Alexander Maclaren 01

I recently gave  a lecture on Alexander Maclaren at the Evangelical Library and would like to post the lecture here in several parts.

Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910)

This year sees the one hundredth anniversary of the death of the Baptist minister Alexander Maclaren. May 5, 1910, was the exact day of his death, at the age of 84. He died in Edinburgh, after a 65 year long ministry. He was born February 11, 1826, in Glasgow. Though of decidedly Scottish origin, he spent most of his life in England.

In 1896 the citizens of Manchester subscribed for a portrait of Maclaren to be painted by Sir George Reid FRSA and put in their art gallery. At the presentation of the portrait in 1897 the Bishop of Manchester gave an address and said:

In an age which has been charmed and inspired by the sermons of Newman and Robertson of Brighton, there were no published discourses which, for profundity of thought, logical arrangement, eloquence of appeal, and power over the human heart, exceeded in merit those of Dr Maclaren.

Maclaren's preaching has been called “the supreme example, the perfect type, of the classic Protestant tradition of expository preaching.” Next to those of his fellow Baptist C H Spurgeon (1834-1892), his sermons were probably the most widely read of the time, although they do not appear to be as popular today as they once were. As a boy, I remember seeing his books in the library of the Baptist church I attended. I do not recall being encouraged to read him, even though we read his slightly younger Baptist contemporary F B Meyer (1847-1929) and Spurgeon, of course. Meyer himself, in comparing Maclaren to notable contemporaries such as Spurgeon, R W Dale, Joseph Parker and others, said,

As an expository preacher none of them equalled Maclaren of Manchester, and no other sermons were so widely read the world around. ... Dr Maclaren is said with truth to have changed the whole style of the British pulpit, and to have influenced it more (than) any of his predecessors.

In the same period the American homiletician E C Dargan (1852-1930) wrote

No critical or descriptive account can do justice to the excellence and power of Maclaren's preaching. He has been widely recognised in his own and other lands for those outstanding qualities which have given him his eminent place among the great preachers of the world. First of all, he had the physical outfit of an impressive speaker – an erect figure, a good action, a flashing eye, an expressive countenance,a carrying voice. The character lying back of the utterance was one of singular purity, depth, simplicity and humility.

A little later than Dargan, Ernest H Jeffs, in his Princes of the Modern Pulpit, says

The charm of Maclaren's preaching was intellectual and artistic. It lay in the logical closeness and firmness of his exposition, architectural culmination of proof and argument, warmth and richness of his metaphor and illustrations; and under all this was the stern challenge to righteousness and repentance, breaking into sunshine, so to speak, when the emphasis changes from the God who judges to the Jesus who redeems.

Of the three Baptists, only Spurgeon appears to be widely read now. In Maclaren's case this is perhaps counter-intuitive given that several of his volumes are of a systematic expository sort, a form of preaching that has become more popular than textual preaching in most Reformed circles. A recent reader of Maclaren commented on his experience, one that I can echo, by saying

I suddenly realised that the sermonic ability and achievements of C H Spurgeon overshadowed everyone else of that era, including Maclaren. But Maclaren is good, very good. Pick him up and read him. (see here)