, are “strong but rather impersonal”.
